Winnipeg Website Design & Winnipeg SEO Experts Jason Frovich » wrath of the lich

World Of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Beta News

Jason Frovich — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:42:42 +0000

WotLK Beta Client Available for Download – That’s right you can actually download the beta client right now. However this might do you very little good if you cannot log into the beta.

Tons of WotLK Item Drops and Rewards Revealed – With the NDA now lifted on Wrath of the Lich King we are able to scour the game files and pull out some of the item drops, and also are receiving information from Alpha testers and the first few beta testers. for more info, we are also working diligently to bring you tons more item tooltips and other features in the near future!

Wrath of the Lich King Achievement System – One of the biggest changes to be implemented with WotLK will be the Achievement System. This will be a way for you to document all of your characters’ accomplishments within the game. A section to note is the "Feats of Strength", as many of these will be items that have to be completed prior to the launch of WotLK. Most of these items are obtaining names such as "Hand of A’dal" or completing the Amani Warbear run.

WWI Participants Get WotLK Beta Keys – No, Blizzard didn’t just specifically state that WWI goers were getting WotLK beta keys up front. Instead they waited a week then announced, and are urging everyone who has them to get signed up immediately with their keys.

Full WotLK Beta Patch Notes – We were able to get our hands on the full expansion patch notes after downloading the beta client. We have posted them in Spugnort’s Blogs for you to view!

Interesting Gathering Profession Changes – Another thing we came across as we were digging through game files were some additions to the gathering professions. For example skinning has a talent called Master of Anatomy, which has 6 ranks. Each rank yields 3/6/9/12/15/25 crit rating respectively. Mining has a similar talent that gives stamina per level of 3/5/7/10/20/35. From the large jump in levels 5 to 6 expect it to be a pretty large learning curve, ie. some players may never reach level 6 unless they are a farming machine!

World Of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Beta Opt-in new instance/raid information

Jason Frovich — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:26:16 +0000

Championing – In the expansion players will be able to become a champion for other factions. While championing for them and running a heroic dungeon, they will earn reputation for the faction they are championing along with the regular dungeon reputation. This should help reduce the endless grind of leveling more than one character from neutral to exalted.
Death Knights will Tank and DPS – Blizzard likes the idea of adding another perfectly capable tank to the mix, as this should allow for more groups to form for everything from regular and heroic instances to raids. That’s right, death knights will even be capable raid tanks, it should be quite interesting how the death knight goes about tanking, as they plan to have them use normal abilities to do so. This also means they will need to find a way to balance threat generation while doing DPS, since they would like them to be competitive in that area as well.
Why Naxrammas….Again?? – Most people did not get to experience this raid instance at all due to the timing of the expansion release. So Blizzard has embraced the chance to retune the dungeon, and allow all players a chance to participate in these epic battles. It is also a humongous dungeon that will offer a large variety of battles, that will maintain their storyline and feel for 10 and 25-man raids. I know I played up to the 4-horseman before the expansion release, and am still very excited to see the changes that Blizzard has made! Get started raidin
Dungeons and Raids – There will be 8 leveling up dungeons in the expansion, 4 max level dungeons, heroics for each and every dungeon so 12 in total, and 3 first tier raid instances. The reason there are so few max level dungeons is that heroics will be easier and able to be entered sooner, making them take the place of many max level dungeons.
PvP items through PvE – The recently introduced set tokens will most likely continue to allow players to get the entry level PvP gear, this makes them have less of a grind to enjoy other aspects of the game outside of raiding!
WotLK Beta Opt-In – Everyone should run over to blizzard account management site right now and "opt-in" to the expansion beta if you are interested in participating. This just lets Blizzard know you are interested and gives you a random chance to be selected for it. Go here for normal accounts https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/beta-opt-in.html and here for EU accounts https://www.wow-europe.com/account/beta-opt-in.html.
Blizzard Authenticators Sold Out – Within just a few days Blizzard Sold Out their entire stock of authenticators, it will be a couple of weeks before they are able to get more in stock. So until then we will just have to sit tight, and cross our fingers that we can be first in line for the new stock!
4th Blizzard Project Still Unknown – There is a 4th Blizzard project beyond Diablo III, Wrath of the Lich King, and Starcraft II that they are working on. It is still undisclosed to the public, so let the speculation fly!!!

