MoP PTR, BMAH Bid Cap, Brewmoon Festival Scenario, Blue Posts, The Daily Blink

[chaud]

Diablo 3 - Discounted Potions, Barbarian Spreadsheet, Easter Eggs, Diablo III Developer Q&A, Blue Posts, AH Poll

Mists of Pandaria Coming to the PTR
BlizzardCS has mentioned the Mists of Pandaria PTR that recently appeared on the Battle.net account pages. The old PTR client is now able to download MigrationContent for the next patch, suggesting that it will be able to update to Mists of Pandaria.

As a reminder, when the patch is on the PTR and available for testing, it is likely that only the new systems will be in place, not any of the new Pandaria content, similar to the patch that takes place before every expansion is released.

Black Market Auction House Bid Cap Increased
The BMAH has had the bid cap increased to the new gold cap of 999,999 gold. Once you bid that amount, no one can outbid you, but the auction will continue to run for the entire duration.

A few new Mists of Pandaria items have started to appear since our first post, as indicated by the blank items that are sold by Mists of Pandaria NPCs.

Brewmoon Festival Scenario
Today we have another Scenario preview, the Brewmoon Festival. This is one of the longer scenarios that are able to be tested right now. Keep in mind this is still an early preview and everything is subject to change.

Horde Theramore Scenario Voiceovers
The previous beta patch also added the voice acting for the Theramore scenario. This is the Horde version of events.

Blue Posts

Testing Heroic Dungeons
Currently for a player to enter into a Heroic Dungeon through the Dungeon Finder system requires an item level of 440. Currently, this is a more difficult bar to clear in the beta that it will be in the final live game.

We're going to work towards hotfixing that value down, but at the same time use some new magic we have to simulate a higher level. When that change gets applied, I'll edit this thread with the news.

In the meantime, you can actually go old school to test the dungeons. Form a group, then head in through the entrance! I'm making feedback threads for them all, since they're all open.

The level of the bosses in Heroics should be 92. Note that MoP has a different hit/miss formula than Cataclysm. Check your character sheet for more information.

We're looking into the character stuck issue, I don't have an ETA. We have the hotfix ready to go, just waiting on some logistical issues to be handled. It should hopefully be deployed by tomorrow morning PDT. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The New Spellbook
We know from feedback and from testing that dividing spells among 3 tabs felt arbitrary to a lot of players. Some players didn't even realize they had access to some spells. The current design has all of your class spells in alphabetical order, with the exception that active abilities (those you can drag to your bar) come before passive abilities. We would consider a design where the passives are mixed in with the actives. (The general tab is for anything that isn't related to your class, such as racial abilities and things like riding.)

We've seen some ideas from players that we should attempt to categorize class abilities further, such as offensive vs. defensive, or buffs vs. heals, but worry that it would be very challenging to come up with a single organizational scheme that is intuitive to most of our players. I think it's like one of those deals where everyone organizes their hard drive, desktop or email inbox differently. Some people have tons of little categories that make sense to them (key point) and some keep everything in one big bucket. There isn't a one-size fits all scheme that works. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Jumping the Shark Quest Bug
Fix for this is coming in the next build. It's a bug. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hunter (Forums)
Glyph of Stampede
The design intent is that Stampede skips over any unusable pets (such as an exotic for a non-BM) hunter or any blank slots (in the case that maybe you left a hole in case you tame something interesting along the way). For any skipped slots, Stampede would just clone your current pet for that slot, so you would still always have 5 pets when you Stampede.

The idea of the glyph is that it would use the clone mechanic all the time. Theoretically, a hunter with only one pet would be wasting the glyph. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Daily Blink - So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary Forum
The Daily Blink gives us some of Ghostcrawler's song lyrics. Sadly no one has actually sung the song for us yet.

[Chickat]

nice cant wait for mop

[Enhshamanlol]

zomg i need more gold now

[sixkills]

I didn't get the first part about the PTR :s

[Ryuukon]

That... is so disturbing. GC as Willie Wonka. I can't help but envision him in a dirty van leaning out the door saying to a group of kids "Want some candy?".

[aikouka]

Did anyone else sing The Daily Blink in the Oompa Loompa voice?

I also feel kind of bad, because I didn't realize that was Greg. I'm not used to seeing him with so much hair!

[Brunesgoth]

I didnt realize that was GC until after i sang the song.

Heart attacks commenced then.

[Steehl]

I didn't get the first part about the PTR :s

They're saying the pre-Mists of Pandaria patch will be available for Beta Testing. It'll be the introduction patch before Mists is released, with all the changes for Mists being applied (like talents, account wide achieves and mounts, etc.), just none of the new zone content.

[ambigiouslynamed]

lumping everything together is a good idea? and sorting it as offensive v defensive or buffs and heals would be complicated? blizzard really has their heads up their asses.....

