WoW News

You can now buy account-upgrade keys and download the game client for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
directly through the account-management section of www.worldofwarcraft.com. The direct online upgrade method is
the most convenient way to upgrade to Wrath of the Lich King and join the millions of players who are already
adventuring in Northrend.

All you need to do is:

That’s it! If you haven’t upgraded your account yet, now’s your chance to take your World of Warcraft experience to the next level, whenever you want.

Think you know your lore? Test your knowledge in our ,
and you might win a hardcover copy of the World of Warcraft comic book signed by artist Jim Lee!

For years, World of Warcraft players have been waiting to learn the origin and fate of the missing king of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn. The story of his incredible journey has
been chronicled in Wildstorm’s fast-paced World of Warcraft monthly comic series, written by comic legend Walt Simonson and featuring art by Ludo Lullabi, Jon Buran, and
Mike Bowden.

or to make sure you’re in the know on the world-shaking events that affect Wrath of the Lich King and beyond. Also be sure to check out
, a hardcover collection of issues 0 through 7. It’s on shelves and available online
now at all major comic retailers.

Once you’ve read up, you’re ready to take the quiz. Complete contest rules, including requirements and eligibility, can be found
. Good luck!

One of the design goals for Wrath of the Lich King was to elevate storytelling in World of Warcraft to new heights. Northrend is brought
to life by engaging quests, memorable characters, beautiful environments, and the introduction of a brand-new feature: in-game cinematics.
The first of these cinematics, The Wrath Gate, is now available for viewing and download on the Wrath of the Lich King website.
!

Filed under: Patches, News items, Mounts

According to the Patch 3.0.3 patch notes, the Druid Swift Flight Form, Paladin Charger, and Warlock Dreadsteed spells will soon become trainable. Before you all celebrate (or throw out invectives…), it should be noted that these spells will only become available at a level above the minimum required level to obtain the mounts or form and will require the appropriate riding skill. Swift Flight Form will be trainable at Level 71 and require Artisan or 300 Riding skill, while both the Charger and Dreadsteed will become available at Level 61 and require Journeyman or 150 Riding skill.

This means that players will still need to pony up for the cash required to train for the riding skill, which means an affordable 480-600 Gold for the land mounts and a not-quite-as-affordable 5,000 Gold for the epic flying skill. If you would like to get the satisfaction of doing some of the coolest quest lines in the game, you can check out the Dreadsteed guide on WoWwiki and our guides for the Paladin Charger for both the Alliance and the Horde. If you’ve got that 5,000 to plunk down — which our very own Dan O’Halloran has been penny-pinching to avoid — you can check out the epic flight form, too. And why not? You might even get a shot at getting one of the coolest ground mounts ever. If anything, doing the quest will grant you the mount a whopping one full level ahead of everyone else!

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP, Quests, Wrath of the Lich King

Oh, this is rich. We’ll admit that WoW‘s achievements system is Blizzard’s reaction to Warhammer Online‘s Tome of Knowledge system, and sure, we’ll even go so far as to say that the PvE to PvP transfers are a shot off the bow of WAR, but claiming that WoW‘s Lake Wintergrasp is a straight rip from Warhammer? We’d think not. Still, that won’t keep Mythic’s CEO Mark Jacobs from claiming exactly that — the outspoken developer says he’s “flattered” by what he calls Blizzard’s attempts at open world PvP.

Too bad it’s straight out nonsense — we were at the PvP panel at last year’s BlizzCon, where Blizzard explained all of the experiments they’d made with world PvP, from the very sad Silithus, to the more successful Halaa and Auchindoun, and how they’d landed on the concept for Lake Wintergrasp — the worldwide buff, the raid boss, the persistent rewards, and so on — from all of the world PvP that had come before. That’s not to say that Blizzard doesn’t want to borrow the best things from Warhammer and other popular games out there, but to claim Wintergrasp is an attempt to emulate Warhammer‘s PvP is just plain reaching. And leveling through PvP? Considering you need a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp and you can’t actually get that until three levels left in the game, it’s as stretchy as it gets to claim that’s Blizzard’s attempt at emulating WAR. If Blizzard really did want to rip off WAR, they’d do it better than that, no?

Can’t say we’re that surprised, though. Jacobs and his team do have a habit of biting off more than they can chew already.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, WoW Social Conventions, Contests, WoW TCG

The WoW TCG World Championships wrapped up this weekend, and an American player named Jim Fleckenstein emerged the winner. The World Champs took place in Paris, and there was a fun twist — apparently last year, a French player won on American soil, and next year, the tournament is going to take place in Austin, Texas, so there’s a rivalry building.

The WoW TCG site has lots more, including play-by-plays of all the matches if you’re interested in how the top players play the game (Jim won with a Shaman — SHAMAN POWER!), and they’ve even got video of all the folks throwing down to win the crazy prizes. Looks like lots of fun in Paris for players of the TCG.

The 2009 season kicks off with the end of these world champs — the next event will be a Darkmoon Faire event in Anaheim, CA on November 9th (right before the Wrath release), and of course the Drums of War expansion is due out soon, with those loot cards we’ve been drooling over.

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