Patch 4.0.1 release date, Heroic Deadmines, Blue Posts

[Deleted]

Do I have this straight?

With the early October patch 4.0.1 our Triumph and Frosts will be converted to Justice Points which buy blue gear which can't be used to level 85. You'll be making your choices based on anticipated need because anything over the cap of 4000 JPs will turn to small amounts of silver with patch 4.0.3. We'll then sit on those blues we can't wear until Cata hits and we can level to 85. Which means we run the risk of replacing them with drops, crafted, and reputation rewards.

It seems to me that I patch 4.0.3 must come after folks have had time to level, right?

Nobody forces you to spend all your points on day one.

[Salech]

it CANNOT be october 5th
it's been said here:
- 4.0 = end of arena season 8
- end of arena season 8 : october 12th
'nuff said

People always says this, but they have done it before, Arena is not that important that it prolongs a patch.

[Cassidin]

The Streaming Trial Download will likely be the only thing that goes 'live' on Oct 5th as to be honest there's still a fair bit to download and you won't be able to play with this client until later (Oct 12th?).

What would be the point of a "streaming" client that you couldnt play the content till several days later? The while IDEA of the streaming client is that you can play before its all downloaded.

[Deleted]

Just a question about the emblems conversion guys:
- Do we have a list of the new pricing on items?
- What do you think would be better, spending the emblems now or wait for the conversion?

I just did a quick check on the PTR, as an example, T10 pieces cost 695 and 1100 JP on there. That's the equivalent of 60.02 and 94.99 Emblems of Triumph/Frost converted to JP so it looks like stuff is the same price. So it doesn't appear to matter when you spend the Emblems you already have. However, converted Emblems are 11.58 JP each and the Heroic bosses on the PTR drop 15-16 JP each so if you plan on farming emblems/JP for any reason (for example, to buy heirlooms to level alts in Cata) it's probably better to do that after 4.0.1

[GhostSkull]

currently on the beta you need to be lvl 85 to buy those items from the vendors

Ah, thank you. So there isn't any reason to carry more than 345 Triumph/Frosts (345 x11.58=3995) into 4.0 because you'll be above the cap and there will be nothing that you can't already buy at the same rates.

[Deleted]

I think it's safe to assume that 4.0.1 will be released the 5th of october.

There is probably a lot of important changes in the engine for the streaming system and it wouldn't make sense for them to have back ported that to 3.3.5 if it was going to be online at most a few weeks before 4.0.1 goes live.

Besides, no streaming version of 3.3.5 has been tested on the PTR.

[Deleted]

dont know if this is anywhere els. but i cant help wondering is the Justice Points cap at 4k all the time or is it just a cap from emblems to Justice Points so Blizzard dont have anyone who just mad farming to get a huge head start ??

or is the 4k cap permanent

[Deleted]

I think it's safe to assume that 4.0.1 will be released the 5th of october.

There is probably a lot of important changes in the engine for the streaming system and it wouldn't make sense for them to have back ported that to 3.3.5 if it was going to be online at most a few weeks before 4.0.1 goes live.

Besides, no streaming version of 3.3.5 has been tested on the PTR.

Can you explain a bit more plz mate, im confused, i dont see what having a new version of the streaming trial downloader has to do with us having patch 4.0.1?

[fierceangel]

I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.

[goombatommy]

Most likely in 4.0.3. It's two whole different patches.

I thought the class combination's were only if you upgrade to Cataclysm?

[ethzero]

I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.

It's cute how you think Blizzard wouldn't release an unfinished patch to the masses when they've done it before, more than once.

[Alarsen]

Will be fun to get the new patch on live, looking forward to playing with new abilities!

Anyway, I heard something about Herald of the Titans being removed when 4.0.1 hits live realms, because of the new talents and scaling of gear / etc. Could anyone confirm this?

[Nuchaleft]

FYI:
New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.

[Deleted]

Can you explain a bit more plz mate, im confused, i dont see what having a new version of the streaming trial downloader has to do with us having patch 4.0.1?

Because the streaming feature is not just part of the downloader and the launcher. It's also integrated in the client itself to download resources in the background and make use of them as soon as they're available. There are even bits of UI specifically added for that feature, like the additional progress bar when creating a character when the client needs to download extra data for it, etc.

Even the layout of the client data files changed a lot.

So they did a lot of changes to the engine, to the client to support that feature. If they were to release it before 4.0.1 it would mean releasing a streaming version of the 3.3.5 client. As such it means they'd need to take all the probably significant internal engine and resource management changes and integrate them into the 3.3.5 client, and test them, and debug them, and it's probably not worth the effort since 3.3.5 is soon going to be history.

[crsh1976]

I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.

Internal builds are further ahead than what they release on the PTR. Not saying it's bug-free, but what's on the PTR isn't the final code and fixes.

[Deleted]

FYI:
New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.

And where did you read this?

Also it simply can not be on October 5th. 8 months of season 8 and then suddenly everything changes for 1 week and determines arena ranks. Even if I don't play arena anymore I think that would be completely ridiculous.

[DrgnDancer]

Sure, but angry customers = potentially lower revenues = potentially even angrier stockholders. Depends which way they want to go..

Blizzard doesn't answer to stakeholders directly; they're an independent subsidiary of Activism. That said, they'd get shit for missing the Q4 release. You have to understand that the stock market is stupid. It wants quarterly profits, not "gee if we wait a month our profits will be even better next quarter". From any normal point of logic this doesn't make sense, but it's the way the market works because of various factors (mostly having to do with stock brokers having neither the time nor inclination to do deep research on every company they buy and sell).

Having said that, like I said, Blizzard is an anomaly because of the way they're setup. They don't answer to directly to stock holders, they answer to Activision. Right now they are some ridiculously huge portion of Activision's revenues. They would doubtless get shit from the parent company for a next quarter release, but there's not much Activision could really do about the matter. They aren't (quite) stupid enough to shoot the goose that lays golden eggs, just because it only managed silver eggs this month.

Edit to add:

I'm thinking this will go int two parts, Down loader client updates on Oct 5th, in prep for patch on the 12th. Realistically trying to do both at the same time would be begging for trouble. Also, while I don't personally play arena, I think arena players would have quite a legitimate reason to QQ if they changed all the talents and gear itemization for the last week of the season.

[GhostSkull]

dont know if this is anywhere els. but i cant help wondering is the Justice Points cap at 4k all the time or is it just a cap from emblems to Justice Points so Blizzard dont have anyone who just mad farming to get a huge head start ?? or is the 4k cap permanent

The 4k JPcap is soft until 4.0.3 and then permanent. Apparently, Blizzard likes the way pvp honor works and they don't like the way that people have been hoarding tons of badges.

[Deleted]

Also it simply can not be on October 5th. 8 months of season 8 and then suddenly everything changes for 1 week and determines arena ranks. Even if I don't play arena anymore I think that would be completely ridiculous.

The fact that arena season 4 wasn't finished didn't stop them from pushing patch 3.0.

[seventhsin]

FYI:
New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.

Wrong they will be out when patch 4.0.3 goes live which will be before launch.