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Raid Timers Still Broken?
Though all realms were restarted on the 31st in order to restore raid reset timers to their normal behavior, raids still aren't resetting on their ordinary schedule. Blizzard hasn't made any comment on the matter, so it's hard to say whether they're intending to change raid reset timers or whether the timers are still bugged. Nevertheless, my Blackwing Lair ID seems to be resetting mid-day Thursday instead of its scheduled Tuesday. Hopefully we'll get some clarification on what's going on soon, but until then be aware that raids aren't on their usual schedule.
Onyxia Hotfixed
Though I'm not sure how I missed this, a hotfix was applied on Friday evening fixing an unintentional change in the Onyxia encounter. If you missed fighting Onyxia during that time, consider yourself lucky - apparently she was using her deep breath ability to burn raids to a crisp every 10 to 15 seconds. No word as of yet on other raid related issues that were introduced in patch 1.10.
Wisps: Really the New Alliance Race?
Initially, I brushed off the "wisp" announcement as an obvious April Fool's prank, but Blizzard has thus far been sticking to the assertion, with numerous forum posts asserting that wisps are the real deal. This evening, Drysc noted that it was unfortunate the change was announced so close to April Fool's. And Eyonix points out that he's stated multiple times that wisps aren't a joke. So now I have to wonder - is this the real thing, or is it just an elaborate prank?
Burning Crusade Q & A with Jeffrey Kaplan
Jeffery Kaplan, known to readers of the official forums as Tigole, has talked briefly with Gamespot about new races, jewelcrafting, flying mounts, and all things expansion. No, he hasn't dropped any solid hints about the new Alliance race, though, much to my relief, he has said nothing of wisps. However, despite the lack of solid news, the interview is interesting and provides several interesting tidbits to keep us speculating about what exactly we're going to see in the Burning Crusade.[Via MMORPG Blog]
Raid Reset Issues Continue
This morning's server restarts, which were intended to fix raid resets, apparently did not solve the problem. Community manager Eyonix tells us they have managed to identify the problem, however, and are working on implementing a fix that will not require additional playtime interruption. As much as I disliked the initial change that put all raids on a fixed calendar of resets, I've come to appreciate the predictability of such a system. Hopefully we'll see a fix soon!Update: All raid IDs on European realms were manually reset today in order to solve this issue. Ouch.
More April Fool's... 1.11 Patch Notes!
Well, it's official - I'm rolling a Gnome druid in 1.11! Caydiem has been running around the forums posting 1.11 patch notes, and all I can say is that they're utterly hilarious and you really must read them for yourself. I warn against trying to read them if you happen to be surfing at work right now - it's hard to help laughing. [Thanks, Saba]
April Fool's with Blizzard
While I could be wrong, I'm guessing this announcement of the new Alliance race is an early April Fool's joke. Not just because the idea of a "wisp" race came completely out of the blue, but because their racial abilities seem downright odd. My personal favorite has to be treeform, which turns the wisp into a tree for 30 seconds. During this time, spirit is increased by 300 but the wisp's chance to dodge or parry axes is reduced by 50%.Edit: Eyonix claims this is "no joke" but I still think he's joking.
Character Transfers for the Well Connected?
Blizzard has always held to the premise that global character transfers are not available due to technical limitations - which seems to be confirmed by the problems that plague their official realm transfers. But occasionally they do things that make you wonder. Around the time I started playing, an entire guild was transfered by Blizzard from Uther to Eldre'Thalas (where I was playing at the time) - much to the outrage of the player-base. And on Monday, a player from Uther noticed two new unknown characters on the server - and a quick lookup on Warcraft Realms showed them to have been, until recently, residents of Sargeras server. Since no official transfers are open between the two servers, this does make one wonder how they arrived on Uther. No official word yet, but I'll keep an eye out for more news.
Four More New Realms!
You read that right. At 12:00 PM PST there will be four more new realms opening for those of you interested in making a new start in the world. So let's all give Ysera (PVE), Dentarg (PVP), Andorhal (PVP), and Executus (PVP) a warm welcome to the server list.Also worth noting that these, and all of the other recently opened realms, are running on gleaming new hardware. Hopefully this means improved performance and reduced lag.
Raid Reset Fix
All US servers will be going offline at 4:00 AM PST on Friday, March 31st to restore raid reset timers to their normal behavior. Expected downtime for each server is less than five minutes. Yay - one bug down, and how many to go..? I'm personally waiting on that Chromaggus fix. (Time lapse and ignite flesh? It burns us!)
Raiding After Patch 1.10
While you can hardly pass a day without seeing several threads in Blizzard's Raid & Dungeon forums proclaiming "ONYXIA STEALTH BUFFED!", I wonder if this time the posters have a point. There are numerous new and interesting challenges awaiting the raider in 1.10 and none of them made it into the patch notes. Are they bugs or features? We may not know unless we see hotfixes. Anyone out there see any other odd raid issues happening this patch?
