warlords-of-draenor
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Patch 5.4.2 PTR: Cross-realm Account-Bound mail being tested
Cross-realm zones have been in place for quite some time now, but players have been consistently requesting that the ability to mail cross-realm heirlooms and account-bound items be added as well. While Warlords of Draenor's feature list includes an heirloom tab that should negate the need for mailing heirlooms between servers, that does little to address the feature as it stands right now -- and with many players leveling alts, it's still something players would like to see. Today Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas announced that the patch 5.4.2 PTR is beginning testing for exactly that feature. This process should allow players to move heirlooms between servers, in advance of the changes already planned for Warlords. The feature should work like any other cross-server communication, in that instead of simply mailing to a character name, you would be mailing to "Charactername-Servername." Note that this feature is only for account-bound items like heirlooms -- mailing gold or other items won't work. Players wanting to test this feature should hop on the patch 5.4.2 PTR and mail account-bound items across servers, reporting any hiccups by bug reports or feedback. For more information, check out the official thread on the forums -- and look forward to being able to chuck your heirlooms to your alts in patch 5.4.2.
Lichborne: BlizzCon 2013 news for Death Knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. BlizzCon 2013 bought with it a new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, and while we did learn a lot about upcoming changes, very few of it was actually class-specific. Mostly what we got in class specific news was the level 100 talents, which, while awesome, will likely change pretty significantly even between now and the beta, to say nothing of when Warlords of Draenor goes live. That said, there were still a lot of very interesting system changes that herald great things for death knights, and we'll go over those today as well. New Talents and Skills The level 100 talents continue the storied tradition of level 90 talents in that they very obviously take their cue from the prime death knight, Arthas himself, the Lich King. They also address something we've talked about before, ability bloat. Instead of adding new skills, 2 of them simply replace existing things.
Warlords of Draenor's Trial of the Gladiator
Warlords of Draenor is bringing some big changes to many parts of the game and PvP is no exception. Not only are there various long-overdue UI changes coming in, but we're also going to be seeing a whole new PvP island zone, a new system of measuring battleground performance and a new arena ladder: Trial of the Gladiator. Of these, the biggest change, the biggest thing people are worried about is certainly the Trial of the Gladiator system. So, let's dispel some myths about that. Lore I don't know where this idea came from, but just to clear things up, we have no plans to remove the current Arena ladder. source World of Warcraft Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka was also very clear on the BlizzCon Global Invitationals stream, on the virtual ticket videos, at 8:43:28 on the second video of the first day's play, that the existing ladder wasn't changing. The Trial of the Gladiator is going to be a completely new system on top of what currently exists. Trial of the Gladiator: What is it, and why? Trial of the Gladiator is, on a very basic level, a system that allows players to gain rating and ladder position at specific times through the week. So, for example, if you want to gain rating and try for a title this season, you'd want to be playing at these times. They might be Saturday at 10am, maybe also Wednesday at 6pm, Monday at 8pm, Tuesday at 4pm, and so on.
Totem Talk: What's Next for Restoration?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. BlizzCon has come and gone and it has left us, as it usually does, with a very small glimpse of what is yet to come. It seems like every expansion restoraiton gets shifted one direction or another. Whether it is focus on stats or our role in the healing team of a raid. No matter what way you look at it, excitement or fear, change is coming. While the expansion, Warlords of Draenor, has just been announced and system changes are still being developed but it is never too early to start taking a look into what we can start to expect. Whether it's from gear, to stats, to spells and ability well... I'd rather start taking a gander now and not be blindsided later. That said, right now it's all speculation, since the game isn't even in beta yet.
