Gamescom Interviews
Now that Gamescom is over the last few interviews are popping up with a few interesting details. (via Digitalspy, GameInformer, Allvatar, and JudgeHype)

Patch 4.3+
  • The new 5 man dungeons will help to introduce the Deathwing Raid.
  • The current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release.
  • The Deathwing raid will be smaller than Ulduar with many phases or encounters with Deathwing.
  • Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion.
  • The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.

Future Changes and Features
  • Paid Guild Transfers are still in the works.
  • Battle.net account wide achievements are still in the works.
  • Armor dyes are unlikely to be included in the game, but mount customization is a possibility.
  • Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.
  • No gold sinks are coming soon because of the large variance in the amount of gold players have.
  • A real money Auction House is not planned for WoW.

Other Notes
  • RealID LFD grouping was originally going to be paid because of the similarity to Paid Character Transfers, but they decided it was the right thing for the game to offer it for free.
  • Cross realm RealID grouping is going to be expanded to cover Battlegrounds as well. Depending on how well that works it could be expanded to raids and rated battlegrounds.
  • There has been a drop in gold farming because phishing and hacking accounts is more profitable.
  • New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming for very basic concepts like moving, questing, fighting, and looting.
  • Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
  • The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week but removed some extra content that could be done every week. Some changes will be made in the future to make everyone happier with the solution.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Transmogrification of Heirlooms
I'd like to provide an update on this statement I made. It turns out that Heirlooms will be eligible targets for Transmogrification. Also (and this applies to all Transmogrified items), trading, mailing, auctioning or depositing an item in a guild bank will remove the Transmogrified art, returning the item in question to its original artwork. So, while you won't have to stare at the same old Heirlooms the whole time you're leveling, you won't be able to send a set of Heirlooms that have been Transmogrified with tier 13 art to your level 10 alt.

[...] Mainhand can only be applied to mainhand, and offhand can only be applied to offhand. This is partially due to the restrictions on certain types of weapon art.

Again, these are our first tentative steps with Transmogrification, and there's room for modifying the rules later on after the system is introduced, and we see how things shake out. Heck, the rules aren't even quite set in stone right now, and might change further before the system is introduced. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Transmogrification as a Gold Sink
The gold cost for Transmogrification hasn't been set in stone, but it's likely to be very similar to Reforging, meaning it'd scale with item level (probably the level of the item actually equipped). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Transmogrification Options
The gear also still has to have stats aside from armor on it. That means that there are a lot of white or grey items that might not be available initially when Transmogrification goes live.

As an aside, a lot of people have been asking about hiding shoulders, belts, etc. For now, it's looking pretty unlikely that we'll offer the option to hide anything aside from helm and cloak. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Fan Art Update
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.




Comics
Dark Legacy Comics #302 and Teh Gladiators #264 + #265 are available!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Gamescom Patch 4.3 Interviews, Blue Posts, Fan Art, Comics started by chaud View original post
Comments 244 Comments
  1. AetherMcLoud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greyghost View Post
    Blizzard desperately needs to put in a class-by-class tutorial for each time you create a new character of a particular class, with an explanation of what kind of gear you want to aim for (with the quests appearing again when you hit level 40). Blizzard also needs to do a pass over the gear available in Outlands to rework dungeon drops and quest rewards to better accommodate for the gearing needs of shaman/druids/cloth DPS.

    Bleh. Like they'd read here.
    Well the class description in the character creation window clearly mention what each class is capable off, what armor class it wants to wear, and nowadays even what stats they want. I'm not at my home pc now to check but IIRC it says stuff like "Priests are the masters of healing, but can also deal damage by harnessing shadow power, etc. Priest wear cloth armor and their primary attributes are Intellect and Willpower." and "Hunters form a bond for life with their beast companions and deal damage with Bows and Guns. They wear Leather armor, and later Mail armor. Their primary attribute is Agility."

    So I would think by just READING those, new players should already get a nice overview of what armor a class should wear, and what stats it values. Are new gamers these days really that "bad" (for the lack of a better word, maybe "uneducated" would be better...)? Or do they simply lack reading comprehension and have ADS so they just click them shiny buttons without reading anything?
  1. mmoca064414628's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Belial View Post
    "New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming." Yay!!.. dumping down content even further :
    I think they will introduce a "tutorial" more exhaustive than the few starting hints
  1. Every Pwny's Avatar
    Everyone seems to be missing the best thing about today's post, which is that nelf fanart. If they looked that cool all my characters would be nelfs.
  1. Reparator's Avatar
    Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
    I think that this is the state WoW is in right now Blizz is cutting down on expenses to get even more money from WoW and is happy about it, players not so much.
  1. AetherMcLoud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Every Pwny View Post
    Everyone seems to be missing the best thing about today's post, which is that nelf fanart. If they looked that cool all my characters would be nelfs.
    You must mean the Bloodelf fanart
  1. Zeelot's Avatar
    "The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions."

    This really has my interest, I guess we'll find out what it means eventually. I wonder if it means since Cata will end when all these new MMO's are coming out, they'll bring out the next expansion right away. Can't wait for that!

    I'm assuming the new 5-player dungeons will be something like the 3 dungeons before ICC, they'll introduce the raid in some fashion, I wonder what they'll be.

