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Outline Mode added to targeting and mouseover in Warlords
The Warlords of Draenor alpha has implemented Outline Mode, which you can see in action in the screenshot above. Characters you target or mouse over are now given a glowing highlight. Friendly players or NPCs glow green, aggressive characters or NPCs glow red, neutral NPCs glow yellow, and characters that are not flagged for PVP glow blue. Quest items are given a yellow glow from afar, regardless of whether you've moused over them or not, making them far easier to find. The outline is initially quite bright, but fades to a softer color shortly after. While not a necessary addition, it does help make your target stand out from a crowd or from a busy background. Outline Mode also provides at-a-glance information about whether your target is friend or foe, eliminating the need to first look at a nameplate. Seeing it action makes me wonder if it would be viable to play entirely without a UI when there isn't text in need of being read. It also works from a distance, highlighting targets that might be very far away, and thus very small on your screen. I could see that being a boon to players with poor vision. That was not a pun. If you aren't a fan of Outline Mode, it can be disabled in your system settings or changed to a mode wherein only quest NPCs are highlighted.
Warlords of Draenor: First look at the toy box
The Toy Box is one of those features eagerly anticipated by those of us with serious inventory problems. There are oodles items that aren't useful, but we'd like to keep for the fun factor. The Toy Box UI has been implemented in the Warlords of Draenor alpha, accessible through a new, third tab on the pets and mounts UI. Unfortunately, I'm playing through the alpha on a template character -- an automatically generated level 90 with no toys whatever, as you can see in the screenshot above. Alliance characters, where most of my toys rest, are disabled entirely for the current phase of testing. A larger screenshot of the full UI can be found below the cut along with a list of all items currently categorized as toys.
Warlords of Draenor alpha invitations being distributed
After months of eager anticipation, it appears the Warlords of Draenor Friends & Family Alpha Test may finally be upon us. Community members are reporting that they have received invitations and others state the alpha client has appeared on the Battle.net launcher, as seen above. Though invitations are being sent, the alpha doesn't appear to be playable quite yet -- launching the client yields an "unable to validate game version" error. As soon as the alpha becomes playable, WoW Insider will be diving in.
The Queue: Shoot the moon
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I think it's worth trying to answer this first question once in awhile. @Chaosork asked: Do you know when the WoD beta will come out?
Behold Placeholder, Blessed Holder of Places
A new Warlords of Draenor alpha build went live yesterday. Along with the usual assortment of new creature models, maps, icons, and class changes, datamining revealed perhaps the single greatest sword in Azeroth's history: Placeholder, Blessed Holder of Places. The Placeholder name has a storied place in WoW's history. Long ago in the original beta, an NPC named Captain Placeholder teleported players from Menethil Harbor to Auberdine before the transport ships had been created. He triumphantly returned to live realms for a time after a bug broke the ships. Years later, he showed up in the Cataclysm beta as Cap'n Placeholder, though he served no purpose and never appeared in the release version of the expansion. An NPC conversation in Menethil harbor spoke of him as an Alliance hero, stating "Nobody could hold a place like him. Nobody." In the Mists beta, a newly promoted Adm'rl Placeholder once again saved the day. He transported players from Orgrimmar and Stormwind to the Valley of the Four Winds while the Jade Forest zone was closed for remodeling. Is Placeholder the famous captain's sword? What item will it become? Why is it marked as junk? Why does it stack to 20, and what "reward not yet complete" will eventually find its way into our backpacks? A future patch will reveal all! Until then, hold a place in your heart for this amazing sword.
Warlords of Draenor: Challenge mode weapon models datamined
Adriacraft is at it again, datamining new models and more from the alpha client. This time around, it's a look at Challenge Mode weapons -- presumably the rewards for completing Warlords challenge mode dungeons. Like some of the armor sets that have been datamined so far, the weapons feature some really unique animations and moving parts that are far more complex than any weapon we've seen to date. There's a wide variety to look at, here -- and while I'm ambivalent on some of the models, I have to say the sword that assembles itself is pretty interesting. But before you get too caught up in liking or hating the weapons, keep in mind that looking at these datamined models may be pretty cool, but these are in fact alpha models. Community Manager Rygarius hopped on Twitter yesterday to remind people of just that. PSA: Datamined art assets/models that are not used in the current live game may not be final art. - Rygarius (@Rygarius) May 23, 2014 Regardless of whether you love or hate these datamined models, remember that they might not actually live to see the light of day. If nothing else, they're definitely worth a look just to see the leaps Blizzard has made in weapon design -- these aren't your run of the mill vanilla weapons anymore. Be sure to check out Adriacraft for more models and sets.
