Everyone has a fighting chance
Starting today, BlizzCon Virtual Ticket holders can start “pre-downloading” the World of Warcraft: Classic demo. The demo can be downloaded directly from the Battle.Net launcher if a Virtual Ticket has been purchased. The demo will be unplayable until BlizzCon begins next Friday.
BlizzCon attendees and Virtual Ticket holders will be able to try out World of Warcraft: Classic thanks to a demo that is being created especially for the convention. In a new blog post on the WoW site, developers expand on what players can expect, what is “new” given the foundation of Classic on the modern code base, and more.
Things are moving fast these days with the World of Warcraft team. It has been confirmed that Brian Holinka has returned to the WoW team as the new Lead Combat Designer. Eagle eyed users saw a post on Holinka’s LinkedIn page and he later confirmed via Twitter that he has indeed returned to WoW. You may recall that Holinka was the Lead PvP Developer from 2012 to 2017. For the past year, he has been at work “on an unannounced project”.
One of the bigger complaints that World of Warcraft players have about Battle for Azeroth is the acquisition of Azerite armor pieces, particularly by running Mythic+ dungeons. That will be changing, however, with 8.1, when a new as-yet-unnamed currency is introduced that players can earn in their weekly Mythic+ chests or by scrapping Azerite armor pieces. Once enough currency is earned, players will be able to visit Thaumaturge Vashreen who will sell two different types of items.
If you have an inactive World of Warcraft account and you don’t already own Battle for Azeroth, you may want to check your BattleNet launcher to see if you’ve been selected for a special 3-day trial of the latest expansion. Players will run through a tutorial after choosing a class to play and having it “boosted” to 110. After that, players can try out the Fight for Lordaeron, obtain the Heart of Azeroth necklace and progress through the game.
One of the most cherished — and rarest — mounts in World of Warcraft is the Horseman’s steed that can only be obtained during the annual Hallow’s End event. This year, Hallow’s End will run from now through November 1st and provides players with an opportunity to trick or treat throughout Azeroth, stink bomb an opposite faction city and / or earn nearly a dozen achievements. New for this year is the Headless Horseman’s Hearthstone toy.
The little people of World of Warcraft are set to accomplish something big again this year with the ninth annual Running of the Gnomes event set to take place on Saturday, October 13th at 4:00 pm Pacific / 7:00 pm Eastern on the Scarlet Crusade server (NA). The charity event benefits The Cleveland Clinic and its research on the Tuohy Vaccine, “a vaccine that can prevent Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, which is often hereditary and the most deadly form of breast cancer”.
Blizzard has announced that it is hosting another World of Warcraft live developer Q&A on October 11th. This time, the topic will be the upcoming 8.1 patch, Tides of Vengeance. Game Director Ion Hazzikostas will be on hand to tackle questions submitted on the WoW forums or via social media using the hashtag #WarcraftQA.
The Blizzard team has acknowledged that there are issues with the current iteration of Azerite gear in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. Azerite armor fits into three available slots (head, shoulder, chest) and contains a number of mostly passive traits that can enhance a variety of abilities for players. However, the community has generally had a number of issues with the system. Blizzard has now admitted that there are three key areas where improvements are needed.
After a lengthy post on the World of Warcraft forums that collated player concerns about Battle for Azeroth gear (Azerite armor), Community Manager Josh “Lore” Allen wrote a lengthy rebuttal to each point. The original post cited several issues, albeit one or two rather hyperbolic, such as “Azerite – Worst Itemization in WoW’s History”, “Traits are Useless & Uninteresting”, “Trait ‘Farming'”, “340 Traits Outperforming 385 Traits”, “Reforging Costs” and “Power Swings”.