ulduar
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The Queue: Missing out
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Before we get started today, I just wanted to take a moment and mention that I'm working on a Special Edition (super special!) of The Queue focusing on Dual Specs. It won't interrupt our regular daily doses of The Queue, it'll come seperately. It might take me awhile to piece it together because people have asked a lot of Dual Spec questions, but it's coming! Slowly but surely.jam asked...What happened to the new instance that was supposed to be in Un'Goro crater, accessible only by through the Waygate in Sholazar Basin?
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Druid glyphs and undocumented changes
Personally the change I'm still plotzing over most in relation to 3.1 is the sheer locational chutzpah of the Argent Tournament. I'm not sure I understand why the northern portion of Icecrown is considered an appropriate spot. It's like seeing some Milwaukee strip-mall developer parachute into the middle of Mordor and exclaim over the retail and tourist opportunities within a 100-yard radius of Sauron's eye. What does the Scourge think about this tournament? Did they get a cut of the concession stand's profits as a means of buying their cooperation? Who else was bribed in order to make this happen? These are all questions to which I think we deserve answers.Anyway, I seem to be one of the unlucky souls doomed to disconnect every 10 minutes from the PTR (although I'm not anywhere near Dalaran), but I'm sure it'll get fixed. One minor suggestion for all those Druids porting to Moonglade in order to pick up dual-specs immediately; have 1,000g in hand before you do so. As we all know, getting into Moonglade is rather easy. Getting out of Moonglade tends to be rather more time-consuming unless you're willing to burn your hearth in a world newly free of ghetto-hearthing.Some of the undocumented changes we've actually already talked about, so if you don't see something here but missed our first article, you should find them here.
Datamined Ulduar boss information, with analysis
Yes, yes, we know you're curious about what the Ulduar boss encounters will be like, loyal readers. With 14 bosses, 11 hard modes, and an optional heroic boss, we wonder, too! We'll be able to test some of these encounters on the 3.1 PTR soon, but there are, of course, those of us who just can't wait to know anything about what's going on in Ulduar. Luckily, ever-resourceful players and dataminers have acquired information about spells and abilities related to bosses in Ulduar from the 3.1 PTR files. There's a lot of of stuff in here -- some of it may make it into the live game, some may not, and some may be related to vehicles or other sundries involved with encounters. I'm going to go into detailed analysis of those encounters for which detailed spells exist. It goes without saying that these will be huge spoilers to anyone who doesn't want their Ulduar experience to be anything but pure, so don't read past the jump if you don't want to know!
New Ulduar video from Blizzard
Ulduar is here, and Blizzard has released a new video you can watch above. We see new mobs and animations, get a look at Freya and some vehicle combat, and see some absolutely stunning interiors of the new raid zone.The video lasts just under 2 minutes, and is worth your time to take a look. There is also some Blizzard music along with it, so be sure to have your sound turned up a bit. You can download high resolution versions of the video from Blizzard.Perhaps the coolest thing in the video is around the 1:20 mark where we see a new tram style monorail (cue the Simpson's song). There are also very interesting stain glass like windows shown at the end.Ulduar represents the latest in Blizzard's dungeon making and artistic design, and by the looks of it they're poised to create one helluva masterpiece.For more coverage of Patch 3.1 and Ulduar, check out WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1.
Tier 8 Ulduar weapon models previewed, Val'anyr included
3.1 and Ulduar are coming soon. No doubt a lot of you have been looking forward to seeing what your reward for hacking apart a variety of priceless Titan artifacts and servants of the Old Gods would be. MMO-Champion, as always, has your back! They've released a preview for the weapon and accessory models that'll be in Ulduar, and they look fantastic. The theme of the instance seems to carry through into all of its gear, and I'm going to love just how good my guild and I will look after a bit of time in there. The image above is a paladin holding one of the Ulduar shields and the much-touted Val'anyr, Gavel of Ancient Kings, and that's just the tip of the iceberg from MMOC, who promises a video of it in action very soon. Bear in mind these are still tentative models and the art may change, but even then, what are you waiting for? Santa won't get mad if you peek. Go go go! Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
The Queue: Dye job
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. Adam Holisky will be your host today. So the Patch 3.1 PTR has dropped and all the madness associated with it has started. I always find it interesting to watch how some ideas and changes morph from "AMG! Imma gonna stop paying MY $15 A MONTH right now and you're gonna be out of a job because Titan's Grip didn't need to be nerfed!" to "WoW! These new Warrior changes make the Titan's Grip nerf pointless! I am so uber again!" I /facepalm at that sort of thought progression, as I suspect many of you do as well.Cielago asked:"How how long do I have to get title and mount rewards for the achievements associated with Wrath raids and heroics? Is it until patch 3.1 when Ulduar gear will make them easier? Until the next expansion? Some time in between?"
