Tried summoning within Zul'Aman lately? If you have, you may have noticed that since yesterday's maintenance, it's a no go. Tigole confirms that summoning within Zul'Aman has been disabled due to an exploit (although we haven't heard what the exploit was-- it may have been something to do with the timer quests). It should be re-enabled soon.And he says something else that summoners everywhere will be extremely happy to hear. Blizzard is planning to enable summoning from within instances to anywhere else in the world. No longer will you have to wait for that extra healer or that battleground PvPer to make it all the way into the instance before you can summon them and the get the raid started-- after this gets implemented, you'll be able to summon people to the instance (with a Warlock, of course), directly from anywhere else they are in Azeroth.
Huge change, and definitely will help not only raids to get started on time, but substitutions to join raids quickly as well. Not summoning in Zul'Aman now is a small price to pay for that update, which may come (Tigole says they're still working out the kinks) as soon as patch 2.4.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-12-2007 @ 7:38PM
Dave said...
And by bugs they mean 'making sure newly summoned players can't get loot from the freshly-killed boss they had no part in killing'
They probably had this in mind when they changed Chess Event.
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12-12-2007 @ 7:47PM
Charlie said...
Nice! Wow thats awsome.
Maybe this isnt as big a deal for you on PvE servers, but half the time you have to wait an extra 20 minutes for people to get here, just because the horde (or alliance if your a hordey) controls the stone and you cant get out there! This will make replacements SO much eazier.
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12-12-2007 @ 7:54PM
Bernard said...
That summoning into instance change is actually going back on a change made in the Beta. People were making instances too easy by using it, but I do agree it is needed.
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12-12-2007 @ 7:58PM
Cetha said...
as a lock and as a person who often finds themselves waiting in instances for somebody to show up..or more likely trying to replace the person who leaves in a middle of a pug, being able to summon from inside the instance..is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!
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12-12-2007 @ 8:46PM
Dave said...
better late than never right?
I think they should have done this the minute the meeting stones changed to summoning stones, in order to give locks a little more utility. It'll be real nice to be able to summon replacements immediately, straight to the spots where everyone else is rather than "okay 2 people go to the stone" where it may take quite a while. That stupid delay can just demolish a 10-man PUG. People have the attention span of a squirrel sometimes and despite the idea that if the group were moving they'd stay for 3 more hrs, waiting an extra 10 mins without doing something sometimes... tends to make people turn stupid and quit an otherwise decent group. Confusing, but that's what we're stuck with i guess. This should help a little I hope.
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12-12-2007 @ 8:47PM
Dave said...
As a Warlock I can just imagine being told to get to the instance first and summon the rest of the raid. I hope that Blizzard has some Soul Shard love to go along with this change or I am going to be farming a lot more shards and having a lot less bag space.
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12-12-2007 @ 8:54PM
Villanimm said...
Um, it'd still be easier to use the summoning stone, seeing as it only requires two people, whereas the warlock summon requires three... This change helps mostly for replacements, when someone has to hearth to repair, etc. The summoning stone still reigns supreme for the initial grouping.
12-12-2007 @ 9:13PM
theRaptor said...
Summoning partway through an instance doesn't seem to be as much of an issue these days due to trash being mostly tied to bosses. It used to be a major pain to lose people in an MC run because the trash respawned so fast.
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12-12-2007 @ 9:19PM
Milktub said...
Really like the warlock summon change. So many times I'd be inside an instance, with a warlock, and someone drops out. OK, guess we have to run all the way outside, summon, then go back in. Being able to stay put and summon is so much nicer.
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12-13-2007 @ 5:39AM
Blorg said...
Exploits like maybe sending stealthers past the trash, bubbling a warlock and ressing it on the other side of the trash, summoning the rest of the team and then starting the boss without needing to do the trash?
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12-13-2007 @ 6:43AM
Balasan said...
You can already do this right now, although the viability might be questionable (trash might be linked to the boss, for example). You have been able to summon another player who is already inside the instance with you to where you are. You just can't summon someone who is not in your instance.
The change is to allow people to summon someone else outside your instance. Perfect for those times when someone leaves and you need to get a replacement.
12-13-2007 @ 9:41AM
nav said...
Balasan: err, no... that's exactly the thing you can't do due to the hotfix. You might want to reread what this article is about.
12-13-2007 @ 11:48AM
Nrred said...
The exploit:
During the timed event, you could run a warrior, shaman, lock, paladin all the way to the stairs of the dragon hawk, die (DI, ankh, and SS) then summon the remaining members bypassing all the trash. Same for the Lynx Boss.
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12-13-2007 @ 1:51PM
Squishy said...
I'm not looking forward to this change at all. It'll just encourage people to be more lazy about getting their sorry ass to the instance.
"Hey lock summon me".
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12-17-2007 @ 9:11AM
Felbane said...
Simple solution: enforce a "Lazy Tax".
I'll leave the implementation details as an exercise for the reader.