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[Column] World of Warcraft: A Peek at Patch 5.4
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Blizzard has dropped a few really juicy hints about features and improvements coming with the v5.4 patch for World of Warcraft. In today's WoW Factor, we take a look at some of them. See what we have to say before joining the conversation in the comments.
Surprise! The next content patch is well on its way and it’s hitting the test realm soon. Blizzard has released a partial list of notes for the next chapter in the Mists of Pandaria campaign. While the patch notes are not complete, a fair amount of content has been data-mined and some of this content I would consider to be spoiler heavy. Don’t worry, I will avoid any potential spoilers for those of you wanting some surprises come patch day.
Read more of Reza Lackey's The WoW Factor: A Peek at Patch 5.4.
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Comments
I love the idea of the new pet battle tournament and scenario
I can't wait
P.S. could you make me a sandwich before you go?
This had me laughing so hard I totally dropped my cellphone
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Seems like they are going out of their way not to do server merges...
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Aloha Mr Hand !
Server mergers would have big issues with guild and character names.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
LOL right
By far the most important feature is virtual realms.
It is as if you create one giant realm out of 10 old realms, effectively multiplying the number of players times 10 or more (and as stated the load balancing will be done through CRZ in the open world and cities).
CRZ - introduced in 2012 - permitted seamless open world play of players of different servers (without loading screens). Now they regroup that CRZ technique with structured server groups (realm clusters), so the economy, guild play etc behaves like one giant server.
If this technique spreads, it is the Holy Grail of ever populated worlds in MMORPG's, independant of dying individual realms.
A breakthrough.
I really wish they would. Their feet-dragging on this is one of the (minor) reasons I quit. I couldn't take looking at characters with Minecraft fingers anymore. The worgen, goblins, and pandarians look somewhat out of place, you know, being actually pretty detailed and aesthetically pleasing.
2013 - still no good looking orcs and human males' talking animations are still a triangle having a seizure.
i really hope they change all the old models to more detailed versions. I think there is hope. look at the New Garrosh for 5.4 compared to Garrosh from Cataclysm. They have the power to change all models, they just want to torture our eyes.
THis new Garrosh looks awesome and very very detailed. I want all other races too have that level of detail.
model and animations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gutV91fOWg
A big feature of the next expac I assume, they have talked about model revamps for quite some time, they did give a reason why it's not as simple to do as we all think but I forgot what it was.
if they manage to do that to all characters in a future expansion im definitelly looking forward to it.
"Virtual Realms is a new feature being added to the game for the first time and I believe it is a tremendous enhancement. Virtual Realms are different realms that are linked together acting as one in which players can play with one another just as if they were on the same realm. You will be able to join guilds, run dungeons, group up for quests and play with others just as if they were on your realm to begin with. You will be able to identify players belonging to the same virtual realm by a (#) symbol by their name.
This new feature will allow Blizzard to manage realm populations in a very unique way by linking low populations realms with others to increase player density in the world. This can also be used to balance the factions - a Horde heavy realm could be linked to an Alliance heavy realm. For those of you on low population realms, the days of seeing a deserted Orgrimmar at peak hours may be over."
What does this actually mean? This could be a great boon to the community or a nightmare where players you meet up cannot join your guild or group?
Incredible that people talk about vectors and pixels while the real revolution in server based MMORPG design is skipped over....
LOL
It reminds me of that mmorpg editor that talked about a certain old WOW patch and skipped the part that stated something about cross realm dungeon play through a new LFG tool.
Luckily this editor did notice the new revolution hidden within the patch.
Ever populated worlds. No more low pop problems. yeah ... real trivial ... and pixels are more important (not).
It simply means the end of the eternal pop problems in MMORPG design.
of course Blizzard combined it with seamless cross realm play in the open worlds (no loading screens), which makes it a BOMB in future MMORPG design.
---- > BTW guild play and economy is also regrouped: the virtual server GROUP behaves exactly like a normal one.
Forget the pixels , ... this is "it".
Ha! That's pretty cool. Yeah, he's very detailed and it seems he has all the emote animations, so maybe they're working on it. I would really love to see humans, orcs, and undead updated, in particular. Oh and Taurens. I don't play them often, but they honestly look pretty dopey... maybe that's why.
The pixels are more important to some of us. Ever populated worlds, yay, now there will be more people to tag my mobs half a second before I can attack because Blizzard never fixed the one thing they should have that most new games have already resolved. That's right, I don't CARE about population. There were always plenty of people to play with in WoW, and since they almost never invited me to a group or vice versa, with the archaic mob tagging system it's just competition anyway.