Posts with tag amani-war-bear

Mounts are one of the best parts of World of Warcraft, especially the flying ones. Over the course of levels 30-80 we collect a bunch of them (so many that there's even an Achievement for it -- don't forget to check out our guide) and everyone has one or two tied to their action bars that they use every day. I've got two: the Big Battle Bear) and a Zhevra. But in an ideal world, we all have a list: the Ashes of Al'ar, the now removed Amani War Bear, the Spectral Tiger, the Deadly Gladiator's Frost Wrym ...

Top of my list? While I love dragons (and have my eye on a Twilight Drake), the mount I really want is a unicorn. Yes gentle readers, an actual unicorn. Not a striped zebra crossbreed found wandering in the Barrens but a pure white beast of myth. Last week, while exploring the Argent Tournament in Icecrown, I finally found one. Granted it's technically a 'Quel'dorei Steed' but it's a unicorn - with an Azerothian twist. I only hope Blizzard decide to turn this vehicle into an actual mount -- and soon because I will grind anything to get it.

Anyway, it got me thinking about mounts (and don't forget we have an awesome guide on the subject). I have a friend who collect everyone going (he's got ninety nine at the moment) and strives for the Ashes to complete his collection, others are still using their race-specific epic mount or gryphon/wind rider. So I ask you, readers, what mount do you want the most? It doesn't matter if it's an old mount now removed, a ridable version of your favourite Azerothian animal or just something straight out of myth, speak up.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Afternoon, ladies and gents. I have a follow up from yesterday's question regarding casinos, with further information straight from Ancilorn, a Community Representative over in the EU. Hopefully he doesn't end up getting horsewhipped for a fortnight over it like the last few Blue posters that decided to write to us!

Ancilorn says that, essentially, casinos that take an up front entry fee (whether it be gold or items) are against the Terms of Use and will result in action being taken on the casino owner. Casinos and competitions that do not require an upfront fee are legal and legit. Collecting an entry free is the violation here.

Now we know! Thank you very much, Ancilorn. You are my hero.

enthusedii asked...

"When the new Arena season arrives, will the arena points I have currently be reset?"

Every Tuesday/Wednesday/some sort of day occurring midweek, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert yanks John Patricelli's column again, hoping to make good on a threat previously made concerning her "dissatisfaction" with Tauren cat form. And by dissatisfaction she might mean something else.

I'll level with you; we have a huge Druid post in the pipeline that's going to round up the changes to the class in Wrath, new talents, new skills, new everything, and frankly I'm sick to death about reading or writing anything having to do with the expansion. So, just to buck the overwhelming trend that threatens to drive us all to the nuthouse, I'm going to turn to a topic that's plagued Druids for a while.

By this I mean the perennial form issue, something that my Druid colleagues on the blog have previously termed the Same Old Animal Posterior, or SOAP. But it's one that we've been given reason to believe will change in...Wrath. Well, that didn't last long. You'll note that David's article was written in October 2007, more than a year ago, but the same thing could have been posted in 2006 as well. Druid forms haven't changed since launch*, and while they were never really at the cutting edge of Blizzard's art direction as a result**, they look more and more shabby in relation to the higher-polygon models and landscapes. As everything around you gets better and better -- more evocative lighting, more intricate details, fantastic animation -- it's hard not to feel a strange sense of displacement as you shift into a 2004 form within a 2008 game.

But at long last we may see Druid form customization, an overhaul to the default forms themselves, or possibly (hopefully?) both.

All of us here at WoW Insider are staggering around somewhat zombie-like in the wake of BlizzCon with the patch (probably) coming tomorrow and the amount of information we're hoping to get out in the next 24 hours. So in all truth I don't know whether the answers to today's questions are completely factual or just stuff that started swimming in front of my eyes at 1:00 this morning. Arthas is actually a girl underneath all that armor, just like Samus Aran. The zone music to Icecrown is "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. The Hateful Gladiator cloth belt is a pink tutu. Flying bunnies will be available in the next expan-

(Sound of a short scuffle in the background, followed by a whip crack)

Thank you, Dan, a little perspective is always useful in these difficult times.

Jason asks...

Will Northrend be accessible at 68 like Outland was accessible at 58? Or do I need to be a solid 70 to quest and instance in Northrend?

Technically, Northrend will be accessible to anyone with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion installed; you can hop a boat or zeppelin on any character of any level. There's no "You must be THIS HIGH to cross through the portal to Outland" restriction, but you won't be able to pick up any of the quests available in Northrend until level 68. Could you grind your way to 68 in Northrend from the mid-60's? Maybe, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester! We'll jump right into things today with a question from Snuffles...

