Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Mac-based WoW players have been dealing with an odd little bug for quite some time. (More than one, actually, but I'm just going to talk about one here.) Whenever WoW is launched, it clears your Exposé hotkeys (by default, F9–F11). Oddly, it doesn't clear my Spaces hotkey, which is set to F12, just Exposé. I was hoping this bug would be gone in Leopard and/or patch 2.3, but apparently that's not in the cards. Going back into the Exposé & Spaces preference pane and resetting them isn't that hard, but it is annoying to have to do it every time.
Fortunately, the official forums have provided me with a solution. Temari of Kil'jaeden wrote a simple Applescript which sets your Exposé hotkeys back to their default settings. Run it after you quit WoW, and everything is once more as it should be. Here's the application version of it; if you want to tinker or investigate, here's the source code [edit: links fixed]. The script's creator suggests adding it to your dock next to WoW. I don't use the dock much (Quicksilver forever, baby), but that's probably a good idea for those of you who do. By the way, this is apparently an Apple bug, so don't blame the blue.
Edit: Please stop posting your platform war comments. Whether they're pro-Mac or anti-Mac, I don't care; don't post them please. I don't want to have to start deleting people.
Word's flying around about a Void Reaver exploit that involved mind-controlling a Tempest-Smith, and then blasting the heck out of him with the bomb ability. One guild, as seen above, has brought VR down within a minute-- apparently the ability has no cooldown, so VR can come down as fast as your mind-controlling Priest can click. However, Blizzard has said this is an exploit, and it is not recommended that you do this on the live realms. Blizzard will definitely be watching VR raids-- avoid the banhammer!
But still, a fix has got to be incoming as fast as possible. The question is: how? The most obvious answer is that they have to simply make the Tempest-Smiths not be mind-controllable, but I'm not sure how it works-- in order for the groups to go down right, most raids will sheep or trap these guys, so they do have to still be vulnerable to some kind of CC. The other option is to put the bomb on a cooldown, but even then, that kind of DPS will still help the raid against VR.
At any rate, Blizzard will think of something, and probably sooner than later. Interesting exploit, but an exploit just the same, and a definite no-no.
From the "OMGWTFBBQ" department comes a tale of mixed up raid ID's. Seems that two members of the Alliance guild Conquest on Kilrogg ended up in a BT raid with Horde guild Temporary Insanity. The forum thread contains many interesting screenshots for you to puzzle over. If these are digitally edited, they're done well. Bluetracker allows you to skip to the part where Tigole steps into the thread and informs folks that Blizzard is looking into it... what I personally want to know is, was this just a random glitch or 'insert conspiracy music here' is Blizzard trying to test some kind of cross faction raiding on us? Are we guinea pigs for their diabolical schemes?
No, probably it was just a bug, as cool as I think cross faction raids could be. I especially like the suggestion in this screenshot of cross faction raiding with everyone flagged for PvP. Imagine a raid where you could accidentally, or even purposefully, frag your fellow raiders? Or a raid where horde and alliance players actually had to race to the end boss, perhaps even sniping at each other along the way? Being that I'm starting to PvP more and more lately, I'd find that an interesting change to the raiding/PvP mechanic. Imagine that, instead of racing to opposite sites of Alterac Valley, you both had to race to the same place to kill the same guy.
At any rate, the folks of Conquest and Temporary Insanity got to do what almost no one else in the entire game has, namely they've confronted Illidan, the end boss of the current game, with a cross faction raid. That's one interesting bug.
I woke up yesterday morning eager to log in to the PTR and explore, only to find out that I would have to wait until the evening for such a foray into testing because of a new patch they were putting through. When the servers came up again and I finally logged in, I was surprised by what I saw, or rather what I didn't see.
Several male models in the game seem to be missing a leg. The current lack-of-leg conspiracy is spreading even to certain NPCs, a fact I can attest to because I witnessed poor Harrison Jones with the same affliction in the vestibule to Zul'Aman. To be specific, the illness affects certain boot models, causing them to vanish entirely from the character's left leg. When the boots are removed, the leg assumes it's normal opacity.
Does this mean someone is infecting footwear with invisibility? Will we log in one day to find our heads too have disappeared? We will keep a close watch on this crisis and report to you whatever grizzly details we encounter. Let it be known that WoW Insider will not stand idly by while characters' limbs begin to disappear.
During a spirited conversation with someone over the number of public test realms (that was rather reminiscent of the "I See Four Lights!" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation), I decided to download the newest PTR client and take a look. At first I made a (new) gnomerogue and then quickly decided "to hell with this level one crap" and ran off to the character copy page to copy one of my Gnomeregan characters or maybe copy a premade character. My hopes were dashed as I discovered that somehow the character copier was broken. The video just handed to me (and linked above) by a trusted Blizzard source may provide illumination on what has transpired. (Humor intended.)