Wrath of the Lich King News, Sunwell Progress and Goodbye to Death and Taxes

Jason Frovich — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:14:50 +0000

Wrath of the Lich King Late 2008 – Vivendi released their quarterly financial report last week, it states that Blizzard will be releasing WotLK in the second half of 2008. Expect this date to stay pretty firm, but it will most likely come in the latter portion of the year. Some time before Christmas sounds about right, that way all those on Winter Break can play it all day long!
SK Gaming registers World First Kil’Jaeden Kill! – Another World First kill was registered for SK Gaming as they took down the final boss in Sunwell Plateau on May 25th. This is a huge accomplishment and we would like to extend our congratulations to SK…great job guys (and gals)!
No More Amani Bear Mount once WotLK is released – Once players are able to level above 70 Blizzard will remove the Bear Mount from the game. This will preserve the prestige of defeating the bosses within the allotted amount of time. If Blizzard continued to allow players to obtain the mount once they reached level 80 the task would be simple and completable by almost any Pick-up Group.
Polar Bear Mount – To replace the Amani Bear mount Blizzard hinted there would be a similar test to obtain a new mount like a Polar Bear. As more information becomes available on this we will let you know.
New PvP Trinkets -For 40,000 honor you can now buy an epic version of the PvP trinket. They all have 45 resilience and a 2 minute cooldown timer just like the level 70 rare version. I don’t know about you but 40,000 honor for a simple 25 resilience upgrade does not seem like a good deal to me. However the old trinkets cost was reduced to 8,000 honor, down from around 18,000.
First Ever Onyxia Solo Kill – Errodine, a level 70 Resto Druid on the US Cho’gall server registered the first ever solo kill of Onyxia! This player was part of the previous record holding 2 man group. Congrats…I love when players think outside the box and challenge themselves just to see what’s possible!
RIP Death and Taxes – One of the all-time best US guilds disbanded. Death and Taxes registered 13 world first kills, to go along with 16 US firsts including Illidan Stormrage. Death and Taxes will always be remembered as one of the all-time greats, and thanks for all the great videos.
No Seal of Blood for the Alliance – Even though the public outcry is huge, looks like Alliance Retribution Paladins will continue to DPS without Seal of Blood. It just doesn’t make any sense that Human or Dwarf paladins would have the Seal of Blood ability.
Character Slots will not be increased in WotLK – Blizzard doesn’t intend to increase the maximum number of characters a single account can have on any given server. If you would like to create another character you will need to either transfer a character or delete a character on that server. Sucks to be those people who have high level characters maxed out and will want to try out the Death Knight.
Friends and Family Alpha Starting – Blizzard has begun the second phase of Alpha testing by opening it up to close friends and family. They are still under a very strict NDA, so there will be very little information forthcoming from this stage of testing still since it would carry a hefty legal ramification from Blizzard.

Leaked World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King (expansion) Information

Jason Frovich — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:30:28 +0000

I just want to tell you about the cool site I found, that you might find interesting.

http://wotlk.wikidot.com

this site contains all the latest Leaked Alpha Patch notes, and these

information are 100% real for the expansion, they’re not fake patch

notes. Tthey have screenshots of all the new Talents and Skill planned for

expansions here http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v216/jacemathem2/Spells%20and%20Talents/

and list of changes to current skills and talents here http://wotlk.wikidot.com/spells-talents-professions

Aswell as Level 80 Talent Trees, still missing some class

DeathKnight

http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=deathknight

Warrior
http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=warrior

Mage
http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=mage

Druid
http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=druid

Priest
http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=priest

below is a list of changes for current talents and skill, I really hope

some of these changes are scheduled for the next patch, because

it would help balance PVP a lot. you can find more here
http://wotlk.wikidot.com/spells-talents-professions

Changes to existing spells & talents.

General:

* Intellect, Spirit and Stamina buff scrolls now provide buffs equal

to their equally levelled class spells.

* Many existing mob abilities now have more descriptive tooltips when

linked.

Druid

* Entangling Roots can now be used indoors as well.

* Base damage of Maul, Rake and Ravage has been increased.

* Demoralizing Roar now removes more attack power than before.

* Soothe Animal is now instant cast.

* Tiger’s Fury no longer costs energy, but now has a 30 second

cooldown.

* Hurricane cooldown has been removed.

* Frenzied Regeneration now only has one rank. Frenzied Regeneration

will now restore 0.1% of your max health per rage instead.

* Ferocious Bite’s damage for extra energy now scales with attack

power.

