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Robin Williams tribute arrives in Warlords of Draenor
We knew that Blizzard was planning to add a Robin Williams tribute to the game and had even see datamined files suggesting we might meet Genie, Mork, or Mrs. Doubtfire inside World of Warcraft. However, we've gotten our first in-game look at what Robin will look like. On an island in the seas south of Talador (nearly to the boarder of Nagrand), you'll find an ever-burning lamp sitting on a ledge overlooking the sea. If you click on it, a genie-like NPC named Robin will emerge, yelling "INFINITE COSMIC POWER!" Robin only remains for a moment before shrinking back into his lamp, saying "Itty bitty living space." Also on the island is a large broken egg with a chair and some machinery inside -- no doubt a reference to Williams' role as Mork, an alien who arrived on earth in a similarly egg-like ship. There may yet be more to this tribute, since datamining has found additional NPCs, but whether they'll show up on this island, somewhere else entirely, or never arrive in the game itself we don't yet know.
The Queue: To fang or not to fang
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Fangs for life. Andrew10 asked: I've decided to use my lvl 90 boost on a female Nelf druid. I love the new female Nelf model, with the fangs. My question is, if I do this now, and I like the face I choose, am I still going to be happy when we get the new models? Or will there be differences in the models that don't exist now, so I'll wish I had chosen a different face? Like, will I pick a face, and then come new models, realize mine doesn't show the fangs, but another one has them on display?
Warlords of Draenor: Warspear and Stormshield
In Warlords of Draenor, the island of Ashran isn't just home to a potential paradise for world PvP -- it's also the location of both Alliance and Horde faction hub cities. City may be too strong of a word, however -- the two areas are more like souped up bases of operation than proper capital cities like Shattrath or Dalaran. Less giant city, more stronghold -- and slightly more spread out than the garishly charming Shrines in Mists of Pandaria -- both Warspear and Stormshield are meant to be not necessarily a home away from home, but a centrally located area for commerce and trade. Each stronghold contains portals to every capital city for your respective faction, as well as profession outposts, an auction house, an inn, and a hub of activity for the nearby PvP action in Ashran. In a way, it's kind of nice that the action is nearby. Shattrath was a fun hub city, but it was nowhere near Halaa. Dalaran was great, but having to hop a portal to get to Wintergrasp was never the most elegant solution for players that wanted to duke it out with other players. Still, one of the major concerns for players is simply the strongholds themselves, and their proximity to areas that some people might not want to partake in. So what are these strongholds really like?
Warlords of Draenor: PvP now requires active flagging on PvE realms
Have you ever been quietly minding your own business on the Timeless Isle, or attacking a world raid boss like Ordos, only to find yourself accidentally flagged for PvP due to a misclick or tab target gone horribly wrong? Earlier this year, Bashiok mentioned that one of the goals for PvE realms was to keep players from accidentally flagging themselves -- and in a tweet by Ion Hazzikostas, it's been confirmed that this has now been implemented on the beta. @holinka @swirlyball @Bashiok You must manually /pvp flag if you want to attack a player on a PvE server. No more misclicks or baiting. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) August 28, 2014 This means no more accidental flagging for players that are simply trying to DPS or quest out in the open world on PvE realms. And this also applies to healers as well -- healers will simply not be able to heal flagged players unless they choose to actively flag for PvP. Naturally this issue isn't a problem on PvP realms, but for players on PvE realms, the change in Warlords should be a welcome relief. When players make the choice to roll on a PvE realm, that choice is usually a deliberate one that's made to avoid the hassle of unwanted world PvP situations. It's nice to see that steps are finally being taken to keep PvP on PvE realms what it was meant to be -- an optional experience that you can choose to participate in, rather than be tricked into whether you're willing or not.
