Children's week 2010

Last year when I did Children's Week it was on my DK who was my main at the time.  I only bothered to get the free pet from Dalaran on other toons.  I made a few salient points last year by what I felt was an unfair achievement, and all the same complaints I had then remain today.  Blizzard didn't change a single aspect of Children's Week for 2010 other than to roll the Dalaran portion of it into its proper week.  Except that's broken at the moment.  So Children's Week still asks people who may never have even stepped into a Battleground before to not only do that, but to achieve very specific objectives in them on top of it.  It's simply not very fair to ask that in my opinion.

As I said, last year I did it on my DK but I was determined to complete Children's week on my two main characters this year -- my Paladin and my Druid.  Children's Week was my final world event for What a Long Strange Trip it's Been for him and I was able to complete Children's Week, and the year-long meta achievement today.  I was also able to complete Children's Week on my Paladin, however he still has the MidSummer Festival to complete for the year-long meta.  If Children's Week is so hard how was I able to fully complete two characters in a single afternoon?  Simple.  I'm a heavy PVP'er, know my way around all of the battlegrounds, and I knew specifically where to go to achieve the battleground objectives easiest.  It also helped that there were actually some flag/tower trading going on today, though I doubt that will continue indefinitely.

If you know what you are doing, AV isn't bad at all.  Skip the first tower completely at IB and go for TP or run all the way to Frost Wolf.  Most people will stop to fight Galv or take IB tower or Tower Point automatically removing some of your competition.  That may, or may not be enough though if you take a less efficient route or get stuck on obstacles along the way.  AB is only slightly less easy as your best bet is to run strait for the Stables flag.  But as most people will probably be doing that as well you can head for the mine or the lumbar mill instead.  If you see no opponents at your location it boils down to whoever is fastest to the flag.  But if you do have opponents it boils down to whoever can sneak off to the flag first.  If you can stealth do it.  Wait for an opportune moment and sneak into the flag when others are fighting, or wait to recap it if it's taken by the other side and no one is looking.  Whatever you do, just make sure you have your orphan out when you do it otherwise you won't get credit.

EotS and WSG are going to be the hardest of the four to complete, with WSG possibly being the toughest.  If you can find a match where a nice opposing member will pick up the flag and then drop it for people to return and who also won't be killed by an over zealous team mate, you're in like Flynn.  Otherwise you have to do it the hard way by actually killing the flag runner and then being in the right place to return the flag once it's dropped, and be the quickest to do so.  EotS is just slightly less annoying, except there's one central location to get the flag and everyone trying to get it all at once.  Unlike WSG where there just might be a little team work going on with the opposing side, there is no such thing going on in EoTS.  Its every man for himself and everyone out for himself all at once.  Good luck being the lucky one standing mid-field trying to grab the flag, avoiding area damage, and being quicker than everyone else.

In relation to other battleground achievements during world events where they generally only require you to obtain X number of honorable kills, this world event requires you to obtain specific objectives that are many times more difficult.  We can discuss the specific difficulty of the achievement, but when you compare it against all the others and against the back drop that the meta takes an entire year to complete in the first place, doesn't it seem very out of place?  Not to mention just a little bit inappropriate considering much of the audience?

Patch 3.3.3

The full patch 3.3.3 notes are now up. There are the typical class changes, along with a few other things. But the biggest change, other than the PVP quest/honor changes is the announcements regarding the LFG system.

Dungeon Finder

• The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes.
  
• The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down.
  
• If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as "On Cooldown," preventing the group from queuing.
  
• Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role.
  
• Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked.
  
• When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.
  
• World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses.
  
• Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage.
  
• If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.

No more having to wait in order to kick players, but the biggest change in my opinion is that if you drop a group you will now be penalized with a 30-minute lock out instead of the current 15-minute penalty. Apparently people are still dropping group, and Blizzard is all set to punish them for doing it.

So lets talk about that a little bit. Why do people drop group? First and foremost people drop groups when dungeons pop they don't want to run. The two I hear most about are Occulus and the Culling of Stratholme. I don't mind Occulus, but I really detest CoS. Luckily

Culling of Stratholme

• Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

That might clear up the problem with people want to drop group for that instance, but regardless of what is done with Occulus no one can make people who play inattentively play any better ina three dimensional space. Nor can you make people understand the necessity of organization on the final boss. People quite rightly load into these dungeons (or others they don't like) and simply leave right then and there. After all, they're playing for themselves and not others.

The second reason people drop group, myself included, is when they load in and see either the tank or the healer horribly undergeared. I've commented in the past on this subject. Undergeared DPS is one thing, but critical elements of the party like the tank and the healer are quite another. I've dropped group when I see tanks load in that are still wearing heirloom items. I kid you not. At this stage in my characters lives I am not that much interested in the social side of dungeons and groups. I'm on a mission and just want to get in, get my badges, and get out. I find I have very little tolerance for anything that might cause wipes or significant delays. And quite honestly I'm not all that happy that Blizzard, knowing these two points, is taking the line that people need to be forced to group together.

Blizzard, you provide the tools to us and leave the rest of it to us to work out.

Blizzard hotfixes love

Yes friends, the free ride is over. Blizzard introduced a hot fix this morning that disabled the ability to acquire bracelet tokens from vehicle combat, meaning you could no longer get them by running around inside Ulduar in a siege engine or by doing the bombing missions in Icecrown or doing any of the Threat before the Citadel missions there either. I can certainly see Blizzard's point as they were reacting to the tirade of displeasure by healers who were getting the shaft by not being able to get any in dungeon groups, where as everyone else was. And Blizzard didn't want the world event to be totally trivial, which the vehicle combat certainly made it. All the same, I'm glad I ran Ulduar for two days and got more Bracelets than I needed. I'd get 30 or so in 15 minutes and would have to leave the instance in order to clear my inventory.

All this means is that you will have to exercise some patience in completing the world event. You can get 50+ tokens of love a day for turning in four bracelets and completing the daily quests. And the world event lasts two full weeks, meaning you can get at least 650 tokens of love. I think we'll all be fine.

Love is in the air 2010

I’ve gotten out of the habit of blogging about the WoW world events, but the Love is in the Air world event is one that deserves additional comment after I criticized Blizzard last year for allowing what I believed to be a shoddy assortment of achievements and tasks to go forward for the world event as it did last year. This year Blizzard completely redesigned the world event, adding in an “event boss” to Shadowfang Keep, a quest chain, and removing the hourly need to seek out a guard in one of the major cities. Instead, the world event now has us collecting pieces off random creatures and creating charm bracelets that you turn into the faction bosses daily. Each bracelet gets you five love tokens (valentine cards) that you use as currency to purchase all the items you need for the various achievements. Except the flowers, which are drops off various bosses in dungeons.

