Spugnort's

Archive for October, 2008

Content

• The Final March: The “Gharvin’s Brace Badge” will now correctly step this quest.
• Blood for the Blood God: This quest now correctly states that players must kill Jinnivul Blisswhisper.
• Cronrel Grimstar will no longer spawn faster than intended.
• Clearing the Way: Fixed an issue that was preventing players from obtaining this quest again after abandoning it.
• Testing the Waters: The test vials will no longer be removed from the player’s quest inventory until all of the quest objectives are completed.
• The Devil Inside: The Crazy Peasant will once again spawn properly, allowing players to complete this quest.
• A Claim to Power: Fixed an issue that was preventing players from getting the 15th Heart of the Pure and preventing players from completing the quest.
• Heads Will Roll: The Uthorin Raidlord who is part of the Griffon Gate Public Quest will no longer kill the named NPCs that are the target objective of this quest.
• Big Feathers: Featherscale Eagles will now properly give credit for this quest.
• Riding to War: Fixed an issue that was preventing players from obtaining this quest again after abandoning it.
• Griffon Gate: Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause the Griffon Defenders to spawn at the wrong time while this Public Quest was resetting.
• Fixed an issue that was causing some Magma Crawlers in Thunder Mountain to respawn too quickly after dying.
• Adjusted the level of the lair boss Karerg the Reaver to make him a more appropriate level of challenge for players.
• Fixed an issue that would cause NPCs at the Cloudbreaker Estate not to react when attacked by players.
• Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing the monster Belfarus to despawn in the midst of combat.
• Juggernauts in the Bastion Stair dungeon will no longer spam erroneous chat messages.
• Lord Yldrian in the Ruins of Anlec once again offers Basic influence rewards.

Lost Vale

• Sarthain the World Bearer: Nature’s Wrath will no longer persist on players after death.
• The Ethereal Sprites will now correctly attack players that do not have the “Worldbearer Branch.”
• It is no longer possible to remove the “Whitefire Web Bolt” debuff without the Torch of Lileath.
• The door to the Keeper of Secrets room will now open after she is defeated.
• The Darkpromise Beast’s “Infectious Poison” will now correctly affect one player at a time.

Combat & Careers

Chosen:

• Discordant Turbulance: This ability will now correctly debuff enemies.

White Lion:

• Pounce: This ability has been adjusted so that it no longer targets objects. This includes quest and public quest object targets and keep doors.

Disciple of Khaine:

• Convenant of Clerity: This ability will now correctly appear as a debuff on enemy players.

Magus:

• Chaotic Rift: This ability will no longer effect an unlimited number of players, and follows the same target restrictions shared by all other Area of Effect spells

Sorcerer:

• Triumphant Blasting: This ability will now correctly grant knock-back immunity to enemy players.

Items

• Vanguard Spanner: This item now appears correctly as a wrench.

Realm vs. Realm

• Phoenix Gate Scenario: Resolved an issue in which players could sometimes reach the Destruction Spawn location.

Here are some virus free mirror sites to help out with the millions of people downloading WotLK content:

Patch File Part 1
2.4.3 to 3.0.1Place the downloaded file in the directory C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Updates\WoW-2.4.3-to-3.0.1-TBC-USMX-Update\

PC version:

FileFront.com RapidShare.com MegaUpload.com Allvatar.com
Mac version: FileFront.com RapidShare.com MegaUpload.com Allvatar.com
EU PC version: FileFront.com
EU Mac version: FileFront.com

Patch File Part 2
3.0.1 to 3.0.2Place the download file in the directory C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Updates\WoW-3.0.1-to-3.0.2-Update\

PC version:

RapidShare.com Arakkoa.com Allvatar.com
Mac version: RapidShare.com Arakkoa.com Allvatar.com
EU PC version: RapidShare.com
EU Mac version: RapidShare.com

Patch File Part 3
3.0.1 to 3.0.2Place the download file in the directory C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Updates\WoW-3.0.1-to-3.0.2-Update\

PC version:

RapidShare.com Arakkoa.com Allvatar.com
Mac version: RapidShare.com Arakkkoa.com Allvatar.com
EU PC version: RapidShare.com
EU Mac version: RapidShare.com

Vista users should download the patches to the following folder(s):C:\Users\Public\Documents\World of Warcraft\Updates\
or
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Blizzard Entertainment\World of Warcraft\Updates

The World of Warcraft folder will already be created from previous patches, so just find the correct path, and create 2 folders inside the Updates folder with the names
WoW-2.4.3-to-3.0.1-TBC-USMX-Update
and
WoW-3.0.1-to-3.0.2-Update

Save the 1st patch into the folder with the first name, and save the other 3 patch pieces into the 2nd folder.

