World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

​We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, November 25 during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

• Azshara and Azgalor
  
• Arygos and Llane
  
• Cairne and Perenolde
  
• Nathrezim and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos/Smolderthorn
  
• Winterhoof and Kilrogg
  
• Zangarmarsh and Hellscream

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, December 2 during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

• Coilfang and Dark Iron
  
• Fenris and Dragonblight
  
• Icecrown and Malygos
  
• Spirestone and Drak'Tharon/Firetree/Malorne/Rivendare
  
• Ysondre and Magtheridon

​Future Connections
We do not have a date for the following realm connections, but will update this blog post when we do.

Next Batch

• Andorhal and Ursin
  
• Crushridge and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos/Nathrezim/Smolderthorn
  
• Darrowmere and Windrunner
  
• Quel'dorei and Sen'jin
  
• Velen and Eonar

​Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections here as we can. Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other.

The connections below should be completed shortly:

• Uldum and Shen’dralar/Zul’jin
• Boulderfist and Chromaggus/Shattered Halls
• Rajaxx and Anetheron
• Agamaggan and Emeriss/Hakkar/Crushridge
• Terrodar and Dethecus/Mug’thol/Theradras
• Alexstrasza and Nethersturm

As part of our ongoing Connected Realms implementation, we will be connecting additional realms as listed below. We don’t have a specific date yet on when these connections will occur, but we’ll provide another update once we do.

• Executus and Burning Steppes/Kor’gall
• The Venture Co and Sporeggar/Scarshield Legion
• Arathi and Temple Noir/Naxxramas
• Daggerspine and Boulderfist/Chromaggus/Shattered Halls
• Area 52 and Un’Goro
• Thunderhorn and Wildhammer

Raid Finder
I am probably in the minority but just wanted to say anyway.
I really don't think you are. We can see by the numbers that it's a popular feature. As is the way with most things, if you're fine with something you're unlikely to make a thread about it—so thank you for going to the trouble.

Having said that, people do have valid issues with game features from time to time, and we make sure to pass on that feedback to the developers so they can decide whether to make any adjustments, and hopefully improve the game experience for everyone. We've made a number of tweaks to LFR since it was introduced based on your feedback, so also a big thanks to those who have highlighted other aspects.

Basically, we really appreciate good or bad feedback about LFR or any other game features, as long as it's constructive! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Flying
small no-fly zones are ok, the whole continent is way to punishing. Especially without lore reason.
I don't feel the need to justify good gameplay with lore. Why can Four Winds virmen defeat Onyxia? Good gameplay. (Source)
Believable lore and setting, must be internally consistent, is very important to a RPG.
We agree, but gameplay is more important, at least at Blizzard. Other studios design with different values. (Source)

So basically not having flying has nothing to do with immersion or exploration or interaction it's just timesink
That's almost exactly the opposite of what we said, but I know you like to argue. (Source)
it is when we are forced us to fight mobs not needed wasting my now-slim play-time ...please reconsider
But that sounds like you're arguing for a dungeon with 3 bosses in the first room.... (Source)
nope cus dungeons have a path and story ...trash has to do with dungeon and since Cata they hint next boss mechanics
Yet players still complain constantly about trash because it delays them from getting to the good stuff. (Source)

I don't want leveling to be easier/quicker. I want repeated content to have less travel/downtime.
We don't think flying makes questing quicker. We think it makes it trivial. There is a difference. (Source)

You guys always talk about player "choice" yet you enforce this issue of no flying. Double standards :|
Actually, we champion interesting decisions. Deciding whether to fly or not is not interesting, b/c flying is always better. (Source)
You will take away whole playstyles. "Fly around and herb + chatting in guild" is not who I want to gamequit.
Those will still exist. Just not at day one on the new continent. (Source)

"This thing I openly admit is not fun or compelling is valuable" is, you understand, a hard sell?
Game design, like much of art, isn't about having an intense experience 100% of the time. (Source)
You need a background upon which the epic stuff can stand against. Travel, easy fights, repairs are all part of the experience. (Source)
In the near term you might not miss them if they were gone, but in the long term, the game might feel like it had less depth. (Source)

