WOW PATCH NOTES

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Bulor
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WOW PATCH NOTES

Postby Bulor » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:32 pm

Server Status:
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Players Online: 356

Message of the Day
Welcome to the Friends and Family Alpha!

Type /help for basic commands. Please send feedback via the /bug and /suggest commands.

Enjoy the game!

Patch Notes
Friday, December 12, 2003

Evil Dead
Welcome to the Undead Push! It is now time to switch sides and hearken to the call of the Horde. We've added many new features and tweaked a whole lot in this build, so you'll want to scan these notes carefully. Also, please note that a Login is now required to view patch notes and that the URL for the Friends and Family Forums have changed. The new URL for the forums is https://12.129.233.207. Please do not use the old URL fro the Friends and Family site, and delete any bookmarks you might have to this older site.

There is a new patcher available for Windows 98 or ME users that should now address existing update problems. Players with those operating systems must go to the Friends and Family website for the download.

The Macintosh patcher is undergoing revision. If Mac users encounter difficulties patching (i.e. an assertion error or error dialogue) they should then delete all existing files and download the full build.

Finally, a word about security: Please be extremely careful with the Alpha. Remember to scan your computer for viruses regularly and to secure your computer when you are away. Sometime friends or roommate can be "tempted" by an unsecured machine. The real way to get them to play is by signing them up for the Alpha. See Below:

Refer a Friend or Family Member to Join the Alpha!

First of all, we are expanding the Friends and Family program. By e-mailing your Blizzard contact, you be able to refer a friend or two to join us in the Alpha. The rules are:


The person cannot work for a game company or the press.
The person cannot be an active contributor to a Guild or Fan site. Being a member of a guild is fine, but being an author or editor for a guild site or fansite is not.
They must have broadband (this is because modem IPs change too much).
They will have to sign an NDA like the rest of us.
They must reside in the United States or Canada.
You trust the person to be responsible.
To sign up your friend, e-mail the following info (all required) to your Blizzard contact:


Full Name Address E-mail Address Phone Number
We make no guarantee that we can get everybody in, and we reserve the right to turn down any referral. Also, they cannot tell anyone that they are in the Alpha.

Major Changes


Undead are now playable. Dwarves are on hold with Humans, and will be available to you at a later time.
Warrior and Warlock join the roster of playable classes. The undead can play these as well as Mage and Priest.
"Intro" for new Undead characters added.
Fishing and Enchanting tradeskills added. Fishing implemented as a mini-game (click the bobber!).
Added default /trade channel, please use this for all your item auctions.
Guild Tabbards now work.
/who Now brings up the Who-And-LFG (Looking for Group) GUI.
Sun now sets at 9PM.
Mounted NPCs added to the world
Improved Game loading speed
Middle mouse-wheel now zooms the camera in/out smoothly, instead of at fixed increments.
Key bindings are saved the first time they are modified
Spells & Abilities


All language skills renamed...Common becomes Language: Common.
Aura and Seal tooltips changed to be more clear.
Seal of Fury can only be cast on group members.
Seal of Salvation can only be cast on group members.
Seal of Sacrifice can only be cast on group members.
Lay on Hands is now a spell, rather than an ability.
Holy Word: Shield now 20% more effective.
Shadow Word: Pain duration increased 20%, mana cost increased 12%.
Healing Aura - The buff remains active during combat, but the effect does not. Tooltip updated.
Frostbolt slowing effect increased...monsters will move slower.
Holy Light costs less mana, but heals less.
Inner Fire duration increased to 3 minutes (up from 2 minutes).
Renamed "Frost Armor Effect" to "Chilled".
Threat generated by Healing and Buffs reduced further.
Crusader Strike fixed - It can now be applied up to 5 times.
Arcane Missiles - No longer shows resist messages to group-mates. Multiple Mages can now cast Arcane Missiles on the same target. A resist bug was fixed, so it should land a lot more frequently.
New Global Cooldown - All spells now have a 1.5 second cooldown from the beginning of cast.
Stunned, Sleeping, Banished creatures should gain zero threat while under the effects.
Skill gain rate for Conjuration spells increased.
Chains of Ice removed from the Mage.
Polymorph removed from the Mage.
Frost Nova lowered to level 10.
Fireblast range shortened to 10
Frost Nova cooldown from 30sec to 10sec
Frost Bolt slow duration increased from 5sec to 8sec
You can't kill players with fireballs in duels anymore
Items:


