zarhym
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Blizzard working on ways to improve dungeon finder
The current dungeon finder is of course a vast improvement over the old LFG channel, but it can always be made better. In response to a forum thread about the dungeon finder's ever becoming performance-based, Zarhym weighed in with some interesting news. Zarhym - Dungeon queue should be performance-based We would love to implement better ways for Dungeon Finder to detect if players know what they're doing in dungeons beyond just the gear they've accumulated. We have some long-term design goals in mind for this we're not quite prepared to share this early on though. ;) source What was more interesting was the idea that Blizzard wants to improve the educational aspect of the service, however. With the current vote kick system, often players who are forced out of a group may have no idea why they failed, especially when they are new to the game.
Cataclysm hotfixes for Dec. 27
Community Manager Zarhym's list of Cataclysm hotfixes has received yet another update Dec. 27. I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat when I first saw today's list. Is that a Tol Barad fix? Be still, my beating heart! Has Blizzard finally -- Wait. Never mind. The fix won't really fix anything. Still, maybe it's a sign Blizzard's noticed how broken the zone is. Here's the fix, along with a few other interesting changes: Winning as an attacker in Tol Barad now rewards players with 1,800 honor points, up from 180. Winning as a defender still rewards players with 180 honor points. Vashj'ir archaeology dig sites no longer unlock for players. They felt too punishing without additional benefits compared to low-level sites and were much more difficult to obtain artifacts in due to the way Vashj'ir navigation works. Gyreworms, Enormous Gyreworms, and Gorged Gyreworms no longer drop money or elite-level loot. For a complete list of the latest hotfixes, check after the break.
Low-level dungeon quest experience nerfed
A hotfix notice was posted to the forums not long ago warning of an impending change: level 1 to 60 dungeon quests will award significantly less XP. While few players will be fans of such a change, I do think it's a smart one. In the blue post below, Zarhym says that players were outpacing the questing progression because of these quests, and it is absolutely true. Using the dungeon finder and completing the quests in each dungeon threw off quest and zone progression completely. When my dwarf shaman finished all of the quests in the Wetlands, she already had Hero's Call quests from the board in Ironforge urging her to skip multiple zones ahead. Not what you would call a great leveling curve. Zarhym We are applying a hotfix today to all level 1-60 dungeon quests for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms dungeons which will significantly reduce the amount of experience they award. While dungeons should remain integral to our evolving storylines, and great places to collect gear in cooperative environments, we need to make sure each player's questing progress remains relevant as dungeon quests are completed. In many cases we're seeing players enter dungeons to complete quests, only to come out ahead of the leveling curve for the zones they're in. This change should allow players the opportunity to reap the benefits of running dungeons, while not outpacing the leveling flow from levels 1-60. At this time there are no plans for making any adjustments to dungeon quest experience for Outland, Northrend, and level 80+ Cataclysm dungeons. You can find a list of all of the latest hotfixes here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869 source
Loremaster achievement changes coming with Cataclysm
With the old world changing so drastically come The Shattering, there's been some question of how the Loremaster achievement might change in the wake of Cataclysm. Community Manager Zarhym has clarified this for us in a recent blog post. As he puts it, if you already have either Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms or Loremaster of Kalimdor, those achievements will stay intact. However, if you're only partially through with those achievements, you may suffer a setback, as any quest that's being removed from the game will no longer count toward those achievements in progress. Therefore, it's a good idea to finish up the achievement if you can. That said, it will be a little bit easier to get those Loremaster achievements come The Shattering. Instead of having one huge quest counter for each continent, patch 4.0.3a will introduce zone-specific quest achievements to the old world, similar to the ones that already exist for Outland and Northrend zones. Once you finish the zone-specific achievements for every zone on a given continent (minus the new Cataclysm zones, of course), you'll have the achievement. Even old-school Loremasters can get in on the action, as the zone quest achievements will still be available for them to complete. While Zarhym didn't specifically outline it in his post, Loremaster of Cataclysm will be required for future Loremasters as well, although it's not clear whether that will start to be a requirement in patch 4.0.3a or at the launch of Cataclysm itself.
