It is a mix of awesome and somewhat disappointingly dumbed down, isn't it?
On the other hand, no complaints from me about never having to hear my guild's intentionally obnoxious "Loot Your Core Hounds" song again.

Reply

being able to see potential quest givers on the map would be the biggest change to leveling since the game's inception

Reply

Where is Mankriks wife?

Reply

Oh right there at that big arrow

Reply

I personally think it's nice that they're finally reacting to the things that people want to see in the game, and the stuff that people don't like. If it doesn't affect the competitive balance of the game, and doesn't make the actual completion portion of the quests any more or less difficult, I think it's a good change. Even putting a big red arrow on an individual quest mob. There's no sense of achievement (I hope) for simply locating a mob. Most of them are stationary, it's not like they're necessarily difficult to find, so perhaps making the single named yeti you need to kill a different shade of yeti isn't a bad idea at all.

As for the other objects, in theory most people's computers are getting better and people are playing in higher resolutions. (I know I've gone from 1024x768 to 1680x1050 in the last year) Every bump in the resolution for a game that was more or less designed at 800x600 makes things increasingly difficult to see if they're tiny, like the stupid Azeroth herbs. They made all the expansion stuff glowy so it wouldn't be impossible to find them (and it makes sense in my mind that if you're a herber and you're LOOKING for herbs, that you should be able to have an easier time with them visually, not just on a minimap). Good changes all around.

The game was made with some relatively prehistoric graphical concepts. It's about time they make an effort at updating them. Hopefully they'll get to work on fixing up Azeroth to actually look as good as Outland at some point as well.

Reply

lets not forget that no more right click on banker, and select see deposit box.

that was always a pain if you ask me.

Reply

"Wild. The whole thing about interactive items glowing? It's like we're getting "WoW for preschoolers." Don't get me wrong, it'll be a huge help to everyone doing quests, I'm sure, but at what point are we getting a big arrow you can see from halfway across the zone that says "Kill This Mob to Finish Your Quest"?"

You probably use a coords mod and look up your quests on an outside site like everyone else. Do you have connections to one of these sites like wowhead.com or something?

It's a great change long overdue. No more "obtain 6 of THESE from the dark fungus lords over THERE north by northwest of THIS town behind a rock and through the tunnel. You'll need a 'detect fungus lord cloak' crated by Capt. Narru Light Bringer on the northeastern part of THIS valley by THAT outpost. For it to be crafted you'll need to obtain 6 boar tusks obtained by the frenzied hellboars which can be found over THERE east by west of this location. You'll also need 8 tainted blood samples from the Apex Hunters which can be found north of the rebel encampment. To obtain the tainted blood samples you'll need to use this enchanted crimson extractor. May the Light be with you Warrior!"

Hmm. Half the cities you mentioned aren't even discovered on my map yet mr. quest text. Time to whip out thotbot.com and enable my coords mod... Quest system in this game was rediculous.

Reply

Questgivers appearing on the minimap is one of the few things I miss from my vacation in LOTRO. Walking past questgivers because there was something obstructing your view of the ! doesn't make the game more challenging. Now if only they could include an option for showing under-leveled quests (and allow normal rep gain in the Draenei/BE noob areas).

Anyone have the chance to check whether the minimap thing works with tracking skills? It would be nice not to have to have an entire bar (or addon depending on your preference) devoted to tracking skills on my Hunter.

Reply

Hasn't battle map been available for all zones for quite a while? At least I have it up:/

Reply

@8 I can't confirm that profession/class/race specific tracking is included in the buil-in minimap tracking (cause I took screens of the tracking UI with a level 1 troll) but judging by the options include I think it would be fair to say that they will.

Some of the new UI elements
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14979183@N08/

Reply

I really like this. This should help me to start getting rid of some of my addons, which, to a player on a laptop with little memory to spare, is wonderful.

Reply

What is all this "word has it" and "judging from the patch notes" and "we've heard that" about 2.3? Fucking transfer a test character, play a bit, and report back. No more hearsay, or feigned hearsay, please.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I've been able to toggle zone battle maps since patch 2.0. Of course, it doesn't show where people are, and the new implementation wouldn't either. If you've ever bugged in a BG and gotten out of your party/raid, you know it doesn't show anyone. Good luck inviting everyone in a zone to your group.

Reply

great, i cant wait for my entire custom UI to be broken again.

Reply

@#10/Svartalve

Thanks for the screenshots! Very useful to get an idea of what this thing is about!

Some could say this dumbs down the game, makes it too easy, but isn't that the point? One of the big word-of-mouth phrases said about WoW is just how easy it is for a casual player/new to MMOs player to get into WoW. These enhancements will help even more!

(My only problem is how this will clash with Fizzwidget's TrackMenu addon http://www.fizzwidget.com/trackmenu/ )

Reply

The battle map is available at the moment in any pvp zone, ie. Battlegrounds, Nagrand for Halaa and Terokkar Forest for the towers.
What they will be doing now will be allowing it to be seen anywhere. When your in Halaa and Terokkar at the moment you dont see all the players its just the people in your party, so i believe you wont see everyone in patch 2.3

Reply

"at what point are we getting a big arrow you can see from halfway across the zone that says 'Kill This Mob to Finish Your Quest'?"

Hmm... you don't mean Cartographer+TomTom, do you?

Or a hunter's ability to track things for grinding quests...

Reply

This is a battle map:
http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?id=3890610

As Lofty said, it's available in any world areas with PvP objectives, as well as in battlegrounds.
You can toggle showing the battle map with shift+m (default).

Reply

cool adds

Reply

I've used thottbot, wowhead (with lightheaded) & all the other sites from day one (now on a second screen too, so I never have to alt-tab out), and I must say - I LOVE this idea!

So what if I can find out where every damn person, place and object is in the world, I still have to get their, kill everything.

Tbh, I would have quit wow on day 1 if I didn't have it. Wheres "Doctor Gustaf VanHowzen"? Because without thottbot/wowhead, I would have started spamming SW chat asking people, and if I got no answer from anyone or my guildies, I would have had to go out looking for him, maybe spending the whole night doing it, JUST to rank up in first aid, hand in a quest, buy something, ect. NO THANKS!

Reply

@12 - Everyone and there mom wants on the PTRs. It's almost impossible to get in atm.

Reply