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Goblin cheesecake calendars — now those are three words you never want to see together. But apparently the goblins at Bilgewater Port in Azshara decided that their troops fighting the Alliance needed something to fight for, and commissioned this … erotic masterpiece for their bunkers. Do we really want to know why the calendar is dripping blood and green Ecto-Cooler? No, we don’t. (Thanks to Runeral of <Redefine> on Bonechewer (US-H) for the pic!)
Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wow.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include “Azeroth” in the subject line so your email doesn’t get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited.
Filed under: Around Azeroth
Around Azeroth Beta Edition: Morale booster originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WoW.com
Filed under: Culture, MMO, RPG, RTS, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft, Diablo III
StarCraft II fans, listen up. If you don’t have your tickets yet to attend Blizzcon 2010 you are pretty much out of luck unless you can buy a ticket via eBay or Craigslist. However you can now order up the pay-per-view streaming internet video coverage of Blizzard’s big fan event now at the Blizzcon web site.
The fee for the pay-per-view is .95 which allows you to watch a whopping four channels and over 50 hours of BlizzCon 2010 broadcast video goodness on October 22-23 from Anaheim, CA. That includes events on the BlizzCon stages as well as tournament coverage. You will also get an unnamed exclusive World of WarCraft in-game item. And for the first time ever, pay-per-view watchers can get access to purchase exclusive BlizzCon merchandise during the event.
As in years past you can also purchase the pay-per-view event and watch it on DirecTV. If you are getting DirecTV for the first time you can get the BlizzCon pay-per-view event for free when you sign up for the service. Current subscribers can pay for the event starting October 9.
Blizzcon 2010 streaming video pay-per-view now available to order originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Big Download Blog
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.
Of all the PvP events I’ve participated in over the years, the battle for Halaa in Nagrand always sticks out in my mind as one of the best-executed examples of world PvP that the World of Warcraft has ever produced. The battle for Halaa brought together several areas of warfare in perfect harmony.
- The element of surprise The battle for Halaa took place at any time. Whenever the opposite faction felt like taking control of the city, they could form a raid and start bombing. It left the controlling faction scrambling to assemble a defense when the words “Halaa is under attack!” popped up on their screens.
- Aerial assault Players had to activate one of four wyvern stations and fly over the city of Halaa to drop bombs, causing massive amounts of damage. Until the defenses were weakened, players could not successfully enter the city.
- Sabotage While enemy players were taking to the skies, one of the keys to success was to destroy the activated wyvern stations to prevent those enemy players from immediately taking off for another bombing run.
- Siege warfare Once the city’s defenses were eliminated, the conquering force moved into the city center and held the city captive. Either the defending faction would break the siege and regain control of the city or it would be lost to the conquering heroes.
- Spoils of war Defeating your enemy within the boundaries of Halaa yielded you a Halaa Battle Token. Once you controlled Halaa, those tokens could be spent on various rewards, including the coveted Dark War Talbuk.
With new expansions come new territories to explore and conquer. Sadly, Nagrand and the war-torn city of Halaa fell to the wayside in favor of Wintergrasp once Wrath of the Lich King was released. So what does a player who is hungry for world PvP do now? If you have some friends and are will to do a little organizing and promoting, here are three new ideas to spring on your server.
Continue reading Guest Post: Three fresh ideas for world PvP events
Filed under: PvP, Guest Posts
Guest Post: Three fresh ideas for world PvP events originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WoW.com
Starcraft II is one of the most anticipated games in video game history. But how well will it sell?

Starcraft 2 News
Welcome to another article by elemental shaman specialist Matt Sampson, otherwise known as Binkenstein. By day, he’s a geek; by night, he’s also a geek, but with spreadsheets. He’d also like to point out that Time Warp is just another excuse to bring mages vending machines to raids.
Since I’m still the new guy here, I figure that it’s best to start at the beginning, for it’s a very good place to start (and I’m not intentionally putting song lyrics into my posts, it just happens). Given that Cataclysm is still in beta testing, I’m not going to talk about talents, rotations or even the new spells here.
“But Binks,” you say, “how can you have an article about basics if you don’t include any of those topics?” You can, I say, if you talk about the essential basic you have to get right in your playstyle. This is the thing that turns an average-geared player into a fairly competitive one, makes the top-end raiders great, and without which the guy languishing at the bottom of the DPS table will never get to the top no matter how many best-in-slot items he has.
