bornakk
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Official: Dalaran Children's Week quests not repeatable this year
Blizzard has officially stated that the issue with not being able to complete the Dalaran Children's Week quests this year, if you did them last year, will not be resolved before the holiday is over. They are not saying this is how it is supposed to work, but that they cannot fix it in time. Bornakk -- Dalaran Children's Week Quest Line Issue We are aware of the issue that is currently affecting the Children's Week quest line in Dalaran which does not allow players who have completed the quest line last year to take part in it again this year. We do not currently have a fix planned to address this issue at this point in time. source Bashlok -- Dalaran Children's Week Quest Line Issue To clarify, this issue won't be able to be resolved for Children's Week this year. If you completed the quest previously you won't be able to complete it again for the other pet this year. source
Twitter developer chat this friday
There'll be another Twitter developer chat this Friday, April 16, at 5:00 p.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. CDT / 8:00 p.m. EDT. This one will have a lot to do with the recently announced class changes. Be sure to tweet your questions to @warcraft once they announce they're taking questions. The last couple Twitter chats have been pretty good with lots of solid information and insights from the designers. Expect the same this time! WoW.com will be carrying a live transcript on our site, and we'll be sure to let you know of any of the major news that comes out of this. Previous chat transcripts: Feb. 26, 2010 Jan. 15, 2010 Oct. 22, 2009 Bornakk We will be holding our next developer chat on Twitter this Friday, April 16, at 5:00 p.m. PDT with two members of World of Warcraft's class design team. This chat session will focus on the recently released Cataclysm class previews that you can see here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038460683&sid=1 Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account and follow @Warcraft (http://www.twitter.com/warcraft) in order to participate! To submit a question for the developer chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST on April 16. Due to the character limitation on responses within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums in a dedicated thread. Blue poster text. source
Breakfast Topic: Fear is the mind-killer
Let me be frank: I've run heroic Halls of Reflection a lot. By a lot, I mean hundreds of times now. As a tank, I find it tedious because there's only so much I can do about people refusing to understand certain simple key facts If you are ranged DPS, do not be hitting the ranged mobs before they run around the corner. If you are a healer, please stand out of line of sight of the ranged mobs so that they don't start nuking you instead of running around the corner. Everyone just stay out of line of site until the mobs get here. Seriously. Do not run out to begin nuking until the mobs get here what the heck are you doing arrrrrrgh and then of course I need a new keyboard. As a result, I cringe when I get HHoR now. On my DK, on my shaman, on my warrior, doesn't matter. Tank, DPS or heal, I loathe the sight of the place. Now, I generally stay in the run anyway, because I'm a pampered baby used to his instaqueue and I hate having to wait around until my debuff falls off. But dozens of runs where people refuse to understand these simple rules (stay out of LoS until all the mobs are in one spot and for the love of all good things let me get them into one spot) and a general inability of every single PuG I've yet done to CC the marksman when he doesn't come in means that I'm generally just about ready to blow the place up. That's why I found this thread (especially the comments by Bornakk) so interesting. Are people just afraid of HHoR?
Frost Lotus drop rate increased
It's official -- Bornakk wrote on the official forums that Blizzard has increased the chance that a Northrend herb node will yield a Frost Lotus: The drop rate of Frost Lotus, from herbs in Northrend, has been increased by 50%. This will be a welcome change for many because with the increase in demand for raiding flasks that patch 3.3 brought, the supply of Frost Lotus on many servers has gotten quite low, which increased prices significantly. This change will go live on servers as they restart, so probably next Tuesday for most. The new drop rate should have an fairly quick effect on the number of Frost Lotuses listed on your auction house, however it always takes a few days of lower sales volumes before the big farmers start to drop their prices and undercut each other. My advice? Don't buy any Frost Lotus (or derivative flasks) unless you will use them the same day. Wait until the prices go down before stocking up! Also, if you are a herbalist, you can make a quick profit by spending some time farming now, and try to make some sales before the prices drop.
Drop rate of Big Love Rocket not a bug
Some concerns have been expressed recently over the abysmally low drop rate of the Big Love Rocket. The drop rate was thought to be lower than 1-2% and Bornakk chimed in on the forums to confirm it. I'm not much of a big mount fanatic myself. The only rare one I have is the Obsidian Drake mount from Sartharion with 3 Drakes up. Now that I think about it though, I have yet to see anyone in Dalaran ride around with one of these rockets. As it stands, the drop rate of this rocket mount will not be raised anytime in the near future. Heck, even if they did, I know with my luck I would never see one of these. If you're curious, as of today, there have only been 74 players with the Big Love Rocket Feat of Strength across North America and Europe. North America has seen 17 Big Love Rockets compared to the 54 for European players. if you want to read more about drop chance and probability, check out Brian's post about it back in January. It's guaranteed to make your head spin!
