Posts with tag map

Okay, how did we miss this?

We've been wondering about the level of change in each old-world zone for Cataclysm for months now, and the answer has actually been under our noses since BlizzCon. During the Art Panel, the above planning map was shown, along with some information to either side of it. We can't make out everything in it, but there's a lot of information if you know what you're looking at.

The zone colors, from what we can infer, indicate the level of overhaul each zone is receiving. Red is a heavy overhaul, yellow is moderate, green is light, and blue means a brand-new zone. The yellow stars indicate a dungeon, and the red stars indicate a raid. The white tabs each have a letter on them, indicating what in the zone was being changed at that particular point -- L for level, Q for quests, etc.

Astute readers will see some things jump out at them immediately, like Thousand Needles having two stars on it.

The full list of visible zone changes after the break, along with other pertinent info.

Disclaimer: While this image was captured during the BlizzCon 2009 Art Panel, the capture displays a photo taken by Blizzard staff, which is undated. We don't know if it was a day before BlizzCon 2009 or six months before. Things could have changed between when this picture was taken and when this article was published.

You want Icecrown 5-man dungeon maps, you say?

You need cross-server instances as you make your way up the Citadel?

You've got it. In the gallery below we're happy to give to you the Icecrown 5-man dungeon maps, fresh off the Patch 3.3 PTR. They cover the three wings of the 5-man version. The maps for the raid are not on the PTR yet. The three wings of the 5-man are the Pit of Saron, Halls of Reflection, and the Forge of Souls.

Check 'em out below.

A friendly tipster has let us know that currently on the official WoW site, the map of Azeroth is listed as "really outdated" (see screenshot above). This is the clickable map that gives information about each zone. The Outland and Northrend maps are still up, but the Azeroth map is down.

Hm...a portent of Cataclysmic events, anyone? This is an entertaining little leak from the Blizzard web team. I'm sure we'll get the full story in a few hours from our Anaheim ground team, but for now, this is a subtle hint at what might go down in the next chapter of WoW history, and where.

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BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!

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We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.

Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says "Patch 3.2 will play for you" with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I'll play the Devil's advocate here: let's face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It's easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don't look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I've recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both -- if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.

The patch 3.2 PTR patch notes have been updated again; I still expect the PTR to go live sometime today. The only new information in this iteration of the notes is what they'll be marking in the way of quest objectives on the world map, and with what markers. We already knew they'd be doing something like this, but we didn't have the specifics.

User Interface: Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player's world map.

• A skull graphic will be placed on the map in the general area where creatures players must kill can be found.
• A glowing skull graphic will be placed on the map in the general area where creatures can be found that drop quest objects.
• A gear graphic will be placed on the map in the general area where players must loot objects found in the world.
• A chat bubble graphic will be placed on the map in the general area where players must interact with a specific NPC.
• X marks the spot on the map where players must reach, discover or explore a designated area.
• A yellow question mark graphic will show on the map to provide the location of a NPC whose quest the player has completed.

Although this comes a little late for a few players, not everybody is raiding Ulduar yet, and those that are haven't necessarily cleared it. To help appease your curiosity about what creatures lurk within the latest raid, or if you simply want to know a bit about the background of the guys that have been handing you purples recently, check out Blizzard's latest web feature, the Bosstiary.

It's an interactive map of Ulduar (same graphics as the in-game map), and if you click on any of the boss icons, it pops up a little paragraph about the boss. For instance, did you know that Auriaya is Ulduar's archivist? Makes sense - librarians love cats. Also, apparently Kologarn was created by Ignis. I guess Iggy must have been a big Monty Python fan.

I think this is a neat way to learn a little more about the story behind the bosses. I hope they continue doing this for raids to come.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

Sometimes late at night when the sun is down and the moon is up, the writers at WoW Insider sit around the campfire and talk about things. Weird things. Like owning a pet snake and cat at the same time (Sacco), or how putting together a desk can be a pain (Alex). More and more often these days there has been a little friendly feud going on between Alex and Sacco. You can read their little quips at each other over a few posts. So today in the Queue I want to ask you: who would win in a writer cage match? Alex Ziebart or Mike Sacco?


Also, I'd like to thank all of you who left questions not about the crazy delicious Hawaiian Pizza yesterday. You gave me something to work with!

Blinger asked...

"Will the emblems of Heroism be really useless now? If there is no more badge gear I need, have plenty of Frozen Orbs I can throw a stick at, is there going to be any point in me ever doing the current Wrath heroics again other than just to help out mates all of which are in the same boat anyway? Or will it be likely that there will be some form of Heroism to Valor exchange?"

We're reported on the new in-game dungeon maps that Blizzard has implemented before, and we've got the Ulduar maps for you tonight. These are coming fresh off the latest Patch 3.1 PTR build (#9637 for those keeping track).

Click below through our gallery to see them all.

The map seems to indicate there are five floor to Ulduar. There is also a mini-map overview that was complied a few days ago you can also check out.

