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Gamers on the Street: Burned on Bloodscalp
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.This week, I decided to go visit Bloodscalp -- we've been hearing about problems with stability on Bloodscalp since patch 2.4, so I decided to get the word on what was happening straight from the people affected by it. Additionally, I wanted to talk about the upcoming Arena changes in patch 2.4.2, so I had that on the list to chat with players about as well.I created a Troll Rogue named "Wowinsider," ran up to Orgrimmar, and started chatting with the Bloodscalpians. The conversations I had with three players on the server are after the break.
The Outland daily circle
With Phase 4 upon us, The options for dailies are pretty much long and endless. Of course, with a daily limit of 25 dailies, you can end up doing most of them anyways, and while certainly don't try to spring for 25 dailies every day, I still do my fair share of dailies. About once or twice a week, I do what I have come to call my Outland Circle. All three of my characters have all the daily hubs unlocked, so between Ogri'la, the Skyguard, the Netherwing, and the Shattered Sun Offensive, I can get a lot done.
Report Card: Phase 4 daily quests
Phase 4 is now well underway, with about 50 servers having it unlocked according to us.gorgonnash.info at the time of this writing. There's still a few more things to unlock, but for the most part, the Sunwell Isle is complete, and what you see is what you get as far as resources and places to fight. So, once again, it is time to ask the question: How do these quests fit into your busy up-to-25-daily-quests-to-do lifestyle? They fit pretty well, actually!
Reigniting the flame and rediscovering the joy of Warcraft
I think my favorite part about a new patch is that it always seems to inject new life into WoW. Don't get me wrong, I love WoW all the time. I think it's a great game. But there's something about a new patch that always seems to invigorate me. There's new stuff to do, maybe a new twist or two to one of the classes I play, or at least to one of the classes I play against. What's even more interesting to me is that it sometimes makes even the old stuff feel brand new.
Patch 2.4: The unofficial patch notes
Yesterday, we sent out a call for unofficial changes, and you guys responded with plenty. The official patch notes were posted earlier this week, but here are the unofficial patch notes for patch 2.4 we've found so far. Raid reset timers are showing the wrong times. (known bug) Various weapons are showing up as the wrong sizes. (known bug) A number of AV changes were made, some of them documented, some not. We've confirmed that yes, the Chocobo squawk (press spacebar when standing still on the Blood Elf racial mount) is new to the game. Sound effect for Power World: Shield has changed in volume (thanks, Matt), as have some other sounds in the game Netherstorm mobs have had their health tuned down, and frostbolts seem to go faster (thanks, Nick) Blizzard has adjusted things so that the walljumping exploit is no longer valid in many places (thanks, Jacob) Motes of Water drop rate seems to be nerfed (thanks, Tancred) More after the jump.
Breakfast Topic: What details did you notice in 2.3?
We've talked about the happy surprises of Patch 2.3 before, but today I'd like to ask you about some of the tiniest things you notice are different in the game right now, perhaps little bug-fixes or graphical updates -- some kind of change you haven't heard others mention before.For my part, In the time just before and after Patch 2.3, I was busy working on the Netherwing quests in southeastern Shadowmoon Valley. I was having a great time with them, but a few things annoyed me. As a hunter, my pet wouldn't despawn properly when I summoned the temporary dragon mount that shows up whenever you go to do your daily quests on Netherwing Ledge. Sometimes, when my mount would change from a gryphon to a dragon in mid-flight, and my pet would fall to his death in the chasm below. This has now been fixed! Also I noticed then that everyone who was sitting on their Netherwing mounts on the ground was sitting a little bit tilted off to the side, and now everyone is sitting straight up again! Finally, the Netherwing mounts now trail their glowing nether energy effect as you fly around with them, and it's quite pretty.Yes, that's a lot of Netherwing details, I know. But all of us notice the changes we happen to be focusing on at the moment, right? What were you focusing on, and what little things did you notice on patch day?
Around Azeroth: Dragon ride!
Lyrsuk of Lothar gives us a glance of the event you get to participate in if you ever reach exalted status with the Netherwing: a dragon ride! Sadly, this dragon makes the cool mount you're about to get look awfully puny... My question is what faction standing do we have to get before we can get the dragon in the screenshot as a permanent mount?Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Your daily dose of questing
It's been a while since the daily quests were introduced with patch 2.1 on the live servers now, and most players have had time to at least give them a try. So what do you think?Personally, I really like them-- it gives me a chance when I log in to spend just a few minutes picking up a nice, guaranteed chunk of gold and rep. When we first heard about them, hardcore players were unhappy that they'd be forced to follow a daily schedule, but ten daily quests seems like a lot to do a day anyway (especially when you consider everything else there is to do in-game), and most hardcore players have probably finished all the daily quest rep grinds anyway-- I know a few of my guildies already have all the mounts and rewards available.Have you not touched the daily quests yet, or do you do them every day? And which ones are you all working on-- I've liked the Fires over Skettis eggsplosion quest (and I get better at dodging those dumb birds every day that I do it), but I'm looking forward to staring up the Netherwing herbalist quest next. How are daily quests working out for you?