* Nature’s Grasp can now be used indoors as well.

* Nature’s Reach now reduces threat generated by your Balance spells

by 15/30% in addition to it’s old effect.

* Brambles now gives your Thorns and Treants a 5/10/15% chance to daze

the target for 3 seconds when dealing damage in addition to it’s old

effect.

* Omen of Clarity is now a passive effect instead of a self-cast

buff.

* Feral Charge is now available in Cat Form as well.

* Improved Mark of the Wild has been reduced to a 2 point talent,

increasing the effect of Mark of the Wild by 20/40%.

* Nature’s Focus has been reduced to a 3 point talent, now reducing

chance to be interrupted by 23/46/70%.

* Subtlety has been reduced to a three point talent, now reducing

threat and reducing the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%

* Improved Tranquility now reduces the cooldown of your Tranquility

spell by 25/50% in addition to it’s old effect.

* Improved Faerie Fire works for spells too now.

* Survival of the Fittest’s effect has been doubled.

* Tree of Life can cast the new Flourish spell. Old extra healing aura

has been removed and replaced with Bark’s Blessing, which increases healing

done on target’s of your healing spells by 25% of your spirit for 8

seconds.

* Mangle (Bear) now increases the damage of your Maul ability instead

of the Shred ability.

Hunter

* Scare Beast’s tooltip now shows the correct cast time.

* Damage caused by the pet ability Bite has been reduced, it’s Focus

cost has been reduced as well, and it’s cooldown has been removed.

* Screech renamed Demoralizing Screech.

* Furious Howl’s buff range increased to 20 yards.

* Shell Shield no longer reduces your turtle’s attack speed.

* Steady Shot’s bonus damage slightly reduced. Scaling unchanged.

Mage

* Invisibility’s fade time changed to four seconds from five seconds

* Polymorph now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed

cost.

* Slow Fall now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed

cost.

* All Teleport: and Portal: spells now

have a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.

* Mana Gem spells are now simply called "Conjure Mana Gem (Rank #)".

* Arcane Focus now only gives 1% Arcane spell hit chance per point,

but will now reduce mana cost of Arcane spell by 1% per point as well.

* Magic Attunement now increases your Arcane spells ranges by 3/6

yards, in addition to it’s old effect.

* Prismatic Cloak now reduces the fade time on your Invisibility spell

by 1/2 seconds in addition to it’s old effect.

Paladin

* Cooldown on Turn Undead and Turn Evil removed.

Priest

* Mind Soothe now only has one rank and works on targets of all

levels.

* Mind Soothe now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed

cost.

* Mind Control now only has one rank and works on targets of all

levels.

* Mind Control now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed

cost.

* Mind Vision now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed

cost.

* Psychic Scream now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of

fixed cost.

* Shackle Undead now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of

fixed cost.

* Holy Fire now deals more of it’s damage on the initial cast, but

it’s damage over time duration and damage have been reduced. It should

still result in a net increase in damage dealt.

* Lightwell cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds.

* Lightwell cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.

* Power Infusion cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

* The amount of charges on Lightwell has been increased to 10.

* Inspiration can now proc from the Penance spell, in addition to all

the old spells that could proc Inspiration.

* Searing Light now also increases the damage of Holy Nova and

Penance.

* Shadow Resilience now reduces physical damage taken instead of it’s

old effect.

* Shadow Focus reduced to give 1% Shadow spell hit per point, but will

now additionally reduce Shadow spell costs by 2% per point. Talent now has

3 points total to spend on it, down from 5.

* Spirit Tap now gives a 33/66/100% chance to proc, total talent

points that can be put into the talent reduced to 3.

* Improved Spirit Tap added, this new talent gives your Mind Blast and

Shadow Word: Death spells a 50/100% chance to give 50% extra spirit and 25%

mana regeneration while casting for 8 seconds.

* Improved Shadow Word: Pain now increases the damage dealt by 5/10%

instead of it’s old effect.

* Mind Flay’s range has been increased to 30 yards.

* Shadow Form now reduces threat generated by 30% in additional to

it’s old effects.

* Mental Strength now increases your Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15% instead

if it’s old effect.

* Pain Suppresion cooldown increased to 3 minutes.

* Focused Mind now also affects Mind Sear.

* Shadow Power’s extra crit chance reduced to 2/4/6/8/10%, but Shadow

Power now increases the critical damage bonus of the affected spells by

10/20/30/40/50%.

