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WoW Archivist: Beta surprises
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Last week, we launched into the newest beta in WoW's history -- its sixth! -- for Warlords of Draenor. It's an exciting time for the game. Every beta has its surprises, good and bad. New things that were never announced. Prior announcements that changed unexpectedly. We've already had a number of surprises in the Warlords beta: the faction hub shift to Ashran, cross-faction auctions, and the removal of guild leveling. Beta is just ramping up. We are sure to encounter more than one surprise over the next few months as we test the Draenor experience and gear up for the expansion's launch. Let's take a look back at the previous five betas and examine some of the twists that greeted testers -- and often shocked the WoW community. Caveat: I'm excluding storyline surprises. The original beta In 2003 and early 2004, players didn't really know what to expect from a World of Warcraft MMO. Blizzard, after all, had never made one before. Most of the original beta served up surprise after surprise. Yet, a few stand out. Tired heroes. Patch 0.6 introduced the first incarnation of the rest system. Today it is simply a bonus for players who don't have time to log in every day. The original version was more like the Chinese government's "anti-obsession measures": it punished you for playing too long. The system looked like this: Well rested gave 200% of the XP from a mob kill Rested gave between 100% and 200% XP Normal gave 100% XP Fatigued gave 50% XP Exhausted gave 25% XP Your hero needed a good night's rest -- a full eight hours at an inn -- to go from exhausted to normal.
Does WoW need a training dummy for healers?
You've just gotten a new piece of gear and you want to see what swapping it in will do for your gameplay. So you head to the nearest major city and find a training dummy to hit while you keep an eye on how you're performing. This seems like a good plan until you realize that training dummies really only help measure your DPS -- there's no easy way for a tank or healer to gauge how new gear helps them without jumping into a raid or dungeon and seeing how it performs. While that certainly works, it means those classes don't have an easy measuring stick. This is exactly why Healer CDs has argued that healers need their own healing dummy -- and on Twitter, Celestalon has chimed in saying he sees the value in the idea... but isn't sure if it will be included in Warlords. We'll just keep our fingers crossed.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New training dummies make testing raid DPS more accurate
Have you ever wished you could shackle your entire raid team to the wall behind the the training dummies in Orgrimmar? You know, so that whenever you needed to test your DPS, you'd be fully raid-buffed. What? It's not like I wouldn't leave them food ... Anyway, Blizzard finally came up with a solution to this little conundrum by adding new training dummies in the Mists of Pandaria beta. Check out Ghostcrawler's post about them below. Ghostcrawler -- Raid DPS Test Dummies As an experiment, in the next beta build, you may find some new kinds of test dummies. In order to keep them out of way in less travelled areas, they are located in Shattrath. (The Aldor and Scyers miss you!) The dummies have 50 million health, can be killed, and respawn quickly. They are spread out so you don't accidentally cleave or interfere with someone else's test. They won't turn to face you, so you can attack them from behind, if that's how you roll. The dummies also should buff you if you get near them with a full suite of temporary raid buffs, including food and flasks, and debuff themselves. These won't stack with your group buffs or debuffs, so it doesn't matter if you buff yourselves or not. (We're only talking about main raid buffs here, like Battle Shout or Blessing of Kings. If it's an individual buff or debuff, you'll still need to apply it normally.) We are leaving this thread open if you'd like to post your DPS or link to logs such as World of Logs. It will be very easy to sandbag or cheat in this testing, so understand that we'll have to take all such numbers with a big old grain of salt. However, in order to compare apples to apples, we suggest purchasing a full set of PvP gear, including one on use and one on proc trinket, but no enchants or gems. Reforging is fine. If you use different sets of gear, please state that in your post. Also keep in mind that target dummy DPS is not encounter DPS. :) Please keep this thread clear of class feedback -- it's just for numbers. Again, the main purpose of this experiment is to make it easier for you get consistent DPS testing. It is only for beta and may get turned off at any point if it becomes disruptive. source Curiously, the new training dummies don't look anything like the ones we're all used to. Instead, they look like miniature versions of Patchwerk. Ha, I see what you did there, Blizzard. The new dummies aren't currently up on beta servers, though they were yesterday before server maintenance. Another post from Ghostcrawler yesterday evening mentioned there were bugs, some of which would require server restarts to fix, while another would need a whole new build to correct. So I guess we probably won't see them again for a bit. All the same, it's a very cool idea for players who are concerned about their DPS. 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!
Enter at Your Own Rift: One month in, how's the game?
Snakes -- they're the one thing in RIFT that I absolutely detest, not because they're dangerous or scary, but because they refuse to drop the last snake tear that I need for my critter tears collection. I've killed dozens, perhaps even hundreds, but every time, I walk away empty-handed. Oh sure, every now and then, one will give off that sparkle effect when it has loot, but it's always just the morale-crushing snake skin. I have killed so many snakes that I could probably string them together and encircle the world of Telara three times. Instead, I'll step away from my snake-slaughter to report on the news from Telara. It's been a month since the head-start launch, and already we've seen several major changes. Read on for a my mini-progress-report on public grouping, security, training dummies, and my incredible shrinking armor.
