Holyssa

So this is what it'll look like when Shamans use the new Healing Rain on boomchickens, huh?

Ok, NOW we can safely say we beat the game! ;D

Great job on sticking through and helping take down this overgrown Barney clone from the beyond!

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25626109041

Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Forums

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.

In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.

With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.

We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. As these services have become more and more popular, gamers have become part of an increasingly connected and intimate global community – friendships are much more easily forged across long distances, and at conventions like PAX or our own BlizzCon, we’ve seen first-hand how gamers who may have never actually met in person have formed meaningful real-life relationships across borders and oceans. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.

For more info on Real ID, check out our Real ID page and FAQ located at http://www.battle.net/realid/ . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.

I could have probably posted just the bolded part, but oh well.

On a more serious note: this is one of the weirdest things Blizzard has done to enforce this new RID system yet, and unless I missed something - it's not even an option you can work around (unlike the in-game RID which is used at one's discretion). On one side, it stops SOME trolls from doing their thing beneath the guise of a dastardly L1 gnome.

But on the other hand, it's beginning a QQ storm over the privacy policy. How much do you wanna bet all the QQers are also on Blizz's Facebook page, which already displays their names in all glory? /facepalm

I can heal. Also here's an informative video on how to fight 3rd graders if you get into that situation before the raid:

...POW!

Haha! That movie was great! Good catch there Orcala

...POW! >.>

By Lylirra:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...85604&sid=1

Official Cataclysm site: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/

Please note that players selected via the opt-in system do not receive beta keys. Rather, your account will be flagged automatically and an email will be sent to you. Simply log in to your account by visiting http://battle.net when you receive a beta welcome notice and check your "Manage My Games" section to verify that the beta client is available for download. Be careful when reading emails claiming to be beta invites. Scam emails often use clickable links to gather your account information, so the safest practice is to go to http://battle.net to check on your beta invitation status. If you would like tips on how to arm yourself against phishing attempts, head over to the Battle.net Account Security page: http://us.battle.net/security/

You can find the Cataclysm Beta forums here (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=7555625&sid=2000). Keep in mind that these forums are open to the public, but only those invited into the test environment will be able to post. Check out the full announcement for the beta test, and stay tuned for more exciting news about World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Official press release: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press...ses.html?100630

See you in Azeroth!

I did stuff to the important parts of her post. But yea...opt in, and help test stuff! It's one way to get a front-row seat for the end of the world, after all....

And before people ask:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...amp;sid=2000#12

The Tester Agreement (NDA) has been lifted. Lots of stuff has changed since the testing originally started so there are a lot of new screenshots to take to show all of the updates.

With super-long extended maintenance tomorrow, will raiding even be possible?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...12551&sid=1

We will be performing extended maintenance on the realms listed below on Tuesday, June 29th, beginning at 12:01 AM PDT. The maintenance is scheduled for 24 hours as we prepare for the upcoming expansion. These realms will be playable again at approximately 12:01 AM PDT on Wednesday, June 30th.

All realms not listed below will undergo scheduled maintenance beginning at 5:00am PDT and will be available for play at approximately 11:00 AM PDT

Big list, but AD is on there. :\

There aren't many movies out yet about the latest raid boss, nor is he immediately available as of this post. But for those that haven't looked at the PTR, Wowwiki has a general rundown of how the fight works:

Minibosses:

Saviana Ragefire: Will Periodically enrage, AoEing the raid until it is Tranq Shot'd off. Tank & spank.

Baltharus the Warborn: Uses Blast Wave frequently, and will split himself into copies which need to be offtanked. Mark the 'main' boss, and burn him down so the clones go poof.

General Zarithrian: An AoE fear, much like a warrior's Intimidating Shout. He'll also summon adds that use interruptable AoE abilities.

Halion has three phases, in which the raid must switch between the physical realm and the shadow realm.

Phase 1

A few seconds after being engaged, Halion summons a wall of flame in a circle around him, closing off any players not in the stage.

