Posts with tag wrath-of-the-lich-king

NetEase loses WoW director, Li Riqiang

by Basil Berntsen Mar 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

World of Warcraft in China continues to walk a rocky path. NetEase, the company currently licensed to operate WoW's The Burning Crusade expansion in China, lost Li Riqiang, a senior director for the WoW business unit on the 24th of February, 2010. There is no word on why he left, and the company is keeping mum on details about the departure and his replacement.

This comes on the heels of a 62% jump in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009 generated since NetEase was able to light up the TBC servers after resolving their disputes with the government, which had prevented them from launching the service in China until September 2009. That revenue increase was accompanied by lower profit margins, however, as NetEase must pay hefty licensing fees to Activision Blizzard.

The fact that there are still Chinese players who are willing to play an obsolete and no longer maintained version of the game is a little strange to me-- many Chinese players simply started over on Taiwanese servers. Judging by the amount of red tape that's being wrapped around anything to do with Blizzard, I suspect we'll see Cataclysm released before Chinese players can play Wrath of the Lich King without connecting to a server in Taiwan.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, The Burning Crusade

Breakfast Topic: If you could redo features in Wrath, what would they be?

by Zach Yonzon Mar 3rd 2010 at 8:00AM

With Cataclysm looming on the horizon, as Wrath of the Lich King winds down, it's a good time to reflect on the expansion and see how things could've gone better. In the recently concluded developer chat over Twitter, one person asked what features in Wrath Blizzard would redo or remove if they could turn back the clock. Their answer is something close to my heart, personally, and I agree wholeheartedly. "I would have really liked to see more Battlegrounds in Northrend," one of the tweets noted, "that is an area that I feel we fell short on."

Another area that the developers felt lacked a little more polish was the emblem system, which they described as "clunky". Of course, they admit that in hindsight there happens to be quite a number of things that they'd like to redo, pointing out that they are their own worst critics. I'm sure we've got our own ideas about what could have gone better, so let's have at it. Personally, I'm quite happy about their plans to improve Battlegrounds play in Cataclysm, so I guess I'll kick it off with that. What about you guys? If you could ask a favor of Chromie and her Bronze Dragonflight cohorts, what things would you have done differently about Wrath?

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Wrath of the Lich King

Know Your Lore: Bolvar Fordragon

by Anne Stickney Feb 20th 2010 at 7:00PM

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Players still leveling or playing through this expansion may want to veer away, especially if you want to avoid Icecrown Citadel spoilers. I'll throw another message in before we get to the really huge stuff, just in case!

The above image is a little special to me, as it is a screenshot of the first moment I saw Bolvar Fordragon in action, taken January 19th, 2005. I was playing with a friend, and we saw an odd procession in Stormwind headed to the throne room -- upon arriving, a level 60 told us that we probably ought to stand back. Being what I thought was a resourceful player, I hid behind one of the guards, counting on them to protect me. Needless to say, Onyxia appeared, the guards turned into dragonkin, and I had a split second of sheer panic before I got a "6 Minutes until release" message.

But this article isn't about my untimely death and subsequent 'when someone says stay far away, stay far, far away' lesson. This is about the man under that pile of dragonkin, who we observed in awe as he fought and killed the entire pack of elites single-handed -- Bolvar Fordragon. Bolvar in that moment became one of my favorite characters in the game, and I didn't even know who he was. It didn't matter.

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Patch 3.3.3 PTR raid-buff changes

by Joe Perez Feb 19th 2010 at 8:30PM

The official Patch 3.3.3 patch notes have just been posted to the official site, and among those notes was news of an upcoming to change to raid buffs.

Several raid buffs have had their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards, to prevent select buffs from repeatedly getting applied and removed during highly mobile encounters. Some buffs, such as paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact are intentionally meant to have shorter ranges and remain unchanged.

The concept does have me intrigued as to what exactly they have planned, but the question remains: with paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact being unchanged, which buffs exactly are being altered? To my knowledge, the vast majority of complaints about moving outside of the range of buffs mainly revolves around aura effects like totems and paladin auras.

