Current schedule of raids that Basil will be leading

Given that GEM is currently dead below is my current expected list of raids that I'll be running.

This starts from tomorrow and goes until the day before Cataclysm.

If anybody wants to lead raids to do achievements I'll add them to this post as advertising. Also happy to give advice if anybody wants to run something.

Shortcut Link

You can reach this page with the shortcut link http://honourbound.org/basilraids

It is that time again.
Wher all us WoW nerds feels the calling to that big place known as BlizzCon.
I will report of what hapends during the event on this page.
With the start from 19.00 (game time) tonight.

Time at BlizzCon... http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=783

All is presented by this years vanity pet: Deathy

Friday

•10am (19:00 gametime)
Doors are open for this years BlizzCon
Same problem as last year with not enough servers to handle al the streaming so it´s laggy as hell...

Solved it...
Just watch everything a few minutes behind so I am abit 15 min late to everything, but hey, No lagg..

•11am (20:00 gametime)
Opening Ceremony starts
Mike Morhaime is talking..

Over 1 million dollars given to Make-A-Wish Foundation made from the Pandaren Monk sale...
Their next will be a Moonkin hatchling pet..

Poor Arthas has been killed about 489000 times...

Highlights from the past year was fun to see...

They will let us Pre-order Cataclysm, download and install it before servers go live.
So when they turn them on at December 7 you can go online as a Cata player...

•1:30pm (22:30)
World of Warcraft - Dungeons & Raids
They talk about what changes are being made to bring us Deadmines Heroic and Shadowfang Keep Heroic.
They made so much changes that even the non HC version will be changed too..

Changes to older instances that was long and took time.
Going to be broken into Wings.
Maraudon gets to be 2 smaler ones instead of one huge instance same goes with Uldaman.

They explain the new raid lock system it sounds complex but yet easy..

Patch 4.1.0 Preview
First raid is Firelands Raid, It is the home of Ragnaros
7 bosses in it and it´s an indoor/outdoor raid so mounths can be used in it..

Abyssal Maw is the first 5 man dungeon and it´s nothing like The Oculus
4 bosses and all is UnderWather

Maps of every dungeon and raid in all worlds..
Boss info, loot, lore and abilites on map and boss portraits will be in 3D

And their will be an elivator in the first raid for Basil to fall down from

BRD will get teleporters, so no more running and running and running if you die...

•3pm (00:00)
World of Warcraft Quest and Lore
It is still a Q&A event, but lots of nice info about lore and quests thow.

Best part
The fans have questions that makes the developers go silent.
Alot of those questions...

Warcraft movie.... No update..

•4:30pm (01:33)
World of Warcraft Live Raid Panel
Starts late... about 15 mins late...

Paragon Guild gets to kill stuff Live, Well, they get killed too...
Hard to fight 4 bosses at the same time.

And in true spirit of BlizzCon they wipe Paragon at the end with the help of Deathwing!!!!

•6:00pm (03:00)
Costume, Song, and Dance Contests
Hosted by Jay Mohr
His forth year hosting the contest

Realy good intro to it with some nice Live Music.

Can´t realy say that the costumes wer good this year atleast the winner was a good one..

Saturday

*10:30am (19:30)
Cinematics: Cataclysm

Mostly information about how and why they did what they did with the Cataclysm Cinematics.

*12:00pm (21:00)
World of Warcraft Class Q&A

Lots of good questions being asked and a few strange ones.

*1:30pm (22:30)
World of Warcraft Open Q&A

Good and bad set of questions, some I did not even understand.

*3:00pm (00:00)
World of Warcraft Art

Nice to see how concept art translates into game art and how good everything lookes.
No more ice everywhere as it is in Northrend, tho abit more wather here instead..
I´m not sure why they showed al the things they did since lots wer just objects.

We get to see how they remade the old worgens into the one we get in cataclysm.
And also how goblins wer made into what we get to see..

We get a sneak preview to what Deathy will do while idling.

They also showed the new login screen with Deathwing sitting ontop of the entryway to Stormwind.

*4:30pm (1:30)
Blizzard Sound

Started realy late (20mins) and with some trouble sending the sound to us on the net, was fixed fast thow
Well, I guess someone finds this interesting but I did not.
was hoping for alot more music than their was.

