World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

The recently announced WoW Token is currently in testing on the PTR, and is slated for launch some time after the March 24 release of Patch 6.1.2. In the meantime, we wanted to share some additional details about the Token, including regional pricing information and more on our global rollout plans.

WoW Token Rollout

We’ll begin rolling out the WoW Token in the weeks following Patch 6.1.2’s release, starting with the Americas game region (including realms serving North America, Oceania, and Latin America) and then expanding to other game regions in the weeks after that. Launching the Token once Patch 6.1.2 has been live for a while will help us ensure the foundation for the feature is solid, and kicking things off with a single region is the best way for us to ensure everything’s going smoothly before launching worldwide. We’ll provide further updates on timing as we get closer to the Token’s launch in each region.

Region-wide Exchange

As discussed in our original announcement, each game region (Americas, Europe, Korea, Taiwan, and China) will have its own shared WoW Token exchange. When the rollout begins in the Americas game region, players in North America, Latin America, and Oceania will all be able to purchase a WoW Token from the in-game Shop. In the Americas game region, the price of a Token will be $20 USD (or roughly equivalent in each local currency). We’ll share additional regional pricing details as we get closer to launch.

Once purchased, a Token can then be put up for sale in a region-wide exchange via a new Game Time tab in the Auction House. (Note that while you’ll see the new Game Time tab in that auction house with the launch of Patch 6.1.2, it won’t be active until the WoW Token launches in your region.) While the rest of the Auction House will remain realm-based, a region-wide WoW Token exchange will provide the largest possible pool of prospective buyers and ensures everyone has access to a vibrant, active Token marketplace. In the Americas, Europe, Korea, and Taiwan, players who purchase a WoW Token from the Auction House will be able to redeem it for 30 days of game time.

Going for Gold

Because the Token exchange has to start somewhere, we will be setting the initial gold value of the WoW Token ourselves. The starting gold value in each region will be based on several factors, including regional in-game economies, but ultimately our goal is to select a fair and reasonable starting price. After that, the Token’s gold value will be determined dynamically based primarily on player supply and demand. Simply put, if more WoW Tokens are being listed than are being purchased, the price will automatically drift downward over time. If people are purchasing Tokens from the Auction House faster than they’re being put up for sale, then prices will go up accordingly. As a reminder, to help make sure players can trade WoW Tokens confidently, once a Token sells, the seller will receive the amount of gold they were quoted at the time they listed their Token.

We know a lot of you are excited to exchange a WoW Token or two, and we’re looking forward to making the feature available in the near future. We’ll provide additional updates on the rollout of the WoW Token feature soon.

Introducing the WoW Token
Coming soon to an Azeroth near you: the WoW Token, a new in-game item that allows players to simply and securely exchange gold and game time between each other.

Players will be able to purchase a WoW Token through the in-game Shop for real money, and then sell it on the Auction House for gold at the current market price. When a player buys a WoW Token from the Auction House for gold, the Token becomes Soulbound, and the player can then redeem it for 30 days of game time.

• The WoW Token feature will be enabled at a future date. Patch 6.1.2 adds in the framework needed for the WoW Token feature in the game client and is not active at this time. Check out WoW Token Coming Soon – Additional Details for more details on how the feature works.

Racial Abilities

• Night Elf
  
  • Shadowmeld should now behave as it had before Patch 6.1 and drop the character from combat while in Arenas, Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and outdoor PvP zones such as Wintergrasp, Tol Barad, and Ashran.

Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts

• Garrison Campaign Quests
  
  • Dream of Argus: The Crystal Reborn: Fixed an issue where players were unable to interact with the crystal reconstruction device.

Environment and World Events

• Spires of Arak
  
  • Morphed Sentient should no longer despawn while engaged in combat.

Pet Battles

• Race MiniZep: The pet is now unique and is not eligible to be caged or released.

Items

• Gleaming Ring show now correctly create a ring when used by Guardian Druids or Brewmaster Monks.

Bug Fixes

• Players should now be able to complete the achievement, King of the Monsters while trasformed into a Gluttonous Giant.

It's time to take the assault against the Iron Horde to the next level in new Raid content. To help you plan your attack, we’ve broken down the unlock schedule for Blackrock Foundry and the third Draenor world boss – Rukhmar. Are you ready?

