L70ETC New Song, Naxx in WotLK, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

L70 Elite Tauren Chieftain Music Video Contest! Rogues do it from Behind !
The Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftains have just released their latest hit: Rogues Do It From Behind! In honor of this occasion, they would like to invite you to create a music video for their newest song. So, grab your movie cameras, head out into the wilds of Azeroth and Outland, and film some sneaky rogue action!

. Videos can be no bigger than 50 megabytes in size and must be recorded in .WMV, .MOV, or .AVI formats. The winning videos will be featured on our official website and the following prizes awarded:

* Three (3) Grand Prize winners will each receive one (1) Logitech G51 5.1 Surround Sound speaker set.
* Five (5) First Place winners will each receive one (1) Logitech Digital Precision PC Gaming headset.

Complete contest rules, including requirements and eligibility can be found here.

Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King

A little more information has become available regarding Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King, which we would like to share with you:

Naxxramas is planned to be somewhat of an entry level raid dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King and not the hardest dungeon in the game, so things will be a little different from what they are now. One difference is that it will float its way back home to Northrend and will therefore no longer be found in the Eastern Kingdoms.

The developers like having content be more available to players and as such no final decisions in regards to attunement have been made, but the developers also like having special quest lines available to help players be more prepared to face raid dungeon content. It should be said that as an early raid dungeon, there isn't a big reason to block a lot of people from accessing it.

The challenges for hardcore players will remain though, because Naxxramas is a big dungeon that will not be easy to complete all the way through. The hardcore players can push into the higher content from there.

There is not yet much we can say to those of you who are already attuned to the current incarnation of Naxxramas. As mentioned above, things like attunement has yet to be fully decided, so it is still too soon to say if you will be required to go through attunement a second time, or if there are any plans to give titles based on the original Naxxramas attunement.

Those of you who wish to know if The Ashbringer will drop again will have to stay tuned for the next BlizzCast, where this will be mentioned briefly

Bornakk also answered a few more questions.

Will you get a title if you already completed the attunement quest for the old Naxxramas ?
I have not heard of any plans for new titles based on the original Naxxramas. (Source)

Tier 3 Armors
We have already stated that we plan to re-use the armor models in the new version of Naxxramas as well so players will be able to get the look they wanted. For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them.

Atiesh
Regarding the Atiesh, I don't have any further details to provide. (Source)

Tauren Weapon Size Change Update
Changes to tauren weapon size will be reverted in 2.4.2.
[blizzquote="Nethaera;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5974478511&postId=59737312830&sid=1#0]The original intention of the Tauren weapon size change was to reduce weapon clipping with the ground when sheathed, but it was decided that the end result went beyond what was originally desired. After further review of the change and with feedback from the community as well as the development team, we will be reverting the change to the size of the Tauren weapons when sheathed. We will be making this change in the next upcoming patch and would like to thank the community for all of their constructive discussion on this matter.[/blizzquote"]


Other blue posts

New spells and talents in WotLK during beta testing
I'd like to lay out the caveat now that even when the new talents/spells/abilities are unveiled, things can and will most likely change over the course of the beta in order to balance things. I'm sure there will be plenty of people that feel x class or y class will be unbalanced based on new talents/spells/abilities, but like any expansion, it needs to be looked at within the context of the new range of gameplay that will be available... ie. 10 new levels, new gear, and new challenges. (Source)

New instances in WotLK
I don't have any new details to share regarding new dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King, but keep in mind that before The Burning Crusade there was a HUGE demand for more dungeons like Scarlet Monastery and we developed many areas based on this feedback. (Source)

Roleplaying in the next Blizzcast
In the next Blizzcast, one of the topics that will be talked about is roleplaying. It is not an excessive amount of information that will be unveiled as it is only one question that will be answered, but it talks about some things that should be of interest to roleplayers, such as our plans to continue developing things that are for roleplaying. (Source)

US Realms - Free character moves

We will be offering free character moves from selected high population realms to lower populated realms, assisting in population dispersal. The ability to move a character on the selected source realms will become available on Friday, April 18 at 12:00PM PDT, and are scheduled to run until Friday, April 25 at 12:00PM PDT.

This round of transfers will have multiple destinations available to provide more options for players looking to go to a lower population realm.

In the event that any of these realms meets our transfer goals before the scheduled end date, the transfers pertaining to that realm will be disabled. We highly recommend that if you are planning to transfer that you do so at your earliest convenience. No characters will be eligible for these free moves once the transfers have been closed.

