Feb 27

There are plenty of folks talking about the bosses on the PTR, the change to the hearthstone (link to blue post here ’cause it’s funny), dual-talent specs, and so forth, but today BRK posted a picture that piqued my interest, and not because of the numbers in the center of the screen, but rather the little box at the top:

Now that’s what I’m talking about! A way to know that you’re going to be saved to a raid or heroic before it actually happens–and you even get a “Leave Instance” button so you don’t have to make a mad dash for the exit! This is quite possibly my favorite 3.1 change so far.

Jan 7

This was reported by MMO Champion, and I’m reporting it here as well in hopes that it will help people recognize scammers, and inform them of this important change.

In patch 3.0.8, a new interface will be used to chat with game masters. Check out the post on MMO Champion for the details!

Jan 7

Patch 3.0.8 is bring a lot of bug fixes and balancing to the expansion. The patch notes have not officially been updated, but there is a post on the forums that list them all. Without focusing on class-specific changes (excepting Raise Dead, as it could potentially affect everyone!), here are some of the highlights (at least in my opinion):

General Changes

• Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
• The Darkmoon Faire vendors have new items now that trade routes into Northrend have been better established.

Death Knight

• Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
  • Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
  • Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.

Alchemy

• All flasks no longer require an alchemy lab to create.
• The Cooldown on Transmute: Titanium has been reduced to 1 day, and the materials required have been simplified.
• Reduced the cooldown on Northrend Alchemy Research from 7 days to 3 days.

Mining

• Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.

Quests

• The daily quest, “Shoot ‘Em Up” now only requires 15 Jotunheim Proto-Drakes to be shot down, down from 20. As well, the harpoon now only costs 5 energy to shoot, (down from 10.)

User Interface

• Chat frames can now be made “Noninteractive”. When in this state, they will ignore all clicks.
• Various filters can now be applied to Achievements.
• A special UI for chatting with GMs has been added.

Dec 11

As you may have guess from the title of this post, PTR 3.0.8 is now live. All the changes that have been disucssed since Wrath launched that were to come out “in a patch before the Ulduar content patch” are in here. Some notable changes:

General

• Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostrider? Tauren on raptor? You’re not seeing things.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.

Druids

• Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60).  Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid.  Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them.  All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.

Warlock

• Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

Warrior

• Fury: Titan’s Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.

These are just a few of a large number of enhancements, bug fixes, and other additions (including new achievements and associated rewards). MMO Champion has the full scoop.