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Ruby Sanctum raid testing this Thursday
Daelo hit the Dungeons & Raids forum this afternoon to announce some upcoming focus testing for Ruby Sanctum this Thursday. The blue post with scheduling is quoted below. Unfortunately, copying characters over to the PTR doesn't seem to be functional quite yet, only throwing a "Sorry, but there has been an error with your request" error. If you were planning on preparing for this in advance, no such luck. There's no reason to panic yet considering we have two full days before the testing is set to begin, but the closer we get to Thursday evening without the character copy system coming up, the dicier it's going to be as far as actually getting a character transferred. Here's hoping that little orcish peon on the World of Warcraft website gets to work. Where's my booterang when I need it? Daelo Everything related to this zone is implemented for this test, please note any issues with the trash creatures and sub-bosses, loot, achievements, and quests. US Testing Schedule: Thursday, May 13 starting at 19:00 EDT. EU Testing Schedule: Thursday, May 13 starting at 19:30 CEST. We plan to allow testing for an extended period on Thursday. However since this is the Test Realm, unforeseen issues could delay or cancel testing at any time. source
PTR character copy service active (Updated)
While we're unsure exactly for what, the Public Test Realm character copy function is currently up and running, but not yet active. Could be for the upcoming Echo Isles and Gnomeregan content, could be for the new Ruby Sanctum raid. We have no idea. It may not even mean anything at all. Of note: my particular character copies haven't been reset since the last PTR testing phase, giving me a grand total of one possible character copy to the PTR servers. You may be in a similar or worse boat. As always, when Blizzard provides more information about the status of the PTR, as well as its contents, we'll be sure to let you know. Until then, feel free to hammer the character copy server -- you were going to anyway. Update: MMO-Champion points out that instead of our normal Anasterian and Broxigar realms on the PTR realm list, we have Broxigar and BlizzCon Event. As Boubouille notes: "When was the last time Blizzard needed a server for BlizzCon?"
Know Your Lore: The Twilight Dragonflight
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. For those that have been following along over the past couple of weeks, I've been following a certain order of progression with the dragon flights. Originally, there were the proto-drakes. The largest of these was Galakrond, from whom the Aspects of the dragon flights were created. Next, the Black dragonflight and its leader, Deathwing -- created from Galakrond himself, fought to achieve supremacy over Azeroth. From Deathwing's eggs, the Netherwing were born, or rather, evolved due to exposure to the energies of the Twisting Nether. Today we follow that order with the latest addition to the dragons of Azeroth -- the Twilight dragonflight. The Twilight dragons don't really have a lot of 'history' to speak of, as they've only been recently developed, but there's enough to go into as far as their origins go. The Black dragonflight, intent on breeding a superior race of dragons that would overtake and control Azeroth, has spent several years trying to create this dominant race, with little success.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Ruby Sanctum and Echo Isles music
Celestial steeds and more toys aren't the only new things coming in patch 3.3.3! With the new content also comes a variety of new music. Savvy dataminer Leviathonlx dug up several new tracks for the big events going on in the new patch. Accompanying the trolls in Operation Echo Isles will be an epic score tailored to the event, whether the calm before combat, the thick of the battle, or the climax of the fight, the music will get you in the mood for the voodoo. Also uncovered was a track centered around the Ruby Sanctum. Not to be outdone by the trolls, the Red Dragonflight has made a strong showing with spooky music all their own. ZF Big Battle ZF Med Battle ZF Quiet Ruby Sanctum Blizzard has always made it a point to use mood- and setting-appropriate music in all of their zones, instances and, on a larger scale, games. These cinematic-style tracks are no exception. Be sure to check back often, as we'll keep you up to date with all news about Patch 3.3.3.
BlizzCast Episode #13
Episode 13 of Blizzcast, Blizzard's occassional podcast, came out yesterday. The majority of it is devoted to a StarCraft II beta special, which is beyond the scope of this site, but they did do a WoW Q&A after that (and a Diablo 3 Q&A at the end), between WoW CM Zarhym and Diablo CM Bashiok. The WoW segment was mostly retrospective, discussing what the developers learned from Wrath, with a dash of looking forward to Cataclysm. Here's a quick summary (you can read the whole transcript, or listen to the podcast, at Blizzard's site): ICC is designed such that the final boss in each section is harder than the rest of the section (Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King). The ICC zone-wide buff "won't come in until at least a month after the Lich King has been released," which means we could see it soon, since the Lich King fight opened up February 2nd (although the devs mentioned in the Twitter chat that it's not quite time for the buff yet). It will improve "roughly once a month," and the buff will affect health, damage, and healing (much like the Luck of the Draw buff from random dungeon groups). They thought the Illidan encounter in Black Temple, back in BC, was a bit anti-climactic, so they wanted to make sure the end of the Lich King was "super special." In answer to "what next after I clear ICC:" ICC hard modes, and to a lesser extent the Ruby Sanctum, which is coming in a future patch. Ruby Sanctum will hold "roughly Lich King level gear," as has been mentioned elsewhere. That's about it for the WoW content, but if you're interested in SC2 or D3, you may well want to read or listen to the whole thing.
