Posts with tag ptr

BoK brings up something I've thought a little bit about lately: their guild will occasionally run an encounter "blind," which means they'll go in without researching or learning any boss strategy ahead of time. This is generally something that only the highest-level guilds often do, and even then only on the PTR -- by the time bosses hit the live realms, their abilities are usually posted online somewhere. But some guilds enjoy a challenge, and doing a raid without knowing what's coming definitely keeps you on your toes. A lot of raiders think that's actually the "right" way to do it -- Blizzard's game doesn't come with strategies installed, so if the designers created the fight correctly, it should be clear, just from watching buffs and boss animations, what to do during a fight.

So today's query is: have you ever run something blind, or would you like to? I haven't run any raids blind -- my guild raids so little already that when we do, it's best to be fully prepared. But I did run the new 5-mans blind on the PTR, and it was an interesting experience. You really have to stay alert and try to analyze the fight as you're doing it, look for buffs and balances and try to position yourself as best you can, all while running your usual casts and abilities. It's a fun challenge, though as the fight gets tougher, it's probably less fun -- we were running with premades on five-mans, and I doubt a high-level raid would be as easy on us. Still, some of you must do it regularly, or at least be interested in going blind. What say you?

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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Like new content? Of course it's more of a rhetorical question -- proven scientific research tells us that everyone likes new content. For those of you not on the PTRs yourself, the WoW.com team is there for you, running the latest Icecrown dungeon, the Halls of Reflection. We're hoping to meet Arthas for a friendly chat over tea -- but we'll see how well that goes. Want to come along for the ride? Join Alex Ziebart, Matt Low, Matthew Rossi, Mike Schramm, and our new-found compatriot Selfish on Ustream.

See the live stream after the break -- and if you're trying to avoid spoilers this may not be where you want to be.

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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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If you didn't make it to the party last time, here's your second chance to PUG it up with WoW devs and CMs. Zarhym just announced take two of PUG with the Blues, and it's guaranteed to be a good time.

Just hop onto the Patch 3.3 PTR this Wednesday at 4 PM PST/7 PM EST and put your character into the random heroic Wrath dungeon queue. If you're lucky, you'll get grouped with someone with <GM> before their name and get to run a heroic with a dev!

This could be your only chance to use that funny quip you've been saving for a blue post reply, or to make sure that Ghostcrawler never lives down whatever off-the-cuff comment he made one time that everybody interpreted the way that they wanted. Just make sure to say it while he's busy doing something. Timing is everything.

Oh, and some WoW.com staff will be there too. So get your PTR client patched up and ready to go and let's. Get. Random.

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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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In the latest build of the PTR, they have updated the new looking for raid interface (now called the Raid Browser). This interface is completely separate from the new Looking for Group interface and will not share its cross-realm capabilities. This means that you'll only be raiding with the same pool of people you've been pugging raids with already.

While some people are upset at the lack of cross-realm support for raiding, others of us are relieved. This means no cross-realm raid stealing, no cross-realm ninjas, and no cross-realm toy trains for us to smash. It is also fairly difficult to get the same group of people back later to finish a raid when they're scattered across your battlegroup.

However, some of the new features include the fact that the Looking for Group channel will be turned on by default for all characters and will be available in major cities, just like Trade and General. It will also be uncoupled from the LFG and Raid Browser interfaces. This means that those people who currently spam Trade with raid requests can move over to LFG and still hit their intended audience.

Right now, it also looks like you can queue for both classic and BC era raids as well as the current level content from the interface while on a level 80 character. I'm not sure if this will stay in as a similar feature was available in the normal LFG tool, but was removed a build or two later. There are still a few rough edges, but it appears to be coming along nicely.

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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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I'm on a boat!

That was the first thing that came to mind as I entered Icecrown for today's Gunship encounter that will be coming in patch 3.3. It was another fun fight against those foul Horde forces although there were a few slight bugs in the mix. Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete it because the Alliance cannons just didn't seemed to be working properly. The goblins must have sabotaged it. Either that or someone forgot to reload them.

I added some screenshots of the event into the Icecrown gallery.

Anyway, it's time to grab your sword and fight the Horde!

Every week, Shifting Perspectives examines issues affecting druids and those who group with them. Today we root around our inbox and herd a series of scribbled notes across our desk, trying to get what we actually know about patch 3.3 in order. Also, Zach Yonzon's PhotoShop skills for the win, but we already knew that.

This week's column is going to be a little bit of a grab bag in much the same way that our patch 3.1 miscellany post was, because there have been a few changes on the PTR recently that we haven't yet discussed.

Before we get any farther, I'd also like to give a shout-out to our readers and commenters on last week's column, "The disappearance of the bear." I was a little antsy over how it was going to be received (lengthy articles on what's going wrong with a spec can get derailed into QQ-fests pretty easily, and that wasn't my intent), but was heartened to see so much quality discussion. One of the things I realized after reading through the comments was that Blizzard may actually have succeeded a little too well in their quest to make tanking more attractive and fun to the average player. WoW's four tanking classes (warrior, paladin, druid, and death knight) comprise 4 of the 5 most popular classes in the game right now. As I've written previously, the druid functions as the proverbial canary in the coal mine as a harbinger of class balance concerns, and with each of the game's plate classes numbering among the most played at 80, it's impossible for this not to have an impact on druid spec choice.

