ICC Heroic, Plush Pets, Q4 2009 Results, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Icecrown Citadel Heroic Mode Progress
Heroic Modes are now available in Europe and America and guilds are working hard to get their first kills! So far 5 guilds seems to have a few more kills than the others and defeated all the bosses who aren't part of the limited attempts count (Putricide / Blood Queen Lana'thel / Sindragosa / The Lich King) :

• Paragon (EU - Lightning's Blade)
• vodka (US - Alterac Mountains)
• Exodus (US - Ysondre)
• Adept (US - Dreadmaul)
• For The Horde (EU - Nazjatar)

However, at this point the most succesful guild is Paragon, they defeated Blood Queen Lanathel in heroic mode and are the only guild so far that managed to kill a limited try boss. Congratulations to them.

Plush Wind Rider Cub and Gryphon Hatchling Pets Coming Soon
[blizzquote="Nebu;http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/]The Pet Store is about to go plush! Introducing the Wind Rider Cub and Gryphon Hatchling, the first in a new line of cuddly, crafty critters scheduled to arrive exclusively in the online Blizzard Store in the weeks ahead. Each plush companion will come with a code for a matching in-game, non-combat, account-bound pet to fly by your side in Azeroth. Both Horde and Alliance players will be able to adopt either pet once they hatch in the online Blizzard Store. Keep your eyes on the sky -- and the official World of Warcraft website -- for more information. [/blizzquote"]

Activision Blizzard Q4 2009 Results
Activision published their results for the Fourth Quarter of 2009 and released a handful of information, nothing really new here but it's worth a recap.

• Cataclysm will be released in 2010.
• Starcraft 2 will be released in 2010, the beta starts in February.
• The slides mention "value added services" a couple of times, it is most likely linked to Bornakk's post hinting at a "premium" service for the Auction House available from web.
• World of Warcraft still has 11.5m subscribers, it didn't change much since last year's announcement.

Nothing really much more interesting on the World of Warcraft side here, you can always check Activision's website if you like staring at big numbers.


Blue posts

Why NOT balance the game around 1v1?
I can answer that in three different ways:

• 1) Because there are healers.
• 2) We aren't going for a design where every player is a one person army with a counter for anything that gets thrown against you. We want you to have to rely on your allies. We want you to have weaknesses that someone else can exploit. How you handle your own weaknesses while trying to exploit those of your opponent is one of the ways you can demonstrate skill.
• 3) It's ultimately a social game and the PvP experience is largely designed as team vs. team. (Source)

Lovely Charm Ulduar Farming Nerf (Come on, you all knew it was a huge exploit)
If you are wanting to farm a lot of them for all of your alts, that's your call, but it shouldn't be trivial to get a ton of them and something you finish in 1-2 days if that's the case. The event is pretty long now, so there is time to farm them and now, yes, you may actually have to put some effort into it - that's all. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Lack of Death Knights in Arenas
It's easy to make statistics support a lot of different arguments if you aren't careful. Yes, overall the percentage of DKs compared to other classes in 3s is low. But if you look at the actual highly rated comps, DKs are in the second most common comp after RMP. So using stats like this, what you're really arguing is that DKs don't have a lot of comps in which they function really well (compared to say paladins or shaman who have a few different options). Or put another way, they have great synergy with warriors and maybe hunters. That's a different argument from saying DKs just can't do well in Arenas. If you're a good DK, clearly it's possible to get 2200+ rating or into the SK 100 or even into the top 10.

[...] Look, I'm not an analyst, but I was a scientist, and I had a lot more statistics training than a lot of folks in the business sector are required to take. I've published papers in peer reviewed journals and taught college and all of that. So, yes, this is actually something I understand pretty well. (By contrast, programming is not something in which I am prepared to converse. I know the little bit of C++ that I've picked up from a long time in the industry, but I'm no programmer, nor do I pretend to be, nor do I need to be to do this job. But I do understand stats.)

One of the things I understand is that it's complicated stuff. Being able to treat data fairly and support it with conclusions is not trivial, and honestly probably not the kind of thing you can realistically expect a lot of players without prior experience to be able to do. Very few people can do it period. And there is nothing wrong with that. Nobody is expecting a degree in statistics to be able to talk about class design or even class data. But that doesn't mean a number can be whatever you want it to be either. There is no simple measure of "Arena awesomeness" just like there is no measure of "maximum encounter dps" or "tankiness" or "healiness."

