World of Warcraft Blog
And it begins. We have just received the first expansion phishing scam email. ”You’ve been invited to participate in the World of Warcraft Cataclysm Alpha”. This is just a reminder that Blizzard will never ask you for your account information, and do not click any links in e-mails regarding the new expansion. The phishing email can be found below.
World of Warcraft: The Cataclysm™ Alpha Test
Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the alpha test of World of Warcraft: The Cataclysm™.
In the alpha test you’ll get an opportunity to test the first zones of the new continent Dragaera and the new levels above 80. We look forward to your feedback on the overall experience including quests, monsters, zones, aesthetics, and more. We would also appreciate reports on any bugs you may encounter. These can be logged using the /bug command explained below.
Getting started:
In order to participate in the alpha test, you must upgrade an existing retail account that has been upgraded with the Wrath of the Lich King, allowing you to connect to the The Cataclysm alpha test realms. The World of Warcraft: the Wrath of the Lich King game client that you use must be patched up to version 3.1.2 or later in order to install the alpha test client.Please be prepared to enter the current retail World of Warcraft account name and password you use, and the appropriate information to authenticate your eligibility to connect to the The Cataclysm alpha test realms. To participate in the alpha tests, you must have a valid retail World of Warcraft account active and in good standing as of July, 1st 2009.
Please visit: [Phishing Web Site Link Here]
to upgrade your retail World of Warcraft account to alpha testing status and take part in the alpha stages of the new expansion. Please note that this will not effect your ability to play retail World of Warcraft.
Your Cataclysm Alpha Key:
0765-54672-56129-09845
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Dark and forgotten threats that have long stayed out of sight have finally arrived on our shores, unleashing a cataclysmic event upon Azeroth and now preparing more nefarius plans to take it back.
Level Cap
The level cap in the next expansion will be slightly lower than expected this time around; 85.
This suggests Blizzard wants more room for expansions before hitting the level 100 cap. With less leveling to do (along with the revamped leveling listed below likely to increase the speed and ease of leveling), leveling a new race remains appealing for new and existing players alike.
Leveling from 80-85 should be a much bigger deal, the idea is to make sure that gaining a level really means something and doesn’t make you feel like you just have 4 more levels to go.
New Classes
Cataclysm doesn’t introduce any new classes to the game. Instead, Blizzard have offered more race and classes combinations to players. The Some of these have alreadly been datamined from the 3.2.2 Test Realms. The An Injured Colleague quest and it’s new Night Elf counter-part help to introduce the lore for these new race and class combinations, so we can probably expect to see more of these for some of the less traditional ones.
New World of Warcraft Class Combinations
Human Hunter
Orc Mage
Night Elf Mage
Dwarf Mage
Blood Elf Warrior
Dwarf Shaman
Undead Hunter
Tauren Paladin
Tauren Priest
Gnome Priest
Troll Druid
New Races
The events of the cataclysm has caused two new races to seek new allies. The Goblins for the Horde and the Worgen for the Alliance.
Goblins
Deathwing once again sought the services of the goblins, as slaves. Unable to refuse such an offer, the goblins were enslaved by him. A large group have resisted however. With their previous homes devastated by the cataclysm, they escaping to an island off the coast of The Barrens. As they strive to recover, they come across an Orc captured on an Alliance ship and rescue him. The Orc turns out to be none other than Thrall himself, and in return offers the Goblins a place within the Horde. These events are carried out in a quest line, allowing players to experience first-hand the reasons behind the Goblins’ shift from neutrality.
Worgen
The cataclysm has cracked open the Greymane Wall, finally revealing what has happened to the kingdom of Gilneas and its citizens. With the Worgen curse taken hold, they have found a partial cure, allowing thme to retain their Human minds even when transformed. Venturing forth from Gilneas and seeking help from the Alliance, they have decided to join them, to combat the new threats of Cataclysm.
Gilneas will make extensive use of the phasing system (much like the Death Knight starting area), to show what happened while the kingdom was cut off from the rest of the world and lead up to present day.