Time between Cataclysm pre-event phases ramping up
Many people have been concerned or complaining about the time between each phase of the Cataclysm pre-events going on right now in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, and Blizzard has responded with some excellent news. Zarhym recently posted that the time between the start of phase 2 and phase 3 was shorter than the previous phases, and players can expect the time between phase 3 and phase 4 to be even shorter. According to my calculations, there is the potential to see phase 4 at the beginning of the week, probably Monday or Tuesday. We live in exciting times. Re: Phase 3 of the Elemental Invasion Quote: I cant wait till the invasion starts, as right now the quests are over so fast that you get bored again in just a few mins : \ The time between the start of stage 2 and stage 3 was shorter. I can tell you the current plan is to make the time between stage 3 and 4 even shorter. ;) source
Blizzard: Expect more in-game cinematics in the future
World of Warcraft is, first and foremost, a roleplaying game. It's not just a game; not just a story, but a blessed nexus of both that totally immerses you in another world. The quests you undergo set up and advance the story, and -- at least in Wrath -- major storylines are wrapped up with in-game cinematics. Arthas' death, the Wrathgate -- both are epic events in Wrath of the Lich King lore, and both are comprised entirely of in-game assets. But are we being cheated? After all, the trailer to Cataclysm, in which Deathwing emerges to tear Azeroth asunder, is an epic piece of pre-rendered majesty. Shouldn't Blizzard offer us more pre-rendered video moments instead of what amounts to a well-produced piece of machinima? On the official Blizzard forums today, in response to a complaint about the extended use of in-game cinematics (like the worgen in-game cinematic above), blue poster Zarhym talked about -- and defended -- Blizzard's approach to cinematics: Blizzard - Better cinematics, please. With the advent of in-game cinematics, in the case of Starcraft II, we were able to over triple the amount of cinematic storytelling compared to any previous Blizzard release. As mentioned by another poster, these moments, without in-game assets, would have been character portraits plus voice-over. Instead, they were able to be brought to life with a much more vivid realization by using in-game cinematics to help tell the story. source The full text of Zarhym's post is available just after the cut.
BlizzCon 2010: Blues among you
BlizzCon 2010 is almost here! If you're headed to BlizzCon 2010, you may notice something a little different this year. Unlike years past, when Community Team interaction was restricted largely to moderating panels, this year the blues will come to you -- on the convention floor, that is. Blue poster Nethaera announced this interesting change of procedure on the official forums earlier today. Nethaera For the past few years, you may have noticed Community Team members moderating the various BlizzCon panels. This year, things are a little bit different. Instead of moderating panels, we'll be providing BlizzCon updates on the forums, Facebook, and Twitter as well as mingling with attendees around the convention center. That's right, this year we will be among you and look forward to getting meet and talk with you during the convention. If you see one of us, feel free to stop us and say, "Hi". source This begs the question -- who's going to moderate all those panels? Regardless, this is apt to be a fun change for the Community Manager Team. So if you ever wanted to say hello to your favorite flickering candle or floating skull, keep your eyes peeled on the convention floor -- they could be right behind you!
Blizzard updates Under Development page with patch 4.0.1 details
In another sign that patch 4.0.1 is fast approaching, Community Manager Zarhym has posted to let us know that the Under Development page has been updated with patch 4.0.1 details, "to set the framework for the imminent release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm." Combine this with the imminent end of arena Season 8, and it's looking more and more likely that patch 4.0.1 is nearly here. The Under Development page update is also worth looking at, as it provides a nice, concise list of what's coming in the final major patch before Cataclysm. We've included the list after the break for your convenience.
WoW developer chat on Twitter this Friday
Community Manager Zarhym recently announced another fancy developer chat on Warcraft's Twitter account this Friday, July 16 at 5 p.m. PDT / 8 p.m. EST. This time around, players will be able to ask questions of the systems design team who is currently hard at work cranking out Cataclysm. The focus of the chat will be the recently released talent specialization and mastery system changes. At WoW.com HQ, we're hoping for more information on the radical talent changes that have shown up in the latest beta build. Want to participate? follow @warcraft and @ them your questions using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m PDT (8 p.m. and 9 p.m. EST). And as always, if you happen to miss the Twitter chat, Blizzard will provide a recap on the official forums, and we'll provide coverage of the event right here on WoW.com. Don't use Twitter? Sign up now and follow @warcraft and @wowdotcom for everything WoW!
Cataclysm class and mastery systems explained
Everything we knew about talents have changed. Some highlights: You choose one tree at level 10 and then can only add talents to that tree until you have put 31 points in it. Then the other trees open up. At level 78 and above, items will start dropping with Mastery as a stat. Once Mastery is learned from your class trainer, the stat will give bonuses based on the tree specialized in. The Mastery bonuses will be flat percentages and will no longer be based on the number of talents spent in a tree. Talents will alternate with skills when leveling. So you will get a talent point "about" every other level. The full blue post is after the break.
