Monday, September 10, 2012
Challenge Modes Explained
Original Link: http://www.wowjuju.com/_/wowarticles/challenge-modes-explained-r228
Since we outlined most of the new Mists of Pandaria features and additions, I think it would be good to do some previews in more detail. First off, the Challenge Modes.
I reckon everyone remembers the "45 minute Stratholme" where you had to defeat Baron Rivendare within 45 minutes from entering the instance. Or the timed runs in Zul'Aman, where you had to kill a few bosses before the timer ran out in order to see themount drop.
Another concept Blizzard came up with to add something to a dungeon were achievements like the Herald achievement back in Ulduar. To achieve that you had to defeat Algalon while wearing gear within a specific iLevel range.
Now if we put all of these ideas together we get the new Challenge Modes...well, that’s not entirely true but it comes close enough.
Challenge modes are essentially timed heroic dungeons completed in low iLevel gear. You don't have to collect and store a special set of gear for this, because the gear you’re wearing that's over iLevel 463 will be scaled down.
The scaling is only going to affect the secondary stats; expertise and hit will be left untouched.
There are going to be three tiers of "medals" you can earn based on your time taken to comple the challenges: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
A bunch of achievements were added to the game for the challenge modes, rewarding you with titles, mounts, pets, and, the interesting part, teleportation spells like Path of the Scarlet Mitre.
Completing a challenge will also reward you with valor points, and if you complete all the gold challenges you will be added to the Leaderboard (unavailable yet) so you can compete with other players. The gold medals will also grant you access to class specific transmogrifiable armour sets.
To access a challenge mode you'll have to complete the heroic version of the dungeon first. After that, you should gather a group, select the Challenge Mode (the same way you select the Normal or Heroic when you enter a dungeon) and proceed to the dungeon. As far as I can see, you'll have to go to the dungeon the old fashioned way, no LFG or anything. There is also a daily quest, rewarding you with valor points, that will send you to complete a challenge mode. I don't think you need a gold medal for that. Bronze will be just fine for the quest.
When we first heard about Challenge Modes, at Blizzcon 2011, we were told that if this system is a success Blizzard may expand it. Now I wonder, are we going to see some challenge modes for raids? Is this new system going to be a real success? What do you think about it?
Challenge Modes Explained
posted Sep 10 2012 09:43 AM by Luci in WoW Articles | 21228 views and 7 comments.
Since we outlined most of the new Mists of Pandaria features and additions, I think it would be good to do some previews in more detail. First off, the Challenge Modes.
I reckon everyone remembers the "45 minute Stratholme" where you had to defeat Baron Rivendare within 45 minutes from entering the instance. Or the timed runs in Zul'Aman, where you had to kill a few bosses before the timer ran out in order to see themount drop.
Another concept Blizzard came up with to add something to a dungeon were achievements like the Herald achievement back in Ulduar. To achieve that you had to defeat Algalon while wearing gear within a specific iLevel range.
Now if we put all of these ideas together we get the new Challenge Modes...well, that’s not entirely true but it comes close enough.
Challenge modes are essentially timed heroic dungeons completed in low iLevel gear. You don't have to collect and store a special set of gear for this, because the gear you’re wearing that's over iLevel 463 will be scaled down.
The scaling is only going to affect the secondary stats; expertise and hit will be left untouched.
There are going to be three tiers of "medals" you can earn based on your time taken to comple the challenges: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
A bunch of achievements were added to the game for the challenge modes, rewarding you with titles, mounts, pets, and, the interesting part, teleportation spells like Path of the Scarlet Mitre.
Completing a challenge will also reward you with valor points, and if you complete all the gold challenges you will be added to the Leaderboard (unavailable yet) so you can compete with other players. The gold medals will also grant you access to class specific transmogrifiable armour sets.
To access a challenge mode you'll have to complete the heroic version of the dungeon first. After that, you should gather a group, select the Challenge Mode (the same way you select the Normal or Heroic when you enter a dungeon) and proceed to the dungeon. As far as I can see, you'll have to go to the dungeon the old fashioned way, no LFG or anything. There is also a daily quest, rewarding you with valor points, that will send you to complete a challenge mode. I don't think you need a gold medal for that. Bronze will be just fine for the quest.