* Circle of Healing now has a 8 second cooldown.

* Enlightenment now increases spell damage and healing by 1/2/3/4/5%

in addition to it’s old effects.

* Vampiric Touch now gives mana to your party members for 2% of your

shadow damage dealt, down from 5%.

Rogue

* The stun from Mace Specialization now has a 6 second cooldown.

Warlock

* Demon Skin/Armor now increase healing on the Warlock by 20% instead

of giving health regeneration.

* Demon Armor no longer increases Shadow Resistance.

* Fel Armor now allows 30% of your mana regeneration to continue while

casting, but no longer increasing the effects of healing you receive.

* Howl of Terror now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of

fixed cost.

* Cataclysm now increases the chance to hit of your destruction spells

by 1/2/3/4/5%.

* Improved Shadow Bolt’s damage increase reduced to 3/6/9/12/15%.

* Soul Siphon now affects Drain Soul as well.

* Pyroclasm now also works with Conflagrate.

* Aftermath now has two ranks, giving a 5/10% chance to daze.

* Improved Fire Bolt and Improved Lash of Pain have been combined into

the new talent Demonic Power. This talent takes the place of Improved Fire

Bolt.

* Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina have been combined into the new talent

Fel Vitality. This talent takes the place of Fel Intellect.

* Improved Curse of Weakness, Dark Pact and Mana Feed have had their

tooltips clarified.

* Improved Succubus now reduces the chance your Succubus will have her

Seduction spell interrupted by 25/50/75%, but will no longer increase the

effects of Soothing Kiss and Lash of Pain.

* Soul Link now only shares 15% of the damage taken, and no longer

increased damage dealt by the demon or it’s master. Soul Link moved to

tier 3 of the Demonology tree.

* Master Demonologist: Imps now provide 1/2/3/4/5% fire damage and

fire crit, Voidwalker provides 2/4/6/8/10% damage reduction, Succubi now

provide 1/2/3/4/5% shadow damage and shadow crit, Felhunter now provides

0.2 resistance per level and rank, Felguards will now provide 1/2/3/4/5%

extra damage and damage reduction.

* Unstable Affliction’s Silence effect reduced to 3 second duration.

* Shadowfury’s Stun effect now lasts 3 seconds.

Warrior

* Shield bash now deals damage equal to 20% of Attack Power

* Thunder Clap’s damage increases as you get more Attack Power.

* Rend’s Scaling with weapon damage has been improved.

* Sunder Armor’s threat now scales with attack power.

* Rend has had it’s duration reduced. Total damage dealt is

unchanged.

* Challenging Shout cooldown reduced to 3 minutes.

* Revenge’s tooltip has been clarified.

* The bonus damage dealt by Cleave and Heroic Strike has been

increased.

* There is now only one rank of the Overpower ability. Bonus damage

removed.

* Spell Reflection now costs 15 rage

* The stun from Mace Specialization now has a 6 second cooldown.

* Improved Rend’s name changed to Bloodletting, it now also affects

the Bloodbath skill.

* Death Wish no longer grants fear immunity.

* Deathwish and Sweepingstrikes have once again switched places.

* Anticipation now increases your chance to dodge by 1% per point,

instead of increasing your defense skill.

* Iron Will now reduces the duration of Stun and Charm effects on you

by 10/20/30% instead of giving you a chance to resist these effects.

* Improved Bloodrage now increases rage generated by 25/50%.

* Improved Shield Bash now also increases your Shield Slam damage by

5/10%.

* Improved Disarm now reduces the cooldown on your Disarm and Shield

Break abilities by 5/10/15 seconds, and additionally will cause any

targets you’ve disarmed to take 5/10/15% extra damage.

* The amount of charges on Sweeping Strikes has been reduced to 3.

* Poleaxe Specialization now also increases the damage your critical

strikes with Polearms and Axes do by 1% per point in addition to it’s old

effect.

* Improved Revenge now increases the damage dealt by your Revenge

ability by 8/16/25% in addition to it’s old effect.

* Concussion Blow now causes damage equal to 25% of your attack power

and has had it’s cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. In addition the damage

caused by Concusion Blow generates high threat.

* Last Stand’s cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

* Blood Craze now regenerates 2/4/6% of your health after being the

victim of a critical strike.

* Bloodthirst now recoverd 1.5% of your max health per hit.

Bloodthirst now has only one rank.

