Please insert disc 2 of 12

[Amake]

I'm installing World of Warcraft. I figure I've got about 45 minutes of installation and then an untold number of hours of patching before breaking out the credit cards. Plenty of time if anyone wants to talk me out of it.

Otherwise, what's new in the last nine months? I heard there's earthquakes and stuff on account of the coming Cataclysm. Are Death Knights still one-man parties, one part tank, one part DPS and 1/2 part healer?

Any new exciting mods? I saw a screenshot where the UI was all moved to the bottom of the screen like a strategy game, with four or five rows of buttons on the left side instead of the standard one. Looked useful.

And one more question. Can anyone name all things that have been removed from the game?

[Malek]

What patch was the game on when you stopped? 3.1?
The main additions since then would be the new dungeons and the new dungeon finder tool.

The new dungeons are a 5-man and a raid instance at the argent tournament, An updated version of the Onyxia raid tuned for level 80's and with appropriate rewards, and a 5-man dungeon made up of 3 wings and a raid instance at Icecrown citidel which both include encounters with the Lich King.

The dungeon finder tool is very useful, you let it know which group roles you are willing to take and then you choose whether to let it pick a dungeon at random for you, which will grant extra rewards upon completion (you get better rewards for the first completed dungeon each day, it replaces the daily heroic quest), or you can specify a dungeon. If you're not in a full group, it will find people of appropriate roles to fill in the empty spaces and teleport you all straight to the dungeon. If you have a full group already, it'll just teleport you. The teleporting is probably to get around issues involving cross-realm play, it can put you in groups with people from other servers too.

They also dropped the level requirements and prices for getting mounts, level 20 gets you the +60% speed ones, 40 gives you +100% ones, level 60 lets you get normal flying mounts, which have had their speed increased to +150%, and level 70 grants the epic flying mounts which are unchanged.
Also, they added an item that will allow characters to fly in northrend from the moment they get there, but you can only buy it with a level 80 character from the flight trainer in Dalaran. The item is bound to your account though, so you can mail it to your other characters. Essentially, you can only learn to fly in Northrend early if you already have a level 80 character.

I haven't noticed any earthquakes myself or anything else leading into cataclysm yet, and I think Deathknights have been toned down a bit, they're still strong but not as much as they were back then.

The UI you mentioned sounds like SpartanUI, but I don't know for sure. I don't use UI addons myself so I can't tell you if any other interesting ones have popped up.

I'm not sure if much has been removed in the last 9 months, the only thing that comes to mind is the level 60 version of the onyxia raid, only the level 80 version exists now.

[Grimpond]

Originally Posted by Malek

Wall of TextWhat patch was the game on when you stopped? 3.1?
The main additions since then would be the new dungeons and the new dungeon finder tool.

The new dungeons are a 5-man and a raid instance at the argent tournament, An updated version of the Onyxia raid tuned for level 80's and with appropriate rewards, and a 5-man dungeon made up of 3 wings and a raid instance at Icecrown citidel which both include encounters with the Lich King.

The dungeon finder tool is very useful, you let it know which group roles you are willing to take and then you choose whether to let it pick a dungeon at random for you, which will grant extra rewards upon completion (you get better rewards for the first completed dungeon each day, it replaces the daily heroic quest), or you can specify a dungeon. If you're not in a full group, it will find people of appropriate roles to fill in the empty spaces and teleport you all straight to the dungeon. If you have a full group already, it'll just teleport you. The teleporting is probably to get around issues involving cross-realm play, it can put you in groups with people from other servers too.

They also dropped the level requirements and prices for getting mounts, level 20 gets you the +60% speed ones, 40 gives you +100% ones, level 60 lets you get normal flying mounts, which have had their speed increased to +150%, and level 70 grants the epic flying mounts which are unchanged.
Also, they added an item that will allow characters to fly in northrend from the moment they get there, but you can only buy it with a level 80 character from the flight trainer in Dalaran. The item is bound to your account though, so you can mail it to your other characters. Essentially, you can only learn to fly in Northrend early if you already have a level 80 character.

I haven't noticed any earthquakes myself or anything else leading into cataclysm yet, and I think Deathknights have been toned down a bit, they're still strong but not as much as they were back then.

The UI you mentioned sounds like SpartanUI, but I don't know for sure. I don't use UI addons myself so I can't tell you if any other interesting ones have popped up.

I'm not sure if much has been removed in the last 9 months, the only thing that comes to mind is the level 60 version of the onyxia raid, only the level 80 version exists now.

Well damn, that sums most of the new stuff up quite nicely.

...So, what server did you pick?

[Grimpond]

whoops, Firefox just resubmitted the page, my bad

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

I'm installing World of Warcraft.

Ah, yes. I see the problem now.

[shiney]

They also dropped the level requirements and prices for getting mounts, level 20 gets you the +60% speed ones

This is why I quit the game. The only thing that still had me was battlegrounds for 20-29 bracket, and as there are mounts there now, the game is dead to me.

Ah, yes. I see the problem now.

Seconded!!

[Amake]

Ah, yes. I see the problem now.

Oh snap!

...So, what server did you pick?

I used to play mostly on Moonglade, EU. . . the toons should still be there according to the Armory.

And thanks for the info, Malek. Yeah 3.1 sounds about right. Currently downloading 3.2.

I've never had a flying mount before, whee. Never had a 60% mount until they lowered the level on those to 40, either. That was about a week after I bought a crapload of stuff to prepare for the old lvl 60 Warlock mount quest too. In a similar vein I only made it to Outland about a month before Wrath launched. I seem to have constant problems with my timing. >_>

About flying mounts. I recall hearing about a console command that'd unlock the vertical barrier on your flight controls so you could get upside down. That should be standard I think. Of course I think they should dispense with the standard galactic "north" in Eve Online too, but they won't cause of stupid easily confused people.

[synkr0nized]

It sounds like you played fairly rarely (or are bad at the game?), to not have gotten the mounts or even through all of the content. Why are you going back?

[Pip Boy]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

About flying mounts. I recall hearing about a console command that'd unlock the vertical barrier on your flight controls so you could get upside down. That should be standard I think.

I don't know about console commands, but the default keybinds for "Pitch up" and "Pitch Down" are either Page Up and Page Down or Insert and Delete (I forget which) and you can turn a full 360 degrees with those. You don't appear upside down unless you're moving, however.

As for UI changes, addons certainly aren't new to the game. What you saw changing the bars was most likely not a function of the default included UI, but Bartender4 or something akin to it.