When we first heard about Challenge Modes, at Blizzcon 2011, we were told that if this system is a success Blizzard may expand it. Now I wonder, are we going to see some challenge modes for raids? Is this new system going to be a real success? What do you think about it?
Patch 5.0.4 release patch notes
World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.4General
- Account-wide Achievements, pets, and mounts
- In Patch 5.0.4 and beyond, the majority of your character's Achievements, pets, and mounts will be shared with your other characters.
- World Event: Attack on Theramore Isle
- Warchief Garrosh, obsessed with assuring the Horde's supremacy over Kalimdor, launches an all-out attack against Jaina's island home of Theramore. Though valiant Alliance defenders rush to repel the sudden onslaught, they'll soon find themselves unprepared for the terrible scope of Garrosh's true plans...
- This Scenario will become available in the weeks leading up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria on September 25.
- AOE Looting
- Area of effect looting comes to World of Warcraft with this patch. After killing a group of enemies in close proximity, when you loot one of their corpses, the loot window will include items from all of the nearby corpses for which you have loot rights.
- BattleTag support in World of Warcraft
- Players who have enabled their BattleTag will now be able to:
- See BattleTag friends in your friends list.
- Add and remove BattleTag friends.
- Send BattleTag invites to other players via right-click.
- Players who have enabled their BattleTag will now be able to:
- Cross-Realm Zones
- In some zones, players are now able to form a group with other players from a select pool of realms.
- When a player is in a zone that is set as a "cross-realm zone", in addition to seeing other players from their native realm, they'll also seamlessly see (and be able to play with) players from other realms.
- Players will always be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their native realm.
- This functionality will be enabled for a limited number of realms at first, and will be granted to additional realms as we near the release of Mists of Pandaria.
- All classes have been updated with a new talent system, improved abilities, and spells (accessible throughout levels 1-85). Your character's talents have been reset.
- Many old talents have been converted to specialization abilities.
- Druids now have access to a fourth class specialization: Guardian.
- New spells are now learned automatically. Class trainers are only needed to change talents, glyphs, class specialization, or to utilize the dual specialization feature.
- All characters now take 40% less damage from other players.
- Valor points have been converted to Justice points, and Conquest points have been converted to Honor points.
- Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) have an enforced hard-cap at this time.
- Players are no longer able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses drop Justice, and arenas are closed).
- Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest are available for Justice/Honor.
- Spell Penetration has been replaced by PvP Power on existing items.
- Head enchants removed
- Enchants that modify the gear in your head slot have been removed from the game. This includes older head enchants of every type.
- Relics, ranged, and thrown items
- The slot in which ranged, relics, and thrown items were previously equipped has been removed. All weapons should now be equipped in the weapon slot.
- Ranged weapons, including wands, have been adjusted to be more powerful.
- Ranged weapons no longer have a minimum range.
- The glyph system has been updated. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.
- Prime glyphs have been removed.
- Chef's Award and Dalaran Cooking Award have been removed. Existing awards have been converted to Epicurean's Award.
- The cap for daily quests has been removed.
- There is no longer a displayed count of daily quests completed.
- There is a new user interface for your mounts and pets.
- Character creation screens have been updated.
- Buffs have been consolidated in the UI.
- New roll results frame added. This new feature can be accessed by clicking the word "[Loot]" in chat, or by typing "/loot".
- The PvE queue frames have been unified. You can now queue for dungeons, raids, and other queue-able content in one handy place.
- Vendors now offer item filtering.
- Spellbooks have been updated to reflect changes to core abilities, and now include a brief overview of specializations.
- The Dungeon Journal has been expanded with information on all pre-Cataclysm encounters.
- A new help system has been added to many frames. You can toggle this on and off by clicking the "i" button in the upper left corner of the frame.
- Mac OS X 10.5 is no longer supported.
- Added full support for Retina displays.
- Added support for game resolutions that match Mac screen aspect ratios.
- Switching between Windowed and Fullscreen display modes should be faster.
- A "Help" menu has been added, so that players can quickly navigate to support pages.
- A menu item that allows players to copy system information to the Clipboard has been added.
- A menu item that reveals various game files and folders in Finder has been added.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
7 wishes for guilds in Mists of Pandaria
Original Link: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/7-wishes-for-guilds-in-mists-of-pandaria/
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.
