Waldonnis

As with anything that requires a few people to do, try to schedule stuff like this. I've seen a few people get frustrated when nobody's available to sign their charters or can't for various reasons. It's quick and easy when folks know when to show up. I'm sure there are quite a few of us with a gaggle of name holding alts, but it's an exercise in frustration trying to catch people online here and there that aren't busy or previously committed these days (school's starting, business trips, family events, etc.). Might I suggest this: let's set a day/time to have as many people as possible meet up to do nothing but sign charters. Not everyone will be available for signing or getting their own signed, but at least we can knock out a few and try to coordinate from there. I know I need to do this as well, but just haven't had a regular enough sleeping schedule to coordinate anything lately and am in no big hurry to get mine done anyway. Since Tuesday and Thursday aren't raid nights any longer, maybe pick one (or both?) of those nights at 8pm server? Should only take 20mins or so.

LOTS of changes in this one. As always, this post is a work in progress and I'll keep updating it as I find more stuff and dig into the UI code a bit. First days with new builds are always busy Notable Bugs: The feedback tool is present again, but still messed up. Please continue using the Bug Reports forum to report any bugs you encounter. Some characters are STILL unable to open certain crafting skills (for me, it's First Aid). Fishing may need to be retrained again...again again. You won't lose any skill you have, but it's still acting funky. If you need to fish, re-purchase the skill, but otherwise it's probably safe to wait (I'm often the only one nuts enough to want to fish a lot anyway). Guild permissions are still very wonky. As before, I will try to fix the bank perms, but can't make any guarantees until the UI cooperates. Goblins, mounts...do I even need to say it again? Rumour has it that the felsteed bug is back (possibly intentional this time). To test it, pick up blacksmithing in Org, then talk to the weaponsmith inside the smithing building in the Valley of Honor. He just *might* teach it to you. I'll check this as soon as I can. CONFIRMED: This does work again! Some characters may have to respec to get their talents enabled again. You may have to enter your authenticator code twice to log in. Flying back to your corpse during a corpse run in a flying zone is still incredibly slow. Try not to die! Barber shops are still not working Abandoning quests does not work. General: Master riding is in (375 riding, allowing you to learn 310% mounts for those of us who don't have them). For now, it's 4,000g (at exalted) and can be learned from flying trainers. New loading screens are in for every continent (the Northrend one is pretty damn awesome). They're very cool! The guild vendor is now active and has heirloom helms/cloaks and a few other items for sale (most of which are currently placeholders). He's located on the west side of Garrosh's building in Org under an awning next to a Thunder Lizard Mount (PH). Items include companion pets, mounts, standards, and a few other nifty things. Note: most of the items do not work yet, so save the silver. The heirlooms are the new ones, though (1-85), so have a ball with those. Some of the placeholder item graphics have been replaced finally. Many of us no longer look like level 5 rogues and mages while wearing Deepholm gear. The Social button got a new icon...wheee. It still opens the guild pane. The Guild News frame in the guild UI (and tab) are working now and show the latest achievements earned by your guildmates. Guild events still don't show up yet in the event section, but I'm sure they'll fix that once the new UI events are working properly. I'm creating test events periodically to check this (and a few other things), so you can ignore those...unless you like trying to figure out where to go at midnight on some random day Some new achievements are in, including some of the Illustrious Grand Master profession ones (one of which I have ). Check the Guild section for some other new ones. More tweaks to the worgen male model. Still no females available yet and the customisation options still don't work for males. The Fast Track guild perk was moved to level 2. Guild "experience" seems to have been tweaked to make it less...daunting. Logging out or disconnecting while on a flying mount will no longer leave you dismounted when logging back in. Mob damage has been increased starting at level 65 (roughly 2.5x what it used to be) to account for the new stat scaling. Beware...and OW! Personally, I think they went a bit overboard with this one. We can thank the "leveling is to easy" crowd for this (spelling intentional). Zones: Many zones have gotten further updates to their world maps A new continent was added to the world map, which includes the Maelstrom (Deepholm subzone), Lost Isles, and Kezan. The fog of war seems to be enabled on many zone maps now. Orgrimmar: Guild vendor works, as noted in the General