Once the transfers open you can begin your transfer by visiting the Character Move page located here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html

The realms chosen consist of source realms with the highest sustained queues, and destination realms with the lowest population. The numbers gathered are directly from our data, and depict the realms in most need of these transfers. We will be continuing to monitor all realms and open additional free transfers in the future where necessary.

Source A (PvP) - Illidan, Mal'Ganis, Sargeras, Tichondrius, Warsong
Destination A (PvP) - Azshara, Maiev

New Fan Art
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with new pieces of artwork.

[Daedalon]

Can't say Im to exited to play Naxramas again. Even tho it was a good instance it shouldn't allow the devs to get lazy and remake it - charging ppl for it and then make nothing new instead of it.

If it was up to me. Naxramas would be one of 2 ten man instances that come out at start of new Arena season. The other two instances coming out on other 2 starts of Arena seasons would be 5 man instances with same quality items as Arena is giving away.

Or better yet. Stop giving out items for unbalanced arena

But this might be the most intresting part... If I remember correctly - Blizzard has already stated that all vanilla WoW instances will be unchanged. And now they remove one and move it to new expansion ? Seriously ?

[Clay]

The new Naxx will suck big time, horrible idea to reuse old content. I guess blizzard is proud over the small amount of successful content they've created, guess we'll see SP in Maelstrom expansion?

Also, the "rogues do it from behind" must be one of the worst songs I've ever heard, even in a comic sense of taste. And I'm into hard rock and metal.

God, blizzard suck so much, and still I play their game. I'm a loser.

[Poupette]

I have already see some things about 2.4.2 in the wowwiki but is there some date?

[Dessimus]

Those of you who wish to know if The Ashbringer will drop again will have to stay tuned for the next BlizzCast, where this will be mentioned briefly

Gimmie!

[valeea]

so the essence of the L80 Naxx is that there is no news -.-

[kittynipples]

I don't have any new details to share regarding new dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King, but keep in mind that before The Burning Crusade there was a HUGE demand for more dungeons like Scarlet Monastery and we developed many areas based on this feedback.

This was the absolute worse thing they could have done. Sure, DM was sort of like SM, but at least each wing had a very distinct feel. If Blizzard had made one of the dungeons in Outland like SM or DM, that would have been okay; but they made every single one of them like SM and they all pretty much suck. Where are the epic feeling dungeons like Strat or BRS? Nowhere, is where.

[kittynipples]

Regarding the Atiesh, I don't have any further details to provide.

Why would a lvl 80 need to port directly to Kara? The original Atiesh was created looking ahead to TBC, now it is a relic and should just be done away with.

[overneathe]

The epic feel? Of a 10 hour dungeon? And a heroic version of it? Grow out of vanilla WoW.

[Richtea]

The epic feel? Of a 10 hour dungeon? And a heroic version of it? Grow out of vanilla WoW.

How about a Dungeon that wasn't on rails then?
Where there are multiple routes through the instance, each with a subtly different vibe?
How about giving players choices and having them impact further on?
How about quests (or dailies now that they've been included) that direct you to specific parts and have follow-ups that send you back to a different part?
How about sections that only open up once specific dungeon related quests are completed and go hand in hand with levelling progression, ie you unlock the lvl 73-75 wing of a dungeon by completing the quests in the lvl 70-73 part first.
There are many possibilities that are all worth exploring more.

You seriously need to rethink your attitude my friend, vanilla WoW is what most of the player base played, and it's only thanks to that that we have TBC or the upcoming WotLK.

And as an aside, if you spent 10 hours in any single dungeon in vanilla WoW, then I truly do pity you, you must have had the worst skilled, yet most dedicated party ever...

[Balbaroy]

stop saying vanilla wow. it's stupid.

[fmampaey]

The song is awful. Worst song I heard, ever.

[kittynipples]

The epic feel? Of a 10 hour dungeon? And a heroic version of it? Grow out of vanilla WoW.

Just because you seem to like your dungeons to be 45 minutes long with 3 bosses placed one after another, doesn't mean everybody does. People complain that Blizzard doesn't add enough 5-man content, so they create uninspired SM clones with different texture skins and mob models. Great!

