Arena Tournament has begun!

The 2009 Arena Tournament officially begun yesterday, kicking of a six-week qualifying period to find the best Arena players who will earn the chance to win prizes totaling over $200,000. Registration was opened a little over a week ago, with Blizzard enticing aspiring Gladiators with the Vanquisher title and a Murloc vanity pet that will translate over to the live realms. The tournament will

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Build 9626 Patch Notes Changes

A new Patch 3.1 PTR build is out tonight, build #9626. This build adds some changes and brings a few undocumented changes into their proper documented status.And with this new build, we're going to try something new here at WoW Insider. Each time the patch notes change, we'll bring you a listing of significant changes to them.What's a significant change?Non-grammatical, there are grammar and

WoW 3.1 PTR Patch Notes

Here we go boys and girls, the main event, what we've all been waiting for: the PTR Patch 3.1 Patch Notes. As a reminder, these patch notes are preliminary and incomplete – but that's just the way we like 'em. There will be lots more added in to them over the coming weeks, eventually resulting in the release patch notes we'll see when 3.1 makes it to the live servers.These notes were retrieved

Meetsi of Auchindoun

Holy Paladins are a bit of a hot topic right now. While moment-captured statistics will certainly indicate they have a measure of power in Season 5, this isn't the first time that's happened. Back in Season 1, Holy Paladins were the class-to-have. But as soon as Resilience and mobility became popular in Arena compositions, Holy Paladins became a thing of the past. Even the so-called "lolret"

How to be useful on the PTR

Yep, another PTR post. For all we know, the recent frenzy surrounding the PTR has been manufactured by Blizzard as a practical joke while their programmers are out playing skee-ball. We don't have the foggiest idea of when it's going to hit, but back-channel discussion here at WoW Insider HQ currently has the smart money on "whenever Elizabeth Wachowski is away from her computer."My real reason

Statistically speaking

I'm listening to a playlist full of old NES chiptunes as I write this, Zanac, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, Crystalis, Shatterhand, Tecmo Super Bowl, Legacy of the Wizard--just some awesome old stuff, some of which comes from composers who went on to become even more awesome. I love the game music from that era; I find it absolutely amazing what those guys could make that tiny sound chip do. And yes, I

Are disenchanters getting robbed by rolls?

Sardonis sent us a note the other day, with an interesting, if probably controversial, point inside: when we're in instances, Skinners take their skins, Miners take their ores, and Herbalists take their herbs (or of course they rotate around if there's more than one). At the end of the instance, we don't sit down and /roll on all of the herbs or ores that people have picked up. So why do we do it

Nostalgia vs. reality

There's an interesting post on the forums that's become a catalogue of what old-time players miss most about classic WoW. While it's become a pretty thorough compilation of iconic moments, there are admissions that, well, maybe some of the stuff that's fun to look back on wasn't actually that much fun at the time. The examples include trying to get past a 40-man raid of the opposite faction into

How to avoid automatic subscription renewal

As most of us know, WoW credit card subscription plans in the US and Europe are auto-renewing. If I sign up for one month at $14.99, as soon as that month is up, Blizzard immediately re-bills my credit card and signs me up for another month. This is problematic for some people, who may want to switch to a game card at the end of the month, or who simply might not want their cards to be

A video guide to faster raiding

This video is entitled "Pull! A Guide to Faster Raids," and it's been produced by Kyth, of Fusion (US-Turalyon H). Set to the backdrop of (part of) a Naxxramas speed run, the video presents some easy tips for raiding faster. It's mostly addressed towards raid leaders, but I certainly plan on bringing some of the concepts here forward in my next raid. You should watch the video - it's well made

WoW Video: Keep Browsing 2

Warning: The language in this movie is not safe for work.Today on Moviewatch, we take a look at the second piece from MozQ -- his first, Keep Browsing, was a fun little pastiche of geeky clips and fast cuts, and this one is more of the same. The animation has improved a little bit (the effects in the first few scenes with the gnome are done pretty well), but the humor stays about the same, so if