All in all I am extremely pleased with the redesign. All RNG has been removed, except for the flowers, which you can “farm” for with a group of friends. Anyone over level 70 can simply run UK on normal mode and get the flowers off the Prince. Farming for the bracelet pieces doesn’t really qualify as farming, since you can get them off anything you kill doing daily quests, or off creatures and NPCs you kill in dungeon runs or even in raids. I’ve been running Ulduar 10 killing the dwarves at the beginning in a siege tank for most of mine. If you are patient, and do not wish to complete the entire world event in a day, there is no need to do that as you can already get 50 love tokens a day just turning in four bracelets and doing the daily quest. On the other hand, I had two characters I am doing the world event on and desired to get as much done as I can in the first couple days, so I have been doing the daily turn-ins/quests as well as using my extra bracelets to acquire extra love tokens. The event lasts two weeks, so there really isn’t a reason to do it that way other than impatience.

The new “event boss” is actually a trio of bosses that you need to kill inside Shadowfang Keep. Any decently geared group can simply burst them down, but using the inoculation potions that you are given at the outset makes the fight much easier. Especially on the healer. If you are melee, just make sure you are always at the current bosses back, and stay out of the poison. If you are ranged, all you need to do is remain apart of the scrum and stay out of the poison. As with all other event bosses, each individual in the group can summon them once per day, and they drop loot. In this case, they drop ilevel 226 neck pieces, a pet oozeling, and a couple other novelty pieces.

Patch 3.3 next week?

Wowinsider is reporting that patch 3.3 might be rolling live next Tuesday, which is a bit earlier than we were lead to believe. I was looking at the calender and from Blizzards comments it was looking like the 15th would be about the date for it. Yet the Christmas world event begins on the 15th, and we all know how patches go--especially large ones. It would not be a good idea to launch a patch and start a world event at the same time.

Of course word that the patch is all but complete means Blizzard is going to stick to their plan to put enchanters into abusive situations. Truly sad, that. I expect better from Blizzard, so I find this very disappointing. On the bright side, it means Icecrown is nearly upon us, and I can start working toward my awesome looking Tier 10 set!

Pilgrim's Bounty

Pilgrim’s Bounty began yesterday, being the first new world event developed in quite a while, I’d have to say it captured the spirit of the week. My first impression of the event was that it was new and confusing, though it took very little time to come to grips with what I needed to do to start completing the achievements. My second impression was that all the travel involved with all the daily cooking quests was very annoying. Especially if you were like me, and hadn’t bothered to do any reading up on it all ahead of time and didn’t know you really wanted to pick up several stacks of pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and cranberries. Not to mention wild turkeys which I’ll discuss in a bit. So there I was yesterday delivering much needed food to Iron Forge and Darnassus, only to learn that each of those places wanted me to deliver food to Stormwind. I ended up making several trips between Stormwind, Ironforge, and Darnassus to get the ingredients I needed, then to actually deliver the completed food item. When I do my cooking quests today I’ll have several stacks of each available from the beginning, but it won’t alleviate all of the back and forth travel required to pick up the quests and then go and deliver the food. One would think with all the magic wielders available to the Alliance (or Horde) that someone would have thought about having portals available for all this. As you will probably have to do these quests for 2-3 days in order to get enough Turkey Shooters to complete the Turkey Lurky achievement, it’s making me wish I were a Mage.

One of the quests involves hunting wild turkeys and gives you an achievement called the Turkinator. I recall when I first looked into this thinking there was no way I was going to be able to kill enough turkeys in the time allotted to complete it, but quickly found that it really wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought it might be. In fact the only real obstacle to overcome to complete this is finding a space and a time where you are relatively alone because the turkeys are spread throughout Ellwyn Forest and Tirisfall Glade. The achievement requires you to kill 40 turkeys, but you have 30 seconds after killing one to kill the next. As the turkeys are fairly well populated in both zones, all you really need to do is find a corner some where that has no one else hunting in it to complete this successfully. They turkeys respawn fairly quickly, but not quickly enough that you won’t have to move around some in order to meet your quota. I did mine in Tirisfall Glade between the Bulwark and the farm. One thing that will make your task immensely easier to eat a Tracker Snack before hand, and set your tracking to nothing. The Tracker snack will enable you to track beasts for an hour and will make the turkeys show up as yellow dots on your mini-map. Simply run from one yellow dot to another.

One really nice treat from the event, outside of the pet of course, is that it affords you a very quick and painless way to level cooking from 1-300. Leveling 1-300 through the normal means isn't exactly difficult, provided you fish and/or are willing to travel all over hill and dale to collect all the recipes you need. But if you haven't leveled cooking yet, do it now! The Pilgrim's Bounty recipes afford you the easiest means of leveling cooking that you are ever likely to see. And once you get to 300 leveling to 450 is as simple and quick. Do not waste this opportunity.

Certainly not her

The RNG gods might have smiled upon me this year, but they certainly didn't for my wife who tried in vain to loot the Sinister Squashling on her main toon throughout the two week Hallow's End world event. Which of course means she now has to wait an entire additional year, and hope she loots the squashling next year (she didn't get it last Octobr either) in order to complete her "What a long strange trip its been" meta achievement for her purple Proto-Drake mount. We were curious, and she put in a ticket, to find out just how many attempts she made to trick-or-treat, and how many times she actually killed the Horseman. It'll be interesting to see if, or when, Blizzard responds to that because it is simply ridiculous to put that kind of RNG into a process that takes a full year to complete.

And if she doesn't loot it again next year?

Hallows End

I've commented on WoW's world events on various occasion, but when I last posted about them was during the mid-summer event when I wondered if Blizzard wasn't stretched just a bit too thin. Previous world events had been noticeably incomplete, but the Brewfest event which finished a few weeks ago had no updates other than increase Direbrew's level to 80 and adding new loot to him. At least Blizzard updated that, but because the world event was mostly self contained and well designed from the start, it masked previous world event problems.

Fast forward to Hollows End though and the problems with incompleteness resurfaces. Blizzard updated the Headless Horseman, and his loot, but they failed to add achievements for the candy pails in Northrend, though they are there and you can visit them all. It's exactly the same issue we saw during children's week, which Blizzard addressed by having a second children's week just for Northrend. Really inexcusable and only brings additional questions to mind regarding how thin the development staff is or isn't.

Still, Hallow's End is my favorite world event. And other than the minor achievement silliness, it's still an enjoyable event. Unfortunately for me, Hollows End is the final meta achievement I need for my Death Knight to finish up the "What a long strange trip its been" achievement. Back in December I was commenting that events like this suffer too much from the RNG monster as I prepare myself for trick or treating around the clock for the next two weeks (on three toons no less) as I strive to loot not only the Sinister Squishling, but also the Hallowed Helm. Imagine that--one single achievement during this event between me and a year long effort to get a special mount. Seems fair!