Boss testing is commencing tonight, and we should have some more information and impressions up for you by tomorrow morning. We're also on the PTR now checking out other reported changes, we'll let you know what we dig up!

Full gallery of Ulduar maps after the jump!

Alan on LJ is having a problem I've been thinking a lot about lately -- like me, he wants to go back and finish the Loremaster achievement, which asks you to clean up all of the quests in the old continents. But like me, he's wondering just how he'll find all of those old quests -- unfortunately, there's no way to know which quests have and haven't been done, and while of course, there's a "low level quest" tracking option, that still requires you to run around to all of the different quest locations to find them.

A forum thread like this one is a huge help, but still, there's no way in the game to really go back and easily find which ones we've missed. Even with a list like that, you might spend twenty minutes trying for a drop before realizing you've already done that quest. Blizzard promised us a little while back that they'd be changing the "discovery" mechanic (so that we'd be able to see on the map which areas we hadn't discovered for the achivements yet), and an option like that might be helpful for cleaning up old quest -- say that low level quest tracking might work over the entire map, or there might be a magic box in Dalaran that would have whatever quest items we might need.

The good news here is that Blizzard has built a fair amount of leeway into the quest achievements -- you won't need every single one to get the points, so the more obscure drop-based quests can probably go undone without worry. But just like the World Exploration achievements, a little more help finding the quests we might have missed would go a long way.

Finally, we come to the end. Icecrown is the very last zone in Wrath, and a very gloomy one it is (in my opinion). This zone, as well as Storm Peaks, was designed with flying mounts in mind, but like Storm Peaks it still has flight paths for those of us who prefer to travel on autopilot. And like Zul'Drak, all the flight paths are neutral, being controlled by either the Argent Crusade or the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

Unlike either of those zones, however, the FPs in Icecrown are extensively phased. Only two of them, Argent Vanguard and Death's Rise, are accessible immediately upon entering the zone, so don't go cruising around trying to pick up all the FPs. Just go through the normal quest lines and you'll unlock all four of them sooner or later.

MapWoW is one of my favorite WoW resources online. I have to admit, I don't use it as much as some other helpers, but it's really well done -- someone put the Azeroth map inside the Google Maps interface, and added herbs, ores, flight paths and everything else you need to find on the map. If you've ever asked "where can I find..." in a chat channel, odds are that MapWoW had the answer already.

And now they've got Northrend in the mix, ready to go for your exploring needs. It's a little spoilery, actually -- a pretty detailed bird's-eye view of all the new content in the expansion. They do have flight paths included, but they don't quite have herbs and ores uploaded yet -- we're told they'll be in soon.

Don't get me wrong -- there's definitely something to be said for exploring: pretty soon, we'll have tagged and catalogued every single mob up there, so it is fun to just run around now while it's all still a new world. Don't depend on maps right away, because you never know what might be just around the corner in the land of the Lich King. But if you need it, there's your map.

Sharp-eyed tipster Fontane sent us this very interesting screenshot today. This is a picture of a book open on the table by the Argent Dawn emmisaries currently set up in Shattrath. What does that look like in the circled area? To me, it looks like a map of Azeroth: Northrend at the top, Kalimdor at left, Eastern Kingdoms at right, and the Maelstrom in the middle. But what's that at the bottom? Could it be a new continent?

Sure, it might be a bit early to speculate about the third expansion, given that the second isn't even out yet (five days!). But I'm going to do it anyway; we do know they've got more planned.

On Friday there will be WoW relevant panels about the UI, classes, and artwork. On Saturday there will be panels about WoW PvP, raids & dungeons, a general Q&A session, and more class panels. The opening keynote is set to being at 11:00 a.m. PDT on Friday morning.

There are a lot of interesting attractions and events that'll be going on in addition to the slew of vendors that'll be there. There will be several large hands on gaming areas, a charity auction (hopefully some cool things will be presented – we'll be sure to let you know what's there when we find out), a developer signing, some archery, and Blizzard trivia.

WoW Insider will be covering the event in force. We'll be covering everything we can with live blogging, images and video from the floor, and several other great features. Lots more to come this week!

Read on after the break for a quick look at when all the WoW related events will be happening.

In case you'd like to get a sneak peek at what you'll be rampaging all over in Wrath, Blizzard has just put up an interactive map of the new continent of Northrend on its site. It's pretty, of course, but also information-packed. For each zone, if you click on it, it lists the following information:

• Level range of the zone; the two starting zones are listed as 68–72, as we expected.
• Flight points, Alliance, Horde, and neutral. All the zones seem to have plenty of flight points, which will make it less painful not to have flying mounts until 77.
• Instances, with levels for those.
• Raids. Interestingly, both the raids currently in beta (Naxxramas and Chamber of Aspects) are in Dragonblight; I hadn't realized that.
• Zone map
  

Obviously, if you're averse to these kinds of spoilers, don't click over. Otherwise, enjoy the pretty pictures. 55 days until LK; I can't wait.