Category: World of Warcraft

Popping up on Reddit today was this excellent video on advanced WoW graphic settings. It’s a topic that’s often talked about, and one that people seem to know a little something, but not a lot — and not as much as this guy. These settings are not just the options you get from controlling the in-game UI, these are the things you need to type out console-style.
Be sure to watch the video in high definition — it’s well worth it. Also watch it all the way through. At the end you’re shown how to change the color of blood that mobs splatter when hit. Green blood is now my setting of choice, if only because now every mob spills green blood, just like Spock.
As he notes in the video, and as I can attest to, these settings really do slow down your frame rate, so don’t play with them during raids. People commonly say that WoW’s graphics are eight years old, but that’s not true — the system uses a ton of graphics power when you have the settings turned up. When you do it like this and push them beyond the ultra settings, you’ll quickly kill your gameplay experience for a really nice image. So it’s fun to play with, but be think about what you’re doing before punching in console commands. 

Some like them hot, and the latest round of hotfixes has just hit the Warcraft official blog page, this time around there’s a few changes to bosses that may well relate to the inordinate amount of time it took guilds to take down Dark Animus in the Throne of Thunder World First race, as well as some changes made to PvP weapons to even out the 2/2 upgraded elite conquest gear and this season’s gear.
Here are the hotfix highlights:
Season 13 Tyrannical weapons had their item levels increased to ilevel 498, up from ilevel 493, to match Season 12 Elite weapons.
Season 13 Malevolent Honor gear now gives more Stamina, making them comparable to Season 12 counterparts.
Eye of the Storm: Horde teams are now being awarded the proper amount of victory points when holding 3 towers.
Dark Animus
Dark Animus will now use its abilities at more consistent intervals.
Interrupting Jolt now deals less damage on 10/25-player Heroic mode.
Explosive Slam now deals significantly less damage on 10-player Heroic mode.
Fixed an issue where Matter Swap could sometimes teleport players beneath the world.
Hit the break for the full hotfix post! 

A wild post has appeared on the EU forums, detailing the ground rules for an upcoming “Ask the Developers” opportunity relating to the PvP changes on the patch 5.3 PTR. It’s currently locked, but on April 9th the thread will go live for 48 hours, during which time players are encouraged to post all of their PvP-related questions and to vote on their favorites. Don’t ignore the voting option, because Blizz will be prioritizing their responses by popularity, and the questions with the most votes are the most likely to be answered.
There are also some ground rules for how the thread will work that are typical for “Ask the Dev” designated posts, and shouldn’t be anything new for forum veterans. If you’re planning on participating in the post, it’s worth reading over them so your questions the best chance of being taken seriously. So far it looks like this Q&A opportunity is only available to those with EU forum access, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any similar posts appearing on the North American forum. You can find the full blue post behind the cut.

Current Status
LOCKED – Questions and voting will begin soon.
Topic
The topic for this Ask the Devs is, “PvP changes on the PTR”.
Be sure to stay on topic, as questions that stray from this won’t be answered.
How it works:
Voting will begin on 09/04/13 and end on 11/04/13.
The thread will be open for 48 hours, after which time it will be locked and you’ll no longer be able to post or vote for questions to be sent to the developers.
Once the thread has been locked, we’ll tally up the votes and send the top questions off to the World of Warcraft developers.
We’ll provide answers directly from the developers during the following week. Watch the blog for their responses!
The Rules:
There’s a limit of one question per post.
Stay on topic. Questions that are not related to the chosen topic will not be sent to the developers, even if they’re rated highly.
Only post questions in the Ask the Devs thread – discussions are not permitted. If you would like to discuss the questions or a related matter, please do so in another thread.
A question being highly rated does not guarantee that it will be answered. We will, however, try to get as many questions answered as possible.
“Disliking” a post will not count toward its tally. Only “likes” will be counted.
Some Tips:
Don’t post or vote for questions that you know we cannot or will not answer. This Q&A is designed to give you more insight into the changes that are happening on the PTR, not to make announcements about future projects, expansions, or release dates. This includes questions not related to the Ask the Devs topic.
Make your questions as short and concise as possible so that they’re easy to understand for us and other players.
“Like” a post if you’d like to vote for it. Don’t bother “disliking” a post, as this will not influence our decision on which questions are sent to the developers.
Vote for any of the questions you’d like to see answered, but keep in mind the above tips. 

