Tuesday Morning Post: Fezzes are cool edition
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 30th 2011 at 5:00AM
The Darkmoon Faire is getting a huge revamp in patch 4.3, with new quests, new games, the ability to semi-powerlevel your professions -- and most importantly, a monkey with a fez. Forget fighting Deathwing; I gotta get me a monkey with a fez.
The other good news today is that scheduled maintenance is lasting from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT. That may not sound great, but that may mean we'll get patch 4.2.2 on live servers, which itself means we're one step closer to patch 4.3. Of course, if I'm wrong about that whole patch 4.2.2 thing, that just means downtime sucks a little more this week.
Either way, you should have plenty of time to catch up on all the news you missed in the past seven days, so join us after the break for our usual roundup.
Hot news and features
- Tom Chilton says that Blizzard is looking for a meaningful difference in the speed at which it releases expansions.
- Northrend leveling will be even quicker in patch 4.3. My level 71 warrior is pretty happy to hear this, I won't even lie.
- Our new column World of Wardrobe helps you gather tier 1 armor.
- WoW Archivist talks about the weather as it covers patch 1.10.
- Check out all the panels and events Blizzard ran at Gamescom 2011.
- Murkablo will be the BlizzCon 2011 in-game pet.
- Matthew Rossi has a provocative question: Is it time to get rid of tanking?
- Totem Talk takes a look back at the early days of restoration. We also talk about transmogrification for enhancement shaman.
- Encrypted Text has still more rogue tips for Firelands.
- Lichborne analyzes Ghostcrawler's patch 4.3 tanking changes post.
- Shifting Perspectives has more advice on gearing a restoration druid in patch 4.2. We also advocate for the death of the moonkin and offer more feral cat raiding tips for Firelands.
- Spiritual Guidance has a shadow priest's guide to Majordomo Staghelm. We also take a look at transmogrification for priests.
- The Light And How To Swing It offers tips for tanking Majordomo Staghelm. We also have words on holy paladins and healing as a zero-sum game.
- Raid Rx discusses the evolution of the healing strategy.
- The Care And Feeding of Warriors looks at more transmogrification options.
- Arcane Brilliance has more words on transmogrification for mages.
- Blood Pact looks at transmogrification options for the warlock.
- WoW Rookie offers some tips from veterans.
- The OverAchiever discusses the pros and cons of raiding achievements.
- AddOn Spotlight helps you customize PlayerPowerBarAlt.
- Ready Check offers some advice for dealing with low-DPS raid members.
- Gold Capped looks forward to epic gems in patch 4.3.
- Safe Passage continues for a while longer with a prologue to the main story.
- WoW's Mobile Armory app has a new version with new features.
- About the Bloggers features everyone's favorite UI dude, Mat McCurley.
- Know Your Lore talks about the Blood Elf capital of Silvermoon and the unfinished storylines of Cataclysm.
- All The World's A Stage has storyline hooks for the Dwarven roleplayer.
- Jinx has new WoW designs in its fall lineup.
- 15 Minutes of Fame interviews a Romanian WoW player in Korea.
- The Guild Season 5, Episode 5 is the perfect downtime viewing.
- The Lawbringer answers more of your questions including Diablo 3 currency issues and Blizzard's liability in the event of a catastrophic failure of the game.
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: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hih Aug 30th 2011 5:14AM
"Tom Chilton says that Blizzard is looking for a meaningful difference in the speed at which it releases expansions."
Blizzard also said they wanted to push content out in faster, smaller chunks in Cata. And that certainly didn't even come close to happening. I'll believe it when I see it.
razion Aug 30th 2011 5:40AM
Content isn't coming out in faster, smaller chunks? I don't know about you, but I feel like this expansion has gone by almost too quickly--and they did release tiers with fewer bosses. I think they did what they said they'd do, but that they're just trying to find a good middle-ground at this point.
Ctmcstomperq Aug 30th 2011 6:08AM
Hate to break it to you, we're less than a full year into this Expac and they're already talking up the final patch. If that's not faster, then I don't know what is.
loop_not_defined Aug 30th 2011 7:37AM
http://i.imgur.com/DHTvD.png
It took approximately 200 days to get our first raid patch. Not really sure you can call that "faster".
Also not too sure that just "talking" about the last patch 9-10 months in is really a huge feat. Patch 2.4 released little over a year into BC. Same thing with 3.3 and Wrath. With Firelands' PTR lasting two months, this would put our final patch either at the same time as others, or just a few days earlier...and that's only if 4.3 PTR matches 4.2 PTR in length, which I'm doubting due to the amount of content they've announced for it.
loop_not_defined Aug 30th 2011 7:43AM
An additional resource:
http://www.wowpedia.org/Timeline_%28World_of_Warcraft%29
Jan 16 2007 - BC release.
Mar 25 2008 - 2.4 release.