Worgens will have two forms, a Worgen form and a Human form. Players will be able to customise the look of both forms.
New Content
Cataclysm will be the first expansion not to introduce a new continent, instead making use of previously unreleased zones and revamping existing ones.
Classic Azeroth Revamp
A cataclysmic event caused by Deathwing and Azshara will change the face of Azeroth as we know it. Most of the new content for Cataclysm will take the form of a revamped Azeroth, taking advantage of newer additions to WoW such as phasing and daily quests. Most of the quests and mobs in the classic zones will also be redesigned to make leveling less painful. With the revamp, a greater narritive and sense progression will be offered to players. Some zones and dungeons will change drastically to fit this, e.g.,
The Barrens will be split into two separate zones of two different level bands.
Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker travelling across the large continents.
Classic Dungeon Revamp
Redesigning Onyxia’s Lair in Patch 3.2.2 was just the first step. As most of the leveling will take place in revamped areas of Azeroth, so too will the dungeons, allowing players to use them to level from 80 to 85.
Unreleased Zones & Dungeons
With the addition of flying mounts to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and the redesign of many zones, most of the previously unreachable or incomplete zones will now be made available to players. This is where most of the new content from 80 to 85 will take place. Some of these are,
Hyjal (present)
Gilneas - The Worgen starting Zone.
Uldum
It is unclear if the old Goblin locations such as Kezan and Undermine will be included in Cataclyms with the revelation of the goblins’ plight, but several new islands have also been risen from the seas by the events of Cataclysm, some on the backs of giant sea turtles and whales, with the addition of several underwater zones.
Characters and Events
Deathwing
Deathwing the Destroyer / Neltharion the Earth-Warder will play a major role in Cataclysm. Having been driven mad by Old God whisperings and turning against his own kind only to be fail in his attempts, Deathwing has sunk into the shadows. While the Horde and the Alliance were busy fighting back the Burning Legion only to then be beset with the Scourge, he has been lurking and moving things into place. After Lady Sinestra’s failed attempts to create a Twilight Dragonflight, he again retreated to Grim Batol and succeeded where she failed. With his results seen in the Obsidian Sanctum, he has finally created the supreme Dragonflight he sought and plans to unleash it upon the world. But what of the Old Gods’ sway over him?
Azshara
Queen Azshara will also play a major part in Cataclysm. Unknown to many mortal races, long forgotten by others, and believe to be dead by her own kind, she has not been dormant in depths of the Maelstrom. Having those around her transformed by the Old Gods into Naga after her failure in the War of the Ancients, she has become far more powerful and a greater threat than she once was. Not content with just Nazjatar and the depths of the sea, Azshara seeks to reclaim power and reign once again. With the true plan behind Lady Vashj’s support of Illidan remaining a mystery we do not know what hand Azshara has yet played. The big question remains, is she now serving her “saviors”, the Old Gods?
The Cataclysm
I’m still not sure who is the true end boss of Cataclysm is, but the cataclysm appears to have been caused by attempts to incantation to summon extremely powerful beings using an ancient incantation by Deathwing and Azshara. They’re both very powerful, but the cataclysm itself suggests something more powerful is behind it, perhaps their shared past of Old God influence?
The Guardian of Tirisfal
Malfurion Stormrage will be returning to Azeroth to aid in the creation of the new Guardian of Tirisfal - Thrall! Med’an’s role in these events is currently unknown.
The New (New) Horde
Thrall will hand over the leadership of the Horde to Garrosh Hellscream, while he serves as a coordinator for both the Horde and Alliance forces in and effort to combat the new threat of the Naga and Black Dragonflight. Without Thrall to keep Garrosh in check, he declares open war on the Alliance. In the political upheaval Cairne Bloodhoof is implicated as a traitor to the Horde and murdered by Garrosh. Cairne’s son Baine takes over as the new Tauren chieftan. This could explain why Baine was removed from the game in Patch 3.2.2.
