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Trial of the Gladiator
There was concern today that the new Trial of the Gladiator feature means the arena ladder will be removed, but it looks like more information will be coming in the future.


Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
If you’re looking for some great Arena action, then Trial of the Gladiator is for you. Building on the same system used for the Arena Tournament realm, players who take part in Trial of the Gladiator will be able to enter and purchase gear, enchants, and gems from a vendor, and then match skills with other players. Similar to the Arena Tournament realm, an array of equal-quality gear and items will be available to all players, putting everyone on the same footing from the start of competition.

Any player will be able to queue for this new feature once it’s available, but you’ll only be able to earn a rating during specific days and times of the week that rated competition opens up. This will help make the pool of serious combatants more concentrated, allowing the system to match players more accurately based on skill and helping ensure rated battles provide a highly competitive experience.

You’ll be able to practice whenever you like outside of those times, but if you want to earn the prestige awards, you’ll need to hone your skills and climb to the top of the ladder at the appointed times. We also don’t want to penalize people too heavily for missing a scheduled combat or two, and we’re looking into ways to make sure the system strikes the right balance between flexibility and cutting-edge competition.

Connected Realms Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
As previously announced, we’ve been working toward connecting realms to increase the number of players on low-population realms, and since then have completed several connections. As a part of our ongoing communication, we wanted to provide you with an update that contains a list of completed realm connections, currently planned connections, and any additional future plans in one convenient location.

*Please note this list does not encompass all potential future connections. Please check back for further updates.

​We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, November 18th during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

  • Draenor and Echo Isles
  • Gorgonnash and Balnazzar/Warsong
  • Lethon and Blackwing Lair/Dethecus, Detheroc, Haomarush
  • Lightning's Blade and Burning Blade/Onyxia
  • Smolderthorn and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos

​Future Connections
We do not have a date for the following realm connections, but will update this blog post when we do.

​​Batch 1
  • Azshara and Azgalor
  • Arygos and Llane
  • Cairne and Perenolde
  • Nathrezim and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos/Smolderthorn
  • Zangarmarsh and Hellscream

Batch 2
  • Coilfang and Dark Iron
  • Fenris and Dragonblight
  • Spirestone and Drak'Tharon/Firetree/Malorne/Rivendare
  • Ysondre and Magtheridon

​Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections here as we can. Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other.

Flying in Warlords of Draenor
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Warlords of Draenor and Flying Mounts
No no no no no. I have paid what? something like 100,000 gold to buy flight for all my alts? You make us pay more gold to learn to fly in new zones and now you're taking this away from us?

No this doesnt fly with me at all. What next? Level up an alt but she can't fly until I do the same quest? I appreciate you want to make something feel epic again. Taking something away from me that I've repeatedly earned and paid for sucks.

I'm also tired of leveling up again with no flight. Once I have mastered flight, I should be able to buy a tome like cold weather flying. I dislike no flying until 6.1, but making me quest againto earn something I have sunk MASSIVE gold into, doesnt leave a good taste in my mouth.

Flying isn't being taken away. It's still there in all the other places you've earned it/gained it. All of those mounts you have are still usable. You just won't be using them in Draenor (at least to fly with) until a little while later and you'll still be able to get it at some point. We plan to make travel though via flight paths as convenient as possible and make being on the ground worth it via discoveries within the world. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor and Flying Mounts
Those of you who are worried about the lack of flying early on in the expansion, remember that it will only apply to the new zones, and only for a limited time in most cases. The new zones are being designed with this in mind too—we're being extra careful to ensure that flying isn't missed too much. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor and Flying Mounts
I just want to emphasise to those of you who are worried: we're working to make sure you won't be hugely inconvenienced by the loss of flying as you explore the new content. There'll also be a sturdy flight path network to get you from A to B. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor and Flying Mounts
Its not cool its just tedious and annoying to have to relearn to fly every gd expac. You know the expac I had the most fun leveling in Bash? It was cata because I could fly I could skip the camping skum i could nuke my quests; and then when I got to 85 I could put on a tabard and just grind my rep, it wasn't daily gated so I got it all done in about a day and a half it was wonderful.
We know there is some portion of players that raid, or have some specific end-game goal, and that leveling and questing and mobs and the story and the actual rest of the game in general just gets in the way of that. But ultimately "racing to end-game so you can put on a tabard and grind out rep" isn't the name of the game we're making. We're not going to be able to force you to care about the music, or setting, or experience, but you gotta understand that the rest of the game is for everyone else that does care about those things, and at least consider the logical reasons we present that makes that content better for them, even if it means it could maybe slightly disrupt your ability to chain-queue for Heroics.