Wands should now do more damage.
Wands can now be purchased at the shops.
Uncommon "sets" have been filled out to include all slots.
Store bought weapons have had their minimum level requirements altered (all other weapons have not been affected).
Several elite mobs were not lootified as such. These have been fixed.
Added phat lewt to Shadowfang bosses.
Tradeskills:


Fishing gathering skill added, go find a fishing trainer and a pole and go fishing.
Added Enchanting Tradeskill, find an enchanting trainer and start enchanting items. (Only to level 25 currently)
Tailoring significantly improved and many more color varieties added
Cooked food dramatically increased in power, this should make cooking much more viable.
Added new alchemy recipes that require items from fishing.
Added new cooking recipes based on fishing.
Added smithed 2h hammer at low levels.
Gem requirements for smithed weapons changed.
Many Engineering recipes now require an anvil and tool or tools, some of which you make yourself
Some Engineered items take longer to make now.
Stone drops from mineral nodes cut to two thirds. Ore drops were not changed.
Journeyman Tailoring and Leatherworking now takes you to 150 skill.
Skillpoint costs for tradeskills changed slightly, the combo skills (herbalism-alchemy) are now slightly cheaper
Number of Incendicite ore nodes in the Wetlands mine reduced, and skill required to mine it reduced.
Combat & Looting


Creatures dealing enough damage (crushing blow) will now fully interrupt casting.
When in round robin looting, corpse opens up to everyone else in the party after whoever's turn it is finishes looting, if there are still items on the corpse.
Fixed AI delay after monster tactical retreat
Quests


Bitter Rivals (the "barrel switching" quest) - Text made more clear.
A Pilot's Revenge - Hildelve's journal is now removed upon quest completion.
Looking Further - Now an Elite quest.
Rethban Ore - the rethban ore can now be traded between players (so a miner can mine it, and then give it to the player on the quest).
Spawns


Spawn times for the Miner's Crates in the northern Loch Modan mine changed to match the spawn times of the kobolds in the mine.
Mountaineers are now a bit more easy going about the wildlife around them.
Respawn times should now be a bit more reasonable in Trogg Valley and Frostmane Hold).
More lower level Troggs can now be found in Loch Modan.
More boars around Kharanos
Better dispersion of mineral veins around Dun Morogh.
Leper Gnomes should no longer ambush you from under the cover of snow.
Bugs:


The bug that was preventing head and shoulder geometry from appearing has been fixed (yes this means the goggles have been fixed too)
Creatures looking alive but actually dead bug fixed.
"loot bug" partially fixed (should only get stuck for 15 seconds max now, no more re-logging needed).
Character instance IDs are saved - if you re-log while in an instance, you should reenter the same instance, even if it is not owned by your party. Vendor bugs fixed.
Many server crashes fixed.
Instancing should continue to work after other server crashes.
Changing settings in game should no longer cause a crash
Resolution changing should be much faster
You no longer receive exploration XP while on a Griffon.
Lesser Invulnerability potion fixed
Wednesday, December 3, 2003

Things to Come
Once again we have to say "Thank you" for all your tremendous feedback and insights. Along with your help, we are working hard to get the game ready for Beta. We’ve already raised the level cap to 25 and made traveling to the Human lands cheaper, and sometime early next week we plan to make the Undead available for play. You’ll be happy to know that we are activating a new class, the Warrior, for the next Alpha push. The Warrior has several battle stances, each with its own set of abilities, and plays differently from what you might be used to from other games. Along with our old friends, the Priest and the Mage, that makes 3 classes available for the Undead. Paladins won’t be playable (natch), but you might encounter one wandering the blighted lands of the Undead. Our advice would be to slay the unwary goodie-goodie and feast upon his immortal soul! See you in game!

Level Cap Raised To 25!
Good news, the level cap has been lifted to 25! Also, travel to human lands will now be easier as we’ve re-priced the Ironforge-Stormwind Griffon ride to 50 copper. Enjoy, and keep sending in those bugs and suggestions!

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Danger - Bots at Work
Starting in the next couple of days, and lasting throughout the test, Bots will start invading the lands at various times of day. These robotic "players" can be easily recognized by their names, which include the ever charming "BOT001" and the popular "BOT7809".

Do not be alarmed. While these Bots may kill-steal from you or exhibit other noxious behavior, they are not the evil exploit of some nefarious script-kiddie. They are our own creations, and we need to them increase load on the server. We will not be running bots constantly, and we hope to minimize the inconvenience they may cause from time to time.

