So speculate how long until MOP? June, August, October, December or ?

[chaos5061]

LFR Feedback
so what raiders felt they had to use lfr to be competitive that's there problem but nerfing the gear into the ground
The gear is not going to be "nerfed to the ground". When new tiers are released those items won't be better than the Heroic gear of the previous tier, but they'll still be an upgrade to you if you're only raiding on the LFR and the ocassional Normal run. So, for those players that can't take part on organized raiding/prefer the Raid Finder, there'll be a gear progression just as it happens with normal/Heroic raiders.

Trash the difficulty all you want but LFR with under geared and under skilled players will be hell. I still remember numerous wipes on ultraxion in LFR due to the enrage timer.
If any of you have access to the beta, you might want to go and check how LFR works when players are learning the mechanics of the bosses. I'm sure it's not too far from the experiences that many probably had on the early days of Dragon Soul's Raid Finder release! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

LFR and Normal Difficulty Won't Share a Lockout
It is indeed a possibility that we might make LFR share lockout with normal raids, but it is not something we are planning currently.

We have seen a lot of assumptions about how raid content will be run in Mists of Pandaria, and we find that many of these assumptions are based off of only one tier in Cataclysm, Dragon Soul, which happens to be something of an exception as it is the last tier of the expansion that also happens to be the only raid currently found in LFR. This just does not provide a very accurate means of measuring the way raid progression will work over the course of an entire expansion. Had the LFR been released from the launch of Cataclysm, and thus included more raids, things would quite possibly have been different than they are now.

We acknowledge that sometimes some raiders might feel obliged to run LFR for every advantage possible, but it isn't our intention that raiders should feel this way. We have not designed progression with the goal of making people feel obliged to continue running LFR for weeks and weeks on top of their normal progression.

A particularly stifling issue that would result from shared lockouts is the barrier to "upward mobility". Many players who primarily use LFR may occasionally join their friends or guildmates on a normal mode raid later in the week, or may want to try their hand in a normal mode PUG that offers better loot after they have learned the encounters in LFR. If LFR and normals shared a lockout, it would be impossible to do this, which we see as a problem, because we like the fact that LFR can serve as a gateway into organized raiding. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mists of Pandaria Heroic Raid Opening Schedule
So in an interview a dev said. "As soon as a guild has completed normal mode of Mogu'shan Vaults, they can begin heroic mode.". Now does this mean on oct 2nd after normal mode raiding opens up a guild can clear it then access heroic mode?
No, the standard shared lockout between Normal and Heroic applies. You can switch the difficulty to Heroic once you've killed Normal Will of the Emperor, but your instance will be empty because everything will be dead.

The gist of the comments was to clarify that there was no additional gating being applied to Heroic modes (unlike Trial of the Crusader or Icecrown Citadel, where all content had to be unlocked before any of it was accessible in Heroic mode).

[chaos5061]

Save Your Chat Logs
With the upcoming release of patch 5.0.4, all items within the Logs Directory for World of Warcraft will be deleted. It is advised that if you have WoW Combat Logs or WoW Chat Logs that you would like to save, that you do so prior to the release of the patch.

These are logs a lot of people use either for RP purposes or combat parsing through their addons. (Generally speaking.) If it's not something you use or save specifically for your use, this won't impact you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Changes to Archeology
There have been changes. Don't worry. We think you'll like them. We'll be sharing more information from the developers on those changes "soon". (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Bring Back 2v2 Gladiator!
I too miss the old days; 2v2 is still my favourite bracket to play in, I really enjoy the more relaxed, less “messy” environment of 2v2’s and the easiness and convenience of scheduling matches with a single friend at a time, I also feel more in control of the game and of everything that is happening at any moment and I really enjoyed the fact that I could focus only on 2v2 and still be able to get the same rewards as 3v3 or 5v5 (weapons and title).

But the fact remains that we just can’t compare 2v2 with 3v3 or 5v5, while I enjoyed being able to get the same level of rewards, I understand that it wasn’t exactly fair, 2v2 is more prone to class imbalance issues and we would risk going back to some specific classes having a much easier way to get the 2.2k rewards, while other classes would possibly struggle with it, unfortunately, due to the complex nature of the game, it’s very hard if not impossible to create a perfect world where duels, 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 are all under a perfect level of balance, if we you could actually apply a perfect level of balance and tuning to one of the brackets, chances are, the other two would probably suffer a bit from it, and this is a lot more noticeable in 2v2 because of the tendency that some classes seem to have for being highly synergetic.
So, something that is perfectly balanced for 2v2, probably won’t be for 3v3 or 5v5 and vice-versa.