*6:30pm (3:30)
Closing Ceremony

Tenacious D with special guest Dave Grohl (Foo Fighter) on Drums

In the 4.0.1 patch, the glyphing mechanism was changed to add more glyph types to your repertoire of active glyphs and to make glyphs a learned thing. That means that once you've learned a glyph on your character, you can use that make that glyph a used glyph as many times as you like. You don't need to buy it again. You do, however, need to buy some "dust of disappearance" to erase an existing glyph. This is currently available in stacks of five from your local enchanter supplier for a small fee.

Most of us had to re-glyph to fill up the abundance of glyph slots we had, plus we wanted the flexibility of knowing glyphs so we could change on the fly. Drachonus has all of the glyph recipes and has graciously volunteered to make glyphs for anyone in the guild. To make this easier, myself, Sac (thanks for the gold!) and someone else (I'm sorry I've forgotten who), have donated stacks of Wrath of the Lich King herbs or gold to make the inks needed to inscribe glyphs. Drachonus therefore can currently make around 70 glyphs for guild members free of charge.

If you'd like to donate materials for our guild glyph making efforts, drop stacks of Wrath of the Lich King herbs into the "Overflow" bank tab (it's the last one) or make a gold donation and I'll arrange to buy some more stacks of herbs for the ink making efforts.

Everyone in the guild should be able to get at least one or two free at the moment, if not more!

Enjoy!

If you've been online since the 4.0.1 patch, you may have noticed that the guild panel has changed. The first change is that it's not in the "social" pane as a tab with your friends, chat, and other related items. It has its own pane now accessed using the 'j' key.

The next change is that the guild pane has two tabs. The default tab is the roster, that normally shows who is currently online. Unlike previously, that pane does not also show the current guild message of the day (GMOTD). That's now hidden on the "info" tab, along with upcoming guild events (from the calendar) and general guild info. We do actually put useful information into the GMOTD from time to time, so please check there periodically.

Summary

Event: THB leaders and representatives meeting
Meeting Place: Thunderbrew Distillery in Kharanos
Meeting Date: Sunday, October 10, 2010
Meeting Time: 18:30 CET (Game Time) to 19:20

Proposed Agenda

1. Welcome
2. Upcoming Patch Implications

Actual Agenda

1. Welcome
2. Upcoming Patch
3. Raid Rotation Changes
4. Cataclysm Guild-Related Changes
5. Future Meeting

Final Attendees

• Co-Coordinators
  • Basil - Roses of Dawn
  • Elsheindra - The One (Guild Leader)

