World of Warcraft's PTR 3.0.3 is now up and ready for testing, sporting some tweaks to several classes. The Druid class in particular, will have their talent points refunded. Check out the patch notes in the full article.

Undocumented changes for the the PC version of Funcom's Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures have just been revealed. To find out more about this, head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" link below.

Gamers rejoice for the Revelations 2.2 patch is already up and running in CCP Games' EVE Online. There's ton of stuff that was added to the game in this update as well as a few much needed bugfixes.

Among the changes include the Veldspar asteroid now appearing in the overview screen by default, making it much easier for players to spot and target. In addition to this, new pilots will no longer be starting in a Pod. This change should speed up deployment times, giving the game a faster pace.

The developers also patched a security hole which can potentially be used to hack the client. While we won't be able to cover all of the improvements in this short post, here's a little info about a new ship called the Rorqual ORE Capital Ship:

Features include:

• Unique assembly line which allows use of ore compression blueprints with a large variable volume compression
• Able to fit the Capital Tractor Beam (200km range, 3,000m/s tractor velocity).
• Able to fit 3 gang links, which have been revamped to optimize use of them for the Rorqual.
• Able to fit Industrial Core I Module, a module specifically created for the Rorqual to be able to compress ore.
• Bonus to mining foreman gang links.
• Bonus to survey scanner and cargo scanner range.
• Bonus to capital shield transporter shield transfer range.
• 20% bonus to drone dmg and hitpoints per lvl.
• Clone vat bay.
• Corp hanger.
• Ship maintenances hanger.
• Drone bay able to fit regular drones.
• Built from low sec stations, outposts and large ship arrays (0.4-0.0).
• Operational in 0.4-0.0.

If you're interested in reading more, the entire patch notes can be found by clicking our Read Link. If you're actively playing this game it would definitely be to your advantage to go over the list very thoroughly. After all, you can't let your opponents get the upper-hand just because you didn't take time to go over all the changes right?

A bug in World of Warcraft was discovered and it's hindering priests in casting Lightwell. This priest spell has a 1.5 second cast time with six-minute cooldown. When used, it creates a Lightwell within 40 yards of the priest (with a duration of three minutes or five charges, depending on which comes first) that members of his party or raid can click on to heal them over time.

While the priests can't spam the ability, the players who are accessing the Lightwell apparently can. However, a major problem is the fact that the healing effects don't stack so players who keep clicking on it will only get the effects of one heal while wasting the rest of the charges.

Blizzard QA Hortus has already been informed of the problem and is looking into it. Until it has been fixed, priests who use the ability should make sure to warn their players about over-clicking the Lightwell, to ensure everyone gets healed properly.

There's been a lot of talk and speculation about the World of Warcraft's Arena Tournament season two gear. World of Raids was able to get a complete list of the set bonuses from WoWHead.

Basically the names of the Arena 2 gear are still the same as the first batch, just affix a prefix of Merciless Gladiator's (instead of just Gladiator). Some of the pieces grant the same bonuses and all class sets get +35 Resilience for two pieces. Here's the list:

Druid

• Sanctuary: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.
• Refuge: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.
• Wildhide (Balance set): Reduces the mana cost of your Moonfire spell by 10% of its base cost.

Hunter

• Pursuit: Reduces the cooldown of your Concussive Shot by 1 sec.

Mage

• Regalia: Reduces the cooldown of your Blink spell by 2 sec.

Paladin

• Redemption: Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.
• Aegis: Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.
• Vindication: Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.

Priest

• Investiture: Reduces the duration of the Weakened Soul effect caused by your Power Word: Shield by 2 sec.
• Raiment: Reduces the duration of the Weakened Soul effect caused by your Power Word: Shield by 2 sec.

The rest of the sets after the jump!

Over on the official World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard poster Eyonix has posted something regarding changes being made to flask reagent costs and potency in patch 2.1 for World of Warcraft. Check out the example below in convenient list form.

• Flask of Mighty Restoration - Current

Instant, Regenerate 70 mana per 5 sec for two hours.
Reagents: Dreaming Glory x20, Mana Thistle x10, Fel Lotus x1

• Flask of Mighty Restoration - Patch 2.1

Instant, Regenerate 25 mana per 5 sec for two hours.
Reagents: Dreaming Glory x7, Mana Thistle x3, Fel Lotus x1

The drop rate for Fel Lotus will also be increased in patch 2.1 by about 15%. While the effects of the flasks have been reduced, the cost has also seen an equal reduction. All alchemy flasks will be adjusted similarly to the examples above. Eyonix has also posted a few details on the four new elixirs scheduled to go live with the next content patch. Details are listed below.

• Elixir of Draenic Wisdom: Intellect and Spirit are increased by 25.
• Earthen Elixir: Reduces both spell and physical damage taken by 20.
• Elixir of Ironskin: Resilience is raised by 30.
• Elixir of Major Fortification: Increases health by 250 and provides 10 health every 5 seconds.