Encrypted Text: Patch 3.1 change analysis
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we look at the patch 3.1 patch notes.With the PTRs recently launched (my bet in the WoW Insider pool was Tuesday during maintenance), we've seen the first iteration of the 3.1 patch notes. They match what Ghostcrawler and Eyonix were kind enough to give us early, mostly in the flavor of Combat buffs and a change to HfB which I predict nobody will be happy with.While talking with some fellow assassins, we began musing as to what these changes will mean for Rogues of all specs and playstyles. Read on after the cut for a full analysis of the big changes.
World of Warcraft 3.1 PTR Patch Notes
Here we go boys and girls, the main event, what we've all been waiting for: the PTR Patch 3.1 Patch Notes. As a reminder, these patch notes are preliminary and incomplete – but that's just the way we like 'em. There will be lots more added in to them over the coming weeks, eventually resulting in the release patch notes we'll see when 3.1 makes it to the live servers.These notes were retrieved from the downloaded patch files. Blizzard has not (as usual) updated their websites to reflect the latest PTR notes.Of course, we'll be bringing you detailed updates on the notes as they're changed every day. Stay tuned and check back often for the latest!Some of the major changes included in the patch notes include: Mounts will not dismount in water Dual specs Ulduar raid instance BG queuing anywhere in the world Full notes after the break! Be sure to check out the WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1 for all our posts concerning this latest patch.
WoW Insider Show Episode 78: Thrusting Hodir's shoot 'em up aces high
It was chaos on the WoW Insider Show this past week -- we had Zach Yonzon on from the Philippines, Turpster in from England, and Michael Sacco from Austin, TX, so we were stretched across the world (and you can probably hear it in our audio). But we still got some good WoW discussion in, including our favorite daily quests (I've done Shoot 'Em Up every day since we recorded this, and I still really like it), a little bit about Ulduar and what we might find in there, and the coming PTR and what we might see there as well.Plus, as scrambled and confusing as this show may be, it has probably the funniest moment in my memory of all our recordings -- I think we were all pretty much "ROFL" at the new Meat of the Show intro, as they say on the Internet. If you want to send in an intro, a comment, or anything else, feel free to send it along to theshow@wow.com, and you might even hear it on the next recording, next Saturday at 3:30 Eastern as usual.Enjoy. We'll see you next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Breakfast Topic: Raiding: How easy is too easy?
Karthis, a feral Druid from the Garona-US server, wrote a thought-provoking treatise on the current end-game on his blog a few days ago. Of course, he's hardly the first to declare the current end-game far too easy, but he brings a very interesting angle to the discussion -- namely that of the casual.He interviews various casual raid guild leaders in his piece. These are guild leaders who, back in Burning Crusade, mostly ran Karazhan and maybe dabbled a bit in Zul'aman. They certainly were far behind the curve. But they had a dedicated core of 10 raiders who got together, faced the challenges, and overcame them. But now, even these casuals are saying that the end-game is just too easy. One guild leader interviewed is finding that some of their raiders have gotten all the loot they need from Naxxramas and maxed out Northrend Achievements and Reputations, and, for lack of anything to do, are not logging on for days or simply letting their subscriptions lapse altogether, leaving their guild leader to make the painful decision once Ulduar comes to either refuse to give them their raid slots back or kick out their replacements.
