Category: World of Warcraft News

The latest World of Warcraft PTR build has an odd new aura seemingly directed at “twink” characters that speedrun island expeditions in parties designed to boost low-level, undergeared characters. If one player in a party has experience disabled, the rest of the party will see a 95% reduction in XP gains. Warcraft Secrets later clarified that the aura is seems to be directed at Demon Hunters that have been in wide use in both the Freehold Dungeon & Island Expeditions.

It seems that Blizzard is taking more seriously the notion of a World of Warcraft level squish than had been previously thought. A new survey is making the rounds asking players how they would feel if the company decided to “squish”, or reduce, WoW levels from where it currently stands at 120. Each expansion has added more levels to the cap and developers feel that this is not healthy for the game. Ion Hazzikostas recently alluded to a forthcoming squish with the next expansion.

The World of Warcraft Classic team is ready to put Alterac Valley through its paces. On Friday, June 14th, a new Classic Beta realm will be opened specifically for Alterac Valley. Players will need to log into the Field of Strife realm to take part and will be able to create a level 58 character for the purpose of testing. All other realms will be turned off while the test is underway.

The World of Warcraft Classic team has announced that closed beta is coming down for maintenance to add new zones and to increase the level cap to 40. Players will be able to check out Arathi Highlands, Desolace, and Stranglethorn Vale among others. In addition, CBT characters will be able to respec using silver instead of the usual gold cost. This is a specific reduction in cost for beta testing ONLY.

When v8.2 Rise of Azshara launches in World of Warcraft, it will come with a new vendor that will sell account-bound gear for “Prismatic Manapearls” earned through gameplay. The items purchased can then be sent to alts to help them gear up and, most interestingly, the gear itself can be upgraded at the same vendor up to near Heroic-raid level gear after seven improvements are purchased.

With the first World of Warcraft Classic stress test in the bag, developers have already announced the second, seemingly unplanned, event for Wednesday, May 29th from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm Pacific / 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm Eastern. Anyone who participated in the May 22nd event is invited back for the one on the 29th.

When v8.2 rolls into World of Warcraft, it will come with new heritage armor quests for both the Alliance Gnomes and the Horde Tauren races. The official site has been updated with a preview of both armors. The quests for racial heritage armors generally do not have prerequisites other than to be exalted with that particular capital city. However, devs have a bit of a surprise in store: Tauren players will have to complete the War Campaign quest, Stay of Execution, in order to begin the quest.

Blizzard devs will be adding lots of World of Warcraft Classic players ahead of the first stress test event that will take place on Wednesday, May 22nd from 4:00 – 6:00 pm Pacific / 7:00 – 9:00 pm Eastern. The Classic closed beta realm will be offline during the stress test, but CBT players can log into the special realm being set up for the stress test. Those who wish to participate will need to have opted in to Classic beta testing via their account profile.

Apparently a lot of the current World of Warcraft Classic closed beta testers are reporting things as bug that, well, simply aren’t. There are enough of them, in fact, that Kalvax, the Classic community manager, posted a lengthy “Not a Bug” list on the forums. Some of the things that are actual features in the game include Tauren melee reach and hitboxes are larger than other races, Warrior health regen is working as intended and creature respawn rates are “much slower”.

If you have opted in to beta testing World of Warcraft Classic via your account management page, you may want to check the BattleNet launcher to see if you have been selected. The beta servers are currently open and taking players in to play the highly-anticipated reboot of “vanilla” WoW.