Beta Notes 10-12 (with bonus notes, Part 8)

Here's parts 10-12 of my beta notes, including some priest notes, initial Forsaken changes, and more.  Spoilers, of course.



Hm, none of the level 90 priest talents do damage as discipline anymore.  This isn't the end of the world; I just have to get used to not having the option to use Halo for soloing damage without switching specs.

Stairs are still *really* disorienting.  Constant head bob.  Ugh.

Oh, oh right. I don't have Psychic Scream right now either. I adjusted to the hunter and DK changes a lot more smoothly. >.<  I don't know yet if I prefer Void Tendrils or having a fear option.

Khadgar: Man or Ent?  Seriously, every time I go through the starting area, it's like Isengard all over.

Is Lady Liadrin wielding Quel'Delar??? SHE IS!

I still have the agility one in the bank.

OMG my undead have eyelashes. Not sold on how the eyebrows all look the same, but overall not bad. Female night elves still look like the need to go get threaded.  Sounds like facial customization pass hasn't been done (sort of like how all the orc ladies had brown eyes for a long time, and may still), but they should look more different when they're done.

9 years later I finally have my fire ammo. ;_;  Now that I don't actually have ammo.  Lone wolf doesn't interest me, even as Marksman, unless a fight's mechanics work better with it.

One day I will escape my garrison again! One day...

Out of my garrison again! Finally!  Next day was better, yes.

Nighttime is dark - which is nice - but I won't be able to do it on my 2nd monitor. I keep that one's brightness lower.  I've got a two monitor set-up, and the one I normally run WoW on is fine at night.  But I've generally got both WoW, the beta, and maybe Hearthstone open at once, and the beta is what gets resized onto the darker monitor (so websites and whatnot don't blind me).

"Do Not Touch" - really?! Is this here just for the people who pushed Mimiron's button?  I did eventually touch it.

Whoops, this is Talador, not Gorgrond.  So yeah, there's a fork in the road leaving Frostfire...

LOL - "Function Disabled. See Operation Manual Vol. X pp.1014-1034"  Talador just kept spamming this off and on.

Ohh.... the Femur of Improbability will give a treasure. Placeholder atm.  Like I said, spoilers.

Penny Clobberbottom == Reckless Rocketeer??  6 mana, 5/2 with charge... Seriously, first thing that popped into my head when I saw her Gorgrond introduction.

... commander? What, do I look like Shepard to you?  I haven't played Mass Effect, but I've overheard most of it.

Beta /1 is like some weird combination of Barrens chat and Trade chat. Their unholy child, or something.  It's... really weird, in a way.  A mix of "How do I...?" and "X sucks!"

Sniper shot: going to kinda suck if fights require any constant movement, but at the same time, I LOVE the concept of it for Marksman.  I was jealous when this was a Survival thing.  Just like when they STOLE my extended range out of the 15 point talent tier.

I... I think this wasp and this ravager are mating. I'm not gonna screenshot that. >.<  Seriously, no, not going to screenshot it.  It was creepy.

Now taming: Toucan Sam.

Like I said...

Aww.... lagging too much to actually name it Sam.  I'm not sure if the name wasn't sticking for some other reason, but I'm betting on lag.

Yessss... your mine actually has stuff for you to mine.  I spent chunks of the previous two betas mining; this one I don't even have to leave my garrison to do it!

So I realized I skipped Beta Notes 8; here's those, too:

Haha, ok, swapping my Death Grip and Army of the Dead buttons was a bad idea.  I'm still playing with the death knight's toolbars, but they're a similar color.  I had to put them back how they used to be.

Oh, server restart. I'll log out and see if I maybe log back in at the same spot.  ... sometimes.

Woot, got the herbalism drop.  The DK is one of the herbalism/alchemists I transferred over.

... and the server's going down again. I guess I'll try more later!

Beta Notes: Part 9

Another night, another round of beta notes!  Spoilers, of course.  Notes in bold, comments after.


Starting to get spoiled by bag cleanup. I'm still not 100% okay with its sorting - face it, I'm a librarian, I have training in categorizing stuff, and other people's taxonomies sometimes irk me - but it's mostly okay.

Seriously, yeah, it's taken me how many years to be most okay with the changes in Windows My Documents/"Libraries" stuff?  I sort my stuff the way I sort them, and I still think they need a cataloger to fix their auction house categories but... pushing a button and having all the ore of the same type stack next to each other is really nice.