For officers, the improvements and new systems that Cataclysm brought to guilds were a game-changer in many ways. The sweeping changes to raiding that came with it brought on some difficult challenges. Fortunately, WoW does not stagnate. The Mists of Pandariaexpansion gives Blizzard a chance to add new features, make important changes, and improve on what the developers gave us in Cataclysm. Here's my personal wish list:
1. Treat legendary items as guild rewards, not player rewards. As guilds in WoWhave matured over the years, I've heard from officers less and less frequently about loot drama -- with one huge exception: legendaries. Every legendary in the history of WoW has caused problems for officers. For some, the legendary drama itself has become legendary.
It's time to change both the reality and the perception of these powerful items.
Earning legendaries today requires the prolonged effort of the guild's entire raid team. It's time to take that one step further. Each step in the quest line should be a guild quest that requires a guild undertaking to create a guild-bound item. (See, for example, Delegationduring the Dragonwrath quest line.)
There are multiple benefits to this method. Grinding out the required quest items wouldn't suffer when that one key person misses a raid. Because each guild could only do it once, a guild wouldn't have to keep running old content to earn one for every eligible raid member. Plus, Blizzard wouldn't have to prolong the process artificially to keep the number of legendaries limited.
When the legendary is created, that item would be tradeable among everyone in the guild. If someone leaves the guild with it in their inventory, it would revert to the guild bank.
A legendary should never ultimately belong to just one player. They take too much time and effort on the part of too many people. If the quest lines and items worked this way, then the perception of ownership would change and we would see far less drama over them. Blizzard can create class quests for other things.
2. Create more guild achievements that matter. I enjoyed the concerted effort that it took my guild to earn the cauldron and feast recipes. These achievements mattered because they made raid preparation significantly less annoying for (mostly) everyone. I'd like to see this idea expanded in Mists.
Give us more goals to shoot for as the expansion progresses. Allow us to upgrade our flasks and feasts with each tier so the bonuses don't become less and less relevant over time. It was great to get a mount after clearing tier 11 on normal mode, but subsequent patches never followed up on that premise. Perhaps take some of the boredom away from farming raid bosses by giving us pet versions of a boss if we kill him a certain number of times as a guild.
PvP guilds deserve more achievement rewards than they currently get. Some fun items for roleplaying guilds wouldn't be unwelcome, either. Along those lines ...
3. Guild halls -- make it happen. Send our guilds on the longest and most epic quest line that Blizzard has ever designed. Make it similar to the Gates of Ahn'qiraj quest line that only a handful of guilds around the world got to experience (only without the insane rep grind, please).
Have us earn guild achievements along the way that unlock the hall, and then upgrade it with vendors, portals, trophy cases, and other services and eye candy. With the gear normalization that Blizzard is implementing for timed dungeon runs, the developers wouldn't even have to update the bosses from tier to tier like they do now for holidays.
I understand that Blizzard doesn't want cities to look empty, so make the halls restrictive; allow access only to players with exalted guild reputation. Keep the Auction Houses and other essential services out in the world, but let us have a fun place to gather. Nothing would get players more invested in their guild that this type of ques tline and reward.
4. Design better recruiting tools. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the failure of the Guild Finder. It's just too limited in scope and too difficult to use in practice. A player looking for a guild and vice versa uses many more criteria than those the Guild Finder addresses. A better system that includes far more information and can match up in both directions would be a huge improvement.
New guilds in particular need more effective tools. Currently, they are at a severe disadvantage to established guilds. However, if they could find the types of players who would be interested in their community more easily, then new guilds would have a better chance to survive. Imagine if players looking for a fresh start could flag themselves as potential recruits for new guilds.
With all the matchmaking tech behind the Dungeon and Raid Finders, I don't see why a similar system couldn't be used to steer players toward like-minded guilds across realms.
5. Enable a "rep for deposit" function for the guild bank. It's a simple idea: You deposit a certain amount of ingredients for flasks, cauldrons, or feasts, and the bank awards you guild reputation. I know most officers would consider that a more noteworthy service than solo questing in Desolace. Players looking to rep up faster would have a means to do that -- and they'd actually benefit the guild at the same time.
6. Reward larger raids appropriately. I wrote about this last week, so I won't go into too much detail here. Something has to be done to make leading larger raids more desirable for the officers who put in the extra work. Otherwise, these guilds will simply die out or switch over to 10-player raiding, and then no one will have a choice about raid size.
