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WoW EU previews Ulduar
We've been waiting not-very-patiently for news on Ulduar and patch 3.1, and the WoW EU website certainly delivered today. A preview for Ulduar has been posted, with some descriptions of the early raid encounters and a little more lore flavor for the zone itself. The very beginning of the preview gives a little setup for the zone: "Some thought it a city, built to herald the glory of its makers; some thought it a vault containing innumerable treasures, perhaps even relics of the mighty Titans themselves. They were wrong. Beyond its gates lies no city, no treasure vault, no final answer to the Titan's mysteries. All that awaits those who dare set foot in Ulduar is a horror even the Titans could not, would not destroy, an evil they merely... contained."Awesome? I would say so. The preview also drives the point home that Blizzard is really loving the hard mode options of encounters. 11 out of 14 encounters will have a hard mode (or modes), so your raid can determine what they can handle. I don't want to get too excited about the preview, I'd like to see the zone in person before I get giddy, but it does sound damn cool and the pictures they supply are very pretty. Go forth and devour their bandwidth, my friends.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.
Who's the boss (in Ulduar)?
All this talk of 3.1 we've been seeing lately is fantastic! Class and talent changes everywhere, dual-spec announcements (see? I told you!), it's all great stuff. For me, though, the big draw of 3.1 is -- read my lips -- one new dungeon! I know, I know, raids is raids, but I'm getting pretty tired of Naxx, and I want a nice long raid to sink my teeth into. New strats to learn! Setting a course through uncharted territory! Wiping because we don't know the fight yet! I'm just so excited. Of course, the one thing we haven't found out about Ulduar yet is who the heck we're killing for their purples! Being a reasonable man who reads his quest text, though, I've been able to divine the identities of a few personalities we're likely to encounter. The Ulduar screenshots from beta, with their diverse wings and amazing architecture, also hint to these same folks. They'll be involved, and I'll put good gold on it. Who's ready to rumble?
WRUP: Love Is in the Air edition
It'd be quicker to count the number of WoW Insider staffers who aren't working on Love Is in the Air achievements this weekend than to count those that are. (And if you're interested in becoming a Fool for Love, too, check out our guide to earning the Love is In the Air meta-achievement.) Though there are a couple of hold-outs doing something called "raiding" or "real life" this weekend, holiday-mania seems to hold sway. If you're interested in knowing what sort of trouble the WoW Insider team is getting into this weekend -- or want to tell us what sort of trouble you're getting into this weekend -- read on!
Season 6 weapons as good as Ulduar drops
As an addendum to the recent Arena system FAQ posted on the forums, Kalgan addresses several concerns about the gear, the system, and questions of skill vs. gear. In a very forthcoming and transparent post, Kalgan admits that Blizzard "botched the ilvls" of the current Deadly Gladiator weapons by making them a full tier below the items from Kel'thuzad in heroic Naxxramas. At the time they designed them, Blizzard didn't account for how easily accessible Kel'thuzad would be. He promises they won't make the same mistake in Season 6, and that the new Furious Gladiator weapons would be equivalent to the items in Ulduar. Kalgan explains that the aim is to balance the accessibility of the items so that the number of raiders who have access to the best raid weapons is roughly the same as the number of Arena players with access to the best PvP weapons. He even goes so far as to say that Blizzard will make two tiers of PvP weapons if necessary. This might have been in the original plan as Hateful Gladiator weapons are in the game files but not available in the game.
Ready Check: Preparing for Ulduar
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look to the future...In amongst detailed tactical explanations of the various bosses currently residing in the available level 80 raid instances, let's take a break to look at the bigger picture. Many guilds are in a situation several of you can relate to: having cleared Naxxramas, the Eye of Eternity and the Obsidian Sanctum (let's not pretend Vault of Archavon's a proper raid instance), there's nothing left to do but clear them again. And again. And again...Welcome to farm status. Whether you struggled to defeat the final denizens of these dungeons or facerolled it all in the first week, eventually raiders reach a common plateau with everything killed and these kills more or less easily repeatable. When at this point, there are several different directions you can go, and I'm sure we've all seen other people do one or more of the following: get bored and simply stop showing up; get greedy and focus entirely on loot, playing sloppily and angsting over drops; level an alt and suddenly have the world revolve around that character, trying to get it into raids because your main doesn't need loot; or hunker down and start preparing for the future.This week's column deals with the latter, but if you're seeing people exhibit less-than-savoury behaviour now you clear everything in one night a week, it can be very telling -- especially if they're a recent recruit. With the leisure of a farm period, you have time to deal with these people as your guild sees fit, although boredom is a real problem when farm periods are long (such as the gap between Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau). With nothing to interest hardcore raiders in the game any more, real life starts rearing its head, and many guilds lose important players at this time, replacing them with untried raiders who might seem great on farm content but whose skill on progress raids is an unknown. There's no real solution to this, it happens, and it's up to your guild how you deal with it.So how does a guild prepare for a raid instance nobody knows much about?
