Completely Serious Blizzard Announcements!

Oh man, Blizzard's pulling out all the stops for April Fool's Day this year. If you're starting to lose track of the jokes, here's the list (so far):

  • Crabby: The Dungeon Helper is coming in the next World of Warcraft content update to offer you helpful hints in any situation. Head over to the official site today to get a preview of Crabby in action. He might even help you celebrate the fact that it's Friday with the best song ever written.
  •  The Tomb of Immortal Darkness will also be added to WoW in patch 4.1.11. This 5-player dungeon uses cutting-edge Deep Dark® technology and features bosses like Omgsogoth, Dark Lord of Twilight. Check out the preview page to see a gameplay video. Or maybe you won't see it. It's kind of dark in there.
  • Of course, you're going to want to check out the preview notes for WoW patch 4.1.11. Between the Random Guild Finder and the Pet Appearance Tab, there's no doubt this is the best patch ever. Read the notes after the jump.
  • We finally get a Diablo III update as Blizzard announced the Horadric Cube app for your phone. Use it to create brand new apps with the Transmutation function, or just open demonic portals with the Translocation feature.
  • Blizzard's returning to the console scene with StarCraft: Motion Overdrive. Grab your Kinect (or if you prefer, a nameless brand that looks exactly like the Kinect), and get into the RTS action with your whole body. Watch the trailer below!
  • While you wait for the release of Motion Overdrive, check out the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty patch 1.4.11 notes. The new Ultimate Grandmaster league represents the top one player in each region. They also fixed a bug where Terran players were able to lose a game. Read the notes for all the details.


World of Warcraft Patch 4.1.11 Preview

Random Guild Finder

As the popularity of the Guild Advancement system continues to rise, we realize an increasing number of players feel that the experience of finding an adequate guild continues to be daunting. To address this, we’re introducing an all-new Random Guild Finder! Players may use this new feature to queue for automatic guild placement. You’ll be placed with a random guild at the click of a button, allowing you to partake in whatever content they may or may not be doing. After being placed, you’ll receive a cooldown which will not allow you to leave the guild, or for them to remove you from the guild, for fourteen days. Get to know your new friends! We’re sure they’ll enjoy getting to know you. If the guild you’re automatically placed in does not exist on your current realm you’ll be automatically charged for a paid realm transfer and moved there.

Appearance Tab

Acknowledging the continued requests of our players, an Appearance tab has been added to the game! The Appearance tab will finally, at long last, allow players to customize the look of their non-combat pets. Simply summon a non-combat pet and use the Appearance tab to change its look to that of any of the other non-combat pets you own. Summon, customize, and play!

General

  • Character armory profiles will now display current guild status: Solo, In a Guild, Looking for Guild, G-kicked, and It’s Complicated. In addition, character portraits now have the option to be displayed as a self-taken cellphone picture from in front of a bathroom mirror.

  • To ensure The Burning Crusade starting zones remain consistent with the rest of Azeroth, it is once again no longer possible to fly in Azeroth.

  • Dance Studio has been removed from the game due to lack of use.

  • Vashj’ir is now 20% more disorienting.

  • Players in capital cities will receive a 2-hour debuff “Homebody” that increases damage taken and reduces damage and healing given by 10% for every 10 minutes they’re within city limits. We hope this encourages something.

  • The mouse can now no longer be used to turn player characters. In many cases, this gave certain players a slight advantage over those that used their keys to turn.

Classes: General

  • Talents are now automatically chosen for a player based on the main specialization chosen.

  • Due to player feedback regarding night elf, blood elf, and worgen “flippy” jumps, player characters can no longer jump.

Death Knights

  • Hero Class improvements
    • Death knights now earn slightly more experience and gold than other character classes.

    • When using the Need Before Greed looting system, other players may not roll on loot until the Hero Class has chosen to pass.

    • Whenever a player takes a screenshot of a boss kill or similar accomplishment, all death knight characters will appear slightly more prominent in the image.

    • Death knight customer support tickets will always be handled before those of other players.

  • Death knights are now required to murder an innocent seven times per week or suffer the “Going Soft” debuff, which reduces damage dealt by 15%.

  • Death knights can now increase their damage by yelling KIAI into their microphone. Damage is increased by 10% for every 10dB.

Druids

  • Druid forms are now considered vehicles, allowing one player to ride on the druid’s back while in any form, even their humanoid form.

  • Scratching Post (legendary Feral staff), introduced in a recent patch, was created accidentally and has been removed.

  • Different models have been added for male and female versions of Bear Form. The difference is subtle unless you know where to look.

  • Druids no longer talk to Innkeepers to set their Hearthstone. They are instead now required to talk to Stable Masters.

  • Aquatic and Travel Form were causing too much of a performance hit and have been replaced with lower poly models.

  • Druids now perform an area-of-effect knockback when harvesting herbs, looting, or skinning (does not remove Flight Form).

