What Does A Game Master Really Do?

Blizzard Customer Support game masters are an elite group of talented customer service professionals, hand selected for their wit, dedication, and love of Blizzard games. They wait in the shadows, poised to help when things in your Blizzard gaming experience go awry, and they’re available 24 hours a day.

Watch this video on the Blizzard Customer Support YouTube channel to learn more about these cowled cavaliers, what a typical day is like, and examples of how they can help when events conspire to consternate. You’ll also find tips on how to help yourself when things go south, like with the Item Restoration Tool:

Having trouble reading the subtitles? Click and drag them around.

Because they’re the heroes the players need. So you can contact them. Because they can take it. Game masters  are your silent guardians. Your watchful protectors. Your blue knights.

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Do Bots Show That MMORPGs are Pointless?

That’s the bold claim that Tobold made last week – the prevalence of bots and botting in MMORPGs shows that they’re actually nothing more than repetitive, simple tasks.

It’s already been a controversial claim, but he does have a really interesting point:

“Apart from players wanting to bot a game activity, which shows that the activity isn’t all that interesting, the second problem is bots being so perfectly able at performing those activities, showing how repetitive and simple the things we are supposed to do in a MMORPG are in the first place. Douglas Adams’ book “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” contains a paragraph about the electric monk, “a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself”. Bots play tedious games for you, thus saving you the bother of playing the games yourself. What does it say about our games if we need labour-saving devices to do those tedious, repetitive, and trivial game activities for us?”

Read more here: The Problem With Botting

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: General MMO Interest

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Game of Thrones – Making Season 3

We’re entering that most exciting time of year: the ramp up and entry into a new Game of Thrones season. HBO has begun doling out the material. First up, we have a piece on the Art Direction. This includes some cool glimpses of upcoming locations and characters.

Then even more interesting is one on adaption. They don’t say a lot, but as someone who works at storytelling in various mediums (games, novels, and screenplays) I find this fascinating. A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t your typical work, with a single narrative spine to adapt and compress. The same basic mantras of compression apply as they do in most novel -> film/TV adaptions, but the details are much more complex.

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Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic Revealed

The Queen of Blades is gone. On the hellish planet Char, Jim Raynor harnessed the power of an ancient Xel’Naga artifact in a desperate bid to stop the Zerg Swarm from overrunning the Koprulu sector, and the artifact restored Sarah Kerrigan to her human form. Without their queen to guide and unify them, the Swarm has fractured into several broods scattered throughout the Koprulu sector. One of the greatest threats to the galaxy has been neutralized... or so it seems.

On March 12, 2013, the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will answer many questions for players around the world, but many more questions remain.

Sarah Kerrigan is on the loose. Even without the terrible powers of the Queen of Blades or the might of the Swarm at her command, the former Ghost remains a foe not to be taken lightly. But if the artifact really did set her free, then why is Kerrigan seeking out Zerg broods scattered throughout the Koprulu sector? Is she still pursuing her quest for vengeance, or has her transformation given Kerrigan a new purpose?

We are pleased to present the opening cinematic for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm in full HD glory. Whether you ultimately choose to play as Protoss, Terran, or Zerg, you simply must ask yourself one question:

Who is Sarah Kerrigan?

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm arrives March 12. Avoid the (Zerg) rush on launch day and pre-purchase the game digitally on Battle.net now. 

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The Strange, Empty SWTOR Battleground

Remember Ilium? When SWTOR launched last year, it was the focal point for complaints about the game – a badly-balanced, badly-designed PVP zone.

Now, a year later, Shintar revisited Ilium, and found it to be … well, odd:

“About ten minutes later, we were back on our mains, Commando and Vanguard. Since we were now on the side that didn’t own the area, we could actually capture all the objectives. It felt kind of anti-climatic though, as everything just consisted of two ten-second casts which then declared the objective captured… and nothing else happened. No rewards, no fireworks, no big changes. There were no more Imperials in the area either. The only good thing about it was that we received a buff that would grant us bonus valor from warzones for an hour.

We did queue up for a couple of games to make use of the buff, while staying on Ilum the rest of the time to see if anything interesting was going to happen between our matches. It didn’t. Eventually another guildie joined us, and it was rather amusing that he too was utterly confused by the place, considering that he’s been playing for a long time and PvP is his big passion.”

Read more here: The strangeness of Ilum a year later

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: Star Wars: The Old Republic

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Untimed – $1.99 this week!

To help kick off the launch, the E-Book versions of Untimed will be only $1.99 cents from Sunday, January 20 until Friday the 25th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

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No Item Upgrades In WoW Patch 5.2?

Of all the announcements about WoW Patch 5.2, the most startling was perhaps that the just-introduced Valor Point Upgrading would be stopping once again in the new patch.

What’s going on? And is it good? Bloggers have been commenting:

Green Armadillo argued that this was probably a permanent change, saying that it showed Blizzard had made a mistake overemphasising iLevel – he was subsequently proved wrong, but it’s still a very interesting argument – “It is natural for these customers react poorly when told that they have to do something they do not want to do in order to get the ilvl they think they need. “And The Godmother questions the overall upgrade path in 5.2, saying that the current spectre of 2 tiers of “upgrade” LFR is worrying – “You know what, Blizzard. I hate to say this, but you should have kept the Tabards and put a weekly reputation cap on them. At least them people could have chosen where they did their work. You live and learn.”Tagged as: LFR, upgrades, valor points

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: World of Warcraft

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Unbendable Untimed

I debated about publishing a hardcover edition of Untimed, as paper sales on The Darkening Dream leaned heavily to the paperback (presumably for cost reasons). In the end, I just had too, as they look so good.

This time around I did the entire mechanical (the print ready PDF) and layout myself, as I did with the paperback. Good professionals charge around $1000 per mechanical (so usually over $2000 for both paperback and hardcover). If you have a good eye and substantial Photoshop skills, it’s doable by yourself. I did every element on both paperback and hardcover exteriors except for the actual cover illustration (Cliff Nielsen did that, and that is way beyond my artistic abilities).

The hardcover mechanical would have only taken me about four hours, but I ran into a nasty bug with photoshop PDF output that cost me an extra eight. I hate that kind of thing, but it happens.

If you are interested in making a hardcover edition yourself through Lightning Source, you can read about how I did it here.

Here is what the mechanical looks like

In case you’re curious about the book behind the pretty cover:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

(even if it says “out of stock” you can still order it and it’ll ship in a couple of days)

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

The back cover. It has the usual cloth jacket and flaps inside.

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Story of Warcraft Wallpaper and Art Updates

New Story of Warcraft Wallpaper
We’ve just released a new wallpaper image featuring art from The Story of Warcraft, a historical record that will bring you up to speed with everything that’s happened in the Warcraft universe since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

Art Gallery update
We've updated our Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces. Each image is taken directly from the official World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

New World of Warcraft Comic
Last but not least, we've added a new community comic to our gallery submitted by wulicheng (?????).

The Blizzard Comic Contest Is Back!
The time has come for the epic return of the Blizzard Comic Contest! We’re looking for original comics focused on the Warcraft, Diablo, or StarCraft universes... and we want you to create them. Each month, we’ll review your submissions and select one winning comic to receive a prize. We’ll also choose several honorable mentions; winning entries and honorable mentions will be displayed on our comic pages for all the universe to enjoy. You can learn more details about the prizes, read the complete official rules, and submit your comics here.

Did you know?... Submitting Media. Many of the best updates found on our website each week were created by you! Fan Art, Screenshots, Wallpapers, and Comics all come from player submissions, and we want to thank you for your wonderful contributions.

Be sure to give a shout-out to your favorite pieces in the comments below.

