To the many übergeeks out there that couldn’t snatch up tickets to BlizzCon fast enough, in DIRECTV lies your savior.  For a mere $40, you can order the event via pay-per-view and watch the whole two-day shindig in hi-def.  Getting the pay-per-view is so close to actually going to BlizzCon that you will even score exclusive in-game items for your World of WarCraft character.

As you may have guessed from the picture, all pay-per-viewers will receive a polar bear mount, complete with a murloc sitting on its head waving a BlizzCon flag.  Though $40 may seem expensive for a mount, don’t forget that you will have access to about 16 hours’ worth of Blizzardness to sit and stare at, wishing you could be there.

You could also participate in the “New Sucker” program, as anyone who signs up for DIRECTV before September 30th will get the pay-per-view for free.  DIRECTV claims their coverage will make viewers “feel like they are actually walking the show floor as they watch live coverage of the event”, so getting it “free” is significantly better than the $100 Blizzard charged for tickets, not to mention the ride there and an overnight stay.

BlizzCon is scheduled for October 10th and 11th at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, but may very well also be taking place in your living room if you get yourself a dish. Information on how to order is available at the official BlizzCon website.

This story starts with a young boy and a subscription to the MMO Final Fantasy XI. After a few months with the game, he grows tired of it and decides he’s going to cancel. Great, so how do you do that? What seems like should be a simple task ends up an exercise in frustration. Little did Square Enix know — they just messed with the wrong guy.

When Frank Edwards wanted to cancel his son’s subscription, he had a hard time finding out how to go about it. The Final Fantasy XI community website supposedly had no link to cancel an account, and he was unable to locate a phone number until he checked his credit card statement. A call to this number resulted in an hour and 45 minutes of elevator music while he was on hold.

Rather than just put up with this bullshit, Frank Edwards calls up his good buddy Illinois State Representative Raymond Poe. You see, Frank Edwards just happens to be an alderman in Springfield, and he’s learned that having a friend with bill-writing abilities is a good thing to have.

Frank gets his pal, the Senator, to propose a law that fixes this horse-swaggle, and that law ended up just getting passed earlier this week. The law states:

So basically, it says: “That’s what you get for fucking with me, Square Enix.” It’s actually kind of funny how the law is written to specifically address Frank’s problem.  To put things into perspective, though, Frank Edwards previously had asked Senator Poe to help him pass a law that “package delivery trucks are not permitted to park along the curb next to a driveway because the exhaust from said package delivery truck is harmful to the homeowner’s tomato plants and totally makes the homeowner’s wife angry.”

Okay, I made that up.

Having had a similar issue after canceling my World of WarCraft subscription a few years ago, it’s cool to think that I could do something about it if I decided to become more politically involved and make friends with a Senator. I won’t, but it’s still nice to know I could.

It’s strange to see videogame legislation pop up in the news like this and have it not throw me into a geekified rage. This one, however, seems to to be a win on both sides of the camp. What’s next, legislation that makes licensed games not suck?

Source: Silicon Alley Insider

Oh boy… If World of WarCraft wasn’t already a massive drain on your free time, then Wrath of the Lich King will make things significantly worse.  Not only will the expansion add Death Knights and an entire new continent, but it’s also bringing with it Achievements, which you earn by doing a myriad of quest-related and pointless things alike.  With examples like Town Crier, which I assume involves /yelling a lot, and another one for giving out 10 hugs, I expect my fellow denizens of the World of WarCraft are about to get a whole lot more annoying.

Blizzard’s official site for Wrath of the Lich King has a list of some of the achievement categories.  Lucky for you, I won’t make you waste the energy involved with going to the site, as I’ve listed them here:

• Player-vs.-Player: This includes arena, battlegrounds, and world player-vs.-player objectives. A few examples:
  • Hot Streak: Win 10 ranked arena matches in a row.
  • Alterac Valley All-Star: Capture graveyards, towers, and kill the enemy leader all in one game.
  • City Defender: Kill 50 enemy players in your faction’s capital cities.
• Dungeons and Raids: Every end boss of every raid and dungeon in the game grants its own achievement. Future achievements in this category may include ones for completing a run without any player deaths, with fewer than the maximum number of players, or within a certain time limit.
• Professions: Advancing to each tier of mastery in a profession earns you an achievement, and there are specific achievements for secondary skills (with major professions to follow).
• Quests: Quest-based achievements include completing a certain number of quests and completing specific quest lines. This category contains zone-specific subcategories.
• Events: Seasonal events such as the Midsummer Festival, the Lunar Festival, and Hallows’ End have specific achievements of their own.
• World Exploration: You’ll earn achievements by exploring each zone in the game — and get meta-achievements when you fully explore a continent.
• Reputations: This set of achievements includes attaining exalted reputation with each faction in the game.
• General: These achievements tend toward the whimsical, including getting a shave and haircut (a new feature of Wrath of the Lich King), obtaining a certain number of tabards and vanity pets, falling from a great height, and more.

