Update (9:20 PM EST): Added Dec 18 hotfixes

Raid Finder Missing Loot, December 17 Hotfixes, Highmaul Raid Guides

World of Warcraft in the New Year
Lots of Patch 6.1 and other announcements today!

  • Tradable game time tokens that you can sell to other players for gold.
  • A legendary follower is coming to the legendary quest line.
  • Better flight path routing.
  • The long awaited heirloom tab.
  • Blood Elf modes and other new character model fixes.
  • Blackrock Foundry in February
  • The ability to send tweets from in game.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
World of Warcraft has had quite an eventful year. We released the newest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, on November 13. The first raid opened up in early December, and players have had a go at some of Draenor’s most fearsome foes. We marked the 10-year World of Warcraft and 20-year Warcraft anniversaries in-game and with an incredible celebration at BlizzCon last month; debuted a new documentary, World of Warcraft: Looking for Group, on YouTube and Hulu; and released a new pet to support the American Red Cross and their Ebola relief efforts in Africa—and we’re not done yet.

We’re excited about what’s ahead in 2015, and we wanted to give you a glimpse at some of the long-term projects we’re working on, as well as some features planned for the Patch 6.1 update, which will be hitting the Public Test Realm (PTR) soon.

Feeling Legendary
We hope everyone is enjoying the Legendary quest line with Khadgar, the next step of which opens up with the Blackrock Foundry raid in the new year. We’re already working on the steps after that, and the quest line will continue in Patch 6.1, where the first-ever Legendary Follower (with suitably Legendary abilities) will be available to join your Garrison. If you’re a fan of collecting Followers but haven’t set out on the Legendary quest line, now is a good time to get started!

Pepe’s Favorite New Feature
We’re working on the ability to send out Tweets—including screenshots—directly from within WoW, making it easier than ever to let friends know about your Achievements and item drops. We’ll be testing this functionality on the Patch 6.1 PTR.

Flight Master Competency
We have some new tech in the works that will allow flight masters to provide more-direct routes to your destination, regardless of the flight points your character knows. This’ll mean fewer roundabout routes; the flight masters will instead always try to send you on the shortest existing route. Hopefully, this will get you to your destination faster.

All About That Base
Garrison improvements, tweaks, and additions are on the horizon. While we’re working on some bigger additions for later on, we have a lot of other changes and additions you’ll see on the next PTR. We’re working on making visiting your friends’ Garrisons even more rewarding, with a daily visitor to set you and your friends on a fun random task (complete with rewards, Achievements, and a meta-Achievement for finishing all of the tasks). We’ll have awesome new items to spend your Garrison Resources on, new Missions to complete with fun new rewards, new items to change your Followers with, a new tier of Garrison-invasion difficulty for the most tenacious of defenders among you (can your Garrison withstand a world boss?), new profession-building Missions, and a whole lot more!

New Ways to Play
We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system. A few other online games offer a similar option, and players have suggested that they’d be interested in seeing something along those lines in WoW. We agree it could be a good fit for the game, and we look forward to any feedback you have as we continue to look into this feature.

Collecting Your Heirlooms
We’re pretty far along in development on the much-talked-about Heirloom tab. This will bring the whole Heirloom system into a single account-wide collection UI and provide a clear purchase/upgrade path for all items. Heirlooms already on characters will be collected into the new UI (similar to other Collections features), base-level Heirlooms will be purchasable from vendors, and upgrade tokens that can be used on Heirlooms to raise their effectiveness to additional level caps will be obtainable through different forms of content. We’ll be looking for your feedback on the new system when the 6.1 PTR goes live.

eSports’in
The new War Games skirmishes feature allows anyone to run an online tournament, and we’re excited to see even more community-run tournaments in 2015. We’ll of course be running tournaments with our eSports partners as well, and will release details as those plans are finalized. As you saw at the Arena World Championship, we’ve come up with an improved UI to help viewers better follow the action, but we’ve been working on a complete overhaul for next year—with the goal of making it widely available for use in player-run tournaments, partner tournaments, and online casting. We hope to be able to share more soon.

You’re More Beautiful Every Day
As we discussed in the recent preview, new Blood Elf models are on their way, and we’re looking to get them in-game in an upcoming patch. Alongside the new Blood Elf models we’ll also be implementing a couple of tweaks and fixes for other character models, based on player and our own internal feedback, with some additional changes to come in future patches.

Ashran So Far
We’re continuing to focus on realm pairing and tech changes to help ensure more even fights between the Alliance and the Horde, as well as reduce the queue times to get into the PvP zone for those realms experiencing them. Further into the coming year our focus will be on updating and expanding the content Ashran offers in big new ways, but we’ll have more info on that as we get closer to patches beyond 6.1.

Game Ogre
Raiders are continuing to enjoy Highmaul in all its ogre-y glory, and we’re watching how things play out as the last couple wings open in Raid Finder difficulty. While progression through Highmaul continues, Warlord Blackhand is eagerly awaiting your arrival in the Blackrock Foundry raid. We’re expecting Blackrock Foundry to become available in February. We’ll announce specific dates once we’ve seen more of how Highmaul progression . . . progresses.

