First Impressions of the Patch

[MongoJerry]

ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Patch First Impressions

Here is a quick compilation of first impressions and screenshots of WoW after the patch, while I wait for Tichondrius to come back after a crash. Feel free to add your own first impressions of the patch to this thread.

I really like the new user interface, and I have a strong feeling that I will not be fully reinstalling Cosmos ever again. The extra hotkey bars look really good and are easy to use and manipulate. The main thing I'm missing from Cosmos right now is that I can't see everyone's buffs. Perhaps someone can direct me to a simple addon that will give me that functionality.

Tab targeting actually works. Woohoo!

A hunter reported that there's a bug such that if a priest or shaman rezes a hunter pet, the rezer will get resurrection sickness. Ick!

But the main thing I noticed was the addition of the new Dire Maul instances. Woohoo! I understand they're kind of like the Scarlet Monastery in that it's broken up into two or three separate instances. In addition, there are multiple entrances to the same dungeon. It'll take a while to gain an understanding of the layout.

The huge exterior of Dire Maul can be see above.



Even outside the instances, the ruins are absolutely enormous. There are all kinds of passageways and places to go.



One of the guys in my party had been on the test server, so he took us first to the lowest level area, called the Warpwood Quarter, so that we could do whatever it is that lets us get our keys to the higher level instances.



This area was really easy for us, but that's understandable, since it's designed for level 56 players, and the five of us were fully decked out level 60's. One thing we noticed was that we were getting a *ton* of green drops off normal elite mobs and we even got a bind-on-pickup blue necklace off a normal mob. So when the Blizzard designers said that they were going to improve the drops off normal mobs, they weren't kidding.



We found a side passage that led to another instance portal. Going through it led us back outside, so this is apparently another entrance to the instance.



Past the Warpwood Quarter came an area called The Hidden Reach that had satyrs as well as the walking trees and flowers. At the end of this hall was another portal that led to the outside, although to be able to get in through that portal, you'd need to open a locked door with a special key or have a rogue with well developed lockpicking skills in your party. The partymember who had been on the test server said that just beyond that door (in other words, just outside the door -- we were already inside), there's a quest giver, but the server crashed at this point, so I can't tell you exactly where this NPC is.

[Mirajj]

The thing I noticed, since I was playing my warrior was that Rage generation is much, much nicer now. Even in the 1h + shield mode. Maybe I'll find the urge to actually play my IC warrior again.

[Alrin]

To quote the insane fish from Nemo..

"Oooohhh! Bubbles bubbles!! BUBBLES!!!"

They're neat. Looks good but I foretell hell on Azeroth when it comes to IF/AH spamming.
Anyone remember SWG style vendor-ads spamming everywhere? <shudders>

[Treesh]

New female Tauren dance animation! So happy to be rid of that horrible 2 sec loop. I've heard rumors that the male tauren also got a new dance, but I haven't seen it yet. Mogo is in love with having the extra bars and having totem icons that are actually different from each other. Unfortunately, they forget to change them for the buffs that show up in the upper right of the screen.

[Boutros]

I've heard rumors that the male tauren also got a new dance, but I haven't seen it yet.&nbsp;
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Yeah, we got our dance extended. I don't think I like it though, I miss plain old peanut butter jelly time. In addition to PBJ time the new dance has a sort of raise-the-roof motion and a part that looks like I'm dancing at a Hoedown or perhaps some manner of Hootenany.

[Quark]

Yeah, we got our dance extended. I don't think I like it though, I miss plain old peanut butter jelly time. In addition to PBJ time the new dance has a sort of raise-the-roof motion and a part that looks like I'm dancing at a Hoedown or perhaps some manner of Hootenany.
[right][snapback]71552[/snapback][/right]

"Theres heres on hell of a hoedown"
"No, this here is a hootenanny"
"Hoedown!"
"Hootenanny!"
"Hoedown!!"
"Hootenanny!!!!"

[swirly]

The main thing I'm missing from Cosmos right now is that I can't see everyone's buffs. Perhaps someone can direct me to a simple addon that will give me that functionality.

I had a similiar issue, except for me it is missing the level numbers on quests and the instant text scrolling that cosmos does. Its painful to have to wait for the quest text to go down the page and the level numbers were quite handy. I'm kind of getting this feeling from all cosmos users as well. That they really like the new UI and don't want to use cosmos or other addons anymore, but that there are just a few minor things missing that may drive them back. So for this reason I am thinking that maybe we should start a list of the things that people want the UI to do. Then those who are more knowledgable about the matter can either tell us about a mod that does those things or (and this is the one I personally would like) tell us how to edit our files to make the blizzard UI do the things we want.

So the things I would like to see are

1: quest text scrolling gone
2: quest level numbers showing in the quest log

They don't seem like tough things to do, but I don't really know what would be required to make them happen other than installing the quest minion addon from cosmos which I would rather not bother doing.

[savaughn]

Sooo...

Did you guys see this?

>>Most humanoids NPCs have gained the ability to swim.

It looks like they've taken the escape mechanism out of the Deadmines. I'd missed this in the patch notes previously.