* Improved Disciplines (Rank 1) now reduces your cooldowns on

Retaliation, Reckless and Shield by 5 minutes and increases their duration

by 3 seconds.

World of Warcraft Season 4 items on PTR, Children’s Week, Sunwell 2nd gate open

Jason Frovich — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:35:48 +0000

This was an exciting week in the World of Warcraft news. Season 4 items were all released to the 2.4.2 patch on the PTR’s. So start collecting those points now so you are prepared to grab your new epics when the patch arrives! Also the second gate was opened in Sunwell Plateau and SK-Gaming registered the World first kill of Mu’ru so a big congrats to them!

Season 4 including in Patch 2.4.2 on the PTR now!

Arena Season 4 Items Released to PTR – All of the brand new Honor and Arena point items for Season four have been released. You can see all of the honor gear on Wowhead, along with all of the new Season 4 Arena gear sets on Wowhead. You will notice these items do not have any rating requirements on them, before you get excited this will only be on the PTR. The rating requirements will remain in tact when released to live servers.
Sunwell Plateau Second Gate Now Open – The second gate is now open and players will now be able to engage Mu’ru in combat. SK-Gaming registered the world first kill so congrats to them.
Void Shatter Requiring Eternium Rod – Blizzard has stated they will be fixing this, since the spell only requires 360 enchanting but the rod requires 375 enchanting to craft. How they will fix it is yet to be released but I would expect them to simply lower the rod requirement to a runed adamantite rod.
First 3000 Rating Arena Team – Donlolo z Wladem from the Burning Legion – EU server has reached a team rating of 3000. You be the judge on if this is a legitimate rating or not, but skeptics do have to wonder if they have been win trading?!?
Blizzard Acquires diablo3.com – The owner of diablo3.com handed over the rights to the domain to Blizzard for no charge this week. Blizzard simply traded the owner for diablofans.com, and now they will be working more closely with each other in the future. This piques our interest as hardcore players of Diablo, what exactly are Blizzard’s intentions with this domain?
Elements of Kil’jaeden Fight Revealed – Warning possible spoilers to follow! It looks like Aveena and Kalecgos will be heavily involved with the final fight of the Sunwell Plateau, and there is also mention of Madrigosa during the battle dialogue. All of this is speculation from in-game dialogue found on the current live version of 2.4.1. Looks like Aveena will sacrifice herself to make it possible for the raid to kill Kil’jaeden.
Children’s Week Begins – This week kicked off the Children’s Week Event, so make sure to do your quests for your chance at one of three non combat pets: Egbert’s Egg, Sleepy Willy, or the Elekk Training Collar.
Epic Flying Mount Cost – Blizzard hinted this week that the epic flight mount cost would likely be lowered when it comes time for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, so if you have been saving your copper and silver for a while its something to think about!

Wrath of the Lich King Alpha Testing, Season 4 Arena Gear, First Sunwell Plateau Gate Opened

Jason Frovich — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:58:10 +0000

Many servers have completed their anvil, and players are running around with their new spiffy epics. There are even a few servers who are charging forward and have reached phase four, and are now working on opening the Alchemy Lab. Once formed, the Alchemy Lab will give players the ability to purchase epic gems from badges.

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WotlK Alpha Testing, Season 4 Arena Gear, First Sunwell Plateau Gate Opened

