WoD Beta Discussion

Hmh, interesting. Would be kinda fun to see all my characters that I've deleted in the past, if it would go as far as 2006. Not that I've ever deleted any high-level characters with a long history (Highest would probably be lvl 60 or so DK and of "regular" characters a lvl 40-something nelf druid) and I doubt it would probably go that far, thus I'd only have a long list of lvl 1 characters.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Also, a nifty feature they've added in the beta: Char restoration tool. In the character list, you now have the option to restore previously deleted toons.

Anything yet about increased character limits per realm? Blizz is torturing me with all these incentives to have even more alts...

If you move to the recently merged role-playing realms you can have 22 characters

Still 11 per realm on the beta I'm afraid.

Spoiler:

With Sanara on this one, want more slots.

Venture Co has never been merged with Defias. Our servers are just cross-zone. It's not the same. We don't share AH, guilds, high dense areas, or capitals.

A few small changes I just noticed:

Whispering the character of somebody you have on your realID/Battletag list will automatically direct the whisper to the battle.net channel (blue whispers)

Also, the icy blue eye glow appears to be gone on DKs that don't use the DK-only skin tones.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Also, the icy blue eye glow appears to be gone on DKs that don't use the DK-only skin tones.

That might actually be a good thing, if it's intentional and not a glitch.

Nvm. It appears to be just a glitch with the human female model. Disregard that.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Whispering the character of somebody you have on your realID/Battletag list will automatically direct the whisper to the battle.net channel (blue whispers)

I -really- hope that they make this optional, else i am going to remove majority of my Bnet friends. I often prefer the ordinary whispers as i can see Class Colors then, which helps me to separate people from eachother.

Skarain wrote:

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Whispering the character of somebody you have on your realID/Battletag list will automatically direct the whisper to the battle.net channel (blue whispers)

I -really- hope that they make this optional, else i am going to remove majority of my Bnet friends. I often prefer the ordinary whispers as i can see Class Colors then, which helps me to separate people from eachother.

If it's not baseline, some mods color Btag names. Mine appear in class colors.

So, now that the level 100 servers are up and I've tried out Hunter, I have a few things to report for anyone interested.

First off, knowing that BM was buffed, I set aside my bias against such a horrendously dull spec and gave it a go. Thankfully, it's just as bad as it is in this current patch, for PvP at least, probably remaining strong as a PvE spec.

Disappointingly however, MM feels so gimp it's unreal. The whole new slow playstyle akin to new Arms Warrior is sluggish and unrewarding, not to mention that while Arms Warriors can go around globalling people, MM damage can't compare despite it's long CDs and cast times. I can see it working in PvE again, which is nice, but for PvP I'll pass on it.

The real winner (as predicted), is Survival. As it turns out, Improved/Enhanced Camouflage combine in such a way that when you enter combat after already being in Camo, it will drop after 6 seconds, leaving you 6 seconds of Camo to continue casting during, essentially like a Rogue's Subterfuge but lasting twice as long. Additionally, the exotic ammunition talent provides a serious kick to the damage. The only drawback is the lack of Kill Shot, but since Kill Shot has always been the absolute worst execute spell in the game, I won't be missing it.

Hunter Verdict: ALL HAIL SURVIVAL

This might be my favourite battle pet in the entire game:

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No ingame model yet.

So, having had a look at Karabor on the beta, I can say the following:

The char I went on only just got out of the introduction experience before deviating from the quest flow to take a look at Karabor (your first quests are in your garrisons, the garrison for alliance players is geographically in the same spot as Shadowmoon Village. I imagine you work your way steadily towards Karabor after that point). I had thus done no potential quests that would phase me into a more progressed version of the area. Because of this, I can't say for sure if the following information is accurate after you've done the quests/gotten to max level (similar to how the Temple of the Jade Serpent exterior is peaceful till 90 and then at 90 is overrun by sha)

The area is -huge-. For scale, I believe it's roughly equivalent in size to Darnassus. Maybe a little smaller. The main building is inaccessible as far as I can tell, possibly opening up after quests or something. I have no idea what their plans are with it, it seems weird if it remains closed. The outdoor area consists of 5 areas: The Path of Light, the courtyard, the garden of eternity, the amphitheater and the harbor. The garden and the courtyard seem by far to be the largest areas. The northern side of karabor (garden + some of the courtyard) are littered with wreckage and fire and shit, aftermath of a siege. The entirety of Karabor is full of draenei and orc corpses, also aftermath of siege. I'm assuming that it gets cleaned up at a later point as you progress through the quests.