What I’m talking about is skill. This doesn’t just mean the ability to mash buttons faster or harder, or the bonus of having really low latency (trust me, a good ping for me is in the 300ms range), but rather being situationally aware, knowing when to move, how far to move and what to do while moving. It means thinking a few steps ahead so that when the next event occurs, you’re already in position and ready for it.
Some players will never master the basics. Others don’t even have to try because they’re naturals. For the rest of us (and yes, I mean myself as well), it requires a bit of experimentation, some trial and error and most important of all, guides!
Continue reading Totem Talk: Back to basics
Totem Talk: Back to basics originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WoW.com
Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, Star Trek Online, One Shots
While we know and love those space scenes from EVE Online like the one from yesterday, they’re not the only game in town that offers lovely outer-space locales for players to enjoy. Indeed — today’s Star Trek Online image shows off an interesting Mars-like planet and some type of strange gaseous formation hovering just ahead. As to where precisely it might be, we’re not sure, but we’ve got a note from Clint C. — also known as Rear Admiral Xavier Lawton in Star Trek Online — to hopefully explain it.
“This is my first entry to One Shots… or at least the first one I felt was worthy of sending. I’m not sure which planet this is but found the art design for the both the planet and surrounding space to be picturesque. In fact I often feel that this screenshot looks like it came right out of one of the movies, tv shows, or even more so, some form of Star Trek art you might find online, on a calendar, or even a digital painting. Hope you enjoy!“
We love to see screenshots from established contributors as well as first-timers! So if you’ve thought about sending an image in but haven’t gotten around to it, go raid your screenshot folder and send something nifty our way at oneshots AT massively DOT com. Please make sure that your image is attached, is at least 1024 pixels across, and has as little UI as possible in the image. We’ll post it out here for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit.
One Shots: Red planet originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Massively
We can expect a glut of StarCraft 2 articles over the next seven days and things are starting to heat up already. A couple of new article to read have appeared late Friday:
Updated Saturday 24th 2:15PM
How to Dominat in Starcraft 2 - PCworld
Hands-on Preview on PCGamer
The History of Starcraft in GamePro
As more article appear we’ll add them to the daily lists throughout the day during the launch period. Right, off to stroke my copy which arrived today, can’t play it but I can stroke the box :p
Blog
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.
The Eternals of Azeroth are by and large fairly well known by the mortal races — the Ancients of the night elves were a strong presence in the War of the Ancients, and the trolls worked intimately with their Loa gods. But there are still Eternals out there that are by and large unknown quantities in the universe — vague historical records have been made, but the mortal races are mostly in the dark as to who these Eternals really are, and what their purpose is in the world.
Of all of the Eternals, the ones that remain the biggest mystery are the Titans, specifically the Pantheon of titans that were responsible for Azeroth’s creation as we know it today. While the dwarves have uncovered a lot of information recently, there are still large chunks of time seemingly out of order or unaccounted for. There are a few different timelines, and varying opinions on what exactly occurred in each timeline — so writing about the Titans and the creation of the world is an exercise in careful speculation. Today we’ll be looking at the Pantheon — the titan high council — who they were, what roles they played in Azeroth, and where they are today, as well as taking a look at the creation of Azeroth.
Continue reading Know Your Lore: The Eternals part three — the Titans
Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore
Know Your Lore: The Eternals part three — the Titans originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WoW.com
Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Patches, Previews, News items, Star Trek Online
While you can fault the team behind Star Trek Online for some things, failure to plan is certainly not one of them. The development team has been very public about their plans for testing and release, which made a few people rather curious when Season 1.2 launched in early June rather than late May. What would that mean for Season 1.3 and the following Season 2 patch? The most recent Engineering Report on the official forums tackles precisely that, explaining that the team has adjusted their schedule slightly and will roll 1.3 straight into the Season 2 patch.
That leaves us with an enormous list of features for Season 2, which is aimed at July. Ship interiors and a raise in level cap to 51 are the two most obvious changes, with the former offering a choice from several layouts and the latter promoting a player to the rank of Vice Admiral or Lieutenant General. There’s also the addition of minigames, weekly episodes, officer trading, new episodes for the high-level band, a new fleet action, and a general surfeit of improvements to the game. Star Trek Online players are encouraged to check out the official thread and offer any feedback to the proposed changes.
New Star Trek Online patch structure looks forward originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Massively
Get a preview of the Challenge Missions.