section above. He's currently located on the west side of Garrosh's building by a placeholder Thunder Lizard Mount (under an awning). More portal graphics are in around the area where we ported from Org to the Maelstrom. I suspect we'll see a similar system to get to Twilight Highlands and the other new zones. Engineering trainers were moved into the Drag, but are also available in other sections of Orgrimmar. A jewelcrafting trainer was added next to the mining trainer as well. The teleport location was moved around in the Cleft of Shadow, and a Blasted Lands port was added there as well. So disorienting! [*]Tol Barad: Has been added to the queue system! If you want to get your PvP on in the "new WG", get yo tail in thar! Still checking into how to get in the queue... [*]Kezan/Lost Isles: A profession "trainer bot" was added last build, but wasn't actually teaching some of the profession skills. Unsure yet if it works in this build. Classes: All class training bugs seem to have been fixed. Wondering how many people are kicking themselves for dropping a primary profession about now... Specialisation spells seem to be sticking around again! Masteries are in! Visit your class trainer to pick up the enabling spell. New specialisation spells (for armour classes) are in too. An example of the specialisation is what I saw on Verissi: Cloth Specialization - Increases your intellect by 5% while wearing Cloth in all armor slots. Seems silly on a mage since we can only wear cloth, but I can see this becoming more interesting on leather, mail, or plate classes (Razzy's is complicated: stam in bear, agi in cat, int for balance and resto, so I suspect the same type of thing for Rayneli and Magai). Basically, it boosts your spec's "primary stat" by 5% when wearing your preferred armour type. Some tweaks to when talent points are gained as well. Mage: Some tweaks to fire, including some things added to talents like Impact. Very not bad! With the mastery system working now and these changes, I will definitely be doing some mage testing to see how the new stuff works out for us fiery types. Portal flyouts have been added! YAY! See the UI section below for a bit more detail. [*]Shaman: A new water totem was added: Totem of Tranquil Mind, which duplicates the effect of paladins' Concentration Aura (or should, but the tooltip or spell is still buggy). Visit a trainer to pick this little gem up. More tweaks to elemental (including one talent that has no icon - Improved Fire Nova). The tree is a bit less cluttered now...time for yet another respec! Fire nova now has a placeholder icon, which was a touch confusing at first. Acuity was shuffled...making it a much more difficult choice for elementals that wanted to pick up Ancestral Swiftness. Still debating this one myself. [*]Paladin: Sunwalker kodos are still untrainable, likely due to a bug with the non-epic version of the spell. Guess Melianna and I will be the only two with them for a bit longer. A few new talents in retribution - it's starting to look like Feral with how much crap is in there! Funniest of the bunch is named "Long Arm of the Law" (gap closer!). A holy power indicator has been added beneath the unit frame that looks like the beta versions of the DK rune UI. It lights up like a funky progress bar, then glows entirely when you've reached three stacks. The buff is still displayed as well. [*]Druid: Nothing huge, but still looking into it. For the interested, there's a debate about moonkin form in the forum that's worth participating in. Professions: Glyphs are actually spells in the spellbook now. Not sure if this is a bug or if you actually learn the glyph and can apply it to any spec at will? I'll check into this, but it seems to work that way. Archaeology and new profession stuff is still NYI - kinda. Alliance has an archaeology trainer, but Horde does not (yet). Some professions (namely tailoring) may have new patterns available for training on Dalaran trainers. User Interface: New mount and companion UI tabs added to the spell book! They're purty! Verissi's companion tab is still a mess, of course, due to the sheer volume of pets... As noted above, the news section of the guild pane works now, and shows the latest achievements and such earned by your guildmates. Further refinement of the PvP pane is still going on. Rated BG stuff is shaping up quite nicely. HUGE overhaul to the graphics settings pane in Options->Video. With as many little tweaks as they've been adding, this was really needed to accomodate all of the new stuff. Go over it slowly as there are definitely new things in there, and some stuff (like Vsync) may have reverted back to default values. Guild titles has been added as a checkbox option under the Names display settings. I like this! A new set of "spells" have been added for things like mage teleports/portals. They can be put on an action bar and act like the shaman totem flyouts and expands a sub-menu of teleports/portal spells that you can select from. This is a HUGE convenience thing for mages at least. I hope they expand it to other types of spells as well in the future.

