And He's DOWN!

Yes, that's the Crown of the Lich King. In shock news, yes he dies ^^ No more spoilers here, but needless to say, I wasn't wrong \o/

So, tomorrow is a new wing, Season 8, a 10% reduction in all PvP healing and no doubt a guaranteed 'Additional Instances cannot be launched' festival on my Server. What is more important to note is as of tomorrow, the next new content we will see is going to be Cataclysm.

Bring it on!

Coming Soon...

Via MMO Champion, and with thanks to Kinaesthesia from Vodka (US-Alterac Mountains), here's a taster of 3.3's HAWT 5 Man action. Spoilers aplenty, watch AT YOUR PERIL.

But you're gonna watch. Oh yes.



ZOMG. Is it Wednesday yet????

All This and World War Three :: Spoilers for 3.3

I will admit this now. There was squeeing here. Actual Fangirl squees of joy as I made my way through this questline. The spoilers are ENORMOUS. You have, as always, been warned.

So I bought this from the Glyph Sellers in Dalaran, placed in game so the premade L80's can glyph once they are copied. We still don't know where it drops, and I assume because of the importance of this quest Blizzard aren't going to make that kill or location anything difficult to do. All of the steps in this are soloable until you hit the new 5 man content.

Once you have the hilt you need to pop down to the new guys at Quel'delar's Rest:

When you get there you'll notice the weather has gotten a LOT colder at the Tournament: a blizzard rages and thunder frequently rends the sky. It's a nice touch and gives a real sense that the winter is setting in and it's not just the bad guys you're fighting against. Caladis Brightspear suggests you may wish to talk to the Bronze Dragonflight about what the hilt's significance could be: after all, the Bronze Flight have been here a LONG time. On your arrival at Wyrmrest it becomes apparent that an ancient tome exists on what we discover are named the Prismatic Swords, of which your hilt is a part. Even more concerning is the fact that someone else has taken the book before you, a member of the Sunreavers. As you're pondering your next move, a totally unexpected guest arrives to question the Bronze's involvement in this entire affair:

Yes that's Kalecgos! You may remember him from such instances as Magister's Terrace and the Sunwell, where he tried to thwart Kil'jaeden's plans but was ultimately posessed by by the dreadlord Sathrovarr the Corruptor. Clearly he has some concerns about our suitability... well, considering I've only ever redeemed his ass once, post BC expansion, he may have a point :P

Anyway, we need to get the book back, so it's time fo a bit of running around in Dalaran, at the bidding of the New NPC in the Silver Covenant area:

Always something to do, always a ? to click...

You'll have a few tasks to do before the book is in safe hands again: you'll need to kill a courier in the Underbelly (be careful, watch for reprisal attacks, which is a nice touch by Blizzard) and then you'll need to find a disguse to enter the Sunreaver's area. Fortunately there's a Laundry service in Dalaran at the Threads of Fate (let's hope Mrs Meers is nothing to do with it) which will happily let you 'borrow' you a tabard to use, but only if you help with the laundry first!

If you are familiar with the Kungaloosh quest line, this is almost identical to the Still At It quest, substituting clothing for fruit. Don't worry if you're queuing for this either: once it's done the Laundry Bag is clickable by all! Once armed with your Tabard, and looking rather natty as a Blood Elf, you're off to the Sunreavers' area. I think they got the better deal in terms of pub decor...

The Horde also get dancing girls... why were we not informed of this???? Trying not to be distracted, we have our book, and so it's off back to the Tournament grounds, where it becomes apparent this sword is of some significance. It was forged at the same time as Quel'serrar, no less... and it's most recent owner is not best pleased we're trying to reforge it:

Say hello to Queen Lana'thel, who you'll be seeing again in Icecrown Citadel. She leads the San'layn, whom include Prince Keleseth in UK and Prince Valanar who you defeated back in the Tundra during the Last Rites quest. It transpires Lana'thel took the sword from Thalorien's dead hands and headed to Northrend in an attempt to avenge her compatriots' demise at the Sunwell, and was transformed by Arthas. The sword was broken... until now.

Here ends the first portion of solo questing! Coming up later, we go to the Pit of Saron and encounter new ?'s, buggy mobs and the continuation of this Epic Questline. Stay Tuned!

Looking Good! SPOILERS FOR 3.3

Remember that manky old sword in the ice outside the Tournament? Not so shabby now... The changes to Icecrown are continuing apace, but in rather worrying news the latest PTR build has bought a COMPLETE lack of flying mounts. Nothing works, clearly it must be extra cold this build. The upshot of this is that riding to Icecrown from the Tournament is a proper adventure. 5 deaths, and a hefty repair bill later, I made it through the Commanders and to the gates...

