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The Queue: Last rites
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.Another day, another Queue! Let's jump right in, hm?meme asked... What's the situation about the aesthetic minor glyphs? Could we see them in a future? What's the last thing Blizzard told us about them? Are people in the official forums still demanding them?
The best of WoW Insider: January 20-27, 2009
What a week in the World of Warcraft. We've had game-breaking bugs, gold ads on the official forums, and there's a rumor going around that the official WoW mouse might be broken, too. But don't worry -- when things break in Azeroth, as they definitely have this past week, WoW Insider is there to pick up the pieces. Check out our top stories of the past week below. News The disaster of patch 3.0.8Blizzard's latest patch is riddled with bugs, from bad to worse. World of Warcraft 3.0.8 patch notesHere's what's supposed to have happened. But most of this didn't actually work until late last week. Steelseries WoW mouse is dangerous in no uncertain Terms (of Use)Could an officially sponsored mouse get you officially banned? Breaking news: Arenas disabledYes, things got so bad last week, Blizzard temporarily took both Wintergrasp and the Arenas out of the game. Gold ads appear on Blizzard's forumsBlizzard suffers an amusing slip in its forum advertising. Features The Overachiever: Completing the Lunar Festival achievementsA guide to finishing up all of the goals for the Lunar Festival, now happening in Azeroth. The Queue: Who cares about 3.0.8, where's 3.1?Our readers wonder where the new content is. Breakfast Topic: Is 68 too low for Northrend?A daily discussion about when the right time to head north should be. The Art of War(craft): How 3.0.8 changes PvPPlayer vs. Player and what's different with the new patch. Two Bosses Enter: Keristrasza vs. CyanigosaOur showdown of in-game bosses is back for Wrath, with some dragon on dragon action.
Breakfast Topic: Not a patch day
Today is not patch day. That's actually the good news. Despite the bug fixes that Ghostcrawler promised should come up after regular weekly maintenance, there doesn't seem to be signs of a patch. Adam contends there's possibly a patch because some fixing needs to be done client side. At any rate, there will be no hat eating today, and even if there is a tiny patch, it's still not a patch patch. Right now we're still reeling from the aftermath of the disastrous Patch 3.0.8 which received some mixed reactions. Even Hunters, who were supposed to get a nerf, simply re-specced to Survival and went along their merry DPS meter-topping ways. Warlocks were supposed to get a buff, but instead got a bug in the form of a 2-minute cooldown to Ritual of Summoning. Let's not even talk about PvP where Wintergrasp crashed everything and Arenas were disabled because, well, the new undocumented ratings system just plain sucked.So if there's anything to be thankful for today, it's that it's not a patch day. Not an official one, at any rate. When the servers come up later today, what do expect to find? No more lag? Fixed items? Fixed spells? Or, are you willing to wager -- eating your hat, maybe -- that today's "fix" will only bring more bugs?Update: Alex here! Silly Zach, today is a patch day! It's a minor patch, bringing us up to v3.0.8.9506. The same questions here all apply, though. What fixes are you hoping to see today? Will game experience improve after today's maintenance?
The Queue: I like fire
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. Yesterday we had a question about the little fiery looking thumbnail I use at the end of almost every edition of The Queue. What the heck is it? Well, it's pretty hard to make out the details as a little thumbnail, but it's a picture of Volkhan from Halls of Lightning. The big red flare is a fireburst that comes up when he wangs his anvil with his hammer. I thought the bigger version looked pretty cool, so I kept using the thumbnail.alpha5099 asked... I keep seeing references to EU-Magtheridon, and I'm absolutely fascinated by a server with such a ridiculously unbalanced player ratio. Does anyone know how that happened? Is there some reason an insane number of Horde players are there? Did the Horde just start getting the edge and the Alliance players left for less ganky pastures, and it's gone out of control since then?
Wintergrasp fix incoming
While the details are scant, Crygil posted an update on the Wintergrasp situation.Essentially all the realms are going to be restarted on off-peak hours, and the fix should then kick in. He notes that they are going to be monitoring realm stability and Wintergrasp closely. That leads me to believe they are not supremely confident in the fix. I'll hope that I'm wrong here and that they're just saying that to look good. Ideally the fix will be great and work off the bat./fingers-crossed.