WoW botter tells all

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Daedren (not his former WoW character's name) ruffled more than a few feathers with an internet "confessional" (was it, really?) last week about his experiences botting in

Wrath delayed in China

Earlier today Blizzard posted a preview of Ulduar, the tier 8 raid coming up in patch 3.1 (which they promise will be on the PTRs "very soon"). Most of it looks really cool - 14 bosses, massive rooms, hard modes. However, there is one topic that Blizzard enthused about that really worries me: vehicle combat.We've already seen some vehicle-based boss fights in Eregos (the final boss of the Oculus)

A WoW gift bag for Valentine's Day

How great is this? Reader angrypanda a.k.a. Joshua links us to this update on his Livejournal, in which he shows off the awesome set of gifts his wife got him for Valentine's Day. It's a romantic gift basket, with everything, from the chocolates to the Linen Bag itself, marked out with WoW-style tooltips. Everything looks authentic, too -- there's a Bag of Candies, Dark Desire (looks like the hit

What dual specs mean for the class

Welcome to another edition of Blood Pact! I'd held off writing one because we've got a surprise for you guys as a new, better, shinier Warlock columnist is coming on board to give you the all the infernal goodness (or badness, if you prefer) you need. But since it looks like he's caught up at the cleaners trying to get that brimstone smell off his robes, I'm sneaking into his office and filling

Dual specs

Mmmm. Dual specs. When this long-awaited feature kicks in with what we hope is Patch 3.1, we're going to be seeing quite a lot of those messages in trade or general. We might even be seeing the reverse, where groups will be looking to pick up players with two specific specs. That's a daunting thought, actually... what if groups want to pick up not just one specific spec but two? Yikes.But never

Blood Elf vs. Draenei diorama giveaway!

Are you admiring the above awesomeness, but missed our Blood Elf Paladin vs. Draenai Shaman giveaway earlier this week? Never fear -- we're still accepting entries until this coming Tuesday at 6PM EST! (Sure, there are already over a thousand entries, but you know how fickle the random number generator can be... winners will be chosen completely at random, so it's still anyone's game.) So if you

Warlock makes Thunderfury

Reader Angie sent us a curious Armory profile of a Warlock who was able to obtain the classic legendary one-handed weapon Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. Although no raiding guild in their right minds would've allowed such a travesty to happen no matter how much DKP the Warlock had back in the day, now in a time where Onyxia is visited every few days for some easy Gold, anything

WoW Warriors: Dual spec madness

Dual specs. What will they mean for warriors?The short answer is, we'll all have two specs. However, I'm fairly sure if I try and stop there and go get a sandwich that Dan will come to my house with an army of trained marmosets. I don't want that, you don't want that, and Dan doesn't like to travel with the marmosets, so let's just spare everyone the trauma.It is my opinion that when dual specs

WoW Video: What have you done?

"What have you done?" is originally a song by the Dutch gothic-rock band Within Temptation. For whatever reason, every time I look at the title I can't help but think "What did you do, Ray?" Keyra created a music video for the song, also titled What have you done?Keyra is totally up-front about the fact that, having used an older machine, the video's framerates suffer in a few places. So, that

WoW is the new "third place"

This is interesting -- a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (just up the road from me here in Chicago) says that World of Warcraft is an emerging new "third place." That is, it's a place in between your work and home where you make friends and otherwise interact with new people. Starbucks has even used the term in their actual marketing (to try to make their coffee shops a hangout

Tips from the manual

Guynumber from Area 52 brings up a good point: why did Blizzard even bother putting game information in their original manual? Surely, they must have known that they'd be changing the game quickly, and while of course they'd have had no more idea than we had that some things so big would change (no ammunition, anyone?), they could have at least kept in mind that patches were coming.Curious, I

WoW Video: Powerthirst

Hey! Do you want to feel so energetic? Try Powerthirst! Energy drinks for people who need gratuitous amounts of energy!You're gonna be uncomfortably energetic!So the video above, by Thesoultorn, leaves a bit to be desired in the animation department, but in reality it's just a mock advertisement for a World of Warcraft in-game energy drink, Powerthirst. The video gets its jobs done quite well,

