Patch 5.1 Audio, Vengeance Clarification, Patch 5.0.5 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Fan Art

There has been some confusion about the recent changes to Vengeance that we’d like to clear up. Two things have changed with Vengeance lately:

• Oct 8 - Vengeance should now ramp up more quickly. Avoidance will now grant Vengeance based on the average damage of the avoided NPC auto-attack, instead of just refreshing existing Vengeance. This does not apply to enemy special attacks.

There should be an addition to this: Vengeance was also reduced by 10% at the time that hotfix was noted. We apologize for that being missed in the patch notes. Vengeance now accrues at a rate of 1.8% of damage taken, down from 2.0%.

• Oct 16 - Fixed an issue with the way that Vengeance is calculated that could cause very large but infrequent spikes of damage to grant much more than the intended amount of Vengeance.

Based on the hits a tank takes, Vengeance attempts to predict what 50% of average Vengeance for that level of incoming damage will be, and bumps the tank straight to that level. However, it previously based that calculation on a 1.5 second attack speed. It now bases the calculation on the enemy’s auto attack speed for auto attacks, and a 60 second interval for special attacks.

Tanks will still get the expected amount of Vengeance from the damage taken. This change just means that the first hit from a slow-attacking boss will bump Vengeance straight up to the expected amount.

General

• Digging up a find while practicing Archaeology will now continue to grant skill points past 50.
  
• Hallow's End festivities and decorations, including candy buckets, have spread to Refuge Point and Zouchin Village.
  
• Players that have been defeated by the Headless Horseman can now use the Looking For Dungeon interface to return for another attempt.
  

Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• It is no longer possible to carry a Battleground flag while using Camouflage.
  

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Light's Hammer can no longer be used while Hexed.
  

Creatures

• Wyrmhorn Turtles are no longer quite so prolific.
  

Pet Battles

• The pet ability Takedown now deals 10% less damage.
  
• The pet ability Chew now deals 50% less damage.
  

Quests

• Players that have not completed "Battle Helm of the Thunder King" can now slay Bloodtip, Wulon, Huo-Shang, and Gochao.
  
• Zhao-Jin the Bloodletter should now always spawn correctly for the "Battle Helm of the Thunder King" quest.
  

Dungeons & Raids
Scarlet Monastery

• The Pulsing Pumpkin and Pumpkin Fiends that accompany the Headless Horseman are now appropriately powerful foes.
  

Mogu'shan Vaults

• Gara'jal the Spiritbinder
  
  • Smoke Bombs cast by Rogues will no longer prevent Gara'jal's Voodoo Doll effect from displaying on afflicted players.
    
• Will of the Emperor
  
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Qin-xi and Jan-xi to sometimes become unreponsive.
    

Bug Fixes

• Players will now only earn credit toward the achievement Listen to the Drunk Fish when harvesting the high yield crop of the day forecasted by Jogu the Drunk.
  
• Voodoo Piles in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub wil no longer incorrectly grant skill in Archaeology.
  
• The Ghost Iron vein beneath Serenity Falls in the Jade Forest has dematerialized.
  
• Fixed an issue that could allow new Pandarens from leaving the Wandering Isle prior to selecting a Faction to support.
  

Multi-boxing in WoW
Multi-boxing in and of itself is not a violation, provided the player isn't using any macro scripts that automate gameplay beyond what is allowed through default macro and API specifications.

"Hackers" is a term often used to cover people partaking in a very broad range of activities, like exploiting game bugs/mechanics, stealing another person's private account information via keyloggers or phishing, and infiltrating a system's security to gain some level of control over the system or sensitive information held therein. The latter of the three is most accurately described as hacking.

Nevertheless, all three "hacking" scenarios I listed above, as well as the act of running private servers, are violations of the Terms of Use. We take any such violation seriously.

blues still supporting bot programs because it makes them money. News at 11.
Don't be disingenuous and misleading just because you might disagree with our stance on a particular issue. Any sort of scripting or bot program that automates multiple actions/keystrokes on a character (i.e. some sort of automated cast or movement sequence) is a violation of the Terms of Use. Period.

If Multiboxing is just about someone's preferred way of playing and it's not accepted by Blizzard just because they get extra subs, then surely they'd have no problem reprogramming the log in servers to allow all of us to control multiple characters on the same account/server at the same time.
We don't support multi-boxing, we never have, and we have no current plans to do so. There's a major difference between verifying a person is not violating the Terms of Use purely by playing multiple characters at once, and adding functionality into the game to officially offer support to anyone who wants to.

Why is private servers against the Terms of Use. I am sure Blizzard has noticed how many people play on private servers which means there is a demand for old content. Will Blizzard eventually release servers that are just Vanilla, BC, or Wotlk?
First and foremost, it's an unlicensed version of the game. That's illegal. Secondly, this is an MMO. World of Warcraft is a persistent online world. You're not meant to be running whatever version of the client you choose and manipulating data that would ordinarily be cross-checked by our servers.