Blizzard comments on the status of guild housing
The topic of player housing continues to crop up as a question on the official forums. Blizzard has stated that guild halls or guild housing will not to be included in the game (at least, not any time soon). According to Bornakk: While this originally came up before I was around, I think this has been answered at some BlizzCons since then. While we think this could be a fun idea, we also like the idea of seeing a lot of people in cities and don't want to make main cities feel like ghost towns - if you need an example of this head to Silvermoon (yeah, that's a cheap shot, I know). So for now this idea remains an interesting idea but we'd have to make sure it fits into the game well and meets our expectations which are pretty high for something like this. The last game I participated in which had guild housing was Guild Wars. Inside, it stored various mementos and trinkets from different epic quests or sigils that my guild had won in the Hall of Heroes (and this was a long time ago, mind you). But that was it! There wasn't much to do from a PvE standpoint. I think we had our own vendor and a "Guild Lord" (someone like Drek or Vanndar Stormpike in Alterac Valley). Later versions of the game had guilds attacking other guilds on their turf. The guild hall in this respect played a huge PvP component the game because the hall you selected would also be your home base complete with various terrain advantages and defenses if you were "attacked" by other guilds. Now that would be cool. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be a purpose to having a guild hall in the game. However, I'm not going to completely discount the idea. Just because the developers have said they're ruling it out now doesn't mean it won't be included later in the future. Players continued to ask about flying around in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, right? All it takes is a new expansion, but at least we're getting it. I'm shotgunning the Beer Garden.
Shield spell effectiveness reduced in PvP
After the recent changes to resilience and the reduction of healing in PvP, we now move on to spells that prevent damage entirely. Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield are also being affected, having their effectiveness in Arenas, Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds reduced by 10%. Bornakk broke the news to the forums, which responded about as you might expect, with people who rely on those mechanics frustrated and those who have to try and kill people using them jubilant. I know, I was shocked too. I'm kind of on the fence about this change. On the one hand, man, as a warrior I hate beating on a shield in PvP. Hate hate hate. It does seem odd to me that we moved resilience to reduce all incoming damage and then reduced all healing to match, though. It seems somewhat like a complicated way to do nothing at all. As someone who sometimes goes resto on my shaman for PvP, I don't really look forward to having my heals heal for less, especially since it's a penalty that will hit me immediately while farming up honor for PvP gear to get resilience will take me time, time my healing will have been adversely affected throughout. How about you? Happy or unhappy about the latest changes in PvP?
Blizzard announces upcoming premium AH through Armory feature
It's fairly common knowledge that Blizzard has kept updating the Armory with new features and new apps. Now, Bornakk comes forth with news of an app that will be to the armory what a giant Steve Allen pog was to pogs: behold, the ultimate feature! In the glorious future, we'll be able to work our auctions from the Armory itself or apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yes, one more step closer to actually living full time in Azeroth. I have my eyes on a nice cottage outside of Elwynn, myself. In all seriousness, I know a lot of people who would probably club me over the head and hand me over to a cabal of secretive necromancers for this feature. No news yet on exactly how it's going to work, and Bornakk does point out that with the amount of work it will be to develop, you're probably going to have to pay extra for it. This is a fairly complex service to develop, due in large part to its unprecedented integration with the game, so we don't have an exact release date yet. It's important to note here that certain elements of the service will be premium-based, which we'll go into more detail on once the service functionality is finalized. As with all of the services we offer, we plan to integrate the Auction House and Armory in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience, and we won't release it until it meets the quality standards that we've set for our other features and services.See the rest of the announcement after the break.
Incentives for appropriate gear types coming in Cataclysm
One thing that has been frustrating cloth, leather, and mail wearers for quite some time is the ability for players with a higher type of armor cherry picking through their armor. In some cases, this is due to poor itemization in the intended gear range while others are abusing gear scaling and the ability to sometimes double-dip into stats. However, this will likely stop in Cataclysm for several different reasons. Bornakk revealed on the forums that gear will start having incentives to make you wear the appropriate type of armor. This means that holy paladins who are currently rolling on cloth and mail items will have incentives to stick to plate. What are these incentives? We don't know. It could be as simple as something like the current gem socket bonus system or a little more complex like a percentage increase in a particular stat. This could even be a generic spec based set bonus that gave you something if completely geared in class appropriate armor. We won't really know until more details are released.
