Armory Parsing

As of this morning the database is at 383,000 characters with a queue of over 45,000! This includes people from almost 19,000 guilds! We now have 62 realms listed, but several only have characters for one faction, or only a few characters on a faction. This may be due to the crawler not getting to their realm yet, or they may have been a bad seed.

Firefox

If you are a person that enjoys beta testing new software, the Firefox 3.6 Beta is up for download.

Blue Posts

Introducing the Pet Store

Today we’re pleased to introduce the Pet Store for World of Warcraft, a new way for players to obtain in-game pets to join them on their adventures in Azeroth. Two brand-new companions are now available for purchase exclusively at the Pet Store in the online Blizzard Store: Lil’ K.T. and the Pandaren Monk.

Make a Difference: Pandaren Monk Charity Pet

Enter the Pandaren Monk, ( http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000763 ) a martial-arts expert who’s here to help celebrate the upcoming fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft. He may be cute, but he’s proof that even the softest of critters can overcome the hardest of circumstances. For every Pandaren Monk that finds its way to a player’s side between now and the end of the year (December 31, 2009 at 11:59 PDT), we’ll donate 50 percent of the $10 purchasing price to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in an effort to brew up a little hope, strength, and joy in a child’s life.

Lil’ K.T., the Littlest Lich

Lil’ K.T. is a miniature lich who bears a striking resemblance to the legendary lord of Naxxramas, Kel’Thuzad. But don’t let his diminutive stature fool you: Lil’ K.T. has a diabolical laugh and wields true power at his bony fingertips, randomly wreaking icy havoc on critters who dare to cross his path. You can now buy this new pet for $10 on the Blizzard Store. (http://us.blizzard.com/store/ )


In order to receive a purchased pet, you’ll need to merge your World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account. For more information on Battle.net, please visit the FAQ. ( https://us.battle.net/faq/index.html ) For more information on the new Pet Store, visit the Pet Store FAQ. ( http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=29845 )

Patch 3.3 comes out...

Once every hundred-thousand years or so, When the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow And the grass doth grow… a shiny demon will appear and demand to hear the best song in the world, or it will eat our souls... patch 3.3 should be out before that happens again!

Sorry about that. I was just listening to Tribute to the Best Song in the World by Tenacious D :-)

I’m not going to give you the classic “soon” this time, but there is not yet an ETA on when patch 3.3 will be released, not even an unofficial one. Rest assured however, that we let you know as soon as a release date has been set :-)

Cross Server LFG /Stone Keeper Shards

I believe it's set up to recognize the state of the realm you're on. So if your faction on your realm controls Wintergrasp, you will have the buff and receive shards, while players on other realms who are in your party for a dungeon will not if their faction does not control Wintergrasp on their realm.

What if you had GM powers?

C) Be unable to log into the standard game client, as access levels allotting a character the power alluded to in choice B are not possible with any client connecting to World of Warcraft realms outside of Blizzard Entertainment offices.

They might login with a tag due to a mistake on our end. That doesn't allot them any powers beyond having the tag in front of their name and the "Blizz" logo in chat. Trust me. I know how our tools work. ;)

Replenishment and Cataclysm.

We still like Replenishment. There are only so many ways a class can buff a group's damage or stats, so boosting regen is a distinct buff that is brought by a sufficiently large number of classes. It's really nice to have Replenishment, but with mana regen from gear and talents being what they are now, you can certainly run without it.

We don't plan on cutting Replenishment for Cataclysm. However, since Spirit largely becomes a stat that only healers care about, one of two things will likely happen: you bring Replenishment just for the healers, or Replenishment changes to affect both Spirit and non-Spirit based regen, but affects Spirit more.

Replenishment seems to offend some healers who don't want to feel reliant on other classes. But we have explicitly designed WoW's endgame content to be largely group-based, and synergies like this are a part of that. Tanks have to depend on priests for stamina buffs and hunters and rogues for threat buffs. At a higher level, all dps have to rely on dps buffs to do their job.

World of Warcraft 5th Anniversary Sweepstakes

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of World of Warcraft on November 23, 2004 -- and to kick off the celebration, every week for the next five weeks, we'll be giving out prizes to players as a way to "thanks" for being a part of the World of Warcraft community these past five years. Each week, we'll randomly select winners from a different group of accounts based on how long they’ve been playing the game. The first week’s winners will receive a World of Warcraft Charge of the Great Dragonflights stein courtesy of this week'’s sponsor, Taverncraft. For more details on prizing and eligibility, please check out the rules at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/contests/5year/index.html and stick around for more five-year-anniversary festivities in the weeks ahead!

Icecrown Radiance - Incompetence or Arrogance

It's an MMO. Stuff changes. If you want to play a game where the designers don't continually tinker with things to try and improve them, you might want to pick up a 10-year old game from the bargain bins. I'd be happy to provide my favorite list of classics. :)

Blizzard developers are our own greatest critics. We've changed our minds over and over on the best way to handle things -- the guys working on WoW long before I got here did the same thing. We take some forward steps and backwards steps, but overall I believe the game improves over time and most players I speak with think the same thing. (I know not everyone does, but you don't need to reply to this response to point that out.)

I think WoW would be in far worse shape today if we were still using the Molten Core-era class and raid philosophy. At the end of the day we think Icecrown will be a more fun place to tank knowing that bosses don't need to hit quite as hard to make up for your high avoidance. When we think something is not going to be fun like this, we try and make corrections. If any of you are so wise that you can clearly see the consequences of your design decisions many months away such that the patches you help release will be filled only with new content instead of bug fixes and course corrections, please send us your resumes. :)

PUG with the Blues

Come join the fun on the PTR and instead of getting the PUG blues, you could end up grouped with a blue. Members of the Development Team (including the encounter designers themselves) and the Community Team will be on the PTR to test out the new dungeon system and want you to come join in the fun. Join us tomorrow, November 4 beginning at 4 PM PST.

For a chance to group with us, be sure to use the Dungeon system and choose the "Random Heroic" option.