Earlier today we made a post in our Service Status forum (linked below) noting that a hotfix was being applied that would yield more materials for enchanters when disenchanting or shattering items. For those of you who may be waiting for this hotfix to disenchant some leftover items, please note that the hotfix has been delayed. We still plan to push this hotfix in the near future and will inform the community when this happens.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677858456&postId=206757778352&sid=1

We wanted to take a moment to clarify how the Sinister Calling achievement works for Hallow’s End. The text says that both a Hallowed Helm and a Sinister Squashling pet need to be “obtained” for the achievement to be complete. More specifically, the pet needs to be learned and become part of your pet spell book for that part to be complete. The Hallowed Helm on the other hand needs to be looted by the character to fulfill that aspect of the achievement.

We apologize for any confusion in this matter and hope you enjoy the rest of Hallow’s End!

Cataclysm
Q: Will Path of the Titans be as time consuming as obtaining Sons of Hodir reputation?
A: Sons of Hodir was easy, we're thinking more along the lines of Argent Dawn rep actually. JK! As a matter of fact, we don't want the paths of the titans to feel grindy at all so we're trying to make sure that each step along the way feels more like a great quest, or a key achievement (like killing all the bosses in a new raid zone). So, it should be more oriented around accomplishing something that feels important rather than grinding.

Q: What’s Deathwing’s current relationship with the Old Gods?
A: In facebook terms, I'd list it as "It's Complicated". "Single" or "Married" are probably too extreme in this case.

Q: Will there be Wintergrasp-like capturable zones in Cataclysm?
A: Yes, there is an island off the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms named Tol Barad. Players will fight for control of the island and its famous prison. However, while the battle for Tol Barad is not in progress, players will find that it will remind them much more of the Isle of Quel'Danas, in that it'll be a major daily quest hub with quite a bit of random world pvp (presumably).

Q: Thousand Needles is getting a big change in levels; how has the Cataclysm affected it?
A: As a result of the Cataclysm, Thousand Needles has been completely flooded with water!

Q: With Cataclysm revisiting the old world, any plan to make the old reputations worthwhile again?
A: With each expansion, we introduce new reputations with new rewards. Sometimes we introduce reputations that are obviously related, such as Argent Dawn/Argent Crusade and Cenarion Circle/Cenarion Expedition. We don’t update the rewards for existing reps, as we don’t want to put new characters at such a significant disadvantage.

Q: With the removal of defense in Cataclysm, will plate gear still have avoidance stats or will tanks and dps be sharing?
A: Tanking gear will still have avoidance stats, they just won't have the defense stat anymore. So to answer your question, tanking and dps gear will not be the same.

Q: Any plans of doing anything with Grim Batol in the Wetlands?
A: Yes, we currently plan for Grim Batol to be one of the raid zones in Cataclysm. =]

Q: What are the plans for the current Goblin-run towns after Cataclysm is out?
A: Most Goblin-run towns will continue to operate as normal. In general, the existing Goblin cartels tend to be self-serving, and therefore aren't taking sides.

Patch 3.3
Q: There's plenty of great endgame content, what about some new early/mid content to keep new players entertained?
A: We actually have some small changes to the early game going live in 3.3.0 to help eliminate some new player confusion. This is not content specific, it is more focused around easing the new player pain.

Q: Will leveling from 80-85 be like leveling from 70-80?
A: It's too early to say. We base our leveling more around how much quest content we have and how good the reward pacing feels. If we have as many quests as we did from 70-80 and if it feels like your character is getting a reasonable amount of new stuff for the time invested, then it could end up being similar.

Q: Will players be able to do 'old world' quests after Cataclysm is released?
A: Only "old world" quests that we don't change. However, once the Cataclysm happens, it happens for everyone and there's no going back.

Q: How will you handle beginning characters and higher level friends after Cataclysm? WIll they be out of phase?
Players will not be out of phase. The Cataclysm changes the world for everyone.

Q: Are Worgen going to have mounts?
A: Both Worgen and Goblins will have new, racial specific mounts.

Q: Will there be events where ally + horde players have to work together to kill a boss?
A: Generally speaking we don't do this because we prefer that the horde and alliance feel like enemies rather than a big happy family working together to defeat a common foe. If anything, we want tension between the sides to rise.

Q: Will Hyjal be made for exploration in Cataclysm?
A: Yes.

Raids & Dungeons
Q: Love the steps taken to making high-end content accessible to casual players. How committed are you to continuing this?
A: This is something we talk about on a regular basis. There isn’t a line in the sand we have made, it’s much more on a per piece of content basis. We do like the way the regular modes are shaping up to be more casual friendly, while the hardmodes are a way to reward very hardcore play.

