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Rage Normalization in Cataclysm
In
Cataclysm
, Blizzard is taking the opportunity to fix some of the problems with rage for both warriors and druids. Right now there are quite a few problems with rage—we're rage-starved at lower gear levels, and have next to infinite rage at high gear levels.
To fix this Blizzard plans to
normalize
rage in Cataclysm. We're going to generate a set amount of rage on auto-attack (200% if you crit), rage from being hit will be calculated based on the warriors health, more sources for instant rage will be introduced, all “on next swing” will be removed and
and
will become instant attacks.
With these changes Blizzard hopes to make playing these classes a little more interesting, and hopefully make rage-management more a part of playing the character.
You can read the entire original post after the break!
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Echo Isles and Gnomeregan Official News!
For those of you who haven't been following the spoilers, The pre-Cataclysm world event is coming up soon—and from the looks of it, it will be revolving primarily around the efforts of the Alliance to retake Gnomeregan, and the Horde to retake the Echo Isles!
Blizzard has just released a sneak preview of both events on the official site, with some awesome screenshots and a little background for those who don't know the history:
High Tinker Mekkatorque, betrayed by Mekgineer Thermaplugg and forced to flee the irradiated city of Gnomeregan with the few of his fellow gnomes who managed to survive, is preparing to reclaim his once glorious city. Meanwhile, in distant Durotar, Vol'jin of the Darkspear trolls is determined to exact revenge upon the witch doctor Zalazane for dividing the Darkspears and seizing the land bestowed to them by Thrall: the Echo Isles. Read more about the ongoing struggles of the
gnomes
and the
trolls
... and their
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Cataclysm Mastery System Preview
Last week
Blizzard went into detail about the changes into the stats system for Cataclysm and now they have finally revealed their plans for the
Mastery
system.
In a nut shell the mastery system will basically give you bonuses that increase damage, healing or survivability according to the amount of points spent in the tree. Along with it you will get a secondary bonus to a stat that is most desirable to you, like haste or crit. There is even a third bonus which will be completely unique to the tree and will benefit from the mastery rating on high-level gear.
Eyonix then goes into detail about how talents such as
will stay and
will go away in favor of more fun and interesting talents while being merged into the new mastery system.
After the break you can find the entire post along with examples for the mastery bonuses for Holy and Discipline Priests and Frost Death Knights!
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Stat Changes in Cataclysm Announced
Quite a few of you have heard about the changes coming to stats in
Cataclysm
, and out of that few many have wondered what exactly is changing.
Eyonix has gone into detail about each and every change you will be seeing in the upcoming expansion, including spell power coming from intellect, and haste rating doing "more stuff" for melee users than just increasing attack speed.
You can read on after the break for the original post and the full changes.
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Wowhead's Guide to Cataclysm!
Having trouble sifting through all the new information about
Cataclysm
? Ever find yourself wishing that there was one place you could go for all the information you could ever need? Now there is!
http://www.wowhead.com/?guide=cataclysm
We have a complete
FAQ
which answers all the common questions (which I recommend you read before the
Twitter Dev Chat
tomorrow, since last time a lot of people were asking questions the developers already answered at BlizzCon), a detailed explanation of the
changes to Azeroth
, details about all the
new dungeons and raids
, and explanations of the new features like
guild leveling
, the
Paths of the Titans
,
Archaeology
and
Reforging
!
Come take a look at the guide—we'll be updating it as new information gets released!
Note: The Ca
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Cataclysm Alpha NOT Starting Tuesday
Several websites have reported today that the F&F alpha test for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
may
begin this upcoming Tuesday, January 12, 2010. Along with these rumours is a DVD (as seen on the right) that is
supposedly
a copy of the alpha that will be distributed to testers instead of being a digital download to deter people from getting the data easily.
According to sources close to us here at Wowhead, we can confirm that all of these rumours are false and the alpha
will not
be starting Tuesday. Also, the supposed alpha DVD has been confirmed to be fake.
