Patch 3.1 Will Reduce Hearthstone Cooldown to 30 Min
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Heartbourne on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: 3.1, Patch, content patch, hearth
Heartbourne on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: 3.1, Patch, content patch, hearth 
Since World of Warcraft was released, the hearthstone has been one of the most important items. It allowed characters from level 1 to teleport back to an inn to rest or to a capital city to trade. Since then, the game has changed significantly. Shattrath and Dalaran are wonderful hubs, but they lack auction houses and make it difficult to do business. Thus, the faction capital cities, especially Orgrimmar and Ironforge, stayed populated. However, its not easy to get from the faction capitals back to Dalaran. Most players who aren't mages or shaman rely on their hearthstone to get back to Dalaran. The hour long cooldown on the hearthstone has limited how players use their hearthstones as they might want to save them if they want to return to Dalaran after visiting a capital city.One of the solutions behind this was called "ghetto-hearthing". Since the number of players inside a given instance is limited, if a player is in a group in an instance and gets removed, they are teleported to the hearthstone's homepoint and the cooldown on their hearthstone is reset to one hour. Thus, if you make a group with someone and enter and instance, you will trigger the "ghetto-hearth" upon leaving the group. Players in Orgrimmar could use Ragefire Chasm to ghetto-hearth, and players in Stormwind could use Stockades. If you were out and about adventuring in the world, you could likely find a nearby instance to ghetto-hearth in.
Well, patch 3.1 is changing this mechanic. Among other large changes, the "ghetto-hearth" will now take players to the nearest graveyard without resetting their hearthstone, and more importantly, hearthstones will have a 30 minute cooldown.
The implications of this are interesting. One of the major convienances of shaman and of mages was easy travel, and this lessens it significantly as now everyone can get around more easily. Scribes and their Scrolls of Recall are also relatively less useful. These scrolls were a major incentive for me to make an scribe. It is unclear if cooldowns on other items like Band of the Kirin Tor or such spells will be changed or left alone. I hope to see them reduced as well to keep their relative usefulness intact.
Reader Comments (22)
First!
Wow! there is nothing more bugging in life having to travel to dalaran from orgrimmar. Still dunno if it's a good thing although it will be good for leveling with all that extra rested xp you can get.
I find a lot of the changes Blizzard is making kind of annoying, because they tend to be homogenizing the classes. One of the things I love about my Shaman alt is being able to use Astral Recall (the Glyph of Astral Recall is even awesomer). My main has engineering, and the transporters give that character special functionality that other professions don't have. Reducing hearth cooldown makes those abilities a lot less special. The same goes for the whole dual spec system, in my opinion. The fact that we'll be able to just switch specs at will just seems to flatten out differences among classes and players, and what's cool about WoW is specialization and the variety of play styles and players.
Kuesha must be a kindred spirit, because there's nothing for me to add to what he/she said.
How long until they allow you to carry two hearthstones? One only for major cities (Dalaran, Shattrath, Stormwind, Ogrimmar, Ironforge, Undercity, Thunder Bluff, Darnassus) and one for anywhere?
I had a feeling they were going to mess with hearthstones. I just thought it would be a second hearthstone rather than reducing the timer. In retrospect, two would be more convenient, but reducing the timer's not a huge change IMHO.
I've never had much of a problem with the 1h cooldown for the Hearthstone, and ghetto hearthing was more of an inconvenience for me. (Wanting to stay in the area when group disbands).
I agree with the above posters, but I don't think Blizz will be putting in two hearthstones...at least for now. :P
i wish they just allowed you to have 3 hearth stone... in you character like currancy... 1 for the original game 1 for BC and 1 for Northrend... they could link all the stones to ahve the same CD... or they all have there separate CD.. and u get the first stone free 2nd stone 100g 2nd stone 500g
... and Astral Recall CD will be...?
5 min?
tbh, I've never even understood flightpaths.
When there's portal technology (or magic) available, why fly?
These days with so much homogenization of all the classes it's no reason to keep the mage exclusive thing. Just put up portals everywhere that works the same way as flightpaths, only instant.
And you can grab one of those incredibly witty shirts here :)
http://www.jinx.com/world_of_warcraft/men/home_is_where_the_hearthstone_is.html
I always use Astral Recall, so the CD doesn't do me anything
Thats actually hurting a lot more than helping....I have used ghetto hearthing so much and the 30 minute thing wont make me not need ghetto hearthing so really ill just be screwed. Thanks blizzard thanks....
woot sucks it shammies and you dang 20 min ancestral recall!!
this game just keeps getting easier and easier by day...WoW will die soon. It will die.
@Xcomer
I'm sensing some inner QQ-ing from you. Why don't you reroll then, huh?
I don't think it's making the game easier in the least. It's been a problem ever since TBC was released, having to go back to certain places to do certain things. Now with Dalaran it's even worse. I would find myself spending 20g+ a day buying ports just because I needed to stick things in the AH, or needed to go to an enchanter, something stupid. That's pretty ridiculous imo. The change was needed. If it does get reduced anymore than the 30 minutes though, problems would arise. Moar bubble-hearth anyone?
ooh wow is putting you bastards out of busness gauss you will haveto find someone to munch of the ghetto harthing as you call it a complete nusancenever has helped me much find anohter way to make some extra bucks mages although their great allways misused their porting abilitys for thie selfish needs "can i get a port to whear ever" the mage " how much you gointo gointo give me" me" i dont have anything" the mage "FUCK YOU THAN!!!!!" i had more than a few mages put me on ignore cuase i didnt give him anything same with scribes as for the game getting to easy BOOHOO no matter what blizzard does their QQers its the human nature they made ghetto harthing better if you ask me often when you do H dungeon raids etc you wanto turn in quest but the group work out and it falls apart you have 60 saconds to find your way out and if you dont youl ported back whear your home is do you know how amoying it is to go back or say you forgot to loot like get an enblem or piece gear or somthing you get ported you lost what ever you forrgot do you know how anoying it is when you kneed one emblem for a piece of gear aayou had in your grasp but lost becasue of some stupid ghetto hearth i think its a good idea to give us more than one hearth stone or give it more than one effect like one stone can port to up to 3 place of your choice and yo whould have to learn it i think dagimp007 had the right idea about the price
that is so right on i think the only reason mages and scribes are soangry is because they will lose much money i whoul estimate that by the time a mage raeches 80 they have made atleast 1000g in mage ports and when they give us more option to travel across out land and azeroth more freely mages wont have the "you dont have a choice" on us because we will have a choice sucks for you
i have to say i like the idea of the 30 min cooldown... getting back and forth from org to shatt/dalaran is a pain in the ass.
also they need to add auction houses in dal and shatt like they should have done from the start.
Well all the classes with two 'HS' still can be out in, lets say Icecrown, then HS to Dalaran, pop to IF do stuff in IF, HS to dalaran. So its still a conveniance.
@theczar If they add AHs to Dal/Shatt, no one would go back, hardly at all*.
*Except to train and/or respec
no1 ask a mate 2 queue them in bgs then afk ?
Heartbourne is QQing at wasting leveling inscription.
Don't worry, I'm thinking of dropping it too to just gather ore and herbs to sell and make muchos money on the auction house. I got a new addon that should help with that considerably.
I'm thinking someone was sick on punctuation day in English class (you know who I mean).