WoW: Mists of Pandaria (Patch 4.3 live! The final battle of Cataclysm begins!)

[Master Rudy]

New video posted on You Tube showing the Goblin starting area. Hope you got some time to kill if you want to watch it.....40 minutes long :O

[Master Rudy]

So what's everyone think of the whole Real ID fiasco now that it's had a few days to sink in and catch media attention from various game websites and even mainstream media (such as USA Today)? In case you haven't heard about it:



The official topic on the forum (as of this post over 2169 pages and 38600+ posts)
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...12374700&sid=1

Personally I find it to be a very bad idea to force people to post with real names. As many have pointed out it's more likely to open the door to even worse forms of harassment. Also while the incidents are few and far between you do have to remember that people have killed over stupid shit in games before. Case in point: the guy that spent six months tracking another guy down to kill him over an incident in Counter Strike. No matter how remote the possiblity is I simply do not like the idea that I may piss someone off for winning a loot roll on Rimefang's Claw or for constantly ganking them to go far enough to harass me offline or worse. Therefore once it goes into effect I will no longer be posting on the Blizzard forums. Should this make it into the game itself I'll be officially done with WoW.

It's funny.....for years several games have been marketed as the "WoW Killer" yet they didn't do any lasting damage. I've said several times that if anyone kills WoW it would be WoW itself. Now with Activision holding the reins of Blizzard it's highly possibly that I was right :-/

EDIT-Almost forgot.....as proof that no harm could come from this one of Bliz's employees/forum mods revealed his name to be Micah Whipple. If you know anything about how crazy people on the net are (especially 4chan) then I don't think I've got to tell you how badly this backfired. Within 20 minutes someone had his home phone, address, Facebook profile and names of his family members posted. The posts with this info have already been deleted and Bliz already changed the policy to have their employees exempt from this. Honestly if they see the need to protect their employees then one would think that they see how bad of an idea this is as opposed to moving forward with it ~_~()

[PNT510]

I am going to have to play counter point to you Rudy because you mentioned that this changed might have something to do with Activision. The change on the forum has nothing to do with Activision owning Blizzard. Ever since they were bought anytime blizzard has done something that pisses off fans it's blamed on Activision. If you really dig into the matter you'll see the changes might actually have to do with Korea. Everyone knows Star Craft is HUGE in Korea, well in Korea they have a law that if a website has more than I think it's 200,000 hits a day then users who post on forums must do so using their real names. So Blizzard who already has to make this change for Korea decides that they like the idea and decide to move it world wide.

Also there isn't confirmation that Blizzard employees won't have there names on the forums, it was said that the people who said the names would no longer be posted were just some customer support people that didn't know what they're talking about.

[Master Rudy]

I am going to have to play counter point to you Rudy because you mentioned that this changed might have something to do with Activision. The change on the forum has nothing to do with Activision owning Blizzard. Ever since they were bought anytime blizzard has done something that pisses off fans it's blamed on Activision. If you really dig into the matter you'll see the changes might actually have to do with Korea. Everyone knows Star Craft is HUGE in Korea, well in Korea they have a law that if a website has more than I think it's 200,000 hits a day then users who post on forums must do so using their real names. So Blizzard who already has to make this change for Korea decides that they like the idea and decide to move it world wide.

Also there isn't confirmation that Blizzard employees won't have there names on the forums, it was said that the people who said the names would no longer be posted were just some customer support people that didn't know what they're talking about.

