Lessons of Space-Time - "The increase of chaos is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time."

Challenge Rift - Week 38

All The Witchwood Expansion and Card Clarifications You May Have Missed

Hotfix - Pantheon Trinket Drops Obey Loot Spec
Blizzard made Pantheon Trinket drops after the first always obey your loot spec.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hey guys! Just wanted to follow up with this since there was quite a bit of discussion and some really good feedback on how the Epic Pantheon Trinkets are awarded. Recently we've pushed forward a change before this current reset.

The Pantheon trinkets for drops after the first now obey your loot specializations. Previously it only followed your loot specialization for the first one and the second was random for your other specs.

Appreciate all of the feedback you guys have been giving us about this!

Mythic Dungeon Invitational: Prepping for the Time Trials
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With the Proving Grounds of the Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI) wrapping up, we wanted to share more information on the next stage of the event, the MDI Time Trials!

Everything You Need to Know About MDI Time Trials
For last year’s first Mythic Dungeon Invitational, only the top 8 teams were invited to take part in the next stage. This year, we’re allowing even more teams to compete for their share of the $200,000 global prize pool. All eligible teams who complete the MDI Proving Grounds will receive an invitation to the Tournament Realms, which are specifically configured realms for the next stage of the tournament. All players will have access to the same top-end gear to equip their character and prove that they have what it takes to be crowned as the global Mythic Dungeon Invitational champions.

What are the Time Trials?
Kicking off Tuesday, March 27, the Time Trials is a way for us to judge the overall skill, expertise, and flexibility of teams as they tackle three dungeons across different difficulties. Some teams are good at pushing high keys, or surviving nasty affixes, or maybe they’ve mastered a single dungeon. But in the MDI, teams need to have all these skills to thrive and make it to the top.

Dungeon 1 - Maw of Souls +20
  • Bursting
  • Quaking
  • Fortified

Dungeon 2 - Upper Karazhan +22
  • Raging
  • Explosive
  • Tyrannical

Dungeon 3 - Neltharion's Lair +24
  • Sanguine
  • Grievous
  • Fortified

These three dungeons will be the sole focus for teams during the week of Time Trials and all teams will have unlimited tries on the Tournament Realm to refine and master these dungeons.

Just completing the dungeons in time won’t be enough and teams will need to push themselves to see how fast they can run each of the dungeons. We’ll compile each team’s fastest time on each dungeon and add all three times together for their Time Trials score. Only the top 8 scores for each region move onto the Regional Bracket stage, so expect teams to be fiercely competitive to stay on top of the pack.

Make sure you submit your scores from the Proving Grounds period. All entries must be received by March 16 by 3:00 p.m. PDT. Only dungeons completed during the Proving Ground period will be considered.

Keep on top of all the latest news on our new MDI hub!

Voice Acted Quests Shut Down
Recently, TioMiklas started a community driven add-on project called Voice Acted Quests, which called for players to become voice actors for the quests in World of Warcraft. The addon played audio of the quest dialogue over the quest text and was voiced by members of the WoW community. The project was gaining steam, but has met the same fate as Bellular's Warcraft Tales project and was shut down by Blizzard.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Hello TioMiklas,

I’m Josh Allen, from the World of Warcraft Community Team. We came across your Voice Acted Quests project, and I have to say, the work you’ve put into it is very impressive!

Unfortunately, I’ve been told that this project infringes on our intellectual copyrights in a way that we can’t allow. You may recall a similar situation with an addon called “Warcraft Tales” a few months ago. While your project is slightly different, it’s still considered a re-performance of our established works.

Because of that, we have to ask you to stop production and distribution of the Voice Acted Quests project. Rather than going straight to delivering a legal notice, they’ve asked me to contact you directly to deliver the news and answer any questions you may have. Like I said, it’s a very impressive project and we recognize the amount of work you’ve put into it, it’s just not the sort of thing we can allow to be created using our copyright.

Sorry for the bad news.

Hey again, sorry for the delay in getting back. I managed to sync up with the higher-ups here again with your questions.

The issue isn't about any potential monetary gains. The issue is simply that Blizzard doesn't want third parties to create in-game story content for WoW, and creating a vocal performance for existing lines falls inside that. No one here thinks you’re trying to be malicious – I’m being completely honest when I say we found your work impressive!

That’s about the extent of what I can comment on myself. Anything further would need to come from our legal team.



Polygon's Warcraft Chronicle Volume 3 Preview
Polygon took a quick look at Warcraft Chronicle Volume 3 as well including a chapter that was not on the Amazon Prime Preview.



Snakes Sneak into Spring Finals from North America Cup 3
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With the Spring Finals on the horizon and Europe’s top four decided, teams from North America duked it out in the third AWC North American Cup. With Method Orange flying high after success in the second N.A. cup, their spot at the Spring Finals live event seemed guaranteed, leaving four teams in the region to battle for three spots.