Halion has a frontal cone breath attack. Like most dragon bosses, he has a tail swipe and cleave. He also summons fireballs, which fall from the sky and hit a large area with fire damage, leaving a patch of flame where it hit, as well as four flames going in four directions out of the fire patch. The location where the fireball will hit is indicated by a hellfire graphic. Any player under it must move out before the fireball hits. All players must move away from the flames that spread from the patch.

He also puts a debuff on random players called Mark of Consumption. When the debuff ends or when it is removed, a patch forms under the player's feet that deals damage to players in it and players will be pushed away from the patch. Players afflicted have to move to the edge of the stage then get the debuff removed, before running back to the raid. The size of the patch depends on how long it took to dispel it.

This phase ends when halion reaches 75%.

Phase 2

Halion shifts to the shadow realm, and summons a portal which players can use to enter as well. In the shadow realm, Halion still has his breath and Mark of Consumption, but they do shadow damage instead of fire damage, and the Mark of Consumption's knockback is now a pull instead.

Also, two shadow orbs circle around the edges of the stage. Every once in a while, a death beam will come out of the two, connecting them and dealing enough damage to instantly kill any player in the beam. The players (including the tank) must rotate to avoid damage by the death beam.

This phase ends at 50%.

Phase 3

Halion exists in both realms, and the raid must split into two; one fights him in the twilight realm, which should consist mostly of melee, and the other fights him in the physical realm, which should consist mostly of ranged. This is because it is easier for melee to navigate in the twilight realm without fireballs making them have to go to ranged, and ranged have an easier time navigating in the physical realm where there are no death beams which require them to stop DPS to keep moving and not get hit.

The other change is that during this phase, Halion recieves a buff called Corporeality. This is determined by a percentage shown at the top of the screen which begins at 50%. Depending on the value of this, Halion will take and deal more damage in one realm and deal and take less damage in the other. There are no damage differences to either realm whilst it remains at 50%.

Damaging Halion in the Physical realm will cause him to phase further into the Twilight realm, lowering his corporeality and works vise versa when damaged in the Twilight Realm. If no damage is dealt in one realm, Halion will begin to rapidly regenerate health.

*Corporeality < 50% - Halion does and takes more damage in the Twilight Realm. He does and takes less damage in the physical one.

*Corporeality = 50% - Halion does and takes normal damage in both realms.

*Corporeality > 50% - Halion does and takes more damage in the Physical Realm. He does and takes less damage in the twilight one.

Halion's corporeality should be kept between 40% and 60%.

No amount of words can describe how proud I am of this accomplishment. Congrats on saving Northrend, Team Speckle Dust!

You've done a great job over the years Zu, I don't care what anybody says. And it's been a fun ride all the way, even back in the SSC/TK days when my little elf was but a starter offtank beside that big cow of yours, lol.

Hopefully you'll survive whatever random batsh*t real life has prepared. Do pop into TS post-retirement now & then to wish us luck!

By Zarhym:

If you think you and your guildmates have what it takes to make invaluable beta testers, take a stab at our Cataclysm Beta -- Guild Contest. All you need to do is tell us in a short essay why you and nine of your guildmates should be in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta test. We’ll be picking 100 winning submissions each week for five weeks, for a total of 5,000 beta keys at stake!

Contest Page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/contests/ca...beta/index.html

Rules: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/contests/ca...test-rules.html

Check the rules page carefully before you submit your wall-o-text to Blizzard BTW.

This is a very strange way of inviting people into the Beta (contest restricted to guild leaders & only 9 people, and limited by location/state laws/etc), but I guess this is their way of trying to push for as many invites as possible without pulling emails out of a hat. Then again, I forget how many people filled out Wrath's Beta by the end. *shrugs*

And the usual precaution goes out regarding Beta invites/suspicious emails: It hasn't started till Blizzard says it's okay. And currently: it's not okay.

Clearly this druid is training for the upcoming Skywall zone of Cataclysm. How else can one properly prepare themselves for all those wind elementals?

