Vaeys

They've already said (semi-recently?) that Arthas will only be killable in the last Wrath content patch - though they may change their minds between now and then.

 

Leviathon

Azjol-Nerub unlike the Isle of Quel'danas would be a bit too big to be patched in. And if they just patched in a small little tiny city then its better to not even put it in the game at all. The Old God would be in the Lower City portion that they are adding to the game files now.

Icecrown Citadel will be the last patch of the WotLK push also so there won't be a boss after the Lich King like there was for Illidan until the third expansion.

 

uber

I'm pretty sure that they could patch it in, regardless of size. The download may take all day, but they could still do it.

 

Copernicus

It might be behind a portal to prevent people from using flying mounts inside the zone.

 

Kirion

Actually this reminds me deeprun tram. Probably there will be 2 entrances and they need to connect undeground zone with surface somehow.

42.

 

Leviathon

One of the things Blizzard talked about when they were talking about Azjol-Nerub as a zone was flying through it so thats unlikely. And even then theres no need to instance it since it would be as easy as just setting the area to not allow flying.

Thats possible since they can have the Wrath Gate lead to the Upper City portion while on the Icecrown side have it lead to the Lower City portion.

Guess as Alpha patches come out we will just have to watch what Blizzard does with the so far 2 instances and what they do with the outside zones. Blizzard did quite large patches for TBC's Alpha so doing a large patch for WotLK to add a entire zone wouldn't be that far fetched. Since Azjol-Nerub would span the area underneath portions of several zones they could just want to wait till they have the above ground zones finalized for the most part. Of course that could also be the reason to want to instance the zone due to technical difficulties of having a zone like that.

 

uber

This would make a lot of sense for two reasons:

1. It would allow them to insert the models for vast underground structures easily without worrying about them interfering with anything on the surface.
2. Allow for the easy "removal" of flying mounts in the Azjol-Nerub as someone mentioned earlier.

 

Cranberry

Assuming that the pit is in fact the A-N entrance, the above theory is no good. The portal is blue, which means 5-man dungeon. Deeprun Tram and the little pvp sections of SW/Org all have white portals - as does the entrance to Quel'thalas.

 

Starfire

They could be going back to old school portal inside of a portal xD

But that'd be retarded.... unless there was a key or teleporter or something (like Drakkisath BWL attunement).

 

Ja7us

It's also the alpha. They could just be using the wrong color of portal by mistake, or as a placeholder.

 

Gokey

As far as I know, They haven't done any talent changes yet to Hunters, Rogues, Paladins, or Shamans. There a couple of bug fixes and leaked changes for pre-wotlk available for a couple of those classes, however.

 

Mideci

That's a terrible shame. One of the best features by far of Lich King is the ability to quickly navigate all of Outland. One of the most brutal features of leveling alts is returning to Azeroth.

I'm very unexcited about large zones.

 

rhea

Maybe MMOGs and exploration isn't for you..

I don't believe they'd water down AN. WOW is really missing huge caves that interconnect many zones... There's only a couple very small tunnels that connect 2 zones.

 

Incoherence

Well, your current expansion name is the Burning Crusade, so you expect the climax to be fighting the Burning Legion (read: Kil'Jaeden), particularly because we haven't been doing too much Legion fighting during raid content. Next expansion is Wrath of the Lich King, so you can safely assume that the Lich King is the endpoint, unless Blizzard wants to pull a "but Arthas was only being controlled by {choose one of an old god, Deathwing, random lore pulled out of nowhere}". (Note that Kael'thas almost does this, but various quests basically tell you he's signed up with Kil'Jaeden and that you didn't kill him in TK, so his actions in 2.4 aren't a particular surprise.)

This only gets confusing because Illidan was the main feature of the BC promotional material (and the cinematic, and so forth), and certainly pre-BC didn't suggest any sort of end boss (since Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas certainly weren't connected to the events in Blackrock Mountain).

