Cataclysm Closed Beta - NDA Lift

WOOT!!!!!! is the only thing i can say lol

http://www.wowtal.com/#k=guUbESyiKNGyJs.9gq.warrior <- So goddamn OP

40% damage increase (10% indefinate, 10% every 1min, 20% as a 3min CD) + Three low rage costing damage procs, 3 Bleed DoTs and 30% bleed increase. Nasty!

Originally Posted by Mewtwo

Burn After Reading

thanks!

The stat balancing is.. weird. With every stat rolled into one it's hard to judge the actual increase over TBC gear. It would be nice if current comparable pieces can be shown as well so we know how the conversion goes.

from worldofraids.com...
No source or citation, just thought you guys might like to see for lore-wise...

Spoiler Warning: Please keep in mind that this contains a lot of spoilers, so read at your own risk!

---

Cataclysm sees quite a few changes to existing lore. This is more a story progression than anything, but with some of them being very dramatic changes, I wanted to recap everything I've found so far.

Horde

* Garrosh Hellscream is the new Warchief and has reinforced Orgrimmar and many Horde outposts around Azeroth with dark iron. He's also reclaimed Gorehowl -- his father's weapon -- and now wields it.
* Thrall was captured by SI:7 (and it looks like Garrosh actually set that up), to be later rescued by the Goblins during their new player experience.
* Cairne Bloodhoof was poisoned by Magatha Grimtotem and is now dead.
* Baine Bloodhoof is now the leader of the Tauren race in Thunderbluff (those that are part of the Horde).
* The Forsaken went against Garrosh's wishes and released a plague on Gilneas, killing most of its inhabitants. Sylvannas is expected to be further in the dog house once Garrosh learns of this.
* The Horde have, thanks to Goblin ingenuity, built "The Bomb" -- a weapon of mass destruction -- and unleash it on a night elf village in Stonetalon Mountains. Garrosh, displeased with the slaughter of innocent people, kills the general who ordered the bomb to be dropped.



Alliance

* Magni Bronzebeard attempted some sort of ritual in Old Ironforge and was turned to stone, leaving Ironforge without a single ruler. While attempts are made to remove the curse from Magni, Muradin Bronzebeard, Moira Thaurassin and Falstad Wildhammer have formed a council of rulers.
* Varian Wrynn has devoted resources to upgrading many Alliance outposts on Azeroth, including Sentinel Hill.
* The worgen "curse" was actually created by a sect of druids known as the Druids of the Scythe, wielders of the Scythe of Elune and the magic it provided. They fell victim to the feral nature of the worgen and lost control of themselves -- forever transforming. They had to be locked away in the Emerald Dream, though Archmage Arugal managed to free some and in turn released the curse upon the denizens of Gilneas. The trees you see in various screenshots with the glowing blue liquid flowing from them are trees where the Druids of the Scythe were contained and put into slumber.
* The Park in Stormwind was indeed destroyed by Deathwing after he emerged in Azeroth. This is confirmed by a group of NPCs chatting before the boat ride out to Vashj'ir. Some had previously thought that an earthquake may have destroyed it.



Other

* Edwin VanCleef is dead. His daughter, Vanessa VanCleef is now the leader of the Defias Brotherhood. She has unleashed a plot to bring down Stormwind after witnessing the assassination of her father some 5 years ago.
* Corporal Keeshan is the main character behind the Redridge zone progression, known as John J. Keeshan. The story revolves around the Blackrock Orcs planning an invasion of Lakeshire, and plays out much like a Rambo movie where you must recover Keeshan's bandanna, bow, knife and a locket from his lost love, as well as freeing his captured Bravo Company friends.
* Kalec is rounding up all of the blue dragonflight, as he fears the death of Malygos will be a sign of weakness and Deathwing will send out agents to assassinate the remaining dragons within the flight. This holds true as the black dragonflight has invaded Azshara to hunt down Azuregos. Kalec and Azuregos help low level Horde players to repel the invasion.
* Malfurion Stormrage is the only thing keeping Darkshore from being devoured by the Cataclysm; he's created a giant twister in the middle of the zone.
* The Twilight's Hammer are attempting to summon an Old God in Darkshore, Soggoth the Slitherer.
* Deathwing has summoned Ragnaros and agents of the Plane of Fire into Hyjal. The players go through a linear quest chain culminating in the banishment of Ragnaros back to the Plane of Fire. Involved in the chain (and fights leading up to and including Ragnaros): Ysera, Aspect of the Green Dragonflight; Malfurion Stormrage, Jarod Shadowsong, Cenarius, Goldrinn, Aviana, Aessina, Tortulla, Hamuul Runetotem, Fandral Staghelm. It's pretty damn epic.
* The Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition are the reason for Desolace seeing the growth it has, and have thus named the middle of the zone the Cenarion Wildlands.
* Ysondre is the last of the Dragons of Nightmare, and although she has been saved from the nightmare, she states she can never return to the green dragonflight. Emeriss and Lethon are already dead; Ysondre helps players kill Taerar during a quest chain in Feralas.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM LORE TASTES GOOD!