Nov 13 2008 - Wrath release.
Dec 8 2009 - 3.3 release.
Dec 7 2010 - Cata release.
Nov 2011 would be 2 months earlier than Wrath, 3 months earlier than BC. ~2 months out.
Dec 2011 would be 1 month earlier than Wrath, 2 months earlier than BC. ~3 months out.
G0rehowl Aug 30th 2011 9:13AM
Yeah they totaly failed at faster patches. hell 4.1 took forever and barely even counts as a patch (yay rehashed painfuly repeditive trollroics no one likes to run) which makes it look even worse. Now just because they have decided to end the expansion prematurely doesn't mean the have accomplished this goal at all. It does mean they can drain another 50-70$ from it's coustomers alot sooner though. I'm all for it, cata has been very lackluster in the end game department so far (fingers crossed for 4.3) mad props to my area folks for keeping it interesting.
Amaxe Aug 30th 2011 9:22AM
I think it is safe to say we did not get our money's worth out of Cataclysm. Yes I know they revamped the world, but given that even a person who played only Vanilla would experience that, I don't consider this to be part of the $40 xpac. We basically paid this $40 for 5 linear zones, flying in the Old World and one new tier of tradeskill leveling.
I really hope they have been working all this time to make the new xpac the best damn expansion ever.
Hih Aug 30th 2011 3:32PM
@ctm: "Less than a year in and talking about the final patch".
Hey, remember Wrath, where 3.3 came out around a year after launch? That's nothing spectacular. And to top it all off, we LOST a tier COMPARED to Wrath. We're only getting three tiers this expac, as compared to the previous four.
Oh, and remember when Blizzard said they wanted multiple raid instances per tier, with T5 as their model? Lolololol. That happened for the "intro" tier, sure, BUT DID NOT HAPPEN FOR ANY TIER AFTER THAT! Lolololol.
I'll say it again: I'll believe it when I see it.
Artificial Aug 30th 2011 4:16PM
@Amaxe: Make that eight new zones, and don't forget the new races. You may choose to arbitrary exclude content you don't care about, but it doesn't really make a valid argument to first exclude a bunch of the new stuff you got from the list, then claim "we" didn't get as much when you mean "you" didn't get as much that you cared for. Many of the rest of us got a lot more out of this expansion than any previous one, even if you do arbitrarily exclude that which you can get without buying it (an argument that, if taken seriously, would say that the BC expansion was entirely without content, which is clearly absurd).
Bapo Aug 31st 2011 12:07AM
Pretty sure you still need BC to get to Outlands, and to access Draeni / Belves. Same goes for needing Cataclysm for Worgen / Goblin.
Or did your comment fly right over my head? (It happens a lot : / )
Monongahela Aug 30th 2011 4:13PM
Amazing how every time I come back from a break I always forget about Tuesday maintenance.
Nathanyel Aug 30th 2011 6:11AM
shame on you for teasing me with that article name in the RSS feed and then not using a pic of Matt Smith wearing a Fez.
Ozmodius Aug 30th 2011 7:29AM
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/086/3/0/matt_smith_fez_meme_by_slyfox34-d3cl4j2.jpg
Hope that cheers you up.
Adam Aug 30th 2011 7:20AM
Stetsons are also cool!
Wilk Aug 30th 2011 10:49AM
Bang.
Amaxe Aug 30th 2011 9:09AM
"That may not sound great, but that may mean we'll get patch 4.2.2 on live servers, which itself means we're one step closer to patch 4.3. Of course, if I'm wrong about that whole patch 4.2.2 thing, that just means downtime sucks a little more this week."
So far my client hasn't attempted to download anything. Of course it's only a little after 6am Blizz time here and they don't always start downloads either.
Amaxe Aug 30th 2011 9:11AM
**don't always start downloads immediately either**
Need coffee
Jaq Aug 30th 2011 9:14AM
Mine hasn't either. Was wondering if my client was broken or something. If it is at least I'm not alone.
BK269 Aug 30th 2011 10:36AM
In all reality, the revamped world and all the new content in the inital release was built more for casual players, who wanted to experience the changed lore and the new storyline. Basically the hardcore players were the ones complaining about almost nothin to do, even though they gave you BoT, To4W, BH, etc. and now FL. So originaly, it was casual friendly for a time.
Smashbolt Aug 30th 2011 11:15AM
Those changes were also about keeping up with current MMO trends. The old leveling experience was nowhere near as compelling and exciting as what newer MMOs offer. The 1-60 game needed to be updated not only for "casuals" rolling alts, but also to make those crucial first 20 levels a lot more exciting for new players who might otherwise prefer the more streamlined beginner areas of other MMOs.
While I understand and appreciate all that, it is still a shame that gameplay options for level 85s have suffered as a result of limited employee bandwidth to create new stuff.