The new World of Warcraft Race the Worgen
The worgen are a race of feral wolf-beasts whose very name inspires fear. Theories regarding their history abound, yet the worgen’s origins remain steeped in mystery.
The new World of Warcraft Race the Goblin
Originally the slaves of jungle trolls on the Isle of Kezan, the goblin race was forced to mine kaja’mite ore out of the volcanic bowels of Mount Kajaro.
This Friday marks the beginning of BlizzCon 2009, and thousands of players will be making the trek to the Anaheim Convention Center to enjoy a weekend full of gaming, tournaments, panels, contests, and more. If you’re interested in watching the sold-out show, don’t forget that you still have a few days to order your “virtual ticket,” available through DIRECTV or via Internet stream. This package comes with 18 hours of live coverage, including the closing concert with Ozzy Osbourne, as well as the exclusive BlizzCon 2009 in-game pet, Grunty the murloc marine.
Really? No. Players are being contacted in-game by other players impersonating themselves as Blizzard Entertainment to inform them they have won an Epic Mount! And all they need to do to is go to a web site to claim their prize. Surprisingly players are actually falling for this and entering a third party web site that requires their account information to claim the epic mount prize.
Patch 3.2 introduces a brand new raid dungeon called the “Coliseum.” With each tier of content comes a new tier of gear. ALL tier 9 models for both Horde and Alliance have been released. Feel free to take a look here:
Click on Image to view full screen high res detailed versions.
Heavy metal icon to perform before a sold-out crowd at Blizzard Entertainment’s epic gaming festival
IRVINE, Calif. - Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, will headline the closing concert at this year’s BlizzCon®, which will take place August 21-22 at the Anaheim Convention Center. While tickets to the convention sold out in minutes, a live Pay Per View event will be available on DIRECTV and via Internet stream.
The largest event of its kind, BlizzCon is a celebration of Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft®, Diablo®, and StarCraft® game universes and the global player communities surrounding them. At the closing ceremony on August 22, Ozzy will unleash a thunderous spectacle of rock to put the Lich King in his place and cement his own title as the one true Prince of Darkness.
One of the most influential rock musicians of all time, Ozzy Osbourne rose to prominence as the lead vocalist for Black Sabbath before embarking on a multi-platinum solo career. He is also known for putting on the Ozzfest music festival and for starring in his own reality TV show. Ozzy Osbourne’s career has spanned four decades and his music is as relevant today as ever. The Grammy Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has sold over 100 million albums worldwide-50 with Black Sabbath and as many as a solo artist-and in 2003 was honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s “Walk of Fame.” This is his second collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment, following a recent TV spot for World of Warcraft®.
“Our goal with BlizzCon is to deliver an unforgettable weekend of entertainment, and we can’t think of a better way to close out this year’s show than having Ozzy rock the house,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Many of us at Blizzard are lifelong fans of Ozzy’s music, and we’re thrilled that he’ll be performing for all of our BlizzCon attendees as well as those joining us via DIRECTV and the live Internet stream.”
In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon will offer an array of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming games, contests, tournaments showcasing the skills of top eSports gamers from around the world, and more. While tickets to the convention are currently sold out, the live Pay Per View event can still be ordered for $39.95 USD, and is available via DIRECTV and Internet stream (pricing and availability may vary by region). Visit www.blizzcon.com for more details and ordering information.
To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at www.blizzard.com/jobs. As BlizzCon draws closer, further details about the show will be announced at www.blizzcon.com.
Today’s the big day, as Blizzard releases the latest free content update to World of Warcraft, patch 3.2, aka “Call of the Crusade”.
In addition to the mount system revisions and experience gains in Battlegrounds, there are many other features of patch 3.2 awaiting you on your next login to World of Warcraft. Here’s a brief list of what’s new:
* The Crusader’s Coliseum: In preparation for the final push against the Lich King, the Argent Crusade invites you to prove your might by battling a series of fierce creatures they’ve somehow captured.