Exclusive first look at Christie Golden's new novel, War Crimes
Christie Golden, author of a substantial amount of Warcraft novels including The Shattering, Tides of War, Lord of the Clans and Rise of the Horde, recently announced a new novel to add to the list, and we have all the details. Titled War Crimes, the new novel features an all-star cast of nearly every important figure from both the Alliance and Horde, and tells an interesting, new kind of story the likes of which we haven't seen from Blizzard before. The brutal siege of Orgrimmar is over. Garrosh Hellscream, the most infamous orc on Azeroth, now sits in chains. His tyrannical leadership of the Horde has been ended by his many enemies, and he must answer for his crimes. Renowned leaders from across the world gather in Pandaria to witness Garrosh's trial. Visions of his past atrocities are presented in vivid detail for all to see. But as history is revisited, old grievances and bitter memories come back into the light, and those in attendance begin to wonder if anyone among them is truly innocent. Mounting tensions and rising enmity steer the court to the brink of chaos... as the world waits with bated breath for the verdict on the war crimes of Garrosh Hellscream. If you think a novel about a courtroom trial is going to be a dull affair, think again -- War Crimes isn't just a story about a trial, nor is it just another story about Garrosh Hellscream. In fact, it's anything but another Garrosh Hellscream novel. We were thrilled to get an exclusive interview with Christie at BlizzCon 2013 about her new title, a gigantic cast that includes some unexpected faces in the spotlight, and what we can expect to see -- as well as information on the book's release.
Breakfast Topic: What are you most looking forward to with your garrison?
At Gamescom 2010, Tom Chilton famously declared that "housing will be introduced to World of Warcraft some time right after 'never'." Funny how things can go from "never" to what we're getting in Warlords of Draenor. To be fair, he was probably referring to the idea of a simple house with no gameplay attached to it. Player housing couldn't happen in WoW until Blizzard worked out what the gameplay aspects would be. Your faction leader will be sending you on a mission to establish a forward base and gather followers for the cause. You could be staking out your plot of land on day one of the expansion. The follower aspect is what I'm most interested in -- collecting them, naming them, leveling them up, and sending them off to do my bidding. You can check out WoW Insider's post about garrisons to learn more about the types of follower missions and a list of the 25 building types (all that's missing is a zoo for hunter pets). What excites you most about this feature? %Poll-85736%
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Timelines, timeways, and Karazhan
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. What is time, in Warcraft? Is it a straightforward line, or a tapestry of events that can be changed or altered with a simple pluck of a thread? While the bronze dragonflight may be masters of the various pathways of time, we mortal players are most definitely not. We've been sent through the pathways of the Caverns of Time on more than one occasion, but always at the behest of the bronze flight, to complete the tasks they have set and keep the timelines pristine. But this mysterious maze of time wasn't left unexplored prior to our travels through Tanaris. Obviously the bronze dragonflight has been up to a great deal over the thousands of years that it has existed -- Nozdormu's long absence predated even our first journeys through the Caverns of Time. And for one player in the next expansion, time had absolutely nothing to do with the dragonflights, and much more to do with the mysterious home of his enigmatic master, Medivh. So how does it all weave together? More importantly, when is time travel not really time travel at all, as the developers seemed to be so insistent on saying at BlizzCon? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains a small amount of speculation on datamined material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Doodlegnome answers all of your Warlords of Draenor questions
Doodlegnome has done it again. Five months ago, the World of Warcraft community watched, spellbound, as a certain precocious gnome enthralled us with her scrawled tale of a crab, the floating skull who loved him, and the nerf bat-wielding child they weaned on the tears of irate forum posters. The Doodlegnome, Paululum, has been busy since that 251-page official forum thread finally came to an end -- she's continued to draw at a prolific rate, even starting up her own webcomic and crafting some amazing BlizzCon badges -- but she hadn't created a new epic forum thread since she took the Zarcrawler idea and ran with it as far as her little legs could carry her. Until this week, that is. On Wednesday, fresh from an invigorating weekend at BlizzCon, Paululum took to the official WoW forums once more to offer up scribbled answers to any and all questions about the upcoming expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Thirty-one pages, more than 600 posts and over 50 drawings later (and still counting!), we've got ourselves a Warlords encyclopedia the likes of which the world will likely never see again. In fact, so valued are Doodlegnome's posts that Community Manager Bashiok swooped in to make sure that each link within her posts in the thread could be clicked, even though WoW forum settings don't normally allow for non-blues to have clickable links. Here, for your education and neatly categorized viewing pleasure, are each of Paululum's "Ask Me Anything" responses about the expansion. (We'll keep this post updated as/if new doodles are added.)