How to be useful on the PTR
Yep, another PTR post. For all we know, the recent frenzy surrounding the PTR has been manufactured by Blizzard as a practical joke while their programmers are out playing skee-ball. We don't have the foggiest idea of when it's going to hit, but back-channel discussion here at WoW Insider HQ currently has the smart money on "whenever Elizabeth Wachowski is away from her computer." My real reason for writing this is that a lot of people in the beta seemed to treat the server as an extended vacation from the live realms, and this upset a lot of old PTR hands who assumed people knew they were supposed to submit feedback, and not just play with all the cool new toys. Yes, you should have fun, and you can contemplate the trippy philosophical notion of your character's existence in an alternate universe (duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!), but you can do a lot of things to help patch 3.1 launch without issues. The point of the test realms' existence is for Blizzard to test everything new with as large a population of players as possible. If you're uninterested in submitting polite, honest, and frequent feedback, you're making it harder for them to get an accurate sense of the patch's impact on live realms.
WoW Insider Show live worldwide this afternoon
Yes, our show is going intercontinental yet again today -- on one side of the world, we'll have the inimitable Turpster chatting with us from England, and on the other, Zach Yonzon will be calling in from his home in the Philippines. We've tried to tackle some Paladin news lately, and we haven't done it very well, so Zach will help us get a grip on what's up with you plate healers lately. And from the US, Michael Sacco (a.k.a. Belfaire) will be on with us as well.Should be a great show. We'll go live at 3:30 EST over on the Ustream page (and there's an embedded stream right after the break here), and we'll talk about the plans for Ulduar, the imminent PTR, vehicular combat and why some people dislike it so much, and we may even fit in a little bit of discussion about pets tanking and why Blizzard says no. And we'll answer your emails and questions -- you can talk to us in the live chat if you're around for the show (and the preshow and the aftershow), or you can always email us at theshow@wow.com.We'll see you this afternoon!
PTR forums are up! Panic some more!
Maybe PTR character copies being up today isn't a fluke after all ! The US PTR forums just came up as well, ready to become an unceasing wall of jungle animal noises. Head on over if you're so inclined. With the character copy page being up too, signs are continuing to point to it being 3.1 PTR go time very soon. Be ready to download that client and, as always, keep an eye out here for when the PTR news trickle inevitably turns into a flood. We swear to shake it up if you swear to listen.
PTR character copy is back up! Everybody panic!
Okay, everybody. Stock up on tarps, bottled water, and canned beans, because the PTR character copy site is up and running again. We don't know if this means anything, or if this PTR is actually going up soon, or even if these copies will actually work, but it is our duty to make sure you get a steady news trickle of anything and everything related to the 3.1 PTR. There are currently two realms to which you can copy - Broxigar (PVE) and Anasterian (PVP). Go copy a character or two, then get in the fallout shelter, because things just might get exciting soon. Alternatively, these copies might go nowhere like the last set. Fingers crossed!
Breakfast Topic: Gonna check out Ulduar on the PTR?
It doesn't take Mind Vision to determine that I'm really, really excited for 3.1, and of all of its features, the Ulduar raid has me enthralled the most. I love new raids, and after all this time running Naxx, I'm ready to move on to a bigger and badder place. It doesn't hurt that everything I've heard about Ulduar sounds great! 14 bosses, hard modes, optional bosses, getting launched onto the back of a giant fire-breathing robot ... I honestly can't think of any negatives about the place. I guess it's just what I needed. Of course, I haven't played it yet. But soon, very soon, the PTR will go live and I'll be able to bask in all of its brass-and-marble glory. And you won't be able to shut me up about it if you try. If you can't beat me, though, you should consider joining me there.I'm aware, of course, that raiding's not for everyone, and that some people don't want encounters spoiled for them before they go live. So what about you guys? Are you looking forward to checking out Ulduar for yourself on the PTR? Gonna wait until it hits live WoW to try it out? Or do you just not care about Titantown too much?THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE ANSWERED (BY YOU) IN THIS, THE BREAKFAST TOPIC.