My pleasure. I love poking around and seeing what's different with every build. I've nicknamed it "new build syndrome" Reminder that I'm posting screenshots on my blog (linked in my sig) as well of many of the new zones, races, druid forms, and UI elements. I know MMO-Champ posts about 200x what I do, but I prefer to take mine on actual servers instead of private ones Datamined content is interesting, but there are tons of things in the data files that have never seen the light of day on alpha, beta, PTR, or live servers...so take some of those things with a grain of salt. I've seen about five different potential goblin mounts in the files at various points, many of which were removed or ended up being used in quests instead...

*hides his 4pc pvp set bonus* What movement speed boosts??? The last one was hilarious and I'm sure this one will be so as well. I'll miss the 4min-long duel with Zorrander this time, though

New build...and new launcher! Read below (it's nifty, but has some issues still). Buckle your safety belts, she's a big download... Notable Bugs: The feedback tool was accidentally disabled in this build, so reporting bugs is...done on the forums, I guess. Oopsie! The new launcher may show a red bar long after you passed an earlier yellow or green marker if you stopped the download at some point. Ignore it if you know you're past the red zone (the Play button will be enabled anyway). The new launcher for some reason loves to download every single locale. I'm sure this isn't totally intentional (and explains a chunk of the 15.6GB download), but...meh, they'll fix it up. The new scheme is quite nifty, though. The new launcher has no way to en/disable peer-to-peer transfers, nor a way to view the torrent progress. You can change the settings on the live launcher and they'll apply to the beta launcher. Some folks with asynchronous Internet connections are finding it faster to disable P2P due to technical limitations of their connection type and (relatively) few people that are currently enabling P2P anyway. The Dungeon Finder currently isn't allowing solo queuing, but if you group with someone else, you can queue as a group. Guild bank permissions (and some other guild master functions) aren't totally working or resetting randomly. If you want to access the guild bank and it doesn't allow you to, let me know and I'll try to fix it. Class/profession training is still not working if you have two primary professions. If you don't care about them, unlearning one and relogging should allow you to train again. Honestly, I would wait if you can, since skilling up again can be a bit of a pain, but it's up to you. Learning skinning from the trainer in Org will cause the dead boar that he's skinning to attack you (and you can't attack back). The sliding dead boar does have an aggro table, as I found out when healing the first "victim" I saw. Quite a hilarious bug and one that I suspect might be a practical joke General: The new launcher is in and works fairly well for most. What it basically does is allow a download-on-demand system, allowing you to get in and play once the core files are in place, and it will download the rest as you encounter it. It does cause some hiccups when zoning or loading new areas, but if you give it a short bit to download/cache things, it plays like normal in that area. Downside: total reinstall, including a gigantor download of the entire client (previous client downloads copied bits from a live install to save time...this one doesn't seem to). Note: If you have a usage cap on your Internet connect (mobile users, etc.), think very carefully before pulling the trigger on this, since it could cost you a ton of money to download 15.6GB worth of data plus the installer. Reforging is in! See Enchanter Farendin in Orgrimmar (Godan's Runeworks, just east of the Valley of Wisdom in the Drag, where the enchanter trainer is). I played around with the panel, but didn't actually try it, so let us know how it works (or doesn't). Ysera got a new model. I expected more green, honestly, but it looks pretty interesting (and as usual, has gotten mixed reviews). It's still marked as a placeholder task, so we may see more versions over time. The Abyssal Seahorse mount has been restricted so that it may only be used in Vashj'ir. Boo! I hope they have a change of heart on this one. Zones: Orgrimmar: Lots of sign doodads have working tooltips! Of course, it won't stop people from asking where stuff is, but at least it makes it easier to direct them around if they can read a sign (that's a big if). Banks around town have hired a bunch of employees...and they seem to be goblins! They're trustworthy, just ask them... Reforging NPC is in. See the info in the General section above for his location. There's an NPC marked as a "Guild Vendor", but he's inactive (curious!). Next to him is also a placeholder model that's noted as a Thunder Lizard Mount (!!)....eeentereting. [*]Silverpine Forest: Forgot to note this specifically, but the breadcrumb quest leading to Hillsbrad Foothills is not in place yet, so the zone ends a bit abruptly quest-wise. Also forgot that rewards are still non-existant (other than experience and money). Gear rewards should be introduced in future builds. [*]Uldum: The zone is technically open, although not for testing (meaning, you can get in there and poke around; one of the invisible walls and the NML were removed). I wouldn't go starting any quests or messing around in there quite yet, but it's a stunning zone and fantastic eye candy for those who love Egyptian themes (like I do). Classes: Some talents are still reseting any time you zone or reload after spending talent points on them. In some cases, respec'ing and redoing the build allows things to "stick", but not in every case. Nothing new of note in this build. Mastery system is still disabled/NYI. Professions: Nothing new - still no Archaeology Some characters still cannot open their First Aid crafting window for some reason. No workaround as of yet. Fishing trainers are offering all ranks of fishing available to be learned, even if you're at 450. Odd bug... Some miners have magically learned the Illustrious rank of mining and can skill up to 525 (including one of my miners, but not another). No idea why some characters got it and some didn't. User Interface: Other than the new launcher, there's not much that I've found in this build yet. Still working on understanding how the new file scheme works. Some interesting messages have been added to indicate if you've been disconnected/reconnected to the chat server. If they work the way I hope they do, this should really help alert players to the chat server connection issues that some of us have faced. The messages indicating that you need better gear to queue for an instance/heroic have been changed to say that you need a higher average item level. Demystifies the whole "how does this work" thing for people who are unfamiliar with it. More code added relating to rated battlegrounds. Guess we'll see some updates to the PvP pane soon. There is some new code in there already, but not sure if it's hooked to anything or even works properly. An option was made to the raid frames options pane to display/hide power bars (rage, mana, energy). Some interesting changes to the restricted environment code (more commonly known as the "secure stuff"). If this does what my (really tired) mind thinks it does, it should open up some new possibilities for addon authors. There's support for "flyouts" being added for spell groups slowly. From what I can tell, it looks like spells like the mage teleport and portal spells will be capable of being "grouped" up in a way, similar to how the totem bar works. This would be amazingly helpful if that's what the plan is (a few less addons for me to use if they do this). Edit (8 Aug 2010): Added Uldum and UI info Edit 2 (8 Aug 2010): Added bug about the dead boar and info about the guild vendor and potential new mount to the Org section

Since we're still unable to use addons, we may as well share some handy macros that any of us might have. Here's my "works most of the time" all-in-one mount macro. To customise it, just change the mount names to which ever mounts you want to use. I have a modified one for druids to include flight, travel (in combat), and aquatic forms as well and can post it if desired: #showtooltip /cast [swimming] Abyssal Seahorse /cast [flyable,noswimming] Green Proto-Drake /cast [noflyable,noswimming] Venomhide Ravasaur /dismount [mounted] If you don't like the dragons on the ends of the action bars, here's one to remove them (NOTE: this does not work currently, since the /run command is disabled): /run MainMenuBarRightEndCap:Hide() /run MainMenuBarLeftEndCap:Hide() Any others?

Started gathering signatures again tonight *sighs*. It doesn't look like the old guild is coming back (unless the patch this coming week restores them), so I guess we'll just reform. I should still have money for bank tabs (again), but donations are always appreciated. Let's hope this doesn't happen again!