Why not make the air more dangerous instead of taking away flying.
We've tried that quite a few times, it's really just a symptom of how the game mechanics function that most of our forays into dangerous flight just feel really bad. On one hand they feel unnecessarily harsh because there's only a few things you can really do to someone while they're flying and they generally deal with stuns/slows/dismounts, and on the other hand there's just no fun gameplay that can really be had there. The best gameplay is at ground level because that's the basis for the design of our game's combat systems. We'd toyed with mounted/flying combat in the past but that could almost be a totally separate game on its own, and probably gets us too far away from what WoW is.

How would this questing to unlock flying be the same? Its essentially dailies with the new name of Epic questing chain. You would most likely have to repeatly do things everyday or every week until you earn a certain gated number.
Do I need to go edit that part out, or is everyone going to be able to refrain from deciding exactly what it is (and being angry about it) before we've even designed it?

Nah, never mind, editing it out. Everyone is just going to focus on that and make assumptions about what that means. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Arenas
I don't know where this idea came from, but just to clear things up, we have no plans to remove the current Arena ladder. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Professions
We do want to slim down on the overall number of gems and enchants you'll need to put on your gear. That's primarily a quality of life change. We want to make it less of a hassle to be able to equip a new item.

That said, we don't think these changes have to mean that e.g. Jewelcrafting will no longer be a decent source of income. We could -- and this is purely a hypothetical example -- make the best gems rarer, which would drive prices up and increase profit margins. If you can make just as much gold (comparatively) off of one gem in Warlords as you can selling three in Mists, that'll help substantially. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Racial Changes
There aren’t plans for any broad, sweeping changes to racial abilities in 6.0. We’ll probably tune some numbers so some racials feel less mandatory in certain cases. Also, due to the changes we announced at BlizzCon, there are several hit and expertise-based racials that will need to be replaced with something new—hopefully we can use those new racials to help shore up racial balance overall. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Yak Reforge NPC
We've talked about different options. Maybe transmog? Maybe item upgrades? We don't know yet. Your thoughts/feedback would be helpful. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Heirlooms UI
It's a new UI of (essentially) buttons that will "light up" when you obtain one (or have obtained one) of the heirlooms. Click the button and an item of that type will be generated and put into your bags. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Character Transfer Services
It looks like there are no plans to add a bulk character transfer option at this time.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The cost associated with the migration service actually helps to regulate the amount of realm hopping going on, which in turn helps to prevent huge 'overnight' realm population fluctuations.

It's certainly a useful service for people who find themselves stranded without friends etc. but we don't currently have any plans to change the way it works or add a multi-character move option. However, we hear you loud and clear and will continue to pass on everyone's thoughts.

Some very valid points, thanks once again.

I've mentioned this in other threads, but right now—especially during the Connected Realms roll-out—we're not looking to make any changes to the migration services. Once things have settled, we can take a step back and assess the situation.

Please know that we totally want you all to be having the best possible experience while playing. There is no simple fix to this that works for everyone. There are solid reasons why we can't currently offer free transfers to any realm, even with cooldowns as some have suggested, but we're constantly working to develop and implement other solutions that will help as many people as possible.

