News Round Up: WoW Released in Brazil, Adding Battlegrounds, Twilight of the Aspects, and More

Live Опубликовано 21.07.2011 в 19:59 Ashelia

SAO PAULO, Brazil. -- July 21, 2011 -- At an exclusive press event at the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulotoday, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced that a fully localized Brazilian Portuguese version of its critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®, will be released in Brazil later this year. Brazilian Portuguese will be the ninth officially supported language for World of Warcraft worldwide, and the third supported language in Latin America, complementing the existing English and Spanish versions.

An official Brazilian Portuguese World of Warcraft community website will also be available at launch.

In addition, players in Brazil will have access to customer service for the game in Brazilian Portuguese.

"One of our top priorities is ensuring that our games are easily accessible to players all around the world. By offering a fully localized version of World of Warcraft along with customer service in Brazilian Portuguese, we’re able to deliver an experience that meets our standards and the expectations of our players in Brazil," said Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. "We look forward to welcoming Brazilian gamers to the global World of Warcraft community, and we hope they have a great time in Azeroth."

World of Warcraft, which now includes the content of thefirst expansion, The Burning Crusade®, as part of the base game, will be available in stores throughout Brazil at a suggested retail price of BRL 29.90. Fully localized versions of the second and third expansions, Wrath of the Lich King™ and Cataclysm™, will also be available at a suggested retail price of BRL 99.90 each. World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm will come packaged in a DVD case and will include the game media and documentation in Brazilian Portuguese.

Existing players on the North American realms will be able to download and install a free language pack to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese. In addition, Blizzard will be creating designated Brazilian Portuguese realms as an option for players who have installed the language pack or purchased the Brazilian Portuguese game client.

Subscription plans will be available at launch at an expected price of BRL 15 (30 days), BRL 42 (90 days), and BRL 78 (180 day). Sixty-day time cards will also be available in retail stores at launch.

Players will also have the option to purchase and download full Brazilian Portuguese versions of World of Warcraft and its expansions through Blizzard’s Battle.net website (http://us.battle.net/pt/), using international Visa or MasterCard, or by using various local debit cards, credit cards, cash payments, bank transfers, or eWallet options through Blizzard Entertainment’s payment-gateway partner, DineroMail, for no additional fee. These payment method options include Boleto Bancario in Brazil.

Additional pricing details and an official release date for the Brazilian Portuguese version of World of Warcraft will be announced closer to launch. For more information on World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese, please visit: http://us.blizzard.com/pt-br/company/events/wow-brazil.html.

Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now on store shelves. We’re pleased to present a series of three excerpts from the novel for your reading enjoyment.

Read the first excerpt below.

--

Nobundo turned to Thrall and Aggra as they approached. He was a former draenei. His form was not proud and strong and tall, but bent, almost deformed, caused by exposure to fel energies. Many Broken were dark and corrupted, but Nobundo was not. Indeed, he had been blessed, his great heart opening to the shamanic powers, and it was he who had brought these powers to his people. Beside him were several draenei, their blue forms undamaged, sleek, clean. Yet, to Thrall and many others, Nobundo outshone them all because of who he was.

When the high shaman's gaze fell upon Thrall, the orc wanted to look away. This being—indeed, all the other shaman gathered here—was someone Thrall respected deeply, and had never wished to disappoint. And yet, he had.

Nobundo beckoned Thrall to him with an oversized hand. "Come, my friend," he said quietly, regarding the orc kindly.

Many were not so charitably minded, and Thrall felt angry gazes being cast his way as he approached Nobundo. Others came silently to join in this informal gathering.

"You know the spell we were attempting to work," Nobundo said, his voice still calm. "It was to soothe and comfort the earth. It is admittedly a difficult working, but one that all of us here know how to do. Can you tell us why you—?"

"Stop dancing around the subject," growled Rehgar. He was a massive orc, battle-scarred and hulking. One would not look at him and think "spiritual," but whoever made that assumption

would be very wrong. Rehgar's life journey had thus far taken him from gladiator to slave owner to loyal friend and advisor to Thrall, and that journey was far from over. Now, though, a lesser orc than the former warchief of the Horde might have quailed before his anger. "Thrall... what the fel was going on with you? We could all feel it! You weren't focusing!"

Thrall felt his hands curl into fists and forced them to relax. "Only because you are my friend will I permit you to speak so to me, Rehgar," Thrall said quietly, but with an edge to his voice.