::chews on it happily::

I still can't get over the fact they want us to start DPSing as healers, maybe I'm just misinterpreting this and it's just for soloing, which I thought was what dual spec was for, but talents like improved tree of life, which is 40 points down into resto and increases damage by 5% per point make me wonder if this game will even have specs in the coming months/years. If I wanted to do damage, I'd roll a DPS class, when players start asking me what my DPS is as a healer, that's when I'll quit this game.

wooooooooooooot!

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta Patch Notes

Welcome to the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta test! Patch notes listed here are not comprehensive and will be changed throughout the testing process.

General

The Alliance starting experience for worgen is available. Venture through the cursed lands of Gilneas to discover your true path! Currently the female worgen character is not available for testing.
The Horde starting experience for goblins is available. Beginning on the Isle of Kezan in a goblin paradise, players will face a treacherous road ahead!
The level cap for all characters is 82.
Players may use our Character Copy feature for copying existing characters to beta realms, or may choose from high-level pre-made template characters.

Zones

Mount Hyjal and Vashj'ir, two new level 78-82 zones, are available for testing. Players may find their way to these zones by speaking with temporary teleportation NPCs located in any major city.
The level ranges of Gilneas and the Lost Isles are in the process of being adjusted slightly. Creature, quest, and quest reward levels are all being altered so that players finish questing in these zones roughly by level 12. Further fine tuning will continue in future content updates.
Several zones have had quest maps integrated.
Eastern Kingdoms

Arathi Highlands, Blasted Lands, Dun Morogh, Duskwood, Elwynn Forest, Loch Modan, Northshire, Westfall, Hinterlands and Redridge Mountains are ready for testing.
Stranglethorn Vale (currently Horde only) is available for testing.

Kalimdor

Most zones in Kalimdor are available for testing, though work continues on polishing the quest experience and flow, as well as zone aesthetics.

Dungeons & Raids

Teleportation NPCs in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and Dalaran can transport players to any available new dungeons, including players who are ghosts.
Blackrock Caverns, a new level 79-81 five-player dungeon, is available for testing.
Throne of the Tides, a new level 79-81 five-player dungeon, is partially available for testing.

Classes: General

Ammo has been removed from the game.
The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
The glyph system is in the process of being altered. Existing glyphs may not be fully supported or functional.
Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
Rage has been normalized.
Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Talents trees have changed and are still in the process of being reworked.

Death Knights

A dedicated tanking tree has been implemented.
The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids. The feature is functional, but the interface art is still a work in-progress.

Hunters

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

Warlocks

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

User Interface

The ability to use third-party addons has been temporarily disabled for the test environment.
The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
Auto-quests have been added to the game. Players will automatically be given an auto-quest by entering specific areas in the game world. This alert will appear distinctly in the Objectives pane via the Advanced Quest Tracking feature. These quests will still be given to players with full Quest Logs, but will count toward the 25 total allotted quests if the log is not full.
The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

Graphics

Experimental support for DX11 (can be enabled by passing ‘-d3d11’ on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file).
OpenGL Hardware Cursor support (can be enabled on the Video Resolution Panel).
Improved water and lava rendering system (enabled by the Liquid Detail slider on the Video Effects Panel)

0 = Classic Water
1 = New Water (fake reflections)
2 = New Water (ocean has real reflection for terrain)
These values are likely to change during Beta.

Dynamic Sunshafts effect (enabled by the Sunshafts option on the Video Effects Panel).

