Each day WoW.com will take you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From Ghostcrawler’s latest posts to the lowdown on StarCraft II and Diablo III, we’ll keep you informed.

Ghostcrawler was on the quiet side today, but the forums were still ablaze with chatter. StarCraft II fans in particular are in for a fun information dump in the near future.

Table of Contents

• Ghostcrawler
• Other
• StarCraft II / Diablo III / Blizzard News

Continue reading The Daily Blues

Filed under: The Daily Blues

The Daily Blues originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With all the news regarding the WoW Trading Card Game, avid players have been wondering exactly what’s going on, where the license is going, and who’s going to be producing new cards, if any. While there aren’t any answers to these questions specifically, it’s heartening to note that Blizzard just added a new Trading Card Game section to the official forums, solely for discussion about the TCG. The card game hasn’t been forgotten, and neither have its players.

The question of what the future of the TCG will bring has already been addressed on the forums by Eyonix, who restated Blizzard’s earlier announcement that Blizzard and UDE would be parting ways. He also reassured players that Blizzard is committed to supporting the TCG and will be releasing new content in the near future, although there are still no new details as to who is picking up the license.

While this also doesn’t really answer any questions, it’s good to know that Blizzard is still thinking about the TCG community — and this gives an ideal place for Blizzard to post any updates regarding the game’s production. Hopefully we’ll see more news on the future of the TCG soon.

Filed under: News items, WoW TCG

Blizzard opens up official TCG forums originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Celestial steeds and more toys aren’t the only new things coming in patch 3.3.3! With the new content also comes a variety of new music. Accompanying the trolls in Operation Echo Isles will be an epic score tailored to the event, whether the calm before combat, the thick of the battle, or the climax of the fight, the music will get you in the mood for the voodoo.

Also uncovered was a track centered around the Ruby Sanctum. Not to be outdone by the trolls, the Red Dragonflight has made a strong showing with spooky music all their own.

• ZF Big Battle
• ZF Med Battle
• ZF Quiet
• Ruby Sanctum

Blizzard has always made it a point to use mood- and setting-appropriate music in all of their zones, instances and, on a larger scale, games. These cinematic-style tracks are no exception.

Be sure to check back often, as we’ll keep you up to date with all news about Patch 3.3.3.

Filed under: News items

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Ruby Sanctum and Echo Isles music originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World of Warcraft players using a Mac should be pleased to hear that gaming peripherals manufacturer Razer pledged their commitment to supporting the Mac gaming community at the Game Developers Conference. They announced that all upcoming Razer products will come with Mac driver support, including the Razer StarCraft 2 peripheral suite scheduled for release later this year.

Prior to the Razer DeathAdder Mac Edition in 2008, all Razer mice and peripherals only had native Windows support and drivers. While these products would generally work with a Mac through its plug-and-play technology, customizing them was more difficult and in some cases, impossible. In order to configure my Razer Lachesis to make all its buttons usable on my Mac, I had to configure it on a PC and mapped some of the buttons as little used keyboard keys because the Mac wouldn’t recognize click-throughs from more than a few mouse buttons.

This situation improved with the release of the Razer Naga, which shipped with native Mac support, although the key-mapping functionality for the Mac came several weeks after the PC version. Currently, newer mice come with basic Mac support, although Razer promises the same functionality and customizability as their PC counterparts through future updates. Razer also promises to release Mac drivers for all existing products, which presumably includes their line of headsets and keyboards. While Mac gamers have always been treated as second class citizens by most peripheral manufacturers, it’s encouraging to see a major player pay the community some attention. I mean, the Magic Mouse is awesome and all, but there’s nothing like having a real gaming mouse to play WoW.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items

Mac drivers to be available for all Razer mice originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

You’ll find the Blood Queen at the top floor above the chamber that has the Blood Princes. She is the head boss in the wing and is one of the few encounters in the instance that drops tier 10 tokens. This will be a high stress encounter for healers as there is so much going on at once.

Piece of cake? Oh you bet. The strain will be on your DPS players to take her down before the enrage. For us healers, we just have to stand on our head and balance raid health for about 5 minutes.

Continue reading Raid Rx: Healing Blood Queen Lana’thel

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raiding

Raid Rx: Healing Blood Queen Lana’thel originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The tenth annual Game Developers Conference is in full swing in San Francisco, CA, and our sister sites Joystiq and Massively are on the scene! No matter what kind of games you’re into, there’s a ton of news on its way out of the convention, and we’re compiling some of the stuff that might matter to you in daily roundups just for you. If you want the whole GDC news experience, check out all of Massively’s and Joystiq’s coverage, or yesterday’s roundup.