Gear vs. Skill

Bell over at 4 Haelz made an interesting post about gear and skill. She relates several experiences where, looking for group, players ask for her 'stats' and grill her further upon finding out that she's on the low end of the spectrum numbers-wise. Sometimes, those players don't invite her or, worse, log off from their party without even giving her a chance to prove herself. But there's a flip

Larger default backpack "very possible" in the future

Just about everyone playing World of Warcraft will be happy to hear this news: Eyonix says that it's 'very possible' that we'll be able to get our hands on a bigger backpack at some point in the future. Though the cynic in me says that 'very possible it'll happen eventually' is just a more positive way of saying 'we have no plans for that at this time,' I'll force myself to stay optimistic on

This is your brain on PvP

Ars Technica has news of a new study that isn't directly World of Warcraft-related, but that does have some pretty obvious applications in Azeroth. By studying the way we play when we believe we're competing against a human and a computer opponent (PvP vs. PvE, in WoW terms), scientists have determined that different parts of the brain are more active when we think we're playing against a human

WoW Video: The Paladin's Way of William

We're getting this week off to a great start with something unusual. William Wallace created The Paladin's Way of William. He has some language barriers, being originally from the Chinese servers. However, the simple and beautiful images he's created easily transcend language, and I think has something to appeal to everyone.The first half of the movie is hand illustrated, and that's the part that

Three UIs for your consideration

World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.Our Reader UI of the Week feature has been on ice for a while now, but is back

AFKing your way to greatness

One of the most irritating things about raiding would have to be ninja AFK's. You wait for the results of a ready check only to see that -- oh, crap -- someone hasn't returned a verdict. Now, AFK's can happen for good reasons (children, explosions, children with explosives), but just as often they don't. On farm content, it's an irritating wait. On progression content, you check your watch and

Preparing for Ulduar

In amongst detailed tactical explanations of the various bosses currently residing in the available level 80 raid instances, let's take a break to look at the bigger picture. Many guilds are in a situation several of you can relate to: having cleared Naxxramas, the Eye of Eternity and the Obsidian Sanctum (let's not pretend Vault of Archavon's a proper raid instance), there's nothing left to do

New Arena matchmaking system FAQ

This will be like beating on a dead horse or something since Blizzard keeps making posts about it, but Aratil put up a comprehensive FAQ about the new and mysterious Arena matchmaking system. This is probably the most enlightening post of all, and should clear up many questions players have about their ratings versus their performance. It explains why some teams are experiencing drops in personal

Warriors: A Lament For Arms

Hi, I'm Matthew Rossi, your host for The Care and Feeding of Warriors. Unfortunately for my plans to talk about Hit/Expertise for DPS warriors this week Blizzard went and dropped a huge mess of news on upcoming changes to every class in patch 3.1, including warriors. I analyzed the changes yesterday and I was more or less positive when I did so. After all, this is hardly all the changes incoming

Arena Season 6: Rise of the Furious Gladiator

Kalgan hopped on over to the forums to make a significant post that previews what can happen in Arena Season 6, the tiers of gear available, and what will happen to the Vault of Archavon. One of my fears going into the next Arena Season was that Archavon the Stone Watcher would lose his relevance, as he drops significantly lower tier gear a full season behind the current one. This would have

Predicting a clamity: Patch 3.1

We've had some rather...bumpy... patches as of late from Blizzard. In patch 3.0.2 the servers were down for what was nearly a day before hand, and when the patch finally did arrive not everything was as it should have been. It took a month's time for all the changes to make their way to the live server.When Wrath of the Lich King was launched, there were countless servers inflicted with near

WoW Article: Turning our world upside down

How about that. Blizzard dropped bombs of announcements yesterday with the proposed changes to Patch 3.1. Yesterday, I asked what changes you expect or foresee with the new patch, but I don't think any of us seriously expected the huge changes that they announced. Wished for, maybe, but didn't really think it would happen.In fact, some of these changes were more unthinkable than the fake patch