official World of Warcraft

[Lexcyn]

Alright so here's whats up;

Email was for, for the time, compromised. I had to answer security questions and change the whole password situation.

My battle.net / wow accts. were not compromised at all. I do have an authenticator and apparently just repeatedly put in the wrong number.

I tried to stress that I was pretty drunk when I posted last night. Fall asleep at your computer drunk. It was a post of confused rage fueled by box-wine and mysterious emails.

All is good. Be careful.

lol nice. Glad everything is OK though.

[Shaun N.]

Mac people! How big is you ''World of Warcraft'' folder? I have played WAY less, almost non-existant and considered just moving the folder to an external so I can easily just copy/paste if I want to play (takes mere minutes) rather than install and keep up with dvd/cds. Anyways, I can avoid that (not that it is pain staking) by cleaning out the folder if possible.

Currently sitting @ 19.32GB; all patches / updaters are gone except the background downloader and Blizzard updater.

Anything else I can do to slim it down, or ~20GB is about what it is?

[DrCheese]

FYI you can now download the content for the 4.0 PTR servers

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/758791-4.0-PTR-Character-Copy-up

Downloading now.. 16gb >.< But it's the new streaming client so it might not hurt that much

[DrCheese]

*Ignore this post*

[Shaun N.]

Holy ****, Thanks Dr Cheese, Downloading now :D w00t!

[DrCheese]

I'm not sure if we'll have all the big world changes in this patch tho, but we should at least have most of the class and engine changes.

Would be nice if we do have the world changes tho, is about the only reason I've been trying to get into the proper cata beta so I can look around the new world :p

[DrCheese]

The PTR's are up now, but it's still the old world. All the class and UI changes are in tho.

Edit: comment from blizzard

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa … mp;sid=1#4

Flying in Azeroth will not be possible until your account is upgraded to Cataclysm. Patch 4.0.1 is slated to be released prior to Cataclysm and will not include the changes to the old world or any content exclusive to Cataclysm. This patch will apply many systems, class, and user interface changes. It's very similar in nature to the major patches which preceded the releases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.

and patch notes

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.1

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

General

Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Classes: General

Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.

All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.

Ammo has been removed from the game.

The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.

Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.

Rage has been normalized.

Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.

Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.

Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.

Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.

Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.

Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.

The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1

Death Knights

A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.

The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.

The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters

Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.

Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.

Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.

The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.

Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.

Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface

Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.

The Arena Teams pane has been improved.

The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.

The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.

A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.

Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.

New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.

Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.

New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.

The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114

[Spookie]

4.0.1 on the PTR?... So about 2 months from release then?

[Minifig]

4.0.1 on the PTR?... So about 2 months from release then?

About that.. I'm thinking mid-October.

[MikeFu84]

About that.. I'm thinking mid-October.

Mid October is only a month away. I don't see it that early. I am thinking around the same time in November like Lich King was.

[Slane]

Mid October is only a month away. I don't see it that early. I am thinking around the same time in November like Lich King was.

Aye, maybe first week of November. But thinking November is the going to be the month.

[Prosidius]

Well what needs to be done in cataclysm so far:

Add the heroic instances

Add the raid instances

Itemize raid & heroic instances

Finish twilight highlands & Silithus & Winterspring

Do professions (they are very rough as it stands)

Fix the various bugs

Balance the classes

Can they get that done by November? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway heres a screenshot from Vash'jir I took:

[lalalawawawa]

^ Looks too much colorful?

[Prosidius]

Yeah Vash'jir was probobly the zone I most look forwarded to doing. The whole concept of an underwater zone is very unique. The zone delivers in that. It's pretty cool to be riding a seahorse through the zone and doing all the aquatics stuff. As far as questing goes, it's meh. I think I prefer Hyjal in that regard. Most of the quests are kill x, gather y. There is a vehicle quest chain in the Shimmering Expanse (a region of Vash'jir) that lets you control a naga to take back the ruins of vash'jir but I found that quest line pretty painful.

As a tip from someone who is doing both starting zones to level to 85: DONT. Hyjal will take you to around 82 alone and after 82 the XP jumps from 1.6 million to 6.4 million. I have one region left in Vashj'ir and I have about 20% to go till 83 but I've also spent 8 hours questing in the level because of the low xp the quests give. After you do one of the starting zones, go to Deepholme and save the other starting zone till your level capped if you want to level fast.

