World of Warcraft moves closer to free-to-play

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

World of Warcraft is set to launch real-money transactions and the ability to play without paying for a subscription, as developers Blizzard move to position the game against free-to-play competitors.

Visitors play World of Warcraft at the Blizzard Entertainment exhibition stand during the Gamescom 2014 fair in Cologne.

The company is introducing “WoW tokens”, which can be bought from other players for in-game gold, or from Blizzard for real money, and exchanged for 30 days of game time. That currently costs £9.99 on Blizzard’s Battle.net store, although it drops to £8.69 if bought in bulk. The changes mean players can for the first time buy in-game gold from Blizzard indirectly .

At the same time, a player with more time than money can now use gold collected while playing the game to buy themselves a longer subscription, without having to spend real money on anything other than the initial purchase of the game. Read More →

Join World of Warcraft player “Doubleagent” as he dings level 100 as a neutral Pandaren

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Somewhere, in the lands of Azeroth, a neutral Pandaren is on the cusp of hitting a world first milestone. World of Warcraft player, Doubleagent, is a mere couple days away from hitting level 100 on his factionless Pandaren character; achieved entirely through the picking of herbs.

For this achievement, he’s invited everyone and anyone to come and join him via an “Open Raid”, on Tuesday, March 3rd. “The plan is to have a little tour of the isle before turning 100 next to one of the nodes, just to be a little reminiscent of the Level 90 event.” said Doubleagent.

We’ve covered Doubleagent in the past – both when he achieved his level 90 goal, and in an interview about his motives behind the challenge.

To celebrate level 100, he wants all of Azeroth to join him as he gathers the last herb needed to ding him max level. To make it easy, Doubleagent has created an Open Raid post with all the details on how to join. Here’s the important bits: Read More →

World of Warcraft: The Adventure Continues in 6.1

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Since Warcraft first stepped foot on the Draenor of the past, they’ve been inexorably drawn toward one intriguing tale among a multitude of storylines taking place there. In patch 6.1, the quest line that began with ‘Call of the Archmage’ will continue, and the stakes have never been higher. What follows is just a glimpse of some of the additional new items and updates within the patch.

Garona Halforcen

Some may know Garona from her exploits in Azeroth. This powerful rogue assassin was responsible for the death of King Llane Wrynn. Along with her son Med’an, she aided the New Council of Tirisfal in their brutal struggle against the Twilight’s Hammer and the evil ogre magi Cho’gall.

The escapades of Garona of Draenor have proven no less signficant. Not long after you first arrived in this savage land, Garona attempted to assassinate Khadgar, but you captured her.

Since then, Khadgar has tried to break the mind control that Garona clearly suffers from. His efforts, and yours, have been in vain … until now. In patch 6.1, you’ll receive a new quest to infiltrate a Shadow Council stronghold and steal an artifact. Khadgar hopes to be able to free Garona’s mind.

Your First Legendary Follower

In the savage world of Draenor, you may not have any true friends, but you can forge partnerships with a meaningful purpose. Thanks to Garona, you’ll learn what Gul’dan is up to, and you’ll get the opportunity to witness firsthand as he attempts to take control of the Iron Horde and capture Grommash Hellscream.

wow1

Thereafter, you’ll obtain your first Legendary follower. Garona comes to you with three abilities befitting an Assassination Rogue, as well as the Master Assassin trait, which greatly increases the chance of success on any mission she is assigned to. Furthermore, she starts at a follower item level of 630.

More to Do

In patch 6.1, you’ll now see new visitors to your Garrison: quest-givers offering you a variety of activities if you’ve reached Garrison Tier 3. These include:

Bounty Quests – Group up with two or more additional players to hunt down and defeat a powerful enemy and you’ll earn gold and a chance to get an heirloom quest item off of the creature you kill for the quest.
Profession daily – Get your hands on more Primal Spirits, reduce your surplus reagents, and buy the new recipes for crafted upgrades and transmutes. Read More →

Colorblind support is coming to World of Warcraft

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The upcoming World of Warcraft 6.1 patch will make life a little easier for colorblind gamers through the addition of three colorblind filters—protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia—and a “UI Colorblind mode” that adds relevant words and phrases to tooltips.

“For example, when you move your mouse cursor over a piece of rare gear and then a piece of epic gear, the game colors the names of the items blue and then purple, respectively,” Blizzard wrote in today’s announcement. “With ‘UI Colorblind Mode’ enabled, the game will add the words ‘Rare’ and ‘Epic’ to the tooltips for those items. For players who find it difficult to discern between friendly, neutral, or hostile targets, additional indication text in the tooltip will now appear when you move your mouse cursor over other characters.”

Blizzard said the filters will assist players with one of the three types of dichromacy, and “should be useful” to those with anomalous trichromacy.
Videogames commonly make use of colored text to indicate an item’s particular properties or importance, which is fine as long as you can see those colors. But if you can’t, it’s a real problem, and so it’s good to see Blizzard doing something about it. The World of Warcraft 6.1 patch is currently being put through its paces on the Public Test Realm.