Friday, November 21, 2003


Welcome to our first major patch for Friends and Family! The biggest news is that we have enabled the Dwarves for play. The classes remain the same, but you will be able to explore the Dwarven lands and help us to polish them with your comments. Be sure to use the /suggest and /bug features to submit your feedback, and post em to the forums while you are at it!

Your Human characters have been disabled, but not deleted. You will return to them at a later time when we are ready to test higher level zones. I have to say again that all of you have been doing a fantastic job helping us out. Keep it up!

We’ve also added over 400 more Friends and Family to the program to help increase load. Expect to see some new faces around town.

The Alpha has been relatively stable. The most common problems and their solutions are:



Log In/Patching Problems. In most cases this is because you need to update your IP information (click on the Manage Account Button on the WOW Login screen). Also, sometimes the patch or realm servers are down.
Video Options Crashing. Adjusting your video options and then attempting to click on a creature can cause a crash. Make sure you log out after setting your options and then log back into the game to avoid the crash.
Slow Framerates in General. One tip that might help. Check your BIOS settings and make sure your AGP Aperture setting is set to at least 256 if not higher.
Slow Framerates on Macintosh. Disabling the "Trilinear Filtering" option in the game's Options menu (Esc key) might increase frame rate on certain video cards.
Crashing with errors 132 or 0 (“No Output Device” Errors). These are almost always due to drivers being out of date. Make sure you have the latest version of your Video and Sound drivers installed, and that you have DirectX 9.0 installed. This goes for whether you get the errors or not, as it can affect a whole number of things like graphical glitches and other strange behavior with the game.
GeForce 5200FX. We are working with NVidia to resolve the slow framerate issues with the 5200FX.
Who and Whois Crash. Repeated use of the Who command has been reported to cause a lockup/crash.
Exiting Game Crash. If you use ALT-F4 to end the WoW client or “Exit Now” from the quit dialog you will receive a crash.
Okay, here are all the changes for this patch:

Spells & Abilities


Devotion Aura tooltip fixed.
Skill gain rates changed for many Holy spells.
Skill gain rates changed for many Arcane spells.
Potions now useable while immune to physical.
Auras no longer pulse state effects on the Paladin or his party members.
Food/Drink now auto-sit you, and you must remain seated to gain the benefits.
Training cost of Divine Favor (Rank 2) reduced to 7s 50c.
Divine Favor (Rank 1 and 2) now makes you immune to all spells and purges existing debuffs.
Divine Favor (Rank 1) duration increased from 5 to 6 seconds.
Fist of Justice animation changed.
Mechanical Immunity template changed (e.g. Harvest Golems no longer immune to Frostbolt, Arcane Missiles, Holy Strike, and Sundering Strike).
Holy Strike tooltip changed...it's hopefully more clear now.
Dispel Magic (Rank 1) available at level 18, from 22.
Dispel Magic (Rank 2) available at level 32, from 36.
Arcane Missiles no longer aggroes the target immediately, only the actual missiles will generate threat.
Auras skill line removed from character skill list...and it no longer has any effect on Auras.
Holy Word: Shield now generates threat.
Divine Favor/Divine Shield cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
Heals and Buffs now generate 33% less threat.
The bonus damage versus undead has been removed from the Holy Strike line.
Seal of Salvation is now a 14th level spell.
Seal of Protection is now an 18th level spell (raised from 14th level).
Seal of Fury is now a 36th level spell (raised from 12th level).
Tradeskills


Armor kits made by leatherworkers can only be applied to Chest, Legs, Hands, Feet now.
Mining Times changed to 3 seconds from 5 seconds per attempt.
Add timing to applying sharpening stones/weightstones
Many Smithing Recipes changed slightly and generally made easier
Wool drops increased slightly at levels 16-30
Survival Skill expanded and improved. (And Survival Fires no longer burn anyone)
Copper nodes increased somewhat in 10-20 and 20-30 zones.
Engineering skillups reduced on blasting powder and dynamite
Combat & Looting


New, improved random number generator should result in fewer “runs” of deflects and loot should be better distributed.
Items


Relics removed (Priest only trinket items)
Mana Potions now are on drop tables
Mana potion effectiveness increased significantly

Transports & Exploration


Gryphon to Ironforge/Stormwind made prohibitively expensive. Please play in the Dwarven lands.
Exploration Experience added when you find a new location.
Disabled ports to Kalimdor so we can concentrate testing in key areas.
Misc


