The Internet Archive discovers and captures web pages through many different web crawls.
At any given time several distinct crawls are running, some for months, and some every day or longer.
View the web archive through the Wayback Machine.
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).
Take this with a gigantic shaker full of salt, but a sketchy guild site host named Ejeet Networks claims to have received screenshots of the downloader for the Wrath of the Lich King alpha (watch out for the automatic music player on their site, too). Again, this means almost nothing-- even if the downloader is really out there in the wild, it hardly means the game is anywhere near done, or that anyone but Blizzard employees are still playing it at this point. But Ejeet says the DNS server for the WotLK beta is online and answering DNS resolution, and they claim that a "Swedish contact" sent them screenshots of the alpha downloader.
Personally, I call shenanigans-- their first screenshot says version .1, and then the Properties screen they have says version 2.0.3.70, so which is it? They also claim that since the Properties screen says "{c} 2004-2008 Blizzard Entertainment," that's proof that we'll see Wrath in 2008, but that's hardly true as well. I have no doubt that we'll see the beta in 2008, but I'd bet money we won't see the expansion itself until January 2009. I'd love to be wrong, but them's the breaks.
But I leave it up to you-- as much as I disagree, these could be proof that Blizzard has an expansion alpha up and running. Anyone else spot any other weirdness that could rule these out as fakes?
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".
Last week, Blizzard released a new machinima movie called Lament of the Highbourne, featuring Sylvana's performance of the old Quel'dorei song and a retelling of what went down between her and Arthas Menethil, now known as the Lich King. WoW Insider, being the extreme lore geeks that we are, has put together a video analysis of the movie that Blizzard released, featuring an almost frame-by-frame commentary about Sylvanas' story. You can see the finished product above-- prepare to be lore-geeked out.
Two things that didn't make it into the commentary above in time: reader Lift sent us a bit of insight about Arthas riding an Undead mount-- does that mean, he asks, that Death Knights will get their own Warlock/Paladin-esque mount? And one more thing we noticed-- the spectre behind Arthas as he resurrects Sylvanas may well be the Lich King himself. By all means: discuss.
When Byrthor asks whether folks attuned for the old Naxx will be attuned for it when it returns in Wrath, Drysc answers with what will sound like music to most raiders' ears: there is no attunement planned for the new Naxx. Blizzard learned their lesson in Burning Crusade about wacky attunements, and so while they're likely not gone from the game completely, there will probably be fewer barriers to raiding, especially early on in progression.
There is something else about this thread that irks me a bit, however. In the past day, the CMs have been hit with tonsofquestions about Wrath of the Lich King, and in almost all cases, the answer has been the same: maybe. Why don't they know what's going on? Because all indications are, guys, that Wrath hasn't even been designed yet. Blizzard hasn't determined if Atiesh will show up, or if flying mounts will work, or if we'll each get our own Arthas windup doll, because the expansion is still way into the planning stages. It's fine to be ready for 2.2, or excited about 2.3, or interested in what we might see in the Sunwell. But if you're excited to find out what's in the next expansion, have a seat and take a deep breath, because it's going to be a long, long time before the CMs can even know anything worth not telling us. Ya dig?
That said, I can't fault players for being excited about upcoming content, no matter how far off it is. But it does make me wonder about Blizzard's focus. They could just as easily had us playing Zul'Aman or even the Sunwell at BlizzCon-- both of those will show up long before Northrend will. With Wrath so far away, why did they push it so hard at BlizzCon? Why didn't they just announce it, and leave the rest of the hype to something we'll actually see before the Beijing Olympics?
Blizzard has two new movies to download from their movie page on worldofwarcraft.com. One is a highlight video from BlizzCon 2007 which includes clips from the costume and dance competitions.
The other is a gameplay trailer of Lament of the Highborne. For those of you not familiar with the quest, you find a necklace when questing in Ghostlands and are told to turn it in to Lady Sylvanas in the Undercity. When you do, after angrily sending you on your way, she sings the Lament of the Highborne, accompanied by some Highborne ghosts. This is one of my favorite quests in WoW and the song is hauntingly beautiful.