Patch 5.4.2 PTR - Power Word: Barrier
The 100% damage reduction on Power Word: Barrier in the latest PTR build is just a tooltip error.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Trial of the Gladiator, Connected Realms Update, Flying in WoD, WoD Blue Posts started by chaud View original post
Comments 109 Comments
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    It's cute that you guys on a gaming forum think you're the majority. Newsflash, you're not. The casuals will roar when they can't find the guy selling flying at 100. I look forward to it.
  1. shadycharacter1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zurich View Post
    I love the game but no flying = takes A LOT more time
    You don't have to do everything on the first day.
  1. Ikkarus's Avatar
    As I said before, Blizzard spoiled ppl so much that now looks like they are taking off a candy from a baby...
    Stop being lazy, summon your stupid horse and walk, look for chests, for rare mobs, kill things, kill ppl, explore, run, die, laugh, it's a damn MMORPG...
  1. mmoc4b988bc479's Avatar
    isn't Blizzards reaction to ''why not make realms with older expansions on them (that's right I want my BC and WoTLK!)?'' that ''noone wants to be in the main city and spam for a group, noone wants to lose the perks that came with each new expansion'' ... but now they are taking flying mounts from us

    yes newer expansions came with dungeon finder, with better graphics, many conveniences, ... but I personally would MUCH RATHER have the amazing old content back: the awesome raids (Ulduar, Sunwell, ...), I wouldn't mind losing some perks so that ppl would once again hang out in Dlaran and that my fav zones in Northrend wouldn't be completely empty. Now those awesome zones are just something you have to rush through to get to max lvl. And soon my 2nd fav continetn (Pandaria with it's beautiful zones) is gonna become irrelevant too.

    Blizz you are down to 7.7m ... why not try that out, the content for that is ready made
  1. sergel02's Avatar
    Still no Muradin merge?
  1. mmoc4b988bc479's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by shadycharacter1 View Post
    You don't have to do everything on the first day.
    I don't know if you noticed but to keep up and stay competitive you have stuff to do on daily basis and no flying = a lot more time every day

    I don't mind taking longer to get to 100 ... actually I would prefer it taking longer really, I do mind taking longer to do stuff you kinda have to do every day/week/... to stay at the ''top'' and be able to stay competitive so you can do the content properly (raids)
  1. Xilurm's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    It's cute that you guys on a gaming forum think you're the majority. Newsflash, you're not. The casuals will roar when they can't find the guy selling flying at 100. I look forward to it.
    You know what's interesting? It's that people keep whining like little fucktards for the "old days" to come back. And when suddenly it becomes a less convenient game some other party will whine like little fucktards again.

    What I get from this, is that this game isn't for everyone and it seems Blizzard just chose which crowd to keep.
  1. mmoc63fb61dd2c's Avatar
    RIP arenas.. RIP arena ladder.. RIP the fun of it.. RIP WOW[*]
  1. greyghost's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dazicals View Post
    I might be in a minority but I support the idea of no flying until first major patch.

    Game designers go to a tremendous amount of effort in designing these new zones, and they want us to be able to see everything first hand as opposed to just flying past it all.

    They just want us to see the zones in all it's glamour and glory. It's not a bad thing at all.
    You're actually not in the minority.

    I've seen a lot of polls taken about this and the vast majority of people (60%+) are OK with it or just don't care.

    And as it has been with previous expansions, most of the complainers are just doing it to hear the sound of their own voice and will play and wind up enjoying the game as always.
  1. Grimalkin of Old's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Unbelfpain View Post
    RIP arenas.. RIP arena ladder.. RIP the fun of it.. RIP WOW[*]
    You don't read much, do you?
  1. Keosen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dazicals View Post
    I might be in a minority but I support the idea of no flying until first major patch.

    Game designers go to a tremendous amount of effort in designing these new zones, and they want us to be able to see everything first hand as opposed to just flying past it all.

    They just want us to see the zones in all it's glamour and glory. It's not a bad thing at all.
    You;re not the minority, it's just the vocal whiners that make you think so.
  1. mmoc63fb61dd2c's Avatar
    "the new Trial of the Gladiator feature means the arena ladder will be removed.." DUN DUN DUN
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greyghost View Post
    You're actually not in the minority.

    I've seen a lot of polls taken about this and the vast majority of people (60%+) are OK with it or just don't care.