At this time Blizzard has not posted a full list of the raid buffs that have had their range increased, but, as they said, the list is fresh and still incomplete. This also comes at a time where many class specific aura buffs (like Unleashed Rage, Abomination's Might, and Elemental Oath) are being changed to passive auras not requiring an outside trigger such as a critical strike or a spell cast to activate.

Be sure to watch for class-specific updates detailing further changes, and we will keep you up to date with information as more becomes available.

Spiritual Guidance: On weapons, Nibelung, and the Lich King

by Fox Van Allen Feb 10th 2010 at 6:00PM

Fox Van Allen takes over Spiritual Guidance every Wednesday, preaching the path of darkness and smearing the good and holy name of the priest class. He also mind controls and spreads diseases to not-so-innocent altar boys.

I never got a chance to run Molten Core when Molten Core was relevant. I didn't participate in the redemption of the Blood Elves when such a thing was fashionable to do. But now, with an end-game ready level 80 shadow priest at my disposal, I'm ready to take down The Lich King once and for all.

I sure as heck haven't done it yet (due solely to the lack of corporate sponsorship, I assure you), and probably won't for a while. Still, there's been more than enough time to sit around and consider the ramifications when I eventually get around to it (you know, just been so busy this week, with my... stuff). Taking down Arthas is the big time, and I want to be rewarded commensurate with the effort I put in. I'll admit it -- I have an incredibly unrealistic expectation of getting an Inflatable Pink Arthas Balloon vanity pet trailing me wherever I go, or some trinket that summons miniature Arthases down to destroy a hopelessly outmatched Keristrasza in a way that elicits "ooohs" and "aaahs" from those newly minted level 80s thrown into the same random dungeon as I.

And after glancing at the Lich King's loot table, I have to say that I'm a little bit disappointed. I'm not saying the loot isn't good, but if we shadow priests are going to be getting little more than a staff for beating the legendary Lich King, it better be one hell of a damn special staff.

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

The Light and How to Swing It: The Paladin of 2009

by Gregg Reece Dec 26th 2009 at 4:00PM

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. This week we're taking a look back at 2009 and the ups and downs we've felt as paladins.

Well, it's after Christmas and another year is almost behind us. Two-double-zero-nine was a particularly frustrating year for paladins, because we felt we were either at the top of the pile or the bottom and it changed from day to day. The development team has even been quoted as saying that paladins have been the hardest class in Wrath to balance even when taking death knights into consideration. Let's walk down memory lane and see where we were and where we're going.

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

World of Warcraft and Battle Chest on sale for Black Friday

by Mike Schramm Nov 26th 2009 at 7:00PM

Yes indeed, this Friday is none other than Black Friday, which means the deals will be aplenty, the crowds will be horrendous, and the holiday money drain will begin (of course, you could go with Buy Nothing Day, but that seems a little too grinchy to me -- why not go ahead and buy while the buying's good?). Fortunately, there are a few WoW deals floating around out there, in case you need to pick up a copy of the game for a loved one (or that Recruit-a-friend account you've been planning to make).

The regular WoW vanilla game (useful for leveling to 60, but if you want to go past that, you'll have to buy the expansions) is on sale in a few places for super cheap -- the Ladies of Leet saw it at Best Buy for just five bucks, and Gamestop's matching that price. Gamestop also will have the Battle Chest (with WoW and BC and a few other goodies) for $19.99, and Newegg has the same price if you don't want to fight the crowds. Unfortunately, there's no sign of Wrath on sale -- you'll still have to pony up the $40 if that's the one you want. But stay tuned in the comments -- if readers can find better prices on this stuff, we're sure you'll see them below. Good luck out there, happy deal finding.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions

Justifying the tiered badge system

by Mike Schramm Nov 19th 2009 at 1:00PM

Wrath is almost all wrapped up, and while we didn't know much about it before the expansion, we've all certainly experienced the token system that Blizzard implemented as they went along, where early instances drop one kind of badge/token, and then the newer instances offer up new tokens, which can then be exchanged back for the older ones and their rewards. Now that we see the big picture at the end of the expansion, it's pretty ingenious, actually, and it even allows Blizzard to beef up other parts of the game, as they did with the rewards in the new Dungeon system.

