Warcraft Movie Posters, Sheep Staff, Raid Testing, Blue Posts, Tweets, Nostalrius

[chaud]

Diablo 2 Patch 1.14b Released, Wudijo's Rank 1 World DH

New Legendary Card Reveal - Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, Warlock Spell - Spreading Madness

Heroes of the Storm at Dreamhack, Devs Working Hard on S1, Epic Plays of the Week #65

Overwatch Patch 28420 - Soldier: 76 Returns, New Genji Legendary Skin, Bug Fixes

Warcraft Movie Posters
Posters for some of the characters in the Warcraft movie were released today.

Legion - Sheep Staff
One of the more interesting weapon models in Legion is the sheep staff.

Raid Testing Schedule - April 8-11

On Friday, April 8, and Monday, April 11, we will continue our Legion Alpha raid testing.

Remember that Heroic difficulty scales for any group size between 10 and 30 players, so feel free to assemble and bring a group of any size within that range. Mythic, of course, requires 20 and does not scale.

Friday, April 8

Elerethe Renferal - Heroic Emerald Nightmare
13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)

Dragons of Nightmare - Heroic Emerald Nightmare
15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 00:00 CEST)

Monday, April 11

Nythendra - Mythic Emerald Nightmare
13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)

Ursoc - Mythic Emerald Nightmare
15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 00:00 CEST)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of an alpha environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Blue Posts

FEEDBACK: Mythic/Mythic+ Dungeons
With mythic + being within mythic, will there still be a way to check difficulty of dungeon within api to include plus level and all that so a mod can distinguish between mythic regular and mythic plus?
Yeah, technically it's still difficultyID 8 when the run is in progress.

BTW, unrelated, as some brave souls are noticing, keystone level 6 is very, very hard at this gear level. Looks like the first affix combo up is Tyrannical+Decay, which is a particularly difficult combo to try to brute-force while undergeared.

One of the aspects of this new Mythic+ design is the replayability. If your "Keystone" gets upgraded, do you then have to do the same dungeon again on a higher difficulty? What is the window of time to complete this upgraded dungeon?

If Blizzard is concerned about dungeon burnout among players (which it seems that you are judging by the WoD comments), isn't this new process going to simply accelerate that process?
There are a ton of aspects to the system that aren't really exposed in this focused test. Right now, we're looking for bugs, and major issues with the affixes themselves, and the core system. Loot, lockouts, and how the feature fits into the larger scheme of endgame content will all be addressed, likely in a future blog post.

To answer your specific concern, when your keystone upgrades, it will randomize to point to a new dungeon (there's a chance it could point to the same dungeon you just ran, but it's just a random roll). Part of the aim there is to vary player experience, but also to ensure that the system values a well-rounded group rather than one that is tailored to a specific instance.

So, once per week lockout? I thought this was supposed to provide something to do - like grifts in diablo.
Regular Mythic dungeons will have a loot-based weekly lockout, just like on live. But the keystone runs are different, and are only limited by the availability of keystones. No inherent lockout otherwise. We'll have a bunch more info to share in the near future, but the philosophical goals here consist of keeping dungeons relevant, rewarding, and replayable throughout the expansion, offering a level of difficulty that will scale to players' capabilities.

Will there be a way to prevent 4x tanks 1 healer group setups?
You think that group composition can put out enough damage to beat the timer? If that group composition ends up being consistently optimal, then I'd agree we have a problem. If it ends up being viable in some niche circumstances, then is that a huge issue?

Right now, the system is circumventing some of the built-in progression, for testing purposes, by letting you buy a level 6 keystone off a vendor. But you don't get a level N keystone without being able to beat the timer in a level [N-1] dungeon. Getting thrust into a situation for which you are massively undergeared, and feeling like the goal is just being able to claw your way to the finish line by any means necessary and no matter how long it takes, is not a situation a normal player will experience in the live game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Classes
Just tried watching a video complaining about ability pruning, stopped after they listed the rotation as being 4 abilities.
.Discussions on that topic are hard to parse, when they're so drenched in hyperbole. Makes it hard to see what's a legit issue. (Celestalon)
its a situation where we need to have more discussions for clarity, but clarity is needed to have discussions.
I don't think it's too much to ask people to give feedback based on actual abilities/testing, not hyperbole. (Celestalon)
"I want a more complex rotation, not this 2 button crap." = Not very useful, since it's basis is obviously false. What's true? (Celestalon)
"I want a more complex rotation, but don't think I'll be able to take the complexifying talents because X." = Much more useful. (Celestalon)
Or "I want more complexity, but even with the complex talents, it's still only 7 abilities, still want more." = Also very useful (Celestalon)
Rotations have been simplified a lot ...too much. All the spells that made our classes enjoyable have been pruned.
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. All that tells me is that you have feedback, but you won't tell me what it is. (Celestalon)
I assure you, I *do* want to hear your feedback. Not hyperbole or generality; the actual feedback. Please share it with me! (Celestalon)