Lorewise, what's the reason we can't fly then suddenly, we can... then we can't again?
There isn't a good one. It's not a lore-based decision. (Source)

if thats true then why do you nerf quest xp, RAF, heirlooms etc to make the grind faster?
Because otherwise hitting max level would only take more and more time the longer the game had been out. (Source)
It does NOT mean that we think leveling in a new continent is lame and shouldn't be part of the game. (Source)

why can't you just give mobs a close range dismount ability? So we can still fly high, but not low to skip mobs?
Ultimately, you are still deciding when you want to face danger in the outdoor world. That's not quite the same thing. (Source)

Also, If WoW's an escape from the drudgery of the real world, how are boring commutes until 6.1 making the game more fun?
Is clearing trash a ton of fun? Some things are in the game to provide pacing and cadence. You can't be at 11 all the time. (Source)

That could easily be fixed by adding some "anti-air units" around some quest areas, where it could work anyways.
That either means quest flying is possible but super risky or it's realistically not possible. Either way not much of a difference (Source)

What was wrong with the Wrath model of grounded leveling for main, BoA tome for alts?
If leveling is supposed to be trivial for alts, why not just make them all jump to max level? (Source)

A question: Will the PvP-Zone be a "No-Fly-Zone" even after 6.1 when we get our flying-ability back?
Almost certainly. (Source)

Misc
Are we getting cinematic WOD trailer?
Of course. No ETA. (Source)

Any news on the *clean-up of karazan* stuff being related to pre-expac event ?
Like much of what is data-mined, I would wait for an official announcement before freaking out (pro or con). (Source)

In the latest 5.4.2 PTR build, we are testing the new ability to mail account-bound items to other characters on your account that may be on different servers. Notably, this should allow you to move heirlooms between servers, in advance of our planned Warlords changes that will make them fully account-wide.

Sending this sort of mail should work like any cross-server communication: You send the item to "Playername-Servername" and it should otherwise work like regular mail. Note that you can only send account-bound items, and not other items or gold.

Example: I have a character, Thrall, on the Benedictus server. I want to send my heirloom mace to my alt, Durotan, on the Lycanthoth server. I'd log in as Thrall, and attach the mace to a mail addressed to "Durotan-Lycanthoth" and hit send.

We'd appreciate any feedback or bug reports on this new feature so that we can address any issues prior to the release of 5.4.2. But even without direct feedback, just logging into PTR and mailing account-bound items across servers should give us useful data to help confirm that the feature is working as intended. Thanks!

Classes

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Talents
    
    • Nature's Vigil should now be correctly affected by effects that modify healing (Battle Fatigue, Mortal Strike, Dampening, etc.).
      
• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Stormlash Totem's Stormlash effect now has a 50% chance to activate and deals 40% of current damage (This is up from a 20% chance to activate and down from a 100% damage increase when activated compared to a hotfix from October 4).
      
  • Talents
    
    • Stone Bulwark Totem's damage absorption shield should now be properly affected by Battle Fatigue and Dampening.
      

Pet Battles

• Battle Pets
  
  • Zao, Calfling of Niuzao's Niuzao's Charge ability should play the correct sound instead of a quote by the Headless Horseman.
    

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Siege of Orgrimmar
  
  • Paragons of the Klaxxi
    
    • Xaril the Poisoned Mind should no longer be incorrectly receiving credit in the combat log for spells cast by players that were under the effects of Canned Heat.
      

quality of life changes? whose life, ours, or the devs?

why take gems, and reforging away? is it for our benefit? it isn't for my benefit as a healer.
is the new "grind" going to be chasing the gear you really want/need in a timeless isle format? or, are the characters going to be even more simplistic, that it won't even matter. we already lost control of our mana pools, what's next. everyone will have the same mana regen?