    And as it has been with previous expansions, most of the complainers are just doing it to hear the sound of their own voice and will play and wind up enjoying the game as always.
    So 60% of the hardcore wow players who are so obsessed with it they actually go to websites to discuss the game are in favor of blizzard doing something? You don't say. Don't kid yourself, you're the majority here in fanboy land. Not in the actual game. You can't give people convenience then take it away. What's next? They take away dungeon finder? Raid finder? Ground mounts? Portals? Summoning stones? Rezzes?
  1. Zyranthian's Avatar
    isn't Blizzards reaction to ''why not make realms with older expansions on them (that's right I want my BC and WoTLK!)?'' that ''noone wants to be in the main city and spam for a group, noone wants to lose the perks that came with each new expansion''
    Actually its because it would be a huge amount of work to fork the WoW code and keep multiple versions of it maintained with all the same bug fixes and quality of life improvements for a tiny, tiny percentage of the playerbase who once they got their old servers would likely only play for a month or two before going "Well that was fun, scratched the nostalgia itch, whats next?"

    The no flying stuff lets blizzard craft a much tighter experience for the players because they can control the environment around you more and put you right where they want you to be. Its the same rationale behind one set size for raids at Mythic difficulty, because then they can really custom craft the encounters and do truly unique things with them since its so specialised and they can make a lot more assumptions about what will be going on since they have more control over the situation. Its not like levelling is going to take you longer because you wouldn't have flying anyway, and its not like getting around the world is going to take you longer if they deliver on their promise of having a comprehensive system of flight paths, it just means you're going to get a much higher quality of content to play through at max level than you otherwise would have. Think about it, when you can't fly, and you actually have the navigate through the environment, it opens up a whole world of things they can throw at you besides "Go here and kill these mobs", because you can't just get a quest, jump on your flying mount, skip everything in between and land at the feet of the thing you need to kill.
  1. mmoc65ba707d63's Avatar
    This Trial of gladiator sounds like L2 Olympiad to me :V
  1. mmoc63fb61dd2c's Avatar
    seems like Q2 2014 = -200k subs down, trust me, trust me it will happen.. pvp will be dead meat with this gladiator thingy.. no ladder = no pvp
  1. BeneditaNBeatriz's Avatar
    and there goes wow pvp down the toilet
  1. mmoc63fb61dd2c's Avatar
    Ofc lol, imagine now the rage.. swifty qq'ing no more wars doing 5s..
  1. SkyeMcCloud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cptaylor38 View Post
    No, they allow you to take a designated repeated route to and from set flightpaths while skipping packs of mobs and being delivered out of the way to the nearest town or outpost, which could still be 5 minutes without being dismounted out of the way of where you intend to go. You take a flight path once, you know exactly what it looks like and have no need to see it again.

    You use your flying mount and see something shiny on the ground through the trees, or a rare spawn, or a fun place to take a screenshot.. and you've suddenly went out of your way while taking more time to appreciate the play dough textured grass and trees they've created.
    The idea of not allowing flight until 6.1 isn't suppose to stop you from flying from one town or outpost to the next. It's suppose to stop you from doing the exact thing you described: use your flying mount and stay away from all mobs in relative safety until something shiny catches you interest, where you then go down and find a way to land where you won't pull a single mob, then land, do what you wanted, and remount and leave without any other mob getting in your way. They DON'T want you doing that. They want you to work to get that rare mob or that mining node, not skip over any problems and go.

    Flight paths are simply to allow you a way to travel quickly from A to B. It doesn't take you to the precise spot you want. You still have to make that journey to where you REALLY want to go, though. It's not about seeing what they've made (though that's a bonus to it), it's about trying to make the content, ALL the content, they make have meaning for a while, to make it not just a breeze to get exactly what you want. This is why flying's not allowed on Isle of Thunder or Timeless Isle. It's why it wasn't allowed on Tol Barad.

    You can go a couple months without flying in the new zone, because that's all you'll be waiting. You'll still be able to do everything you want to do and get to everywhere you want to go, it just won't be as easy.
  1. Narshe's Avatar
    I didn't notice a giant amount of criticism for no flying during Isle of Thunder or Timeless Isle, but maybe I just didn't notice. I like flying once I hit max level, it feels like something you unlock for reaching it. Its really not a huge deal for me to wait 3 months to be able to fly though.

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