world-of-warcraft-cataclysm
Latest
Patch 4.0.6 hotfixes for Feb. 8
Patch 4.0.6 has only been out a day, and we've already got a list of hotfixes. While some have been pushed live, others may required a server restart, so if you don't see the changes go into effect immediately, don't panic! A few highlights from the list: Players who have used the Paid Race Change service to transfer to a goblin or worgen character post-patch 4.0.6 can properly use the dungeon finder again. Thank goodness! Possibly due to the bugs present prior to patching, the Love Is in the Air event has been extended by 48 hours. In Blackwing Descent, Maloriak's Aberrations should correctly spawn even if Vile Swills are still alive from the previous phase. Follow us after the break for a full list of hotfixes.
Patch 4.0.6 bug locks race-changed worgen out of dungeon finder
Patch 4.0.6, like all patches before it, brings surprises as well as the expected changes. Hopefully you leveled your worgen the old-fashioned way. If not, like me, you will be stuck unable to queue for any Cataclysm dungeon. At least right now, it appears that players who race-changed to worgen are experiencing the issue, with no reports of race-changed goblins or characters who were rolled at level 1 worgen or goblins having the issue. The bug locks you out of all dungeons, even ones you've obviously completed. I'm wearing gear from several dungeons I now can't do. Bashiok - Random dungeon: have not completed required quest This appears to be a bug affecting specific characters which is keeping them from being able to queue with a "You have not completed the required quest" error, and we're in the process of investigating. It looks like this may only affect Worgen characters, specifically those that race changed to Worgen before 4.0.6, but we're still investigating. source Well, at least now I can stop worrying about getting my daily valor points. Hopefully, the issue will be ironed out soon, because both of my level 85 worgen warriors are bored as heck right now. Edit: As of 3:57 p.m. EST, this seems to have been hotfixed on at least some servers. I can now queue on both my worgen. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
WoW Insider's guide to patch 4.0.6
World of Warcraft patch 4.0.6 is upon us, and WoW Insider has all the information you need to take advantage of what the patch has to offer. Check out all of our patch 4.0.6 coverage below, organized into sections for ease of reading. Official patch notes Official patch notes released News and discussion Luck of the Draw getting buffed in 4.0.6 Justice point trade good prices 2,200 rating PvP weapons removed temporarily General thoughts on healing in patch 4.0.6 Ghostcrawler on heroic dungeon difficulty PvP The PvP perspective on 4.0.6 Tol Barad changes in 4.0.6
Blood Pact: Beginning The Bastion of Twilight as a warlock
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. You might think that the Old Gods and the demons would get along. After all, both really just seem to want to kill everything on the planet. Apparently, you'd be thinking wrong. Strange, I know, but I guess there can be more than one reason to destroy a world, and these two butt heads over who should get to do it. Personally, I'm all for killing both -- well, killing those who refuse to become my slaves, that is. Due to that whole "must destroy the world" shtick, we find now find ourselves face to face with yet another dungeon full of monstrosities to wipe clear. With as many of these cults and beasties as there seem to be, you'd think the races of Azeroth would just stop caring by now. This time, the diabolical threat is Cho'gall, the leader of the Twilight's Hammer, which has come a long way since its original incarnation as a clan of orcs. So far I know, it goes kind of like this: Old Gods want to destroy Azeroth, Deathwing works for the Old Gods, Cho'gall works for Deathwing; ergo, we must kill Cho'gall ... or something like that. It seems a little hokey in my book, but anything with that many eyes around its body cannot be cool and probably needs to die, anyway. So let's get to killin'!
A catastrophe waiting to happen: Martial Empires expands
The Cataclysm may have passed, but we still have a catastrophe to survive. The Catastrophe of Babylon, Martial Empires' newest expansion, is slated to arrive at the end of the month. Gamigo's free-to-play martial arts MMO already offers all the kung fu action you can handle, but now it will be fleshed out with much-anticipated (and needed) additions. One of the biggest features on Babylon's plate is the implementation of the long-awaited guild wars. High-level guilds will finally be able to go head-to-head with each other in brutal guild battles. Victorious guilds will be showered with long-term buffs and plenty of gold, which should be enough incentive for truly competitive fights. Babylon will also overhaul Martial Empires' graphics with a new rendering engine, and many of the monsters will be given makeovers to fit in better and boost their self-esteem. Players can anticipate exploring a number of additional dungeons in Babylon as well. Gamigo plans to hold an event to award access to the test servers for The Catastrophe of Babylon in the near future.
