New Reaper of Souls Info, Blue Posts, Console Version Playtesting Highlights and Review

Puzzles and Hearthstone

Patch 5.4 - Galakras Preview
Galakras is the fifth boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar. The encounter takes place near the dock outside of Orgrimmar.





Solo - Heroic Stone Guard 10 Player
Maebybabe, an item level 548 Monk was able to solo Heroic Stone Guard 10 Player difficulty.



Battlefield: Barrens Ending Soon - Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Ok...so Gahzrookie, the gloves, and the bag will be around...but what about the troll shoes, Xan'tish's flute, and the other vanity items?
Also, titles account-wide pretty please?
Every item other than the pet, the Brawler's Guild item, and the 24-slot bag, and the ability to earn the title are being removed. We know a lot of you would like to have the cosmetic goodies readily available to pick up with other characters or to share with your alts, but this event was designed to be part of the story for the game at this point in time. For those who earned their title, you now carry a badge of honor for having helped the war effort against Garrosh.

The weekly quest was designed as both--and most importantly--an event that leads up to Patch 5.4 and the Siege of Orgrimmar, and an opportunity for level 90 characters to work on getting gear a bit quicker in preparation for the new content. Now that the story of this expansion will be pressing forward with the patch, it will be time to wrap up some of the activity in Durotar and Northern Barrens. Think of the action in those areas as exclusive for where we are at this point in the game (not unlike the gathering quests for Ahn'Qiraj and the Scourge Event before Wrath of the Lich King).

Crithto: I have an alt, a pally I am levelling. What I wanted to do was give her the tokens (she has them) then with the BOA mojo, send those to her so she had a 489 starter set.
I was *really* hoping yall would at least consider making the radical mojo's BoA so that we could complete our sets at the very least.
I would simply like to ask that you reconsider this. At least make the Radical Mojo BOA. Please.
Please know that I completely understand how you guys are feeling about this and have several alts I've been working on, too. But let's not forget that the Radical Mojo clearly displays "Binds when picked up". Simply switching it to BoA would be nice for those who have more than one unused, but it would be unfair to everyone else who did not stockpile a BoP item.

For those seeking opportunities to provide your alts with gear, the Timeless Isle will be your new favorite place to visit. The tokens you can find there are BoA before being used, and can be passed to any of your alts to generate an item for his/her spec. The gear you create will be item-level 496, and as you progress through the Isle, you will also have the chance to upgrade them to item-level 535.

Lastly, while Ravika has other important duties to attend to once 5.4 goes live, we know that Griftah's Authentic Troll Shoes hold a soft spot in many hearts, so we’re currently exploring options to reintroduce them at a later date.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Mastery Enchants on Characters Under Level 80
We're actually modifying Windsong to not proc Mastery for players below level 80. It will always proc either Crit or Haste.

For flat Mastery enchants... maybe don't put them on characters that don't have Mastery yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Connected Realms and Faction Balance
While faction balance is one of the factors that will be taken into account when deciding on which realms we will connect, we will most likely not see a perfect faction balance on the connected realms in the end. The reason for this is that the Alliance is generally the most popular faction on PvE realms, while it is the Horde that is the most popular on PvP realms... and we cannot connect PvE with PvP realms. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Arena Pass Title and Pet
The rated phase has ended, but the plan is to keep the realms up for a while. It is no longer possible to do games that count towards the pet or title.
Just highlighting this to ensure that everyone is aware that the rated phase has now concluded. Any games that are played outside of the rated phase won't count towards the pet or title reward, so you can't gain credit towards either of these anymore.

Just so you know though; the realm will be sticking around for a while yet, so you can definitely feel free to sign up and play some epic PvP action! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Elemental Shaman RNG
Isnt half the problem the mastery duplicate coupled with haste induced ticks on their flame shock giving so many free instants? echo of elements was only half the issue.
Several things compounded to create the complaints that we have been seeing for Elemental Shamans, Echo of Elements and Lava Surge procs as well as the mastery spell duplication were all parts of it. We nerfed Echo of Elements to take the edge off of extreme elemental burst situations and we will continue monitoring every class and make changes as we feel they are needed.

RNG in PvP such as the procs listed above for Elemental Shamans is something that our developers are having ongoing discussions about. In the long run what we want to accomplish is to limit the excessive cases when and wherever possible, such as we did with Echo of Elements. The developers recognize and understand that some players would prefer there to be no randomness in PvP at all, but we don't feel that this would result in good gameplay overall.