Hmm....the Korea thing is a good point. Even so I still strongly believe that it's Activision calling the shots more than anyone on this matter. Even you have to admit that half the crap that Bliz said would NEVER be implemented got added once Activision jumped in and merged with them. Things such as faction changes, paid server transfers, race change, name change, sex change, ect. Some of these things have severely hurt the balance on some servers. My main server is Agamaggan. It's always had more horde than alliance. Back when I first started the ratio was about 60/40 in favor of the horde. Somewhat outnumbered but nothing drastic. Now ever since faction/server transfers came about it's actually gotten as bad as 90/10 in favor of the horde (no joke). If they suddenly decide that they want to put together a raid group and attempt For the Horde (downing all the opposing racial leaders) then there is no doubt they will get it. If we attempt to do it? Well if we start in Silvermoon or Thunder Bluff we might get lucky. However that'll usually be it for the night. As for downing Thrall or Syl? Forget it.....not happening. Wintergrasp is usually in their control unless I or someone else happens to gather a small group of friends during off hours. However when it is in our control it's very hard to get a VoA group going since it's usually 3-5 AM. It's actually getting to the point where I'm seriously considering a faction/server change myself. Only one of my friends from the old MSC days is really left. I guess the only reason I stick around that server is for the hope that Bran will someday return so me, her and our buddy Kp can get our old guild going again :-/

Forgive me for somewhat drifting off of the subject. For Blizzard it was always about the fun. For their partners it's always been about the money. That's why I feel the above changes came about. As a result server balance is seriously getting shifted around pretty bad in some places. Now granted I'm sure Bliz wants to make money too. However in the past they would take time to listen to their players. Instead they are silent on the matter with Real ID. There have been other situations that have stirred up a hornet's nest on the forums in the past post-Act. However this time around Bliz is 100% silent. Call me crazy but I think their hands might be tied in the matter to be honest.

And if you think this wasn't an Activision plan from the start then you need to read about their partnership with Facebook. Their president has already said several times that he wants to bring forth a "social gaming" experience. Considering how much the new social/chat features in WoW run like an instant messenger now I'd say that Activision is pushing their agenda on Bliz pretty hard :-/

[PNT510]

http://www.wow.com/2010/07/09/mike-m...fficial-forum/


Real named won't be posted anymore.

[Master Rudy]

Heh.....guess all the bad press as well as the proof that it was a bad idea to begin with swayed them. Good to see that at least Morhaime seems to have an ounce of sanity. Robert Kotick (president of Activision) is still an idiot and a douche however

Ah.....to be a fly on the wall at that paticular company meeting XD
If anything I think this is the proof that some companies DO listen and the little guy CAN win a fight when things aren't in their favor. Now if only the government was that easy to fix :-/

[Master Rudy]

Transformed voices for the female worgen are now in the Beta!



Opinions on it seem to be split down the middle. Bear in mind this is still Beta so it'll most likely have additional work and tweaks to it before the official release.

[Darth CookieMonster]

I think when Cataclysm comes out, we should update the list of players heree on tpm with their realm faction race and class.

[papabopp]

im addicted to WOW

[Darth CookieMonster]

really? what realm are you on?

anyways im on Warsong, with an Orc Shaman. I enjoy Warsong Gulch very much. Capture the flag has and always will be my strongest sport in Gym Class, so I like it alot.

Anyways, what are you guys planning on making when Cataclysm comes out??? Seeing as my orc shammy is the only character on Warsong, im just adding everything to that realm.

Here is my list:
Orc Shammy
Undead Death Knight
Blood Elf Warrior
Troll Druid
Tauren Paladin
Goblin Hunter

[papabopp]

im on hyjal and mok'nathal
im gonna make a worgen for sure prolly a warlock. and a troll druid and/or hunter

[The_Missing_Link]

im on hyjal and mok'nathal
im gonna make a worgen for sure prolly a warlock. and a troll druid and/or hunter

Who are you on Mok'Nathal? If you're an 80, I might know you

[papabopp]

nah no 80s on there prolly not for a long while. i used to but not anymore.

[Master Rudy]

Well after a few weeks of no new info I've finally got something for you guys:



Details on the Collector's Edition of Cat!

Overall I'm not too surprised at what it's coming with. For the most part these are items that have come with every collector's edition thus far (the soundtrack, the art book, the exclusive pet, CCG packs, ect). Be aware however that if you are looking to get the collector's edition that some retailers will only sell it on a pre-order basis.

