Those party hosts in Sleeper Cartel on Perenolde are at it again — they’re holding yet another in-game party, this time to celebrate Halloween, and it sounds like another player-run blowout: free food and drinks, costume and trivia contests, and lots more. There’s something called the Dead Man’s Run, and we have no idea what that is, but it sounds like a bunch of low level gnomes will die, which is always run. They tell us they’re planning on having a live DJ spin tunes, just as they did at their summer party. And they’ll have player-run questlines to do as well. You have to give it to them: Sleeper Cartel never seems to run short on creative things to do in-game.
I’m sorry to say that, as much as I’ve reported on these, I’ve never actually been to one. But I think that’ll change with this party — it kicks off at 7pm MST next Saturday, October 24th, on the US server of Perenolde, and they’re holding it at what they say is one of the creepiest places in the game, the Ruins of the Scarlet Enclave (a.k.a. the Death Knight starting area, sans leveling Death Knights). I just marked it on my calendar, so I do believe that I will see you there.
Castille World of Warcraft Virtual selves
Many folks this afternoon playing on EU servers have tipped us to the issues going on with Battle.net. It seems that they are unable to logon, with all accounts being stuck on the “Connecting” phase.
This is really bad timing for this to be happening, as it was just announced yesterday that on November 11th in the US and November 12th in the EU all accounts will have to be converted to Battle.net accounts. Many people are concerned that these problems will persist through the conversion, although it’s important to remember that these issues have existed before Battle.net came about as well.
There has not been any official word from Blizzard on today’s EU problems, but that hopefully be coming along shortly — along with an idea of when it all will be fixed.
Catalans World of Warcraft
Lead Encounter Designer Daelo has posted over on the forums that the testing of Icecrown for patch 3.3 will begin tomorrow, October 15th, with the Lord Marrowgar encounter. Blizzard will also have the trash before him up and working as well — the Icecrown raid preview describes the fight as an army of undead guards, commanded by Marrowgar, “a monstrosity fused together from the bones of the undead.” Sounds like good times to us.
Stay tuned — we’ll definitely have a few players available to test the encounter and give you some impressions from the PTR tomorrow, and if we can get enough folks together, we might even stream it again. As Daelo points out, the testing schedule will be extremely flexible, so Blizzard will likely pull bosses up and down at a moment’s notice — they’ve got a lot to test and probably less time to do it than they’d want. Note also that this is for US PTR servers only — the EU will have a seperate testing schedule that will be available on their forums when it’s ready. To Icecrown!
Kocherberg World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 PTR
As of November 11, players will no longer be able to log in with non-Battle.net accounts.
If you haven’t merged your World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account yet, you better do it soon! As a bonus incentive, players who do merge their accounts will receive Oswald the penguin! Those who already have merged their accounts need not worry as they will also get Oswald. Players that were involved with the Wrath beta may remember receiving one of these in the mail except he was known as Mr. Chilly then. I’m sure Oswald will make an excellent companion to Pengu (another penguin pet). Receiving Oswald is going to be a limited time offer. Blizzard hasn’t officially announced a date yet, but they do plan on removing the ability to get him at some point.
Of course, not being allowed access into the game might be incentive enough to begin the account merging process!
For additional information, check out the Battle.net account FAQ, Instructions on creating a Battle.net account, a video tutorial on how to convert your account, or just make your account a Battle.net account now (US) (EU).
Note: There is a blue post saying November 12th, and the in-game announcement saying November 11th. If appears that EU players need to convert by the 12th, and NA/US players need to convert by the 11th. But be on the safe side and just convert your account now.
Castro World of Warcraft
After someone asks a question on the forums about the new Mage Tier 10 bonus and the numbers behind it, Ghostcrawler brings up a little interesting insight into the way Blizzard puts these abilities and attributes together. He says that there are two steps to implementing a new ability: mechanics first, and then numbers later. That may seem common sense (and to a certain extent, it definitely is), but it’s interesting to note that it’s always what the ability does first, and then numbers later. Blizzard is much less likely (relatively speaking of course, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule) to put a new ability into the game than just tweak current numbers.
It makes sense, and if there’s a new ability you’ve been waiting to see in the game, maybe the reason Blizzard hasn’t tackled it yet is that they’re working on tweaking numbers to try and fix it without starting up a new mechanic. Ghostcrawler also says that this is the PTR we’re dealing with, and so of course those Tier 10 bonuses aren’t set in stone yet, just like everything else being tested. They don’t call it the PTR for nothing.
Kiuperli World of Warcraft
I like this post over at Tank Like a Girl that raises the question of just when your guild should make the big step to move on up the raiding ranks. Just last night, my very casual guild headed into Ulduar for the first time, and even though we’d never been in there before (we’ve been doing Naxx, OS, and EoE with some regularity, though when I say we’re casual, I mean we’re really casual), I think we did it at exactly the right time. We made it up to Kologarn — enough to know that we didn’t go in too early (and come out empty-handed, unable to down any bosses) or too late (and breeze through the place).
Now obviously, every guild is in a different place raiding-wise (and most guilds are way ahead of ours, I know), and TLaG is dealing with a different dilemma: whether to take down Yogg-Saron before moving on to ToC or not. And in her case, she’s got the added “gotta catch ‘em all” thinking. But it’s a tough thing as a raid leader — you don’t want to move on past content you know you can do eventually, and progression always beckons. In the end, you’ve got to figure out what’s best for the guild. And of course, the content’s not going anywhere — if you can’t drop a certain boss this week, there’s always the next raid reset.
Catalans World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King
No content patch would be complete without some changes to previously existing achievements. They’re just as fluid as everything else in an MMO. This time around, most of us will be getting some new feats of strength under our belt and the bravest among us will be getting a new title.