. . . And Beyond
We have a ton of awesome content planned for next year, as well as some fun surprises, and we can’t wait to share more. See you in-game!

Patch 6.1 Heirloom Changes
Below is a rough translation of a post from the EU forums. Please keep in mind it is a translation and isn't perfectly accurate.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
I'd like to take this opportunity to provide some information about heirlooms:

  • We plan to them available again with patch 6.1. They are currently being redesigned to fit the new stat system.
  • The heirlooms will be sold for gold and base level will go up to level 60. Once you buy a heirloom, it will be available for all characters on your account, as toys and pet are now.
  • The base heirlooms can be upgraded to Tier 2 (usable up to level 90) and Tier 3 (usable up to level 100) in exchange for emblems that will be obtained as a reward for some tasks completed within the game.

Patch 6.0.3 Hotfixes - December 18
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
  • Outposts
    • [Requires a realm restart.] Completing a quest for a newly swapped Outpost building should no longer cause it to incorrectly revert back to a pre-swapped state.

Classes
  • Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Talents
      • Clarity of Will's (Discipline) protective ward on a critical effect should now be correctly reduced by Battle Fatigue in PvP combat.
    • Glyphs
      • Glyph of the Inquisitor should now correctly be dealing self-damage against the Priest (with a chance to break crowd control effects) in PvP combat against enemy players with glyphed crowd control abilities that removes damage over time effects on the target.
  • Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Assassination
      • Envenom should no longer incorrectly consume all of the Rogue's combo points if the ability misses or was dodged.
    • Subtlety
      • Hemorrhage periodic effect should now be able to critically strike.

Quests
  • Talador
    • [Requires a realm restart.] Socrethar's Demise: Resolved an issue that could cause Socrethar to become unattackable.
  • Legacy
    • Report to the King: Resolved an issue where completing this quest was incorrectly causing Hero's Call: Redridge Mountains! and My Son, the Prince to become unavailable
    • Warning the Warchief: Resolved an issue where completing this quest was incorrectly causing Machines of War and Enemies Below to become unavailable.

Creatures and NPCs
  • Frostfire Ridge
    • Iron Cannoneers no longer drop Iron Horde Scraps.
  • Gorgrond
    • Iron Banshee should now correctly award credit towards completing Assault on the Pit.

Dungeons, Raids, and Scenarios
  • Dungeons
    • The Everbloom
      • Xeri'tac: Resolved an issue that could cause Venom-Crazed Pale One to not spawn in correctly.

PvP
  • Ashran
    • Fangraal and Kronus now costs 3000 Artifact Fragments to summon (up from 1000).

Items
  • Primal Spirit should now be dropping more frequently while harvesting mineral and herb nodes outside of the Garrison, from Skinning, and in a satchel obtained by completing the daily Fishing quest from the Garrison Fishing Shack.
  • Potions purchased from the Brawler's Guild are now bind on pickup.
  • Guide: Sharpshooting should now correctly have a chance to drop for Hunters from rare Draenor NPCs and creatures.
  • Kowalski's Music Box should now correctly apply its soothing effect to targets that are not in combat.
  • World Shrinker's effect is now removed when mounting up.

UI
  • Premade Groups should no longer display a Scenarios category for characters that are above level 90.
This article was originally published in forum thread: World of Warcraft in the New Year, Patch 6.1 Heirloom Changes started by chaud View original post
Comments 312 Comments
  1. Yakshamash's Avatar
    Chineses already selling 2-month GCs for 40k-50k gold?
  1. deadman1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Roadblock View Post
    Bought with ingame gold ... lol

    not P2W
  1. Baneleaf's Avatar
    I would like to see some sort of confirmation about the multiple heirloom items as well as the rings. I have posted on most of the tab discussions and never get a real reply. Also the token for game time will cut down on the scam artist that like to try to sell false codes. Either way these seem like some nice additions. Now can we get a tabbard tab so that I can repurchase and actually use the slew of tabbards I have vendored or destroyed over the years.
  1. Darkhallows's Avatar
    The Legendary Follower is Cordana, I'll bet 100%.

    ...Introducing Warden Class? Pls.
  1. Roadblock's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mush View Post
    Bought with ingame gold ... lol

    not P2W
    Yeah all those transfers were paid with ingame gold, you're so clever...
  1. Salech's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by darkthunder View Post
    I'll take direct flightpaths over personal flight any day. WoW is FUN again, and the world feels a lot more alive when players are forced to remain grounded. As much as I enjoyed flying over the years, the game lost a lot of it's fun. Roaming around Draenor, discovering new treasures, or new rares has been an absolute blast. I hope they continue on this route in the patches/expansions to come (just wish the Rare Mob loot was Bind-on-Equip, or at least Bind-on-Account).
    Funny that with this new "ground only" thing i've seen less people than i did in freaking Cataclysm where people could fly right away (excluding ashran).
  1. Ryme's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Roadblock View Post
    Yeah all those transfers were paid with ingame gold, you're so clever...
    Isn't it just the worst watching the p2w transition slowly happen and having people endless decree you as a fool. My personal gripe is the "it's just an advantage, that's not p2w!" *shudder*
  1. Nalam the Venom's Avatar
    Fking finally! you can buy gold legally ingame xD Hopefully that kills the gold sellers
    Too them fking long enough
  1. deadman1's Avatar
    So are all existing heirlooms being nerfed to level 60?