Blizzard poster Hortus informs us that they are aware of character copying issues and that the problem is being investigated. We have also received private assurances from our anonymous source that the platen glass in the PTR character copier will be reinforced to accommodate Taurens and other more "rubenesque" characters.
At BlizzCon, every time someone mentioned Warlocks during the panels, the crowd would boo. On the forums, the cries of "Nerf Warlocks!" were loud and frequent. Now, in patch 2.3, some Warlocks are saying that Blizzard has listened and nerfed them. Danakha posted a breakdown on the forums of the Warlock changes and his analysis of them, stating that Blizzard listened to all the complaints and acted on them. His main problem with 2.3 is this change:
Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison).
The Barker quests for the Brewfest are fixed for almost everyone at this point. Unfortunately, some people are still unable to get credit when riding near flags and Blizzard is looking into it. Blizzard CM Drysc and Event Developer Kisirani have been giving updates for fixing the Bugfest.
If you are still having trouble with a Barker quest, here is some info for making sure it's not you:
You can only do one Barker quest a day. Double check your Daily Quest total in your Quest Log to make sure you haven't already completed it.
There are two competitors vying for your barking prowess, but once you work for one brewer, the other won't offer you the quest until the next day.
If you failed it, you can abandon the quest and try again.
You have to be on your Rental Ram when going past the flags or else you will not get credit. Once you get all four flags, however, you can use your mount to race back to the brewer.
Brewfest bugs continue to infest the live servers. Despite a rolling restart of all the realms this morning, the Barker quest is still bugged on many servers. Blizzard is aware and is currently trying to unravel the latest mystery glitch.
Blizzard was increasing the ticket reward for the Barker quest to make up for disabling the Dark Iron attack quest. If they can't get the Barker quest to work properly, they are going to have to think of another plan. There is only a limited amount of time to gather tickets for players who want the permanent rewards. CM Aeus on the European servers nixed the idea of the event getting extended.
Oceanic realms are also having Brewfest problems of their own. Because the servers are hosted in a different time zone, the Brewfest events didn't go live at midnight, but many hours later. Blizzard is aware of the time discrepancy problem and is looking into ways to avoid it in the future.
For players who intend to do the Barker quest when it is working, Blizzard has pointed out that /waving and /yelling are not necessary. You simply need to get close enough to the flags while on the Riding Ram. The quest updates using waypoint triggers, not emotes.
One bit of good news: the always excellent WoW Wiki has a page up on Brewfest listing quests, rewards, etc. This may help answer many questions players have such as, can I get the Ram quest before L40? (No.)
Looks like we got a little ahead of ourselves. Before we see 2.3 on the PTRs, we're going to see 2.2.3, a small patch that is supposed to bugfix a lot of the sound problems that players are having. Patch notes are complete below, and I'm betting that if the Kael event isn't fixed yet, a fix for that will also be included in this patch. We can only hope that we'll see a small PTR appearance for 2.2.3 (so test it extra fast, folks), and then the gloriousness of 2.3 will grace us with its presence.
PTR 2.2.3 Patch Notes
Clients utilizing OpenGL video modes will no longer experience graphical anomalies and missing textures after minimizing/maximizing the window.
Fixed an issue that caused Fel Eye Stalks during the Legion Ring event to not despawn when the event is completed.
Fixed an issue where zoning after mounting and summoning a pet was disconnecting players.
Fixed an issue where the Shift key would get stuck in game.
Using a /equip macro while affected by certain crowd control spells will no longer cause the items in the macro to be stuck in your inventory.
While some Brewfest events are hotfixed, others are stubbornly refusing to work without a full server restart. Community Manager Drysc spells it on a late night forum post. The short version, for those whose eyes aren't up to extensive reading after last night's festivities, is this:
Dark Iron attacks are disabled for now. The large number of people using the /wave emote during the twice hourly event was causing many to crash repeatedly.
Blizzard will reinstate the attacks before Brewfest is over as soon if they figure out a work around to the crashing problem..
Ticket rewards for other Brewfest activities have been increased to compensate for the lack of Dark Iron generated tickets. The Barking quest reward increases from 15 to 40 and the Keg Delivery quest increases each keg to 3 tickets (and can be done every 12 hours.)
Until the Dark Iron attacks are brought back, "Complimentary Brewfest Samplers" acquired by /waving are disabled (confirming the /wave emote/crashing problem)
Brewfest Goggles which were implemented with a temporary duration, will be permanent. A duration timer will show until the next patch, but can be ignored.
No /wave or emote is necessary to complete the Barker quest. Just be on the Riding Ram and pass close enough to the flags.
In a separate thread, it was confirmed that the Pink Elekk's quest is NOT a daily quest. Some players were able to do it twice due to a one-time reset.
