Rumormongering

[MongoJerry]

Word on the street -- and by street, I mean those streets in Stratholme -- is that there will be a patch today (Tuesday). The information was specific enough that it sounded credible. Among other things mentioned was that Blizzard finally is going to lock down the questing in raids exploit. That is, you'll no longer be able to get quest credit for a non-raid quest simply by leaving your raid group.

There was some disagreement over whether the patch is going to be a small emergency patch or the long awaited content patch. We'll have to wait and see.

And if it doesn't happen, well, that's what you get for listening to rumors.

[Mavfin]

Word on the street -- and by street, I mean those streets in Stratholme -- is that there will be a patch today (Tuesday).  The information was specific enough that it sounded credible.  Among other things mentioned was that Blizzard finally is going to lock down the questing in raids exploit.  That is, you'll no longer be able to get quest credit for a non-raid quest simply by leaving your raid group.

There was some disagreement over whether the patch is going to be a small emergency patch or the long awaited content patch.  We'll have to wait and see.

And if it doesn't happen, well, that's what you get for listening to rumors.
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Evidently, it's more than speculation. As of about 8 AM CST, all US realms listed on the WoW site status page are down. Igot kicked off about 8 AM myself. (got a sick kid at home, so I was playing a little while she slept)

[Treesh]

Evidently, it's more than speculation.  As of about 8 AM CST, all US realms listed on the WoW site status page are down.  Igot kicked off about 8 AM myself.  (got a sick kid at home, so I was playing a little while she slept)
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It could just be the regularly scheduled weekly maintenance and not a big patch at all.

Edit: Of course, things have been changed on all the other maintenance times so I always expect at least something in the game to change after maintenance. :)

[Alram]

Evidently, it's more than speculation.  As of about 8 AM CST, all US realms listed on the WoW site status page are down.  Igot kicked off about 8 AM myself.  (got a sick kid at home, so I was playing a little while she slept)
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But they are always down on Tuesday morning for maintenance.

[Mavfin]

It could just be the regularly scheduled weekly maintenance and not a big patch at all.

Edit: Of course, things have been changed on all the other maintenance times so I always expect at least something in the game to change after maintenance. :)
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I figured out that Tues is normal maint time, after I posted, so, I guess I'll find out when I get home from work.

[Treesh]

Word on the street -- and by street, I mean those streets in Stratholme -- is that there will be a patch today (Tuesday). 
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Well, there actually is a patch today, a very small one, but a patch nonetheless. :) Here are the patch notes from the Blizzard Updater. It took probably less than a minute to download and install. Maybe two minutes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.2.3 (2005-02-15)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  PvP Duels
  Dueling across factions remains intact in the patch, in consideration
  of players' desires to duel members of the opposing faction.
 
  *This is a minor patch to address localization issues discovered
  during the European beta test. These changes affect localized text
  strings for French and German versions of the game only, and players
  in other regions will not see any changes to the game.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.2.2 (2005-02-15)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
  Paladin
  Seal of the Crusader: Fixed a bug where damage per swing was
  increasing instead of decreasing when Seal of the Crusader was active.
  This resulted in a dramatic increase in damage per second (DPS) that
  was unintended.  The tooltip for the spell displays the intent of
  the spell:

  "Fills the Paladin with the spirit of a crusader, granting additional
  attack power.  The Paladin also attacks faster, but deals less damage
  with each attack."

  The overall increase in DPS from Seal of the Crusader should only
  result from the increase in attack power and not from the increase in
  attack speed.  We understand this is a significant decrease in the
  power of this spell, but was a necessary bug fix to ensure both
  overall game balance and the viability of different Paladin Seals.


  Localization
- Various text strings and audio have been corrected for the French and
  German versions of the game.


  Macs
- Fixed a bug that incorrectly enabled the vertex animation shader
  option on some GPU's that do not support it. This bug was causing
  player character models in-game and in the character selection screen
  to appear invisible or distorted.  The fix should benefit users with
  NVIDIA GeForce 2MX or 4MX GPU's and ATI Radeon 7000/7500 GPU's.  It
  should no longer be necessary to manually turn off the vertex
  animation feature on these systems - it should now be off and
  disabled automatically.