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Developer Watercooler: Encounter Tuning by Watcher

In this blog, I’d like to shed some light on an aspect of our design that may unfortunately seem inscrutable or even arbitrary: how and when we make adjustments to our raid encounters once they’re on the live servers. The only changes we jump on immediately to fix are clearly irritating bugs that never benefit the player in any way (e.g., issues that can cause players to fail to receive loot from a boss, glitches that can cause an encounter to evade or reset prematurely, etc.). Thanks to our internal QA team and the feedback from players on our test realms, those are relatively few in number.

Other than these clear-cut cases, virtually every change has some negative cost to it, such that the benefits must clearly be evident in order to justify making them. If we fix a bug that allows for an unintended strategy on a fight, then the following week there will be raid groups that previously had a working strategy on an encounter and will now have to re-learn it. If we reduce the difficulty of an encounter, there will always be groups who were very close to a kill on the “pre-nerf” version whose victory feels cheapened as a result. And so forth.

Given this background, let’s look at some of the adjustments we’ve made (or not made, in some cases) to the 5.0 raid zones over the course of the past months, broken down into a few general categories.

Our players are ingenious and adept at coming up with clever solutions to the challenges posed by our raid encounters. While we have learned from past experience to an extent (Rule #14 of encounter design: If it’s possible to kite adds instead of killing them, someone will kite them instead of killing them), we are still unable to always anticipate the lengths to which our players will go to overcome a difficult encounter. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and often one of the hallmarks of a great encounter is that it is open to multiple approaches, depending on the strengths and weaknesses of an individual raid group. I can think of three distinct approaches that we saw to handle the Molten Elementals summoned by Heroic Ragnaros, for example, and I’m sure there are more out there.

For example, a common tactic on the Heroic mode of Amber-Shaper Un’sok in the Heart of Fear is to have a dedicated transformed player who maintains a Destabilize stack on Un’sok throughout the entire second phase of the fight, when he is otherwise nearly invulnerable and the raid’s attention is focused on the Amber Monstrosity. This is only possible due to a bug. Un’sok was intended to be immune to Amber Strike during phase 2 of the fight, and he was in fact immune to it during that phase for much of the beta testing of the boss. However, fixing a separate bug late in development (ensuring that Amber Strike could always interrupt the otherwise-uninterruptible Monstrosity) caused Amber Strike to also bypass Un’sok’s shield in phase 2. Oops.

This would have been a simple bug to fix, but we chose to not do so. This was a clever tactic, and while it made phase 3 of the encounter relatively simple, it did so at the expense of adding length, challenge, and complexity to the first two phases of the fight. Kudos to the players who first came up with it.

As a general matter, unintended tactics are only a problem when they either trivialize an encounter, or when they simultaneously are the “right” (i.e., easier) way to do the fight and make it less fun in the process.

Gara’jal the Spiritbinder
On the first night of Heroic progression through Mogu’shan Vaults, Heroic Gara’jal proved to be an incredibly tough test for the damage-dealing capability of the best raid guilds in the world. A number of groups were a few percent shy of a kill, but it appeared quite possible that it would simply require another week worth of gear upgrades to get there. We would have been fine with that, but then one raid group noticed that one of the trolls before Gara’jal cast a massive haste buff on itself that was Spellstealable. The raid kept a couple of those enemies crowd controlled throughout the encounter, periodically breaking them out to let them cast their buffs for the mages to Spellsteal. This gave them the extra bit of damage that they needed, and Gara’jal fell.

Other guilds got wind of this tactic, and were attempting to utilize it as well. We definitely didn’t want the fight to require the awkward use of Spellsteal and bringing other mobs into the encounter, mandating the use of multiple mages in order to meet the DPS check for initial kills. But we also didn’t want an unfair playing field in the Heroic progression race, with one guild able to continue progressing in the instance while others were stuck behind a slightly-out-of-reach DPS check and unable to take advantage of the trick that had been used to secure the first kill. As such, we made a hotfix that prevented that buff from being Spellstolen, but also reduced Gara’jal’s health by 5% to offset for the extra damage that the mages with the buff would have done.

Exploits vs. “Creative Use of Game Mechanics” – A Brief Aside

I’d like to take a moment to note that what this guild did was not an “exploit” in the sense of being cheating, bad, wrong, or against the rules of the game. Players used Spellsteal to steal a beneficial effect from a mob, which is what the spell is supposed to do, and the beneficial effect increased the power of the mage, which is what it was supposed to do. This was the essence of “creative use of game mechanics.” (Note that this is not to say that it isn’t possible to violate the Code of Conduct by using Spellsteal in general – if you find a spell that you can steal that causes you to damage nearby allies, and you take it back to town to grief newbies, that’s a little different. . . .)

By contrast, a different group found a bug with Gara’jal where he could be dragged on top of the gate to his room such that players standing outside the gate could damage him without being susceptible to his attacks, and used this “unintended tactic” to defeat him. We fixed that bug, but also removed the loot and achievements earned from the players involved, and issued account suspensions. In general, it is never permissible to cause parts of a boss encounter to evade in order to gain an advantage, or to use line of sight or collision to get a boss stuck where you can attack it but its abilities no longer function.

Will of the Emperor
One more example, also from Heroic progression—most of the “unintended tactics” tend to be discovered and applied by cutting-edge progression guilds, since they’re the first ones to see the encounters, and are often undergeared and struggling to find every possible advantage, which usually means thinking outside the box. On Heroic Will of the Emperor, the Emperor’s Rage constructs that spawn present a real challenge. Their health is significantly increased, but each one of them also produces a deadly Titan Spark upon being destroyed, which explodes on contact to deal massive damage. The amount of damage and attention required to keep up with both the Rages and the Sparks they produce is one of the core demands the Heroic mode makes upon a raid group. It was so demanding, in fact, that most of the early groups that reached this encounter were unable to handle the overall DPS requirement.

Looking for solutions to this problem, clever players noticed that the mage spell Ring of Frost froze enemies for 10 seconds, had a 30-second cooldown, and had no target cap. Cue three mages cycling Rings of Frost to keep every Rage frozen for the entire fight. They spawn in waves of four in 25-player mode, resulting in anywhere from 52 to 64 Rages frozen in one giant clump by the end of the fight, causing client and server performance issues in the process. On the upside (for the designers observing these attempts), when this mage rotation faltered, the resulting wipes were fairly comical, bearing more than a little resemblance to an endless stream of passengers emerging from a clown car.

This was an example of a tactic that made the fight both significantly easier and significantly less fun. With so many enemies entirely neutralized by a small portion of the raid, the gameplay for many of the remaining players was reduced to standing in the middle of the room nuking the boss(es) for ten minutes and hoping the mages didn’t screw up. Not ideal. We wanted to fix it. However, the issue here wasn’t specific to the Will encounter. We had always fully intended for all forms of crowd control to work on Rages, so changing that was not an option.

The problem was Ring of Frost – being able to incapacitate an unlimited number of targets with a single spellcast caused problems. This ended up being a case where the negative cost of hotfixing the issue outweighed the upside of improving the encounter. When hotfixing spells, we do not have the ability to update the tooltips and other data that resides on each individual client. Thus, if we had added a target cap to the spell via hotfix, a mage who attempted to use it on a large pull in a dungeon, or a large group of players in a battleground, would have thought the spell was broken when it suddenly didn’t work on many of the targets. Quite simply, confusing hundreds of thousands of players in all sorts of contexts, in order to fix a problem in a situation affecting a few hundred players, was not an acceptable trade-off. As such, we changed Ring of Frost (capping it at 10 targets) in patch 5.1, allowing for ample notice through patch notes and PTR cycles, as well as a properly updated in-game tooltip. By the time this change went live, access to superior gear from Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring allowed players to much more readily handle killing the Rages as we originally intended.