Not that he needs to, but Bornakk steps up on the forums to justify exactly this kind of tiered system. Players complain that Ulduar is "useless" now that you can obtain its badges from lots of different places, but Bornakk says this system is definitely preferable to what Blizzard did in vanilla and BC, which was requiring new raiders to run through all of the old content before seeing the new and shiny stuff. They don't want the old content to sit useless (and it's not -- lots of guilds are still running Ulduar and even Naxx for the hard modes and achievements), but after the high-end raiders have their fun, it's important to get everyone else up to speed as well.

Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King

One year of Wrath

by Mike Schramm Nov 14th 2009 at 8:00PM

Rufus on Livejournal reminds us that one year ago as of November 13th, Wrath of the Lich King first came into our lives. That means it's been one full year since we had our launch events, since death knights first became free of the Lich King's control, and since we first stepped foot in Dalaran. It's the one year anniversary of our arrival at Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, the addition of Inscription to the game, and the first fights in Strand of the Ancients and Wintergrasp. If you add in the pre-Wrath patch 3.0.2, you can add in achievements, barbershops, and a whole bunch of other changes.

It's almost unbelievable how much has been added to the game in just the last year, though of course, considering that most of these things were actually announced way back at BlizzCon 2007, we've been living with them a little longer than that. And of course it's not over yet: we're currently standing on the doorstep of Icecrown Citadel, about to finish the fight over Arthas' soul that was started way back in Warcraft III, and there are rumblings under the earth of a whole new threat. Who knows what the World of Warcraft will look like a year from now?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

The Zombiepocalypse: One year later

by Mike Schramm Nov 1st 2009 at 2:00PM

Reader Verdus sent us a tip reminding us that this weekend is the one-year anniversary of one of the simultaneously most loved and hated events in WoW's history, the zombiepocalypse. Right around this time last year, infected crates started appearing all over the world, and that expanded out into a full-blown zombie invasion (which was so big it made it out into mainstream news). After the zombie plague had been quelled, the Scourge attacked with full force, leaving us to fall back and fight for our necrotic runes up until the expansion released. It was definitely a huge event, and now, a year later, I'm sure most of us (though not all of us) look back on it with fond memories.

And surely Blizzard learned a lot from what happened a year ago -- Linedan has a nice wrapup of the good and the bad that Blizzard may have taken away from the zombie apocalypse. The idea of turning players on players was great, but that unfortunately led to more griefing than most players would have liked (and the fact that, by the end of it, you couldn't avoid the zombies at all, probably didn't help). And for all of the disruption, there was no real reward (the eventual rewards came with the Scourge invasion, and then it was simply just farming tokens), and no real payoff (the final world event seemed half-cooked, and it was only implied that Arthas was the one who'd shipped the crates).

Gallery: Wrath of the Lich King Zombie Event

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

Phat Loot Phriday: Jeweled Fishing Pole

by Mike Schramm Oct 30th 2009 at 6:00PM

If you're planning on heading out to join the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby in patch 3.3, you might as well look good doing it, right?

Name: Jeweled Fishing Pole (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Rare Two-hand Fishing Pole
Damage: 410-610 / 3.00 (169.3 DPS)
Attributes:

1603 Feral Attack Power. Yes, it's true. Just in case you druids leave this on while in a different form.
Requires Fishing 300, which as we've said before, isn't too hard to do. Go over to El's Anglin' take a few hours and follow their great Fishing/Cooking guide, and you'll be done before you know it.

Gallery: Phat Loot Phriday

Filed under: Fishing, Items, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Contests, Phat Loot Phriday

Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax"

by Mike Schramm Oct 27th 2009 at 4:00PM

Ghostcrawler has put a significant sticky up on the forums about what he calls the "hybrid tax" in terms of PvE play -- there's been some back and forth lately on the forums about hybrid classes and what they should and shouldn't be able to do, and GC wants to put any confusion about what Blizzard intends "hybrids" to be to rest. Very basically, he says that there are three roles in the game (tanking, healing, and DPS), and if a class can respec to perform a different role, it's considered a hybrid class. Otherwise, it's a "pure" class. This means a few things: pure classes, he says, should have slightly higher DPS ("all things being equal," and when does that ever happen?), because they don't have the option to switch out. There's no rule as to how much better that is, but as a tradeoff of rerolling being the only way for "pures" to switch, they get to be a little better. That's the "hybrid tax," and mages, hunters, rogues, and warlocks don't have to pay it.