[Squirreludecker]

I didn't get the first part about the PTR :s

it means Blizz is saying STFU to all the people who say we wont get a July release because the 5.0 patch isnt on PTR yet. History shows that generally the expansion is released 6 weeks after the PTR starts up

[StephanieMcK]

lumping everything together is a good idea? and sorting it as offensive v defensive or buffs and heals would be complicated? blizzard really has their heads up their asses.....

I agree, I mean if somebody can't sort out simple things like that, they don't need to be playing WoW.

[subanark]

I'm pretty sure I remember Blizzard saying that MoP will be 2 weeks after the prepatch.

[Arganis]

What's the point of the BMAH if only to encourage you to buy gold? I haven't even entertained the thought since the 5k flight training back in BC but with this... I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing that the only thing separating me from say, the Ashes of Alar was $100 worth of gold or w/e.

Imo they should make this a rlmah and be done with it, cause I'd rather pay Blizz then pay the Chinese cause let's get real, the only people that will have 1mil gold to squander on a mount are either gold buyers or the literal 1% of Azeroth.

[greyghost]

What's the point of the BMAH if only to encourage you to buy gold? I haven't even entertained the thought since the 5k flight training back in BC but with this... I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing that the only thing separating me from say, the Ashes of Alar was $100 worth of gold or w/e.

Imo they should make this a rlmah and be done with it cause I'd rather pay Blizz then pay the chinese cause let's get real, the only people that will have 1mil gold to squander on a mount are either gold buyers or the literal 1% of Azeroth.

The point of the BMAH isn't to buy gold, but to act as a gold sink for people who legitimately have loads of gold sitting around and have nothing to do with it.

If people think that this thing exists as an excuse to buy gold, then they're going to kiss goodbye to their accounts and no one will miss them.

---------- Post added 2012-06-05 at 06:59 AM ----------

That... is so disturbing. GC as Willie Wonka. I can't help but envision him in a dirty van leaning out the door saying to a group of kids "Want some candy?".

At least it's him as the GOOD version of Willy Wonka and not the stupid Johnny Depp variant.

[Tarx]

So we got pre MoP patch thats cool we goin closer and closer to exp yeh.

[Bruin]

What's the point of the BMAH if only to encourage you to buy gold? I haven't even entertained the thought since the 5k flight training back in BC but with this... I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing that the only thing separating me from say, the Ashes of Alar was $100 worth of gold or w/e.

Imo they should make this a rlmah and be done with it, cause I'd rather pay Blizz then pay the Chinese cause let's get real, the only people that will have 1mil gold to squander on a mount are either gold buyers or the literal 1% of Azeroth.

Gold farmers are actually *hurt* by the BMAH because the gold is taken out of the economy completely (vs. shifting around, where they have a chance of getting it back through nefarious means); and well, it is basically meant for the 1%; it is the ultimate gold sink, but instead of something arbitrary like the Pandaria Flight License needed to complete content {which isn't so much a gold sink as it is a Toll}; the BMAH allows those with excess funds to burn it on fun items that they may not have.

[Arganis]

The point of the BMAH isn't to buy gold, but to act as a gold sink for people who legitimately have loads of gold sitting around and have nothing to do with it.

If people think that this thing exists as an excuse to buy gold, then they're going to kiss goodbye to their accounts and no one will miss them.

Ya ya but rhetoric apart you'll have a hard time convincing me most ppl are just sitting around with 1mil gold to put down on a mount.

---------- Post added 2012-06-05 at 07:10 AM ----------

Gold farmers are actually *hurt* by the BMAH because the gold is taken out of the economy completely (vs. shifting around, where they have a chance of getting it back through nefarious means); and well, it is basically meant for the 1%; it is the ultimate gold sink, but instead of something arbitrary like the Pandaria Flight License needed to complete content {which isn't so much a gold sink as it is a Toll}; the BMAH allows those with excess funds to burn it on fun items that they may not have.

I get the concept but it is excessive and I bet you anything most ppl who see a mount they've coveted for a very long time will be tempted to take the easy road.

[soulkeeperx]

So that Brewfest Scenario pretty much points to an August/early September release

[Keristrasza]

The point of the BMAH isn't to buy gold, but to act as a gold sink for people who legitimately have loads of gold sitting around and have nothing to do with it.

If people think that this thing exists as an excuse to buy gold, then they're going to kiss goodbye to their accounts and no one will miss them.[COLOR="red"]

Sadly just because its INTENDED as a gold sink does not mean a large portion will buy gold. Blizzard NEVER thinks these things threw and offering any form of mount for gold just to drain it from the AH is just going to influence all kinds of players to buy gold because THEY want those mounts too.

You cannot offer anything in this game without ensuring its not ridiculously out of reach or you will have massive flame wars, waves of people quitting, etc. Since this involves tons of gold I predict increase in gold buying, more gold site spams than ever before, and a wild fire of account hackings.

[Azshira]

Love the daily blink was singing it to myself like an umpa lumpa