Now Online: Public Test Realms
by Elizabeth Harper 
May 20th 2006 at 2:30AM
The test realms have been brought up with the 1.11 content patch. Check out the patch notes here and copy a pre-made character (character transfers are usually not available on weekends) from here. So get copying!While the changes are mostly as we expected, there are a few pleasant surprises:
- The cost to respec one's talents will now decay over time, going down by 5 gold per month, to a minimum of 10 gold.
- Rogue's Detect Traps skill is now passive.
- Warlock's Shadow Ward has a new rank to be found as a drop.
- Warrior's Shield Slam functionality has been changed. To quote... "This ability now costs 20 rage to use and the damage it does is modified by attack power (normalized to 2.2 speed). However, the base damage has been reduced. It generates more threat per rage and more damage per rage than it did previously."
- Class quest sets in Zul'Gurub and Ahn'Qiraj have been upgraded from superior quality to epic quality. (By my reading, it sounds like this refers to all items, though perhaps it is only some of them.)
- PvP armor rewards for ranks 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13 have been improved.
- Light's Hope Chapel in the Eastern Plaguelands is now a full hub, with inn, mailbox, etc.
- Many new quests in Light's Hope.
- Class-specific armor sets from Zul'Gurub now no longer require bijous or coins - only a Primal Hakkari item and appropriate reputation.
- Class-specific enchantments from Zul'Gurub now no longer require librams from Dire Maul.
- The High Priests of Zul'Gurub now have an additional loot table.
- Several raid interface improvements, including defualt-UI ability to send messages to the middle of a player's screen and perform ready checks.
- There will now be a party interface option to reset an instance.
- Many new flight paths, as well as new flight hubs in Ratchet and Un'Goro Crater.
Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rougewisp May 20th 2006 8:09AM
Crap! Passive detect traps?
Mark Sisley May 20th 2006 11:24AM
After all that downloading, patching, character transfering, and waiting, I cannot connect to the server. I choose my realm (PvE Test Realm) and try to enter, get my character list. Click the character I transfered, hit Enter Game, and...Disconnected from Server. Is anyone else having this problem? I’d really like to try out the new Shaman changes. Badly. :)
Sammy May 20th 2006 12:12PM
I cant even get my toon to move there account management site is hosed up. looks like it will be a couple of days. not to mention even when it dose come back up queue time will be 8 hrs to login.
Lmao6 May 20th 2006 1:04PM
Apparently PvE server is down... and so i pre made copies. Guess ill be waiting till mondayu (victoria day in canada)
UNI May 21st 2006 5:47AM
I can't even get to that Char-Copy page to download the client..
I did copy my chars some weeks ago, but now I can't get that client.. :(
Mat May 22nd 2006 12:14PM
"Rogue's Detect Traps skill is now passive."
You left an addendum off of this in which Blizzard states that they all play rogues in pvp and hate hunters :( :(
But other than that, some of this stuff will be great. I'm way too excited about that Ratchet flight point and the ZG changes.
Mat May 22nd 2006 12:26PM
Wow, I was reading through the notes, and one point you guys didn't post that will be REALLY interesting:
AV - Most of the NPC guard units have been removed
AV isn't going to be such a time hog from the NPC standpoint anymore! It'll be really interesting to see how this changes the PvP dynamic!
Licharu Jun 6th 2006 11:06AM
These PTR's are great, but waiting for the queues is horrible. Also, it would seem that they should have made it so you can't be flagged near LHC, it's insane. I go to click on an npc and I end up clicking on a flagged night elf which flags myself then getting ganked by AD guards.