Ulduar will be 64 harder
Pushed by players to answer just how hard Ulduar really is, EU CM Wyrxian has an answer: 64. Apparently, the instance will be 64 harder than the current Wrath instances. In other news, the recent patch 3.1 changes will make playing the game about 75 more fun, and the ammunition change alone will put Hunters 23 higher than they've been in the past. More news as we get it.Joking aside, obviously Wryxian says Ulduar will be harder, but it's not easy to put a number on difficulty. He says "it has to be experienced to understand." Blizzard has already said that they want to change things like mana regeneration to be less frantic and more strategic, so it'll be interesting to see just what kinds of mechanics appear in Ulduar -- odds are the difficulty probably won't be of the "Bosses that hit really, really hard" variety, but rather that we'll see more situations where the raid's attention is divided x number of ways. Maybe 64?At any rate, the PTR should be up soon, if not tonight considering all of the reveals Blizzard has done this week, and then we'll have a better idea of what the next raid has in store for us.
Rumor: Interview with a 3D modeler from Blizzard
We're going to go ahead and throw this out there, even though it's likely as fake as the 3.1 patch notes that come out a little while ago. But WotLK Wiki has an "interview" up with someone who (without any proof at all) claims to be a 3D modeler for Blizzard, and it's got some interesting info in it about a few of the future patches and the way things work behind the scenes over there.The good news is that we'll someday know if this guy's full of bull or not -- he says that the optional boss in Ulduar will be vehicle-based, and that part of the raid will deal with the boss, while the other part of the raid runs around destroying parts of the environment in vehicles. He also says there's a whole new Azjol-Nerub zone going into the game in patch 3.2, and that the next expansion will likely focus on the Maelstrom and Caverns of Time, which will send us back in time and have Sargeras and Azshara as the main baddies. This could all be complete and total boloney (most of those things have already been rumored before), but at least it's stuff we can verify in the future.The rest of his insights could just be made up, and unfortunately, he says some unkind things about a few other developers that Blizzard would probably frown upon if they were true. So take this with a metric ton of salt -- I looked around the Something Awful Ask/Tell forums to see if that's where this was originally posted, but didn't find anything, and WotLK Wiki didn't share a source at all, either. But we do have to agree with one of their sentiments: it would be nice if Blizzard was this forthcoming with some of their official outlets.
Zarhym: Artists are "hacking away at" new dances
Okay, so we've been hearing this for a while now. The Dance Studio is coming at some point during Wrath, it's just been delayed. There's been no word about that beyond it though. We're not even sure if they have a rough target patch for it. It's just sort of out there, that unanswered question: Dude, where's my feature? Zarhym spoke out on it again the other day, and while on one level it's more of the same "it's coming when it comes" type of talk we've heard before, he does say that the art team is "hacking away" at it when they aren't faced with more looming deadlines like Ulduar. This is probably the first time that I can recall that we have had someone from the Blizzard team saying that yes, it is being actively worked on. Now admittedly, this still isn't a release date, and I'm still not expecting it until at least 3.3, but it's out there, which is the good thing. Here's looking forward to the day when I can have my Human Death Knight start dancing the Matt Dance.
Believe it or Don't: Patch 3.1 notes leaked? [Updated]
Edit: Just in case some of you have any lingering doubts, yes, these are fake. Aurelius of Forlorn Legacy on Windrunner-US has fessed up as the creator. Most of us saw this coming, of course, but the patch notes are at least fun to pick apart and tease. Regardless, when the real 3.1 notes come out, we'll have them here on WoW Insider, so stay tuned.So a few minutes ago, a reader by the name of Mike -- if that is his real name -- sent us, without links or other proof, a copy of what he says are the official patch notes for 3.1 from an early internal build. So we've now been having a pretty robust discussion here at WoW Insider HQ over whether they're legit or not. Me, I'm not so sure. The Hunter and Death Knight changes are a little overpowered (Don't get me wrong, I'd love the changes, I just recognize they're probably a bit on the overpowered side), and the whole Ruby Sanctum thing seems out of left field when the dungeon focus is supposed to be Ulduar. On the other side, Adam is pretty insistent that these changes could just be an earlier test build that will get nerfed down, and the class changes are no worse than, say, patch 2.1 anyway. Alex and Matt Rossi are leaning toward fake too. So in the end, we just decided we better post these and let you judge for yourself. I'd recommend taking them with a big grain of salt myself, but read up after the break and let us know what you think.
Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler
One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring. Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your raid is probably going to want to find a Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin, or Survival Hunter if they haven't already.
A kind-of-sort-of Ulduar preview
Our intrepid YouTube adventurer Dan O'Halloran found this video posted back on the 5th of January this year detailing the Ulduar raid zone thus far. It was made using private server technology, and contains heavy spoilers. You've been warned.When you watch the video you'll notice that much of it is incomplete. Large areas are nothing more than gray swaths with no content in them. This is intentional and normal – the areas just are not developed yet.However there are areas which are vibrant and high quality. Parts of the place resemble (as expected) the ancient gods look to it. The place could (and will) be sitting right next to the Halls of Lightning.Take a watch through the video when you have a moment today. And don't forget to check out the previews of the Tier 8 gear MMO-Champion is offering.Update 7:38 p.m. EST: Looks like Blizzard had YouTube take the video down.
MMO-Champion's Tier 8 preview video
I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty hungry for patch 3.1 information. There's not a whole lot of it yet, but I suspect we'll be hit with a deluge of it by mid-Februrary. That's just my personal guess though, and I can't say there's much to back it up. It's sort of a void of information right now. I'm still itching to see and hear more about it though, so I was pretty happy to see the video MMO-Champion posted earlier today. It highlights the Tier 8 sets that can currently be found in the datafiles, which we've seen before but not in such a clear and simple video, with nice and (generally) neutral lighting. Death Knights, Hunters, Rogues, Mages, Warlocks, and Priests are highlighted, in that order. The last few classes don't have any skins (or hints of skins) buried in the game yet, so we'll need to wait awhile to see those. Out of the ones we can see, I'm not really sure which set is my favorite. They're all pretty cool and fit the class decently enough, except for possibly Hunters which is still cool but looks a lot like a Plate set for some reason. The Priest set is pretty amazing, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting my hands on it eventually.
The Queue: Who cares about 3.0.8, where's 3.1?
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.The title above is only half-joking. Patch 3.0.8 didn't supply any real content which is what we're all waiting for, but at this point rolling out patch 3.1 too quickly would be a disaster. I think game quality is worse now than it was before 3.0.8, so I'd much rather see things working smoothly again before they throw patch 3.1 at us. Of course, I'm also pretty bored with Wrath already, so...Zoidberg asked...So, what do we know about 3.1? What do we know about dual spec? Anything about Ulduar? Anything about DK nerfs? Warlock buffs? Will I get any Silver Covenant rep?
The Queue: Patch 3.0.8 is here!
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.Good news, everyone! We have a guest star today on The Queue! Yes, that's right, a very special guest! Well, sort of. I guess she's not that special after all, but our resident Feral Druid guru chimed in to answer a Bear question yesterday, and she answered it better than I ever could. Our first question of the day is hers to handle, then it's back to me. Because you all love me, right?thon asked...I've had a lot of heated debate on the current def cap of Druid Bear Tanks. Is there one if specced into Survival of the Fittest? Is it lower than a normal tank class? I'd love to be able to tell them for certain to pipe down!
Encrypted Text: Patiently awaiting patch 3.0.8
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'll discuss the upcoming Rogue changes in patch 3.0.8.According to the SK-Gaming Top 100, Rogues are doing pretty well. Our fraternity of assassins has a solid hold on the coveted #3 slot, behind the insanely dominant Death Knight / Holy Paladin combination. With Druids and Warriors being as powerful as they were in Seasons 3 and 4, seeing them bring up the bottom of the Top 100 representation is the truest indicator of significant balance changes that Wrath brought with it.Luckily, I feel that Rogues are far stronger than our 10% representation shows. We are poised to absorb the market share that Paladin and Death Knights will be hemorrhaging when the long-awaited patch 3.0.8 comes to right all the wrongs that this team has committed. Four of the top six classes in the SK-100 are being nerfed significantly, with Rogues being the least affected by these changes. After the cut, I'll cover important changes for Rogues in 3.0.8, as well as a few changes that will alter our top opponents as well.
More on Ulduar and hard modes
Daelo, the lead encounter designer, has dropped a few more details about Ulduar, the tier 8 raid that is coming in patch 3.1 (whenever that happens to be). We heard yesterday that there will be more "hard modes" in the raid, analogous to Sartharion. Today we learn that, again like Sartharion, completing the hard modes will give you not only achievements but also additional, better loot. There is also, apparently, going to be an optional encounter in the raid that will be hard-mode-only; I'm picturing something like Nightbane here. Furthermore, Ulduar in general, according to the post, will be harder than Naxxramas is. Naxx was tuned easy on purpose, and the devs have been saying for a while that Ulduar will not be that way, to the same extent. The analogy Daelo makes in his post is that if Naxx is "the introduction to raiding 101 class for players who have never raided before," Ulduar is "the second year class." So we won't be hitting a brick wall, but it probably won't be compared to UBRS either like Naxx often is now. Either way, we won't know much for sure until it's up on the PTR, but I'm certainly looking forward to it.