The Queue: Alex won't shut up about his RIFT characters edition
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Alex, shut up about your RIFT characters already. I have had it with you. MusedMoose asked: Has Blizzard given us any information about how the contents of the "Satchel of Helpful Goods" are determined? I ask because my shaman keeps getting Bandit gear -- boosts agility, stamina, and I think hit rating. My shaman is resto, so these items border on useless; I plan to dual-spec to elemental at 30 and said items will still be of little good. I find it odd that I'm being given items that only one of my class's three specs can use. The Satchel of Helpful Goods will give you armor that your class can use, but it won't always be good for your spec. If you always got perfectly itemized gear, then what would be the point in doing more random dungeons?
The Queue: Historical figure
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Apparently when someone mentions a pop star in a Queue intro, we get 200 comments in which people pretend they're too cool to know about said pop star or talk about how much they hate said pop star, rather than questions about World of Warcraft. So I'm gonna go ahead and nip that trend right in the bud by giving you the polar opposite of that intro. Here's a historical figure you probably can't name, or if you can name him, you don't know anything about him besides his name and his title. If you do, good for you. I don't care. Ask me World of Warcraft questions. Mary asked: Will the Valentine's Day bosses be dropping Cata-level epics this year, or will it still be the same old Wrath stuff? Probably not epics, but there are some level 85 blues on Wowhead that look like they'll be dropping off of the Love is in the Air bosses.
Blizzard's guide to conquest points
Blizzard's official blog has answered the confusion about conquest points. If you're wondering how to get them, where to spend them, and what your weekly cap is, worry no more! Well, you can worry if you want to, but they've answered the questions, so it would be slightly silly. Things to keep in mind for your conquest point acquisition: There is a weekly cap on how many conquest points you can gain that scales with your personal rating. Everyone starts out at 0 with a weekly cap of 1,342 conquest points. There is no overall cap to conquest or valor points. Conquest points convert into honor at the point where the next tier of items becomes available, so there's no reason to hoard them. In order to increase your weekly cap on conquest points, you need to raise your personal rating over 1,500. At 1,800 personal rating, your cap increases to 1,940 conquest points a week, and it continues from there to a personal rating of 3,000, allowing for 3,000 conquest points a week. For complete information on all these factors, please take a look at the blog post at Blizzard's World of Warcraft community site. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Nethaera's guide to getting the most from the forums
It's no secret that even after the move to the new digs, the forums can be kind of a rough place. Part of it can be the "squeaky wheel" phenomenon, of course. People don't often stop and make posts on a forum when they're happy about how something is going. Still, it can be a bit of a slog to get through sometimes. Nethaera wants you to get as much out of the forums as possible, however. Nethaera - Getting the Most out of the Forums We've gone through a lot of changes in the last year together. Between a brand new community site and a brand new expansion, there's been a lot to adjust to. We want to make sure that the experience everyone has on the forums is the best it can be and wanted to take some time to remind everyone of the things that haven't changed and the conduct that is expected while in them. source Some of the suggestions made seem obvious (read the terms of service and forum guidelines, for instance), but a lot of posts get closed for being off topic or extraneous, so it's probably helpful to go over them again. It's probably also fair to say that some of Neth's points fall under the category of "common sense," or what some folks call Wheaton's Law.
The Queue: The one with a bird on it
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Your host for today is the newly pierced Fox Van Allen. For those of you who don't know, I live in Somerville, Massachusetts. It's an urban hipster oasis immediately west of Boston. We have stores that specialize in selling cheese. We have a coffee shop where you get served inside an abandoned bank vault. We've converted every inch of abandoned factory space into million-dollar lofts. And yes, we have lots and lots of craft stores where you can buy ridiculous crap with birds on it. Why birds? Well, according to the above clip from IFC's Portlandia, everything's better (and carries more hipster cred) when you put a bird on it. We'll test out that theory in today's The Queue. Tee asked: Is Blizzard planning on doing anything for leveling scribes to address the current situation with Books of Glyph Mastery? Since most people have moved on from Northrend content, the books are in short supply ... there are only a few on the auction house at any given time and they're ridiculously expensive. Is Blizzard really going to make me spend tens of thousands of gold to buy 54 books to get access to those glyphs? I thought I remembered someone saying during a BlizzCon panel that they were going to make those glyphs available in a different way for Cataclysm, but I may have been dreaming that.