Known Issues

Selecting high Liquid Detail when using Geforce 6 & 7 series video cards will currently prevent lava and water from rendering properly. You can temporarily restore liquid to the world by reducing the Liquid Detail setting via the Video Effects Panel, or by typing “waterDetail 0” in your Config.WTF file.

Anyone know if you have to be currently subbed to WoW to get into the beta or at least an invite? I'm currently frozen.

Too much info at once! *Twitches on the ground*

Originally Posted by Arkenaw

I still can't get over the fact they want us to start DPSing as healers, maybe I'm just misinterpreting this and it's just for soloing, which I thought was what dual spec was for, but talents like improved tree of life, which is 40 points down into resto and increases damage by 5% per point make me wonder if this game will even have specs in the coming months/years. If I wanted to do damage, I'd roll a DPS class, when players start asking me what my DPS is as a healer, that's when I'll quit this game.

Many healers DPS now (and many more DPSed before!). There are points where the damage to the raid just stops, or lowers and it would be intelligent for a healer to at least wand if not burn a little mana to help out. They did it in Vanilla, and even in TBC. WOTLK a Healer couldn't do it much, aside from a very few fights, and only for a short period of time (a good example would be during Saurfang before marks/beasts go out, given that people are standing in the right place and blood boils aren't nibbling at anyone's health).

This gives a healer something to do other than play whack a mole.

If you don't WANT to do it, make sure you're the tank healer and enjoy continuing to play whack a mole. But for your secondary/raid healers, understand that Blizzard wants you to do more than not stand in the fire. They've been trying to implement this for some time, and little by little they're putting DPS into healers - not to be a "competitive" style of DPS, but just something fun to do while waiting between phases of fights.

Note: They're removing the FSR - so you will not be spending your wait periods regenning anymore. You will regen at all times.

Ok then Boub, how can we seperate the scam mails from "THE" holy "MAIL" from the real blizzard when we might get an invitation? Or is it done over some battle.net interface? INFO! *scream*

and since when is undercity in kalimdor? ^^ i mean ofc there's a cataclysm comin' up but come on

Originally Posted by Arkenaw

I still can't get over the fact they want us to start DPSing as healers, maybe I'm just misinterpreting this and it's just for soloing, which I thought was what dual spec was for, but talents like improved tree of life, which is 40 points down into resto and increases damage by 5% per point make me wonder if this game will even have specs in the coming months/years. If I wanted to do damage, I'd roll a DPS class, when players start asking me what my DPS is as a healer, that's when I'll quit this game.

The sounds more like a problem with the community rather than the tactics. I never really cared for leveling Shadow as my Priest, thinking back I really wanted the character to represent 'holiness'. Shadow didn't really offer the feel I was looking for. Back then I really would've loved a second option, a light-based DPS tree to quest and level in. I see these new talents as a way to please players who felt the way I did. If raid organizers want to push further strain on their healers by demanding more than a healer and his/her mana can handle, well, you can probably expect healers to push back.

Originally Posted by Gractan

from worldofraids.com...
No source or citation, just thought you guys might like to see for lore-wise...

Spoiler Warning: Please keep in mind that this contains a lot of spoilers, so read at your own risk!

---

Cataclysm sees quite a few changes to existing lore. This is more a story progression than anything, but with some of them being very dramatic changes, I wanted to recap everything I've found so far.

Horde

* Garrosh Hellscream is the new Warchief and has reinforced Orgrimmar and many Horde outposts around Azeroth with dark iron. He's also reclaimed Gorehowl -- his father's weapon -- and now wields it.
* Thrall was captured by SI:7 (and it looks like Garrosh actually set that up), to be later rescued by the Goblins during their new player experience.
* Cairne Bloodhoof was poisoned by Magatha Grimtotem and is now dead.
* Baine Bloodhoof is now the leader of the Tauren race in Thunderbluff (those that are part of the Horde).
* The Forsaken went against Garrosh's wishes and released a plague on Gilneas, killing most of its inhabitants. Sylvannas is expected to be further in the dog house once Garrosh learns of this.
* The Horde have, thanks to Goblin ingenuity, built "The Bomb" -- a weapon of mass destruction -- and unleash it on a night elf village in Stonetalon Mountains. Garrosh, displeased with the slaughter of innocent people, kills the general who ordered the bomb to be dropped.