Blood Pact: 2009 through the Eye of Kilrogg
Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "The avarice never ends! 'I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue.' Look, I don't wanna make waves, but this whole Christmas season is stupid, stupid, stupid!" ~ The Grinch Hmmm... a look back at changes for warlocks in 2009. Well there was... no, wait, that was 2008. Well what about... nah, that's planned for Cataclysm. Wow, this is harder than I thought. Nothing particularly outstanding has happened in the warlock area this year; but so much has happened and, well things have changed. It's like waking up each morning and something is subtly different. Your blue toothbrush is now red... The sofa is now against this wall, not that one... each change is pretty unremarkable in it's own right but by the end of the year you are a stuntman living in LA married to a small, blond Portuguese skier who when she's not training does abstract painting, practices yoga and brews her own beer. As we surfaced, bleary-eyed into January our memories of sacrificing succubus and SL/SL were fading faster than those of December 31st. Those heady days of power that also led to FotM wannabes flooding our ranks. Skill and complexity had been leaking out of the class for a while and Naxx wasn't really providing any of us with much of a worthwhile proving ground. Affliction spell rotations were causing carpal-tunnel injuries on those who were determined to take the cold-turkey approach to dropping their addiction to Shadow Bolt spam. Fans of demonology were taking felguards like some sort of methadone for simplistic raiding, meanwhile retaining the use of their fingers.
WoW Rookie: What's my DPS?
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's. You're level 80 now, you've picked up a few sweet upgrades from five-mans and heroics, and you're ready to try a PuG into Naxx. You've found a group that's looking for members, but you're not quite sure how to answer the raid leader's demand: "What's your DPS?" The best way to figure out what your raid DPS, of course, is to measure it while you're raiding – but if you haven't started raiding yet, you can't really do that, can you? The first thing you'll need in order to figure out what kind of DPS (damage per second) you're capable of putting out is an add-on that keeps track of your performance. Recount is popular and widely acknowledged as a fairly accurate tool. There are plenty of alternatives on all the major add-on sites. Select and install the DPS meter that appeals to you.
BigRedKitty: Power Auras
Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Since BRK Worldwide Amalgamated switched to Survivalist with the massive Beastmaster Hunter Nerf of 2009, we've started using a new addon called Power Auras. It puts pretty pictures on our GUI when conditions the user sets are met.Although the movie covers a great deal about the addon, something we didn't mention was the fact that one can export and import codes for any aura one creates. On the continued page, you'll find the codes for all seven auras we demonstrate in the movie.
The Queue: Archdruids? Nahh. Okay, maybe.
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Apparently I missed a Doctor Who reference in one of the questions I answered yesterday. Maybe? Heck if I know. If you're looking for our resident Doctor Who nerd, direct your references to Elizabeth Harper. They go way over my head.Zoidberg asked...A while ago, we heard some rumors about a new hero class called archdruid. (Or something like that.) What do we know about these guys? Is this a possibility for the 4.0 hero class?
Training Dummies in capital cities
If you've been exploring your capital city, you may have noticed something new. Grandmaster's Training Dummies now hang out in the cities, casually waiting for enterprising player characters to come and beat them. (I don't judge their lifestyles, I'm just reporting the facts.) If you're looking at the picture on the right, you're correct in your keen observation -- the clever training dummies even carry the flag of your opposing faction.The dummies are level 80, obviously in preparation for Wrath's release on November 13th. We were fortunate enough to get them in the content patch, but it does lead to a few questions. What are these masochistic constructions for? What is their purpose? Do they give you anything?Dr. Boom in Netherstorm was a staple of Hunters', Warlocks' and Mages' theorycrafting. The analysts of the communities would park themselves on a crate, and fire away at the goblin. Using AddOns likes Recount, or combat log parsers like WWS, they'd leverage the information to draw conclusions about which damage rotations and talents yielded the best results.Target Dummies fulfill the same role, but are a little more universally accessible. (Melee had problems with Dr. Boom, since they could find themselves getting blown up by adds.) They also have benefit of not being out in the field. While safe and protected in your capital city, you can fire away until you feel confident in the data you're seeing.There's a caveat to the dummies, however. Some spells (like Siphon Life) don't seem to give accurate results. Also, since the dummies aren't the specific bosses you'll be fighting, you're not going to get the exact same numbers as you would against the real thing. They're intended, after all, characters to practice on, not simulate the actual fights. Edit: As some commenters have pointed out, there are level 70 and 60 dummies to be had also, in the same general area as the level 80 versions.
Dalaran continues to grow and change
Dalaran, the magical "Shattrath of Wrath," just keeps growing and changing. Mumper spelled out some of the coming changes for Dalaran. Don't worry -- it's all good news for those of us looking forward to slumming it up with Rhonin in the floating citadel. One of the more nagging issues about Dalaran is that no matter how high above the city you fly, you get a debuff that warns your flying mount is about to disappear. You must land before you plummet to your doom. It's set up this way to help enhance the feel of the living, bustling city -- you experience it from the ground, without racing Netherdrakes swooping by you at every turn. Mumper promises they're keeping an eye on the debuff and any other issue where flying mounts might disappear. There are many more NPCs coming for Dalaran. Vendors will have both dungeon token gear, like the new Heirloom items, and also high end Honor gear. Mumper describes a pretty awesome new NPC. Around 6pm each night, a new character will walk around the city, and light each of the lamps with a spell. It's just fluff, but it's awesome. Details like this make WoW such a rich, interesting game. There are other bits and pieces. Characters jumping into the magic well will get teleported to one of five sewer locations. Guards will be spawn at the exit of Dalaran, to deal with any griefers trying to keep PvP flagged characters from leaving the city in safety. And the target dummies are definitely staying.
