Wowjuju's World of Warcraft Articles

The 5.3 Patch is upon us

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:57:11 +0000

The 5.3 patch is going live May 21st (May 22nd for EU) and and like every major patch it brings a bunch of new things. It's always better to be prepare for what will come and if you missed our reviews we are here to remind you of each and every one of them.

Based on the 5.3 Patch Notes and our PTR tests, here are some highlights of the upcoming patch:

New world event: Battlefield Barrens. You'll have to help Vol'jin with the Darkspear Rebelion and assist the Orgrimmar Siege.
New Scenarios and Heroic Scenarios. Four new scenarios (Dark Heart of Pandaria, Blood in the Snow, Battle on the High Seas and Secrets of Ragefire)
New Battleground: Deepwind Gorge.
New Arena: The Tiger's Peak
Brawler’s Guild Updates. New ranks and new rare bosses.
Leveling is much easier now.
In-game Browser and Support Tools.
Item upgrades are back and the upgrade price changed.
Reputation changes for some of the MoP factions.
User Interface changes and additions.
New pets and mounts.

Do not miss our interview with Cory "mumper" Stockton about the 5.3 patch and keep and eye on other fansites since more 5.3 interview are going to be published.

Exclusive interview with Cory "mumper"...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:27:08 +0000

A few hours ago we had the opportunity to interview the Blizzard's Lead Content Designer, Cory "mumper" Stockton.

The topic was the new 5.3 patch, but we focused on the future of WoW as well. It was just a 20 minutes interview and we tried to squeeze in the best questions we had. Thanks to our twitter followers who sent us questions and, of course, thanks to my in game friends who also helped.

Usually, with every interview, we had just a transcript, but this time we changed the things a little bit... Since the interview took place on Skype, we recorded everything, we fixed whatever we could and we uploaded it on youtube.
Please excuse my accent, the low mic volume and my picture from the video. I swear it's the best picture I could find!

I hope you'll enjoy this. The transcript might come in the following days.

Big thanks to Blizzard Europe Community Team, Zarhym and of course to Cory!

Patch 5.3: Deepwind Gorge Battleground

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:07:31 +0000

We rarely see a new battleground added to the game, but this is one of those rare occasions. Deepwind Gorge is a new battleground where you have to dominate your opponents by collecting enough resources by capturing the area resource nodes.
If you want a comparison with another battleground, Arathi Basin is the first thing to think about.

Basics
The new Deepwind Gorge is located (by the look of it) in the Valley of the Four Winds and it's a level 90, 15 vs 15 battleground. You'll have access to three capturable resource nodes and two mine carts (one for each faction). First team to reach 1600 resources wins.

Gathering Resources
The main source of resources are from the three nodes of the area: the Pandaren Mine, the Center Mine and the Goblin Mine. Capturing and defending those nodes will reward you with a constant flow of resources (gold in this case), much like Arathi Basin nodes.

A new way of gathering resources is by stealing the mine cart from the other faction's base. That cart has to be pulled all the way to your home base (not to the captured nodes) for the gold within it to be captured. Each cart holds 200 resources, but is no easy task to move it across the map.
Both faction carts can be stolen at the same time and both carts are visible on the map. To capture a cart does no require your own cart to be present at your base.

You can not mount up while carrying the cart and if you are killed the enemies have to click the cart to send it back to their base, or your team mates can pick it up again.

Conclusion
Unlike Arathi Basin, the new Deepwind Gorge battleground seems too large for only 15 players, but since AB does not have the cart mechanics, I think it's ok to be a bit bigger. Speaking of that cart, I think it will play a big role on this BG strategy, since 200 resources can turn the tables anytime.
In my opinion the cart should be carried back to its base by the the faction that owns it. It would make the fights for that cart really interesting. But I guess sending it back only by clicking on it should be fine too...

SteelSeries 50% off Diablo 3 products

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:01:16 +0000

A few hors ago we were informed that SteelSeries has a nice offer for Diablo 3 products to honor their 1st year anniversary.