Warlords of Draenor: Tank changes
Technical Game Designer Chadd Nervig, aka Celestalon, has been answering some inquiries on Twitter lately, and hinted at a few of the changes we can look forward to with tanking. It seems all tanks are up for tweaks, in some fairly overarching ways. .@abcart311 All tanks. Current plans: Tweak the design of Resolve. Lower tank health. Lower tank mitigation. Lower boss damage. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 29, 2014 If you're not familiar with Resolve, it's essentially what Vengeance has become in Warlords of Draenor, albeit with some changes. Currently, Resolve improves self-healing and absorbs done by the tank to the tank and partially converts mastery to attack power. How it will be further tweaked in Warlords remains to be seen, but the overall change itself should help tanks be tanks without overshadowing the DPS. The rest of the tweet is much more intriguing, but does fit with the overall theme of scaling down we're seeing in Warlords. Lowering tank health and mitigation seems risky, but if boss damage is also reduced, then it shouldn't be a problem. For a long time, Blizzard has made noises about how they wanted to slow down the pace of boss fights, especially in the final tiers of an expansion. Damage that's less devastating, healing that is slower pace and choices that are more meaningful. To me, these changes read as being in line with that philosophy. I will be interested to see them implemented, and how they affect gameplay in the beta.
Warlords of Draenor Beta: Patch notes for August 27th
They're here, and they're mostly a tuning pass. The latest patch notes for the Warlords of Draenor beta are much less about sudden, massive changes and much more about getting damage and healing output where it needs to be for the live release of the game. So what are we looking at? The pandaren racial Epicurean now increases the effect of buff food by 75%, down from 100%. Typhoon's range was decreased to 15 yards, down from 30 yards. Pretty much every single class saw some damage adjusted up or down. We definitely seem to be heading towards release at the pace you'd expect for a November release of the expansion. Head on over to the official site for more details.
The Queue: Time
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today is one part serious, one part silly. Brace yourselves. antiganon asked: Did anyone else have a Queue to log in to the battle.net app on Sunday night?
Warlords of Draenor: Recruit Alexi or Weldon Barov for your garrison
Ah, the Barov family. If you've been playing WoW for any length of time, you're likely well acquainted with the brothers Barov. The last two heirs to the Barov family fortune, Alexi and Weldon Barov used to send players both Alliance and Horde to the opposite faction's camps in order to murder each other. Once the head of the offending brother was returned, players were rewarded with the Barov Peasant Caller, a trinket that summoned Barov servants. In Cataclysm, the Barov brothers seemed to have come to an accord, each no longer intent on the murder of the other, and instead focused on assaulting Scholomance. But in Mists, both Weldon and Alexi disappeared without a trace. The Barov Peasant Caller was no longer able to be obtained, Scholomance was revamped, and the brothers Barov vanished. Some players idly wondered if this meant the end of the Barov line -- we can officially say no, it did not. Why? Because it looks like Weldon and Alexi decided to team up and band together to enter the lumber industry, and you can find them both on Draenor. In fact, you can recruit either Weldon for the Alliance, or Alexi for the Horde, as a follower for your garrison. And that Peasant Caller? It's back, and it's gotten a substantial upgrade along the way.
Warlords of Draenor: New voice files datamined
Adriacraft over on Youtube has been hard at work downloading a variety of different voice files from the latest beta build. Included in the mix are what seems to be most of the tracks for the Tanaan Jungle starting experience, as well as a few different vignettes and scenarios, some of which haven't been seen on the beta as of yet. Several of the orc warlords have been dug up, as well as a full ten minutes worth of vocal tracks from Yrel. Needless to say, every single last one of these files are full of spoilers for story lines and events in Warlords of Draenor. If you are deliberately avoiding spoilers, listening to any of these would be a very, very bad idea. And if you do choose to listen to them, keep in mind that these are beta files, and therefore may or may not actually be found in game once the expansion is released.
Warlords of Draenor: Highmaul Coliseum offers free-for-all PvP
Warlords of Draenor certainly seems to be mixing it up on the PvP front, offering a lot of new options for players that enjoy PvP. Oddly enough, one of the coolest opportunities for PvP I've seen so far comes not in a battleground or even on the fairly addictive isle of Ashran, but from your garrison. While leveling through Gorgrond, players can choose to make one of two outposts, that will unlock the plans for one of two medium buildings -- the Lumber Mill, or the Gladiator's Sanctum. If you choose the Gladiator's Sanctum, you get a few nice perks for Gorgrond -- and you also get to build the Sanctum itself. Level 3 of the Gladiator's Sanctum unlocks the Highmaul Coliseum, shown in the video above. A solo scenario, the Coliseum places you in a pit with other players. Once the event starts, it's a free-for-all brawl, and the last person standing wins the spoils. What kind of spoils? PvP gear, of course! To unlock the level 3 blueprint for the Gladiator's Sanctum, players must first complete The Bone Collector, an achievement that requires players to collect 4,000 Broken Bones from PvP combat in Draenor -- any kill that awards honor also awards 3-6 bones. Once you've built the level 3 Sanctum, you gain access to Highmaul Coliseum, as well as a buff that reduces all damage in outdoor Draenor zones by 50% if you fall below 35% health. Take a look at the video for more of the Coliseum in action -- I particularly like how dead players are teleported up into the stands to watch the rest of the brawl play out, spectator style.