World of Warcraft 6.1 patch notes appear, include Twitter integration

by ⋅ Leave a Comment
World of Warcraft 6.1 patch

Dataminers have burrowed into World of Warcraft and dug out the latest details of the game’s next update. The info reveals numerous details about the upcoming 6.1 patch, including new quests, items, graphics options and, for some reason or other, Twitter integration.

Twitterers will be able to tweet screenshots and post suggested tweets, such as “I just earned the %s Achievement! #Warcraft” and “Check out this Achievement! %s #Warcraft”. Good hashtag usage there.

What else? New quests will be centred around the Iron Docks. Raiders will get a UI-based pat on the back for downing a boss, and new anti-aliasing options will let you pick between MSAA, SSAA and SSAA + CMAA.

As for Garrisons, they’re getting a bunch of new options. Scout Reports will give new missions, Mission Completion Orders will instantly complete a mission, and Rush Orders will complete five work orders. If that all sounds too much like work, you can summon 10-40 player bosses to your garrison. To fight, not to have tea.
You can see a full list of patch 6.1’s features over at MMO Champion. The build is planned for the PTR soon.
Thanks, PCGamesN.

Dark Horse Comics and Blizzard Entertainment Team up for World of Warcraft Book Series

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

As we’ve seen, Warcraft is definitely a cultural icon now, and expect the movie and the novel, there will be another Warcraft themed comics! According to Dark Horse Comics official blog latest release, they has announced the upcoming release of a multi-volume series detailing the history of the Warcraft universe: World of Warcraft: Chronicle. Citizens of Azeroth, you won’t miss this chance to lost in its enchanting history again.

World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 is a journey through an age of myth and legend, a time long before the Horde and the Alliance came to be. This definitive tome of Warcraft history reveals untold stories about the birth of the cosmos, the rise of ancient empires, and the forces that shaped the world of Azeroth and its people.

wowcpr

The first volume of the series is due out on November 4, 2015 in comic shops, and November 17, 2015 in bookstores. For lore fans, this looks like it’s shaping up to be the definitive book to pick up this year, and sounds like it may very well be full of brand new lore spanning the length of Warcraft’s history, starting with the mysterious beginnings of the cosmos itself — something that plenty of lore fans have been wanting for a very, very long time. You can pre-order your copy of World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 today over via Amazon, or check with your local comic book retailers to pre-order a copy as well.

WoW: Poundfist

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Poundfist

Is the Time Lost Proto-drake of Draenor. This rare spawns in Gorgrond and unlike other rares it has a 100% chance to drop a mount for anybody that attacks him. The only problem is its spawn timer.

Here’s how Poundfist Looks Like:

Here’s the Sunhide Gronnling Mount He Drops: Read More →

Reminder: World of Warcraft 10th anniversary ends January 5

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

If you have yet to get it done, you might want to hit up Molten Core in the next week or so. The 10th anniversary celebration for World of Warcraft officially ends on January 5, 2015 — and both Molten Core’s 40-man LFR experience, as well as the Southshore vs. Tarren Mill PvP battleground will be taking their leave. Completing Molten Core will earn you an ilvl 640 epic helm as well as the Core Hound Chain that will give you a Corehound of your very own to ride — but there’s also a chance to pick up Hatespark the Tiny, a new Battle Pet, and the Flames of Ragnaros, a special cosmetic item that will give your weapon a fiery glow.

As for the battleground, winning a battle on either Alliance or Horde side will net you an achievement as well as a special account-wide title, Southshore Slayer, or Tarren Mill Terror. To queue for Molten Core, you’ll need an ilvl of 615, but that’s relatively easy to get at level 100. Once the anniversary event is over, these items and achievements will no longer be available — so you’ll want to get a move on if you want to collect and complete them all before they’re gone for good.

Blizzard considering gold-for-game-time trades in World of Warcraft

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

For its more-than-10-year existence, World of Warcraft has operated in two parallel economies: the in-game economy of gold exchanged for items, and the real-world economy of dollars (or others hard currencies) exchanged for monthly game time subscriptions. Now, Blizzard says it’s considering bringing those two economies together through some sort of exchange in 2015.

“We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold,” Blizzard writes in a preview of next year’s World of Warcraft plans. “Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system.” Blizzard goes on to say that many players have expressed interest in the feature and that the developers “agree it could be a good fit for the game.” Read More →

Shack Reels: Top 10 Warcraft characters

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor has been rejuvenating the long-running MMORPG for about a month, but the game has been around for 10 years and the franchise has been alive for even longer. So we’ve had some unforgettable characters introduced over the past decades.

Today, our own Greg Burke breaks down Warcraft’s 10 most memorable characters. The video below should remind Warcraft fans of what a rich mythos Blizzard has constructed over the past few decades.