So! A little tradition we’d slipped away from for a bit (but mostly because there haven’t been many major content patches since) but want to keep going strong are our “How’s that working out for you” posts when new content patches are released.

Now that 3.3.5 is out and about, Real ID has been added to the game (although it’s not making its way to the forums) and you can communicate with your friends across-realm (even though their friends can see you too,) and now that the Ruby Sanctum is open, how’s the content working out for you?

Have you downed Halion yet? Are you planning to, or is the Ruby Sanctum just not enough to bring you out of your post-Lich King-kill hiatus? Or maybe it’s Real ID that’s keeping you away from the game? Let us know in the comments!

So today’s the day: Patch 3.3.5 is going live, what many people think is going to be one of the last few patches before the release of Cataclysm. Still, this patch brings more to it than just some bug fixes and updates – there are two big reveals in 3.3.5, the new Assault on the Ruby Sanctum dungeon, and the implementation of the Real ID system, which brings Battle.net further into the game and allows you to integrate friends from across realms and factions into your friends list, stay in touch with them, and find out when they’re playing – even if they’re not playing on your server.

Here’s the lowdown:

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.5

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Assault on the Ruby Sanctum

For ages the red dragonflight and its noble matriarch, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, have dedicated themselves to preserving all life on Azeroth. Recently, the very heart of this virtuous dragonflight has come under threat.

An eerie silence has settled over the Ruby Sanctum, the red dragonflight’s sacred lair within the Chamber of the Aspects. This troubling development has led to fears that the sanctum, home to Azeroth’s largest clutch of red dragon eggs, has been breached by an unknown, sinister force. If these claims are true and immediate action is not taken, the benevolent red dragonflight might be crippled forever.

Real ID: A New Way to Connect With Your Friends on Battle.net

One of our goals for the new Battle.net is to create the framework for an online gaming experience that is even more accessible, more engaging, and more entertaining than the previous Battle.net. The newly released Real ID feature, available to World of Warcraft players as part of patch 3.3.5, is an integral part of this effort, providing you with advanced ways for forming and maintaining meaningful relationships with your friends on the service.

Real ID is a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you’ll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways. Go here for more details.

General
* The Ruby Sanctum, an all-new 10- and 25-player raid dungeon featuring normal and Heroic difficulties, has been added! Players will find the dungeon entrance below Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. Please note due to the way this patch is being applied in all regions, this dungeon will not immediately be available in North America. Stay tuned to our General Discussion forum for an official announcement on the opening of the Ruby Sanctum.

* The functionality of the Vote Kick feature in the Dungeon Finder will now behave differently according to a player’s history with the system. Players using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option will have no cooldown. For players who frequently abandon groups or vote to kick other players, the Vote Kick option will be kept on a cooldown. This functionality will adjust itself as a player’s behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.

User Interface

* Chat Frame

• Players can now right-click on any chat type (Whisper, Trade, General, Party, Raid, etc.) and choose to move conversation types into separate windows. This will move that chat type to a separate tab in the Chat frame which can be undocked and moved anywhere on the screen.
  Using the Move to Whisper Window option on a Whisper will place the conversation with that player in a separate tab.
• Any time a conversation with another player is put into its own tab, the tab will glow when a new message is received.
• Hovering over the Chat Frame and using the mouse wheel will allow players to scroll through chat text.
• Players can select Classic Mode under Interface Options to keep the Chat Frame functionality closer to what it was prior to patch 3.3.5.
• The Simple Chat User Interface option has been removed.

* Friends List

• A new icon has been added to the top left of the Chat Frame which will open up the Friends list.
• In addition to its current functionality, the Friends List will now allow players to add Battle.net accounts (Real ID). Players will have to confirm that they are friends in order for a Real ID to be added. Once Real ID friends, players can communicate cross-game, cross-faction and cross-realm.
• A new Pending tab has been added where players can accept or decline a Real ID friend request, or select the Report Spam or Block Communications buttons.
• Players can now select from three statuses which will be visible to their friends: Available, Away and Busy.
• A Broadcast window has been added to the top of the frame. Players can use this to broadcast a message to all of their Real ID friends online. This message will also be displayed under the broadcaster’s Real ID information in each friend’s list.

* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

It’s always fun to see what interesting little tidbits Blizzard sneaks into the patches for us. For example, the chat frame mods may very well make add-ons like Chatter completely useless for those of us who actively use them, but we’ll have to wait and see what the effects of the patch really are before I can call that.

Even so, RealID is the big story of the day, and once the servers are back up and everyone has the patch installed, I’m sure we’ll see the fallout from RealID very very quickly – whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. So far it looks like Blizzard is putting the right privacy options in place to keep just anyone from knowing who you are on every realm you play, but it’s still going to be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Cataclysm is months away at least, the alpha is raging on but even a private beta hasn’t been announced, and the only content we have to look forward to before Cataclysm is released will be the Ruby Sanctum, the retaking of Gnomeregan, and the quest to retake the Echo Isles….not to mention all of the pre-planning and world events that will lay the foundation for the events in Cataclysm….okay fine, there’s plenty to look forward to before Cataclysm hits store shelves, but that’s not the point.

It’s clear that we’re through all of the major content for this expansion. So now that Wrath of the Lich King is about over and done with from a story and lore perspective, what are you doing while you wait for the next big event, raid, dungeon, or feature to drop?

I’ve seen a number of people taking breaks from the game so they can come back fresh when Cataclysm is ramping up, and I’ve also seen a number of people taking the time to do their “bucket lists” of achievements and events that will likely go away once the expansion is released and Azeroth is irrevocably changed. Others are just bored, running around in circles or doing battlegrounds or leveling alts – how are you passing the time? Let us know in the comments!

Over at Wow.com, the news came down that Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall are both live on the PTR.

If you’re interested in seeing what the fate of Gnomeregan is, or if you’re interested in the beginnings of the quest to retake the Echo Isles in the name of the Trolls, you can find out if you copy your character over to the PTRs now.

Last week, Blizzard announced tons of new information about the upcoming Gnomeregan and Echo Isles instances that we expect to see in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the next major expansion pack to the game. Among them are the fact that the gnomes and the trolls will both have an opportunity in the coming expansion to take their respective homelands back. Nethaera said on the official forums:

High Tinker Mekkatorque, betrayed by Mekgineer Thermaplugg and forced to flee the irradiated city of Gnomeregan with the few of his fellow gnomes who managed to survive, is preparing to reclaim his once glorious city. Meanwhile, in distant Durotar, Vol’jin of the Darkspear trolls is determined to exact revenge upon the witch doctor Zalazane for dividing the Darkspears and seizing the land bestowed to them by Thrall: the Echo Isles. Read more about the ongoing struggles of the gnomes and the trolls… and their plans to seek redemption.

gnomes= http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p9/gnomeregan.xml
trolls= http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p9/echoisles.xml

There are already a number of spoilers floating around out there since a lot of the audio data and text have already started to appear in existing data packs and folks who are familiar with sites that do a lot of data mining may already have seen the content of the events and encounters.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to the opportunity to hand Thermaplugg and Zalazane their marching orders and tell them to get the heck out of your character’s homeland? It’s been said that everything is going to change in Cataclysm, and this certainly looks like the beginning of that.

Thanks to Wow.com for the scoop!

I’ve got to get me one of these.

Although admittedly it’s probably some high-end raid drop and rare at that, the Celestial Steed mount that’s floating about in datafiles for Patch 3.3.3 and apparently live on the PTRs is probably one of the most attractive mounts in the game.

There’s a lot of chatter around the question of whether the game’s graphics are in sore need of updating, and if you look at the way the Celestial Steed leaves behind glowing particles when it walks, and the textures of its wings as they flap, you get a feeling for some of the small things that Blizzard is playing with in the way of updates and effects.

In any case though, it’s damned pretty.

