Glance at D3's Gamescom Booth, Interview With Josh Mosqueira, UnidColor's Diablo 2 Fan Art
Quests and Dailies, Weekly News Recap, Source of Hearthsteed Mount
Patch 5.4 - Tier 16 Warlock Armor Set
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final set may be different.
Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews
There were several interviews with the developers last week and a lot more coming this week! You can find information from previous interviews on our Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews page.
Mamytwink
The devs are happy with how the legendary item system worked out, and Cory wouldn't be surprised to see them continue with the same kind of system. However, this doesn't mean they won't do legendary items the old way ever again.
The future of the in game store items that appeared in the store is uncertain. Those kind of items may be popular in Asia, but may not be very popular in the US/EU. They will only be added if it feels right for the game and is the right thing to do, so the items may not even make it into the game.
There aren't any plans for class specific quests in the near future.
Achievements will be the only reward for Proving Grounds, as they are mostly aimed at learning new specs or challenging yourself. They are fun on their own.
The DotA Battleground could happen, but may never happen. It isn't being worked on anymore.
There will be a smaller pre-expansion event patch, but anything beyond that is not set in stone. Patch 5.4 is the conclusion of the Pandaria storyline.
Battlefield: Barrens was pretty successful and the developers were happy with the outcome.
The Instance
The tech is in place to be able to change how flex encounters work for each additional player that is in the raid. Some things like NPC health or damage scale well and can easily be changed per player, but generally things that don't scale well like the number of adds just change for every few people that are added to the raid.
Removing the item level restriction on enchants was done to make the process of preparing an item for use simpler, eliminating one of the research steps that needed to be done.
Proving Grounds will give players an opportunity to try other specs and see if they enjoy them without impacting other players. By the time you have gone through to gold with a spec, you should be ready to queue up for things and play decently.
Proving Grounds has a lot of potential and can be expanded upon if it is well received by players.
Garrosh has been built up over several expansions from a smaller character to the final raid boss of an expansion. Arthas was cool, but people already knew a lot about him because he was from Warcraft III. For the final raid boss, the developers want players to really want to kill him. This requires players to know what he has done in the past and why you are here killing him. The team has worked hard to explain over the past few patches what Garrosh is doing to Pandaria, why it is so bad, and what his plans are for the Horde.
It was a tough decision to destroy the Vale permanently in Patch 5.4 rather than doing it as a phase or part of the raid only, but it really adds to the impact of the patch.
WoWCrendor
Timeless Isle is intended for exploration, looking for rare spawns, and taking place in events, so there are only 2 daily quests on the island. It should feel less like a grind than anything that has been added recently.
One of the downsides of the new talent system is that it is challenging to provide something new and rewarding every time someone levels. On the upside, the decision process for returning players is much easier and the choices everyone makes are more meaningful.
Passive talents that gave you something like 1% hit just weren't exciting or interesting, especially as they had almost no impact on the leveling process.
Connected Realms has been in development for a very long time. They could have just merged servers in the past, but that wouldn't have been the right solution for the game.
Connected Realms is a big piece of tech for WoW and it will grow and get more features over time.
As far as future additions to the pet battle system, the system may not need more qualities, pet levels, or changes to the core dynamics.
People enjoy pet battles as they are, so in the future more content will be added. This includes more pets, pets with unique abilities that are strong against new pet trainers, more pets from bosses, more pet battle quest lines, and other content.
Gamona
Trinkets that relied on the ICD were becoming boring, so RPPM was an attempt to make trinket procs a little bit more random and interesting.
The changes made to RPPM and Haste will hopefully address the issue of procs on pull and other issues with the new mechanic.
Casting while moving is a complex problem, as the game works better when there is less casting while moving, but being inactive when movement is required is a problem as well. Allowing players to do lower damage while moving is a decent solution to the problem.
The developers will watch carefully and make sure that Flex does not feel too mandatory.
The heirloom weapons on Garrosh are a reason for players to keep coming back and killing him, even when a new expansion is approaching.