Guilds are still busted and there are some other new bugs, but a few things managed to make it into this build... Notable Bugs: Launcher problems continue on Windows clients. If the launcher closes immediately when you try to run it, you have two options: you can either right-click it and choose "Run as Administrator" or just run Wow.exe from your beta installation folder. Characters are still unable to train new spells if they have two primary professions. The only "workaround" is to drop one profession currently, but do so at your own risk - they won't be restoring them. It's best to be patient if this is truly a problem (e.g. on a copied level 80+) and you don't want to start from scratch in beta with either primary profession. Logging out on a flight mount WILL dismount you when you log back in. Basically, don't log out flying in mid-air or gravity will win when you log back in. Sometimes this can't be helped (world server crashes), unfortunately. Guilds are still...funky. The UI is reportedly not updating properly at times and some of the associated slash commands aren't working. This is all probably related to the ongoing removal of the old guild perk system and paring it down to the new one (as well as the new UI changes), so we'll probably see this get fixed over the next few builds. Trolls and gnomes are getting new background graphics music and possibly background graphics on the character selection screen. Sadly, the word "getting" means "they're not in yet" and logging in a character of either race is tricky right now (produces an error when you try to select them). There's a workaround, so feel free to ask me about it if you're truly interested - be warned, it's a minor pain in the rump. General: Trolls and gnomes are getting new background graphics on the character selection screen. See above for a related bug. Worgen creation is enabled again. Have at it, furry fans! Female worgen are still disabled, however. Malfurion Stormrage gets a spiffy new look. It's a bit controversial, but it surely beats the generic-looking model he had before. The reforging NPC was removed for now (he didn't work anyway). Riding/flying in the Cleft of Shadow in Orgrimmar works now! Addons are still disabled (as is the /run command). Since I hadn't mentioned it before, it was worth noting that this is not a bug. Zones: There is now a breadcrumb quest for Mt. Hyjal available in Orgrimmar (and Stormwind too, but who cares about them!). Look for the Warchief's Command Boards in various locations around Orgrimmar to pick up the quest (they all give the same quest). No other notable changes yet, but I'll update this if I find something. Classes: Many, many talent tweaks, so be sure to look at your talent pane and reassign any refunded points. Most classes had the number of "ranks" of several talents reduced and have refunded the points for the entire talent (I've noticed this on mages, druids, and paladins so far). As always, check your trainers after EVERY build. Several spells end up back on there or are introduced, so it's a good habit to get into. Mastery system appears to be NYI again (still). Druid mana regen appears to be fixed. While it was comical in the last build being unable to run out of mana ever, it was obviously a bug (really, it was a spell cost issue, but it had the same effect) Professions: Nothing new - still no Archaeology Some characters still cannot open their First Aid crafting window for some reason. No workaround as of yet. User Interface: New raid frames got a LOT of work in this build, including a new options pane in the Interface Options. Sorting options are present, as are things like displaying incoming heals (!! means we have API for this coming? No more libhealcomm??), aggro highlighting, dispellable debuffs, and hiding/showing pets. There are more strings than options in the UI code that aren't in the options right now, but it looks like we'll see even more options in the future. Very cool stuff! Compact party frames received some tweaks as well, although nothing new yet in the options pane for them. There is code in place for a "Holy Power" bar for paladins, but I haven't seen it in action to know if it's enabled yet or not. I'll look into this! Lots of minor tweaks and typo fixes (get some sleep, devs ).

FYI, the new build did not restore guilds, so I guess we'll have to reform it. When you log in to Lost Isles, please join the channel "MisfitsAD" so we can at least chat until everything's back in order (and so I know who is on for signatures). Thanks!

It appears that today's maintenance has wiped guilds. Not sure if this is a bug or was intentional to try to fix some of the issues that were present, but I'll try to reform it as soon as I can get a few people online. Please please PLEASE to the testers that don't log in, can you at least contact me and arrange a time when you can so I can get signatures done? Update: The guild wipe was intentional after all, so I'm gathering sigs on a new charter now (just need one more!). If I'm on, I'll be in the MisfitsAD channel, but if I fall out of it for some reason, look for me on Raztoka, Rayneli, Magai, Verissi, or Vench (my most-played characters so far).