Epic Gems Only 10 Badges – When Proudmoore reached Phase 4 of the Shattered Sun offensive, the epic gems became viewable on the Armory. For right now it looks like the cost of the epic gems has been reduced from 15 to 10 Badges. This is not confirmed on live servers, and you should wait to get overly excited until Proudmoore or another server close behind them finishes the Alchemy lab and can buy the gems.
Wrath of the Lich King: Alpha Testing – Blizzard began Alpha testing for the expansion this past week. Alpha testing only includes blizzard employees for the most part, and all participating members have had to sign a Non-disclosure Agreement. It is extremely doubtful we will even get a single screenshot leak from Alpha testing. We will keep you informed on beta testing, it should be coming sometime in the near future!
Agamath, The First Gate Now Open – Blizzard opened up the first gate inside Sunwell Plateau, this gives players access to a new boss called the Twin Eredar. Nihilum registered the world first kill earlier this week, with Premonition registering the US first kill the very next day. Congratulations to both guilds!
Onyxia Attunement will not be Removed – Players will have to keep killing Rend and Drakkisath for their Onyxia Attunement, Blizzard stated this week they have no intentions of changing the requirements for this Raid encounter. Many players now use this encounter as a way to make some extra gold each week, and since the quest line is such a pain they were hoping for a change to the attunement.
Thori’dal, the Stars Fury Preview – This is the Legendary bow that will presumably drop from Kil’jaeden in the Sunwell Plateau. It looks as if the arrows you shoot will have a glowing effect that is really cool. You can check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbB7BrdFOE.
Arena Tournament Realms Bug – It seems that Blizzard forgot to allow Tauren Druids to train Cure Poison on the Tournament Realms. They also said that it will not be fixed for quite some time, if it is fixed at all. This is a slight nerf, but druids will mainly use Abolish Poison anyway in most cases. However it is nice to Abolish then Cure Poison spam to strip off poisons really fast.
Season 4 Rating Requirements – It was also discovered this week by looking through the Armory that Season 4 Shoulders will require a 2200 Personal rating. I have talked to a lot of the top arena players and have not found a single person who thinks this is a reasonable requirement. In fact, one player stated that he received Gladiator with a 2306 rating. Also if you look at the top 20 teams in each battlegroup for 5v5 they are barely over the 2200 rating! So Blizzard only wants the top 20 teams to get shoulders, expect this to get lowered before season 4 is released.

Wrath of the Lich King Beta News

Jason Frovich — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:35:51 +0000

Servers are progressing quickly through the phases, and it seems Blizzard’s estimation of a full month to form the Anvil was quite a bit off. As this e-mail is delivered Proudmoore will have completed their anvil. Congratulations to all of the players on Proudmoore, as they won the race to phases two and three and will be the first server to form the anvil too! It seems that about half of the US servers have completed phase two, and are working their way towards the anvil and all the new badge rewards.

2.4 Released to Live Servers, More News on WotLK

Great Shattered Sun Offensive Phase Tracking Website – For those of you who might not have found it yet http://us.gorgonnash.info is a great way to track the progress of all the US servers through the phases of the Shattered Sun Offensive. For all overseas players, you will want to watch http://www.gorgonnash.info/index_en.html. These are great resources, you can find your server then click on it for more details. It will show you an estimated completion time for all phases, and ranks the servers so you can see how your efforts are stacking up against the competition!
Wrath of the Lich King: BETA CLOSE! – Blizzard changed a few of its Wrath of the Lich King Beta sites from 404: Not Found to 403: Forbidden this week. If you want to check for yourself see http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/ and http://beta.wow-europe.com/. It definitely looks like blizzard is getting ready to launch the expansion public beta testing soon, so get ready to fill out your applications and support why you should be selected!
World of Warcraft in Latin America – Blizzard has decided to expand its customer base to users in Latin America, and they have hired and designated a team for it’s sole development and support. For more information on this topic you can see the FAQ they posted earlier in the week: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5720423121&sid=2.
Wrath of the Lich King: Epics vs. Greens – It was confirmed this week, that upon players reaching level 80 or even sooner that even the highest level epics will begin to be replaced by green quality items. It is Blizzard’s intention to relevel the playing field with the expansion and give players just entering the game the same competitiveness as that of the hardcore raiders from Burning Crusade. However there will be no major stat changes like that of Stamina in Burning Crusade, so players may not see items getting replaced in the first few quests in Northrend, as they did with quests in Burning Crusade.
List of Known Issues with Patch 2.4 – Hortus also listed all the known issues within the current state of WoW, you can view them here. The most notable bugs are with the Kalecgos fight, where he casts the Revitalize spell on targets with no mana, and with Zul’jin who will melee targets of Claw Rage or Lynx Rush meaning certain death for cloth wearers. You can expect this entire list of bugs to be fixed soon.
Keyboard Issues when using Avast 4.8 – World of Warcraft players using the Anti-Virus program Avast are seeing keyboard control issues during game play. Most of this comes in the form of severe lag between keystrokes and actual movement or spell cast in game. Blizzard is working on resolving this issue as quickly as possible.
UICentral Addon Copyright Infringement – It was discovered this week that the WoW addon UICentral was using a cracked section of a Java application. They are requesting that all users of the addon please uninstall the addon in order to give complete compliance to the original copyright. For more information see the post on WorldofWar.net.
Still no Sunwell Plateau Gates Open - Blizzard has yet to open any of the gates to the last three bosses of Sunwell Plateau, and no information has been released on when they expect they will open either. For now the only bosses players can access are Kalecgos, Brutallus, and Felmyst who have all been killed already by multiple guilds. I would think you will see at least one gate open soon, possibly even during maintenance this week.