The disaster of patch 3.0.8
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Is_Patch_3_0_8_the_biggest_disaster_to_hit_WoW_since_launch'; Bugs plague any developer of computer software -- even when you think your code is perfect and it's been seen as such by everyone in the company, you'll still have your users find bugs faster and more frequently than you ever thought possible. And Blizzard is no stranger to bugs -- though they have a reputation for quality releases, they've always had a few bugs sneak through. As big a game as World of Warcraft is, there's always bound to be something not working quite right.But patch 3.0.8 goes above and beyond the bounds of normal mistakes. Adam put together a terrific roundup last night of bugs found so far, and the list goes on and on: Wintergrasp (one of the biggest promoted features of Wrath) shut down. Unbearable lag on the realms and in instances (and this patch was supposed to fix that). Blizzard even went live with the patch knowing that major bugs (the Warlock summoning and animation and clipping errors) were in there, and, perhaps worst of all, bugs that have been in the game so long they seem to belong there (we're looking at you, Pet Cower bug) didn't even bother showing up in the patch notes, and haven't been fixed.In short, patch 3.0.8 has been a disaster. If Blizzard feels that this patch lives up to the quality of content they released in Northrend (or if they, unbelievably, somehow though this was meant to be a bugfix patch for Northend, that ended up screwing up more things than it fixed), then they need to take a long, hard look at their quality assurance system again.
Breakfast Topic: Fun in the 3.0.8 sun
Patch 3.0.8 is here! So welcome to the new patch -- much like the old patch, only with more lag, crashes every 20 minutes, and plenty of other entertaining bugs! (Don't you just love patch day?) You would think that, by now, we'd have learned that patch days tend to be a bust for playing, but most of us at WoW Insider HQ rushed to log in as soon as the realms were back online, ready to enjoy some 3.0.8 goodness. Boy, were we in for a disappointment. (Though as some of you may have noticed, it was a great time to catch up on old world achievements, since the Wintergrasp bug was only crashing Northrend.) For those of you who decided to spend your Tuesday outside of the game, you managed to miss out on plenty of patch day fun -- but you may be just in time to enjoy stable playtime as Blizzard has scrambled to get things working again. (If you haven't picked up the patch already, here are some download mirrors to help you out.) Were you in-game on Tuesday night? If so, what were your experiences? Get any playtime in?
Patch 3.0.8 bug roundup
My favorite time of the patch day is here – looking at all the bugs! At the time of this writing, we're about six hours after the patch and the majority of bugs have been found. We've counted six of them, and will go over each and when the fix is expected after the break.Obviously some are more important than others. The Wintergrasp bug that is currently crashing servers left and right needs to be fixed "nao," as people are clamoring about in trade channels. The game is nearly unplayable for most people.Interestingly there are no bugs about missing mail or other missing items, nor are there reports of extreme lag and other difficulties (other than the severs crashing). The full list of 3.0.8 bugs, and information about their status, after the break.
UPDATED: Lake Winterfail crashes Northrend
I love Wintergrasp. I do. I think it's the most fun aspect of the game right now, and I take every chance I get to play it. The first thing I did when I logged on was play some Battlegrounds and headed to Wintergrasp as soon as a game was up. Patch 3.0.8 kicked in earlier today with gameplay changes to the zone, aimed at making it faster-paced, more balanced, and more rewarding. That was the aim. Blizzard, however, seems to have missed terribly. A bug seems to occur every time a faction wins in Wintergrasp, crashing the entire continent of Northrend. Numerous tips have come in noting the same experience.When servers come back online, the tables have turned and the battle begins anew. If players continute to battle and win, the server will continue to crash. The bug prevents Wintergrasp from ever being controlled, and has caused many servers' Northrend to crash repeatedly. It's kind of a bad episode of Twilight Zone. No official word about it on the forums yet, but it's a considerably large bug that disrupts gameplay for a lot of players, so I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard takes down tall realms for a quick fix. Meanwhile, I'm about to try my luck in Wintergrasp again. Crash notwithstanding, I don't think I've ever had so much silly fun in my life.UPDATE: This just in! Bornakk has stated on the official forums that Blizzard is aware of the issue and is investigating it. They may possibly disable the Battle for Wintergrasp on all realms until the issue is resolved. Players may still enter the zone but will not be able to participate in matches. It remains to be seen under which faction Wintergrasp control will fall under, if any. Stay tuned!UPDATE: The Battle for Wintergrasp has been disabled for all realms until Blizzard can fix the problem. Control of the zone is retained by one faction.