If your contention is that there aren't many kinds of comps in which a DK can be competitive, I think there are data to support that conclusion. The data that have been presented do not support "DKs suck." That is why I am constantly trying to advocate just not going there. If you feel DKs are weak, then argue that point. But you likely need more than simply linking to Arena representation as your proof. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Destruction needs a little more DPS
As I said before, we suspect Destruction will need a little more dps but we want to apply it in such a way that doesn't make Destruction the only logical choice for raiding warlocks. We're also cool with certain specs being better for certain fights. Having a three way tie in every conceivable situation is probably impossible. It just needs to be close enough that you don't feel like a bonehead for raiding with the spec you prefer to play. (Source)

Mobile Authenticator now available on Android phones
A new Mobile Authenticator application appeared on the Android Market yesterday, it isn't officially announced yet but the application is indeed legit.
[blizzquote="Gelmkar;http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=11824374259&sid=1&pageNo=1#6]Hi, I've been doing some asking and it seems that this application is actually official and was launched yesterday. [/blizzquote"]

The support page is also available and you can find it on Blizzard's site.

Reminder: Authenticators are great. If you want to link an authenticator to your phone go to http://mobile.blizzard.com/, a lot of phones are supported and you'll probably find yours in the list.

[Elysia]

Can't wait to get my hands on a plushy wind rider! :-X

[Nakkí]

Keep goin' Paragon, all the way to the bitter end! Päätä näppikseen ja hardit mattoon! ;D

[Matik]

*sigh*

Gratz to Paragon and all, but I'm disappointed with these hard modes. I knew the first few bosses were going to be pretty simple, but I was hoping the limited attempt bosses would be akin to Firefighter/3 Elder Freya or so, but one of the end wing heroic bosses being downed within 20 attempts? Come on ... aren't these bosses supposed to be Sunwell difficulty equivalent?

[BlogThatWorld]

Mixed opinions on the plush pet subject, would have preferred each one to be obtained for 100 pets, Horde and Alliance side, but being able to get both for all my chars, can't really complain I suppose )

[Nak]

I would've never in a million years guessed Cataclysm was coming out in 2010... great job Blizz

[Kibs]

my bet is mid to late october, almost 2 years after WotLK

[Cerabret100]

Ordered my authenticator a couple days ago.

More for shits and giggles then any actual fear of being hacked, but that kind of changed when one of my guildies, whom i know isn't some idiot who can't secure his pc, got hacked today.

kinda glad i got it.

[cyborg99]

Starcraft 2 Beta this month.
When I saw that I literally went ;D

[Zokten]

So hardmodes don't seem to be so hard?

[NefariousNinja]

Didn't they mention somewhere that Cata will come out before Blizzcon (August?)

Can't wait to buy a plushie for my girl and myself. Gotta' catch 'em all!

[Kaesebrezen]

Didn't they mention somewhere that Cata will come out before Blizzcon (August?)

I think i saw the latest date for Blizzcon to be October. Not August.
SC2 will geta Mid Year Release, Cataclysm will be in the 2nd half of the year, but if not to compete with SC2 probably 3-4 months behind that.
So you can assume an late september, early october release for Cataclysm.

Which results in a very, very, very ... long time raiding ICC. A new Raidboss will kill the -Lich King - theme of Wrath of the - Lich king -

[Leowyld]

They said by the next BlizzCon, people would be complaining about Goblin rogues, so you are close, Nefarious. The problem being that we do not know when this year's BlizzCon will be. I think it is going to be in August, again, but nothing has been announced.

[feigning]

So....will the Starcraft beta be available to Canadians? D:

[aikouka]

Meh, I already farmed out Charming on every single 80 I have with Ulduar... heck, I even did Dwarfageddon because it's not that hard to do alone (10 and 25).

You know, I'd use an authenticator if Blizzard would adjust how you switch between accounts that are on the same Battle.Net account. I hate that I have to completely log out and switch accounts on the drop-down box, when there could (most likely) easily be a drop-down box on the Character Select screen. I've been playing WoW for awhile and never had an issue being hacked... I run NoScript and ABP in Firefox and take little heed in security past that. I get those silly phishing e-mails all the time, but it's as simple as just hovering over a link that looks legit and seeing how it goes to a completely and obviously fake URL.

Oh and I'm soooo going to get both of those plushies... they'll go great with my stuffed Murloc ;D.

Starcraft 2 Beta this month.
When I saw that I literally went ;D

I made sure to sign up earlier with my Blizzcon 2008 code ;D.

[Prag]

Awesome job to those Guilds progressing so quickly. Best of luck to all all on LK!

[Cortêxx]

Freakin awesome Paragon. Gz.

- Btw, when do they Release Diablo 3? :-\

[Psychi]

I'm looking forward to the 2 new pets.

[Zetapuppy]

That Wind Rider pet is freakishly adorable.

Do want. <3

[Itsumi]

I'm glad to see official android support for an authenticator, but it's rather annoying to click OK to get rid of the warning screen about rooted phones EVERY time it starts. Would be nice if there was a way to disable the warning.