Overall, it's rather organic. It has a more unified feeling than Stormwind (sort of like Darnassus) but still maintains a sense of having distinct areas for different purposes. The amphitheater is absolutely amazing and I could see it being used a lot for RP purposes. What's better: Unless quest phasing changes anything in this regard, it contains no NPCs and thus is ripe for the picking.

As a note: When Blizzard said they were making Draenor from the ground up rather than building upon Outland, they weren't joking. Shadowmoon Valley absolutely feels like its own seperate thing from its TBC zone counterpart (Same for Frostfire Ridge to Blade's Edge, for that matter). Some people like to claim that the "new continent" we're getting is just Cataclysm for Outland. This is simply not true. There are geographical similarities and some iconic areas will feel familiar (The Dark Portal for example) but for the most part, you're never going to feel like it's just a retouched Outland.

Anyone playing on the Horde side? I'd kinda like to know how they've handled Orgrimmar and Garrosh, since he's the major(?) bad guy of this expansion. Have they moved some of his quests 'n stuff over to Vol'jin and so forth, or will it just be the typical scenario of events taking place in seperated time bubbles, or however Blizzard once put it. Because he obviously can't be on his throne because of being completely crazy, but then you have all those quests in Cata and MoP for example, where you need to interact with him. So is it just lots of phasing or or or...?

No change in the current build. Garrosh is still on his throne in Orgrimmar.

The Z wrote:Anyone playing on the Horde side? I'd kinda like to know how they've handled Orgrimmar and Garrosh, since he's the major(?) bad guy of this expansion. Have they moved some of his quests 'n stuff over to Vol'jin and so forth, or will it just be the typical scenario of events taking place in seperated time bubbles, or however Blizzard once put it. Because he obviously can't be on his throne because of being completely crazy, but then you have all those quests in Cata and MoP for example, where you need to interact with him. So is it just lots of phasing or or or...?

I read somewhere that the guards have been replaced by Trolls and Tauren, but don't quote me on that.

Well, there -are- troll and tauren guards in Orgrimmar, yes. Garrosh is still warchief though atm.

Well, Katarana Prestor stayed in Stormwid until Wrath didn't she?

I really wish they had at least changed the guards and Garrosh at some point with a little in-game event taking place in the throne room every now and then to explain things. During the actual game, that is, not beta. Pretty jarring when in theory you could've already killed Garrosh sometime late last year and you then have to wait almost an year before the expansion, while not a single thing changes in the world.

Bleh, I hope the pre-expansion patch at least comes somewhere around september/october.

Drustai wrote:

Skarain wrote:

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Whispering the character of somebody you have on your realID/Battletag list will automatically direct the whisper to the battle.net channel (blue whispers)

I -really- hope that they make this optional, else i am going to remove majority of my Bnet friends. I often prefer the ordinary whispers as i can see Class Colors then, which helps me to separate people from eachother.

If it's not baseline, some mods color Btag names. Mine appear in class colors.

Prat enables class colours even in Battletag or RealID.

Got into beta myself too. Haven't played much yet but i'll be checking the horde side stuff.

First thing i *gasp*'d about was that rogues 'Slice and Dice' is now passive +40% attack speed. At first look skill reducing chances make you feel empty indeed. Everything stays otherwise the same but things seem easier, no need for so much strategy for combat.  

I'm in beta now too. I'm only planning to check out the pvp side of it though, seeing as I prefer exploring new expansions when they actually are out. So give me a poke if you wanna do some 2s!

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Good to see Rokhan is back in action. Dem shadow huntahs!

Edit: Also, gimme new troll models.

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This looks interesting, and gives details of what each building does (atm)