BLIZZARD IS HIRING!

Greetings all,

As you may have already noticed the Blizzard Background Downloader has started downloading a new file. This background downloader was implemented so while you are playing you can download future patches.

The purpose of the background downloader is to minimize the amount of time users spend during the patching process. As users play the game the background downloader is automatically launched at a random interval when there is new data available. An icon appears in the system tray or dock to notify players that the download has started. Data is then streamed at a very slow rate into a new folder that is created in the World of Warcraft installation directory. When a patch is released users already have most of new data available and need only to download a very small amount to be able to run the patch.

A FAQ section on this can be found on the World of Warcraft website at:

http://blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww01954p

You may disable the Blizzard Background Downloader. To do this minimize the game and click on the Background Downloader icon in your system tray. Then go to File, then Preferences. Uncheck the second box and close the downloader. After that the background downloader shouldn't download anymore. To re-enable it go to your World of Warcraft folder and double-click the Background Downloader icon. Make sure the bottom box is checked. Close this and the Blizzard Background Downloader will run the next time you run the game.

• 2 Man BRD (Google)
  
• 2 Man BRD (Windows Media Player)

ExtremeTech: "Blizzard's enormously popular massively multiplayer RPG, you'll be happy to know, works just beautifully under Vista. There are no funky workarounds needed to deal with non-admin user accounts, performance seems just great, and it even runs just dandy in a window. It currently doesn't add itself to the Games Explorer, but that's about it."

Blizzard is asking for a larger cut of the game's profits in China, sources say, and appears concerned that The9 will also operate a competing online game, Guild Wars.

But The9, which made more than $26m from the game in the first quarter, is refusing to renegotiate the terms agreed when World of Warcraft was launched in China.

Private negotiations between the two companies went public last month when Blizzard, a division of Vivendi Games, took the unusual step of announcing that The9 would have to 'negotiate' for the Burning Crusade expansion, which will be released next year.

Such expansion packs are typically played as part of the original game, and cannot be operated independently.

In the same statement, Blizzard warned that it was "actively exploring and discussing cooperation opportunities and further expansion of its business" with other companies in China.

The9 still relies on World of Warcraft for 99 per cent of its revenues, but is attempting to diversify by developing and licensing new games"

• View the Leeroy Jenkins Card

Tigole: "We're going to be making two new upcoming changes to instances in Patch 1.11:

--First, by popular demand, we'll be removing the release timer in instances. This includes dungeons, battlegrounds and raid instances.

--Second, we're going to have to institute an anti-exploit measure on certain encounters. Certain encounters (almost entirely raid bosses) will prevent people from zoning into the instance while that encounter is engaged. If you attempt to zone into the instance while that encounter is engaged, you will be resurrected at the entrance (outside). We will be making adjustments to the entrances to Molten Core and Blackwing Lair to compensate for this. Combat resurrections, soulstones, reincarnate etc. will still work fine. This is primarily to combat graveyard rushing in instances. Again, this will only be on a few select encounters, almost entirely limited to raid bosses.

--We're looking into setting up a server of copied characters seperate from the premades. This would make getting organized raids going much easier. No promises... we're investigating right now.

--We'll be patching the PTR soon. We'll try to put a durability repair NPC in the dungeon (for free) to facilitate testing.

--We're aware of the ghost portals and fixing those for the next PTR push

--We're aware of the instant arcane explosion assertion and we're fixing those for the next PTR push

--We're putting the dungeon on a 1 day reset for a few days to help expedite testing of the front bosses/areas. We're planning on adding time to the reset in a few days/weeks once we have gotten enough testing on the front content (it will be hard to make too much progress with the dungeon constantly resetting)."

Hortus: "Hi everyone,

There have been changes made to how the Deserter Debuff is applied, and we would like to get feedback/bug reports from the test realm players.

The new changes should prevent players from being debuffed inappropriately.

You should receive the deserter debuff anytime you leave a battleground instance prematurely.

That means:

• If you /afk out, or if auto-afk is turned on.
  
• If you leave through the battleground portal.
  
• If you hearth or otherwise teleport out.

We're specifically looking for bugs that involve the deserter debuff. If you find conditions that you should get the debuff and don't, or if you find conditions where you should not get the debuff and do please report them. If you can find any sort of exploits or bypasses of the new system please post them here as well.

Thank you all ahead of time for your help, this will probably be the first of several focused testing tasks we will do for 1.11".

"We're happy to announce the opening of two new realms: Demon Soul and Jaedenar, two PvP realms. These realms are located on our latest World of Warcraft site, which feature all new hardware. This will provide an opportunity, to new and old players alike, to begin fresh adventures in Azeroth!"

We go after the various markets through fully accountable divisions - Blizzard Entertainment is obviously the first and foremost of them. This is really the only way to attack a series of disparate opportunities in the business. Music companies are organised this way, where the different genres of music are organised around particular labels, and the labels themselves are the entrepreneurs - they attract the talent, and then they do the marketing and promotion for the talent, they manage the talent throughout their careers. The talent is their franchise.