	Sony has the power to Move you Though it might look like a black Wiimote topped with a scoop of sherbet, Sony’s PlayStation Move motion peripheral aims to take the motion-sensitive gaming field to eleven. Joystiq’s got all the Move info you need, and you can dance to it.
	38 Studios swings for the fences with two new titles World Series champ Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios is developing an “epic single-player RPG” codenamed Copernicus, and an MMO project codenamed Project Mercury. Oh, and fantasy novel fans: R.A. Salvatore is in charge of building the universe where both games take place.
	Welcome to Poisonville, population 4,000 Bigpoint Studios says their browser MMO Poisonville is the most expensive browser-based MMO to date, with a budget of two million dollars. It certainly seems to have been spent in the right places in this full-featured GTA-alike.
	It’s the DLC Age at EA EA’s John Schappert says that Dragon Age: Origins downloadable content has made over a million dollars so far! Digital distribution in total netted them 5 million last year and projections place next year’s DD profits even higher. EA is ready with DLC strategies for several upcoming games.
	Monkey Island 2 Special Edition overflowing with new booty LucasArts’ beloved Monkey Island franchise saw a resurgence with the release of a remastered Secret of Monkey Island last year, and now Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge is getting the same treatment, with new art, developer commentary, and improved controls.
	Sakaguchi’s latest Story looks like a picture book Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker Studios is hard at work on a new RPG, and they released some truly beautiful artwork of the game’s island locale to whet our appetites.

Filed under: News items

GDC roundup, day two originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zach thinks rogues are dastardly, sneaky and will backstab you at the first opportunity. Take this guide, for example. Rogues just ambushed Zach with a ton of useless information. I mean, they’re just stabby little things, aren’t they?

This final part of our exceptionally long introductory guide — who would’ve thought rogues could be such a long subject? — we’ll talk a little more about rogue playing styles, the different specs, and ways on how classes can counter them. I mentioned in the very first part of this guide that taking away a rogue’s opener is important. If you have means to detect rogues in Stealth, make sure to use it and have instant cast abilities ready to quickly break them out of it as soon as you do.

An obvious fact that bears mentioning is that rogues are a melee class. They can’t do you any real harm when you’re outside of melee range, so the obvious strategy would be to kite them. Rogues have some abilities that allow them to break out of roots and snares, but these are all on relatively long cooldowns, so don’t be afraid to reapply them. Even as a melee class, you’d want to keep applying a movement-impairing effect such as Hamstring or even Judgement of Justice. Impaired movement takes any PvP player out of their groove, and it disturbs rogues who must always have the ability to chase or flee.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues, Part 4

Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

The Art of War(craft): Introductory guide to fighting rogues, Part 4 originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AddOn Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience — the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond — your AddOns folder will never be the same! This week, can we dethrone Quartz as king of cast bars?

The cast bar addon/mod holds a special place in my heart, mostly because it was the last addon I got on board with. We will never really know why the cast bar was the last bastion of the WoW stock user interface for me, most likely because I was a healer, but eventually the tide turned. For a while, I let my cast bar live in my unit frames, below my health and mana, as a compact little meter that was happily minimal and out of the way. Something changed, though, and I suddenly realized I wanted a more full featured cast bar. Today, we talk about the king of cast bars, an alternative to the king (The Queen? Rival Nation of Castbaria?), a quick discussion about DoT timers and some reader mail. Let’s get rockin’.

Continue reading AddOn Spotlight: Castbars

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

AddOn Spotlight: Castbars originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading What the fans want from BlizzCon 2010

Filed under: BlizzCon, Guest Posts

What the fans want from BlizzCon 2010 originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class.

Marksman was the original hunter raiding spec back in vanilla. After falling out of the top spot in BC and early Wrath, MM is back with a vengeance. MM is topping meters, punting gnomes, and kicking so much ass MM hunters have to use addons to take names of all the ass they can’t get to just now, but will get around to kicking at their convenience.

The MM spec comes with the most versatile toolbox, the most controllable DPS cooldowns, two optimal raid specs, and the strongest AOE of the hunter specs. However, MM is also one of the trickiest hunter specs, relying more than other specs on proper use of cooldowns and good movement management.

Join me after the cut as we go through the nuts and bolts of the MM hunter spec and how you too can learn to punt gnomes and top meters.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Marksman 101

Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Scattered Shots: Marksman 101 originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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