I want to address a question that has been repeatedly asked over the course of the last few months. One of our customers’ biggest concerns is the possibility of an increased cost for Wrath of the Litch King guide updates. While some of our guides will have an upgrade cost associated with them, there will be a discount offered to anyone with an existing guide.

The guides most likely to see an cost for upgrade will be the Leveling Guide and the Instance Guide. This is due to the fact the changes are not simply updates to existing content but rather massive amounts of new content. The 70-80 leveling paths are nearly as large and complex as the entire 1-70 paths.

As for the discounts, assuming the current price of a product is $30 and we were to raise it to $40 to include the new content; anyone with an existing copy of the guide would be charged the difference in price for the upgrade, not the cost of the entire product. We have no intention of double-billing anyone of the same content.

We are also actively working on an in-game versions of our leveling guides, complete horde leveling guide, and an a set of recommended add-ons which will likely include an auto-update application to keep them current.

All of our guide content is scheduled to be updated and we are working hard to get it updated as quickly as possible. So far we have several hundred man-hours tied up in the WotLK changes and expect to have several hundred more before they are completed. I want to assure everyone that we are not neglecting the products and will have them fully updated just as quickly as we can.

Finally, to address the reason we will be charging for major content additions. Spugnort’s World and SWGN are both small businesses not unlike any other. We have direct costs and overhead associated with running the business. While some guides may be hobby projects for the author, ours are not. Our full time dedication to the business is the reason we have a multitude of our own, in-house written guides and can offer the level of customer service that we do. In addition, I personally write the software for our primary web site, the swgn.com billing and account management portal, and the member site software used to deliver content for the other guide sites on our network. This combined with the massive hardware and bandwidth costs associated with establishing the gaming network and sales/affiliate tracking systems requires us to maintain profitability or it all gets shut down. We can no more afford to spend hundreds of hours working for free than any other small business.

For those interested, I will make another post shortly with some pictures and details of what goes into the technology used by spugnort.com/swgn.com.

In the past week there have been a number of hotfixes and changes to report.  Below is a list of what we could find out there!

10/7
General Changes & Bug Fixes
 •Adjusted the run speeds of dungeon bosses to bring these encounters in line with their intended level of difficulty.
 Combat & Careers
 •Marauder- Terrible Embrace: Fixed an issue that was causing the ability Terrible Embrace to pull targets other than the original target.

10/6
Combat and Careers
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Swordmaster
 •Heaven’s Blade: This ability now reduces resists by the correct amount and will properly display as a debuff. 

Realm vs. Realm
 •The Tor Anroc scenario now requires players to be closer the The Brimstone Bauble when attempting to pick it up.

10/5
Content

 •Made additional fixes to resolve issues with the final boss of the “Neborhest’s Vanguard” public quest.
Items

 •Sovereign Set items on the Renown Merchant now have the proper requirements for purchase.

RvR
 •In an effort to highlight more of the available scenarios, we have made a slight adjustment to the positioning of scenarios in the queue  window.  The Elf Tier 3 Scenario “Temple of Isha”  is now the first scenario players will see, followed by “Tor Anroc.”

10/3

Fixed an issue that was allowing players in the Phoenix Gate scenario to take the flag back to their spawn point, preventing the enemy from claiming it.
Updates 10/6
Quote from Mythic staff:

“The following improvements were made during today’s update (going live to Oceanic servers at 1:30PM EDT.) As always in addition to these we are continuing to work on performance and stability in game.
 •Pets and their ability bars will no longer disappear from a player’s screen at random intervals.
 •We have fixed an issue in which players were sometimes able to avoid the instance lock-out timers for certain 6-man instances.”

This week Blizzard released the system requirements for WotLK.  Some are “recommended” which means the game will run, just not at peak performance.  So, if you need to order that DVD drive or new video card now would be the time to do it!

• PC:
  • Windows XP SP3 or Vista SP1 (Windows 2000 no longer supported)
  • Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1.5 GHz (up from 800 MHz Intel/AMD). Dual-core recommended.
  • RAM: 512 MB/1 GB for Vista, doubled from same as previous. 1 GB/2 GB recommended.
  • Video: GPU with hardware transform and lighting and 32 MB VRAM, same as before. Recommended 128 MB VRAM.
• Mac:
  • Mac OS X 10.4.11 (10.3 no longer supported)
  • PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo. Big change here: G4s are no longer supported. This one actually affects me, since I do have some G4 machines hanging around the house. Intel 1.8 GHz recommended.
  • RAM: 1 GB, up from 512 MB. 2 GB recommended.
  • Video: Hardware transform and lighting, 64 MB VRAM. On the face of it, this rules out the integrated graphics found on MacBooks and Mac Minis, but there’s been no official word on it yet. 128 MB VRAM recommended.