It simply isn't enough to put myself through this on one character, but I endeavor to do it all over again on two other characters as well.

Patch 3.2 next week?

Boubouille believes patch 3.2 is now finalized, which means we should be seeing it on live realms next Tuesday. And a lot is changing, some of which I am not entirely happy about (more DK nerfs much?). On a high note, however, we get Children's week part 2!

General

• Construction of the Crusaders' Coliseum is complete. New raid normal and Heroic modes for the Crusaders' Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player versions. 10-player (normal), 25-player (normal), 10-player (Heroic) and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.
• Trial of the Champion
• 5-player (normal and Heroic mode) dungeon.
• Daily quest added to the Heroic daily dungeon quest giver.
• Trial of the Crusader
• 10 and 25-player (normal mode) raid dungeon.
• Trial of the Grand Crusader
• 10 and 25-player (Heroic mode) raid dungeon.
• Crusaders' Tribute: Active on Heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.
• Isle of Conquest, the new 40 vs. 40-player siege-style battleground is now available for testing.
• Two level brackets are available: 71-79 and 80.
• Defend the walls of your keep and protect your general by killing enemy players and destroying their siege vehicles.
• Capture the Docks, Gunship Hangar, or Siege Workshop for access to destructive siege vehicles or strategic attacks on your enemy's base.
• Capture the Refinery or Quarry for their resources to garner reinforcements, a steady flow of bonus honor and a 15% increase to siege vehicle damage for each of these capture points your team controls.
• To claim victory, bust through the enemy's keep walls (or find other ways to get inside) and kill their general, or obliterate your opponents until their reinforcements are depleted.
• The Argent Tournament Expands
• All new Argent Crusader daily quests and rewards have been added for players with the Crusader title. Rewards include a new Argent Crusader banner and tabard (which can port players to the tournament grounds), a mounted squire (can periodically run bank, mail or vendor errands for the player), a paladin-exclusive Argent Crusader Charger mount, and new heirloom items.
• All new Silver Covenant and Sunreaver daily quests and rewards have been added for players exalted with these factions. Rewards include tabards, new ground and flying mounts, and a new pet.
• Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Black Knight, he makes his astonishing return to the tournament. Wait, didn't you kill him?
• New Dungeon Loot Feature
• Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.
• New druid art for Cat Form and Bear Form has been added. There are now five unique color schemes for each form and faction. Changing hair color (night elves) or skin tone (tauren) via the barbershop will change the look of one's cat and bear forms.
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

PvP

• Arenas
• Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season's weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season's items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).
• Dalaran Sewers
• The entire Arena has increased in size by 25%.
• Mounts can now be used in this Arena.
• The position and collision of the crates on the central platform has been modified.
• Ring of Valor
• The flame wall has been removed.
• Ruins of Lordaeron
• Alcoves have been removed from the starting chambers.
• The collision around the central tomb has been smoothed out to prevent players from becoming stuck on the terrain as often.
• Battlegrounds
• Battleground experience has arrived!
• Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).
• Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar - both located near the Battlemasters in either city - and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
• Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.
• Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.
• Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would've been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.
• Battlemasters in major cities affiliated with specific Battlegrounds have been replaced with a Battlemaster for each faction that will allow players to queue for any Battleground. Battlemasters for specific Battlegrounds will still be seen around the cities during corresponding Battleground holiday weekends.
• When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Isle of Conquest.
• Arathi Basin
• The time it requires to capture a base has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
• The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
• Eye of the Storm
• The time it requires to capture the center flag has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds
• The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
• Strand of the Ancients
• The faction starting on attack/defense will now be randomized at the start of each match.
• Warsong Gulch
• There is a now a 20-minute timer on this Battleground. After that time, the team with the most flag captures wins. If this would result in a tie, the team that captured the first flag wins. If neither side has captured a flag, then the game ends in a tie.
• Wintergrasp
• Against the Odds: This achievement has been removed and converted to a Feat of Strength.
• Industrial Warfare: This achievement has been removed.
• To provide players with a more transparent notification of when Wintergrasp battles occur, as well as better control zone population and stability, several changes have been made.
• Players now have the option to queue for Wintergrasp from a Wintergrasp Battlemaster in any capital city or by simply entering the Wintergrasp zone.
• Queuing will begin 15 minutes before each battle. If chosen, you will automatically be teleported to the zone. Any players in the zone who have not been chosen from the queue will be teleported out when the battle begins.
• The queue system remains active for the entire battle. As soon as a player leaves, a new one will be chosen from the queue.
• Trying to enter Wintergrasp during an active battle for which you have not been chosen will teleport you out. Please note that, as you are now able to fly over Wintergrasp, you will only be teleported out if you try to land and join the battle.
• Level 80 players get higher priority in the queue than lower level players. In addition, a random selection of queued players will be taken from both the Battlemasters and the zone itself.
• The queue will accept up to 120 players from each faction, resulting in a maximum battle of 240 players at a time.
• Wintergrasp factories can no longer be damaged or destroyed.

Dungeons and Raids

• Dungeon and Raid ID Extensions
• In order to allow for parties and raids to progress through instances at their own pace, players can now extend an instance ID on an individual basis.
• Existing or recently expired IDs can be extended via the Social tab under Raid by clicking on Raid Info.
• The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended. Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24 hours, and a Zul'Gurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance lock time).
• An ID can be extended more than once.
• An extension can be reversed on an individual basis provided the player does not do anything in the instance during the extended instance lock period that would save that player to the instance.
• 25-player raids will no longer be referred to as Heroic versions of a raid, as there is a new distinction between normal and Heroic modes for both 10 and 25 player versions of the Crusaders' Coliseum.
• The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity
• Drakes used by players in these instances will now scale in health and damage according to the rider's average item level.
• Ulduar
• Players can now use Blink, Shadowstep, and Demonic Teleport while participating in the illusion events in the Yogg-Saron encounter.
• Ominous Clouds in the Yogg-Saron encounter are now more vocal about touching players and should no longer sometimes appear to be in the wrong place for certain players.
• An Immortal Guardian targeted for Empowering Shadows in the Yogg-Saron encounter will now become a 'Marked Immortal Guardian' while targeted.
• Crusher Tentacles in the Yogg-Saron encounter spawn a little slower in 25-player mode allowing a bit more time for players to clear out the Illusion room.
• Empowering Shadows in the Yogg-Saron encounter now targets a maximum of three Immortal Guardians in 25-player mode.
• Yogg-Saron's health has been reduced by 20% in the final stage of his 25-player mode.
• Winter Jormungars will no longer put everyone in the zone in combat when they emerge from a Snow Mound. Additionally, Snow Mounds will now disappear when all their jormungars have emerged.