• Phoenix Legion
  • Gimlinox (Guild Leader)
• Roses of Dawn
  • Kanine

Final Decisions/Major Points

• Upcoming Patch
  • Will probably be released this week for Wednesday.
  • Main impact, other than learning classes/talents, is the new raid lockout system. There's a post in the Honourbound forums that explains it (http://www.wowkindness.com/confluence/display/BLOG/2010/10/04/Flexible+Raid+Lockout+-+next+patch)
  • Gimlinox thinks there will not be many 10-person raids, but Basil thinks it will have more impact on the 25-person raids.
  • Flexible raid lockout applies only to Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum. A person will only be able to kill a given boss once per raid instance lockout.
  • We fully expect to have to educate people about the raid lockout mechanism.
  • In the next patch, Frost badges are downgraded to Triumph badges and, Basil suspects, Frost gear becomes available to buy from Triumph badges. So it might not be worth spending any badges in the next couple of days if you're gearing up characters.
  • Equipment durability is being rejigged. Everyone's repair costs will be about the same as plate costs, regardless of whether you wear plate or not. Share the tank's pain. (-:
  • Weapons skills are being phased out. There may be a feat for having maxed out the existing ones.
• Raid Rotation Changes
  • There are two possible scenarios but Wrath will be a bit of a mess with the new lock outs.
    • We do ICC-25 early in the week, killing off the early bosses. Then the 10-person teams can do the leftover, hard bosses.
    • Alternative is we spend time in Ruby Sanctum, although it won't keep us going very long. It is something that could be done later in the week as we don't believe any of the 10-persons are doing Ruby Sanctum.
  • Once Cataclysm hits there will be several raiding options. Blizzard has stated they intend to have multiple middling size raid instances per tier. Think 2x ToC with an extra boss or two and added trash.
    • An option would be to do 25-man early in the reset period and do "easy" bosses leaving 10-mans to focus on learning fights.
    • Another option is to declare one raid instance 25-man instance of the month, another instance 10-man. Swap them around after a month.
    • This, like the wrath raiding ideas, may need to be adjusted as we go along and we see what does or does not work.
• Cataclysm Guild Changes
  • Overall guild levels and achievements are meant to give "handy perks" rather the over powerful things.
  • Blizzard are trying to balance it so that large guilds don't get too much advantage.
    • Guild XP can be earned by doing several activities in WoW. Leveling, PvP, instances (normal/heroic/raid) and earning guild achievements. For raid related achievements 80% of the raid must be from the same guild. So 8/10 or 20/25.
    • Only the top x (I'm not sure of the exact number) people in each category actually contribute to guild XP.
    • There is a cap on how much XP a guild can earn in a single week.
  • Each level gives a set "perk" which applies equally to all members in guild.
  • Examples are:
    • 5% faster mount speed.
    • 5% extra XP earned.
    • 5% extra rep earned.
    • Instant in-game mail between guild members.
    • For all cash looted by a guild member a bonus amount of cash is created and put in the guild vault.
  • Each Character will also have "Guild Reputation"
    • You gain reputation each time they do anything that would earn guild XP.
    • Reputation is used to buy various rewards that are unlocked by guild achievements and/or levels. Most of the rewards, such as the lion land mount, are "Bind on Account".

• Future Meeting
  • Decision: Basil will try to organize another meeting for end of October (done )
  • Team Name system to be changed in the new expansion. Elsheindra wants to use WoW mini-pets.
  • Considering changing voice communication systems at the end of November to Mumble, an Open Source system that will be cheaper.
  • Cataclysm talent/class/gear changes mean the loot rules need updating. Elsheindra has created a draft page in the THB Reps area.

25-man raids are currently suspended due to the disruption caused by new skills, talents, glyphs, raid-lock ins and the death of GEM, our shared event management mod. Basil is hoping to start 25-person raids again on Thursday, October 21st.

It appears that GEM was broken by the 4.0.1 patch, any updates will be slow and may not be complete. We are investigating how to replace GEM and the shared channel facility.

Currently for general chat and spamming for THB groups and raids please join the THBChat channel manually and type the password in if requested. We are probably going to replace this with a custom mod.

Events organising will probably be replaced with Group Calendar 5 which looks like only THB reps and event organisers will need to install. If you know of any other cross-guild event organising mods then please let Basil and Elsheindra know!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

It was a dark and stormy Thursday night. Elsheindra said to Basil, "What shall we do tonight?" The answer: "The same thing we do every Thursday night: take over Ice Crown Citadel." So the daring duo set off to recruit a courageous group of compatriots, willing to face any danger in search of adventure. Basil had a secret plan and it involved dancing. It wasn't just any dancing but dancing with dragons! Like our Dickens tale, though, it was to be a study in contrasts, tale of healing and a tale of dying.

The team first went to see Ms. Valithria, a venerable dragon lady who is somewhat prone to poor health. Our job was not to kill her, but to save her. It was a job that would stress the healers, because a number of Ice Crown denizens were not happy with our attempts to save the dragon's life. In fact, they quite adamantly and violently opposed it, sending waves of mages, skeletons, zombies, and abominations after us.

After some hairy moments with blistering zombies (luckily Brotherfant was not with us or it would have been a lot worse), we were victorious in restoring Valrithria to full health and happiness. She was so overjoyed, she rewarded us with some treasure she'd manage to put aside during her earlier successful working years as a mercenary dragon.

Feeling good about ourselves for having done a good dead, we set off to explore the other side of life: the giving of death. Our target: Sindragosa, a formidable dragon lady who has given several other groups of interepid adventurers no end of trouble. She seems to be quite adverse to just quickly and easily dying, insisting instead of complex, choreographed dance routines on ice. You can't skate well? Too bad for you, because you're going to die! You can't pay attention to nasty magic debuffs? You're going to die! You like hanging around your friends when you're marked to become an icecube? We're all going to die!