Tips for purchasing your BlizzCon '10 tickets
Zarhym hit the forums this evening, just a few short hours before the kickoff of BlizzCon ticket sales, to drop a number of tips to help increase your chances of getting tickets of your own. Some highlights include: Making sure your Battle.net account is set up properly Making sure your bank (or other financial institution) will accept large transactions from the Blizzard store Enabling cookies in your browser Check out the thread for the full details on these tips and many more. They're all great tips and I can say from past experience that it is incredibly good advice.
Patch 3.3.5: Changes to vote kick incoming
Zarhym hit the forums earlier this evening to announce a change coming to the dungeon finder in the upcoming Patch 3.3.5. For those who behave themselves, the cooldown for starting a vote to kick a player from your party will be removed. For those who kick players out of those parties more frequently, the cooldown will remain. The quote: Zarhym We have found that most players using the Dungeon Finder don't use the Vote Kick feature or abandon groups very often. For these players, we are removing the cooldown on voting to kick players from a dungeon party. In contrast, those players who tend to kick players or abandon groups more frequently will notice that the Vote Kick feature maintains its cooldown. The goal here is to make sure players who are generally patient can make use of the Vote Kick feature when they really need it, without giving a more powerful tool to those who try to kick others or abandon dungeon groups very frequently. This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes. source You might remember that they started tracking this sort of information as of patch 3.3.3. They have been tracking the number of times you kick, the number of times you are kicked, how often you've abandoned a party and a few other things. While this change is a new one, they have been collecting the data for some time. There's a Santa Claus is Coming to Town parody somewhere in here, but I'm not musical enough to pull it off. Help us out?
The Daily Blues: Happy Birthday, Zarhym!
Each day WoW.com will take you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From Ghostcrawler's latest posts to the lowdown on StarCraft II and Diablo III, we'll keep you informed. We haven't posted The Daily Blues this week because the blues have been so quiet, obviously working hard on Cataclysm and related content. But today is something special -- the birthday of Zarhym, who turns 29. So happy birthday to our blue-tinted friend, may all your drops be epic. Go wish him a happy birthday. Table of Contents Ghostcrawler Other StarCraft II / Diablo III / Activision-Blizzard News
The Daily Blues
Each day WoW.com will take you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From Ghostcrawler's latest posts to the lowdown on StarCraft II and Diablo III, we'll keep you informed. The Daily Blues, in which Ghostcrawler is chatty as hell about healing. Table of Contents Ghostcrawler Other
BlizzCast Episode #13
Episode 13 of Blizzcast, Blizzard's occassional podcast, came out yesterday. The majority of it is devoted to a StarCraft II beta special, which is beyond the scope of this site, but they did do a WoW Q&A after that (and a Diablo 3 Q&A at the end), between WoW CM Zarhym and Diablo CM Bashiok. The WoW segment was mostly retrospective, discussing what the developers learned from Wrath, with a dash of looking forward to Cataclysm. Here's a quick summary (you can read the whole transcript, or listen to the podcast, at Blizzard's site): ICC is designed such that the final boss in each section is harder than the rest of the section (Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King). The ICC zone-wide buff "won't come in until at least a month after the Lich King has been released," which means we could see it soon, since the Lich King fight opened up February 2nd (although the devs mentioned in the Twitter chat that it's not quite time for the buff yet). It will improve "roughly once a month," and the buff will affect health, damage, and healing (much like the Luck of the Draw buff from random dungeon groups). They thought the Illidan encounter in Black Temple, back in BC, was a bit anti-climactic, so they wanted to make sure the end of the Lich King was "super special." In answer to "what next after I clear ICC:" ICC hard modes, and to a lesser extent the Ruby Sanctum, which is coming in a future patch. Ruby Sanctum will hold "roughly Lich King level gear," as has been mentioned elsewhere. That's about it for the WoW content, but if you're interested in SC2 or D3, you may well want to read or listen to the whole thing.