Due to the announcement of the details behind this collector's edition as well as what the box art will look like don't be too surprised if we actually get the release date before the end of the month ^_~

[PNT510]

Seems kinda weird that they announced all the CE details without a release date. I am definitely gonna pick it up though. I always want to collectors editions but end up cheaping out in the end. Not this time!

[Master Rudy]

Seems kinda weird that they announced all the CE details without a release date. I am definitely gonna pick it up though. I always want to collectors editions but end up cheaping out in the end. Not this time!

Yeah same here. Granted I'm obviously cracking open the game box itself so I can get my upgrade key for Cat. However I'm gambling on the fact that in the future some of the limited edition items will be worth something. Hell I've seen USED CE's for BC and WotLK going for over $100 on Amazon before. Mind you that means the upgrade key is useless 9 times out of 10. However I guess that means people are willing to pay for the other items in the box.

[PNT510]

Well the reason old CE's sell for so much I think is because they still have the activation code for the mini pets unused. With Cat the mini pet should be tied to your account activation key this time. I know blizzard wanted to cut down on the after market sales of codes.

It's why SC2 Beta's got tied right to your account without an activation code like the BC and Wrath Beta's. I may be mistaken though about that being why the old x-pacs are selling for so much

[Master Rudy]

Nope....90% of the time the ones avalible used on Amazon flat out say the key has been used. And the way it works is that the activation key does get directly tied to your account. The exclusive pet is avalible to all your characters on ONE account and cannot be reused or redeemed on another account once it's on yours.

So yeah....while it may say on Battle.net that your account level is CE the only benefit you get from such an account is access to the pet. It's just a visual way of telling people that you paid $40 for all the extras that you may or may not have resold at a much higher price

[Darth CookieMonster]

Im seeping with excitement! How much are CE's usually?????

[PNT510]

$80 in the US, not sure about other regions.

[Darth CookieMonster]

I just went and preordered my copy of cat at gamestop today.. and of course i asked about the collectors edition... but... they arent available for preorder anymore apparently.. ohwell!

[Master Rudy]

I just went and preordered my copy of cat at gamestop today.. and of course i asked about the collectors edition... but... they arent available for preorder anymore apparently.. ohwell!

Damn...they ran out already where you live? Have you tried checking other retailers? If no one in your area is selling it in store you can always try Amazon. Personally for this item I'd order it direct from them and not one of their partner companies since we are talking about something fairly expensive. The only partner selling it has it for slightly less than street price but they only have 50% positive ratings in the past year. Amazon has it for $79.99 plus free shipping and won't charge your card until they mail it.

Oh and for a good laugh about placeholder dates do check out Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=new
Most compaines will at least make up a feasible date. That's why you get so much confusion about the date when people ask. Amazon has their placeholder set as 12/13/1901 XD

[papabopp]

im playing Horde on black dragon flight if anyone else does

[Darth CookieMonster]

Im playing horde on Warsong and Arthas... so hit me up...

[papabopp]

what are your guy's favorite races an classes
Troll Hunters my favorite combo
but i also like blood elves, undead and worgen
and for classes i like paladins, warlocks and druids

[Master Rudy]

Well folks it's almost upon us. Patch 4.0 is now avalible on the PTR. While it does not incorperate the new maps yet it does allow those of us not in the Beta a chance to see some of the class changes and apparently from what I've been hearing some of the new race/class combos. Info is taken directly from the PTR forums:

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.1

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patch...atchnotes.html

General


•Cataclysm Launcher Update


•The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We'd like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...Id=26726066731


•Reforging


•Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.


•Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Classes: General


•Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.

•All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.

•Ammo has been removed from the game.

•The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.

•Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.

•Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.

•Rage has been normalized.

•Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.

•Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.


•Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.

•Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.

•Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.

•Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.

•The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...26290449&sid=1

Death Knights


•A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.

•The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.

•The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids


•A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters


•Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.

•Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.

•Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.

•The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages


•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins


•Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks


•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.

•Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items


•Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.

•Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions


•The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface


•Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.

•The Arena Teams pane has been improved.

•The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.

•The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.

•A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.

•Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.

•New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.

•Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.

•New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.