The third wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder was unlocked this week after a short break from the last one. After our previous 5-second guides to the first and second wings, how could we abandon you now? You’ve almost made it through. If you thought the beasts in the Forgotten Depths were rough, just wait until you meet your new friends in the Halls of Flesh-Shaping. Here’s a quick rundown to quickly share with your Raid Finder buddies (thanks for the help Lucid guildies!).
Durumu the Forgotten
There will be a tank swap, taunt at around 4 stacks of Serious Wound. Step into Life Drain to intercept. During phase two, the raid should split itself between the yellow, red, and blue cones. Move each cone around until the three fog adds are revealed, and kill them. Move out of Force of Will and pools on the ground. During the third phase, be patient and navigate the purple maze while keeping ahead of the death beam. In the maze, stuff on the ground hurts, so stick to the cleared melee or ranged path. Tip: Point your camera downward to better view the cleared maze pathing.
Primordius
Kite the boss to prevent him from picking up too many Living Fluids, and kill them. Tank swap at around seven Malformed Blood stacks and avoid dragging him over the purple Volatile Pools. Only tanks should stand in front of the boss. Collect the red Mutagenic Pools on the ground dropped by Living Fluids to become mutated, DPS the boss. Avoid the red pools when you are mutated.
Dark Animus
Note: At this point in time, Raid Finder groups are doing this boss one of two ways. Either can be successful.
Method one: Single target the active golem adds until the boss eventually activates. This requires quick target marking and most Raid Finder groups won’t have the patience. Method two: Stack all adds and AoE everything while the raid spreads for Crimson Wake. Burn the boss once activated. The off-tank should pick up any remaining adds. When Anima Ring spawns, melee should run through to release the tank. 

I took advantage of one of the many Blizzard sales to get The Spawn’s account up to date through Cataclysm a few months ago. We made a pandaren duo together and played through the Wandering Isle, choosing Horde, my faction of choice. This is the first time playing together when she’s been able to read the quests without my help, so she’s a real partner instead of a tagalong. The experience has been illuminating.
The title of this article is kind of misleading, because some of these things I already knew, but “10 things playing with my daughter illuminated for me but I already knew, they just weren’t at the forefront of my mind” is a bit unwieldy. Regardless, here they are:
Sprites are scary. Anne Stickney had pointed this out before, but I didn’t really get it until playing with The Spawn. After being swarmed by them and dying, I had to play her character in order to get her through a particular questline. It’s all OK now. No nightmares. It could have turned into another Raving Rabbids incident — she still fears them in her sleep. That was a big video game fail on my part. (It’s the screaming.)
Don’t assume. Whether it’s the knowledge of right and left, quests being picked up, or anything really. I have to constantly make sure we are on the same page.
Death is scary. It doesn’t matter that it ends up being just a minor annoyance, it’s still something people are actually scared of. I remember feeling that way, long ago, but after a couple battlegrounds, I got over it. I won’t be introducing her to PvP until she’s 12 at this rate.
It’s easy to panic. I need to get her a book that says “Don’t Panic” in large, friendly letters on the cover.
Tushui is pronounced tushy. You’re welcome.
The Wandering Isle ending is bittersweet. Yay, we saved the island! Boo, we’ll never see Shen-zin Su again. The Spawn cried. She still gets teary when she hears the music on the login screen. Sensitive Spawn is sensitive.
The Spawn is better at remembering and spelling Pandaren names than I am. I only know the turtle’s name because she keeps mentioning him.
Garrosh is a jerk. This I already knew.
It’s polite to thank NPCs after they’ve given you a ride.
The Horde are the bad guys.
That last one is kind of hard for me to admit. I have been a Horde apologist all these years and I have said all the standard arguments: The Tauren are noble and wouldn’t side with the truly evil, the other side of the war is always demonized, Thrall is a good guy, the Forsaken aren’t so much immoral as amoral, etc. But while I won’t stop playing the Horde, I must now admit from this fresh viewpoint that we are, indeed, the bad guys.
For example, you hit the Northern Barrens and after killing innocent animals for their strangely uncommon body parts, you are sent to beat up a guy in order to get information out of him. In contrast, the Darkshore quests send you out to rescue people. You can rescue someone every once in a while on the Horde side, but it’s mostly vengeance and torture and other things I’d rather my seven year old wasn’t doing. And even when on a rescue mission, your rescuee often stops to blow up things on the way out. Yeah. Bad guys.
We are now happily playing an Alliance duo and spending a lot of time exploring the capital cities while running cooking and fishing errands. We also spend some time adventuring, but helping the hermit create Stitches left a bad taste in her mouth. Oops. Anyone have any more Alliance rescuing quests they can recommend?