Warcraft Movie Posters
Posters for some of the characters in the Warcraft movie were released today.
Legion - Sheep Staff
One of the more interesting weapon models in Legion is the sheep staff.
Raid Testing Schedule - April 8-11
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
On Friday, April 8, and Monday, April 11, we will continue our Legion Alpha raid testing.
Remember that Heroic difficulty scales for any group size between 10 and 30 players, so feel free to assemble and bring a group of any size within that range. Mythic, of course, requires 20 and does not scale.
Friday, April 8
Elerethe Renferal - Heroic Emerald Nightmare
13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
Dragons of Nightmare - Heroic Emerald Nightmare
15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 00:00 CEST)
Monday, April 11
Nythendra - Mythic Emerald Nightmare
13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
Ursoc - Mythic Emerald Nightmare
15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 00:00 CEST)
As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of an alpha 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.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
FEEDBACK: Mythic/Mythic+ Dungeons
With mythic + being within mythic, will there still be a way to check difficulty of dungeon within api to include plus level and all that so a mod can distinguish between mythic regular and mythic plus?
Yeah, technically it's still difficultyID 8 when the run is in progress.
BTW, unrelated, as some brave souls are noticing, keystone level 6 is very, very hard at this gear level. Looks like the first affix combo up is Tyrannical+Decay, which is a particularly difficult combo to try to brute-force while undergeared.
One of the aspects of this new Mythic+ design is the replayability. If your "Keystone" gets upgraded, do you then have to do the same dungeon again on a higher difficulty? What is the window of time to complete this upgraded dungeon?
If Blizzard is concerned about dungeon burnout among players (which it seems that you are judging by the WoD comments), isn't this new process going to simply accelerate that process?
There are a ton of aspects to the system that aren't really exposed in this focused test. Right now, we're looking for bugs, and major issues with the affixes themselves, and the core system. Loot, lockouts, and how the feature fits into the larger scheme of endgame content will all be addressed, likely in a future blog post.
To answer your specific concern, when your keystone upgrades, it will randomize to point to a new dungeon (there's a chance it could point to the same dungeon you just ran, but it's just a random roll). Part of the aim there is to vary player experience, but also to ensure that the system values a well-rounded group rather than one that is tailored to a specific instance.
So, once per week lockout? I thought this was supposed to provide something to do - like grifts in diablo.
Regular Mythic dungeons will have a loot-based weekly lockout, just like on live. But the keystone runs are different, and are only limited by the availability of keystones. No inherent lockout otherwise. We'll have a bunch more info to share in the near future, but the philosophical goals here consist of keeping dungeons relevant, rewarding, and replayable throughout the expansion, offering a level of difficulty that will scale to players' capabilities.
Will there be a way to prevent 4x tanks 1 healer group setups?
You think that group composition can put out enough damage to beat the timer? If that group composition ends up being consistently optimal, then I'd agree we have a problem. If it ends up being viable in some niche circumstances, then is that a huge issue?
Right now, the system is circumventing some of the built-in progression, for testing purposes, by letting you buy a level 6 keystone off a vendor. But you don't get a level N keystone without being able to beat the timer in a level [N-1] dungeon. Getting thrust into a situation for which you are massively undergeared, and feeling like the goal is just being able to claw your way to the finish line by any means necessary and no matter how long it takes, is not a situation a normal player will experience in the live game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Just tried watching a video complaining about ability pruning, stopped after they listed the rotation as being 4 abilities.
.Discussions on that topic are hard to parse, when they're so drenched in hyperbole. Makes it hard to see what's a legit issue. (Celestalon)
its a situation where we need to have more discussions for clarity, but clarity is needed to have discussions.
I don't think it's too much to ask people to give feedback based on actual abilities/testing, not hyperbole. (Celestalon)
"I want a more complex rotation, not this 2 button crap." = Not very useful, since it's basis is obviously false. What's true? (Celestalon)
"I want a more complex rotation, but don't think I'll be able to take the complexifying talents because X." = Much more useful. (Celestalon)
Or "I want more complexity, but even with the complex talents, it's still only 7 abilities, still want more." = Also very useful (Celestalon)
Rotations have been simplified a lot ...too much. All the spells that made our classes enjoyable have been pruned.
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. All that tells me is that you have feedback, but you won't tell me what it is. (Celestalon)
I assure you, I *do* want to hear your feedback. Not hyperbole or generality; the actual feedback. Please share it with me! (Celestalon)
Honest question: Do you believe having a damage rotation that consists of pressing 2-3 buttons is fun and challenging?
