Arena Season 5 Start Date Announced

Season 4 Ends, Season 5 Start Date Announced

We wanted to remind everyone that Arena season 4 is coming to a close. During next Tuesday’s maintenance, all arena teams, as well as ratings, will be wiped and arena charter NPCs disabled. Thus, arena points will, unfortunately, not be rewarded for rated games played this week.

The next Arena season will begin on December 16th, and once that happens players at level 70 will be able to participate in rated matches against level 70 opponents and gain Arena points for item purchases but will not count towards the end of season rewards. At the same time, level 80 players will be able to compete in rated arena matches where they can gain arena points which can be used to purchase level 80 arena gear, as well as compete for end-of-season rewards. Additionally, players at level 70 will continue to be able to play skirmish Arena matches against other level 70 opponents even after Wrath of the Lich King launches. It’s also important to note that two new skirmish brackets (71-75, 76-80) will be available for players who wish to hone their Arena skills while leveling in Northrend.

Arena Season 4 Titles - Likely Calculated Wrong

Today was the big day for arena season 4 rewards, nether drakes and titles were sent out to players who qualified. However, there has been much discussion in the last few hours on the official blizzard forums regarding the title calculation.

Many players are reporting that they were within the cut offs for various titles (myself included) and were not awarded the appropriate rank. So far blizzard has yet to confirm these assertions, and only said they are investigating further.

Based in the frequency of such reports and the fact that this miscalculation has occurred…well, every single arena season, I would imagine these reports are geniunie and a recalculation of titles and nether drakes will be conducted later this week.

Season 4 End Date Announced!

This afternoon Tigole calmed the fears of many players who thought they were going to lose their Brutal Gladiator titles to triple Retribution Paladin teams by announcing that the end of Season 4 would happen on the day that the 3.0 Patch hits live servers.

We’ve reevaluated certain aspects of how the arena system and current arena season will be affected during both the next content patch, and the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. For starters, the current arena season will end in respect to the ladder upon the release of our next major patch. What this means is, we’ll be taking a snapshot of the current season’s ladder just before the realms are taken down for patch maintenance, and our normal process will commence to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards.

Teams and ratings will not be wiped at that time, and will carry forward allowing players to earn points each week (and buy gear) until the launch of the expansion on November 13th. Almost immediately before Wrath of the Lich King releases, all arena teams as well as ratings will be wiped and arena charter NPCs disabled.

So there you have it, no need to worry.

Scouge Invasion Event for WotLK Announced!

Well, “announced” in a relative senseI suppose. Earlier this evening there was a brief post on the US general WoW forums which strongly points to the second coming of the scourge invasion event.

If people chose to get rid of the runes, that’s certainly their choice. I can understand wanting to free up bank space, certainly, particularly over the space of time.

Many people playing now never had the chance to get those runes, and if you have none you’re right on par with them.

But I don’t lie when I say the Necrotic Runes are going to have a use again… quite soon.

For those of you who did not get to participate the first scourge event let me catch you up. When Naxxaramas was released pre-BC Blizzard instituted a brief scourge invasion event immediately prior to the opening of the dungeon. This invasion spanned all continents and zones, there were invasion points in every zone…even low level and mid range zones (the mob’s level scales accordingly).

Killing these invasion forces allowed you to complete various quest and other objectives for the Argent Dawn’s cause, which in turn would award you various rewards, some novelty items such as tabards, but others including epic armor, large slot bags, trinkets, etc. Nothing in the event is all that difficult, but it will be great to see such a unique and world spanning event once again in WoW.

Honor Points to Reset to 0 in WotLK

The title pretty much sums this up, and everyone’s suspicions were officially confirmed by a blue poster earlier today. All accumulated honor points will be reset to zero when the wrath of the lich king expansion is released. No word yet if marks of honor will also be removed.

Additionally, in case you missed it arena points will also be reset to zero at level 71. Arena points to reset.

As many of you know we will be featuring a new Battleground, a dedicated world PvP zone and all new PvP items in Wrath of the Lich King. In order to make the transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King flow as smoothly as possible, all accrued honor points will be reset at the launch of the expansion. We do this to ensure select players do not have an unfair advantage at level 80 from stockpiling honor to instantly purchase the newest Wrath of the Lich King PvP rewards. For those with unspent honor points prior to the release of the expansion, we will be offering a few upgrades and special rewards in next content patch solely for purchase via the honor system.(source)

Quick update for marks of honor, which are also going to be reset.

Marks of Honor will be wiped as well. (source)

Level 1 to 60 in 30 Hours!

