Blizzard Entertainment has finally lifted, albeit partially, the shroud of mystery covering the intriguing new World of Warcraft class, the Death Knight. In an elaborated Death Knight-dedicated page over at the MMORPG's official website, bits of info regarding the necromantic hero class surfaced in the form of a design team interview and a lore post.

According to the design team, as scary as the runeblade wielding class may seem (you can't have the word "death" as part of your name and be anywhere near nice), Death Knights actually have a rich history of blind heroism. This is the main reason why Blizzard decided to introduce them as WoW's first hero class. Here's what the design team said:

...the expansion is set in Northrend and you’ll be fighting the Lich King, it makes sense to add a class that is directly connected to the coming conflict. The death knights you will be able to play are no longer allied with the Lich King; instead, they have joined forces with the Horde or the Alliance to fight against Arthas. So by playing a death knight, you’re engaged in the story of Wrath of the Lich King right from the start, which makes the death knight a logical class choice for the expansion from a lore point of view.

As stated above, the page also gave light to the dark story behind the grave origins of Death Knights. WoW lore is already one of the richest, if not the richest, in any existing video game/MMORPG today, and the Wrath of the Lich King expansion promises to bring more to the table. We won't be making any spoilers here, it's best to go dig for the info yourself over our read link below. We'll leave you with a teaser though:

Years after the destruction of Draenor, the immensely powerful Lich King created a new breed of death knights: malevolent, rune-wielding warriors of the Scourge. The first and greatest of these was Prince Arthas Menethil, once a mighty paladin of the Silver Hand, who sacrificed his soul to claim the runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate bid to save his people... In the years since Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne and merged with the Lich King, the power and fury of the death knights has only grown. Now these unrelenting crusaders of the damned eagerly await the Lich King's command to unleash their fury on Azeroth once again.

That should make any WoW player's keyboard-tapping, mouse-wielding hands itch for a quick Azeroth Northend (featured here) trek using a Death Knight.

 

Brewfest has finally hit Blizzard's PTR 2.2.2 servers of World of Warcraft, and it's as awesome as previous reports have indicated. After all, how can you fail with a massive event  that involves giant goats, wolpertingers, bar brawling and lots of beer? And to get you up to speed on the things you can do in this legendary event, here's a brief rundown of Brewfest's main attractions, in no particular order:

• Complimentary Stein: acquired from the Brewfest greeter. Each Stein is different and corresponds to a large keg you can draw brew from.
  
• Food and drink: Besides the many steinfuls of brew you'll be imbing, you can also consume holiday-themed foodstuffs such as pretzels, wine and sausages from vendors.
• Ram Racing: Just what it says. Check out the NPC outside the grounds for a brief explanation, and he'll give you the Ram Reins item as well as a temporary ram steed. Clicking on the reins makes the ram go faster, but click too much and you'll tire it out.
• Drunken Brawling: From time to time, Dark Iron Dwarves will brawl up a storm inside Brewfest. Take 'em out by pickup one of the many Complimentary Brewfest Sampler mugs strewn all over the ground, draining it and then throwing it at them. You get one ticket per hit.
• Quests: Yes, there are quests, and they involve drinking lots and lots of brew. Catching the Wild Wolpertinger, for instance, requires you to be absolutely smashed before being able to see the darn things.
• Tickets and Souvenirs: You'll be able to take home a piece of Brewfest with you. Simply turn in the tickets you've received from the quests and events, and you might just earn not only fun items such as the Brewfest Goggles, but also a very awesome-looking Brewfest mount.

That's pretty much what Brewfest offers, and while things are subject to change (it's taking place in a Test Server, after all) Brewfest will no doubt go down in WoW history as one of the best events ever. And yes, Brewfest is available for both the Alliance and the Horde - as the brew is consumed by all, and therefore does not recognize race, creed or faith in Azeroth. All hail the brew!

 

I'm pretty sure this scenario's happened to you already: you're spending a leisurely flight around Azeroth when you suddenly realize that you've inadvertently wandered into the border of Skettis. You hear an annoying squawk just before a giant feathered thing suddenly dive bombs you from out of nowhere and dazes you before you plummet to your doom.