Those who plan to jump into the action in the Raid Finder February 17 will need a minimum item level of 635. Here's the rundown:

February 3, 2015:

• Blackrock Foundry opens with Normal and Heroic difficulties available.
• World boss Rukhmar becomes available in Spires of Arak.

February 10, 2015:

• Mythic difficulty becomes available.

February 17, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 1: Slagworks (Gruul, Oregorger, and The Blast Furnace) unlocks.

February 24, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 2: The Black Forge (Hans’gar and Franzok, Flamebender Ka’graz, and Kromog ) unlocks.

March 10, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 3: Iron Assembly (Beastlord Darmac, Operator Thogar, and The Iron Maidens) unlocks.

March 24, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 4: Blackhand’s Crucible (Blackhand) unlocks.

Response to Player Feedback
I don't know if anyone else feels this way but to me it kinda feels like blizzard doesn't really know what they are doing anymore ...

They implement something and a minority of people complain about how it works and they change it without taking into consideration the number of subscriptions compared to the number of people complaining its almost as if they're saying"yeah what we did there was bad so lets change it because 2% are unhappy about it" and the majority of us are sitting here like "it wasn't that bad now its horrible" or " yeah it needed changing but not like that" how is this fair to most of us when 2% get what they want and were just suppose to suck it up and accept it because we love playing WoW Blizzard keeps going back on their ideas like they don't have good ideas to start with.
Believe it or not, decisions aren't just made based on posts/player opinion alone. While these can factor into decisions made, we also take a look at player behavior in the game since not everyone takes to the forums or Twitter to express how they are approaching things. Comments here can be helpful for the sake that someone may feel strongly enough about 'x' item/issue, but it doesn't account for everything.

Design is just as much art as it is science and what people may enjoy/like one day may change the next. Being human animals as we are, we can get complacent or bored with "sameness". It's not always easily predictable what the outcome of a change may be, though we try to anticipate as much as possible.

It's not merely a "knowing or not knowing" issue. We have to take into account past experiences as well as sometimes take some (strategic) risks in shaping and molding the game toward its next evolution. With so many many people playing, it's not possible to please everyone at all times, but we do what we can to entertain people as much as we can with the game. We want people to have fun (despite claims to the contrary.) It's just discerning what that means and it will never mean the same thing to everyone.

We have tons of ideas. It's never an issue of having them. It's usually an issue of picking and choosing which ones will work best. Sometimes we miss the mark – we're human after all – but we do our best to make sure those times are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Ghostcrawler may have known what he was doing. This new batch of dev's do not.
There is always this strange idea that there are a "new batch of devs" when that's just not true. We're very fortunate to have many veteran developers who have been with us for years as well as newer developers (new to Blizzard at least) who bring new ideas to the table. All in all though, it's a collaborative process not even just among the World of Warcraft team, but across the company with so many of us also being players.

I know people bring up Ghostcrawler on a regular basis and I and many others here are still friends with him and keep in touch. He was a great part of the team while he was here, but he wasn't solely responsible for development. Like any job, people sometimes move on. That's all there is ever really to say about it.

I know there are people that are going to have feedback about specific items they care about in regard to ongoing development, and muddling those thoughts into this thread isn't the best way to convey them. It's too easy for your thoughts to get lost in everyone else's. If there's an item you wish to share constructive feedback on (with specifics), we can always read and carry them on for you.

As was quoted, we listen and it still stands, we're going to do our best to make the best choices we can for the future of the game as a whole.

Offhandedly dismissing concerns about what players consider 'fun' is standard Blizzard protocol, but doesn't make for good community relations.
At no point have I "offhandedly" or otherwise dismissed concerns. My job (every week) is to convey concerns and constructive feedback that are being bubbled up by the community.

The thing is, even if people have other reasons for logging in (seeing friends etc), that means there is something tacitly fun about that interaction that draws them back. At no point did I say those people are finding all aspects of the game fun, but there must be some aspect of it (even if it's social interaction or "collecting") that they are enjoying and finding compelling.

Again, we read the posts, but posts only reflect one part of the overall interactions people are having with the game. Sometimes those agree and sometimes they don't. We take all things into account and make changes when they seem to be the most appropriate. There is no "all or nothing", that's why there are so many different aspects to the game. Different people enjoy different content types. Some dabble in everything, some only have one aspect they focus on. That doesn't negate the value of the game and it's offerings as a whole.

