Sapperwix posted:

Greetings Combatants of the Glorious Alliance and the Merciless Horde!
It is my great honor to invite you all to test your skills, steel, and sorcery against Blizzard employees such as myself (watch the face though, I got an image to maintain).

So if a bit of You vs. Blue action sounds like your idea of a good time come on down to the 4.3.2 PTRs this Tuesday, January 17th. We'll be queuing for Rated Battlegrounds from 3pm-6pm PST, you'll know it's us from our [Blizzard Horde] & [Blizzard Alliance] guild names.

Hope to see you on the fields of battle!

Kaivax posted:

Rogue

• Adrenaline Rush no longer triggers a global cooldown.

Dungeons & Raids

• Baradin Hold
  • The roaming Eyes of Occu'thar have been replaced by hateful creatures who serve Alizabal.
• Dragon Soul
  • Warmaster Blackhorn
    • The visual warning for Twilight Elites' Blade Rush should be easier to see.

Items

• Vial of Shadows damage (Lightning Strike) has been reduced to approximately one-third of previous damage. However, it will now trigger approximately 3 times as often. This is intended to keep overall DPS the same while reducing burst damage, especially in PvP.

Blizzard posted:

The Scroll of Resurrection will temporarily be unavailable while it goes on cooldown. As of January 10, 2012 you will no longer be able to send Scroll of Resurrection invites to your friends with lapsed accounts. Never fear, once this ability refreshes, we’ll let you know. Keep an eye on the official World of Warcraft site for more information.

To learn more about the Scroll of Resurrection, visit the FAQ.

Blizzard posted:

BlizzCon presents an incentive for real-life tailors and engineers to take up their needle and thread and their cardboard and spray paint, in order to fashion amazingly realistic recreations of their favorite Blizzard characters and creatures. After this year’s costume contest, we invited the winners to write articles on the art of costume-craft for us to share with the community. Here’s the third entry in the series, written by Justin, who won third place for his take on Deathwing.

Pain!...

Agony!...

My name is Justin Floyd, and I am Deathwing. Rather, I was Deathwing. This costume started at the insistence of my wife, who decided I would fit the character of the deranged former Earth Warder quite well, which I’m not sure is a compliment. Without her help, this costume would not have been possible (mainly because my artistic ability is confined to stick figures and shadow puppets).

Read the whole story here.

Nethaera posted this tidbit:

There are on-going discussions about how we want to handle this issue. If I recall correctly, there were some ideas brought up at BlizzCon about what we could potentially do to alleviate the concerns about extra character slots, but I don't have any more information on a specific decision right now.

The Raid Finder was a very interesting and successful addition to the game in patch 4.3. It allowed better access to end game content for players across the board who can't commit hours and hours every day. But one thing people were immediately asking when it was announced was whether or not older raids would be available to queue for. Unfortunately not. It takes a lot of time to tune raids to a lower difficulty and set all the loot tables just right. But if Blizzard did eventually add older raids to the Raid Finder which ones would you like to see the most? What are the top ten old raids you want for the raid finder?

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Kaivax posted:

General

• Killing a boss in a guild group while using the random Heroic Dungeon Finder should now award guild reputation and experience.
• Mobs that have been damaged by Shadowy Apparitions should again provide experience when defeated.
• Darkmoon Tonk and Darkmoon Zeppelin should no longer become a horde balloon after performing a faction change from Alliance to Horde.

Dungeons and Raids

• Hour of Twilight
  • Archbishop Benedictus
    • Thrall and Archbishop Benedictus should no longer fail to complete their roleplay introduction (preventing players from completing the instance).
• Well of Eternity
  • Mannoroth
    • Starting the Mannoroth encounter should no longer remove Stealth effects.
• Dragon Soul
  • Twilight Elite Dreadblades and Twilight Elite Slayers should now refrain from doing melee attacks while mounted, and always engage and melee players after landing on the gunship deck.
  • Ultraxion
    • All Fading Light debuffs and Aspect crystal buffs on players should now be cleared when the encounter ends.
  • The Madness of Deathwing
    • The Corrupted Parasite debuff is removed from a character who leaves the zone.

Events

• Darkmoon Faire
  • Players should now be able to complete the quests "The Captured Journal" and "The Enemy's Insignia" after having completed them in a previous month.

Items

• Vial of Shadows proc damage should now be increased by ranged attack power for hunters.
• Souldrinker and Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps no longer have a chance to proc twice for paladins with Seal of Truth active.
• Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth now invokes Speaking of Rage bonus damage that is treate as ranged damage and benefits from ranged critical strike chance.

Quests and Creatures

• Pelturas Whitemoon should no longer becomes unresponsive after a player completes the quest "All's Well".

MMO-Champion has been busy the last month or two! Analyzing data and posting their findings about certain aspects (no pun intended) of the game. The latest post shows progression for this last patch and one can't help but notice how relatively few people have completed the Dragon Soul raid on Normal difficulty. Do you think the Looking For Raid feature is going to trivialize normal and heroic modes? Do you think the average person/guild will 'bother' completing the raid in normal or heroic modes? Or will the lure of better gear keep most people reaching for the carrot? Are you concerned that those difficulty options will go away if so few players complete it? Do you use the Looking for Raid? Do you think it's a good feature for the game or a bad one? Or is it more complicated than that?