Races: General

• Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.
• Tauren now have the option of changing skin tone by visiting the barber shop.

Items: General

• Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.
• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
• Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.
• Emblem System Changes
• Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.
• Item Buy Back Feature Revised
• The Item Buy Back time will now expire if the player enchants or sockets an item. Players will see a confirmation dialog box now when they attempt to enchant or add gems to an item giving them a last chance to reconsider.
• Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a 45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered for the first 45 seconds it is worn).
• Mounts
• The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
• Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
• Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
• Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.
• Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).
• In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
• Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
• Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than dodge.
• Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.

Classes: General

• All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.
• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
• Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second Interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.

Death Knights

• Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.
• Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.
• Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
• Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.
• Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
• Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
• Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
• Talents
• Blood
• Bloody Strikes: This talent now provides 5/10/15% increased damage to Blood Strike instead of 15/30/45%.
• Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
• Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
• Frost
• Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
• Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
• Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
• Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
• Unholy
• Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
• Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
• Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
• Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
• Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 20% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Druids

• Enrage: This Bear Form ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The armor penalty is unchanged.
• Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.
• Flight Form and Swift Flight Form: Now benefit from a paladin's Crusader Aura.
• Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.
• Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.
• Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright
• Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Swift Flight Form: Druids who have acquired a mount able to go 310% flight speed will now also go that speed while in this form.
• Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.
• Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Talents
• Balance
• Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
• Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30-second cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.
• Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
• Feral Combat
• King of the Jungle: This talent now reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 20/40/60%.
• Primal Tenacity: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form.
• Restoration
• Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
• Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell effect.
• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
• Frost Trap: Will no longer "fizzle" on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
• Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.
• Talents
• Beast Mastery
• Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
• Survival
• Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
• Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
• Pets
• Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.

Mages

• Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%.
• Frost Bolt, Cone of Cold, Frost Ward, Ice Armor, Frost Armor, Frost Nova, Ice Lance, and Ice Barrier: The mana cost on these spells has been reduced by approximately 15%.
• Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second Fade time, however an invisible mage is still vulnerable to Stun and Silence effects.
• Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when their time expires.
• Talents
• Fire
• Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 2% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.
• Frost
• Empowered Frostbolt: Instead of increasing critical strike chance by 2/4%, this talent now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2 seconds.
• Permafrost: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also causes the mage's Chill effects to reduce healing received by the victim by 7/13/20%.

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Crusader Aura: This ability now also grants its flying speed increase to a druid's Flight Form and Swift Flight Form.
• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
• Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
• Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.
• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
• Talents
• Holy
• Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
• Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
• Protection
• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin's defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).
• Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea's duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.
• Retribution
• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.
• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.
• Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Priests

• Prayer of Healing: The percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%.
• Psychic Horror: This spell no longer has an invisible missile, so there is no travel time before the spell takes effect.
• Talents
• Discipline
• Penance: Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
• Holy
• Inspiration: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Shadow
• Dispersion: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
• Improved Mind Blast: Redesigned. Now, in addition to reducing the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds, while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 20% for 10 seconds.
• Vampiric Touch: The amount of damage done when this spell is dispelled has been doubled.

Rogues

• After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.
• Talents
• Combat
• Sword Specialization: This talent is now called Hack and Slash and applies to axes as well as swords.
• Subtlety
• Shadow Dance: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Now lasts 6 seconds, down from 10 seconds.

Shamans

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems. The naming scheme of the spells to summon the different totem sets has been changed to make it less confusing for players:
• Call of Fire (Totem Bar 1, the first one gained at level 30) is now named Call of the Elements.
• Call of Water (Totem Bar 2) is now named Call of the Ancestors.
• Call of Air (Totem Bar 3) is now named Call of the Spirits.
• Call of Earth (the spell to recall all summoned totems) is now named Totemic Recall.
• All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
• Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.
• Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.
• Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.
• Talents
• Enhancement
• Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex.
• Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman's attack power, down from 30%.
• Restoration
• Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
• Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
• Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
• Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
• Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
• Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
• Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
• Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Warlocks

• Banish: Effect will now be cancelled if Banish is recast on a banished target.
• Dreadsteed: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Felsteed: Can now be learned at level 20.
• Shadowflame: The angle of the cone effect on this ability was inadvertently very small, making it difficult to use. Its cone is now the same size as similar spells, such as Cone of Cold.
• Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes
• Talents
• Affliction
• Pandemic: Now also increases the critical damage bonus of Haunt by 100%.
• Demonology
• Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes.
• Destruction
• Empowered Imp: The warlock's critical hit chance is increased to 100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically hits a target.
• Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down from 3/6/9/12/15%.

Warriors

• Battle Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.
• Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.
• Commanding Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.
• Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.
• Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.
• Talents
• Fury
• Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor.
• Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.
• Protection
• Devastate: Weapon damage and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 100%. This ability now requires a shield to be equipped.
• Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

User Interface

• The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information. The list of all quests a player has will show in one pane, while the quest details of any highlighted quest will display in the next.
• Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface can be enabled through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Casting bars under a target's portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.
• Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.
• Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.
• Item Level: A new option has been added under Display in the Interface Options to show the item level on item tooltips.
• Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
• Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

• The frame rate for those with Shadow Effects enabled under the Ultra Video settings has been improved.

World Environment

• Wolvar and Gorloc orphans have arrived in Dalaran and need your help! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District (completing the quests being offered for this event will not count toward any Children's Week achievements). Players have a limited amount of time to care for these orphans before they take their leave. They will then return again for the regularly-scheduled Children's Week next year.
• Portal areas in all major cities now offer a portal to the Blasted Lands near the Dark Portal.
• Once crossing through the Dark Portal, players can access a flight path directly from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath.
• A new zeppelin docking ramp has been added to Thunder Bluff allowing Horde players easier transport to and from Orgrimmar.
• The local Postal Service has grown tired of walking so far each day to collect mail and has decided to install a large number of new mailboxes in Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.
• Mathiel in Darnassus has finally earned himself enough money from your repair bills that he was able to buy himself an anvil.

Quests

• The ravasaur trainer Mor'vek has returned to Un'Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount... if they can survive the creature's deadly poison.

Achievements

• A Brew-FAST Mount: A new Feat of Strength achievement for acquiring any epic Brewfest mount.
• Have Keg, Will Travel: Now requires either a Brewfest mount or using Brewfest Hops to transform yours into one.

