Remember the huge scourge invasion that accompanied the roll-out of patch 1.11? After a few weeks of undead-slaughtering fun, the scourge invasion points across Azeroth vanished - whether your server had finished the invasion event or not. The "end" of this event was somewhat disappointing, as it occurred without any fanfare, and left me with a heck of a lot of now useless necrotic runes in the bank. However, there's now some suggestion from Blizzard that this invasion won't be a one-time event - though as to how often the scourge may become restless and attempt to invade Azeroth, no one yet knows.
Like the invasion or not, it was an excellent way to rack up Argent Dawn reputation, and the rewards (consecrated sharpening stones, blessed wizard oil, +damage versus undead armor), while situational, were useful. And, while I'm glad the invasion isn't a permanent thing, I think having it back on some regular basis will make for an entertaining diversion.
Today's release of patch 1.11 was the first chance we had to see how the new background downloader application would help us on patch day. The full patch file ended up being about 150MB, but for me, the background downloader had previously snagged 127MB of that, making the patch download fairly quick and painless. Of course patch day itself wasn't completely painless - the servers came up a few hours later than anticipated and the login server was sluggish when things first started coming online, but over-all the patching process seemed to go fairly smoothly. Did anyone have any negative experiences with the patch downloading process today?
Today's maintenance will be extended by two hours in order to apply patch 1.11. However, instead of pushing maintenance time two hours later (to 1:00PM PDT) they're starting maintenance two hours earlier (at 3:00AM PDT). I don't know about you, but I can't wait to jump online and dive into the new scourge invasion content with my real characters. Not to mention the rest of the patch - mage changes, shaman changes, Naxxramas, updated PvP armor, new items for Argent Dawn & Cenarion Circle reputations, a legendary caster item, keyrings (yay!), new flightpaths (Ratchet and Un'Goro, primarily), debuff prioritization, and probably a number of other changes that have slipped my mind. Hopefully the patching process will go as smoothly as possible and let us get back to playing.
There's a limited number of debuffs that can be placed on any target - currently, the maximum is 16. This is enough where it's not usually problematic, but in a raid environment it's not difficult to hit that maximum, and when you do, the oldest debuff on the target is bumped off in favor of the new one. This becomes a bit problematic when, for example, the short-lived "shadow vulnerability" debuff left by a warlock's improved shadow bolt talent starts bumping off more important things. To fix this, Blizzard has long been working on a system that prioritizes debuffs and leaves the most important ones on, while letting the less useful ones get bumped off. However, Tseric informs us that the "basic structure" of this prioritization system will be going live in patch 1.11 - to much rejoicing.
Once again it's been a fun run on the PTRs, but they have, officially, closed. Of course, the real news here is that this means patch 1.11 has been mostly finalized, and that we should expect patch deployment soon - possibly as early as this week. On the matter of a release date, Tigole tells us, "No promises as to when the patch is going live, but if I were you, I'd start working on that Argent Dawn rep by tomorrow -- either that or pillage the guild bank while the pillaging is good." Of course, what that means is up in the air, but if you'll excuse me, I think I need to be getting a Scholomance run together about now...
Blizzard has updated their Argent Dawn page with some new reputation rewards that will be available in patch 1.11. For the armor rewards, it looks like we can expect another token system, but the only thing reputation seems to impact is the cost of the goodies. There are six blue items and six epic items (not sets, but assorted items available). Also, epic-quality tailoring, leatherworking, and blacksmithing patterns with high amounts of frost resistance (for Naxxramas, presumably) available at revered reputation and higher.
The main Warcraft site has been updated with additional information about the Scourge invasion that will be coming with patch 1.11. So what should we expect? A threatening necropolis over both Stormwind and the Undercity as the Scourge prepare their invasion force, as well as specific Sourge incursions in Azshara, Blasted Lands, Burning Steppes, Eastern Plaguelands, Tanaris and Winterspring. The Argent Dawn representitives around Azeroth will be coordinating efforts in an attempt to repel the invasion - with rewards for those who aid them.