Warlords of Draenor: Major balance druid changes on the way
I have two druids, one Alliance, one Horde -- in fact, the Alliance druid was the first character I ever made. That said, while I initially tried my hand at healing with my first druid, these days, I usually just use the characters for farming purposes. Let's face it, there's nothing better than flight form for nabbing pesky herbs or mining nodes. I will, however, occasionally run a dungeon or a scenario -- and when I do, I'm in cat form. It's the default choice as far as I'm concerned, and I do enough damage to get by, although nobody in their right mind could claim I have more than a bare, passing knowledge of the spec. But I never could get into playing a balance druid. At first it was the fact that I began playing a druid before balance druids were even something remotely feasible to play. Then I was drawn to other classes, and by the time I got back to the druid, balance looked like a complicated impossibility to learn. Apparently I was not alone in this assessment, as balance druids are headed for some massive changes according to the latest iteration of patch notes from the Warlords of Draenor alpha.
Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch notes for May 23
Well, sometimes we get patch notes updates, and then sometimes we get serious patch notes updates. Today, we got really serious patch notes updates, in fact - more abilities changed or removed, some classes seeing some incredibly significant change. What do we have? For starters, arms warriors and balance druids have been singled out as having seen big redesigns. Abilities have been moved, removed and redesigned. (Mortal Strike replaces Heroic Strike and Overpower is gone, for example.) The sections on balance druids and arms warriors are extensive. Survival Hunters also saw a new ability, Bear Trap, introduced. In addition, some changes were rolled back - paladins in particular see some roll back on previous changes. For a full breakdown of the changes, you can go to the patch notes on the official site.
Warlords of Draenor: Tier 17 models datamined
The fine folks over at Adriacraft have been busy digging up models from the alpha client for Warlords of Draenor. Today they released a selection of preview videos for tier 17 armor sets. Shaman, monk, mage, rogue and warrior tier 17 are featured in their own videos, as well as a look at the paladin tier 17 mythic set, shown above. As previously mentioned by Ion Hazzikostas in an interview with Wowhead, the appearance of gear in Warlords will be defined by raid difficulty, rather than just a recolor for each level of difficulty. As with a prior video that highlighted mythic tier 17 for warriors, the paladin set has a lot more flash and moving parts. I really love the draenei flavor to the set -- the naaru-like crystalline emblems on the spaulders are pretty cool. To see all the datamined tier models, head over to Adriacraft's Youtube channel and take a look.
Warlords of Draenor: New flavor items, weapons, and armor
Our fellows over at Wowhead have posted the datamined details of Warlords of Draenor's latest build, including a number of intriguing items from Ashran, WoD's new world PvP zone. The quest items, doubtlessly linked to killing members of the opposite faction, are particularly fun. Thanks to the Tauren Hoof, you can enjoy your favorite gelatin-based chewy candies, or collect and grind Draenei Tails to help spice up your love life. You know, if you don't mind some mindless slaughter (and this is Warcraft, so of course we don't!). Other new faction quest items include the Severed Night Elf Head, Worgen Snout, and Forsaken Brains. Even more interesting than these are the epic-quality PvP weapons pulled from the latest build. Not many are listed so far; just a priest staff (Nozaro, Staff of the Heavens), and a paladin mace (Rowyn, the Jailer's Gavel). Both weapons are only usable in Ashran, and will disappear upon leaving the isle. Both of them also have really cool abilities. The priest staff will levitate you high in the air for 30 seconds, out of enemy range, and the paladin mace will teleport an enemy player to your faction's prison. How neat is that? These can't possibly be the only Ashran weapons; certainly there will be at least one for each class. I wonder--what kind of effects will they all have? As if the weapons weren't enough, a single piece of armor pulled from the patch invites rampant speculation about the nature of gear we might see in Warlords. That would be the mail hunter boots, the Simplyswift Treads, which removes the cooldown from Disengage. If this effect makes it to live, it could mean huge things for class gear in the upcoming expansion. What other abilities may we see modified in such a way? If you were designing a piece of gear like this for your own class, what would it be? There are so many possibilities!
