Build of the Month
Recent Blue Posts
Dark Heart PTR Development Notes
Dark Heart PTR Development Notes
Recent Forum Posts
New heritage armors (Draenei and Troll) are not acceptable
Jaetch's Archon Guide, New Affixes Among Future Content, Blue Posts, Gamescom 2013: Stage Activities
Fireside Chat Reminder, Leeroy Jenkins StrategyPatch 5.4 - In-Game Store
The In-Game Store is live on the PTR with a free test currency, and the Enduring Elixir of Wisdom is finally obtainable.
The buff works from level 1 to 89, lasts one hour, persists through death, and only counts down while you are online. The potion is consumed on use.
Patch 5.4 - Mage Glyphs
Patch 5.4 adds three new minor glyphs for mages, all of which modify the Water Elemental.
| Level | Type | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | Mage Glyph |  Glyph of Unbound Elemental |
| 25 | Mage Glyph | Glyph of Evaporation |
| 25 | Mage Glyph | Glyph of Condensation |
US Thursday Maintenance
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Epic Item Prestige
I don’t think this will change any time soon but I must say that I sympathize with what you’re saying, This isn’t a “special snowflake syndrome”. Sure, there might be a little bit of that involved, but it’s mostly a matter of perception, and perception is a very important factor in driving motivation.
If a colour is associated with rarity, that colour becomes important by itself, and that’s something that only the most old school players probably understand, still feel, or miss.
What I’m saying is, there was a time when having 1 single purple item was something absolutely amazing, they were not only the very best items but they were also incredibly rare.
That rarity was a consequence of a combination of many things:
So the colour purple meant two things, extreme power and rarity. But the game soon evolved, more raids were introduced, and all these new items that came with it were epic.
Nowadays purple means power, rarity hmm… not so much, maybe at the very beginning of an expansion.
But you see, that’s exactly the same that happened in vanilla, the only difference was that raids were a lot less accessible and less diverse (so, less overall chance of getting raid drops), and the patch turnaround with new raid content was much slower, which means, less availability of epic items. There were also no catch up mechanics set in place, so players had to go through all the clearly defined gearing paths of green-blue-purple (quests, 5man, 10man, 40man), and also follow a progression path with raids ZG/MC, Ony, BwL, Naxx.
We don’t want to restrict raiding again to <1% of the player base, and that’s the only way to go back to purple being rare again. Reducing LFR gear to blue wouldn’t make a big difference, there’s plenty of other sources of high ilvl gear that would need to be changed to blue, and even if we did that and only normal + heroic would drop epics, we would never have the same level of rarity as in the old days, content is just so much more diverse, more regularly updated and players are way more skilled. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Patch 5.4 Arena Changes
With this system, and how the wow community is nowadays, why would I even want to play with my friends I might lose with?
If you’re afraid to play rated games with your friends because you don't want to lose matches or rating, then I'm afraid that there is not a lot that can be done to help you with that. The possible losses caused by playing with lesser skilled friends is the same as now though, if you leave your current team to play with some friends and you end up losing, your MMR will drop, which is the key number that matters and influences the way your personal and team ratings change.
If you want to play with friends without a fear of losing rating in the process, then I would recommend playing wargames. We're also looking into bringing back skirmish arenas which will help in this regard, but sadly we have no date set for when they will return.
how do YOU think that community will act towards a person who got twice as much losses than wins in arena
It won't be much different to how it is now for finding partners. If you’re a 1500 player, then generally you're going to greatly struggle finding a 2400+ team that is likely to take you on. Same goes for in 5.4, with a personal rating of 1500 and low win rate you're going to be looking for people with similar ratings or stats. If you're aiming to get partners above your personal level, it won't be easy, finding partners that are around your level and improving yourself with them is the best way to get teammates.
[i] Just going to address this concern here; for those that queue with people who have a low ratings to fight weaker opponents, the players with higher ratings won't get much, if anything, out of those matches. This is because their own personal ratings are above their teams and opponents average.
Additionally, almost all rating exploits in the past have involved some sort of win trading or a loophole in the system itself. We've plugged up any of the loopholes that we've encountered, and due to the higher volume of players in the Arena pool that will be created from the region-wide matchmaking, there will be significantly less opportunity for win trading. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I don’t think this will change any time soon but I must say that I sympathize with what you’re saying, This isn’t a “special snowflake syndrome”. Sure, there might be a little bit of that involved, but it’s mostly a matter of perception, and perception is a very important factor in driving motivation.
If a colour is associated with rarity, that colour becomes important by itself, and that’s something that only the most old school players probably understand, still feel, or miss.
What I’m saying is, there was a time when having 1 single purple item was something absolutely amazing, they were not only the very best items but they were also incredibly rare.
That rarity was a consequence of a combination of many things:
- Raids were hard to get into.
- Only a very small minority was actually able to raid.
- Players were much less skilled than they are nowadays, so killing raid bosses was done at a much slower pace. Content was also updated much less frequently.
- Apart from the very first 40man raids (Molten Core, Ony), the chance of getting any epic items at all was incredibly small (world drop BoEs)
So the colour purple meant two things, extreme power and rarity. But the game soon evolved, more raids were introduced, and all these new items that came with it were epic.
