What I Expected and Didn't Expect In Patch 3.1
iTZKooPA on Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 27 Comments Tags: Ulduar, ensidia, patch notes, patch v3.1, secrets of ulduar, tom chilton, unexpected changes, yogg-saron dead, yogg-saron first kill 
Almost 48 hours since the release of Patch 3.1 and there are still many, many issues to be ironed out. Players across the greater Internet are reporting numerous snags that are consistent with all of Blizzard's content patches. Dead or laggy servers, extended extended maintenance, busted spells, broken talents, castrated add-ons, un-updated add-ons interfering with general WoW play, disconnected instance servers, the works. As Ivnication stated in the Secrets of Ulduar post, even if Blizzard had a perfect patch, it'd be unlikely that we would have been able to raid efficiently on Wednesday, let alone Tuesday, due to the massive amount of changes.
As it stands now, I have let the issue go by the wayside. Better to shrug it off than pull my hair out while screaming about my paying customer status. During the intermittent server problems I spent most of my time leveling my priest's professions and, preparing her for her incoming second spec. Since I wasn't doing anything of consequence, I allowed my eyes and mind to roam and came across a collection of unexpected things. First and foremost, Magtheridon was playable by late Tuesday evening. Being an original server, I expected it to be utterly destroyed by its high population, so I was taken aback by its playability.
I did my best to keep up on the patch notes and all the upcoming stuff in Wrath's first content patch, but a lot of small tweaks managed to slip by me. It takes enough time to digest the class changes, let alone all of the other stuff listed in the patch notes. It wasn't until I was a few hours into the patch that I began noticing just how many things I missed.
There are a ton of new icons for various spells and talents including Devouring Plague, Cleanse Spirit, Riptide and many others. Even the Essence of Wintergrasp icon has been overhauled with new art.
Along with the addition of maps for the dungeons, Blizzard overhauled the minimap. Our personal guide is far more detailed and allow us to zoom out further than before. A fantastic surprise addition for me.
You no longer need to be near a Lexicon of Power to apply a Glyph. Does that change make the Lexicons completely useless, or do Inscriptors need them for something specific? I haven't rolled one yet so I am not certain. Speaking of Glyphs, how did the old Supply and Demand scale work on your servers? Prices on Magtheridon are up over 200%.
- New music courtesy of Ulduar and the Argent Tournament!
"Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!" (emphasis added). That bit from the patch notes just made me laugh, even though I see the bold as a possible slight against the hardcore RPers. Apparently we are all Survivorman. Now I can make my first campfire.
Since most of these dents have been pounded out, it's about time to get working on my new spec, gem and enchants for my pair of toons. Ahh, decisions. What changes have caught you unawares, if any? How bad our your servers acting up? Anyone have a chance to head into Ulduar yet? Bosses have already been downed, some before the first round of hotfixes. As Tom Chilton expected, each and every one of Yogg-Saron's maws have been thoroughly beaten. Nearly all the hardmodes remain undefeated by the best of the best raiding guilds, which means Algalon is still alive and well. Grats on being the first to clear 10-man Ulduar Ensidia.
Reader Comments (27)
I have noticed that some talent trees are bugged. For instance, my Mutlate tree is supposed to be 41/5/25 and in my tal;lent tree it reads 40/5/25 but I still have Mutilate. Oh well, minor yet funny.
I have noticed that some talent trees are bugged. For instance, my Mutilate tree is supposed to be 41/5/25 and in my talent tree it reads 40/5/25 but I still have Mutilate. Oh well, minor yet funny.
*Edited.
i think it will be great once they clear everything up, i feel you though on how frusterateing it is. In any other area being a paying customer this stuff would not fly. i work at a help desk, and if we were wrong as much as blizz seems to be. i would not have a job. overall i think this might be one of the best patches i seen, only time will tell.i hope my guild runs uldar soon, i would like to see what it is all about.
"Grats on being the first to clear 10-man Ulduar Ensidia"
They cleared 25-man :)
This was a major patch with alot of changes, problems will occur even with all the effort Blizz could put into making it bug free...
I am still struggling with with my addons but I expect that and have made faster progress then in the past, although I still have problems opening the books of other peoples proffessions in chat. Some work and some don't??
My server, Kul Tiras was fairly stable late Tuesday evening tho my guild isnt ready for Ulduar yet. Being a pally, I look forward to switching from healing to tanking with duel spec, tho I will need better tanking gear lol
They added a stupid looking moustache to the Dreanei goatee facial hair option. WTF Blizz, my toon looks like Zorro, now.
Luckily Galakrond came up late Tuesday and we quickly got Flame Lev down and last night we downed Razorscale and made an attempt on Deconstructor before we decided to finish for the night. Ignis is a hardass though. :o
The thing that amuses me most is the number of people asking for the new glyphs. The problem with this is that the only way to learn them is through the books that are random rare world drops.
Its probably going to drive up the prices of Glyphs even more given the amount of time that is going to have to be spent grinding to find a random book and learn a random glyph that someone may or may not need.
@Alex
Absolutely correct. I was trying to say that they hadn't done the hardmode stuff yet, not heroic (25-man), and confused myself along the way.