Other adjustments occur simply because a boss is proving to be more difficult than we’d intended, creating a roadblock. Note that we will essentially never make pure numerical (health/damage) adjustments to a raid encounter that make it more challenging once it’s gone live. If we goof on the tuning in the players’ favor, then so be it.

On average, the self-selected pool of guilds that go through the effort of copying characters to our test servers are far more skilled and organized than the typical Normal-mode raider (and the pick-up groups that form tend to be below the target skill threshold), so there is a bit of estimation that goes into tuning Normal mode encounters. Because a disproportionately difficult Normal mode encounter presents a brick wall that entirely blocks progress, we will act to reduce the difficulty of such encounters, often shortly after they first become accessible, to avoid giving players a frustrating experience. For example, when Heart of Fear was released, we observed that even some guilds that had fully cleared Heroic Mogu’shan Vaults were struggling to meet the berserk timer on Normal Garalon; we made several adjustments to the fight to bring its difficulty in line with the rest of the instance on that first day. By the time that most others saw the encounter, it was where we wanted it to be difficulty-wise.

Over the long-run course of a raid tier, we pay close attention to the community’s overall rate of progression. We don’t have target completion numbers for each tier or for a given number of bosses; we are far more concerned with the rate of change. Progression is fun. Running into a challenge can also be quite a bit of fun. Running into a challenge that seems insurmountable is not. So when we notice that the rate at which groups are progressing is beginning to stall, we tend to take action. In Dragon Soul (and in Icecrown Citadel before that), we used a zonewide aura to reduce the difficulty of encounters over time. Some community members’ “hand on the dial” jokes notwithstanding, those processes were not automated, and reflected an assessment of the latest progression numbers from the live servers. We have the framework for such a system in place for the current raid tier, but we have not yet felt that its activation was necessary.

Our goal is not to make sure that the group that currently has defeated 4 of 6 Mogu’Shan Vaults bosses finishes Sha of Fear before our next patch; we do want to ensure, however, that they feel reasonably able to continue progressing at the rate they have been, with the assistance of gear upgrades gained along the way. As such, we recently reduced the difficulty of a few elements of the Normal difficulty Elegon encounter in a hotfix. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Elegon was “too hard” in some absolute sense – his difficulty presented a welcome challenge to the first wave of raiders who tackled the encounter this past fall. But the folks who defeated Elegon back then have moved on to Heart of Fear, Terrace, and/or Heroic raids in the meantime. A nerf to Elegon doesn’t affect them one way or another, but allows for raid groups still making those attempts to continue making progress today.

And then there’s LFR. Ultimately, LFR raids are designed to be completed by groups of players that qualify to queue for them. This does not mean that it should be impossible to fail, but unlike our Normal and Heroic raids, which are designed as progressions of increasing difficulty, LFR is designed to have a flat level of difficulty within each wing. Whereas a raiding guild will routinely give up and return another night or another week when they run into a challenge they can’t quite overcome, an LFR group that runs into a difficulty spike continues to grind away as new people cycle in to replace those who depart. Most players who ran LFR last fall will recall the ubiquitous partially-complete instances with a dense carpet of skeletons to greet arriving players—not a particularly fun experience. As such, we act quickly to adjust the difficulty of encounters in LFR when needed.

Ultimately, there is no hard-and-fast rule or formula that we follow to determine how and whether to make adjustments to encounters once they are in players’ hands, but hopefully this blog has provided some insight into the sorts of factors we consider, and our thought process with regard to a handful of specific changes during this last tier.

Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas is Lead Encounter Designer, and really wishes you would stop making him ban you.

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PvP Gear in 5.2 and Beyond

Change is coming to PvP gear in the relatively near future, and we wanted to provide a not-so-brief update on the improvements we’re planning, while pulling the curtain aside a bit so you can see the thought processes that motivated the coming changes. We also thought this would also be a great time to get the World of Warcraft PvP community involved in the discussion.

The Challenges
There are a few main issues that we’re working to address within the next couple of patches:

Early Advantage
Currently, it’s very common for players that have a head start at the start of the season to earn the best gear quickly and gain a dominating position on the ladder with a very high Match Making Rating (MMR). It’s then pretty common for those players to only participate on the ladder in a minimal way before reaping their rewards at the very end of the season. That’s not particularly good for competition, and we don’t think that it’s a very fun way for a competitive ladder to work. We would like to see the ladder remain active, and for high ranking players to earn their positions throughout the season, instead of just blitzing early and camping a spot above a certain threshold.

Mid-season Start
Players getting into PvP mid-season face a very significant challenge to gear up and become competitive because players that started earlier in the season are so far ahead in terms of gear. We want to make it more reasonable for a player to join in on organized PvP mid-season, while still rewarding the commitment of players that have remained invested in PvP throughout the season.

Rating Requirements
The current rating requirements on PvP gear create an artificially sharp division between players over 2200 rating and those below that rating threshold, which is unduly difficult to cross. We’d prefer that teams progress up the ladder on a curve against gradually more difficult opponents, instead of running into a wall at a certain rating.

Gear Advantage
Over time, the gap in power between Honor and Conquest PvP items has widened. This happened, in part, because it’s necessary for us to preserve the balance in power between PvP and PvE gear so that one doesn’t become the most obvious path to victory for the other. Right now, there are four tiers of PvE items, but only two tiers of PvP items. To keep Honor items from being the best choice for entry into PvE, they needed to have a lower item level than equivalent Raid Finder items. At the same time, Conquest gear still needs to be better for PvP than Heroic raid items, which puts it way over on the opposite end of the power scale from its Honor counterpart. While there are items that bridge the gap between Raid Finder and Heroic Raid loot, there really haven’t been any PvP items to bridge the gap between Honor and Conquest gear. We plan to solve that problem by introducing new tiers of PvP items, changing which currencies it takes to buy items and when, and by making PvP weapons more readily available in general.

Flexibility
While the item upgrade system has the benefit of allowing players that have “finished” their PvP set to continue to progress their character’s power, because there’s built-in pressure to continue upgrading their main set, it also means that players don’t always feel comfortable spending those points on alternate sets of gear for different specs (though it’s worth mentioning that the upgrade system will be disabled for patch 5.2). We’d like to make it easier for players in this position to experiment with alternate specs and stats.

Moving Forward
Meeting these challenges will mean that some changes are coming to MMR, PvP gear, and how gear is earned and paid for:

Team Rating Inflation
As we’ve mentioned previously, we want to see the ladder rankings decided toward the end of a season, and not a foregone conclusion dictated by what happens at the start. As discussed in the PvP in Mists of Pandaria Dev Watercooler, as of patch 5.2 Team Rating will gradually increase as players participate in PvP over the course of the season. We expect the new system to help ensure that the ladder remains active at all ratings and that the competition stays fierce from start to finish.

Gear Changes
To accomplish the goals of making PvP more accessible and less punishing, gearing more consistent and flexible, and flattening the power curve out over the course of a season, there are some significant changes in the works:

2200 rating requirements removed from all PvP gear. (5.2)Gear will be available in four tiers: Dreadful Gladiator’s gear will be crafted. (5.2)Malevolent Gladiator’s gear, including weapons, will be purchased with Honor Points. (5.2)New tier of PvP items: Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear will be purchased with Conquest Points. (5.2)Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear can be purchased for Honor after 27000 Conquest Points are earned for the season. (5.3)Elite Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear can only be purchased with Conquest Points after 27,000 Conquest Points have been earned for the season. (5.2)

The 2200 rating requirements on gear will be removed in patch 5.2, and when that happens, the only barrier to acquiring top of the line Elite gear will be the 27,000 Conquest Point seasonal currency requirement. While highly rated players will still earn gear more quickly, there won’t be an invisible wall to progression at 2200 rating.