It's a difficult conversation to come to any consensus on because different people always find different things fun. It's all rather subjective. I don't recommend anyone try to convince anyone else that they're wrong in what they understand to be fun for them. That's a waste of precious bodily fluids. However, our goal has always been and I believe always will be to create a fun and engaging game that is free from tediousness and complexities for the sake of tediousness and complexities. Easy to learn, difficult to master is our motto.

Depth and complexity of systems don't need to come from the number of buttons to click, innumerable steps to take to complete mundane tasks, or obscurity of how to go about them. Certainly decrypting game systems can be fun sometimes, but as a company we embrace a style of game that is very approachable with systems that are simple to understand on the surface but that hold a lot of genuine gameplay depth. That was true the day World of Warcraft was released, and we strive to ensure that remains true even with the addition of dozens of new systems over the years. As time marches on and we implement our latest and greatest ideas, they don't always keep pace with that design intent, and sometimes we have to make difficult decisions.

You will also find that one button that does it all......isn't so fun either.
Tooooootally agree, which is kind of what hit/expertise caps were. You either hit them or you didn't. Binary on/off buttons aren't so fun - depends how shiny the button is though I suppose.

You imply other systems in the game suffer from the same; to which are you referring?

So, you're gonna stack strength just to be different from other elemental next to you?
Kind of the interesting crux of a lot of these conversations is illusion of customization vs. actual customization vs. efficiency, and how all of those interplay.

If someone liked spending all of their talent points in the old system in strange ways and ended up being extremely sub-optimal, but felt better about their individuality and choices and therefore found that system more "fun", were they wrong? What should the efficiency gap be, and how should we as designers and game creators ensure looking up a guide vs. not looking up a guide isn't the difference between a playable game and an impossible one? If that player who enjoyed their custom build and choices saw they performed far below everyone else would they understand it was due to their choices, or would they feel like the game was being unfair to them?

All interesting topics.

why not? this game's revenues are in excess of over $1 billion dollars a year. it's not like Fred, and Ethel are busy in the backroom coding, and we can't work them too hard.
Software development is not an assembly line. Adding a another eyeball to a doll you manufacture (because ... you're insane, I guess?) and adding another person to an assembly line to install that eye isn't how a collaborative effort like software - and especially game creation which includes a lot of art and "feeling" - is created. Some of the reasons are encapsulated in Brooks's Law.

Anyway to address your "why not?" more directly, the difficulty in balance is really that we want classes and choices to feel meaningful and unique. When you play your warlock you want to feel like a warlock, and not like a slightly different mage. And so it's just a fact that uniqueness and equality are two opposing concepts (no, you're not a unique snowflake AND as good as anyone else at everything), and in that we have to find some middle ground we call balance. But you're asking why talents can't be truly balanced if there's choice, so let's draw on a piece of paper a grid 3x3 and in each we'll put a unique number 1-through-9. I'll pick 4 of those numbers, 6, 7, 8, 9, add those up, that's 30, and then you being the same class pick your own 4 numbers from the same grid and you choose 1, 2, 3, 4, that's 10. Those numbers aren't equal, and almost all combinations will not be equal. Obviously a very simple if not flawed analogy, but balanced and fun vs. unique and meaningful isn't a problem to be solved by adding more calculators to the pile because it isn't just about spreadsheet math.

But this is all waaaaaaay too off-topic. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World of Warcraft turns nine on November 23, 2013! Another epic year has flown by, and we’d like to thank you all for joining us on so many great adventures. To celebrate, players who log into the game between the dates of November, 18 through December, 1 will receive a feat of strength added to their Achievements and a “Celebration Package” item. Using your item will kick off the celebrations by shooting off fireworks*, applying a (visual only) tabard to your character, and granting an 9% bonus to experience and reputation gains from any enemies defeated while active.

We look forward to another year of adventures ahead and many more to come!

*Use fireworks responsibly. Harmful or fatal if swallowed. If fireworks get in eyes, rinse in muddy pond water for 20 minutes, /dance, and contact your nearest Mistweaver, Priest, Shaman, Druid, or Paladin.

Students, get ready to show off your talents: the Student Art Contest is back!

