World of Warcraft Beta Journal #10
Dialogue, 2004-08-06

I know it has been a while since my last Journal entry. This summer has been very busy for me, and certain other *cough*cityofheroes*cough* games have grabbed my attention for a bit. Like my RD column, this will be more forthcoming on a regular basis for the forseeable future. Even if I don't have anything new to report, I can always give you forum updates and screenshots. So, without further ado, here's what's what with WoW at the moment.

Major Changes Implimented

Since my last Journal the much anticipated PvP server has gone up. This server is very rough around the edges, with fast and loose rules for PvP in place. Blizzard is essentially using it to work out balance inconsistencies between the classes by allowing a form of free-for-all to take place. This has resulted in some frustration as gangs of high level characters gank lowbies repeatedly in certain key locations. Booty Bay, a supposedly neutral port on the southern coast of Azeroth, is almost always in the control of one of the factions or the other. The PvP server is a proving ground for the faction based combat Blizz intends to make available on some servers once the game goes live, and as such has provided a good deal of entertainment for players and onlookers alike. You can follow the action here on the WoW War News page.

Along with PvP, both servers have had guard systems implimented for many of the major cities. Blizzard intends to provide guards for nearly every settlement by the time the game goes live. These guards protect PCs and NPCs alike from ravagers from the opposing faction. They also add some more life to the game, with the militaristic nature of the Warcraft universe being more apparent. Besides eye candy, they serve a purpose. Guards now act as tour guides. They can be queried for locations of important NPCs and Vendors, Trainers, and Buildings. Stormwind is the only city where this is implimented at the moment, but all the major racial cities will soon have this feature as well.

The largest system implimentation has to be the inclusion of Talents. At the moment only Mages and Warriors have Talents, but all the classes will net them eventually. Talents are arrayed in a tree structure, not unlike Diablo 2. Beginning at 2nd level your character accrues 1 Talent Point per level. These points can be spent on abilities in one of three different talent pools. Each class will have it's own unique pool sets. To the left you can see the talent pool "Arms Mastery" for the Warrior class. This set allows a Warrior to improve his combat abilities, and eventually gain new ones. The first row is available at level 2 automatically. The second ability from the right allows you to improve your strike power by having it cost less rage to use. The other three abilities improve your chances to hit with axes, swords, and maces. Through these abilities you can customize your character to be as unique as you want it to be. The second tier of pool abilites is reached by accruing 5 points, in any ability combinations, in Arms Mastery. Here, the second row is open because I've maxed out Strike at 3 and put 2 points into Axe Mastery. These powers, and ones subsequent, improve other abilites the Warrior has and at higher levels grants him entirely new abilities not available to the average Warrior. The other two pool sets for the Warrior are Rage Mastery and Protection Mastery. By focusing on a particular pool, or not, you can tweak the vanilla Warrior into a Master-At-Arms, a Raging Berserker, or a Defender of the Weak as you see fit to do. The pools available to the other classes will tweak the generic class role in similar ways, allowing players to specialize their characters, or not, as they desire.

The Auction House is another big addition to World of Warcraft, quieting the incessant Trade Channels and making the Auction functionality in wow-add ons superfluous. Like the PvP rules, the AH is a little rough around the edges at the moment. The interface is a little clunky, and it resembles EBay to a greater or lesser extent in many ways. Last minute item ganking is common, but overall the implimentation appears sound. Once the kinks are worked out and the interface is made more user friendly the AH will be a great addition to the game. It has already leveled the playing field a great deal, allowing players of all types to get access to better weapons and armor than they might otherwise have come across. It's also a good way to make money fairly. Players can set prices manually when the post the auction, but a server specified minimum bid is also required based on the level and power of the item. Thus a player putting an axe up for auction can always feel safe in the knowledge that they'll be getting a mostly fair price for their wares.

The other big game system to be affected is the much maligned Rest state. Rest is now an *only* beneficial system. I'm going to quote from the patch notes to avoid miscommunicating what they've done:

The Rest State system has undergone several changes. There are now two tiers of rest states: Rested = 200% experience and Normal = 100% experience.

At level one, players will all start in the normal tier. When a player rests be it in a city or at an inn they will gain rest bonus at a very slow rate. Eight hours of rest will be needed for a player to gain one "bubble" of rest bonus. At any given time, players will be able to accumulate a maximum of 30 "bubbles" worth of rest bonus which translates into approximately 1.5 levels worth of rested play (before your character returns to normal rest state).

The changes to the Rest State have been made with the understanding that most players will be in the Normal experience tier most of the time. The Rested tier is primarily intended for players that take a day or more off from playing or are very casual with their play schedules. This has enabled us to greatly reduce the experience necessary for all players to level regardless of which rest state tier they play under.

Probably the most visible of the changes they've made has been the inordinate amount of polish they've been putting into the game. You can now purchase small pets for a very reasonable sum, that follow you around and generally make your life cute. They have no purpose other than to be neat and collectable. There are vendors for the standard pets (parrots, cats, cockroaches) in the major cities, but you can get uniquish pets such as small dragons or interestingly colored pets like an all white kitty via quests and out-of-the-way vendors. There have been a number of changes made to the racial capitols for the express purpose of making the cities easier to navigate. In IronForge this has resulted in the facinating Tinkertown, the gnomish part of the city. Mapping has greatly improved in the cities and zones as well. Finally, there are small things they've added that just make the game really sing. The screenshot below and to the right is a small glowing orb in a tower within the bounds of the Elwynn forest. It belongs to a magess who will eventually offer you a quest. Looking through the orb by clicking on it gives you a mini-cinematic of the surroundings of and internal spaces of a completely different tower in another zone. Isn't that just cool? Blizz just keeps heaping on the good stuff, making the game better every day.

Upcoming Changes

That's just the stuff they've already added! Upcoming in the next patch, we're (hopefully) going to see the *much* anticipated Hunter class, a level cap raise to 55, fixes to the Auction House, the addition of Talents to Rogues and Priests, new clothing art (including a Tuxedo and Top Hat) and more!

Some of the more includes new Micro Dungeons! I quote Tigole:

In the upcoming patch, players will be treated to some new micro-dungeons. We realize players don't like seeing the same micros repeated more than once. We're working on making them all as unique as possible.

Here's a sampling of what will be patched in:

GOLDMINES

Hillsbrad - Azurelode Mine
Mulgore - The Venture Co. Mine
Blasted Lands - Garrison Armory

CAVES

Searing Gorge - The Slag Pit (this one rocks)
Wetlands - Thelgen Rock
Wetlands - Raptor Ridge
Hinterlands - Jintha'Alor
Swamp of Sorrows Cave
Arathi Highlands - Drywhisker Gorge
Stranglethorn - The Stockpile
Stranglethorn - Crystalvein Mine - MushroomCave03
RedRidge - Rethban Caverns

These changes are coming as a direct result of Alpha and Beta tester feedback. Keep up the testing!

I'll cap off this DL of info and screens with two notes about what I don't know. Hero classes have officially been pushed passed the end of release, meaning that we won't be able to see them in Beta. They'll likely be released into the live game once people start approaching the level cap at launch. I also have no word from anyone about the PvP instanced Battlegrounds. I imagine we'll get a "yes" or "no" to them relatively soon, but as yet no word either way.

The next patch isn't going to be up for at least a week. In the meantime, I have to see a man about some Ogres...