We have a review of the next patch's features seen so far in the Public Test Servers, and a few bugs noticed. Read more below . . .
Copying your Character onto the Public Test Server
Blizzard Entertainment announced the launch of the Public Test servers a couple of days ago. Any player can access their account to create a copy of their favorite character onto the Public Test servers. The first step to do is to login into your Account Management Here. Download the PC or Mac version of the Public Test server client downloader(Blizzard Bitorrent). Download it straight into the World of Warcraft folder. Launch the Blizzard Downloader and it will install the client. In case the installer doesn't create a shortcut in your desktop, make sure to open the Public Test folder and manually create a shortcut to the desktop for accessibility with one click.
 List of Characters |
While you are downloading the Client, resume working on your Account to transfer a copy of your character. You will see three dropdowns: PvP, PvE and RP(Roleplaying) servers. Choose the server type where your main character exists(i.e. Deathwing server). A list of all the characters you have in the (Deathwing) server will be shown. You select the character you wish to copy onto the Public Test servers, and the process will start.
The Character, inventory(bags), gold amount and bank items are duplicated. This process takes roughly 5 minutes or less. It is important not to press the back button nor press refresh/reload page button. Once the transfer is done, all you need is to install the client, and launch it. Make sure to launch the Public Test Client --which is in its own folder inside the World of Warcraft directory; and not your regular World of Warcraft game client.
You can read the Patch notes Here
First Impression
 New Tiger Mount |
When you enter the world of the Public Test Server you will find that Repetitive Quest NPCs will no longer have the yellow exclamation on their heads. Now they are blue, which makes easy to identify which quests you can complete over and over. This is important because now you will know which NPCs you may talk with, to increase your Reputation with a specific faction. By example, doing the Western Plaguelands cauldron quests of the Bulwark, will increase your reputation with Undercity from Honored to Revered, to Exhalted. Killing Undead and bringing Scourgestones to the soldiers of Light's Hope in Eastern Plaguelands will increase your Reputation with the Argent Dawn. This type of Reputation Quest Givers will now have blue signs on their heads for easy identification, as repetitive quests.
Some mounts have now new graphics, and you can talk to the Mount vendors to replace your current mount with one of the new ones. The orc mount(Wolf) can be found at the Valley of Honor-- accessible through The Drag, in Orgrimmar. The Troll mount(Raptor) can be found at Zul'Jin Village, southeast of Durotar. The Undead mount(Steed) can be found at Brill, in Tirisfal Glades. The Tauren mount(Kodo) can be found at Bloodhoof Village, Mulgore. The Gnome mount(Mechanostrider), can be found at the Steamtank hangar, northeast of Kharanos at Dun Morough. Night Elf mount(Tiger) can be found at the Cenarion Enclave in Darnassus.
The few I have been able to see so far are the wolf with collar spike and metallic mask and the tiger with glowing eyes and an awesome headset with a bright gem.
The Towers in Orgrimmar to reach the Wyvern flight master and the tower of the Zeppelin no longer have bonfires and the annoying sides of the spiral ramp that let you fall down were re-designed with a new model. The borders are now sealed with the outer wall and with the central beam so that players won't fall down constantly-- as seen Here.
 Pauldron of the Elements |
The Battleground zones in Alterac were populated with guards, which is an indication that Battlegrounds may be closer than we think. The Horde camp for Battlegrounds was populated with Frostwolf Clan Battleguards. It seems that the Frostwolf NPC near the bank in Orgrimmar will be the one to give us a quest to enter the Battlegrounds when it becomes available. The NPCs are yellow, which mean they will be part of the Reputation factions. The Alliance Battleground zone in Alterac was populated with Stormpike Battleguards.
Some Armor sets have had a dramatical boost in graphics and details. Few of the new armor graphics seen are the Devout shoulders, Wildheart set, and the Pauldron of Elements. The Warlocks will be greeted by a very cool new Succubus model, with more .. umm, breastsonality.
