Patch 4.3: Deathwing, cosmetic armor skins, and armor storage
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 17th 2011 at 7:00AM
- Deathwing's raid and three new 5-man dungeons
- Cosmetic armor skins (!)
- An armor closet to store old gear, freeing up bank space
Follow us past the cut below for details on cosmetic armor skins and more!
In the grand scheme of things, that's actually the smallest piece of information Gamona.de managed to gather. Surely you remember the "Glimpses" screenshot that community manager Zarhym revealed via Warcraft's Facebook. The NPCs there had two curious labels: Void Storage and Transmogrifier. Void Storage, as revealed to Gamona.de, will act as a massive bank specifically for armor. Armor probably makes up the vast majority of what all (old school) players have clogging their banks, so we will all appreciate such a feature. We will appreciate it even more as time goes on, too. There are only so many bank slots to stuff with armor, and nearly every content patch brings us new tier gear to collect.
The transmogrifier is the feature players have been begging for for years; it provides the ability to alter the visual look of your armor into something more desirable. Don't like the look of your tier 12? Then reskin it with a tier you do like. It is made clear that you can only skin your armor as things your class could/should wear. For example, plate armor can only be transmogrified into other plate armor, and if you're a mage, you can't transmogrify your set armor to look like that of a different class. Currently, it's undecided whether you can only transform your armor into something you've previously acquired or not, but it's a possibility for the system. Needing to acquire gear before you can use it as your armor skin will lead to players frantically running old content to assemble their dream gear.
The costs associated with using these services have not been provided. They may cost nothing. They may cost ludicrous amounts of gold. It would be unwise to dismiss the possibility that cosmetic features such as Transmogrification could cost real money.
With the addition of these cosmetic, quality-of-life changes that patch 4.3 is implementing, this patch may very well be the most memorable patch in the game's recent history.
Keep an eye on Gamona.de. The video interview will be made available later today.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Badmedecine Aug 17th 2011 7:11AM
Im going to Gamescom. finally something I as european can do and you Americans cant :P
and isnt Deathwing in 4.3 a little ehh... EARLY?!
Very positive about the other 2 points though :)
blazenor Aug 17th 2011 7:19AM
I'm guessing if 4.3 is Deathwing, then it will be a while before that patch drop.
Nina Katarina Aug 17th 2011 7:22AM
We've known all along that Deathwing was working for an Old God. Maybe that's the last patch last boss.
Also, my German is terrible. Did he say we're actually killing DW, or just that we'd 'see' him? Big difference.
epow3r Aug 17th 2011 7:34AM
so there is room for an old God in 4.4...maybe
Like Kil'Jaeden...the tier that nobody expacted
nonentity Aug 17th 2011 7:38AM
Yeah, also thought it's a little early, seeing as we only had 2 raid tiers so far. However only Wrath had 4 tiers - Naxx, Ulduar, ToC, ICC, T7-T10 - and one of those sucked (ToC). BC only had 3 tiers, T4-T6, and Vanilla also only had T1-T3.
So T11-T13 seems to be in line actually, even though yeah, it also seems kinda fast to me.
I hope patch 4.3 will take its time though. With the summer hole we've only recently gotten barely enough people to run 25mans again, before that only 10mans and there we switched around a lot cause we usually had 15, 17, 19 people signed up, so overall we didn't achieve all that much yet unfortunately.
I'd be fine with at least 2 more months of T12 raiding, wouldn't mind 3.
Especially seeing as the next expansion hasn't even been announced yet officially and thus is probably at least half a year, more likely more than a year away, 4.2 and 4.3 still have to fill a lot of time. Unless they want the Deathwing raid to last more than, what, 8 months?, like ICC did - too long imo.
Badmedecine Aug 17th 2011 8:06AM
@ Nina, as far as i could read it would be an ''epic'' raid, one we have never seen, with Deathwing in it. Im dutch, and although German looks some like dutch, im not very good at it.
Merus Aug 17th 2011 8:41AM
I don't think there'll be a 4.4; Blizzard have said that they felt the Sunwell after Black Temple cheapened Illidan, and I'm sure they don't intend to do the same to Deathwing.
It does seem really early, but at the same time it seems like people are mostly Done with Cataclysm, and it has been nearly a year already. Blizzard probably want to cut their losses and get an expansion focused around end-game content out as quickly as they can. It does sound like Mists of Pandaria is the new expansion and Azshara is the new end boss, considering the water/Azshara content we knew was coming is apparently not part of Cataclysm.
durandal Aug 17th 2011 8:41AM
In the Gamona interview at Gamescom, they say that Abyssal Maw was scraped because setting and story were not convincing. They also say that the three 5-man dungeons are completely new, no recycled content, and one them will be a CoT at a known location.