Warlords of Draenor: Cooking reagents
Cooking? Maybe not the most exciting profession ever, nor the most exciting thing to datamine. However, I have a strange love for seeing what gross ingredients will be going into the food our characters will be eating in a coming expansion. The latest patch to the Warlords of Draenor alpha included a number of those items. Rylak Eggs are used in many recipes and, for now, appear to be the base of most Warlords cooking. Fishing continues to be heavily involved based on items like Sea Scorpion Segment, Blackwater Whiptail Flesh, and so on. Each type of fish indicates that a special form of bait can be used to catch them -- or perhaps, must be used to catch them. Certain complex foods even require you to combine basic foods to create them. For example, Calamari Crepes require both Rylak Crepes and Fiery Calamari. Interestingly, the crepes also require something called a Nagrand Arrowbloom, gathered with herbalism. It seems to me that if you're hoping to be a chef in Warlords, you'll need access to either fishing or herbalism, if not both. Remember: your garrison can give you limited access to certain professions even if you do not know them yourself. The stats on some of these items seem incomplete, with some complex recipes restoring less health or mana than the base recipes from which they're made. That will surely change in the relative eternity we have before launch. If you want to look at all of the currently datamined recipes and reagents, check out Wowhead's extremely convenient list.
Warlords of Draenor: Combat resurrection system overhaul
Combat resurrection is one of those mechanics in World of Warcraft that seems to change far more than others. Personally, I remember in vanilla WoW where it was possible for a player to remain out of combat on a raid boss, and you could designate a paladin to resurrect your raid members indefinitely as they died. Of course, no one considered that legitimate gameplay, only a ... creative use of game mechanics. Those days are long gone. We moved from there to a system where legitimate combat resurrections were able to be used without limit, and every expansion (and many content patches) afterwards, the number you were allowed to use in any given fight changed often. Now Warlords is bringing another overhaul. Warlords of Draenor is not only refining the number of combat resurrections able to be used in any given boss fight, it's also bringing some transparency to the process. The relevant excerpt from the patch notes is below.
Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch notes for April 17
A new round of updates have been released for the alpha client of Warlords of Draenor. Included in the patch notes are new sections covering changes and adjustments with Itemization, Movement Speed, Raid Utility Balance, Reforging, and Combat Resurrection. There have also been updates to existing sections as well - many class sections have received a lot of updates and adjustments, as expected for such an early build. Haste % and Crit % bonuses have been streamlined -- no more spell/melee/ranged, it's a universal Haste and Crit % bonus for all. Druids, rejoice -- Ravage no longer requires you to be behind the target. Many glyphs have been removed, and a lot of new glyphs have been added, with some glyphs now being exclusive to a specialization. Movement speed enchants now increase Movement Speed by 10% -- up from 8%. Hunters, there has been a comprehensive sweep over pet abilities -- it's a major list! Paladins, there have been some major tweaks to both Holy and Protection specs. For the full list of updates, check out the official Battle.net site for all the details. New updates are denoted in red for easy reading.
The Queue: Character models, maintenance, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Draenei ladies are wonderful. SlapHappy asked: Is it me or does anyone else feel that there is an over-emphasis on the new character models? I mean who really has their camera focus that fine to even tell the difference? Not trying to be contentious in anyway...just saying. All of that design effort could surely be spent in more beneficial ways.
Warlords of Draenor Beta Installer appears on Battle.net
WoW Insider was alerted to the presence of this installer on battle.net. It's apparently there for every account, even starter editions with no World of Warcraft license. Its presence should not, therefore, be taken as any indication of alpha invitations being sent out or access granted. Nonetheless, the installer is downloadable, and runs, as can be seen below. It appears to be a 24.48GB download, so the CASC file system's smaller size will likely not be seen at the install stage. This definitely is not a mis-labelled PTR, either, as it doesn't replace them on the game list in the launcher, and launching it from the desktop app gets you to a set of servers that just don't seem to work, so it looks like access is not set up just yet. Closing that window will put you back to the Warlords of Draenor alpha-style Dark Portal login screen. There is not access to the game at this point. [Thanks for the tip, @Spazzo!]