WoWInsider
Removing the daily quest cap made players feel like that doing all of the daily quests available was mandatory.
Daily quests may return in the future, but not to the extent of the Patch 5.0 daily quest options.
Permanently damaging the Vale was the right thing to do and addressed the concerns of players that want a more dynamic world. Phasing wasn't practical because of how the zone was initially designed.
Patch 5.4 won't show the results of the ongoing war in the world, but there is an event between 5.4 and the next expansion.
Blizzplanet
There might be some changes made to Orgrimmar over time, but there won't be any dramatic changes right away.
Players aren't directed to everything on the Timeless Isle via daily quests so that there is more of a sense of exploration and discovery.
The Timeless Isle armor being looted in a random way from chests is a departure from the normal slow grind towards a guaranteed item to go along with the other new things being tried on the isle.
Patch 5.3 Hotfixes - August 19
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Throne of Thunder
Twin Consorts
Lu'lin should now always be casting at least two Ice Comets before Suen begins channeling Nuclear Inferno on Heroic difficulty.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Raid Lag
This is some pretty awesome sleuthing here, great work! We've been doing some similar testing over the past couple of weeks and we agree -- it looks like healing is the culprit of the dreaded "raid lag" that many guilds have been experiencing.
We do have a few adjustments coming down the pipe for 5.4 that should help. We're changing AoE heals to no longer affect insignificant guardians like Voodoo Gnomes or Wild Imps. We're also making a few adjustments to Healing Rain, Light's Hammer, Spinning Crane Kick, and Holy Word: Sanctuary that should hopefully clean things up a bit as well. Plus, now that we know the source of the issue, it'll be easier to make further adjustments if necessary.
Thanks again for putting so much effort into testing this! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Hunter Changes
1. There would be compensation for the removal of readiness; can you clarify.
We've already made all of the adjustments we had planned in the wake of the Readiness nerf. Yes, this means that you'll be less effective in certain situations (such as BM burst in Arenas). That was the point.
2. It was acknowledged that Hunter DPS was low and that this would be specifically addressed
We're still monitoring performance and tuning appropriately, and that will continue. It's important to remember that changes to other classes will have an effect on where you stand in overall performance. Comparing 5.4 PTR Hunter DPS to, say, 5.3 Fire Mage DPS would be silly, as Fire has been brought down considerably.
3. It was promised that there would be work done to make significant differentiation between all three Hunter specs
Indeed, that's something we're planning to do; and as I mentioned when I first brought it up, that'll happen sometime after 5.4.
4. MM was to be made viable again, or at least on par with the other specs
I haven't said anything along these lines, but keeping similar specs in line with each other is always a goal of ours. That said, players will always tend to gravitate towards whatever the "best" spec happens to be in a given patch cycle, even if the differences are very minor. If Survival ends up doing even as little as 2% more damage than Marksmanship, I suspect we'll still see many claims that Marks is "not viable."
5. Our mechanics (things like pet patching and glitching) would be addressed (edit: this has been pushed off)
I thought I was pretty clear when I brought this up initially: there is no blanket fix to pet pathing. The vast majority of the time, it has to do with how an encounter functions or how an environment is built, and nothing to do with the pet AI at all. The issues aren't unfixable, but we need to know specifically when and where your pets are struggling. "Fix pet pathing" doesn't help us (or you). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Raid Testing Schedule - August 20
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
On Tuesday, August 20, we will continue testing raid encounters in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.
Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.
Tuesday, August 20
Immerseus - 25 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
Siegecrafter Blackfuse - 25 Player Normal - 12:00 PDT (15:00 EDT, 21:00 CEST)
Spoils of Pandaria - 25 Player Normal - 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
Paragons of the Klaxxi- 25 Player Normal - 15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 24:00 CEST)
As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.