•The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

•For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/bo...;forumId=11114


Also the new login screen music! ENJOY!

[papabopp]

yep

[Drago]

Breakdown of my opinions...

•Ammo has been removed from the game.
Lame. Quit holding our hand so much; now ranged combat has an advantage over ranged magic. Just wait for mana to run out, and fire away eternally. Seriously, it's expected for ranged weapons to require ammo. Was anyone who wasn't a pansy ever bitching about how they required ammo?

•Rage has been normalized.
Normalised? How so?

•Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Again, just watering the game down. I want to have to fork out the dosh for improved spells.

•Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
Sounds alright. Little bit of extra customisation.

•Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
Okaaaaayy.... kinda removes the strategic element of point placement while levelling, doesn't it?

•Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
Good. Better to be able to fully respec on the fly by also having the ability to change up pets.

•Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
Heard about this a while ago. So will it recharge as quickly as pets' focus? I'm a little unclear on how exactly focus is implemeneted.

•Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
Crap. You reward those tedious early levels of ass-kicking and ammo shortage (hur hur) by getting a pet at the end. Why just stick a pet in there and remove that element? It just makes hunters less unique, another drone for power leveling.

•The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.
Interesting: allows for a whole shitload of different playstyles... Gotta catch 'em all!

•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
I didn't think there was a particular problem with the warlock summon system, but I guess this might work better...

•Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.
I hope they still work the same, but anything that frees up bag space is a positive.

•Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.
SUCKS. It's made of cloth, of course it's more fragile!! Again, removal of unique elements of different classes, more like one singular drone.


So as you can see, I'm seeing more negative changes than positive... It's this constant pandering towards the casual player that's going to destroy the game. I'm a casual player myself, but I choose to be casual and struggle through the game. If you start rewarding me for my ineptitude by giving me all of these benefits, then that's just one in the eye for the hardcore and truly dedicated players. Sounds to me like they should name this edition 'Nanny WoW'

[Master Rudy]

My breakdown of the points Drago brought up

•Ammo has been removed from the game.
Lame. Quit holding our hand so much; now ranged combat has an advantage over ranged magic. Just wait for mana to run out, and fire away eternally. Seriously, it's expected for ranged weapons to require ammo. Was anyone who wasn't a pansy ever bitching about how they required ammo?

Meh....I'm split on this one. On the one hand I never have to hear anyone bitching that they ran out of ammo ever again. On the other hand a hunter should know exactly what they are getting into and have plenty of ammo for any encounters they are expecting. Then again another positive is that it frees up one bag slot for an actual bag. More often than not the hunter will be the first one in the group complaining about their bags being full. Also the mindset of run out of mana and keep firing: very bad. A hunter that can properly manage their skills should never be running out of mana. Then again this is a moot point since I don't play a hunter.

•Rage has been normalized.
Normalised? How so?

Trying to figure this one out myself as I don't currently play a warrior.

•Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Again, just watering the game down. I want to have to fork out the dosh for improved spells.

You actually LIKE paying for training? 0_0
Drago you are seriously the first person I've ever heard say that in my whole time playing WoW. First off having to constantly run back to a class trainer was time consuming and made me always feel like I was broke as I leveled. Second off in the cases of some classes *coughDEATH KNIGHTcough* the trainer was all the way back at EBON HOLD. For DK's in paticular you'd have to use Death Gate and then burn your hearth to get back to where you were. Hearth on CD? Tough luck.....start flying back to Stormwind to either take the ship to Northrend or use the port at the Mage's Tower to get back to the Dark Portal. The skills should now equal whatever the power level was when training for a new rank became avalible. The added bonus now being that since the skills actually improve as you level now it'll actually feel more like your character is getting better when you level you. Right now when I level up on an alt it feels like "Great....I got minor stat boosts. Now I need to run and see if I get any new skills/ranks.....shit I'm broke!" >_<

Trainers will still exist in the game for the purpose of learning dual spec and certain skills not on the actually talent trees now. I'm ok with this....less time running back and forth and more time actually playing the game I pay $15 a month for.

•Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
Sounds alright. Little bit of extra customisation.

Part of the new way talent trees are being handled that helps cut down on the "required" talents that bog down the 50 point trees. For the most part it's nothing we haven't seen before. The key thing here is that without fail you will get one active ability for your main talent tree as well as several passive bonuses.

•Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
Okaaaaayy.... kinda removes the strategic element of point placement while levelling, doesn't it?

Yes and no. This goes hand in hand with the talent tree changes we talked about above. First off if I remember correctly I believe we now cap at 40 talent points. Second off it keeps people focused on their class role. Despite all the talk we see about 5/51/15 being THE tree to use for X class, Y role there are still people that shove every last point into a single tree or spread them around too much. Also there's still a big mind set of "cookie cutter" builds in the game. Bottom line is if you expect to do high level content then people are expecting you to have X/Y/Z points in your tree. If you don't then you are considered to be someone that doesn't know how to play their class no matter how good you are.

While I'm sure the talent trees will still have a few talents here and there that are considered required by all I do highly doubt that we will see as many of the so called cookie cutter builds where 31/5/5 is the norm and if you play 31/0/10, 35/3/2, ect. then you're just some scrub that sucks. Sure you'll be locked into a tree for the first 31 points. However since many of the old "required" talents are being addressed as passive bonuses you get the moment you spend your first point you will get a little bit more freedom in whatever role/tree you decide to go down. Plus this'll also help players old and new from suddenly noticing they made a bad mistake on their talents and having to spend gold on those expensive respecs.

•Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
Good. Better to be able to fully respec on the fly by also having the ability to change up pets.

I agree with you here and have nothing to add.

•Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
Heard about this a while ago. So will it recharge as quickly as pets' focus? I'm a little unclear on how exactly focus is implemeneted.

I'm a bit unsure myself on how focus works compared to mana. Many hunters hated having to manage their mana and some just flat out didn't bother trying which as I'm sure anyone who's played WoW knows will have a very adverse effect on DPS. I might actually have to create a hunter on the PTR and get back to you guys on this one.

•Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
Crap. You reward those tedious early levels of ass-kicking and ammo shortage (hur hur) by getting a pet at the end. Why just stick a pet in there and remove that element? It just makes hunters less unique, another drone for power leveling.

Bliz has actually done research on player habits. Most players will quit a class they don't like within the first ten levels. Additional research into MMO's in general also show that people will usually quit an MMO that they don't like within those ten levels. By letting you have the pet from the start you get a better feel for a class from the get go that you might otherwise not stick with for more than five levels. As for getting the level one pet they will all be race specific. I've already seen video of worgen starting with a mastiff. I might start a NE hunter later on and let you guys know what they start with.

•The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.
Interesting: allows for a whole shitload of different playstyles... Gotta catch 'em all!

Once again no complaints and nothing to add.

•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
I didn't think there was a particular problem with the warlock summon system, but I guess this might work better...

Don't play a lock, will never play a lock.....

•Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.
I hope they still work the same, but anything that frees up bag space is a positive.

......Ok....might try a lock if the class doesn't seem like it's going to be a total facerolling class anymore XD
Oh and Drago I find it funny that you say shards being a resource instead of an item now is a good thing since it frees up bag space. Several bullet points back you were complaining about hunters no longer needing ammo which is pretty much the same thing. Cant' have it both ways bro

•Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.
SUCKS. It's made of cloth, of course it's more fragile!! Again, removal of unique elements of different classes, more like one singular drone.

