WotLK Alpha, Arena Tournament, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Update - The first gate is now open on European servers.

Nothing really exciting today for the moment, the 1st gate of Sunwell Plateau will probably unlock today for European Realms and we can expect a first kill from the top guilds *cough*SK ?*cough* here if everything goes well.

Also, nothing is confirmed yet but according to the first rumors the http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com activation a few days ago could be related to the beginning of the very first alpha of WotLK. It will be restricted to developers working on WotLK and a few other people and I doubt we'll get any leaks from that, however it should be followed by the Friend & Family alpha with a lot more people involved. Of course, keep in mind that none of this is officialy confirmed.

This post will be updated to warn european players once the first gate is unlocked. Oh, and we might have something about Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury tomorrow. (Nothing big, but if you plan to loot the bow at some point it's probably worth checking)

Arena Tournament Schedule
There has been some confusion because of an error in a blue post on the European Forums, Thundgot made another post to confirm the schedule.

First Qualification Round: The Tournament realms will be open for the First Qualification round from March 31, 2008 to May 21, 2008.

Registration: Registration for the First Qualification Round will be possible from March 31, 2008 to May 6, 2008.

Practice: Practice period for the Qualification Round (unranked matches) will start on March 31, 2008 and end on April 9, 2008.

Ranked Matches: Ranked matches will start on April 9, 2008 and end on May 21, 2008.

The schedule is set up to finish on May 21st, with the four weeks leading up to that date being the weeks counting for the rating an the two before those being the official practice period for the qualifier. (Source)

There are also a few more posts to answer questions related to the Arena Tournament, you're getting used to it.
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5784218971&postId=57838193140&sid=1#3]If you wish to take part in the 2nd qualification round which will take place after the first one finished on May 20, you will need to re-register your account.[/blizzquote"]
And if you still don't know what's the Arena Tournament (where have you been for the past 2 months ?), Vaneras made a small recap.

On the new dedicated Arena Tournament realms, players can create level 70 characters of any class or race, get free epic equipment, enchantments, gold, and can customize their character's talent build as often as desired. On these realms, the cream of the crop of PVP players can compete for glory, battling it out to claim over $200,000 in prizes!

If you haven’t signed up, you still have a chance to register in the 2008 Arena Tournament! For more information, please check out the Arena Tournament page, the F.A.Q., or our new dedicated forum!

Arena Tournament Page: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/
F.A.Q: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/faq.xml
Arena Tournament Forum: http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=3901822&sid=1

Outdoor buffs changes
You can't really use them anymore in raids since a few months, but a few changes will be made to some outdoor buffs like the one from Sayge (Darkmoon Faire) so that they won't vanish on logout.

We are aware of this issue, it was caused by a change to several zone-wide buffs (such as the buffs from killing onyxia).

These buffs will be changed in the next patch to be removed only when zoning into a raid instance.

WotLK and classes changes
According to this post made by Bornakk, it looks like all classes will get their share of changes.

Overall it isn't that hard to change one thing, the issue is the ripple this will have down the chain. One small change can make a big impact on not just the class, but how well it performs in groups, in PvP, and in PvE so we have to evaluate as many scenarios as possible before making the change live.

Based on one change we would want to check out all of the other classes and see what changes they need to keep things balanced too.

Currently we are already working on going through every class in this way, while also adding a bunch of new things because, lets face it, we all like new things.

Hunters - Hunter's Mark overwriting
[blizzquote="Hortus;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5754688058&postId=57838196605&sid=1#1]This is working correctly, once improved hunter's mark is on a target any Hunter's mark (improved or not) will refresh the duration of the existing mark (not overwrite it). The buff does not change in any way just the duration remaining.[/blizzquote"]


New Fan Wallpaper - Akama
[blizzquote="Vaneras;]We just added a new fan wallpaper to our World of Warcraft fan wallpapers section. This wallpaper features some amazing artwork with Akama, the leader of the Ashtongue Deathsworn, as he gloats over the corpse of the fallen Betrayer: [url=http://www.wow-europe.com/en/downloads/fan-wallpapers.html][b][color=orange]http://www.wow-europe.com/en/downloads/fan-wallpapers.html[/color][/b][/url][/blizzquote"]

[insidelane]

zzzzz more tournament realm stuff.


