If you’ve been in the Arena during Season 5, you probably have noticed a particular change to the way gladiators fight. It can be summarized in a single word: “Damage.” In the bygone days of Season 4, drain teams and Mortal Strike debuffs were all but an entry requirement to high ranked play. Without a strategy to reduce or nullify your enemy’s healing, you were unlikely to produce sufficient burst DPS to actually kill anyone. A few double-DPS teams managed to thrive, but for the most part, a gladiator’s number one priority was shutting down the healer.

That dynamic is all but dead in Season 5. Players output such a high level of damage compared to other players’ health that healing is almost a non-factor in most matches. My friends, Ghostcrawler is aware of this dynamic, and is looking into it. (It turns out, Ghostcrawler mostly plays a healer in the Arena.) As stated by the crab himself, the Arena should not simply be about burst damage. (Nor, however, should it be solely about healing or solely about crowd control.)

Of course, Ghostcrawler does admit he has difficulty saying what the long terms plans are going to be. The design team hasn’t had enough whiteboard time to say anything with complete honesty. But he also hopes that as more Resilience gear enters the PvP system, the damage might scale down to be more reasonable. (To quote, “It’s mostly just math.”) Still, there’s hope that future teams will include more than just seeing which team can burst down the other first.

The future of healing in the Arena originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlizzPlanet has an excerpt up from Christie Golden’s upcoming Rise of the Lich King novel, featuring the back story of perhaps the lesser known (though no more less powerful) half of the Lich King, Ner’zhul the Shaman. Arthas has gotten banner credit for being the big bad in this expansion (because it’s his form that the Lich King is possessing), but Ner’zhul is in there as well, being all evil and angry. And this little snippet from the book portrays very well just what exactly is going on inside that big spiky helmet. As much as little Arthas is lost inside the Lich King’s power, there might still be a tiny bit of him that’s still fighting back. Is he worth saving or not?

I haven’t been really interested in the Warcraft books, but given how timely this is (we’re about to go knock that helmet off), and how interesting the story of Arthas has been, this is one that I plan to check out. It’s due out later this year.

Rise of the Lich King excerpt shows the other side of the Lich originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I love this idea a whole lot. A group of folks on Steamwheedle are holding an RP even (which they’ve done before), but it’s a different kind of event than the usual party or dueling tournament. Instead, it’s going to be completely peaceful — they’re having a Saturday morning crafting bazaar. Down in the empty vendor stalls of Undercity, they’ll have crafters of all types and levels, some with their mats, some where you’ll have to bring your own mats, making items aplenty for players. On January 24th, they’re holding a “Black Market”, where you’ll be able to get almost anything crafted that you want (providing you’ve got the goods). They’re also having a raffle, and they’ll be serving food and drink as well. What a great idea.

In fact, I’d love to see something like this come to the game at large — maybe Blizzard could provide a bonus to crafting when it’s done at a certain time in a certain place, like create a “crafter’s market” weekly on Saturday mornings (scheduled just like the Sunday fishing tournament), where crafters can make sure to be in a certain area ready to craft for any players who might need it, and can get bonus items or currency or mats for their trouble.

For such a social game, combat seems to always end up being the only way for players to connect regularly (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the only way to bond in game seems to be killing things). It would be nice to see more of this type of connection encouraged by Blizzard, with players using the skills they’ve earned to help each other and both sides getting a nice reward for it.

Steamwheedle Cartel holding a “Black Market” crafting event originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cabinetsanchez over on LJ has documented something that I saw in action yesterday while running a few instances — while it’s a ton of fun to run my Crashin’ Thrashin Racer around (I’m undefeated since I picked up the achievement the first day I got the toy, by the way), players have found a few extra ways to make the Racers work for them. Yesterday, I saw one of my group members using the Racer a few times to scout the instance ahead and see what pulled with what, and as CS says, it worked great: while the Racer will aggro enemies, they won’t tag on to the rest of the group — they’ll just reset after they destroy the little car.

CS also says that the Racer takes no falling damage, so you can send it exploring off of cliffs and platforms, and he says that though the car is considered level 60, its aggro range is pretty small (I can attest to this, as we were driving it pretty close to enemies yesterday without it registering on their radar). And he’s got an even more devious use (some might say this is an exploit): bosses aggroed by the racer will sometimes despawn after they conquer it for up to 30 seconds or so. That seems like a hotfix waiting to happen, but I haven’t personally tried it, so it may not be as useful as it sounds.

The downside of this is that the Racer was meant to be a fun item, and if it really does lead to behavior that Blizzard considers exploiting, they might have to think twice about including great items like this in the future. We’ll have to see what their ruling on this is, but hopefully no matter what happens (I’m guessing a quick hotfix, maybe even shrinking the range of the Racer’s controller), this won’t prevent Blizzard from giving us more fun toys later on.

Scouting around with the Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Orange County Business Journal has awarded none other than Blizzard’s own Mike Morhaime with the runner up for their Businessperson of the Year award (the main award went to some CEO of an investment company, much more boring than running a fantasy world full of orcs and elves). The Journal cite’s Blizzard’s huge successes in a rough financial year as reason for Morhaime’s honor.

