World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.0 (08-04-2009)

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/

Call of the Crusade

• Since the opening of the Argent Tournament in northeastern Icecrown, adventurers have journeyed from across Azeroth and beyond to prove their worth in the heart of the Lich King's domain. Under thundering skies the tournament's participants hone the arts of war and face off in bone-shattering jousting matches to earn the right to be called champions. Yet these heroes have yet to face the greatest challenge of all: the Crusaders' Coliseum. Formidable Horde and Alliance champions, ferocious beasts, and Scourge lieutenants are just some of the opponents awaiting adventurers in this gladiatorial arena. Few will survive the coliseum's perils, but the Argent Crusade is confident that the worthy heroes who do emerge victorious will be ready to join the offensive against Icecrown Citadel and end the Lich King's reign of terror.

Earlier today we reported a hint on the French WoW forums suggested patch 3.2 might be released within the next week. Well, according to WoW.com, the website has confirmed from "multiple independent sources" that patch 3.2 will be going live later today (August 4), after a period of downtime for extended maintenance.

Judging by a variety of factors preceding this announcement, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that the post is correct. Patch 3.2, or "Call of the Crusade," features a new dungeon, a new PvP Battleground and many other bug fixes and game improvements. You can check out our Patch 3.2 Wiki for the current PTR patch notes, until the official notes are released later today.

A chargeback mess similar in result to some of the FFXI billing problems we reported earlier also swept across the World of Warcraft customer base. Reported by Kotaku a couple days ago, many WoW players received an account ban after a "chargeback filed against the account's past payments." Normally, a credit card account holder can initiate a "chargeback" if they notice an illegal or fraudulent charge on their account. The credit card company will initiate a refund process that voids the previously-placed transaction, returning the money to the account holder.

But in this instance, players weren't the ones initiating the chargebacks. According to the story, the company PaymentOne was responsible for the chargebacks, which resulted in a tangled mess of banned accounts and confused subscribers. "A quick Google search shows this isn't the first time that allegations of fraud and unexpected charges have been leveled against the company," wrote Ars Technica, who originally reported the story prior to Kotaku. The article links this press release from 2007, detailing a partnership made between the billing company and Blizzard. Expect more updates on this story as it unfolds.

Since August 1, a group of gamers at WoWathon.com has been playing a non-stop, streaming video marathon to raise money for charity. The charity, called Child's Play, was created by the creators of the web-comic Penny Arcade. The charity is "dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 60 hospitals worldwide," according to its mission statement. You might have heard of this charity before; it's been mentioned in various podcasts and fansites throughout the past few months.

As described in its mission statement, the charity tries to provide free PC and video game access to children in hospitals. "Items like the videogame systems and games will be given to the hospitals and a child will essentially be able to check it out and have it placed in their room," a section of the Child's Play FAQ reads. "Obviously the more systems and copies of each game they have the better."

The "WoWathon" team has been playing WoW in support of the charity for 72 hours so far, starting from level one. "Though we are a rookie team of fundraisers/marathon gamers, we hope to raise at least $1000 by the time we reach level 60 (ETA: 6-7 days)," the team explains on its site. "We're going to be gaming around the clock (rotating 8 hour sleeping shifts) until we hit level 60. We're going to be broadcasting live from our dining room in the hopes of inspiring you to donate as well." You can watch the team 'round the clock via its live Ustream feed.

Surprisingly released just after the Rogue Class Q&A earlier today, the Priest Class Q&A has also been released, marking the final installment of Blizzard's Class Q&A series. The full post can be seen here on Blizzard's official website, which includes an assortment of questions submitted by fans via the official forums. As per usual, Ghostcrawler fields the questions.

A few prominent issues raised: Dispelling DoTs, a Priest's own DoTs, PvP and PvE play, the current functionality of Dispersion and Mind Blast, the range of Mind Flay and more. Ghostcrawler also talks about the role of the Priest class in 3.2 and beyond, and the development team's attention to the DPS viability of Shadow-spec Priests. Check out the full text after the jump.

Boubouille over at MMO-Champion has pointed out a comment made by a Blizzard employee on the French technical support forums that suggests patch 3.2 will hit the live servers this week or next week. The quote in question is: "les mises à jour sont triées par ordre, il vous faut trouver toutes les mises à jour jusqu'en version 3.1.3... et 3.2 à partir de mercredi prochain."

According to MMO-Champion, this translates to "Updates are sorted based on their release date, you have to find all the updates up to patch 3.1.3 ... and 3.2 after next Wednesday." The whole "next Wednesday" is what puts the actual release date of the patch in question, although Boubouille thinks it'll launch this week.

So what do you think? Are there any French-speaking ZAM readers out there who have any guesses?

The newest class Q&A has been released today on the European World of Warcraft site, and Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and the community team have used this installment to focus on rogues. As always, numerous topics are covered, but it's up to each individual reader to decide if enough information was provided in the interview.

According to Ghostcrawler, the dev team really likes how the combo point and finishing move system works overall. He acknowledges "Vanish isn’t working properly and breaks when you breathe on the rogue funny." He says it's not technically easy to fix, but the solution they like most is having the ability put you in stealth for one second minimum no matter what else happens.

There are long-term plans in place to change Hunger for Blood. The team wants it to be a more reactive ability and would like to get it back into PvP. There are also plans to add more utility abilities for rogues in PvE. You can read the full Q&A below. You can discuss it in this thread in our rogue forum.

It will come as no surprise to many readers, but Bornakk has confirmed that mounts from the World of the Warcraft Trading Card Game will be Bind-on-Use instead of Bind-on-Pickup in patch 3.2. As we reported, MMO-Champion made the discovery a couple weeks ago, and Boubouille was right. According to Bornakk, "The primary goal behind this change is to help reduce the number of players who are getting scammed by trading for an invalid mount code."

As part of the update, the mount will be placed in your inventory once you verify the redemption code, so there will no longer be a need to visit an NPC vendor. If you've redeemed a code and haven't purchased your mount from the vendor window yet, do it before the patch goes live.

The mounts affected by this update are the Spectral Tiger, Swift Spectral Tiger, X-51 Nether-Rocket, X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME, Big Battle Bear and Magic Rooster Egg.

According to a post by Eyonix, Blizzard will be conducting a data survey in the very near future. Non-personal system specifications data will be collected from all World of Warcraft players for approximately one week, and the process will not affect gameplay.

If you're playing with a Battle.net account, you shouldn't even notice. However, if you haven't merged your WoW account with a Battle.net account, you'll see a message that says, "Submitting non-personal system information."

The newest World of Warcraft Q&A doesn't focus on a specific class, but instead answers players' questions regarding the 5-, 10-, and 25-player content found in the Crusaders' Coliseum, as well as the 40 vs. 40 Isle of Conquest battleground. Both are coming in patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade. The huge list of questions were answered by Game Director Tom Chilton, Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, and Lead World Designer Alex Afrasiabi.

The Q&A covers a lot of topics. For the Crusaders' Coliseum, the team touches on the format and difficulty of the dugeons, achievements, reputation, gear item levels, and so on. They also discuss why the Tier 9 sets for each faction look so similar. They admit in an ideal world each class for each faction would have a different design, "but artistic tasks like that aren’t always feasible given our development schedule." They also said there's tension between Horde and Alliance leaders, and they "want the gear the factions are wearing to represent that as the Horde and Alliance struggle for domination over the Lich King, and ultimately over the world."

As for the Isle of Conquest, the team discusses the changes made based on testing, note they want the average match to last around 20 minutes (which is how long they'd like all BG matches to last), explain their thoughts on vehicle combat, and so on. You can read the full Q&A below.