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Level 70 Elite Tauren guards (not to be confused with L70ETC) have been stationed outside Zul'Aman on the test server. I agree with Elizabeth that the race choice makes no sense, but according to CM Nethaera, the guards (in some form) are there to stay.
This is, of course, in response to the overwhelming complaints from Alliance players that have to go to Horde territory in order to try out the new instance.
Nethaera also says that they will be implementing a Contested Area around Zul'Aman to further alleviate the unbridled ganking currently occuring there. She says that in the past, they could only flag entire zones as contested, but now they have the ability to change the PvP status of just an area within a zone. This change will be implemented on the PTR first before coming to live servers.
They are also going to be surrounding other instances with contested areas, such as the Scarlet Monastery. Unfortunately for the Alliance players currently trying to farm the Headless Horseman, this change will come a bit late. But maybe it will be implemented in time for next year's event.
Players have been voicing concerns about changing the areas in lowbie zones to contested. How will it affect the level 10s trying to quest around these new contested areas?
Blizzard has announced that they will change your character's name to an available, allowable name for $10 and I say, "It's about time!". This is an administrative service that should have been available from the beginning, in my opinion. Regardless, it's available now (on selected servers) and here are the rules:
It's $10 per name change.
You can't change your name again for 90 days and your old name will be unavailable for 90 days as well.
It has to be available on your server. Captain Obvious says, "Duh!".
It will take a few hours while they approve your name change, since it must follow the Naming Policy.
While the name change process takes place, your character will be unavailable.
The name change is permanent unless you pay to change it again 90+ days later.
This function is being rolled out in phases, a few servers at a time.
Characters on your ignore list who have had their names changed will remain there with the new name. (Update:edited for clarity)
Blizzard has a FAQ page setup on their Support Site if you have more questions. If this is something that interests you, go to the Account Management page and select Paid Character Transfer (you will have to login).
I actually like my character names, but I reserve the right to change my mind at any time and I'm glad I now have the option.
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
I love L.A. I really do. But there are times, like these, when I'm glad I'm a gamer and have a wide variety of ways to escape.
I don't know if you non-Angelenos know what I'm talking about. Our local news gets all silly when a few drops of water are planning to fall from the sky, so it's hard to gauge reality from hype. On the other hand, celebrities have had to flee their homes! So there's a good chance that our local wildfires caused by high winds and a long drought have caught more than just local attention.
I'm fine and my family's fine, but there are inconveniences and the air isn't so healthy and I just want to escape into my favorite game and relax. But I'm afraid that WoW is not going to provide the immersive experience I need right now. And I don't think it's Blizzard's fault, though there are some aspects of Azeroth that contribute to the problem.
Eyonix has been spending a lot of time hanging out in the Shaman Discussion Forums lately. I got introduced to the concept of Totem Twisting when he declared that it was not an exploit, but that Blizzard plans to "address" it at some point.
So I asked my in-house Shaman expert about Totem Twisting (there is also a good explanation in the forums). For those of you who don't know (like I didn't), Totem Twisting is when you drop 2 totems of the same element in such a way that you have both of them active concurrently. Usually, the Shaman will drop Windfury to get the 10 second buff and then immediately drop Grace of Air until just before the Windfury buff is up. With creative use of hotkeys and a good rhythm, you can keep both totems active simultaneously. This technique is very mana intensive and severely limits the other things you can do at the same time.
This post is part of Blog Action Day, in coordination with Weblogs, Inc's Green Daily, a blog about living green and well at the same time. Visit Green Daily every day to learn how to live like a Tauren-- with minimum impact on our Earth's fragile environment.
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the RL environment, but there are some lessons that we Earthlings can learn from some of the Azerothians -- namely the Taurens.
Taurens live in harmony with the environment. I would also include Night Elves in this discussion, but they tend to have a greater impact on Azeroth -- everything seems to become all flowery and full of trees. While this may be a pleasing effect, who is to say that it is better than the way they originally found the land?
You get the idea when looking at the Tauren lands, that if they were to up and leave Mulgore, the evidence of their civilization would be gone in a matter of years. They certainly would have left a minimum of damage behind -- perhaps some slight deforestation.
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
We all know that Real Life takes priority over WoW and if you don't, you need to hang out with Captain Obvious more often. Even if you have all of your obligations taken care of before sitting down to play, however, sometimes a Spontaneous Real Life Interruption (SRLI) can occur and you find it hard to break away from WoW to resolve it. Maybe you're in a raid or getting revenge on that ganker or fighting the quest boss -- the SRLI doesn't get the attention it deserves. Subsequently, the most responsible, attentive people can have responsiveness issues when faced with an ill-timed SRLI.
Of course, not all SRLIs require immediate attention, but you are not always able to ascertain that without taking at least some attention away from your WoW activities.
So, remember this basic rule when faced with an SRLI: It's OK to AFK.
Why is it OK? Because death in WoWhas a very minor penalty. It really is only a penalty of convenience and the ramifications for ignoring SRLIs are usually far, far worse. It's OK to AFK because WoW death is EZ mode MMO death.
Tom Chilton aka Kalgan has been promisingbuffs for Ret Pallies since BlizzCon. He specifically has stated that there would be changes made so that Retribution would be more than just a leveling spec, such as sustained DPS instead of just burst and less reliance on Spell Damage as a stat.
Retribution Pallies are definitely getting some love in patch 2.3, but is it enough and is it balanced? Many Paladins on the forums say no to both. They want Spell Damage to go away as a need for Pallies and a way to manage threat and they want these changes in 2.3.
Wolfblitzer calls Kalgan out as a liar in his very popular protest post, quoting from our BlizzCon coverage directly (though without credit). He also claims that Kalgan had promised to talk about threat reduction for Ret Pallies soon, but that the post was deleted.