Ulduar and Blizzard's "hard modes"
We're only a day into 2009, and we've already got an update on one of our predictions. Vaneras has appeared on the EU forums talking about Ulduar's difficulty level and he says that yes, it will make a PTR appearance, and yes, it will be hard, but probably not in the way that we'd expect. He says that Blizzard is pleased with the way the "Sartharion with no drakes" worked, so they're planning to expand on that idea in the upcoming raids, by including more "hard modes" and more achievements, with "an increase of reward level if successful."So the odds are that we'll still see Ulduar's normal mode downed within days if not minutes on the live realms -- it won't actually be "hard" in the sense that the guilds with high level gear won't be able to plow right through it. But there will likely be multiple challenges within that are very hard, and achievements that will likely reward special gear or titles that will take guilds a while to do. This probably won't satisfy most of the really hardcore raiders, but we've been over this one -- Blizzard would rather have the majority of the playerbase play these raids, and since challenges and achievements don't take as much development time, that's what the minority of really hardcore players will get.Of course, as with everything, we'll have to see how it works out -- Blizzard is clearly trying to make sure everyone coming to these raids finds what they're looking for in terms of a challenge. Ulduar itself might not be as hard as we predicted, but if Blizzard really ramps up the "hard modes" within the instance, it could be a while before we see anyone able to topple all of the challenges in there.
Know Your Lore: The Sons of Hodir
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? Leave a comment below! This week, the role of Alex Ziebart will be played by Matthew Rossi.Hi. You may remember me from not finishing the KYL on Thrall. Well, since this week our Alex Ziebart has to take a small breather, I'm filling in for him as part of our "Hey, I finished that post you didn't so you owe me, and also the pictures are back from the developer and I'd hate to have to post them to the website" arrangement. Alex informed me as he handed over the package in that park, just before my trained snipers totally failed me, that this week would be discussing the Sons of Hodir from a lore perspective. Since until such time as Agent Deathwolf tracks him down and retrieves the microfilm I have no choice, that will be the topic of today's post.Since I happen to be exalted twice with these guys, it seems a fair enough question to ask who they are and where they come from. So far, we have fragments of the story, but not the whole picture as yet. If it even needs to be said at this late point, I will be dropping spoilers for Storm Peaks quests like they were remarkably heavy antiques that you asked me to help you move into your new apartment on the 17th floor and I wanted to make sure you never asked again.
Why "easy raids" are a good thing (for now)
I really didn't expect to be writing this. Like others, I was left a bit nonplussed at the seeming ease of early raiding content in Wrath, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like an interesting intersection of prudence, circumstances, and quite possibly some residual discomfort on Blizzard's part over how awful early BC raiding was. I don't think that the current "ease" of first-tier raid content in Wrath is a bad thing -- and I also don't expect future content to stay that way. My guild cleared all of the 25-man raid content in Wrath within two weeks of the expansion's release. Naxxramas was easily the biggest non-surprise. Doing Naxx-25 in the company of people who know the place inside and out is a pretty straightforward and -- dare I say it -- easy process. This is even more true with players who learned the original Naxx at 70, with a much greater margin for error than they would have had at 60. Honestly? Most of the fights haven't changed to the point where you'd have to toss out your previous strategy and start all over again. A raid that saw Naxx at any point between 60 and 70 is effectively an old dog that doesn't have to learn a new trick.
Ghostcrawler: Wrath's difficulty is where we want it
One of the biggest concerns we've heard from players since the expansion launched is that everything is too easy -- not only did the hardcore raiders burn down the PvE endgame content in a matter of days, but upgrades aren't really what they used to be, and anyone with some solid gear that blow through most of the instances without too much trouble. Which begs the question: is Wrath too easy?No, according to our buddy Ghostcrawler. He says that Blizzard's goal this time around was to avoid the Karazhan mistake from the last expansion, where players butted their heads up against tougher content in the early endgame. GC says that Blizzard certainly knows how to make tougher content, but they'd rather everyone got a turn this time around.The only question I have left is why they didn't include it all in the same release -- Blizzard seems to be saying that harder content is on the way, but wouldn't it be more prudent to have both easy and hard content in at the same time? As a casual player, I'm thrilled to hear that the endgame is easier -- I'll get to see more of it. But we've got two versions of each endgame instance now -- do they both have to be easy enough to conquer in a few days?
