Results tagged “Patch 2.4” from From the Abbey to Outlands

Perhaps my brush with fame had gone to my head, but I am calling here and now for a few things. I am offline for a couple more days, so this does impact me a lot. First, reading this post from WoW Insider's Eliah Hecht saying his server is at 59% done on Phase 1, has me concerned. I would love a chance like we had for the AQ opening, to see out of game the progress being made. This is a new kind of war effort, isn't it? Let us call for a new war effort status page!

Second, I worry that the Isle is opening too fast. Half a phase in 1 day? Completely open in a week? I can only hope that 2, 3, and 4 are harder, requiring more time and effort to get them opened up. At this rate, assuming Argent Dawn is about the same rate as Eliah's realm, when I get in sometime Friday, the Isle will be nearing the end of phase 2. That's missing pretty much half of this epic world event.

Lastly, I am not sure how much I like the idea of some dailies not being able to be done after some phases. What if I have that, completed, in my logs? Will I still be able to turn it in for rep? In another post on WoW Insider a staff writer posted a link to this timeline of dailies for the Isle, and it shows that we have a lot of dailies, twenty of them, and I worry that some will vanish before I even get a chance to break glass, destroy portals, or many of them.

[Update: And this post tells me that after about 24 hours of stable servers, Argent Dawn has reached second phase of the Isle of Quel'Danas. Maybe I can get in for phase 3 and 4...]

When is the last time Blizzard brought in a 5 person(thanks Drysc for the politically correct version) dungeon outside of an expansion or launch of WoW? Was it Maraudon? Dire Maul? That was three years ago, and it was still for the most part 'Vanilla WoW' as they call it. That was almost launch version as they were still working on the server issues until May.

This question was brought up by a post from Lavata of the Sentinels US realm. She asks why Blizzard made the Magister's Terrace so damned hard. With mobs that "are worse than trash in Kara" and Bosses that are easier than some of the trash pulls, Lavata says that it is far too difficult for your average 70. "MaT fails to fill the spot it is meant to in progression" to paraphrase.

I think that Lavata, and many others who eagerly fly their way to the Isle of Quel'Danas in anticipation of a run through MaT(for lack of a better abbreviation), are making on mistake in assumption. They assume that this will be just another 5 person just like the rest we got with TBC. It isn't. Why would it be? It is a dungeon we get as we all near the next phase of the game, Wrath of the Lich King.

Look at this like... the baby Naxx of the TBC era. It's not the big raid instance, as Sunwell Plateau fits in there. It's the baby one for the non raiders or those just looking to get more gear from rep rewards. It will be hard. Harder than any of the other 5 person dungeons we have so far, and that is fine because it should be hard.

Another thing to consider is something that Drysc points out in the thread. When TBC came out, people were even at the high ends of the dungeons still banging their heads on the wall of the low TBC dungeons like Blood Furnace and Slave Pens. Hell, some people still haven't done those dungeons because of their earlier troubles. Only one of my 3 70s has ever fought his way through the Slave Pens dungeon.

This is the early head banging phase of Magister's Terrace. It's the point were we try out the strategies, attack fights from different angles, and see what works. We also see what doesn't work and how we can fit in those classes who are the outsiders of the dungeon sets, the Ret Paladins, the rogues, the hunters and more. Give it some time, Lavata, It'll come.

Of course, as always, your mileage(and gear) may vary.

So I am, at this very moment, playing Medrose, the renames toon from the PTR PvE realm that I copied over. Let me just say that since I cannot see Silvermoon without rolling a Hordie or dying horribly, this place is great. I get to see the amazing Blood Elf structures they brought in with the expansion and have a lot more protection than I expected to have surrounded by such structures.

My second thought was that the measures Blizzard put in shortly after the expansion launched to combat lack of spawns for questing sure are in full force on the PTR. The sheer number of quests on the Isle of Quel'Danas, the bump to 25 daily quests, and the amazing amount that can be done in the 2.4 patch is just shocking and pleasing. I have no doubt there will be a lot to due and little to get bored with when the Isle of Quel'Danas opens up.

When I first got Med his bird, I flew around all the zones, just exploring the scenery. I happened on the Throne of Kil'Jaden and back then those mobs looked so deadly that just flying within sight felt like a huge risk. Now we get to go there, get to fight the mobs that are in that seemingly inaccessible area, and that is exciting! Oh, and I finally found Doom Lord Kazzak, who has always frustrated me with his yell spam in Hellfire Peninsula.

I think that when 2.4 hits, there will be more for people to do in a day than they know what to do with. /cheer

Of course, when the patch notes first hit, there was a lot of new info, helping or otherwise adding to the excitement surrounding patch 2.4. While that huge influx of info has slowed a bit, there is still a good amount of info coming out about the next patch for World of Warcraft. WoW Insider has their own roundup post, where they will put all the info they find about the patch in nice, neat categories.

We have info about the World PvP daily quests, a peek at the UI and Interface panel changes in 2.4, and an awesome post about what we can expect to see in 2.4 before we even run off to the Isle of Quel'danas, including daily quests in Shatt from some of the newly converted NPCs which are now members of the Shattered Sun Offensive. Oh, and don't forget the gift to PvPers who spend their time in Battlegrounds, a repeatable turn in quest that gifts you honor for all those excess tokens.

A day or two ago WoW Insider informed the audience that the Naaru that the Blood Elves where fueling their Paladins on had vanished on the PTR, and that pretty much sealed it for the identity of the Dark Naaru in the Sunwell Plateau. Of course, those on the PTR aren't hesitating in having a bit of fun as some enterprising warlocks have found a way to enslave Brutallus the demon from Sunwell Plateau, pretty effectively killing everything on the Island. I agree with WoW Insider's Daniel Whitcomb, this will most likely be fixed before 2.4 goes live.