It's fun for some (mainly those *not* looking for a challenge), though not most. Different people have different preferences... (Celestalon)
...with regard to rotational complexity. That's one of the reasons why we allow you to customize your rotation so much in Legion. (Celestalon)
If you ever feel like you're forced to play a 2-3 button rotation, when you want something more involved, that's great to know. (Celestalon)
meanwhile.. "I don't want these complex rotations, because my old fingers don't handle them anymore"..
Indeed. We want to make sure there are talents that create an enjoyable gameplay experience for those people too! (Celestalon)
watched a stream earlier, and he complained about pruning, ... his bars were full after talenting though. #facepalm
.Unfortunately, the business/politics of streaming interferes with the feedback process in this case. It's especially troublesome.. (Celestalon)
...when popular streams campaign for their opinion based on false/hyperbolic pretexts, to get more viewers, and then viewers repeat (Celestalon)
The biggest issue is that we can't/shouldn't/don't ignore that feedback; there's good feedback hidden under that. (Celestalon)
I thought MM hunters were supposed to be petless based off the Legion preview when I bought it. Feel cheated now.
Lone Wolf will still be available as a talent (and will be extremely competitively tuned). Can still be petless if you like. (Celestalon)
Please reconsider the decision to remove psychic horror from shadowpriests. It's an extremely unique and Iconic ability. It makes me very sad to hear that you guys are removing it with this next build when I don't think Anyone had complained about it or even wants it to be removed. It just feels very disheartening to see this change
Which Shadow utility ability would you rather see removed? (Or do you disagree that they have too much?) (Celestalon)
from a PvP standpoint, they should have a lot of utility since they have a lot of casting
They still have *way* more than *anyone* else. Does that not still fulfill that to you? (Celestalon)
Destruction had "solid mechanics & a good thematic match" but it'll LITERALLY be the last activated Alpha spec. What gives?
That's actually exactly why it's the last spec activated: https://t.co/XJPwDAzEHk (WatcherDev)
Character / Items
Much like mists, get your ring before legion launches! https://t.co/maxuyMfDOv
Yep! As the Cloak was a symbol of great deeds during Mists, so too will the Ring become a symbol of victories during Warlords! (WarcraftDevs)
Are we going to able to choose our Doomhammer offhand skin separately?
The appearance you choose for the main-hand will automatically select the complementary off-hand appearance. (WarcraftDevs)
Misc
I vote #ImplicateHamlet
I approve of this course of action. #ImplicateHamlet (Celestalon)
Nostalrius Server Shut Down
One of the larger unofficial servers providing a Vanilla WoW like experience shut down this week, leading to lots of discussion on the forums.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Dear community,
For over a year, you have been part of an extraordinary journey. A journey back in the early days of our beloved game. A journey in which hundreds of thousands of people took part in together. Something that we had never seen before, either on retail or private servers. Together, we built a strong community, sharing values and a commun genuine interest for this wonderful game created by Blizzard.
Yesterday, we received a letter of formal notice from US and french lawyers, acting on behalf of Blizzard Entertainment, preparing to stand trial against our hosting company OVH and ourselves in less than a week now. This means the de facto end of Nostalrius under its current form.
As soon as we received this letter, we decided to inform the team and players about the future of Nostalrius, where we have all passionately committed our time and energy as volunteers.
Nostalrius Begins PvP, Nostalrius Begins PvE & Nostalrius TBC and all related servers will be definitively shutdown at 23:00 server time on the 10th of April 2016, if our hosting company keeps the server online for that long. It feels kind of unreal, but we want to continue to serve our players as we did, and the best we can in the remaining time.
What will happen next? This time, we have no plan for the future, and will have to rely entirely on our community and/or the private server scene.
We know the time you spent here, the guilds you were part of, and these people with whom you have shared experiences with. We know the strength of these links, and we also know that they do not need a special WoW realm to survive. However, we will still be publicly providing everything needed in order to setup your own “Nostalrius” if you are willing to.
Today is also the day where Nostalrius will start being community-driven in the truest sense of the word, as we will be releasing the source code, and anonymized players data (encrypting personal account data), so the community as a whole will decide the form of the future of Nostalrius. We will still be there in the background if you want us to, but will no longer take the lead.
We also initiated an open letter addressed to Blizzard, that you can read and forward if you want. It won’t bring Nostalrius back, but it is a way to express ourselves as a community.
Nostalrius was all about the nostalgia and memories of the glorious vanilla days. We don’t know if you truly felt like it was the glory days while playing here, but we hope that you will keep good memories of the time spent here. Once again, we can all be proud to have been part of the Nostalrius journey, no matter how much time was actually spent “in-game”.
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