Well, here's a bit of good news about our hateful avian friends. According to the latest PTR patch for Blizzard's World of Warcraft, killing the Monstrous Kaliri won't be a totally pointless endeavor from now on as they finally have drops assigned to them upon their death. At least now you can seek vengeance on those overgrown owls and at the same time find a bit of satisfaction to it as you loot their bodies.

Still it doesn't change the fact how annoying those avian beasts can be. Apparently even the guys at Blizzard don't like them. Blizzard poster Bornakk had this amusing quip to say about the Kaliris: "These birds can be pretty frustrating, but they are watching their eggs being constantly blown up. Can you blame them for defending their territory with parries and squawks?"

Blizzard poster Drysc dropped by the World of Warcraft forum earlier to post details about one of the MMORPG's more commonly experienced debuffs - Daze.

For the neophyte players, Daze is a debuff that causes your character to lose 50% of their movement speed for four seconds. Mounted players hit by this debuff are further forced to dismount.

Getting back on topic, Drysc's tutorial in particular explains the debuff's basic mechanics, as it was a frequently discussed effect. More so that a mob has a chance to cast it on any players that were unwise enough o face away from them. Consider this a lesson on being careful, all the more given how clothies (i.e. mages, rogues, priests) have as much as a 40% chance of getting hit. As Drysc explained regarding the mechanics:

The chance to be dazed is determined by the character's base defense rating as compared to the mobs level, or technically the defense of the character versus the attack skill of the mob (which is always maxed at [5 x mob level]).

A level 70 mob would have an attack of 350 as compared to a level 70's character defense of 350. The base chance is 20% and this lowers or raises based on the difference between player defense and mob attack, to a minimum of 0% chance, or maximum of 40% chance.

Drysc further pointed out that the debuff has a much lower chance of activating on low-levelers. Blizzard intentionally did this so that newcomers to WoW would be given a chance to learn the game's physics. Daze's activation chance scales with the character's level, before hitting its default chance of 20% at level 30. And in case you're wondering why it seems like the debuff's been happening frequently, Drysc provides for this explanation:

Other factors that may give a sense that daze is occurring more often may include the lack of many actual level 60 mobs roaming throughout leveling or questing areas in Azeroth, as compared to the large amount of level 70 (and higher) mobs roaming throughout Outland.

That's a snippet of the blue-texter's explanation on Daze mechanics. Full details should be available in Drysc's thread post at the WoW forums via the source link below.

In World of Warcraft, there are many questions that have yet to be answered. Among them is how to spell the sound a Murloc makes. While this is a question that may never enter the minds of the greatest thinkers in Azeroth (God help us all if it does), it is an interesting question to ponder nonetheless.

Blizzard Community Manager Bornakk was nice enough to answer the question, citing the video of I am Murloc by Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. In the subtitles of the video, the Murloc sounds were listed as "Rwlrwlrwlrwl".

He then mentioned that it is still open for interpretation and that "mgrlllmgrlrrr" and "mrrglrlrlrmgrrr" are also acceptable. While there isn't a right answer as of yet, we will be pondering into this topic even more.

After all, how could we call ourselves members of the QJ WoW team if we weren't loaded with tons of useless World of Warcraft trivia right? In the mean time, why don't you give us your suggestions through the comment section below.

Every self respecting World of Warcraft player has seen or at least know the Emmy-nominated South Park episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft. Its lore is just about as viral as Leroy Jenkins and we all know why. The foul mouthed boys of South Park has been addicted to Blizzard's popular MMO and things go crazy with them questing to save Azeroth from a powerful griefer.

And guess what? The guys at Comedy Central are offering a 15% discount for World of Warcraft players who purchase South Park: The Complete Tenth Season. The tenth season of course also features episodes like The Return of Chef and Mystery of the Urinal Deuce.

Anyway, WoW players simply have to use the gift code "WARCRAFT" at the Comedy Central Shop to avail of the said discount and free shipping to boot.

 

In the lighter side of news, inquiries to whether commendation NPCs (whose purpose you'd probably have pondered at one time or another) should be removed from the World of Warcraft realms or not were responded to with a resounding no. New Blizzard community manager Bornakk claimed that despite their imposing annoyance to certain players for varied reasons, there were no plans to remove such NPCs from the game:

We made sure that these NPCs were properly trained not to bite anybody passing by or talking to them. No reports have come in to say that they have broken this (so far), so we are fine leaving them in the game for the time being to help anybody they can.

