WoW Up to 7.4 Million Subscribers, Garrosh Heirlooms, MoP in Base Game, Chopper Mount

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Topic/Postby Haggle » 15 Oct 2014, 01:37

WoW Up to 7.4 Million Subscribers, Garrosh Heirlooms, MoP in Base Game, Chopper Mount

WoW Up to 7.4 Million Subscribers
Blizzard released the subscribers count ahead of next month's earning call. This is up 600k from the Q2 2014 call that listed WoW at 6.8 million subscribers.

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Smash ‘n Grab—Bonus Chance to Get Your Heirloom from Garrosh

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Garrosh got an iron-tight grip on your heirloom? It’s time to Smash 'n Grab! Beginning Tuesday, October 14 and lasting until the launch of Warlords of Draenor on November 13, we’ll be giving players a bonus 100% chance to get their first Garrosh heirloom weapon in each difficulty* of Siege of Orgrimmar. If you have yet to claim an heirloom for your collection, here’s your chance. Once Warlords of Draenor goes live, these heirlooms will no longer be available, so get involved in the siege before it’s too late.

*Not available in Raid Finder. Note that the bonus only applies in raid difficulties in which you have not received an Heirloom already. If you have already received an Heirloom from a specific difficulty, the bonus will not have any effect.




Pandaria Awaits – World of Warcraft Now Includes Mists of Pandaria

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Unlock the mysteries of Pandaria. Beginning today, October 14, 2014, players are now able to get the original World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria together for only $19.99, available digitally now in the Battle.net Shop. In addition, all World of Warcraft subscribers will now automatically have access to all of the content and features of Mists of Pandaria, even if they never purchased the expansion, at no additional cost.

It’s time to part the mists, adventurer — Pandaria awaits!




Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Proving Grounds Titles
We're aware of the issue with missing Proving Ground titles and are working on a hotfix to address this. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ordos and Legendary Cloak Requirement
Edit: Spoke too soon. The change below has been reverted. Eligibility for loot from defeating Ordos has not changed. It still requires one of the characters on an account license to have obtained the Legendary Cloak.

  • Access to Ordon Sanctuary or eligibility for loot from Ordos no longer requires players to have completed the Legendary Cloak questline.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Archeology Toys
Name says it all. Farmed up a metric ton of them a long time ago. Achievements are in my book but I don't have the items anymore. Ran out of bag space. Any chance there's a way to recover these with 6.0.2 with the inclusion of the Toys UI?
You may be pleasantly surprised on login. My characters automatically pre-learned toy items that my characters have obtained via Archeology without having to learn them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Character Models
Sorry to hear you're not enjoying your updated character! As others have mentioned, we've added facial customization options to the in-game barbershop, which will allow you to change additional appearance options for an in-game gold cost.

With the old models looking as... old, as they did, there's always been some amount of interpretation that's going to happen from person to person as they fill in the quality-gaps, and add their own story and character to any of the looks. Where a squiggly blurry line might look like a scar to you, it might look like freckles to someone else. A furled brow is grease smudge, a wince is a grimace, or a smile is a pout. We went into the archives, back to the source material and textures, and spent a lot of time trying to ensure we were interpreting all those squiggles and smudges in a way that is as true to the originals as possible, while also updating them to much higher resolutions and levels of fidelity. No easy task, I assure you. We expect that some will have had different interpretations of those old blurry textures than the ones we arrived at, and that's why we brought some of the recustomization features in-game for "free" (small gold cost like other barbershop features), and with that you can hopefully find new combinations and options that do appeal to you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Professions and Gold in Warlords of Draenor
Unless you have a huge stockpile, gold is going to be an important asset in Warlords. But, beyond that, professions are still poised as they always have been, as a way to create high end items and special rewards for you and your friends, as well as to sell or trade your masterful experience as goods and services. Beyond items that will help fill itemization gaps as you'll get into raiding, there's the standard cadre of bonus items, toys, mounts, etc. that specific professions can create. There's also a lot of interplay between which professions you have/don't have, and how your building selections in the Garrison will benefit or offset your skills. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Gaze of the Black Prince Buff Ended Early
It was our understanding that the Gaze of the Black Prince buff would be removed when the realms were brought down to apply Patch 6.0.2. In reality, the buff was set to expire at 12:00 a.m. this morning. At this point it's not likely that we'll be able to reactivate the buff so that it's available for these waning hours prior to patch launch. We apologize for the discrepancy between our messaging and the actual timing of the buff's removal. It wasn't our intent to mislead or confuse anyone. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Heirloom Vendor Change in Patch 6.0.2
theres this situation where people probably have just started playing WoW again or are new to wow and they like to catch up on things during the game, i bet you dont take too many breaks from wow seing how far you went into that post of yours.
If they're new to the game they wouldn't be able to purchase heirlooms until they're already leveled. If they're returning, again, they may be lvl 80 or 85 and they're probably not going to be buying any (especially because they won't provide them much if any benefit at that level) unless they do have 90's but are returning to just level alts--which seems super specific. I'm still unsure of in what scenario new players or people returning to the game are specifically and unfairly being affected by this.