The reagent bank is pretty nice, and I'm looking forward to doling out some of my hoarded materials off my bank toon - old cloth, etc., and freeing up some space. My rogue has all the old herbs stock (one stack of each, just in case), so she's getting back basically two bag slots. Same with my enchanter, who has two bags of enchanting mats banked. Some stuff - elemental mats and the like - will be harder to decide who gets to hold them. I'm not going to be getting rid of my bank toon because she also has a couple tabs full of things like "stuff to auction" and "holiday items/clothes," but she's going to free up a couple tabs.

My bank toon is also parked by the auction house, which is going to be handier depending where they decide to plop the "return to Azeroth" option.

Ohhhh I had forgotten to turn back on target-of-target. I've been so confused.

Frostwolves or Thundercats. You decide.

Yeah, I'm too lazy to get off my mount and open gates. I hope this gap in my garrison wall doesn't go away when I upgrade it.  Okay, the upgraded garrison's gates are just open.  Tactically this doesn't seem to be an improvement.

I seem to sometimes randomly log in places other than where I logged out.  I logged out of my garrison by the alchemy lab and logged back in outside the gates.  o.O

Hm, alchemy work orders don't seem to pull from the reagent bank.  Not sure if that's a bug or just need to put in a suggestion.  I put it in regardless.

Ah, crud, I've basically invited the Apothecarium into my garrison.  I've never trusted the Apothecarium, even if I do have two Forsaken alchemists.

o.O WTF is the Amperial Construct for?  I don't know, but the Ethereal dude rents them to me.

Weird clipping in the mine cutscene.  One of those "flying through the walls" kind of things.

I like all the random little easter-eggy type quests.  There's lots of random stuff to pick up.  Being a completionist for things like maps and quests, I like this kind of stuff.

Yay, they fixed rest state in the town hall.  You can treat your town hall like an inn now.  Which is good, since you have an innkeeper.  It surprises me how many people don't realize logging out somewhere you have rest state is an immediate logout, without waiting the 20 seconds.

LOL, need to reset my hearth, I'm hearthing to where the town hall was.  Hearthed out into the middle of my garrison.

OMG the saberons are snow leopard people. I WANT TO PLAY ONE.  I really like snow leopards.  My main raiding cat is a snow leopard.

Saberons!  They had worgen models until this build.

Just some extra screenshots:

Draenor, a.k.a. the Great Blue Square.

Hey look, there's a world boss on the map down there.

Huh. '80s wrestlers?

Beta Notes 5-7 (Now With Screenshots!)

Here's parts 5-7 of my beta notes.  Spoilers abound!



Dance hat!  The ogre trader you rescue will sometimes sell  these.

I wonder if those roof supports are ribs or tusks.  A lot of the orc structures seem to be made with curved roof beams that could be either.

Bulwark of Azzinoth?!  Some of the Thunderlord NPCs are running around with what could only be this.

FINALLY doing Ga'nar's quest. The Herald just hasn't been there the previous attempts at getting it done.  I'd only been trying for days.

Whoops, black powder chain reaction.  You only have to set off one of the siege weapons for them all to go.

Man, at least all the NPCs know my tauren is female.  So many PUGs refer to my tauren as "he" by default.  The dimorphism in tauren is pretty obvious; you'd think this wouldn't be a problem.

A gronn picked up the ground I was standing on and threw it.  Yeah.

These gronn are probably the most interesting non-dungeon/raid mob I've fought in forever.  They are - they've got interesting mechanics, and that whole pick up the ground you're standing on and throwing it thing - hella nifty.

I haven't yet found the quest that lets me upgrade my garrison (e.g., the one that gives you plans for the Alchemy Lab or some other 2nd building).  Further research suggests you have to be an alchemist to get the drop right now.

:O Grulloc? A son of Gruul?? Duuuuude. Oh, so we're not here for *him*, but for the orc by him. Except... I can't seem to do this quest right now. Either they don't release the gronn, or the gronn despawns.

Oh, this is a *really* young orc. I thought I was looking for a teenager, but it's just a kid.  Rescuing orc children - go!  This chain was much shorter than I expected, just the one quest.

Still trying to get Grulloc to work. Otherwise I guess I'll have to switch over to my priest or something.  This took some time to get to start properly.  Not hard once it actually did.

So apparently I somehow left General chat. I *thought* it was really quiet.  Usually when my channels bug out it's only the custom ones.

Hm... I am out of quests... but there's still a flightpath up north I haven't been to? And still no way to upgrade my garrison further/do the mine quest in it... Hm. I guess I'll see what's at that flight path spot.

Or my queue will pop for the dungeon that I... won't actually load into.

