Icy Veins' Weekly Recap spotlights the latest World of Warcraft news!
This week in the World of Warcraft brings a few live build hotfixes, including an important change to world boss faction-tapping! Our friends at MMO-Champion has published a huge lot of Warlords of Draenor weapon, shoulder and NPC models. In addition, Blizzard has revealed the updated Tauren and Draenei player models in their new Artcraft feature, including special, behind-the-scenes videos of the model development process. Speaking of video, Blizzard has announced the Azeroth Choppers webseries, pitting Alliance versus Horde in the fine art of motorcycle crafting! Read on for the full details of this week in World of Warcraft news!
World of Warcraft Patch 5.4.7 Latest Hotfixes
Even with all the coverage and work being done on the upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion, Blizzard has still taken the time to make sure things are running smoothly in current WoW. The latest 5.4.7 patch build has seen a few recent hotfixes which players may appreciate! The most significant change is the adjustment made to the tap-to-faction system for world bosses, allowing both factions to now be eligible for loot from a single boss. A surprising change is the increase in the number of instances a player can create in an hour (10, up from 5) which is a relatively archaic limitation seemingly left over from the days of Dire Maul book farming! Be sure to check out the full list of hotfixes below!
5.4.7 Hotfixes
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April 7
Classes
Shaman
General
Resolved an issue where the visual effect for Healing Rain was able to persist indefinitely.
Quests
Guerrillas in our Midst: Resolved an issue where General Nazgrim can lose his quest giver status, preventing players from being able to complete the quest.
The Lesson of the Burning Scroll: Players now receive the Master's Flame automatically upon accepting the quest.
Creatures
All world bosses in Mists of Pandaria are no longer tap-to-faction. Players from both factions that engage the world boss at the same time are now eligible for loot.
Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Each World of Warcraft account can now create a maximum of 10 instances per hour (up from 5).
Siege of Orgrimmar
Amalgam of Corruption's Unleashed Anger can now reach players that are greater than 10 yards away.
Dungeons
Siege of Niuzao Temple: A Challenge Gong has been added, allowing players the option to trigger waves of attackers more quickly during the Commander Vo'jak encounter.
Updated Tauren, Draenei Character Models
Blizzard Entertainment's art directors have started a fascinating new column, Artcraft, which provides players with an extremely in-depth look at the process of updating and animating the character models in World of Warcraft. Blizzard hopes to update all of the existing character models for Warlords of Draenor, and in these Artcraft previews Blizzard shows off the updated Tauren Male and Female Draenei character models. Blizzard has definitely made amends from their April Fools Draenei female model tease, as these new models feature more improvements and less goat legs.
With this preview, Blizzard have provided tons of behind-the-scenes video content and comparison pictures showing off the full process of creating these beautiful new character models. This is easily one of my favorite pieces of content Blizzard has ever created for the fans and I definitely recommend visiting Blizzard's site to check out the full post!
Tons of Warlords of Draenor Models Datamined
Not to be outplayed by Blizzard's expert character model review, our friends over at MMO-Champion have been hard at work digging out as much awesome content as possible from Warlords of Draenor Alpha build. This week they have posted a ton of updated character, beast and weapon models. It is likely that many of the weapon and shoulder models are dungeon and quest loot, so I'm sure we'll have tons of even fancier models to check out in later Alpha builds. The beast models are absolutely phenomenal and truly show off the modelling that Blizzard has consistently improved upon in recent expansions. I can't wait until one-day every model in the game looks as good as these do (hey, a girl can dream)!
Check out the datamined Warlords of Draenor Alpha weapon and shield models in this MMO-Champion post. Check out the updated Warlords of Draenor Alpha NPC and beast models in this MMO-Champion post.
Blizzard Reveals New 'Azeroth Choppers' Webshow
And now, for something completely different. Blizzard has teamed up with Paul Jr. of American Chopper fame for an all-new webseries: Azeroth Choppers! Because why not! Two teams of Blizzard veterans will compete to determine who can create the most epic custom-built bike for their faction. Players will vote on their favorite bike, and the winner will forever be immortalized in glory as an actual in-game mount. Horde bias, don't fail me now! Team Horde is led by Sam "Samwise" Didier and Team Alliance is (oddly) headed by Chris Metzen! Be sure to check out the series premiere on April 17th, 2014 on the Azeroth Choppers website and root for your favorite faction!