The Art of War(craft): How Patch 3.0.8 will change PvP
When Patch 3.0.8 kicks in today, which some people speculate, World of Warcraft PvP is going to change quite a bit. Class balance changes are going to take effect, particularly to Death Knights who are downright incredible right now. While some people couldn't care less about PvP nowadays, specially in the pursuit of epics -- you're better off going into Naxxramas, the new source of welfare epics -- others have a newfound love for it, thanks to the incredibly fun Wintergrasp. The changes aren't massive, but they are balancing ones and will be better for the game overall.The most obvious PvP changes will be to Wintergrasp, where a number of things were changed to improve gameplay. The first major change is the way Wintergrasp Marks of Honor, currently useless, will become usable to purchase Wintergrasp Commendations as well as new epic items. This is a great thing which further encourages participation in the battle for Lake Wintergrasp itself. There are also impactful changes to the game mechanics that should see control of the zone shift more often and greatly favors offense. Let's take a look at those changes after the jump.
The Queue: That's a lot of J names
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.Last time on The Queue, I answered a question about potential hero classes. Zoidberg asked about Archdruids, but there wasn't a whole lot to say. It's a rumor, and a rumor without much weight behind it, just an interview comment taken out of context as the WoW community (yes, even WoW Insider sometimes) likes to do. Since answering that question, I've been thinking about it a little myself.Do I, personally, think Archdruids will be the next hero class? Nah, I don't think so. Just the name is the big issue for me. Archdruid suggest Druid+ or Druid 2.0 and that's just not cool. You can differentiate them from Druids as much as you want, Archdruid still suggests that it's a better Druid. That's pretty awful. Even if the new hero class (if there is a new hero class) has all of the features we'd expect from an Archdruid, it'll probably be called something else. Maybe a Keeper or something like that.
The Queue: A curse upon you, interlopers
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.Another Tuesday, another maintenance. As much as I'd like to write something amusing here to entertain you on your slow, boring day, I've got nothin'. Bone dry. I'm like the freaking Shimmering Flats here. Well, you know, like the north parts. Not the south parts with that little lake. Just the dry stuff, people. ...Oh, screw it.Jamesisgreat asked...Now I've hit level 80 and am looking at all the loot available to me as a feral druid, I've spotted a few of the PvP pieces that you can purchase with just honor. So my question is - where's the best place to grind honor nowadays? AV? Wintergrasp? Elsewhere?
Latency fixes coming for Northrend, Naxx
Although I haven't experienced it so much myself recently (fingers crossed), many players have been complaining about high latency both in Northrend and in the various Northrend raids (especially the Heroic versions). I have had Grizzly Hills especially (for some reason) get so bad with the lag spikes that I just logged off for an hour, but that was back in the first few weeks of Wrath. Apparently, the outdoor Northrend lag has been caused by Wintergrasp battles. There is a "server-side fix" (which I read as hot fix) in testing on internal realms at Blizzard, and Eyonix tells us that they hope to be able to patch up the live realms "in the near future" (which I hope is sooner than "Soon™"). As for Naxxramas, we are informed that there are optimizations in the pipe for it, and that those will be coming in 3.0.8 (which I personally predict for next Tuesday). These optimizations will, allegedly, help both latency and disconnects. Are disconnects a big problem in Naxx? I'm not sure I've seen any.