Bornakk's response was followed with a good share of reasons why the NPCs should be removed, such as apparent confusion with newcomers as to the NPCs' actual purpose as well as a decaying provision of commendations to turn in. Players of the original World of Warcraft content, denizens in Azeroth, may continue to find a use with commendation NPCs, however.

But there are a few players in Outlands that have yet to turn in their collection of commendations, so the concern over the NPCs having no use is arguable. In the end, it does play down to cautious approaches for the unforeseen. After all, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Suspension of disbelief, no more? Hyperbeam over at the World of Warcraft threads opened up an interesting post regarding the Caverns of Time Instance, specifically about an idea for an Old Felwood area instance. Felwood, prior to being corrupted by the Burning Legion (under the late Archimonde), was a patch of pristine forest that also served to be the first meeting between Illidan and Arthas.

What makes Hyperbeam's suggestion for the area instance is its claimed lack of "lorelol" - the colorful bits of content that makes parts of a story a little harder to swallow, even for the most stalwart of fans.

For the dudes in WoW, it means Blizzard's constant explanation of events in the CoT being caused partly by the Infinite Dragonflight. Another example from WoW's storyline is the Draenei's "spaceship" that crash-landed on Azeroth.

The instance's progression would have players taking on legions of demons as Arthas and Illidan duked it out, followed by the players helping a now-weakened Illidan defeat Tichondrius. In story canon, Illidan eliminates the said dread lord personally. This appears to be the bare-bones basic idea behind Hyperbeam's lorelol-free instance idea. Guys who'd like to check out the idea in full can drop over to the WoW forums (via the source elink)

Sometimes, it's the disheartening bits of news that reaches our doorsteps that really puts a damper on our day. That being said, we're still obliged to report it, perhaps especially because it's news that everyone ought to know, whether they want to or not.

According to a recent comment by Blizzard poster Bornakk, it seems there are still no plans to bring some choice Azerothian destinations, specifically Gilneas, into World of Warcraft any time soon. This was picked up in a post made by Vaslyth of the Sisters of Elune server, who asked if Gilneas would ever see the light of day in the playable game world.

Bornakk's reply was short and bittersweet. "At this time, the nation of Gilneas which stands behind the Greymane Wall remains a secluded mystery," Bornakk writes. "One day we may see the portcullis and the region open to visitors and explorers alike, but we do not know when or if that day will come."

To those uninitiated in WoW lore, Gilneas was once known as one of the most powerful cities in Azeroth. Due to an isolationist political policy, however, it closed its borders off to other kingdoms with its current state still left hanging. In game terms, the physical geography of Gilneas has yet to be established, with only a gate - the remainder of the Greymane Wall - being the only placeholder for the actual area itself.

Those lucky enough to attend this year's Blizzcon were able to pick up a Murloc suit for the their World of Warcraft characters. This item makes a player look like the lovable green aquatic creature we have all grown fond off.

Players have been complaining that the suit doesn't really do anything aside from making their character look good. In addition to this, players are unable to attack or cast spells in this form, further limiting its purpose in the game. Blizzard Poster/ Community Manager Bornakk addressed these issues on the WoW Forums:

We chose not to allow people to fight/cast spells with this on, similar to the Hallow’s End wand transformations, as we don't want the whole game to eventually have nobody that looks like races that are in it.

We also didn't feel like having this suit on while fighting epic battles would fit the feel of the game. The Ogre suit and savory deviate delights are a full transformation into battle worthy characters, so we currently have them work a little differently.

This difference is something we consider very carefully anytime a costume is added. We believe players can enjoy the item as it is when putting it on in at anytime they want throughout the world. I know mine gets plenty of attention when I surprise people with it. :)

Some players on the thread have pointed out that this decision by Blizzard is rather inconsistent considering skeletons, pirates, and ninjas have been running around Azeroth unchecked. Judging from Bornakk's response though, it doesn't look like any changes are slated for the suit. That's a bit of a let-down, it would  have been fun to take a 40 Murloc team out for a raid.