The Raid Finder is one of the highlight features of patch 4.3, but not all players have been entirely clear on its function. What raids can you run? How often can you run them? Who can you run them with? In a World of Warcraft as complex and tiered as the one we have today, these are all valid questions.

The World of Warcraft community team has come through for us with a full Raid Finder Q&A, detailing both the present and future states of the feature. The RealID functionality in particular receives important clarification.

Raid Finder Q&A

Q: Does Raid Finder support Real ID friends?
A: With patch 4.3, you can invite Real ID friends to a party and then queue together for the Dragon Soul raid using Raid Finder. You can’t, however form a raid with cross-realm Real ID friends before joining the Raid Finder queue. While not currently supported, this is something that we’re interested in implementing in a future update.

source

Continue reading Official Raid Finder Q&A

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Official Raid Finder Q&A originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket … for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right … Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests for something you’d like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

All right, this past Wednesday, there was an extremely awesome Live Developer Q&A about class and system design that pretty much rocked house any way you look at it. While there were some good questions fielded about the next patch, a majority of it focused in on things to come in the next expansion; with the changes that we’ll be seeing, this isn’t surprising. In perfect form, Xelnath handled everything warlock like a beast. Respects, hats tipped, and similar jazz of the sort out to Blizzard.

Without wanting to waste much time, let’s jump right into all of what we have learned from the chat. It’s certainly worth waiting for.

Continue reading Blood Pact: Looking at the developer’s Q&A

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Mists of Pandaria

Blood Pact: Looking at the developer’s Q&A originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we look at a few mage-related questions, and the answers to those questions, which end up raising even more questions, which then get answers that only provoke even more questions … it’s like an episode of Lost, only one in which the smoke monster was made of frostfire. I’m 99% sure Desmond was a mage, anyway.

So just a heads up in case you haven’t seen it somewhere else: The latest build on the PTR is tagged as a release candidate, which means patch 4.3 is imminent. I’m expecting it some time in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to be eating turkey and pie while queuing for the Raid Finder. Although, disclaimer: I eat turkey and pie for every meal. In other news, my heart just stopped. No worries, though. That also happens every meal. It’s nothing a good chest compression or two can’t fix. Look for a mage patch prep column right here next week.

Now, on to the business at hand. On Wednesday, the developers allowed us to pick their brains with all of our most burning questions about our classes. The mage community asked some good ones, and some of them even got answered. And though the answers given are perhaps not as definitive as you or I may have preferred, there’s still a great deal of enlightening information to be gleaned from what the developers did share. And no, my own question — “If I turn a warlock into a sheep, then hit him with a Pyroblast, then add a bit of mint and some red potatoes, what should I serve for dessert?” — wasn’t answered. Though I think we all know the answer to that question is “pie.”

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: The Class Balance Q&A — more Q’s than A’s for mages

Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Arcane Brilliance: The Class Balance Q&A — more Q’s than A’s for mages originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.

Manage to catch the class Q&A earlier this week? If not, there are some pretty interesting things going on for patch 4.3 and for Mists of Pandaria. You can either go check out the full transcript or read on for only the healing relevant ones.

Highlights include:

• Discipline priests get a new spell.
• Intellect won’t directly increase mana pool size.
• Restoration Druids get a castable Barkskin.

Continue reading Raid Rx: Class balance and design Q&A panel looks at healing

Filed under: Druid, Priest, Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Monk

Raid Rx: Class balance and design Q&A panel looks at healing originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hot off the heels of their wildly successful Mists of Pandaria Live Q&A, the WoW dev team plans to hold another online Q&A, this time on the subject of Class Design and Balance. Community Manager Zarhym’s just announced that it will take place on Wednesday, November 9, from 10:45 a.m. to Noon PST. The Chat will be held on CoverItLive, and be hosted by Bashiok and Zarhym. Answering questions will be Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, along with Celestalon, Koraa, Watcher, Wradyx, and Xelnath.

As with the last Q&A, the chat will use the CoverItLive system, so make sure you’re signed up and familiar with it if you want to ask a question. Check after the break for the text of the announcement.

