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Live
Patch 4.1 Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms - Goodie Bags From Heroics!
Blizzard has just released
major
details about the latest changes to the Dungeon Finder coming in Patch 4.1! The Dungeon Finder will now detect which roles are in demand (*cough*tanks and healers*cough*) based on queue times. When certain queue times have been reached, a Call to Arms will go out for the desired role and players who queue and successfully complete a dungeon as that role will be rewarded with a special goodie bag (each time)! This goodie bag can contain:
Gold
Rare Gems
Flasks/Elixirs
Non-Combat Pet (Including cross faction pets!)
Rare Mounts (Including rare dungeon drop mounts!)
So what do you think? Will this help the Dungeon Finder queue problems? Will this cause more players to utilize dual specs to play their other roles and help out the queue timers? Or will we just end up with healers who can't heal (or won't heal) and tanks who don't have tanking gear? What do you think?
In patch 4.1 we'll be introducing
Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms
, a new system intended to lower queue times. Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is curr
Live
Legendary After Dark - Violently Touring Ironforge
Following up with last week's
Stormwind assault
, this time we decided to take a stroll down through Old Ironforge. Of course, we couldn't resist saying hi to the famed Red Shirt Guy... WITH BLIND RAGGGEE!
Live
Blizz Blues - Ep 12 - Darkmoon Ganked
The Darkmoon Faire is here, and unfortunately, it’s a ghost town. Our host,
Darnell
-- who has never been -- can’t wait to check it out for himself. The events that follow show us possibly the best ganking technique ever performed.
Live
Patch 4.1: Map Animation, Vanity Pet Changes, and a Resort Town Preview
Fresh from a foray onto the PTR, Wowhead volunteers Neutronimity and Perculia have brought some exciting news about some notable additions to Azeroth. While they're not a new raid nor a new legendary, they're still important in their own way. After all, it's the little things that make World of Warcraft so memorable!
The first discovery was that there's a new map animation. When users open their maps, they will now
see
it. This was first brought to our attention a week ago by Wowhead user Satelitko. They even went as far as to make
a video of the animation
.
The second discovery, this time by Neutronimity, was that companion pets now stay with their owner through thick and thin. Did you hearth away? Zone? Or even log off? Don't worry, they'll stay summoned. A small change to be sure, but a very practical one; summoning your vanity pet every time you left an area was easy to forget.
Of course, we've saved the best for last. The third discovery is pretty big. It's also a little weird. Perculia discovered a brand new resort off in the mountains of the border between Feralas and Silithus while flying around on the PTR this morning. The amount of detail put into t
Live
Site Update: Maps Show Flight Paths
World of Warcraft is big. Huge, even. There are a lot of flight paths and it's hard to remember all of them. Don't worry, though, as we've been working on solving that problem: Wowhead is now tracking them all! Next time you're leveling and you're looking for flight paths, we've got you covered.
To use this new feature, simply go to a continent in our database, select 'Show on Map,' and choose your preferred faction. Markers will then show up for the area's flight paths as well as any zeppelin or boat path on the continent. It's a great way to see an overview of paths to zones you intend to tackle next; it's especially helpful now that there are so many new flight paths in World of Warcraft. Try it now--check out
Eastern Kingdoms
or
Kalimdor
to see this new feature in action.
Remember, we here at Wowhead are always looking for new features to bring to our site to improve our user experience. If you have any feedback on what you would like to see here,
open a thread in our feedback forums
or send an email to .
Live
The Weekly Marmot - Effort and Endgame
This week I dig back into the meat of MMO design to talk about why things not only SHOULD take a while to accomplish at max level, but why they HAVE to.
Live
Blizzard's Fourth Q+A Answered, Achievements Next Topic
Blizzard just posted their next set of answers to the fourth Q+A they held recently. There are extremely varied answers this time around--most likely because the questions were generally all over the place! From enchanters and their wand creating past to oversized belts, this session of "Ask the Devs" is filled with interesting tidbits throughout and is a solid read.
Surprisingly, Blizzard even touches on dyes at the end with its final question about customization, saying that "dumping a bunch of dyes on the game" might make an effect "where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit" but that "a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that." Blizzard, why you playing us like that? From hardcore to casual, a lot of players would remember that system--more than you think!
Oh, and those heirlooms being transferable between realms? "Someday."
There will be more of these sessions coming up in the near future as well. The topic of
Achievements
is slated to be tackled next.
