Filed under: Blizzard

This special edition of Know Your Lore presents an overview of the lore of the Diablo games and their setting, the world of Sanctuary. Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Enjoy this week's diversion into the world of Diablo III.

The Diablo games are very different from anything in the Warcraft setting, a far more black-and-white morality played out in endless cosmic war between absolute forces of order and righteousness opposing evil and chaos. This war, the Great or Eternal Conflict, is so massive in scale and scope that it can almost be said to be endless. The war predates the world of Sanctuary, the realm where mortal men and women are born and live out their lives. Indeed, Sanctuary itself was created by a rogue angel and his demonic lover and ally as a place to find an end to the war.

But before the conflict, before the universe itself existed, there was only Anu. Anu existed as a pearl, a central point which contained all evil and all good, all possibilities and all dualities contained within its mirrored surface. Yet Anu felt imperfect in its duality and sought purity in the rejection of its negative aspects, casting them aside to become a being of glittering diamond -- a perfected warrior. Yet what Anu rejected, his cast-off impurities themselves became perfection of a dark bent, forming the monstrous Tathamet. This seven-headed dragon declared war on the glittering Anu, who in turn sought to destroy that which he had cast out of himself.

Blizzard announced today in the investors call that the World of Warcraft population remains stable at 10.2 million subscribers. This is after the announced dip to 10.2 million in February 2012.

Activision-Blizzard

Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft® Remains #1 Subscription-Based MMORPG with Approximately 10.2 Million Subscribers as of 3/31/12

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In other WoW news from the call, Blizzard has renewed its license with NetEase for China distribution: "On March 20, 2012, Blizzard Entertainment announced that they renewed their license with NetEase for the distribution of World of Warcraft in mainland China. The new license will continue for an additional three years following the expiration of the current license agreement."

There is no indication of specific North American / European numbers, nor is there any specific indication of when Mists will release.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Ghostcrawler took to the official forums to address the lack of spirit cloth gear that some players have experienced in the Mists of Pandaria beta dungeons currently available for testing. Spirit gear for pure healers is necessary to retain mana regeneration levels and output as content increases in difficulty. With a lack of spirit gear, some healers found their jobs more difficult. Ghostcrawler confirmed that the level-up dungeons found throughout the 85 to 90 content cannot be over-challenging due to the nature of their place in the progression.

The meat of the answer is that as you approach endgame content at level 90, more gear appears with endgame stats on it -- dodge, parry, and block for tanks, spirit for healers, and so on. When that gear becomes important is when the stats start appearing. Until then, pop some reforge, check reputation vendors and other sources of level-up gear for spirit stuff, and mish-mash together a set of decent healer gear. (Or, at the end of the day, you're just really unlucky with drops.)

We have seen and heard a ton of information on questing, dungeons, and even Pet Battles in the Mists of Pandaria beta, but one thing that has been absent thus far is also one of the things I'm most excited about -- scenarios. From what information we received at BlizzCon, we know that Blizzard intends for scenarios to be phased and quest-like in their presentation. They could be used to move stories forward, with players interacting with non-player heroes directly and even fighting alongside them in important battles.

An idea for this new game mode that I have been tossing back and forth with a few friends is creating a series of how-to scenarios that introduces the player to the aspects of group play. Meloree at Sacred Duty has suggested this as a prerequisite to entering the Dungeon Finder, but I think even having the option would improve grouping experiences dramatically. Tanks could enter dungeons and raids with a better grasp on basics like threat, positioning, and proactive cooldown usage. Healers could learn mana management, throughput efficiency, and this fabled triage model that we keep hearing so much about. Damage dealers could become familiar with high-movement fights, interrupting, and burn phase cooldown maximization.

Clearly, this seems to be well within Blizzard's capabilities to produce. We already see NPCs that tank, heal, and DPS in the game in various quests. In my opinion, there are only a couple of things that may stand in the way:

1. Is this something the designers can do easily and quickly, or would a significant amount of resources need to be allotted to the development of this idea?
2. Would players react positively to such tools being made available to them? Would they feel pressured or upset if they failed to complete the scenarios in their chosen role?

What do you think? Is this something you would use? Would this help the dungeon running and raiding experiences, or is the potential for disaster too great here?

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Previously we reported that all Annual Passholders had been sent their Mists of Pandaria beta invites. But many players have been complaining that they still hadn't received theirs. Blizzard responded to that today. Those who have purchased the pass after April 18 will get their invites in a future wave. There were also errors when sending the invites to some accounts, and Blizzard is attempting to resolve them.

Annual Pass Invite Beta Update

We want to confirm that, at this time, all World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers have been invited to the Mists of Pandaria beta test, with two groups of exceptions. One exception group are those who purchased an Annual Pass on or after April 18, and will receive their invite in a future wave. The second exception is a small list of remaining accounts from previous waves that encountered an error, and will be properly flagged for beta access as soon as we can resolve the issue.

If you haven't yet purchased an Annual Pass, you still have time to guarantee your spot in the beta by signing up for a year agreement (link) before the offer expires on April 30. Those taking advantage of the Annual Pass receive Diablo III for free, access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, and the exclusive Tyrael's Charger flying mount for your World of Warcraft characters.

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So if you haven't received your beta invite yet, you will Soon™. No dates have been released for when the remaining invites will go out. In the meantime, you can read up on all of the MoP beta info here on WoW Insider. (No, it's not the same as being able to play the beta, but I'm just saying ...)