Kinda silly here. I guess Bliz wants the penalty on death to be more or less equal to the other classes. Still an odd way to do it however.
EDIT-Something I just remembered that seems like it makes this change make more sense......currently when it comes to normal wear and tear in the game cloth does wear out faster. However on death all items take a 10% loss. Spirit rez will cause a 25% loss on top of that. The loss on death was equal across the board. However since plate/mail had more points to lose in the end they were more expensive to fix. By giving them all an equal amount of points the penalty matters more to all classes and might actually make cloth wearing classes less prone to shrugging off their repair bill. In fact I've actually played with cloth wearers that will grief a group by forcing a wipe just to make the other pay high repair bills. It's a real dick move....one that I'm sure will lessen in some cases if they have to pay the same inflated amount I pay as a tank

So as you can see, I'm seeing more negative changes than positive... It's this constant pandering towards the casual player that's going to destroy the game. I'm a casual player myself, but I choose to be casual and struggle through the game. If you start rewarding me for my ineptitude by giving me all of these benefits, then that's just one in the eye for the hardcore and truly dedicated players. Sounds to me like they should name this edition 'Nanny WoW'

Meanwhile I'm the opposite. I lie in the middle between casual and hardcore. However I feel that a good majority of the changes are for the better. Besides if you feel the changes make the game too easy then you really need to see instances on even the PTR. It's back to the good old days of crowd control and planning in regards to how you are going to approach each group of mobs as opposed to letting the tank get their inital aggro and then having everyone nuke them with their biggest AoE skills. I'm already seeing a ton of whining on the WoW forums from people who think the tanking is "broken" because they can't hold aggro. Healers are also bitching about being unable to keep people alive. Of course the moment I suggested having a mage use Polymorph I became the guy who didn't know what he was talking about ~_~()

Oh well......I look forward to Cat more than ever now. Not only is it going to be more challenging than Wrath but it's also going to weed out the good and the bad players again. Of course the one thing I'm not looking forward to is the headaches I'm going to get from the first few dungeons when people start to attack the sheep, break stuns and then yell at me for not being able to maintain aggro when I've got my hands full with one enemy already X_X

[Master Rudy]

RELEASE DATE SPECULATION TIME!!!!

Ok....as I'm sure some of you already know MMO Champion was originally saying that their inside source had the date pegged as November 2nd. They've updated that post to read as either December 7th or 14th. While they are not an official Blizzard site bear in mind that they predicted the release date of Wrath within two weeks of the actual date and broke the news of the Cataclysm announcement a full month before Blizcon 2009. Therefore their predictions/inside info is usually pretty sound.

Since then we've had the following occur: 4.0.1 was released onto the PTR the week of September 12th. That also marked the first phase of the pre-release events (Echo Islands/Battle for Gnomeregan). Blizzard has stated that the current arena season will end before it goes live and that the next season would start after Cat was out. People who have pre-ordered the game on Amazon.com (who never use placeholder dates and rarely put out a wrong date) got a mass e-mail saying it would ship on November 23rd. Finally major patches/expansions have never released during weeks of major in game holidays. Therefore.....

-The 11/23 date can be excluded in a rare case of Amazon dropping the ball. Pilgrim's Bounty starts on that week. Also after Amazon announces a date to the folks that have pre-ordered the date is then posted on the website itself. Strangely enough no date has been posted since this e-mail went out. On the flipside however it's also possible that with Amazon saying the game would ship on the 23rd that they mean it would be in their own shop on that date. What does this mean? Having worked in retail myself I can tell you from personal experience that the stores usually get major DVD/game releases a few weeks before the street date. You know how Madden 2011 released on August 10th this year? The retailer you bought it from had the game shipped to them between July 27th and August 3rd. Remember when Halo 3 came out about two years ago? I was storing them away in a back stockroom about five days before the street date
-Major patches hit the PTR usually about a month before they go live. The only date in the next month with no holidays is October 12th (almost a full month after 4.0.1 hit the PTR)
-Going by the above expect season eight of the arena to end on either 10/5 or 10/12 (Bliz would not change major game mechanics/talent trees in the middle of a season)
-Once again a major patch/expansion will not release the week of an in game holiday as it's way too much going on. Bliz has said that the Second Sundering will occur several weeks before release. Expect patch 4.0.3 (world changes/new class combos) to drop on November 9th or 16th. The 23rd is a holiday and the 30th is too close to 12/7 and 12/14 to be considered "several weeks."
-It's been stated that arena season nine will start on December 14th. Since ranked matches are only open to teams with members at max level it's highly unlikely that Cat is being released on this date (no one would be at level 85 yet)
-Last but not least: Bliz has PROMISED that barring something major happening during the Beta that this expansion will be out before the end of the year.