Professions

• Alchemy
• All stackable potions now stack to 20.
• Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from Northrend trainers. Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power or strength for 1 hour and is usable in Arenas. It is not consumed when used.
• Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the cooldown reduced.
• Five new epic gem transmute recipes are available from the Northrend trainer. The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran.
• The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been increased.
• Rage potions can now be used by druids.
• Cooking
• Blackened Dragonfin Recipe: Now only requires 1 Dragonfin Angelfish.
• Chef's Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook faster.
• Increased the drop rate for recipes from the Outland Daily Cooking quests.
• Increased the chance to get a bonus Dalaran Cooking Token from the Spice Bag.
• The recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager can now be randomly found in the quest reward Crate, Barrel, or Spice Bag from the cooking dailies.
• Enchanting
• Values on Northrend ring enchants increased.
• Engineering
• Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look... stylish? This attachment provides a passive bonus of 45 stamina.
• Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical or vehicle units.
• Alarm-o-Bot functionality changed. Materials required reduced.
• Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
• The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
• Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.
• Flying Machine: The level requirement needed to learn how to build and use this machine has been reduced to level 60, down from level 70, and the engineering skill level reduced to 300, down from 350. Material costs reduced.
• Gnomish Engineers and Goblin Engineers can now switch profession specializations for a fee.
• Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
• Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
• Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
• A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot - hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
• Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
• Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
• Reduced the materials needed to create all engineering Dragonlings, and reduced their cooldowns, although they still cannot be used in Arenas.
• Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
• The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 6 minutes (never runs out!).
• A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one's faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master engineers.
• Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
• The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.
• World Enlarger: Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes, down from 1 hour.
• Fishing
• Players with 300 or higher cooking have a chance to find a Waterlogged Recipe in the Bag of Fishing Treasures awarded by the Northrend fishing dailies. This item can be traded to other players and rewards several Dalaran Cooking Rewards when turned in.
• Herbalism
• Increased healing from Lifeblood (Rank 6).
• Lifeblood now scales slightly with maximum health. No longer affected by global cooldown.
• Inscription
• Added a new Glyph of Claw for young feral druids who haven't yet obtained Mangle. Scribes can learn this glyph from the trainer.
• Master's Inscriptions increased.
• Jewelcrafting
• Dragon's Eye gems stat bonuses increased.
• New recipes have been added for cutting epic gems and can be purchased using Dalaran Jewelcrafter's tokens.
• Icy Prism now has a chance of yielding an epic gem.
• Raw epic gems can be obtained via the following means:
• Prospecting Titanium Ore
• Alchemy transmutations
• Purchased with honor
• Purchased with Emblems of Heroism
• Leatherworking
• Added recipe for Heavy Knothide Leather to leatherworking trainers (rather than a vendor recipe). Changed several recipes to use Heavy Knothide Leather instead of regular Leather.
• Fur Lining values increased.
• Mining
• Toughness (Rank 6) provides more stamina.
• Skinning
• Master of Anatomy (Rank 6) provides more critical strike rating.
• Tailoring
• Embroideries improved.

Items

• Feral Druid PvP Gloves (seasons 3 and 4): Maim bonus changed from the Interrupt bonus used in The Burning Crusade Arena seasons to the cost reduction used in Wrath of the Lich King Arena seasons.
• Glyphs
• Death Knights
• Glyph of Unholy Blight: Changed to increase damage done by the updated Unholy Blight talent by 40%.
• Druids
• Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds.
• Paladins
• Glyph of Righteous Defense: Now also increases the chance for Hand of Reckoning to hit.
• Glyph of Seal of Command: Redesigned to cause the Paladin to gain 8% of base mana each time the paladin judges Command.
• Glyph of Seal of Blood: Changed to Glyph of Holy Wrath, which reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.
• Rogues
• Glyph of Shadow Dance: Now increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 2 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
• Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Now increases the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
• Shamans
• Glyph of Healing Wave: The amount of healing the shaman receives is now based on the entire healing amount, including over-healing.
• Warlocks
• Glyph of Lifetap: Duration of the buff from this glyph increased to 40 seconds.
• Idol of the Corruptor: The agility buff from this idol is now exclusive with the agility buff from Idol of Terror.
• Mage Tier-7 2-Piece Bonus: Now grants 25% additional mana from mana gems, down from 40%.
• Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.
• Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.
• Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item's stats and level have been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition, each time Val'anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.