ORCALA! ICE CREEEEEEAM! ORCALA!!!!!!!!!

Sorry Ug, but it has corn syrup in it, so she most likely won't fall for the trap.

...

On the other hand: gimme that carton. *grabs spoon*

Little FYI for tonight: Orcala and I will be on, but there's a nasty-ass thunderstorm over my home as I type this. So if we go poof, it's not because we kicked out the modem cable

Again the ICC Buff is up. 20% more pew pew!

Easily the most fun fight in WotLK IMO, despite all the close calls which made me choke on my snacks

Jestin (but he was dead for a third of the fight)

At least he got to help save Northrend before being Falcon Punched off the edge

The buff grew. Nuff' said. A little earlier than I expected, but still nice to see.

*cue evil music*

"

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...56405&sid=1

We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards

10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.

10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.

We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.

We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.

We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

There's MOAR!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...1&pageNo=87

Here are some clarifications to a few common questions we're seeing.

Regarding how the raid dungeons will share the same lockout. This means that you cannot do separate instances in the same week. If you defeat an encounter in 10 player normal mode then you are locked to the 10 player mode of that dungeon for that week and can flip between 10 player normal and 10 player heroic on a per boss basis (assuming heroic is available). In this scenario you cannot do the 25 player version. Is this correct?

Correct. There should be no circumstances under which you kill a boss more than once per week on the same character. However, in the same way that you can decide on a per-boss basis whether to try normal vs. hard mode, we might allow you to change between 10 and 25 on a per-encounter basis for additional flexibility. If you started a raid in 25-player mode and then found that you couldn’t get everyone together later in the week, you might be able to downsize the next few bosses to 10-player.

Will legendary items be available through 10 player dungeons? How about special mounts like Invincible?

In some of these specific cases, the answer is that we just don’t know yet. We’re going to have to walk a fine line between dropping the same items in both 10- and 25-player modes, versus still offering something extra for the 25s. If we over-reward the 25s, then players who like 10-player raiding will still feel compelled to find more warm bodies. If we don’t provide any extra incentive for 25s, then some players may stop playing with their friends in order to avoid the extra organization required for a large raid.

Overall, our goal is that you make the decision between whether to raid with 10 players or 25 players based on what you find fun and not because of the reward structure.

For perspective, it might help to look back at how we changed lockouts and hard modes on every single raid tier of Wrath of the Lich King to see what felt right and try to fix problems that arose from previous tiers. After seeing the first tier of Cataclysm raiding, we may decide to adjust our design for the next tier.

How many pieces of loot will drop for 10 and 25 player modes respectively?

When we say “25 should drop more loot,” we’re just sharing a philosophy. You shouldn’t assume that this means that 10-player modes will drop 1 item or that 25-player modes will drop 6 items, or whatever. We haven’t finalized how much loot will drop, but our general goal is that 25s should drop more to help make up for some of the logistical cost.

Will achievements be broken down by 10/25 modes? Will realm first achievements/titles be only for 25s? Will meta-achievement mounts be available for both versions still?

There will just be raid achievements, not 10- vs. 25-player versions in most cases. The achievement won’t care if you complete it in 10s or 25s. If we do meta-achievement mounts, it’s possible we’d still have different colors of mounts, or maybe even different mounts; but for some players that might mean that 25s feels mandatory again, which would be a potential problem. This is the kind of thing we’re going to have to consider carefully, and again, we might try a few different implementations before sticking with something we like.

We’re also not sure about realm first achievements or titles. We don’t want to encourage, say, 25-player focused guilds to run a 10-player raid instead because they think that will get them the ream first title faster. One potential solution is you can earn a realm first title in 10 or 25, but not both. These types of achievements also serve as great content for guild achievements.

TLDR Edition:

* 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.

* 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.

* 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.

* Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel

* For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

---

This is gonna be a balancing clusterf*ck on Blizzard's behalf, but I can see it being a great aid to smaller guilds that wish to raid and tack onto the new Guild Leveling/Achievements stuff.