Hybrids, however, do, and that means that paladins, druids, priests, shamans, and to a certain extent, warriors and death knights, will in Blizzard's view never be able to equal "pure" classes in terms of DPS output, with everything else being equal. You may love your ret pally, and he may be in uber gear, but he should never be able to pour out as much damage as an equally specced and geared hunter, because you can switch to healing, and the hunter can't.

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Raiding, Classes, Death Knight

Wrath expected in China in mid-November

by Mike Schramm Oct 27th 2009 at 9:00AM

Because of all the chaos (from switched providers to government approval) on China's version of World of Warcraft, they haven't actually had a chance to release the Wrath expansion over there yet. They were planning to bring it out ASAP, but that obviously never worked out. But we hear now, finally, that the wait is almost over. They are still going through content checks, and Netease (WoW's new provider over there) says it has some more work to do, but at this point they're aiming for a mid-November release.

This doesn't mean much for us in the rest of the world -- and before you commenters mention goldsellers, know that most "Chinese goldfarmers" actually play on NA/EU servers anyway, and have been doing so even with the outage overseas. It does, however, mean that China's guilds and playerbase at large will finally have access to all of the content we've enjoyed for almost a year (the expansion was released in North America and Europe last November 13th -- remember that?), including death knights, the new Naxxramas, and all of the other Northrend content. The release should be a nice bonus for Netease as well -- they've been working hard to try and get the game up to date, and releasing the current expansion should help bring in a nice group of new customers.

Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

Patch 3.3 PTR: Character copy is up, but not so fast

by Mike Schramm Sep 30th 2009 at 4:05PM

A few readers have reported in to say that character copies are currently up for what we presume to be the patch 3.3 PTR (not that surprising, considering that Blizzard has been forthcoming with Icecrown info today), but before you go running over to send your character racing to meet Arthas, don't forget that usually in this situation, character copies get wiped before the PTR goes up anyway. You can try a copy, but don't be surprised if, when the realm finally does go up and Blizzard is ready, you have to do it again.

That said, this is a pretty good sign that the PTR is just around the corner -- Blizzard's got the content in a workable state, and they're just about ready to let us have a look at it and run it through the ringer for them. Icecrown or bust!

Thanks, Low!

Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, Instances

WoW back online in China

by Mike Schramm Sep 21st 2009 at 7:00PM

The long wait is finally over -- World of Warcraft's servers are finally back online in China after they went offline all the way back at the beginning of June, due to a switch between former host The9 and current host NetEase. It took a while for the government to approve the move (and some have even suggested that the delay wasn't completely legit), but things are finally back to business as usual, according to a few sources out of China.

A few more interesting facts have arisen with this news as well: apparently NetEase has spent over a million yuan (about $146,000) per day to keep up and maintain the game and its servers during the past month of closed beta and free play. Of course, that includes customer support and all the other costs.

Even with that price, however, the company is still expected to grow. We haven't heard any population numbers worldwide for WoW since this whole deal began, but you have to think that they lost at least a few players due to all of the problems. Of course, the release of Wrath over there may bring back some players, but even though they were planning to have it out before all of this happened, the switchover has delayed it even further. All they need is more government approval, but as the outage proved, that can sometimes be hard to get.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, News items, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware

WoW Insider Show

Subscribe via iTunes for our latest show.

Hot Topics

Put WoW.com headlines on your site
Follow WoW.com on Twitter
Find us on Facebook

Upcoming Events

Event	Date
Call to Arms: Isle of Conquest	3/5 - 3/8
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin	3/12 - 3/15
Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm	3/19 - 3/22
Call to Arms: Alterac Valley	3/26 - 3/29