Here’s to hoping Dad never gets a crazy idea like this.

The Collector’s Edition has been announced. It will contain the following items. Amazon is now taking pre-orders for both the collector’s edition and the regular edition. No word yet of course on release date.

 

CATACLYSM EXCLUSIVE BEHIND-THE-SCENES DVD:

• Over an hour of developer interviews and commentaries, discussing the game’s development from early design through finished gameplay.
• The Cataclysm intro cinematic and major content patch trailers complete with Director’s Commentary.
• A special Warcraft retrospective examining the rich gaming history of the Warcraft universe.

 

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Several Foederati guildies were granted a special Cataclysim raid access. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations Denouncer

When WordPress 3.0 went live I immediately went through and updated both Foederati and my other blog, Vast Variety. I should have known better to be honest. There are almost always bugs and holes any new software package no mater who it comes from and what it does. I should have waited a couple of months and let them clean all that up. But no, I didn’t.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy with WordPress or 3.0. In fact I actually greatly enjoy many of the new features that it has. Unfortunately, even after about 5 years of web site design work and a couple of years of blogging, I still have much to learn about security.

Within the last week or so both sites had somehow gotten a malicious script uploaded to them, I believe through a security hole in a plugin. The script would redirect anyone visiting either site to a third party site I have no connection to and would then proceed to run malware on their computer. Fortunately I was able to figure this out pretty quick and remove the attacking code.

Unfortunately however, this has forced me to start from fresh WordPress installations for both sites. I do have almost all of the old posts and content and will be uploading them to both sites over the next few weeks, but it certainly means a lot of extra work. Oh, well, the price one pays for not paying attention to web site security. I am also doing a significant amount of reading, intended of course to correct any security holes I may have on the site.

Congratulations Foederati – The Lich King has fallen.

After the Break check out the great video Mustafar created of the kill. The video also contains a tribute to Foederati’s 5 years of raiding.

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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman Gamer scorned.

In 1697, when William Congrave wrote that memorable quote in his play, “The Mourning Bride”, he obviously didn’t include the part about gamers nor did he have us in mind. But the events of this week that began on Tuesday when community managers of the World of Warcraft forums announced in the forums that sometime shortly before Cataclysm (WoW’s 3rd expansion) goes live, a new forum system was going to be implemented in which people who choose to post on the forums will be required to do so using their Real ID which for most people is their real life first and last name. And while I’m sure that the brains that run Blizzard Entertainment expected some amount of blow back I don’t think they necessarily expected the hate bomb that exploded over what many saw as a huge violation of their privacy rights. Apparently Blizzard hadn’t been paying any attention to the rage that Facebook caused with it’s huge privacy violations.

In just over 3 days from the time of the announcement, the forum thread had reached nearly 50,000 posts, the vast majority of which were highly critical of the upcoming change.

Now, I understand what Blizzard was trying to do. The official World of Warcraft forums have earned a legitimate reputation for being an untamed wilderness of hate, flame wars, and trolling, as well has being highly unwelcoming to new players to the game.

How ever, there are very legitimate concerns about having your identity exposed to the cesspool of the internet, and doubly so when you tie it to game that can and has driven people to the emotional edge.

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With the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm many game elements will be changing, and each class will be receiving a number of tweaks. Here, we will explore the changes that are being made to the gun-wielding, pet-training hunter. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new hunter abilities!

New Hunter Abilities

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

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In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. Here, you’ll get a glimpse at what’s in store for the rogue class, including a look the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the rogue’s different talent specs.

New Rogue Abilities

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

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