As of patch 5.3, patches that don’t include the start of a new season will offer players the opportunity to purchase Conquest Point weapons without first meeting the seasonal currency requirement for them. We’re relaxing these restrictions because, by the mid-point of the season, the restriction has served its purpose and is no longer necessary. It’s worth noting here that the 27,000 Conquest Points earned requirement must always be met to buy Elite armor and weapons in every season.

In terms of relative power, we’re tuning the item levels, PvP Power, and Resilience on the new set of PvP items so that the difference between Malevolent and Elite Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear is similar to the relationship between this season’s Dreadful and Malevolent Gladiator’s gear. This helps accomplish the goal of smoothing out the power curve by adding a tier in the middle of the PvP gear spectrum. Also, to add choices and flexibility, once the seasonal currency requirement is met, players will have the option to purchase Tyrannical pieces for Honor, which should allow players to more easily experiment with alternate stat loadouts and specs.

Mid-Season Catch Up
Players who are starting their journey into PvP mid-season start significantly behind the gearing curve. While we want to avoid invalidating the effort of players that have competed for the whole season, we agree with the feedback we’ve received that the starting gap is too large, so a new Conquest Point catch-up cap will be implemented using the following formula:

(Current week of the season) * 1000 – (Conquest earned thus far this season)

Here are some examples of how this will work:

Player A is starting PvP for the first time in week 10 of the season, and hasn’t earned any Conquest Points at all that season. He will have an additional cap of 10,000 points added to his normal weekly rating based cap.

Player B has already earned 5,000 Conquest Points by week 10, so she would have an additional cap of 5,000 points added to her normal weekly rating based cap.

Player C has been playing all season long, and has earned more than 10,000 Conquest Points by week 10. He only has the normal weekly cap to work with (but should already be on their way to being well geared).

If a player “redeems” their catch up cap by earning all those points, then they’ll begin the next week at their normal weekly rating based cap. Should they miss more weeks, then the catch up cap accrues again.

So, to sum up the planned changes for Patch 5.2:

Rating requirements will be removed from PvP gear.Malevolent Gladiator’s gear, including weapons, will be available for purchase with Honor Points.A new tier of Conquest Point gear will be added that becomes available once 27000 Conquest Points have been earned for the season.Team Rating will gradually increase during the season for teams and players that continue to compete in PvP. This system is explained in the Mists of Pandaria PvP Dev Watercooler.

And here are the specific changes that are planned to hit in Patch 5.3:

In patches that don’t include a new season (including patch 5.3), the seasonal currency requirement of 27,000 Conquest Points earned will be lifted from weapons. The seasonal currency requirement must always be met to purchase Elite items, though.Once the seasonal currency requirement is met, players will be able to purchase Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear with Honor Points.The Conquest Point catch up cap will be introduced.

Conclusions
Overall, we expect that these changes will create a more active and competitive PvP environment, narrow the gear gap between the highest rated players and those still working their way up the ladder, and open the door for more experimentation in terms of class or spec.

We look forward to hearing your opinions and feedback on these upcoming changes!

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Does Blizzard Even WANT You To Raid?

Wrath of The Lich King was an astonishing expansion for WoW in many ways, but one of them was the way it opened up raiding. For the first time ever, the ultimate endgame was accessible to all players – and I know a lot of people, including me, got their first real start in raiding then.

But has MoP gone back to the old model of raiding only being for the elite? Saxsy thinks so, and she makes a persuasive case – although I’m sure there will be counter-arguments – in her latest post:

“The upshot? If you wanted to raid, in practice you have to do dailies. Raiding without dailies meant somehow, through purchased items and a lot of heroics, scraping together a 460 ilvl set to get into LFR. And then in LFR, gearing would be slower than other people because you wouldn’t have those extra charms to get good loot. If a 460 ilvl is required for normal LFR, which rewards ilvl 476 items, one could reasonably extrapolate that you should have a 473 item level to enter normal MSV. Good luck hitting that without valor gear.

In short, a person not running dailies is at such a competitive disadvantage to someone running dailies that it’s unlikely they would find a raid spot on a raid team that had the aim of clearing current content in normal mode.

This is what people mean when they technically inaccurately claim that dailies are compulsory. They’re not strictly compulsory. But good luck raiding without them.

Read the article (note – the meat of the post starts about a page down): How Blizzard Convinces People Not To Raid

Tagged as: mop, raiding

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: World of Warcraft

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University Relations Q&A

If you’re a student looking to break into the gaming industry, we’re holding a live chat next Thursday with our University Relations team here on our official Blizzard game sites. They’ll be fielding questions from how to build a portfolio, to what it’s like to work at Blizzard, what qualifications we look for, and even how to best approach the internship program (submissions close January 31!).

Come back to this very article next week, on January 24, to take part in the live chat from 5:00 p.m. PST to 6:00 p.m. PST, and learn how to become a part of our team!

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Why Gimmicky Boss Fights Are Better

Hate boss fight gimmicks? You’re in good company. Indeed, from time to time most of us have wished for MMOs to go back to the “good old days” of straightforward, just-the-mechanics fights rather than whatever the latest raid gimmick is.

But today you might have your mind changed, as The Ancient Gaming Noob lays out the case for why gimmick-laden boss fights are great:

“While the stand up boss fight is the exception as opposed to the rule these days, you do still run into them. They get labeled as “simple tank and spank” and generally pose no issue to any group that is within the range and equipment parameters of the dungeon.

And that is the problem, really. They offer little or no challenge, unless your group isn’t up to par. I actually think that the first boss in every instance ought to be a hit point heavy tank and spank that tests the group’s ability to perform their basic roles, if only to act as a “you must be this powerful to hope for success in this dungeon” gate.

Fight gimmicks are in boss fights to make things interesting, to change things up, and to keep things from getting boring. And such things have been in for a long time. Dragons back in the MUD days always had special attacks and breath weapons had special effects. I recall one that would cause your bag to be destroyed if you did not have protection from cold on you. There would go all your extra gear and loot!”

Read The Article: http://tagn.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/bosses-and-gimmicks-and-nostalgia/

Tagged as: boss fights, gimmicks, raiding

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: General MMO Interest

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Buffy vs. Edward

I found this very interesting (and very creative) Buffy vs. Edward mashup online. It’s worth highlighting not only because of its skill, but because it contrasts two of the most popular teen vampire franchises. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my all time favorite television show, and Twilight is well… kinda gross. Buffy vs. Edward quite seriously shows one of the reasons why.

Besides, that mashup must have taken a LONG time to make. There are over 5400 minutes of Buffy footage in the series! I can name the episode where nearly every shot comes from too. I’m not sure I should be proud of this.

Or my detailed Buffy critique.

Or my Twilight critique.

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A Tale Of An Eldest Daughter And A Griefer

One topic that I’ve seen come up in the MMOSphere again and again is that of parenting and MMOs. When do you let your children play MMOs? How do you guide them, and how do you avoid problems?

Today Redbeard’s got a great post on that topic, telling the story of the time his eldest daughter was first griefed in Lord of the Rings Online:

“She was moving her Elven Hunter all over a clearing, following some near max-level toon around. “I was killing this dude for a quest, and this IDIOT came and took the treasure out of the chest I was supposed to open!”

“Ah.” I sat down and looked over her shoulder.

“I want to attack him so bad…. But I CAN’T!!”

“Well, you could challenge him to a duel –at least I think you can in LOTRO– but you’re L32 and he’s L73. It wouldn’t be a contest.”

“But I am just so mad right now! I have to wait and do the whole thing again!!!”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. You just met the ninja looter. They’re one of the asshats you’ll meet in MMOs.”"

