A Chinese browser-based MMO named Aurora Blade has been accused of lifting art and design work from a few other MMOs, including Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, and yes, even World of Warcraft. You can judge for yourself in the comparison above (the little Rogue is Aurora Blade, obviously), put together by ShackNews, but that definitely looks alike to us. The game is hosted in the West by a company called IGG, and they’ve responded by saying that they only host the game and aren’t responsible for the game’s artwork.

They give no indication, however, who is responsible for the artwork of the game, and there’s nothing on the page or in the FAQ that gives a company name out either. Granted, Aurora Blade is hardly competition for World of Warcraft, but at this point it appears to be up to Blizzard whether they’ll bother taking further action to get to the bottom of this.

Of course, there is a flaw in their plan. If they really wanted to rip off some cool Rogue armor, wouldn’t it be Bloodfang? Why bother with Shadowcraft?

Chinese MMO accused of stealing art from World of Warcraft, others originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, just the thing we needed in the middle of winter in Northrend! A drink to cool us down! Wait, what? Crap, that’s not we need at all! Oh well, I guess we’re out of luck. This month’s brew from the Brew of the Month club is actually a drink we’ve seen before. It’s the Lord of Frost’s Private Label, previously only acquired from Lord Ahune’s stash during the Midsummer festivities.

What do this month’s brew do? Not a whole lot. Like I said, it cools you down. Really. After drinking it, you can see your character’s breath for awhile. Which… you probably won’t notice in Northrend at all, because almost the entire continent makes you do that anyway. If you prefer getting your drunk on in Ironforge, this drink is perfect and you can pick some up in the usual places in Orgrimmar and Ironforge. If you’re looking for a drink to warm you up on a cold Northrend night, go for a Northrend staple: Mead. It’s all over the place up there.

Edit: Apparently this drink can also proc an iceblock that you get locked in for a little while, but in my experience it must be pretty rare? I’ve gone through a stack and a half of the stuff and haven’t had it happen to me yet, but many of our readers have mentioned seeing it. I think the booze is playing favorites.

Brew of the Month: Lord of Frost’s Private Label originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a question for you all from Percinho about my absolute favorite thing to do in game: five man instances. He and his guildies are about to run their very first instance (or they were when he sent this to us at ask@wowinsider.com), and he wants to know your very best tips for instance running:

For the first time we have 5 players with level 60+ characters and so have decided to run some instances. None of the guild have extensive experience of instancing as we tend to mainly be solo-ers, or group up in twos and threes just to quest. We’re heading to the Ramparts in Hellfire Peninsula with a Warrior, Priest, DK, Rogue and Mage. What we’re after is some tips for successful instancing that we may not have considered, those things that every veteran knows that wouldn’t even occur to instance-n00bs like ourselves.

Continue reading Ask WoW Insider: Instance running 101

Ask WoW Insider: Instance running 101 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The rules are still a little hazy, and the plans to get it seem to be somewhere between experiment and superstition: we know for sure that you need to have 390 First Aid already to get the book to drop (though you need 400 to actually use it), and we know that it can drop from almost anywhere in the world. But apparently there are a few places where it drops more often: in Zul’Drak, sometimes in Sholazar Basin, and sometimes in dungeons. Other than that, everything else is just rumors — I haven’t gotten the book yet, and I’ve been 400 since I had enough Frostweave to level up. I heard it was on the AH for around 20g, but of course that varies by realm, and when I checked today, it wasn’t on the AH at all. And we’ve also heard that once you learn it, it won’t drop for you again, so there may eventually be an AH market for these — until all potential sellers actually learn the recipe, that is. And then there’s this, which just makes my head spin. We may see another level of Frostweave bandages in a future patch.

Very strange, and strange choice by Blizzard to do it this way in the first place. It also appears that a stack of Heavy Frostweave Bandages sells to vendors for only 5g, so the days of nabbing lower-than-3g stacks of cloth on the AH and selling them to vendors for a profit may be over. Which is fine, because your guild’s tailor could probably use it anyway. But I am bummed I haven’t see the manual drop yet — the better my gear gets, the less the non-heavy bandages do for me.

Update: Yes of course they can’t be on the AH, because as you can see in the screenshot above, the manual is BoP. Never mind. Thanks, commenters.