The video does more than just show the gameplay footage of Lady Sylvanas singing her lament. It shows the actual story and loss of the necklace while the song is sung. It does not explain why Sylvanas is displayed as an undead Night Elf normally but is a Blood Elf in the video, but I can get over that. Maybe Blood Elf Banshees look like Night Elves for some reason.
The BlizzCon video is good if you want to see the fun of the event, but for me the real treat is the Lament of the Highborne video.
Well this is exciting. MMO Champion points us to WoW Wiki, where some enterprising person has assembled a map of Utgarde Keep, the first instance in Wrath of the Lich King. The map is apparently based on one published in Games for Windows, but as it appears on WoW Wiki, it's a little empty. Let's see if we can't clear some things up-- I've added letters to the map above, and below, I've described what is probably there, based on my own impressions and what we've heard elsewhere.
A. This is the main entrance, and as I said before, it consists of Vrykul metalworkers and forgemasters. The big firey graphic is the Forge, which has three "walls" that only open up after the mobs are defeated there. After you clear all three walls, you head around to the left, and find...
B. Dragonhandlers and "Trained Proto-drakes," which appeared to be Blue Dragons. Draw your own conclusions there. This area is a stable type of place, which explains the stalls.
One of the choruses we heard at BlizzCon was that Blizzard knows about the AFKers in Alterac, and justice will be handed out. The plan, we've been told, is that it will be handed out in the form of a no-honor debuff, that breaks on combat. In other words, if enough people report you for sitting in the Peace Cave, you don't gain any honor until you get moving and start fighting.
The problem, however, is that we don't know exactly how many people it takes to hand out that debuff. Thunderbein tells the story of an AV where only 20 out of 40 players were actually playing, and so if the number of players that have to "vote" for the debuff is anywhere over 20, no one's getting the debuff in that BG. Hortus replies and says that it's not as high as 30, but how high is it? Can you give someone the with two people? With ten?
And then there's the question of whether we should know at all. What if we learned it was 10 people (in the interest of clarity, I should stress that we don't actually know what it is yet), and a group of 31 AFKers joined up to the BG? Then, nothing is solved at all-- those guys could sit in the Peace Cave all they wanted and gain honor the whole time.
The AFK debuff sounded like the best solution at BlizzCon, but every system can be gamed. Blizzard is going to have to be really careful about setting up the numbers on how the reporting works. And because we'll likely find out whether they tell us or not what the number is, they'll have to watch out for other ways AFK players can get around the punishment.
Blizzplanet, long home to detailed loregasms for those of us who can't keep it all straight (I have to use Know Your Lore constantly to keep track of who we're killing and why, try to keep it all straight as I may) as well as a good general resource for all of Blizzard's games, has dropped a nice roundup of the Sunwell lore in time for us to begin thinking about the Sunwell Plateau, the last big content release before Wrath of the Lich King drops. Packed with spoilers for the Sunwell Trilogy manga (which I have never read) it does a pretty decent job of filling in spaces I had missed... for example, I had no idea who this Dar'khan fellow was or how he'd betrayed the High Elves to the Scourge, and that's even after I'd killed him a couple of times. I need to start reading the quest text more and just clicking through to my rewards less.
Thanks to Chadwick for the tip and to Blizzplanet for a very comprehensive look at the Sunwell's appearances in the game to date. They even manage to tie in the heroes of the Sunwell Trilogy to what's happening to Malygos in Wrath of the Lich King. I had no idea I was helping to eradicate all spellcasters on Azeroth when I did that quest. Live and learn, I guess, unless Malygos kills us all, in which case... oops.
Wandering Goblin's got Murky envy-- Elvyra was lucky enough to go to BlizzCon 2005 and get the special Murky pet while there, but she redeemed it on the EU servers, and now plays on the US servers, so no Murky pet for her. Despite pleading with ingame GMs and even the higher-ups, she hasn't been able to get the Murky back. And while she did go to BlizzCon 2007 and get a Murloc suit, it's no comparison-- not only does it break on combat, but it just doesn't fit. That doesn't mean it's not fun, though-- if you're waiting to hear about yours from the podcast on Saturday, wait just a little longer-- we'll be contacting the winner tomorrow.