Over on the official forums today, Zarhym had some news for battleground lovers – some huge changes are coming to battlegrounds and battlegroups in the next minor content patch, which means we shouldn’t have to wait horribly long for these changes to take effect.

Here’s the full text from Zarhym of they have in store:

We have several changes planned for Battlegrounds in the next minor content patch and would like to share them with you now. This patch will be available for public testing and we encourage you to participate, queue up and provide some feedback on these changes.

* Firstly, say goodbye to Battleground Marks of Honor. We feel this currency system is a bit outdated and are getting rid of it. Any items which require these marks as currency will have their costs adjusted appropriately to remove this requirement. The quest NPCs will still be available to award players Honor for turning in leftover marks, including individual Marks of Honor if a player has more marks from one Battleground than another, but this is only to help players clear this expired currency.

* Next, the Battleground holiday weekend will now be denoted as “Call to Arms” in the Battleground tab and Calendar. If you prefer a specific Battleground over all others, look for those words next to its name to determine whether or not you’ll receive bonus Honor. The bonus awards for Call to Arms Battlegrounds have been adjusted.

o Winning a Call to Arms Battleground for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
o Additional Call to Arms Battleground victories after the first win for a player that day will award them with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
o Losing a Call to Arms Battleground will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.

* To bring the rate at which players obtain PvP rewards with Honor more in-line with the rate at which players obtain PvE rewards via the Dungeon Finder, we’ll also be increasing the amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill by 100%. In light of this, the amount of experience provided from an Honorable Kill, and the amount of Honor awarded for completing the Wintergrasp weekly quests, have been reduced by 50%.

It’s important to note one thing about these 50% decreases. All Honor awarded for completing objectives in Battlegrounds and Wintergrasp is actually based on an Honorable Kill conversion rate. So if you destroy a tower in Alterac Valley for example, the Honor you’re awarded is actually based on a flat number of Honorable Kills. Since Honorable Kills will now award 100% more Honor, completing such objectives will also award more Honor. This is why experience gains based on completing Battleground objectives and Honor awarded from the Wintergrasp quests are being decreased by 50%.

* Now that we hopefully have your attention, we’re pleased to announce the implementation of the Random Battleground system! This system will work virtually the same as the Random Dungeon option in the Dungeon Finder and will replace the Battleground daily quests. Players can queue with a group of up to five players for a Random Battleground in the Battleground tab. As with the Random Dungeon option, the Battleground chosen will not be revealed until players zone into the Battleground for which they are selected. The bonus rewards for this system are identical to the updated Call to Arms bonuses.

o Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
o Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
o Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
o When using the Random Battleground option, players will not receive additional rewards if the Battleground chosen is under the effects of the Call to Arms bonuses. In other words, the bonuses do not stack. In addition, if a player has been rewarded 30 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency and 25 Arena points from either the Random Battleground system, or the Call to Arms Battleground, he or she will be rewarded 15 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency and no Arena points that day for each additional victory. This applies whether the Random Battleground system is used, or the Call to Arms Battleground is chosen specifically, as a player cannot be rewarded the full amount of bonus Honor and the 25 Arena points more than once per day.

All of these features and changes will be available in the next minor patch which should be hitting the public test realms in the near future. Please help us out by testing this system and providing your feedback so we can make some fine-tuning adjustments before the patch’s release.

You catch that? First of all, marks from various battlegrounds will be going away – which probably means that the PVP mounts will be easier to get and you don’t have to worry about having to farm wins in Warsong Gulch (if you’re alliance) just to get the necessary marks to get the mount. I’m actually thrilled about the fact that you’ll be able to turn in your marks for honor – the ability to do this is long overdue, especially since we used to be able to do it.

To that point, it’ll be much easier to get honor points from actually completing objectives in battlegrounds, so make sure to guard those towers!

Finally, there’ll be a new battleground finder! Similar to the Dungeon Finder, there will be special honor rewards and special achievements for using the battleground finder to get into a BG, instead of just queuing for the one you want to do. I see a much heavier distribution of people in all of the BGs in our very very near future.