"Rehgar is right, Thrall," Muln Earthfury said in his deep, rumbling voice. "The working is hard, but not impossible—not even unfamiliar. You are a shaman, one who has been through all his

people's true rites. Drek'Thar hailed you as the savior of his people because the elements spoke to you when they had been silent for many years. You are no inexperienced child, to be coddled and sympathized with. You are a member of this Ring—an honored and strong one, or else you would not be here. And yet you crumbled at a crucial moment. We could have silenced the quakes, but you shattered the working. You need to tell us what is distracting you so that we may aid you."

"Muln—" Aggra began, but Thrall lifted a hand.

"It is nothing," he said to Muln. "The work is demanding and wearying, and I have a great deal on my mind. Nothing more than that."

Rehgar uttered an oath. "You have a great deal on your mind," he spat. "Well, the rest of us do as well. Trivial things like saving our world from ripping itself apart!"

For a second, everything went red in Thrall's vision. Muln spoke before Thrall could. "Thrall was leader of the Horde, Rehgar, not you. You cannot know what burdens he bore and perhaps still does bear. And as one who until recently owned slaves, you cannot sit in moral judgment upon him!"

He turned to Thrall. "I am not attacking you, Thrall. I am merely seeking to see how we can aid you, that you can better aid us."

"I know what you are doing," Thrall said, his voice close to a snarl. "And I do not like it."

"Perhaps," Muln said, striving for diplomacy, "you are in need of some rest for a while. Our work is very demanding, and even the strongest must tire."

Thrall did not even grace the other shaman with a verbal reply; he merely nodded curtly and stalked off to his shelter.

He was angrier than he had been in some time. And the person he was most angry with was himself.
He knew he had been the weak link in the chain, had failed to put forth the ultimate concentration at the moment when it was most desperately needed. He could not yet drop deep into himself, touch the Spirit of Life within, which was what had been required of him. He didn't know if he would ever be capable of doing so. And because he could not do this thing, the effort had failed.

Death Strike Hotfix Explanation

This was entirely meant to make it so DKs were not unfairly punished on Alysrazor.

That's it. Don't read anymore into it.

Adding Battlegrounds

We’d like to. We certainly haven't forgotten about the PvP community at all and we do a lot of PvP oriented behind the scenes work right now. While not very much of that effort is channeled into creating new maps at the moment, we would definitely like to increase the variety of Battleground and Arena maps that are available in the future. That's where things get sticky, though. One might think that creating a Battleground is a pretty simple process (they look simple, right?), but it's not.

Part of the reason is that Battlegrounds are like ducks. A duck looks like it effortlessly glides across the water, but their little feet are actually working madly beneath the surface to make it happen. Battlegrounds are the same way. They may look simple -- even static -- to a casual observer, but in reality there's an incredible number of very complicated processes going on behind the scenes. Part of the reason for this is due to a lot of technical hurdles that need to be jumped to make them perform as seamlessly as they do, battle after battle. As a result, it's actually extremely difficult to design Battlegrounds, partially due to the technical limitations that are currently in place.

The other part of the reason is that Battlegrounds (and Arena maps, for that matter) require a higher degree of polish than a PvE map does. If a bit of geometry causes you to hang up, or blocks line of sight in a dungeon or raid, then in the majority of circumstances you can probably just work around it until it's fixed. If the same flaw exists in a bg or arena map, then that imperfection might be exploited for an unfair advantage, which runs contrary to the spirit of fair competition we want in that kind of PvP. We know that a lot of the PvP community is ultimately more interested in having perfectly balanced and bug-free maps to play on, than they necessarily are in having new maps to play on.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, while boss mechanics might differ from raid to raid, broadly speaking all dungeons and raids have the same rule set (that is, they have raid locks and you have to run back to the portal when you wipe and so on). BGs and Arenas tend to have highly individual rule sets. The result is that, in addition to the factors I’ve already mentioned, we also have to craft every BG essentially by hand every time. We’d like to develop a tool to create PvP maps in the same way we have a tool we can use to create bosses or a tool we can use to create items. Such a tool would let us create BGs and other PvP-oriented maps more readily. That's something that we're working toward now, but it's time consuming and exacting work, and still quite a ways off.