Blizzard Entertainment’s university relations and World of Warcraft development teams are proud to present the third annual Blizzard Student Art Contest! We’re calling on college and university students to submit original artwork or animations that would be a great fit for World of Warcraft. This year’s contest is even better than ever as we’ve thrown in additional categories for you to wow us in (pun intended).

Show us something we’ve never seen before but that still fits within World of Warcraft. You can see previous winning submissions here and here.

Online submission forms will be available on our University Relations website in December. We recommend getting started now though!

Prizes
Grand prize winners will be chosen by the World of Warcraft art team, and will receive the following epic prizes*:

• A three-month mentorship by a member of the World of Warcraft art team, in the form of email or phone critique of portfolio work (Contact frequency will be roughly every two weeks)
  
• A one-year subscription to World of Warcraft
  
• A Blizzard Entertainment notebook (featuring an original sketch by a Blizzard artist)
  
• A Blizzard T-shirt

*Blizzard reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value for any prize

Please note that only current US and Canadian college and university students are eligible to win. Residents of North Dakota, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, and Quebec are not eligible to participate.

For more information about the contest as it becomes available, please join our Blizzard Careers group on LinkedIn (LinkedIn account required).

Good luck to all!


Environment Art
Using your creativity and ability to work within the World of Warcraft art style, create a small environment diorama that would fit well in the game world. Your quest: Concept, model, and texture an environment piece that you could imagine stumbling upon during your travels across Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, Northrend, or Pandaria.

Required elements are trees, rocks, grass, and props, plus a small structure (such as a shrine).

Character Art
Using your creativity and ability to work within the World of Warcraft art style, concept, model, and texture a non-player character (NPC) or creature that you could imagine roaming the plains of Durotar, exploring the depths of Deepholm, or just sitting in the Pig and Whistle Tavern knocking back a mug o’ Thistle Tea.

Required elements are the character or creature, along with some sort of clothing or armor. Feel free to go further by adding weapons or other accessories.

Weapon Art
Using your creativity and ability to work within the World of Warcraft art style, concept, model, and texture a main hand weapon with a complimentary offhand weapon/shield/item. It could be the pairing of the “Deadly sword of Castle AHHHH” and a “Jabberwock Scale Shield,” the “Repentant Crusader Mace” and a “Tome of Righteousness,” or even the “Beguilers Ebonwood Staff” and an “Obfuscating Eye of Yogg-saron.” Let Azeroth be your guide and pull from the many established cultures, encounters, and legends that exist in World of Warcraft.

Required elements are the main hand weapon, along with its matching offhand item, but feel free to go further by adding a player or creature wielding your creations.

Animation
Keeping in mind and working within the World of Warcraft art style, select a class from the game and create either a battle scene or flavor animation. A battle scene could be any type of combat situation. Think of it as a pitch for a new player class. Your scene could be as epic as a final boss fight, or something more comical like warding off a group of feisty Murlocs. The flavor animation piece is all about personality. It could be a group of characters having a good time hoisting back pints of ale or coming home after winning a PVP match. Feel free to interpret these how you wish. Be as creative as possible, but don’t forget to watch your weight, timing, strong poses, and arcs!

Required elements include one cycled animation in a stand or combat ready pose. Make sure animations return to the same start position and feel free to add additional models or weapons.

The final piece should be animated in 30 frames per second and in meters. Please avoid camera shakes and blurs as they tend to hide fundamentals that we look for.

We're not asking for perfect balance. All we're asking for is to make it so the game is actually playable.

The problem is not the ratio of horde/alliance. It's that one side is utterly dead and has empty cities, practically no guilds, no crafters and barely anything on the AH, all while the other faction is flourishing.

Why can't a heavily Horde server be connected to a heavily Alliance one?
When the population level allows it, that's what we're trying to do with Connected Realms. But as I said before, there are for example more Horde-heavy PvP realms than Alliance-heavy ones, so that can't be done with them all.