Mining mechanics changed, one hit per node
The updated 3.0.8 patch notes released today have an interesting, yet significant, change to mining.Miners will now only hit the node once to get all the ore and associated loot.This change might seem mundane but it actually carries some significant weight. Farmers regularly fly or run around zones, stopping at every node they see. Under the current system most nodes required between two and four hits to extract all the ore, sometimes even more for the rich nodes. An ore farmer would spend a portion of his time ensuring the mobs were cleared around the node enough so that he would be able to hit it multiple times, and then actually spend the minute sitting on the node farming it.With the one hit method that is now being implemented in 3.0.8, the process becomes significantly easier. Point, click, wait a second, fly off to the other destination, profit. There's no "???" in there, just a pure and easy way to make money.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Demons rule, naga drool
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.Just as a warning, today's Ask a Lore Nerd has a couple of spoilers for Wrath content. At this point, I assume that light Northrend spoilers isn't going to scare people off, but I figure I should mention it anyway. It's nothing major, so you won't ruin your experience by reading it anyway. Let's dig in!Tarean asked...Blizzard's said that there's enough material for plenty of more expansions after Wrath of the Lich King, and there's plenty of possibilities, but what expansion should come next lore-wise?
Breakfast Topic: New Year's Resolutions
Happy New Year, everyone! It's 2009, and this marks our first post of the year! I specifically locked everyone else out of the WoW Insider HQ so I would have the honor of writing it. Not before I asked them an important question, though. What were their New Year's resolutions for 2009? No, no, not those boring resolutions like "don't drink soda" or "watch less TV" or "stop eating babies." Nobody cares about that stuff. I mean their WoW resolutions! My resolution? Get better at PvP. I'm shooting high and want an arena title. I've never really been into PvP, whether it be battlegrounds or arenas, but it's really the one area of play I haven't had much success in. So I'm gonna give it my all, and I'm not going to do things halfway. I'll settle for nothing less than Gladiator. Okay, okay, I'll accept Duelist, but that's as low as this fella goes. As for the rest of our team...
The Queue: Shameless
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.In today's episode of The Queue, I give our Facebook page another shameless plug. Have you seen it? Yes? Good! Let's move on, then.Jonny Dale asked...I seem to remember a post on where to find all the +hit rating gear for casters, but I can't find this anywhere on WoWInsider search or Google. Anyone care to help?
Going to Northrend for the holidays
It's the day after Christmas. A fair portion of our readership is only now getting Wrath of the Lich King installed on their computer, especially after the gift exchanges of the last few days. Over the weeks since Wrath's release, we've had quite a bit of content to ease you through your first steps into Northrend. With this latest wave of people hitting the frozen shores for the first time, it's a good opportunity to look back on a lot of that.
Wrath Dailies: Wintergrasp daily quests
So now you know all about the zone, familiarized yourself with the gameplay, and have some sort of idea on the strategies on how to win it, let's have a look at the daily quests associated with the zone. The cool thing about Wintergrasp dailies is that they are the only source of Stone Keeper's Shards outside of dungeon bosses and the only way to obtain them whether or not your faction controls Wintergrasp. The Wintergrasp dailies are also an excellent source of Honor and some can be done without actually doing any PvP whatsoever, which is a strange new trend in Wrath of the Lich King, where the PvP side of the game is accessible entirely through PvE. The very first daily quest is self-explanatory -- Victory in Wintergrasp, which requires players to win a battle for the zone. Alliance players get this quest from the Tactical Officer Abrahmis, while Horde players get it from Tactical Officer Kilrath. If you control the zone, these NPCs can be found in front of Wintergrasp Keep, where the Titan Relic is housed. If you don't, they can be found in the landing camps on the East or West. The quest seems to be currently unavailable in the game, as it has been very buggy and many players have reported not completing the quest even after a victory and having the requisite Rank. I'm certain the quest will return in bug-free form with Patch 3.0.8, if not hotfixed sooner. Completing the quest awards one Stone Keeper's Shard, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80. %Gallery-39251%
Wrath 101: The Vault of Archavon
So you've won Wintergrasp. Now what? Well, the very first thing that most players do when they wrest or maintain control of the zone is head into the Vault of Archavon. The vault is a raid instance accessible only to members of the faction that control Wintergrasp. It is one of the more important reasons why control of Wintergrasp is so important. Archavon the Stone Watcher is an extremely easy raid boss who drops pieces of Tier 7 and Arena gear. In short, he means free epics.While there are no level restrictions to entering Wintergrasp (though if you can't fly you'll either have to take the portal or be summoned), players must be Level 80 and in a raid group in order to enter the Vault of Archavon raid instance. It's a very short raid with exactly four trash mobs who have special abilities, but are essentially tank and spank and prepare the raid for how the boss will be like. Archavon is a DPS race.