And die we did. Some people were marked to become ice cubes and they craved the warm life the rest of us had, so they stayed close. The result, a good chunk of the raid became ice cubes. Thus ends our Sindragosa death story. There was a death, but it was ours.

The Ulduar Achievement Team, led by Veiliah (Roses of Dawn), has been running on Wednesday evenings over the past few months, working through the various hard modes in Ulduar. It's all been leading up to killing Algalon the Observer, the optional boss after Yogg-Saron. Why would anyone do this, you wonder? Well, it does come with a cool new title: Starcaller!

The successful team members:

• Veiliah (Roses of Dawn, leader, ranged DPS)
• Breicor (The One, tank)
• Divinity (Ye Olde Geezers, healer)
• Drachonus (The One, ranged DPS)
• Elsheindra (The One, healer)
• Jambat (Roses of Dawn, ranged DPS)
• Kanine (Roses of Dawn, tank)
• Kuniva (Roses of Dawn, healer)
• Muadia (Roses of Dawn, melee DPS)
• Painterman (Ye Olde Geezers, ranged DPS)

Some Screenshots
The Ulduar Achievement Team looking confident and cool before actually trying to do anything	Cool shot of the fight in progress with star trails (or something) blazing everywhere.	Doesn't Algalon look spiffy? I think he should be riding one of those Celestial Steeds. He's a star!
Algalon is now green. We have successfully become Starcallers ourselves. Hurrah!

The plan was for Basil to try to run some other people through this achievement. If you're interested, let him know. Killing Yogg-Saron results in a 310% rusted protodrake.

Runs will be likely be on Wednesday evenings.

General

We recognize that real life sometimes intervenes and you might not be able to notify your raid leader days in advance or get in-game to leave a message, so we've created this thread for you to leave a note. Please try to let your raid leader know as early as possible! It's your responsibility to do so.

Note: This is intended more for on-the-day or day before notices. If you can get in-game, it's better to do so and leave an in-game message. We'll try to get raid leaders or other people to then check this list on raid days.

Shortcuts to This Page

You can quickly reach this page using http://www.honourbound.org/NoRaidForMe or http://www.honourbound.org/LateForRaid

Using This Page

You don't need an account. You can post as "anonymous". Use the "Add a Comment" link. Make sure to include:

• Your character name
• Your team or raid leader
• The day you're unavailable

If you're a raid leader, just bookmark this page and check before your raids. I'm working on a way to subscribe to the comment updates for just this page by RSS.

Thanks,
Elsheindra

Wednesday is patch day. The realms will be down until at least 16:00 game time. What can you expect? All kinds of stuff. First of all, have a look at the patch notes, because a lot of stuff has changed. I've reproduced the patch notes at the bottom of this posting.

There is also an extensive list of known issues. Curse has a big info compilation page with pointers to class guides, new talent calculators, and skill lists.

If you're participating in raid instances, Ice Crown Citadel and the Ruby Sanctum have a new lockout mechanism. Basil explains this in Flexible Raid Lockout - next patch posting. It's important to understand this or there will be much heartache.

Many classes have had their talent trees drastically changed. Expect to spend a bit of time reconfiguring, re-glyphing, re-jigging talent trees, and trying things out.

Happy Patch Day! Any problems? Let us know!

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.1
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.wow-europe.com/en/patchnotes/

Cataclysm Systems Patch

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be in stores on December 7, 2010 and the time has come to prep for the official launch by implementing its first major patch. Players can experience many major game and user interface systems updates in the first official patch for the upcoming third expansion, patch 4.0.1.

General

• Cataclysm Launcher Update
  • The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We'd like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information.
• Reforging
  • Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.

Dungeons & Raids

• Flexible Raid Lock System
  • Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum now use the new Flexible Raid Lock system. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone's encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players.
  • Learn more about this feature by visiting our official forums here.
• Icecrown Citadel
  • The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.