Apart from the balance issue we also believe that the extra coordination and strategy that 3v3 and 5v5 requires, warrants attributing those special rewards only to those brackets.

I still play 2v2 and will continue to do so, it gives me access to most of the PvP gear anyway, and if I really want those weapons I’ll take on the challenge and jump into 3v3 or 5v5.

[chaos5061]

Pearl of Pandaria Update
It looks like the Pearl of Pandaria graphic novel is one step closer to the September 24th release date, as Kat Hunter showed off a printed copy today. If you are interested in the graphic novel, don't miss the panels that were previewed last month.

[chaos5061]

Have 5 codes for Curse Premium that lasts until Oct. 1st PM me if you want one.

[chaos5061]

Account-Wide Pets, Mounts, and Achievements Are Not Appearing
In order for your pets, mounts, and achievements to go account-wide, you must log into the characters that had those pets, mounts, and achievements originally. We recommend logging into each of your characters in turn to ensure that all of your pets, mounts, and achievements are visible to all characters.

[chaos5061]

Mists of Pandaria Digital Deluxe Mount and Pet Released
If you bought the Digital Deluxe version of Mists of Pandaria you should receive your mount, pet, and achievements when logging in after Patch 5.0.4.

Gamescom Interviews
There are few more interviews from Gamescom that have some interesting bits of information. If you want to read the entire interview, check out Millenium and Judgehype.

• The Sha of Anger respawns every two hours and will drop PvP and PvE gear, similar to Tol Barad bosses. You should be able to do this boss once a week.
• Salyis's Warband will only respawn once every four to five days and drop items you can't find anywhere else such as mounts and pets.
• Proving Grounds (solo instances to try out new specs, train yourself and earn achievements) are not forgotten, just something that has to be done right. There is no specific announcement date yet, but it is something they might come back to after Mists of Pandaria is released.
• Playing with lower level friends is something that would still be nice to do, and part of the tech needed was added with challenge modes. This is not a high priority for the moment, so there is no specific announcement to be made about it.
• The goal for Mists of Pandaria is to deliver the next major content patch right as players are finishing up the first one. They should be spaced out more evenly with a shorter time between patches, maybe even a little more content than in previous expansion patches.
• There are no current plans for a system of veteran's rewards for older players.
• Mists of Pandaria won't be bringing back any old bosses.
• There won't be any server merges, as cross-realm zone technology will be applied to the problem.
• The legendary questline will start in Patch 5.0 with Wrathion who traveled to Pandaria. After completing the questlines, you will be rewarded with a powerful gem that will let you upgrade specific items dropped from raid bosses. The questline will not finish here and will continue with Patch 5.1, after the Horde and Alliance really settle in Pandaria. The questline available after the release of Mists of Pandaria will end with a cliffhanger.
• PvP/Arena spectator mode is a functionality that developers would like to add but no real plan for now.
• Pet Battles could be available on mobile platforms one day. Blizzard thought about it but developers are currently focusing on the extension for PC and Mac. We will have to wait to know more.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.0.4 Class Guides
There were a lot of class changes in Patch 5.0.4 and Icy Vein's class guides are a good place to start catching up.

These guides give a more in depth overview of the changes and new status of each class than the some of the guides in our Patch 5.0.4 preview, so they are worth a look if you already read some guides yesterday!

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Death Knight

• Blood
• Frost
• Unholy

Paladin

• Holy
• Protection
• Retribution

Priest

• Discipline
• Holy
• Shadow

Rogue

• Assassination
• Combat
• Subtlety

Warlock

• Affliction
• Demonology
• Destruction

[chaos5061]

Alterac Valley NPCs
This is going to be a rather confusing explanation so bear with me.

The BG NPCs have to be nerfed both on beta and on live to make sure they aren't too deadly in the 85-89 bracket. This nerf also applies, perhaps unintuitively, to the level 90 bracket on beta. However, once you are legitimately in the level 90 bracket on live, the NPCs should be more challenging.

To complicate this explanation, we found that the 85-89 bracket for IOC was not nerfed correctly, but we have just fixed that. The IOC NPCs should be as weak as the AV ones now.