Okay, no dungeon. Throm'var doesn't seem to have any quests for me.

Okay, not getting this Mysterious Flask drop... let's try an Alchemist.  This was the common wisdom.  Options that I've copied over are rogue and death knight.  Death knight it is!

And my DK's bars need work. Hm.  Two of my standard hits (Rune Strike and Heart Strike) are gone, so I've gotta juggle the remaining options.  Rotation feels a little empty.

YEEESSSSSS You can reverse bag cleanup/new loot now.  This was a major frustration initially.  I'll have to play with bag settings some more to get it to play how I want it to.

I'm really having trouble talking myself into doing this opening part again. But I want to try out upgrading a garrison, so...  I really liked the Khadgar bit the first time through, but after that... ugh.

Ooo a flower hydra.  Alas, an elemental, so no taming.

Oh, the garrison *starts* with gates now.  I saw them on my hunter's and thought they had been added since she'd been there a while, but nope.  They come standard now.

I assume the gap in the wall is in homage to our Alterac Valley weakness of... um... 10 years?  Ahem.  Actually I'll probably use this more than the gates because I don't have to dismount.

Liking Frostfire. But Tanaan... eh.  It's going to be a slog (albeit a short one) to get all my toons started.

... looks like my flightpath got stuck on the edge of my garrison. Hm.  As you can see, a couple others are stranded with me.

Exit, reload.  I suppose I could have hearthed, but I figured exiting might pop me back to my hearth point, or at least make me fall.

Well, this is awkward. I'm in Shadowmoon Valley. On a tauren DK. Um...  Yeah.

Hey, a bonus objective. Well, I can see it, but apparently not actually do it. Probably because it's Alliance.

Ah, crap. A village. Now I'm flagged.  Let's jump onto that lake!  There probably aren't guards there...

Karabor in the background.

Even the lilypads are pretty.

Hey, is that a neutral flight path? Now, how to get there...  This took some doing.  Parts of this zone have deceptively impassable terraced cliffs.  I did pick up a quest, though!

Vashj'ir has definitely set some standards for underwater terrain.  That coral down there...

"You don't know any flight locations connected to this one."  Neutral flight path not as helpful as hoped.

:O That moon!

Flying out of the garrison is now "You're not in Kansas anymore."

Frostfire is pretty cool but it doesn't inspire these kinds of screenshots.

It occurs to me the Horde had a lot longer trip on their boat out of Tanaan.  Seriously, Tanaan is just north of Shadowmoon; Frostfire is opposite the map from Shadowmoon.

Star pattern suggests non-spiral galaxy.  If you live where it's dark enough, you know that the Milky Way makes a bold strip across the sky.  That's the side view of the spiral structure we get from our spot on the outskirts.  This suggests an elliptical of some sort.

Sky in Shadowmoon Valley

Okay, this isn't getting me closer to upgrading the garrison. Back to Frostfire...  Finally hearthed after making a circuit of the zone.

Huh, that bug reoccurs. At least this time I died falling in Frostfire.  This time I just fell off the rylak and died.  I couldn't get the death knight to load back in for a while, so I called it a night.

Beta Notes, 2-4

Here's my notes parts 2 to 4.  Some of the lag-related bugs have been fixed since I made the notes.

Remember: There are spoilers!!


Wait, wait, Gazlowe?! The boss of Ratchet?! (Literal IRL reaction: headgrabbing in the "mind blown" gesture) - yes, Gazlowe is overseeing construction of your garrison (Horde folks).

Oh, this is a lovely cave.  All the caves in Frostfire Ridge have such a lovely organic feel.

This... feels like WoW. Maybe it's playing with the sound on again.  I dunno, running around the garrison, doing quests, having the quest hubs all be non-linear but interlinked... it feels like WoW again.

Whoops. Now my pet is bugged. Can't summon, not dead, can't dismiss. Let's try dying.  This is one of the ones that has been fixed!

Help I have discovered mining nodes I am doomed.  Yeah, doomed since I don't have any smelting or engineering patterns yet.  At least there's a reagent bank tab now...

I like how much more organic the caves feel.  Apparently I like them so much I made two notes about it!

Hm... Prophet Velen spam seems to be tied to the lag out and my pet bugging.  This was the bug, and they seem to have fixed him.

Ok, I think the bear is lagging/distance despawning, but not properly despawning. So it thinks he's summoned, but he's not, and Dismiss pet doesn't work. Nor is he dead. Since dying unsummons him, that's working.  This was what the bug did for pets.

Disconnects getting better.  Stabilized on Sunday some.

