Posts with tag Zarhym

Balance druid performance has been noticeably lagging in raids. While moonkin have long had a problem being too easily +haste-capped with Wrath, there's another issue on the not-too-distant horizon in the form of the "lunar +crit cap." Essentially, when a lunar eclipse procs and the player turns to the Starfire portion of the rotation, the combination of raid buffs, gear, and procs make Starfire crits all but inevitable. While this may sound like a welcome DPS increase, it does have the unhappy result of the spec seeing increasingly less benefit from the +haste and +crit that exists in abundance on Icecrown raid gear.

Blizzard has known about this for a while, but the issue with Nature's Grace and the soft +haste cap isn't easily fixable without impacting both Restoration and Starfire (where the NG proc is still useful), and the +crit cap is the effect of unintended stat inflation in Wrath. Enter Zarhym on Wednesday to announce news of a possible change to the Earth and Moon talent in a future mini-patch, granting 2/4/6% spell damage to the moonkin, up from 1/2/3%. While this isn't set in stone (and Balance players are already aware that an overhaul to the Nature's Grace issue probably won't happen until the Cataclysm content patch at the earliest), it's been greeted as a decent short-term fix. It's also a means of improving the scaling of what remains the moonkin's best stat (+spellpower).

Zarhym did warn that the change may not go through in this form, and we're also waiting for news on when this mini-patch will hit. Stay tuned for future announcements.

Zarhym popped into one of the many official forum topics complaining about the seemingly inordinate amount of times Old Kingdom pops on the Dungeon Finder to offer some welcome news for exhausted dungeon runners: Old Kingdom and Nexus alike will be receiving some adjustments meant to bring the dungeons in line with other Wrath heroics.

Despite the nerfs in Patch 3.3, it's pretty obvious that whole lot of people still hate Oculus, enough so that they immediately bail when it comes up as a random dungeon. Apparently, it's a substantial number of people doing this, enough that Blizzard's taken notice and taken action.

But they're not removing it from the system. Instead, they're incentivizing it -- or, if you prefer to be a bit more pessimistic, turning final boss Eregos into a loot pinata in the most direct way possible. Zarhym's announced that those who happen to get Heroic Oculus with the random dungeon finder and stick it out to the end will find their own personal loot bag in Eregos' cache. The bags will contain two extra Emblems of Triumph, rare gems, and a chance at the Reins of the Blue Drake, formerly the rare mount drop from 10-man Malygos. To make up for the switch, the Reins of the Azure Drake will have a chance to drop from both 10-man and 25-man Malygos.

Will this staunch the exodus from Oculus? Will the lust for yet another pretty dragon mount inspire people to tough out the dreaded vehicle mechanics? Or will people just tough it out until they get their drake and start group dropping again? It should be fun to see what happens.

The World of Warcraft has always had amazing fan art. Looking through the fan art gallery, it's hard not to get blown away by the talent the community has and their passion for drawing Blizzard properties. This year, the folks in Irvine decided to celebrate all that talent and passion by holding a contest for the artistically-inclined. Zarhym invites artists over at the official forums to contribute to the Holiday Fan Art Calendar Contest.

The idea is to create a piece of World of Warcraft art that sets the tone for a particular month based on the in-game holidays. Artists can choose to depict scenes from or situations inspired by events from the Lunar Festival, Love Is in the Air, Noblegarden, Children's Week, Midsummer Fire Festival, Pirate's Day, Brewfest, Harvest Festival, Hallow's End, Day of the Dead, Pilgrim's Bounty, Feast of Winter Veil, all the way to New Year's Eve. Winners will be featured in the 2011 Official World of Warcraft Calendar as well as win a set of 2010 wall, daily, and mini calendars.

One grand prize winner will also get to take home a Wacom Cintiq 12WX, the pen-on-screen drawing tool that some of Blizzard's own artists use. Additionally, the grand prize winner will also have his or her work featured in the official World of Warcraft magazine. Deadline for submissions is on February 8, 2010. As always, be sure to read the fine print if you're eligible!

Update 7:50 p.m. EDT: We've placed a red phone in the WoW.com HQ. It's sitting right here. We've given the number to your chief of staff, Zarhym. You can call it and refute your Martin Fury incident anytime you want. Azeroth is waiting.