... only to discover the raid group I was invited to consisted of three people in phase with me and five who were not. Annoyingly therefore the Citadel remains undiscovered for now :(

I was going to go take a look and see if the there's details on what the Reputation changes look like thus far but I'm now locked out of the server altogether. More news when I can make it back in.

End of the Tunnel

So, this week has seen not one, but TWO 25 man Guild outings, and the 25 man achievement for doing Boss #1 without a System Shutdown. The drama was worth it.

This morning brings a new PTR build and some much needed love for Alts.

• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:

            Argent Crusade
            Alliance Vanguard
            Horde Expedition
            Kirin Tor
            Knights of the Ebon Blade
            Sons of Hodir
            Wyrmrest Accord

• Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
• Reputation commendations can now be purchased for 1 Emblem of Triumph each.

That's a fabulous change :D It also gives a sense of the game moving forward to it's logical conclusion in this expansion as well, which is exciting in itself. What do you mean, that's what Icecrown is for? :P

Hunter

• Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.

To the person who asks me how pets level, here's the answer, it's experience based. I thought it was directly related to kills but if it's experience then it does include quest rewards as well. Every day is a school day :D

There's also a very BIG SPOILER that I won't reveal here as yet but I'm very happy about, as it means one of my favourite Alliance NPC's survived the Wrathgate...

This weekend we'll do a roundup, I'll get some pics of the faction stuff, and there will be chocolate cake. Oh yes.

Who is Martin Victus? SPOILERS for 3.3 PTR

Yes, there be spoilers. BIG HONKING HUGE ONES. Continue at your peril.

No really, there are, stop reading NOW!

Why are you still here??? I'm gonna spoil you!!!!!



Right, now they're gone, let's take a look at the two new wings of the 5 Man Icecrown Citadel Instance: The Pit of Saron (so more of Martin later, coz we'll meet him there) but firstly, the Forge of Souls, which is where we start our journey... and where we meet the New, Improved Jaina Proudmoore.

As you can see she's had some extensive plastic surgery, been down to the Mall for some decent armour (where's the belly button piercing though?), and has the look of a woman who really wanted just to study but ended up having to drag hapless explorers around Icecrown on potential Suicide Missions. We meet her with the customary yellow ? in the Forge of Souls where she gives us the first of a sequence of quests, making this entire dungeon feel very similar to the Magister's Terrace experience. What has changed most noticably is what you'll recieve as a reward:

Still a lot to do here as you can see as that's the Old Jaina Image on the quest completion tab. In a very welcome development, quest rewards now give you a visual indicator of how much reputation you will be awarded for completing them. This is no doubt to work in tandem with the questing improvements we've discussed previously on the Map screen.

The hastily formed five man group of hapless explorers who I pulled together at nine am this morning completed the instance with no deaths on Normal difficulty and in less than 30 minutes. We experienced a variety of trash and two bosses: Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls, which shares the same model as the Reliquary of Souls from Black Temple (which now explains some of the QQ-ing I've read about Blizzard recycling boss content.) However it's just a visual resemblance; both fights are non static, involve brains in place and could quite easily catch out the less experienced dungeoneer. I won't spoil details but the second fight especially is not easy, even on Normal, and both should provide a decent challenge in Heroic Mode. Once you've cleared these two... well, that's it. Instance is complete, you've done your quest and if everything was fully functional there'd be a portal to take you and Jaina directly to the Pit of Saron. For us, we have to run back to the start. It's not easy being a trailblazer you know...

 Bronjahm meets his end in the Forge of Souls

You enter the Pit of Saron straight into a fight, which doesn't end at all well if I'm honest. So then it's up to you to round up a new set of soldiers for the new challenge ahead, and to destroy Scourgelord Tyrannus, who sits atop a Frostwyrm who is strangely familiar... but more of that later. For now we have a new quest from Jaina: destoy the end boss and free 20 slaves along the way. The Pit is big with a large variety of trash, both static and otherwise, and some real care will be needed in Heroic not to come a cropper as you clear to the first boss: Forgemaster Garfrost. Once you have him down (watch the rocks, they're big and they hurt ^^) you'll find you've freed a large number of captive slaves as well... amongst whom is the mysterious Martin Victus. He quickly organises the fighters into a coherent group and readies them for the fight... but there's one more boss to remove first, the Leper Gnome Krick and his abomination sidekick Ick (did I really just type that?)

Mark 2 Jaina gives the orders in the Pit of Saron

And here is where we get a HUGE indication as to our goal in this 5 man: Krick reveals that Frostmourne, Arthas' sword, apparently resides unguarded in our ultimate destination: the Halls of Reflection. This is big news for anyone who knows just how important Frostmourne is to controlling Arthas himself, if you did your quests in Dragonblight and paid attention. This also ties in very well with the Quel'delar questline which we know will be running in Icecrown at the same time: perhaps Jaina will use this sword in battle against Frostmourne itself. What could be more likely however is that the 5 man dungeon will alter Frostmourne as a weapon, in a way similar to the way the Ashbringer was uncorrupted by Fordring. It's all speculation at the moment though because the last dungeon is not yet available.