Warlords of Draenor and the draenei
Okay, let's just put our cards on the table. The only thing I want to do with orcs in Warlords of Draenor is kill them. Bring on the Iron Horde for me to stomp on. I will eventually level my Horde characters, sure. But I'm not particularly interested in the Frostwolves and how the Horde is going to relate to them and the Horde's search for an identity somewhere between murderous lunatics and Thrall's happy fun-time frolic friends - it's certainly not a bad hook for a Horde storyline. But I don't care about it. We've had a lot of the Horde and their civil war and their struggle to stay united under Hellscream. It was often very interesting stuff - I very much liked the Dominance Offensive quests - and I'm glad we got to see it. Mists of Pandaria ended up being a very dark expansion in a lot of ways, with themes of personal responsibility and how good intentions can go bad, missed opportunities and the fog of war, and I thought that the Siege of Orgrimmar made a lot of sense. I wasn't one of the Alliance players who was upset about the Horde rebels having a role in SoO. I don't feel like it diminished the Alliance story any to show us working alongside them, I wasn't bothered by seeing Varian's actions at the end of the raid. I thought it was all good and proper. But frankly, I'm done with the Horde's problems. I play Alliance. I want to see Alliance stories. Horde players should have their stories, too, I'm not saying they shouldn't -- more power to y'all solving that whole issue of inheriting a legacy of murderous psychopathic lunacy from the Old Horde, that's gotta be rough for you -- but I am done. Because Warlords of Draenor has promised me the one thing I've wanted to see since Burning Crusade itself failed to deliver it, and that's draenei. Draenei cities, as they appeared at their height. Draenei culture, not the ruined remnants of it. The draenei we saw in BC were the ragged remnants cast adrift on Azeroth, survivors of a near total extermination. They were the embattled refugees desperately seeking a place to rebuild. I fell in love with them in no small part due to their tenacity and willingness to keep going, but I've always wondered what they were really like before the horrors Ner'zhul and later Gul'dan unleashed upon them at Kil'jaeden's behest. And at last, I'm going to get to find out.
Will fewer gems and enchants in Warlords of Draenor affect profession profitability?
One of the pieces of news to come out of BlizzCon relating to itemization in Warlords of Draenor was there would be fewer pieces of gear with gem sockets, and that not as many items would have enchants available for them. The concern from jewelcrafters and enchanters is that their professions won't be able to make them gold anymore. Community Manager Lore chimed in with their intentions for the change, and how your actual income shouldn't change if all goes to plan. Lore We do want to slim down on the overall number of gems and enchants you'll need to put on your gear. That's primarily a quality of life change. We want to make it less of a hassle to be able to equip a new item. That said, we don't think these changes have to mean that e.g. Jewelcrafting will no longer be a decent source of income. We could -- and this is purely a hypothetical example -- make the best gems rarer, which would drive prices up and increase profit margins. If you can make just as much gold (comparatively) off of one gem in Warlords as you can selling three in Mists, that'll help substantially. source I actually think it will end up being more of a rough transition for the buyers than the sellers. The buyers won't be used to paying all this extra gold for their gems and enchants, but they're going to have to get used to it because the sellers will have less to sell and crafting each one will cost more. To make up for the smaller toolbox, Blizzard could even add things such as epic gear patterns, pets, mounts, and maybe even some toys to put in our toy boxes. Gems and enchants will always be the backbone of these professions, but adding a few extra perks like that would help keep them interesting (and profitable) going forward.
The Light and How to Swing It: BlizzCon recap for tankadins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. BlizzCon this year was a magical time to be a tank, learning what we did about all the changes coming down the pike in Warlords of Draenor. It seems that Christmas is coming early this year, with Blue Claus having decided that (for once) we're getting just about everything on our lists. Whereas Mists was in many ways an experiment in how tanking could work going forward -- with DPS stats galore -- Warlords is going to officially set those changes in stone and even expand on them! I can't remember the last time I was as stoked as I was then, sitting in those seats and reading the word "GONE" next to dodge/parry. It was like something out of a dream. You always dreamed it would happen and then finally it does... There's just no way to prepare yourself for that kind of elation. And, believe me, the other changes they announced are just as good.