But there needs to be a limit to it, ele shamans right now aren't fun to play against.
We entirely agree and this is the kind of RNG that we are referring to when I said "excessive cases when and wherever possible". To try and combat that extreme and random burst that comes from Elemental Shamans we nerfed Echo of the Elements and feel that this should help deal with the the extreme cases of RNG for them. We will be keeping an eye on RNG in PvP and continue to discuss ways in which we can deal with any extreme cases that arise. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Chaos Bolt Buff
We agree that Destruction is a bit low in 5.4. We also recognize that, particularly after the Kil'Jaeden's Cunning changes, Chaos Bolt has become a "riskier" spell to cast. To both ends, we think a Chaos Bolt buff is in order. We're going to bring it up by 15% and see where that puts things.

Our general philosophy for Destruction in 5.4 is that casting Chaos Bolt can be tricky sometimes -- working around interrupts and LOS in PvP, or sneaking them in between periods of movement in PvE -- but when the cast goes off, it hurts. A lot. We do have to be careful not to push things TOO far, but we'll see how things go from here.

This change was applied via hotfix sometime yesterday, so it should already be live on the PTR if you'd like to get some testing in. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Guild Wars 2 - The First Year
Earlier this week ArenaNet put up a blog post about the first year of GW2, which includes a nice infographic with lots of big numbers. Be sure to check in with our friends over at GW2Guru to keep updated on changes to the game, such as Super Adventure Box returning!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Galakras Preview, Solo Heroic Stone Guard 10, Battlefield: Barrens Update, Blue Posts started by chaud View original post
Comments 74 Comments
  1. mmocd714733c71's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Outofmana View Post
    I bought it and quit within the first week, same with 5 people I know, one of the worst games I've ever played in the MMO world
    Same here. My real friends stopped playing, my (60+ members) guild died out.
    AN wasted its potential... GW1>GW2
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    45 Petabytes of Content? Do they add up all the data packages people download?

    Reading is hard? It says there are 460.000+ players online at any given time.
    "At one time" does not equal "at any given time".
    If my knowledge of the English language doesn't betray me, "at one time" means "at a single point in time" a.k.a. it's their record of simultaneously logged in people.

    You don't get a good feel of how your spec is. There's no dps meters, no real way to gauge your contribution in a team. If I didn't play WoW for so long I wouldn't mind. But unfortunately, wow got me addicted to min/maxing
    It's not just that. What always bugged me was that GW2 doesn't give me the possibility of evaluating my own performance. It sucks not knowing whether you did a good job or facerolled ridiculously. :/
  1. Beregond82's Avatar
    From my experience I knew more than 20 people who bought the game at launch or with preorder including myself; after a month or so, only 5 of those were still playing, after 4 months I logged in to see what has changed and none of them was still playing.
    Thre are some aspects of the game that I liked like the envoroment, the graphics but the game fails horribly on gameplay: the skill sistem bound to the weapon is horrible and offers little customization/character planning and the game response to input is incredibly sloppy (in a game where to stay alive u have to dodge with perfect reaction....)
    I still consider GW1 way better because it had a great gameplay, this one seems a game for casuals to me.
  1. Etrigan's Avatar
    Same... Bought GW2 and quit after 2 - 3 days of early access. Terrible game.
  1. Demoncrash's Avatar
    I don't see why there is so much hate for GW2.

    While IMHO it does fall short when compared to WoW it still is a decent game, especially when you consider it's free to play (and the cash shop isn't half as bad as most other f2p MMOs).

    They did make a huge mistake not bringing over the skill system from GW1. Hunting down various elite skills and building new skill templates was one of the best things in GW1. I wouldn't call it terrible or the worst game I've played *cough*FF14*cough* but it definitely is a disappointment considering the huge potential it had.
  1. DeathbyFrostBomb73's Avatar
    Wow, that monk was amazing!! That's why I've always loved co-tanking with them =}
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jackdemenzes View Post
    I actually think GW2 was one of the better non-WoW MMOs I've played, but it definitely had its issues. First and foremost for me I thought the gear path was vaguely defined. Also moving away from the holy trinity was a laudable goal but they kind of replaced it with nothing else, a lot of the dungeons felt like zergs, I didn't feel like I had a specific function (beyond "hit stuff"). Also being limited to 10 abilities made me feel crippled. It's nice to avoid button bloat but there was no wiggle room for situational abilities (tying ability sets to weapons was interesting though). Also WoW's combat has a nice move-countermove feeling to it, but with no trinkets and few proper stuns or crowd control, I often felt like I wasn't able to "respond" to anything, it was just a case of keep hitting until it dies. He's casting something? Can't do much (beyond dodging, which I kind of liked as a system). Pulled an add? Just have to hit them both.

    Oh this sounds very negative. But I've dabbled in a few other MMOs over the years and this one did pull me in for awhile.
    I am not sure why the want to compare GW2 box sales to MMOs.. it is more appropriate to compare it to Diablo2. I mean, isn´t it pretty obvious that less people are going to buy a box for $50 if they know it also requires $15 per month? But even still. GW2 sold less in a year, than MoP sold in 24 hours...