I'll miss having the individual raid difficulties (since it IS a chance to raid with friends in a smaller and less chaotic environment), but this will also keep the raids fresh and take the tedium out of killing the same bosses 3 or 4 times in one week (*COUGH*ToC*COUGH*), hopefully reducing boredom or burnout over the long-term. Aaand there's always alts to take advantage of the smaller raids when the 25-mans have no more room.

Celestial Steed: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000942 ($25 US)

Just to confirm peoples' BoA fears:

Mount Features:

After you purchase the Celestial Steed, you'll receive a code that can then be redeemed on any North American World of Warcraft license via Battle.net Account Management. North American licenses include realms serving players in United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. This mount code can be emailed to a friend as a gift, or—if you would rather redeem the pet code yourself—automatically filled in for you in Battle.net Account Management.

Once activated, this World of Warcraft in-game mount code applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license. If you wish to purchase the pet for multiple different World of Warcraft licenses merged with the same Battle.net account, you will need to buy a separate pet for each World of Warcraft license individually.

Now your alts can have a pink putzy pony too!

Lil' XT: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000943 (10$ US)

Beware - if you're gonna buy these, there's a queue (yes, a queue) before you can redeem your prize. So don't take a nap and miss the 15-minute confirmation gap.

So yeaaaah...about that Hard Mode LK-25 horse. /gigglesnort

The last class 'preview' for the new expansion is done, so here's all the blue posts in one spot so you don't have to go website hopping for some reading material. Enjoy!

Death Knight: No more 'lawl frost is fer tank' jokes!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...56308&sid=1

Druid: *sings* MUSHROOM! MUSHROOM!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...87043&sid=1

Mage: Now you too can RP Freeza with a Death Ball of your own!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...57286&sid=1

Hunter: Focus. Focus. FOCUS! No, really, it's a mechanic now.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...86675&sid=1

Priest: Leap of Faith = Leap of IT'S A TRAP!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...32151&sid=1

Shaman: Mmmm...earthquake.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...11737&sid=1

Rogue: Smoke bomb? More ninja-like than ever.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...86514&sid=1

Warlock: Even MORE DoTs.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...61679&sid=1

Warrior: Welcome back Heroic Leap...this time for good we hope!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...12592&sid=1

Paladin: Holy gets a ghost!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...89717&sid=1

You need GearScore (lawl) for it to work, but the once-April Fools joke started by Blizzard is semi-real:

now you can erect a pillar of epic-fueled manliness that pierces the clouds above Dalaran (or whatever city you like to AFK in XD )!

DL it here: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info...latesEPEEN.html

Ewwwwwwwwwww.

...

*looks for credit card*

RAWR~!!! Holy SMASH! Stuff felt like it was dying a bit more quickly with 5%. I wonder just how much this extra bit of scaling will help.

On a side note: Orcala and I MAY be a bit late Thursday since we need to head into town to pick up something. So expect us to be either on time (assuming the commute isn't full of fail) or just after 8:15-ish.

I probably forgot to mark it on the calendar, but won't be able to make 3/27's run since I'll be out most of the night

Here's a few from my time spent on various alts. I'll post more as I find them, since I didn't take many Random LFG screenies. :\

Taken on one of the few L80 Alli alts I have left. The tank spammed this macro almost immediately upon zoning in. Give him a medal!

Can you spot what's wrong? Oh, his cheetah is named 'puzzey'.

This is just boggling. Maybe he REALLY likes Explosive Shot that much...

I don't care how annoying this damned boss is...Blizzard failed at changing the way I look at Professor Farnsworth.

*sits down to watch TV*

"Good news everyone! I--"

Holy: "RUN AWAY FROM THE GOO! AAHH--*smashes TV*...oh."

GJ tonight on finally snuffing this guy, AND the Blood Princes!

^ By far the most epic screenshot of the night. With Kalea down for the count, Skywatcher ascends the turnbuckle, fixes his eyes on Tokane, and takes to the skies! I can't watch! *covers eyes*