The third North American cup was a story of upsets with Super Frogs not even making the top 8 and Method Orange stumbling early and falling to the lower bracket against Tilted. In what was a huge match for seeding in the Spring Finals, The Rejects, with 120 points this season, swept Method Black, who sat on 140 points, leaving both teams on the cusp of the fourth Spring Finals spot. In the upper bracket semifinals, The Rejects set themselves up for a Spring Finals berth with a 3-1 win over Fairly Caustic. On the other side, Tilted beat Sneakier Snakes in a tight 3-2 match to advance to the upper bracket finals. In the lower bracket, Method Orange went past Fairly Caustic with ease and Method Black fell to Sneakier Snakes.Snakes then eliminated the regional heavyweights 3-1 with the split pressure from the Jungle Cleave too much for Method Orange to handle.


In the upper bracket finals, The Rejects managed to get past Tilted 3-1 thanks to the burst damage from their Rogue/Shaman composition. In the lower bracket, Sneakier Snakes and Tilted set up a rematch with a spot in the cup final and a chance at the Spring Finals on the line. The series went the way of the Snakes 3-1 setting up a grand final against The Rejects with a high seed at the Spring Finals going to the winner. In the end, the damage from Sneakier Snakes’ Jungle Cleave was too much for The Rejects to handle and it was a quick sweep for the Snakes. With that win, Sneakier Snakes’ booked their spot into the Spring Finals and look to be going into the Spring Finals with all the momentum.

With the four teams from North America set—Method Orange, The Rejects, Super Frogs, and Sneakier Snakes—the field of teams for the Spring Finals is complete. Looking ahead to the Spring Finals, Sneakier Snakes are the in-form team but Method Orange have been the more dominant team from North America and are the team looking to make their mark internationally in 2018. The Spring Finals should be a stylistic matchup too, as the RMP that seems to be more prevalent in Europe will face off against the more aggressive Jungle Cleave and Windwalker/Death Knight compositions from North America.

All style battles and bragging rights will be decided at the Spring Finals beginning March 31.

Dark Legacy Comics #624
DLC #624 has been released.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Pantheon Trinket Drop Hotfix, MDI Time Trials, Voice Acted Quests Shut Down, DLC #624 started by chaud View original post
Comments 126 Comments
  1. Arainie's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnnyMccrum View Post
    I like the fact MMOchampion shoved so much information into this post that nobody will really talk about the fact Blizzard is shutting down a thriving project once again, and offering zero alternatives, once again.

    What a terrible company. Actually shutting down work by great fans of the game, yikes. way to persuade even more players you're the bad guys Blizzard.

    This addon was going to spread out your weak ass walls of text for a more immersive questing experience, such as walking into a cave and getting exposition and quest information from the environment and creatures rather than a single questgiver; it wasn't malicious at all. your walls of text are literally available to download anywhere.

    Shame on you Blizzard.
    There were some excellent explanations as to why they have little choice but to shut it down above but I suppose you closed your eyes and scrolled to avoid making an informed mistake. After all, you can only be judged based on what information you already possess, amirite?

    I for one hope they take the route of the author/community and start to voice all quests in the future (with an option to disable it or click past it at least, obviously).
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Drakile View Post
    Back in the day Blizzard would hire on crazy content developers that used Wow assets to create something else, but those days seem to be gone. Nice stuff stop creating it, thanks.
    and they still do, this literally just fucking happened, they could still contact some of these people and hire them (if they are good, but somehow i doubt they were top quality...)
    also making an addon that plays a soundfile when a quest is opened is pretty fucking easy... its not like this dude is pulling out a new innovative thing.
    Yes its nice but there is ALOT of old quests, so the mount of time and money it would take to do all of them...
  1. Byucknah The Red's Avatar
    Getting reaaaaaaaaal tired of this legal BS Blizzard...

    WoW fully voice acted like ESO would be AMAZING! I understand that its protecting their IP but damn dude... at the very least I hope that they can see the desire for this. I have faith in Blizzard to make good judgement calls and take action when the time is right but this is painful to watch.
  1. sylenna's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnnyMccrum View Post
    I like the fact MMOchampion shoved so much information into this post that nobody will really talk about the fact Blizzard is shutting down a thriving project once again, and offering zero alternatives, once again.

    What a terrible company. Actually shutting down work by great fans of the game, yikes. way to persuade even more players you're the bad guys Blizzard.

    This addon was going to spread out your weak ass walls of text for a more immersive questing experience, such as walking into a cave and getting exposition and quest information from the environment and creatures rather than a single questgiver; it wasn't malicious at all. your walls of text are literally available to download anywhere.