In regards to flight, what areas are restricted (besides Dalaran) and how to they prevent us from flying over the ocean? Is it a wall, or a new fatigue system?

Beyond places that are indoors and you can't mount period, Dalaran and Wintergrasp are the two no-flight zones I've seen. You can't fly in Dalaran so it's more city-like, and Lake Wintergrasp so you actually have to take part in the combat and plan your travel routes, not simply fly from point A to point B without a care in the world. Flying too far out to sea gives you a fatigue bar

We'll jump right into things in today's Ask a Beta Tester, because destiny waits for no man!

andyjay220 asked...

How have people liked the new threat meter? I have tried PTR but I don't really understand it as I am used to Omen. As far as I can tell the only information it gives you is "YOU NOW HAVE 100% AGGRO" which isn't very helpful. I want to see a meter showing how far away from pulling aggro I am so i can gauge my attacking accordingly. Any way someone could explain it to me?

The threat meter's UI is pretty simplistic. It displays yellow when you're close to pulling aggro, and red when you've done it. It's accurate, but hard to gauge how close you really are. It shows the percentage in your tooltip... but that's a strange place for it. It won't replace things like Omen (when it's updated for 3.0.2) but its addition will allow Omen and similar mods to be much more accurate.

Of course, for things like 5-man dungeons, you don't need to the nitty gritty numbers, really. There's very little reason to be at the max possible threat before pulling aggro, just take it a little easier. Raids, though? You'll want Omen.

Read on for more answers to your questions!

I mentioned the Leading the Cavalry achievement earlier, the achievement that requires 75 mounts to... well, achieve. The big question is, is that actually possible? Let's find out!

Let's use a Forsaken for our example, since they have no factors working against them like racial boundries on mounts. Keep in mind that some races will have a harder time, like Tauren can't use two of the five Horde mounts, and Gnomes don't allow anybody but Gnomes and Dwarves to use mechachickens.

The Horde has Peacocks, Raptors, Wolves, Skeletal Horses, and Kodo. From a glance at Wowhead, there seems to be...

Assuming the time table of Wrath of the Lich King's pre-patch and release will be similar to that of The Burning Crusade, we're probably looking at an early to mid October release with patch 3.0.2. The 2.0.1 patch hit on December 5th, 2006. The Burning Crusade went live January 16th, 2007. The gap was slightly over a month. Assuming Wrath makes its release date of November 13th, early October is a really safe bet. This means you have a little less than 30 days to finish the things that are going away when that patch hits. Specifically: Your Amani War Bear.

Whether your guild is on the cusp of getting their first bear or you're in the queue to get your turn (or even if you're looking to buy a bear from a raid group), time is short. Remember that Zul'Aman is only on a 3 day lockout, not 7 like most raids. Most groups only run the place once a week regardless, but you may want to consider rallying your raid to push for twice a week until patch 3.0.2 hits. You may only have 8 or 9 raid resets left before you're out of luck. I very strongly recommend WoW Insider's Zul'Aman Bear Run guide from our Jennie Lees if you just need to shave off those last few minutes.

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen. I hope to see many bear mounts in your future.

You've already heard that the Amani War Bear is disappearing from the live servers ahead of schedule in 3.0, but here's one more thing for you to hurry up on: 40-man Naxxramas. As of now on the 3.0 PTR, Naxxramas is gone from Eastern Plaguelands.

The whole of the Eastern Plaguelands has already changed, in fact. When you open your map, you can already see Archerus looming ominously over Light's Hope chapel and the remains of the Scarlet Crusade's holdings in Eastern Plaguelands. As a result, the entire map has shifted, but I still combed the Plaguewoods looking for the entrance to Naxxramas.

Due to the map shifting, the old locations for Naxxramas are rather off. At the original location coordinates for Naxxramas stands one of the old ruined villages that dot the area. The area where Naxxramas used to be relative to that Scourge ziggurat on the map is now marked by a plague cauldron. Regardless, It looks like the entrance is gone. Come 3.0, it looks like Naxxramas will have retreated to Northrend, and we'll have to bide our time before we can follow it.

So if you've been waiting on getting those last few splinters, or you've been thinking about picking up a Corrupted Ashbringer or what have you, you'd better get on it fast. When the 3.0 leaves the PTR and goes to live servers, 40-man Naxxramas will be gone indefinitely.

The public test realm has just gone live, and if you've got any characters on it (or if you'd like to go copy some), you can head on over to enjoy all of the patchtastic frivolity likely to descend sometime soon.