 

• Chicken

Even more extracted spell data. This time from spell IDs 1 to 41999, also known as all pre-WotLK spell data. As for why that's interesting, the vast majority of talents are in these as well, including the changes to existing ones. As are any changes to existing spells.

As with the last attachment, it suffers from the same limitations. Practically every single spell is marked as instant whether it is instant or not, and spells which have a cost based on your base mana are at the cost they'd have for a level 1 warlock. Additionally abilities based on weapon damage will be shown as if no weapon is equipped, and abilities that scale with attack power are with the attack power of a level 1 human warlock.

I'd also like to remind everyone browsing these that there are a lot of spells in this file which were used once upon a time but are no longer used now. In some cases these spells have the same names as existing abilities, make sure to check the file thoroughly to ensure you're checking the correct spell.

As for things of note I've found:

- Dispel Magic now has a 40 yard range for Friendly targets, it retains it's 30 yard range for Hostile targets.
- Holy Shock now has a 40 yard range for Friendly targets, it retains it's 20 yard range for Hostile targets.

Attached Files

spells1-41999.txt (3.40 MB, 259 views)

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

flyingtoastr

Thanks Chicken.

One thing I noticed is that Forbearance is still in there. Now that Priests can remove it and warlocks can pierce it I think its time Bubble got a little love.

Regardless, I did find this:

Interesting ability to say the least. Much more useful as wipe recovery than saving repair bills.

EDIT: Ret pallys will be happy:
Darn thing won't be jacking up our swing timers anymore.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

impossible!

Of everything so far, I think I'm most interested in seeing how talents like "Sudden Death" work out.
There are similar talents in the priest's Shadow tree for Mind Flay to refresh SW:P, and I believe for Warlocks to refresh Immolation or Corruption. Whatever they are, the core of these talents breaks up spell/ability rotations, which is a move in the right direction. That is, assuming they're worth taking.

 

Baern

In case anyone was using it and isn't aware, Index of /wotlk/site was updated. The spell search accesses the new data and the talent page is updated too.

 

smellme

have to ask, it was said that "mangle now also affects mangle" when someone posted the new changes, is that an error in research? as i could possibly see that applying to bear mangle since they removed the scalling of it when the nerfed savage fury but a 30% increase also to cat mangle seems very unlikley.

 

Baern

Mangle now affects Maul for Mangle (Bear) and still Shred in Cat, but I believe this data was in the previous notes anyway. Doesn't affect mangle in any data I can see.

 

smellme

thought as much, still good to see they finally changed bear version to maul after all this time.

 

Tyrian

I would place a small bet on something like this happening actually! It just strikes me that going 'into the depths of Nerub' seems like the perfect opportunity to continue the game after Arthas dies. Just like how Illidan->Kil'jaeden worked in TBC. Having an Old God underground there is the perfect opportunity to build up a new evil character thats worthy of the 'so we killed arthas? what could possibly be worth doing next?' chain of thought.

It doesnt particulary matter that blizzard have said 'Arthas will be the last content patch of WOTLK'. First we all know plans can change. Second, whos to say that they dont have a similar BT->Sunwell idea up their sleeve for Icecrown->? , except this time they won't actually spill the beans in advance then 'go quiet' and hope the fanbase forgets, only to release it 'new info' 1 year+ later.

 

◊ nathanbp

@flyingtoastr:

This version of DI has been in the data files for a long time, I remembering hearing it discussed pre-TBC:
So data from Chicken's file should not be taken to show that Hammer of Wrath (or any other spell) is now instant cast.

 

Zedd

Maybe a silly idea but:

Assuming A-N is a zone on a different server it could very well be on the outland server, because that will be a very empty/unused one in WRATH.

 

Tyrian

Could you please explain what benefits there would be to doing this? Im not sure what different it would make, if they put AN on the outland server etc?

Edit - would it be related to reducing server lag/load etc?