Feats of Strength
Proof of Demise becomes a feat of strength.
Timear Foresees becomes a feat of strength.
New Achievements
Looking For More: Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 10 random players total.
Looking For Many: Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 50 random players total. Awards the title: the Patient.
Looking For Multitudes: Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 100 random players total.
Could it be? Tangible rewards for running PUGs? Yes, it’s true!
Castres World of Warcraft achievements
I don’t necessarily agree with everything we highlight here on WoW.com, but just because a post seems wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to talk about. Such is the case with Loregy’s latest post — they suggest that after all is said and done, the much beloved (whoops, not) Garrosh Hellscream will end up at the wrong end of our weapons. They say that the big fight between Garrosh and Thrall (rudely interrupted by the Wrath of the Lich King) means that Garrosh is in for a whooping at some future point. Matt basically said as much in his post a while back — Garrosh is a flawed hero, to say the least, and it’s likely that sometime here, those flaws are going to catch up with him, possibly in the form of us players.
Now of course whether that’s true or not is an entirely different question from whether that’s what you want or not. Kisirani has already said that there are sides of Garrosh we haven’t seen yet, and Blizzard could go either way with him — either put him through some troubles and teach him to learn some lessons (right now the guy is pretty dumb), or do what Loregy is suggesting and turn him into a raid boss (wouldn’t be the first faction leader with such a fate, to be honest). Personally, I think Garrosh is headed for a little redemption — all he really needs, to my mind, is a little experience and humility, and, as I understand it, war can teach those pretty well.
Castiglione World of Warcraft Blizzard, NPCs
Zarhym has posted information about an interesting change in effect on the PTR right now. Blizzard is tweaking the way that character nameplates (those names that you see floating above everyone’s heads) works. First, nameplate vision has been extended, so that you can see player names from farther away. They’ve also adjusted some line-of-sight issues, and players will no longer be able to see nameplates through anything that blocks line-of-sight (so no nameplates of players hiding behind doors or walls). And multiple nameplates in one space will now overlap — we’ll have to see exactly what this looks like on the PTRs, but it sounds like a big group of the same mobs (i.e. Onyxia whelps) will now just have one nameplate to share.
Interesting stuff (and I didn’t realize that some of this stuff, especially the nameplate overlapping, was even possible). Zarhym has a few other notes in the thread about how you can change or update the options on the PTR, including a checkbox to turn on or off totem or pet nameplates. Elsewhere, Ghostcrawler says that it’s not just line-of-sight, as Arena pillars and other “objects” won’t affect the nameplate view, but doors and walls will. If you’re on the PTR, keep an eye out for these changes, and note that Blizzard is still asking for feedback. It’s unknown which of these changes (or others) will end up on the live realms in the future.
Koeningsmark World of Warcraft
The floor is being raised again. Bornakk has stated that for the time being, the intent is to have everything that drops Emblems of Conquest drop Emblems of Triumph in patch 3.3. This will certainly players allow easier access to tier 9 level gear. Players who may not be at the upper tier of raiding will still gain access to the gear and weapons that will offer them a fighting chance against Arthas. Along with this change, quests like the heroic daily will drop the all new Emblem of Frost which will be the highest level emblem in the game. There are two other methods to obtain these emblems. The obvious route will be to take down Icecrown’s raid bosses. The final method is to complete the new weekly raid quests that offer 10 Emblems as a reward for defeating a certain raid boss.
Hooray for accessibility!
Again, be advised that things may change and these aren’t finalized.
gmaxwell World of Warcraft Emblems of Triumph, Patch 3.3
As it stands right now, when a blue or epic item is dropped in an instance, players have several options to choose from: Need, greed or pass. A recent glance at the new Patch 3.3 PTR UI changes shows some new strings:
LOOT_ROLL_DISENCHANT = “%s has selected Disenchant for: %s”;
LOOT_ROLL_DISENCHANT_SELF = “You have selected Disenchant for: %s”;
LOOT_ROLL_WON_NO_SPAM_DE = “%1$s won: %3$s |cff818181(Disenchant – %2$d)|r”;
The first two lines mean that other players in your party or yourself have selected the dropped item to be disenchanted. The last line means if roll spam is turned off, what you’ll end up seeing is something like “Player has won Item (to be disenchanted)”. I suspect how the priority on loot will work is players who select Need will get first crack at it, followed by Greed rollers. Disenchant would be the third option. Pass would be last.
I have this strange feeling that we’re not going to see that many players passing on an item anymore even with no enchanters in the group. This will be helpful during raids where there are no enchanters around to help break any items that aren’t going to be used.
Koeningsmark World of Warcraft News items
Blizzard seems to be heading off the data-mining race by showcasing the Tier 10 armor sets in their own little page. While not all of the class armor is available for viewing, the gallery shows more than what is currently available through other World of Warcraft news sites — a change of pace from the days where data-mined previews are king. Instead, Blizzard makes it easy for players to see what’s in store for them in Icecrown.
Currently, the Death Knight, Druid, Hunter, and Warrior tier armor sets are available for viewing. The Death Knight armor set is different from the Warrior’s, which indicates a return to class-based armor models. But wait… what’s this? The Warrior armor seems to preview two colors of armor — one blue worn by a dwarf, and a red version worn by an orc. Does this indicate that even though the armor models will be class-based, the coloration will be different according to faction? That would be an interesting way to address the question of class- and faction-based armor design. A look at the Druid armor set reveals very minor color differences between the Tauren and Night Elf versions, however. Stay tuned to WoW.com for more Tier 10 updates! For now, sate yourselves with the Tier 10 gallery below.
Castres World of Warcraft Tier 10