Bug Fixes

• Death Knights
• Anti-Magic Shell: The tooltip for this ability will now reflect modifications from the Magic Suppression talent.
• Blood-Caked Blade: The damage from this talent is no longer normalized to weapon speed.
• Chilblains: Icy Clutch can no longer miss when Frost Fever hits, however, when Frost Fever is dispelled Icy Clutch will also be dispelled.
• Dancing Rune Weapon: The rune weapon will no longer cast Corpse Explosion.
• Desecration: No longer causes unnecessary combat logging.
• Horn of Winter: Learning rank 2 of this ability caused players to unlearn rank 1, such that it no longer appears in their spellbook. It is now possible to relearn that rank, and death knights will no longer "forget" rank 1 when they learn rank 2.
• Lichborne: The buff from this ability can now be cancelled.
• Raise Ally: Using the Gnaw ability while under the effects of this spell will now initiate auto-attack. In addition, the damage done has been changed from a flat value to a percentage of weapon damage.
• Raise Dead: This spell will no longer give two errors when the casting player lacks the reagent to cast it.
• Rune of Razorice: Each death knight can now have his or her own copy of this debuff on the target.
• Rune of Spellbreaking: Tooltip now indicates the effect from this enchantment does not stack with other effects which reduce the duration of Silence effects (including not stacking with a second copy of this enchantment). In addition, now reduces damage from Holy spells.
• Rune of Spellshattering: Now reduces damage from Holy spells.
• Summon Gargoyle: Corrected the inaccurate tooltip which claimed a Gargoyle could last up to 40 seconds, when in fact 30 seconds has always been the maximum.
• Rune of Razorice: Corrected a bug where this applied to frost damage done by others.
• Druids
• Bash: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
• Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form: Mana energizes that occur while in these forms will now appear in the combat log and floating combat text.
• Cyclone: Victims of Cyclone can no longer receive healing from health drain effects such as Devouring Plague while they are affected by Cyclone.
• Dash: Druids who have not learned Track Humanoids will now retain the benefit of Dash while shifting out of and back into Cat Form.
• Druids should no longer be removed from a form after using any engineered bombs.
• Maim: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
• Natural Perfection: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
• Nature's Grasp: This talent will no longer be triggered spuriously by some ranged abilities such as Heroic Throw.
• Hunters
• All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
• Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
• Furious Howl: Ranks 1-5 will no longer give slightly more attack power than is listed in their tooltips.
• Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
• Roar of Sacrifice: Damage transferred to pet is now considered Nature damage.
• The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
• T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow.
• Mages
• Arcane Instability: Tooltip reworded to clarify design intent.
• Burning Determination: Some Silence and Interrupt effects that did not trigger this talent will now trigger it properly, including Shield of the Templar, Garrote and Gag Order.
• Combustion: Fire spell misses will no longer trigger this talent.
• Conjure Refreshment: Rank 1 food will no longer overwrite the drink buff from rank 2 food.
• Fireball: Periodic damage from this spell can no longer trigger Combustion.
• Living Bomb: Periodic critical strikes from this ability can now trigger Ignite and Hot Streak.
• Mirror Image: The mirror images will no longer complete casts of Frostbolt on targets which are Polymorphed at the time their Frostbolt channel finishes.
• Molten Armor: Critical strikes from the effect on this armor will no longer trigger Ignite.
• Paladins
• Auras: Any paladin aura active at the time of the paladin's death now automatically reactivates when the paladin returns to life.
• Beacon of Light: Multiple paladins can now have this buff active on the same target. In addition, the beacon target will no longer lose the buff while under the effects of Cyclone or Banish.
• Blessing of Sanctuary: This talent and Vigilance will now both be able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting each other.
• Exorcism: Now properly has a 100% chance to be a critical strike when cast on death knights using Lichborne.
• Eye for an Eye: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes. In addition, the tooltip incorrectly stated that 20% damage is reflected, when it is actually 10%. Tooltip fixed.
• Hammer of Justice: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
• Hand of Sacrifice: Casting this spell on a target with Divine Sacrifice active will now generate an error message instead of wasting the cooldown.
• Heart of the Crusader: The effect from this talent will no longer be removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
• Holy Shield: It is no longer possible to have two ranks of this ability active at the same time.
• Judgements: All paladin judgements are now properly considered as melee attacks that cannot be dodged, blocked or parried. Previously Seal of Light, Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Justice and Seal of Righteousness would cause the judgement to be considered a ranged attack.
• Judgement of the Just: The effect from this talent will no longer be removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
• Judgement of Vengeance: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
• Judgement of Corruption: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
• Pursuit of Justice: This talent will no longer sometimes be deactivated when leaving a battleground.
• Sacred Shield: This buff will no longer have any effect if the target is another player engaged in a duel. In addition, the heal from this buff will no longer cause the paladin to stand, and it is no longer possible for two paladins to both have the spell active on one target.
• Priests
• Blessed Resilience: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
• Divine Aegis: This talent will now work properly if the priest moves out of range of his or her target as the effect is resolving.
• Divine Hymn: This spell now works correctly with the trinket Illustration of the Dragon Soul. Mana Burn: Fixed a bug where Mana Burn did not cause fear effects to break when the fear victim had an absorb shield on.
• Mass Dispel: This spell now triggers some types of trinkets it did not trigger before (such as Flow of Knowledge).
• Pain Suppression: No longer can be cast while under the effects of Incapacitate or Cyclone.
• Rogues
• Honor Among Thieves: Periodic critical strikes now grant combo points for rogues with this talent.
• Killing Spree: Error message when no targets are in range has been changed to "Out of Range."
• Master of Subtlety: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff from this talent is about to expire will no longer make it last indefinitely.
• Overkill: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff from this talent is about to expire will no longer make it last indefinitely.
• Shiv: Deadly Poison will now apply properly when Shiv is the attack used to break a Gouge.
• Tricks of the Trade: Using this ability on a target affected by Cyclone or Banish will no longer place the ability on permanent cooldown and will instead give an error message.
• Turn the Tables: Rank 2 of this talent will now work properly with raid members, and not just party members.
• Shamans
• Elemental Devastation: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
• Elemental Focus: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
• Elemental Oath: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
• Flametongue Weapon: Fixed tooltip error.
• Frostbrand Weapon: Fixed a bug where rank 9 was not scaling properly with a shaman's spell power.
• Warlocks
• Demonic Circle: The visual for this spell should now despawn when the warlock dies or when the warlock otherwise loses the aura that allows transport to the circle.
• Immolate and Unstable Affliction: All ranks of these two spells will now overwrite each other.
• Improved Imp: Each time an Imp is summoned it will recast Blood Pact (if autocast is on), forcing it to benefit from this talent, even if the Imp was not summoned at the time the talent was learned.
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Redesigned slightly. Instead of a 100% chance to apply a 1/2/3/4/5% critical strike increase on the target, it now has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply a 5% critical strike increase.
• Warriors
• Berserker Rage: Tooltip clarified to indicate this ability breaks existing Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects.
• Bladestorm: Now properly removes the Snare effect of Desecration in all cases.
• Blood Craze: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
• Execute: Focused Rage and the Dreadnaught Battlegear set bonus will now properly reduce the cost of Execute.
• Slam: The combat log tooltip will no longer list which rank of Slam was used. Previously it incorrectly listed rank 8 for all ranks of Slam.
• Vigilance: This talent and Blessing of Sanctuary will now both be able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting each other.
• Items
• Adamantite Scope: Attaching this scope to an item will now cause it to become soulbound as intended.
• Badge of the Swarmguard: Will no longer cause a weapon swing animation when it triggers.
• Cenarion Set: No longer reduces the (nonexistent) cooldown on Hurricane. Instead, the set bonus increases the damage done by Hurricane by 15%.
• Commendation of Bravery: No longer useable when player is already at the maximum honor allowed.
• Deadly Gladiator's Dreadplate: The set bonus will now trigger properly from Crippling Poison.
• Death Knight PvP Glove Bonus: The runic power gain no longer appears in the combat log.
• Death Knight Tier-7 Set: Fingers of the Damned now has a detailed combat log tooltip.
• Frostweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to break shapeshifts.
• Glyphs
• Glyph of Beacon of Light: This glyph will no longer grant its duration increase twice when Beacon of Light is cast on self.
• Glyph of Corpse Explosion: This glyph will no longer cause the model on target dummies to change.
• Glyph of Death Strike: Tooltip typo corrected.
• Glyph of Disease: Blood Plague will now last its correct full duration when refreshed by this glyph.
• Glyph of Freezing Trap: The effect from this glyph will now log properly.
• Glyph of Healing Wave: The heal from this glyph will no longer benefit twice from the Purification talent.
• Glyph of Overpower: Fixed a bug where sometimes parries would not trigger the glyph. In addition, this glyph will now only make Overpower available for 6 seconds after a parry, instead of indefinitely.
• Glyph of Power Word: Shield: The heal from this glyph can now cause Divine Aegis.
• Glyph of Shadow: This glyph can now be triggered by critical strikes from periodic damage.
• Glyph of Shocking: Fixed tooltip error on Macintosh game client.
• Glyph of Shadowflame: The effect from this glyph will now work properly when multiple Warlocks use Shadowflame on the target.
• Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Paladins who break the harmful effect from this item by using Divine Shield will now properly gain the Forbearance debuff.
• Goblin Dragon Gun: This item will no longer spam the combat log with cast messages.
• Heavy Netherweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to break shapeshifts.
• Major Arcane Protection Potion: Vendor price lowered to match other similar potions.
• Nightsong Battlegear: The 2-piece set bonus will no longer sometimes be triggered by other periodic damage other than those listed in the tooltip.
• Pandora's Plea: Corrected a tooltip issue.
• Randomly generated uncommon (green) and rare (blue) quality items in Wrath of the Lich King had stat values that were lower than intended. All Wrath of the Lich King uncommon and rare items with random suffixes ("of the Bear") have had their stat values increased significantly.
• Reins of the Icemaw Matriarch: This vehicle will now leave bear footprints instead of barefoot footprints.
• Reticulated Armor Webbing: Tooltip corrected to no longer claim that this item only works on plate items.
• Saronite Bomb: This item will no longer cause threat against nearby targets just outside the targeting circle.
• Scrolls: Scrolls which grant agility, intellect, spirit, strength, or stamina will now report an error message and no longer consume and waste the scroll when the target has a more powerful buff to that stat.
• Sif's Remembrance: Sound and animation added to trinket effect.
• Sigil of Arthritic Binding: The bonus damage from this relic is now added after diseases have increased damage by a percentage, instead of before.
• Trinkets: Various trinkets which did not work properly with channeled area-of-effect spells will now work with those spells. This includes (but is not limited to) Illustration of the Dragon Soul, Darkmoon Card: Greatness, and Egg of Mortal Essence.
• Warrior PvP Glove Bonus: Tooltip reworded slightly.
• Wintergrasp Commendation: No longer useable when player is already at the maximum honor allowed.
• Professions
• Enchant Weapon - Black Magic: This enchantment can now be triggered by some spells it did not previously work with, including Curse of Agony, Blizzard, and Typhoon.
• Guardian Gloves: Now correctly marked as uncommon quality.
• Events
• Hallow's End: Putting out fires for this event will no longer trigger effects from items, talents and set bonuses.
• Noblegarden: Loot windows will no longer periodically close while the looting player is transformed into a rabbit.

