With Blizzard’s new homepage at WoW.com comes the end of an old feature for Azzor. Though Blizzard hides it well, they now have an official RSS feed, offering more features than the Azzor feed could. We, and especially I (metziel) regret doing this, but we are now taking our feed offline. Our blizzard news database will remain online, however, in case you wish to browse or something.

Please update your bookmarks and use http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/rss.xml for all your WoW homepage news.

Check it out here! Enjoy!

-MaTT

Hey Hey fellow Azzorians, its time once again to make fun of something! yay!

Here is the HD version
And here is the “normal” version for all you normies…

enjoy!

-MaTT

Arthas is back. Bigger, bolder, and more evil than ever. Today at Blizzcon Blizzard officially announced the next World of Warcraft expansion:

Features

* Master the necromantic powers of the Death Knight - World of Warcraft’s first Hero class.
* Quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way.
* Learn the craft of spell augmentation with the new Inscription profession.
* Brave the harsh new continent of Northrend, the icy domain of the Lich King.
* Engage in epic siege warfare, deploying mighty siege engines to lay waste to destructible buildings in your path.
* Transform your hero’s look with new character-customization options, including new hairstyles and dances.
* Explore perilous new dungeons filled with some of the deadliest creatures — and greatest treasures — on Azeroth.
* And much, much more…

More Info

Gamespot
IncGamers.com (WorldofWar.net)
Wow Warcry
1UP
WoW Insider
Gamespy
Curse
World of Raids
IGN
WCRadio

Heres a new one folks. I’ve decided to branch TTF out a bit into gaming in general.

Click here for the full view!

Enjoy!
-MaTT

Breaking Story

The news in the rumor mill is that wowhead.com has been sold for $1 million USD to Affinity Media (at least used to own IGE, and still owns sites like Allakhazam, Thottbot, wowinterface, etc)

So - with Thottbot/Allakhazam owned by IGE, they pretty much owned the WoW fansite market (and thus a huge audience to push their wares to). At least, if it wasn’t for Wowhead. A late-comer, the site was an instant hit, with its clean UI and fast loading speed (think of Thottbot as Altavista, and Wowhead as Google). You can see on Alexa how Wowhead has grown while the others have stagnated.

And so ?Affinity Media’ has struck again. Verified by three different sources, the price was confirmed at over $1,000,000. The lower limit was 1 million, while the upper was $1.5 million.

Quote from Tech Soapbox from Ahmed. More as it develops…

UPDATE 1: While at this time on paper Affinity Media has sold off IGE, it is unknown what the ongoing relationship is between Affinity and IGE or other virtual market providers.

UPDATE 2:

WoWHead has confirmed the sale:

News travels fast! We were hoping to have the time to put together a proper announcement about this, but it appears word is already out, so we wanted to acknowledge it: now that IGE is out of the picture, Wowhead has decided to become a part of the ZAM Network. We’ll post a lot more information later today. Stay tuned!

From http://www.wowhead.com/

UPDATE 3:

Although Affinity Media claims to have divested itself of IGE, it’s interesting that Brock Pierce doesn’t give mention of this at the Virtual Goods Summit on June 22 according to an interview at Cnet

In an out of the blue post, Tigole posted that you will no longer be required to do the attunement quests to enter Tempest Keep or Serpent Shrine.

After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content. With Black Temple and Battle for Mount Hyjal thriving, we want to encourage (rather than prevent) new guilds and raid groups to attempt Serpentshrine and TK. We are going to leave the current attunement quests in the game so that players can still engage in the challenge and the lore of those quests should they choose to. At a later point, we are considering adding a final reward step to those quests as well (that way those who have already completed them would not miss out on a *new* reward).

This is pretty big news and fairly shocking news at that. Discuss the impact here

WarcraftRealms.com has reported that the number of online players has continued to drop since the release of TBC. This would be expected. Numbers are still higher than pre-TBC, but with no new expansion in site, how long before numbers start dipping below pre-TBC levels?

You can read more about the drop in online players here.

What do you think about the numbers?

New patch information is up for patch 2.1.2. The public test realms are scheduled to be up in the next day or so with these changes. There are several bug fixes and some gameplay updates as well. See below:

Some of the more major items are the changes to the PVP trinkets and the sword specialization changes.