Fishing is getting some major buffs, or gifts at least, in 2.4. First, we get fishing Daily quests.  Yay! We can push people into 375 fishing with rewards of cash and blues! Speaking of Blues, There is a report that at least one fishing quest rewards you with a new non combat pet, Chuck the baby crockolisk, which you would get in a Bag of Fishing Treasures, which comes from the fishing quests much like the Crate of Meat and Barrel of Fish come from the Cooking Daily. Other items found inside this bag are Sharpened Fish Hooks, a recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager, Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat.

We also have reports of a seemingly common drop 20 slow unique bag, Sun Touched Satchel, and even though their own reader said so days before, WoW Insider is reporting that the Phoenix non combat pet does, in fact, drop from Kael'Thas in Magister's Terrace. How it took them 4 days to read their own comments which included a screen shot of the Phoenix being looted off Kael'Thas, I don't know, but there you have it.


News out in the last few days shows that items critical to making most high end crafted items, Primal Nether and Nether Vortex, will no longer be BoP, and Nether Vortex will not be purchasable for 15 Badges of Justice as well as 7g and change. This will make crafting my next level breast plates for Medros, as well as the items for Ameland even more possible since I won't have to go run heroics or go and do Kara runs endlessly to get enough badges for them.

The last roundup of news in the last few days are as follows. Suggested possible Dragonhawk mounts, class set changes, and even a few class changes as well as more promised to be coming. We have linkable spells and quests, and more walk throughs of the new area of the Isle of Quel'danas, starting with the new rep, all the way up through the 5 man Magister's Terrace  and unlocking the 25 man Sunwell Plateau. Update: Tigole on Attunements, miscellaneous notes from the latest PTR build, with more likely as the progressive test continues.

WoW Insider reports today that the Worldwide Invitational is scheduled for Paris at the end of June, with the new expansion hand on playable. Well, let's look at the wording. Hands on doesn't mean it hasn't been released, to me at least, it means that the contest side of the event will not likely use that content. Second, let's look at the dates. If this is a playable demo, then it could be as little as a 2 week preview on the expansion.

Here is what I am hearing from reliable sources. First, the Friends & Family testing phase ends soon. If this was from a Blizzard rep, I would say that could be anything from a week to a couple months, but this wasn't Blizzard. This was a reliable source without corporate 'cover your ass' speak enabled. Second, what I said we needed for my predicted time frame for release, 2.4 PTR by the end of February, has happened.

Give it a couple months of testing for 2.4, including I suspect a contest phase where we can compete for entry into a beta phase, and we see the patch live about April. Launch the official closed beta around the same time, give it a couple to three months for beta, and release in mid to late July. I know, the conventional wisdom you see is late fall or winter sometime, but I just don't see that being reasonable. Yes, the expansion is a lot of work, but those who are working on it are only doing that for the most part. 2.4 is not their distraction, nor is Starcraft 2.

Let me break down my math for you one last time, and that way I have it in test for reference. Pardon my excessive math. WoW launched Nov 23, 2004. Burning Crusade launched Jan 16, 2007. That is roughly 26 months between them. With me so far? Blizzard previously stated that no development was done, nothing was even started for TBC for about 6 months due to the wild popularity, server problems, code issues, and other issues that came along with the launch of the game. This knocks TBC development to 20 months.

Got that? We're at 20 months of development. Say we have Wrath of the Lich King on July 15, ok? Yes, hypothetically. That will be 18 months. 18 and 20 months aren't too far apart, right? The arguments I usually hear about this time is that WLK has much more to be worked on and fit into the game. I agree. Now here is the final piece of the puzzle that is my expected release date. "Our goal is to progress toward annual expansions." Now I originally thought that we would see 16-17 months of development on the expansion, but I can give time for recovery from TBC.

So while there is much more to do, and they want to move toward annual expansions, I don't think it is too much to think that 18 months of development for WLK, with all the extra work people suspect is needed, would be a decent time for the second expansion. So, while it could be late 2008 for the expansion, I do not think it will be January 2009 like some of the crazier people have said. I just don't see them aiming for less time and taking more time than TBC did. If they don't get better, improve on their past accomplishments, then what use is it to be in business? What the WWI means

While anyone who visits fan sites or the WoW forums will already know patch 2.4 is out, I figured I would let you all know a few highlights of the PTR so far. First, though, the current PTR notes version can be found here, and as they are trying a new testing method where there test different content as they are satisfied with it, those notes can be expected to change regularly.

The biggest info we have so far is profession based, and my goodness we have a lot of goodies coming for professions in this final battleground in the fight with Legion(for now).

• Leatherworking
• Blacksmithing 
• Tailor
• Jewelcrafting and Gems

We also have other information, such as the rep rewards for the Shattered Sun Offensive, though sadly no loot links yet due to the database sites not quite catching up. We also have some interesting tidbits of new surrounding some interesting new raid drops, sunmote. But wait, there's more! New possible bag types, the Rocket Mounts from the TCG loot card(available in March), new Badge of Justice rewards on the Isle of Quel'Danas that equal or surpass Black Temple loot, and did I mention the new epic bow Thor'idal, which makes it own arrows, has the build in buff from the quivers we have now, and which is just fricking awesome? Well, consider it done.

Additional Info:

• Black Temple & Mount Hyjap Attunements gone!
• The return of 8 piece sets?!?
• Defense changes
• Possible new Priest form: Holyform
  
• Dubious quality of PvP Battleground changes
• New Phoenix Non-Combat Pet dropping off Kael'Thas
• Sunwell Plateau in game cinematic
• 
  

Keep tuned here for more as the news develops