PTR Back to Test Build
Another PTR build was pushed recently with no significant changes. This time it was a Test build, while the previous build was a Release Candidate. There is still plenty of time for the patch to go live by the Season 10 end date of November 29.



Statistics: Achievements and Honor Kills
All of the graphs today allow zooming in both the X and Y direction to allow you to take a closer look at areas of interest. As the US and EU sample sizes were not the same (~3.6 million vs ~2.7 million), the EU results were scaled up to the US sample size, allowing us to directly compare the results.

The first graph we are looking at today shows you how many characters have an achievement point total in the indicated range of achievement points. For example, the point of 1500 has 103,525 characters for the US. This means that out of the entire sample of the US, 103,525 characters have between 1500 and 1599 achievement points. This type of counting of characters also applies to the other two graphs.

You can see that US players seem to have more alts or casual players than the EU, but both experience that nice dip right before 9000 achievement points. This is due to the people that are close to It's Over Nine Thousand! achievement pushing to finish it. Both the US and EU have two main peaks, likely indicating the population of 85s that has run no dungeons and the part that has run some of the dungeons. This indicates that the majority of the sample does not play enough to get a large amount of achievements on all of their characters.

Moving on, the second graph has Honor Kills split up by faction, as there was no significant difference between the US and EU. It does appear that at the more casual end of the graph the Horde has a slightly higher amount, but once you get closer to the second half of the graph that gap shrinks to almost nothing. Only part of the range is shown, you can see the entire range is hard to look at. The entire range does show you that the gap of Alliance players is compensated for by the increase at the very low HK level. This indicates that the amount of casual players or alts that are PvPing is significantly higher than the people that play often.

The final graph breaks down the HKs by realm type, and you can see the players that have less HKs play on the PvE realms, while the players with more play on the PvP realms. Ths gap disappears once you go farther down the graph to the more serious players. The RP realms results look very similar to PvE realms and RPPvP realms look very similar to PvP realms. All of the factions and realms showed a nice bump around 100k HKs when people were going for the 100000 Honorable Kills achievement.

If you like this type of post or want to see something specific let me know in the comments!

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Account Security Warning: Steam Compromise
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
As some of you may know, Valve Software recently announced that certain Steam user account information was compromised by an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into their network. The statement from Valve on these events can be found here:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/index.php

If you’re a registered account holder with Steam, we encourage you to review the information provided by Valve as soon as possible. We also recommend that you update your Battle.net password via Account Management (https://us.battle.net/account/management) should it be the same as or similar to the one you used for Steam or for the Steam forums. You may also wish to change your registered email address as a further security measure, or to change the password to your email account and other online accounts that might be at risk of compromise. If you are unable to update your Battle.net email address and/or password on your own, please contact our customer support staff for assistance: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml

For additional tips and suggestions for how to improve your Battle.net account security, such as by adding a Battle.net Authenticator to your account, check out our Account Security Awareness guide (http://us.battle.net/en/security/) and blog post (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2299938).

Annual Pass with Parental Controls
Blizzard is sending out an email to people that have purchased the Annual Pass in Europe with Parental Controls enabled to confirm that the parent approves of the free copy of Diablo III due to its rating. If you purchased the Annual Pass and have Parental Controls enabled, you have until November 28 to reply to the email.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Dear parent or guardian,

We are writing to you to let you know that the owner of a Battle.net account for which you have registered as the parent or guardian has signed up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass promotion. This promotion offers a free digital copy of our forthcoming game Diablo III when players commit to a 12-month subscription for World of Warcraft.

However, as Diablo III has been rated as PEGI-16 (USK-16 in Germany), we are writing to you to let you know that this promotion will automatically be removed from the account on November 28, 2011. Once the promotion is removed from the account, the account holder will once again be able to modify their existing World of Warcraft subscription, including removing recurring payments.

If you instead wish to continue with this promotion and secure a free copy of Diablo III for the account holder when it is launched, please reply to this email before November 28, 2011 stating that you, as the parent or guardian, are happy to continue.