    Shame on you Blizzard.
    next up: an addon which changes the textures and models to player painted and modelled ones. blizzard has to let that one go! it is fan-made and so cool and not at all copyright-infringing!
  1. Vertigo X's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    and they still do, this literally just fucking happened, they could still contact some of these people and hire them (if they are good, but somehow i doubt they were top quality...)
    also making an addon that plays a soundfile when a quest is opened is pretty fucking easy... its not like this dude is pulling out a new innovative thing.
    Yes its nice but there is ALOT of old quests, so the mount of time and money it would take to do all of them...
    Did you not watch the video they posted? It's a bit more than just playing a sound clip.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    At the same time as I understand the legal issues, I sure hope the 1-60 content is coming with a MASSIVE revamp which includes visual updates to all zones, quest mechanics updates and voice acting across the board.

    Lol @ all the triggered saps whom don't understand that legal issues sort of matter in these cases though...
  1. Castrum's Avatar
    I think we all know voice-acted quests aren't being done for two reasons:

    1) It would require money, which Bobby Kotick likes keeping to himself;

    2) It would be excessively strenuous on the five in-house voice-actors Blizz uses for everything because of Point #1.
  1. Arch0s's Avatar
    The homage to the late professor Hawking was very touching, thank you.
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vertigo X View Post
    Did you not watch the video they posted? It's a bit more than just playing a sound clip.
    Except it is...?
    what part of it is "not just playing a sound clip"
  1. Static's Avatar
    Question about the change to Pantheon trinkets:

    If you already have the one for your current loot spec, can you still get another one for a random spec? Or do you have to have the loot specialization set to another?
  1. Teri's Avatar
    I'll stick to a quest Text-to-Speech addon that doesn't change anything in-game.

    How it works : it copy-pastes the last open questlog window text to clipboard, to play it with a hotkey 3rd party program. It doesnt save anything.




    Of course this was a great effort and shame to see things shut down, but it's understandable, and better early then late.
  1. AnonEntity's Avatar
    They are now Activision Blizzard. No longer Blizzard. And that's why the legal shit of the suits is now so damn more serious than ever before. Unfortunately it also manifests itself in their latest offerings (TF2+Waifus = Overwatch). They like to remember their glory days a lot nowadays.
  1. Jasper Kazai's Avatar
    The trinket drop change doesn't address how crappy of a system it is in the first place, for being a group-related trinket. We had the tank trinket drop for our resto druid on the third week, and we didn't see a single one for our actual tanks for over a month after that. Nothing we could do about it. And in that time before one of our actual tanks received one, our two plate melee DPS had already gotten a tank trinket to drop as well. It was incredibly stupid.
    Having bad luck with drop rates is one thing, but having people get a (second) trinket that they don't need over someone who does and we could do NOTHING about it is really dumb.
  1. TheDeeGee's Avatar
    RIP Voice Addon.

    No Fun Allowed!
  1. Sanguinerd's Avatar
    Those voice acted quests sounded truly aweful though.
  1. Nudu's Avatar
    Honestly legal reasons aside, I'm a blizzard fan because it always felt like they take their games personally and with love and care.
    Ever since the Activision merge I'm getting more and more burns as a fan , This legal shut down is just another bump on the road.

    Seems like CD Projekt is the last Good Guy / Good Karma company out there , sad to see Blizzard go down this road.
    World of warcraft is what it is because of fan made content , Nearly half the shit in the game was an Addon a fan made at some point - this is a really shitty attitude , mainly assuming they will never implement that level of voice acting in the game -well , ever...
  1. Vertigo X's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    Except it is...?
    what part of it is "not just playing a sound clip"
    The part where they changed the quest ui entirely.
  1. Maulis425's Avatar
    Years ago the "old Blizzard" would have welcomed people doing something like this for quests, probably would have shown a highlight reel and invited them to Blizzcon, how the mighty have fallen.
  1. mmoc029e10d7f3's Avatar
    Kinda shitty about the addon :/ Blizzard does own all the copyrights it infringes and could let it slide for a non profit addon if they actually wanted (opposed to a writer owning them that has left the company). I do understand however them not wanting people getting used to a certain voice if they decide to voice that character later or just being worried about the quality which here wasn't that great. Another thing that I feel like is justified but leaves a bad taste cause it seems it wasn't completely necessary.
  1. Ragnarocket's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vertigo X View Post
    The part where they changed the quest ui entirely.
    The questing UI wasn't a part of the WoWVAQ addon - what you are seeing there is another addon. I think it's Immersion or Storyline. I don't recall. I have it in my addon lists as well. It just helps make the text a little more tolerable.

    The addon itself did nothing more than play a sound bite when you started certain quests.

    Source: Was a small part of the project, had some voice lines in a few of the zones. Tio was always VERY careful to try and keep this as minimal as possible so that something like the shutdown wouldn't happen.

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