What about the uproar on the US shaman forums, make a post about that?

[overneathe]

What about PVE?

[Pinky]

i was in the f&f alpha/beta for TBC and hooooooooooopefully i´ll get in again, everything was so really damn exciting

[Tuig]

Screen with proof of it coming up ... i think 8)

**

[Boubouille]

What about the uproar on the US shaman forums, make a post about that?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...280012&sid=1#0 ? ^^

[theKarn]

What about the uproar on the US shaman forums, make a post about that?

Shaman QQing isn't news. They do it like once a month.

Screen with proof of it coming up ... i think 8)

*Coming up lolz*

All that proves is that someone put a redirecting loop in the code 0o

[bish]

sk gaming and nihilum are on the way to down the twins

gate in eu open

wor news:
http://www.worldofraids.com/2008/april/eu-gate-open.jpg

[madrok]

This post will be updated to warn european players once the first gate is unlocked. Oh, and we might have something about Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury tomorrow. (Nothing big, but if you plan to loot the bow at some point it's probably worth checking)

i'm very, very curious about that... ;D

[leviathonlx]

Also, nothing is confirmed yet but according to the first rumors the http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com activation a few days ago could be related to the beginning of the very first alpha of WotLK. It will be restricted to developers working on WotLK and a few other people and I doubt we'll get any leaks from that, however it should be followed by the Friend & Family alpha with a lot more people involved. Of course, keep in mind that none of this is officialy confirmed.

Even in the F&F Alpha you wouldn't get much info due to the NDA and while some info may get leaked most people won't take the risk of legal action being taken against them . It will be like TBC Alpha where you will mostly see screenshots of zones from sandbox servers and the new models for mobs and items.

[Qwios]

zzzzz more tournament realm stuff.


What about the uproar on the US shaman forums, make a post about that?

Garbage was posted in the shaman forum and a forum moderator cleaned it up, what is news worthy? Just because Timbal is a blue doesn't mean he's anything more than a quirky visible forum mod.

[dfjdejulio]

Even in the F&F Alpha you wouldn't get much info due to the NDA and while some info may get leaked most people won't take the risk of legal action being taken against them .

As I recall, the main source of leaks during the TBC F&FA wasn't from people participating in it. The client and updates were shipped around via torrents, just like WoW patches are, and some folks figured out how to intercept 'em. Thus people who were not under NDA didn't get access to the F&FA servers, but were able to data mine the clients.

It won't utterly shock me if that happens again.

[leviathonlx]

As I recall, the main source of leaks during the TBC F&FA wasn't from people participating in it. The client and updates were shipped around via torrents, just like WoW patches are, and some folks figured out how to intercept 'em. Thus people who were not under NDA didn't get access to the F&FA servers, but were able to data mine the clients.

It won't utterly shock me if that happens again.

The leaks from the Alpha client of course were not from people in the Alpha for the most part. It didn't really take any datamining to see anything new since things like talents and the new areas were viewable right from the sandbox server. Then for models you were able to get that from modelviewer like anything else.

Now datamining for spells was good but a lot of times that was not accurate since you can't tell what is a actual spell that will be used in the game or what class it will be for through the MPQ all the time. For example when some spells were thought to be for the priest (which I forgot the name of) were never used. Most the spells weren't even in the MPQ anyway until a few days before Blizzard announced them.

It didn't take any intercepting to download the alpha either. All we had to do was go to beta.worldofwarcraft.com and download the client and thats all anyone will have to do once the alpha starts. Technically even if you are not under the NDA also it is illegal to post the content on a site WoWWiki for example got threatened by Blizzard for posting anything from the Alpha client. Though Blizzard can't try to control what is on a forum usually though as I was posting things from a Alpha sandbox on worldofwar through the entire Alpha.

[Dessimus]

Good on ya guys in Europe - welcome

[rawrform]

I don't know about you guys, but i think Akama is a badass.