A Good Idea?

Yes, there's going to be a BIG Conquest island post, but not today as I'm trying to sort a whole bunch of other Warcraft-related issues first. So, while you are waiting, here's a little nugget from MMO Champion who have datamined the following:

• BIND_TRADE_TIME_REMAINING = "You may trade this item with players that were also eligible to loot this item for the next %s."; -- Time remaining to trade a bound item. Example: You may trade this item with players that were eligible to loot this item for the next 1 hour 30 minutes.

So, the next time Doofus here gives someone an item via Master Looter by accident, there will no longer be the need to ticket a GM to get the item switched to the correct character. The key wording here of course is the 'players that were eligible to loot this item', which presumably means 'players that were inside the instance when the boss died'. This has been done clearly as a way to reduce GM workload.

So, there's no longer the need to trail lowly alts around Dungeons: leave them at the entrance, kill all the bosses and then trade them all the relevant loot at the end. Clothies with a DE skill who can't do solo work can hire themselves out as Instance DE-rs, standing inside instances while OP-d DK's and Druids clear the place and pass the boss items on for destruction. The 5 man L80 Fun Guild Run to Kara can take 5 L70 alts who can all go AFK and surf Facebook while their friends go do the hard work for them. The selfish GM can take 24 overpowered people to Naxx and park his or her just-dinged alt on the second account next to Mr Bigglesworth and make sure they pick up all the gear they need without actually having to run the instance... the possibilities are endless. I am sure there are far cleverer minds than mine already thinking about how this can be exploited.

It's a great idea, don't get me wrong, I just hope Blizzard have considered that making GM's lives easier could also have some less than savoury consequences.

Once More Unto the PTR, Dear Friends...

So, I'm finally in :D Character copy the day before the PTR was deployed was successful (thanks to MMO Champion for the heads up) and I have 4 copies of the Druid to choose from, and one of the Lock. First thing I did was fire up the Boomer (as her HS is at the Citadel) and take a look around. It's looking like all that stone and wood I threw at the Goblins has gone to some good use.

The Newly Completed Arena. You can see inside from the back...

Of course none of this is actually functional at the moment, there's placeholders all over the place, but there is a continuation of the Black Knight quest. Picking that up forced me to go to my Quest Log, which is the first thing that seems to have undergone an overhaul:

This is a HUGE improvement: having the Quests and the description together looks just so much better and it's far easier to reference. There's a lot of little changes around the UI (they've moved the Equipment Manager and the Talent Change Preview buttons to their own sub-menu, for instance) and there is a sense that Blizzard is going through the UI and giving it a much needed revamp. One can only hope this will mean more bars in the default interface or perhaps a way of customising the layout which will be a viable alternative to all those mods like Bartender.

A quick zoom around the grounds and it's clear the monsters you're gonna fight in the new Instance are already in training to face you:

After a hard day's training, I just sleep where I fall...

There's a number of the mobs from the event scattered around the area, which gives a sense of the place becoming more than just a construction site. I look forward to actually seeing inside. Having perused the Argent upgrades, I flew north looking for the new daily Quest Hub. As I'm not a Crusader on M I can't access it, but that didn't stop me going to take a look. It's full of L80 Vykrul of the type you find in the Borean Tundra, and largely uninteresting for a non-Crusader. However, one of the mobs attacking a ship did flag up something rather interesting:


So, the North Sea Kraken is casting Frost Breath. Not only does the target bar tell us this, it's now added a little Frost Icon to indicate what school of magic the mob is using. It's a small improvement, but I think it will be significant for those poeple wanting to know what school of magic they're being pitted against. I don't think you'll be fighting this particular beast any time soon, but he does show just how much detail Blizz are putting into the details.

Next stop: Dalaran and the queue for the Isle of Conquest (which I will cover in my next post) However, it's really time I did the Gratuitous Skin pics:


M has white hair, and these are her forms. Oh I wish Blizz had done this a long time ago. I also hope this means that Owls and Trees will see similar skin improvements in an upcoming patch, coz these are BEAUTIFUL. The cat especially is such a huge improvement.