Did you read that last one? That’s right, there will now be a beauty salon/barbershop (presumably with no Ice Cube or Queen Latifah, at least I hope not) where you can alter the appearance of your character.

Your character panel will have a tab that lists all of these achievements, and they will show up on your page in the Armory as well.  Rewards for certain achievements include non-combat pets, tabards, and other non-game-altering, purely cosmetic prizes.  Perhaps you can unlock more hairstyles?

Unlocking the Achievements triggers an Achievement animation and “unmistakable” sound.  A message will pop up letting all those around you and everyone in your guild know what you just achieved.  As if trade chat spamming wasn’t bad enough, now we’ll have fifty other messages from people jumping off of Thunder Bluff to get the “Jump from really high” Achievement.  Glorious…

Oh, and these achievements will also have a points value and add to your running total, called your Gamerscore.  Wait… it’s not called Gamerscore?  Oh, my bad.  Seems they haven’t revealed what it’s named yet.  I have a suggestion, though: Gamerscore — let’s just call it what it is.

With things like this and Microsoft’s Avatars, it’s a wonder anything new and innovative is ever created.  What’s next?  Marcus Fenix isn’t original either?

An Australian man was arrested recently after he convinced a 15-year-old girl he met while playing World of WarCraft to run away from home to be with him. He even paid for the trip. How sweet.

The 31-year-old Anthony Taylor formed a relationship with the less-than-half-his-age girl, which eventually led to sexual messages and phone calls.  The girl’s father found out about the relationship and threatened to kill Anthony, so Anthony did what any self-respecting pedophile would do — he sent her a plane ticket and some money to cover the cab fare.

Obviously, the girl’s father doesn’t let her go, so Anthony is met at the airport by police instead. They question him about the girl, at which time he admits he “thought the age could be a problem.”  Really, you think?

Anthony is then brought before a judge, where we find out some interesting facts about his raiding past.  Turns out he met his current real-life girlfriend online, though thankfully she’s 27, and he has fathered a child with yet another girl who happens to be under the age of 16.

Anthony pleads guilty to “child stealing” and is sentenced to, and I shit you not, a “seven-month non-custodial intensive corrections order”. I don’t know what that means, but it certainly doesn’t sound like enough.

With rulings such as this, it seems to me that Australia is now the place for lovers… of underage teens at least. Virginia will be confiscating your wallabies since you stole their motto, and hopefully some of that old-fashioned redneck justice makes it down under as well.

Source: news.com.au

Among the many changes the upcoming World of WarCraft patch 2.4.3 will bring, the most significant is probably the ability to get a mount at level 30. Paladins and Warlocks will get their first summon at this level, while other classes can purchase Apprentice level riding for a mere 35 gold. This will make leveling up an alt slightly more bearable, and hopefully you all read this prior to dinging 40 and plunking down too much cash for your soon-to-be-overpriced level 40 mount.

Read on for the full Test Realm patch notes, including ridable dragonhawks and a huge nerf to twinks.

Be aware that none of the following changes are set it stone just yet. This is just what’s being considered for the next patch while Blizzard experiments in the Public Test Realm, though these notes are most likely not going to change.

General

* Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
* Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
* Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
* Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
* Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
* Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
* Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
* Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha’tari Skyguard.
* Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
* Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
* You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
* When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.

Druids

* Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters

* Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.
* Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
* Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Paladins

* Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
* Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests

* Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
* Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues

* Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman

* Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
* Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks

* Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
* Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
* Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
* Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
* Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
* Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Warrior

* Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

PvP

* The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped.

Professions

* Alchemy
o Philosopher’s Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.
* Cooking
o Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.
* Jewelcrafting
o Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.
* Mining
o Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.
* Tailoring
o Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
o Herb bags can now hold Un’goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
o Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
o New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests

* Bhag’thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
* For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
* For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids

* Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons.
* Magister’s Terrace
o The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
o Vexallus and Kael’thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
o Vexallus’ damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
o Kael’thas’ Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
o Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
o Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
o Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.
* Sunwell Plateau
o Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
o Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil’jaeden’s Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
o Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil’jaeden.

Items

* Bow of the Verdant Keeper’s Aim: This item’s triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
* Brutal Gladiator’s Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
* Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again…without attacking people in the arena. Well… they’ll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
* The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.
* Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
* Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.
* Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
* Thori’dal, the Star’s Fury is now Unique as intended.
* Vengeful Gladiator’s Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list.