Honest question: Do you believe having a damage rotation that consists of pressing 2-3 buttons is fun and challenging?
It's fun for some (mainly those *not* looking for a challenge), though not most. Different people have different preferences... (Celestalon)
...with regard to rotational complexity. That's one of the reasons why we allow you to customize your rotation so much in Legion. (Celestalon)
If you ever feel like you're forced to play a 2-3 button rotation, when you want something more involved, that's great to know. (Celestalon)

meanwhile.. "I don't want these complex rotations, because my old fingers don't handle them anymore"..
Indeed. We want to make sure there are talents that create an enjoyable gameplay experience for those people too! (Celestalon)

watched a stream earlier, and he complained about pruning, ... his bars were full after talenting though. #facepalm
.Unfortunately, the business/politics of streaming interferes with the feedback process in this case. It's especially troublesome.. (Celestalon)
...when popular streams campaign for their opinion based on false/hyperbolic pretexts, to get more viewers, and then viewers repeat (Celestalon)
The biggest issue is that we can't/shouldn't/don't ignore that feedback; there's good feedback hidden under that. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
I thought MM hunters were supposed to be petless based off the Legion preview when I bought it. Feel cheated now.
Lone Wolf will still be available as a talent (and will be extremely competitively tuned). Can still be petless if you like. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Please reconsider the decision to remove psychic horror from shadowpriests. It's an extremely unique and Iconic ability. It makes me very sad to hear that you guys are removing it with this next build when I don't think Anyone had complained about it or even wants it to be removed. It just feels very disheartening to see this change
Which Shadow utility ability would you rather see removed? (Or do you disagree that they have too much?) (Celestalon)
from a PvP standpoint, they should have a lot of utility since they have a lot of casting
They still have *way* more than *anyone* else. Does that not still fulfill that to you? (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Destruction had "solid mechanics & a good thematic match" but it'll LITERALLY be the last activated Alpha spec. What gives?
That's actually exactly why it's the last spec activated: https://t.co/XJPwDAzEHk (WatcherDev)

Character / Items
Much like mists, get your ring before legion launches! https://t.co/maxuyMfDOv
Yep! As the Cloak was a symbol of great deeds during Mists, so too will the Ring become a symbol of victories during Warlords! (WarcraftDevs)

Are we going to able to choose our Doomhammer offhand skin separately?
The appearance you choose for the main-hand will automatically select the complementary off-hand appearance. (WarcraftDevs)

Misc
I vote #ImplicateHamlet
I approve of this course of action. #ImplicateHamlet (Celestalon)

Nostalrius Server Shut Down
One of the larger unofficial servers providing a Vanilla WoW like experience shut down this week, leading to lots of discussion on the forums.

Dear community,

For over a year, you have been part of an extraordinary journey. A journey back in the early days of our beloved game. A journey in which hundreds of thousands of people took part in together. Something that we had never seen before, either on retail or private servers. Together, we built a strong community, sharing values and a commun genuine interest for this wonderful game created by Blizzard.

Yesterday, we received a letter of formal notice from US and french lawyers, acting on behalf of Blizzard Entertainment, preparing to stand trial against our hosting company OVH and ourselves in less than a week now. This means the de facto end of Nostalrius under its current form.

As soon as we received this letter, we decided to inform the team and players about the future of Nostalrius, where we have all passionately committed our time and energy as volunteers.

Nostalrius Begins PvP, Nostalrius Begins PvE & Nostalrius TBC and all related servers will be definitively shutdown at 23:00 server time on the 10th of April 2016, if our hosting company keeps the server online for that long. It feels kind of unreal, but we want to continue to serve our players as we did, and the best we can in the remaining time.

What will happen next? This time, we have no plan for the future, and will have to rely entirely on our community and/or the private server scene.

We know the time you spent here, the guilds you were part of, and these people with whom you have shared experiences with. We know the strength of these links, and we also know that they do not need a special WoW realm to survive. However, we will still be publicly providing everything needed in order to setup your own “Nostalrius” if you are willing to.

Today is also the day where Nostalrius will start being community-driven in the truest sense of the word, as we will be releasing the source code, and anonymized players data (encrypting personal account data), so the community as a whole will decide the form of the future of Nostalrius. We will still be there in the background if you want us to, but will no longer take the lead.

We also initiated an open letter addressed to Blizzard, that you can read and forward if you want. It won’t bring Nostalrius back, but it is a way to express ourselves as a community.

Nostalrius was all about the nostalgia and memories of the glorious vanilla days. We don’t know if you truly felt like it was the glory days while playing here, but we hope that you will keep good memories of the time spent here. Once again, we can all be proud to have been part of the Nostalrius journey, no matter how much time was actually spent “in-game”.

[UnluckyAmateur]

Am I the only one who thinks Gul'dan looks really really really bad?

[Deleted]

Such a shame with Nostalrius server shutting down.