In case you're catching up to the rest of us, patch 3.0 is another large content patch specifically designed to transition the player base to the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King. We won't be seeing Death Knights or Northrend (or at least, we're pretty sure we won't, unless they're planning on a big surprise). We will be seeing all of the 1-70 class changes, new features added to the default UI, barbershops, Inscription, a raid buff system overhaul, and more, in addition to four European servers closing due to Russian player migration. Read on for a quick guide to what you can expect:

You can now begin downloading the PTR (Public Test Realm) client for patch 3.0.2. We reported earlier today that character copies have been made active, and those are going along nicely as far as we can tell (my Warrior copied across with no problem). To download the client and copy your characters over to the PTR, login to your account administration at worldofwarcraft.com.

We are expecting a lot of out of this patch. From new talent trees, to class and raid mechanics changes, to the removal of the Amani War Bear. We'll have a lot more on this as we get more information in. Patch notes are not available yet – though we expect to get our hands on them soon.

Stay tuned!

Back in June on my guild alliance's forums, one of our members posted a thread asking us a fairly simple question: What are your WoW goals? Being an alliance that covers a wide variety of playstyles, the posed goals were just as varied. The most common goal across everyone was to get an Amani War Bear, but these goals were everything from killing Illidan to getting their first epic flying mount to getting the Gladiator title.

The thread was bumped just the other day so we could all see our progress on the goals we posted oh-so-long ago (in internet time). It was pretty cool to see, since many of the people that posted completed most of their pre-Wrath goals. It's really fun to see everyone actually achieving the things they've wanted, no matter how big or small.

Personally, I still have a few goals I'd like to meet before the expansion rolls around.

• Kill Kil'jaeden. Almost there!
• Get an Amani Warbear for my Paladin alt
• Get an Orb of the Sin'dorei for my Priest.
  

The first one I want far, far more than the others. The mount and the trinket are pure vanity (especially since my Priest already has a bear), whereas the Kil'jaeden kill is something I'd really love to see my raid accomplish together. I'm going to go ahead and pass this question on to you guys: What are your pre-Wrath of the Lich King goals? How about goals that don't have a time limit on them? Do you just want an Ironfoe one day, like a certain Paladin friend of mine that shall remain nameless? I'm sure quite a few of you have your hearts set on a Deathcharger.

Welcome back to another edition of Ask A Beta Tester! I've stolen the reins from Elizabeth and Alex for a day, so let's get into last week's comments and get some questions answered.

Death Knights:

Multiple people had lots of questions about Death Knights, so I'm just going to list a bunch of them and then delve into what's going on: How Customizable are Death Knights? Do they get unique skintones, or unique racials?

As to Death Knight Customization, the big difference they have right now are glowing blue eyes for every race. You can see that in action in our Death Knight racial gallery. Unfortunately, I think the Blue Eyes look sort of pasted on for most races, so I'm hoping they keep tweaking that to make them look more natural. We've also been promised different sounding emotes -- every Death Knight will have a deeper, sepulchral voice.

We've covered the topic of an insane amount of money being paid for an Amani War Bear before, namely about 20,000g. Gold is much easier to come by now-a-days, and most people are finding it easier to amass a small fortune. This number of 20,000g for a bear mount isn't seeming all that far off.

My guild is running two bear groups through Zul'Aman a few times a week, and many of us have our bear mounts now. Those that don't are going to get it quite soon. When this is done we have some different options. We can either run some of our alts and what not through and have a character in greens-galore with a bear mount, or we can sell one of the spots on our run.

This selling thing has got me thinking. While our guild doesn't need any more money for repairs and such (we have plenty in the coffers), we can definitely all go to have a few thousand more gold individually. If we ran one person through on a run for 20,000g we'd each make 2,000g for doing 45 minutes of farm content. That's not too bad.

My friends and I discovered a nice little "bug" the other day. We were sitting around Ironforge with nothing to do other than to give a friendly ribbing to our Shadow Priest friend over that fact that she didn't have her Amani War Bear yet. We had our Mojo's out hopping around the feet of our Bears, trying not to get squished. We found out that if we blew them a kiss, we turned into a frog and our mounts grew quite a bit.

Obviously this is some kind of flaw in the model coding that allows this, but it's a fun enough and harmless enough bug that I can't stop myself from doing it every chance I get. More so, drink some Winterfall Firewater and pop Heroism for a real big frog on a bear mount.

This is definitely hilarious enough that I suggest everyone goes out and tries it at least once. Just leave my Mojo alone. He's spoken for.