Q: Ulduar had one kind of hard mode(triggered).. ToC had another (ToC vs TOGC).. Ony has none. What will ICC have?"
A: ICC's hard modes will be triggered, but via in-game UI (much like how you toggle between normal and heroic modes today) rather than triggered by game mechanics (like not killing the three drakes before you attack Sartharion).

Q: For Cross-realm LFG if the group is composed by members of other realms do they have to go on foot or will they be teleported?
A: The current plan is for players using the LFG system to be automatically teleported into the instance, similar to how battleground queuing works today. This is active on the PTR now, and we plan to host a community event around this feature soon!

Q: Any chance to have LFG menu to show classes you're looking for I.E just showing all tanks or healers currently qued in LFG.
A: The plan right now is to allow players to register for roles they are capable of filling, then have the queue system make the best decision possible for the player. This is to give all classes an equal chance at participation. We also have plans to diversify the class makeup in a future PTR update.

Q: With T10, are we going to see tokens like in Ulduar? or like CC? CC style had every class and spec rolling on same thing.
A: With t10 we're going to see a hybrid. The tier 10 items (the ones with item levels you'd find in the 10-player raid) will be purchased with Emblems of Frost.

The tier 10.5 items (the ones with item levels you'd find in the 25-player raid) will be obtained by getting a token (one that is specific to 3 or 4 classes, much like the ulduar tokens) and using it to upgrade the tier 10 item that was purchased with emblems of frost.

Q: Will there be anymore epic storylines with cinematics like the wrathgate questline?
A: We have big plans for additional in game cinematics! We are happy with how the Wrathgate questline worked out, and want to do more lines like this.

Q: May I create a group with 4 friends and then use the LFG interface to gain the random dungeon reward?
A: Yes. In fact, you can join it with a full group of 5 and still get the random dungeon reward. The reward is for doing a random dungeon, not necessarily for having random members.

Q: Crowd control is all but dead in raids. Is that something you plan on bringing back?
A: Like say... with the Faction Champions encounter in ToC? ;]

Q: Are there any plans to open the other "sanctums" in Wyrmrest (i.e. Obsidian Sanctum, Azure Sanctum, Emerald Sanctum)?
A: Possibly. =]

Q: Are hardmodes going to get anything to make them feel like a different fight visually or auditory
A: I find the hard modes very different visually. Much more black and white imo.

Q: Any chance that the hybrid system that is going to be implemented for T10, could be retro fitted to all WotLK raids?
A: I'll take that as a good reaction to the t10 system. =] However, it unfortunately won't be retroactively applied.

Q: Will 10-man raiding guilds see Legendary quality weapons (items) drop in their raids anytime soon? Or in Cataclysm?
A: Our current plan is to reserve Legendary weapons for the 25 person encounters, I wouldn’t rule it out in the future though.

Q: Any plans for a gated system in IIC like in Colliseum that prevents us from doing hardmodes from day 1?
A: We do have a system that unlocks bosses similar to how we handled TOC and Sunwell. We are restricting hard modes to raid leaders that have defeated Arthas in regular mode.

Q: In the future will hard modes have greater fidelity like Sarth, Sarth+1, Sarth+2, Sarth+3 rather than the Binary Normal/Hard?
A: Generally we have learned that hard modes should be more binary, but that doesn’t mean we will never do something like Sarth 3 drakes again.

Misc.
Q: When Race change is live will we be able to change to any race in our faction no matter what class we are?
A: No, you can only Race Change to a race that allows your specific class.

Q: Any chance the Legendary items will grow stronger as players level up as heirlooms? Its too much work, just to ditch after a patch.
A: This is something we have talked about a great deal. One of the concerns about making a weapon “best in the game” that scales up, is that players will continue to do old, outdated content in order to obtain the weapon. This ends up being not very fun for the other participants. While obtaining a legendary weapon is an incredible accomplishment, it is important cycle out weapons on a somewhat regular basis to make sure players are always playing new content.

Q: Any chance of being able to link more then one authenticator on one account? (in case I lose or break one)
A: We are talking about the authenticator and how to make it a better experience. Your suggestion is one we are talking about.

Q: Do you have plans to have acheivement points redeemable?
A: Achievement points are a prestige reward only. There are no plans to turn them into some kind of currency.

Q: Any plans on adding bonuses to certain titles your character obtains? Like "...of the alliance" gives +5 to all stats
A: We have no plans to introduce combat advantages to titles. Titles in World of Warcraft are very specifically set up as prestige rewards only.

Q: Can locks have a summonable flying mount now please
A: Now? As in right this second? No.

