Future of WoW TCG, Realms Lag, ICC Progression

[Boubouille]

The Future of World of Warcraft: TCG

As some of you may already be aware, we will not be renewing the World of Warcraft: The Trading Card Game license with Upper Deck. We want to assure you that we are committed to supporting the TCG, and players can look forward to new content and strong organized play support in the near future. We will share additional details about the game’s transition to a new partner as soon as possible. For those awaiting tournament prizes, we will ensure you receive them.

Now, what does it really mean for the future of WoW: TCG? At this point we don't really know what will happen to the current version of the Trading Card Game, we can just assume that your Spectral Tiger card will be worth "the price of a small car on ebay" in a couple of years. However, if you're only interested in the mount, you might want to wait a little before you buy everything you can.

About two years ago, Slouken slowly left World of Warcraft to start working on an "unnanounced project", at this point I just assumed it was the unannounced MMO. I was wrong: Blizzard created a new development team in 2008 to work on an online conversion of the World of Warcraft: Trading Card game and Slouken seems to lead the project (or at least the recruitment, according to a few offers he posted online). This new game is most likely why the partnership between UDE and Blizzard died.

It's really hard to get more details on the game but I wouldn't be surprised if all the old cards were revived online to give new players a chance to acquire them. Of course, just like everything else, nothing is official and you shouldn't believe me until someone in blue actually confirms that.

12/02 Realm Performance

Some highly populated realms, as well as some realms in highly populated Battlegroups, are currently experiencing performance issues during peak playing hours, which, depending on the realm, can occur both inside and outside instances. This is caused primarily by high concurrent Icecrown Citadel activity, the start of Arena Season 8, the release of the new Vault of Archavon boss encounter and the “Love is in the Air” seasonal event.

To help address some of these issues, we’ve applied a hotfix to optimise certain database requests during the weekly maintenance, in addition to a variety of other related adjustments. We will continue to monitor the affected realms and will be making further adjustments to continually improve performance where possible. We know the performance issues have been a frustrating inconvenience for the players on these realms -- we very much appreciate your patience while we implement additional short- and long-term solutions.

US - Urgent Maintenance

We will be performing urgent maintenance on the realms, listed below, to resolve performance issues beginning at 2:00AM PST on February 13th. We anticipate that these realms should be playable by approximately 7:00AM PST.

Aegwynn, Agamaggan, Aggramar, Akama, Alexstrasza, Alleria, Aman'Thul, Arathor, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor, Azjol-Nerub, Azshara, Baelgun, Balnazzar, Barthilas, Blackhand, Blackrock, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Bloodscalp, Bonechewer, Boulderfist, Bronzebeard, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Caelestrasz, Cho'gall, Chromaggus, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Dark Iron, Darkspear, Dath'Remar, Destromath, Dethecus, Detheroc, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dragonmaw, Draka, Drakkari, Drak'thul, Dreadmaul, Dunemaul, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Eitrigg, Eldre'Thalas, Elune, Emerald Dream, Eonar, Eredar, Feathermoon, Firetree, Frostmane, Frostmourne, Frostwolf, Garithos, Garona, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Gorgonnash, Greymane, Gul'dan, Gundrak, Gurubashi, Hakkar, Hellscream, Illidan, Jubei'Thos, Kael'thas, Kalecgos, Kargath, Khaz Modan, Khaz'goroth, Kil'jaeden, Kilrogg, Kirin Tor, Korgath, Kul Tiras, Laughing Skull, Lightninghoof, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Lothar, Madoran, Maelstrom, Magtheridon, Malfurion, Malorne, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Moonrunner, Mug'thol, Muradin, Nagrand, Nathrezim, Nazjatar, Ner'zhul, Perenolde, Proudmoore, Quel'Thalas, Ragnaros, Ravencrest, Rexxar, Runetotem, Sargeras, Saurfang, Scarlet Crusade, Sen'jin, Shadow Council, Shadowmoon, Shadowsong, Shattered Hand, Silver Hand, Silvermoon, Skullcrusher, Skywall, Smolderthorn, Spinebreaker, Spirestone, Staghelm, Stonemaul, Stormrage, Stormreaver, Stormscale, Suramar, Terenas, Thaurissan, Thorium Brotherhood, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Tichondrius, Trollbane, Twisting Nether, Uldum, Ursin, Vek'nilash, Warsong, Whisperwind, Wildhammer, Windrunner, Zul'jin

Icecrown Citadel Hall of Fame - Updated
The Hall of Fame has been updated and I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the last updates before quite some time, the Lich King's heroic mode brings the difficulty to a whole new level and we might have to wait a few weeks before we see a kill ... except if top guilds manage to surprise us once again.

