PTR 4.0.3a - Build 13316, Tol Barad Preview, 6th Anniversary, Blue Posts

[Evenios]

I really hope the invasions will NOT keep happening once the Shattering hits as it seems to be on the test server now, that would be annoying as heck. Lets hope thats just a bug and will not be in the final version!

[ent0mbed]

Still unconvinced? See old forums, general discussion, World of Warcraft’s 6th Anniversary!

"There isn't a pet planned for this year, no. We plan to reserve this sort of celebratory bonus for the most notable milestones or events in the future." - Daxx

Well, that's different information than you posted initially. Based on Blizzard's history of giving vague answers that leave the community to "guess" at what they meant it seemed reasonable that there could still be chances for a pet. To me... if it really isn't a major milestone to them then just make a post on their stupid website and be done with it. Who gives a shit about a Feat of Strength? "Oh boy... I logged into the game six years after it was born... nothing can stop me now!" Maybe next we can get achievements for logging in on Ghostcrawler's birthday and playing during the opening ceremony of the next Blizzcon.

[HikariOblivion]

4.03a is kinda.. eugh. No Dal/Shat portals, nor Azeroth flying - It's so much harder to get around. Plus my hearth keeps changing to Exodar. I may just hiatus until Cata if this goes live as-is.

[SwissyChief]

Sexy Blood Fury! I knew I was Orc for a reason!

[Jasthor]

So did they say anything about a pet at all this year for the anniversary? There was the baby blizzard bear for the 4th, which wasn't very special. The Onyxia welpling for 5th which was kinda important... So nothing for the 6th?

[Dayle]

I honestly don't care at all about Tol Barad, the other faction owns Wintergrasp on our server 99% of the time we got Wintergrasp once so far this week with the week starting on Sunday not Tuesday so this Tol Barad thing is basically just for the favored side, mostly Horde tho.

[DarksunG]

Hmm i wonder what This years Pet will be ??!?!?!?!

there is no pet for this year, they announced that already. Making more money than some countries still isn't enough to allow them to drop just enough ego to outsource things like mini pets or a player character revamp.

[bethofwow]

I really hope the invasions will NOT keep happening once the Shattering hits as it seems to be on the test server now, that would be annoying as heck. Lets hope thats just a bug and will not be in the final version!

Of course not. They also still have the earthquakes going even though Deathwing has obviously already escaped and done his damage. The events of the Shattering also advance the timeline in game another 5 years (see Anduin Wrynn) so it really wouldn't make much sense for the elements to still be invading

[Deleted]

Next week? Really?

I thought the patch would be only a week before the expansion not two...

Plus I doubt they'd do it so close to Thanksgiving...

If it's not next week, IMO, it will be kinda dumb of them. With the changes to the 1-60 experience a lot of people are going to be rolling alts and trying out new class combinations etc. By releasing it two weeks before Cata hits it means that the beginner zones will be relatively clear of traffic to make way for all the brand new accounts that will inevitably be opened by newbies seeing what all the fuss is about. It also gives people a fairly reasonable chance to get an alt up to 80 (if they're a fast leveller) for people that want to switch mains for Cata.

---------- Post added 2010-11-18 at 01:33 PM ----------

I really hope the invasions will NOT keep happening once the Shattering hits as it seems to be on the test server now, that would be annoying as heck. Lets hope thats just a bug and will not be in the final version!

I'd guess that maybe that isn't a bug - but something that happens up to December 7th and stops with the release of Cata.

---------- Post added 2010-11-18 at 01:42 PM ----------

there is no pet for this year, they announced that already. Making more money than some countries still isn't enough to allow them to drop just enough ego to outsource things like mini pets or a player character revamp.