Currency

• PvE Currency Changes
  • All Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph have been converted to new Justice Points.
  • Any dungeon or raid which awarded these emblems will reward Justice Points instead. Anything below Emblems of Triumph, including badges from The Burning Crusade dungeon and raid content, have been converted into gold and sent to players via the in-game mail system.
  • Any bosses players defeat that are level-appropriate to them award Justice Points.
  • All items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type now cost Justice Points.
  • Higher-tier Valor Points will be awarded to players who kill dungeon and raid bosses in the latest tier of PvE content after the launch of Cataclysm.
• PvP Currency Changes
  • All Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards have been converted into new Honor Points.
  • Honor Points will be awarded instead of these currencies, with the exception of Arena Points.
  • Higher-tier Conquest Points will be awarded to players competing in each of the latest Arena or Rated Battleground seasons after the launch of Cataclysm.
• For more information on the changes to the currencies and conversion rates for each type, please visit our Cataclysm forum.

Classes: General

• Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.
• All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.
• Ammo has been removed from the game.
• The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
• Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
• Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.
• Rage has been normalized.
• Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
• Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.
  • Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
  • Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
  • Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
  • Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
  • The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum.

Death Knights

• A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.
• The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.
• The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

• A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters

• Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
• Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
• Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
• The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

• There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

• Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

• There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
• Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

• Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
• Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

• The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface

• Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.
• The Guild Interface has been redesigned to incorporate additional functionality, including new sorting and organizational options.
• The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
• The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
• The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
• A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character's primary and secondary professions.
• Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
• New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
• Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
• New Raid frames are now available. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
• The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

• Improved water and lava rendering system (Video Options - Liquid Detail on the Graphics Panel)
• Dynamic Sunshafts effect (Video Options - Sunshafts on the Graphics Panel)
• Multi-monitor support (Video Options - Monitor on the Graphics Panel)
• OpenGL Hardware Cursor support for Windows (Video Options - Hardware Cursor on the Advanced Panel)
• Experimental support for DX11 (enabled by passing '-d3d11' on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file)

Summary

Event: THB leaders and representatives meeting
Meeting Place: Thunderbrew Distillery in Kharanos
Meeting Date: Saturday, July 24, 2010
Meeting Time: 20:00 CET (Game Time) to 20:30

Proposed Agenda

1. Welcome
2. Quantum application
3. Current status of THB raiding
4. Future Items

Actual Agenda

1. Welcome

Final Attendees

• Co-Coordinators
  • Basil - Roses of Dawn
  • Elsheindra - The One (Guild Leader)

• CursedCrusaders
  • Aelhaern (Guild Leader)
  • Njaal
• The One
  • Popcorn (as Sabetha)
• Roses of Dawn
  • Kanine
• Ye Olde Geezers
  • Jazhara (Guild Leader)
  • Enrico

Final Decisions/Major Points

• Quantum
  • Recap of last meeting, where insufficient guilds present to make any decisions. Those present were uncertain whether we'd see a lot of Quantum in GEM or other events.
  • Jazhara: Concerned that Quantum was a raiding guild. We're at the state where we're waiting for the expansion and it's a quiet time now. It's hard to say how many people we'll have active.
  • Njaal: Quantum is going back to being a 25-person raiding guild. They've given up on THB. They're also no longer raiding with CursedCrusaders, so those CC people are now available for 25-person runs.
  • Decision: Quantum application is dropped.
• Primal
  • Decision: Prior to this meeting, Primal notified us that they did not wish to join The Honourbound. Their application has been dropped.
• Current Activity of Reps
  • YoG to add Enrico as a representative
  • Jazhara has also asked Eztiger (YoG)
  • Njaal stepping down as THB rep for CursedCrusader
  • Elsheindra points out that guild reps aren't passing on information and there are many people in the various guilds who aren't involved in THB and seem not to be available. Is that because the reps aren't passing on information and encouraging people?
• Current Teams
  • All the ten-person teams are struggling due to people away, etc.
  • Vermillion are having trouble. Hunting around for a new date and time. Changed from Sunday afternoon to Sunday evening and then to Tuesday/Wednesday evening. Sindragosa down recently.
  • Team Burgundy is struggling for people. 4 short last time. Not sure why. Brotherfant is trying to form a new team: Team Bananas.
  • Team Pink has had occasional gaps. Sindragosa down a ways back. Working on the Lich King.
  • Halion in Ruby Sanctum downed on Thursday with ten people from Team EverREDy.
  • Team Ginger has downed Sindragosa.
  • Team Azure: 10/12 in Icecrown.
  • Team Orange: Having problems with people. Not past Valithria. Has solved part of the problem by taking Darkhades (CursedCrusaders).
  • Drop-in group on Wednesdays: irregular – every other week. Intent is ToC for those people who haven't really raided yet to try out raiding.