Hunters

  • Hunters now earn Valor Points when they are effectively Vote Kicked from a Dungeon Finder group.

  • Chimera Shot, Kill Command, and Explosive Shot have been redesigned as Chimera Trap, Kill Command Trap, and Explosiver Shot, respectively.

  • Pets: regardless of what pet is actually tamed, these creatures will appear as either a wolf (Horde) or cat (Alliance) when in combat. In addition, we have implemented an exciting new cross-breeding system where players can mix pets of various families with unpredictable results. Be the first on your server to show off a Mothmonkey, Crocoliskchimera or Warp Crab (these will still appear as either a wolf/cat when in combat).

  • Ettin’s Grip (new talent) allows the hunter to equip two ranged weapons simultaneously.

Mages

  • In addition to their current spells, mage Mirror Images now can randomly cast Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Portal: Dalaran, and Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Images. Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images…

  • The coefficients of all mage cast time spells have been tweaked to be 15% more jaw-dropping.

  • All Frost mages now receive a complementary personal Arena rating of 2200 upon reaching level 85.

  • Frost mages have been given one additional snare effect, so that they will be brought up to the level of other classes (combined).

  • All mage spells that deal Fire damage now appear green.

Paladins

  • Judgement has been removed from the game.

  • Judgment (new ability) unleashes the energy of a Seal for Holy damage.

  • All talents and glyphs which referred to Judgement now correctly affect Judgment.

  • The sound of most Retribution abilities has been redesigned to produce a more audible clunk when used. The rotation should now feel clunkier overall.

  • Paladins are now required to tithe 10% of their gold income to their church.

  • Paladin chat and whispers now appear with sparkles.

  • Some paladin abilities did not contain the words Sanctity, Divine, or Justice. This has been corrected.

  • The duration and cooldown of Divine Shield have been changed to 15 seconds.

  • Divine Shield no longer causes Forbearance.

Priests

  • Members of this class must now make a vow of chastity.

  • The Shadow priest talent tree has been redesigned to give them access to most of the cooler abilities of Affliction warlocks.

  • Lightwell.

  • Four new reactive shields have been added to the Discipline tree. These new spells are called Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing.

  • Evangelism now has a 2% chance to convert all surrounding party members to the priest class.

  • Leap of Faith’s cooldown is now reset if cast on a tank that has targeted an enemy but is not yet in combat.

  • Discipline priests we heard you like shields that heal, so we put shield in your shield so you can heal while you heal.

  • All Shadow priest spells that deal Fire damage now appear green.

Rogues

  • Due to continual misspellings of the “rogue” class, we have officially changed the name to the easier to type “rouge.”

  • Pick Pocket now works on friendly players, bankers and auctioneer NPCs.

  • Vanish now has an additional 5% chance to fail for no discernable reason.

  • Rouges equipping helms that resemble eye patches now suffer a 2% hit penalty from lack of depth perception.

  • All archways, portals, portholes, and doorways now contain locked doors which require a rouge’s Pick Lock skill to open.

  • Sleight of Hand now allows rouges to roll a perfect 100 on boss drops.

  • Cheap Shot has a new more anatomically appropriate animation.

  • Rouges are now required to pick up all of their blades after casting Fan of Knives before it can be used again.

  • Rouges may now cast Stealth while Stealthed, entering the state of Double Stealth, which is not only stealthier than Stealth, but also causes the word stealth to cease to make sense to your brain. Stealth.

Shaman

  • A healing tree has been added for shaman.

  • Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Dot Shock and Frost Shock have all been combined into a new spell called Bus Shock. This ability is less exciting, less powerful and harder to use than equivalents of comparable classes, but it has a new icon.

  • Maelstrom Weapon, Unleash Elements, and Spiritwalker’s Grace have been redesigned as Maelstrom Totem, Unleashed Totem, and Spiritwalker’s Totem, respectively.

  • The Elemental tree is now the Elementary tree, and allows use of new abilities Eat Paste, Nap Time, and the Macaroni and Glitter Totem.

  • The shaman now have a Totem Belt, allowing them to carry their totems with them at all times.

  • All totem ranges reduced to 1 yard.

Warlocks

  • Female warlocks are now correctly called witches.

  • Warlocks and witches now take additional damage when fighting in direct sunlight.

  • Demons now have a new resource system called Happiness. Torturing, mistreating or speaking harshly to a demon pet will reduce its happiness. The Succubus is an exception to this rule.

  • Whenever 2 or more warlocks or witches appear in a raid together, the damage dealt by any mages in the raid decreases by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times.

  • In addition to their current talent trees, warlocks and witches can now spend points in any mage talent tree as well.

  • To make the Demonology tree feel more 'demony' warlocks and witches not specced into this tree will be unable to summon demon companions.

Warriors

  • The Arms and Fury warrior hybrid tax is now slightly taxier than other hybrid taxes.

  • A bug was discovered that prevented warriors from popping Enrage as intended. This has been fixed.

