Digital Download, Deathy Animations, Capital Cities Quartermasters, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

Digital Download Rumors
I got a crazy amount of mails from players concerned about the digital download version of Cataclysm. Someone pointed out that a post on the customer support forum mentions that pre-rendered cinematic are not part of the digital download anymore.

I usually do not comment that kind of stuff, but I would like to point out that people are going crazy over a post made 2 weeks before the sale of the Cataclysm digital download started and things are very different in this case. There aren't any official confirmations that the cinematics will not be part of the Cataclysm digital download and I strongly suggest that you all wait for a blue reply, I really don't see Blizzard slapping a huge % of their playerbase in the face by not including cinematics in the Cataclysm client.

This is most likely just a bug and we will probably have an official post about that very soon.


Deathy - Blizzcon Pet Animations
Deathy was shipped without his animations and a lot of people are wondering how awesome their new friend is, hopefully you will find the answer in this short video.

Cataclysm Models - Therazane
I forgot to post this model a while back, Therazane the Stonemother got her own unique model in Cataclysm and it's ridiculously awesome.

Cataclysm - Capital Cities Quartermasters
With the expansion, Capital Cities will finally have their own quartermasters and rewards! Don't get too excited, they're only low level rewards, but some of you will probably like the idea of having a set of tabard/cloak with the emblem of your faction.

Each quartermaster offers:

• A faction tabard, these tabards finally allow you to level your capital cities reputations in instances. (eg. Darnassus Tabard)
• 3 Low level cloaks (eg. Cape of Darnassus, Mantle of Darnassus, Shroud of Darnassus)
• A 16-slot bag (eg. Darnassian Satchel)

Zerg vs World of Warcraft
This is what happens when Starcraft 2 meets World of Warcraft! (From SC2Mapster)

Blue Posts

Armor Penetration
Armor penetration as a concept is not overpowered. We're not worried about Sunder Armor for example. Armor penetration as a stat was overpowered. There was no reasonable mathematical way for us to prevent armor pen rating on gear from just being better and better the more you stack, which has a number of problems, such as making other stats unattractive and making a dude with a lot of armor pen overpowered. (Source)

PvP Damage
Some of those numbers have already come down. If you recall, Fury dps was low with the patch, so we buffed it, knowing that we would have to nerf it again to keep it under control at 85, especially with Colossus Smash and Deep Wounds. Ret had a similar issue with Inquisition.

We definitely want to increase survival time in PvP relative to what it was in Lich King. We are considering increasing resilience at 85 or even bumping health pools across the board even more. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Vanish in Cataclysm
The purpose of Vanish in Cataclysm is to get back into stealth. If you want to avoid harmful effects, use Cloak of Shadows.

We grew tired, as did many players, of "Vanish never works LOL" so we looped back to the original intent of Vanish being about stealth. That is why the tooltip specifically says that harmful effects won't break Vanish, but does *not* say that the harmful effects won't land. We understand some rogues liked using Vanish to "dodge spells" but the ability was never designed to work that way and never was going to work that way very well. The more we tried to let it be a damage negater, the harder time we had letting it guarantee stealth.

There is a current live bug with pets and guardians being able to still target a vanished rouge. That will be fixed in an upcoming patch. Other than that, we are not aware of any issues that keep the ability from working as advertised. Most concerns seems to be rogues who want it to work a different way. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Colossus Smash
The origin behind Colossus Smash was that we realized warriors were at a disadvantage against heavily armored targets because they do no magic damage. We also wanted to put something in their rotation that was more than just another +weapon damage or +AP attack. Finally, we wanted to replace Execute in the Sudden Death talent, since that was keeping Execute's damage low, instead of it feeling like a powerful finisher. (Source)

Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #262 and Teh Gladiators #180 + #181 are out!

[Longview]

Oh god Therazane

[Deleted]

There is a current live bug with pets and guardians being able to still target a vanished rouge. That will be fixed in an upcoming patch. Other than that, we are not aware of any issues that keep the ability from working as advertised. Most concerns seems to be rogues who want it to work a different way. (Source)

Finally.

[Casa]

Zerg vs World of Warcraft video is friggen AWESOME!

[Chin Music]

They don't even try to hide how much better the Gilneas cape is than the others.

[Indiglo]

She.Is.Hideous.

[DaGhostDS]

Rumour? 0,ôrly?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...53762&sid=1#19
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=1&pageNo=2#39
i did not get the wrathgate cinematic until 3.3 -_-

[greyghost]

Therazane looks like a splice between a stone age fertility statue and the character design from Dinosaurs (the TV show from the early 90's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_%28TV_series%29 ).

And I <3 the Calvin and Hobbs costumes in DLComics.

edit: Also I am loving the fact that the tabards from the Argent Tournament are made obsolete by those new ones -- why do dailies for 2 weeks to get tokens better used on heirlooms when you can get those? 8D Ahahaha.

[velasius]

I seriously hope this was a typo:

"There is a current live bug with pets and guardians being able to still target a vanished rouge." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Simca]

Rumour? 0,ôrly?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...53762&sid=1#19
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=1&pageNo=2#39
i did not get the wrathgate cinematic until 3.3 -_-

Yes, it's a rumor considering that post was weeks and weeks ago and a more recent post (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....=1&pageNo=2#23) contradicts it completely.

[DR.Green]

Awesome video !

[Nyres]

Like Nienniora linked to the blue in that threat even mentioned the cutscenes aren't included in the streaming downloder, if that is the case how the heck are people supposed to expirence the game in full if they bought it digitally through an upgrade or at launch. Or what if they lost the disc and had no other option but to install from the internet.

[Daedius]

Damn that stone mother is HOT!


And lol @ that SC2/WoW vid... Varian got a ghost to nuke storm wind... XD

[Simca]

Like Nienniora linked to the blue in that threat even mentioned the cutscenes aren't included in the streaming downloder, if that is the case how the heck are people supposed to expirence the game in full if they bought it digitally through an upgrade or at launch. Or what if they lost the disc and had no other option but to install from the internet.

It's talking about current behavior with WRATH cutscenes.

Not even Cataclysm.

Also, it's an extremely old post. Read this: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....=1&pageNo=2#23

[Collected]

I suspect the problem with the cinematics is someone either forgot about them when they came up with this wonderful idea for a streaming client or they're downloaded right at the end of the process and people were playing the game before they had all of the files.

I suppose the problem with a "play as we stream" client is the cinematics would need to be downloaded either first or last, because you can't expect the client to just request the wrathgate file when you complete that quest and expect it to stream and play.

[DaGhostDS]

Yes, it's a rumor considering that post was weeks and weeks ago and a more recent post (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....=1&pageNo=2#23) contradicts it completely.

blizz and their consistency...

[Zokten]

Seriously? faction tabards....

[Brett Skullcrack]

Like Nienniora linked to the blue in that threat even mentioned the cutscenes aren't included in the streaming downloder, if that is the case how the heck are people supposed to expirence the game in full if they bought it digitally through an upgrade or at launch.

You watch them at YouTube:

This change comes to help decrease the overall size/download requirement of the game and the cinematics can always be view at the Blizzard Entertainment YouTube page.

Yeah, that won't break immersion at all...

[Simca]

You watch them at YouTube:

This change comes to help decrease the overall size/download requirement of the game and the cinematics can always be view at the Blizzard Entertainment YouTube page.

Yeah, that won't break immersion at all...

We don't know that yet. We have two sources contradicting each other.

Reserve judgment until you get more information.

[Marzim]

Somehow I think that the Azeroth would have a bigger chance agains the Zerg than the advanced humans in SC