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The following improvements to Alterec Valley can be found in the next patch.
Strategy can be an important element of any battleground. We want to emphasize this in Alterac Valley more and give players additional meaning to both defending and attacking. To push the strategic element of the battleground to the next level we have changed how players maintain their reinforcements or deprive the other team of theirs.
Each team will have a starting reinforcement count. Reinforcements can be lost in significant amounts if a tower is destroyed or if Captain Galvangar or Belinda Stonehearth is killed. For each team member death, an additional reinforcement will be lost. On the death of General Drek'Thar or Vanndar Stormpike, all reinforcements are lost and the team is defeated. At any point in time, if a team is reduced to zero reinforcements, the opposing team will win the battle. Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.
Warmasters can be the boon or the bane of any team. They are an important element for the defense of your general or the defeat of the opposing general. Warlords and their general will be more closely linked in the next patch. Pulling one is a guarantee the other will come as well. Each team begins with four Warmasters. Destroying a tower will eliminate the associated Warmaster. Unlike the current game play, however, destroying the enemy tower will not add a Warmaster to your own side.
We will be changing the pace of the battle slightly with a reduction in the time needed to control a tower or graveyard. Where it currently takes five minutes to gain control, the time will be reduced to four minutes. The honor for capturing a tower will also be increased.
Graveyards can be an important resource for getting your teammates back into the battle more quickly. Currently, players can sometimes be sent to their starting tunnels far from the battlefront. This can often be an inconvenient location to respawn and more out of the way from the action than we would like, to correct this, players will instead respawn at a team-controlled graveyard. Should the team not have a graveyard under their control, they will respawn in the starting tunnel.
Players will only be awarded bonus honor during the battle for destroying enemy towers and slaying the enemy Captain. Once the battle is concluded, bonus honor will be awarded for intact towers, a surviving Captain, and for victory in battle. The bonus honor awarded should be similar to previous totals, but will reward players for taking more active roles in Alterac Valley toward defending or attacking key locations and NPCs.
Lastly, we are changing NPC interactions within Alterac Valley. We have reduced the number of elite NPCs in Stormpike and Frostwolf holds as well as sent all Commanders and Lieutenants out of Alterac Valley. They are currently in search of other battle opportunities. This should reduce the amount of NPCs that players will have to fight and place more focus on PvP combat over key locations on the map.
Strategy is the name of the game in Alterac Valley, and these changes will bring out the need for more teamwork and coordination from both the Horde and the Alliance as they vie for domination of this battleground.
Hortus had the following to say about the next patch 2.2.3, which will be on the Player Test Realms (PTRs) soon.
We will be updating the PTR for 2.2.3 PTR soonish.
I do not have any more information about the PTR at this time, when specific information is available it will be posted here.
Please delete your WoWtest folder from within your World of Warcraft Directory and wait until an announcement is made before downloading the new patch.
I would advise not attempting to copy characters until an announcement is made unless you want them to end up on the wrong server like 2.2.2.
When asked what Wrath of the Lich King will do for the lack of available tanks and healers for groups, Bornakk replied with this interesting tidbit.
While we don't currently plan to add new healer options, we plan to make the Death Knight a viable tanking option and changes are coming to Warriors soon that should allow Arms/Fury warriors to be more viable tanks.
He also goes on to mention possibly implementing an itemrack-type feature that would help you change your suits more efficiently. Read the full post here.
In an attempt to soothe unhappy ticket gatherers finding very limited options for tickets due to bugs, Drysc let slip these little Brewfest tidbits.
After the fourth flag you can drop the ram and just use your normal epic mount, it can help save quite a bit of time and allow you to push the ram's fatigue a bit harder.
Something I just learned, the keg delivery quest can be repeated every 12 hours. It's on an invisible timer and isn't considered a "daily" quest.
It seems Brewfest has a few unexpected exploits that needed hotfixing last night.
We've recently applied a number of hotfixes for the new Brewfest holiday event.
As we’ve seen a large number of issues stem from the Dark Iron attacks on Brewfest, both for our players and the game service, they have been temporarily disabled. At this time we’re still in the process of evaluating the situation and developing a better solution; however we hope to see the Dark Iron dwarves resume their attacks as soon as possible.
Until then we’ve increased the ticket rewards for the daily "Bark For..." quests from 15 to 40 tickets, and for the keg delivery quest which can be completed every 12 hours we've increase the value of each keg to 3 tickets. This still allows everyone to gain tickets at a rate comparable to what we intended the average player to be able to achieve before the Dark Iron attacks were disabled. For some players, especially on realms where tickets from the attacks were difficult to achieve, the amount of tickets received per-day could actually be increased.