7. Expand guild tabard design options. It's a tiny issue in the grand scheme of things, but the tabard designs haven't been updated since, well, ever. The original options were never that great to begin with. The color choices are very limited. Plus, with all due respect to theweeping bear, many of the icons just look flat-out terrible on actual character models.
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.
For officers, the improvements and new systems that Cataclysm brought to guilds were a game-changer in many ways. The sweeping changes to raiding that came with it brought on some difficult challenges. Fortunately, WoW does not stagnate. The Mists of Pandariaexpansion gives Blizzard a chance to add new features, make important changes, and improve on what the developers gave us in Cataclysm. Here's my personal wish list:
1. Treat legendary items as guild rewards, not player rewards. As guilds in WoWhave matured over the years, I've heard from officers less and less frequently about loot drama -- with one huge exception: legendaries. Every legendary in the history of WoW has caused problems for officers. For some, the legendary drama itself has become legendary.
It's time to change both the reality and the perception of these powerful items.
Earning legendaries today requires the prolonged effort of the guild's entire raid team. It's time to take that one step further. Each step in the quest line should be a guild quest that requires a guild undertaking to create a guild-bound item. (See, for example, Delegationduring the Dragonwrath quest line.)
There are multiple benefits to this method. Grinding out the required quest items wouldn't suffer when that one key person misses a raid. Because each guild could only do it once, a guild wouldn't have to keep running old content to earn one for every eligible raid member. Plus, Blizzard wouldn't have to prolong the process artificially to keep the number of legendaries limited.
When the legendary is created, that item would be tradeable among everyone in the guild. If someone leaves the guild with it in their inventory, it would revert to the guild bank.
A legendary should never ultimately belong to just one player. They take too much time and effort on the part of too many people. If the quest lines and items worked this way, then the perception of ownership would change and we would see far less drama over them. Blizzard can create class quests for other things.
2. Create more guild achievements that matter. I enjoyed the concerted effort that it took my guild to earn the cauldron and feast recipes. These achievements mattered because they made raid preparation significantly less annoying for (mostly) everyone. I'd like to see this idea expanded in Mists.
Give us more goals to shoot for as the expansion progresses. Allow us to upgrade our flasks and feasts with each tier so the bonuses don't become less and less relevant over time. It was great to get a mount after clearing tier 11 on normal mode, but subsequent patches never followed up on that premise. Perhaps take some of the boredom away from farming raid bosses by giving us pet versions of a boss if we kill him a certain number of times as a guild.
PvP guilds deserve more achievement rewards than they currently get. Some fun items for roleplaying guilds wouldn't be unwelcome, either. Along those lines ...
3. Guild halls -- make it happen. Send our guilds on the longest and most epic quest line that Blizzard has ever designed. Make it similar to the Gates of Ahn'qiraj quest line that only a handful of guilds around the world got to experience (only without the insane rep grind, please).
Have us earn guild achievements along the way that unlock the hall, and then upgrade it with vendors, portals, trophy cases, and other services and eye candy. With the gear normalization that Blizzard is implementing for timed dungeon runs, the developers wouldn't even have to update the bosses from tier to tier like they do now for holidays.
I understand that Blizzard doesn't want cities to look empty, so make the halls restrictive; allow access only to players with exalted guild reputation. Keep the Auction Houses and other essential services out in the world, but let us have a fun place to gather. Nothing would get players more invested in their guild that this type of ques tline and reward.
4. Design better recruiting tools. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the failure of the Guild Finder. It's just too limited in scope and too difficult to use in practice. A player looking for a guild and vice versa uses many more criteria than those the Guild Finder addresses. A better system that includes far more information and can match up in both directions would be a huge improvement.
New guilds in particular need more effective tools. Currently, they are at a severe disadvantage to established guilds. However, if they could find the types of players who would be interested in their community more easily, then new guilds would have a better chance to survive. Imagine if players looking for a fresh start could flag themselves as potential recruits for new guilds.
With all the matchmaking tech behind the Dungeon and Raid Finders, I don't see why a similar system couldn't be used to steer players toward like-minded guilds across realms.