Starting today (May 15th) through Thursday (May 17th) SteelSeries will be offering 50% off on all Diablo III peripherals:

Diablo III Headset – The Diablo 3 Headset features red illumination, a retractable microphone, and a D3 inspired design that is just as intense as the game.
Diablo III Mouse – Co-designed with the creators of Diablo III, the D3 mouse is a durable powerhouse of a mouse that features demon red illumination and a slew of features that allow you to tailor this mouse to whatever job you need done while battling the powers of the Burning Hells.
Diablo III QcK’s – World-famous cloth mouse pad comes in 5 different Diablo III designs and provides the perfect gaming surface no matter how intense things get in-game.

You can find the named products at the official SteelSeries shop.
If you want to benefit of this offer all you need to do is to use the promo-code "D3DAY" at check-out and you'll enjoy 50% off all Diablo IIIperipherals you bought.

Happy shopping everyone!

The Shaman: a new comic by Lukali

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:13:23 +0000

So this is how shamans fight. I must say I never paid any attention before. Thanks to this comic now everything is clear to me

If you missed the previous comic, you can find it here.

Check out the author's profile, Lukali at deviantart

Patch 5.3: New Mounts

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:39:43 +0000

Besides the new pets, the 5.3 patch is going to introduce a few new mounts as well. Not all of them are obtainable right away but we can already find them in the game files.

Fey Dragon Mount
The new Enchanted Fey Dragon mount is the most interesting one. This mount changes its color randomly. We don't know how are we going to get it, but if you like to speculate, I think this will be the next Blizzard Store mount.

Alliance and Horde dragonhawks
The mounts collectors are the ones who will be rewarded with these mounts. You "only" need 200 mounts for the Mount Parade achievement.

Pegasus mounts
Apparently those who will Beta Test the new Hearthstone game are going to get these mounts.

Steelwarhorse mount
The exact source of this mount is unknown for now, but at least we know how it looks like.

World of Warcraft down to 8.3M subscribers

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:26:01 +0000

Early today it was announced that World of Warcraft subscribers went down to 8.3M. This means that they lost about 1.3M subscribers since February this year.

Well, WoW is a 9 years old game and since it's launch a lot of players migrated to other games and even other Blizzard games.
We dug a little bit on our older announcement regarding WoW subscribers fluctuation and we decided to make a chart out of it. We also included the expansion releases and games like SC2 and D3 into the same chart.

Patch 5.3: Darkspear Rebellion preview

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:26:17 +0000

It took a while for everything to be ready regarding the Darkspear Rebellion on PTR. At the end of March we looked over the Siege of Orgrimmar, but the Darkspear Rebellion was not added to PTR back then. Now everything seems to be in place for us to review this event properly.

Meet up with Darkspear Rebellion
In order to be able to access this new faction and their goodies sold by their quartermaster Ravika, you'll have to follow a series of quests first and complete some scenarios.

While you are in one of the Valley of the Eternal Blossoms shires, for both horde and alliance a quest will pop up asking you to visit Lorewalker Cho. He will tell you a few stories and ask you to complete the Blood in the Snow and the Dark Heart of Pandaria scenarios. If you completed them without having the quests, you'll have to run them again unfortunately.
As horde, you'll be sent to the Sen'jin Village and as alliance, to the Skull Rock. But do not worry, you'll get there fast even as alliance. You can teleport to Durotar after completing the Lorewalker Cho quests.

After finishing a few more quests you are going to be sent next to Razor Hill where Vol'jin is located and after proving your loyalty to him you'll be able to take a weekly quest.
The chain plays different for alliance and horde, but it's nothing too challenging.

Darkspear Rebellion rewards
The currency you'll need is: Kor'kron Stone, Kor'kron Oil, Kor'kron Lumber, Kor'kron Meat and Radical Mojo.

The stones, oil, lumber and meat currency are used for the weekly quest and to buy most of the items from Ravika, the Darkspear Rebellion quartermaster.
You can farm these "materials" by killing Kor'kron forces from the various Northern Barrens camps or by killing the bosses marked on the Northern Barrens map or by escorting the caravans in the same area.