No way! Impossible? That’s what I thought too, but thanks to Blizzard’s new refer a friend program I’ve leveled up my most recent alt with a few friends in just a 30 hours! It’s a pretty simple system, but I’ll review exactly how it works so you too can do this!

Setting Up Your Refer a Friend Account

1. First, you must send your friend a refer a friend invite link through your WoW account management window. They must accept this through the email they provide you and then download the World of Warcraft trial.
2. Next, you’ll want to go ahead and upgrade the trial account to a full account. Your friend can do this in his / her account management settings.
3. You can start leveling while the account is still a trial, but remember that trial accounts have very limited functionality (no mail, no trading, cannot send whispers except to people who are mutual friends).
4. Now you’re good to go and can start power leveling!

In order to make joining the game as easy as possible blizzard has created several new elements to help you during the 1 to 60 leveling process.

• You and your partner will gain triple experience on all mobs and quest turn ins while leveling up to 60. Note, you and your friend MUST be within 30 yards and within the same party to gain the triple experience. This triple experience buff is account wide and lasts for 90 days.
• You and your partner can summon each other (no assist required) once every hour anywhere in the world.

Heap On The Rewards!

You didn’t think the fun was going to stop with triple xp did you? Oh no! In addition to being able to level as many alts as you like, you as the referrer also get some additional bonuses for all your hard work in bringing your friend to WoW!

• 30 Days free WoW subscription
• Rare Zhevra mount (refer a friend program only)
• Cherry on the Cake: For every 2 levels your friend levels he / she can “gift” one of your other characters 1 level. Ex. My friend and I just hit 60 on our new alts, but I am going to have him gift another one of my alt characters from 30 to 60. Since he leveled 60 levels he received 30 levels to give as a gift. This gifting policy works for 90 days while your accounts are linked.

WotLK Arena Change

Big news from the blue front this morning regarding arena in wrath of the lich king. As you may have expected there are various brackets for arena, so as soon as you level past 70 you won’t be able to compete or purchase items in the 70 bracket.

Furthermore, any arena points you may have had will be reset to zero once you leave this 70 bracket. Make sure you note this, once you hit 71 you’re arena points are reset to zero! So don’t be thinking you can save up for level 80 items, spend your points and enjoy them now!

Finally, there will be a new level 80 arena bracket, slated to begin sometime after WotLK launches. If it’s anything like TBC’s launch I’d imagine it’d be somewhere in the area of 3-5 weeks after launch, which should give sufficient time for even the slowest players to level from 70-80. This new arena will include a completly new set of updated armor, weapons, etc. and rewards for top players.

Check out the full post by Wyraxian’s full post on the subject below.

We want to provide some information about the direction of the Arena system. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players will find they are still able to access the Arena system at level 70 for rated matches. Those competing in the Arenas at 70 will still be able to attain items using Arena points and rankings; however, we do not currently plan to offer new items or titles for this bracket. Players who level past 70 will have their Arena points reset to 0 and be removed from all Arena teams in the level-70 bracket.

Two new skirmish brackets (71-75, 76-80) will be available for players who wish to hone their Arena skills while leveling in Northrend. Those who reach level 80 will once again have the opportunity to create new Arena teams and play in rated matches once a new season starts. New items, titles, and end-of-season rewards will be offered to the most successful teams at level 80. Additionally, the sets released for the Arenas in Wrath of the Lich King will no longer share aesthetic similarities with tiered raiding gear. We want those equipped with the best PvP rewards and those with the best raiding sets to stand out from each other. Players at level 80 will also have the opportunity to compete in two new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles.

Tuskarrmageddon Achievement: Seal Cub Clubbin Club

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for several weeks then you’re vaguely aware that wrath of the lich king is coming out soon, and one of the newest features is the achievements system. Wrath of the lich king achievements are basically novel rewards for accomplishing something in the game.

Now that something could be winning 10 arena matches in a row, collecting 10,000 gold from quests, or in the case of…

Tuskarrmageddon…

Mindlessly slaughter 1,000,000 Tuskarr.

Reward: Baby Seal Cub

Now, beyond the fact that it’s damn hilarious (and potentially a fake) let’s just think about the total time investment this would require. For your reference Tuskarr is a faction that will not be introduced until the the Wrath of the Lich King goes live.

Now let’s assume there are some low level Tuskarr available for you to kill, say level 70-72. You being a level 80 should tear through em fast. For the purpose of this scenario you kill them insanely fast, let’s say you kill and loot one tuskarr every 5 seconds.

5 seconds * 1,000,000 million Tuskarr = 5,000,000 seconds

5,000,000 seconds = 83,333.33 minutes = 1388.88 hours = 57.87 days!

All I can say is it better be one damn cool baby seal cub…