We wanted to provide a rundown on some of the known issues surrounding this event.
Purchasing items from vendors
We are aware of an issue with purchasing some of these items. We hope to have it resolved as quickly as possible. In the meantime a possible work around can be used by using the following commands.
You may use the /run BuyMerchantItem() script when making a purchase. Make sure you type out the command exactly as listed.
The following can be used for the listed item.
Lovely Rose: /run BuyMerchantItem(2)
"Bravado" Cologne: /run BuyMerchantItem(3)
"STARWART" Cologne: /run BuyMerchantItem(4)
"Wizardry" Cologne: /run BuyMerchantItem(5)
"VICTORY" Perfume: /run BuyMerchantItem(6)
"Forever" Perfume: /run BuyMerchantItem(7)
"Enchantress" Perfume: /run BuyMerchantItem(8)
Handful of Rose Petals: /run BuyMerchantItem(11)
Love Rocket: /run BuyMerchantItem(12)
Silver Shafted Arrow: /run BuyMerchantItem(13)
Unable to turn in quest, NPC not there.
Both King Magni Bronzebeard and Cairne Bloodhoof are no longer available for their respective quests, A Gift for the Lord of Ironforge and A Gift for the High Chieftain.
We are aware of this issue and are working to update those quests so they may be completed.
No 81-85 version of: Crushing the Crown.
Again, we hope to have this resolved quickly so that the Dangerous Love achievement can be completed.
Heart-Shaped Box empty.
This has cause some confusion so let me say first that there are no issues with the box. When you receive the Heart-Shaped Box you have a chance of receiving some special Love is in the Air loot. If luck is not with you and you did not win any of that loot you still receive Justice points, though you'll be informed that your box was otherwise empty.
"Snowfall Graveyard in Alterac Valley can be a pivotal point in how the game plays out. And yet, it's often the most overlooked! Sometimes all it takes is one alliance player guarding it or one horde player snatching it to turn the tide of the entire game. So next time you're driving by it take another look and consider more closely it's potential value to the game."
Submitted by: Dyng of Gnomeregan
The Tip of the Day is a new feature on WoW Vault! Submit a tip and you could be on the front page!
What could be better than spending two days checking out the latest versions of Blizzard games, watching eSports tournaments, and chatting with developers alongside a few thousand of your closest friends? We couldn't think of anything either, so we're bringing BlizzCon back in 2011! That's right, BlizzCon will be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday, October 21 through Saturday, October 22, and will feature an exciting mix of discussion panels, tournaments, hands-on gameplay, contests, and much more. Check out the announcement press release, and keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com in the months ahead for further details, including ticketing information.
Before the Lunar Festival has even ended we find ourselves at the beginning of the next holiday! The Love is in the Air event has begun and with it comes another achievement. Check out Rill's Fool for Love guide for help with completing this achiegvement!
In case you aren't already aware, Luck of the Draw is the name of the buff you get for grouping with random people using Dungeon Finder. It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.
In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.
The intent of Luck of the Draw is to help make up for the lack of coordination, communication, and familiarity that pick up groups suffer relative to organized groups of guild members and friends. Cataclysm dungeons, especially on Heroic mode, are quite challenging and ask for more group organization than the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did. Therefore, Luck of the Draw became relatively weaker in Cataclysm. I'm painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. Players wonder, and rightly so, why Dungeon Finder supports Cataclysm Heroic dungeons at all when the chance of success is so low.
We think buffing Luck of the Draw is a good way to go about correcting the difficulty differences because it makes things slightly easier on PUGs without depriving the organized groups of a fun challenge. We also think the bonus is modest enough that it won't encourage organized groups to split up and just PUG instead - - the success rate for PUGs relative to organized groups is just that far behind. We still think you'll have more fun and a greater chance of success running dungeons with friends, but when that isn’t possible, we hope this change will make Dungeon Finder a more pleasant experience. Also remember that patch 4.0.6 is adjusting the difficulty of some bosses that are particularly unforgiving, such as Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore, though to be fair, we are buffing some underperforming encounters as well. In addition, we are offering larger Justice Point rewards for players who just prefer the faster pace and greater success rate of normal dungeons, and by the time 4.1 comes out everyone will have access to more powerful gear, making the older content even easier. But then there'll be new challenges to face!