Pulled my Frostwolf tabard out of the bank.  Hell, yeah, Frostwolves!

NOOOO Frostfire Pigs I'm sorry. I forgot how dangerous Barrage is.  I, um, slotted Barrage back in for AOE pulling, and, well, critters. ;_;

Lagspike when the zone music restarts.  I... I think this has gotten better?  The lag in general has improved.

Ooooo pretty new white furry worms.  They are pretty... and I'm not playing Beast Mastery, dammit.

Wow ravenous ironchewers are creepy looking.  Creeeeeepy.

Oh, hey, level 100 ogres. Whoops. (Ha, I killed it.)  I haven't gone back to see what they're about, but there's several of them.  They were in the way of my mining node.

Pet despawn bug has changed slightly - pet now shows up as dead but isn't, can fix by relogging.  Still related to Velen, but it's fixed now!

Resizing the window via the maximize button cause some weird shadowing of mobs/players.  This is still bugged, and I posted about it in the thread on the forums!

A battle pet! Oh, this poor rat is all alone.  Not sure if pets have friends yet, but pet battles seem to be still basically operational.

Came out of pet battle, can't move. Lag? Bug? Both? Looks like lag.  Yep, Velen lag.  Fixed now!

Oooo this treasure chest glows purple.  So quest objectives glow white-yellowish, and special treasure objects are purple.

I wish I could get Snowpaw as a follower after Urukag dies. He looks lonely. :(  It took me forever to get this quest done, and then Snowpaw just sits there looking so sad.

Unused Currencies sorting above WoD ones is a bit unhelpful - putting WoD above it will push it further up the window.  Hopefully "Unused" gets weighted out of alphabetical order.

Ogres are consistently funny.  They are.  I have screenshots going back to vanilla with them yelling things like "Me smash Kitty!!"

Checked MoP snakes, not yet tameable.  Sorry, @JulianJRossi.  I tried. :(

YAY SNOWPAW!!  So I log in the next day and SNOWPAW IS RIGHT THERE BY MY GARRISON HOME.  Not a follower, but he hangs out with Khadgar's tour guide now.

... unused woodpile doesn't seem to be despawning today.  Yay extra bugged garrison resources I can't spend yet? o.O

And I spy with my Eagle Eye... a chest on top of the tower! I'm goin' up!  I'm glad I still have Eagle Eye and that it's giving me reasons to go places.

I was really happy about Snowpaw.  Every time I crashed and ended up back at my garrison, THERE HE WAS!  It was great.

Beta Notes!

So Friday is the only one this summer I wasn't taking off work this summer, and while glancing through my email at the workshop I was attending, I saw a beta invite email.  I assumed it was spam.  Nope!  Got home and the beta (still labeled alpha) was in my launcher.  Apparently it's a stress test? Regardless, I'm in.

Friday it was quite disconnect-y, and it still was much of today, but today was more playable.  Here's my notes I made as I played (notes in bold, with commentary).

THIS IS PRETTY SPOILERY FOR TANAAN JUNGLE STUFF IF YOU WANT TO AVOID THEM.



NOOO my transmog is slowly bleeding away - transmogs you had on gear prior to copying a character seem... unstable.  All I've got left on my hunter is her shoulders, though I redid her bow.

Bags are filling backwards - this seems related to the changes in bags.  Bags have a configuration gear on them, and you can tell them which loot you pick up goes where... except the backpack.  Perhaps I am the only one who keeps the stuff I'm going to vendor in my backpack? If I could assign junk to it, I would find the change much less annoying.  But right now it fills Bag 4 to Bag 0 if you have them unassigned.



I spent a good deal of time copying over toons and rotating through them once I discovered the toybox.  Only one alt had any items (2) that my main didn't that are currently listed as toys.  The toy list is currently incomplete.

Not yet toys:

• Haunted War Drum
• Vrykul Drinking Horn
• Ancient Amber
• Anatomical Dummy
• Silversage Incense
• Puntable Marmot
• Cremating Torch
• Turnip Punching Bag
• Totem of Harmony
• Turnip Paint "Gun"
• Shushen's Spittoon
• Hozen Idol
• The Golden Banana
• Ruther's Harness
• Snowmaster 9000
• Crashin' Thrashin' Robot
• Burlap Ritual Bag
• Orb of the Sindorei (which... doesn't actually work right now?)
• Leyara's Locket

Woo bear does Fort now!  With the changes in pet buffs & debuffs, my bear gives 10% health now.