    If so, that seems a bit trashy to nerf items that were farmed by people.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Roadblock View Post
    Yeah all those transfers were paid with ingame gold, you're so clever...
    That is their choice, it isn't a necessity, worlds first guild didn't do it.

    Also, worlds first or third, or thirty fifth doesn't make you a better person. It just means you are dedicated.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Ryme View Post
    Isn't it just the worst watching the p2w transition slowly happen and having people endless decree you as a fool. My personal gripe is the "it's just an advantage, that's not p2w!" *shudder*
    It's not P2W it's a loophole.
  1. Baneleaf's Avatar
    For all of the p2w tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist, people are already buying game time for in game gold, this just makes it much more secure. One of our raiders in MoP had a great job, no kids, and no real responsibilities other than work. However he worked like 65 hours a week and would routinely buy game cards and sell them to friends for gold. Now he only did this for friends, and the people he did it for were more than happy to farm gold for a week and buy game time for the next two months from him. This will no allow folks to buy from folks they dont know without the fear of getting scammed with fake game time codes. This should have been done a long time ago and it would have put the gold sellers and account hackers out of business.
  1. Mormolyce's Avatar
    I already know several people who exchange gold for play time on the sly. Don't see a problem with a CREDD/FLEX/whatever style system.

    All it does is allow players to trade game time. Shrug. Might actually sell some myself for the lulz...

    Quote Originally Posted by Roadblock View Post
    They server transfered all over Asia buying BMAH gear?

    You can only take what, 20k with you? So they must've bought hundreds of thousands of gold on each server.

    All so they could appear on a list on a third party website that people will be interested in for a few weeks. Because world first, again, is not something that's actually in-game, only realm first is.

    All I can say to that is LO-motherfucking-L.
  1. Moradim's Avatar
    I guess people need to practice their trade chat spam now.

    "U RIKE GEARS? U BUY TIME $20k/1 MONTH, BECOME VERY BEST PLAYER!"

    gotta sound authentic, right
  1. Mormolyce's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ryme View Post
    Isn't it just the worst watching the p2w transition slowly happen and having people endless decree you as a fool. My personal gripe is the "it's just an advantage, that's not p2w!" *shudder*
    Being subbed to the game is winning?

    Doesn't this make the game LESS pay to win if anything? Previously - everyone needed to pay real $ to even play. Now, some people will be able to play for free using only currency obtained ingame...
  1. Chloral's Avatar
    People crying about the PLEX-like system are morons. This is the greatest thing that could happen to WoW. It will finally kill gold sellers.
  1. Apexis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bigmac View Post
    Forget the flight routing...JUST ENABLE FLYING!!!
    Sorry, You might want to buck up and get that butt really tight, because I doubt flying is not coming back to the game and if the routing system works well they very well might put it in the older content as well. I am so used to not flying now, I have not used one in the older content since the expansion dropped and I was wanting flying to come back, but I have adapted to the new way of play the game, which is the very old way of playing the game that I enjoy back then as well.

    Though they do have a lot of my money and gold, which I would take some about 20k gold for and say have nice day to never see flying again. I know I have paid more that in both time and money for the various levels of flying across some 20 characters and let not forget those store mounts the simply look stupid on the ground.
  1. mmoc59a71d5d3f's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chloral View Post
    People crying about the PLEX-like system are morons. This is the greatest thing that could happen to WoW. It will finally kill gold sellers.
    There are few mmo having the "plex-like system" (like Rift) and there are still goldsellers on those games. Instead of selling gold, they're selling the game's "plex" much cheaper than the official ones.

    Goldsellers will never die.
  1. Schmilblick's Avatar
    New Ways to Play
    We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system. A few other online games offer a similar option, and players have suggested that they’d be interested in seeing something along those lines in WoW. We agree it could be a good fit for the game, and we look forward to any feedback you have as we continue to look into this feature.
    Now I'm interested, i have time to play but i can't play, i hope this will be implemented soon

    Quote Originally Posted by Yakshamash View Post
    Chineses already selling 2-month GCs for 40k-50k gold?
    I need the link to this offer
  1. Crembrole's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Youarefired View Post
    Sending Tweets in game? What the hell is the point of that? Who even uses Twitter?
    Millions and millions of people? From world leaders to big game devs to movie stars to little old grandmas?
  1. Korru's Avatar
    6.1?

    Moar liek 6.0.5, m i rite?
  1. Moradim's Avatar
    where the fuck is tanaan jungle, btw?

    content patch with no content, gotta love it

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