Q: Will Alliance ever get an ingame band like the Hordes L80ETC?
A: Sure, if somebody knows of an awesome Alliance band...

Q: When do hunters get to tame druids?
A: Right after druids get a hunter form.

Q: What will happen to Mankrik's Wife? Please don't tell me she's gobbled up by the lava?
A: You'll have to wait and see. =]

Last question!
Q: Who are the two developers answering these questions?
A: Game Director Tom Chilton and Director of Production J. Allen Brack.

Unable to Validate Game Version on PTRs
We've located an error that was causing this issue. We're working on getting a fix applied that will enable all logins once again. (Source)

Raids & Dungeons
Glory of the Ulduar Raider
The same post we made on this a couple months back still applies to the situation. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18704852935&sid=1

"Currently we have no plans to remove them in the foreseeable future. However, we will continue to evaluate the situation and if a decision is made to remove these rewards at any point in the future, we'll provide a one month warning so players will have time to make some final attempts. " (Source)

Cross Server LFG System
While feedback is always appreciated you're making some assumptions about a system that you don't have the complete details for as of yet. This is understandable since we haven't fully explained what our intentions are or how the complete system will be working.

We are in the process of finalizing just such an informational piece that we plan to post sometime early next week that should explain much more about the system, how it works, the benefits, and give you a much better foundation for providing constructive feedback during your testing and answer many of the questions that you have. (Source)

Why can't bosses have expertise?
It's something we actually talk about quite a bit. We won't do it for Icecrown, but it could happen in the future.

The basic problem is that bosses don't scale with gear. Their health and damage go up. That's it. You might avoid a first tier boss 30% of the time and a final tier boss 60% of the time. That means when that final boss hits you, he needs to hit for twice as much (not even counting that he already needs to hit harder to account for your higher health and armor). If you are a dps class, you might crit a low tier boss 30% of the time and a high tier boss 50% of the time. Why should you be proportionately more powerful against more powerful enemies? If anything it just makes us scale their health and damage to extreme points.

Players generally expect the monsters in an RPG to get more powerful as the characters do. Otherwise the game just gets easier over time. WoW has traditionally not scaled any mob stats beyond damage done and health. I think if we always had done it nobody would think it was weird. You don't get disappointed for example that the bosses hit harder as your health goes up, so why should it be any different of the mobs hit more often as your avoidance goes up? Sunwell Radiance felt odd because it was a sudden, unpredictable addition. If things always had worked that way I think players would just have accepted it. (Source)

Players below level 10 may not join raids
One of the worst experiences a new player to WoW can have is to get invited to a raid. It immediately shuts off their ability to complete quests. Yes there are ways around that, but when you're talking about a legitimately new player who may not even have the support of friends teaching them how to play, it can just kill any progress flat. Without the starting quests, the player has no direction, no sense of their role in the game and no reasonable way to gain XP. It's even worse when done maliciously, by inviting a bunch of noobs to a raid and then dropping out.

I am assuming many of you are like me and played games for years before trying WoW. But WoW has been around a long time now and some of the players picking up the game now don't necessarily have that experience to draw from. Beginning players these days might have come from consoles or handheld games or maybe WoW is even the first real game they've tried. These type of players need a little more direction. You'll see a lot of changes in 3.3 to support this, and then even more in Cataclysm.

We realize it affects the legitimate (if niche) lowbie raid case so we hope this is only a temporary solution until we implement something a little more bullet proof.

[...] If we removed the quest penalty from raids, I am fairly confident that your experience upon competing say Howling Fjord and moving into Grizzly Hills would be to spam general with "Hey, invite me to the raid!" And there would be one. Even if you didn't technically cooperate with the folks in the zone, why not splash the XP all around a bit?

Like I said, there are solutions but none of them are of the "Just flip this bit and everything will be fine" variety. They take a little thought and work. (Source)

Classes
Relic slot
The problem with this item slot is it has now become so spec specific that we can't offer you multiple choices per tier (because we can't make that many items and ship a patch on time). So instead we try and focus on getting you to change up your gameplay, just a little, when a new relic arrives on the scene. This doesn't happen every upgrade, and it really doesn't need to. Constantly jumping around would become as predictable as never jumping at all.

For Cataclysm, we're considering some different implementations of the piece. Perhaps we'll go back to putting some stats on them. It's too early to tell. (Source)

Theorycrafting and posting numbers on forums
Yeah, it's a bit of sticky wicket for us. I try to say "posting with numbers makes your argument stronger," and that's true. Some players then just pop out a link to Simulationcraft or Wowmeteronline or whatever. *Nothing* is wrong with *either* of those tools when used correctly. The problem is too many players use them as the true and accurate measurement of what someone's dps really is. What someone's max dps really is is essentially unknowable. It varies a lot depending on the encounter, gear, raid synergy, the person behind the keyboard, latency, whether someone was trying to inflate the numbers, and a host of other factors. It is almost certainly *not* what *your* dps is. If you are not topping the charts, it is rarely because of the factors measured by tools such as these.