More Ruby Sanctum information: loot, lore, and more
Today's announcement of the upcoming Ruby Sanctum raid, coming with Patch 3.3.5, was well-met, though it raised a number of questions as to the nature of the instance -- how will it work, what kind of loot can we expect, etc. Zarhym popped back into the original thread a few times to give clarification on a few points: While the instance has a similar layout to the Obsidian Sanctum philosophically, the three sub-bosses (Saviana Ragefire, Baltharus the Warborn, and General Zarithrian) will each be own encounter all their own. The "drakes-up" functionality of Sartharion will not carry over into the Halion encounter. Heroic difficulty is likely to be toggled in the same way that heroic difficulties are handled in ICC (a UI toggle). Saviana, Baltharus, and Zarithrian will each drop an Emblem of Frost, but probably not special loot. Expect loot in the instance to be "about the same item level" as the Lich King items on their respective difficulties. The loot from Halion will be offset pieces as well as trinkets and other items "of that nature." So, basically, Sartharion loot. The instance is intended to be a prelude to Cataclysm and should provide some advancement for the new expansion's storyline before the 4.0 patch, drawing on Deathwing's desire to weaken the Wyrmrest Accord prior to his emergence from Deepholm. Arthas is still considered the final boss of the expansion -- this is merely a complementary raid, like Onyxia with ToC, with ties to Cataclysm. Sounds like about what we were expecting. Keep an eye on WoW.com for more information on the Ruby Sanctum as it comes in, likely starting with the upcoming PTR.
Patch 3.3.5: Assault on the Ruby Sanctum
Just the other day we linked to a GameInformer article in which Tom Chilton mentions a new raid coming soon that would take place in the Ruby Sanctum. To make sure there is no confusion around this, Zarhym hit the forums to tell us exactly what this raid will be. A powerful war party of the Black Dragonflight, led by the fearsome Twilight dragon, Halion, have launched an assault upon the Ruby Sanctum beneath Wyrmrest Temple. By destroying the sanctum, the Black Dragonflight look to crush those that would stand in the way of their master's reemergence into Azeroth and to ultimately shatter the Wyrmrest Accord – the sacred bond that unites the dragonflights. The battle that is to come will surely deal a crippling blow to the Red Dragonflight, however, it is up to you to stop this unprecedented offensive and defend the Ruby Sanctum. First you must face the assault of Halion's servants, Saviana Ragefire, Baltharus the Warborn, and General Zarithrian, before squaring off against Halion the Twilight Destroyer, a new and deadly force in this realm. The Ruby Sanctum will feature 10- and 25-player content, Heroic difficulties and all-new rewards! Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to its release. From the text, it sounds like we're getting four bosses in the Ruby Sanctum, unless they've taken a Northrend Beasts gauntlet-style approach to the encounters, or perhaps even another council-style battle. Later in the thread, Zarhym suggest that this may only be the beginning of Deathwing's attempts at shattering the Accord, so we may see the other Sanctums open before Cataclysm's launch.
Tom Chilton retrospective interview on Wrath of the Lich King
There's an excellent interview with Tom Chilton, the World of Warcraft lead game designer, up on GameInformer. Lots of stuff we've heard before, but there are some interesting talking points. For example: They are looking into extending the dungeon finder to 10-man content. Chilton hinted that we may see a new boss in the Ruby Sanctum before Cataclysm launches They have a "general philosophical approach of getting the hybrids to where they're close to the DPS classes when it comes to DPS roles. Otherwise, those specs just turn into joke specs." They feel warlocks could use a boost to their DPS. Tol Barad, the Cataclysm equivalent to Wintergrasp, will be more of a Isle of Quel'Danas style daily quest hub instead of a farming zone. Before settling on death knights for Wrath of the Lich King's hero class, they specifically debated necromancers and rune-masters. They feel that with all the accessibility work they did on end game PvE in Wrath, end game PvP has become harder to get into by comparison. It's a three page interview, so click through to read the whole thing! What really struck me reading this was that comment about hybrid DPS compared to pure. This "hybrid tax" concept has been harped on by posters on the official forums for a long time now, and this is a fairly straightforward way of putting it.
Believe it or Don't: Patch 3.1 notes leaked? [Updated]
Edit: Just in case some of you have any lingering doubts, yes, these are fake. Aurelius of Forlorn Legacy on Windrunner-US has fessed up as the creator. Most of us saw this coming, of course, but the patch notes are at least fun to pick apart and tease. Regardless, when the real 3.1 notes come out, we'll have them here on WoW Insider, so stay tuned.So a few minutes ago, a reader by the name of Mike -- if that is his real name -- sent us, without links or other proof, a copy of what he says are the official patch notes for 3.1 from an early internal build. So we've now been having a pretty robust discussion here at WoW Insider HQ over whether they're legit or not. Me, I'm not so sure. The Hunter and Death Knight changes are a little overpowered (Don't get me wrong, I'd love the changes, I just recognize they're probably a bit on the overpowered side), and the whole Ruby Sanctum thing seems out of left field when the dungeon focus is supposed to be Ulduar. On the other side, Adam is pretty insistent that these changes could just be an earlier test build that will get nerfed down, and the class changes are no worse than, say, patch 2.1 anyway. Alex and Matt Rossi are leaning toward fake too. So in the end, we just decided we better post these and let you judge for yourself. I'd recommend taking them with a big grain of salt myself, but read up after the break and let us know what you think.