You also miss the other fact that while BRD and BRS were large, expansive dungeons, there were dozens of quests that involved them and they were designed as feeder content for 40 man raiding. If you couldn't manage to make it through BRS because it took too long, I seriously doubt you had any hope of making it through MC. Content doesn't all have to be designed for the lowest common denominator, and if you care about the enjoyment of the player base as a whole, it shouldn't be. If you didn't have the desire to trudge through BRD or BRS, then you still had DM and Scholo you could do.

[ajezz]

Just because you seem to like your dungeons to be 45 minutes long with 3 bosses placed one after another, doesn't mean everybody does.

I think this may be the first time I've seen someone lamenting the lack of trash pulls in BC

[Laotzu]

I actually like the majority of the 5 man instances in TBC. Im hoping that there will be more 10 man content from the start of WotLK. It was a long time into TBC before we saw the release of ZA and I would love to see 2 or 3 10 man instances available from the start of the next expansion to give a great variety of smaller raids (and more opportunities to gear up in preparation for 25 man raiding).

Personally Im also looking forward to Naxx. I only got to see the first few bosses before the expansion arrived so the vast majority of it will be new content to me. In fact it will be new content for the vast majority of WoW players and thats why they are putting it in the expansion. Only a small percentage of people got to see it first time round and only a small minority of those will have actually cleared it.

The expansion cant come soon enough for me. Im in Sunwell at the moment and the fights are very challenging. But interesting/challenging enough to keep us occupied for 4, 5, 6+ months? No I dont think so. I just hope they dont drag the beta testing out too long cause I'll be bored to death of the current raid content if they take too long with the expansion.

[overneathe]

Just because you seem to like your dungeons to be 45 minutes long with 3 bosses placed one after another, doesn't mean everybody does. People complain that Blizzard doesn't add enough 5-man content, so they create uninspired SM clones with different texture skins and mob models. Great!

You also miss the other fact that while BRD and BRS were large, expansive dungeons, there were dozens of quests that involved them and they were designed as feeder content for 40 man raiding. If you couldn't manage to make it through BRS because it took too long, I seriously doubt you had any hope of making it through MC. Content doesn't all have to be designed for the lowest common denominator, and if you care about the enjoyment of the player base as a whole, it shouldn't be. If you didn't have the desire to trudge through BRD or BRS, then you still had DM and Scholo you could do.

So quit BC, go back to "old WoW" with 39 of your friends are relive it.
I don't care.
Just do whatever you feel is more fun for you.

@richtea
Ahem, ok, you do the coding and I'll sure enjoy it.

[salty]

I still love BRD and solo it when I get some time to kill. It was and remains the best designed instance in the game from a pure depth of content and lore perspective. But it is no model for where Blizzard has taken the game. People loved the dwarfing (pun, lol) feeling of BRD, the design of the massive underground city, the dynamic choice of where you would go and how, the scaling of the dungeon through a range of almost 12 levels which starts at 48ish yet contains quests that were relevant up to Onyxia and loot (FR gear) that possibly carried you into BWL and practically an entire set of gear for every class or spec. What’s more, the entire Blackrock Mountain was truly an epic-scale dungeon when you consider that it engulfs the entirety of MC, BRD, BRS and BWL.

But remember that Blizzard also asked for a ton of feedback from the community and the resounding opinion it related was that instances should be shorter, have less trash, be more rewarding for time invested (all of which BRD fell severely lacking). I agree that every instance in TBC is far too linear, but then again, BRD was a dungeon even veterans still can't navigate after years. This is a dungeon where it is very easy to get lost or lock yourself out of entire segments of the dungeon or wind up traversing the wrong wing entirely.

The problem with old-world dungeons was that unless you had a killer group (i.e. did not need the drops), pickups for almost any instance were a daunting investment of time (2-3 hours). This is still true in BC, but not on the order of 3 hours and multiple trash re-clears due to the length of time and distance between bosses – all of which were fixed with shorter instances, no respawns for most mobs except on soft resets, trash that was tied to bosses. Pre-BC there was no such thing as a 30-minute instance run from invite to hearth (cue the guys in full T3: "lol noob we did scholo in 15 minutes"). Now you have Mechanar, Ramparts, Slave Pens which almost any group of pre-Kara players can clear quickly. All BC 5-man dungeons offer quests with compelling rewards, heroic level difficulty with great pre-raid gear, as well as associated faction rep, random drops that can applied towards other factions, badges, etc. All of this gives incentive for even progressed players to return and help their friends.