Therefore when you take all of the above into consideration I think it's safe to say that the WoW Community has managed to pinpoint when the official release date of Cataclysm is. Ladies and gentlemen! BEHOLD:

DECEMBER 7TH, 2010!!!!

As always no date is official until it's posted on a Blizzard website. However all things considered I think this date is a very safe bet at this point ^_~

[Darth CookieMonster]

I am so excited. I have to give a big standing O to you Master Rudy on getting all this information, and the second it comes out to.

[Master Rudy]

I am so excited. I have to give a big standing O to you Master Rudy on getting all this information, and the second it comes out to.

Well as I always say in regards to the question "When is X patch/expansion coming out?" no date is official until Bliz makes an announcement. With some game designers you'll get them to announce a date months in advance and then when they can't meet it for whatever reason the fanbase goes apeshit insane. This is why Blizzard will hold off on releasing dates until they are 100% sure they can make it. In the case of WotLK if memory serves me we had no release date until late September. The one and only time I recall Bliz jumping the gun was duing Burning Crusade. BC was originally announced for an October 2006 release if I recall. Once it was announced to be pushed back until January 2007 they just about had a riot on their hands. Therefore I can't see them making the promise that the game would be out before the end of 2010 unless they knew without question that they could have it ready.

Now if the game slipped for any reason at all (security breach on their servers, major game breaking bug discovered one week before the DVD's are ready to be burned, ect) it won't matter to the player base at large. It won't matter if they managed to get the game out on 1/4/11 (first Tuesday of the new year). If there is one thing I've learned about the WoW player base over the years it's that a good number of them are insane. We could be talking about a situation with 200,000+ accounts hacked in under 24 hours......as far as they are concerned to hell with the the account hackings.....WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT CATACLYSM THAT WAS PROMISED TO US!!!!

In any case I think it's extremely unlikely. The arenas were just added to the closed beta from what I'm hearing. Arenas are usually the final phase of the beta test before the beta servers are shut down ever since they were added to the game. At the very least we're within 2-3 months of a release. The fun part will be seeing how close the predictions I came up with are ^_~

[Master Rudy]

And it's now 100% official.....December 7th is indeed the release date!
Now let's see how close my other predictions on dates are ^_~

[Darth CookieMonster]

U are a god. I just saw the date on the start up screen, and i had to come post

[Master Rudy]

Well there was some speculation that we may have seen 4.0.1 yesterday morning due to the announcement. However since we're still on 3.3.5 and the arena season is now set to end on the 12th I'm thinking my next prediction is very likely.

[Darth CookieMonster]

what exactly are we getting with 4.0.1?

[Ayeun]

Dont forget that we get 3.9 before 4.0.1

3.9 will bring about stage 2 of the Echo islands/Gnomergan bit, and the introduction of the new talent trees and such.

[Darth CookieMonster]

ooh... wait just a darn minute. u play wow Ayeun!

[Master Rudy]

Dont forget that we get 3.9 before 4.0.1

3.9 will bring about stage 2 of the Echo islands/Gnomergan bit, and the introduction of the new talent trees and such.

There is no patch 3.9 Ayeun. The talent trees are patch 4.0.1 and patch 4.0.3 are the world changes. Someone else brought this up on the main WoW boards and was also asking about the numbering system so I posted a list of every patch on the main WoW boards. Give me a sec and I'll repost it here ^_~

BTW server, faction and character name


World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.1

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patch...atchnotes.html
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

Cataclysm Launcher Update
The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We'd like to get your feedback on the toolset and
gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information.

Reforging
Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.

Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.


Dungeons & Raids

Flexible Raid Lock System
All Wrath of the Lich King raids now use the new Flexible Raid Lock system. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone's encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players.

Icecrown Citadel
-The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.
-Trial of the Crusader now uses the Dynamic Difficulty system found in Icecrown Citadel and The Ruby Sanctum.