Alliance

* Magni Bronzebeard attempted some sort of ritual in Old Ironforge and was turned to stone, leaving Ironforge without a single ruler. While attempts are made to remove the curse from Magni, Muradin Bronzebeard, Moira Thaurassin and Falstad Wildhammer have formed a council of rulers.
* Varian Wrynn has devoted resources to upgrading many Alliance outposts on Azeroth, including Sentinel Hill.
* The worgen "curse" was actually created by a sect of druids known as the Druids of the Scythe, wielders of the Scythe of Elune and the magic it provided. They fell victim to the feral nature of the worgen and lost control of themselves -- forever transforming. They had to be locked away in the Emerald Dream, though Archmage Arugal managed to free some and in turn released the curse upon the denizens of Gilneas. The trees you see in various screenshots with the glowing blue liquid flowing from them are trees where the Druids of the Scythe were contained and put into slumber.
* The Park in Stormwind was indeed destroyed by Deathwing after he emerged in Azeroth. This is confirmed by a group of NPCs chatting before the boat ride out to Vashj'ir. Some had previously thought that an earthquake may have destroyed it.



Other

* Edwin VanCleef is dead. His daughter, Vanessa VanCleef is now the leader of the Defias Brotherhood. She has unleashed a plot to bring down Stormwind after witnessing the assassination of her father some 5 years ago.
* Corporal Keeshan is the main character behind the Redridge zone progression, known as John J. Keeshan. The story revolves around the Blackrock Orcs planning an invasion of Lakeshire, and plays out much like a Rambo movie where you must recover Keeshan's bandanna, bow, knife and a locket from his lost love, as well as freeing his captured Bravo Company friends.
* Kalec is rounding up all of the blue dragonflight, as he fears the death of Malygos will be a sign of weakness and Deathwing will send out agents to assassinate the remaining dragons within the flight. This holds true as the black dragonflight has invaded Azshara to hunt down Azuregos. Kalec and Azuregos help low level Horde players to repel the invasion.
* Malfurion Stormrage is the only thing keeping Darkshore from being devoured by the Cataclysm; he's created a giant twister in the middle of the zone.
* The Twilight's Hammer are attempting to summon an Old God in Darkshore, Soggoth the Slitherer.
* Deathwing has summoned Ragnaros and agents of the Plane of Fire into Hyjal. The players go through a linear quest chain culminating in the banishment of Ragnaros back to the Plane of Fire. Involved in the chain (and fights leading up to and including Ragnaros): Ysera, Aspect of the Green Dragonflight; Malfurion Stormrage, Jarod Shadowsong, Cenarius, Goldrinn, Aviana, Aessina, Tortulla, Hamuul Runetotem, Fandral Staghelm. It's pretty damn epic.
* The Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition are the reason for Desolace seeing the growth it has, and have thus named the middle of the zone the Cenarion Wildlands.
* Ysondre is the last of the Dragons of Nightmare, and although she has been saved from the nightmare, she states she can never return to the green dragonflight. Emeriss and Lethon are already dead; Ysondre helps players kill Taerar during a quest chain in Feralas.

Ive seen the goblin quest line that some people claim to make Garrosh out to have set up Thrall .... and to be honest, the only reason people come to that conclusion is because they dislike him so much. I remember not to long ago everyone was convinced Garrosh killed Cairne. The quest text regarding thrall goes like this Garrosh says " Thrall had you deliver this? < the warcheif takes a step back visably shaken and pale> I understand the meaning of this all to well, goblin". To me, it makes much more sense that Garrosh cannot belive the si:7 has infiltrated so far into horde affairs that they knew where thrall would be. (especially after he kicks non orcs out of his throne room) we dont need more crazy rumors about Garrosh, we Have enough

The warrior talent tree made me jizz in my pants O_O

god damn it boub now im not going to sleep for 3 days

Originally Posted by XenonSalbeira

Ok then Boub, how can we seperate the scam mails from "THE" holy "MAIL" from the real blizzard when we might get an invitation? Or is it done over some battle.net interface? INFO! *scream*

The easiest way is to either ignore all emails or if you get one, just don't click any links in it and then log into your battle.net account. All beta invites will be there.

Aimed shot cast time is back! Yay?