    About the holy trinity. Anyone who ever played UO, or any game without the trinity knows the difference. At best, you have dungeons and boss encounters that are like scenerios in WOW. The mechanisms of the fights have to be dumbed down greatly. Yes, if you are anti-wow, then it is easy to say ´omg, it is great they don´t have the trinity´.. but in an actual game, it just does not have enough meat to make any time of meaningful endgame. Again, at best, you have scenarios.. which are fun, but definitely not as cray
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Soulus View Post
    Who cares how many copies were sold? Can they tell how many people play it right now exactly? Thought so.
    Since they don't charge a sub, does it matter? They already got paid.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Ichifails View Post
    (characters seeming floaty, on another layer than the world around them)
    This is the issue I have with other MMO's. I've tried Rift and Secret World and both games were really awesome, better than WoW but I quit playing because of this. It's amazing how such a little thing has a huge impact. Your character feeling rigid and floaty and not feeling like it's actually on the ground is very unnerving.
  1. Lyrax's Avatar
    wow that monk X_X tanked about 10% in beserk. that guy kno's wut he's doing lol
  1. ProfessorTjc's Avatar
    Guild Wars 2 fastest selling MMO in History? Uhh Burning Crusade? or Wrath of the Lich King? maybe even Cataclysm? That is honestly the biggest lie ever.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Demoncrash View Post
    I don't see why there is so much hate for GW2.

    While IMHO it does fall short when compared to WoW it still is a decent game, especially when you consider it's free to play (and the cash shop isn't half as bad as most other f2p MMOs).

    They did make a huge mistake not bringing over the skill system from GW1. Hunting down various elite skills and building new skill templates was one of the best things in GW1. I wouldn't call it terrible or the worst game I've played *cough*FF14*cough* but it definitely is a disappointment considering the huge potential it had.
    The reason why I hate Guild Wars 2 the most because they think 5 man dungeons in end game PvE content which it shouldn't be and they left out the most important system of all and that's the Trinity system. I enjoy being a tank, healer or dps in big groups of people.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    About the holy trinity. Anyone who ever played UO, or any game without the trinity knows the difference. At best, you have dungeons and boss encounters that are like scenerios in WOW. The mechanisms of the fights have to be dumbed down greatly. Yes, if you are anti-wow, then it is easy to say ´omg, it is great they don´t have the trinity´.. but in an actual game, it just does not have enough meat to make any time of meaningful endgame. Again, at best, you have scenarios.. which are fun, but definitely not as cray
    Agreed.
    GW2 has a beautiful world to explore and it's a lot of fun while leveling. If you take the time to enjoy the scenery, I think a gamer gets more than the boxes price in entertainment.
    PvE Endgame however, can be ignored, due to the above.
    PvP, me has no clue about.
  1. Ishayu's Avatar
    WoW had 5 million subs within a year. Fastest selling MMO in history? Uhhmmm...
  1. Salech's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ichifails View Post
    I really don't care about numbers on any game, as long as I enjoy it, I may very well be the only player... But my personal experience with Guild Wars 2 is that everyone who bought it, stopped after the firs 2 weeks.
    I wanted it to be good, I really did but there were so many issues with it (like characters seeming floaty, on another layer than the world around them) that I simply couldn't play it. I also pre-ordered it, payed 65 euros online and after that my country got demoted to t2 and a boxed copy was 30 euros. Couldn't even get a refund for that ><.

    You're personal experience is wrong then.
  1. mmoc65ba707d63's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ProfessorTjc View Post
    Guild Wars 2 fastest selling MMO in History? Uhh Burning Crusade? or Wrath of the Lich King? maybe even Cataclysm? That is honestly the biggest lie ever.
    Everything in that infograph is pretty dumb...
    1,3 billions events triggered, one for every chinese citizen! I facepalmed so hard my nose is bleeding.
  1. Salech's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    I am not sure why the want to compare GW2 box sales to MMOs.. it is more appropriate to compare it to Diablo2. I mean, isn´t it pretty obvious that less people are going to buy a box for $50 if they know it also requires $15 per month? But even still. GW2 sold less in a year, than MoP sold in 24 hours...

    About the holy trinity. Anyone who ever played UO, or any game without the trinity knows the difference. At best, you have dungeons and boss encounters that are like scenerios in WOW. The mechanisms of the fights have to be dumbed down greatly. Yes, if you are anti-wow, then it is easy to say ´omg, it is great they don´t have the trinity´.. but in an actual game, it just does not have enough meat to make any time of meaningful endgame. Again, at best, you have scenarios.. which are fun, but definitely not as cray
    It's been easier for me to do anything in WoW including heroic dungeons/raids than some of the stuff in Guild Wars 2.

