With patch 1.12 presumably rolling out today, I've just got to ask - what are you most eager to see coming with the patch? Cross-realm battlegrounds? The changes to the honor system? The new outdoor PvP objectives? The new interface improvements? The many rogue class changes? Or perhaps something else I've neglected to mention? I honestly think my personal favorite is a minor UI change - the ability to have nameplates appear over friendly players as well as hostiles and NPCs. As a healer, I think this will give me a better idea of the health of those around me in a chaotic situation where I may not be near my group (Alterac Valley anyone?). However, the changes to the honor system have also piqued my interest, and I know I'll have to give the world PvP objectives an attempt or two. But what are you looking forward to the most?
Hortus (who works, I believe, in QA) has announced that the public test realms will be offline tomorrow between 12:00 PM PDT to 8:00 PM PDT for hardware maintenance. The fact that the realms are scheduled to come back online after Tuesday's regular maintenance window suggests that, yes, we're going another week without 1.12 being deployed on the live servers. Though I suppose that, while unlikely, it wouldn't be impossible for the PTRs to go offline running patch 1.12 and come back online running 1.13 - Blizzard does come out with surprises from time to time, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Drysc's message that "there are no current intentions to announce the release date of 1.12 beforehand" doesn't make me optimistic, either, though.
Well, they don't usually give us much warning on these things, so at 4:44 PM PDT we received word that the PTRs were going offline for patch maintenance with no ETA on them coming back online. The fact that the PTRs continue to be updated, despite being online since July 17th, makes me feel that patch 1.12 is still something that's being fine tuned - which lends me to think that the patch going live may still be some time off. Of course... Blizzard has been known to surprise me before, so take this thought with a grain of salt (or two or three). And... since the test realms are still online and going strong - it's a great place to have some fun playing a class you know nothing about!
With all the recent news and speculation about coming PvP changes - both in patch 1.12 and the expansion - it seems only fitting to have a breakfast topic discussing everyone's favorite source of honor - battlegrounds! So which of the available battlegrounds is your favorite place to slaughter the opposing faction? Of late, I rarely venture outside of Alterac Valley - which, with the rate at which AB and WSG groups loose on my realm, seems to be the best source of honor. I remember, vaguely, a time in which I used to enjoy Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin matches, but this must have been long ago - all of my recent experience with them have been nothing but quick and harsh losses - with the players of my own faction spending the entire match yelling back and forth and disagreeing about what best to do. (Trust me, such battleground runs are not entertaining.)
This afternoon Tseric posted a surprise in the warlock forums - the the functionality of the skill life tap (which converts health into mana) will be changing in the next patch - to be modified by +spell damage gear. Rank 3 and higher of the spell will now benefit from 80% of your spell damage gear (it's unclear as to whether it will benefit only from +spell damage, or whether it will benefit from +shadow damage), meaning it will both give more mana and take more health. As a warlock myself, this will take a bit of getting used to, as a loss of 400-ish health (which is spammable when necessary) becomes a loss nearly twice that - ouch! However, the reaction on the warlock is overwhelmingly positive (aside from the occasional query "But what about Dark Pact?").
The official website has been updated with some details on the outdoor PvP objectives that will be showing up in the upcoming patch. There's nothing unexpected here, but it does fill in the gaps in the initial announcement of the addition. At this point, it's clear that there are no great rewards for participation in these world events - those playing in Eastern Plaguelands will be rewarded with increased damage against undead buff (higher depending on the number of towers your faction controls) and those playing in Silithus will also receive buffs (though of unknown nature). As it stands, I see the event as a distracting mini-game that won't have a lasting effect. But if anyone else sees it otherwise, I should love to hear it.
It's no secret that there are PvP changes coming in the next content patch. There are going to be new cross-realm battlegrounds, auto-joining battlegrounds groups, world PvP objectives, and it's been hinted that the honor system in general will be a bit more lenient (though there haven't been any specifics on this). I've never made serious attempts at achieving the game's highest PvP ranks, simply because I know its impossible for someone who can't dedicate more time than I have to the cause. However, this patch may encourage me to head to the battlegrounds - or perhaps Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands - a bit more often for some PvP action. Am I going to hit rank 14 sometime soon? I doubt it - but the changes to the system may make it where I'll enjoy spending more time accumulating honor than I have in the past. 
It's been some time since I wrote about my initial attempts at playing the rogue class. And, no, I haven't given it up yet! I've only reached the fairly puny level of 33, but the rogue changes coming in the next patch have me excited about continued leveling - after all, there's little joy in having half of a talent build. Continue reading My Secret Life as a Rogue: Of Talents and Talent Builds
I spent a while on the test realms yesterday checking out all of the new goodies in the 1.12 client. Some of these, like the new floating combat text feature, have come directly from popular community-created addons. I think, in may ways, I prefer the addons that are integrated game - that way, come patch day, the features I use regularly simply work, without need to tinker or download new code. However, custom addons provide a level of flexibility that's not present in Blizzard's own UI. With floating combat text, specifically, I may continue to use the original addon - Scrolling Combat Text - because I prefer being able to customize a little more than Blizzard's addition allows me to. 
After an angry outcry about the changes to the Windfury totem, Blizzard has come back saying that the developers are not happy with the impact the change will have on end-game content balance. This seems like an odd response when on Friday they explained the change was needed because Windfury provided too great a damage bonus, and the goal was to reduce a Horde group's damage potential. While this is certainly a victory for Horde raiders, whether the overall issues with the totem system will be addressed remains up in the air.
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Darkmoon Faire (Mulgore) | 10/6 - 10/12 |
| BlizzCon 2008 in Anaheim, CA | 10/10 - 10/11 |
| AB weekend | 10/10 - 10/13 |
| Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza | SUN 2p - 4p |
| Patch 3.0.2 | 10/14?? |
| Hallow's End | 10/18 - 11/1 |
| Wrath release | 11/13 |
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