Update 9:45 p.m. EDT: WoW.com would like to apologize for its use of cranberry pictures from other, more popular, cranberry related events. We agree with Zarhym when he says that this is the time to put aside differences and put gravy on our turkey sandwiches, of course as long as the turkeys come from Azeroth. No Draenor turkeys for us.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Zarhym has shared a little more insight into Blizzard's latest thinking about the dungeon group system going into the game and how they're using it to monitor 5-man action. When a player suggests that they buff Oculus' loot rather than tweak the mechanics of the dungeon, Zarhym replies that that's not the way it's done -- they provide more rewards for higher challenges, not just to direct players around. But he does say that Blizzard noticed Oculus was being singled out as a dungeon that players on the PTR didn't want to run, and that's why they went in and took a look at how it all worked.

That's very interesting, and it tells that (at least on the PTR if not on the actual live realms) Blizzard can more easily get information from the new dungeon system about which instances players are running. That could have all kinds of ramifications -- if they see a lot of Scarlet Monastery runs coming through, or see that no one at all is visiting Maraudon, we may see even more updates coming to those kind of places. And they can use that feedback for future dungeons as well. It'll be interesting to see what kinds of patterns for instance running arise on the live realms -- obviously there's a lot of interest in the "random" dungeon function (that rewards you for running random instances), but that's still weighted towards what instances you've already done. We may see more changes coming to current dungeons depending on what kinds of information Blizzard gets after the patch 3.3 release.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Zarhym responded to a thread on the official forums started by, of all things, a troll. The poster wrote accusing Blizzard of lying about paid race changes being still in development, pointing out that faction change enabled racial changes, as well. Zarhym calmly explained that "the conversion tables for changing races within one's own faction are completely different from the faction change service." This means that there's a separate development time for it.

He also reminds everyone that "the only thing better than offering a service people want is making sure that service works when people want it." It's pretty much standard operating procedure for Blizzard, a company notorious for pushing back releases in favor of getting things right. It's interesting to note that Blizzard introduced faction changes ahead of race changes, perhaps because the former addresses more player concerns while the latter is merely a customization preference.

There's also a chance that Blizzard will allow the new race-class combos leading up to the Cataclysm, which would be perfect timing for the paid race change service, anyway. I was looking forward to swapping my Blood Elf Death Knight into an Orc, but since the announcement, I've been drooling over the prospect of an Undead Hunter -- a race-class combo I've wanted to play since I first launched the game. I've waited this long, I guess a little more of Soon won't hurt.

Zarhym has posted information about an interesting change in effect on the PTR right now. Blizzard is tweaking the way that character nameplates (those names that you see floating above everyone's heads) works. First, nameplate vision has been extended, so that you can see player names from farther away. They've also adjusted some line-of-sight issues, and players will no longer be able to see nameplates through anything that blocks line-of-sight (so no nameplates of players hiding behind doors or walls). And multiple nameplates in one space will now overlap -- we'll have to see exactly what this looks like on the PTRs, but it sounds like a big group of the same mobs (i.e. Onyxia whelps) will now just have one nameplate to share.

Interesting stuff (and I didn't realize that some of this stuff, especially the nameplate overlapping, was even possible). Zarhym has a few other notes in the thread about how you can change or update the options on the PTR, including a checkbox to turn on or off totem or pet nameplates. Elsewhere, Ghostcrawler says that it's not just line-of-sight, as Arena pillars and other "objects" won't affect the nameplate view, but doors and walls will. If you're on the PTR, keep an eye out for these changes, and note that Blizzard is still asking for feedback. It's unknown which of these changes (or others) will end up on the live realms in the future.

While a lot of us (myself included) have been starving for Cataclysm news lately, it would behoove us to remember that we still have one more patch to go: Patch 3.3, the (hopefully) epic showdown with one of the most iconic figures in Warcraft lore, the Lich King himself.

We've actually learned very little about it so far. We got Ghostcrawler admitting there's not 31 bosses, and a few other BlizzCon tidbits, but beyond that, what do we know?

The other day, Zarhym at least gave us a small hint or two, saying that the 5-man dungeons would be epic and essential to the overall fight against Arthas, that they would be separate content from the raids, and that neither dungeons nor raids (Thank Elune) would have vehicular or mounted combat (the airship battle will not be a vehicle fight, it seems).

Of course, that does give us hope, but doesn't get us to the meat of the dungeon so to speak. So I'm sort of wondering: What do you want or expect to see in Icecrown Citadel, both the raids and the dungeons? Are there certain bosses or boss encounters you want to see? What type of storylines would you think epic enough for the 5 mans? I'm still hoping for the completely ignoble, futile death of Tirion Fordring, but that could just be me.