[Spookie]

^ Looks too much colorful?

Me thinks you've been playing too many 'next-gen' console games.

[_neutrino Veteran]

my biggest disappointment with the current PTR is that they did not include the new water or sunrays even though they are in the configuration menu however, at the same time this is the pre-cataclysm patch so they are most likely going to leave that for the people that actually purchase Cataclysm when it is released (which i am assuming at this point will be mid November-mid December)

My vote however is that it will be released either on November 18th or November 25th

[DrCheese]

my biggest disappointment with the current PTR is that they did not include the new water or sunrays

Yeah that surprised me, You get no water at all unless you lower the liquid effects down to "low" which is the old/current water style on live.

We got the shadows that wotlk gave us in the 3.0 patch...

I transferred my characters last night (EU) but they still aren't showing, which is annoying. A level 1 to 10 character isn't really enough to get a feel for the way hunters have changed. What's scary tho is that people are actually bothering to level characters at the moment, I think I've seen a level 25 on the PTR already :x (no one has been able to transfer on EU yet)

[Slane]

November 25th

That's Thanksgiving for us here in the States (not sure where your from). I can't see them releasing it on one of the big 4 holidays of the year. Especially since they'll have people working all night and well into release day/afterwards on it. Why would they do that to the fanbase and employee's. Not saying it couldn't but if it's November, I'd chalk it up to the 18th or the 11th (assuming Thursday release). But I can see it being released before Black Friday (huge "sale" day here in the states the Friday after Thanksgiving).

[Alladaskill17]

why so large?? That would annoy me with all the useless patches lol

[DrunkenBeard]

Hi,

I wanted to know your opinion about something that's preoccupying me. It's about hunters' focus. I don't know if it's just low levels but with the new focus mechanic, there seems to be no resource management to do at all by the hunters. At least with mana they used to do some (I guess, never played one), now I'm almost lvl 15 and I'm pretty much just going around sending my pet to tank and shooting things non-stop, absolutely no down time and I kill mobs very quickly, and I'm talking about mobs up to 6 levels above me ! The way it is now, even the focus regeneration in Steady Shot is quite pointless. Basically I feel like a warlock with everlasting mana, imagine that.

Thoughts ?

[Alladaskill17]

Hi,

I wanted to know your opinion about something that's preoccupying me. It's about hunters' focus. I don't know if it's just low levels but with the new focus mechanic, there seems to be no resource management to do at all by the hunters. At least with mana they used to do some (I guess, never played one), now I'm almost lvl 15 and I'm pretty much just going around sending my pet to tank and shooting things non-stop, absolutely no down time and I kill mobs very quickly, and I'm talking about mobs up to 6 levels above me ! The way it is now, even the focus regeneration in Steady Shot is quite pointless. Basically I feel like a warlock with everlasting mana, imagine that.

Thoughts ?

Life Tap + Glyph of Life Tap?

[DrunkenBeard]

@Alladaskill, glyphed life tapping IS mana management. You have to actually do something to regain mana at health cost and then get back that spent health. In the hunter's case, there is nothing to do, the focus is just there, and it goes down so slowly that you never actually notice.

[Spookie]

Thoughts ?

Same with mana based classes apparently they streamlined the **** out of leveling.

[Alladaskill17]

@Alladaskill, glyphed life tapping IS mana management. You have to actually do something to regain mana at health cost and then get back that spent health. In the hunter's case, there is nothing to do, the focus is just there, and it goes down so slowly that you never actually notice.

Oh, so like my Holy paladin during any raid pre HM ICC and now even then lol

oh noes! Divine Plea / Illumination + Arcane Torrent + retarded mana pool

[DrunkenBeard]

@Aladaskill, I don't know why you insist on missing the point. Divine Plea and AT are on a CD, they are ways to manage your mana. You're not supposed to go mana-starved and Blizz has given every class a way to regen their mana in long boss fights. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem here is having a resource that's actually meaningless. Compare "Oh crap ! I'm 50%, quick DP/AT" to "Boom boom boom shaka boom boom boom ... hey! what's that orange thing there under my health bar ?". See now ?