WoW Insider

Vaneras on the EU forums this morning responded to some criticism that everyone is already 80, etc... He makes a few interesting points.

First, he notes that they have internal numbers that the majority of players don't yet have a level 80 character. This might be a known or assumed fact by some, but for many of us it's interesting to hear Blizzard extrapolate on the issue.

Vaneras goes on to point out an important tidbit – don't assume just because all your friends are 80 that everyone else is as well. People that play all the time tend to gravitate towards other people that play all the time, and folks that only log on once or twice a week gravitate towards each other as well.

This means that just because everyone on your friends list is 80 doesn't mean the whole server is yet. I know that for myself nearly everyone's main is either 80 or high 70s now, and most have alts quickly getting up there in level too.

But then I'm reminded of my brother, who just dinged 77 a couple days ago.

This is also good to know as it means battlegrounds and Wintergrasp will be filling up more as a greater number of folks ding. That's only going to lead to more fun for everyone.

Filed under: News items, Leveling

Gnorog on the EU forums posted notice a while ago that Season 4 is over. That means that all arena teams and ratings have been cleared, and arena charter NPCs have been disabled.

Your arena points will stay with you until you reach level 71 however.

But the end of Season 4 isn't the news.

Season 5 will begin on December 17th for those players that have reached level 80. That's just a few days away. For those that haven't, the skirmish brackets of 71-75 and 76-80 are available. The time is now to start organizing your arena teams and get them in gear for the upcoming events.

With all the changes in Wrath the next arena season promises to be interesting. Here's to bigger and better weapons! /cheers

Filed under: News items, PvP

The only way to increase your faction standing with the Kalu'ak is to complete the numerous tasks at the various quest hubs in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Howling Fjord. After all those quests are done the only way to further increase your standing is to work on the various daily quests associated with the faction.

But what are some of the goodies you can get when you're exalted?

The hottest item is the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole that has the double whammy of allowing underwater breathing and increasing your fishing skill by 30. It's a must have for any master angler, and will come in handy as you fish off the cold icebergs of Northrend. You can get pole for just over 100 gold when you hit exalted.

Another must have is the pet penguin that you can get when you reach exalted. The little guy is cute and is someone that wants to sit next to you as you use that big purple fishing pole you got.

You can pick up these rewards from quartermasters in either Mora'ki Harbor in Dragonblight or in Kamagua in the Howling Fjord.

Read on after the break and see what you can grab from these fun loving Wilfred Brimley looking folks.

Read more →

Filed under: Fishing, Items, Factions

We've completed our first set of Wrath Dailies outlining ways to increase your reputation with the Kalu'ak faction. The three quests that you can do are all available to you when you hit Northrend, and are generally pretty easy to swing through if there's not a lot of other people around.

The best way to complete them all is to begin at one of the starting zones and work your way across Northrend. I usually start off in the Howling Fjord with The Way to His Heart since that's the least heavily farmed, then go Dragonblight for Planning for the Future, and finally end up in the Borean Tundra doing Preparing for the Worst.

The Way to His Heart

In this daily quest you have to mate two squishy sea lions. Have fun, and don't forget that soap you made earlier. And what gets two sea lions to mate better than some yummy gooey raw fish?

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Filed under: Walkthroughs, Quests, Guides

With the ease of Wrath of the Lich King raiding we're seeing guilds kill boss after boss at an alarming rate. And I'm not just talking about 5-man heroic bosses (those seem a bit hard, actually). I'm not even talking about 10-man bosses (easy cake). I'm talking about the big bad sorry excuse for a boss that is 25-man raiding.

Some guilds can roll their face over the keyboard and kill something.

Others just have their cat play with the mouse and keyboard for a couple hours.

Still others are hiring 25 monkeys to sit in a room together clapping their hands while throwing feces at the screen. The occasional flick of their tail hits the keyboard and presses any of the numerous iWin buttons currently in game that automatically kills a level 83 mob. While the monkeys are doing this and other disgusting acts, they're also writing Shakespearian dramas, fixing the economy, bailing out the auto industry and homeowners, and ending all wars through creating world peace.

This is what 25-man raiding has become. It's so easy a caveman monkey could do it!

Do boss kills even count for anything anymore? Not really, no.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Humor

Previously you could only have 40 debuffs up on a single mob. That might seem like a lot, but when you got in a raid with 25 other people all putting up their own set of debuffs and dots, etc... things tended to get a little full.

Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer, announced today that the debuff limit has been removed*. This is a subtle yet important change for many raiding guilds.

He notes that the default UI won't normally be able to show all the debuffs, but that's just a bug in the UI. The debuffs are still there and working. We don't have any verifiable information yet as to if custom mods can display an infinite number of debuffs.

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Filed under: Patches, News items, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

What classes do Blizzard employees play?

This is an often asked question by people on the forums. Sometimes it comes with a finger pointing at such and such a developer or community manager, accusing them of favoritism for a given class because it's the one they play the most.

Over the past few days we've seen two blue responses over this issue. Vaneras over on the European forums makes note to say that the GMs play the game just as "everybody else does." They encompass all classes and all play styles.

This is interesting in that it shows that Blizzard folks are involved in both casual and hard core raiding, and casual and hard core PvPing. I find this particularly interesting, since after a long day of work at WoW Insider sometimes the last thing I want to do is sit down and trudge through some raid content. But then again, sometimes I do.

Ghostcrawler also weighed in on the issue a few days earlier, making several interesting points.

Read more →

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Classes

Quick! Utaik needs your help! Gather eight of the Kaskala Supplies for him or the families of the Kalu'ak town Unu'pe will starve.

This daily quest is simple yet surprisingly annoying. It's one of those that can quickly get under your skin as more and more people do it. Want to run around pickup objects while ten other people on your server do it at the same time? Then this quest is for you!

Quest Giver: Utaik, Kaskala, Borean Tundra
Reputation: Kalu'ak
Reward: 500 rep & 4.86g at level 80
Minimum Level: 68
Required Chain: None!

Read on after the break for our walkthrough of the quest, complete with a few tricks you can do to get it done quickly and easily.

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Filed under: Quests, Factions, Guides, Making money

Nethaera announced today a hotfix that was applied over the holidays last week. There were issues in Lake Wintergrasp, the level 80 realm PvP zone, that prevented "objects" changing factions. This has now been fixed.

This included things like the teleport pads outside the base and several NPCs. Because of this bug people were often times only able to attempt the raid boss once. When the group wiped they went to the teleport pat to zone back in. It didn't work. However now it does, and people can be happy.

This comes from a post entitled "November / December Hotfixes," so we're assuming that there'll be more of them on their way. We'll keep you updated.

Filed under: Patches, News items, PvP

Bornakk posted an update on some of the free realm transfers that have been going on.

• All transfers to the Drak'Tharon realm have been shut down.
• They have extended the timeframe to transfer to the Oceanic realm Gundrak.
• Saurfang is now also eligible to transfer to Gundrak.
  

Transfers to Gundrak will now close down on Monday, December 8th at 12:00 p.m. PST. Be sure to transfer early (like, tonight) if you want to. They have been shutting down transfers early when their quotas are met.

The full list of eligible transfer realms after the break.

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Filed under: Realm News, News items