Nowadays purple means power, rarity hmm… not so much, maybe at the very beginning of an expansion.
But you see, that’s exactly the same that happened in vanilla, the only difference was that raids were a lot less accessible and less diverse (so, less overall chance of getting raid drops), and the patch turnaround with new raid content was much slower, which means, less availability of epic items. There were also no catch up mechanics set in place, so players had to go through all the clearly defined gearing paths of green-blue-purple (quests, 5man, 10man, 40man), and also follow a progression path with raids ZG/MC, Ony, BwL, Naxx.
We don’t want to restrict raiding again to <1% of the player base, and that’s the only way to go back to purple being rare again. Reducing LFR gear to blue wouldn’t make a big difference, there’s plenty of other sources of high ilvl gear that would need to be changed to blue, and even if we did that and only normal + heroic would drop epics, we would never have the same level of rarity as in the old days, content is just so much more diverse, more regularly updated and players are way more skilled. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Patch 5.4 Arena Changes
With this system, and how the wow community is nowadays, why would I even want to play with my friends I might lose with?
If you’re afraid to play rated games with your friends because you don't want to lose matches or rating, then I'm afraid that there is not a lot that can be done to help you with that. The possible losses caused by playing with lesser skilled friends is the same as now though, if you leave your current team to play with some friends and you end up losing, your MMR will drop, which is the key number that matters and influences the way your personal and team ratings change.
If you want to play with friends without a fear of losing rating in the process, then I would recommend playing wargames. We're also looking into bringing back skirmish arenas which will help in this regard, but sadly we have no date set for when they will return.
how do YOU think that community will act towards a person who got twice as much losses than wins in arena
It won't be much different to how it is now for finding partners. If you’re a 1500 player, then generally you're going to greatly struggle finding a 2400+ team that is likely to take you on. Same goes for in 5.4, with a personal rating of 1500 and low win rate you're going to be looking for people with similar ratings or stats. If you're aiming to get partners above your personal level, it won't be easy, finding partners that are around your level and improving yourself with them is the best way to get teammates.
[i] Just going to address this concern here; for those that queue with people who have a low ratings to fight weaker opponents, the players with higher ratings won't get much, if anything, out of those matches. This is because their own personal ratings are above their teams and opponents average.
Additionally, almost all rating exploits in the past have involved some sort of win trading or a loophole in the system itself. We've plugged up any of the loopholes that we've encountered, and due to the higher volume of players in the Arena pool that will be created from the region-wide matchmaking, there will be significantly less opportunity for win trading. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Lore
The fact that the Alliance gives the Horde Org back with no concessions or reparations suck
It's an important Jaina vs Vyrian moment. Who is to say the High King made the right call? (Source)
We ever going to find out why Taran Zhu has it in for the Alliance? The Horde we can see...but he is so wrong about so much.
His goal is to protect Pandaria. He can be a bit xenophobic since outsiders can empower the Sha. (Source)
Do you feel the LORE of Mists could have been stronger? Don't know why we did HoF and ToT, other than, "lets kill stuff!"
What was your motivation behind killing Illidan or Ragnaros? (Source)
Story in that expansion was very compelling. Arthas had a lot of backstory revealed. Scourge felt threatening.
Maybe, though I find it hard to separate what LK taught us vs. what many of us already knew about Arthas from the RTS games. (Source)
we had a reason to want to fight them. no reason to want to kill lei-shen except blizz saying we should.
Arthas, Illidan and Deathwing are easy because many remember them from the RTS days. Illidan was barely present in BC. (Source)
especially since some get outright ignored like Sabellian. i feel like you all forgot who he is.
That particular case is more that we have a cast of 1000s and can't bring them all out every expansion. (Source)
Will the vale turn back to its original state after the whole siege? Seeing all those big black blobs makes me a bit sad.
To be fair, it's supposed to make you sad. (Source)
I have a feeling that y'shaarj is the true baddie in this expansion amirite?
He is dead. (Source)
I'm so sad that Nazgrim gonna die
It's tough because it's always more emotional when you care about the characters involved. The alternate though is not to care. (Source)
what exclusive is there then? Ra-den isn't story relevant. we've never seen him or heard of him
That you initially don't know who he is or how he fits in is WHY he is story relevant. (Source)
Mogu. Titan. Old god. Sha. Mantid. All these things are connected. (Source)
Sometimes it's too obv how little you care about the story/lore of the game.
We care ENORMOUSLY about the story and lore. But we care about gameplay more. (Source)
Will the Alliance receive compensation lore wise (Doesnt have to be in game) after SoO?
They just conquered their enemy's capital. What compensation are you looking for? (Source)
Do Allies gain NOTHING from this war except tens of 1000s dead and their lands stolen? Not even in lore? Goblins keep Azshara
Garrosh is the real problem, not the trolls and goblins. (Source)
Lore-wise we could say that zones changed hands but wouldn't it be lame once you visited them and saw that was not the case? (Source)
It's always a challenge doing a lot of work just for lore reasons unless it comes with awesome gameplay too. (Source)
shouldn't multi-billionaire devs be relishing a challenge rather than cowering away from it??