  Bug Fixes
- Group loot has been fixed to work as originally intended. It will now
  work exactly like round robin does, with the exception that when an
  item of threshold level or above drops, it will use the auto-rolling
  system. (Prior to this fix, when in group loot mode, the round robin
  system was only being used for items (all players could loot coins),
  which was rather confusing).
- Fixed a group loot permission bug that was telling players they did
  not have permission to loot.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the game to freeze when scrolling
  through auctions in the Auction House.
- Murlocs play the drown animation when they die underwater now.
- Onyxia correctly hovers instead of standing in midair.
- You can target vocal emotes again.
- Pets and summoned creatures attacking enemies will now tap the
  enemies for their owners.
- Fixed a bug with Troll Shamans and the Berserk ability. Troll Shamans
  can only go Berserk when they are in the wounded state.
- Rogues now correctly gain Lockpicking skill from items picked in the
  trade window.
- Quests that require you to follow/escort an NPC will only complete
  when you arrive at the designated area.
- Horde and Alliance members cannot duel with each other regardless of
  realm type.
- Herbs and mineral nodes will remain active if they are not fully
  emptied.
- Fixed a bug that was giving higher damage-per-second (DPS) to
  Steelarrow Crossbow and Blackcrow than was intended.
- Sell prices on Hypnotic Blade, Illusionary Rod, Mantle of Doan, and
  Robe of Doan have been lowered.
- Players who have completed the quest to summon Kirtonos may now
  obtain the Blood of Innocents from Doctor Theolen Krastinov.
- The tooltip for the Warrior's Intercept ability has been updated to
  reflect the proper rage cost. Using Intercept now requires 10 rage,
  not 15 rage. The tooltip now accurately reflects that.

Edit: Forgot that the patch 1.2.2 was also done today instead of last week. Foolish me.

[Arethor]

Odd. I just installed the patch and when I restarted it popped a message saying "Your interface folder is out of date, click 'Delete' to erase it or 'Exit' to quit the game." I don't remember anything about interface being altered in the patch so not sure why it would have issues. Is this something normal with patches that I just don't remember?

[Treesh]

Odd.  I just installed the patch and when I restarted it popped a message saying "Your interface folder is out of date, click 'Delete' to erase it or 'Exit' to quit the game."  I don't remember anything about interface being altered in the patch so not sure why it would have issues.  Is this something normal with patches that I just don't remember?
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It's normal if you run any UI mods. They do a little check to see if the version of the UI mod matches the version of the standard UI. I've forgotten how to fix the simpler UI mods to make them work again after a patch since I don't use them. Sorry.

[Walkiry]

It's normal if you run any UI mods.  They do a little check to see if the version of the UI mod matches the version of the standard UI.  I've forgotten how to fix the simpler UI mods to make them work again after a patch since I don't use them.  Sorry.
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Easy. Open the .toc file of your mod and change the line:

## Interface: 4150

So that instead of 4150 (or whatever number you happen to have) you have the number of your current version of the game (which can be seen in the lower left corner of the logon screen).

Unless they've changed anything with how the UIs are handled, that should be all you need to change.

[MongoJerry]

Odd.  I just installed the patch and when I restarted it popped a message saying "Your interface folder is out of date, click 'Delete' to erase it or 'Exit' to quit the game."  I don't remember anything about interface being altered in the patch so not sure why it would have issues.  Is this something normal with patches that I just don't remember?

If you have any special UI -- like say, Cosmos -- this'll happen. This is to prevent your game client from breaking because of imcompatabilities between the old scripts and the new client. It usually takes a couple of days for the Cosmos folks to update everything.

[MongoJerry]

I'm not seeing any mention of the elimination of the questing in raids exploit. Since changes are being made to Scholomance and Stratholme in the next content patch to make them more 5-player friendly, I now suspect that the exploit will be eliminated at the same time as the content patch. After all, as it stands, it would be difficult to do many of the Stratholme quests if you had to 5-man the place as it stands. (Note: I actually got pretty far with a 5-man group in the beta, but it was slow going and we finally did wipe deep in the Scarlet Monastery area there).