Warlords of Draenor Beta: New Login Screen
With the newest patch to the Beta servers we're one step closer to what Warlords of Draenor will look like at release with this new login screen. As you can see, it hearkens back to the days of classic with the return of the Dark Portal, but changes it up with the signature red portal used by the Iron Horde to invade Azeroth and threaten both the Alliance and Horde with destruction. I like it. It's retro, but it also changes it up enough with the images of what's going on behind it and that red glow seething, it's very interesting. I really enjoy that, when I first come back to the login screen after clicking the cinematics button, the portal is dormant, and then bursts into red light again. It's a very neat effect. What are your thoughts?
Warlords of Draenor Beta: New character models incoming
One of the things about the beta is, it can still surprise you. CM Zorbrix just posted to the forums about something we've all been wondering about - several of the new character models will be making their appearance in the beta. Both male and female trolls, human males, tauren females and night elf males will all be playable. Zorbrix - Beta Realm Maintenance - 8/21/14 I just wanted to confirm that this build will have 5 new Player Character Models. Troll Male and Female, Human Male, Tauren Female, and Night Elf Male. We've mentioned this before when models are first shown to you folks in beta, but I wanted to stress this point again: These models are a Work-In Progress. Things will not be perfect, and our QA testing of these models (and the subsequent bug fixes) are not yet complete. I do hope you enjoy the models and give constructive feedback as appropriate, but please keep this is mind when looking at the models today. source It's important to note that the night elf male hasn't even had an Artcraft yet. This is definitely a work in progress, as was the case when the draenei male appeared on servers before it was previewed. But I find this amazingly exciting - finally we'll get to see how these models look in action. We've added a slideshow of the new night elf male model below for players to look at.
The Queue: More fun with timelines
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Here we go again! rjjagoda asked: I continue to question what good blueprints would be to a society that simply does not have the technology, but that's a personal pet peeve. I mean, if I took iPhone schematics back to 1984, would Motorola be able to reproduce the thing? Or even understand some of the stuff they're looking at?
Warlords of Draenor beta: Play with the blues August 21
For those in the Warlords of Draenor beta, this coming Thursday you'll have the opportunity to potentially test directly with some Blizzard Blues. From 3:00 to 5:00 pm PDT on Thursday, August 21, members of Blizzard's Development team, Community team, Quality Assurance, and Customer Service will be available on both the PvP and PvE level 100 premade realms to test 3v3 Arena matches and 5-person dungeon groups. Depending on faction, you'll be able to identify Blizzard representatives by their guild tag: <Blizzard Horde> or <Blizzard Alliance>. The event will be a great way to test out some dungeons and arenas while mingling with both your fellow WoW players and creators. If you can make it, I'm sure the event will be worth your while!
The Queue: Timeline confusion
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today we attempt to tackle timelines and alternate dimensions. Attempt being the operative word. Breadsammich asked: Something's bothering me about the Warlords cinematic. We see a pitlord, presumably Mannoroth, angered over the orcs' refusal to drink the blood. However, if the legion exists outside time and dimensional boundaries, how could that be Mannoroth? A "new" one wouldn't have been created by the new timeline if he's separate from it to begin with, right? Is this just Blizzard waving it off a little for the sake of the cinematic?