Still, Elvyra's problem isn't the biggest one with the Murky suit-- most people have the problem of not getting one at all. Yes, it's special that Blizzard gave it out only at that convention, but people who now want the pet can't currently ever get it again. Blizzard did give it out once more-- they gave Lurky out to folks who had problems with the CE of Burning Crusade-- and so why can't they do that again? Even if we never see Murky given out, what about Gurky? Or Turky (a Thanksgiving item, obviously)? Or Jerky, who's a little meaner than the other Murlocs?
Doesn't matter much to me-- as I said before, I'm not a huge fan of Murky. But there are some good ways to let people in on the fun while still keeping the original pet exclusive.
One might have thought that BlizzCon was long over, but there's an excellent cache of videos available on YouTube which brings the experience to life again for me. A number of our WoW Insider bloggers were there at BlizzCon, of course, and they did an excellent job covering it -- I felt as though I got everything I needed by reading them. But now looking at the videos, I see how neat it must have been to be sitting there watching it for real. You can definitely get a feeling of how the developers think when it comes to designing our favorite game.
The links to the youtube videos are just beyond the jump, copied directly from the compilation forum post by Monsoon (who deserves a lot of thanks for sharing them with us!). Take a peek for an even deeper appreciation for the game and for what went on at BlizzCon.
Apparently, this was mentioned at BlizzCon, but even reading all the marvelous coverage of BlizzCon here at WoW Insider, I managed to miss it. Drysc tells us that "as arena sets fall off they would make their way to the honor system. So when a season 3 set is released, season 1 would fall off the arena vendors and onto the honor vendors, but this may not include weapons."
So! Have you been hoarding up your honor points for that one great day when you'd be able to buy something epic with them? Are you prepared for hours and hours of hanging out in battlegrounds in order to get your desired set without having to do well in the arenas? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, you may be in luck. No official word on when Season three will come along however.
On the Sunwell, it seems the Burning Legion is using the Mana Forges in Netherstorm to power the Sunwell and summon Kil'Jaeden. The instance will have 6-8 bosses, and Kil'Jaeden will not be fully summoned when you fight him (which is supposed to explain how 25 level 70s can drop him).
Dalaran will have one or two instanced dungeons in it (!), and will not have Auction Houses. It will have portals, including maybe one to Shattrath.
There's some good Death Knight info, including a new AoE spell called Death and Decay. Blood runes will be damage oriented, Unholy runes will be utility and DoTs, and Frost runes will be CC-ish abilities.
Finally, Inscription will give players the ability to sell scrolls (is it just me, or did the developers clearly say at BlizzCon that inscribers wouldn't sell scrolls?), and they will only be able to update "core spells"-- Priest's Mind Control no, Hunter Freeze Traps yes. Get ready for a round of QQing about what "core spells" are.
Don't get too excited-- the expansion is still a long way away (and Zul'Aman is coming much sooner than Arthas will). But it is good news, especially the idea of dungeons inside Dalaran. Creatively implemented dungeons seeped in lore are always a good thing.
Update: Changed Mind Control back to Mind Vision. And apparently it was just me who thought devs said no scrolls at BlizzCon.
The dance news is neverending here at WoW Insider.
DanceNews #1: Via MMO-Champion, Blizzard revealed a little more about the new dances in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Players will be able to go to a dance studio to learn the new moves. I forsee some excellent Machinima in the future.
DanceNews #3: This isn't news, but a question. What new dance moves would you like to be incorporated in the game? The Jitterbug? The Mashed Potato? The Electric Slide?
For a refresher on the current player dances, there is a flash animation for each class (except Dranei and Blood Elf) on the World of Warcraft official site.
Tom Chilton aka Kalgan has been promising buffs 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. 
At 
One of the many exciting 
When Byrthor asks whether 
Blizzard has two new movies to download from 
One of the choruses we heard at BlizzCon was that Blizzard knows about the AFKers in Alterac, and justice will be handed out. The plan, we've been told, is that it will be handed out in the form of 
Wandering Goblin's
Apparently, this was mentioned at BlizzCon, but even reading all the marvelous coverage of BlizzCon here at WoW Insider, I managed to miss it. 
World of Raids has 