Once we have the bosses in the lower quarry dead it's a rolling gauntlet up to the top tier and the last boss. If you hate the ice from the sky that is a part of the Hodir fight in Ulduar you won't like this run either: there's a cave to negotiate with the White Circles of Terror appearing with scary regularity. Once we're up, Martin appars with a load of freed slaves and keeps the Scourge at bay while we fight and dispatch Tyrannus. Now here things are a little unclear, and I'd need to run the dungeon again to check, but I'm 90% certain when we killed the Scourgelord we also freed his frostwyrm mount.... who just happens to by Syndragosa...

The Mysterious Martin Victus, with Sindragosa behind him

So currently I have more questions than answers concerning the Lore ramifications of what I've seen, but I'm left with a profound sense of building up to something REALLY special in the third wing of this dungeon. The design of these two wings so far is spot on in my opinion: linear progression, challenging fights and (I hope) rewards that justify the effort. There's also a tangible sense of major events just beyond our reach, which I like a great deal. Of course we had no loot and I think many of these fights may well get harder, but if this is what we have to look forward to on the 5 man front I do get the feeling that Icecrown itself is going to be VERY special indeed.

More PTR news as we get it :D

Told You So!

I was right about the two new races in the Expansion.

What makes me sad is we won't see the head honcho of MMO dancing naked in the streets of Paris.

That alone would have been worth being wrong... :D

Blimey!

So, my spot on the Quest Tooltips made it onto WoW Insider... :D

/waves at anyone new passing by. Hello!

[PTR] Same As it Ever Was

So, I tried to get into the PTR when Ulduar was active. Needless to say...



was as far as I ever got. This is the Game Gods way of telling me it's not my time yet, go grind some glods coz frankly you're gonna need a lot of stuff to sort out the 325 Alt Family 'o' Doom.

Yesterday morning however, I did get to sneak on, and went back to the Tournament. I need 15 signets to proceed to the next stage of participation (managed to get to 12 despite several quests still being borked) so hopefully at some point today I can see what happens when you finally arrive at a proper Joust. What also caught my eye whilst mooching around were the new shirts:


[Note: as you can see, arrows are still stacking to 200. One assumes this stacking to 1000 change is gonna pop up on the next build]

Blizz have really pulled their finger out on the character decoration front: new outfits for the Seasonal events, even (GASP!) new shoe patterns, and now we have shirts with your fave Alliance or Horde's Faction crest shoved on the front in obligatory Fangnome fashion. 25g seems a bit steep to be honest, but if you have 1000g lying about to become a Dual Speccer it's hardly gonna break the bank. Here I am (still headless, *sigh*) modelling the Gnomeregan version. I love them in that underground lair:


Perhaps the most interesting thing I noticed totally by accident. Blizz have started getting a bit more creative with mob tooltips. Let me show you a couple of examples:



The top mob was part of the quest 'Training in the Field' (one of the new Tournament dailies) and not only does my tooltip now tell me I need the mob for that quest it also tells me I need five more mobs to complete it. Similarly the Unbound Seer drops the quest item I require in able to complete the other quest I'm on (which is completely borked sadly) Some might think this is further evidence that the game is being dumbed down, I am actually quite pleased to see it. On brain slow days, it's going to cut down a lot of the stupid questions in Guild and elsewhere.

In it's own way, this could be one of the most significant in-game developments for some time.

[PTR] What a Difference a Day Makes

So, it's all change on the PTR. At least today I can see where I am, even if it's impossible to fly there (despite the now newly-coloured flight master and being able to fly out):

Yesterday this wasn't even ON the map, but today...

Things are pretty fluid, even down to complete changes in looks. To be honest, I preferred yesterday's version of the monument, but I can see why they changed it...

In the fast paced world of monument construction, Rome CAN be built in a day...

PvP has been deactivated on the entire server (wonder how many people complained) and there's been some swift changes, most important of which is the sequence for the Tournament. There's some basic gathering dailies, and a registration process. You need to learn how to control your new shiny mount and it's abilities (Block, Charge, Attack, Fall Off Ungraciously and Land in a Heap)[*], and you're going to need a weapon too if you want to fight for glory. In a Arthurian Legend meets Fairy Story fashion, you'll need to get your Chap Stick on and go kiss some frogs to find it...

Questing made Easy, Goblin Edition.

Once you're doing these Tournament Quests it's Silver Covenant rep you'll be stacking. You'll also need to complete a fair number them before you have enough items try your hand at some serious combats... oh and then there's the Black Knight. No, it's not Christian Bale (he's the Dark Knight). Nor is it John Cleese (Monty Python references notwithstanding). You'll have to go to Westfall (no I'm not kidding) to find out for yourself...