Blizzard is catering to a new player base in BC, and nostalgia may be strong, but thank back and remember how many terrible headaches were cleared up by successive patches and other design philosophy changes, and know that we take a lot of this stuff for granted now.

[ndrew]

I am a big fan of the shorter instances in TBC. BRD is just too long.

As for Naxx at level 80...I originally loved this idea when the only Naxx experience i had was spider wing. But I went back to it at level 70 and saw everything up till Saph. Now it's sort of 'eh' would rather see something new.

[Serov]

I am a TBC WoW player and dearly wish I could have seen Naxx, now I can - yay!

I liked BRD as well, but it was really really long and groups break up b/c little jimmy has to eat dinner or go to bed. the brevity of the 5 mans was welcomed, if only lore was more involved in the dungeons.

[Sulika]

How about a Dungeon that wasn't on rails then?

Where there are multiple routes through the instance, each with a subtly different vibe?

That is the express purpose of the winged dungeons. Instead of having one large instance you get three smaller ones each with a subtly different vibe ...

How about giving players choices and having them impact further on?

PreTBC the only example of this I can think is not killing the ogres in DM to get the buff on the way out. You could say choosing the way to enter Maraudon was similar but Mara was basically a variant on the winged dungeons where the 3rd wing automatically follows either of the first two wings. Other than that the only real choice was to skip some bosses.

How about quests (or dailies now that they've been included) that direct you to specific parts and have follow-ups that send you back to a different part?
How about sections that only open up once specific dungeon related quests are completed and go hand in hand with levelling progression, ie you unlock the lvl 73-75 wing of a dungeon by completing the quests in the lvl 70-73 part first.

All of the new instances in TBC had story quests to guide you through the instances in order. All of them have non-dungeon quests which eventually lead you to having to go to the instance for the resolution and final reward. The only thing that goes against your proposal is that Blizzard decided not to key all the seperate wings because too much keying is a pain.

As for instances that require specific keys, Black Morass requires you to complete Durnholde to get keyed, the Arcatraz requires a key that can only be gotten by completing both Mechanaar and the Botanica, Shadow Lab requires a key you get from completing Setthek Halls.

As for your levelling progression there is a very distinct progression of instance difficulty throughout TBC. Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, Underbog, Durnholde, Mana-tombs, Setthek Halls are all pre-70 in their difficulty scale and are spread accross the full level 60-70 progression. The remainder are pretty much geared for level 70 groups.

There are many possibilities that are all worth exploring more.

I am just curious how you could play from 60-70 and not be aware of the instance progression there already is in TBC. It sounds like you just solod from 60-70 and are now complaining over an absence of something you just chose not to avail of.

I am not saying the TBC instances were perfect but most of your criticisms are not valid. They certainly are fairly linear and forumlaic but I think making the instances smaller was a good thing overall and Blizzard did make the decision that the 5 man instances should be geared towards casual players. Places like BRD, LBRS and Scholo were very long instances. While 10 hours is an exaggeration I have certainly had runs that took 3-4 hours in all of those. A full clear of BRD can take 2 hours even with a lvl 70 or two in the group since the place is just so damn big.

The main criticism I would level at the TBC instances is that they are all very brightly lit. They lack atmosphere, the instances preTBC were almost all dark, dreary places and the enemies were for the most part genuinely evil. Many of the TBC instances are bright and cheery, even those that are supposedly underground (Coilfang Reservoir, Auchindoun). The other mistake was that Outland never really felt that important to Azeroth. I think most players view Azeroth as their characters home and we find it's history and progression at least somewhat important. Outland felt like a diversion, it was in effect kept too seperate from, the supposed threat from the Burning Legion was allowed to fade into a damp squib. That first moment when you go through the dark portal and see demon armies attacking you feel the world is in danger but that demon threat never materialised. Except for Hellfire Peninsula and some parts of Shadowmoon the Burning Legion don't even pose a noticable threat to Outland itself. I think that was the biggest failing as regards TBC. It was supposed to be about fighting demons but ended up being about fighting a whole bunch of humanoids who were enslaving demons.

I mean, you go to outland to fight the Burning Legion and instead end up fighting a bunch of scheming Blood Elves, Draenai, Naga, Arrakoa and Consortium people. The demons you are supposedly there to fight never even appear and I think that was a huge loss and is the main reasons the instances suffer. The instances feel more like politics than heroism and that detracts a lot from them.