Another week has gone by and things have been quite busy both inside the world of warcraft and outside it so we have some catching up to do!
First off Celestalon sent out a tweet earlier in the week talking about how blizzard intends to explain the reasons behind major changes in the upcoming expansion, however this seems to be a huge logistical undertaking because of translating into different languages alone. So we shall see how long it takes for them to come out with new information in the coming weeks/months!
@Celestalon It’s a much larger undertaking than it may sound. The translation logistics alone are huge. But we’re hoping you like the result
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) February 1, 2014
On the WoW forums someone asked about the art for the upcoming garrisons and community manager Bashiok had the following to say:
Certainly there will be updates and changes as the expansion progresses, but I don’t believe there’s any current intention to add full sets of additional buildings. If we were to work on those for an expansion patch it would quite literally come at the cost of a raid tier. That is where that work would come from. We have to make decisions on how to spend our time.
I think if the Garrison becomes a long-term persistent feature there’s certainly a possibility for larger additions, but we’re focusing on it being a feature for Warlords of Draenor as your fortress against the Iron Horde. I think we’ll have to see how it goes.
Which means that next Tuesday, possibly Wednesday for us folks over in Europe depending on how late they release it, we’ll get a new update on the art in Warlords of Draenor, although this time for the garrisons!
Moving on, Activision had their earnings call for Q4 2013 and it yielded in possibly surprising numbers. The subscriber numbers have gone up (so yes, not down) by 200k subscribers! Putting the World of Warcraft subscriber base at the end of December 2013 at 7.8 Million players. You can find the full (albeit boring) details of the earnings here. The only other notable blizzard information was that the Diablo 3 expansion, Reaper of Souls will be released on March 25th, although this was already known.
Moving on to another set of tweets, this time from lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas (did I spell that right?) or known as Watcher. He had some very interesting things to say about the WoD raid system being brought to Siege of Orgrimmar in 6.0 . Keep in mind though that it’s likely 6.0 is still quite far away, so no need to panick if you’re in a 10man raiding guild.
.@naquadah007 We're actually going to convert SoO to the new raid system in 6.0, so current Flex will just be Normal and won't be going away
— Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 3, 2014
@sockfire @naquadah007 That's the plan.
— Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 3, 2014
@Mrpyrostorm We'll offer tons of advance notice, and more information at a later date. I'd rather not get into huge info dumps via Twitter.
— Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 3, 2014
Community managers can sure be mean on twitter when it comes to dropping possible, but could just be nothing hints! Rygarius had the following to say:
Hippogryph brain frying from editing patch notes. So…much…stuff.
— Rygarius (@Rygarius) February 4, 2014
This if course could just be for patch 5.4.7 but it seems unlikely that it has so many patch notes. So does this mean a beta is near? One can only hope!
And then to end it off, let’s talk PvP! We’ve talked about the arena seasons on the podcast before and it looks like Season 14 will be ending in less than 2 weeks!
Season 14 is coming to an end as early as two weeks from now. On that day, we’ll begin the process of determining end-of-season reward eligibility, which could take up to two weeks to complete.
Qualifying players should note the following in order to ensure you receive your just rewards:
- Please do not transfer your characters to another realm or faction until after Season 14 has ended.
- Award distribution for Season 14, including titles and mounts, could take up to two weeks after the season ends, though our goal is to finish in one.
- Only players who have a rating of 1,000 or better are considered when calculating rewards.
At the end of the season, Conquest Points will be converted into Honor Points, and any Honor above 4,000 will be converted into in-game currency at a rate of 35 silver per point. There are a few other things to keep in mind once the season ends:
- The Honor Points cap will remain at 4,000.
- All Season 14 items will have their costs converted into Honor Points equivalent to their previous Conquest Points cost, with the exception of any items that have a rating requirement.
- Season 14 items with rating requirements will no longer be available for purchase.
Season 15 Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds will begin approximately one week after the end of Season 14, and all Personal Ratings will be reset at the same time. Also note that Arena and Rated Battleground matches will not be available during the break between seasons. Once Season 15 begins, players will battle for the right to equip Prideful Gladiator gear, the most powerful PvP gear in game to date with an Item Level of 550.
Lastly, as of the beginning of Season 14, PvP players no longer needed to join or create an Arena team to compete. You can find more information about this earlier change in our Patch 5.4 Arena Update blog.