We'd like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. We do listen, even if we don't immediately deploy every design change suggested by the player community. Our intent is to make the game fun for a wide variety of players, which can be quite a challenge when you have a community this large and this varied. We hope you continue to enjoy the game, and look forward to sharing more changes (and a few surprises) in the months ahead.
-Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft and was attacked by a coati as a child. (True story.)
We’re in the process of developing a hotfix to push before next Tuesday that will change all 15vs15 rated battleground weeks into 10vs10 weeks.
Looking at participation, the 10vs10 rated battleground weeks have been far and away more popular than the 15vs15 weeks. The difference in organizational requirements as well as battleground map popularity have been a couple big factors that have led to the 10vs10 weeks seeing a great deal more action. By making this change and supporting the popular option we hope to encourage even more players and teams to participate, as they won’t have to wait out every other week, or struggle to beef up to 15 players to match the requirement.
We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available.
There's a false perception that we don't want to change things or iterate on things regularly. This is not true. We are always looking at ways to improve the game and the systems within it. Finding the right solution though doesn't always happen as quickly as some would like, and when trying to account for human nature, things get a bit more difficult to predict. We can only provide the tools, see how things go, iterate on them, and see if things improve for you. But, these things take time and there's an awful lot of differing opinions out there.
No one is saying, "This is it, take it or leave it", we're simply saying, "This is our intention. Here's how we designed this to work/play out. Try it out and let us know how it goes."
We're still going to keep pushing to do better, to make things as balanced as possible, and to provide an epic and entertaining gaming experience. We just won't be able to do it overnight.
The Looking For Dungeon queue times are understood to be of issue for some people. If/when we find a better way to get you in to a dungeon quicker, we'll let you know.
For Cataclysm, we wanted to create more immersion with better storytelling, and we wanted your characters to feel connected to ebb and flow of Azeroth. This was something we hoped to accomplish through a number of mediums including quests.
Overall, we think we were successful in achieving those goals and making the leveling experience more story-driven, but we realize we may not have hit the nail perfectly on the head. For example, we've received a lot of feedback that suggests we made questing a bit too linear this expansion, and we're not in total disagreement. It's cool that your character has a visual impact on the world and can watch as key events unfold, sure, but sometimes it can feel a bit awkward when you're unable to explore content at your own pace because you're still locked to a particular phase. We also hear your concerns about cut-scenes, tradeskill nodes, and the effects phasing has on groups.
We're taking all these criticisms in stride and will be using them to improve the questing experience for future expansions and, to an extent, future patches. When it comes to questing, it's matter of finding a good balance between story and gameplay, and that tightrope can be a hard one to walk. Your feedback keeps us from swaying too far in any one direction, though, so we greatly appreciate threads like this one. Keep it up.
This is a reminder that we take threats made against other players, against our employees, and of self-harm extremely seriously.
We realize that there can be stressful and trying moments in the game or when interacting with others, but there is no acceptable time to go beyond the boundaries of the game and threaten others with real-life harm.
If someone is found to be making a real-life threat, we will report it to the authorities, which could result in real repercussions. If you see anyone making a real-life threat against you, themselves, or others, please report it immediately. To report threatening in-game chat, use the in-game petition system by clicking on the red question mark, or for forum posts, use the thumbs-down button and choose ‘Real-Life Threats.’
"Did you know that you can prevent Karsh from summoning adds at all during the encounter? And it makes it a whole lot easier too! Simply have your tank make sure that he drags Karsh through the fire every 8-10 seconds or so in order to refresh the debuff he has. If he debuff doesn't fall off, he doesn't summon adds! Caution: Your tank/healer may have to blow some cooldowns towards the end of the fight when the stacks get really high."
Submitted by: Rill of Hellscream
The Tip of the Day is a new feature on WoW Vault! Submit a tip and you could be on the front page!
Bone-shattering PvP conflicts can be harrowing and demanding, but smart gladiators know that if you want to emerge triumphant, you need to walk onto the battlefield well-equipped.