Website Cleanup Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on our earlier website-cleanup plan announcement. We read through all of your thoughts and suggestions, and based on that we’re making a number of changes to our initial plan. While our goal remains to clean up parts of the website that require frequent updates but don’t see a lot of traffic, we heard some great reasons to keep specific sections around, and in some cases we've come up with creative solutions to make that happen.
Features Being Retired or Changed
Game Guide
Pets & Mounts Gallery
You’ll still be able to browse/show off individual character collections, but we’ll leave catalogues of all available pets to fan sites like Warcraft Pets or Wowhead.
Factions
This will be replaced with a general overview of what factions are.
Professions
Profession pages will remain, but we will be removing the item lists.
Guild Profiles
Perks and Rewards sections
This list will be gone, but you can still check them out in-game.
Features Staying
Character Profiles
Pets & Mounts
Hunter Pets
You’ll still be able to look at Hunter pet stables.
We will be removing the Hunter pet talent information showing how each pet is specced.
Professions
Reputations
Reputation lists and tracking for characters will remain.
Individual faction pages will link to Wowhead and Wowpedia.
One common question we heard after the previous announcement was whether these changes would affect the website API, which is largely how fansites access data about the game and characters for use on their own pages. These changes in no way affect the API—they only affect the information we’re choosing to display on the official site. We’re committed to providing all of the site-builders out there with tools they need to make their WoW resources great, and we plan to keep providing them with the same level of API information and support.
Thanks again for all of your feedback, and for helping us ensure the World of Warcraft website continues to provide you with the information you seek.
Weekly News Recap
Another very busy week full of news, so here is your chance to catch up!
August 11
We looked at the Tier 16 Hunter Armor Set.
The Setup of the Month was posted.
The target audience of Flex Raids was described.
August 12
Ghostcrawler was interviewed by Twizzcast.
The heirloom weapons that drop from Garrosh are personal loot in Flex, Normal, and Heroic difficulty. The first heirloom weapon that drops for you will be for your current loot spec, but after that you will get one at random.
Scenarios might be a useful place to apply the Flex scaling tech in the future, scaling from 3 to 5 players.
The idea of scaling raids past 25 players has also been considered, allowing you to scale up to a higher limit like 30 players.
A summary of the intent behind the Patch 5.4 class changes was posted.
August 13
There was a PTR build that added a new Cosmetic set for Shaman only.
A trademark application for The Dark Below appeared, but was never filed, as no serial number was assigned.
August 14
The Battle.Net Desktop Client entered open beta.
Patch 5.4 went on the background downloader.
A potential Patch 5.4 release date of the 27th was posted.
The end of Season 13 was announced.
The Reaper of Souls Diablo III expansion teaser appeared on the official site.
August 15
The Patch 5.4 trailer was released!
The official Patch 5.4 PTR notes were updated with lots of class changes.
The Battle.Net Desktop Client open beta was officially announced.
An end to Battlefield: Barrens was announced.
A preview of the changes to the Vale and a preview of the Timeless Isle were posted.
August 16
The Hearthstone Closed Beta went live!
We had the opportunity to interview Tom Chilton about Patch 5.4 and beyond. There is a lot of interesting stuff in the interview, so please read the full thing!
The Kor'kron Dark Shaman cosmetic armor will drop off of mobs in Flex, Normal, and Heroic difficulty Siege of Orgrimmar. The armor already existed for NPCs, so adding it is a cool bonus for Shaman. We may see more in the future if a similar situation arises.
Normal difficulty raids and scenarios are good candidates for applying the Flex tech to in the future, but Normal raids are tuned tighter than Flex, so this isn't a promise at all.
There will be some kind of content and event between now and the next expansion, but the patch number isn't determined yet.
Connected Realms will be used to help out lower population realms, not balance the factions on very high population realms. However, in the process of grouping low population realms, faction balance will be taken into account as much as possible.
Connected Realms will roll out fairly quickly after Patch 5.4 is released, similar to the release timeline of Cross-Realm Zones.
There may not be any realm specific things like achievements, leaderboards, or forums going forward.
August 18
There was another PTR build with a few class changes.