Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Common patch 4.1 questions
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 2nd 2011 at 11:00AM
We've been seeing the same questions about patch 4.1 repeated fairly frequently over the last few days, so I'll be trying to tackle a small batch of those today.
Everyone in the entire world asked:
What will happen to our valor points in patch 4.1?
Since Blizzard is not adding a new tier of points, your valor point tally the day patch 4.1 launches will be rolled down into your justice points. I know that for certain. I'm pretty sure that if you end up over the cap of 4,000 justice points when your valors are rolled down, you will be able to go over the cap. But you won't accrue any more justice points until you've spent some.
Erevan asked:
It was announced in the PTR patch notes that the revamped 5-man versions of ZG and ZA will have an ilevel requirement of 346 and drop 353 epics (fantastic approach, IMO, to allowing better 5 man drops without immediately invalidating current raid equipment).
Here's my question: do the above ilevel numbers reflect the regular or heroic versions of ZG and ZA, and what gear requirements/loot drops can we expect from whichever one it isn't?
I don't believe there will be a normal version of these instances -- they're heroic only. What Blizzard is doing with these new 5-mans is providing a method of advancement for players who don't raid. They expect you to run the 5-man dungeons that were in at launch until you can do them on their heroic difficulty. Once you've conquered those and reached an ilevel of 346, you can step up and do Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub heroics. Essentially, heroics are becoming tiered content, just like raids. Tier 1 is all of the heroics that were in at launch. Tier 2 is Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub. Tier three will be whatever comes in patch 4.2 (or patch 4.3).
Personally, I think it's a great step for people who can't raid. Zul'Aman will even have a timed run again, which should add yet another layer of challenge to the instance. I like it.
Steve asked:
How confident should we be that new raid content will be included in 4.1? Thus far, and unless I've missed something, any mention of new raids has been excluded from the patch notes. We know that Firelands and the new Caverns of Time raids are coming, and we've seen some new tier 12 trinkets, so clearly something is in the works. But is it possible that they would limit the new content to the new 5-mans in 4.1 and hold off on new raids until 4.2?
It's entirely possible that Blizzard is going to change up its way of doing content patches. It might break up raid content and non-raid content into their own patches. But I wouldn't assume that's what's happening yet. Patch 4.1 went up on the PTR fairly bare-boned. There was a lot to datamine but not much actually available for play. Only an early iteration of Zul'Gurub and its associated quests were available the night the PTR went live. No Zul'Aman, no gear, not much of anything. I fully expect that Blizzard rushed this one out onto the PTR and it's going to be there for a long time -- long enough to add in some of that raid content.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 12)
vocenoctum Mar 2nd 2011 1:23PM
WoW doesn't have to be "concerned" about Rift or any other, it's still a smart business move to "remind" players that WoW is an evolving game. "Hey, look what's coming... " will get some of the folks that might dabble in Rift for a month or two to just stay. It's not automatically a "we're going to lose membership!" response to say "we notice that other game and we'll react".
"We're not in Azeroth anymore!"
"Hey, Azeroth has Zul Gurub again, get back here!"
::sound of digital feet running::
SamLowry Mar 2nd 2011 3:32PM
And here I thought they were rushing out the new tier because people were complaining that heroics were too hard with the current gear level.
Artificial Mar 2nd 2011 5:48PM
@Epius: "I have fount that when a new MMO with some hype is about to come put they always release information on a new patch with these little goodies."
I love crackpot theories like this. Given that there's always a new MMO with some hype about to come out, they cannot possibly be falsified, and a great theory is one that cannot possibly be proven wrong, right? ;)
Thiron Mar 2nd 2011 11:12AM
4.1 : Any news on new crafted gear or possibly non-soulbound chaos orbs?
MattKrotzer Mar 2nd 2011 11:25AM
I doubt we'll see anything on those until we get more Firelands info.
Jeremie Mar 2nd 2011 11:14AM
Is blizzard ever going to fix the resource nodes that are unobtainable? It gets annoying flying over the same herb or ore node and can't get to it because it is floating in mid-air or buried inside of solid rock.
WaterRouge Mar 2nd 2011 11:27AM
I doubt it's on their top priority list. After a while you (meaning me) get used to where they are and just skip over them and move on to the next. Generally if it isn't hurting a large player base (meaning anyone besides those who look all around for a way to access the one node) Blizzard isn't thinking about it.