Blue poster Drysc stated (accurately) that there was no date or patch number associated with all of the changes discussed previously. His full response to the protest is after the jump.
At BlizzCon, every time someone mentioned Warlocks during the panels, the crowd would boo. On the forums, the cries of "Nerf Warlocks!" were loud and frequent. Now, in patch 2.3, some Warlocks are saying that Blizzard has listened and nerfed them. Danakha posted a breakdown on the forums of the Warlock changes and his analysis of them, stating that Blizzard listened to all the complaints and acted on them. His main problem with 2.3 is this change:
Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison).
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new Macro Guide. This guide includes a basic description of what Macros are as well as how to create them.
They have also included some really good Macro references, such as the numbers that correspond to bag slots as well as the numeric values of inventory slots.
Though it is mostly a wall of text, they do list some helpful examples to illustrate the basic concepts. Here is their example for chaining together instant spells:
Do all of those "/stopcasting lines" seem a bit redundant considering they separate spells and items that are cast instantly? Well, Blizzard thinks so too and they will be unnecessary as of Patch 2.3. Not that /stopcasting will be defunct at that point -- it is still good to put at the beginning of a macro, so that you can cast a spell without getting an error if you are already casting another one.
While this guide won't replace more in-depth guides until they publish Part 2 with details on higher-level macro functions, it is still nice to have an official macro guide to turn to for basic macro creation.
Yozozo claims on the forums that he is able to complete 17 keg runs for the Alliance version of the There and Back again quest for Brewfest and is backed up by others who say they complete an average 15 keg runs per attempt. On the Horde side, 11 to 13 seems to be the average for the high achievers.
I've run the quest on both factions, and it does seem easier on the Alliance side even though the Horde version has more apple barrels. Is it shorter? Is there a better time bonus? Are the goblins wearing Dwarf masks a handicap? Or is it just perception?
I definitely think the Barker quests are easier on the Alliance side. The Ironforge course is in a complete circle without any backtracking and you can jump down the mountain a bit to cut the circuit short at the end. You have to backtrack a little in Orgrimmar and there is no shortcut to the Horde quest-givers.
What is your opinion? Is there an Alliance bias for the Brewfest quests or are the Horde just worse at motivating Rams?
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or people with questionable ideas that you just don't want to expose your children to. I find it odd, therefore, that so many parents let their elementary school age children play WoW unsupervised. They must see it as an electronic babysitter like television or single player video games rather than what it really is: having your child be babysat by 9 million potential weirdos. These children attempt to get much needed guidance and attention from whatever stranger happens to be nearby. But players don't know how old unknown, needy players are -- they just see them as a nuisance and verbally abuse them accordingly.
More than just exposing children to negative influences, these parents are missing out on a great opportunity to teach their children some very important life lessons. Children go to school to get educated, but they are supposed to learn their values at home. I believe that playing WoW with your children can be a great way to instill them with some very basic yet important values. My daughter is not even preschool age yet, but when she is ready, I plan to play WoW with her -- probably after playing Toontown and maybe CoH first(there's no death, just defeat). I will play MMOs with her because I've seen the result of parents actively playing MMOs with their children. For example, there was Bigmo.
Blue poster Vaneck announced on the European Forums that Alterac Valley would be undergoing some major gameplay changes in Patch 2.3.
In order to emphasize strategy more in AV, they are introducing the concept of "reinforcement count". Both teams will begin with a starting number of reinforcements which can be reduced in various amounts according to what is lost. A team loses when its reinforcement count is reduced to zero.
The death of Drek'Thar or Vanndar will still end the game, as all reinforcements will automatically be eliminated. Losing towers and Galvangar or Belinda will cause significant amounts of reinforcements to be lost. And staying alive will now be very important as player deaths will reduce the reinforcement count by one.
To quote Vaneck:
Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.
The Barker quests for the Brewfest are fixed for almost everyone at this point. Unfortunately, some people are still unable to get credit when riding near flags and Blizzard is looking into it. Blizzard CM Drysc and Event Developer Kisirani have been giving updates for fixing the Bugfest.
If you are still having trouble with a Barker quest, here is some info for making sure it's not you:
You can only do one Barker quest a day. Double check your Daily Quest total in your Quest Log to make sure you haven't already completed it.
There are two competitors vying for your barking prowess, but once you work for one brewer, the other won't offer you the quest until the next day.
If you failed it, you can abandon the quest and try again.
You have to be on your Rental Ram when going past the flags or else you will not get credit. Once you get all four flags, however, you can use your mount to race back to the brewer.
One of the many exciting changes announced at BlizzCon was that free Spell Damage would be added to healing gear. The purpose of the change is to make it easier for healers to enjoy the solo PvE content in the uber gear they have picked up in groups and raids. Too many healers change to lesser geared alts after raids are over, for example, instead of being able to quest in their +Healing epics.
It was confirmed last week that the change will occur in Patch 2.3 and the extra Spell Damage will equal 1/3 of the +Healing stat on gear. So, for example, an item with +75 Healing will have +25 Spell Damage added to it without reducing any other stats.
Some confusion has occurred, however, about just how generous Blizzard was going to be with the free Spell Damage. Forum poster Bridge requested a link to prove that "this includes enchants, gems and set bonuses".
Level 70 Elite Tauren guards (not to be confused with L70ETC) have been stationed outside Zul'Aman on the test server. I agree with Elizabeth that the race choice makes no sense, but according to CM Nethaera, the guards (in some form) are there to stay. 
We all know that Real Life takes priority over 
Tom Chilton aka Kalgan has been 
At 
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new 
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or 
One of the many exciting 