Starcraft 2 News
Filed under: Sci-fi, Business models, News items, Opinion, Star Trek Online
Are you a Star Trek Online player who wants a Borg bridge officer or access to the original USS Enterprise, but missed out on the limited-time offers for them? The good news is that you no longer have to be bereft of the pre-order perks just because you came into the game late. Cryptic is offering a variety of the pre-order items and bonuses on the C-Store as part of a large update to their stock. Among the new items are uniforms for Deep Space Nine and The Wrath of Khan, playable Joined Trill, and of course the original Constitution-class Enterprise.
Understandably, there’s a fair bit of furor about the new additions to the store. Lifetime subscribers are especially upset about the changes, as some of the additions were specifically aimed at them — and unlike pre-ordering customers, they didn’t pay the same price as everyone else. While the developers are understanding, they’ve stated repeatedly that they see this as best for the game and the players. It certainly is a net benefit for non-lifetime Star Trek Online players, but it certainly isn’t going to tone down the controversy of the game’s microtransaction system.
Star Trek Online pushes pre-order bonus items to the C-Store originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Massively
We are now three days away from the StarCraft 2 launch and there is an air of excitement within the industry to see how well it performs. Industry Analyst Mike Hickey of Janco Partners has stated that he’s expecting the game to sell a whopping seven million units in this fiscal year generating around 0 million in sales for Activision Blizzard. Hickey says this will generate an “estimated 1 million in operating profit (assuming a 45% operating margin).” HIckey also states that around 70% of that will be generated in the third quarter of this year.
The Korean market is huge for Blizzard, and according to Hickey, Janco Partners are assuming that StarCraft 2 will create 5.45 million active users in Korea alone in the first year. They also think that 30% of these users will come from the Cyber Bang game rooms, although they have no solid figures to confirm this. If 30% of the active users do play from the game rooms, they have worked out that “Blizzard can net .13 per hour from Cyber Bang game play”.
Breaking the figures down by region, Hicky predicts that Blizzard can generate 5 million in sales from Korea through their fiscal ’10 and an additional 2.5 million units in Europe and the US. 50% of these sales are expected to come from digital distribution.
These figures are only estimates, there is a high possibility these figures could be greater but we’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks IncGamers and IndustryGamers.
Blog
Forums Requiring Authenticator Code
Originally Posted by Bashiok
( Source)
As a part of our ongoing dedication to account security, players who utilize authenticators on their account will now be asked to enter it upon their first time logging into the forums, and then periodically thereafter. By ensuring that, even if their account is compromised, without the attached authenticator their login credentials cant be used. This additional security layer helps to better protect players in all services accessed by logging in with their account and password.
Wed like to urge all players who dont already use one to please consider attaching an authenticator to help protect themselves and their accounts. Information on how to obtain an authenticator as well as additional account security information can be found at: http://www.battle.net/security/
BlizzCon 2010 Virtual Ticket Now On Sale
Originally Posted by Blizzard
( Source)
Want to experience the panel discussions, tournaments, game-related announcements, and all the excitement of BlizzCon from the comfort of your own home? The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket multi-channel Internet stream is now available to order around the world for .95 USD (pricing may vary by region). In addition, new DIRECTV subscribers in the United States who sign up for DIRECTV service between now and September 24 through www.blizzard.directv.com will receive this year’s BlizzCon Virtual Ticket coverage for free. Existing DIRECTV customers will be able to purchase the event on DIRECTV Pay Per View for .95 beginning October 9.
Anyone who orders the event will also receive this year’s BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft in-game item. In addition, for the first time, BlizzCon 2010 Virtual Ticket holders will have access to exclusive BlizzCon merchandise.
To order or learn more, visit the BlizzCon 2010 Internet stream or DIRECTV sign-up offer pages.
Muffins Presents Cataclysm Part 1: Kalimdor
Muffins released a pretty nice video of the Beta servers and this should give you a pretty good idea of how things changed in Kalimdor after the Cataclysm.
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Blue posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Increased HP on Cataclysm creatures
The speed at which a green geared level 80 coming out of Northrend kills creatures in these zones is more in line with what we expect for and from combat times. Raid geared level 80s will still kill level 80 NPCs in under 10 seconds, but at least they will be able to fire off a few abilities before the creature is killed.