7 things casual players need to know about Warlords of Draenor
The dust has finally settled from the BlizzCon newstravaganza, which means it's time for us more casual players to figure out just what's going on with World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Here's the basics: Where's the expansion set? Draenor, before it became Outland. Yep, we're heading back in time for this expansion. What's the new level cap? 100. But don't panic if you haven't even reached the Mists level cap yet, because Blizzard is going to boost one of your characters to level 90 so you can play in Draenor. What can I do in Draenor? In addition to the standard leveling, questing, dungeoning, and raiding, the expansion will have garrisons for you to build. Think of them as a seriously amped up version of the farms in Mists, letting build your own in-game city. What new classes or races are coming? None -- however, all of the current classes are getting new models. It may not sound like much, but it makes the original WoW races look brand new. When will I be able to play? We don't know yet. But as with most Blizzard games, we suspect it will be out "when it's ready." So that's what the next expansion has in store for us. But there are some upcoming gameplay changes that will definitely help low-level or more casual players find their footing and get through the game -- if that means you, read on for 7 things you'll want to know about the next expansion.
World of Warcraft's lead content designer on the future of the game and the franchise
World of Warcraft has had a tumultuous time. The past three years have seen the game shed about five million players, but it still counts 7.6 million subscribers, far more than its closest competitor. And the most recent expansion announcement has certainly generated plenty of interest. But lead content designer Corey Stockton explained in a recent interview that the game still has more places to go. He mentions exploring the recent trends toward user-generated content and procedural content to allow more variety at the top levels, something to ameliorate how quickly players consume the elaborately designed dungeons and raids of the game. Stockton doesn't see that sort of content ever replacing the core of the game, of course, but he does note that there's a persistent issue with new content not coming out as fast as players can go through it. He goes on to explain that the developers would like to have a new expansion out every year, certainly at a faster rate than the team's previous content releases, and that the current goal is to work several expansions ahead rather than focusing on the immediate future. For more details and talk about the potential for Warcraft IV, take a look at the full interview.
Warlords of Draenor and the absence of Aggra
Let me tell you a little about my sister. My sister is married, in her thirties, and has four children -- all boys -- ranging from four to sixteen. Her house is a wild cacophony of boys being boys and the calls of various animals that she's acquired. It's a mini-farm, if you will, full of chickens, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, a couple of snakes, and possibly a species or two that I've missed. In addition to raising four boys with her husband, she also owns her own business. She runs her own grooming company here in town, and is both the sole employee and owner, successful enough that she's usually booked for at least a month out, if not more. In addition to that, she runs two Renaissance festivals a year, hauls her family to regular camp-outs with the faire crew, regularly plays D&D with the gang, and knows how to shoot a longbow and a black powder rifle (and is a pretty good shot with both of them), along with cannons and trebuchets. She's a dab hand at cooking at home and over a campfire out in the wild, knows how to kill, gut and butcher just about anything, and how to tan and stretch a hide. On top of all that, I've heard she's a marvel at breaking up fights, reading bedtime stories, wiping tears from faces, kissing boo-boo's away, and snuggling in the mornings when little ones are sleepy and grumpy about getting up for school. And god help anyone that comes between her and her family. I'm telling you this story not to brag about my sister, although I love her very dearly, but to make a point that seems to have been sorely missed somewhere in the story of Warcraft. My sister isn't just a wife and mother. She's a warrior. She's a fighter. She's a spark of ferocity that will not be quenched. Where is her counterpart in Warcraft? That's a really good question.
The Light and How to Swing It: Paladining at BlizzCon
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions! Wow, what a weekend. Not only was the convention a lot of fun but it was great to meet fellow paladins and non-paladins alike. Most of my time was spent meeting people, watching panels, and playing demos. Amidst the chaos I didn't allocate much time to mulling things over, how the proposed changes in Warlords of Draenor would affect how I, and so many other ret paladins, approach the game, so now that I've had a decent night's sleep and my liver is mostly alcohol-free, I'm spending my day off in blessedly quiet reflection. We didn't see much of any class discussion this year, and unless I missed an entire panel there wasn't a single paladin-related question throughout the entire convention. There are some big questions that it would be nice to have answered, like the permanency of holy power, the relative weights of our stats, the deletion of the warlock class, etc. We did get a few overall changes, changes that will affect ret in turn, so let's see how some of these could impact our day-to-day facesmashing in Warlords of Draenor.