General

* Arena and Honor Rewards: As part of the inauguration of Season 2, the costs of all Arena items and Honor items has been reduced.
* Improved Mend Pet, Abolish Disease, and Abolish Poison no longer play sounds when there is nothing to dispel.
* Players can no longer fail with skinning at maximum skill.
* Spellcloth: Creating spellcloth will once again only summon one Angered Nether-wraith.
* Some new cooking recipes are available from Kylene in Shattrath City.
* A recipe for a superior resilience gem has been added and is rumored to be held by the residents of Halaa.
* Procs: Most procs are set to trigger only from spells which cost mana, but inadvertently disallowed spells which cost a percentage of base mana. That bug has been fixed and so such spells will now trigger many procs they did not previously trigger.

Druids

* Druids in Swift Flight form can no longer loot herb nodes.
* Force of Nature: This spell will no longer causes players it is cast on to enter combat with nearby creatures. All of the treants summoned will now attack a neutral creature they are summoned on.
* Tree of Life: The bonus healing aura from this talent will reactivate when a Banish effect wears off a Druid in Tree Form.

Hunters

* Fixed bug with Misdirection where sometimes only two attacks were redirected instead of three.
* Entrapment: This talent will no longer causes Hunter to stand up or stop eating and drinking when it procs.
* Improved Mend Pet: This ability will no longer cause Hunters to stand or to interrupt eating and drinking.
* Poison Spit: These abilities will now appear in the correct order in the pet training menu.
* Scatter Shot: This ability will now trigger Thrill of the Hunt.
* Thunderstomp: These abilities will now appear in the correct order in the pet training menu.

Mages

* Molten Armor: This buff can now proc when the Mage is sitting.

Paladins

* Corrected the amount of damage done by Seal of Vengeance on a target affected by Judgement of Crusader.
* Improved Concentration Aura: This ability now correctly reduces the duration of silence and interrupt effects by 30%. In addition, the reduction in duration of silence and interrupt effects from this ability will no longer stack with other such reductions.
* Judgement of Blood: Effects which increase your damage by a percentage will no longer cause Paladins to take excessive damage from casting this spell.
* Seal of Blood: Effects which increase your damage by a percentage will no longer cause Paladins to take excessive damage from this spell’s procs.

Priests

* Feedback: This buff can now proc when the Priest is sitting.
* Shadowfiend: This creature will now reset to full health when it is summoned. It will also automatically attack your current enemy target when it is summoned.
* Surge of Light: The buff from Surge of Light will no longer prevent Inner Focus’s charge from being consumed. In addition, it is no longer possible to get two free Smites when this ability procs.
* Touch of Weakness: This spell can now trigger Surge of Light when it does critical strikes.

Rogues

* Sword Specialization: The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon.

Shaman

* Focused Mind: This ability has been changed to reduce the duration of silence and interrupt effects, rather than increase resistance to them.
* Frostbrand Weapon Rank 5: The damage on this spell was reduced slightly such that it will never do more damage than Frostbrand Rank 6.
* Lightning Shield: Procs from this buff will no longer cause neutral town guards to attack the Shaman. In addition, Nightmare Vine will no longer cause charges of this buff to be consumed.

Warriors

* Overpower dims on the action bar when the player is affected by disarm spells.
* Sword Specialization: The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon. Rage awarded will be calculated by damage dealt as with any normal auto-attack.

Items

* PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character.
* Many raid items have had their art improved.
* Clefthoof Mace: This item’s name is now spelled correctly.
* Crystalweave Bracers: This item and its depleted counterpart now have spell critical strike rating as intended.
* Ebon Mask: This item now has sound when moved in a player’s inventory.
* Eye of Magtheridon: This trinket will now trigger when a Judgement of Vengeance is resisted.
* Relentless Earthstorm Diamond: The bonus damage to critical strikes from this metagem now applies to all types of damage, not just physical.
* Skyguard Rations: The stamina and spirit buff from this food has been decreased, as well as its duration.
* Talisman of the Breaker: The reduction in duration of silence and interrupt effects from this item will no longer stack with other such reductions.
* Vestments of the Devout Set: The damage absorb set bonus on this set will now absorb only 350 damage, matching its intended design and tooltip.
* Voidheart Raiment Set: The two-piece set bonus will now trigger from Death Coil.
* Voidstar Talisman: This item will now give the correct amount of resistance to Warloock pets.