There's a lot here, which P is slowly working her way through. Some brief observations:

• Multi Shot has a new noise!!! It's... multiple shots!
• Pet talents still borked :( Wondering if this is actually deliberate.
  
• Westfall is the Trailer Park of Azeroth. All the dodgy characters are there: Van Cleef, Stalvan, and now my mysterious new Nemesis...
  

Plus it appears to be the middle of the night on the Server: reset the clock you nubs!

M's also materialised on the PTR this morning, so I've nipped off to Moonglade already, spent my 1000g and thrown together a rough healer build that looks promising (though the temptation to steal a Guildies was very, very strong) It's unlikely I'll get to do any real testing with her but I will go have a play with the dummies just to see how abilities work.

[*] One of these is not a genuine ability.

Green Means Go

Odd that they gave him a hairstyle first. I'd have started with a face...

So, a load more stuff has come out overnight on MMO Champion concerning the Argent Tournament. New tokens mean new items (tabard, pet, mount, items) but rather more interestingly the ability to buy reputation with your home factions at 250 a shot. I can see this being a big draw, especially for those with late blooming toons. I also like the idea of this being like the SSO/AQ Gates where you'll need a certain number of quests done to progress. The sense of competition this instills may not be healthy in some people's eyes, but it's gonna mean that our server is one of the first to complete it. It's full of serial overachievers. Lord knows what I'm doing there...

A plethora of new vendors and tradesmen at the back of the construction area.

I really like the way that Blizz are meshing casual game elements with the more hardcore ones (I'd say PvP is hardcore, especially if you want to do it properly) but also making sure what you're asked to do repetitively every day is not utterly sleep-inducing. I think it also helps greatly that there's four years of experience and history behind this as well: RP servers are going to have a field day with this stuff, especially as it allows you to fight specifically for your home city. I sense a lot of suppressed Gnome Pride will surface, after all this is the first time you can directly champion Gnomoregan anywhere in game. The tabards, I have to say, rock. Stormwind one especially is fabulous. Any Horde worth their grunt should want to own the Orgrimmar one.

Just in case you were in any doubt where you were...

As this is smack bang in the middle of the L80 zone one assumes that this isn't going to be accessible until you've levelled. That would be nice is to think that they might extend that to at least 77 (when you have access to the flying mount) so it would offer an accompaniment to those in the later stages of levelling, especially as the rewards available with the new tokens are really rather tasty. Part of my annoyance with TBC was the fact the new content from the Skyguard, Netherwing and Ogri'la was only available once you hit 70. It would have been great to have been given the chance to start working towards a flying mount with an alternative to exploratory questing, especially one that (like the factions) gave you access to upgrades as well.

Right, let's go look and see if in the latest build they fixed the bug not allowing you to assign pet talents...

Building their Part Up

We are going to be announcing some of our plans for classes in 3.1 fairly soon. The announcements will be prominent. They will not be comprehensive. We are not going to announce every change we are going to make. We are going to risk giving you some insight into a work in progress, even though we may ultimately decide not to make some of the changes. You guys can help me remind other players of that when they get angry because we didn't deliver a change that they were "promised."

Ghostcrawler Speaks

So now they've sorted out the chaos that the last patch caused, we're gonna start getting some major content information on Ulduar appearing. There was a video on WOW Insider late last week, which was swiftly removed, which showed the large portion of art that exists inside the game currently. The missing art one assumes is long done, all that remains is to tune the encounters. So that leaves class changes, new items, and the possibility of new Dailies.

There's been speculation that we'll see the Silver Covenant emerge as a new faction in-game, which may well have daily quests to accompany it. I have to say that I'd far rather grind a rep to Exalted than be bothered with repeatable quests for cash which don't really give anything else. I soon got disillusioned with the Blue Laydeez in Storm Peaks: there is only so much Yeti Cheese and Snowballs you'll accept when there's the possibility of a cool mount in your daily Grab Bag.

The best faction grind has been, by some way, that for the Oracles. Once a week I can pop over to the basin, pick up a Mysterious Egg and in a week have the chance of one of a slew of pretty cool pets, plus a possible mount. Ok, so I have a lot of Aged Yolks thus far, but it's still worth the effort to go over there. The grind to Revered was also pretty good on the Hunter. I'll need to get the Lock over there as well (all these JC patterns ^^) and on the way I should check the possible gears on offer...

So, I have to wonder what class changes we're going to see. I know there's been talk about looking at Rogues and Mages, and that Hunters will now need to be played with AGAIN to get us back on an even keel (see below) What else will we be seeing?

Place your bets on the next class to be nerfed (to the ground, Baby!) here...