Scattered Shots: Hunters at BlizzCon 2013
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing level 100 talents and other awesome hunter things from BlizzCon 2013. This past week has been a blur. Things at WoW Insider have been hectic, and I'm still trying to catch up on everything from BlizzCon (thank you, virtual ticket). The most notable thing relating to hunters to come out of BlizzCon was the level 100 talents. When I first read the original transcriptions that people we're tweeting out from the demo stations, I thought I was being trolled. I never thought I would see the day of a hunter without a pet. Then again, the mantra of Warlords of Draenor is that nothing is sacred. The brilliant thing about the other two talents is they replace existing abilities, so they won't be contributing to the ability bloat problem. There's a few more tidbits of information besides talents to look at. This week, we'll do a recap of everything we learned about hunters at BlizzCon.
Community Blog Topic: What is your favorite announcement for Warlords of Draenor?
BlizzCon was a blast -- even for those of us who only enjoyed it virtually. But I see some people complaining in the comments that not much was announced for the new expansion: Warlords of Draenor. I heartily disagree. Not only will we get a whole new continent to explore with many side-quests and treasures to be discovered in nooks and crannies of this new world, we also get a slew of other new features. There will be garrisons, a new PvP sandbox, a BoA toybox (with a similar setup for heirlooms), gear that changes stats according to what spec you are in, a whole new storyline which includes draenei lore (something which has been sorely lacking), new (and gorgeous) character models ... I know I'm forgetting a few important things.
Warlords of Draenor: No sweeping changes to Racials
There has been a great deal of concern about the potential changes to racials coming in Warlords of Draenor, with players worried about changes to passives and active abilities. EU Community Manager Takralus has taken to the official forums to quell the fires of panic with some comforting information: Takralus There aren't plans for any broad, sweeping changes to racial abilities in 6.0. We'll probably tune some numbers so some racials feel less mandatory in certain cases. Also, due to the changes we announced at BlizzCon, there are several hit and expertise-based racials that will need to be replaced with something new-hopefully we can use those new racials to help shore up racial balance overall :) source Of course, it makes perfect sense that, given the removal of hit and expertise, racial passives such as Draenei's +hit racial and various expertise racials would need some reworking. Takralus' assertion that there aren't any broad sweeping changes will likely put people's minds at ease. Hypothesizing here, but her phrasing of "tune some numbers" implies to me that racials like Every Man For Himself are going nowhere, but ones like Beast Slaying, Berserking or Blood Fury might see some changes. It should, naturally, be noted that those are just my assumptions based on what might be an excessively close examination of Takralus' post, but it would make sense, especially given the Horde's current dominance as a choice for hardcore raiders.
Diablo III transmogrification coming to WoW
Transmogrification is coming to Diablo III -- and a revamp may be on the way for World of Warcraft as well, according to a tweet made by Cory "Mumper" Stockton over the weekend at BlizzCon. The new transmogrification system unveiled for Diablo III has a few dramatic differences from the system currently implemented in WoW. For one thing, Diablo III players don't have to keep an armor item in their bags in order to use it for transmogrification -- it can be sold to a vendor once it has been discovered. For another, once an item is discovered, it can then be used for transmogrification by all characters on an account. @Shadesogrey Yes! We are working on something... - Cory Stockton (@mumper) November 10, 2013 Obviously this particular item didn't make it onto the list of major features and new content we'll be seeing in Warlords of Draenor. This likely means that we won't see this feature in place with the launch of Warlords -- given the amount and variety of armor currently in World of Warcraft, a project of this scope isn't something that can be completed overnight. But for those transmog-addicted players like myself that have been dreamily staring at the sleek and space-saving new Diablo III system, it looks like our fondest dreams will in fact come true at some point in the future.
Bashiok on flying mount delay in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
There's already been a flurry of opinions expressed on the reveal that Blizzard does not plan to allow flying in Draenor until patch 6.1 -- a bit of a departure from previous expansions, where flying was allowed at max level (except for Cataclysm). Several threads in the WoW forums have already thoroughly explored player feelings on the topic, and Bashiok took it upon himself to jump into one to give a more detailed insight into Blizzard's logic in making this decisions. Specifically, this issue is one of control; the players' versus the game designers'. Bashiok points out that once a player can fly, they control every aspect of how they engage with the ground, which is where the majority of content, and in particular, combat, is located. While it's natural for players to want that kind of engagement to be done on their agency, Blizzard's designers also work hard to present content in a certain way, and once a player can fly, all their design and presentation becomes meaningless. It's not an easy balance to strike, and Blizzard is always weighing the different design choices against each other. The post is an interesting look into the thought processes that go into these kinds of decisions, and you can read it in full after the break.