Gamasutra reports on a piece of business news with two gaming fallouts - er, implications. Bethesda Softworks has recently bought the Fallout license from Interplay Studios (and not just the rights to dev Fallout 3, but the whole enchilada) for US$ 5.75 million, according to papers filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), found by Fallout fansite No Mutants Allowed.

Here's the fallout. Interplay used to own the IP and Bethesda simply licensing the IP for the Fallout 3 installment. Now as Bethesda owns the IP, not only can it securely move forward with the creation of Fallout content without backchecking with the owners (since they are the new owners), but it reaps the intellectual property's income...

... especially from Interplay, now the licensee for its old IP. The same documents also reveal a contractual obligation by Interplay to launch its Fallout massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) within six years from the Effective Date of the agreement between them and Bethesda, with full-scale development occurring within the first twenty-four months... or else Interplay forfeits its license rights. It does give a potential window to when we'll see that Fallout MMOG.

And with the money from the Bethesda enchilada purchase, they may have some seed to start the project. Hey, at least Bethesda's not doing an MMO, like they said.

Information about Tier 6 set names and set bonuses in the World of Warcraft have been subject to speculation - well, the set bonuses more than the names at least as WoWWiki already has them. MMO-Champion's Boubouille has released a list of Tier 6 set names and bonuses.

Boubouille gave a disclaimer though that the list is "totally not official, and aren't from the 2.1.0 version". He based the list from set bonuses that already exist in game but he warns that they might be changed when the patch goes live. Anyway, here's the list:

• Druid
• Thunderheart Harness
• 2 pieces:Reduces the energy or rage cost of your Mangle ability by 5.
• 4 pieces:Increases the damage dealt by your Rip and Ferocious Bite abilities by 15%.
• Thunderheart Regalia
• 2 pieces:Increases the duration of your Moonfire ability by 3 sec.
• 4 pieces:Increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire ability by 5%.
• Thunderheart Raiment
• 2 pieces:Reduces the cooldown of your Swiftmend ability by 2 sec.
• 4 pieces:Increases the healing from your Healing Touch ability by 5%.

The full list after the jump!

Patch 2.0.10 finally goes live. It came together with the World of Warcraft's scheduled maintenance and is now available for download (if you didn't get the forced update.)

Anyway, we've come to anticipate continuation of the great wailing and gnashing of teeth before the patch. It looks like the Druids and the Mages are the hardest hit, or at least the noisiest. Druids got a hotfix earlier today though that might alleviate the pain a bit.

Here's the list of the changes:

General

• Some logic was fixed in the "Natural Remedies" quest so that Pathaleon the Calculator's Image will always spawn during the ritual.
• Goliathon and his shardlings can no longer be pulled to nearby areas that have guards.
• More fixes implemented in the "It's a Fel Reaver, But With Heart" quest to keep the Scrapped Fel Reaver from breaking.
• The Orb of the Blackwhelp and Hallowed Wands can no longer be used in combat, and the transformation will be canceled if the player receives damage.
• The Scrap Reaver in Netherstorm repairs reduced from 10,000 health to 8,500 health over 10 seconds.
• Battle of the Crimson Watch
• Illidari Mind Breaker has been weakened.
• Illidari Highlords can now be CC'ed but not Charmed.

For the full list of changes, click on Full Article.

Download: World of Warcraft patch 2.0.10

Lurking around the WoW Forums, we found this little thread that contained a puzzled Aussie wondering how much data World of Warcraft downloads. His curiosity was spurred from the fact that he was going to a university that had a strict bandwidth limit of 500 MB/sec. Despite going there for some serious study, he didn't want to give up WoW. So, what is WoW's bandwidth consumption?

Curious little question, isn't it? Being the largest, billion-dollar MMORPG to date, you'd think that your sub par Internet connection won't be able to swallow much data from the World of Warcraft servers. We could actually bore you with the techno-babble that is associated with network technologies, but then we'd lose you right after the first word of the first sentence.

Sedge of Bonechewer, a level 70 Tauren Druid, claimed that his current download rate as he plays is 0.5 KB/sec. But he believes it could be several folds higher once he hits the heavily populated areas. 0.5 KB/sec...carry a one there...that's 1.75 MB/hour. From the 500 MB/month limit, you've got about...say, 285 hours, give or take a couple of hours. If you divide that further in days, you've got about 9 and a half hours of gameplay each day at that rate.

Searching around the Net a little bit more, we found that you could average about 30 KB/sec usually. You could hook 60 KB/sec during really huge raids, Arena bouts, and really wicked aggro's. There are also reports of huge bandwidth eating when you enter zones, since your client downloads a wad of data in preparation for your (triumphant?) return.

You can monitor your computer's bandwidth usage through the many available bandwidth monitors on the Web., like DU Meter. Got something you'd like to share? Please do. Oh, and sure, be as geeky as you like.