The Radical Mojo is rewarded by the weekly quests (Battlefield: Barrens / Battlefield: Barrens) and it can be used to purchase Gahz'rooki's Summoning Stone (this is just a battle pet) and Raptorhide Boxing Gloves (this will start a quest and allow you to challenge a rare in Brawler's Guild) and also to infuse pieces of armor like Latent Kor'kron Chestpiece.
Infusing those pieces of gear will reward you with a 476 iLevel item usable by your class and spec.

I couldn't see anything related to their reputation and I really couldn't find a way to farm any reputation with them. Maybe this will change in future PTR patches, since these guys really appear as a faction in the game files.

Wowjuju giveaway: Xbox avatar WoW shirts

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:16:56 +0000

A few months passed since we had a giveaway. How about having one right now?

This time the Blizzard Community Team sent us a bunch of Xbox avatar WoW shirt codes to give you.
Like always, we'll keep things simple with this giveaway.

How to enter this giveaway
We will try something new this time. All you have to do is to enter here and follow those simple steps. If you go for both facebook and twitter you simply double your winning chances.

Of course, if you have any thoughts for us, leave us a comment below as well.

The Prizes
We are giving away 1300 sets of Xbox avatar WoW shirt codes. So basically each winner will receive 4 codes: 1 male alliance, 1 male horde, 1 female alliance and 1 female horde.
You can see the pictures below:

The Rules

The contest is open world wide*!
Only one entry per user is allowed. Do not create multiple accounts. We will know and disqualify you.
You can win only one set of codes.
Winners are going to be selected randomly.
The winners are going to be contacted via email, so make sure you use an email you check often.
We reserve the right to remove entries if we feel like you're not
participating in the contest, or you're just spamming entries to get a prize.
The deadline is May 20th, 2013.
I'll wait 48 hours for your reply.

* Eligible countries are: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Channel Islands Guernsey, Channel Islands Jersey, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, SAR, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, International English, International French, International Spanish, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen

Patch 5.3: Brawler's Guild Changes

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:48:32 +0000

The 5.3 patch will change the Brawler's Guild a little bit.
First of all, if you don't have an invitation yet, you should know that those Blood-Soaked Invitation are going to be more accessible. Do you ask yourself how? Well, the rare mobs of Pandaria (except the ones from Isle of the Thunder) have a chance of dropping those invitations as well.
Beside those drops, the players who reach rank 9 will get a new invitation. They can sell it or give it to friends.

New Challenges
You can get up to rank 10 now and you can also access various "special bosses". The ranked challenges consists of 8 new bosses and the special bosses are... well, special. There are a total of 16 Rare Challengers so far and if you want to face them you have to get an access card first for each and every fight.

Challenge Cards
How can the Brawler's cards can be purchased? Well, first of all we will have cards added to the reward satchels (for example, the bags you are getting from heroics). I can't say for sure if all the cards are in the loot table of those bags nor what the drop rate is, but I'm sure we'll have more people farming those bags now.
We will also have cards purchasable from various NPCs. Both Horde and Alliance has a new Card Trader NPC, but currently there are no cards available and we don't know yet what's the currency for those cards.
At the moment the cards are unique, therefor we can hold one one card at the time and we don't have to be rank 8 to use the. For example the Challenge Card: Ty'thar (obtainable from Raptorhide Boxing Gloves), requires only rank 4 to use it.
The card are used to visit past challenges as well. You just have to buy and use them.

New Rewards
There are not too many rewards but it's good to know you won leave empty handed:

Brawler's Burly Mushan Beast - rank 10 reward
New VIP lounge for Rank 8 players (see the horde zeppelin in the pictures below)
Wraps of the Blood-Soaked Brawler - reward from Deck Your Collection / Deck Your Collection
Brawler's Pass - rewarded for reaching rank 9
Various shirts like Brucehide Jersey - rewarded by defeating bosses.

Other Changes
Everyone entering the brawlers area will notice that the floor was raised a lot, giving all the spectators a better view.

...And speaking of spectators, Consoles, for alliance, and Totems, for horde, were added so you can have a bird-eye view of the current fight. I wonder if this is just some test for arena spectator feature?