2.4 Portals, GMs on TTRs, Renders

[Boubouille]

The week end have been calm with the Sunwell Plateau disabled until further notice and the usual lack of blue posts, however we've still got a couple of things to keep you busy on monday.

New teleportation portals in 2.4 ?
That's a change I didn't notice when I checked the latest PTR build patch, but it looks like two new teleportation portals have been added to the game. These portals should let players teleport to Theramore and Stonard, but it's still unknown if they will be used as part of an event or just added to the mage spell book. This could also be linked to this quest but in this case I don't really understand why they would add a Stonard portal as well. Thanks a lot to endarion for his mail about this !

Note : I know that the TP to Theramore shows Stormwind as the background of the portal, it could either mean that both portals will use the same graphic or just that the one for Theramore isn't included in the patch yet.

GMs on Tournament Test Realms
Yesterday, some members of the Blizzard dev and community team were on Tournament Test Realms to run a few tests on the new servers deployed to host the worldwide arena tournament later this year. The servers crashed a few times (and again, it was "intended", that's the whole point of a stress test) but we had the opportunity to see a few GMs having fun, below are a few screenshots. Some players also had the change to fight Blizzard teams in Arena matches.

WoW video renders
Sometimes, you can really get nice things with a lot of time and knowledge of 3D tools, and a bunch of WoW Models. The videos below show how WoW would like with tons of increased lightning and a few other nice effects (You can also check qelsss's youtube profile for a few more videos). These videos are made by a fan, they're not official and are NOT a preview of anything.

Comics
With the release of the 2.4 patch on PTRs I had to stop reporting new comics in news, now that the amount of news to report is nearly back to normal it's time to post all the comics I missed. Belows are 4 of them, 3 from the official site and the latest one from Dark Legacy.

[eryA]

Nice stuff.

[Anetheros]

It would be awesome if you could just modelchange to these higher resolution models

[insidelane]

Indeed. <GM> stuff looked like fun.

[Clausm]

Vaneck... Gnorog... No Drysc, no fun!

[TripleB]

The portal to Stonard would obviuosly be a fast way to go to the gates of Karazhan... no?

[overneathe]

The portal to Stonard would obviuosly be a fast way to go to the gates of Karazhan... no?

Bit too late for this, end of KZ raiding in 3-4 months. It's more for leveling, as Horde doesn't have a single portal near these places. Sux to be them.
I mean it's obviously Theramore for Ally and Stonard for Horde. Theramore doesn't have an ally town near by, Stonard doesn't have a horde town near by. It's logical.
But the Theramore one will be nice when the 4th CoT instance is released in WotLK.

[Tromok]

I did this Theramore-Quest with Jaina for a twink yesterday.Why would anyone need a portal in this quest?It is not a groupq.I think these will be new magespells.

[Chikina]

But the Theramore one will be nice when the 4th CoT instance is released in WotLK.

*cough*
"A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time."

[Ganimah]

Wasn't there a blue post, somewhere, that had said there will be a 2nd Karazhan, in the Cellars by the graveyard, in WOTLK?


And them doing something 2 years late.....hmm......can anyone say FP in Marshall's Refuge?

[Daedalon]

Always "fun" to see the GMs play gods when alot of the game is unbalanced.

No GM playing paladin so gives u good idea why they are crap.

GoGo BLizzard - keep up the "good" work.

[Spifli]

Damn those models are neat, wonder if he'l ever release them it could bring warcraftmovies to the next level

I love animating models, but I'm not that good making the actual model

[Draxinusom]

*cough*
"A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time."

Certainly but how will you go to Shattrath in Wotlk where you'll probably have bound your hearthstone somewhere in Northrend ?

Also the current mechanism in game works for all classes while the spell icons look like teleport / portal Theramore, thus mage-only spells. Don't think this is for all classes, it looks too Mage-like.

[Herrera]

Certainly but how will you go to Shattrath in Wotlk where you'll probably have bound your hearthstone somewhere in Northrend ?

Also the current mechanism in game works for all classes while the spell icons look like teleport / portal Theramore, thus mage-only spells. Don't think this is for all classes, it looks too Mage-like.

Why would you even think all classes would get Portal spells. These are mage only portals, just like every other portals in the game.

[Draxinusom]

I don't, but the wording in the original article (part of an event) may lead to such a conclusion.

[Puntar]

Sometimes I wish there would be a portal scrolls rewards for certain factions (as reputation rewards).

[Anobix]

little late for the Stonard portal imo, should have came out a year+ ago, but that's okay.

[Rokh]

Damn those models are neat, wonder if he'l ever release them it could bring warcraftmovies to the next level

I love animating models, but I'm not that good making the actual model

There's no new models used, read the info supplied with this article and his videos. They're the same models we use now, just passed through more lighting filters and texture processes that modern video cards can handle.

[the_nell_87]

Great... give us a portal to theramore at the same time as giving us a portal to CoT!

[Dessimus]

You can never have too many teleports