Skrotus Mar 2nd 2011 9:00PM
I've often wondered if perhaps some of the unobtainable nodes were a kind of honeypot to attract hackers, seeing as they can't be gathered by normal means anybody who does manage to gather them would be suspect. Probably not, though.
shawn Mar 2nd 2011 11:15AM
With the roll over/down of current Valor Points into Justice, will the Valor Point items also be dropped down to be purchased with Justice Points? Or, are those people who can't accrue enough VP now simply out of luck all around?
There is a middle group of players (i.e. not hardcore, but not overtly casual) that will never obtain the "VP" tier of items because they have too many JP and have already acquaried those items, but not enough VP to buy a single piece. Once the few VP they have downgrade, they will be stuck with an abundance of useless currency and still not enough to buy the next tier.
Is there a resolution for this; other than "go raid more?"
shawn Mar 2nd 2011 11:24AM
Answered above in comments. Downvote.
*WTB editing functionality*
xth Mar 2nd 2011 11:26AM
If I remember correctly, Valor points are used for the "top end" gear for whatever is current tier. Justice points are used for all other gear. Think of it like emblems of Frost vs emblems of Triumph at the end of Wrath, if that helps. Whenever a new tier rolls out - T12 in 4.1- all existing Valor gear should be "downgraded" to Justice gear, much like your Valor points will be downgraded to Justice points like Alex mentions in his answer to today's first question.
Leroy Mar 2nd 2011 11:27AM
Yes. When 4.1 goes live, the gear that costs VP in 4.0 will use JP in 4.1.
TheBlob Mar 2nd 2011 11:28AM
From my understanding, when 4.1 hits, everything that currently costs VP to buy will now cost JP, and all of your current VP with turn into JP, adding on top of what JP you already have.
So if you cap out on JP right before 4.1, methinks you could have like up to 6000 JP and get 2-3 tier pieces and then maybe have enough gear to raid, since you said you couldn't. However, I don't know about the helms and shoulders, but it would be really stupid to make you still get tokens for those so presumably those will also cost JP after 4.1.
shawn Mar 2nd 2011 11:35AM
@The Blog
I don't mind raiding for tokens to acquire the final pieces of T11. I think that is a valid path to gear. I just didn't want to see a hole created for those in between hardcore and casual.
While I'm easily into 5-man Heroics, I have yet to raid in this expansion yet. I have both VP and JP, but JP is nearly useless to me at this point. But, I don't have enough VP to really buy upgrades to my heroic/crafted items. I am concerned that T11 would still be out of reach after currency dropped.
But, it seems my worries are abated. If current VP items drop to the lower-tier of currency, it isn't a problem.
I don't mind holding out for raiding to get the head and shoulders.
vocenoctum Mar 2nd 2011 11:38AM
As was stated by Blizzard since before Cata, the gear will be available for justice points. Not sure if they stated if the pricing will be similar.
Verine Mar 2nd 2011 11:41AM
I was in the same situation, I never had enough high end tokens to get a high end piece of gear. At least with with tokens I could downgrade my meager number high end tokens to get my low end gear a little faster.
SamLowry Mar 2nd 2011 3:37PM
So are these idjits trolling, or are people really that uninformed about news that came out well over half a year ago?
Amado Mar 2nd 2011 11:17AM
With the release of a new tier of raid. What will happen with our Valor and Justice points? Will Valor points shift down to Justice or will we be able to keep our existing Valor points?
Drack Mar 2nd 2011 11:50AM
Sorry, hard to tell if you're trolling or if you're too illiterate to read the Queue. Considering this is your only post ever, I'll be going with the former.
Carpathia Mar 2nd 2011 11:17AM
Interesting content tease from Zarhym:
"We'll have more information to share on the return of Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub soon. But for now I'll say this: there is a center of troll civilization yet to be seen in World of Warcraft. There was once an ancient empire of troll tribes united. Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub becoming key points of interest in Cataclysm plays into this. Perhaps something has happened to once again call for the unity of the disaffected tribes. Perhaps a certain tribe with allegiances elsewhere sees this as a very bad thing."
My assumption would be that the tribe that sees this as bad would be the Darkspears, or perhaps the Zandalari. The question is, do we have any idea what this "unseen center of troll civilization" might be. Potential troll raid in our future?