I've done some JC stuff as well with the Lock but for now I'm off to play some more IoC and see if I can get my head around what all the different nodes have to offer...

\o/

They've fixed the Battle Net login on the PTR!

Trouble is, I can't see any servers... :(

/drums fingers impatiently.

Eye Level!

So then, whilst you listen to one of the greatest pieces of Cheese ever created, let's talk about the PTR. As we have established I can't actually get to any of the L80 content (curse you Battle.Net!) but I did make a L1 alt and scroll through the Interface options. One thing immediately caught my eye:


Blizzard have introduced a button to press that will reveal the iLevel 'for certain items' Now, I hear you cry, why *on Earth* would they do this? That's an awful lot of effort to go to to show people what level their gear is. What makes it even stranger (to me at least) is that it's not ALL items. What is the rationale?

Well, we know that you need to have consistant iLevel 200 for the Superior achievement, and iLevel 213 for the Epic one. With the confirmation that Tier 9 in 3.2 will have three seperate iLevels as well it also makes sense to know what level you're looting... but does this mean there'll be achievements for the next three tiers as well? What I do think is that Blizzard is sending a message to all those people who try and second guess the work Blizzard put into gear development and class suitability. There is no argument any more: i200 beats i213. One is better than the other. That's what I think this move is all about: it takes the guesswork out of those fiddly addons which calculate all the equivalences. Press the button and pick the highest iLevel item. Job dun.

For some reason this bothers me. Back in the day it was about making sure you took the right stats and boosted them. Hunters (for example) don't need strength, but I still see people rolling on Str items if it's got more agi or AP or is a better colour than their weapon, regardless of who else is in the group. Adding the iLevel to the items opens up a whole new vista for inappropriate looting by ill-informed players. 'I need that, it has a higher iLevel than my item.' It will happen, I'll put money on it, and although the principle of giving people more information is sound, I find myself wondering why Blizz feel the need to bother at all, because the rest of us who are informed and not ninja b*stards already know what tier is what. Is it simply to remove the need for another third party addon? If so, it needs to be EVERY item, not just some of them please.

I'd really like to know what the reasoning was behind this addition. I really do hope we're not going to see achievements for every new iLevel, coz frankly there are better things to be doing than worrying so much about gear.

Yes I know I do it, but that's not the point.

Squee!!!!!!!

I wonder if any of my copies have made it to the PTR yet... Only one way to find out... :D

[EDIT: Battle net customers are unable to connect to the PTR. At all :( I will be forced to make a L1 alt on my son's account and see how far into the content I can insert myself...]

Free Money!

As a heads up...

ALL the Bonfire quests have been reset in game. This means if you have already honored/desecrated a fire before this point (yes including the weekend) you can go back and do it all over again. And you get the money/blossoms for doing so.

I'm currently 600g up for the day with multiple continents left to do. If you do the lot it's a HUGE pile of wonga. Not bad for a Blizzard mistake.

The XP for my priest is going to be VERY useful... :D

Lordy!

It's been quite a weekend. No, really it has. It's been HUGE.


See that there? Phear the Heroic Ulduar Achievements!!! Have been talking for a few weeks with someone from another Guild with guys at about the same level of progress as us, and last night they had some spots in a 25. So we went (myself, 5 others) and concluded that our Guild ROCKS. It was a good night, but given the choice I'd far rather be doing any content with the Homies. I am not complaining however for I have Boots of Hasty Revival and some Emblems of Conquest, which I reckon will be useful at some point in the future.

In Hunter News, 3 of the 4 Steamweedle factions are now done. I still have a chunk of Everlook rep to knock off, but it just needs me to apply myself and it's done. I'm 600 rep short of Exalted with the Scale of the Sands after an impromptu Hyjal on Saturday. And with a couple more trips to MC, I will be done. I'll have Flame Keeper as a title before that however, despite the screwup Blizz made with the Midsummer achievement. After that I have a vague plan that involes 75 pets and 50 mounts. I will be changing my name to Noah shortly afterwards.

There is more, but I need to prep myself for a Sunwell Run tonight as we attempt to finish off the Dungeonmaster Quest. To the bank!