Some of the topics of the questions they were asked include:
Tier Design: Will Blizzard Return to Class Inspired Tier Aesthetic Design Rather Than Dun
Live
New Ghostcrawler Blog: Stat Allocation
The patch right before Cataclysm reinvented the wheel. It made spirit a bread and butter stat for all healers, it introduced mastery, and it normalized almost everything. In his latest developer blog, Ghostcrawler talks about stat allocations. He also hates on Paladins for one paragraph.
Kidding--well, sort of. Maybe the Paladin hate isn't entirely uncalled for, either. We do have three specs and, as Ghostcrawler contends, that's a hard puzzle to solve. Blizzard doesn't like Intellect plate, but it doesn't like any other solution either. Give us Holy Paladins mail and we're just shaman. Make our spellpower derive from strength and we'll be Retribution Paladins that can heal extraordinarily well.
Ghostcrawler also breaks down loot tables, supply and demand, and how slot machine bosses like those from Baradin Hold and Vault of Archavon feel for both developers and players. It's an interesting read and a good insight on why things are the way they are and how the Cataclysm model is here to stay. After several expansions and six years, it looks like Blizzard feels like they've found the best solution. Read on to find out why.
The developers talk
Live
Ask the Devs #5: Achievements
Got questions? Well, Blizzard might have answers--if you're one of the lucky few, anyway. The "Ask the Dev" segment is becoming quite a regular thing on the Blizzard community forums and by now you should be no stranger to it; for several weeks, we've been getting the chance to pitch a question to the brains behind World of Warcraft and have it answered. This week, they'll be talking about achievements. From how they come up with new achievements to the controversial immortal achievements, there are a lot of questions to be asked and it should be an interesting read when it gets posted next week.
Of course, it'll only be interesting if you make it! So get asking and get out your
Lucky Charm
for a chance to have your question answered and read by Blizzard developers themselves.
As this is a
global
Q+A, threads will be made available to both US and EU. So far, EU players can submit their questions
over here
and the US thread is
over here
.
Be sure to check out Blizzard's previous Q+As:
[url=
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=185039/blizzards-first-q-a-answered-pvp-selected-topic-for-ne
Live
PST - Episode 23
This week:
Are Shaman useless now?
Is Cataclysm leveling too easy?
How can I keep my guild from becoming just a stepping stone for other guilds?
How can I get into raiding in the first place?
and more!
Live
April Fools' 2011 - We Won't Forget You, Crabby
Yet another April Fools' Day has come and gone softly into the night, leaving in its wake a bunch of jokes and rumors. This year seemed tame to the previous one, where we heard about everything from top guilds merging to aquariums being added, but sometimes tame is good--especially where being pranked is concerned. All in all, there were still some great jokes around the WoW community to be found and fun to be had.
Some of our favorites were:
WarcraftPets
told us about a newly implemented companion loyalty
. I mean, as Breanni puts it, Hunter pet loyalty is gone--but where exactly did it go?
A guild some of you may have heard of, Paragon,
came up with an elaborate guide to an encounter involving a certain Firelord you may also have heard of
.
Wings of Chaos and Divine Wings
made us sad when we realized they weren't
really
available.
WoWInterface introduced their own authenticator[
Live
Patch 4.1 - Delicia Fay and Armor Dyes Coming Soon to Azeroth
The upcoming Patch 4.1: Rise of the Zandalari just got
a lot
more exciting.
A new patch hit the PTR early this morning and with it comes some news that most of us World of Warcraft players have been waiting to hear for years. Yes, you will be able to dye your armor in 4.1. In addition to a couple pieces of new 5-man gear, we've datamined several brand new items called
Concentrated Dyes
as well as an uncategorized spell called
Cauterizing Flame
. Additionally, after hopping on the PTR to check it out, we can confirm that this is a more potent dye that lets players tint their armor to preferred shades.
Blizzard's Tribute to Felicia Day's "The Guild"
Interestingly enough, the dyes are sold by a vendor named
Cavern Burrower
. A redheaded Blood Elf, Delicia can be found in Booty Bay in a previously abandoned hut that's surrounded by textiles and articles of clothing. In the surrounding area, there are two other new NPCs called
Maze Tester
and
Mighty Devilsaur
. It seems that Blizzard's added these two to help reaffirm the initial tribute--Delicia Fay being a somewhat obvious play on celebrity
Felicia Day's
name--as both are characters on her
Live
Goodbye "Wowhead," Hello "Rifthead"
Unbeknownst to the general public, there have been some talks about changing our site's name in the past months. Frankly, as a name brand, "Wowhead" isn't as memorable as we'd like—the word doesn't convey solid imagery and it isn't very marketable. For a while now we've been hunting through the thesaurus, trying to find a word that really got what both World of Warcraft and our unique fansite are really all about.