5. Enable a "rep for deposit" function for the guild bank. It's a simple idea: You deposit a certain amount of ingredients for flasks, cauldrons, or feasts, and the bank awards you guild reputation. I know most officers would consider that a more noteworthy service than solo questing in Desolace. Players looking to rep up faster would have a means to do that -- and they'd actually benefit the guild at the same time.
6. Reward larger raids appropriately. I wrote about this last week, so I won't go into too much detail here. Something has to be done to make leading larger raids more desirable for the officers who put in the extra work. Otherwise, these guilds will simply die out or switch over to 10-player raiding, and then no one will have a choice about raid size.
7. Expand guild tabard design options. It's a tiny issue in the grand scheme of things, but the tabard designs haven't been updated since, well, ever. The original options were never that great to begin with. The color choices are very limited. Plus, with all due respect to theweeping bear, many of the icons just look flat-out terrible on actual character models.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Blizzard working on new models of humans and orcs
Original Link: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/08/31/blizzard-working-on-new-models-of-humans-and-orcs/
We heard back at BlizzCon 2011 and shortly after that Blizzard was working on new models, particularly the dwarves. But we haven't heard much more beyond that, just the occasional drop that it's something they'd like to do but need to do it right, since so many people are attached to their characters.
Today in an interview with Buffed.de, Ghostcrawler had the following to say:
Ghostcrawler and Buffed.de
So it looks like humans and orcs are being actively worked on now, and we may see a gradual rollout of the models. And if Blizzard does go with that gradual rollout, in my opinion, the chances of a new model or two coming out in MoP is quite high.
Blizzard working on new models of humans and orcs
Today in an interview with Buffed.de, Ghostcrawler had the following to say:
Ghostcrawler and Buffed.de
buffed: I think the last time we talked about it you said the designers were working on the Dwarves. Is it still Dwarves or are other races already being worked on as well?
Street: They've been working on the Dwarves and then the Humans and Orcs. We feel that if we can do the Humans and Orcs we can probably do all the races. It may not be the kind of thing where we turn them all on at once -- it may be a gradual rollout. It just depends on how long it takes.
buffed: Then we will hope that we get to see them during the Mists of Pandaria era.
Street: We'll just have to see.
Street: They've been working on the Dwarves and then the Humans and Orcs. We feel that if we can do the Humans and Orcs we can probably do all the races. It may not be the kind of thing where we turn them all on at once -- it may be a gradual rollout. It just depends on how long it takes.
buffed: Then we will hope that we get to see them during the Mists of Pandaria era.
Street: We'll just have to see.
So it looks like humans and orcs are being actively worked on now, and we may see a gradual rollout of the models. And if Blizzard does go with that gradual rollout, in my opinion, the chances of a new model or two coming out in MoP is quite high.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Class guides and resources for Mists of Pandaria
Original Link: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/08/28/class-guides-and-resources-for-mists-of-pandaria/
In the interest of providing a fast, easy-to-use resource for every class, we've gathered up our favorite guides, best lists, and most relevant posts into a convenient list. Check back often, because we'll keep these resources up to date throughout the last days of theCataclysm and deep into the Mists of Pandaria.
Death knight
Hunter
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Class guides and resources for Mists of Pandaria
Death knight
- Glyphs round-up (and more!)
- PvE Frost Knights in Mists of Pandaria
- Cat and moonkin talent walk-through
- Cat and moonkin talent walk-through, part 2
- Guardian druid enchants, mods, gems, and buff items
- Restoration druid enchants, mods, gems, and buff items
- Patch 5.0.4 for balance and feral druids
- Patch 5.0.4 for guardian and restoration druids
Hunter
- Hunters in patch 5.0.4
- Racials in MoP and beyond
- Rare tames in Mists of Pandaria
- Mage damage rotations in 5.0.4
- Preview of mages in patch 5.0.4
- Mage glyph guide
- Mage talent specs
- Brewmaster guide
- Mistweaver guide
- Windwalker guide
- Protection paladin guide
- Retribution paladin guide
- How to priest in the Mists of Pandaria
- Holy and discipline changes in 5.0.4
- All-in-one guide to rogues
- Enhancement shaman
- What to expect when you're enhancing
- Core summary for patch 5.0.4
- What you need to know about grimoires and demons: your pet guide
- Warrior general basics
- Fury warrior 101
- Arms warrior 101
- Protection warrior 101
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
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