As the Dark Iron attacks have stopped, we’re removing the ability to obtain a “Complimentary Brewfest Sampler” by /waving at Brewfest barkers and maidens (this hotfix will be applied soon). This will remain disabled and should the attacks begin again the samplers will be obtained through alternate means.
We’ve also hotfixed the Brewfest goggles to remove their duration. They are now permanent! The duration timer will continue to show until the next patch, but it will not affect the permanence of the goggles.
For further updates regarding any changes to Brewfest please continue to check this thread.
We're still investigating the issues people are seeing with the barking quests. Being unable to reproduce the issue thus far we're continuing to look into the cause, and looking forward to the rolling restarts scheduled for tonight at 5:00 AM PDT to see if that resolves the problem.
Of course ensure you are on the provided riding ram while near the flag points. No emotes or other actions are required.
The Vault Network is once again very excited to announce the launching of our latest site, Tabula Rasa Vault. Please take a moment and drop by to see what is going on with this highly anticipated game crafted by MMO legend Richard Garriott.
Rather then deal with them on a case-by-case basis via GM intervention, Blizzard has decided to handle the oddball names with funky characters in them via software. Thundgot had the following to say on the subject:
We wanted to inform players whose character names contain letters from the Cyrillic alphabet that they will receive an automatic forced name change upon the release of patch 2.2.2. Allowing the input of Cyrillic characters in names was the result of an accidental code change. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause. Cyrillic characters will still be usable in the in-game chat, however.
Patch 2.2.2 is hitting the European servers as we speak. It is unclear at this time if the forced name changes will only be enforced in Europe or if the policy will eventually bleed over onto the North American servers.
Patch 2.3 is loaming around the corner with tons of changes, tweaks and content for your digestion. One of the things Mages are looking forward to is the new "vending machine" that will dispense food and water to the raid. Drysc had this tidbit to say about the upcoming Ritual of Refreshment.
Ritual of Refreshment gives Manabiscuits, which restore 7500 health and 7200 mana over 30 seconds. It's just about making life a bit easier for the mage, now everyone can grab what they want. We're not attempting to or currently buffing the water/food you would normally conjure.
Okay, so Mages really wanted a stronger level of food that might even include a little stat buff, nonetheless this will at least mean less preparation time before the raid.
Blizzard has been taking to steps to keep the game free of gold sellers, account stealer and other such unsavory folks. But too much of a good thing may not always be a good thing especially when their attempts begin to affect game play. So about their policing policies, share your thoughts and ideas here.
Kalgan dropped this little teaser for players. It seems as though a new PvP trinket will be only available through the heroic vendor, which of course has a few unhappy PvPers questioning the need to PvE raid.
There are a few new pvp oriented trinkets for 2.3. All versions of the trinket have a click effect to gain 1750 max health (kind of like the old lifegiving gem effect), along with a passive effect (your choice of 47 spell damage, 40 spell crit rating, 80 attack power, 40 melee crit rating, or 88 healing).
They cost badges of justice, which will also be available off Karazhan and Zul Aman bosses.
We did the clicky max health instead of resilience in this case (some players are at or nearing the resilience cap already). They're open to all classes. The click effects share a cooldown though, so you won't be able to stack that effect.
We like to encourage players to mix it up a little to a reasonable extent. Obviously, I can't argue that you personally will have more total fun if you also do a little PvE to go along with your PvP, but we do feel that for most players it adds up to a better overall play experience. That being said, you certainly can tank heroics in s2 gear.
The PTRs are offline and we should be receiving patch 2.2.2 on the live realms early Tuesday morning. For those of you that do not remember, patch 2.2.2 is the small patch in between the 2.2 Voice chat patch and the 2.3 Zul'Aman patch that brings Blizzard's new October event called Brewfest. Also included in patch 2.2.2 are updates to the Hallows End event, so don't expect everything to be the exact same as last year!
Read more on Brewfest here. Expect patch 2.3 to hit the PTRs sometime later this week.
IGN published a pretty good preview of the World of Warcraft Collectibles that are coming soon, go give it a read...
To be clear, these aren't "action figures" in the strictest sense. While there are some points of articulation, these figures are mostly about looking cool and making coworkers jealous. Which they most certainly will. With this line, DC Direct is giving every other toy company out there, including McFarlane Toys and Sideshow Collectibles, a run for their money. The pictures you are about to see are 100% indicative of the final product.
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