Recently, it hit us: conflict. WoW is a game that's rife with conflict and its resolution, a game enveloped in rifts and their closures.
This is an especially relevant observation now. Since the advent of Cataclysm, tensions have been rising. Factions and their leaders fight not only against each other but within themselves. Rifts are forming—political rifts amongst leaders and physical rifts as Deathwing tears our world apart. Rifts are everywhere in Azeroth.
Thus, officially as of today, we've rebranded our esteemed website to incorporate that very memorable and menacing word into our new site title. No longer are we Wowhead. Today we become "Rifthead"; a website where we strive to bring the community the latest upd
Live
Legendary - The WoW Video Podcast - Cha Cha Changes!
Man, what a busy week it's been! Hurry up and watch the show before it's ancient history already!
On today's LEGENDARY:
UI Q&A
Guild Transfers
Guild Challenges
and a mystery prize caption contest!
Live
New Forum Feature: Credibility!
Our team is always working behind the scenes to make the website easier to use and more enjoyable. I am proud to announce our latest feature:
Post Credibility
, an indicator of how credible a forum post is! It will be shown next to each forum post; it consists of a rating in numeric form (usually between 1 and 9, but some exceptional cases do exist) and one of 3 possible color coded levels is also displayed. They say a picture is worth a thousand words:
The credibility of the post is entirely calculated by an automated algorithm without human intervention and will thus be available immediately after posting. Our tests have shown that it's remarkably accurate.
We plan to add new
website achievements
for exceptionally credible posts and we will be looking at other ways to integrate this amazing new feature.
As always your feedback is very appreciated!
Live
BFF Report - Mass Effect 2 - The Arrival DLC
I don't know about you guys, but I am a huge fan of the Mass Effect IP.. I even own a book that I've read at least 37% of, and I never read books! However, this newest DLC, which coincidentally is also the last, kinda makes me go :|
Have any of you tried it? What are you thoughts on this compared to the previous DLC?
Live
PTR Patch 4.1 Notes Updated (3/30)
HUGE
update the the PTR 4.1 Patch Notes today, including some moderate class changes (including some revisions to previous Arcane
Mage
ability changes), some Cataclysm dungeon changes and tons of other interesting things!
Notable changes include:
The guild achievements for earning exalted reputation with factions (
Ambassadors
,
Diplomacy
, and
) have been fixed to now correctly count cumulative guild members with exalted factions. Previously, these achievements would only count exalted factions on one guild member.
Druid
:
has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid's attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.
Druid
:
now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.
Priest
:
healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.
Flask of Steelskin
now grants 450 Stamina, up from 300. The Mixology bonus for alchemists remains at 120 stamina.
This l
Live
Bind to Battle.net Account Heirloom Items Coming in 4.1?
We were taking a peek at some of the
awesome Heirloom items
we discovered in today's PTR patch and noticed a majorly interesting detail: heirlooms will now
Bind to Battle.net account
! It seems that this feature has been added not only to the newly added heirlooms but to all previously implemented heirloom items as well! We have absolutely no idea how transferring these items between characters on different servers and whatnot will work, but we'll definitely update with any details we're able to find! Maybe we'll see a detailed Blizzard post on this real soon™!
We'll (of course) have our
PTR database
updated as soon as possible to support this change. :)
Live
News Roundup: More Complaints About the 60-80 Leveling Flow...
There have been some odds and ends this week and past that have deserved a news round-up, from a few hotfixes to some explanations of minor class changes that are slated to hit in patch 4.1. General news seems really slow lately, most likely because Blizzard has been busy ramping up for the Rise of the Zandalari release as well as preparing for the patch beyond that and its new raids.
Latest topics include:
Post-60 Leveling Flow
UA Dispel Penalty
Clarification Requested on WoG Nerf
HW: Sanctuary Needs Buffs
Check out the full Blizzard posts after the break!
Live
Intel's Short Film "When I Was An Elephant"
Some of you guys might remember our
Gear Check
back in December covering
Intel's x25M Solid State Drives
, where we showed off some of the mad skills these drives pack and gave you guys some insight into how they can positively expect your World of Warcraft (and general computing) experiences. They've got some new SSDs coming out and we'll hopefully get more details real soon - we might even have another
contest
for you guys to look forward to!
For now, our friends over at Intel have worked with the
Rubbish
team to release a short film titled
When I Was An Elephant
. It's a quirky and avant-garde piece, especially when considering it's advertising Intel's solid state drives, but it's definitely worth checking out. Let us know what you think!
http://intelssdgaming.com/united-states/ssdfilm
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