In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, certain PvP pursuits reward players with a new kind of currency: Conquest Points. Conquest Points can be exchanged for the very best PvP armor, gear, and weapons in the game, allowing you to hone your competitive edge in the ring and on the battlefield.
Those Gladiator items are calling, but how do you get the Conquest Points to buy them? There are three main ways to do so:
Winning Arena matches
Winning Rated Battleground games
Winning your first Random Battleground game of the day
Each time your team wins a Rated Arena or Rated Battleground match, you're awarded a certain number of Conquest Points; no points are awarded for losing, however. Your first Random Battleground win of the day will also net you 25 Conquest Points.
There's a limit on how many Conquest Points you can gain over the course of a single week, and points earned from all sources count toward that total. Everyone starts at 0 personal rating with a weekly cap of 1,343, which is the most points you can accrue over the course of a week. Unlike Honor and Justice Points, Conquest (and Valor) points do not have an overall cap.
Note:There's no benefit to hoarding large amounts of Conquest Points since they'll be converted into Honor (or Justice Points, for Valor) when the next tier of items becomes available, and there are no plans to extend the 4,000 point cap on the lower-tier currencies. That conversion is still rather far in the future, though, and we plan to provide plenty of advance warning before it happens. In the meantime, feel free to purchase items you want as soon as you can afford them.
If you want to be able to earn more than 1,343 Conquest Points in a single week, then you'll need to increase your personal rating above 1,500 by participating in Rated Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds. Only your best personal rating counts, and as you improve and bring your rating over 1,500, your weekly point cap will rise as well -- and if you manage to achieve a very high rating, your weekly cap could approach 3,000. Here are some sample ratings and corresponding point caps:
RatingWeekly Points Cap
1500
1343
1800
1940
2100
2533
2400
2849
2700
2849
3000
3000
You can check your current total number of Conquest Points at any time in your character's Currency tab. For more detailed information, open the PvP menu and click on the Conquest tab, where you'll find how close you are to the weekly cap and how many points you'll earn by winning an Arena or Rated Battleground match. You can check out what the Conquest Point vendors have to offer in the Champions' Hall in Stormwind or the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar.
Now that you know what you're fighting for, it's time to show Azeroth your incredible PvP skills. Confront your foes. Fight! Win!
"Have you been grinding out that AQ40 rep on your way to get the United Nations guild achievement? Brood of Nozdormu can be one of the more brutal reps to work on, but you can make half the journey less painful! You can get from Hated to 1 point away from Friendly just by grinding the first pack of mobs in the instance without waiting on respawns! When you pull the pack of four, just kill three, then run out the portal. If you don't finish the pack, they'll respawn as soon as they reset! It's also a great way to farm AQ mounts too!"
Submitted by: Rill of Hellscream
The Tip of the Day is a new feature on WoW Vault! Submit a tip and you could be on the front page!
"As you level up, if you come across a random vendor in the middle of no where, be sure to check the goods and see what they have for sale! Oftentimes they'll have a recipe you can purchase for a few silver and then sell in the Auction House for 5-20g! It may not be much but it adds up over time and will help you pay for your upgrades and training as you go."
Submitted by: Rill of Hellscream
The Tip of the Day is a new feature on WoW Vault! Submit a tip and you could be on the front page!
Some people have stuck with their class ever since they started playing. Some people switch it up and try a new class every expansion. Some people change characters like a druid changes forms. With each expansion, classes have seen some pretty serious overhauls. Are you the kind of person that sticks it through and makes adjustments? Have you changed classes quite a bit depending on what interests you? Are you still playing the same class you played in Wrath of the Lich King? Why or why not?
The Topic of the Week is a contest run by WoW Vault! The best reply will receive VIP Insider for 2 weeks! Potential winning posts are judged according to length, interpretation of the subject and writing style.
Disclaimer: Winners with too many ToS violations on their account may not be eligible to receive the reward.
Attacking forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control 2 keeps.
Defending forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control all 3 keeps.