But again, when you hit level 90 on live (not beta), they should be more challenging.

Making all Pets and Mounts Account Wide
You have to log into the character that has that mount first
Indeed, and it’s highly recommended you log into all of your characters on every realm just to be sure every pet and mount is accounted for.

Unable to Ride Some Flying Mounts
Do you have the appropriate level riding capability (flight) for it? Also: Be sure to log onto the character that found it and learned it first. You have to log onto all your alts for their items to be shared.

It's also worth noting that the violet proto-drake no longer grants the flying skill associated to ride it.

Oh, and this too: You can't ride a flying mount at level 37 unless it is classified as both a ground/flying mount. The TLPD is not.

Account-wide Pets with Patch 5.0.4
You can have more than 4 of a particular pet type in your journal.
This is correct. The migration was allowed to exceed the limit. It is a limit on the player collecting pets, going forward.

Is the only way to get rid of the excess (I have so many rocket bots) releasing them?
Yes. Please note that there are many pets that will have significant value once they can be caged (after Mists of Pandaria).

Game Design and Character Progression
This is a cop-out. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I read this from a company that has claimed it believes giving players options to enjoy the game the way they want suddenly saying that options are a bad thing and shouldn't "count".
I think you're taking that out of context. For the players saying "I want something to do after I finish my raid for the week," providing them very optional content (the examples I used were maxing out professions or achievements) isn't something that fits the bill for them. Telling them they can always find something to do if they try hard enough would be fairly considered a cop-out. They want some kind of directed gameplay with a sense of character progression.

Options as a general philosophy are a great thing. We love options and we have tried to provide lots of options for max level players to progress their characters, such as scenarios, challenge modes, Raid Finder and daily quest hubs, in addition to options you've always had, such as dungeons, PvP and professions, and some new types of content that aren't tied to character progression, most obviously pet battles.

We never want players to feel locked in to a character so we are making things account wide! *locks vp gear behind rep grinds that are not account wide*
That's a tricky balance to strike. At the end of the day, the reason most players make alts is to have additional characters to play. I could just as easily say "I feel locked to my priest because she has so much better gear than my rogue. I should be able to give any gear I pick up to my rogue and I should be able to share valor and conquest points among all my characters." Or you can take it to a silly extreme "I already leveled up one character to 90, so I shouldn't have to do it for a second character." That really isn't that different from saying you don't want to do the level 90 quest content a second time.

As I've said before, we don't think leveling an alt (and by "leveling" in this context I am technically including all of the progression you need to do to max out a character including level 90 content) needs to take as long as leveling your first character, but it should take some amount of time. Maybe we're erring on the side of being too conservative, but it's always easier to make game rules more forgiving than it is to tighten them up. (Players like gaining power and freedom by they hate to lose it.)

For example, a compromise might be that you could buy an item at Exalted level that you could mail to an alt to give them a headstart. Maybe we re-introduce the tabards, but at Exalted level, but have them only work on quests, not dungeons, and make them bind-to-account to help a second character. Maybe it's okay to have factions be shared across accounts the way mounts and achievements are, but currency should only stay on the character who earned them. Or maybe it's the currency that should be BOA and not the factions. (Those are just brainstorming ideas -- not announcements.)

Aspects and the GCD
As I said above, we're still not convinced the Aspect design is working as intended (which is to provide a decision for the hunter) and long term, we will likely continue to iterate on it.

In the short term, our plan is to revert the recent change and return Aspects to off the GCD. Yes, you might just macro them again, but that seems to be the lesser of two evils compared to having them on the GCD.

I can't provide any information on when this will happen. Hopefully we can fix it before you start leveling from 85 to 90. No promises. I'm just sharing our intent.

[chaos5061]

Dragon Soul Difficulty Change - 35%
The Power of the Aspects buff has been increased to 35% as of Patch 5.0.4. As there was no official announcement yet, see the previous 30% post for more information.

[chaos5061]

Misc Patch 5.0.4 Changes
There are a few changes we haven't mentioned recently, and new changes that have popped up since the patch went live.

• You can now inspect someone from anywhere if you can target them.
• You can now buy the Fox Kit for 200 x Tol Barad Commendation.
• You can now buy a Warbot Ignition Key for 500 gold. This was the Mountain Dew promotional pet.
• The updated Ragefire Chasm is now active. (Video)
• The new lower level versions of Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance are active.
• Rogues are enjoying the new Glyph of Disguise! (Reddit)
• The Daily Quest cap is gone!
• The new guild perks have been added; Have Group, Will Travel is gone and Ride Like the Wind is in.
• The guild experience cap is now removed and guild experience is normalized for any level character.
• You can now mount while under the skeleton effect of the Noggenfogger Elixir!