* Isle of Conquest: An island filled with resources that both the Alliance and the Horde want to control, this is a new Battleground with new types of gameplay.
* Argent Tournament updates, including new quest hubs and new daily quests and rewards.
* Class changes, including a few nerfs to everyone’s favorite overpowered class, the Death Knight (although some Death Knight talent specs should see a boost in performance). Talent points will be refunded to all Death Knights so that means you’ll have to re-pick all your talents when you login.
* Other changes, like instance locks, emblem changes, a new Shaman totem bar, epic gems, alternate forms for Druid cat and bear forms, and more.
Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft has sold a spectacular 8.6 million copies to date, according to NPD data.
The NPD Group rolled up multiple SKUs of the massively popular PC online game and its expansion packs since its November 2004 launch to arrive at the 8.6 million figure.
No information on average sale price across all versions was provided. But presuming $30 for each unit sold (the core game currently retails at $19.95; expansion packs and compilations for as much as $39.95), it amounts to as much as $258 million total from U.S. retail alone.
The statistics provided by NPD included the base World of Warcraft, plus the Collectors Edition version, the expansion pack-bundling Battle Chest, and the two standalone expansions: The Burning Crusade and Wrath Of The Lich King.
Although the operator transition in China is likely to have diminished the userbase somewhat, Activision Blizzard’s most recently-announced total of 11.5 million subscribers is the company’s main moneyspinner.
Millions pay $15 a month to play the game, which means hundred of millions of dollars yearly for Blizzard. World of Warcraft shows no signs of losing its massive lead in the subscription MMO market in the near future.
The World of Warcraft forums are buzzing with complaints from players claiming that their accounts have been suspended because of chargebacks filed against them by a company that they have no connection with. The problem, though, is that the company behind the charges is unresponsive to complaints, and many players don’t know what to do in order to get their accounts re-authorized unless they pay these bills.
According to the thread, multiple players have received the following message when trying to figure out why their account is currently inaccessible: “Access to the World of Warcraft account *********, has been temporarily disabled due to a chargeback filed against the account’s past payment(s) which were billed to a telephone number via PaymentOne.” PaymentOne is a payment service provider, and has a system in place to bill players’ ISP accounts for their WoW subscriptions.
Chargebacks are normally used as a method of consumer protection—a last line of defense against shady retailers. Effectively, a consumer will dispute a charge on their debit/credit card statements and the issuing bank or credit card company will forcibly return the disputed funds to the person. Exactly why and how these chargebacks were applied to the aforementioned accounts has yet to be determined, but they’ve caused the accounts to have negative balances with Blizzard, which has led to their suspension until the issue is resolved.
The main problem with this claim, though, is that many of the players have never used PaymentOne or signed up for the company’s services; some others have, but most of their accounts with PaymentOne were used over a year ago and were canceled a while ago.
Posts in the forum thread show that Blizzard is willing to discuss the unauthorized charges, but there haven’t been any definite results from pursuing this course of action yet. Even stranger, though, is multiple posts stating that users have contacted their phone companies/broadband providers and are told that they have no chargebacks on their account. A quick Google search shows this isn’t the first time that allegations of fraud and unexpected charges have been leveled against the company.
Another major frustration is that PaymentOne seems unwilling to help players reach a solution that doesn’t involve simply paying these unathorized charges. Posts on the thread state that they’ve either been hung up on when they call the company or are transferred back to Blizzard. Two calls to PaymentOne seeking a comment resulted in being placed on permahold and then being disconnected.
The moral of the story.. DO NOT USE PAYMENTONE FOR YOUR WoW Subscription and beware of useing any of thier other services.
The World of Warcraft Paid Character Transfer Service has been updated with a much lower cool down rate. Previously after transferring your character to a new server or account your character would be restricted to move again for 30 days. Now you can transfer your character every 3 days! with the new cool down period you can move your character to a new server or account every 3 days.