Hall of Fame

Heroic Bosses First Kills

Boss	Guild	Server	Time
Lord Marrowgar	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 9 21:59 GMT Feb. 10 10:00 GMT
Lady Deathwhisper	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 01:13 GMT Feb. 10 11:36 GMT
Gunship Battle	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 01:28 GMT Feb. 10 11:48 GMT
Deathbringer Saurfang	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 06:13 GMT Feb. 10 14:13 GMT
Valithria Dreamwalker	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 07:28 GMT Feb. 10 15:46 GMT
Festergut	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 09:12 GMT Feb. 10 17:09 GMT
Rotface	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 10:14 GMT Feb. 10 17:23 GMT
Professor Putricide	Paragon	Lightning's Blade	Feb. 12 15:44 GMT
Blood Princes	vodka Paragon	Alterac Mountains Lightning's Blade	Feb. 10 11:14 GMT Feb. 10 18:00 GMT
Blood Queen Lana'thel	Exodus Paragon	Ysondre Lightning's Blade	Feb. 11 03:00 GMT Feb. 10 23:06 GMT
Sindragosa	Exodus Paragon	Ysondre Lightning's Blade	Feb. 12 06:15 GMT Feb. 11 15:05 GMT
The Lich King

[BaddyMcBad]

Loving the return of Hall of Fame :]
Can't even begin to image how much the Spectral Tiger will be worth.

[Dirtybird42o]

Oh no my server is going down, guess I should go to bed then

[treston323]

Bladefist isn't on that list? Surprising.. probably the most shit server on the US(Server performance and community wise).

[Beelzebubs]

This is annoying. 18 hours of maintenance in 4 days during the times I play

[NefariousNinja]

Anyone out there plays the card game, and if so how fun and/or easy was/is it?

On a different note, lame my realm went down.

[ScoobyDew79]

I would venture a guess that the TCG relationship ending had something to do with Upper Deck being found liable for counterfeiting Yu Gi Oh! cards last month.

[Alandris]

My server is lagging as hell playing wintergrasp is immpossible , being at dalaran between 20h and 21h is pure madness and a raid evening without some serious lag a miracle :s

it's really irritating since it doesn't appear to be a situationnal issue every day is the same even midday wintergrasp session is laggy !

[subanark]

This seems oddly familiar to when Nintendo broke their agreement with Wizards of the Coast for their Pokémon TCG... Let some other company that knows how to do TCG make a version for your product for a while, then take it away from then once you think you can keep doing the same formula they were doing.

[dawn]

Maybe they are making it a CCG format.

Edge is having a very good profit with their change format (A game of thrones, Call of cthulu, warhammer invasion...) from lcg to ccg so I wouldn't be surprised if they adopt this new format or even work with Edge to develop a ccg chapter based card game.

But then, we can forgot about loot cards in the cardgame

[Trypticon]

An MTGO version of WOW would be an amazing addition to the franchise, and it is something that I have been looking forward to for quite some time. Although, a huge part of me would rather see it in-game where "booster" packs would be lootable off of bosses, just like in Everquest.

[Boobies]

An MTGO version of WOW would be an amazing addition to the franchise, and it is something that I have been looking forward to for quite some time. Although, a huge part of me would rather see it in-game where "booster" packs would be lootable off of bosses, just like in Everquest.

Yeah, some rpg elements like that would be welcome, also I hope that the prices for boosters aren't as high as in real life, since for one thing, you can go on ebay and find nearly any set or single for significantly cheaper than from blizzard currently and secondly, it only works for MTGO since if you complete one of the newer sets completely, you can trade it in for a real life version of it.

[phai]

TIME TO GET A SPECTRAL TIGER CARD GUISE!

[denisgsv]

would like to know more about online tgc ... will it affect wow ?
Some prizes are great tough

[flan1337]

omfg I still have unused loot cards and ube points :s should I use them now before they go away for ever?

[Kalx]

omfg I still have unused loot cards and ube points :s should I use them now before they go away for ever?

as for the UDE points, I think you should use them

but the loot cards I dunno, because the redemption is on WoW site then in-game

also sucks, 3 maintenances in 1 week =(

[mrkorb]

Shortly after I quit EQ, didn't they add a TCG thing that integrated with the game, and even had rare cards drop from mobs? There was a way to play it outside of the game, but still online too. Must have been 5 or 6 years ago.

[Second]

also sucks, 3 maintenances in 1 week =(

well, better have maintance then unplayable game 19:00-24:00 and lag spikes during whole day everywhere
was not even able to pick up mail in hour, i gave up

[fps90]

Shortly after I quit EQ, didn't they add a TCG thing that integrated with the game, and even had rare cards drop from mobs? There was a way to play it outside of the game, but still online too. Must have been 5 or 6 years ago.

Legends of Norrath is an online TCG game for EverQuest and EverQuest 2. It came out in late 2007.

It's a really fun game and I've always wanted something like that for WoW.

[Trypticon]

Shortly after I quit EQ, didn't they add a TCG thing that integrated with the game, and even had rare cards drop from mobs? There was a way to play it outside of the game, but still online too. Must have been 5 or 6 years ago.

The bosses in-game had a chance to drop booster packs and there was a rare chance of getting cards that allowed players to obtain actual in-game items w/ stats for their character.