Blue Posts, TCG Art Gallery Update, The Daily Blink, DotA 2 Trailer

[Boubouille]

Blue posters are still awfully calm and depending on what happens this week, you might see a few other-games related news on the front page during Gamescom this week.

I also had people contact me to ask why I "ignored" the US Battle.net Invitational WoW tournament, the answer is simple, Blizzard didn't release any information for it yet, only the Starcraft 2 tournament was streamed and there is no match results or VoDs on the official site for the WoW tournament. Hopefully it will be updated soon.

Blue Posts

Legendary Questline Difficulty
To be fair, we've heard complaints that this is too hard for X, where X = just about every class/spec. It's supposed to be extremely challenging, harkening back to the feel of the Molten Core item quests, which were also not easy. On the other hand, you have unlimited attempts and time to try to figure it out.

Warlocks have a good dispel in Devour Magic (Felhunter), though it's understandable that sometimes more PvE-oriented locks don't have as much experience using their pet in this manner.

It may be really hard, but the feedback we've heard from those who have completed it (including warlocks), is that it ultimately brings a major sense of accomplishment. If you want a legendary item, this questline isn't for the faint of heart. But we do wish you luck. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

2011 Blizzard Global Writing Contest!
Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present the 2011 Blizzard® Global Writing Contest!

You sit at your typewriter, hands frozen in fear by the sound of crumpling paper from the darkness behind you. Shadows of broken quills encroach on your sight's periphery but slither out of view when you turn toward them. Summoning your courage, you lash out at the apparitions before they fade, only to awaken in a cold sweat with pencils and pens gripped tight in your clenched fists. You know what this dream foretells: the 2011 Global Writing Contest is upon us!

The Prophecy of the Unblinking Eye portends of a time when writing contest judges, mad with ocular fortitude from judging the 2009 and 2010 Global Writing Contests, would brazenly unleash the powers of the Ocunomicon. Seeking rituals to infuse themselves with the twisted souls of fel ocularians, they look to wield powers not meant for this or any other contest. But the sacrifices of semicolon keys and left-handed quills have only just begun, their Inkwells of Despair not yet depleted—there is time yet to save this contest!

Is your prose pulchritudinous enough to save this contest from eldritch powers that no eye should possess? If so, submit a 2,500- to 7,500-word short story written in English and set in the Warcraft®, StarCraft®, or Diablo® universe by September 28th, 2011, and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore of Blizzard's games and books. (And probably save the world, too!*)

Grand Prize - The grand prize winner will receive a trip to Blizzard's headquarters in Southern California, where you'll meet and eat with the Blizzard writing staff. In addition, you'll receive a Doomhammer™ hammer by Epic Weapons and copies of the StarCraft Archive, the Diablo Archive, the Warcraft Archive, the Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive, and World of Warcraft: Chronicles of War. All books will be signed by Chris Metzen, their respective cover artists, and the Creative Development Publishing team.

Runners-up - Seven runners-up will each receive copies of the StarCraft Archive, the Diablo Archive, the Warcraft Archive, the Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive, and World of Warcraft: Chronicles of War. All books will be signed by Chris Metzen, their respective cover artists, and the Creative Development Publishing team. (Blue Tracker / Official Blog)

Recent Quest Tracker Update
This is a known bug for which we have a fix lined up in patch 4.2.2. This bug also affects other UI elements, such as your saved role and collapsed headers for quests, reputations, etc. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trading Card Game Art Gallery Update
The Trading Card game art gallery has been updated with ten new pieces.

The Daily Blink - At Least the Cardboard Box Went ‘Boink’
Another excellent comic from The Daily Blink!

DotA 2 Trailer
In unrelated news, a DotA 2 trailer for Gamescom was released today. More information will likely be released later this week. For more discussion, see the topics in our Video Games forum.

The game will be previewed through The International, a tournament held during the Gamescom this week with a $1M Cash prize! Shortly after, League of Legends announced a $5M Prize Pool for the Season 2 of their championship.

[FlySause]

Ha, I love the daily blink! always funny/witty.

[The Glitch]

Daily Blink<3

Also really glad the legendary quests are a bit more difficult, the guildie we have doing it (warlock) had a bit of difficulty with it, but felt real accomplishment when she finally got it. The Old Hunter staff/Priest staff quests were awesome, it would be nice to see some more quest lines that invlove bit more challenge all round.

[Xofa]

/Care? Just give us Diablo FFS!

[Exerionx]

Holy ^&*$ 5 Million? Jesus.

[Dakario]

That trailer was pretty awesome

[Deleted]

Love for the daily blink Dota trailer looks good, any 1 knows if its gonna be f2p like lol and hon?


Edit: for those who dont get it, the 5 mil for Lol is for the WHOLL season, so all the tournaments this year proberbly (SInce S1 lasted 1 year or something). still a lot tho.

The one for DOTA is for 1 tournament.

[Kendeura]

So basically they're qqing a legendary isn't handed to them on a silver platter? Are they fucking joking?

[Deleted]

League of Legends is going to dominate every single MOBA game Fuck dota2, we have LoL now.

[xaniix]

Love for the daily blink

[Vasz]

Looking forward to DotA 2 more than the next WoW expansion lol.

[Melilithia]

Daily Blink = roflmao. Writing Contest... do want! O_O

[Deleted]

gah, boring...

[Korru]

I can't wait for the hats and crafting. :3

[shokter]

best daily blink...ever.

[Daffy201]

Although i never was a fan of SC /sc2 WC3and those types of game, But i do think that Dota 2 Could be fun .

And just lol with the Daily blink xD haha

[Deleted]

Hahaha the Daily Blink made me giggle ;D

[Cirque]

The point being that the legendary quest of Through a Glass, Darkly, which I assume is what the blue post is about as that's where all the complaints is about and where the Devour thing is relevant, is that completely trivial and very easy for mages, while every other class has severe difficulties pulling it off (funny enough, I just completed it half an hour ago on my warlock).

It's definitely do-able on a lock, and no it's not easy, and yes you feel like you're playing the wrong class, but ultimately the sense of accomplishment is ruined by the knowledge, the overwhelming evidence that this entire instance was tailored specifically for 1 class, completely neglecting the others, where moonkins arguably have it hardest (how are you guys even doing the boss?) followed by warlocks. Thát is what the complaints are about, and not about the difficulty as such. It's a legendary quest, of course it's supposed to be hard, and stating that warlocks are not accustomed to using Devour, hinting this is why locks say it's 'too hard', is rubbish in itself: any lock at this level should be aware and less or more proficient with the usage of his pet's abilities, PvE OR PvP.

The issues with the pets and devour on this encounter are related to the fact the dragon flies and the pet can't attack it, not that we don't know how to use Devour. And for that matter, how are owls supposed to do it? Similarly, I can imagine mages may feel frustrated that for them, compared to other classes, this specific part of the quest is a walk through the park. So the complaints, essentially, are about the imbalance of the quest, rather than the difficulty itself.

Edit: of course I still had a lot of fun and it was a very amazing quest, and I loved the challenge. That's not the point of my post, though.

[Deleted]

Gotta love the last art piece. Nothing says fighting minotaurs like doing it in boots, a loin cloth and a bikini, all leather.

[Primernova]

If Valve ever got serious on an MMO, it would be simply epic.