If you have any questions or further requirements, telephone numbers and further help from our Customer Support department can be found at http://eu.blizzard.com/support/.

Poll: Annual Pass
While we are talking about the Annual Pass, let us know if you decided to purchase it!


This article was originally published in forum thread: PTR Test Build, Achievements and Honor Kills, Steam Compromise, Annual Pass started by chaud View original post
Comments 159 Comments
  1. mmocb30964fcfc's Avatar
    This game is starting to be a joke, i dont know why i still pay for this...
  1. webdonkey's Avatar
    lmao annual pass, for wow, to get what.... shitty diablo aswell. those that did it.... take two letters away and bend over...cause you just got made
  1. mmocf83d81c154's Avatar
    Would be nice to have another option in the poll, im considering it and im pretty sure a lot of other players do. All depends on when the end date for the offer is and when MOP beta starts for me anyway, since i rather not play more months of old content than i have to
  1. straazz's Avatar
    first: back a few days ago when the PTR went to release candidate, it was build 14976, but now it's BACK to 14966? wishful thinking, but i sure hope they're fixing something (please, let it be the blood dk t13 2p bonus).second: i signed for the annual passand mr. webdonkey: did it ever occur to you that there are mmo-champion users who actually LIKE wow, and who are likely to LIKE d3? if you're still gonna play wow for the next year, why not get d3 for free while you're at it? it's the game equivalent of buying a subsidised mobile phone.some ppl just want to have a good time, and play with friends, and i'll tell you one thing. it's substantially less enjoyable when you go on these forums and have ppl basically tell you you're an idiot for liking this game. who CARES about your opinion about what i play?next time you open your mouth and want to respond to something you dislike or disapprove of, do it properly. use your grown up words, please. and, you do realize you haven't argued your case either?
  1. pyrostorm9001's Avatar
    Its a great deal for me (Australian gamer here). Justify inc

    Currently the OZ dollar is about $1.04 US (give or take)
    I would assume it will stay that way for at least 6 months
    by the last payment might be anywhere between $0.90 - $1.10 going by current trends

    $12.99 per month for a 6-month recurring subscription – $155.88 USD
    New games in Oz are about 90-110 AUS
    Collectors editions are about 150-160 AUS

    (as you can see we Aussies get screwed over games hence why we like Digital downloads and paying for them on overseas accounts )

    Lets say I stop playing wow once Diablo 3 comes out (very possible for some players) and lets assume it comes out jan/feb
    that means 2 months used. $26

    so if i get the standard Diablo 155.88 - ~100 means im paying - $26 for 2 months access (give or take) = $30 for a mount and closed beta access for mop AND access for a year.

    mounts are about $25 so yes.. i paid $5 for closed beta access totally worth it imo
  1. greyghost's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by thunderdragon2 View Post
    i cant beleive this bliz are ACTUALY gona piss EVERY single PVEr off just so they can relese Dragonsolul t the same time as the retarded PvP season
    Really? This is hardly new for them.
  1. Easo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by webdonkey View Post
    lmao annual pass, for wow, to get what.... shitty diablo aswell. those that did it.... take two letters away and bend over...cause you just got made
    Rage i sense in you, young padavan.
  1. greyghost's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Firen View Post
    Tell me more, tell me more! What's the prob with it?
    The problem with it is that beyond the questing -- which is like the TOR games which is all great and fun -- the game is 100% identical to WoW in every shape and form. There was no innovation done for SWTOR. ZERO.

    Like, if I had to play SWTOR, I'd level up, then get to endgame... then quit. Because at least in WoW I'm already established, geared, and have a great group of friends to spend time with.

    If I stuck with SWTOR, it'd be like hopping off of a bus that was full of your friends to get onto another bus full of all the douchebags that USED to be on your old bus that did nothing but whine that they were bored.... to realize that they're just going to be as whiny in this new bus as they were in the old bus. Then the added bonus that since this bus was never stress-tested before, it'll break down, burst tires, door will get jammed so people can't get on/off the thing and other problems for the first 6 months.