User Interface

* The help interface has been simplified dramatically. Players will no longer be required to select a category when opening a GM ticket. In addition, players can use the “Talk to a GM” button to fill out a ticket that requires a GM response or the “Report Issue” button to fill out a ticket that does not require a GM response.
* Target buff/debuff timers that appear when you cast a spell are now more visible.
* Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time.
* The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputting a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hour, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
* Added the following macro commands: /targetenemyplayer, /targetfriendplayer.
* Added key bindings for tab targeting players.
* Ctrl-Tab and other target nearest friend functions will no longer target you.
* Targeting using /target will prefer live targets over dead ones.
* You can no longer click the minimap to cast ground targeted spells.
* Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
* Vendor items now show their Duration in Inventory.
* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

* Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs may now drop Thick Yeti Fur.
* Skinning any Winterspring Ice Thistle yetis may now result in Thick Yeti Fur.
* Increased the drop rate of Pristine Yeti Horns from Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs.
* Goblin Weather Machine- Prototype 01-B weather changes will no longer force the affected character to stand.
* Collector’s Edition Pet Redemption NPCs/items/quests have been relocated/modified to/for towns with mailboxes (Goldshire, Razor Hill, etc.).
* Young Sporebats and Greater Sporebats in Zangarmarsh now drop Sporebat Eyes for the quest Gathering the Reagents.
* Blacksmithing Supplies vendor and repairer, Blazzle, in Area 52 is now next to the forge and anvil outside the inn.
* Banker Meeda, in Area 52 is now in the…well…the bank, along with a guild vault and guards. The other three Area 52 bankers are still located in the auction-house-turned-bank.
* Wastewander Bandits and Rogues should be more plentiful in the northern parts of Tanaris.

Bug Fixes

* The mage spell, Counterspell now shows in the combat log.
* Gan’arg Analyzers will no longer occasionally become friendly to players.
* Talented abilities that cost a percentage of base mana will no longer display an incorrect mana cost when inspected by a player of a different class or level.
* Guild leaders should now be able to properly promote a new guild leader regardless of their range.
* Druids: Mangle will no longer incorrectly indicate a 100-yard range on the tooltip.
* Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.
* Hunter Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
* Hunters: Concussive shot will now properly have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.
* Rogues: The talent Heightened Senses, Rank 1 and Rank 2 will now affect attacks from wands.
* Using Jewelcrafting figurines will no longer cause scrolling combat text to appear twice.
* Fixed an issue in which shadows were not appearing properly for users with GF4 video chipsets in Open GL mode.
* Corrected an issue in which users with Creative X-FI sound cards would sometimes hear a slight popping noise when running.
* Players will now correctly receive a Battleground Mark message for the marks that are received at the end of a battle.
* Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
* Smelt Hardened Khorium will now properly require a forge instead of an anvil and hammer.
* Corrected a typo in the tooltip for the Druid spell Rip (Rank 4).
* Looting a Nightmare Vine will now properly no longer apply poison when the node is looted.
* The Figurine- Seaspray Albatross ability will now properly restore the correct amount of mana.
* First Aid bandages can no longer be applied to a player with the Recently Bandaged debuff. An error message of, “Could not activate more than one bandage” will be displayed.
* Corrected the tooltips to read properly for the flight paths from The Stormspire, Toshley’s Station, Blade’s Edge, and Area 52.
* Greater Elementals summoned by a shaman will now properly have a combat log entry.
* Players will no longer become stuck on the Nimboya’s Laden Pike when driving it into the ground.
* The quest, “Going Going, Guano!” will now have a more consistent level requirement for the dungeon.
* The quest, “Into The Scarlet Monastery” is now available to players of the appropriate level for the instance.
* Blueleaf Tubers can now be properly looted.
* The quest turn-ins for the Ahn’Qiraj war effort now give the appropriate amount of credit for each successful quest turn-in.
* Cloak of Shadows will now properly remove Shrink.
* Nightbane will no longer become unresponsive and unkillable during his air phase.
* Several items sold by the Consortium reputation vendor Paulsta’ats are now bind on pick-up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design:Thick Golden Draenite.
* It is no longer possible to delete a character that is an arena team captain without first promoting another player to captain.
* Taunts will now properly stick when a target is stunned while being taunted.

Level 29 and below twinks will likely find the changes to defense to make them slightly less twinky. The ability to twink out at level 10 with 100% dodge rating will most likely no longer be possible, and I laugh in the face of all those low-level jerks that have been ruining battlegrounds for the past 3 years.

The PTR patch notes, as always, can be found on the official WoW site.