meeting-stones
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WoW Archivist: The rocky history of meeting stones
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? Now that Have Group, Will Travel has been removed as a guild perk, raid groups are once again turning to meeting stones to summon their fellow raiders to the entrance. Meeting stones have a long and uneven history in WoW. They were despised and ridiculed when they were first patched in. They've gone through periods of high use and periods where they were all but ignored. What was their original purpose? How have they changed over the years? Read on to find out! The original dungeon finders Even in early vanilla, Blizzard was trying to find ways to make it easier for players to run dungeons together. In those days, most dungeons formed either in guild chat or trade chat. Players made their own groups and then took zeppelins, flight points, etc. to the dungeon entrance. In March 2005, patch 1.3 gave us Blizzard's first attempt at a grouping system: the lowly meeting stones. In their first incarnation, meeting stones could be clicked to place you in a queue for their dungeon. The queue tried to match you up with players of a similar level and to find a tank and a healer. Players hated meeting stones immediately. It was a deep and abiding hate.
WoW Moviewatch: Yesterday's News
Your regularly scheduled host Michael Gray will be back soon. He is all snowed in, and that's no fun for anyone. You've got me again. Yesterday's News by slashdance is one of my favorite WoW machinima videos. Maybe because I have a soft spot in my heart for the coolness factor of the various types of meeting stones in game. Maybe because I totally feel for the poor Dwarven stonemason who builds them. Most of all, I think I wanted to share with you all this video because with Mists of Pandaria coming out, we'll be on expansion #4. A lot of time has passed in World of Warcraft. Like ... a lot. Going back and seeing how things used to be is almost like a history lesson as much as it is a nostalgia trip. One of the things that strikes me about the video is that it's almost like watching myself play from the outside. I see people running up to stones and I see them clicking on portals, but it's not me doing it. These are actions that I take in game being represented in the fiction, but we perform that action all the time. It's a movie about a phenomenon in a game that is being portrayed as having its own reality. Whatever. It's late, I'm tired, and I love Yesterday's News. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Breakfast Topic: What post-launch game features do you most appreciate?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. World of Warcraft has been up and running for six years now, and to anyone who played in the early days, the game is barely recognizable. I'm not talking about the Shattering; I'm talking about the meat of the game, the interface and UI and mechanics that allow us to interact with Azeroth. Blizzard is a great innovator, and over the years we've gained such features as battlegrounds, linked auction houses, meeting stones, heroic dungeons, arenas, the dungeon finder, heirlooms, and the in-game calendar. None of these were present at launch, but they all affect our playstyles today. These are all great, but that doesn't mean I stop daydreaming about what else Blizzard could do. I love the armory calendar view, but I'd be thrilled if the Blizzard calendar integrated with my Google calendar so I could see raids and guild events alongside my real-life schedule. I also yearn for variable speed scrolling quest text. Instant text encourages me to skip to the end, but the scrolling option is vastly slower than my reading speed, and I just can't handle it. Which feature added after launch do you think was the biggest game-changer and why? What new innovations would you like to see? Which new Cataclysm features do you think will have the greatest impact on the way we play?
Patch 3.3 PTR: Meeting Stones for all
Great news for players of all classes and levels (well, levels above 15)! In the latest official patch notes update for the Patch 3.3 PTR, Blizzard added the following line: Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character's minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone. Now that's a change that's been a long time coming. Ever tried to get your level 80 guildie to Deadmines to help you carve a bloody swath straight to Van Cleef? It's a pain! Ever tried to get your lowbie to a high-level zone without a portal? Also a pain! This completely removes the restrictions on using or activating summoning stones so long as you're above level 15. Now you'll be able to bring whoever you want to any dungeon summoning stone with just two people. A fantastic quality-of-life change, very likely added to ensure that interest in rerolling remains steady until Cataclysm comes out, but who cares? I'll take it! Who wants to run me through ZF? Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Meeting Stones broken in the EU
We received a couple of reports of meeting stones not working on EU realms earlier today, and it was later confirmed by Blizzard themselves. According to the EU login screen, meeting stones are not working and it'll require a maintenance period to get them up and running again.That's very, very interesting considering the stones are working just fine in the US (I just tested to make sure), and it might have something to do with the fact that the EU patch is roughly twice the size of its US counterpart, according to a couple of people following our Twitter feed. Knowing very little about how these things work, my initial assumption was that the size difference was due to extra weight on the patch for localization purposes, but that might not be the case. It's possible Europe just received a few changes that we hadn't yet, and that's what's causing this. Or maybe not. We don't really know, and anymore speculation on my part would just make me look pretty silly considering I know so little about the process.We may not know what caused the issue, but we do know one thing: Your party will need to hoof it to their dungeons for awhile, old school style.Update: It appears the meeting stones are now fixed, and didn't require a restart or maintenance period, either! Hooray!
The Queue: Slack-jawed daffodils
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.We have another appearance from Allison Robert today for you Druid players, so that's fun! Guest answers tend to be a lot more fun, no? I certainly think so, because it means less work for me to do! I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but it's definitely fun to spread the love around a little.Chas asked...Has there ever been any lore surrounding Thane Korth'azz and Lady Blaumeux from Naxxramas? The other horsemen seem to have back-stories but I can't find anything on them.
Meeting stones useless no longer
According to Nethaera in the WoW.com forums, meeting stones will be quite useful come the Burning Crusade expansion. Instead of simply being a place to try to find potential party members (a feature that has been a terrible failure), the stones will be used to summon party members to the instance provided at least two party members are present.Out of all the neat little tweaks and features Blizzard is adding to WoW via the expansion, this one sounds like it might be my favorite. Nothing is more frustrating than finally locating a priest to help out in Dire Maul, only to have to wait for them to travel all the way from the Blasted Lands to Feralas. Now every group has the ability to get the last couple of stragglers to the instance whether they have a warlock in their party or not. Great news! [Thanks to Nelson for the quick heads up via the news tip form, and Sageblade for his comment in the LFG post.]