As always, be careful with what you read on the interwebs!
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Gnomes Back in Gnomeregan?
There have been many jokes about the gnomes not being able to take their capital Gnomeregan back, despite the fact that there are quite a few gnome NPCs with level and gear sufficient enough to obliterate every single trogg and leper gnome in immediate proximity. Well, we
may
get to see the end of those jokes in
Cataclysm
! Some two weeks ago "PC Gamer" magazine revealed some new information about the upcoming expansion, but it seems like one of the things was majorly overlooked: a hint that gnomes might be going back home!
Here's what the short caption on the image reads:
After 5 years of players purging Gnomeregan of its irradiated inhabitants, Gnomes may finally be able to reclaim their home as a new capital city for Alliance... until they mess it up again.
Without jumping to conclusions, it is highly probable (in my opinion at least) that Gnomeregan will be introduced in Cataclysm. Whether it is going to be there at launch, or players will go through a series of phasing quests to "purge" the place for good is of little relevance. The only problem is that we may very well get our super excited
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New Details on Cataclysm Dungeon
I realize I'm a
little
bit late on this, but I suppose it's better late than never, right?
Last night, Zarhym posted an
announcement
about an upcoming expansion whose details have been added to the
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
website. The dungeon will be known as
The Abyssal Maw
and is expected to have an ocean-like setting. The updated page has been linked below.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/features/abyssalmaw.html
You can also find the announcement in its full entirety after the break.
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Wowhead: Cataclysm Forum Open! (or "Where did my thread go?")
If you've been around Wowhead for a while, you saw this one coming. With every expansion, we like to provide the community with a central place to discuss upcoming expansions once they are announced. This one is no different. I bring you:
Cataclysm: The Wowhead Forum
.
The rules for the new forum are the same as our general forum except the topic matter is more focused. We ask that you limit conversation in that forum to Cataclysm-related material. Enjoy!
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Game Systems Panel
One of the panels many of us have been expecting today was the Game Systems one - panel about Guild Advancement (leveling & achievements), Path of the Titans, Mastery System, and rated battlegrounds. I am not going to waste your time with introductions - on with the show!
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Cataclysm Officially Announced!
So here's the rough run-down. It's pretty much as it was leaked, but here's the interesting stuff I thought:
Guild levelling, and Guild achievements
New Character Progression: "Path of the Titans". Not sure what this means.
New Secondary Skill: Archaeology
Rated Battlegrounds
Heroic Classic Instances: Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep
So it looks like everything MMO-Champion had was correct, but apparently Blizzard still managed to keep a FEW secrets. :)
The goblin lore looks interesting. It seems like the Horde Goblins will be a splinter group of island-faring goblins—similar to the Darkspear trolls—that were forced off their island by the incoming Cataclysm, and have fallen in with the Horde. It's possible, we'll have to see. :)
The full details are up on the World of Warcraft site here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/
Stay tuned for the next blog, when we hit up the preview panel!
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BlizzCon Day 1—and Wowhead Quest!
So I'm in my hotel room, packing my stuff up and heading down to the convention floor. I'm going to use this blog post to write down my random thoughts as we go on through the day, just in case some of you may be bored enough that they want to hear MY running commentary on their DirecTV broadcast. :P
Don't forget that for more immediate news and pictures—the kind I don't have to run up to the press room to publish—you can follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Wowhead
Bonus:
For those of you who are actually attending the convention, Wowhead has a quest for you!
If you manage to find one of us on the convention floor—you'll know us by our Wowhead T-shirts—then you get a card for a free month trial of
Premium
!
The updates will be coming after the break!
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New Expansion Info on MMO-Champion!
MMO-Champion
has just posted an announcement with all of the currently known information about the upcoming expansion:
World of Warcraft - Cataclysm!
This information
is
considered speculation, as it has not been officially confirmed by Blizzard, but Boubouille at MMO-Champion doesn't usually post something unless he's pretty sure and so far he's rarely been wrong. Some of the recently-gathered information includes: the new
level cap
(you'll be surprised!), as well as new
race/class combinations
!