Blood Pact: Storming Throne of Four Winds as a warlock
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. Welcome back, darklings. I hope the previous week has treated you all well, or at least that you didn't sustain too many injuries in your attempts to wrangle down a new demonic slave. Those things can be so tricky at times. Why I remember once when ... oh, I'm rambling again, aren't I? Anyway, now that we have raided yet another dragon's lair -- and it did seem familiar, for some strange reason -- it is time that we commit ourselves to a true test of our magical prowess. Dragons are all well and good, but taking down an elemental lord? That takes finesse. Throne of the Four Winds is another of the three raid instances availible on the first tier of raiding in Cataclysm. In it, you find yourself face to face with Al'Akir and three of his strongest servants. Fortunately, none of them have any minions of their own, which is why this must be my favorite instance of all time. That's right, there is absolutely no trash here -- just two bosses waiting to be slain. So let's start up that felfire.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Protection Warrior 101 -- talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Tanking. It's what we talked about last week, and if not for a massive burst of gut rot that hit me Thursday like a hammer wielded by the Spectre himself, we would already have talked about it more this week. Better late than never, I suppose. To give you an idea of how sick I am as I type this, I didn't want to move all day, so I'm actually writing the column from the floor of my living room using my TV as my monitor. I'm so sick and exhausted that I find this screenshot of my worgen in his prot stance and gear standing on Anduin Lothar's shoulder to be hilarious. You see, Lothar was so badass, he had a werewolf for his conscience. Maybe you have to be extremely dehydrated to appreciate it. Anyway, this week, we're going to talk about protection's talents, which ones are niche talents and which are more generally applicable. Not all of the talents we discuss will be in the protection tree, as we'll also look at arms and fury talents that are well suited to tanking. It would be hard to justify talking about useful tanking talents without discussing Field Dressing, for instance. I had to tank those annoying parasites on Magmaw this week, and I was very glad to have the boosted self healing from Field Dressing for my Victory Rush heals.
The Queue: Super The Queue Alpha II Gold Turbo Tournament Edition
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I am so hyped up for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I got my Tournament Edition fightstick, my Collector's Edition paid up and ready for pickup, my MvC2 downloaded from Xbox Live. Could not be more excited. Can't wait to repeatedly get destroyed by people running Magneto/Storm/Sentinel teams. It'll be like 2001 all over again. Chips asked: I just came back to the game after a long break and I noticed several things different about the male troll model. They seem to have a perpetual stubbed toe, some of their hair and shoulder armor clips, and the end of tabards curl upwards. I haven't been able to find much info about this, is this a recent bug, or a deliberate model change? Male troll models are indeed messed up right now, and the issues are at least partially fixed in 4.0.6.
The Queue: How much Keeffe is in this movie, anyway?
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. So what if I'm on an MST3K kick this weekend? Is there any better kick on which to be? Hal asked: When Hand of Light triggers for my ret paladin, the icon for Divine Storm lights up on my bar. As far as I can tell, though, Divine Storm doesn't interact with Holy Power in any way. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Divine Storm originally dealt damage based on the number of holy power charges you had, but that was changed. It just hasn't been removed from the spell alert list for Hand of Light yet.
The Queue: Huzzah!
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Thank goodness for MST3K on Netflix. "Trumpy! You can do stupid things!" Guilegamesh asked: Where do all the blues get their names from? I can't find any background on Bashiok, Lylirra, Wryxian, etc. Do they have a secret name generator that produces these unique names, and if there is, how can i get in on it? As a former blue, I can unequivocally state that they get to choose their own names. The names do have to be approved by higher-ups, though, and they must be "fantasy-sounding." Before I settled on Belfaire, I was also considering Inzmith and Carmagh.
Learning your role
One of the things that playing other MMOs can do for your WoW experience is get you to question how the game does things, and more importantly, how you do them. Recently I've been flirting with the latest superhero MMO, and it does tanking differently, to the point that I had to start unlearning my WoW habits to play it. This has me going back over the past six years and realizing I've had to relearn tanking four times now. I had to learn how to do it originally in order to start working on Molten Core for my then-guild, and then I had to relearn it in The Burning Crusade (and actually, I had to relearn it twice there, thanks to the awful implementation of rage normalization for warriors and our astonishingly bad AoE threat that whole expansion). In Wrath, I didn't so much relearn it as suddenly find it much more efficiently designed and fun. Finally, Cataclysm has me tweaking how I tank, but I can't really argue I've relearned it from the Wrath era so much as simply refined it. Meanwhile, I've also had to relearn the DPS side of my class every expansion, in much the same way. All of this learning has been done on the fly. To paraphrase a famous quote, World of Warcraft is vast and deep, and I'm swimming forever. Most certainly, there are sources to go to for players who want to learn a new role (one of them being this site), but there's only so much you can be taught before you have to hold your nose and jump in. This makes me wonder two things. First, is there more that the game could do to teach those roles, and two, would it be beneficial or harmful to immersive gameplay if it did?
