Today the newest patch, 3.3.3 went up on the PTR, and there are notes available.  I’m not going to reprint them here, but you can find them here.

I will however touch on some things and give my thoughts.  First of all, the PVP changes.  THANK GOD!  No more of those damn marks of honor to have to collect and have cluttering my currency tab.  I’ve been trying to farm marks for the PVP mounts, and it’s annoying as hell.  Instead of marks of honor, all items will be bought with honor points, like we use now for gear.  To compensate, honor points for Honorable Kills will be doubled, as well as all other honor gains for completing objectives like capturing a base or destroying a tower.  For those not level 80 yet, the honor gains will be offset by halving the amount of XP gained.  Also, honor from completing weekly quests in Wintergrasp will be reduced by 50%, to offset the other honor gains.

Since of course you’ll probably have a ton of leftover marks you can’t use, you’ll be able to turn the marks in to your faction’s pvp quest givers, presumably for honor points, since Blizzard hasn’t elaborated.  Also I am hoping they will raise the honor cap, but I’m not holding my breath.

Also, no longer will you have a specific PVP daily to do.  Instead they are copying the Random Dungeon finder to make the Random Battleground finder.    The notes say that only a group of 5 can queue together.  I’m not sure if that means you have to premake your group, or if it’ll find random players to group you with like the Dungeon finder.

I have some mixed feelings about all of this.  I’m glad they are getting rid of the marks, as they were a pain in the ass, but the new Random Battleground finder could make things more difficult.  We will have to see how it goes. I’m downloading the PTR as we speak, and copied my main over to the PTR.  I’ll check it out and see what is up with the finder tool.

Also, I noticed that the notes say [Titansteel Bar] will no longer have a cooldown.  GREAT news for my hunter/engineer.  Making the [Mechano-hog]  just got a lot easier, of course also that means prices will plummet for titansteel, so the resale prices of those bikes will go down as well.

A couple other things I like.  I like the fact that now they’ve increased the dungeon deserter timer to 30 minutes.  That will hopefully cut back on the people who drop from dungeons prematurely.  I also like that they added the Authenticator input box to the same screen as the main login, instead of the box popping up seperately.  Of course that only happens if you have the authenticator tied to your account.

Well, I’m going to try to get to the PTR and I’ll be able to answer some of the above ambiguities about the PVP.  [EDIT:  After about an hour and a half of downloading and patching, I finally got onto the PTR]

I tested the group queue for Battlegrounds, and it seems that it doesn’t require you to have a group of 5 to queue.  I think it’ll not let you into a BG until you have a group of 5 though.  I don’t know.  Will require further testing.

Also, one very cool thing for us Alchemists (that is, if it stays) Frozo the Renowned in Dalaran  has [Frost Lotus] for sale at a little over 3g per.  Seems to be unlimited.  I don’t know if this will become permanent, but I hope so.

A lot of my addons broke, and I was getting a ton of errors popping up.  Hopefully those will be fixed as well.

Patch 3.3.3 seems like it could be interesting.  It’ll be worth watching out for.

Tonight about an hour ago, Theshat and myself completed [To Honor One's Elders].  We completed the dungeons tonight with some help of a few friends we made back during Brewfest.  Also a friend we made from Hallow’s End helped us with a couple of them.

That’s the fastest we’ve ever completed a meta for a world event.  It took us 4 days, from Sunday to tonight (Wednesday).  Next up is Noblegarden, which I completed last year but will help Theshat complete, then all we have left is Children’s week and Midsummer Fire Festival, and we’ll have completed [What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been].  I’m looking forward to my 310% speed [Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake].  Woohoo!

Ok, I saw this today on WoW.com and had to post it.  Too funny.  Great parody of Good Eats.

I got a twitter on this today.  I just had to share it.

If you’re not familiar with Boom De Yada, it’s a lyric from a song called I love the world that the Discovery Channel made and used for their advertising campaign in 2008 and 2009.   People all over started making and posting their own versions on YouTube, and the Discovery Channel encouraged more, and even asked people to post theirs as a video response to their original.