Patch 2.4 Info and guide updates and more Wrath of the Lich King info

Jason Frovich — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:34:20 +0000

After weeks to months of anticipation Patch 2.4 was finally launched to the Live Servers. As with any patch it came with it’s fair share of server downtime, server shutdowns, and server restarts. Overall though the patch seems to be quite a success on the part of Blizzard. After running the daily quests for phases one and two, along with the new Magister’s Terrace instance over the last few days on regular and heroic, I will say that blizzard has put a ton of thought into the content of this patch and some of the item stat utilization is immensely improved over various previous patches. Over the last week, we at Spugnort’s World, have been working diligently to update our guides for the new content in Patch 2.4. We now have all of the guide content up-to-date and wanted to get a note out to all of our customers letting them know immediately.

Also there was some new news this week about the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, that many people may have overlooked due to all the excitement over the new content patch on live servers.

2.4 Released to Live Servers, More News on WotLK

Wrath of the Lich King: Iron Dwarf – Amidst all the excitement over Patch 2.4 many players may have missed the new race of npc’s that was released for the expansion. The Iron Dwarves just may be the link to the past the Explorer’s League has been looking for all these years, and may be the link to the dwarves’ existence. The Iron Dwarves have metallic looking skin with lightning pulsing underneath, they also seem intent upon destroying these links and leaving the past buried forever.
Wrath of the Lich King: Loot Changes – There was an interesting blue post this week on the loot changes for the expansion. Here is the direct quote, "We do plan to have more specs share some loot. I know it’s great when the Retribution-Paladin piece drops, but that’s a piece that isn’t good for 26 other classes/specs, so hopefully we can make it so the item will apply to more classes/specs so even the randomness of loot won’t be so much of a big deal. When there are examples for players to see it should be easier to understand." My first thought on this is that pieces won’t have an armor type, just stats and then they can be turned into leather, mail, or plate by turning them into an instance armor vendor. The other idea is that more loot will be based off sheer tokens, but for now who really knows.
Wrath of the Lich King: Experience Jump? – When Patch 2.4 was implemented this week, the total experience being shown to level 71 changed. Previously it showed a total of 814,700 experienced needed to hit 71, but now you will see that it shows 1,256,500 experience needed to hit level 71. This will probably be the actual experience need to level to 71 in the expansion as it is approximately a 50% increase, which is about the same increase that was seen from WoW Classic to the Burning Crusade. Seems like every new patch or update a little more expansion content is added, so you have to ask how far off is the expansion? Or at least how far is the public beta for the expansion? I am thinking you will be hearing more news of this soon!
PvP Haste Neck and Rings – In Patch 2.4 there were also a couple new honor items added. There is now a haste healing and damage neck along with a caster haste ring. In most cases the haste will replace the mana regen or critical strike rating from the previous neck pieces.
Engineering Bug : Gas Clouds Unlootable – Many engineers are having trouble looting some of the gas clouds in Nagrand, Blizzard is aware of the problem and has asked for everyone’s help by reporting these as soon as possible. List the date and time, along with the coordinate location when submitting your ticket. This is the best way for blizzard to fix these items it seems, so if you have trouble fill out a ticket and let them know!
Season 4: Rating Requirements – When Season 4 begins the Season 3 items with rating requirements will be lowered, shoulders will require a personal rating of 1950 and weapons will require 1800. Which is a decrease of 50 personal rating for each item. It is unknown if they will raise the requirements for equivalent Season 4 items in Season 4, or if when Season 2 gear is moved to honor if the prices will be increased or not. So stay tuned on this one for more information.
Fury of the Sunwell: Official Patch 2.4 Website – Even if you have already been in-game and experienced some of the new content, you will still want to check out this new website. It contains all the history and background for the Sunwell, as well as a pretty nice cinematic for the patch trailer. I think even players who spent a good amount of time on the PTR will find this site has some good information, especially for those who love to study the lore along with the actual in-game content. See the official blizzard page here.
Kalecgos, Brutallus, and Felmyst All Downed Already - According to World of Raids Forums the World first kill of Kalecgos goes to Transcended of the Blackhand server, while the world first kill of Brutallus goes to Blood Legion of the Illidan server, the world first kill of Felmyst goes to SK-Gaming. Congratulations to all the guilds, obviously their hard work on the PTR paid off!