Quests

* Vim’gol the Vile now has a 30 second respawn cooldown.
* A problem with interrupting Vim’gol the Vile’s Unholy Growth spell has been fixed.
* Casting bar text was added when gathering a Corrupted Flower during the quest, “Botanical Legwork”.
* A distance-related issue was resolved when attempting to use the Fel Crystalforges at Forge Camp: Terror and Forge Camp: Wrath in the Blade’s Edge Mountains to create 5 Unstable Elixirs of the Beast.
* A problem that could result in Obsidia, Rivendark, Insidion, and Furywing not responding to their respective dragon eggs being used has been resolved.
* Sky Sergeant Vanderlip at the Skyguard Outpost in the Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer display her Exalted faction gossip to those who have not attained that faction rank.
* All classes will now properly get credit for siphoning the crystal in the quest “Bloodgem Crystals”.
* Players will no longer fail to summon Insidion and Obsidia if the dragons are in combat when a player summons them.

Dungeons and Raids

* Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls
o Time-Lost Controllers no longer remove buffs from players who are charmed.
o Heroic Mode: Anzu, the Raven God may no longer be pulled far away from the location where he is summoned.
o Heroic Mode: Anzu’s Spell Bomb is now a curse and he will no longer charge.
o Heroic Mode: The quantity and health of Minions of Anzu that spawn have been reduced.
o Heroic Mode: The frequency and duration of many of his abilities have been retuned to make the fight more forgiving.
* Auchindoun: Shadow Labyrinth
o The Cabal Summoner, Cabal Executioner, and Cabal Spellbinder mobs that interact with Murmur in the Screaming Hall in Auchindoun Shadow Labyrinth will no longer sometimes freeze their animations upon death.
* Black Temple
o It is no longer possible to engage the Shade of Akama without completing phase 1 of the encounter.
o Ashtongue Spiritbinders may now cast heals on Ashtongue Sorcerors, Channelers, and the Shade of Akama.
o The Illidan Stormrage fight encounter has received additional tuning and improvements.
* Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal
o The number of preliminary waves before each boss in the Caverns of Time: Battle for Mount Hyjal event has been reduced from 12 to 8, and some of the larger waves have fewer creatures than before.
* Karazhan
o The door leading to the Celestial Watch in Karazhan now starts open, and Netherspite does not path so close to the door.
o The damage dealt by Netherspite’s Nether Breath has been reduced.
* Tempest Keep: Mechanar
o Nethermancer Sepethrea’s Raging Flames should now periodically change their targets in Heroic mode.

Interface

* Fixed an issue with some AddOns where dropdown menus go away after showing the world map.
* Fixed some Lua errors on /castsequence macros with conditionals.

World Environment

* Chief Overseer Mudlump, Dragonmaw Pitfighter, Forgus, Goblin Merc, Gug, Horus, Lost Torranche, Officer Jaxon, Overlord Mor’ghor, Rumbpus, Telaari Jailor and Uriku: These creatures are no longer lootable.
* Darbel Montrose: This creature now always drops at least a good quality item.
* Lost Torranche: This creature is now skinnable.
* Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer: This buff will no longer give excessive critical strike rating to low-level characters.
* The Twilight Ridge: Burning Legion creatures in this region will now drop Marks of Kil’jaeden, Fel Armaments, and Oshu’gun Crystal Powder Samples.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Tell us what you think of patch 2.1.2

It would seem that Blizzard has been working under the covers on the depth of the Armory for some time given the new additions they’ve recently unveiled.

You can now Browse the Armory for not only Character, Guild & Team profiles, but now we’ve got the ability to search on Items, Dungeons & Raids, and Factions.

Items
Most people are familiar with the basis of Wowhead, Allakhazam and Thottbot for their item databases, filtering and searching. Blizzard has implemented this into their Armory site now, and it’s quite slick. Everything links to it’s appropriate boss that it can drop off of and you can modify the filters to your hearts content. The beauty of it, is that from your Character Profile you can now see possible upgrade paths based on what you currently have!

You can also go into the details of the specific item and find out what it can disenchant into (along with the skill level required), how much it’ll sell for. You can find all the various gems for socketing your gear, recipes, etc. There’s a plethora of information to search through, have fun and enjoy!

Dungeons & Raids
TBC as well as all the old classics are available for searching here. Now you can see what your favorite boss might have in store for you! It’s intuitive as well in that it will only display something that has dropped at least once in game. So, for the new bosses, you won’t necessarily see their entire loot table right away.

Factions
I believe this may be a work in progress still, as it appears that it wants to show us the items available from said faction, but the listings seem to be coming up blank for me!

Another addition is the little “Profile Selected” section in the upper right. You can now lock it to your profile for easy access! Or anyone else’s if you so desire.

So, with that, feel free to come discuss on the forums. Do you like it? How will this affect your gaming? How will this affect your favorite sites?