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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If you've ever wanted to get your hands on Recruit-A-Friend mount #2, the X-53 Touring Rocket two-seater, then you had better get moving. Blizzard has announced that the X-53 rocket will be retired soon to make way for the new Recruit-A-Friend mount and (presumably) program for the launch of Mists of Pandaria. One might even take this as a clue that a new Recruit-A-Friend is coming soon, which means expansion time could be right around the corner.

As for what the new mount is going to be, we have no idea just yet. However, MMO-Champion and Wowhead have datamined achievements, items, mounts, and some other clues that have shown a Recruit-A-Friend 3 mount in the files but no associated mount yet. Hit the jump for the full announcement about the X-53 rocket and speculate about what the next RAF mount is going to be.

With the advent of transmogrification, void storage, account-wide pets, and lots of other item-dependent features, it's seemed a little odd that Blizzard hasn't been allowing item restores via the GM queue. Well, that apparently ends today -- both the inability to do so and requesting to do so via GM ticket. Now, your Battle.net account page has a brand-new service: Item Restoration. It's a free service that you can perform once every 30 days to retrieve lost, deleted, or vendored items immediately. In the event that you disenchanted an item instead of deleting or selling it, you'll still go through the regular GM ticket line to have your case looked at.

Kudos to Blizzard for finally making this service available -- it was a huge stress on the GM queue and an inconvenience for players. Now everybody's happy. Probably.

Announcing: Battle.net Item Restoration

Starting today, players can access a new system that will allow players to recover World of Warcraft items that they may have sold, destroyed or disenchanted: Battle.net Item Restoration.

With this new self-service option the recovery of an item or items that were recently deleted or sold to a vendor can be restored to a character immediately when using the ticket submission system on our support site. For any items that were accidentally disenchanted the same method can be used to request a review by Customer Support for restoration.

This restoration option may only be used once every 30 days on active World of Warcraft accounts that are in good standing. As this option has a limited availability and use, we still encourage caution when selling, deleting or disenchanting items.

While Customer Service always strives to help whenever we can, with the introduction of this self-help feature we will no longer be able to assist with these types of requests.

Additional details can be found in the following Support Article: Battle.net Item Restoration.

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Blizzard has posted a reminder that the WoW Annual Pass, which grants you a copy of Diablo III, access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, and a Tyrael horse in WoW, is closing up shop on Monday, April 30. You have until Monday, April 30 to sign up for the pass, and the deal will be retired. We have no word yet as of the future of the program or if it will be repeated, but from the numbers, 1.2 million people is a pretty great subscriber grab. I'd expect to see something like this again soon, potentially annually.

If you're having a little trouble with the Mists of Pandaria beta for one reason or another, Blizzard has just announced a hotfix for your issues: the Diablo III open beta weekend is happening from Friday, April 20 to Monday, April 23, closing things up at 10 a.m. PDT. Anyone with an active Battle.net account can sign up, download the client, and make their BattleTag. This open beta weekend looks like a big testing ground for the BattleTags system as well as Diablo III's architecture on a large scale.

Blizzard has updated the Customer Support options in the upcoming patch 4.3.4 for WoW, including a brand new interface for dealing with in-game harassment, naming violations, and cheating. These features have been in the game previously but were buried a bit in the customer support window (which was, admittedly, funky at best). Now things seem a bit more straightforward.

Hit the jump for the full announcement.

Zarhym hit the forums to clarify an important point that is being lost in recent lore discussions around the internet. Chris Metzen was quoted in a PC Gamer interview:

...the pillars of the franchise are orcs and humans; it really is the Alliance and Horde by extension, and it really is those two groups beating the brains out of each other for an extended period of time. That's always gotta be what Warcraft is about...

And as Zarhym entirely correctly points out, it's not just the orcs and humans that are all that matters now, but the entire Alliance and Horde factions that have developed over the course of the franchise's life. Warcraft started with them but has expanded unto everything else.

This is also a good opportunity to place front and center the fact that the Warcraft universe is an evolving story. It's not like Lord of the Rings, where everything that is has and (likely/hopefully) ever will be in the universe is already written in stone. Gandalf isn't suddenly going to join forces with the factions of darkness beyond the great sea while Frodo becomes the next Gollum -- but Thrall? Maybe he'll defect to the Alliance some day.* No one knows; it's evolving and ever changing.

Zarhym's full statements, after the break.

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The 2012 Arena Pass season is soon upon us, with sign-ups starting on April 10 for all the PvP action you can shake a stick at. With the Arena Pass, you get access to the private PvP, level 85 premade realm that gives you everything you'd need to outfit PvP characters in the best stuff around, as well as a world that acts as a dedicated Arena match facilitator.

For those of you on the fence about whether to try out the Arena Pass, Blizzard is once again offering up Murkimus the Gladiator to any player who play and participate in some fights. The best of the best are awarded with the Vanquisher title, and players who sign up now will get access to a level 90 PvP realm for Mists of Pandaria PvP events coming when the expansion goes live.

Check out more information on the official World of Warcraft community site.

Imagine this: You run a fairly influential Asian fan site. You're offered the chance to interview WoW's Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak, but there's a catch -- Kosak speaks English, and you really don't. An in-depth conversation is out. What's a fan site to do?

Well, the folks at Player's Cut TV came up with a pretty interesting and entertaining solution: Ask Kosak a series of rapid fire, yes-or-no questions about Mists of Pandaria. They even gave Kosak a pair of discs to hold up: a circle for yes, and a red X for no. It's like watching the dude play through some kind of game show bonus round.

A lot of the questions asked in the video have been already asked elsewhere, so you might not get a whole lot of new information out of the video. But it's damn fun to watch.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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