Baleroc World First Kill Video, Jobs at Curse, Baine Bloodhoof, Blue Posts

10:40 PDT 07/12/11
All realms are now available for play. Thank you for your patience and we’ll see you in game!

The subject line says it all.

We will be posting a new sticky thread with the answers to thirteen of your most popular questions (on the subject of healing) on Friday, July 15th at 9AM PDT.

There's a number of reasons as to why we might change around maintainance times, Sèrènity. They may be longer or shorter depending on how much needs to be accomplished in that time. What we need to accomplish may change over time too, and times and schedules can be affected by that.

Some of you noticed the maintenance time was shortened by a couple of hours - that wasn't a typo, that was a change in plans. It was decided less needed to be done this week, so less time is allotted for the maintenance.

As for why maintenance is a little earlier, some things may need to be done within a specific window of time. In addition, we want to make sure that window interferes as little as possible with your play time. There's very little chance we can ever do maintenance at a time when it won't inconvenience SOMEONE, so we do our best to pick and move times where appropriate to impact fewer players.

I know this is all wonderfully cryptic, but I hope it provides at least a bit of the insight you were looking for. >^.^<

I live in Perth, so local time is 4pm-10pm, which eliminates any possibility of play for me. I'm not using this as a reason against it, since you can't please everyone (Someone needs to get hit by it), but I assumed the previous time slot was the most ideal, is all. Has that changed at all?
No, that has not changed. This just means there are certain situations or circumstances where we'll change the maintenance window to align with other tasks and ensure as little downtime as possible.

For all intents and purposes, tomorrow morning's maintenance window is an exception to the norm. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Of all the heroes of the tauren tradition, Cairne Bloodhoof stands highest among them for his contributions to his race. Uniting a people who had been nomadic for countless generations, securing an alliance that saved his race from extinction at the hands of the centaur, establishing the first permanent capital city the tauren had ever known -- the list of his accomplishments grows with each retelling.

As the new high chieftain, Baine Bloodhoof now struggles to hold together the legacy that his father helped create. In the face of increased dissension from the tribes over Garrosh Hellscream's ever-present demands, Alliance incursions from the Barrens, and quilboar assaults on his people, the young chieftain finds his leadership tested as never before.

Hamuul shook his head as if to clear it. "We existed in a time before the coming of the orcs, if you'll remember. Your father may have owed a debt to Thrall for all he did for our people, but this is a new Horde. I have heard whispers of other tauren. Some are wondering if this Horde is really something we should be a part of anymore." He snorted. "The Horde has done much and we owe much to it, but you must admit that their sentiments are not completely without merit."

Baine pulled a map from the shelf and began looking for all known water wells in Mulgore. "As you say, my father may have owed a debt to Thrall, but he believed in the Horde he helped shape. Though my father may be gone, and despite these changes we face, I still believe in the Horde."

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present the latest entry in the Leaders of Azeroth short story series: "As Our Fathers Before Us"!

Legendary Staff - 25 Embers, now what?
If you've reached the Delegation portion of the legendary quest line, it's a puzzle that intrepid raiders will need to solve starting on your next instance reset. Keep on the lookout for key hints and items during each boss fight in your raid after the next maintenance period. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Raid Encounters Design and Tuning
We think one of the biggest challenges in encounter design for a 7-year old game is coming up with mechanics that long-time players haven’t seen a dozen times before. To that end, we're really reluctant to put too many constraints on encounter design. The majority of our fights have 2 tanks and we think that’s close enough. Shoe-horning a 2nd tank role into a fight for which it doesn’t really fit doesn’t make that 2nd tank feel any more heroic – they are often just soaking cleaves, doing taunt swaps, or corralling adds or something.

On normal mode Firelands, the numbers are tuned such that you can get away with comps with fewer tanks and healers, if you’re overgeared or fairly skilled. In Heroic mode, there is only one fight (Majordomo) designed as a single tank fight. Some guilds use one tank on Baelroc, but that puts a lot of stress on the healers, and we see a lot of guilds use two as well. We also see DPS sometimes try to tank, or see tanks tank in DPS gear. It depends a lot on what your group can manage.

I’ll also point out that we had a much more inconsistent number of tanks before dual spec was introduced. It’s not really a dual spec issue at all. We wouldn’t expect a lot of zero tank or five tank fights. But again, it’s more important for us to have diverse, fun encounters than for everyone in the raid to get equal time in the spotlight on every single encounter. If you never get your time, that’s another matter, but I don’t think we’re there. On the other hand, some fights (Shannox and Alysrazor) give two tanks some really fun things to do.

7 also isn’t a lot of bosses (in terms of pure head count, not content or quality), so it’s hard to extrapolate a lot of “trends” at this point. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Goblins Alchemy Racial Bonus
We picked the +15 to Alchemy bonus for goblins because there has always been a strong association between the race and the profession. Not only do goblins have a notable, if not sometimes-deadly penchant for experimentation in World of Warcraft (just take a look at Goblin Rocket Fuel, for example), but there was a Goblin Alchemist unit in Warcraft III, as well as a goblin alchemist building in Warcraft II. So the bonus fits both thematically and in terms of precedence.

Of course, you might feel differently and think that alchemy meshes a little better with another race, or that another profession (like mining) might be better suited for goblins, and that's cool. We're pretty happy with where goblin racials are currently, but we certainly always appreciate your feedback -- be it about something as large as class balance or as specific as how racial bonuses tie in terms of lore. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Insane in the Membrane in Cataclysm
Yes, you can still earn the Insane In The Membrane achievement, which grants the title.

Cataclysm made some aspects of it a bit easier, and some even more insane than before. Ravenholdt reputation in particular, if you didn't work on it prior to 4.0, is simply punishing.

Have fun out there! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Guild Reputation and Guild Permissions
We know that players would like to see more guild management options based around guild reputation, be that in terms of setting up bank permissions (like you've suggested) or simply sorting the roster by current reputation level. While we don't have any plans that we can share with you right now on that topic, we've definitely been listening to your feedback and this is something we're considering iterating/improving upon for future content. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battle.net Authenticator Recent Changes
This isn't a money saving scheme since your not actually spending anything to generate the code, nor are you impacting bandwidth in anyway. While your concerns are noted, your account no less secure than it was before, the only change is that you will only be prompted once a week to enter unless you change IP address, from where you'll need to enter your authenticator code.

There are a lot of valid concerns, which our developers are aware about, however we cannot give a direct response to all posts made.

Never the less we are not ignoring any feedback posted, its read and noted.

As for authenticator information, this is managed server side not on your actual system. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)