Bornakk on Arena Season 8 delay
If you PvP you may have noticed Arena Season 8 has not arrived today as expected. The forums certainly have, and Bornakk made sure to explain the reason. Apparently in order to start the arena season, the minor content patch 3.3.2 is necessary and since it isn't ready yet neither is Season 8. A brief side question about how people are finding the new resilience changes devolves but should't distract us from the main message here. Arena Season 8 has been delayed because patch 3.3.2 is not out yet. That's the sum total of what we know at this time. Please, do not panic, as soon as we know more about when the season will start or patch 3.3.2 will drop, we'll share that information with you.
Icecrown Citadel: Crimson Halls hotfixes
Even though Crimson Halls has been open for about half a week, a series of hot fixes have been applied today. Most of the fixes posted by Bornakk are applied to Blood Queen Lana'thel. I have to admit though, the bug where the Kinetic Bomb could trigger Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Prince Council encounter did make me chuckle. I'm glad that's been resolved as well. Blood Queen Lana'thel will only be available after the Blood Prince Council is defeated. Blood Queen Lana'thel's Essence has a longer duration. Kinetic Bombs no longer aggro Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Princes encounter. Blood Queen Lanathel should no longer cast Vampiric Bite on pets. In addition, Daelo posted another set of fixes for the Blood Princes encounter: Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank. The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight. We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further. Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage. Valnoth states that the Essence duration was lengthened because the developers didn't like the idea of sacrificing a player to get through an encounter. As a healer, I'm inclined to agree. I hate it when I have to stop all heals on a player in order to progress through a counter. It just goes contrary to everything my character stands for.
PvP Resilience Changes
It was announced today that there will be a major change to resilience, which is being hotfixed into the game as we approach the new arena season. The change is expected to be in place for the duration of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion; which we take to mean it will not carry over into Cataclysm. This change will "double the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players," according to Bornakk. Players will see a 10% to 20% reduction in damage taken. However, this change will not affect critical strike chances or critical strike damage. If healing becomes too over powered with this change, Blizzard has a "PvP only solution" ready to go, however they're not rolling out that part of the changes just yet. The full details after the break.
Ashen Verdict strength ring in minor content patch
Bornakk popped onto the forums late Thursday to confirm that Blizzard is planning to add a +strength version to the Ashen Verdict rings in an upcoming mini-patch. The appearance of the four current rings with patch 3.3 caused a minor furor on the forums, with plate DPS being left out in the cold. While there are +strength DPS rings available elsewhere in Icecrown Citadel, there's no replacement for a reputation ring's valuable proc. One of the interesting things about the +strength ring's initial absence wasn't its absence per se, but the reason for omitting it. Apparently the Ashen Verdict choices were a reproduction of older reputation-linked quest items (e.g. Violet Eye and Scale of the Sands rings) that allowed only four choices, and Blizzard wasn't able to get past the programming issues to add a fifth option before 3.3 went live. Well, that's going to get fixed in the upcoming mini-patch, which will also see a few other class-related changes. The date of the patch is still anyone's guess, but we'll keep an eye out for you.
Second Twitter developer chat on January 15th
Bornakk hit the forums this evening to announce the second Twitter Developer Chat. It will take place Friday, January 15th at 5:00 PM PST. Like last time, questions will be taken via Twitter and answered on the forums. Senior game producer J. Allen Brack and lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street will be the ones answering your questions. Instructions on how to submit questions and all of that sort of thing can be found over in the forum thread. The focus of this Q&A will be patch 3.3, Fall of the Lich King, so don't expect to hear any grand Cataclysm news in this chat. I'm actually very curious if we'll learn anything at all, considering the focus on current content rather than future content. It might be a good chance to get some insight into the development process, rather than trying to squeeze strategy tips out of the devs.
Recent in-game fixes
Two minor in-game fixes that were applied last night to the game. These fixes should be active once the servers come back up later this morning/afternoon. They're modifying the Professor Putricide encounter just a tad, and should make a couple annoyances with the fight go away. The fixes as enumerated by Bornakk are: Professor Putricide's Tear Gas will no longer remove player auras. The Growing Ooze Puddles in the Professor Putricide encounter will no longer continue to grow while players are stunned. That's all, and if there's any more in-game fixes we'll be sure to let you know.