Anyway. For the moment, we are going to turn away from this rather depressing situation, and concern ourselves with what's going on in patch 3.3.

Daelo has posted this week's raid testing schedule for the patch 3.3 PTR, and we're going to get more looks at what the Icecrown raid has in store for us:

US Servers
Monday, October 26 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Festergut
Wednesday, October 28 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Icecrown Gunship Battle
Thursday, October 29 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Sindragosa
Friday, October 30 at 7PM EDT / 4 PM PDT - Valithria Dreamwalker

EU Servers
Tuesday, October 27 at 19:30 CEST – Lord Marrowgar
Wednesday, October 28 at 19:30 CEST – Lady Deathwhisper
Thursday, October 29 at 19:30 CEST – Professor Putricide
Friday, October 30 at 19:30 CEST - Rotface

A little bit of analysis about the schedule after the break.

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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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There's another new build on the PTR, which means we're one step closer to seeing the new patch 3.3 drop. And while of course Icecrown probably holds its place as the biggest feature of the new patch, there's a whole slew of other changes to look ahead to, from updated achievements and a new faction to run, a brand new LFG interface with cross-realm instances, the Kalu'ak fishing derby, speeded-up Northrend reputation grinds, and lots of other things. Man oh man this patch is building up to be quite the event.

So the question today is: what are you most looking forward to? Personally, I remain a fan of the 5-man instances -- I've already run two of them on the PTR, but fighting enemies co-op in a small group like that is really why I play the game. And of course cross-realm LFG will probably be a big part of the excitement for me as well. While I do expect there to be a few issues, hopefully it'll make jumping into a group as quick and easy as possible. And I'm looking forward to that fishing tournament, too -- the last one was a good idea, but hopefully a new implementation will help freshen things up.

What are you looking forward to in patch 3.3?

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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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Excited to jump in on the Icecrown Gunship battle today on the PTR? Too bad -- Daelo has posted on the forums that due to instance server issues, today's testing has been canceled. He posted that on the EU forums, so we're not sure if that means it's also canceled on the North American realms, but we'll presume so. If we hear otherwise (as this is the PTR, all testing and data is subject to change at a moment's notice), we'll let you know.

As for what this means for the testing cycle, probably nothing at all -- delays and changes are pretty standard for the test realm, and even as they said in the original announcement, bosses can go up and down whenever the devs want. I do think we will see the gunship battle tested on the PTR at some point, though -- it seems like one of the more complicated encounters in the instance, and Blizzard will surely want to put it under a microscope sometime before the patch goes live.

Update: Apparently the gunship battle is live right now (4:40pm Pacific) on the test realm. If you want to see what it's like, get yourself a raid and head on in.

I cleared out the tail end of my afternoon in the hopes of getting a glimpse at the latest raid boss to be tested in the patch 3.3 PTR. Festergut was open for testing on North American servers while the European servers had Rotface. There were some issues with Rotface earlier in the day (namely that the 25 man version of Rotface had health that was meant for the 10 man). Anyway, I managed to get in a few attempts on Festergut here while playing on my priest.

First, let's talk trash.

Blizzard has posted the schedule this week for testing of the new bosses in Icecrown Citadel on the patch 3.3 PTR. Here's what Slorkuz on the EU forums says is going down:

US PTRs
October 21 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT - Festergut
October 22 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT - Icecrown Gunship Battle

EU PTRs
October 21 at 19:30 CEST - Rotface (this test is already over, unfortunately)
October 22 at 19:30 CEST - Icecrown Gunship Battle

As always, these schedules and everything else on the PTR is subject to change at a moment's notice. You can find short descriptions of what we know about the bosses after the break.

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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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World of Raids has unveiled an extremely spoiler-filled video of the first quest to obtain the legendary axe, Shadowmourne. The quest, called The Sacred and the Corrupt, is active on the PTR but cannot be completed as it requires items obtained from Icecrown Citadel. The sweet-looking axe (shown above as data-mined by MMO Champion) is an upgrade from an identical but less spooky and icy-glowy epic axe called Shadow's Edge. The six minute video is pretty cool and epic, with the setting eerily reminiscent for players who played the Human campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne The Reign of Chaos (thanks, Skeeran! Shame on me!). Nothing much to say, really, other than hit the jump to see the video. Oh, and in case I haven't made it clear... it's kind of spoiler-ish.

Our podcast is now ready for your downloading pleasure, and I have to say -- it was a good one. Nothing flashy, no once-in-a-lifetime guests (though both Turpster and Matticus were on with me, and those guys are definitely one-of-a-kind), but it was just a good solid podcast, with some great discussion about the latest PTR build and Lord Marrowgar, the Battle.net changeover, and our very first predictions about when we might see patch 3.3 on the live servers. Turpster's even got some money riding on his guess already.

Plus we answer your emails as usual, and that's always a good time -- you can email us anything you want (including some mp3s for intros if that's your thing) at "theshow AT wow dawt com". If you like the show, don't forget to go hit us up on iTunes -- you can subscribe to the show there, or leave us a good rating or review if you like. Thanks for listening as always, and enjoy the show!

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