Corpse decay is much faster now for mobs and players.
Trading with full bags no longer disconnects both players.
Added “/random x [y]” to generate a random number from 1 to x (or x to y), and sends the results to nearby players
Names above party members’ heads are now a different shade of blue, making it easier to differentiate party members
Terms of Service now clearly states that profanity and other obscenities are prohibited from names.
Quests & Mobs


Creatures chase slower now, giving players a greater chance of escape.
“Elmore’s Task” quest text change to better describe Grimand Elmore’s location.
“Give Gerard a Drink” quest text change to better describe it as a “repeatable” quest.
Spawn times in Fargodeep Mine increased.
“Wanted: Hogger” quest now listed as Elite. Elite quests either target elite mobs or send the player into areas containing elite mobs.
“Kobold Candles” and “Shipment to Stormwind” quests updated. First quest’s candle requirement slightly increased. Second quest’s candle requirement removed.
“Cloth and Leather Armor” quest text updated.
“Jasperlode Mine” quest updated. The “Scout through the Jasperlode Mine” trigger was expanded.
Finding Oats for Poor Old Blanchey should be easier.
The coin reward was significantly increased for the Dry Times quest in Redridge.
Old Murk-eye was lowered to level 20 but made an Elite mob.
Increased the number of Harvest Golems/Watchers/Reapers.
Increased the drop rate on Miner's Union Cards.
Bugs Fixed


“Walking Dead” problem fixed. No more ghost MOBs.
Sounds now play at correct volumes. Distant combats will not sound as if they are right next to you.
Targeting corpses for looting should be much easier now.
Fixed the problem where if the local player possessed a unit (such as Eye of Kilrogg) and moved it around, the game would assert or access violate.
Spells controlling the local player's movement (such as Fear) no longer cause the client to crash.
Hit testing (mouse clicks) models was occasionally causing access violations due to models being hit tested before having been animated for the first time. Fixed.
Players' movement speed is no longer incredibly slow after re-spawning from a death while swimming upwards.
The jump animation sequence is no longer interrupted by the fall animation, unless the player falls past the elevation from which he jumped.
Many numerous small bug fixes in.
If the server crashes during a vendor transaction, you will no longer lose your gold without having the purchased items.
Corpses no longer replay their death animation and sounds whenever you encounter them for the first time. This should have an impact on performance in areas heavily laden with corpses.
Falling through world should now port you to your last bindpoint.
Once again, thank you for your help in testing the Alpha of World of Warcraft!

- The WoW Dev Team




Thursday, November 20, 2003

Visit the new guide to World of Warcraft for tips on playing. You can help contribute to this guide in the forums.

- The Web Team



Tuesday, November 18, 2003

First of all, thank you for such an overwhelmingly positive response to the Friends and Family program. Please keep sending in your feedback via the /suggest command. We do read all your suggestions, and many of them have been excellent. Please keep sending them in.

As some of you have been asking, we are not planning a character wipe, as we want you to be able to develop your characters fully. Later this week we hope to make the Dwarves available to you as a player race. To concentrate our testing, we will be disabling your human characters at that time, but rest assured we will not delete them and that you will be able to return to them at a later time.

The Alpha has been relatively stable. The most common problems and their solutions are:


Log In/Patching Problems. In most cases this is because you need to update your IP information (click on the Manage Account Button on the WOW Login screen). Also, sometimes the patch or realm servers are down.

Crashing with errors 132 or 0 ("No Output Device" Errors). These are almost always due to drivers being out of date. Make sure you have the latest version of your Video and Sound drivers installed, and that you have DirectX 9.0 installed. This goes for whether you get the errors or not, as it can affect a whole number of things like graphical glitches and other strange behavior with the game.

GeForce 5200FX. For some reason, this card is generally slow for all games, and particularly slow for WoW. Try disabling your pixel shaders with the instructions provided in the forums.
Once again, thank you for your help in testing the Alpha of World of Warcraft!
- The WoW Dev Team



Thursday, November 13, 2003

Level Cap Increased from 15 to 20!

Feedback and response from all of you has been awesome! New people are still filing into the world daily and we expect to see more people playing this weekend. To show our gratitude we have increased the level cap from 15 to 20! This will allow many of you to continue your adventures into even more dangerous locations.

Thanks Everyone! Please continue to send in feedback using the suggestion button or /suggest interface. It really does help!


Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Welcome to the World of Warcraft Friends and Family Program!

First of all, thank you for helping us test World of Warcraft. We are very excited to have people outside the company play the game for the first time. This is still an Alpha, however, so you are likely to see some bugs, placeholder art, missing sounds and spotty play balance. Please bear with us as we work to finish the game and polish out some of these issues. If you do spot some of these things, report them using the "/suggest" or "/bug" commands from the chat window of the game (or you can just click on the "bug" icon in the interface bar). Have fun, and we will see you online!