Furthermore, upon completion of the first series of quests in Hyjal or Vashj’ir, quest geared level 80 from Northrend should see a significant jump in power due to quest reward itemization. (Source)
Optional and Situational Talents
Exactly. This is the kind of thing a lot of players are going to have to get used to, and frankly, it’s a paradigm shift we are still adjusting too as well. We want there to be some talents where you say "Hmmm. I’m not sure I want that." The "Hmmm" is key. 🙂 If everyone can instantly can dismiss a given talent as garbage, then it’s not a decision. It’s also not a decision if you are comparing say Selfless Healer to a +10% self damage talent on a primary ability. (Source)
[…] There are going to be non-negotiable talents. We don’t really want to make the Prot spec that skips Hammer of the Righteous to be competitive. We don’t want every talent to feel like that though. (Source)
Glyphs on Beta
You’d be better off just ignoring glyphs completely at this point. Trying to view the talent changes through the lens of old glyphs is just going to lead to strange feedback. This is true of every class. We have turned off some glyphs in beta that really change gameplay to the extent that it will mess up feedback. Perhaps we should just turn them all off until we work on glyphs. (Source)
Tanks Stamina curves
Since I am sure it will be asked based on that info, paladins and warriors have the same Stamina curves now. A naked warrior and paladin of the same race will have the same health at 85. Both Protection trees get the same amount of Stamina as a passive. That number will likely be something like 10 or 15% Stamina depending on tuning. (In our current build it is 15%.) In similar gear, their health should be very similar. We’ll provide the differences in their cooldowns and how they tank. DKs and druids are likely to have different amounts of health as well.
Again, this could change. 🙂 (Source)
Shield and Tanking Weapons Itemization
We are making two kinds of shield (healer and tank) and one-handed tanking weapons. We are trying to make all of the tanking weapons about the same speed (no slow vs. fast). With all of the changes, using a one-handed Str weapon might be a reasonable substitute in many cases. We might eventually decide to no longer make tanking weapons (since druids and DKs don’t really have them) but we’re still doing it for now. (Source)
Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Crusader Strike
We have been trying Crusader Strike out at both 3 seconds and 4 seconds to see what fits the best. At the moment it is 3 sec (talented) for Ret and 4 sec for Prot and Holy. It all depends on how many other things are going on that you have to juggle. Inquisition, Zealotry and Exorcism and Divine Purpose procs in addition to the basics of CS, TV and Judgement with Holy Wrath filling in any holes can add up to a lot.
While we definitely want Ret to have an actual rotation in the sense that you aren’t just hitting things when they come off of cooldown, we don’t want to make it more complex than the other dps specs in the game. 🙂 (Source)
Haste effect on Seal of Vengeance and Judgement of the Wise
Excellent question. It isn’t a talent, but Seal of Truth (Seal of Vengeance) will tick faster with haste and Judgement of the Wise’s periodic mana energize will tick faster with haste. A Ret paladin with enough haste might have enough mana to throw out the occasional Consecration, while a fresh 85 might not be able to afford it often. (Source)
Divine Guardian / Divine Protection
Divine Guardian doesn’t affect the paladin. Otherwise we feared it would just get used as another tank cooldown instead of for the raid utility for which it was intended.
We’re strongly considering changing Divine Protection into a short cooldown. It is currently a clone of Shield Wall. Considering the paladin 85 also offers strong emergency damage reduction, we thought they could use a short cooldown ability (say 30-60 sec). Shield Block for warriors is being repositioned more as a short cooldown ability. (Source)
Avenger’s Shield
Avenger’s Shield silences as a baseline effect. It no longer dazes, since all that seemed to accomplish was making pulling take longer. (Source)
Righteous Fury
Righteous Fury now affects all threat. (Source)
Holy Shield and Glyph of Salvation
I’m not optimistic that we’ll keep the Salv glyph, but we’ll see. As to Holy Shield, it is going through rapid iteration. Our current implementation has it providing 5% block per stack of Holy Power, up to a max of 15%. So you can use Holy Power for threat, healing or mitigation depending on current circumstances. You should be able to keep the 15% block up all the time with a very small amount of effort.
Warriors get 15% block baseline, so this means the paladin has to work harder for it. Seeing as how the paladin doesn’t have to maintain Demo Shout or Thunderclap’s debuff, this doesn’t seem too great a burden. (Source)
Let Holy Wrath apply Vindication
This is, in fact, exactly what we did. (Source)
Is Paladin getting too complicated?