Read the rest: Attack of the Ninja Looters

Tagged as: griefing, mmos, parenting

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: General MMO Interest

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Roundup: The Future Of Guild Wars 2

The lovely people at Arena.net recently posted a detailed look at what the next six months hold for their game – and there’s some exciting stuff in there.

But will it do the job? Will Guild Wars 2 stay on form?

Ravious thinks that there are some good ideas in there, but it’s all a bit wooly – “Lots of good words, but 2013 is a long year. The only imminent-ish stuff feels like the achievements/ crowns since ArenaNet is most open about that.”And Hunter’s Insight is excited about the new changes, but once again feels that they’re still rather vague – “Content that will allow guilds to go on missions together. Interesting terminology. Missions like in the original Guild Wars? Separate instances maybe? “If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: Guild Wars 2

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Warlock green fire quest reward and more

The exclusive warlock quest to nab green fire now has a quest reward to go with it. Not the expected green fire, but an actual piece of gear. MMO-Champion managed to dig up Akama's Seal of Courage, which is the reward for helping Akama out in the Black Temple -- presumably part of the Black Temple portion of the warlock quest. But how does a clever warlock obtain the quest in the first place?

We don't really know just yet. We do know that according to Ghostcrawler's tweet pictured above, it's not going to be something that players can grab immediately. There is a peculiar and interesting aspect to this whole chain, however, and it's in the form of Deathwing's meddling kiddo. That's right, Wrathion is somehow involved in the chain, according to quest information found over on WowDB. Why, exactly, Wrathion is so invested and involved in what warlocks are up to is also up in the air. For more information on the quest chain, Wowhead has a detailed guide available -- beware, spoilers abound!

Even though we don't have the total picture just yet, the bits and pieces that have been dug up via datamining are making it much harder to ignore my long-forgotten warlock alt. The thought of wielding green fire is pretty cool of course, but it's more the story potential in the chain that fascinates me. Just what are those shadowy masters of demonic entities up to, anyway? Time will tell.

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: black-temple, class-quests, green-fire, green-fire-quests, lock-info, patch-5.2, warlock-info, warlock-talents, wow-lock, wow-lock-info, wow-locks, wow-warlock, wow-warlock-info, wow-warlocks, wrathion

Filed under: Warlock, News items, Mists of Pandaria

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Patch 5.2: Horridon and Iron Qon raid testing announced

More raid testing has been scheduled tomorrow for both Horridon and and Iron Qon on 10-man normal difficulty. Horridon was originally slated for last week but technical issues forced the testing to be deferred. If your gear levels aren't at high enough level, player gear will be scaled in the raid to assist with testing. If you're not sure how to get to the Throne of Thunder, we can show you how! Raid Testing Schedule - January 17On Thursday, January 17, we will be testing two more raid encounters in the Throne of Thunder.

Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.

Horridon - 10 Player Normal
10:30 PST (13:30 EST, 19:30 CET)

Iron Qon - 10 Player Normal
16:00 PST (19:00 EST, 01:00 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. This is particularly true for these early tests as we are still nailing down overall patch stability. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Important Testing Notes

Q: How do I get into the raid zone?

A: At the northeastern edge of the swamp on the Thunder King's island, there is a Shado-Pan camp in a small cave. A sewer grate in this cave will take you directly to the zone-in point for the raid zone. (As more of the island unlocks, players will be able to access the main gate directly.)

Q: What gear do I use to test the raid?

A: As we did for Beta raid testing, we will be scaling players' gear inside the raid in order to facilitate testing. Gear will be scaled (up or down, as appropriate) to item Level 502 for the purposes of testing Normal modes.

Tags: 5.2, horridon, instance, iron-qon, isle-of-the-thunder-king, patch-5.2, patch-5.2-ptr, ptr, public-test-realm, raid, throne-of-thunder

Filed under: Raiding, Mists of Pandaria

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Around Azeroth: Ghost scorpions in the sky

What's the one thing that can make scorpions, already one of the most evil life forms on earth along with yellow jackets and parasitic isopods, even more scary? I know! Let's make them fly! Submitter Paryah of Malice Aforethought on Doomhammer (US-H) saw these terrifying creatures above the Dread Wastes and was inspired to compose a poem:

"As I was going to Kun-Lai
I saw some scorpions in the sky
This craziness
Was near Klaxxi'vess
I took a pic and flew on by."

Now tell us about the rogue from Nantucket, Paryah!
Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm. Tags: around azeroth, around-azeroth, AroundAzeroth, featured, screen-shots, screenshots, world-of-warcraft-pictures, world-of-warcraft-screenshots, wow-screen-shots, wow-screenshot, wow-screenshots, wow-ss

Filed under: Around Azeroth

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Breakfast Topic: What's the worst way you've wiped a raid?

You might have to squint pretty hard to see it, but what you're looking at in the header image is my pictorial representation of one of the two worst ways I've wiped a raid. Well, recently at least! I had only relatively recently started off-tanking the raid, and our main tank had gone over to tank healing for Magmaw, as my off-spec was retribution. We'd killed it relatively quickly, but in subsequent attempts, where, you know, you're a bit more lax and less attentive, I had taken to tab-targeting Magmaw's body when he pulled himself off the spike.

Tab-targeting is just fine, apart from the fact that I had bound my autorun to the key above tab, to the left of 1. So, every so often, instead of hitting tab, I'd hit autorun, and, unless my reactions were particularly fast that day, I'd run straight off the edge into the lava. From which I could not be retrieved, by hook or by crook or by Leap of Faith. Even battle rezzing didn't have enough range.

What was the second way? What could possibly be worse than that? Failing to get onto Nefarian's pillars. I was still the paladin off-tank, on Onyxia duty, so I had a bubble and such to keep me safe, but I'd still get stuck on the lip of the darn pillar.

How about you? What's the worst way you've wiped a raid? What do you still cringe at slightly, weeks, months, even years later? Oh, and I moved my autorun key. A very long way.

Tags: featured, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

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Direhorn hunter pet in patch 5.2 is the triceratops we've been wanting

Wowheads dataminers and commenters have been extremely busy lately, and one particular commenter, Ozlem, has succeeded in obtaining the new hunter pet -- the Direhorn -- already, as can be seen from the header image.

The exciting news is that, currently, this pet is not exotic, meaning it can be tamed by a hunter of any spec, not just beast masters. Of course, do remember that this is PTR, and therefore subject to considerable change before launch. There is a requirement to tame it, though, which is an item dropped from the dinomancers based on the Isle of Giants, the Ancient Tome of Dinomancy.

This currently has quite the high drop rate, although it is not 100%, but again this could be nerfed down to size on live servers. There currently are no other hurdles to navigate to obtain one, unlike the pets from previous patches and their greater challenges, despite the PTR patch notes stating the following:

Dire Horns have been added as a tamable species for Hunters that have learned the required skill. Aspiring Dire Horn owners should seek out clues regarding these auspicious beasts.

The skill may well refer to the Tome, rather than to beast mastery's ability to tame exotic pets.

It's not yet known whether these dinosaur-style creatures will be added into old zones where they'd fit in, but it seems likely that they will remain around Pandaria and on the Isle of the Thunder King. I think they're adorable! The triceratops-heavy nature of patch 5.2 is just fine by me.
Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: dire-horn, direhorn-pet, mists-of-pandaria, patch-5.2, patch-5.2-hunter-changes, patch-5.2-hunter-pets, tame-direhorn

Filed under: Hunter, News items, Mists of Pandaria

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Encrypted Text: The rise of the ranged rogue

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

The original Shuriken Toss never made sense. Why would rogues, a purely melee class, want a single ranged attack? We don't have the supporting toolbox to make the transition into a ranged DPS spec. Melee uptime is our top priority. Because of our reliance on our melee attacks, mobility is our most requested feature. Why would a class want Shuriken Toss when they can have Shadowstep?