[Tal]

I'm not seeing any mention of the elimination of the questing in raids exploit.  Since changes are being made to Scholomance and Stratholme in the next content patch to make them more 5-player friendly, I now suspect that the exploit will be eliminated at the same time as the content patch.  After all, as it stands, it would be difficult to do many of the Stratholme quests if you had to 5-man the place as it stands.  (Note:  I actually got pretty far with a 5-man group in the beta, but it was slow going and we finally did wipe deep in the Scarlet Monastery area there).
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The addition of a 30 Minute cooldown to the spiderweb belt wasn't in the patch notes either. I guess we'll have to wait until someone goes to Scholomance/Stratholme with a five player party to see if it was changed. :)

[Bolty]

The addition of a 30 Minute cooldown to the spiderweb belt wasn't in the patch notes either.
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Part of the fun with all Blizzard patches is figuring out what the undocumented changes are. Else, it would be pretty boring!

-Bolty

Yes, this post is tongue-in-cheek.

[Occhidiangela]

Part of the fun with all Blizzard patches is figuring out what the undocumented changes are.  Else, it would be pretty boring!

-Bolty

Yes, this post is tongue-in-cheek.
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Last I checked, that is the Game that Lurkers have played since day one: Find the Feature! :D

Missing Rogue

[MongoJerry]

I guess we'll have to wait until someone goes to Scholomance/Stratholme with a five player party to see if it was changed. :)

I justed tested this in Scholomance. The exploit is still there.

[Tal]

I justed tested this in Scholomance.  The exploit is still there.
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Thanks. :)

[MongoJerry]

However, I did just experience another stealth change/bugfix. In stratholme, you now have to destroy all three ziggaurat crystals to open the gate to the Barron instead of just two. This is the way it was in the beta, but for some reason in retail, you only needed to destroy two crystals. This was mentioned in the "upcoming changes to Stratholme" post mentioned on the front page. However, the other changes have not been made. That is, the crystals can still be remade by mobs, so you are on a strict timetable in that you have to get to and destroy all three crystals in a quite short amount of time. I suggest that parties clear the paths to the first two ziggaurats before actually destroying the first one. That way, you can destroy two in a very short period of time and can then work one's way leisurely to the third crystal.

[Skandranon]

However, I did just experience another stealth change/bugfix.  In stratholme, you now have to destroy all three ziggaurat crystals to open the gate to the Barron instead of just two.  This is the way it was in the beta, but for some reason in retail, you only needed to destroy two crystals.  This was mentioned in the "upcoming changes to Stratholme" post mentioned on the front page.  However, the other changes have not been made.  That is, the crystals can still be remade by mobs, so you are on a strict timetable in that you have to get to and destroy all three crystals in a quite short amount of time.  I suggest that parties clear the paths to the first two ziggaurats before actually destroying the first one.  That way, you can destroy two in a very short period of time and can then work one's way leisurely to the third crystal.
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In my experience, Strat has always been erratic in release. Sometimes you need two, sometimes you need three. The standard raid procedure on many of the raids I've gone on is to clear the path to two of them (Nerub'enkan and Maleki), destroy those crystals and check the gate to see if it's open. If it did, we go in; otherwise, we go for the Baroness.

[MongoJerry]

In my experience, Strat has always been erratic in release.  Sometimes you need two, sometimes you need three.  The standard raid procedure on many of the raids I've gone on is to clear the path to two of them (Nerub'enkan and Maleki), destroy those crystals and check the gate to see if it's open.  If it did, we go in; otherwise, we go for the Baroness.

Yes, but I'm pointing out that with the patch, it's a consistent three crystals now, so you should plan on that from the beginning. Also, if you do get a message that a crystal has been repaired, you do actually have to go back and destroy it again. (Last night, a couple of our rogues stealthed through and killed the accolytes in one of the ziggaurats that had its crystal repaired. It saved us from having to plow through a bunch of respawns). I'd clear partly to Nerub'enkan, turn around, hit the Baroness, come back, actually hit Nerub'enkan, and then make my way to Maleki. This path avoids the Alley of Death between the Baroness and Maleki. OK, maybe that's a strong name, but that narrow alleyway seems to have more danger of wiping than the wider streets along the other path.

[Skandranon]

Yes, but I'm pointing out that with the patch, it's a consistent three crystals now, so you should plan on that from the beginning. 
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Okay. I assume that you've repeated this enough times to know. It'll make things a little more complicated, especially if the Baroness bugs out five or more times. I hate that encounter.