Continue reading Class Design and Balance Q&A session coming this Wednesday

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Class Design and Balance Q&A session coming this Wednesday originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

I have to be honest here — while I love the Q&A aspect of the Lore and Story Q&A panel, I was really hoping we’d see some sort of lore panel devoted to Mists of Pandaria this year. That said — hey guys, how about those Pandaren? For those thinking that Pandaria is going to be the and all and be all of this expansion or that Pandaria sounds like something that could be potentially boring, I would suggest that you wait patiently here. We didn’t get a lore panel dedicated to Mists, and therefore we don’t know all there is to know yet.

However, the Lore and Story Q&A panel this year did deliver some interesting tidbits of information, even if there really weren’t a lot of Pandaren-centric questions to be had. I wouldn’t be annoyed by this if I were you — after all, those asking questions had no idea Pandaria even existed until 24 hours before the panel, so formulating questions for the upcoming expansion would be a little premature, to say the very least. That said, in between all the questions we did manage to weasel out a few chunks of Pandaren lore, as well as some other interesting info.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Lore and Story Q&A highlights

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Know Your Lore: Lore and Story Q&A highlights originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard held a Mists of Pandaria Live Developer Q&A this evening. It was moderated by Community Manager Zarhym, with most of the questions being answered by Cory “Mumper” Stockton and Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street. The questions ran the gamut from serious to silly, and offered a lot of great insight into the upcoming expansion and the inner workings of the development team. Highlights Include, but are not limited to:

• The new Pandaria faction hubs
• Discussion of new guild levels and perks
• Discussion of the new talent system
• Discussion of pet battle system, including a possible spectator mode
• The possible abolishment of prime glyphs
• Ghostcrawler’s feelings on #OccupyGregStreet
• Matticus. Just … Matticus.

The developers have already expressed interest in holding more of these chats, and I know I’m all in favor of it. For more information on the content of this evening’s chat, you can check the official site, or stick with us after the break for a complete transcript.

Continue reading Mists of Pandaria live developer Q&A transcript

Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Mists of Pandaria

Mists of Pandaria live developer Q&A transcript originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading BlizzCon 2011: Classes, Items, and Professions Q&A Liveblog

Filed under: BlizzCon

BlizzCon 2011: Classes, Items, and Professions Q&A Liveblog originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, I’ve certainly had fun covering the different plot points out there for roleplayers of any Warcraft race to pick up on. Keep in mind, though, that these articles are merely suggestions for relevant topics your character could potentially be interested in — they are certainly not the be all and end all of interesting things for your character to talk about. Hopefully, you guys were able to find a good idea or two in all that lore to sink your teeth into!

Today, I’m going back through the plot point series, checking out the comments and answering any questions you guys may have had about the various points brought up in this series. There are a lot of really good questions here, so let’s get started!

Possum asked, from Night Elf plot points:

In regards to the Night Elf mages, I was under the impression that all PC mages created were Highborne? To me this makes a lot more sense. Letting the Highborne back into society tentatively I can see out of desperation, but having them train/corrupt their youth?

Continue reading All the World’s a Stage: Roleplaying plot points Q&A

Filed under: All the World’s a Stage (Roleplaying)

All the World’s a Stage: Roleplaying plot points Q&A originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we turn our attention the most recent developer Q&A … and we all know what happened the last time we did that.

I spent the weekend being a trifle distracted (and then heartbroken) by the Women’s World Cup, but at least we can feel good about the winner. Oh, and for all those of you who utilize musk deer glands in your health regimen, please remember to check them for steroids, in much the same fashion that one would check flour for boll weevils and rice grains for moths in one’s pantry. This has been a public service announcement by your friendly local World of Warcraft blog, which takes an interest in this matter because a commenter once accused it of fomenting unrest in North Korea.

What the hell is this column supposed to be about? Oh, right. Anyway, the final developer Q&A was published this past Friday, and within it were a few nuggets of interest to restoration druids. We didn’t get any questions that specifically dealt with our spec, so I am not required to Hulk out over the lack of answers that Blizzard has traditionally provided to such questions, so let’s spend today being happy and relatively sane.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Developer Q&A touches on resto druid issues

Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives: Developer Q&A touches on resto druid issues originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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