[Arethor]

Umm... I'd love to try it out. But i seem to be having trouble connecting to the tracker for the patch. Any suggestions would be much appreciated as i'm overrun with enthusiasm and need for a WoW fix.


Edit: I disabled Peer-to-Peer and it seems to be downloading now, albeit extremely slowly ;)

Edit 2: Reenabled Peer-to-Peer and seems to be working on and off. Based on it's projections I should be able to join you all around 9:30 EST. Looking forward to seeing you all in-game. :rolleyes:

[Icebird]

I use GypsyMod rather than Cosmos - I found it be a nice clean interface, which gives me what I want without loading up all the extra features that Cosmos seems to have. It's been updated for the new patch to take advantage of the new toolbars which fixes one of its largest weaknesses - just not enough buttons.

I missed the swimming thing as well. I wonder if they added anything else between the test server patch notes and final content patch?

Do NPC humanoids need air? Would my warlock be able to wait them out with unending breath? :)

Chris

[Alram]

My very first impression of the patch is that the download is inordinately slow.
My next impression is that after multiple attempts I am still unable to connect.

[Zarathustra]

My very first impression of the patch is that the download is inordinately slow.
My next impression is that after multiple attempts I am still unable to connect.
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I'm with you on that. I've uploaded far more than I've downloaded, and it keeps telling me it can't connect to the tracker, or has reconnected to the tracker, over and over again.

After starting the patch download over three hours ago, I'm still only at 58% on a broadband connection (firewall had to be turned off to get any transfer at all).

[Artega]

Sooo...

Did you guys see this?

>>Most humanoids NPCs have gained the ability to swim.

It looks like they've taken the escape mechanism out of the Deadmines.&nbsp; I'd missed this in the patch notes previously.
[right][snapback]71561[/snapback][/right]

The guards learned how to swim.

[mjdoom]

I guess this doesn't help now but for the future it might...

After seeing a post by Treesh earlier today I took her advice to download the patch this morning before the realms came back up. It finished in less time than it took me to shower...

I don't mean to wave this in your faces (and even with that "luck" I won't be online any earlier than 11:30 or maybe even not at all tonight) but it might be a good thing to keep in mind for future patches considering that Bliz says they will be more frequent. If you have any way of downloading before the realms come back up it might help immensly.

- mjdoom

[Artega]

The thing I noticed, since I was playing my warrior was that Rage generation is much, much nicer now. Even in the 1h + shield mode. Maybe I'll find the urge to actually play my IC warrior again.
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Agreed. Generation is MUCH smoother now.

The execute bug was fixed. No more losing super-close duels because of a lucky parry.

Thunder Clap is actually quite good now. It does 103 damage and debuffs attack speed of up to 4 targets by 10% for 30 seconds. While I used to go straight to Defensive after the charge when tanking, I now drop a thunder clap. It generates a fair bit of hate, and it debuffs, increasing the amount of mitigation. Thunder Clap is just plain incredible now. Need to find a pally to find out if the debuff follows suit with the rest of Warrior debuffs (e.g., undispellable.)

Heroic Strike is largely the same. It's now +138, up from +124. Not very noticeable.

Battle Shout now costs 10 Rage instead of 20, making it far more feasible to keep it refreshed while tanking or while pvping.

Bloodrage has gone from around ~13% HP untalented to close to ~5% HP untalented. Almost a sin not to use it when you have the chance.

[Tal]

My next impression is that after multiple attempts I am still unable to connect.
[right][snapback]71571[/snapback][/right]

Yep. I'm very frustrated at the continual login problem. Blizzard's only response thus far has been to blame it on too many people trying to login at once and to be patient through the authentication process - which doesn't really address the "unable to connect" folks. :)

[Artega]

Make sure to find a Harbinger, War Caller, or Bluff Runner in UC, OG, or TB, respectively. They'll assign quests that will have you ping-pong across the world, ultimately ending in quests for Silithus and Dire Maul. You'll need to find the equivalent NPCs for SWC, IF, and DR if you're Alliance, of course :)

[LochnarITB]

So the things I would like to see are

1: quest text scrolling gone
2: quest level numbers showing in the quest log
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I already disable several of the cosmos addons but don't see myself getting rid of it unless it blows up and it isn't fixed any time soon. I'm sure there would be other things I would miss even if I did get these functions but these are the ones I can think of right now (but I haven't seen the new interface yet since I can't stay attached to a server):

- chat time stamps (currently not in cosmos but is expected to return)
- badrep (for displaying numbers for faction)
- dps calculation
- movable frames
- movable/content adjustable tooltips
- regent helper (display of professions that use item)
- map notes
- more bars/popbar (I use 2 left and 5 right - not all full but icons are grouped)

[Arethor]

Time to see which is more efficient. Still allowing my Blizzard Downloader to run but now I've jumped on the waiting line at Fileplanet.com I'll take an estimated hour of wait+dl time over a 24% complete after 1.5 hours. Here's hoping i actually get to play tonight.

[Quark]

Can't play right now (bad homework, bad!), but there's an uproar on the forums over Eviscerate getting blocked, losing all combo points, and not doing any damage.

Is it true that it's not doing any damage, or is it just being somewhat-absorbed by the block and the forum idiots just coming out to play?