  • Charge has been removed from the game.

  • Warrior’s base movement speed has been increased by 300%.

  • In addition to Throwdown’s knock down and stun effects, it will also inflict a horror effect.

  • To improve the success rate of Heroic Leap, its range has been reduced to 3 yards.

  • Quantum Leap (new ability) propels the warrior through time and space, allowing the warrior to take over the identity of an unknown character in an attempt to improve their life or prevent disaster. Cooldown 5 minutes.

Dungeons & Raids

  • Firelands
    • An attunement quest for Firelands is now available! In order to be eligible for the upcoming raid, players must first encounter Deathwing while he is randomly attacking a zone and collect his leavings. Epic quest lines will also need to be completed to collect the leavings from the other Aspects to combine them into the Patty of the Five Flights – the key to unlock the Elemental Plane of fire in the upcoming 4.2 patch.

  • Invisible walls have been added around all harmful ground effects.

  • All dungeon & raid bosses now have legs. If they already had legs, they got more legs.

  • In order to make the Cataclysm expansion appeal to all players’ sense of nostalgia, shaman, druids and paladins may now only queue as healers when using the Dungeon Finder.

  • Tank Stimulus: Successfully completing 25 Dungeon Finder runs as a tank will grant you a $400 Federal tax credit. (Requires Form 8863)

  • To help ensure players are only using the Vote Kick feature for the greater good of the group, anyone who initiates a Vote Kick will be kicked themselves regardless if the vote passes or not.

  • Ever a player favorite, the level-80 10- and 25-player raid of Icecrown Citadel is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

  • Ever a player favorite, the level-85 10- and 25-player raid of The Bastion of Twilight is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

  • Ever a player favorite, the level-85 10- and 25-player raid of Firelands is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

  • Ever a player favorite, the level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon of Deadmines is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

Items

  • All items have had a 65-100% reduction in Fun.Professions
  • Cooking
    • A new recipe has been added to Cooking which can be very rarely found inside Deathwing’s leavings. [Recipe: Epic Meal Time] – Use: Set out an epic meal to feed your entire raid or party! Restores 192,000 health and 192,000 mana over 11 seconds. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become sick and “refund” all gained health and mana.

PvP

  • All Arena teams must now contain the word “cleave” somewhere in their name.

  • Resilience has been made more literal. Players with high resilience no longer take less damage in PvP, but now bounce when dropped.

  • Azshara Crater is now no longer mentioned so players will stop asking about it.

  • New Battleground brackets! To further promote fair play Battlegrounds are now bracketed for every single level. 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, … 77-77, 78-78, etc.

Quests & Creatures

  • To ensure Orgrimmar and Stormwind are the premiere cities for Cataclysm, NPC’s have been removed from all other cities.

  • All NPC’s now have a 25% chance to Dodge right-clicks.

  • Due to the popularity of the “Save the Wee Animals” quest in Hyjal, all quests now include an element that requires you to pick up fleeing animals.

Races

  • The Worgen “sniff” sound has been replaced by Rebecca Black’s hit single, Friday. The song will play in its entirety. Every time.

  • The name of the draenei race has been adjusted to have 20% more vowels.

  • Draeneie - The male draeneie laugh has been tweaked to be 7% more irritating.

  • The tauren race may no longer choose the paladin class, because… come on. Really?

  • The dwarf race’s passive wenching bonus now works correctly.

  • Female worgen have been cured of their curse and now have only a human form.

User Interface

  • All spells and spell macros now have added RP-immersive elements built in that will transmit to all players automatically every time a spell is cast. These cannot be changed or disabled. Examples:
    • Flash Heal: “%n raises her hands skyward and calls forth a beam of bright white light that penetrates deeply into the souls of her comrades, healing their wounds and urging them forth in battle!”

    • Kick: “%n casually approaches you and dons a monocle before engaging you in a casual discussion concerning local politics and refined beverages. Eventually, the discussion grows heated, and he abruptly tosses his pipe at your feet.”

  • The UI addon system has been converted from LUA to Scaleform. All addons will need to be recoded.

  • Show/Hide pants has been added to the Interface Options menu.

  • A slider has been added to allow scaling of shoulder armor size.
  • To toughen players up for their encounters with dragons and demons, the in-game emote “/hug” has been removed from the game.
  • Comments

    Post Comment
    Hmm...
    # Apr 01 2011 at 1:01 PM Rating: Default
    Hmm...don't like where this is going.

    Last years April Fools was about the heavy use of phasing.

    The year before that was introducing a new class, which wasn't a bard, but a Death Knight.

    If the text under that video is from Blizzard we could see a sort of Recruitment Board where you can post your app for guilding...could be nice to be able to 'advertise' my desire to be in a guild even if I'm not logged in. :D

    Blizzard's "April Fools" pranks always have a grain of truth.



    Edited, Apr 1st 2011 3:19pm by Dyner
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