Currency

PvE Currency Changes
-All Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph have been converted to new Justice Points.
-Any dungeon or raid which awarded these emblems will reward Justice Points instead. Anything below Emblems of Triumph, including badges from The Burning Crusade dungeon and raid content, have been converted into gold and sent to players via the in-game mail system.
-Any bosses players defeat that are level-appropriate to them award Justice Points.
-All items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type now cost Justice Points.
-Higher-tier Valor Points will be awarded to players who kill dungeon and raid bosses in the latest tier of PvE content after the launch of Cataclysm.

PvP Currency Changes
-All Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards have been converted into new Honor Points.
-Honor Points will be awarded instead of these currencies, with the exception of Arena Points.
-Higher-tier Conquest Points will be awarded to players competing in each of the latest Arena or Rated Battleground seasons after the launch of Cataclysm.
-For more information on the changes to the currencies and conversion rates for each type, please visit our Cataclysm forum.


Classes: General

-Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.
-All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.
-Ammo has been removed from the game.
-The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
-Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
-Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.
-Rage has been normalized.
-Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
-Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.
-Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
-Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
-Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
-Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
-The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum.

Death Knights

-A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.
-The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.
-The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

-A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters

-Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
-Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
-Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
-The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

-There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

-Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

-There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
-Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

-Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
-Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

-The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface

-Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.
-The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
-The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
-The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
-A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character's primary and secondary professions.
-Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
-New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
-Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
-New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
-The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.
-For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

-Improved water and lava rendering system (Video Options - Liquid Detail on the Graphics Panel)
-Dynamic Sunshafts effect (Video Options - Sunshafts on the Graphics Panel)
-Multi-monitor support (Video Options - Monitor on the Graphics Panel)
-OpenGL Hardware Cursor support for Windows (Video Options - Hardware Cursor on the Advanced Panel)
-Experimental support for DX11 (enabled by passing '-d3d11' on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file)

And here's my WoW forum post on why there is no 4.0.2:

You can figure out how Bliz does their numbering if you look at the history of their patches. The first number in any patch refers to the expansion it was released during:

1.x=WoW
2.x=BC
3.x=Wrath
4.x=Cat

The second number usually tends to relate to major content patches. They are not always a sign of how far along we are in an expansion. The original WoW had 12 major patches while BC had four and Wrath had three. They were as follows:

1.1=World of Warcraft
1.2=Mysteries of Maraudon
1.3=Ruins of the Dire Maul
1.4=Call to War (original honor system)
1.5=Battlegrounds (WSG, AV)
1.6=Assault on Blackwing Lair
1.7=Rise of the Blood God (Zul'Gurub, AB)
1.8=Dragons of Nightmare
1.9=Gates of Ahn'Qirai
1.10=Storms of Azeroth (weather patch)
1.11=Shadow of the Necropolis
1.12=Drums of War (cross server BG's)
2.0=Before the Storm (Burning Crusade)
2.1=The Black Temple
2.2=Voice Chat
2.3=Gods of Zul'Aman
2.4=Fury of the Sunwell
3.0=Echoes of Doom (Wrath of the Lich King/rehash of 1.11)
3.1=Secrets of Ulduar
3.2=Call of the Crusade
3.3=Fall of the Lich King
4.0=The Shattering (Cataclysm)

Finally the last number is reserved for minor updates. Things such as bug fixes usually. In some cases major additions will be made by unlocking content already in the game but not yet implemented. This is usually the case of patches that are released in "phases" such as Fall of the Lich King (slowly unlocking the rest of ICC) or The Shattering:

4.0.1=Cataclysm Talent Trees
4.0.3=New World Maps (already in the game but not yet implemented)

Both of these are part of The Shattering. However as they are happening in phases they use the last number. This'll usually be where you'll see numbers skipped. Patch 4.0.2 is reserved for any potential bug fixes that may need to be applied once 4.0.1 goes live.

Hope that explains their numbering system a bit better ^_~

[Master Rudy]

Short video I just put together.....figured this would be good for a laugh while we're killing time waiting for 4.0