The servers will be getting a rolling restart this morning at 5:00am PST. We'll have to keep an eye on the forums to see what got fixed and what's still bugged.
Players hailed Brewfest with great anticipation, but all is not well in the land of pints and pretzels. Many bugs slipped through the very short Public Testing phase and onto the live servers. From QA Hortus:
We are aware of the following issues:
Some players can not get the Pink Elekks quest. This is caused by a mismatch with another quest, we are working on a hotfix for this issue.
Corben Barleybrew is not spawning in Black Rock Depths This appears to be due to a misconfiguration on the servers and is being investigated.
Unable to loot Brewfest Samplers We are aware of this issue a working on a fix.
I heard a lot of people complain how long Patch 2.2 was on the PTR. These Brewfest bugs are what happens when new content isn't given enough time in the testing phase.
Most guilds don't have this problem, but if you have a guild with over 500 members, the guild UI reports incorrect information. The member status is no longer accurate with over 500 members and not all of the members appear on the roster.
Guilds are functionally limited to 500 members. There is no cap on the number of members in a guild so you can invite more than 500 but the UI will not support it.
This may change in the future but it is not considered a bug.
I briefly had a character on Dark Iron in the Knights of Arcadia, the first of the Penny Arcade guilds <insert fangirl noise here>. The UI issues over 500 members got so unwieldy that they split it into multiple guilds.
Do you think WoW should support the functionality of guilds over 500 members? Or do you think Blizzard's resources are better spent elsewhere?
Brewfest is currently live in Oceania and the U.S. and so far there have been some issues:
Brewfest didn't start on time.
The setup crew appeared when patch 2.2.2 went live, but the event didn't go live until midnight. Unfortunately for some servers, it didn't go live then as well. It seems that if your realm time is different from the timezone where the server resides, your Brewfest will go live according to the server location time and not the realm time. For example, U.S. East Coast servers that are located on the West Coast had their Brewfests begin at 3am.
It appears that quite a few of the hotfixes originally intended to go out with 2.2.2 were not applied properly as the patch went out with the maintenance today. Many of these hotfixes are now being pushed out.
You should now get 2 tickets for each keg you return for the keg delivery quest. "Bark for the Barleybrews!" quest reward should be 15 tickets. "There and Back Again" quest reward should be 10 tickets. "Pink Elekks on Parade" quest reward should be 40 tickets. You should be limited to 25 "keg protector" buffs.
Daelo is saying over on the forums that the Kael'thas event is bugged. After a player reported that the shield (one of the magical weapons that you first have to defeat and then can fight Kael'thas with) has tons more health than expected, Daelo confirmed that if Kael'thas resurrects his advisors while weapons are "alive" their health will be increased, making the fight much harder and throwing most guilds off of their pacing.
So if you're headed to Kael'thas this week, beware. Unfortunately, Blizzard says they can't hotfix the issue, which means it'll have to be fixed in a content patch. Fortunately, however, 2.2.2 is due this week, so if Blizzard can sneak it in yet on that one, raiders will be able to take Kael on as of Tuesday. If 2.2.2 is already too far along in the process for the code to be added, however, Blizzard will either have to create a patch just for this fix (2.2.3), or wait until 2.3 releases (which could be a matter of weeks, severly hampering guild progression past Kael).
We'll have to wait and see what they do. This is a confirmed bug, so hopefully we'll see a fix for it with 2.2.2, hopefully on Tuesday.
Are Battlegrounds and Arenas your favorite things to do in-game? Well, for today at least you may want to reconsider. Both US and EU realms are reporting problems with Battlegrounds and Arenas that are causing players to get stuck inside after the Battleground or Arena has finished. Having not heard of any issues with PvP yesterday, I've got to wonder if this might have something to do with the hotfixes applied early this morning. (Though I don't have any details on what the hotfixes were applied to fix -- it could have been related to voice chat -- rolling restarts to apply them started in the US at 5:00 AM PDT and ended at 7:20 AM PDT -- with the initial post about Battleground and Arena issues coming at 7:25 AM PDT, the timing is suspicious.) Though Blizzard is working on the problem, we don't yet have any information on when the issue may be resolved, but until then, EU CM Aeus says that if you're stuck in a Battleground or Arena, you may safely escape by either exiting and restarting your game client or by entering /afk (which, if done when the Battleground is finished, should kick you out without marking you as a deserter).
Mac-based WoW players have been dealing with an odd little bug for quite some time. (More than one, actually, but I'm just going to talk about one here.) Whenever WoW is launched, it clears your Exposé hotkeys (by default, F9–F11). Oddly, it doesn't clear my Spaces hotkey, which is set to F12, just Exposé. I was hoping this bug would be gone in Leopard and/or patch 2.3, but apparently that's not in the cards. Going back into the Exposé & Spaces preference pane and resetting them isn't that hard, but it is annoying to have to do it every time.
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