Tigole has announced two changes to dungeons that we should see in patch 1.11. These aren't live on the test realms yet, but should be in a few days.
The release timer is being removed for players in instances. This should come as welcome news for anyone who has ever died at the beginning of the Nefarian encounter.
To prevent exploits, players will no longer be able to zone into an instance during certain encounters ("almost entirely raid bosses," explains Tigole).
Here's an interesting list of new items we can expect to see in the 1.11 content patch. There are some components shown for what appears to be a legendary caster item, though the final product is still a mystery. And I don't know about you, but the suspense is killing me!
The test realms haven't been up for long, but Naxxramas bug fixes are already starting to show up. Also, to help testers, a vendor has been added to Naxxramas that will offer free repairs, free resurrection sickness removal, spell reagents, tome of tranquilizing shot, and rogue poisons. So if you're interested in checking out Naxxramas, it's been easier. However, character transfers to the test realm still seem to be down, so if you didn't copy a character when the PTRs were first brought online, you're going to have to wait a while.
For every change in a patch, there's a dozen others that never quite made it into the patch notes. Perhaps they were forgotten at the last minute or perhaps they were considered too trivial to note, but there's always something missing. This thread, helpfully compiled by Greatness of Gorefiend server, is a list of all known changes that didn't make it into the patch notes - though it may not yet be comprehensive.
Blizzard has put up official info on the new PvP set updates on their armor sets page (just select the PvP superior or PvP epic set from the pull-down menu on the right). We will see these new sets up on the live realms after the 1.11 content patch. This does make the PvP sets look less shabby in comparison to the PvE options, and hopefully further planned PvP improvements planned for 1.12 will make matters even better for those that prefer PvP content.
The public test realms opened late Friday, and despite stability issues, are officially online. With lots of interesting changes, are you interested in checking them out? Perhaps exploring the new Naxxramas dungeon with a pick up group, or just enjoying playing a pre-made and pre-geared level 60 character. So let us know - will we be seeing you on the test realm?
As seems to be the usual pattern, after the public test realms were brought online they were immediately slammed with traffic, bringing them offline again. As of writing this, the only test realm that seems to be up is the RP-PVP realm. The character transfer system suffered a similar fate, and was officially taken down yesterday. There seems to be no news about when we can expect transfers or the test realms themselves to be back online, but as soon as I find out anything, I'll pass it on.
PartingVisions.Com has some information on the PvP armor updates - specifically, screenshots for mage, hunter, druid, warrior, warlock, rogue, shaman, and paladin sets. (There's a link to an image named priest.jpg that currently seems to be broken.) You can compare them to the existing PvP sets here. The changes are losses in some places and gains in others, and your like of them may depend on your play-style. So check them out and let us know what you think.
Remember the huge scourge invasion that accompanied the roll-out of patch 1.11? After a few weeks of undead-slaughtering fun, the scourge invasion points across Azeroth vanished - whether your server had finished the invasion event or not. The "end" of this event was somewhat disappointing, as it occurred without any fanfare, and left me with a heck of a lot of now useless necrotic runes in the bank. However, there's now some suggestion from Blizzard that this invasion won't be a one-time event - though as to how often the scourge may become restless and attempt to invade Azeroth, no one yet knows. 
Today's release of patch 1.11 was the first chance we had to see how the new background downloader application would help us on patch day. The full patch file ended up being about 150MB, but for me, the background downloader had previously snagged 127MB of that, making the patch download fairly quick and painless. Of course patch day itself wasn't completely painless - the servers came up a few hours later than anticipated and the login server was sluggish when things first started coming online, but over-all the patching process seemed to go fairly smoothly. Did anyone have any negative experiences with the patch downloading process today?
The public test realms opened late Friday, and despite stability issues, are officially online. With 
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