We are all of course hoping that MoP appears this year, and in the “Most Anticpated MMORPG 2012″ vote on RPGReporter.com, Mists of Pandaria has made the shortlist of most anticipated titles for this year. WoW fans can now add their vote to the reader’s poll.
Bad news WoW fans, Blizzcon is not happening this year and is being replaced with the Battle.net World Championship which will be held in Asia. Blizzard’s schedule is apparently to jam-packed to take on BlizzCon.
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| Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world. Slated to take place in Asia toward the end of 2012, the Battle.net World Championship will host this year’s StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments. Blizzard gamers and eSports fans from around the world will be invited to attend and witness some of the most skilled pro players on the planet battle it out for cash and glory. We’re excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We’re also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013. More details about the 2012 Battle.net World Championship and BlizzCon 2013, including specific dates and locations, will be coming in the months ahead. |
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Fortunately WoW avoided any in-game advertising, it would have been pretty hard to pull it off convincingly. However, it looks like the next MMO (Titan) will feature product placement. In a recent job posting for a Franchise Development Producer, Blizzard are looking for:
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It’s an interesting job posting, and if it tells us anything, the next MMO will not be set in a fantasy world but perhaps modern-day or in the future as that is the only timeline advertising could work convincingly. Bobby Kotick has stated in the past that they would limit advertising for subscription based games or games selling for $60:
There may be future opportunities where you might offer a consumer an advertiser-supported experience so they wouldn’t have to pay for it,” he continued. “But as long as our audience is paying $60 for a game or a subscription fee I think we’re going to limit the amount of advertising or sponsorship incorporated into a game.”
Based on these comments can we assume that the next MMO will include a free to play model supported by advertising?
Thanks NEOGaf.
In an effort to get everyone involved in the raid content, on 31 January Blizzard are making changes to the Dragon Soul Raid by adding the Power of the Aspects” spell which reduces the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the raid by 5%. Before you all scream “nerf”, here’s why.
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| During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of January 31, the Dragon Soul raid will become enveloped by the “Power of the Aspects” spell, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the raid by 5%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Looking for Raid difficulty.
The spell can also be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul, if a raid wishes to attempt the encounters without the aid of the Dragon Aspects. For those of you who raided in Firelands and/or Icecrown you’re no doubt aware that as time goes on we want to keep people progressing by adjusting the difficulty. For any number of reasons a group may be having difficulty on a specific encounter each week, and our intent in adjusting the content is to ensure the ability to keep progressing, enjoying the content, and gearing up. With Icecrown we progressively buffed the players, and while this slow progression (and ability to opt-out of the buff) were both beneficial, it led to an expectation of your characters power, and once you left the raid you could certainly feel less effective. For Firelands we attempted to fix that by nerfing the content instead of buffing players, but we nerfed the content difficulty all at one time, which was counterproductive for players who really didn’t need as severe a change as we made. With Dragon Soul we’re attempting to do the best of both by having a progressive nerf to the content, keeping player power constant while providing small increases in assistance over a long period of time, as well as allowing players to opt-out of the assistance by speaking to Lord Afrasastrasz. We hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Soul, and that these changes encourage you to attempt a higher difficulty, or just keep pushing to down that next boss. |
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This probably won’t affect many of you but it’s worth noting. Time to upgrade your OS if you’re on Windows 2000 because it is no longer supported for WoW as Blizzard prepare everyone well in advance of the MoP release.
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| In preparation for the upcoming release of Mists of Pandaria, updates to World of Warcraft will no longer support Microsoft Windows 2000. Microsoft ceased support for this version of their operating system in 2010. Players still using Windows 2000 are encouraged to upgrade prior to the release of Mists of Pandaria. | ||
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| January 9
General Dungeons and Raids Hour of Twilight Archbishop Benedictus Thrall and Archbishop Benedictus should no longer fail to complete their roleplay introduction (preventing players from completing the instance). Well of Eternity Mannoroth Starting the Mannoroth encounter should no longer remove Stealth effects. Dragon Soul Twilight Elite Dreadblades and Twilight Elite Slayers should now refrain from doing melee attacks while mounted, and always engage and melee players after landing on the gunship deck. Ultraxion All Fading Light debuffs and Aspect crystal buffs on players should now be cleared when the encounter ends. Events Items Quests and Creatures |
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Blizzard has today launched new language versions of their Mobile Authenticator app for the iPhone, iPod touch, Android, and Windows Phone 7. The new languages include Italian, Portuguese and Polish. Be safe and use it of you’re not already.
Look! A cheap copy of Wrath and a cheap copy of Cataclysm! OK, the so called Blizzard EU price cuts that have been announced for the two expansions are not exactly price cuts. You can pick both of the expansions up cheaper at online retailers such as Amazon and even on the high street. If you are looking for a cheap copy of either expansions I suggest you don’t take up the offer below.
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| Great news for all Blizzard fans! From today, our latest games are available at retail and on the Blizzard Store at new, permanently low prices. You can now get Wrath of the Lich King for a mere €19.99 and Cataclysm for just €29.99. There’s never been a better time to grab the games you might have missed out on before. Just click here and celebrate the New Year by taking advantage of our new reduced prices. Still don´t have World of Warcraft? Now you can get the full game and all expansions for cheaper than ever before. | ||
These reductions look like they are trying to bring the Blizzard store in-line with retail prices. With MoP coming this year (with any luck), Blizzard really do need to drop the prices of all the games to make it an attractive offer to new players.
Blizzard are set to test out some new file optimsation tech during the 4.3.2 PTR to help clean up some of the files on your HD.
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| With the 4.3.2 patch we’ll be testing some new file optimization tech. As you may be aware, with previous major expansion patches (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.) we’ve carried out a time-consuming process to reorganize the game files currently installed on your hard drive to integrate all previous patch files, essentially ‘cleaning up’ what’s on your computer and reducing the full installation size. This process used to require an amount of free hard drive space double that of the entire installation size to complete, which is why we’ve reserved them for large expansion-sized patches.
The new tech we’re testing with the 4.3.2 PTR will process these cleanups with no additional hard drive space required beyond what the patch is adding. Because of that you may see them appear more frequently with patches. While the cleanup is occurring you’ll see a specific message on the launcher informing you the process is currently taking place. If you encounter any issues with the new process please be sure to visit our support site at http://www.battle.net/support/ |
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I’m sure many of you have spent a fun New Year in-game in the past so if you are gaming tonight when the clock strikes midnight pay attention to what’s planned in Azeroth.
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| Merry New Year! The celebration begins at 6:00 a.m. Realm-Time December 31 with fireworks in the skies above the cities, and repeats every hour on the hour. Feel free to sample some of the exotic brews and libations carted in from around the world, and dance in celebration as a new year dawns. If you’re on a PvP realm you’re cautioned to steer clear of Booty Bay (or potentially visit with haste) as the guards there appear to have had too much fun already and aren’t likely to be enforcing the town rules until morning. | ||
While I am on the news I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!
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