You can read the entire thread
here
.
Thoughts?
Do you think this is going to be the big announcement Blizzard plans on releasing at Blizzcon 2009?
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[Spoilers] Speculated Details About Upcoming Expansion!
Details that have been speculated from a few sources about the upcoming expansion named World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, have been released: the factions to which each race (Goblin and Worgen) will belong. Though this information may be obvious to some people, a spoiler alert has been added as a precaution. The speculated information is right after the break!
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My Problem with Varian Wrynn
As someone who "grew up" as Alliance,
Bolvar Fordragon
(shown here in his old digs at Stormwind Keep) was something of a fixture in the Alliance and generally his storyline, quests and dialog seemed to be pretty well-written. Aside from that, many of us appreciated how awesome he was when we first saw him fighting off the
Onyxia's Elite Guard
that were hiding in the keep, surrounding Bolvar.
These days, we're looking at
Varian Wrynn
instead. I didn't think too much of it when Wrynn first showed up, but then I read up on his lore and I found myself rather unhappy with the general nature of the story and his background. My gut reaction was to dismiss the lore behind him as being simply
badly written
. I wouldn't have a problem with him if the story didn't have the somewhat perplexing sense of an attempted shoe-horn of a new character into WoW. I use the word perplexing because the word was used by the loquacious, frenetic and not-sa
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Nordic Northrend
Let's do a quick time travel. Let's travel back to the hot summer and autumn months when Blizzard first started feeding us on Wrath of the Lich King news. News around the Vrykul and the Kvasir were one of the most commented topics, and the general opinion was "I love it, we are finally getting vikings in WoW!". I guess some people never liked it, but I have been a long-time fan of vikings, Norse gods and mythology, and the like. So seeing how much Northrend was influenced by the Nordic cultures and traditions made me one really happy panda. But it wasn't until a little over a month ago that I realize how much Nordic stuff is there actually in WoW.
With the upcoming release of Ulduar, we get even more references to the aforementioned cultures. I think it is about time I share my findings with you. I am not going to cover the different references in a great detail; just enough so you understand what is in the core of the idea. If you know more than what I have written, or if you have something interesting to share - fire at will, I think a lot of us here love learning new cool stuff!
So, shall we dwell in the frozen secrets of Nordic Northren
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New & Changed Icons in Patch 3.1 (Build 9684)
What does a new PTR build mean? Exciting icon changes, of course. In this new build (3.0.1.9684),
73
new icons were added, and
19
got tweaked.
All these icons are visible by browsing achievements, items, spells etc. on the site—but we thought you might appreciate having them all in one place for browsing. :)
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Turtlenecks Are In This Year
So for those of you who have been following
MMO-Champion
—which you should be if you're interested in early warning info about the upcoming patch—you'll notice that Boubouille has posted the
final model preview
for the tier 8 armor sets!
He's posted a
YouTube video
showing a full 360 degree 3D view of each armor set, as well as a high-definition screenshot showing them on every race/gender combination.
The URLs are:
Original Post:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=43380.0
YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibjscQm0wBE&fmt=22
So what are your favorites and least favorites? I like the Shaman and Druid sets—Druid especially, I think it's nice to see a Druid wearing something that actually looks like
leather
. Warrior's pretty good too, it feels very Norse. Least favorites are the Paladin set (I know, right?) and the Rog
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New Icons in Patch 3.1 (Build 9658)
Looks like
5
new icons were added in the latest PTR patch: 3.1.0.9658.
All these icons are visible by browsing achievements, items, spells etc. on the site—but we thought you might appreciate having them all in one place for browsing. :)
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New Icons in Patch 3.1 (Build 9637)
Here are the
44
new icons that were added in PTR patch 3.1.0.9637. Feel free to use them as your Wowhead avatar.
All these icons are visible by browsing achievements, items, spells etc. on the site—but we thought you might appreciate having them all in one place for browsing. :)
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