Sounds like a humble team that only wanted to deliver something most people could re-live - the vanilla experience.

They did something blizzard can't/won't do, and as far as I know, they didn't make any money off of running their emulated server.

Good luck in the future Nostalrius team.

[Cheerbleeder]

The new Movie Posters are rad! They all work together and feel like Warcraft. Keep it up.

That sheep staff is OP. It just needs a 'proc' sound now

[PizzaBobRoss]

The portrayal of Garona in these promo's is really worrying me.
I just hope they keep with character in the movie. This is one character you kinda want to get right.

[OreoLover]

Am I the only one who thinks Gul'dan looks really really really bad?

Only if I'm the only one who really, really, REALLY likes Garona.

[ls-]

That staff video ending LMAO

[thilicen]

Gul'dan looks ok, but I'm really struggling with Garona

[Deleted]

meanwhile.. "I don't want these complex rotations, because my old fingers don't handle them anymore"..
Indeed. We want to make sure there are talents that create an enjoyable gameplay experience for those people too! (Celestalon)

Said no one ever. I swear he invented that post to justify all the shit pruning going on.

[Agrias2x]

Kinda sad they closing Nostalrius even though I never played there. I always say this: If you haven't played in Vanilla you never really played WoW because what we have now is a completely different game.

[Deleted]

Sheep staff video is awesome, well played, well played indeed. I admit I didn't see it coming.

[JaceDraccus]

meanwhile.. "I don't want these complex rotations, because my old fingers don't handle them anymore"..
Indeed. We want to make sure there are talents that create an enjoyable gameplay experience for those people too! (Celestalon)

Said no one ever. I swear he invented that post to justify all the shit pruning going on.

Only if he has been posting on Twitter since 2012 as someone called 'Slickrock'.

https://twitter.com/TheSlickrock/sta...57696997801984

So yeah, someone said it.

I swear you invent reasons to be mad.

[zubaja]

That staff is hilarious! I need that staff, because reasons.

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

Aside from the Doomhammer and Mrs. Varian's mummy posters, they all look awful, but goddamn, fuck that Garona poster and everything about it.

Also, oh no, the pirated wow server got shut down.

[Deleted]

I have gaming time in blizzard for 2 years ahead because of tokens and still was playing nostlarius , i brought vanilla back in the day played it and payed for it . People cant apply to me "the game was shit back then" the harder and more complex a thing is its more fun for me . I will always play blizzard because i love to follow lore and quest and since i started on warcraft 3 ROC i love the whole game . But i aint defending free servers also , blizzard are the creators and owners , they can do what they want , its just too bad because they have the files and everything and keep and will always refuse with their "we are going ahead" statements to stop us from enjoying what we really wanted in the game But for me personally these days wow became more of single player i just enjoy the new content and once its over i'm out

The sad part here is blizzard usually dont care about private servers , but as they grow and people enjoy that content more and as we see current player-base going down and down , they just want to somehow keep decent number of players . Witch i cant really decide if bad or sad

[Shudder]

Instead of stealing Blizzard's game maybe they should do a kickstarter and make their own game. If there is truly a demand for that type of game then it surely will reach it's goal right? It totally won't bomb like Wildstar...

[kamuimac]

"But the keystone runs are different, and are only limited by the availability of keystones"

this will be super hilalrius in before : " lfm 1 dps mythic dungeons X difficulty must have keystone or gtfo" ^^

[Shudder]

meanwhile.. "I don't want these complex rotations, because my old fingers don't handle them anymore"..
Indeed. We want to make sure there are talents that create an enjoyable gameplay experience for those people too! (Celestalon)

Said no one ever. I swear he invented that post to justify all the shit pruning going on.

There should be different levels of rotations based on difficulty. The higher the difficulty the higher the risk but if pulled off give better dps. We should be rewarded for working harder than a faceroll class.

[maccajoe]

Tbh i think NoS and the community is pretty selfish here and solely looking at if from their own perspective. Its all about their and the communities nostalgia. "Our want and need to play vanilla wow"
They openly thank blizzard for making the game and thank them for vanilla wow but actively decided to essentially "steal" the game. I mean an open letter like that is nice but abit late dont you think?
I played on NoS with 2 months game time and the exact moment i made my char i knew this would not last.

Yea sure blizz have not been "strict" with a lot of other private servers and maybe they were targeting NoS specifically. They most likely arnt considering the players in this situation.

But if you really love something you will unhappily let it go. Vanilla wow is gone gents.

[Grimalkin of Old]

Instead of stealing Blizzard's game maybe they should do a kickstarter and make their own game. If there is truly a demand for that type of game then it surely will reach it's goal right? It totally won't bomb like Wildstar...

I have a better idea: you will learn the difference between "unlicensed use of intellectual property for non-profit" and "stealing"; and after that Blizzard will recognize the demand for a service and provide it legally, or at least won't obstruct it, like many other companies do for years.