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The Topic of the Week is a contest run by WoW Vault! The best reply will receive VIP Insider for 2 weeks! Potential winning posts are judged according to length, interpretation of the subject and writing style.

Disclaimer: Winners with too many ToS violations on their account may not be eligible to receive the reward.

Bashiok posted:

In preparation for the upcoming release of Mists of Pandaria, updates to World of Warcraft will no longer support Microsoft Windows 2000. Microsoft ceased support for this version of their operating system in 2010. Players still using Windows 2000 are encouraged to upgrade prior to the release of Mists of Pandaria.

Kaivax posted:

Classes: General

• Vengeance is no longer triggered by receiving damage from other players.

Druids

• The Tier 13 Balance Druid 4-piece bonus now also increases the damage of Starsurge by 10%, in addition to its current effect.

Hunters

• Aspect of the Hawk now grants roughly 35% more attack power.
• Deterrence now also reduces damage taken by 30% while active.
• Black Arrow now ticks every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, as opposed to every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. The total damage dealt by the ability is unchanged.
• Lock and Load no longer benefits Arcane Shot, nor is it consumed by Arcane Shot.

Mages

• Fireball damage has been reduced by roughly 6%.
• Pyroblast damage has been reduced by roughly 6%.

Paladins

• Holy Radiance now costs 40% of base mana, up from 35%.

Priests

• Mass Dispel should again prefer dispelling targets that have magic effects that can be dispelled.

Dungeons & Raids

• You can now form same-faction raids with Real ID friends, allowing you to enter Raid Finder in groups larger than 5, run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds. You will not yet be able to run normal or heroic Dragon Soul with cross-realm raids of Real ID friends.
• Several typo fixes and clarified descriptions have been added to the Dungeon Journal entries for Dragon Soul.
• Players can no longer win multiple copies of the same item on a single Raid Finder boss kill. For example, a player who chooses Need on two set piece tokens or two weapons and wins the first, will not be eligible for the second on that particular boss.

Dresorull posted:

A 64-bit client is now available for use with the 4.3.2 PTR. You can download it at the link below, unzip it into your PTR directory, and then run the executable to test it.

• The 64-bit client is being distributed separately from the PTR as it is not yet supported for use with World of Warcraft.
• This can only be used with the 4.3.2 PTR, it is not to be used with the live version of the game.
• A Mac version is not available yet, though we are working on one and plan for it to be available in the near future.
• The game’s built in voice chat does not currently work in the 64-bit client.

link

If you encounter any issues while using the 64-bit version, please report your findings in the PTR bug report forum (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/2359401/), and return to using the 32-bit executable.

"As with all warcraft games, when you repeatedly click on some mobs they will begin talking back with witty little comebacks. However critters do not explode if you continually click on them."

Submitted by: Messiah

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Submit a tip via our Submission page or Private Message to Rill_of_WE and you could be on the front page!

"Have you ever been in the situation that you’re supposed to speak to a NPC, and you can see lots of other NPC’s, just not this particular one? Try this:

/tar NPCname

It will show up on your radar! If that still doesn't help you find them, right click their portrait and put a nice bright raid target on them. The icon will show up even if there's something between you and them."

Submitted by: Agamemnon

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Submit a tip via our Submission page or Private Message to Rill_of_WE and you could be on the front page!

Kaivax posted:

We previously introduced the ability to form cross-realm parties with Real ID friends, and now with Patch 4.3.2, we're adding the ability for players to use that same functionality to form raids to run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds!

This will allow you to join up with your Real ID friends from other realms and:

• Form a cross-realm raid and use Raid Finder
• Jump in to any classic dungeon or raid and be automatically placed in the same instance
• Join forces and dominate the Battlegrounds

Please note, you will not yet be able to run normal or Heroic Dragon Soul with cross-realm Real ID raids.

As we look forward to the BattleTag system, it’s a very exciting time for World of Warcraft. No matter what realm you and your friends are on you’ll be able to team up and take on group content throughout the game.

Kaivax posted:

We are aware of issues affecting the Darkmoon Faire, which began again today, particularly regarding monthly quests and some related achievements.

Our teams are investigating the issue and would like to assure you that we are working hard to solve the issue.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing.

(...)We’ve identified a number of issues with the Darkmoon Faire this month, and they should be resolved for the February faire. Specifically, we found problems with:

• Attempting to turn in the Adventurer's Journal and Captured Insignia which are associated with these quests “The Captured Journal” and “The Enemy's Insignia”. If you are having difficulty turning in these items, please contact our customer service department at http://us.battle.net/support/en/ and they will be able to provide you with 5 Darkmoon Prize Tickets per item.
• Unfortunately, “The Darkmoon Faire” quest cannot be made available for characters that previously completed the quest. This is due to the fact that this quest is not a new quest, but reuses the old quest ID. We realize this was an error and will be taking steps to not repeat it for future quests, but it does mean that characters that completed it before will not be able to complete the new version with the ticket reward.
• The reset of monthly achievement progress experienced by some is unfortunately unable to be reinstated. We apologize for this error and have taken steps to ensure it does not occur again.

January's Darkmoon Faire will come to a conclusion on Saturday, Jan. 7 at midnight. The faire will return again on Feb. 5, as planned.

We apologize for the inconveniences some players have encountered with these issues. Thank you for your patience and feedback.