World of Warcraft 3.1 Patch Brings Dual-Specs, New Raid

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

Comments

Exams

[DirtyCanuck]

This is certainly going to have an adverse affect on exam scores around the world.

Re:Exams

[Jack9]

To start, you net about 700 gold in the level from 70 to 80. If you're careful, much more.

Fundamentally, MMORPGs that use a DIKU archetype system (classes) find an overabundance of damage dealers and few tanks; even fewer healers. It's easy enough to note that leveling up / grinding for money / pvp rank / whatever (DIKU style) you need damage, making the classes capable of tanking/healing even more sparse as they min/max toward the damage specs. This is a nightmare for developers who have to try to balance that system. I'd say dual speccing is useful for just under half the wow population and really makes the non-damage dealing classes much much more attractive as there is now true flexibility, guaranteeing more $$$. From a player perspective, it's a win. From the developer's perspective, it's a win. From the publisher's perspective, it's a win.

Real News vs. Advernews

[DreamsAreOkToo]

This isn't news. Real news goes like this:

"World of Warcraft introduces variable difficulties to their in game dungeons."

Advernews goes like this:

"WoW patch 3.1 released with 14 new bosses, dual spec, new GUI choices, and game balancing!"

One key difference, Advernews doesn't make sense to anyone outside of the game's target market.

Sorry for the made-up word.

Thanks but no thanks

[quisxt]

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game, but I'm not an undergraduate in college anymore, and after spending 8+ hours at work sitting on my butt in front of a computer, coming home and sitting on my butt for 4 more hours for a Nax raid or whatever doesn't sound like fun. It just seems like such a waste of time. Gah, I must have grown up a little when I wasn't looking :)

Dual-Specs and new RAID?

[macraig]

So now WoW supports dual core specs, but what RAID modes, 0, 1, or 5? Can I buy this new WoW mobo at newegg.com?

Re:One puff was enough for me

[StoatBringer]

It's a shame that in the ten hours you were waiting for it to patch you didn't spend two minutes discovering that there's a lot more to combat than "click once and wait", which is the almost useless whack-it-with-your-crappy-weapon autoattack.

Not news either way

[CarpetShark]

News about patches to a game belong on the game's RSS feed, not a tech news site.

If the latest version comes with new AI so that NPCs happen to tell you about their dreams last night, and how they plan to put them into action today by building putting wheels on a board, adding an engine, and calling this new invention of theirs a "car", then it's worth seeing here.

Re:One puff was enough for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to defend the game's legitimate drawbacks (I gave it up a while back as well), but the fact that you wrote that lengthy and smug criticism without even progressing past auto-attack says less about the game's limitations than it does about your predisposition. It's akin to someone judging and dismissing a windowed interface, happily saying they will never understand how someone can use it when there are single-frame CLIs available, when that person never realized that you can click the mouse, not just wiggle the pointer around on the screen for show and use tab to switch fields.

Warcaft has major shortcomings, but you not only didn't approach them, you didn't even step onto the threshold.