Patch 5.2 is turning a one-off ranged ability into everything a rogue needs to attack targets from range. If you use Shuriken Toss on a target that is farther than 10 yards away, your auto-attacks gain a 30-yard range for 10 seconds. The auto-attacks turn into tiny shuriken that you throw at your target. These shuriken have several special properties, but the extended range is obviously the most important aspect of the ability. With Shuriken Toss, ranged auto-attacks, and Deadly Throw, rogues suddenly have a ranged repertoire.

The details of shuriken auto-attacks

There have been a lot of rumors flying around about Shuriken Toss, so let's set the record straight. The shuriken don't deal shadow damage. The attacks deal regular physical damage, although reduced to 75% of our normal auto-attack damage. The upside is that the attacks are considered to be yellow attacks, so they use the yellow hit table instead of the auto-attack hit table, meaning that they'll never miss if you're at the yellow hit cap. The result is that you'll hit more often with shuriken than you do with your regular attacks, resulting in more poison damage and more auto-attack damage. The shuriken can be dodged, parried (deflected), and blocked.

You can throw Shuriken Toss at any target that is more than 10 yards away from you to gain the Shuriken Toss buff, and it persists through target swaps. However, you stop throwing shuriken when entering melee range (to discourage using it in a regular rotation). If you're less than 10 yards away when you use Shuriken Toss, you don't get the buff at all. Unfortunately, since Shuriken Toss is a combo point generator, you need to be careful not to burn any combo points on your previous target when using it.

The most important aspect of the shuriken is that they can still proc both of our active poisons, which allows us to deal roughly our normal auto-attack and poison damage from range. The shuriken are synced up with your weapons' attack speeds, so you'll throw slower but harder-hitting shuriken with slow weapons. Each hand throws its own shuriken and the damage is calculated separately, including passives like Ambidexterity. Procs, like trinkets, Combat Potency, and Main Gauche all still work with thrown shuriken. If you keep spamming Shuriken Toss from 10 yards away, the buff will keep refreshing itself.
You can't be a full-time ranged rogue

I am going to shatter your dreams: you can't play a completely ranged rogue. Assassination rogue damage relies on Venomous Wounds and Envenom far too much. Combat rogues need to use Sinister Strike and Eviscerate to activate Bandit's Guile and Restless Blades, respectively. And we all know how weak subtlety rogues are without Rupture ticking away on their target. Shuriken Toss itself won't rival your main combo point generator, and each spec's mechanics require their specific finishers.
It's about options

My excitement over the new Shuriken Toss isn't about what it can replace, but what it can supplement. Shuriken Toss will boost our mobility indirectly, by allowing us to lower the mobility of our opponents via ranged Crippling Poison application. Shuriken Toss gives us the ability to apply offensive pressure even when we're being snared or rooted or knocked back, which reduces the overall effectiveness of those types of attacks against us. The PvP effectiveness of ranged poison application and reasonably good ranged DPS capabilities cannot be overstated. We are going to be capable of far more ranged DPS than any of the other melee classes.

Shuriken Toss is also going to be a compelling choice for raiders, on occasion. While Shuriken Toss will never make sense on a Patchwerk-style burn, there are plenty of encounters where we're running around outside of melee range. In tier 14, encounters like Feng, Gara'jal, Elegon, the Will of the Emperor, Tsulong, and the Sha of Fear are all places where we're regularly facing targets at range. I can name a dozen fights in previous tiers where I would've killed for this ability. Could you imagine how much easier Firefighter would've been if you could attack from 30 yards away? While Shadowstep and Sprint allow us to close gaps quickly, Shuriken Toss allows us to stay put. It's a subtle but important difference.
Anticipation is still pretty good

All rogue specs have somewhat erratic combo point generation, thanks to their various mechanics. Anticipation, which helps rogues smooth out those irregular combo points, is a net DPS boost in pretty much every possible situation. While Versatility is obviously useful once every great while, Anticipation is producing a real DPS gain on every single encounter. For the raiding rogue, Shuriken Toss will be a hard sell outside of specific encounters that favor a ranged approach. I do think we'll see rogues picking it up, even if just for fun, in dungeons and while questing.

In PvP environments, Shuriken Toss is already popular amongst rogues. Versatility, which seems like it would be valuable in PvP, never really took off. With the developers hinting that Versatility will see some love soon, but not yet, it's likely that PvP rogues will make the most use of Shuriken Toss. That's great news for our dwindling representation in high-end arena. I am eagerly awaiting the first frost mage that tries to root me.
Sneak in every Wednesday for our Mogu'shan Vaults guide, a deep-dive into the world of rogue rotations -- and of course, all the basics in our guide to a raid-ready rogue.
Tags: anticipation, assassination-rogue-encrypted-text, combat-rogue-encrypted-text, featured, guide-to-rogues, ranged-attack, ranged-rogue, rogue-assassination-encrypted-text, rogue-combat-encrypted-text, rogue-guide, rogue-info, rogue-mobility, rogue-ranged, rogue-subtlety-encrypted-text, rogue-talents, rogue-throw, shuriken, shuriken-throw, shuriken-toss, st, subtlety-rogue-encrypted-text, throw, versatility, wow-rogue, wow-rogue-info, wow-rogues

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

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Tankspot takes a look at the Council of Elders

The Council of Elders is the third boss in the Throne of Thunder raid, but the first that was open for testing on the PTR. Tankspot took a look at the encounter and put together a video that explains some of the mechanics involved with what looks like an incredibly complex fight. The video above is for the 10-man normal mode version of the encounter, and because this is the PTR, abilities and effects shown in the video may change over time.

Each Elder in the Council has their own set of abilities, and the fight requires three tanks to pull off successfully. But it's not that easy, of course. Also present in the fight is the pesky spirit of Gara'jal, last seen in Mogu'shan Vaults. Gara'jal will possess each Elder in turn, changing the Elder's abilities and making the fight just that much more hectic for players.

This fight has a very heavy emphasis on target swapping between both the various Elders, and the adds that those Elders spawn. Players must attack the Elder that is possessed by Gara'jal -- otherwise a raid-wide AoE will quickly stack to unmanageable heights and overwhelm the raid. In order to force Gara'jal to swap to another Elder, players must DPS the possessed Elder down by 25%.

Keep in mind that this is the first round of PTR testing for this particular encounter. There will doubtless be small changes and tweaks as the PTR moves on. If you'd like to participate in PTR testing, be sure to keep an eye on the official PTR forums for scheduling information regarding the different encounters in Throne of Thunder.

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: council-of-elders, frost-king-malakk, Garajal-the-Spiritbinder, high-priestess-marli, kazrajin, patch-5.2, patch-5.2-ptr, patch-5.2-raids, sul-the-sandcrawler, tankspot, throne-of-thunder

Filed under: Raiding, Raid Guides, Mists of Pandaria

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Where Are They Now? 2012 personalities, including the blind player and his 'guide dog'

At last, our look back at five years of WoW personality interviews rolls around to the duo everyone's been asking about: Hexu and Davidian, the British soldier blinded in Iraq and his redoubtable "guide dog" guildmate who steered him through full participation in current raid content. Their story exploded across the internet after we interviewed Davidian here on WoW Insider, and Blizzard recognized the dynamic duo with in-game helms with flavor text alluding to their inspiring bond of friendship.