I'm reading blue last post as: 'Technically doesn't break the rules, but it breaks the spirit of the game.' You know, the MMO part.
And to be perfectly honest with you, I agree with that statement on a personal level. We certainly didn't design the game with the idea that some people should control multiple characters at once. I also absolutely understand and sympathize with those who express frustration about encountering multi-boxers in the game, particularly in PvP situations.

That said, there's no cognitive dissonance in my head between my personal views on multi-boxing, and our official stance with regard to the Terms of Use. Regardless of whether or not I enjoy seeing a multi-boxer in an MMO, I understand why multi-boxing isn't innately considered to be cheating. Just the same, regardless of whether or not I enjoy seeing a character whose actions don't appear to be controlled by a person, I understand why botting is considered to be cheating.

Oh come now Zarhym, we all know it isn't as persistent as you guys claim! Essentially you let us legally play Wrath and TBC on your servers, as well as Cataclysm now. Aren't all those older versions of the game? And by that I could perhaps legally argue that I am licensed to play that content, since you guys can't keep up with the demand of updating the entire game. Your persistent world argument is pretty weak as a result. I challenge thee to counter that!
I don't know if I have a counter to this, as I'm honestly not sure what point you're trying to make.

You have access to TBC, Wrath, etc. content still, sure. But is that content purely what was sold with the expansion? What do your talent trees look like when you're in Outland? Are your experience gains in Northrend the same as they were when Wrath was released? Cataclysm only reinforces this point more if you look back to 1-60 content. Is that Vanilla content? Are you actually playing an older version of the game each time you enter a different expansion's content? Absolutely not. Everyone's playing the same version -- the same patch.

And sorry for all the rhetorical questions. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Reset Time of Tiller's Farm
The difference between many of the resets in-game is rather high (and understandably annoying). We're exploring some options to address the issue, but we don't have further details to share just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Questing in Mists of Pandaria
People complained a lot in Cata that the quest lines were "too linear", like you were on rails and had no option but to do them in the exact order given.

So for MoP, they made some of them "free exploration" in that some of the quests will not have leadins. You just find them by exploring. Like the nessingwary ones.
This is correct. A lot of the quest hubs are kind of modular, in that you can choose the order in which you do them. And instead of giving you a single achievement for completing all the quests in a zone, we have sub-achievements for completing each story arc. Complete all story arcs in a zone and you'll get the achievement.

What this means is you might sometimes complete a more central or climatic story arc in a zone before finishing all the quest hubs in that zone. That still doesn't mean you should ever be left without a "breadcrumb quest" to take you to the next zone. As far as I recall there isn't a single zone that doesn't have some lead-in quest telling you where to go your first time there.

You'll frequently be given "breadcrumb quests" that lead you to different hubs, sometimes across multiple zones. As an example, when you hit Valley of the Four Winds, you're pretty quickly given the option to go to either Kun-Lai or Krasarang. It's up to you to choose where to go and what to do first in the valley, Krasarang, or Kun-Lai. If you really want to vary up the scenery and your quest experience, you can even jump around between zones.

That said, as you mentioned there are also some quest hubs that have no "breadcrumb quests" to lead you there. We like the feel of discovering characters out in the world who could use your help, any maybe even unveil some awesome story moments that aren't necessarily integral to the primary story arcs in each zone. They're like little bonuses to give you access to more backstory on Pandaria or the inhabitants and explorers there, and they're also required for the achievements to complete all story arcs in a zone.

To make sure these "isolated" hubs where you aren't expressly sent via a quest aren't totally missed, you'll notice we added new exclamation points on your map to point them out. So while you're questing around a zone, be sure to check your map. Not only will you see where all the flight points are (even ones you haven't discovered yet), you'll see exclamation points at hubs you'll need to find on your own (like Nesingwary in the valley). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Sever Transfer Gold Cap
There are no plans to change the 50k gold cap. The percentage of players that has over 50k gold is incredibly small.
Remember that you can always use the market to buy items so you can still remain below the gold cap when transferring, basically “transforming” gold into something that you can carry along in your inventory to another realm and effectively get your gold back (with some luck, even with profit) by selling the items on the destination realm; we think that this is actually healthy for the in-game economies. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Ladders Outdated
We are already aware of the issues with the Arena and Rated Battleground ladders and are already working on this. There may be some armory disruptions while we investigate the issue, but hope this is resolved soon. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Realm Economies
As you can see by some replies here, the prices vary across servers. But I just leveled a character with mining up to 90, and I must admit, I mined stacks and stacks of Ghost Iron ore. Considering the fact that many people are doing the same right now, it's only natural that there's an abundance on the AH at the moment. Give it time to settle down. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Bots in WoW
To answer your question, no, we have not eased up on cheaters. Not one little bit. Preventing and stopping this behaviour is something we're really passionate about, which is why we've made it easier than ever for you to report cheaters.

I can't stress enough how important it is that you report players you suspect to be cheating. It not only helps us to remove this kind of thing from your gameplay experience, but it can help us prevent similar things happening in future. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)