When reading sites like MMO-Champion, you can see, that Connected Realms are being pushed at US, is there a reason why you are just holding them back at EU? Would like to see a reply to this issue?
We're not holding back, we started a few weeks ago and more are regularly being added http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8427764143

Have you ever considered offering free faction transfers on servers with high imbalance?
We experimented with it in the past—people are very reluctant to leave their guilds and friends to change sides. Also, there's a risk they could be one of just a few who move, then end up vastly outnumbered on the minority side. Judging by past trials, it's just not something people are willing to do. So we're looking for other ways to help. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP
explain to me why, the expac which makes pve so accessible, makes pvp (trial of glad) much less accessible?
Trial is for elite players who want only skill to matter. More accessible PvP will be things like Ashran. (Source)

So again, for PvP servers, we want balanced faction mergers to make the xpac/world seem dangerous. Mergers don't solve that
It's impossible to solve that. Example: there are far more Horde on NA PvP realms. We are solving it locally for 6.0 PvP zone. (Source)
It's possible to solve. Give free transfers/faction changes for those in the minority populations.
We experimented with that a lot in the past. Many folks don't want to move without their entire guild and network of friends. (Source)
It's one of those herding cats deals where you need to motivate a lot of people to do something and everyone is scared to be first. (Source)

Character / Items
I approve of less gems - but why remove metas? It's the "head enchant". You're keeping leg armor and should inscriptions, no?
Metas aren't a decision about which to use and their procs junk up the UI and logs without adding much reactive gameplay. (Source)

I haven't seen this info. Are there melee-specific, caster dps-specific and tank-specific accessory stats too?
Armor is a tank stat. Some items may have AP or SP. It's less important to have DPS-only stats, in part because there are so many. (Source)

so primary stats will be switching based on your spec. Will secondary stats change as well?
No. (Source)

Will all gear 1-90 be modified to use the new 'primary' stats as well? Are secondary stats static or random on new gear?
Except for hit and expertise, most of the gear changes will likely only affect new gear. We'll have to see though. (Source)

Active mana regen is possibly a better model than the spirit arms race? More interesting gameplay, possibly, too.
Spirit is one of (possibly the) most interesting gearing decision though because it is so subjective. (Source)
Inconsistent design. Other gear adapts to the wearer, but healers have to wait for spirit gear to drop.
We are treating Spirit as a secondary stat, which does not adapt. Intellect is a healer's primary stat. (Source)
Spirit serves no purpose outside healing roles. It is a primary stat for healers.
You can call it what you want, but we call it a secondary stat, like crit or bonus armor. (Source)

So the new tertiary stats and sockets are like a mild version of the D3 random stats, right?
I'd say they are more like an extension of Warforged. WoW loot will still be much less random than D3 loot. (Source)
Will there be warforged items (so +6 itemlevels) together with gems and tertiary stats?
Yes, but getting that trifecta will be extremely rare. Getting one of the three will be more common. (Source)

With the removal of hit/exp, will attacks no longer have a chance to miss/dodge?
It will behave as if you were hit capped for yellow attacks. (Source)
How about expertise? For my tank i've got 15%, and DPS class is happy with 7.5% for attacks from behind.
Tanks will always hit. Melee will still have a chance to be parried from the front. (Source)
make spells have a chance to be resisted from the front then
We prefer tank up front, melee behind, and ranged spread out. There are plenty of encounter-specific exceptions of course. (Source)

Glyphs, Talents, Now tertiary stats, do you fear that fight to fight customizations could get out of control?
That's a risk but it seems like a reasonable compromise between earning gear too quick or too slowly. (Source)
This is the long tail I tried to describe. You can get good gear pretty quickly, but getting great gear takes more effort. (Source)
Today, you might not get a piece for a long time, but if we just sped up drops then you might finish in 2-3 weeks. (Source)

Love the item squish, but do you think it's squished enough, or will we need another one in 2-3 expacs?
It's possible we'll need to do it periodically, but we made it 5 expansions before this one. (Source)

People like to see big numbers and they like to see those numbers grow. Item Squish will ruin this game. #fact.
The response was pretty positive among folks who tried it at Blizzcon or didn't even notice. So I guess that makes it #opinion. (Source)