Some Notes about the Alpha you will be playing:


Only Humans are active for now. You can see the other races in the character creation screen, but you will not be able to play them (some of their art is incomplete as well). Other races will be available over time.
The only active classes are Priest, Mage and Paladin. We will be opening up other classes over time.
The level cap is set at 15th level for this version of the Alpha.
Use /help to get a general list of commands in the game. You can also refer to the key-bindings menu of the option screen (ESC), to see all available key commands.
Remember the NDA. The Alpha, and its contents, are confidential.
To update your IP or account information, to get technical support or leave feedback, visit the Friends and Family website at http://12.129.233.207/login.aspx. You can also reach this site by clicking on the "Manage Account" button on the login screen of the game.
You may also obtain technical support by e-mailing wowsupport@blizzard.com
Schedule:

The Friends and Family test will last for several weeks. During that time, we may focus testing on different areas of the game, and there may be periods where the Alpha may not be up and running. Please refer to the Friends and Family website for details on scheduled testing and planned outages.

Basic Commands:

Basic Options: Hit (ESC) to bring up the options menu where you can adjust video and game settings, as well as re-map your key-binding.

Movement: Use the A,W,D,S keys to move around the world. Or, hold down both mouse buttons to walk forward (moving the mouse at this point turns your character).

Camera: Hold down the left mouse button to look around the world. Hold down the right mouse button to turn your character using the mouse. You can zoom the camera in and out using the mouse wheel or using the Home and End keys.

Interacting: Left-click selects objects and NPCs in the game while Right-click activates an object or talks to an NPC. The mouse cursor is context-sensitive. If you mouse over an object that you can interact with, an icon will appear on your mouse cursor indicating the type of action that will occur if you Right-click (sword = attack, cog = manipulate, speech ballon = talk, etc.)

Attacking: To attack a creature, move within range (to when you can see the attack cursor when you mouse over the creature - a grayed out cursor means you are out of range) and right-click on the creature. You will enter attack mode. Move your character next to the creature and you will automatically begin to attack. Instead of right-clicking on a creature, you may also select the "attack" icon from the Action Bar.

Action Bar: The action bar at the bottom of the screen contains your spells, special abilities or frequently used items like Food and Water (which give back health and mana repectively). You can activate these by either left-clicking on them, or by typing the number corresponding to the slot of the spell or ability you wish to use. Mousing over the icons will also show you a tooltip containing the name of the spell or ability. You can also consult your spell or ability books (Spellbook & Ability button on the Action Bar) to get a full description of each ability or spell your character may have. You can re-arrange your Action Bar by clicking and dragging on the icons. You can also add new spells/abilities to this bar as you receive them by dragging them from your Spell or Ability book. You can also place items in the bar for easy activation.

Grouping, Trading, and Other Character Interaction: To invite someone to a group, select them by left-clicking on them, and then right-click on their portrait in the upper edge of the screen to bring up a menu of possible interactions with that character. One of these options is grouping. There are several other available interactions with characters, including inspecting them, challenging them to a duel, etc.

Sound: Control-S toggles sound effects. Control-M toggles music.

Character Information: Click on the button in the Action Bar that contains the portrait of your character. This will bring up your Character Info panel which includes the Talent, Reputation and Skill panels.

Leveling: As you level in the game, you will gain talent points which you can immediately apply to your character by opening up the Character Information page and selecting the Talents tab. The Talents tab contains all your currently available talents and their costs in talent points.

Gaining New Spells & Abilities: New abilities and skills are not gained automatically. You must visit a trainer specific to your class to purchase them. There are other ways to gain spells and abilities, such as tomes found on monsters.








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View the NDA
We hope you read the fine print. We own your soul.
DAOC-SOLD
Lieph (heal)/ Sapporo & Djur(Sham)/ Qute & Brail(SBs)/ Bulor (war)/ Blackroc (ska)/ Antigun & Antigunn (SMs)
WOW-SOLD
Lieph (Warlock) / Vexi (Hunter)
WAR- CLOSED BETA!

Liseyth
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Posts: 167
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:56 pm
Location: Richmond or Woodbridge, VA
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Postby Liseyth » Sun Dec 21, 2003 12:43 am

That's a lot of changes.

How long did it take for the new build to come out?
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein

Mexal Tauren/Shaman
Ineluki Undead/Priest


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