Still, ultimately we think all this effort will pay off, and we're confident that you'll feel the same way. In the meantime, there are still plenty of players of the opposing faction to send back to the Spirit Healer, and we hope you can continue to have fun making red dead wherever you find it.

Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects follows the former War Chief of the Horde as he struggles with the ongoing repercussions of the Cataclysm.

When Azeroth was young, the noble titans appointed the five great dragonflights to safeguard the budding world. Each of the flights' leaders was imbued with a portion of the titans' vast cosmic powers. Together, these majestic Dragon Aspects committed themselves to thwarting any force that threatened the safety of the World of Warcraft.

Over ten thousand years ago, a betrayal by the maddened black Dragon Aspect, Deathwing, shattered the strength and unity of the dragonflights. His most recent assault on Azeroth—the Cataclysm—has left the world in turmoil. At the Maelstrom, the center of Azeroth's instability, former Horde warchief Thrall and other accomplished shaman struggle to keep the world from tearing apart in the wake of Deathwing's attack. Yet a battle also rages within Thrall regarding his new life in the shamanic Earthen Ring, hampering his normally unparalleled abilities.

Unable to focus on his duties, Thrall undertakes a seemingly menial task from an unexpected source: the mysterious green Dragon Aspect, Ysera. This humble endeavor soon becomes a journey spanning the lands of Azeroth and the timeways of history itself, bringing Thrall into contact with ancient dragonflights. Divided by conflict and mistrust, these dragons have become easy prey to a horrific new weapon unleashed by Deathwing's servants . . . a living nightmare engineered to exterminate Azeroth's winged guardians.

Of even greater concern is a bleak and terrifying possible future glimpsed by Ysera: the Hour of Twilight. Before this apocalyptic vision comes to pass, Thrall must purge his own doubts in order to discover his purpose in the world and aid Azeroth's dragonflights as they face the Twilight of the Aspects.

World of Warcraft: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now available at local and online book retailers!

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Thrall-Twilight-Aspects/dp/1416550887/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311038807&sr=8-1

Barnes & Noble

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/World-of-Warcraft/Christie-Golden/e/9781416550884

Need and Greed in World of Warcraft

Need: I need that piece of gear and will wear it/use it in my appropriate spec
Greed: I do not need that piece of gear and will probably not use it. I will most likely Vendor it or perhaps wear it "for pretty"
Disenchant: I don't even want to bother vendoring this. I would rather the materials that is made up of. I have great use of the disenchanted item than the original

The system for rolling on items isn't perfect and doesn't have built-in functionality for off-spec rolls, etc., but part of this is because we expect there should be at least some base level of communication between the players, particularly if anyone in the group is running dungeons for items and not just the points.

Maybe in a guild group but asking questions like "Can I need" in a pug group has a high chance of getting you kicked or griefed.

While this would be very nice and pretty in a guild 5man environment, it doesn't happen. Why should it? Why should I accommodate a tank that I'll never see again? Forget him, I need my tanking set NOW. He doesn't like it? Too bad, I already have the item. Go ahead and kick me, I don't need anything else out of here anyway. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The fact is, as much as I hate it, the community in the RDF finder ranges from the sweetest sugarpops you'll ever meet and the bottom-of-the-barrel "ties bags to puppies' feet" types. Closer moderation on what you can and cannot need is ESSENTIAL, even NECESSARY in this type of environment.

The current system seems to think we're in a "nice" part of town and doesn't bother locking its front door when it steps out. It's just not the case.

Fireland Dailies AKA How to Give Feedback Zarhym Likes

The Fireland dailies. I like 'em. The ones inside the portal. Not so much the ones in Hyjal. I like seeing my little hippie tree base growing. Good atmosphere. Good dailies. Good world pvp. Good job.

Capital Cities

I see players in all of the cities all the time. My level 85 characters have their hearthstones set to Shattrath, and while it's not as crowded as it once was, I do see players coming and going when I'm there.

Memorable Moments

For some reason, walking to Darnassus and Ironforge with a bunch of other lvl 1 players was a great experience. First time playing WoW and exploring a world that I had never seen before. Didn't matter if I knew how to play or not, just seeing the new cities, monsters, and people was spectacular as a newcomer for the first time. It was amazing lol.

Play Whatever You Want To

Hey guys i was just wondering what the best possible class is for worgen considering racials and all? Im looking more towards dps but would be ok with tanking. If anyone knows the best class for worgen that the racials help with please post!

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