    I am excite.
  1. La's Avatar
    Jee, if they rushed Cata out I wonder how releasing the next expansion in even LESS time will work out. hopefully not revamping and changing zones/quests so much will make a huge difference.
  1. wafs's Avatar
    i love how they say they are expensive quests to make, yet this is coming from the biggest MMO devs in the world. I've played other MMOs that are way smaller and have time to put class quests in.. and these were MMOs that had 20 classes, not counting the multiple specs they could use. 9 quest lines are really that hard to do? Nope. They proved they could do good when they implimented the Hyjal Dailies, imagine they did that but instead of hyjal dailies, every class got an epic quest chain.
  1. Kashydan's Avatar
    seriously - if someone is STILL having trouble in the first 30 or so minutes, with the tutorials,tooltips and official helpguides ingame,in the manual and on the official wow-page...i'm not sure if anyone would wanna play with someone THAT stupid O_o
  1. mmocac2167c081's Avatar
    My take of the class quests is that they would rather do 10 quests that everyone can do rather than 10 quests where you can only do 1.I wonder if the next expansion will be something like the AQ gates opening. I.e. each server has to have complete stuff before it is live on that server.As for more help for new starters, I can see how that might be needed. Most games teach you how to play often at a click here to move level.
  1. mmocba4f7a59a4's Avatar
    why does blizzard want to keep people without gaming experience playing wow? if you cant handle the starting zone..lol...you're going to quit the game anyway at laters levels.Why?its obvious.
  1. methwow's Avatar
    this just proves how lasy blizzard has become ,yet people let them get away with it.
  1. mmocfb9b21b1d4's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kashydan View Post
    seriously - if someone is STILL having trouble in the first 30 or so minutes, with the tutorials,tooltips and official helpguides ingame,in the manual and on the official wow-page...i'm not sure if anyone would wanna play with someone THAT stupid O_o
    Maybe...

    Reality: GoldSpammer just registers new Accounts to spam Gold-Ads within the first 30 minutes.

    What Blizzard thinks when they read their Log-Files: OMG! The first 30 Minutes are still horrible!

  1. wiIdi's Avatar
    The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week..
    No one was forced to do both every week, the shared 10 and 25 man lockout solved one problem and created 10 other, had a negative effect on pug raids and was a terrible decision.
  1. Scratches's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by spinalc0rd View Post
    Don't get me wrong i'll be trying both SWTOR and GW2(Best looking upcoming MMO Gameplaywise) but i certainly don't see any of them capable of harming WoW whatso ever. Especially SWTOR it just doesnt do anythnig groundbreaking at all.
    And apparently you forget that WoW, when it was released, didn't do anything groundbreaking either. The only noteworthy differences it had, compared to its then-competitors, were more quests (almost exponentially so) and no loading screens between zones (e.g., Elwynn <--> Redridge) -- that's it. So, saying you think future MMOs like SWTOR will provide no meaningful competition, when the very game you're championing had virtually the same pre-launch reception, is a bit hypocritical, to say the least.

    On topic: The fact that they keep referring to the next raid as the "Deathwing Raid" kind of has me a bit worried (superficially speaking). Besides "smaller than Ulduar," (aside from just mentioning Ulduar (*gasp!* He said Ulduar! *Swoon*), what exactly is the point in saying this? every raid in the game is smaller than Ulduar... ), they describe it as having multiple phases/encounters with Deathwing, and this makes me think that... say if it has 6 boss fights/encounters, 5 of them will be Deathwing... in different forms (on his tail, on his back, on his nose, on his chin, inside his mouth), and the 6th one will be at the very beginning, where he - in human form (gotta use that model somewhere other than in the Badlands, right?) - commands his dog Sparky the Smoldering Chihuahua to attack you.
    Hell, maybe they can make Sparky roam around the front gates to both Orgrimmar and Stormwind (in both places at the same time!), and whenever someone attacks him, all level 85 players in the attacking player's group/raid are whisked away to some meta elemental plane in the sky (yet under water (but not in water), above the ground, and on fire, all at the same time), and BAM, there's the setting for Deathwing's Raid... (can you hear my eyes rolling yet? lol)

    Wait, doesn't Deathwing die in the latest book, Twilight of the Aspects, anyway? Why the raid? It's been tradition that whatever happens in the books doesn't happen in-game... o.O

    Anyway, 4.3 is at least 6 months away, I'd guess (they're still working in the planning stages of Mogging and Void Storage, for example), so they have ample time to rethink their raid plan. Besides, I'm more excited for 4.4 anyway, and for this failed venture of an expansion to be done with. Bring on the Pandaren!
  1. Vannishh's Avatar
    cant wait for the real id friends so i can do arenas with my buddy from a different server.
  1. ~Valen~'s Avatar
    Finally, Battle.net account wide achievement!
  1. Tridus's Avatar
    Seems like they're just trying to rush out the next expansion with a lot less content in this one as compared to others. Probably due to all the subscribers leaving.
  1. Somarlane's Avatar
    Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
    Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.
    The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects <snip>
    • Undercity? Thunderbluff? Silvermoon? Maybe those Alliance cities other than SW? UC is a p.i.t.a. to fly around in, TB was the site of a massacre (in the Golden book), Silvermoon still has ruins... oh, and when will players be able to use their old-world flying license in TBC starting zones?
    • Serious bugs in raids and abilities/spells that made it to live.
    • Class homogenization.

    I could keep going, but I'll sit on myself and shut up now.
  1. mmoc0d8e6c2903's Avatar
    Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
    Turns out 900.000 people disagree but at least Blizzard is happy........are they for real?

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