I’ve been level 90 since last Thursday early morning, and one of the first things I discovered was that I needed to grind rep up to Honored for each faction in order to spend Justice Points for gear.

I had done all the quests in Pandaria, and as a Human, the only reputation I was Honored with was the Klaxxi (awesome story and faction, by the way). I looked up the location of where I could find the hubs, and it led me to the Alliance base, Shrine of the Seven Stars.

Talking to the NPC gave me a quest to hit Revered with the Golden Lotus before talking to them. I said to myself “Ok.. this shouldn’t be too hard. About a few days worth of dailies should do it, right?” Continue Reading

The Warzone and Illum PvP session at the Guild Summit just ended, and while Warzones are getting lots of adjustments, and a new faction-free Warzone called Novare Coast, Illum on the other hand, is being completely redesigned; although, details were sparse.

One thing we did learn, is that sometime in the future, Illum will go back to an objective based system, where the control-points will have a cool-down timer so they cannot be quickly flipped and farmed. Quests on Illum will also not be the primary way to obtain commendations anymore; again, no details were given.

Also mentioned, was that PKing in open world will finally give players a reward in the form of, yes, you guessed it: another commendation currency.

I got the impression that development progress on Illum is extremely preliminary, and nothing has been decided yet, which is why so little information about it was given. Nearly the whole session dealt with warzones, dailies, and commendations. So for those of you who were looking for changes to Illum in update 1.2, don’t hold your breath; it’s going to be a while.

With the first version of Patch 4.2 hitting the Public Test Realm less than 24 hours ago, the floodgates have opened on tons and tons of new content to feast upon. We hope to take a more detailed look at the items that most interest us, but for now let’s do a quick rundown of what’s available — both via official announcement and via datamining efforts at WoWhead– for players to enjoy:

• First of all, for an early look at what the big upcoming content patch will bring, take a look at the official Patch Notes. They have yet to be updated since the opening of the PTR, but keep an eye out for inevitable changes that will come about as testing gets underway. Some of the big items that are getting early attention include: the ability to reorganize characters on the Selection screen, changes to many crown control abilities, and the usual back-and-forth on class balance.
• WoWhead has put up a set of fun new models from the PTR, complete with four new mounts and four new pets (I’m especially loving the kittens in witch hats, the whelpling and the Horde war wolf). Also included are models for bosses, NPCs and a few select objects. And for those items that still lack a model, you also can browse through the WoWhead listings of more than 800 items added in the last day alone. Icons and maps are covered in a separate post. That’s a lot of cool new stuff!
• Perhaps even more awesome than the Tier 12 armor previews that Kershocker covered earlier this week is the fact that we now know that each set has multiple color variations. We’re not sure exactly how or why yet, but the variations are significantly more apparent than slight color changes for higher-iLevel pieces that we’ve seen lately. I am really digging this option, as I’ve always loved the idea of a higher degree of armor personalization. Now we just need to wait to find out if the color changes by spec, by iLevel, PvE versus PvP — or maybe just player choice. But probably not.
• Also regarding the Tier 12 armor sets, WoW Insider rounded up the set bonuses for each class. And given the theme of the Firelands, I must say the bonuses do not disappoint. I love how most of the bonuses have something to do with adding fire damage or some kind of fire-related ability. FIRE!

So much to go see! Out of all this information, the armor color variations are probably my most anticipated. I can’t wait to get more information on what this change entails. What are you excited to see in-game?

Tol Barad: Less fun than a colonoscopy if you're attacking.

If you’ve even set foot in Tol Barad over the past few weeks, then you already know exactly where I’m going with this — it’s a mess, a terrible, unbalanced, and disastrous mess. Though we can say that PvE is in a decent spot right now, it seems that World PvP is stuck in the same void that raiding was in the middle of the last expansion. In an attempt to make the Wintergrasp formula more accessible or “fair” (though that word’s as loaded as any), they’ve destroyed the essence of what makes it fun and engaging.

That’s not to say it was perfect before, of course, but judging by the outline of Blizzard’s reaction posted yesterday, the direction it’s going in doesn’t appear to be any better:

Now that Cataclysm is out in the wild, more players are getting geared up and checking out Tol Barad, the new outdoor PvP zone. Today, we wanted to address some of the concerns players have expressed about the zone, including how challenging it can be to win as the attacking team, and provide some insight into our design approach. We also wanted to share some of the lessons we learned from Wintergrasp, discuss the difference between the two zones, and touch upon the recent hotfixes made to Honor Point gains and how we plan to improve Tol Barad going forward. We’re confident this zone will provide meaningful and fun PvP for some time to come, but we also recognize additional tuning is required to ensure Tol Barad is everything we intend it to be.

…

Since then we’ve devised mechanics that help ensure equal team sizes, and we took Wintergrasp’s lessons to heart when we designed Tol Barad. Tol Barad is intentionally balanced so that it’s a challenge for the attackers, because we want to make sure that control of Tol Barad matters. For the defenders, there’s a sense of urgency that Wintergrasp didn’t have — if you lose it, you’re going to have a hell of a time taking it back. For the attackers, there are a number of rewards at stake — such as access to the Baradin Hold raid and additional daily quests — that we hope players feel are worth fighting for. That sort of tension is what we wanted from Wintergrasp, and what we believe Tol Barad can ultimately offer.

With that being said, we want winning Tol Barad to be a challenge for the attacking faction… but we don’t want it to be impossible. Taking Tol Barad should be tough — but right now it’s a little bit too tough, and it’s something we’re actively working to balance. Earlier, we attempted to temporarily address the issue by offering a far better reward to the winning attackers: Honor Points awarded for successfully attacking were increased tenfold, but that was such a great incentive that it ultimately undermined the spirit of competition. Since then, the reward for winning as an attacker has been brought back down to a more reasonable amount.

While we’ve already made minor adjustments to improve the gameplay and address select exploits, our job in Tol Barad is far from over. We ultimately want to make sure that any changes we make are all steps in the right direction, and we intend to make several updates in the next minor patch to address design and balance issues affecting attackers that we can’t address with hotfixes. For example, we plan to alter the battle slightly so that a team with two bases captured can more quickly and easily capture the third, as opposed to a team with one or zero bases. This way, if the defenders turtle up, it’ll be a little easier for the attackers to take their last base before the defense can take one of the attackers’ other bases.

We’ve been reading your feedback, watching trends across our global realms, and fighting plenty of battles in Tol Barad ourselves to get a feel for what’s working and what isn’t, and we’re committed to making Tol Barad a fun and engaging zone. We want owning the zone to be meaningful throughout the lifespan of the expansion — and while the attackers may always face somewhat of an uphill battle, the defenders should feel much more pressure not to lose than they do currently. Just the same, the attacking faction should feel motivated to take Tol Barad back, but they shouldn’t feel that the odds are insurmountable. So keep fighting the good fight, and we’ll continue watching the battlefield and listening to your feedback.

If you don’t want to read that wall of text above, let me sum it up for you. It’s Cory Stockton essentially saying, “We’re looking at it, and we hear your pleas, but we kinda like where it is.” The rest is meandering and dancing around the issues, without addressing or offering ideas on how to fix it, and I think I know why… Continue Reading