The Q3 2015 numbers are out and WoW’s subscriber numbers have dropped by 100k subscribers! This is also the last time Blizzard will be publishing subscriber numbers.
Warcraft Movie Trailer Teaser
The actual trailer will be shown at Blizzcon on friday, but a teaser was released today.
After an in intense season of conflict in Arenas and Battlegrounds, the time is coming soon to see who has climbed to the top of the PvP ranks. Prepare to fight your last battles of this season, and remember—there is no substitute for victory!
Warlords Season 2 will be ending as soon as a few weeks from now. Once the season ends, we’ll begin a roughly two-week process to determine end-of-season reward eligibility.
All players who believe that they may have qualified for Warlords Season 2 awards should note the following:
In order to ensure you receive your award(s), please refrain from transferring your character(s) to another realm or faction until after Warlords Season 3 has begun.
Warlords Season 2 titles and mounts will be awarded a couple of weeks after Season 3 begins.
Conquest Points will be converted to Honor Points at the end of the season, and any Honor above 4,000 will be converted to in-game currency at a rate of 35 silver per point. A few other things to keep in mind once the season has ended:
The Honor cap will remain at 4,000.
Warlords Season 2 items with rating requirements will no longer be available for purchase.
The Season 2 vendors will move over from where they are now and convert to selling last season’s gear for honor. The Season 3 vendors will appear in the newly vacated vendor location.
Rated Battleground and Arena matches will not be available during the break between seasons.
We will confirm the start date of the forthcoming Warlords Season 3 in a post here in the weeks to come.
In war, you win or lose, live or die—and the difference is but an eyelash. To the battlefield!
The podcast is back this week, we cover the upcoming changes in patch 6.2.3: Cataclysm Timewalkers and Valor points. We also speculate about what we could expect from Blizzcon next week.
As you might have noticed, things have been quiet on the website recently. So before we get to the new patch preview, let me quickly explain why. The website was founded to expand on the WoW Weekly podcast, and it’s been amazing to get to do this.
However the website and it’s articles are maintained by just myself and I can only do so in my spare time. Which is exactly why I haven’t been able to do much for the website in the past 4 weeks, other obligations have taken up that spare time. Luckily in the coming weeks the amount of time I have will increase again and thus the amount of content on the website will too.
Thanks for your patience and keeping up with our content! See you soon,
Patch 6.2.3 will be making its way onto the PTR soon, and we wanted to provide you with some insights on what it has in store.
We’ve made no secret of our desire to expand the role and importance of dungeons in World of Warcraft as we move full speed ahead toward Legion. We look forward to sharing more of our plans in that regard during BlizzCon 2015 next month. At the same time, we’ve heard from many players that they wanted more reasons to run dungeons in Warlords, so we’re pleased to announce this small patch, which is focused on reinforcing the reward systems around our existing dungeons as well as expanding the scope of the Timewalking feature that we introduced in patch 6.2.
Timewalk With Me: New Timewalking Dungeons
Get ready to go back in time to experience six iconic dungeons from Cataclysm with this new Timewalking bonus event. You’ll be able to face the foes within Grim Batol, Stonecore, Lost City of Tol’vir, The Vortex Pinnacle, Throne of Tides, and End Time once more and reap the treasures within.
To round out our Timewalking journey, we’ll also be adding the Pit of Saron to the Wrath of the Lich King Timewalking bonus event and the Magister’s Terrace to the Burning Crusade Timewalking bonus event.
Lest we forget, there’s just one more bit of news that’s bound to draw you into the vortex to do a little Timewalking. Players will now have a chance to loot a rare Infinite Timereaver mount from any Timewalking boss.
Developer Insights One of the most common requests we’ve heard ever since introducing Timewalking was for there to be some way to obtain an Infinite Dragonflight mount, since it’d fit perfectly with the theme of time manipulation, aside from being just plain cool-looking. We agree. Inspired by Murozond, the final boss of the End Time dungeon that is included in the Cataclysm Timewalking rotation, the Infinite Timereaver will be a rare drop from any dungeon boss during all of the Timewalking events.
Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding
With the patch we’ll also be introducing Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding. You’ll now be able to join with friends, fill that one last spot, or have an easier time recruiting to backfill missing raid slots, allowing you to take on some of the most difficult encounters in Warlords of Draenor.