    You may as well get back on the bus you know at least works and has people you know and like in it.
  1. BigAssBoy's Avatar
    After this weekend with SWtoR being run down random corridor 92, kill some mobs that are standing there lifeless or right click a blue object in the area for 4 or 5 quests then run back to the quest giver and then repeat, I am glad I did the annual pass since SWtoR wasn't what I hoped for
  1. mmocce1eacff4c's Avatar
    I wonder who the 3 EU players are with the 14700-14800 achievement points?Anybody knows a players like that?
  1. mmocac05adb153's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Joozle View Post
    I wonder who the 3 EU players are with the 14700-14800 achievement points?Anybody knows a players like that?
    Well one of them is Phlaryu from Method http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Phlaryu/simple The other 2 play on russian realms. http://www.wow-achievements.com/ The 3 on top are those

    Edit: The numbers on the page aren´t correct anymore and the 2 russian guys apparently changed names or servers) but all 3 have 14700 +
  1. Xenohelm's Avatar
    I'm still on the fence about the annual pass since I tend to stop playing for months every now and then. Sad thing is the last of my friends that played don't play anymore and it's been boring as of late i'm not even sure why I login everyday just to sit in town and watch the players run by. I guess i'm holding out for something interesting to happen to get my drive back into this game maybe. Planning on getting Swtor but the thing is i'm not a big fan of Starwars. The only thing I liked in Starwars were the original movie and that's about it. Its just that I have family and friends that are and going to be playing it when it comes out.
  1. ThunderBlunder's Avatar
    I want pies!a tip for the next graphs?
  1. Solidusbr's Avatar
    I will not buy the Annual pass until I see what kind of shit MoP will be.
  1. lilbuddhaman's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Solidusbr View Post
    I will not buy the Annual pass until I see what kind of shit MoP will be.
    The value of primary stats will move closer to secondary stats, and the value of secondary stats will be brought closer together to make gear choices easier and better.
    The game is getting dumbed down further

    As a Monk you can heal competitively without ever having to target a friendly player.
    Monks will be the "OP" class for at least the first few patches, purposely, to sell more copies of MoP.

    New raiding model that gives 8 buffs; Health, Attack Power, Spell Power, Melee Haste, Spell Haste, Crit, Mastery and Primary Stats.
    Content will be progressively nerfed after initial clears by big name guilds. The fight will always be getting easier week to week, regardless of your own efforts.

    IWIN button gets bigger and bigger every expansion.

    But but all the big name guilds say Cata has been the hardest expansion ever and the fights the best ever !
    They are
    paid sponsors
    . Paid to tell you what Blizz wants you to hear. Just like a video game site that gives near-perfect reviews for trash games (ahem, MW3)
  1. Geckomayhem's Avatar
    I want the annual pass, but my account isn't eligible. I live in Japan. It's really unfair that they limit it to certain countries. I want my free copy of Diablo III!
  1. SumoSizeIt's Avatar
    I paid for the annual pass. I like the features announced at Blizzcon and the removal of some Cataclysm mechanics that were keeping me disinterested in some aspects of game. The biggest threat to WoW at this point is not the developers, but rather its negative and ungrateful player base. It will be nice to see some of these individuals go when the expansion hits as well, thereby making the game more enjoyable for all in the process.
  1. Wries's Avatar
    Diablo talk aside, the Pandarian beta is going to be sooo clogged. Good luck getting in without having the annual pass.
  1. Prag's Avatar
    Holy crap! 35,000+ of your readers got the Annual Pass?!?

    I guess I'm just old fashioned, but there's no way in -hell- I'm committing to a hobby.
  1. Draculla's Avatar
    Who are having 14 800 achievement points? Please tell me a name of 3 EU characters who do it ?

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