As many have seen by now, the guild UI includes a section that lists the guild perk spells and which "guild ranks" are required to obtain them. Many appear to have two ranks that are learned at different guild levels and there seems to be quite a variety that should appeal to people who enjoy the various aspects of the game. We finally earned our second perk spell and are now a "Level 2 Horde Guild". The next one seems like it'll be a monumental achievement with the limited number of active people in the guild, but as the ways to earn guild experience increases, I'm sure we'll see a bit more progress that way (it currently gets awarded only via quest/kill experience gains). When looking at the list, I noticed a few interesting things that seem to be new (flask cauldrons, Heroism points which are the new "badge system", etc.), and since professions and such aren't in yet, it's hard to tell just how that stuff will pan out. While some may not interest an individual, it might interest others, so it's in everyone's best interest to work together towards the guild's level. Also, these ranks don't come easy, believe me. The proposal is that the top 20 contributors will be counted towards a guild's level progress in order to avoid the "We are Borg" guilding methods to achieve higher ranks quickly. At any rate, here are the spells that are in the beta currently (I've underlined the two that we've obtained so far in beta): Fast Track (Rank 1) Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 5%. Mount Up Increases speed while mounted by 5%. Not active in battlegrounds or Arenas. Mr. Popularity (Rank 1) Reputation gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 5%. Cash Flow (Rank 1) Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 5% money is generated and deposited direction into your guild bank. Fast Track (Rank 2) Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%. Reinforce (Rank 1) Items take 5% less durability loss when you die. Hasty Hearth Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes. Reinforce (Rank 2) Items take 10% less durability loss when you die. Chug-A-Lug (Rank 1) The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 50%. Mobile Banking Summons your guild bank. (note: no cooldown listed, but I'm sure they'll add one) Mr. Popularity (Rank 2) Reputation gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%. Honorable Mention (Rank 1) Increases Honor points gained by 5%. Working Overtime Increases the chance to gain a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%. The Quick and the Dead Increases health and mana gained when resurrected by a guild member by 50% and increases movement speed while dead by 100%. Does not function in combat or while in a Battleground or Arena. Cash Flow (Rank 2) Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank. Guild Mail In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly. Everyone's a Hero (Rank 1) Increases Heroism points gained by 5%. Honorable Mention (Rank 2) Increases Honor points gained by 10%. Happy Hour Increases the number of flasks gained from using a flask cauldron by 100%. Have Group, Will Travel Summons all raid or party members to the caster's current location. Chug-A-Lug (Rank 2) The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 100%. Bountiful Bags Increases the quantity of materials gained from Mining, Skinning, Herbalism, and Disenchanting by 15%. Bartering Reduces the price of items from all vendors by 5%. Everyone's a Hero (Rank 2) Increases Heroism points gained by 10%. Mass Resurrection Brings all dead party and raid members back to life with 35 health and 35 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (note: not sure if this is scaled up at higher levels, as I'm looking at it on a 61 druid currently)

Neat stuff...Really! (read: lazy testers need to log in some time this century *coughs*) General: Anyone stuck in a phase jail from the Wrathgate questline (read: my paladin moo) had the quest removed from the logs and the phasing fixed...almost. Orgrimmar and Undercity are now back to normal, but Durotar and Tirisfal Glades are still in their post-Wrathgate phase (meaning we still can't get the Vashj'ir questline unless someone shares it). More talent changes...and more talent bugs. Many classes are reporting that their talent choices aren't sticking. Guild UI is in and it rocks! Still buggy, but more on that below. Guild banks work again...almost. Due to a bug, the GM of a guild currently can't access any tab and setting certain permissions clears others, so I'm unable to fix the last two tabs' permissions. The others work, though, and I've enabled access to them for all of us. There is a reforging NPC in Orgrimmar in the Cleft of Shadows now. He's lazy and doesn't work, though. If you're curious, he's Enchanter Farendin in the Cleft of Shadow. Noteworthy bug in the past few builds: DO NOT LOG OFF WHILE MOUNTED AND FLYING. Logging back in will remove you from your mount and...well, you know what happens. Zones: DeepholmQuest rewards...finally! For the unaware, first passes on zones often have no quest rewards other than xp. Many appear to still have texture problems, but at least they exist. Classes: More talent changes...and more talent bugs! Wheee! As always, check your trainers after EVERY build. Several spells end up back on there or are introduced, so it's a good habit to get into. Professions: Nothing new to report, sadly. Some signs of future archaeology trainers are about, but it's still NYI. User Interface: Nifty new notice on the talent pane when you haven't confirmed your talents yet Guild UI is finally in! I'm sure MMO-Champ has a billion screenshots already, but what the hell... Now lets you find people within the guild that have a certain profession easily (including their skill level, which is still indicating the raw value rather than adjusted one). This view is a dropdown selection on the roster tab and is broken down by profession (and each can be collapsed). Guild perks are clearly displayed now, including current guild "progress", when the next rank will be earned, and what reward will be earned next. You can also view a list of all guild perks. The progress bar is still a bit wonky (ours extends almost across my entire screen, way beyond the pane boundary). Guild events can now be seen and created right in the guild UI. This is incredibly nice and gives a "one stop shopping" feel to the guild UI, allowing you to see all kinds of stuff without clicking a bunch of buttons. Guild Info is now incorporated right into the "Info" tab on the guild UI, along with the MotD. No more clicking a button and looking at that terribly tiny pane for TS info and the like. Guild Control UI has also been improved: Editing rank names, bank tab permissions, and guild permissions for each rank have been broken out into three different panes, selectable via a dropdown You can now easily edit and rearrange the ranks and their names....VERY easily (yay) Bank permissions are much easier to deal with and are now a scrolling frame, complete with the tab name and icon showing for each tab in the pane Rank permissions now include a "Manage bank tabs" option...not sure what that does yet (still messing with it), but hopefully it allows delegation of bank control rather than just "tab notes".

Bleh, overslept today. They were working on something in the building before my nap...turns out it was electrical, so when they cut the power, it knocked out my alarm clock. Guess I should read the notices they post before thinking of napping...