Valor for the Valorous
With the patch we’ll be bringing back Valor as a currency. You’ll will be able earn Valor once more by taking part in Heroic and Mythic Dungeons, from various Bonus Events, and via the first run through Raid Finder each week. To upgrade, visit your friendly neighborhood ethereal to upgrade gear up to five item levels at a time, up to two times per piece of gear.
Developer Insights Dungeon content shines when its difficulty is appropriate to players’ power level, so Mythic dungeons will be the most lucrative source of Valor for players who have items from Tanaan or Hellfire Citadel. For those who are still gearing up to tackle Mythic dungeons, or who prefer to use queued matchmaking, Raid Finder wings and the first Heroic dungeon each day will also provide Valor, as will most of Seer Kazal’s weekly event quests. Ethereal Voidbinders have made their way through time and space to Stormshield and Warspear, as well as returning to Orgrimmar and Stormwind, to allow players to use this Valor to upgrade their gear by up to 10 item levels. We decided to go with item upgrades rather than a Valor vendor because item upgrades offer power that complements items from other sources rather than competing with them.
Gift of the Grove Warden
Soon, players who dare to face the fearsome might of Archimonde will receive an added bonus. For a limited time, defeating Archimonde on Heroic difficulty or higher will reward players with a mysterious fragment of dark power that begins a quest. When you bring this fragment to the druids of Moonglade, you’ll learn a little more about what’s in store for Azeroth, and the druids will give you a majestic Grove Warden mount in thanks for your efforts. This quest won’t be available forever—our current plan is to retire the quest in an update some time before Legion’s launch, so grab some friends and head to Hellfire Citadel while you can.
More Bigger Better: Item Rewards
We’re expanding the range of item quality for players within Mythic Dungeons and Tanaan Jungle. Players who take part in Mythic Dungeons will have a chance to gain items up to item level 725, and players who receive Baleful items will now have a chance to gain items up to item level 695. Players in Mythic Dungeons will also now have a chance to loot a new Heirloom Trinket that will scale to level 110.
Developer Insights Running a dungeon is a bit more exciting when there’s a chance you might get a direct item upgrade, versus simply earning a predictable amount of currency per run. Thus, we’re also expanding the power of Warforged items in Mythic dungeons—rather than a static +20 item level bonus when a Mythic dungeon item is Warforged, there will be a chance for even greater increases in power. The very luckiest players might even obtain item level 725 versions of the dungeon drops, with increasingly better odds of 720, 715, and so forth, fully spanning the range from 685 to 725 in five item-level increments. We’re also applying this system to Baleful items from Tanaan itself, which can now range in quality from item level 655 all the way to 695. Raiding, crafting, and PvP will remain the most reliable sources of the best gear available, but we’d like to create the chance for surprise when you’re adventuring out in the world or in dungeons.
Arena Season 3
We’re also preparing to end Warlords Arena Season 2 and transition to Warlords Arena Season 3. We’ll have more details to share on this transition between seasons and the distribution of rewards in the near future.
Developer Insights: With Arena Season 3 we’ll be introducing new gear, including Warmongering Aspirant gear at PvP item level 715, Warmongering Combatant gear at 730, and Warmongering Gladiator gear at 740.
Make sure you keep an eye out for the complete patch, 6.2.3 notes and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the Public Test Realm.
Patch 6.2.2 will go live in Europe tomorrow, September 2! If you missed the updates released over the past weeks here’s a quick recap of the major 6.2.2 features.
Draenor Pathfinding
All players that have completed the Draenor Pathfinding achievement will now be able to fly in Draenor! If you haven’t completed it yet check out this blog for all the information you will need to get started.
PvP Mercenary Mode
Ever wanted to fight for the other faction? Well now is your chance with Mercenary Mode! This feature will allow you to queue and fight for the opposite faction when Ashran or unrated Battleground queues on your realm are elevated for your own faction – check out all the details here.
Welcome to the WoW Weekly Design Corner! In this editorial series I (Mezzy) look at different parts of WoW and see how I would design the next new thing, or perhaps improve upon it. The following designs and mock content are NOT official content.
In the first wing of the raid instance we found ourselves in The Courtyard, where a variety of beats and demons resided that had come in through the portal from Draenor to the zone or were already occupants of this alternate karazhan created by the distortion in time and space.
The second wing is the Time-Lost Halls itself. The main servants and occupants live here and just go about their business not realizing they shouldn’t exist in this pocket of time and space.