Hard Mode raiding is here to stay
"Then there's Agalon the Raid Destroyer. He feeds off of your tears." Valnoth's gunning for the title 'cheekiest Blue poster' with this one, but it made me laugh anyway because I know lots of people who would sign up for a raid that had such a boss in it. In a thread started by Lightsnight, who argues that hard modes in a dungeon are 'a stupid gimmick', Valnoth counters with what I think is a measured response (keeping in mind that I'm very sarcastic) - " Hard Modes are intended for people that want additional challenges and rewards. You might view them as a gimmick, but I assure you that hard modes will test the mettle of the most seasoned raiding guilds. The choice is yours, my friend. " This is a relief for me heading into Ulduar.
The Queue: Praying for the PTR
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, WoW Insider! I'm feeling pretty good today, how about you? Why am I feeling so good? The idea of the PTR potentially going up in the next couple of days is giving me a bit of a rush. Seeing all of the new stuff is one of the big things that excites me about MMOs, and of course passing that info on to you guys. Let's hope it goes up sometime soon, because it will rule.Firestride asked...What should I do if I get into an AV raid that is intent on zerging, and going up against an opponent who is also zerging, only better at it?
Ulduar vehicles will scale with gear
Here's a little consolation to those of you, like Eliah, concerned about the Ulduar vehicle fights: Unlike some of the other vehicle fights in the game already, Daelo says on the forums that the vehicles in the next raid will actually scale with gear. He says someone in blues will have a much harder time in the vehicles than someone kitted out in Naxx gear.Personally, I've only done Oculus, but I do agree with Eliah that putting us in vehicles takes away a lot of the achievement we've gained by leveling and questing -- it's not fun to fail on a boss just because you're trying to deal with a whole new set of abilities you've had no control over until you jumped in the driver's seat. But the fact that the Ulduar vehicles will scale helps a little bit -- players were concerned that every time you went in there, it'd be the same fight, but with new gear that should change. And obviously Blizzard has heard the concerns about the Oculus, so you'd have to hope they wouldn't make the same mistake twice.Elsewhere on the forums, Zarhym promises, comically, that we'll all enjoy this (and that we'll forget to post how much we enjoy it on the forums afterwards). He says that the fight is different from anything else we've done in the World of Warcraft, and that when all is said and blown up, it'll be an epic encounter. We'll see.Need more news about Ulduar? We've got updates, previews, speculation, and everything else you need to know about the next big raid coming in patch 3.1. If the Titans are hiding it up there, we'll tell you about it here.
A plea against vehicle combat
Earlier today Blizzard posted a preview of Ulduar, the tier 8 raid coming up in patch 3.1 (which they promise will be on the PTRs "very soon"). Most of it looks really cool - 14 bosses, massive rooms, hard modes. However, there is one topic that Blizzard enthused about that really worries me: vehicle combat. We've already seen some vehicle-based boss fights in Eregos (the final boss of the Oculus) and on the third phase of the Malygos fight. But Ulduar is, apparently, going to take it one step farther: there will be a vehicle-combat gauntlet leading up to the first boss, Flame Leviathan, and that boss itself will also be a vehicle fight, with players picking among three vehicles (Chopper, Demolisher, and Siege Engine) to command.
Major Ulduar testing news: PTR soon, not all bosses available
Quite big news from Daelo, the lead encounter designer concerning the release and testing of Ulduar. First and foremost, Daelo says that we're getting close to the point where Ulduar will be available for testing on the PTR. That means that PTR is soon, and given the maintenance today and other major announcements, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it tonight.Secondly, Ulduar will not be tested like a normal instance. The testing will be in phases and only happen according to the schedule Blizzard lays out. They'll announce times when certain bosses will be available for testing, and that means that only during those times will those bosses be open for play. This also means that Ulduar will initially be closed on the PTR.But think for a moment about what this does – it means that we won't be seeing strategies and other guides immediately available upon release of the patch (or in most cases before the patch). It means that world firsts will actually mean something again, and it won't just be a rush to see who can log onto the server first.That is quite big and exciting news. Daelo also lets us know a few other things.Need more news about Ulduar? We've got updates, previews, speculation, and everything else you need to know about the next big raid coming in patch 3.1. If the Titans are hiding it up there, we'll tell you about it here.