*sigh* Or MAYBE....you know, just MAYBE they were too busy getting the bugs ironed out of Cataclysm which is released in 2 frickin' weeks and ensuring that everything has been ready for what is probably the most extensive graphical overhaul of WoW (which is shortly following the release of the most significant systems overhaul the game has every seem) since it was released has meant they didn't have time this year or they forgot or were just plain too tired. Why is it that every time Blizzard does anything there's always someone ready to blame it on a nefarious scheme or personality defect in the people in charge.

When you are getting ready for an expansion as major as Cataclysm - which has involved the construction of some major zones and instances with totally new mobs, gear and NPCs as well as an overhaul of all the quest rewards from 1-60, plus all the new Tier gear and a complete overhaul of the geography of the majority of zones in the game then the modellers may have to prioritise. I'd imagine that "Design a pet to give people for a completely insignificant anniversary" was pretty low on that list.

[shekspeare]

new Death Strike - this is a piece of SH...T. really. the most useless ability in the whole game.
from which logic it will be nerfed from 10% to 7%? this is so silly! why 3% why not 3.55% or 2.95% or 3.05%? HAHA! there is so balance =))))

[Collected]

4.03a is kinda.. eugh. No Dal/Shat portals, nor Azeroth flying - It's so much harder to get around. Plus my hearth keeps changing to Exodar. I may just hiatus until Cata if this goes live as-is.

Oh live is going to be good as a mage for the next few weeks. I'm stocking up on port runes.

[Gulbrandt]

I'm amused by the anniversary/pet thing. I wonder how many people would even notice it was WoW's 6th anniversary if it wasn't announced? And I suppose people have been completely oblivious that not only is Blizzard developing a new expansion, but completely re-doing the old world. Do you want your expansion on time, or do you want a pet? Sure, they can do a pet, but when people accuse Blizzard of being "lazy"and not fixing the 80,000,000 insignificant details that are apparently super important to people, they apparently don't realize this would delay Cataclysm for months. Those little projects add up. I suspect Blizzard is aware of shortcomings, I'm sure. I'm also sure they're focused on things that have the biggest impact on what makes the game playable and fun. They're trying to focus on the big picture. I haven' been disappointed yet.

I'd also like to point out that each Realm is probably run across multiple high-end servers, all of which eat up a LOT of bandwidth. I imagine Blizz has done some high-end negotiating with their ISP for a lot of quality bandwidth and great up-time. Servers also regularly have failed hardware (hard drives, any other component) I'm sure they also have a truly epic backup and recovery system. (Can you imagine if they lost anyone's characters because of hardware failure? Yeah, not so good for business.). All of this ends up costing Blizzard a huge amount of money every month. They still make a decent profit, obviously, or they wouldn't be doing this. :P But still--they don't have an unlimited team of developers. They have a limited amount of time with limited developers, so they have to narrow down which projects are most important. I'm sure that decision is not always easy. Certain things sometimes get left behind, but I'm sure it's due to lack of time, not lack of interest or effort.

So really, who cares about the pet? That would make me happy and excited for about ten seconds before I got bored of it. Seriously? People are upset over that? I'm way more looking forward to rolling some lowbies and as well as leveling my 80s.

[mordras]

Argent Dawn rep? Just run Strat a several times. Depending on the class of course it's fast to clear. With my DK I can do a baron run in 10 minutes. A full clear will give more rep though. You still have time if you start now.

If you want Argent Dawn rep you better get it now. On the Beta I just took a character into Scholo killed a few mobs, killed a few bosses. No rep. I went to Strat, killed some mobs, killed the baroness. I did get rep from the broken cadavers and nothing else. The rep from those guys was either 1 or 2 rep. The other mobs didn't award rep. I was neutral with AD so it definitely wouldn't have anything to do with diminished rep.

I did level a character through the beta that went through WPL and EPL. A few mobs in Andorhal gave some AD rep and I think one quest did but I think both of those are a bug. I was 200/3000 through Neutral with AD after going through those zones. The Argent Dawn doesn't even exist as a faction in the lore anymore so I'm inclined to think any mobs/quest that are giving you AD rep in the beta is a bug.