[chaos5061]

Into the Vale In Game Cinematic
This is a short and simple cinematic that plays when you unlock the Vale of Eternal Blossoms zone. This is the final zone you will progress through while leveling to 90 and it contains the Horde and Alliance Pandaria capital cities where you will learn to fly in Pandaria. It is unlocked by completing a quest chain in Kun-Lai Summit.

[chaos5061]

Many exciting new mounts will be hitting the skyways and byways of Azeroth when adventurers set sail for Mists of Pandaria on September 25. From Cloud Serpents to Water Striders to your own flying clouds, mount collectors will get to ride off into the sunset on a plethora of exotic rides.

What is a plethora?

[chaos5061]

[chaos5061]

Heroic Ragnaros Health Decreased
Ragnaros had his health decreased in Patch 5.0.4, down to 63 million from 74.2 million in Heroic 10 man mode. Normal mode remains unchanged.

[chaos5061]

Mobile Armory Remote Guild Chat Update
The Mobile Armory Guild Chat and Auction House recently went free to all World of Warcraft subscribers giving access to many great features including the Remote Guild Chat. We are aware of issues affecting connectivity to this feature and have temporarily disabled it until we can resolve the issue. A fix should be in place very soon.

Alterac Valley NPC Difficulty
From this post, are you saying that the NPC's on beta are deliberately weaker than they're intended to be so that the levelling bracket isn't punished? I always thought - and it certainly seems that way if you level through the brackets - that the NPC's have their own stats based on the bracket, not a direct scale down based on the max bracket... maybe I read the post wrong!
As I said, it's complicated, but essentially in order to make the bosses appropriate difficulty at level 90, they have to be either very strong or very weak at level 85. We went with the latter. Check them out at level 90 and see if they feel better.

Could you take a few minutes to address the concerns in the main post as well please? AV just isn't fun now and if things stay the way they are looking to stay based on the beta - won't be fun for Mists. I think a lot of players all over the world would really appreciate it.
There are two big relevant topics for Alterac Valley. One is that the BG is scary to work on. What I mean is that it was super ambitious, probably over ambitious, for when we released it. It is probably the single most complicated design in WoW in terms of how it was built. Some days I am surprised it works at all. Brave designers run in terror when they peer into the dark recesses of AV to try and figure out a bug or even dare to hope to understand how many of its complicated parts work. We've known for a long time that AV needs to be rebuilt. The good news is that we have many more powerful tools these days. While they still aren't as complex as AV, the new BGs took a fraction of the time to build. I think we could rebuild AV with less duct tape and baling wire these days, which in turn would make it a lot more reasonable for us to test out changes.

So, we can fix the functionality. The second question is, can we fix the design? Should we? This is a very big topic, so I don't expect it to be fully resolved even in a thread of this length. Obviously AV has changed a lot over the years. It rarely lasts 7 hours anymore and you don't see bombers and scrap turn-ins and Ivus. I personally thought it was a lot more fun when you engaged the opposite faction instead of running past them. We could have a long discussion about what the role of the towers and mines and graveyards should be and how much difference players playing defensively should be able to make. Should the bosses behave like raid bosses or should they just be speed bumps? Some players like AV's size and scope because it's easier to blend into the background -- it's a great beginner's Battleground. Other people think it would be more fun if it was smaller (maybe in geography and team size). Maybe we need a small rated version and the 40-player unrated version.

One of the new features we just introduced is the ability to thumbs down certain BGs. You better believe we're going to monitor that data closely and see which BGs players actually like and hate. (We'll compare that data with completion rates, and honor per time and so on -- we won't just delete or overhaul the two least popular maps.) Maybe AV ends up as the most popular BG, which means that changing it might make a lot of people mad. Maybe the right answer is to leave AV as it is and just make a new BG that plays the way we think AV should be played. I doubt that will be our conclusion, but we do want to gather some more data before we do anything drastic.

I'm sorry I can't burrow into every single suggestion, but I do like the idea of turning the (non-scaling) trinket into a tabard. We do appreciate all of the feedback. We really do pay attention to it.