Wrath of the Lich King Sneak Peek, Wow 2.4 patch around the corner

Jason Frovich — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:32:27 +0000

Patch 2.4 seems to be drawing ever so close to release, this week testing was suspended on the PTR and a preliminary patch was downloadable via your blizzard background downloader. Before the PTR’s were shutdown there were quite a few changes implemented this week to undergo final testing. Also this week a short video clip and background of one of the factions in the expansion Wrath of the Lich King was released. The video is a only a short 40 second clip, but does give a nice fly over of the zone.

If you didn’t read our newsletter from last week, Spugnort’s World celebrated its 1 year anniversary of guide sales to the public. In celebration of this event we offered all of our current customers a 15% discount on Spugnort’s World products. If you did not yet take advantage of this discount we are keeping it active for one more week, to get your discount code please visit last week’s newsletter here to receive your code and claim your discount!

2.4 Continues to Evolve on the PTR and the TTR is Launched

Wrath of the Lich King: Dragonblight – A great little sneak peak of what players have to look forward to in the WotLK expansion. The dragonblight is linked directly to Wyrmrest Keep, which will most likely be a 25-man instance in the expansion. Not a whole lot of information on this at the moment except that you will be fighting for Alexstrasza and the Red Dragonflight against the Blue Dragonflight along with the scourge found in the area. There is a short little 40 second video of a zone fly through that can be viewed here.
PTR Down For Now, 2.4 Live Soon?!? – Blizzard is claiming they are bringing the PTR down in order to force players onto the TTR (Tournament Test Realm) so they can get some last minute testing. However, with part of the 2.4 patch being available for download over the past week through the background downloader you have to wonder if patch 2.4 might be a lot closer than some originally thought?
Druid Cyclone Nerfed – Early in the 2.4 patch on the PTR Blizzard shortened the range of cyclone from 30 yards down to 20 yards. Shortly after they reverted this change, well they have brought it back once again and the range on cyclone will most likely be only 20 yards when the patch is released.
New Teleportation Portals – This week some items were scraped from the game files, and it looks like there might be two new portals added to the game. One portal was found to Stonard and another to Theramore. This would benefit travel to some of the further off zones in Azeroth. If you have been in Silithus lately you would know it’s about as barren as it gets on a MMO with 10 million subscribers!
Arena Season 4 Updates – This week Drysc made a post pertaining to Arean Season 4, it seems it will be quite some time even after patch 2.4 is released. before we will see season 4. Also, Drysc confirmed that season 1 items will be removed from vendors while season 2 items will move to honor. However, he did leave it open that prices may increase on these items, and that players should not just assume these items will be the same as their corresponding items from season 3.
All 2.4 Pattern Prices Increased – Almost all of the patterns that will be available for any profession when 2.4 is released had their prices raised significantly this week. For example, to purchase all the jewelcrafting recipes available for the epic gems before the change it would have cost you only 57 gold, but now the pattern prices are 50 gold each and will require 1900 gold to purchase all the recipes.
Not All Specs Should be PvP Powerhouses – Drysc also came out and talked briefly about talent specs and their viability for the PvP scene. He stated they would like to slightly increase the usefulness of some talent specs, mainly protection spec warriors and shadow priests, for use in PvP action but not to the level of the highly accepted mortal strike hybrid or discipline priests currently being used. They feel a dilution of the different talent trees would only make the strengths and weaknesses of each talent spec watered down and soon each spec would be exactly the same, completely diminishing the whole idea of talent trees.
Rogue Shiv Bug – Apparently there is currently a bug with Shiv, and it cannot be dodged or missed right now. Blizzard has stated this was never intended and they are currently working on a fix for the problem.
Season 4 Item Levels and Stats Reduced – The few Season 4 items that had been scraped from game files seem to have had their item level and stat points reduced this week. The item level went from 159 to 154, meaning about a 3% reduction in the amount of stats and DPS of weapons. While not a huge nerf, 3% more stats never hurt!
Patch 2.4 Items get Armor Increase – Almost every single piece of epic armor that will be released. in patch 2.4 had its armor content raised about 5-10% depending on the item. Blizzard said this change occurred in order to match the armor content with item level of the armor. 5-10% more armor content is rather significant, especially on plate items that already had 1800+ armor.