How much weight is given to in-game behavior? I ask this solely from the perspective that if there is no other choice, or the other choices are worse than the one being acted upon, that particular behavior is valueless when deciding which way a particular decision should go.
You're correct that in-game behavior can only show one part of the whole. The next part is, "why". Again, it can be pretty evident by various factors including what people say along with what they do. In-game behavior can have a lot of weight, but that's not a simple, "they're all doing it so it must be OK." Sometimes what is occurring isn't what the outcome was intended to be, thus we make changes and adjust.

Very few things are cut and dry unless it's an outright exploit or abuse of the game mechanics. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Arena combatants of Azeroth . . . you are not prepared! That’s why we’re giving you a heads up now:

Once again this year, the top World of Warcraft 3v3 Arena teams from around the globe will compete for a chance to face off in the 2015 WoW Arena World Championship, culminating November 6 and 7 at BlizzCon 2015 in Anaheim, California.

If you’re a World of Warcraft Arena competitor, now’s the time to polish up your rotation and gather your group so you too can compete for a chance to secure a spot in the big battle—and win your share of an epic prize pool of $250,000 USD.

Online qualifiers will be held for North America (which will include Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand), Europe, China, and Korea/Taiwan in the near future. We’ll have all the details on qualifier eligibility, rules, and schedules here for you soon.

If you’re a spectator, you’ll be able to catch all of the action live online even if you can’t make it to the show in person. Stay tuned for more information.

Keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com for more details on the 2015 WoW Arena World Championship, and we’ll see you on the battlefield at BlizzCon!

Misc
a community with a strongly positive core and with the tools to do so will often police itself. I like to think we could do so.
Riot's approach of computer-learning what the community considers bad and then enforcing it seemingly proved very effective too. (craig_amai)

That's the scary part, best way to judge a person is what they do when they can get away with it.
toxic behavior also has a way of prompting otherwise decent people to lash out in frustration too (craig_amai)

PvP Feedback
I see my "why do you play Heroes but not WoW PvP" tweet appeared on MMO-C. I'd like to clear up a few things. (holinka)
We very much value highly committed PvP players and their feedback about game balance is invaluable. Thank you for all your help. (holinka)
My original question was specifically directed at people who I would have thought don't PvP in WoW because they don't like PvP games. (holinka)
A side conversation happened and I probably didn't communicate with that person properly about how we do think balance is very important. (holinka)
Anyway, we are always striving to make a great game for you to play and we do very much appreciate your support. Thanks. (holinka)
I'd also like to add I received lots of great insight from my original question, so thank you. (holinka)

Game Design
It's been said before - an idea is only as good as your ability to execute on it, or get other people passionate about it. (craig_amai)
In my experience, real talent often comes in recognizing the great ideas that will fit cleanly with the rest of your game. (craig_amai)
And good designers know how to let ideas go quickly and keep looking, rather than getting attached to something with too much baggage. (craig_amai)
This year, I'm going to challenge myself to get a lot of ideas out, to learn to sell them in a small space (gg twitter), and to let them go. (craig_amai)
They won't all be great and I don't care if you don't like them. Hopefully some inspire something. (craig_amai)

It's all or nothing. One guided goal sets an expectation for structure vs. fully free-form.
Yeah, that's usually the case. You can tutorialize without specific goals though. (craig_amai)
And I personally think there are ways to set long term goals without explicitly spelling out the game along the way. (craig_amai)
I know you can't talk WoW but this is the exact issue why I don't like the Apexis hubs. No framing device (text). No fun.
Yeah, WoW has set an expectation for information that makes open POIs and puzzles prone to feel uncomfortable. Hard problem. (craig_amai)
I think THAT comes down to pace. When you have a cinematic flow driven by story, sudden halts in game play are jarring.
That's fair. Taking control of the camera from the players is easy to make painful if done in the wrong place or too often. (craig_amai)

Adding explicit hand-held goals to an open world game fundamentally changes the way players experience it. (craig_amai)
It changes the pace, the potential emotional investment, the expectations. It's a legitimate approach, but it's a dramatic design choice. (craig_amai)
I'm very interested in seeing more devs hold back in the hand-holding. On-board players gently, but let them unfold the game on their own. (craig_amai)
I wish the dev teams for CoD and BF would understand that. they don't even let you open your own doors.
Hah! Yeah. It's somewhat core identity for them though. Extremely approachable and very cinematic. (craig_amai)
Yeah, I'm probably not the target audience for those games. I prefer long SP campaigns because I don't do MP apart from WoW/HS.
Yeah, I can identify with that. I like CoD campaigns, but I LOVE a nice long campaign of Fallout: New Vegas. (craig_amai)

Classes
Raids and Dungeons

• Blackrock Foundry
  
  • Iron Maidens
    
    • Admiral Gar'an now has a 3-second cooldown on all her abilities after using Deploy Turret on all difficulty modes.
    • Reduced The Iron Maidens' health by 25% on Raid Finder difficulty.
    • Reduced the health of Admiral Gar'an's Dominator Turret by 60% on Raid Finder difficulty.