May as well get this forum rolling. All info in this thread will be a summary of what is in place now and what's not rather than a difference between this build and the prior builds, FYI. Going forward, I'll just note changes. There are far too many to list in this initial post, but this should be most of the big stuff. General: Level cap is 83 Goblins and worgen are playable, but neither have race-specific mounts yet (more below) Guild perk spells are in and (seem to be totally) enabled. We're still not sure how these are earned, but a few of us are watching the system closely. A reputation has been added for the guild (if you're in one) and "rep" is rewarded seemingly in proportion to experience gains from questing/killing currently. Not sure how this system will work quite yet. Zones: 1-58 Zones:Too many to list, so refer to this Current Zone Status thread [*]78+ Zones: Mt. Hyjal (78+) is openThe elf in front of Garrosh's building will teleport you to Mt. Hyjal at any time [*]Vashj'ir (78+) is open The quest to begin Vashj'ir starts in Durotar, just outside of the gates to Orgrimmar The elf in front of Garrosh's building will teleport you to Vashj'ir once you've completed the initial quest to get there [*]Deepholm (81+) is open The quest to begin Deepholm is located in the circle of stones located on the elevated area north of the flight master in Orgrimmar [*]The Current Zone Status thread has links for these as well Orgrimmar: Still largely unfinished, but slowly improving Mailboxes are located in several places around town, but NOT near Garrosh's pad, so fly around if you need to check your mail Target dummies are located in the Valley of Honor on the second floor above the warrior trainers (ask a guard to find the trainers if you're lost) Thrall is gone...kinda The flight master is now on an elevated platform above the Drag and is reachable via three elevators. A flying mount vendor and trainer are located there as well. The zepellin landing platforms are now located inside of Orgrimmar on either side of the flight master. Here's a breakdown of where they go since they aren't designated with banners and NPCs yet: Western Tower East-side zep - Borean Tundra West-side zep - Thunder Bluff [*]Eastern Tower East-side zep - Grom'Gol West-side zep - Undercity [*]Every type of class trainer is now available in Orgrimmar (even druids and paladins), but you may have to look around to find them Classes: All have new talent trees. Yes, there are some bugs and sometimes a spec won't "stick" after a relog or reload. This build's talent trees are less barren than the last ones, so it's progressing. I highly recommend turning on the talent preview UI feature for a few reasons. Level 83 spells are trainable...at 83. All spells now have one rank (with a few bugged exceptions) and will scale according to your level UI tooltips now show actual damage/healing values for each spell and ability rather than "naked" values As everyone probably knows, hunters use focus now...it's still very much a work in progress, but interesting. Hunters and warlocks begin with pets starting at level 1, but don't get the ability to control their pets until level 10 (no pet bar until then); each race of hunter begins with a different type of pet that fits the race's theme (bats for Forsaken, mastiffs for worgen, etc.) Races: Several older races have had their starting zones revamped, including tauren, trolls, and orcs. They are in varying states of completion. See the zone status thread linked above for more info. New race/class combos are active, including troll warlocks! Troll and worgen druid forms are mostly in, although both share the night elf moonkin model currently (and flight forms). Neither goblin nor worgen death knights are working properly currently due to no race-equivalent NPC appearing at the "kill that old friend of yours" quest stage in the starting zone, preventing them from going past it. Goblins: No race mount is available currently, so don't bother looking No riding trainer in EK or Kalimdor will talk to goblins. The workaround is to learn Blacksmithing, then talk to the weaponsmith *inside the smithing building* in Orgrimmar to learn the Summon Felsteed spell. Obtaining faster ground travel training requires a visit to Thrallmar or any riding trainer in Northrend. Bilgewater Harbor, the goblin "city" located in Azshara, is still largely incomplete. Beware if you're flying over or running around, since there are untextured areas of town that will dismount you or that you can fall through. Dances and jokes are in as well. Enjoy! Not all audible emotes have sounds yet, but many do. [*]Worgen: No race mount is available currently, but the night elves in Darnassus will happily sell a cat to you and teach you how to ride (unlike goblins, who have to go through some stupid contortions). Gilneas is phased completely, so visiting it as an outsider will just show an empy (but neat) zone currently Worgen males got a new face! Very...growly. Females are still not implemented yet (or really, they were, but were shunted back to the male model due to MANY model and texture problems). Worgen who were created prior to this build may show up without a face (and females may have become males). If you have no face and are wearing the "top hat" reward item, remove it and your face might show up again. The texture clipping for helms is apparently still a work in progress. If that doesn't help, it's a bug that's related to certain feature sets (and no barber shops work, so you'll have to live with it). R.I.P. <This Will Be A Carriage>.....we will miss you. User Interface: Lots of improvements Character Sheet now has a flyout for stats, which lets you rearrange the blocks of information as you wish and also hide the whole thing. Values such as "spell hit" are now expressed as a percentage rather than a rating (THANK YOU), with the rating being visible on mouseover. Spellbook has been totally redone and now shows all class spells and when you can learn them. If you level and a new spell becomes available, it highlights it in your spellbook and recommends that you visit your trainer. There are some bugs with this when it comes to secondary specs that have specialty spells. TOTALLY new profession pane. Unfortunately, it doesn't show buttons for all tradeskill abilities (notably jewelcrafting and smelting). To work around it temporarily, you can just type '/use Jewelcrafting' or '/use Smelting'. Level-up overlays are now present, which congratulate you on a new level and show you any new spells or features available to you. These are very nice! New guild UI is still in progress (but the code looks pretty cool). The old one has been disabled and the new one isn't available yet, so /who is your friend. This affects guild bank functionality as well, unfortunately. New "compact party frames" are available for testing. They're about the size of a standard configuration of Grid's unit frames. Talent window shows all three "pages" at once. It's still a bit small, but it's a vast improvement. The specialisation stuff has been added recently as well, which gives you an overview of what each tree is focused on and what special spells come with specialising in them. Tracking dropdown on the minimap now lets you track multiple things at once. Rejoice! Mmm, new water textures are tasty...as is the (still buggy) dx11 render path. Professions: No new recipes have been added yet (sort of) and the new ranks of trade skills are not available. Some have new recipes showing up in their lists, but not everyone does and nobody can figure out why. Cooking and fishing dailies have been added in Orgrimmar. Some are quite funny.