Is the Midsummer Festival emblematic of a deeper problem?

Anyone playing WoW currently knows the Midsummer festival world event is in high gear. It started ostensibly started on Sunday, but anyone that completed portions of it last year was unable to participate in it this year due to a bug that didn’t reset any of the quests for those users. You can imagine the haranguing Blizzard took over the embarrassing issue on the official forums. And I suspected late Sunday night that it wasn’t going to be something Blizzard took a great deal of time to fix. I was not disappointed to learn that Blizzard had indeed fixed the issue by the rolling restarts of the realms Tuesday morning.

What I was surprised to learn when I was running around honoring and desecrating the fires throughout Azeroth, Outlands, and Northrend however, was that something is not right in beantown. Harken back to May during Children’s week when we learned Blizzard hadn’t updated the world event to include Northrend. Children’s week remained exactly as it was in 2008, though now we are told to expect Children’s week (again) to finally come to Northrend in path 3.2. The Midsummer Festival is exactly the same—it too wasn’t updated from 2008 so level 80’s are asked to travel back to Zangarmarsh in Outland to kill level 70 Ahune in SP. Characters that are not yet 70 have the option of killing a Lieutenant in a cave in the Burning Steppes instead. One would have expected Ahune to move to Northrend, or perhaps another creature to rear his head there with level 80 gear. Unfortunately that isn’t the case, but another strange occurrence is evident as well, and that is there are fires in Northrend to honor/desecrate but no quest or achievement associated with them. It has every appearance that work was begun on updating the world event to include the new expansion but wasn’t finished in time. Strike 2.

There have been grumblings on the official forums for the past few months questioning why Blizzard hasn’t been able to accomplish more in the game than they are. And a lot of complaining and questions about the very annoying inability to launch more instances problem that plagues nearly everyone on every server every day. Blizzard of course has put the best spin on things as they can, but it appears to me at least that Blizzard might be stretched a bit too thin on the WoW development side these days. When a company that is renowned for it’s relative polish and not shipping games or content before they are ready, to now have two back to back events in their current condition it should make one wonder what is going on.

We know that several senior developers have transitioned from WoW to the as yet un-named MMO Blizzard is currently developing. We don’t know how many developers have transitioned with them. We don’t know how many developers are still working on WoW as compared to say, this time last year. Did Blizzard perhaps move too many people to the new MMO or the next WoW expansion team? I wonder.

I’ve said this many times in the past, and I’ll undoubtedly say it again in the future. There will come a day when WoW is supplanted as the leading game in the market. But that time is not today. And it’s not likely to be tomorrow either. Every new major MMO that has been released in the past two years has been touted as the WoW killer, and every prognostication has turned out to be untrue. At this point it would take a truly tremendous game to supplant WoW, along with a healthy dose of WoW’s current players to be truly dejected by WoW. Sorry folks, I just don’t see that right now. But that doesn’t mean Blizzard should become complacent. Blizzard needs to operate as they did in the early days of WoW’s release back in 2004 and 2005 where they were the contender. They need to keep their eye on the ball and not allow upcoming products to distract from supporting their bread and butter.

Blizzcon 2009

I've been vocal in the past with my disdain for Blizzard's decision to hold every Blizzcon in California. Obviously many people can afford, and do not mind, the travel involved. But there are probably thousands of people like me who would love to attend but for the exorbitant air and hoteling fees involved. Even if I could afford to pay the $1500 round trip air fair, and the probably 300-500 dollars for a hotel for the weekend there, I couldn't really justify the expense to myself. It would be a lot more fair if Blizzard alternated between east and west coast venues, enabling many more people to attend.

However, this year Blizzard is doing something additional that I have to give them props to. I can only imagine they recognized the points I related above and worked out a deal with Direct TV to offer a web stream of the convention for a nominal fee. Even better, anyone purchasing the pay per view event also gets the 2009 in-game pet. Obviously a promotional for Starcraft 2 which is expected to be released later in the Fall.

Want to do your part to protect Azeroth from interstellar invasion? Everyone who attends BlizzCon 2009 or purchases the BlizzCon Pay Per View event via DIRECTV will be joined by a new World of Warcraft in-game companion, Grunty the murloc marine. This tiny terror is fully armored and comes equipped with a gauss rifle, which he’ll occasionally fire into the air to make sure no invisible spacecraft are swooping in to attack.

