May 13, 2010

Cataclysm Beta Opt-In

Well, that was quick. Bornakk advises we’d best be ready for Cataclysm Closed Beta.

Get those opt-ins ready for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta! The sundering of Azeroth is nigh, and you don’t want to be left out in the cold of Northrend when you could be enjoying the sun-drenched beaches on the goblin isle of Kezan. To ensure you’re opted-in and eligible as a potential candidate, you’ll need a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account, have your current system specifications uploaded to the Battle.net Beta Profile Settings page, and have expressed interest through the franchise-specific check boxes.

So get your opt-ins set up, updated, and ready; we’re worgen real hard to get the beta going soon!

May 13, 2010

Cataclysm Professions Preview

A large preview of the upcoming changes to professions in Cataclysm. I am highlighting the ones I thought hunters might be most interested in.

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring

  • We didn’t feel like we were getting much flexibility from specializations, so they have been removed for all three of these professions. The intent was to help people diversify their profession to feel different from that of other players, but through other professions we’ve found systems that work better to this end, such as simply making recipes available that you can earn over time.
  • All three professions will create their starter sets of PVP gear, which will be upgraded with new recipes every season. In general, these are meant to keep pace as an entry-level PvP set below whatever the current Hero Point set is.

Alchemy

  • New elixirs will be about 75% as strong as flasks. So you can get more total stat points with two elixirs, but flasks will still be the best at giving you a single offensive or defensive stat.

Engineering

  • Engineering is still being designed, but expect new unpredictable gadgets to use on yourself or enemies. Toys, explosives, and even a new vanity pet or two. Oh, and powerful mechanical bows and crossbows in addition to guns.

Inscription

  • With the large number of class changes coming with Cataclysm, many existing glyphs will see new functionality.
  • Minor glyphs are woefully uneven from one class to the next right now, so they’re a focus for us to clean them up and try to ensure that everyone has minor glyphs they’re excited about.
  • New Darkmoon Cards will be added, with hopes they’ll all be as awesome as the Greatness card.
  • We’ll be adding more major glyphs as well, but in the hopes of making them as balanced as possible, we’ll likely wait until after the expansion ships to add any for the new abilities in Cataclysm.

Jewelcrafting

  • Some gem colors have changed! Hit is now blue. Mastery and Dodge are yellow. Intellect is now red. These simple changes have created a much more diverse matrix of gem cuts.
  • Many cuts are being added to support the new Mastery stat.

Herbalism, Skinning, and Mining

  • All Cataclysm herbs have the chance of containing Volatile Life.
  • There won’t be a new Lotus equivalent in Cataclysm. Alchemists will use the more reliably-found Volatile Life to create the new high level flasks.

May 10, 2010

Looking for Pets: Hunter Feedback

Posted today on both the US and European forums:

We’re looking to get some feedback on the types of pets that hunters would like to be able to tame and the types of abilities that might be interesting for those pets to have. Is there a type of creature in the game now that you would like to be able to tame or an ability that you’ve always thought should be added? Here’s your chance to share a bit more about what you think could be great additions for the hunter class.

I only went through the first page on the US forums but what I saw was what I expected – tame our own mounts, dragonkin, basilisks & Un’goro dinosaurs.

May 5, 2010

You wait for a gem in an endless sea of blah

With the Cataclysm changes to armor and statistics, it’s natural that the current gems will also be changing (somewhat).

Some gems will change. Armor pen gems will be going away. Some gems are changing color. At the moment we think we’ll probably keep current attack power and spellpower gems, though if you are a min-maxer it’s possible you’d be better off changing to Agility or Intellect.

Because some gems are changing color, you may gain or lose some socket bonuses you have now. In general, not many players take those very seriously so hopefully it won’t be a big issue. It’s possible you might have to do something to keep a meta gem bonus.

We’ll try and announce all of the changes (though you’ll probably get all of the info out of the public beta too) in plenty of time that not too many folks will be surprised when the changes go live.

It’s not ideal to change existing gear on players obviously, but given the scope of the Cataclysm changes (including changing so many stats and talent trees), there is going to have to be a little bit of relearning. In this case it’s really only an issue for the short window in between when the new rules go into effect and the Cataclysm itself (opening up new zones, level cap, etc.) actually occurs.

April 17, 2010

#BlizzChat Developer Chat

Q. Will there be any new pet families added, or will we simply see more additions to existing ones?

A. We’re not sure yet whether we’re adding new pet families or not. It’s possible. Expect to see some monkeys, foxes and other new pet possibilities though!

Q: Does the Marksman mastery (Double Shot) work like the Wild Quiver talent (provide a free autoshot) or like the Lightning Overload talent (a free whatever spell you just cast)? In other words, can Double Shot fire a second Chimera Shot?

A: Double Shot is a half-strength autoshot. Wild Quiver will increase the damage of the autoshot to 60-70% (or something similar). Lightning Overload (the talent) will likewise increase the magnitude of the Elemental Overload mechanic.

You can read the entire thing here as it contains quite a bit of information about Cataclysm as well.

[Previous] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 [Next]