Which is of course not bringing up, again, heirlooms will still be available from other vendors for different currencies. Or that, if you want to right now, you could pretty easily grind out the JP needed to buy any heirlooms you want in the next couple days before 6.0.2.

How long have you guys been working on WoD already? How long have you known all of this was going to change? How bad do you think it looks that a month prior to the release you STILL haven't figured this out.
An account wide heirloom system wasn't as high a priority as other changes and content. Features and content are routinely delayed or cut from expansions as we work on them and priorities and design ideas and philosophies change. It's how we've always worked. Making a game is more of an art than a science, and we think it works better when there can be a personal touch and influence on the game design and direction, and not a rigid schedule to adhere to.

Anyway, to answer your question, we were in the process of changing the heirlooms to cost gold and thought "wait a minute, this is going to maybe suck if the new system changes the valuation considerably". So, specifically, maybe a day before the original post?

But again, help me understand. Why did this not come across during meetings about it when you had them? Maybe we're not privy to the knowledge, but the, "Well, we didn't realize it would be all screwy until just a short time ago!" thing...honestly, it puts a REALLY bad taste in my mouth, personally speaking.

Don't get me wrong.

I understand more than most prioritizing things. However, if a change is coming down the pike, do you not first examine ALL options thoroughly before deciding on what will work best? This reeks of throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks, man.

Mmmm, not sure if I can answer satisfactorily as this seems to be a judgment of our working processes, which I'm not sure necessarily can or should be justified. If we do something you don't like, tell us why, I don't know that trying to ensure our producers are using "Agile" is super helpful. But anyway, things change, and they can change at any step. Obviously in meetings where designs are discussed, things change thousands or times in little or substantial ways. They can also change during testing, or as we approach a milestone, or at 2am when a designer wakes up in a cold sweat screaming "OH NO!", or during implementation, or a billion other small ways. You're perceiving change as a weakness, when in reality our ability to change and adapt to new conditions or thoughts or ideas, is a major strength.

It seems like you're wanting to shame us for not being able to see the future, or for prioritizing tasks properly (in the scheme of a new expansion, what old heirlooms will sell for is not super high up there), which seems odd and unfair.

I'm starting to agree with all the claims about pushing the paid 90 boost. That's the only thing that makes sense.
*grumble* Except everyone gets a boost included with Warlords and also heirlooms are still purchasable with other currencies. If the intent is to propose what-if scenarios as real problems, I'll discuss them all day, but please don't bring conspiracy theories in. There's no logic to what you're proposing.

Why is this even a concern? You've placed a monetary value on Justice Points. You've placed a gold value on the guild heirlooms. This is just repeating a bad excuse for a last minute change. One that doesn't even influence the gameplay in the new expansion. It's a convenience item for "veteran" players.
There's no monetary value on JP. We're offering a payout for time spent as the currency is being removed so people aren't sad for having JP they didn't spend. It's a nice thing to do. It is not a literal valuation of time spent. And there just isn't a parity with the guild heirlooms. Just because both items are heirlooms doesn't mean they should both suddenly be obtainable the same way through the same systems.

I do indeed understand some people would love for heirlooms to be purchasable with gold.

Again, maybe you did this. I don't know. But it surely seems to me that you (Blizzard) just took the path of least resistance and hoped for the best without really THINKING about it and have inconvenienced MANY players with nothing more than, "Oopsie daisy!".
I think it was more along the lines of, ok we're removing Valor and Justice Points, this is a change that affects dozens of systems, thousands of items, millions of players, let's discuss the key impacts, but it's going to take months for designers to work through how each should be resolved in each system, for each player, let alone implement, test, bug fix, reimplement, test, bug fix, etc. etc. and it would be nonsensical for us to sit and discuss each minutiae of the change for old currencies instead of doing work to make an awesome expansion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)




Patch 6.0.2 - Alliance and Horde Choppers
Today's patch added the Horde chopper mount, but it looks like Alliance players will have to wait a little longer to buy their mount.

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Haggle
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