BlizzCon 2009 takes place on August 21-22 in the Anaheim Convention Center. Tickets go on sale on Saturday, May 16, with a second allotment to be released on May 30. For further details, check out the recent press release and the official website.

I don't know about you, but that pet alone is worth the $39.95 pay per view fee. Thumbs up Blizz!

Children's week is upon us

Children's week was been one of my favorite events in years past, more so because of the funny pets you get when you take the child back to the orphanage than anything else. So I started in on this one at 12:01 am this morning. I got the quests the orphan gives you all done before I went to bed at 1am, and then started in on the achievements for the world event when I woke up this morning. Most of the achievements are easily accomplished, but one of them--"School of Hard Knocks" requires you to not only venture into four different battlegrounds, but also to accomplish 4 specific tasks.

In the Eye of the Storm and Arathi Basin you have to personally cap a flag. In Alterac Valley you have to personally assault a tower, which means you have to be the one that clicks the flag. Simply being in the tower isn't good enough for the achievement, and the same goes for the flag in Arathi Basin. And finally, you have to return a flag in Warsong Gulch.

Of the four, returning a flag in WSG might be the toughest. Despite warnings on the offocial forums that WSG matches would turn into tortuous elongated matches as both teams play entirely on defense, Blizzard allowed this achievement to go forward. And in my Warsong Gulch match this morning it was exactly that. We had one flag cap in the first 19 minutes (by me I might add) because both teams were either entirely in the throne room or in the middle. There simply wasn't a lot of offense going on. When there was though, everyone was on the flag carrier like white on rice trying to kill him and return the flag. I actually returned the first flag in the match but was dismayed to see I neglected to have my orphan out so I didn't get credit. Luckily I got a second return around the 45 minute mark that I got credit for.

Of the other three people who have some type of speed increase have a decided advantage over everyone else. I was able to cap the flag in AB and in AV because I was faster than everyone else and for no other reason. In both matches I sped off like a bat out of hell and strait to a tower in AV and to the stables in AB. I feel badly for everyone that doesn't have some type of speed increase because it's going to be extremely difficult for them to get caps in the short period this world achievement runs. And likewise I was able to cap a flag in EotS because I was faster than everyone else. I got to the center faster than anyone else on the rest of my team and killed the horde player who had just picked up the flag. I picked up the flag before anyone else who had just got there could. Speed helped me on that one, but it's going to arguably be the easiest of the four to accomplish.

As you can imagine there is a lot of complaining on the forum. Not only regarding that one achievement, but also about other achievements being buggy. People are reporting doing dailies and not getting credit for them. Or hearthing and getting credit, then logging back in later and finding credit has been removed.

Unsurprisingly Blizzard is somewhat dismissive of complaints.

Noblegarden really should have been more noble

So here I was, my first world event since my return to WoW two weeks ago. I had heard Blizzard revamped it but hadn't really heard any details other than it was completely different. Last night WoWInsider ran a few articles explaining the new event, but an article doesn't always explain things in enough detail to remove all vagueness from your mind. In this case, a central point about the event was just plain wrong.

I applaud Blizzard's attempt to revamp this world event, but unfortunately it needs quite a bit of work before it rolls around again next year. Last year when you walked around in Elwynn Forest you would find little eggs everywhere. Can't say I paid that much attention to it since there weren't any achievements in WoW back then and there wasn't anything you could earn or that had any value from it all. So I largely ignored it. This year however, the event takes place in and around the starter zones for each race (and Shattrath). Additionally, unlike last year where you would find eggs everywhere, the eggs now spawn in a relatively small area, and in the same spots around trees, bushes, and buildings. In other words once you find where an egg spawns, you can simply sit there and wait for it to spawn again. The eggs re-spawn every minute to two minutes, so it's a lot more efficient than running around looking for another egg. And it didn't take long at all for everyone to catch onto that either.

I walked into Dalonnar around 10am this morning to find every spot where an egg can spawn camped by at least one person. Yelling and cursing was prevalent as irate people were trying to tell interlopers to their spot to get lost. Most people would ride around looking for an egg spawn that wasn't already camped, but would by and large move onto the next starter area hoping to find a spot of their own there. Lots of frustration was expressed not only in the zones, but on the official forums as well. Here is a quote from just one of those threads that I think adequately expresses a lot of what you could have read on the forums today. I'm quoting it because Blizzard has a habit of deleting things. Linked here.

This is quite possibly the dumbest event I've ever seen in this game. It is currently 1:30AM and I'm averaging around 1 egg per 10 minutes. In the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

There are so many players crawling around the tiny area where eggs actually spawn, you're lucky if you even manage to see an egg before it's nabbed. The sheer crushing garbage that is this event truly boggles the mind.

A holiday that consists of spending the ENTIRE WEEK trying to grief and steal from other players. That's it. That's the extent of it.

Why do you keep doing this, Blizzard? Why do you keep deliberately making events that simply are not fun. It's not even hard to figure out the correct way to implement this: an egg appears, stays for 30 seconds, disappears, respawns elsewhere. During that time, everyone can loot it. Each person can get a chocolate out of it.

Voila. Cooperation between players, instead of griefing, and an event that consists of running around trying to find eggs, instead of camping spawn points and yelling at other people who come close.

This is so bad it's offensive. Complete and utter failure.

I think I have to agree with him. The crushing competition and frustration this event spawned is clearly foreseeable. Ignoring the fact that the majority of this event requires you to sit in a spot for hours and clicking on an egg that spawns every 1-2 minutes and hindsight being what it is, if I had designed this at the very least I would have also included higher level areas to spread people out and give a much greater portion of the player base a chance to do this.

I like the fact that they removed almost all luck from this world event, which has been a huge problem of other events, because if you don't loot an item you need you can always buy it off a vender. It just requires you to sit on that spot that much longer to get the necessary additional chocolates to pay for the item. I was lucky this morning because I ended up only having to camp my spot for three hours and looted all but two items I needed from my eggs. I bought the last two items and headed out into the world to complete my remaining achievements.

That is except Shake that Bunnymaker, which requires you to place bunny ears on female characters of each race. Anyone who has played WoW for more than a few minutes knows it isn't easy to find a female character that isn't a Night elf, Blood elf, or Gnome. Female Undead, Dwarves, Tauren, Trolls, and Orcs are no easy thing to find anywhere. And to make matters worse Blizzard insists that they have to be at least level 18. A funny play on real life to be sure, but in WoW it simply means this is the achievement--that is part of the meta achievement required to get the title and complete this world event for the year-long meta achievement. Otherwise people would just do what they have done in previous world events and make an alt of whatever they need for a friend and have that friend reciprocate.

Blizzard needs to scrap this event and go back to the drawing board. They clearly did not spend much time on this event, which is disappointing considering the company we're talking about.