Here, too, the brands - let's just take Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, or Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, or Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo, or Blizzard Entertainment's Starcraft - they are the accountable unit for those IPs. By the way, any other IPs which they might invent, they would be accountable for exploiting.

• Gamesindustry interview
  
• Gamespot interview (May 11)

• Players should no longer be able to fall from the balcony in the plague wing.
  
• Heigan the Uncleans entry door will not open until Noth the Plaguebringer has been killed.
  
• The Plague wing entry room will now completely respawn when a group wipes.

• Anubrekhan: Fixed Frozen Rune positions in Anub'Rekhan's room. They were previously unselectable / unusuable.
  
• Anubrekhan: Fixed Locust Swarm and Impale animations.
  
• Spell effects will appear more aligned on several mobs.

• Patchwerk: The door beyond Patchwerk will now only open if he is killed.
  
• Patchwerk: Aggro shouts have been slowed down so he doesnt spam introductions in chat and audio.
  
• Patchwerk: He will no longer travel outside of a given range.
  
• Thaddius: Zone-wide shouts will no longer have audio vocals.
  
• Embalming slimes are now on a three minute respawn timer.
  
• Sewage slimes are now on a three minute respawn timer.
  
• Patchwork Golem no longer looses aggro on war stomp.
  
• Mad Scientists: Fixed problems with portraits and textures.

• The endless slime pits in the Deathknight wing now have proper collision and slime.
  
• Deathknight Understudies have been changed from level 61 to 60 and their Shadow Resistance set to 0. This should make the regular periodic resists happen less often.
  
• Deathknight Understudies now lose aggro after casting Mind Exhaustion.
  
• Shades of Naxxramas no longer infinitely spawn a portal.
  
• Living poison slimes before Patchwerk have been spaced out a little more to give players a little more room to try and avoid them.

• Mr. Bigglesworth will no longer respawn. R.I.P. =(
  
• The "Echoes of War" quest requirements were changed from requiring the Heart of Anub'Rekhan and the Head of Instructor Razuvious to 8 Deathknight Captains and 3 Venom Stalkers.
  
• Various creatures now move faster.
  
• Stealth detection has been applied to most creatures in the zone.
  
• All Non-Boss creatures in the zone now has a leash distance.
  
• Added vendor Jimmy McWeaksauce to the center of Naxxramas. Jimmy sells the following items and is generally a cool guy:
  
  • Free Repairs
    
  • Free Res sickness removal
    
  • Spell reagents
    
  • Tome of Tranquilizing shot
    
  • Rogue poisons

Ordinn: "We will be performing hardware upgrades to our authentication system tomorrow, May 23, starting at 1:00 AM PDT and lasting until the end of our regularly scheduled maintenance at 11:00 AM. Players may experience problems when trying to log in to the game before the realms come down for maintenance. Account management, new account creation, and parental control features will be unavailable during this time.

Customer Support Impact:

• The in-game petition system and the GM staff will not be available to take player petitions from 1:00 AM PDT to 11:00 AM PDT.
  
  
• Billing & Account Services telephone support will be unavailable from 9:00 AM PDT until maintenance is complete.

During this time, we will be migrating the existing data from our current authentication platform over to the new hardware. Please keep in mind that this is a new system, and there may be minor issues with our authentication system when the realms go live 11:00 AM. We will be watching the new systems performance closely, and will keep you informed if any issues arise. Thank you for your patience during this time."

"The Ashbringer is dead and there will never be another like him. The lesser Mograine is a far cry from the man his father was. You know this, Commander! It was, after all, your own leadership that was responsible for the death of the Scarlet Highlord Mograine.

It was your leadership that manipulated a grieving child to try to recover the sword. A child that has grown into a man with nothing but vengeance and hatred in his heart! And for what? You are no closer to the sword now than you were five years ago.

Yet you think that recovering Ashbringer will somehow turn the tide of battle? Let me let you in on a little secret, Commander. The power of the Ashbringer came from the man who would wield it... I was there, Commander. I watched him burn legions of undead in righteous fire before he would even unsheath the blade. Alas, your grasp on history is... lacking.

Now be silent and note where you are, lest I inform Lord Fordring and his knights that you are no longer here on amicable terms. I am certain he would take great pleasure in seeing to your 'atonement'."

- Commander Eligor Dawnbringer, Light's Hope Chapel

"The Brotherhood of Light is a new faction that has grown out of the Argent Dawn. They describe themselves as being "just like the Scarlet Crusade, except we're not stupid." They are solely dedicated to defeating the Scourge, and launching an attack on Kel'Thuzad directly. They are composed of defectors from the Scarlet Crusade (and have minor diplomatic ties to them), remnants of the Silver Hand, former Kirin-Tor archmages, and Argent Dawn members that want to take the fight to the Scourge."

High-tech deals find new forum in world of online gaming

In Silicon Valley, mixing business with pleasure is taking on a new meaning, as tech executives get together to play the online fantasy game World of Warcraft --- and network and make deals at the same time.