Wow, camera following you down every.step.of.the.stairs is really disorienting. Makes it feel like the screen is shaking.  This was annoying enough I commented on one of the threads about it on the forums.

I... I feel kind of like a unit in a Warcraft RTS.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but Khadgar's comments after you inadvertently free Gul'dan made me feel like I was a unit in Khadgar's game.

Quest objective glow is nice.

The quest text feels more... RP-ish, which is nice. Could do without the colonial racism from Khadgar, though.  Khadgar keeps calling the orcs of Tanaan "natives," which just feels off.  "Locals" might feel less offensive.

Special Action Button popping up when you're in the right spot to use a quest item is a nice touch.  Especially since the quest items are no longer in your bags.  Maybe this will avoid some of the LUA interference with addons when you try to click quest items in your objectives trackers.

Wooo Lady Liadrin!

Hey, the change in % and # display on health bars is nice. Much easier to read.  I'm really bad at estimating percentages, and I like having the numbers there too.

And we go all Isengard on the forge. LOL. Khadgar is secretly an Ent!  I was amused.

Good job, Khadgar, now we're trapped in a cave.  I may have actually yelled this at the screen. >.>

Ahhhh, Aimed Shot while moving by default. Which is good, because I'm missing Arcane Shot just for something fast to hit.  Arcane out of the rotation works okay as far as I can tell, but I miss it for grabbing mobs for grouping them up to AOE.

Me (joking): I need another monitor, [husband]! [I have two.] Him (in srs computer man mode): Well... you'd need another video card, and a new power supply, so it would be expensive...  I was trying to beta and WoW and Hearthstone at the same time.  Ahem.

Current macro: Aimed, Chimera, Steady x2, Aimed, Steady x2 - I could probably be doing without a macro, but this seems to mostly work right now.  I can't effectively keybind and move, so I think I'm better off with the shot macro, anyway.

More later tonight after the flex raid!

Here be Spoilers

So I bought the virtual ticket for Blizzcon this year, partly because it went up for sale while I still had birthday money, and I figured, hey, I'll get a pet out of it.  The opening ceremony was free to stream, but subtitles only work on the main stage stream, which you only have access to with the ticket, and... I left my authenticator at home. >.<  So I watched the stream soundless at the reference desk at work between helping the occasional Friday afternoon patron, coupled with WoW Insider's live blog so I could actually get some context.

So we learned:

• We're going back in time to Draenor because Garrosh.  Apparently Star Trek isn't the only franchise to fork time in the past to get new content; Garrosh plays the role of the Romulan who went back to destroy Vulcan, and we get to play elder Spock, or some such.  (Woo double franchise spoiler post.)
• New level cap is 100.  All well and good, lets them add another talent tier easily.  The expansion after this, they'll probably have to redistribute them again.
• When expansion purchase, you can boost a character to 90.  This is good for folks who have been out of the game a long time, or if you've got friends on the other faction or another server you want to play with more right away.
• They're adding player garrisons.  We liked the farms so much, they're giving us a whole little town to play with, and we get to pick where to put it.  Collect NPCs; they'll do some crafting stuff for you.  Sounds like this is a partial answer to all those requests to make the gathering skills baseline.
• Draenor was gorgeous before the Legion showed up.

Overall, I'm... okay, not really excited.  I geek out over different things, really, but I'm looking at this and thinking, when am I even going to have time to raid?  I'm a bit of a pet collector, sitting at 188 mounts, and given a whole garrison to flesh out?  Dude.

I've always wanted to see a lot of the places that we know were changed because of pre-WoW storyline events, and places like Netherstorm, that's getting ripped apart, and Zangarmarsh, that the naga have been draining - those were pretty high on my list.  (Please let sea horses work in the Zangar Sea.)  But really - it hadn't occurred to me that the changes in Shadowmoon Valley were so recent, really.  Auchindoun, Karabor, and such - I didn't think I'd ever get to see them pre-destruction/corruption.

So far as I've been able to tell, they've been avoiding telling us who gets Garrosh back in time, but really, who has power over time nowadays?  Bronze dragons to some extent, and certain Timewalkers.  Given the last vision that the hourglass gives us on the Timeless Isle, I have a short list of bets to make about that.

I keep wanting to say Wrathion is involved in all this somehow, but every time I look at his background, I keep saying, dude, this kid's origin is just as screwed up as Anakin Skywalker's.  I'm not going to bother.  But if Wrathion's visions of the Legion are because he's somehow from the forked time, rather than our own...  But I don't think the Black Dragonflight was there long ago enough for that to be true.

Anywho, I have a placeholder Draenei now.