Or one can argue WoW has been successful because the developers made the right choices about where to focus.... (Source)
Like making the Horde back out of Gilneas and Ashenvale?
I'm a gameplay designer. So what gameplay is there in losing leveling zones for Horde? (Source)
If Alliance players had some interesting way to spend time there, that would be different. (Source)
Future
1st Dwarfs are on the bubble of MOP release then models may make it during MOP. Now it's "they take months" among others.
We never said that. Players just inferred it and got too excited. It makes us have to be careful with what we say. (Source)
Hi, do you have any thoughts yet about 5.0 Challenge Modes for next x-pac?. Will they still be in-game or replaced with new?
Our thought at the moment is to keep the older ones relevant (they do scale) and add new ones. (Source)
Here's a teaser I understand if you don't answer; do you think avoidance on gear is going to make it to 6.0?
I don't expect it will work the day it does today. (Source)
any public word u can offer up on the future of sunsong farms in future expansions?
We don't want you to feel like you have to go visit it forever. It's a MoP feature. It will still be there for you though. (Source)
The fact that the Alliance gives the Horde Org back with no concessions or reparations suck
It's an important Jaina vs Vyrian moment. Who is to say the High King made the right call? (Source)
We ever going to find out why Taran Zhu has it in for the Alliance? The Horde we can see...but he is so wrong about so much.
His goal is to protect Pandaria. He can be a bit xenophobic since outsiders can empower the Sha. (Source)
Do you feel the LORE of Mists could have been stronger? Don't know why we did HoF and ToT, other than, "lets kill stuff!"
What was your motivation behind killing Illidan or Ragnaros? (Source)
Story in that expansion was very compelling. Arthas had a lot of backstory revealed. Scourge felt threatening.
Maybe, though I find it hard to separate what LK taught us vs. what many of us already knew about Arthas from the RTS games. (Source)
we had a reason to want to fight them. no reason to want to kill lei-shen except blizz saying we should.
Arthas, Illidan and Deathwing are easy because many remember them from the RTS days. Illidan was barely present in BC. (Source)
especially since some get outright ignored like Sabellian. i feel like you all forgot who he is.
That particular case is more that we have a cast of 1000s and can't bring them all out every expansion. (Source)
Will the vale turn back to its original state after the whole siege? Seeing all those big black blobs makes me a bit sad.
To be fair, it's supposed to make you sad. (Source)
I have a feeling that y'shaarj is the true baddie in this expansion amirite?
He is dead. (Source)
I'm so sad that Nazgrim gonna die
It's tough because it's always more emotional when you care about the characters involved. The alternate though is not to care. (Source)
what exclusive is there then? Ra-den isn't story relevant. we've never seen him or heard of him
That you initially don't know who he is or how he fits in is WHY he is story relevant. (Source)
Mogu. Titan. Old god. Sha. Mantid. All these things are connected. (Source)
Sometimes it's too obv how little you care about the story/lore of the game.
We care ENORMOUSLY about the story and lore. But we care about gameplay more. (Source)
Will the Alliance receive compensation lore wise (Doesnt have to be in game) after SoO?
They just conquered their enemy's capital. What compensation are you looking for? (Source)
Do Allies gain NOTHING from this war except tens of 1000s dead and their lands stolen? Not even in lore? Goblins keep Azshara
Garrosh is the real problem, not the trolls and goblins. (Source)
Lore-wise we could say that zones changed hands but wouldn't it be lame once you visited them and saw that was not the case? (Source)
It's always a challenge doing a lot of work just for lore reasons unless it comes with awesome gameplay too. (Source)
shouldn't multi-billionaire devs be relishing a challenge rather than cowering away from it??
Or one can argue WoW has been successful because the developers made the right choices about where to focus.... (Source)
Like making the Horde back out of Gilneas and Ashenvale?
I'm a gameplay designer. So what gameplay is there in losing leveling zones for Horde? (Source)
If Alliance players had some interesting way to spend time there, that would be different. (Source)
Future
1st Dwarfs are on the bubble of MOP release then models may make it during MOP. Now it's "they take months" among others.
We never said that. Players just inferred it and got too excited. It makes us have to be careful with what we say. (Source)
Hi, do you have any thoughts yet about 5.0 Challenge Modes for next x-pac?. Will they still be in-game or replaced with new?
Our thought at the moment is to keep the older ones relevant (they do scale) and add new ones. (Source)
Here's a teaser I understand if you don't answer; do you think avoidance on gear is going to make it to 6.0?
I don't expect it will work the day it does today. (Source)
any public word u can offer up on the future of sunsong farms in future expansions?
We don't want you to feel like you have to go visit it forever. It's a MoP feature. It will still be there for you though. (Source)
OpenRaid Event: Icy Veins vs Midwinter Tier 14 Race
Icy Veins will be leading a Horde team and Midwinter will be leading an Alliance team in a race through Tier 14 content on Saturday. Only a few players will be from the groups, as the rest will be filled with regular players. If you are interested in participating, sign up soon!
Dark Legacy Comics #400
DLC #400 has been released.
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