So on the one hand, it feels unfair for us to say "post numbers" and then reply "no, not those numbers" when players try it. But we do ask that you consider what impact your post is going to have. There are several widely available tools, spreadsheet, simulators and websites of raid logs. Most likely the other players you are talking to, and particularly Blizzard, are familiar with them all. Ask yourself if you are really sharing new information when your post consists of a very brief "See? We are low. Here is my quote or link." At the very least try and provide some analysis if you can.

Not everyone is going to be an expert theorycrafter or mathematics expert, and we're not expecting you to be one in order to participate in these forum discussions. But also be honest about the fact that linking to someone else's work doesn't necessarily turn you into one either.

Was that too harsh? (Source)

Druid
Druid changes in 3.3
I'm not sure why so many players who want to disagree with us on class design miss some of those posts where we attempt to clarify our position.

To put it all into one place:

1) Rejuv was too good. We nerfed it. The change got labeled as a bug fix, because technically it was a bug. We didn't mean to buff Rejuv's duration but once we did we didn't think it was breaking anything for a time so we let it stay. For 3.3 we decided it was breaking things and reduced the duration. We understood the confusion this caused with the community by labeling it a bug fix so we changed the patch note to no longer refer to it as a bug fix. It doesn't really matter what it was called -- it was a nerf.

2) In the same patch, we decided to change Gift of the Earth Mother because it was adding a gratuitous amount of haste and at the same time making druids avoid haste where they could. We have been too generous with some of the haste talents that coupled with gear and buffs are causing problems.

3) While we didn't change Gift of the Earth Mother with the express purpose of nerfing druids, it still had that effect. We considered the Rejuv nerf and the GotEM nerf and decided we liked the second one more and reverted the first one. Rejuv is back to 18 sec for 3.3.

4) We realize the GotEM nerf hurt PvP Resto druids a lot and that is still something we are evaluating.

5) Resto druids have a lot of heal spells. Which ones you go to the most is going to be a function of things like set bonuses, idols, your role in the group as well, as well as the encounters themselves. Druids healing the raid currently seem to use a lot of Rejuv and Wild Growth while those healing tanks use a lot of Nourish and perhaps even Lifebloom. Lifebloom still gets a lot of use in PvP. Regrowth has slipped off the radar a little, IMO, but it has been good at various points in LK and I don't think it would be that hard to bring it back (and we'll see what the GotEM change does). Bringing it back would probably slide something else down the bar, at least temporarily. We're pretty much okay with that. Healing Touch (and maybe Tranq) is the only Resto spell for which we're really not interested in carving off a major raid-healing niche. It still has situational uses with NS or in 5-player dungeons.

Rereading the above, I am making sweeping generalizations a lot. Your mileage may vary and there are a ton of exceptions. One thing that hits me a lot in my position is that players assume the way they do a thing is the way everyone must do that thing. Players exhibit some pretty diverse behaviors and still get the boss down. Keep that in mind whenever you try to adopt the "accepted" or "cookie cutter" spell rotation for any class.

6) Particularly angry druids like to talk about Nourish getting "shoved down their throat" or whatever. We added Nourish because we recognized the druid need for a "Flash Heal." Healing Touch is too long to cast without NS and both NS and Swiftmend have a cooldown. The hots all do great healing, and they can definitely save someone's life, but they just aren't reliable for e.g. someone being focused by faction champions. In the BC era where we basically mandated that druids are just one arm of the healing machine that must also include paladins, priests and shamans it was okay to have a very narrow niche. In a world of 10-player raids, we want you to be able to heal with say 2 Resto druids and a Disc priest. "Hey, I'm just here to hot the raid," is fine if it works for your group, but that can't be the only thing that works. (And this applies to all 5 healing specs.) (Source)

Gift of the Earth Mother
A more likely change is something like letting GotEM keep its current (PTR) functionality but also letting it reduce the GCD of just Lifebloom. (Source)

Warrior
Warrior Scaling
The solution to making warriors scale more appropriately with gear (instead of being bad at first and good later) is to normalize rage more. That's an answer that a lot of warriors hate hearing, which is one of the reasons we haven't done it yet. For many warriors, rage is a limitation to be overcome with enough gear. That's not really our vision of the class though. (Source)