As a response to some of the sky falling rhetoric in this thread (not specifically the post I quoted, which was worded quite reasonably) and others like it, allow me to offer the following:
We have said many times in the past several months that we don’t think paladins have enough going on. Now that we’re starting to deliver on that, it doesn’t surprise me at all to see some concern that things are changing. I’m sure there are some players out there that just really liked the 6969 rotation, but in a game as large as WoW, there are some players who like anything. We need to do what we think is right for the game, and that includes adding some depth to the paladin class. Our goal is to make the class more fun. We don’t expect every forum poster is going to 100% agree that we’re going about that in the same way they would. We think in the end though that the class will be more fun. (Source)
Holy Power: Will this get a new UI element similar to the Warlock shards or Rogue combo points?
Yes. (Source)
Touched by the Light
Prot paladins get it as a passive. It converts Str to spell power but does not affect healing. Part of what we’re trying to do is get paladins to specialize more and be less capable of doing everything with one spec. (Source)
Word of Glory and Inquisition
All paladins can use the heal (Word of Glory) and the self-buff (Inquisition). Prot paladins have a talent to allow them to get a defensive use (Holy Shield). Proper use of Holy Power will distinguish a good paladin from a bad, but the system is far more forgiving than combo points. Consider that if you totally ignored Holy Shield you’d be giving up 15% block. Decent, but not life-threatening. (Source)
MMO-Champion – News
Filed under: Sci-fi, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Captain’s Log
Good afternoon, cadets and admirals. Welcome to this week’s edition of Captain’s Log, your ever-expanding guide to Star Trek Online. Last time, we discussed some basics of ground combat, and I promised more to come. But I’ve decided to change course a bit, so we’ll cover those next week.
Instead, I thought it might be fun to discuss what’s on every Earth nerd’s mind right now: E3! The Electronic Entertainment Expo has engines on full impulse this week in Los Angeles, and amid all the grand news we don’t care about — I was counting on the 3DS to not be totally awesome so I wouldn’t have to replace my DSiXL! Curses! — the MMO news is flying fast and furious. With all the news and shiny images of forthcoming space-based MMOs, should fans worry that STO’s days are numbered?
Continue reading Captain’s Log: Should Star Trek Online fans fear the competition?
Captain’s Log: Should Star Trek Online fans fear the competition? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Massively
Greetings all~
What’s going on in the community?
Eye on Community 7-23-2010
Greetings Daevas,
This week has been a busy one. We hope you are enjoying the increased population due to the server merge, and are finding more players to group with for questing and to join as comrades when taking the fight to the enemy. This week also began the first round of free character transfers.
Question of the Week
Wolfshifter from New Zikel asks:
What about the Abyss point restriction on character transfers? If I start getting my Abyss points for gear, will I have to spend my Abyss points again to cover the 214k restriction?
Great question, Wolfshifter!
The first character transfer that is happening this week is the only transfer with the 214,000 AP restriction during the free character transfer period. Starting next week, the ceiling will be raised to 5,000,000 AP during the remaining free character transfers.
In Other News
Let’s have a look at what’s been going on in the Aion community.
Daevacast!
Daemion of Perento has started a wonderful new Aion-focused podcast!
Magical World
Nill of New Perento has created a visually stunning Aion machinima piece of life in the world of Aion. Enjoy!
Enter the Governor
Life as a governor means always having a target on your back when in battle. Follow Mortred as he wears this target proudly, fending off rifters and soldiers of Asmodae.
High Voltage
Highvoltage of New Zikel has taken the fight to the forces of Elysea. His quick, cat-and-mouse hunting sends white feathers flying.
Experimenting With Projectiles
Are you an aspiring Aion machinima creator? Check out the fantastic editing experiments Blowfish has started in adding projectiles to his Aion videos!
Knowledge Is Power
Remember to follow the Community Team on Twitter and Facebook to stay on top of the Aion news!
Aion Facebook Page—Become a fan today!
Aion Steam Gaming Group—Join our Steam community!
Tamat (NA Community Manager)
Ayase (UK Community Manager)
Imhotep (DE Twitter Feed)
Arathaur (FR Community Manager)
The Eye on Community article series is a way for us to highlight current, interesting, wacky, passionate, intriguing, dramatic, or just plain awesome things going on in the community. Please send your submissions to community_aion_en@ncsoft.com.
—The Aion Community Team
Nothing revolutionary here, server merges are done, character transfers are up.
Enjoy! 
AionSource Community News
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