    Yeah Mop sold so much because it was a new game with a new franchise right, right?, fucking idiot people talking on the website, why do i even bother replying to people that think WoW is still hard/good anyway.

    And mop losing 2 million players also talks it own language here. Have fun with your skinner box game though.
  1. mmoc65ba707d63's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Salech View Post
    And mop losing 2 million players also talks it own language here. Have fun with your skinner box game though.
    I didn't want to reply to a raging fanboy... but seriously, GW2 has been losing players since day 1, are you sure you want to compare this to an old game like wow with 4 expansions on its shoulders?
  1. Slappyjoe's Avatar
    Oh, gaming community. When will you stop shitting on every game you don't play?
  1. puppypizza's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Hikashuri View Post
    Half of these numbers are made up.

    3.5 million shipped copies does not equal sold copies. Also their 400k, is the amount of people that log on within a 24 hour period.
    (400k per 24 hours is nothing for an mmo, if it really were that succesful it would be 3x as much).
    They didn't say shipped, they said sold. And the only numbers I could find for concurrent players in WoW are 800k for Burning Crusade's launch, and 1 million for MoP. They also used the "highest concurrency" caveat, which means it was only recorded at its highest peak.

    BC:
    800k / 11 million = 7.3% concurrency

    MoP:
    1 million / 10 million = 10% concurrency

    GW2:
    460k / 3.5 million = 13.1% concurrency

    So how are you measuring how "successful" GW2 is based on this number?

    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    GW2 sold less in a year, than MoP sold in 24 hours...
    The only sales numbers I could find for MoP were that it sold 2.4 million on the first day (2.7 million in the first week). GW2 has sold 3.5 million so far.
  1. Awe's Avatar
    As someone who plays GW2 as his main MMO I should straighten up few things. First of all, yes, the chart has a lot of PR bull*** in it, same as most such charts presented by developers. LoL's chart from few months back comes to mind. Blizzard also does that ("All WoW subs lost is becouse of Diablo III"). The point is, you should take all those PR releases with a grain of salt no matter from who they come from. That being said, GW2 as "fastest selling MMO" is probably not a lie, just some facts bending. They still sold ***load of games in the first month or two. TBC or WOTLK probably sold faster, but you can bend it and claim those are expansions and not new MMO-s. So yeah, facts bending, thats all to it.

    Second thing. Yes, probably most of people who bought GW2 left it. Probably true. But to calling this game "deader than dead" is a fallacy on so many levels. People saying that GW2 is dead probably have no clue about what they talk about or didnt logged to it since months. The only time when I seen bigger masses of players in WoW was when expansions were launching. The only time when LA is not zerged is between 4 and 8 am. New meta events are always full of people and WvW is alive 24/7. The point is, GW2 feels actually more alive than WoW on most servers. Now sure, WoW has still more players, thats a fact. And it is also true that WoW has like x10 more servers which splits the population. If you ask me, Blizzard should cut the amount of servers they have by 50% and do some merges. I dont know how many people are playing GW2 right now but the game certainly feels very alive. It feels alive with 50 servers. Same as EVE Online feels alive with less than 500k subs (at least half of which are alt accounts) but since all people are packed on only one big server, it feels well alive. Which btw. is also a good news for all WoW fans becouse it means that even if WoW will loose 8 million subs, it will still be able to feel alive, all that Blizzard will have to do is to merge some servers or utilize more CRZ and this new connected realms tech.

    And last thing a bit more IMHO. I see some people saying that controls and feel of character in GW2 feels bad. Well, I know it is a subjective opinion and I cant deny that someone is not liking it. But for me GW2 is actually one of few MMO games which does the "feel the character" right. Most MMO I try, the control feels very choppy and that was one of the key reasons why I left those games. WoW was king in this aspect for years but GW2 is the game which finnally does it right for me. I would even say that I like GW2 feel of character more than the one from WoW. After playing GW2, it is the WoW system which feels more choppy for me (maybe its becouse of old models and the fact you can cast 99% of skills in GW2 while moving). That is of course all my opinion so I am not stating that as an absolute fact. But on same level, please dont try to impose the "fact" that GW2 character feel is bad. As long as there are people like me who thinks that it is even better than in WoW (while WoW is still great), it remains just a subjective opinion.

    PS. Lets all play what we like most and enjoy it. Be it WoW, GW2 or any other game, shall we?
  1. Masqerader's Avatar
    I got bored with gw2 when i realized I could sit a frozen Maw for months collecting loot and lvling faster then actually doing quest

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