Hexu and Davidian are both still playing World of Warcraft -- but the duo is together no more. As of the new year, the ever-energetic Hexu has been raiding on a new rogue, Dirtypawz, in Unqualified on Stormrage (EU). "I know!" he replies to my unspoken exclamation of surprise and sadness. "It was just that people were only raid logging, and it got boring -- but it was all amicable and cool. I still speak to people in Die Safe. I just wanted to do more than raid three nights a week." Hexu/Dirtypawz says a "very nice bloke" named Vatic is serving as his current raiding "guide dog" helper. "The people in the guild are all nice people," he adds, "and there [are] always things going on."

We'll visit with Hexu/Dirtypawz next month about how he's settling in and dig into his tips for the many sight-disabled players who've written to us during the past year trying to reach him for advice.

Meanwhile, Davidian reports that the year since we interviewed him has been packed with recognition and encouragement. "The publicity was just unreal," he says. "Even to this day, I get people coming to our server just to say how much the story inspired them and restored there faith in the gaming community. The biggest thing of all, though, was the fact that it made its way to Blizzard, and myself and Ben got signed copies of the collectors edition of Cataclysm signed by at least 50 members of the Blizzard team, and [we] received in-game pets also. Then to top it off, having in-game items with our names on them was just outstanding -- I mean, to be immortal in a game that we love to play is just, well words couldn't possibly describe it."

All good people connecting to play a game that's close to our hearts ... Keep reading for more updates about people who love World of Warcraft, from our interviews during 2012.

Click the bold, linked introductory text of each paragraph to read the original interview with these WoW personalities.

Booming support for autism research Support from WoW players helped nudge an autism research project from well-known druid blogger Lissanna (aka autism researcher Dr. Elisabeth Whyte) over $5,000. "We will be working hard at getting this project moving next semester," she notes. "I am currently working hard at writing grants to fund the project long-term. I am always truly amazed by the generosity and awesomeness of the WoW community." Follow Lissanna at Restokin and the Team Waffle podcast.

Sequel in the works We liked what Rachel Gold, author of a YA novel about a WoW-playing transgender teen, had to say so much that we invited her back to talk about transgender issues as a guest Drama Mama. She did a fantastic job, and we can't wait to read more from her, including the upcoming sequel to Being Emily. Rachel's also just signed a deal for a romantic paranormal/urban fantasy novel to come out in 2013, featuring demons (some of them, good guys) and witches fighting for power in modern San Francisco.

Putting the "war" in Warcraft The battle between the Horde and the Alliance continues on the shoulders of world PvP advocate Gug. "Gug has been busy," reports the indefatigable orc, "assassinating the Alliance leaders, camping Stormwind, fighting in the Krasarang Wilds, slaughtering Alliance on all levels... But the real focus I'm ashamed to admit has been Pet Battles. Still convinced these addictive things were secretly created to keep Gug's axe from hewing Alliance skulls. Singing Cricket, Gug is coming for you!" Find Gug at Horde Strike Force.

WoW Insider's published authors WoW Insider's published authors keep turning out interesting reads. Scott Andrews is doing heroic raiding with his guild on his feral druid and working on an update of The Guild Leader's Handbook, as well as working on a science fiction novel and co-leading two sci-fi/fantasy workshops in the Philadelphia area. Matt Rossi has switched back to a DPS orc in game; outside the game, he's putting together a third collection for publication and pounding away at three novels in progress. Find Matt at Once I Noticed I Was On Fire I Decided to Relax and Enjoy the Fall, and check out Bottled Demon for a cool read.

Update on the updater Predictable, Wowhead's Perculia has stayed busy making updates on patch 5.1 and now patch 5.2 content. "Our biggest feature was integrating Item Upgrades into the site, including the popular Item Comparison tool," she says, "and I'm particularly proud of our Brawler's Guild and 5.1 Battle Pet guides." Follow Perculia on Twitter at @perculia.

How to Priest Veiled of HowToPriest.com has moved to a new guild with a lighter raiding schedule. "Running HowToPriest.com is time consuming," she explains, "and the three-day schedule in my new guild accommodates that nicely. ... Currently we are working on a donor rank for the site that will have a few perks. February will be our two-year anniversary, as well, so we are going to be doing some giveaways for that." Find Veiled at HowToPriest.com and @HowToPriest on Twitter.

Punting it back Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe? "Currently rabble-rousing and ruffling feathers everywhere," writes the outspoken social advocate. Find Chris at @ChrisWarcraft.

The newlyweds After marrying in a WoW-themed wedding during 2012, WoW player Amanda has parted ways with her new husband -- but only in game. "My husband is now playing Eve since he wasn't enjoying the expansion," she explains. "He is busy being a pirate and blowing up stuff in space and I am busy being overwhelmed with how much there is to do in Mists." But guess what else they've been up to? "A few days after your article was posted about our wedding," she writes, "we found out that I am pregnant with our first. We will be welcoming our new little addition in the beginning of May. So our gears are changing to prepare and get ready for the new addition to our family." Find Amanda at Deviant Art.

Queuing up Blizzard's new, firmer stance on premade battleground groups has pushed changes on premade team organizers like Rathamus. "The Rath Strat AV's (and all 40-man BG premades) have been a little more difficult to assemble due to the removal of some of the automation that made it easier to queue larger groups, and I seldom run them unless there is interest," he reports. "I have been very busy maintaining the World of Warcraft Public Vent server, which is nearing its sixth year online supporting raiders, PUGs, arena teams, [and] premades [for both] Horde and Alliance. I have also joined forces with Tiny, who created the mesh networking premade/LFM addon called oQueue, which is taking the premade community by storm and helping to create, organize, support, and maintain its communications needs."

MVP Alona MVP Alona is pushing her way through pet battle achievements, still helping others get into the game she loves. Find her at Corgi Island.

Home's where the boom is Pathosìs of realm-hopping (and now happily settled) Bless the Martyr has switched mains to a resto/boomkin druid. "Bless the Martyr is plugging away at heroic bosses," she reports, "and we're actually doing considerably well given half our raiders being in the Northeast when Sandy hit. Thankfully they were all okay."

Keeping his feet on the ground Gilran and his all-dwarf guild are continuing their explorations in Pandaria. "I am mostly roleplaying with some PvP now and then," he notes. "I have lost my interest in raiding in the early Cataclysm; never got back to it ever since. As for PvP, I mostly do the WPvP rather than battlegrounds and arenas."

All dressed up The amazing WoW dress collection of Asukachan (now Asuka) is going strong. "Pandaria is offering a lot of exotic Asian designs, which I am eager to get my troll paws on," he writes. "So far, I've added five new dresses to the collection." Asuka will also be emceeing the grand finals of the University Star League Starcraft Tournament in Sweden.

No stress Although Cantafrond has moved on from Swords for Everyone, the guild for players with social anxieties, he say the guild is still active and recruiting. "In game, I've been responsible for a horrifying number of (usually) accidental deaths as I level my disc priest to 90," he writes. "Outside of WoW, I'm in the process of starting up a blog to discuss and explore the social aspects of online gaming and interaction, specifically in the realm of MMOs. We'll also be touching on other issues like mental health and social anxiety and their relation to video games and gaming in general." Find him on Twitter at @cantafrond.

Booking it Aussie librarian Ellen Forsyth hasn't been playing WoW lately because she's been in Timor Leste for three months, where she says the internet connection isn't fast enough for online games. "It is not fast enough for quite a few other things as well," she notes wryly, "but it works well for email, which is great. I am looking forward to playing WoW again." In-game talks for librarians will begin later this spring with "some exciting people who are doing research in WoW." Find Ellen on Twitter at @EllenForsyth.

Anytime, anywhere Anytime Anywhere Messenger Service has been busy since Mists opened. "We've gotten new recruits, been threatened with arrest for interfering with the war and [are] busy exploring Pandaria," says GM Derscha Kettlebomb. "We've moved to a new headquarters in Booty Bay." The holiday season was especially busy, as AAMS sponsored a cross-faction Secret Santa program for the realm. Find the cross-faction messengers at AAMS.