We've been getting a steady stream of tips and tweets in about the stability issues plaguing nearly every server tonight, and Blizzard has finally confirmed that something isn't working right.

Most people are experiencing extreme lag both in instances and out in regular zones. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it all, just constant server-side lag that impairs things like looting, completing quests, using items, buy items, or trading things to other players.

Pretty much every wonderful thing that could have lag to it does; including the lovely 30 second mount cast.

Hopefully the rolling restarts that will be taking place tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT will fix this. Although I'm hopeful that there would be some quick resets tonight to apply a hotfix or whatever else Blizzard needs to do in-order to make the game more playable.

We'll update this post with any additional information if we get it

One of the more confusing and misunderstood aspects of the Heirloom XP bonus and leveling system that has been going around lately has been their application in PvP Battlegrounds. Some people say that the 20% combined XP increase from the chest and shoulders applies, some say it doesn't. Lots of smart folks provide answers, but until now there really hasn't been an answer on the part of Blizzard -- who has the final and authoritative say on everything.

So let's lay it out real simple for everyone, courtesy of what Zarhym said in a series of posts over the weekend:

• Heirloom items currently do not provide an XP bonus in Battlegrounds.
• Heirloom items should provide an XP bonus in Battlegrounds in Patch 3.2.2.

This is great news for those of us who like to power level our alts from 71 to 80 in the span of a couple days of playing via Alterac Valley farming. It's now going to go even quicker. That's a good thing, right?

The confusion of Heirloom's XP powers while in Battlegrounds is likely a result of the newness of the XP gains you can get in Battlegrounds. Eventually all that confusion will go away, and Zarhym's clear statements this weekend certainly helped with that.

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2n - 1 go left, 2n go right. I don't see enough DoTs! More DoTs now!

Are you ready for the return of Onyxia? With the Brood Mother being revitalized as a 10 and 25 person raid, you'll need to be sure you know everything that's coming at you. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2 will make sure your set for the next patch!

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Zarhym has announced on the forums that BlizzCast episode 10 is out right now for your listening pleasure. In the official podcast, he talks with Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer and Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado about patch 3.2 and the Argent Tournament instances released with it. Strangely, it sounds like the podcast was actually recorded before the release, but of course now everyone knows that we fight the Black Knight in the 5-man and what the dailies are all about. Especially if you've been paying close attention to the testing on the PTR, lots of the "news" about patch 3.2 won't be all that surprising.

They also look forward to BlizzCon: all of the developer panels and meetings that go on there, both from the perspective of fans (hey, we actually can be literate and reasonable instead of QQing all the time!) and from developers (turns out they are "not just blue text" -- who knew?!). It's not a super groundbreaking podcast, but as a wrapup to the release of 3.2 and a short preview to BlizzCon, it works just fine. And there's a bonus: Zarhym is offering up a contest -- answer some questions about the podcast after you listen to it, and you could win a "fabulous prize." The rules give away what the prize is: a Draenei vs. Blood Elf diorama or some action figures.

And remember, if you've missed any of the BlizzCast episodes so far, you can find them both in iTunes or over on Blizzard's site, or just read our wrapups here on WoW.com.

In response to a what I'd call a troll on the forums, Zarhym gives some thoughtful insight to a problem that's been raising its head more and more often as the game gets older and older: items and achievements that once required lots of time and/or skill to obtain are becoming easier than ever to get. Usually, when this topic comes up, we're talking about epics, but that's not always the case. Here, the item in question is the Warlock mount. It used to require a long quest chain to obtain, but after a series of decisions on Blizzard's part, you can now train it right away from the trainer as soon as you hit the required level.

Zarhym says that it's just part of the game's evolution -- originally, the dreadsteed quests were part of the endgame, and just like the Hunter Rhok'delar quests, were designed to show that players had reached the pinnacle of the class. But nowadays, level 60 isn't what it used to be, and the best way to do those quests is to have a higher level character tag along with you. That's not how Blizzard designed it (and it definitely doesn't fit within the "lore" of the quest), so they ditched it.

That questline is still in, just not required, but some questlines and rewards are obviously removed from the game completely -- their achievement no longer represents an equivalent challenge, so Blizzard decides to take them out. And that really seems the best way to do it -- though it's always a shame when today's players can't experience the quests the same way veteran players did back in the day, the alternative would be to have them play through content that makes no sense, and no one wants that. As Zarhym says, there will always be new challenges to take on.