Filed under: Blizzard

Senior Community Rep Zarhym has taken to the forums to wax lyrical about the ways Blizzard monitors player behavior in WoW. He's responding specifically to player concerns about the reporting system, and how it doesn't allow a specific option to report griefers who do things like start an encounter in the Raid Finder and then leave. The OP asserts that this indicates that Blizzard just doesn't care about this sort of behavior.

Zarhym steps in to clarify that, firstly, Blizzard definitely cares about that sort of action. They care so much, in fact, that since Wrath of the Lich King, when the Dungeon Finder first appeared, Blizzard has had, and augmented, a system to monitor exactly that sort of behavior. Of course, as with any system designed to automatically punish players, which could potentially be gamed, they can't go into great detail about the workings of the system itself. But what it essentially does is monitor vote-kicks initiated, vote-kicks received, early departures and the like, and penalizes the player with more onerous deserter debuffs and such. Hit the break for Zarhym's post in full.

On Monday, the fifth and final installment of Dawn of the Aspects, by Richard Knaak, will be available for purchase. For those that have been waiting to download and nab the entire publication in one go, your wait is just about over. For those of us that have been reading since the beginning, it marks the end of what has been, honestly, one of the strangest tales to come out of the Warcraft stable in quite some time.

While I could simply review part five of the book, talk about my impressions and what the installment was like, to me it makes far more sense to talk about the book as a whole, now that I've finished the whole thing. After all, this was a different kind of experiment -- an entirely digital publication doled out in monthly installments for a small fee. Was the experiment worth it? Did the story hold water in the end? And perhaps most importantly -- was the story any good?

It's been a long journey, but it seems that the latest Warcraft fiction offering is now wrapping up and coming to an end. An excerpt from the fifth and final chapter of Dawn of the Aspects is now available for reading on the official website. Dawn of the Aspects, by Richard Knaak, details the origins of the Aspects and the five dragonflights. The five-part miniseries has been released in installments over the last several months, and the fifth chapter ought to wrap up the tale and establish exactly what Kalecgos has learned from the mysterious artifact he's found.

As for the blue dragon's mysterious dive into the past, it seems that the events of long ago are finally reaching their climax -- Alexstrasza, Ysera, Nozdormu, Neltharion and Malygos are preparing for the final battle with Galakrond, a battle that will change the course of their race forever. Will Kalecgos discover the true purpose of the artifact? Will he break free of its mysterious hold, or will he remain stuck in Malygos' memories for eternity? And will Malygos and the not-quite-Aspects prevail, or will history itself unravel? Good question! While the excerpt doesn't provide any answers, it does offer a good glimpse at the final chapter. You can read the excerpt in full on the official website.

Dawn of the Aspects part five will be available for purchase in several different ebook formats for a wonderfully low $1.99 on June 17. Head to Simon & Schuster to purchase the installment in ebook format -- and if you're looking for a different format for your e-reader, the website has links to several different retailers on their listing page. Hopefully the release of the final chapter will encourage Blizzard to release a print edition of the novel in full, too -- I have an empty spot waiting on my bookshelf!

It's not easy being a troll monk. So, if you want to change your race, your faction, your appearance or your name, now's the time. There has been a sale on what Blizzard calls Character Services all week, which is basically all the above -- every paid service that your character can undergo.

But this sale ends tonight, June 10th, at 11.59pm, so if you are twiddling your thumbs and wondering whether you should make that leap or not, then stop dilly-dallying and get on with it. You've got a matter of hours in the EU, and the sale ends at 11.59 Pacific time in the US.

Do also have a look at what's included in other options when deciding to make changes to your characters. For example, an appearance change includes a name change, so if you want to call your character something new then maybe a new look would suit their new name better. Enjoy your new home, look, identity, or enemy.

Blizzard's Community Management team sat down with Russell Brower for an interview on the creation of not only the soundtrack to Mists of Pandaria but other game sound elements as well. Russell talks about the constant immersive properties of music, quoting a friend in saying that "the ear doesn't blink", and linking that to something that I think Blizzard does a great job of, providing music that contributes to an area's feel, atmosphere, and quality. I don't ever play without the game sounds and music switched on, nor do I play with other music playing in the background -- doing all these things affects my enjoyment of the game, and Russell says that his team strive to keep people's game sounds turned on. One thing he added that made me laugh was that the team had to tone down the sound made by the launcher when the game download is finished:

Brower goes on to recall that so many people hated the constant roaring on the Sindragosa fight in Wrath, which I'm sure will resonate with a lot of our readers. What other game sounds would you like to hear toned down? Personally, the noise that mage tables made rates pretty high on my dislike list.

MMO-Champion have been very busy datamining, as is their way, and have happened upon some files that indicate that a new launcher may well be appearing before too long. What they have found indicates that there is a battle.net launcher coming that will shift away from separate game-by-game launchers, towards an integrated launcher for all Blizzard games. Looking at the background files which have been datamined, it looks like WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft will be included, but also the older Warcraft RTS games.

Each major game group appears to have its own section, which itself includes breaking news, general information, and links to things like patch notes, guides, account management, help and support and more. There is also a news section which encompasses the news across all the games you have installed.

It is important to note that this currently appears to be datamined information and should be treated appropriately. It is always best not to pass judgement on such things until an official position on the veracity of early reports is released. But, that being said, whatever this turns out to be looks great.

Several people have tweeted WoW Insider this morning to alert us to the fact that there is a fairly hefty discount on character services this week, and Blizzard has since confirmed it with a blog. A short look through the EU battle.net shop shows that server transfers, faction transfers, race changes, appearance changes and name changes are all 50% off. WoW Insider will keep this post updated with the sale's emergence in the US, which is fairly likely to occur later today.

Update: And that just happened, all character services are now 50% off in the US.

So if you're looking to try out a new home, a new race, a new look, a new name, or a new enemy, now's the time to get involved. It's really easy to do, just head over to battle.net, log in, and you'll be presented with your accounts, head through to the right one, select the service you require and you will see if your character is eligible. From personal, and very recent (darn it) experience, if you're looking to realm transfer you'll also need to empty your mailbox and make sure you're not in charge of any arena teams. Either that, or log in and out an awful lot!

What's more, it messes with your addons quite a bit, as the profile your character's using will reflect its new home. The same will happen with name changes, so ensure that you have addons with profiles wherever possible to avoid yourself a lot of reconfiguration. Enjoy your new perspective!