Daily quest creatures, herbs, minerals, etc. will only spawn when Tol Barad is in the quest phase between battles. There will be 5-minute and 1-minute warnings before the quest phase ends. The quest phase ends 15 minutes before the battle for Tol Barad begins and queuing is made available. At that time any players in the daily micro dungeons will be ported just outside. This does not apply to Tol Barad Peninsula or the daily quests there.
The weekly PvP quest "Victory in Tol Barad" now awards 200 Honor Points and 3 Tol Barad Commendations.
Mage
Fireball mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
Frostfire Bolt mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
Priest
Strength of Soul now occurs when the priest casts Inner Focus on oneself, rather than Power Word: Shield. In addition, Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
Professions
Fishing
Rare fishing poles now have a chance to be found in the Bag of Fishing Treasures earned via the Stormwind and Orgrimmar Fishing daily quests.
Jewelcrafting
Wrath of the Lich King purple, green, and orange gems have been increased in cost to match red, blue, and yellow epic gems (220 Justice Points). Burning Crusade epic gems have been increased in cost to match the most expensive Wrath of the Lich King gems.
Item Sets
Normal PvE helms (item level 359) no longer have a chance to drop from Nefarian or Cho'gall on Heroic difficulty. Instead, the Heroic PvE helm and shoulder pieces (item level 372) only require their associated Crown/Shoulders of the Forlorn tokens to purchase, and do not require players to obtain the normal helms or shoulders first.
Portals existed to give people access back to capital cities to reach auction houses and class trainers. Auction houses and class trainers were kept in the old world capitals because we knew that if we didn't require people to go back the old world would be a ghost town.
Those portals had a few fun side effects like letting people warp all around the world toot-sweet at the shake of a nose to do anything they felt like. This was not the intent of the portals and regardless if people enjoyed being able to zip around, it is not the intent of our travel as it exists now to allow them to do so.
Now that the old world capitals are the major hubs in the current expansion, the expansion zones are in Azeroth which keeps more people around, and we've decided to add trainers and auction houses to Shattrath and Dalaran to aid in the leveling experience, the portals no longer serve their original purpose and were removed.
(...) We have no plans to implement the old portals back in the game, but thank you for you reasons as to why they should. They've been noted.
This is something we've been looking into for a while, and we're confident that we'll be able to implement a feature sometime in the future that gives players a better storage solution for their tabards. We're not sure if that feature will be a cosmetic tab or a drop-down list similar to titles just yet, though; there's still several factors that we need to consider carefully (certain tabards have on-use abilities, for example, which makes storing them a bit more complicated) before we can settle on the best course of action.
(...)Right now, we're considering a variety of options because we agree that tabard storage would be great, and some of those options extend beyond simply adding another bank slot -- not because they're complex, but because we believe they'll make the most sense and feel the best when you're in game.
(...)We have a variety of things that we want to do as part of ongoing development for World of Warcraft, and a storage solution for tabards is just one of them. We understand that many of you care about this kind of feature, so we want to make sure that whatever we come up with is not only in line with our design goals (both in the short- and long-term), but is also appealing to you. We know that you have a lot of ideas on how this may be accomplished, so we're going to be keeping an eye on your discussions in the meantime. We may ask questions or point out potential concerns along the way, but don't let that discourage you; we love that you're being open with us and want you to keep sharing your thoughts and criticisms -- constructively, of course. :)
If your account is protected by a Battle.net Authenticator or the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, then you already know how safe and secure your Core Hound Pup pet can make you feel. But there are plenty of players out there who can still benefit from the companionship and peace of mind that our infernal puppy provides.
We're kicking off a Core Hound Pup adoption campaign and we need your help! Simply send us funny, cute, or just plain epic screenshots featuring your fiery two-headed buddy. We'll be picking two of the most memorable images each month in 2011 and awarding the winners with a brand new iPad.
If you have yet to adopt a Core Hound Pup of your very own, then don't wait a moment longer, or we just might have to give you the big puppy-dog eyes. Visit our account security site to learn how to get a Battle.net Authenticator or download the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, available through our mobile apps page or as a free download from the Apple App Store or the Android Market.
Adopt a puppy! Protect your loots! Win an iPad! Read the contest rules for details and eligibility requirements, and happy screenshotting!
