Monday, October 15, 2007

2.3 PTR - First Impressions

Man, it was so sweet to be the first group to clear Zul'Aman! What? That wasn't me? Oh, well at least it was cool that I finally got to learn Ritual of Refreshment. Oh... I guess that wasn't me either. No... I get stuck in line waiting to get Leiandra transfered over to the PTR's. At least she's finally transfered (as of this morning) and hopefully I can try out a couple of those things (along with the guild bank if they ever put that on the PTR).

But I did get the test patch downloaded and I started a warlock. She's level 3 and moving fast. Watch out, Zul'Jin. lol.

Now, I'll admit that I haven't been on a lot of the Public Test Realms. I'm very grateful for those that do test it so that there's less bugs for the rest of us. But I'm usually too consumed in my own character development to worry too much about what's coming out. Sure, I transfered a few toons over when WoW 2.0 came out to play with specs. And I'm excited about all the stuff that's coming out in 2.3, but nothing that I feel I really have to test. I'll just experience when I experience it.

But there were a couple things that I noticed with my epic level 3 warlock, and I'm not sure I saw these on the 2.3 Patch Notes (even though I did read them all). Even stranger, I haven't seen any web sites mention this. It seems that the mini-map has gotten a major overhaul. You now see yellow Exclamation Marks on the map where quests are available. You see yellow Question Marks when you have quests to turn in. (Where you just had a yellow dot before.) All classes seem to have a certain "track" feature. (Hunters nerfed? lol.) The new "track" feature allows you to search for NPC's such as ones that will repair your armor, sell you reagents, class trainers, and more. (I'll get a screenshot so you can see all of them tonight.) It just seems to make the mini map so much more useful. Kind of like a lot of the map mods out there. Hmm... I wonder where Blizzard keeps getting these great ideas? lol.

My only thought was that maybe they did this just for the PTR's, but I've never seen it on the other PTR's. Has anyone else? Or is this truly a undocumented changed that nobody seems to be talking about. Or is it just that nobody cares? I kinda find that hard to believe.

3 comments:

Girl Meets WoW said...

Ok, I feel silly. I just remembered that Zanderfin and Leiandra are one and the same! And you're not going insane, they have changed the UI and it's really nice. Unless maybe you're a hunter; I'm not sure if it works along with hunter tracking.

Anonymous said...

I've tested this out with my hunter. The entire tracking system is re-vamped. If you click the icon all of your hunter tracking options are there along with the new tracking options. But like normal you can only have one tracking active at a given time.

One thing I did notice was there is a difference between yellow and red mobs. You can tell with tracking which are which.

nice change overall, now I can free up about 10 of my action buttons for my hunter instead of using them for tracking buttons.

Anonymous said...

I read somewhere there are a number of nice UI changes (including the minimap ones which alleviate searching for a guard . . . or being annoyed in the cities where guards aren't helpful) but I think most reports are just overwhelmed with all the new Zul'Amman loot and bosses and the new mounts and the banks and the enchants and the new badge rewards etc., etc.

Bottom line is that 2.3 is a pretty beefy patch. I hope it does come out soon. But I have to wonder with all the stuff it has.

Also, I've never been one for PTR's either but this time seems kinda different. Lots of boss encounters and loot that my guild is already "geared up for" . . . the first time I've thought it might be kinda fun to get the encounters learned before it releases. (Plus I almost ask why re-run Kara right now for that last piece of loot when doing it after 2.3 nets you bunches of badges even if your piece doesn't fall lol)