Cataclysm hotfixes for Jan. 26
It's hotfix time! Blue poster Zarhym has posted with a whole mess of new hotfixes, and boy, are there some doozies this time around. The changes include loot table adjustments for all raid dungeons, adjustments to the Lunar Festival, and a handful of class changes as well. Some highlights from the list: Heroic set tokens in raid dungeons have been moved to earlier bosses on 25-player heroic difficulty (chest from Halfus, legs from Maloriak, gloves from Magmaw, helm from Nefarian, shoulder from Cho'gall). Elder Rumblerock is now available during the quest "Assault on Dreadmaul Rock" for both the Horde and the Alliance. In Deadmines, Glubtok's Fire and Frost Blossoms summoned during the encounter no longer grant experience or reputation. In Vortex Pinnacle, bosses will no longer respawn after a soft reset if players already have a heroic save. Follow us after the break for a full list of changes.
Blizzard on 2200 rating PvP weapon availability
Confused about when you'll be able to use your 2,200 arena rating weapons? Well, Blizzard has decided to clarify exactly when that will be, and the answer is not Jan. 25 (yesterday) but rather two weeks after patch 4.0.6 drops. Why, you may ask? Daxxarri - 2200 Rating Weapon Availability The decision to further delay availability of weapons requiring 2200 rating was not made lightly. Currently very few guilds are clearing PvE content that drops weapons of this caliber, which would make rated Battlegrounds and Arenas the primary source for top-tier weapons. We of course don't want players who are pursuing PvE content to feel as though they must engage in heavy PvP to obtain these weapons in order to be competitive or successful. source Understandably, some folks are upset -- probably the ones who either already have the ratings and points ready to spend, or the ones who managed to get the weapons during the brief window where there was a bug. Daxxari answers those concerns in a later post as well.
Taking out the trash
I always thought I would love a no-trash dungeon. I came up in raiding in the days of MC and BWL, raids that were absolutely chock full of trash. AQ40? Oh, so much trash. Trash to the point of absurdity. Going into the original Naxxramas meant dealing with a huge space absolutely stuffed full of rotting, slimy, or arachnid horrors. You spent far more time coordinating pulls on those annoying warlocks in Blackwing Lair and their dynamite-throwing goblin friends than you actually did on bosses. In The Burning Crusade, the 5-mans had trash galore. Five, even six packs in Shadow Labyrinth, constant streams of adds in Shattered Halls, complicated trash pulls in Karazhan and Serpentshrine. I still remember with dread being the tank standing there using spell reflection to get the attention of Hyjal caster waves. Dealing with trash has always been a part of the game, as it has been part of the genre. In fact, one of the reasons that Naxxramas 10/25 felt so empty to me was that it simply held less trash than it did as a 40-man raid at level 60, so huge stretches of the place were deserted, as if Kel'Thuzad had gone on a staff-cutting binge and pink-slipped half of the Scourge before you even got there. After we'd gotten Ulduar more or less on farm and moved on to Trial of the Crusader, I was pretty ready for a break from trash. I was very excited about a trashless dungeon where you just fought bosses. Wouldn't that be epic? Wouldn't it be awesome for every fight in a raid to be an epic struggle against a named, powerful adversary? Turned out, not so much.
Ask Creative Development Round II
Blizzard's creative development team is gearing up for another round of lore questions and answers from the players and fans. Last time, we had some pretty interesting answers to pressing questions. I hope this go-around we get even more awesome answers, especially to some of my own pressing questions, such as how the creative team is going to deal with Sylvanas, as well as what Deathwing's reaction to the now canonically dead Sinestra will be. Here is the thread where you can leave a question, and here is the official post. Ask Creative Development - Round II The members of our creative development department, headed up by Chris Metzen, are the creators, keepers, and librarians of our game lore and story. These caretakers work closely with the authors who write our licensed books and comics (or sometimes write 'em themselves), and collaborate with the game developers to ensure cohesive and correct use of characters and lore (Red Shirt Guys notwithstanding). Now they're ready to once again answer your Warcraft lore questions! Head over to the Ask CDev forum post to throw your question on the pile. Please be aware that we'll be using the forum voting system to help decide on which questions to answer. Before asking your own question, look through the thread and add a vote to any others that you like. Feel free to just vote, but if you do have a question, please limit yourself to one per post. source World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