Yesterday was the official start of the Lunar Festival. All across Azeroth are the Elders that are to be honored, from the Horde to Alliance, Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend, and various dungeons. Tonight I heard on [2:Trade] someone ask why there are elders in Northrend, but none in Outland? Well it’s simple really. The Elders are all from Azeroth, and Outland is not Azeroth, it’s Draenor. The Lunar Festival is an Azerothian festival.

So, tonight Theshat and I got a few of the achievements done. [Elders Of The Alliance] (both of us), [Elune's Blessing] (both of us), [50 Coins Of Ancestry] (me), [25 Coins Of Ancestry] (him), [Elders Of The Horde] (him), [Elders Of Kalimdor] (him), and the ones for the fireworks. I had done some of them already last year.

Tomorrow we’re going to try to knock out as many of the rest as we can. Some of the Northrend dungeon ones we’ll have to group for with others, but the old world ones we can do ourselves.

Well, that’s all for now. More tomorrow

Well, it’s that time of year again.  Love is in the air!  For the past week I’ve been working with my best friend on the latest world event.  We finished the meta-achievement [Fool For Love] yesterday.  We still haven’t had time to go after the holiday bosses due to some PC issues, but we’ll try soon.  Tomorrow starts yet another world event, overlapping for a week with Love is in the Air, called The Lunar Festival.  That will run for 3 weeks, and we’ll need it.  There’s a lot to do for the meta.  Getting all of the Elders honored is hard enough considering how many there are, but then to have to go into enemy territory to honor theirs is going to be a pain.

So, as you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve redone the site, and on the sidebar over there, I’ve added an armory feed of my latest achievements.  Last night,  I finally got the next step in [Got My Mind On My Money], at the 10,000 gold level.  It’s going to be one hell of a grind up to 25,000 gold.

Well, that’s all I have for the moment.  It’s time for some coffee.

Well today as anticipated, 3.3.2 has dropped!    Season 8 of Arena has started, Frostwing Halls have opened in Icecrown Citadel, a few buffs and nerfs have been added, and a few bug fixes.  The patch was about 170Mb.  Not too bad.  Took about 8 minutes total to download and install on my connection.

Season 8 of Arena:  As most of you who PvP know, once a new season opens, the last season’s gear becomes available for sale without requiring Arena Rating.  This is good for those of us who like to PvP in battlegrounds, but don’t do arena much.   There’s controversy though about it.  Some say it’s “welfare epics”.  You know what, screw that.  I still work hard for those honor points to buy the gear.  I’m not a raider,  I am casual.  I rarely do dungeons.  I don’t have time to raid every night like some do.  I enjoy the battlegrounds, and so the gear I can get is a good reward for all the time I do put into BG.

Icecrown Citadel:  Recently I did do a random dungeon and landed in Forge of Souls, and had a lot of fun.  I’m really going to try this year to do more dungeons and maybe even some raids.  Now that the final wing of ICC is open maybe I will start doing more randoms and see what happens.  I need to gear up though.

Buffs and nerfs: Lots there, I’ll let you read the notes about that.

The official patch notes are as follows:

——————————————————————————–
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2
——————————————————————————–

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Dungeons & Raids

-  Halls of Stone
Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.

-  The Forge of Souls
The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.

-  The Nexus
Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.

-  The Old Kingdom
Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.

-  Pit of Saron
Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.

-  Utgarde Pinnacle
Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.

-  Vault of Archavon
Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault’s giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.
-  The Violet Hold
The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.

PvP

-  Arenas
Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!

Druids

-  Talents
-  Balance
Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid’s spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

Shamans

-  Talents
-  Elemental Combat
Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

Warlocks

-  Talents
-  Affliction
Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
-  Demonology
Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
-  Destruction
Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell’s total damage, up from 20%.
Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.

Warriors

-  Talents
-  Protection
Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

User Interface

-  The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.
-  Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.
-  Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.

Items

- New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.
- Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.
- Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.
- Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.
- Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.
- Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock’s pet.

Technical Support

- The cvar ‘processAffinityMask’ controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask “3″.