The paper isn’t quite completely familiar with what Blizzard does (did you know Diablo III was “released” in June of last year? Don’t know why I haven’t seen it on store shelves yet!), but there are a few interesting tidbits in there for us, including the fact that WoW was so popular on its original release day that Blizzard had to bring employee copies out to their Fry’s to sell them to hungry fans. And Morhaime talks a bit about Blizzard being part of Activision, and reveals the biggest change we’ve heard of yet since the takeover: “The big difference here is we are one step closer to the public markets. It requires that we spend more time than we used to in educating analysts and investors about Blizzard, where we used to be able to not deal with that side of the business.”

So hopefully Blizzard’s higherups aren’t spending too much time trying to sell stock rather than making great games. He does reiterate, however, that Activision has continued to be hands off (especially as long as Blizzard is making so much money for them), so a lot of the things that fans have guessed are Activision influences are probably decisions that Blizzard themselves have already made. Still, success is success — pretty good for a guy who started out writing test software for Western Digital. Congrats to Morhaime on the award.

*Don’t call it that.

Mike Morhaime wins 2008 award from OC* Business Journal originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers’ Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Raids are in many ways like a sports team. Some players are your proven starters. Some are your backups who fill in for the starters. Some are still learning the game and trying to get the right equipment — they are your practice squad or your AAA team. With enough hard work and dedication, a player can improve his game and become a starter. It’s true in sports and it should be for your raid team as well. Otherwise, what’s the motivation to work hard?

The opposite can happen as well: a player who doesn’t perform consistently can be replaced with someone who’s playing at a higher level. But what would you do if you were told you’re being benched — permanently — just because you joined more recently than someone else? This week’s e-mail comes from a tank who went from a starter to a benchwarmer overnight, and it illustrates exactly what not to do as a guild leader.

Then WotLK hit.

Continue reading Officers’ Quarters: Riding the pine

Officers’ Quarters: Riding the pine originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At this rate, it looks like Irdeen may turn into one of machinima’s regulars. Today’s Moviewatch features not only him, but also another regular in the WoW community: L70ETC. Irdeen has created a music video for one of their most popular songs, “The Power of the Horde.”

For obvious reasons, Irdeen used the in-game models for the Blizzard rock band. The video features the metal group stomping out their tunes at the gate to Outland, with several mileu shots for chorus and chords. Irdeen also helpfully includes subtitles for those who might have trouble making out the lyrics. (I like metal as much, if not more, than the next guy, but even I have to admit you could be stumbled trying to make out what L70ETC is singing.)

At this point, I’d encourage Irdeen to keep developing original material. I think this video shows that he’s mastered a lot of tactics and tools to creating machinima, and Go Turbo Go displayed his ability to do some music himself. I’m eager to see him take his skills to another level.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch …

WoW Moviewatch: Irdeen’s The Power of the Horde originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quite a podcast last Saturday — Turpster came back and BigRedKitty joined us as well, so it was a rip-roaring time. We talked about our predictions for 2009, talked once again about which reps to work towards, where WoW might get more players from, answered lots and lots of emails from listeners, and we even made plans to give away an authenticator. More about your chance to win the authenticator, how to get a brand new song from Turpster, and how to get your voice on the podcast after the break below.

We do this every Saturday on Ustream at 3:30pm Eastern, and then post the results here every Monday morning, so you can listen to the show any way you’d like. It’s always a great time — as Turpster said this week, it’s just like reading WoW Insider, except we do the reading for you.

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.
[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.
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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:

Continue reading WoW Insider Show Episode 71: In da (guild) house

WoW Insider Show Episode 71: In da (guild) house originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, I know this column has been gone a while. Sorry about that. Or wait, actually - it wasn’t gone, it was just undercover! That’s it! You didn’t really think Encrypted Text was just talking about rogues this whole time, did you? Wake up, sheeple!

Wrath of the Lich King has been upon us for some time, and with it came zone after zone of prolific questing and fascinating scenery. I’d like to spend the next few weeks talking about some of my favorite quests and items that provide disguises or change your appearance in WotLK. Obviously, there will be spoilers in some of these posts for those of you that haven’t done all the quests in Northrend yet; I’ll put all such behind a cut, so don’t click on if you don’t want to know about the content.

Let’s start out with the Hyldnir of Storm Peaks.

Continue reading Illusionary Tactics: The Hyldnir

Illusionary Tactics: The Hyldnir originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looks like this particular instance run has gone down like a lead zeppelin, to quote an infamous phrase. (Joke’s on you, Entwistle — at least John Bonham died before he got old.)

According to Joline of <Deep Thought> on Stormreaver, a group member disconnected in the middle of an instance, and the whole gang was stuck waiting for him to make his way through the 600-person queue. They started passing around some of those paper zeppelins you can buy at the Dalaran toy shop to pass the time. There’s a little trick where if you run away from a zeppelin, it continues following you, but you also get it in your inventory to throw back. Zeppelin + Bug + Time + Empty Instance = This Picture. Hmm … these zeppelin stacks remind me of something from college. Ah, yes. The big ol’ pile of footballs. Such memories.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, double-mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Around Azeroth: We come from the land of the ice and snow originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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