Something I noticed but didn't expect: A bunch of quests in the Old World (I'm working on Loremaster) are showing up as blue question mark repeatable quests rather than yellow exclamation marks now. The egg quests in Gadgetzan for instance. They used to clutter up my screen when I turned on Low-Level Quest Tracking, now they don't anymore. I'm pretty happy with that.
I managed to get the fool for love meta acheivement and the title. The one achievement i never managed to finished has magically been completed.
Also i got a special world event cos i got Dreadsteed achievement for doing the dreadsteed quests rather than buying it.
thank you raknor, i was freaking out and thought an addon had done that. My server (black dragonflight) crashed last night but thats about it,
Executus was pretty laggy yesterday.
I noticed that I dont have to empty one bag to equip another, just drop the empty bag into the full one and all the stuff in it will be transfered. Also the no ammo pouch is awesomer for us hunrers, I just carry 4000 bullets, thats is 4 slots in my 20 slotter, 16 slots gained! You can now carry a gun and a bow and enuf ammo to change between the two if you would want. Also my gryphon has changed its icon. Lots of recipes (cooking) need less spices. Awesome new recipe from Gadgetstan for low lvls. Free fishing pole from the dude of the coast in Theramore. Proudmoore runs pretty smoothly.
Spotted glyph of penance selling for 250g. I think I'll hold off.
Other than that things don't seem too bad, nothing like 3.0.2.
Well on my EU Server Hellscream, there have been long loading screens to enter dungeons raids, and also when hearthstoning back to your chosen inn. And also links in trade chat, have been non clickable, so profs cannot be shown to anyone wishing to sell enchants etc.
But I did get a level 226 helm today, and also some nice epic shoulders. So its not too bad :) I have got incredibly lucky with raid drops for once :P
Ulduar havent tried it yet, hell i havent even ran a whole run of naxx yet, im getting geared first. Cant wait though as it looks awesome. Btw I know there is mounted combat in the Ulduar raid, what is this like? Has anyone got that far let me know :)
That freakin' Draenei moustache was the first thing I attended to when I signed in on Wednesday- it had to go! I wonder if it was a belated April Fools joke. Did anything like this happen to any of the other races out there?
I'm pretty thrilled that I received a Dreadsteed of Xoroth achievement considering I was so determined to do the quest (and how it was it was to gather the people together for Scholomance and Dire Maul) instead of simply purchasing and training it! :)
Another cool change is if you join a group for an instance but they didn't tell you the first boss was done you can now choose whether or not you get saved to the instance. At least I think this is new...
Also I don't know if this is because of other talents but on my warrior TG reduces dmg to 90% - correct. Enrage is +10% dmg, the tooptip on my char sheet says 99% instead of 100%. Deathwish does the same, 20% increase but comes up as 118%. Are the tooltips wrong or am I getting shafted out by 1/2% dmg output?
Also my hunter in wetlands ended up in Hinterlands after falling through the terrain for a bit. My priest did the same but started in SW and ended up in Loch Modan. My warrior got stuck porting into and out of Ulduar and Nexus on patch day. Fun times >.<
At least Dalaran seems quite a bit less laggy. Oh, and the Argent Tournament - want those 2h swords a lot!! :D
My chopper now acts like a regular mount instead of a vehicle AND I'M MAD!!!!! I used to be able to fly to the tops of tall mountains or buildings and jump off without taking any damage or being dismounted. Not any more. It was the one thing I liked best about the chopper and its gone. Ugh!
@Hardcor
The ability to drop a LARGER bag to replace a smaller bag (without emptying the smaller bag first) has been in the game for quite a while... way before BC.
Some other things I've noticed:
- Flight Point Map is more detailed and colorful for all continents.
- There is a quest option I believe in the Interface that might have to be enabled, but it gives you a mouseover tooltip of quests that are associated with that mob, as well as the normal mouseover tooltip information that pops up. Very nice if you do quests the old fashioned way, like me.
The flint and tinder change I thought was unnecessary considering the Gnomish Army Knife has it, and everyone has access to this useful tool.
We just our server shutdown to a major glitch on the servers im not sure if its just european or national. its called the corspe bugg when you go to your corspe you cant rezz as it doesn't seem to exist so you have to relog. During a run in ramps we nearly wipe andm e and the tank released our spirits but we rezzed in the graveayrd oddly and halfway to the instance the tank radomny died and atou released his spirit. But at least Divine Spirit buff can be trained instead of talents and that pointless blackout talent has gone.
I apparently have reached exalted with a unknown faction while i've been downloading this patch. Quite funny :)
I spent my talent points, and, after leveling, I went to spend the new talent point and couldn't... it looked like i hadn't spent any talent points... but still had moves like killing spree... I just left it and when i checked the armory the next day it still said i was untalented...
As well, a bunch of us were dueling outside Stormwind with our new Alliance Lances and one guy randomly earned the damage control achievement
Fun stuff
@onthebuses: You're on the same realm as me, cool. Fearless TUGAS Claw?
Anyway, tbh Frosty's Collar got a new icon!
Worth the 800+mb alone.