In designing this second wing I went for a bit more of a simplistic approach. The first boss is designed with the design philosophy of current raid bosses, the other two have been held back in that regard a bit. Not every boss needs a million different abilities and environmental factors.
Each boss description below (in the tabs) has a boss model, design notes with things such as ability descriptions and dungeon journal entries! Let me know in the comments what you think of this next wing in this self-designed raid instance.
Would you enjoy fighting against them? What would you like to see in a raid instance? And what do you think of modern raid design? Are there too many abilities and mechanics per boss fight? Or has it been dialed back enough? (Siege of Orgrimmar vs Tier 17 vs Hellfire Citadel)
Arcanus
Arcanus, Watcher of the Halls was created by the Battlemage Grandfurth while experimenting with arcane magic. Arcanus now patrols the halls and keeps order. He will not react kindly to unknown visitors.
Encounter description and design notes:
The ground of the encounter area is divided up into tiles, which make up 5 rows.
An array of arcane related abilities have to be dealt with:
Arcane Trap – Traps 2 random players, rooting them in place for 10 seconds. Player is immune to Arcane Beam and Arcane Pillar when trapped.
Mythic only: Duration reduced by 5 seconds. Will jump to another player when it expires. Player is not immune to Arcane Pillar.
Arcane beam- Travels around the room, has to be jumped over
Arcane Explosion – puts a debuff on random players. This will pulse AoE damage to anyone within 8 yards. After 8 seconds the target and anyone within 8 yards will be thrown into the air. Only the debuffed player will receive a slow fall. Instantly kills those trapped in an Arcane Trap.
Arcane Pillar
Tiles on the ground will light up and arcane energies will explode on that tile after 2.5 seconds. Players that get hit will take a big spike of damage and take 50% increased arcane damage for 30 seconds.
Mythic only: 3 entire rows at a time will light up at a time
Arcane Empowered – Arcanus’s auto attacks deal arcane damage
Arcane Malady – Increases arcane damage taken by 20%
Encounter Design Goals/Intentions:
Make the players deal with movement and mechanics, which are somewhat more random than other encounters.
On mythic mode a lot more coordination will be required. The Arcane trap debuff can be passed on to another player within 30 yards by using the extra action button. Especially Arcane Pillar will require this coordination.
Quartermaster Modir
Quartermaster Modir spends his days training those that wish to become his disciple in the art of combat. Being in a place pulsing with magic such as the Time-Lost Halls has given him unhuman strength. Rumor has it he can even throw swords as if they were knives.
Encounter description and design notes:
Broadsword – The Quartermaster’s attacks hit the closest person next to the target for 50% of the damage.Sunder Armor – Reduces the target’s armor by 5%.
Expose Weakness – The Quartermaster throws knives at his targets exposing their Weaknesses. After 4 seconds he casts Throw Sword on those targets.
Throw Sword – Modir throws a sword at the player, if it hits them it will deal 85% of their maximum health as damage to them.
Mythic only: it will kill them if the sword hits them.
Shattering leap – Quartermaster jumps to a player’s location dealing 200k physical damage to anyone within 8 yards.
Whirlwind – Modir deals 80k damage to every player every second for 6 seconds.
Notes:
The sword from Throw Sword can be intercepted by a player standing in between the boss and player
The amount of expose weakness targets increases as more people are in the raid, 3 targets at 20man
This is mainly a dps and healing check, keeping away from gimmicks in this fight. The damage numbers in the journal likely need to be increased.
Grandfurth
Having access to huge amounts of magical power, Battlemage Grandfurth has trained himself to overcome the weaknesses of being a caster. He has infused himself with the raw power used in magic to strengthen his physical body. This of course means that other than physical attacks, his magic is not to be messed with. Note: Since the creation of the dungeon journal entry, a new ability has been added. Brute force will not show up in the journal image.
Burn Essence – Stacking debuff on targeted player, deals 60k arcane damage every 3 seconds per stack.
Empowered Staff – Grandfurth’s staff is empowered to hit like a heavy mace.
Brute Force – Grandfurth slams his staff against the target dealing 600k physical damage.
Incinerate – Deals 180k fire damage to the targeted player and leaves a debuff on the player dealing 50k fire damage every 3 seconds.
Wall of Ice – Grandfurth slices at the target, throwing a wall of ice dealing 300k frost damage to anyone that gets hit by it.