I can see why they would want to do it, especially after staring at the druids' feral tree in beta. A lot of the hybrid classes especially have just a TON of bloat and crap sitting around in there, with many talents just giving flat boosts to something. A lot of those talents end up being taken in 99% of the cookie-cutter specs out there, which removes any sort of "choice" anyway, so removing those (and the points that would go into those) makes some sense. Even the pure classes have similar situations, where talents are just too valuable to NOT pick up...which makes them mandatory in a way. Let's face it, most of us don't truly have 71 full talent points...it's often more like 40-50, with 20 or more spent in "mandatory talents", whether that be to pick up obvious boosts in power or just to spend so we can get further down in the tree. The tricky part is really how well they do with redesigning the talents themselves. It's no secret that each talent has its own "budget" already, but if they hope to keep some of the functional elements in the game by baking them into the core class mechanics (so they can eliminate the current talents that provide them), then it could lead to some wacky balance issues. Classes like rogues and mages are relatively easy, but some current talent effects going baseline could significantly bolster a lot of the hybrid classes' power even when they vary from their primary role. The only way I could see them pulling it off balance-wise is to pile bloat up on the mastery bonuses...which is just a bad idea.

I don't post often on live forums, and usually only post in the UI & Macros forum when I do...but sadly, I will stop posting once this goes through for a few reasons. None of my reasons involve the typical tinfoil hat stuff but do have some real life safety concerns attached (no, I'm not in witness protection :-P). I'll just continue to periodically post on the other UI sites that I frequent and help people out without having to wear a "Hi, My Name Is" tag every time. I feel sorry for the folks that aren't too computer-savvy and sometimes post a bit too much in the tech support or customer support forums, though. Attaching their name to all-too-often-posted computer details is never a good idea. It's also a shame just how many solid, constructive posters are already saying they won't post either...including most of the people who write the class stickies and EJ threads.

Please opt-in if you're interested in testing! I've known quite a few folks that were randomly selected over the years for these things, and you could be one of them. Never assume that your luck is terrible...it's worth a shot. I'll try to get a new sub-forum added for Cataclysm Beta added (and retire the old WotLK one) in the coming week(s) and will be posting the same types of info there as I did for Wrath.

Submissions must be entered by the guild master of the guild according to the eligibility section of the rules (which technically is me, as far as Blizzard's game mechanics are concerned, and I satisfy all of the requirements anyway). Seeing as how I dislike writing essays, I put it to everyone that's interested in writing an entry to get ahold of me and get your thinking caps on. If enough are interested in writing something, we can either cooperate towards one entry or maybe make it into a contest where people vote on their favourite via a poll or something. Lots of possibilities there, but I'd really like to see something submitted for this, so I hope someone is willing to accept the challenge. As a past beta participant, test periods are frustrating at times (world server down AGAIN??), but loads of fun as well...and I know we have enough rabid MMO-Champ followers that would probably like a little advanced peek. Just be sure to do some testing while you're there, should we be selected. No clue on how "the ten" will be chosen if we are picked, since none of the leadership have talked about any of this even privately yet, but rest assured that the author(s) of the submission will be in there.

*sighs at Eigun* Really? Do we need this on these forums? Again, WoW general forums are that way ----> I'm guessing you were trying to be funny, but printed text doesn't convey tone or mindset well. Save it for TS, please. That being said, I'm a bit touchy about things because, joke or not, this is the kind of feeling that I sense in this raid now. Not so much "we', and much more "me" (and the personal motivations seem more varied than ever these days). Many people seem burned out to the point where it's more "going through the motions" until they finally just cancel indefinitely rather than interested and excited to finish this expansion's raids fully. I may be totally off-base, but it just doesn't seem like even our more difficult kills were met with any kind of excitement about the kill itself (most seemed more concerned with getting their faces in the corpse to see the loot). I also haven't heard a word about Ruby Sanctum, which is on PTR now, while past "upcoming raiding instances" were hot topics. It makes me wonder if people even care about killing the Lich King...doubly so since many are already sporting titles from 10-man kills and this is more of a rehash of what they've been through already. I can only guess at how people feel about Ruby Sanctum-25... My take: if you're going to show up, show up 100%, including bringing a "ready to focus" attitude. Sindy's no pushover VoA boss and I'm sure learning the LK fight won't be a picnic either. Wipes will happen, and probably a lot of them. Gear is NOT what's holding this group back right now anyway, so the real question I have is which is more important to the group: a) bumping off Arthas and spitting on his corpse, or b) trying to finish off tier sets/getting as much BiS as possible pre-LK while waiting for the buff to climb to 30% so it's easier (which is funny, because that's like doing LK with T11-equivalent item level boosts)? If option B is more important to the group, then the decisions about extending the ID (or even continuing the raid at all) are made much easier. If it's option A, though, then buckle down and make some sacrifices to your personal loot wishlists to get this done. Feels like I've made a speech like this before...*flashback to BT*