Useful background and facts for Cataclysm as I currently understand them.

Upcoming patch is the Cataclysm pre-patch, likely due Wednesday 13th.

Talents, Skills, Gear all change with the pre-patch. Mods may well be broken and need to be updated / replaced.
All gear will be as expensive as plate to repair!

Cataclysm itself -

Portals in Dalaran and Shattrath will shut down as mages divert their power elsewhere.
First thing to do is buy "Flightmaster's License" which will allow you to fly in the old world and, more importantly, in the expansion zones. This is currently just under 200 hundred gold per character from flightmasters in old world capitals. Use the capital with your best rep.

Level up, run instances, run dailies, run heroics, get ready to raid.

Lets break that down a little further.

Level up -

Starter zones are Mount Hyjal and Vash'jir (80-82).
Next is Deepholm (82 - 83)
Then comes Uldum (83 - 84)
Last is Twilight Highlands (84 - 85).
Enter zones the "recommended" way and enjoy any cutscenes you may hit. As you go through a zone make sure to explore it fully before you leave, especially make sure you find the instance entrances. You can't use the LFG tool to go to an instance until you've found the entrance.

Run instances -

From what I can tell normal instances give at best Level 83 blue gear (iLevel 333). They will be hard. Almost raid skill hard.
You will need to learn the pulls, you will need to learn the boss skills, you will need to do it correctly.
You will need to learn your character, you will need to learn your crowd control, you will need to relearn proper DPS discipline if you are used to AE tank and gank. They are nerfing tank threat generation so you will have to pay attention. I'll repeat that... learn about aggro. They are currently tweaking threat generation as healers were often pulling off of tanks during trash group pulls.

Run dailies -

Mainly for the rep. Deepholm contains the replacement for Sons of Hodir and their shoulder enchants plus some nice rings and things. You'll also need the cash to pay for repairs.

Run Heroics -

These will be raid skill hard. Unforgiving. You will wipe until you learn how each place works.
Think back to basic WoW and Scholo, Strat, Dire Maul, UBRS and LBRS. Even just before Burning Crusade hit you still needed a decent group to get through these places.

Get ready to raid -

Try and complete each heroic at least once because the various boss skills will undoubtedly turn up again in the raids.
Work out which mods you need, get to understand the new raid lock out system, decide how much time and focus you want to devote to WoW and raiding every week.
Remember you'll need to leave time to farm for cash and also to relax and enjoy the game.

Expected raid environment.

The following things will influence what kind of raids we end up having.

The Blizzard intent is for 10 and 25-man raiding to be equivalent.
They will both drop the same level of loot. They will have a single set of achievements.
They will be tuned to be equally hard.

25-man raids will benefit because they will have a higher rate of loot / person than the 10-mans. About 50% extra "frost badges" and maybe a fraction of an epic more. I'm guessing at best 2 epics/boss 10-man and 6/boss 25-man. It may be that it's just bonus "frost badges" though.

Guild Achievements -

For a guild to get credit for an achievement 8/10 or 20/25 of a raid need to be from one guild

Raid Leader availability -

This will limit how many groups we can get running

Raid class balance -

This will be more an issue of tanks and healers than specific type of DPSers. Cataclysm works towards the goal of bringing the person, not the class, by spreading out more abilities across many classes.

Raid instance availability -

The intent is for there to be multiple linear middling sized instances per raid tier rather than 1 large one.
Think Trial of the Crusader with trash and an extra boss or too.

Raid Lock-out -

A given character can only kill a given boss once per reset, either in 10 or 25-man. Things get more complex once hard mode kills are considered but I'll ignore that for now.

Character equipment -

Again it is intended that the "old" tier of raid equipment can be bought with heroic badges, "cutting edge" tier is bought with badges from the current newest tier boss kills. Everybody should therefore be able to gear up a character to a point where it is capable of joining "cutting edge" raids using the previous tier of equipment. Changing over to a new main should therefore remain as possible as it is at the moment - best done as a new tier of content is released.