Kelly Aug 17th 2011 9:03AM
I would think that killing DW without killing the Old God BEHIND DW would be..... lacking. From a lore stand point, it only makes sense that you would kill the Old God to ensure that "insert dragon name here" doesn't go mad in the next "insert number here" years.
Como Aug 17th 2011 9:21AM
It's very early first 4.2 is a VERY short raid we're getting like 2.5 tiers instead of 3.5 like icc. I love blizzard but this is disheartening. I mean they could very well have a 4.4 or do something to fix it but as it stands now, I feel screwed and I am going to have to consider the next xpac or move on. That combined with blizz's new drm on diablo 3 and as much as it pains me to say, there might be significantly less blizzard products in my future. And that is very depressing to me.
Arrohon Aug 17th 2011 9:50AM
Deathwing is being told what to do by an Old God? Where in game can we learn this? As far as I know there isn't so our characters know nothing about an old god. As far as we know there's just an insane dragon flying around destroying everything. Kill the dragon and all's good... right? Also, the old god could be thrown in Sinestra style. You kill Deathwing and something happens so that another area is opened. As you travel down the corridor you hear whispers as your screen fogs up as if you're drunk. The screen completely fades out for two minutes while a sound file plays with various npcs yelling about your failure. Illidan yelling You were NOT Prepared!, Thrall yelling You have failed us all!, and Kael'thas yelling that it was only a setback... among others. Everything comes clear and you're at the door of a room where you can see an old god inside. All achievements for this boss would be feats of strength so no one would know about it until heroic deathwing is dead.
Nouyou Aug 17th 2011 10:11AM
Here is another thing to think about: If the next expac has no new classes or races, there will be a lot less to mess around with. They could probably get it out sooner rather than later. Maybe by June 2012.
Pwnzoar Aug 17th 2011 10:21AM
@Nina However the raid goes down, Deathwing has a nasty track record of surviving when everybody else thought he was dead. I have a feeling that if we "kill" him in the raid, he'll show up later at some point.
ohmyforce Aug 17th 2011 11:38AM
@Arrohon *spoiler alert -skip to TL:DR*
"Deathwing is being told what to do by an Old God? Where in game can we learn this?"
You need to read the books, namely "The War of the Ancients" trilogy to understand the back story to Neltharion and his fall from grace as Earth Warder, Aspect of Earth -later known as Deathwing, Aspect of Death. This fall, or madness, began with (known to the reader only) as "voices" in Neltharion's mind, later revealed as The Old Gods -whom instructed Neltharian to fashion the Demon Soul. That is ancient history, 10 millenia since WOW and is a central story arc for The War of the Ancients and how Azeroth is shaped today. It is also the Old Gods who supposedly 'woke' Deathwing from his elemental plane, Deepholm. So yes, the game may or may not provide all of the answers but then the books supplement the missing gaps. The WowWiki page provides a recap but I highly recommend reading the The War of the Ancients trilogy of books.
TL:DR -Deathwing is manipulated by the Old Gods.
adyuaa Aug 17th 2011 11:57AM
Tin-foil hat scheduling:
The next expansion will happen in the summer, discouraging extreme casuals from getting it until players more willing to wipe for a challenge have learned the content. After this, we'll get one expansion a year, with patches varying from one dungeon or arena map to multiple raids and BGs every two months, for the most part providing some catch-up in between top tier content.
Homeschool Aug 17th 2011 12:38PM
Seconding Pwnzoar's comment - I think it unlikely that we will kill(?) Deathwing until the last of the Cataclysm content updates. I think it more likely that we bring him down and strike a grievous blow, but that he then retreats to his Old God ally, and that the final encounter is some sort of Deathwing+Old God composite fight. (Perhaps even fighting a Deathwing+Old God composite, merger-style?) Who knows, perhaps in the end, Deathwing isn't even killed, just stripped of his power and freed from the influence of the Old God.
Don't write the Earth Warder off just yet.
underground_slacker Aug 17th 2011 7:13AM
"put gear here to free bank space"
.....then what will i use my bank for?
Aaron Aug 17th 2011 7:56AM
Food and drinks!
JoeHelfrich Aug 17th 2011 8:41AM
Tabards.
relmatos Aug 17th 2011 10:36AM
I have 178 slots in my main's bank. Of those, only 38 are empty.
I have about 10 with different cooking mats. The rest is full of useless items from events, funny quests or stuff like that. I don't know what I'm going to do with all that space if I can send the gear somewhere else :P
We'll have to wait and see.