*rolls eyes* General forums are that way --> I think the corrected statement would be "And not with a bang, but with a whimper, thus was the death of 25-man raids that are comprised of people who only do it to get better gear than is available in other formats". 25-man raids will still survive, but the exclusivity of higher item levels won't be the basis for them. If anything, 25s may be the size of choice for PUG raids due to the higher potential/rate for gear acquisition (depends highly on the LPP ratio). Besides, for all of the bluster from the "hardcore" community, this forces a "put up or shut up" moment where we see if the 25-man raid size is even a viable format on its own or if it was truly all about the superiour or exclusive items (rather than "for the challenge" like many love to claim). *points to his blog for a longer explanation of the good/bad sides to this change*

Unsurprisingly, I got both. I like the mount quite a bit, although won't actually call the steed on a few characters (just doesn't 'fit'). Folks are already posting lots of complaints about the emote sounds from Lil' XT on the forums, so beware of getting spammed by sounds in Dalaran. On his own and away from the "let's annoy the crap out of anyone around" crowd in Dalaran, he's not very vocal at all (only when calling him or when he randomly gets tired). Side note: he smashes train sets and kills many of the little toys sold in the Toy Shop, which is pretty funny. Doing either will trigger an additional sound emote and animation (train sets make him go into ground pound tantrum mode!).

*whistles innocently* Quest around the old lands in Azeroth and you can enjoy some pretty nice numbers that way. Actually, there are a few reasons for this change...mostly to solidify some work-arounds for some graphics engine bugs with certain video cards, but there are some game engine benefits to setting this to a known default as well. There has been a way to cap frame rates for awhile now, but it was unset by default.

This is actually a debatable recommendation from whatever site you're using. In fights that have more than a few seconds of movement, Tuskarr's Vitality is superiour for caster damage/healing output (think it's 10secs of having to move or so). The stam is worthless...it's all about the movement speed increase, which allows you to get into a new spot faster to start casting again. It's hard to quantify without talking a ton of math, but I only consider Icewalker if I need the hit. The slime spray is indeed in a random direction, from my observations so far. I've seen him rotate in a direction where no players are or have been. He's apparently not so concerned with intentionally puking on someone...he just needs to get it out. Healing on me shouldn't be bad from an incoming damage perspective, but...if that one assigned healer gets injected, someone else has to know to cover (same goes for cleansing duty). It's NOT as easy as just putting Beacon on me either, since there may be a healing lull at that point on whatever other target that paladin is assigned to (unless FoL/HL spamming is nearly non-stop regardless of what damage is being taken by anyone). This may require a bit more coordination than just "so-and-so on Tyr", since the situation is so fluid. As for the Demonic Circles...I'm not sure what the intent is here. If it's to have a marker for the group to stand, it won't work too well after the first ooze explosion, as noted (since I have to move and the boss moves with me; getting him back into exact position is next to impossible with the current pathing bug). I suppose they could be "reset" after an explosion, but that's 1sec+ that the warlocks aren't doing any damage per cast w/GCD...all to drop a "stand here" sign? Easier to just say before the fight "when we have to move, everyone move left"... ...and that's if the entire raid needs to be in one spot to begin with. Given the random direction element, it's pretty pointless to have everyone moving all of the time (if anything, it decreases damage/healing output). May be easier to spread around him and just move towards the back of the boss if he's looking in your direction, then move back to your spot (PLEASE don't move on top of or behind me for a few reasons that I won't get into). This will let most of the raid just stay in place and keep mashing buttons at any given time.

Who's they?? Maybe on 10-man, but that's actually not totally true for 25...and most guides are written from a 10-man perspective. About the only tank that could take more than one big blob hit in a row is a druid (very good health scaling and great mitigation, and I know two druids that currently tank the big blob in their raids that agree). That thing hit me for 27-30k or so every time, so it can literally two-shot me pretty easily...and I'm also frequently getting hit by the blob's AoE. This is compounded by the fact that I need to actually hit the thing to gain any threat...which means I'd have to tank it, not kite it, or else it will just run all over the place after the taunt effect wears off. I'd basically need 2-3 dedicated healers to pull off any kind of tanking/kiting strategy since I would need to actually tank it about 50% of the time that it's alive. A paladin might have better luck with judgments being ranged (threat) and having shield block (added mitigation), but who knows. Not making any excuses here, just saying that if we do need a tank to kite it, death knights are probably the worst class for the job out of any of the four tanking classes. The only thing I can do is taunt and IT with the rare deathcoil if I'm avoiding getting hit, which is about 5-10% of my normal threat generation, if that. On a side note, I have no Demo Roar/Demo Shout/Vindication-equivalent ability to help with incoming damage reduction nor any form of block (even druids have SD). Honestly, this seems to be yet another fight where the "offtank" needs to be better-geared, have superiour stam/mitigation scaling, and/or have a more well-rounded ability pool than the main tank if big blob tanking is the strategy of choice.

I'll withdraw from the Shadowmourne consideration. Looking over things, there are other weapons in ICC that are just fine for me to work with (Shadowmourne would be a threat increase over the others, but that's about it). I'm probably the least likely to be able to complete it anyway, since my emblem acquisition rate is abysmal enough to worry about affording even emblem gear upgrades (so I couldn't even consider spending them on anything else, like primordial saronite). While I would love to have the axe, it's just not that important for me at this stage.