I gave a quick look at the notes for the next patch 1.11. I guess we can expect this one to go live by the end of June if everything goes well. They’ll need some time to test all that hardcore stuff if they don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the previously released epic dungeons.

The 1.10 patch went live at the end of March. It looks like WoW definitely settled for three-months path cycles. On the positive side I have to admit that they are doing more than everyone else with the live patches and the detail with which they address the game problems and inconsistences. They are still doing a very good work from this perspective. In particular if you consider this insteresting point (from Tigole’s interview at Gamespot):

The exact same team building the expansion is also building the live content updates.

What I strongly criticize is instead the direction of the whole game. The excecution continues to be excellent. And the decision to keep the team together instead of splitting it between live and expansions is another of those ideas that the mmorpg industry still has to learn.

Other two unrelated highlights from the same interview:

The flying mount can run on the ground faster than epic mount speed.

We know that sometime in WOW’s lifetime, we’re going to upgrade the graphics engine.

Let’s continue with some highlights from the 1.11 patch notes:

The cost to unlearn talents will now decay over time.

A good, long overdue change.

After a disconnect from the server, it is now possible to log back in immediately, instead of receiving the message, “A character with that name already exists.”

Asking this on every game since forever. I wish Mythic would copy them here (in DAoC you not only cannot log in if you lag out, but you need to restart the whole client after every attempt).

As a note: EQ2 is still superior here. I can disconnect and then quickly reconnect and the game would recuperate without even disconnecting.

– Chain targeted spells and abilities (e.g. Multi-shot, Cleave, Chain Lightning) will no longer hit stealthed or invisible units unless visible to the caster.

– Fear: The calculations to determine if Fear effects should break due to receiving damage have been changed. The old calculation used the base damage of the ability. The new calculation uses the final amount of damage dealt, after all modifiers. In addition, the chance for a damage over time spell to break Fear is now significantly lower. Note that Fear continues to be roughly three times as likely to break on player targets as on non-player targets. In addition, Intimidating Shout now follows that player versus non-player distinction, while previously it did not.

– Periodic Healing: Spells which do periodic healing will now have their strength determined at the moment they are cast. Changing the amount of bonus healing you have during the duration of the periodic spell will have no impact on how much it heals for.

– Reflection: Effects which cause reflection will no longer reflect triggered effects separately from their base effects (eg. Impact, Improved Shadow Bolt, Aftermath, etc.)

Good bunch of consistence fixes. In other mmorpgs these would be just “working as intended” and ignored.

Optimization code known as “M2Faster” is now enabled by default. M2Faster can improve performance in crowded scenes when “Vertex Animation Shaders” is turned on.

I had this enabled when they introduced it a couple of patches ago. But on my Geforce 6800GT it barely made any differece.

To enable this manually you need to add the following line to your “config.wtf” file in the WTF directory of the game:
SET M2Faster “1”

Or type in the game chat: /console M2Faster 1
It should save the variable in the config file automatically.

Alterac Valley
Most of the NPC guard units have been removed.
Creatures that remain in Alterac Valley have had their hit points reduced.

Another long overdue change.

As I wrote a while ago: NPCs in PvP aren’t a bad idea on its own, but only if the respawn timers are really long. This is not the case in WoW.

Overall it looks like a good patch from the game design perspective. Beside what I quoted the patch has:

– New catass raid instance (Naxxramas)
– Tier 3 armor sets for all classes
– Bunch of class changes that I won’t comment
– Key rings
– Some changes to the cooldown timers on potions and items that seem to make sense
– Nature resist recipes with the Cenarion Circle rep for the catasses
– UI improvements to the raid interface (ported some standard features from CTRaid)
– Flight paths added
– Some PvP Honor armor sets upgraded
– Removal of bijous and coins in ZG (?)

This last one leaves me perplex after what Tigole said in the NY interview before the E3. As I highlighted there, he said that a token system + reputation don’t work well together and they were thinking about changing it. I wrote that I was expecting this to be an intention only for the new content that will be added in the future but the changes in this patch refute my theory (which is good). At the same time I don’t understand the logic behind the changes.

This is what Tigole said specifically about ZG:

ZG was supposed to be a stepping stone into raiding. So you take a guild that has little experience and they go into ZG and for a new group, it’s going to take them a few tries to down the first boss, Venoxis. And they finally kill Venoxis and what do they get? Probably one blue item and then this token item. But even using that token item might require Honored reputation, and so they feel like they’re not being rewarded.

I had that happen to me on one of my characters and I was like, “This is just broken.”

Here I underlined the part that Tigole explained not working really well. It looks like the problem is the reputation being a cockblock on the equipment (what a surprise), preventing you to get the loot even if you won the encounter. But what are they changing with this patch?

Armor quests now only require a Primal Hakkari piece and appropriate faction with Zandalar.

They removed the smaller tokens but not the faction.

About the PvP Honor armor sets, it is interesting to notice that they were upgraded, but not retroactively, nor it’s possible for those who have the old armor sets to return them for new versions. You’ll have to re-grind all the ranks all over again. FUN! FUN!!

Btw. I heard a rumor that with the 1.12 patch they are reworking how the groups for the PvP BGs are being made. If this patch will coincide with clustered servers then it’s possible that they’ll create two different queues for those who join as a group and those who are randomly picked up.

Guild Wars anticipated this since the very beginning.

Overall a good patch with a good execution. But it leaves untouched all the problems that plague this game: satisfactory and accessible endgame content, worthwhile alternatives to raiding and a PvP system that isn’t completely fucked up.