Category: World of Warcraft

Two really great features are going to be coming with 4.3 that I’m especially excited about. Until now sending scrolls of resurrection has required you log into battle.net, go to your account, and send out a scroll of resurrection from there. In 4.3 however it’s going to be available via a button on your friends list. I think the feature will be much more used in a convenient location than it currently is. It seems like another way for them to keep players who might have ditched the game by allowing their friends to send me a friendly “hey come back and play with us!”

Another feature being added are zone level ranges on the maps. It’ll allow you to quickly glance at a zone and get an idea of what levels you should be before heading to that zone to quest. Most of you who have been playing for the better half of a decade know already what the respective zone levels are but some zones such as the Plaguelands have had their level ranges changed since Cataclysm and unless you’ve levelled a toon recently, you may not know exactly what level the mobs in the zone are now.

Between that and the new and improved mini-map displaying things like Archaeology dig-site boundaries and questing areas, the game is getting some features that should have been implemented long-ago.

Blizzard has announced an upcoming new paid-services feature in the works: Guild Services. It’s very similar to the character services they already offer: transfers, name-change, and faction changes – but for guilds instead of characters.

Basically the GM of a guild can sign up for a guild service; Guild Master Faction Change costs $40 US, the Guild Master Realm Transfer costs $35 US, and the Guild Name Change costs $20 US. You get a discounted cost of $65 for the transfer and faction change and the name change is free with the purchase of either or both.

The one catch is that it doesn’t mean your guild members get free server changes or faction changes – they have to pay for a faction or server change themselves and will be automatically rejoined with the guild on the other side. On the plus side you do retain your guild level, reputation, perks, etc… on the downside you have to pay 50-some-odd-dollars to move your character over there because your guild leader wanted to change realms.

The guild doesn’t really “disband” on the originating side but it is reset to guild level 1 and the GM is forced to choose a new GM as his replacement when he leaves and the guild will not retain its guild bank or any of its achievements, reputation, or progression. I can understand them not wanting people to exploit it by duplicating loads of items and it’s sort of a must to have the guild bank emptied etc… but I can only imagine myself being on the end of it not wanting to pay to transfer or not being able to afford it and losing all my progress and benefits of being in a high-level guild. On the flip-side, I’m sure a lot of raiding guilds looking for a fresh server will absolutely love this service.

What’s your take on it?

Source

Obviously a lot is bound to change between now and release and one of the most likely to change is going to be the talents and our options. Still – WoWhead has put together a nice talent calculator for us to play with for the time being. Check it out!