Inside The Insiders WoW Insider's meet-and-greet guild, The Insiders on Zangarmarsh (US-Horde), run weekly fun runs of previous raid tiers plus LFRs for Mists raids. "We are also planning to start normal mode MoP raiding after the holidays," announces Kijani. "We still have an open door policy, so if anyone wishes to join The Insiders, all they need to do is ask. The same goes for raiding with us; the only thing that will prevent us from taking someone to a raid is game limitations -- if you can get in the door, you can come play." The Insiders runs guild dungeon groups throughout the week plus guild LFRs on Saturday for anyone who's interested in getting gear and learning fights without "funsuckers." Find Kijani on Twitter at @edgesumariajr.

Over the edge Charitable high-rise rapeller McChoppy is still finding time for WoW while graduating from college, starting a job search, continuing to work on a children's book about a particularly pompous moose, spending time with his daughter and baby boy -- and signing up to go Over the Edge again in June 2013. "Time for another falling achievement!" he exclaims.

The biggest "little" guild "After your article broke, gnomes from all over the World of Warcraft traveled to Wyrmrest Accord to join our ranks," reports the all-gnome Gnomeregan Forever's GM Forbidra. "In fact, we received another surge of applicants this week after Crithto posted a nice compliment in one of our threads. We are now over 250 gnomes strong and thriving!" For Gnomeregan!

Hodor! "I've been playing WoW a decent amount since MoP," reported Game of Thrones actor Kristian Nairn before the holidays. "I'm very extremely impressed with the expansion so far, although I have yet to get into the daily grind. Still as the stage of leveling my toon and QQing when I get to 90 in BGs because I have no gear, then leveling something else. Having been to and met a lot of the people behind the game when I made it to Blizzard last year (shout-out to Crithto <3). Saw some amazing things, and it made me very excited for the future of the game, meeting such talented and passionate people." Kristian wrapped filming for Season 3 of Game of Thrones last year; look for him soon in an episode of BBC America's Ripper Street.

Brain power North Carolina State University's Dr. Jason Allaire is currently using StarCraft 2 to develop maps that are designed to assess and improve cognitive functioning in people of all ages. "We are also developing a new measure that is designed to assess MMO, FPS, and RTS knowledge," he says. Check out Dr. Allaire's research at Gains Through Gaming.

Still leveling "After 15 Minutes of Fame, we got a hell lot of new players joining our guild, trying to find what they couldn't before!" wrote Colosia, GM of The Leveling Agony of Xavius (EU-Horde). "We deeply appreciate each of them and we hope we have them for a long, long time. And we even started raiding! We thought why let people that love us leave us for raiding when we can just expand our activities and start doing it? We have stable group, full guild of happy faces and social chats so much that you can't read them all!" The guild also created a sister guild in Guild Wars 2. Join the fun on Facebook or at The Leveling Agony.

A beastly guild The all-druid guild Druids of the Beast is pushing into Mogu'Shan Vaults on beast power to push for the timed challenge modes, reports the guild's Monsterbaby. "[They] have proven to be very tricky, being only druids, due to the limitations of buffs and cooldowns," she notes. "Overall, we find the expansion very nice for druids, with the new extended talent trees and abilities and balanced damage, despite [missing] out a lot without other class buffs."

A sweet whiff of yesterday Nostalgia-minded movie-makers Order of Watchers are more active than ever, reports the guild's Larenon. "Our raid and PvP group is also making nice progress in our own pace, so I can say all is well here, and Mists of Pandaria is the best thing that has happened to WoW in a long time," he says. "As for new guild movies, we are not making a big one right now, but around Christmas, there just might be a short movie, which we shot during our seventh birthday this August." Keep your eyes on the guild's website at Order of Watchers.

The craft of crafting Master craftsman Daen of Daen's Crafting Emporium is not only still providing some of the best crafting service in Azeroth, but he says he fully intends to keep running the emporium until the game itself ends -- "just so everyone knows." Find out what Daen can craft for you at Daen's Crafting Emporium.

Working IRL After being featured here, Sevrin's movie on WoW addiction, IRL, managed to reach more than 1 million viewers worldwide and earning him recognition at film festivals and on TV, radio, and websites. "Also I have since graduated from university (with quite a good degree)," he adds, "which is in stark contrast to my WoW-playing days, where I was almost thrown out of university! I play very casually now and log on occasionally, as I am busy working on more films (also some WoW machinima stuff for the future)." Find him on YouTube (IRL), at AnthonyRosner.com, and on Twitter at @antronoid.

70-year-old raid GM keeps pushing 25s 70-year-old raider and GM Marthazon has stayed busy with ongoing recruiting for Spartans, now one of only about three guilds on her realm still focused on 25-man raids. She was floored by the international media attention after our interview. "The publicity was amazing from your article -- you have a very large following," she writes. "I heard from so many players -- and it was wonderful to find that being older and playing WoW is not as rare as might be thought. One of the more amusing things to have come from the publicity was a phone interview with a Chinese newspaper. The reporter spoke some English, while my Chinese was limited to weh (I'm hoping the meaning was "hello"). We talked as best we could."

A stealthy success It's been an up and down year for the all-rogue RP/PvP guild Vile Thorn of Defias Brotherhood (EU). "We did suffer from the pre-MoP lull when activity on the server and in RP circles died," says GM Arli. "Unfortunately, the current state of rogues in PvP means many of our members get to 90 and then take a break out of pure frustration. We are RP/PvP, but without the PvP, we lose half of what makes us Vile Thorn. So we are concentrating a bit more on the roleplay side of things and still sticking to our weekly IC guild meet and RP-themed event." Rogues interested in the group should stop by Vile Thorn.

Volunteering in-game and out The charity-focused members of The Bearers of Light on Moon Guard (US-Alliance) celebrated their fifth anniversary in April with a realm-wide party. During their Random Acts of Kindness Month, they promoted daily in-game generosity along with real-world service such as volunteering in soup kitchens and community fundraisers. They capped the month with an adoption and donation to Heifer International, an organization that provides farm animals to families in parts of the world that need them. Find the good-hearted guildies at The Bearers of Light.

Five years of WoW personalities

Where are they now? Catch up with five years' worth of the people we've interviewed in 15 Minutes of Fame.

Where Are They Now? 2008-2009
Where Are They Now? 2010-2011
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with Game of Thrones' Hodor (Kristian Nairn) ... a blind ex-serviceman and the guildmates who keep him raiding as a regular ... and a 70-year-old grandma who tops her raid's DPS charts as its legendary-wielding GM. Send your nominations to lisa@wowinsider.com. Tags: all-druid, all-druid-guild, all-dwarf, all-gnome-guild, all-gnomes, all-rogue, all-rogue-guild, alona, anytime-anywhere-messenger-service, asuka, autism, being-emily, bless-the-martyr, blind, chris-kluwe, cross-faction-trading, daen, daens-crafting-emporium, davidian, dirtypawz, dress-collection, ellen-forsyth, facebookfeed, featured, gilran, gug, guide-dog, guide-dog-player, hexu, hodor, how-to-priest, howtopriest, howtopriest.com, IRL, irl-movie, jason-allaire, kijani, kristian-nairn, librarian, librarians, lissanna, marthazon, matt-rossi, mcchoppy, order-of-watchers, over-the-edge, pathosis, perculia, premades, rachel-gold, raiding-granny, rathamus, research, restokin, scott-andrews, sevrin, social-anxiety, swords-for-everyone, the-insiders, the-leveling-agony, transgender, volunteering, wedding, world-of-warcraft-interviews, world-pvp, wow-community, wow-interviews, wow-people, wow-personalities, wow-themed, wow-wedding

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