PvP

• Ashran
  
  • Events in Ashran are no longer on individual timers. Events are now selected at random at regular intervals.
  • Fixed an issue where announcements for some of the upcoming events in Ashran were not being broadcast correctly.

Classes

• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Unholy
    
    • Fixed an issue where both Shadow Infusion and Dark Transformation could be active at the same time.
• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Fixed an issue where having an exotic pet in the first stable slot prevented duplicates of non-exotic pets from spawning during Stampede for non-Beast Mastery Hunters.

Bug Fix

• Fixed an issue where Mark of Warsong could decrement incorrectly when two applications have been applied to the same character.

PvP
People can play RBG's at 2700+ without skype so I think 5v5 objective PvP would work solo/duo Queue if done right
If I ever do an interview, ask me my views on solo queue rated and I'll share them with you. (holinka)

Heroes and WoW PvP
Masochist tweet of the night: Do you play WoW and Heroes of the Storm but you don't PvP in WoW? I'd love to hear why. (holinka)

because you can't balance WoW PvP worth anything, man. its no fun mongo training healers
As much as people want to blame balance (and me) many don't get to the point where they could form a proper opinion about it. (holinka)
He just did, but you just ignored it because you're more worried about answering soft-balls, like gear differences.
The people I'm talking about are the average WoW player, not someone who has poured hours into arena. (holinka)
It takes a long time playing a game to develop familiarity enough to say "I don't like the balance here." (holinka)
I've played World of Warcraft since 2009, Holinka. I've been a competitive PVPer for 3 years. I think I understand.
Right, you have a lot of experience. He's asking the people who *aren't* experienced why they don't. (Celestalon)
If you've been a competitive PvPer for 3 years, my original question was not directed at you. (holinka)
Yes, and perhaps the SAME ISSUES that we hate are the reason? It isn't FUN.
We get a lot of feedback from PvPers about PvP. That's awesome, and we continuously work to improve on those issues. (Celestalon)
But we don't get as much feedback from people who *don't* PvP at all about why not. It's an interesting topic. (Celestalon)
Should probably try acting on the feedback of the people who do PvP first. That would be progress already
We already have a process for that. It just doesn't involve twitter. (holinka)

I like in Heroes that I can change my character every game, in WoW if I want to PvP as another class I have to level/gear up fully
good feedback thanks (holinka)

heroes is more balanced than wow pvp
I know hardcore people will jump on this but I don't think it's the reason for the average player. (holinka)

respectively and imho it has to do with gear disparity. If you don't get in early, it's frustrating dying so quickly.
it's good feedback thanks (holinka)

for me this season felt like a chore to gear up, the obligation to play if you wanna compete can be a drag!
So make it so you can compete without playing the game. Got it! (Just kidding I know what you mean) (holinka)

cont...3) I can play multiple characters and not have to level them. 4) No PvE changes that affect PvP. 5) combat is faster
Good feedback thanks (holinka)

in pvp, you expect to die. Pvers have a hard time dealing with the paradigm shift.
Understand that...but in this case, the PvP mindset is obviously not the problem, because they play Heroes. (holinka)

In the days before the Iron Horde invaded Azeroth and tightened its grip on all Draenor, Warchief Grommash Hellscream sought every advantage in his quest to conquer the orcish world completely.

The ogres of Highmaul once ruled Nagrand—and they still exert control over land and sea from their capital. They are massive obstacles to orcish dominance; obstacles that Hellscream himself has a highly personal stake in removing.

Faced with the prospect of extinction before a growing Iron Horde, the Sorcerer King of the ogres, Imperator Mar’gok, plots to ensure Highmaul’s survival at any price. But what can Mar’gok offer those who so eagerly seek his people’s demise?


Download and read “Code of Rule,” written by Ryan Quinn, to learn more about the Highmaul ogres and their tenuous pact with the Iron Horde.