A look at GM Island and the Player Jail
It's hard to judge exactly how many players know about GM Island. Some of the older players will remember the flood of trade chat and guild chats whenever a GM was online and visible in GM Island, and those folks who like to mess around with private servers and unexplored places will have at least heard of its existence. However today, with the island being so cordoned off, many players probably are not familiar with the mythical island of the game masters. GM Island is a piece of land that used to exist in the very upper left hand coordinates of Azeroth, far beyond the reach of players. It exists as an in-game entrance point for Blizzard GMs, and is a relatively mundane place. It has a small keep and a dock, a few trees and bushes, and that's it. There was a time when players were able to swim out to the island, and that swim took around an hour of hard work. It involved using a level one character constantly casting renew and other healing spells; and the player had to know exactly where to point themselves or risk being hopelessly lost in the vast oceans of Azeroth. The trick used to get there was similar to the one that allowed players to get to the Isle of Quel'Danas on the patch 2.4 PTR back in 2008. It was also possible to water-walk out there, but not much is known anymore about that method, at least publicly. After the break we'll take a look at a few of the features and lore surrounding GM Island, as well as look at some videos. However, please be forewarned that some of the images and videos in this post are from private servers. Enough legitimate in-game footage simply doesn't exist. %Gallery-86576%
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Zarhym clarifies new holiday boss mechanics
So one of the new changes coming in Patch 3.3.3 is that one will be able queue up using the dungeon finder in order to fight world event bosses such as the Crown Chemical Trio or the Headless Horseman. However, the actual extent of the changes is a bit more involved, as Zarhym clarified in a recent forums post. Here's the rundown:
Upcoming battleground and honor changes
Zarhym has announced today major upcoming battleground and honor changes. These changes will be present in the next minor content patch, which will be on the PTR soon. Some of the key points: Marks of Honor are going away. Holiday weekends will now be denoted as "Call to Arms" and award tiered system of honor for participation. The tier is based on you winning or losing the battleground, and if you've won or lost before. Honor kills reward 100% more honor, Wintergrasp weekly quests give 50% less honor, and XP rewarded from honor kills are reduced by 50%. Implementation of the Random Battleground Finder -- much like the current Random Dungeon Finder. There are further honor rewards, which are similar to the ones provided by the Call to Arms. Obviously, there are a ton of implications in these changes to the basic way people participate in PvP. These changes also represent a good start to the massive overhaul we'll see in Cataclysm when rated battlegrounds are introduced. The full statement after the break.
Looking back at 40-player raids
Every so often someone looks back to 40-man raiding: this time it's Zarhym on the official forums, answering a question about raiding's future and their possible return. I have to say that every time someone decides that the 40-man raid game should come back, I cringe a little bit. So Zarhym's answer works for me. Right now our plan is to look back on 40-player raids fondly as a format by which we were able to evolve and customize what we feel to be the best raid formats for World of Warcraft. I don't believe our developers have ever stated that they'll absolutely never do a 40-player raid again, but we're really happy with the raid variety we have now with 10- and 25-player raids featuring normal and Heroic difficulties. I agree that there were some very epic moments in the old raid game: last night for instance I was looking at old screenshots of myself from those days and gabbing with the people who work here about our respective accomplishments and experiences in original WoW raiding. The great C'thun death beam chain ride, where we all mounted our bugs and rode in at once to see how high we could get it to go (I believe I took 6 million damage, with another 6 million resisted), the night I got my Sulfuras, the Onyxia attunement chain and what an incredible pain it was to wander around Desolace looking for Rexxar. I'm a veteran of the 40-man raid game from both the Horde and Alliance side, and I have to say, I really only miss the experiences through the patina of time buffing up all the glory moments like killing the bosses for the first time and letting you forget the pure hassle of getting 40 people together. The griping over having to break up into 15-man groups to go run UBRS and MC the mobs there for a fire resistance buff for Vaelastrasz is long since forgotten. I think in the end 40-man raiding was cool and fun and an artifact of the games that preceded WoW, and it belongs in its place of honor but definitely in the past.
Zarhym: More content coming before Cataclysm patch
In response to some complaining that we were going to run out of content to play before Cataclsym; Zarhym responded that there was still a lot of content for the average player and: With that being said, we do have some additional PvE and PvP content and changes we plan to implement prior to the release of the big Cataclysm patch and subsequent retail release of that third expansion. We'll be discussing these new features in more detail in the coming weeks. This pretty much dashes any hopes of the expansion being released before midsummer or fall, since they wouldn't be developing any new content otherwise. Zarhym goes on to tell us that ICC will be the last tiered progression raid before Cataclysm. So we probably won't be getting the raids in the Sunwell Plateau, but we may get another Isle of Quel'danas and some more PvP fun as well. When asked if there was going to be any more tiered or higher level gear, Zarhym sidestepped the issue by admitting he was being ambiguous. So we may have other ways than raids to get better gear after ICC. Or we may not. Still this confirmation of more content before the big pre-expansion patch is news.