What do I expect to see?

People will become unwilling to bring along drastically undergeared raid members. There will be little excuse and it will have a potential for serious problems - daily normal instance runs will give current "Emblem of Triumph" equivalents. If somebody can't run normal and heroic instances to gear up then they likely won't be able to cope with the raid fight mechanics (bosses and trash).

In addition Blizzard is changing the way bosses scale. Higher tier bosses will be harder to hit, have more armour, attack more accurately etc. and so in theory DPS per person will remain the same as they move (with appropriate gear) from one tier to the next. It would shoot up if they went back to an old tier.
It also means that somebody who is undergeared will be really undergeared. Enough +hit to reliably hit first tier bosses will not be enough on higher tiers.

I think we'll see a strong early push for 10-man guild groups with an extra person or two (at most) from out of guild for reasons of friendships or role balance. People will want to help level the guild and help get guild achievements.

I think we'll see a number of extra 10-man groups cross-guild so that as many people as possible have a regular raiding spot. This will probably end up being limited by leaders but may also be limited by tank and healer availability.

I think 25-man will remain beneficial to run for the increased loot income but is unlikely to become a fixed group.

25-man wise what we'll therefore see is either :
25-man early in a reset doing "farmed" bosses followed by 10-man later in the reset doing new bosses
One raid instance designated the 25-man instance, another the 10-man instance. Designation will change every month or so.

The reason we may do "farm" bosses on 25-man and "new" bosses in 10-man is not because the fight will be easier but because it is easier to spot what is going wrong in 10-man and correct it. I expect it to remain true that once a boss has been defeated once or twice it becomes a lot easier. 25-man wise it will still therefore be a big benefit if everybody along knows the 10-man version of the boss.

Blizzard has now officially announced the Cataclysm release date. It's December 7, 2010. From the official announcement:

PARIS, France - October 4, 2010 - Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™, the highly anticipated third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game*, will be released starting on December 7, 2010. The expansion will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 and Macintosh® at a suggested retail price of €34.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector's Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of €69.99.

There is an important change coming up in the next patch which currently has a single line in the patch notes.

The implementation of the new "Flexible Raid Lockout" is going to make life complicated for a multi-wing place like ICC so it's best to give people the information early so that they are aware and can think it through.

Official post is at WoW Forums

Here's an attempt at a short description:

This applies to ICC and Ruby Sanctum only. All other raids remain as before.

A character will no longer have a 10-man and a 25-man raid ID.
A character will instead have a list of bosses already killed this reset and a single raid ID.

Every reset you can only kill a given boss once - either 10-man or 25-man.
If you do not kill any heroic ICC bosses then raid ID is a temporary thing while you are inside a particular raid.

Once you have killed some bosses you will only be able to join a raid that has killed at least the bosses you have already killed.
If you are in a raid and you kill a boss you will be marked as killing all the bosses already dead in that raid.
If you kill any boss in heroic mode then you will be saved to that raid ID. You will only be able to kill more heroic bosses with that specific raid ID.

Think before you pug especially if you are working on heroic bosses in a 10-person group. If you pug 25-man heroic gunship then you won't be able to do any heroic ICC bosses with your normal 10-man group.
Think carefully before mixing 25-man and 10-man. If your 10-man group is working on later bosses (Sindragosa / Lich King) and isn't clearing the early bosses for badges and drops then you are fine.
If your 10-man group is covering the same ground as the 25-man group then you will have to choose between them.

Team DarkSins did this achievement earlier this year for a THB first. That's the one that comes with the super-fast rusted protodrake. Basil has recently been taking a group of regulars through on Wednesday evenings to work on this. It basically requires doing a number of the Ulduar bosses in hard mode, plus getting down Yogg Saron. Most THB groups never got down Yogg Saron and, because of the coordination required, it still remains a tricky fight even with the much improved gear now available. I'm happy to report that they have succeeded. I've heard a rumour that Basil intends to start another group going through just as soon as we down Algalon, but that might be still a few weeks ahead.

If you're interested in doing this achievement, have a word with Basil/Veiliah to find out when the next group will start.