Wowhead launches Warlords of Draenor database
With the Warlords of Draenor alpha now underway, the datamining efforts are in full swing. Our friends over at Wowhead have compiled their information into a specific Warlords of Draenor database, ready to fulfill all your spoiler-iffic, data-licious desires. You can find tabs for spells, talents, glyphs, factions, zones, items, and even a few item sets, for the transmogrification-conscious. Some of the details, such as icons, are still missing, but this is only the first round of datamining, and only the alpha after all! The database will certainly be updated as needed and as more information becomes available. As if to further emphasize the ephemerality of some of this information, there are some entertaining little alpha tidbits in there--items such as the "Test Chest" (it rhymes!), "Chris' New CR Test Gloves," and the fantastic "Novel Mind-Blowing Chest Guard." For some unfathomable reason I have a sneaking suspicion that these aren't the items' final names. It's just a hunch, though!
The Queue: Alphas, garrisons, pre-orders, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. How about that alpha news, eh? DespicableBrad asked: With Blizzard changing the data format from MPQ to the new CASC format, will things like WoW Model Viewer still work, or will those programs need a funamental update in order to read the new data files? Given the amount of data mining happening, I'm guessing the formats are interchangeable...? If not, I'm curious: how are the data miners viewing the files and extracting graphics from it?
Warlords of Draenor: Datamined battle pets
In addition to developer Jonathon LeCraft's tipsy battle pet tweets, datamining of the Warlords of Draenor alpha client has revealed a few new potential battle pets coming to a collection near you. Mechanical Toucan Lil' Leftovers Carrotus Maximus Echo of Murmur We can reasonably guess that the Mechanical Toucan will be an engineering pet. The information datamined about this pet even says it can be placed in Engineering-only bags. Lil' Leftovers, a reference to a comic by Kelly Aarons, better known as Cadistra, might draw its origins from Cooking. The Echo of Murmur is labeled as temporary, but its unknown whether the method of acquisition is temporary or if the pet itself was merely a testing ground. As for Carrotus Maximus, I would personally guess the pet will be acquired through means similar to the Terrible Turnip. Interestingly, a carrot battle pet model entered the game files prior to the Terrible Turnip's implementation.
Warlords of Draenor: New glyphs
The Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes revealed that some glyphs will be learned automatically, the recipe for those glyphs to be removed from the game. Many scribes were thrown into a panic, questioning to value of their profession -- not a surprise, really. So early in an expansion's reveal, it's normal to be concerned. However, the dataminers have been hard at work digging into the Warlords client and have found an array of brand new glyphs to be learned. Some of the more interesting glyphs: Glyph of Cleave to eliminate the warrior's baseline Cleave ability Glyph of Energy Flows turns an Evading rogue into a deadly blender Glyph of Play Dead gives all hunter pets possum training Glyph of the Floating Butterfly changes the dynamic of a monk's Fists of Fury altogether Follow along below for all of the new glyphs.
Warlords of Draenor: Possible character undelete option?
We've all been there -- we needed another character slot. Or maybe we were just bored with the class. Deleting a character is one of those final decisions that occasionally leads to regret. While characters can sometimes be restored, it usually takes a ticket or a phone call to Blizzard to get the job done. Wowhead has been busy datamining the Alpha client, and discovered an interesting set of strings that suggest that particular service, much like the item restore service before it, may be put in player's hands come Warlords. The following strings were found: UNDELETE_TOOLTIP_DISABLED:: Restore Deleted Character is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. UNDELETE_SERVICE_TOOLTIP:: Restore this character UNDELETE_FAILED_ERROR:: There was a problem restoring your deleted character. Please try again later. UNDELETE_TOOLTIP:: Restore Deleted Character UNDELETE_TOOLTIP_COOLDOWN:: You must wait before restoring another deleted character. From the looks of the strings, the service will work similarly to the item restoration service -- in other words, it will likely have a cooldown period to prevent abuse. Keep in mind however that this is datamined information, and is in no way official -- we may never actually see it implemented when the expansion goes live. But hey, for now I'm going to look forward to the possibility that the paladin I viciously decided to cut might just make another appearance on my character list, some day.