What you need to know about daily quests
I'm a man of many distractions. Between a full time career, a growing family and a new writing gig at WoWInsider, I don't have as much time as I used to when it comes to my video games. When I do log on to WoW, I often look for objectives I can complete in a short amount of time, but still give me some sense of progress. Enter my new obsession: daily quests.New factions were introduced with the The Black Temple 2.1 Patch and with it came the specter of the dreaded rep grind. But this time Blizzard has added quests that reward players with hefty reputation gains in exchange for limiting their completion to once a day. Since these appeal to me greatly, I did some digging around and found a few helpful facts that may aid you in your Outland adventures. Daily quests count against your total quest count in your quest log You can have a maximum of 10 daily quests in your log at any given time The timer on redoing a daily quest is not reset every 24 hours from when you complete it, but at 2am PST Many daily quests that work in one reputation level (i.e. Neutral) continue to work in when you've achieved higher rep levels Currently you must be L70 to get these quests so they give no experience The biggest change here from previous rep grinds is being able to do lower level rep grinds while at a higher rep level. Other than that, dive in. You can try out daily quests with the Sha'tari Skyguards, Ogri'la and Netherwing factions. For a starter guide on these quest chains, check out our "Where to start with 2.1 content."
Where to start with 2.1 content
The 2.1 patch this week introduced enough new quest lines, top-end raid content, flying mounts, and L70 solo & small group content to qualify as its own game. With a three day weekend looming I didn't even know where to begin. So I scoured the web and found the where to go and what to do to get me started. THE BLACK TEMPLE: Already planning to strut around Shattrath in your T6 Raid gear? Don't bank that T5 set too quick. The Black Temple attunement quest is ... epic. And it hasn't even been fully discovered so far. What is known is that you will have to slog through a great deal of the Burning Crusade raid content that comes before it: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Serpentshire Cavern, The Eye and The Battle of Mount Hyjal. And many of those raids require extensive attunement quests of their own. If you are still itching to begin, you can dig in with the Tablets of Baa'ri chain out of Shadowmoon Valley to start grinding that Ashtongue Deathsworn rep. NETHERDRAKE EPIC FLYING MOUNT: First, don't confuse this with the Swift Nether Drake top Arena teams are awarded with at the end of every season. That one has a speed increase of 310% and has an armored appearance. This is the normal epic nether drake with a speed increase on par with other epic flying mounts: 280%. What's special about this epic flying mount is that it can be obtained through solo and small group quests. No raid required. What is required is a great deal of dedication.The first steps on your journey is to dig yourself out of Hated reputation with the Netherwing clan and get all the way to Exalted. This is accomplished through solo, 5 man and 3 man daily quests. Head to the south east corner of Shadowmoon Valley and speak to Mordenai in the Netherwing Fields. A complete write up can be found here.
Netherwing colors revealed on PTR
For some reason I missed this in the small mention we gave it the first time around, but apparently the Netherdrake mount (which I'm currently grinding like a madman to get the skill for) is available in a bevy of colors! Our friends at WoWHead have posted not only the Tier 6 stats, but also all the different Netherwing mounts.When the time comes, you'll get your choice of Azure, Cobalt, Onyx, Purple, Veridian (wha?), or Violet dragon mounts. I'm sure Onyx will be a popular choice, but you never know-- paladins might want to go for purple just so it can match with their Tier 5 gear. Unfortunately, all those colors seem really-- blue. Where's my red Netherwing, or my gray dragon? Veridian is actually kind of greenish. Looks pretty blah to me, but whatever floats your flying mount around faster than a mage spell, I guess.The mount actually comes from a rep vendor, so as long as you get exalted with whatever quests need to be done, you'll have your pick of the litter. Even though each mount is Unique, I think that only means you can't have two Onyx mounts-- I believe that you'll be able to buy as many different colors as you have the gold for (maybe those of you on the PTR can confirm or deny*-- whoops, see update). Anyway, looks great! What color are you going for?Update: Word from the PTR says it's actually a quest reward, so one dragon for you. Choose wisely. Also Veridian is apparently a typo-- the color should be viridian. (thanks, kind readers!)Update2: Now we're being told that you can buy another color after you get your first one. Looks like we'll have to wait and see what happens on the live servers.
Daily quests for casual players irk the hardcore
As you may have heard by now, the faction rep grind for the Netherwing epic mount will require players to complete "Daily" quests-- that is, short collecting quests that can be done only once per day. When players first heard about that, a lot of them felt the same way that Oddig of Skullcrusher did-- they saw the time limits on the quests as just another way Blizzard was trying to turn WoW into a timesink, in order to make spend more time playing less game.Which is not exactly wrong, if you're a hardcore player who usually grinds rep for hours every day. But as Drysc says, the Daily quests are meant for players who don't have a lot of time to invest all at once. They're meant "to provide greater reward for smaller investments of time." Basically, this is their answer to giving the casual players their own content. Just like rested XP (which is a great idea that rewards you for not rushing through content), the rewards at the end of these "Daily" grinds can't be rushed to by hardcore players who play in huge chunks of time.When you put it that way, I'm all for it. Hardcore players still won't be happy, but it's there's plenty for them to grind away already-- if you guys have already grinded every single reputation in the game so far that these daily quests are the only ones you have to do, then try playing another game for a bit (I've been liking Titan Quest a lot lately). Some players argue that the casual players expected to do these quests probably won't have the 5,000g needed for the epic riding skill to even start them, to which I say-- err, good point.Of course the other note here is that, as players have noticed on the PTR, the quests seem to reset every time the server restarts. So if you're really hankering to get to that mount quickly, you don't really have to wait for every day-- hotfixes and restarts can give you a few more quests to do every week.
