Archive for the ‘PTR’ Category

As anyone who’s following WoW already knows, The Shattering (aka patch 4.0.3a) has occurred on the PTR. Naturally I had to go take a peak, and I had some adventures.

First off, obviously there’s no Old-World Flight in 4.0.3a since that’s a Cataclysm bullet-point feature, but that didn’t stop folks from bitching and moaning the whole hour I spent touring Stormwind. As for Stormwind, it is GORGEOUS. I love the new layout, and the changing pavement is amazingly beautiful. I learned a few things while in the human capital. One, was that there is now a quite extensive crypt below the Cathedral of Light. Two, I had a pillow on my back.

I swear, I have no idea either. It eventually disappeared so I don’t know what it was about. I finally decided to head out and explore, with the stated goal of riding my bear north to the Wetlands. I left Stormwind and headed east to Redridge, and was met by a curious sign.

No transients? Ok, I’m not real bright, so could someone explain what the hell they’re trying to keep out? WTF? I actually first read it as ‘no transvestites,’ which might actually apply to a large number of players. In any case it ultimately didn’t apply to me so I rode through the zone to the Burning Steppes. I learned some interesting new facts about the zone during this ride through. For one, the Dragonkin population has exploded and absolutely overrun the zone. Next, there’s a crazy standing army of Blackrock orcs near Blackrock Mountain, which I guess makes sense. There’s also a new outpost near BRM called Flamestar Post and it has a gryphon master. It’s also the world’s stupidest flight point, since when I tried to catch a ride to Searing Gorge, I was told that I knew no connecting flight points. I was rightly miffed, ranting and pointing at a bevy of nearby flight points, but the dude was unmoved. Thoroughly pissed, I rode all the way back across the zone to Mogan’s Vigil and caught a gryphon north the Thorium Point.

Riding from there to Loch Modan, I came across some advice for those who may yet be working on getting the key for Stonewrought Pass: skip it. Seriously, the damn gate is gone so that key will be scrap come Cataclysm. Once in the Loch I nearly rode to my death while headed through Thelsmar to the Loch because the land just dropped away into the dry loch. I never knew it was that deep! I opted to ride to the Badlands for fun, and was looking around while autorunning when I happened to glance ahead for a second and saw… this.

I literally turned around and saw this crevice just in time to stop where you see me. What the hell is this? Shouldn’t they warn me somehow? I mean damn, I don’t need klaxons sounding or anything, but any kind of heads-up would have been nice! I navigate the game primarily via muscle memory, and I understand that Cataclysm is designed to shake me out of my routine and that there will be an adjustment period, but I see a slight differentiation between “adjustment period” and “getting tossed to my doom.”  You just know some developer is cackling each time a player autoruns to his doom here. I bet they keep stats and everything.

Once in the Wetlands I stopped by the Greenwarden’s Grove for a short before riding to the now-flooded Menethil Harbor to take a boat to Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh. Theramore was thoroughly boring to I boarded a bird and flew to Gadgetzan to see the damage there. The coastal water was – as we’ve been told – up to the gates of the city, but inside not much had changed. Apparently you can fight in a Ring of Blood series of battles there that a number of level 80s were blitzing through.

At this, after a couple hours of exploration, I called it a night. It looks like we’re but a week or two from this hitting Live, so get ready to relearn the old world. Just do everyone a favor and leave Dalaran before The Shattering. If you don’t, the rest of us don’t want to hear you whine about having to hike back to the old world on foot when they take out the Dal portals. You’ve been warned.

Apparently patch 4.0.3 is on the PTR now. I don’t exactly know what all that entails, but I intend on finding out. Presumably it’s a furthering of the pre-Cataclysm events, since the actual world changes will supposedly occur in patch 4.0.3a. I’ll get back once I’ve logged some play time.

Update: The answer as to what’s changed is, so far, not much. It pretty much picks up at the last PTR’s end. However, I did spy something that looked out of place to me.

Hmm… now where did those burns come from?

I’m back with more pre-Cataclysm updates, so here we go again. It’s split-post time!

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I originally posted this pic to demonstrate the new water effects on the PTR, but I wasn’t satisfied with it as an example. In my opinion it gives a poor impressio of a very nice new touch to Azeroth. Therefore, I’ve got two more pictures.

It looks much more convincing in the daylight, I think.

You can also see the improvements here in Elwynn Forest. Was this post necessary? No, but I felt the need to clarify the situation.

Once again, pre-Cataclysm spoilers, so here’s the ol’ split post once more. This time we delve into the meat (and the gristle) of the events.

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Just for kicks, here’s the new Return to Graveyard button on the PTR. Why is Gav seeing it in Elwynn Forest of all places? The Horde.

I was on the PTR the other night and was just milling about after completing the first string of pre-Cataclysm events and noticed the Horde stalking around south of Goldshire in PvP mode. A number of us went forth and killed them, at which point they respawned and got killed again. And again.

So how did I die? Well, at one point we had them on the run, scattered and seemingly rattled. I opted to jump one I had cornered and – I thought – alone, but now I realize that I couldn’t have possibly telegraphed my attack any more then I did. I hopped off of my mount early, ran for a short to close the distance, judged and then cast my stun. It was at this point that every freaking Horde in the area came down on me. Once in one small area they were easily killed again, but I didn’t live. Dammit.

Oh well. I got a few kills, saved some people, was doing ok and then pulled a dumb-ass move to get killed. Typical Gav.

More pre-Cata spoilers, so therefore another split post. Read on to see what else Gav has seen in the events that will lead up to the Cataclysm.

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The PTR is now host to the first pre-Cataclysm event right now, and I sent Gav to check them out and report back what he found.

This post, no bones about  it, includes spoilers from the Cataclysm pre-release events. If you are averse to spoilers, don’t read the full article. If you don’t mind, click through to hear what I saw.

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The latest PTR patch includes a rest ability for boars and bears. This ability increases your pet’s happiness some, but also makes them inactive for 15 seconds. I was aware that bears had this power, but when I took Lug out on the new PTR and Pig refused to attack – opting to take naps instead – I researched the ability to find out that boars share it as well. Why? I know not. It was also set to auto cast, which was what brought on Pig’s sleepy demeanor.

So hunters, take note. Boars and bears are lazy, and you need to tell them they can’t take naps mid-battle. Lesson learned.

The new PTR patch is live on the PTR server now, and I’ve logged an hour or so on it to see what’s changed. For one, the new water art is there, and it’s a looker. Everyone was in consensus: it actually looks like water now. People were chiming in over local chat constantly to rave about the new water art. I guess it was a success, Blizzard.

Also up is reforging. In it, you can change a percentage of secondary stats on your gear (i.e. not strength, stamina or the like) to a new, more useful stat, like hit rating, crit, or haste. You can see here me reforging my Teldrassil Protector (my crummy prot-PvP axe) to have a higher crit rating in lieu of parry. I also reforged my leg armor to take advantage of the new Mastery stat. I really like this feature as it means that if you find gear that’s good but not quite what you need, you can tweak it to fit you better.

That’s all I’ve seen new so far in the ‘new, improved’ 4.0.1 PTR. I’ll come back and post more if the situation calls for it.