testrealms
Latest
PTR Notes: Kill command bugged
This is a weird, weird bug. Over on the PTRs, Tig has found that every time he tells his pet to drop the Kill Command, the mob attacked also executes the spell on its target. For example, if Tig is shooting a murloc, and his pet Ganjii is in melee with that murloc, Ganjii's Kill Command will attack the murloc, and then the murloc will somehow also drop a Kill Command attack on its target (in this case Ganjii).That's a big bug, because if you move it to, say, a boss, a Hunter could drop the Kill Command on the boss while the main tank's health is low, which would cause the boss to instantly attack the main tank, in effect wiping the raid. Not cool.Hortus wonders if it's just against specific mobs, but that's the last we hear of Blue-- there's no confirmation that it's a known bug and that they're planning a fix. Of course, it is the test realm, so let's not get too excited-- chances are that by the time this big patch reaches the live servers, this won't still be happening. But if you happen to be hitting the Kill Command with your pet on the test realms, watch out for that extra attack.Thanks, Colin!
A case for patience on the PTRs
You'll forgive me for trying to inject a little reason into a nerf debate (an impossible task, probably), but that's what I'm about to try and do anyway.Yesterday, mages, warlocks, and shadow priests were up in arms about the changes on the test realm to the tailoring epic outfits. Blizzard was experimenting with adding ability stats to the armor while nerfing spell damage, and tailors went ballistic over the changes. And so, within a matter of hours, Eyonix announced on the forums that the changes had already been reverted and would not go to the live servers.Now, yesterday I said the nerfs weren't that big a deal, and since then, I've seen some good points that say they were-- lots of people spent lots of time and gold getting just these recipes together (some even leveled tailoring for just these pieces), and it definitely presents a problem to make serious changes to gear that people have already sacrificed a lot for.On the other hand, there were good reasons behind the changes as well. As even a few tailors have said, these crafted pieces matched up to the Tier 4 and 5 pieces, and I see problems with basically requiring clothies to be tailors to be competitive in the endgame. Many warlocks cried the most about the changes, but because +spell damage doesn't translate directly to most of their DOT spells, in many cases, they would actually be the least affected (Update: In hindsight, I shouldn't have judged how affected anyone was by this change. But that's not the point of this article-- read on.)But my point now isn't to argue whether these sets should have been changed or not. What I want to point out now is that being outraged on the forums and yelling at Blizzard about something that's happening on the test realms will actually impede the developers' abilities to make good changes on the live ones.
Breakfast Topic: Testing!
The public test realms opened late Friday, and despite stability issues, are officially online. With lots of interesting changes, are you interested in checking them out? Perhaps exploring the new Naxxramas dungeon with a pick up group, or just enjoying playing a pre-made and pre-geared level 60 character. So let us know - will we be seeing you on the test realm?
Testing Raid Content
When Blackwing Lair was released, way back in patch 1.6, it was ridden with bugs. In order to keep the content top secret and preserve fair competition between guilds seeking world firsts on the live realms, it was never released on the public test realms - and its lack of polish showed. For Ahn'Qiraj, Blizzard took the alternate approach, releasing it on the public test realms for all to try. Tigole has already announced plans for an "extended test period" of Naxxramas, but some question whether having the instance available for testing ruins the race for world firsts. What do you think - does testing make enough of a difference to be worth spoiling the surprises?
Breakfast Topic: To test or not to test?
Now that we're familiar with the test realm contests, that Beta spot looks oh-so-inviting, but which contest to enter? If any? Having briefly popped on to the Honor Contest EU realm yesterday, it seems that many players are pinning their hopes on PvP, labelling the race to 50 as "only for gold farmers" and the level 25 alts competition as "a waste of time".Whether this attitude is fair is another matter, but there's certainly been a lot of confusion over the contests so far. Many players arrived on the Honor Contest realm looking for their level 60 characters, so often that players in Mulgore made macros to clear things up in chat. The feeling is definitely one of "every man for himself", with newbies who ask "which is the best class for pvp?" or "what's the fastest way to level?" often going unanswered.It strikes me what a tremendous amount of time these gamers are going to have to put in to win the contest--but it certainly looks achievable, and that time would probably be spent playing WoW anyway. Are you planning to enter a contest? If so, which one?