Few bugs can be seen in Orgrimmar. The gate of the Honor Hall(Barracks) for the Honor System is constantly opening and closing nonstop. The trigger that makes the gate open or close isn't working properly and will be fixed. The Supported GUI Sidebar seems to have minor visual bugs. Usually, when the cursor is placed over the sidebar or when a spell or item are dragged onto the sidebar the slots become visible. When the cursor is moved away from the sidebar, the empty slots become invisible. That is how it works in retail version. In the Public Test servers, there are two empty slots that are visible at all times at the sidebar, and when moving the cursor over other empty slots, nothing happens. This bug will be fixed(We haven't tried deleting the WTF and WDB folders, maybe it may fix some of these bugs client-side).
 New Succubus Model |
You can inspect other players and see their Honor Tab. The Honor System can be accessed from your Character menu with a tab at the bottom. It lists your Honorable Kills and Dishonorable kills in different categories: Session, Yesterday, Week, and Lifetime. Currently, it seems that only Honorable kills are working. Dishonorable kills seem to not be active at the moment. This may change though. The Public Test Servers are meant to find bugs and to show players what is available in the next patch, before it goes live. Certain things missing might be added in the final patch release.
When I loaded the Test Server client, the first thing I could notice after leaving Orgrimmar is that PvE players immediately wanted to test the Honor System big-time. Alliance brought over 70 players to raid Crossroads, at the Barrens. The horde slowly started to show up in the area to attempt to protect their territory. I joined a raid group to counterattack, and noticed that each kill where my Priest character helped with fear, word: pain, or healing counted toward my Honorable Kills, even if I didn't directly caused damage or killed. Healing and Fear count toward your kill points. We will have to study this closely, because interacting with fellow players that cause a dishonorable kill, may affect your stats against your will. This is something Blizzard will have to analyze, specially when enemy players may want to bring in a low level character near you to harm your Honor as a means of exploit.
 Honor System Tab |
During the last two days, I made 220 Honorable Kills. According to a recent Honor System preview by Blizzard, ranks will be updated at the end of the week. To view a list of available ranks in-game, you can buy a book of ranks at the vendor near the Honor Hall. The Horde has a Honor Hall near the bridge to the Flight Master in Orgrimmar, and the Alliance has a Honor Hall by the barracks of the Old Town, in Stormwind. Outside, you will see a vendor. Browse all the pages of items it sells, and you will see a book costing 90 copper. When you buy the book and click it in your inventory, you may read the 14 ranks for Horde and Alliance. We were not able to buy the book at first due to a bug. When trying to buy the book in Orgrimmar, a message onscreen would say your bags are full, even when 7 slots were empty. Next day, it could be purchased. As you get more Honorable Kills, your rank will increase. There is a total of 14 ranks in the PvP Honor System. You may read the Ranks details Here
The few hours I played in the Public Test server, players were mostly doing PvP Raids against other cities and towns. The lag was incredibly aweful with Alliance zerging up Crossroads, Undercity and Orgrimmar in masses of over 70 players. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro(256MB), Athlon-64 3200+ with 1GB DDR RAM, Windows XP Pro. The lag-- when I enter an area with many players-- suddenly gives me one frame for 15 seconds, then goes normal for a while, and offering some repeated spikes every now and then. It makes the experience a bit annoying, because if I am walking with auto-run and the frame freezes for 15 seconds, I will end up being far from where I originally were. Or you can be alive(full health) one moment in the middle of a PvP raid, and when the lag spike vanishes you show up dead.
 Wildheart Cowl Headset |
PvP Raids in the Retail version are laggy sometimes, but you can move around and see where you are going even if framerate drops; and at least, you can notice what is happening around you. The Public Test servers, though, get very laggy in PvP Battles with over 40 players. After a while, things got messy and the Test server shut down to restart. Blizzard will be working around the clock to alleviate the lag issues.
We hope that Battlegrounds may offer a controlled PvP experience with a limit cap of players per Battleground instance, to avoid the mass-amount of PvP players --which cause the poor low frame-rates and lag; without sacrificing the fun factor. A hundred or more players casting many spells at once in Crossroads, Darnassus or cities like Orgrimmar and Stormwind is definetely not a fun experience for players, but even less for our complaining-graphic card. Battlegrounds will offer a more attractive reward than doing PvP in some towns and cities, by rewarding us with Honor points, Battlegrounds Armor sets and other features. Once Battlegrounds is implemented sometime in the next few weeks or months, and players start to realize that Battlegrounds is more fun than mass-zerging towns, our video cards and Blizzard servers will be grateful not to undergo more stress than what it can chew. |