Warlords of Draenor: An evening as a treessassin
I really wasn't planning on doing anything in particular when I logged on the beta the other night -- just some exploring and some garrison work as well as hunting down fishing gear for a needy troll death knight. But while wandering around Nagrand, I happened upon an unfortunate scene -- a Petrified Ancient standing on top of what appeared to be a handful of orc peon and human lumberjack corpses. Upon further investigation, this wasn't a mob I could just attack and kill. It was, however, a mob I could ask my Lumber Mill crew to cut down. Maybe this was a bad decision. But hey, I'm the commander of this Alliance force on Draenor and they have to do what I say, so why not? I found out why immediately after the poor sap I asked to chop the tree tried to complete my order and was promptly confronted by a very angry and not-quite-as-petrified-as-you'd-think Ancient. It wasn't until I'd killed the incredibly angry tree that I discovered not only was this Ancient more than he appeared to be, but I was about to embark on what just might be the weirdest quest I've ever done in WoW.
Warlords of Draenor: Zone music highlights for Nagrand, Spires of Arak
The Warcraft Twitter account tweeted not one but two pretty cool items of interest yesterday, for those that are fans of Warcraft's music. Zone preview selections for both Nagrand and the Spires of Arak have been made available for listening. While Nagrand's theme is suitably idyllic for the green rollings hills and waterfalls in the zone, it's Arak's preview that is really a standout. I'm not even sure how to describe it, because I haven't heard anything quite like it in Warcraft before. Of course, we've never really seen anything quite like arakkoa civilization before, either. Both previews are snippets of what players will find on the Warlords of Draenor soundtrack, which is part of the physical Collector's Edition package along with a host of other goodies. Give both tracks a listen, and while you're at it, make sure you're following Warcraft's official Twitter account -- they're apt to post plenty more cool surprises as we wait patiently for the next expansion's arrival.
Warlords of Draenor: Recruit death knight Abu'gar for your garrison
Sometimes, death knights aren't all about death, destruction, and cold. Sometimes they really just want to kick back and reflect on what's important in the world -- fishing. Well, at least one death knight would rather be fishing, and his name is Abu'gar. Abu'gar was never exactly thrilled with the idea of serving the Lich King, he just wanted to spend his undeath relaxing by the side of a warm lake. You can find Abu'gar out in a lovely secluded glade in Nagrand, contemplating the water, the scenery, and the fishing conditions, all of which seem to be pretty idyllic as far as the death knight is concerned. But unfortunately, he's missing a few key items to take advantage of the awesome fishing spot he just found -- and that's where you come in. Scattered around the zone are the various tools Abu'gar needs to get a fantastic day of fishing in under the warm skies of Nagrand. Apparently Abu'gar is the forgetful sort, or simply neglects to pick up his things when he's moving on.
Warlords of Draenor introduces social fish
Fishing has always been a niche activity in World of Warcraft -- the few who fish love it and everyone else finds it loathsome at best. However, over the years, fishing has been given access to some truly unique items and/or adventures: the hunt for Mr. Pinchy, fishing up sea monsters, and totally rad fishing pole models, for example. Now Warlords of Draenor will be introducing social fish -- fish that can be used to buff fellow anglers, and fish that can label a fellow player's general demeanor for all to see. Via Wowhead and El's Anglin, Warlords introduces: "Fragrant" Pheromone Fish Coat a friend with Fish Pheromones, increasing their Fishing by 100 for 5 min. Awesomefish Use on a player to debuff them with "Awesome! Someone thinks you are awesome!" Grieferfish Use on a player to debuff them with "Griefer. Oh dear." Tyfish Use on a player to debuff them with "Thank you! You did a nice thing for someone. :)" According to El's Anglin, Awesomefish and Tyfish are more common than the Grieferfish and the Fragrant Pheromone Fish. All can be caught in Draenor's open waters except for, it seems, Frostfire Ridge. While the Pheromones only last 5 minutes, the debuff applied by the other fish last a full 24 hours. Personally, I doubt I'll make much use of the Pheromone Fish, given it can only be used on other players. I'm not a completely asocial gamer, but when I'm fishing, I like my solitude. If someone butts into my territory, I pick up and go as fast as I can. How am I supposed to watch Netflix while I fish if I don't know which bobber is splashing around in the background? I also wonder as to the actual value of the Grieferfish. I suspect genuine griefers will accept the debuff as a badge of honor while innocent players will feel labeled unfairly if they've been hit with it for laughs. I can get behind the Awesomefish and Tyfish, though.
The Queue: Ashran and avocados
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's Queue gets a little meta. You've been warned. Toro asked: Now that the Ashran hub is in-game, what do you think?
