|
Old News from April 2011
News - April 29th 2011 - 4.2 Previews Keep Coming More good stuff to mention today. But first, you'd better finish getting your Noblegarden achievements because tomorrow is the last day for the world event. And if you thought things would slow down think again. As soon as Noblegarden is done Children's Week 2011 starts right up this Sunday. Yup, back-to-back world events. Now back to 4.2 news. We've got more info regarding the next legendary weapon. Among the info is the name of the staff: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. And the models we previously saw datamined were still in process and the final models for all four stages of the weapon are now done and they look nice. There's also info regarding The Regrowth and Molten Front daily quest hubs. It looks like these will be two separate quest hubs for new dailies. For completing the dailies you'll get Marks of the World Tree which can be spent to open up individual daily quests, unique daily quest chains, up to four vendors selling a brand-new tier of gear, and important fortifications including a moonwell, an armory, and a legion of Ancients. And the various phasing changes that open up at the quest hubs are all personal, they phase just for you, not for everyone on the server. So you can unlock the various new content at your own pace. And once you open up all of the new content at both quest hubs you'll get a Flameward Hippogryph mount for your troubles. And we're just getting started on all that 4.2 will bring. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 28th 2011 - Already Looking At 4.2 Hot on the heels of 4.1's release Blizzard is already tantalizing us with previews of patch 4.2. Yesterday they released preview videos of both the 4.2 raid and the daily quest zone. And they're not done either, they've even given us a schedule of when to expect the other upcoming 4.2 previews. More hotfixes for 4.1 to look over. Also be aware of the links mentioned before the notes as they include things like known issues and technical support for 4.1. And in case you're slumming it up in Dalaran or Shattrath you may notice a couple of portals have reopened. Blizz has reinstated portals to Stormwind and Orgrimmar in both Dal and Shatt to help out players who may not have been logged on in some time and find themselves stuck in these former hub cities with no easy way to get to where they need to start things off for Cataclysm. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 27th 2011 - Rise Of The Zandalari I promise no "updates" in today's post, yesterday had more than enough of them. So 4.1 did go live yesterday and overall it wasn't that bad. There was a delay in the servers coming back on (which happens EVERY patch so I don't know why Blizzard just doesn't plan for it). There were some problems with people getting stuck at the character selection screen. And of course with a new patch it means a lot of addons aren't working properly or at all. But compared to previous patches this went pretty smoothly. And here are the start of what I'm sure will be a long string of hotfixes thanks to 4.1. Also if you're wondering what happened to the authenticator window being on the same screen as the login that is not an intended change and Blizzard is looking into it. Of course the big feature of 4.1 is the revamping of ZA and ZG. Judging from the amount of looting that was showing up in the guild news last night I'd say that these two 5-mans shouldn't be too much trouble. But to help any who need it here's a guide to the new Zul'Aman. And here's one for the new Zul'Gurub as well. Good news for Android users, the new remote guild chat feature of the Mobile Armory is now available to Droids. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 26th 2011 - Patch Day? Question Mark? Today appears to be 4.1 patch day, however I've seen people mentioning a recent blue post from Blizzard stating that the PTR is still up which would mean no patch. Unfortunately since Blizzard is doing maintenance this morning I can't check this post myself as maintenance also brings down the forums. So I'm going to go with the majority and say that we will be getting the patch today. Update: here's that blue post from Blizzard saying they had to extend the PTR testing and it would end "soon". They made this post yesterday so who knows how soon "soon" is in this case. I'm still waiting for verification that 4.1 is going live today. Update to the update: 4.1 is in fact released today. Speaking of the patch here's the trailer for it. Another suspicious thing that could make people believe there'd be no patch today is the fact that this trailer was discovered on YouTube, it was not posted to the official WoW site like normal. Update: it is now appearing on the official site's front page. Anyhoo, expect the patch to come today. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 25th 2011 - Level 20 And Patch Time We finally managed to get to guild level 20! This level gives us a few bonuses to take advantage of. We've got the guild perk Happy Hour so now our recently acquired guild cauldrons will contain 10 flasks instead of just 7 (much to the delight of our raiding groups). Level 20 also unlocks the ability to buy the BoA heirloom helmets which give a 10% xp boost. A nice thing for alts to use especially when combined with the +5% xp cloaks that were unlocked at guild level 10. Patch 4.1 is finally going to be released TOMORROW. This patch has a lot in it. To give you a recap of all the new features and changes you can look over Blizzard's patch notes or MMO-Champion's (arguably more detailed) recap of the patch. And have you started on your Noblegarden tasks yet? Don't forget that the world event started yesterday. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 22nd 2011 - Only The Strongest Remain Undefeated And we're now 9/12 for normal raiding in Cataclysm with the defeat of Atramedes. This means the only bosses left undefeated for us are the final bosses of each of the three Cataclysm raids: Nefarian, Cho'gall, and Al'Akir. The Noblegarden world event starts this Sunday. It's a one week event so if there's anything you want to get done during it you'd better not dawdle. I don't believe anything is different with the holiday this year so here's a guide to help you. If anything does turn out to be different I'll be sure to mention it on Monday. Blizzard has made the official announcement of the new Guild Finder feature coming in patch 4.1. This will help both those looking to join a guild and those who seek to bump up their own guild's membership. I'm just hoping that it will result in much fewer guild recruitment spams in trade chat. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 21st 2011 - Patience Is A Virtue A couple of things to note regarding the new mobile guild chat feature Blizzard added to the Mobile Armory two days ago. This feature will be coming to Android users in the next few days. Also they are rolling out the mobile guild chat feature to certain chunks of realms at a time. I don't know if Zangarmarsh has gotten it yet but if not they do plan to have it available to all realms within a week. And another new 4.2 model has appeared, this time it's Fandral Staghelm's fiery cat form. And yes, I would in fact f*cking kill someone right this instant in order for Lishtaar to be able to get that cat form model. Just sayin'. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 20th 2011 - Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Did you want a day with no WoW news? Sure you did.... Or maybe not. Regardless, it appears that Blizzard may be too busy celebrating 4/20. So hopefully tomorrow I'll have something to talk about. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 19th 2011 - Remote Guild Chat Is Live The remote guild chat feature for the Mobile Armory is now available. If you already subscribe to the Mobile Armory then you should be ready to go, if not the Mobile Armory subscription costs $2.99 a month and it also includes the other features such as the remote AH. Unfortunately the new remote guild chat is currently only available for the iPhone and iPod touch, it is NOT available for Android users yet. And just because there's nothing else WoW-wise to mention: let us all bow before our soon-to-be Skynet overlords. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 18th 2011 - Drinks Are On The House This weekend we finally brewed up 1,000 flasks which gave us the guild achievement Mix Master which in turn unlocked the ability to buy the alchemy recipe for Cauldrons of Battle. And something to keep in mind is that we already have the guild perk Chug-A-Lug so if you use a cauldron to get your flask buff it'll last for 90 minutes instead of an hour, or 3 hours if you're an alchemist. And we'll also get another cauldron-related guild perk once we finish getting to guild level 20, which will hopefully be sometime this week. Some new fiery models have appeared in the files associated with patch 4.2. We see a new boss named Lord Anthricyst (and yes it took the internet about 0.666 seconds to start nicknaming him Lord Antichrist) and also models for a new mob called an Overfiend who will also appear in blue, green, and purple color variants. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 15th 2011 - Demonic Genders And now we're 8/12 for normal raiding as we finally managed to bring down the Ascendant Council. It's been a good week for our progression. Warlocks may (or may not) be happy to hear that Blizzard is working on male and female versions of your demon pets. It's something they are working on but do not have an estimated date for when it gets added to the game. And there was another build applied to the 4.1 PTR but the new stuff datamined from it is pretty minor. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 14th 2011 - Questions Of Achievements Today all I've got is the 5th portion of the Ask the Devs Q&A session. This one talks about achievements. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of exciting news to be found in this since Blizzard doesn't intend for achievements to be anything but 100% optional (which they have to mention a couple of times in the Q&A since people just can't seem to grasp the idea). _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 13th 2011 - 4.1 In The Near Future We are now at 7/12 for normal raiding with the defeat of the Conclave of Wind last night. It turned out to be a much easier fight than expected (taking only 4 attempts and 30 minutes of raiding). Now if we can only figure out what the heck we're doing wrong with the Ascendant Council... 4.1 is coming soon. The newest build applied to the PTR is marked as the release build which means the patch will go live in the next few weeks. To go along with that here are some patch notes and some datamined info. It's good to see that they're lowering the requirements for many of the guild profession achievements, but they didn't touch the That's A Lot of Bait achievement. /grumble _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 12th 2011 - Couple Of New UIs On The Way Today we get some pics of a couple of new UIs from 4.1. We get to see how the new Call to Arms interface will look like. Basically it's just a golden circle around the requested class's icon and the inclusion of the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries in the rewards. We also see that more than one role can be requested. There's also a new UI for the Customer Support interface that makes it look a little more user friendly. J!NX is having a $5 off sale on some of their WoW t-shirts. If you've been wanting one of these select shirts then now is the time as this sale only lasts through this Friday. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 11th 2011 - Digging, Fishing, And Cooking In 4.1 MMO-Champion blesses us with some new info from the 4.1 PTR. First is a little more information regarding the new items you'll be able to dig up with Archaeology, including pics of what the Pterrordax Hatchling and Voodoo Figurine vanity pets will look like. They've also compiled a list of the new cooking and fishing dailies along with the rewards for each of them. I'm wondering if there will be some other incentive given for doing these dailies, otherwise I can see a lot of people asking why they should bother trekking over to Ironforge and Darnassus just to fit in an extra 2 dailies at each location. Blizzard is giving a bit more clarification on the new Call to Arms feature. It turns out the goodie bag you get from filling the needed role will actually be BoA which means you can send it to your other toons. Also the flasks and potions you get from the bag will no longer be based on your spec. And the odds of the bag containing a mount will be the same odds of that mount dropping from it's original source (i.e. a 1% chance for the bag to have the Baron's mount). _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 8th 2011 - More Updates For 4.1 Today we've got some official and also some datamined 4.1 patch notes. Some of it's stuff we've already known, other stuff is brand new. A few items of note include being able to buy Honor Points with Justice Points and vice versa, and also being able to buy Conquest Points with Valor Points (but not vice versa for that). Also the discovery of Brilliant and Delicate Blazejewels which are the first Cataclysm epic gems we've seen and for now are probably only obtained as rare rewards from the new fishing and cooking dailies that are coming to Ironforge and Darnassus (and Thunder Bluff and Undercity for the hordies). For you Jewelcrafters you'll want to know that the uncommon cut gems that were vendoring for 9g each are getting nerfed to a mere 75s each. Aside from this there are a few class changes, a couple of instance changes, and also some UI changes. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 7th 2011 - A Little Bribery Never Hurt Anyone A couple of big additions are getting added to WoW. The first is Remote Guild Chat for the iPhone, iPod touch, and Android. This is a feature that was briefly discussed back when the mobile armory app came out and now it's nearing completion. This feature (which requires a subscription to World of Warcraft Remote) will let you do guild chat, officer chat, and whispers in real time through your phone. When WoW Remote came out with the mobile armory I don't think it really got a lot of subscribers, but I think this feature may bump up those numbers considerably. The other new feature will be coming in 4.1. It's the Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms. What this does is whenever the queue for randoms is more than a few minutes (LMAO!!! When is it ever NOT more than a few minutes) it will determine what roles are least represented. It will then attempt to bribe people who play those roles into joining the queue. What do I mean? If someone queues up for that role and fills out the group, and they then proceed to finish the instance, they will get a goodie bag that contains some gold, a chance at a rare gem, a chance at a flask/elixir (determined by spec), a good chance of receiving a vanity pet (including cross faction pets), and a very rare chance at receiving one of the mounts that can be obtained from 5-man instances. Plus there's no limit to how many times you can get this goodie bag! Wow. Even Blizzard describes this as being a bribe. I guess resorting to bribery is the only way they feel they can fix the long queue times. If you're DPS don't ever expect to get one of these, but in exchange you "might" be seeing shorter queue times. If you're a tank or healer you can expect to take advantage of this pretty frequently. And let's give a belated gratz to the guild Knights of Good for getting the server first guild level 25 which they achieved this past Tuesday! We'll get there ourselves eventually. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 6th 2011 - The Devs Talk About Gear We don't have a lot to look at today, but what we've got is kinda nice. The 4th Q&A session with the game developers is posted and this one deals with armor and weapons. The highlights include Blizzard's plans to implement a system where winning a BoE item with a Need roll (when the loot is set to Need Before Greed) will make the item become soulbound. So when you're in a PuG and some douche rolls Need on a nice BoE item just so they can sell it in the AH they'll be stuck with getting only the vendor price (or maybe the DE mats). Blizzard hopes to to have this feature implemented in 4.2. Also the next legendary weapon will be obtainable in both 10-man and 25-man difficulties, but it will take twice as long to put it together in a 10-man raid. And Blizzard still wants to add more customization options to character appearances but they're not sure how they want to do it. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 5th 2011 - New Loot, Old Look We're now guild level 19 and we've now got the second rank of the guild perk Honorable Mention. Now the bonus Honor Point gain has been doubled from 5% to 10% so get out there and PvP. MMO-Champion has given us the updated loot from ZG and ZA, now including the models for the gear. Unfortunately, as many people are already complaining about, the models are the same ones used for the loot that was previously obtainable from the old ZG and ZA which means it's all lower quality and lower polygon count than what we're used to, and that sucks. Hopefully Blizzard will get around to updating these models before 4.1 goes live. And on the 4.1 PTR a new fishing daily was discovered, but instead of picking it up in Orgrimmar you gotta pick it up in Undercity. No word on if this is intentional to try to get players to visit some of the other capital cities, and an Alliance equivalent has not shown up yet either. So it's hard telling what Blizzard is up to. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 4th 2011 - Tanking Hand-Me-Downs In case you missed the special update I did on Saturday, Dktrav was the winner of the 10K giveaway! In case you have an alt that's also a plate-wearing tank you'll be interested to see that there will be tanking heirloom gear purchasable in 4.1. And finally we get to see a video showing off what the new Winged Guardian (aka the flying lion) mount looks like in action. Kinda cool, but the streaming glow effect from the wings while flying would get on my nerves after about 3 seconds. This mount will be purchasable from the online Blizzard store in the near future. _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 2nd 2011 - Oops Special Saturday update. Sorry about the website format change yesterday. I could have sworn I saw on our forums that we were all thinking about starting to play Hello Kitty Online and I was just trying to stay one step ahead. It turns out that was a mistake on my part (the post turned out to actually be about how Agility is the best stat for Warriors) and I've changed the site back to how it originally was. While I'm here, I'll announce what you're all dying to know. The winner of my 10K giveaway is... Dktrav! Gratz! _________________________________________________________________________ News - April 1st 2011 - We Win! Thanks to a big buff that Blizzard decided to hotfix into the game last night we managed to beat all the bosses in Bastion of Twilight and then we even had enough time to clear out all of Blackwing Descent as well. As an added bonus all these wins bumped us up to guild level 30! Woot! Unfortunately in doing so it also removed all guild perks and reset everyone's guild reputation back to neutral. Boo! This hotfix was also hotfixed with some hotfixes to go along with the latest hotfixes that were applied 3 minutes ago, and also those applied 5 minutes ago, but they shouldn't interfere with the hotfixes applied 8.52 minutes ago. Some additional changes in these latest hotfixes include Maelstrom Crystals will now drop 70% of the time from all trash mobs, even those not in instances. Everyone with a Vial of the Sands drake will now permanently remain in that form. And Frost Mages are getting 4 new instant cast spells that will root you in place until the beginning of the first day of the next spring calendar season. And Blizzard also hotfixed onto the website an announcement of the new hero class: Bard. This iconic class will be able to change the background music of any zone you're in, it will mimic a 14-year old girl by typing random song lyrics into whatever chat channel you're currently reading, and will also be able to give some of the best raiding buffs in the game. |
 |