Prot Warrior nerf details
Protection spec warriors, did you enjoy being able to charge out of roots and snares to get back to the boss fast? Well, thanks to PvP, you won't be able to do that anymore. What else won't you be able to do? Well, if you've been stacking block value in PvE content, first off, I kind of don't get you. Seriously, except for very specific gimmicky fights, why would you stack block value? (I said value, not rating, and I also said gimmicky fights so don't bring up Heroic Anub) But if you have been... perhaps you have a block value set for totally destroying adds or something... then get ready for a Shield Slam nerf. They're 'testing that one internally' which, if you remember how horrible the Rage Normalization changes went in early BC, always works. Honestly, neither of these are huge gamebreakers. I liked that Warbringer cleared roots and snares for me when I was tanking, and I barely even noticed it in PvP: it was like a free self-cast Hand of Freedom. As for nerfing Shield Slam, well, like I said I don't stack block value so a lower block value cap on the ability wouldn't really affect me. Irritate me? Yes, it will do that. But it isn't a game breaker either. Of course, since as the commenters mentioned yesterday prot PvP warriors don't stack shield block value at all (I know you guys don't read my posts, Blizzard, but if for some reason someone is, look at all that ArP. Look at all that lack of block value. It is ArP that drives the prot PvP damage machine. ArP, not block value. Just thought I'd mention that) then I fail to see any point to the change either. So there we have it: Warbringer gets changed and Shield Slam might get changed which is like taking a club away from a guy who is shooting people.
Crimson Halls, next wing of Icecrown Citadel opens in two weeks
Bornakk has confirmed that the next wing of the Icecrown Citadel, Crimson Halls, opens in two weeks. The next one after that will be Frostwing Halls. According to Blizzard: The Crimson Hall contains the leaders of the San'layn, undead blood elves who oversee the Scourge's operations throughout Azeroth. The blood-princes Valanar, Keleseth, and Taldaram were raised into undeath by the Lich King to avenge themselves while protecting their blood-queen, Lana'thel. Plagueworks has just opened today, starring Professor Putricide and his buddies, Festergut and Rotface. And before you have time to yawn at the lack of new challenging content, the next wing will be open. We'll keep you updated on any details, as usual.
In-game changes for January 5th, 2010
There is a new round of in-game fixes that have just been released. Chief among these is a nerf to Lady Deathwhisper in Icecrown Citadel and the ghost waves in normal and heroic Halls of Reflection. Lady Deathwhisper is having her 25-man normal version changed (not the 10-man) to decrease her mana pool and to decrease the health on all the adds. This means that the shield will go down much faster for guilds currently struggling with that aspect of the encounter. Additionally, tanks get a bit of a buff here in that the Adherents will wait a little bit longer before casting, which means there will be more wiggle room in picking them up. We have a feeling the necessity of these changes will be hotly debated. The ghost waves in Halls of Reflection have also been changed to allow for easier combinations of mobs (no more two mages in one group). The AoE the mage does will also do less damage and be more interruptable, which should make for an easier time staying grouped up. The complete list of fixes after the break.
The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt
Yesterday, Bornakk said clearly that the Battered Hilt drop that starts the Quel'delar questline was dropping at the right rate, which is much less than when the patch first hit. And then of course, in last night's fixes, they went ahead and increased the drop rate anyway. He also claimed there were no plans to make it BoP, but who knows what'll happen in the future? For now, however, you can still buy and sell the quest item for quite a bit of gold. We'll have to see where the price eventually ends up -- on the staff here, we've seen anything from 8,000g to over 23,000g, and Twitter tells us that people are paying an average of around 12k or so, going up to as high as 30k (or even shady real money offers in online classified ads). Our own Matt Low has actually seen the drop three different times, and lost every roll. It drops off of any of the mobs in the Heroic versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans, and as Bornakk says, any class can use it to come up with a pretty solid weapon, so the competition will probably keep the price high, depending on where the drop rate ends up. The silver lining, if you really want one, have terrible luck, and don't ever expect to have all that money, is that the price will probably go down eventually. Bornakk says that as people move up into Icecrown and start picking up weapons that are even better than the sister blade, demand is likely to drop off a bit. But he also says that Blizzard does want this to be a special and relatively rare item, so you'll still have to probably either be lucky or ready to grind it out. Good luck -- I'm out there searching for one with you.
Justifying the tiered badge system
Wrath is almost all wrapped up, and while we didn't know much about it before the expansion, we've all certainly experienced the token system that Blizzard implemented as they went along, where early instances drop one kind of badge/token, and then the newer instances offer up new tokens, which can then be exchanged back for the older ones and their rewards. Now that we see the big picture at the end of the expansion, it's pretty ingenious, actually, and it even allows Blizzard to beef up other parts of the game, as they did with the rewards in the new Dungeon system. Not that he needs to, but Bornakk steps up on the forums to justify exactly this kind of tiered system. Players complain that Ulduar is "useless" now that you can obtain its badges from lots of different places, but Bornakk says this system is definitely preferable to what Blizzard did in vanilla and BC, which was requiring new raiders to run through all of the old content before seeing the new and shiny stuff. They don't want the old content to sit useless (and it's not -- lots of guilds are still running Ulduar and even Naxx for the hard modes and achievements), but after the high-end raiders have their fun, it's important to get everyone else up to speed as well.
