Liveblogging the 3.2 PTR

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The Public Test Realms for Patch 3.2 finally came up this evening, so I logged right in! I haven’t done a ‘live blog” in a while, so I thought it might be fun to relate my not-very-adventurous adventures on the PTR as I have them. I’ll keep updating this post as I go, but I’ll update it one final time to let you know when I’m done.

So! When I logged in I found four characters — two from the Patch 3.1 PTR phase and the two new ones I copied last night. (Note that copying characters before Blizzard gives the go ahead is always a bit iffy, but I tend to copy at least one as soon as possible regardless because I can’t stand waiting to get in.)

I logged in on the fresh copy of Mania and recalled to Dalaran. I decided that my first stop would be the Argent Tournament to check out the coliseum, the new daily quests, new mounts and new mini-pets. I hit a snag almost immediately, though — the Dalaran flight master wouldn’t give me an option to fly to the Argent Tournament. Now I’ve had that flight point forever (well, okay, since Patch 3.1) so this was a bit of a surprise. I logged out and logged in the older copy of Mania, from the 3.1 PTR, but she didn’t have the flight point either (although she should have since she got it on the 3.1 PTR).

Okay then! I’ll fly there myself. So I flew up to Bouldercrag’s Refuge and then flap manually over to Icecrown. Once there I talk to the Argent Tournament flight master — who obviously recognizes me (no green !) and who is perfectly happy to give me a ride anywhere I like — but when I fly back to Bouldercrag’s … well, I *still* can’t find a flight path to the Tournament.

Other people don’t seem to be having this problem, and when I manage to get a pre-made to Northrend he does have the flight point. So for now I just report it and go on.

Oh, interesting thing: I noticed Midsummer Fire Festival tents in the Storm Peaks as I flew over. I could have sworn that the Midsummer event wasn’t happening in Northrend yet, but Midsummer will be long over when this patch goes live. Did I just miss a bunch of tent in the live realms, or is this new?

Anyway, back to the Argent Tournament. First I hit the Sunreaver Pavilion to see what new goodies the quartermasters are selling. And … I don’t see anything new. But then I realize that there is a new quartermaster in the tent! Vasarin Redmorn, the Sunreaver’s Quartermaster, sells:

  • Sunreaver Tabard – 50 Champion’s Seals
  • Sunreaver Dragonhawk – 150 Champion’s Seals
  • Sunreaver Hawkstrider – 100 Champion’s Seals
  • Shimmerling Wyrmling – 40 Champion’s Seals

All of these items require you to be Exalted with the Sunreavers. The Tabard doesn’t seem to do anything special.

Unfortunately, like an idiot, I spent all my Champion’s Seals on a hippogryph just a few days ago so I can’t afford any of these items to see what they look like. However it seems likely that the Sunreaver Hawkstrider is akin to the ‘vehicle’ version that you ride as an Aspirant, and the Sunreaver Dragonhawk presumably looks like the new dragonhawk at the flight master — a rather metallic dragonhawk with black and red armor. (Interestingly, when I flew out of the Argent Tournament area my taxi was a lovely unarmored black dragonhawk.)

There are also two new daily quests in the Sunreaver Pavilion: A Leg Up (recover tallstrider meat from Hrothgar’s Landing) and You’ve Really Done It This Time, Kul (rescue people from Deathspeaker’s Watch). I’ll try those out as soon as I have a chance. Both of these seem to require Sunreaver reputation since the pre-mades can’t access them yet.

The Argent Tournament has a different feel now that the coliseum is finished. It has’t much changed the surrounding area, but the coliseum looms over everything else now.

Oh wow! The most gorgeous cat just ran by me! And … it’s a druid! A black Tauren druid. When I whistled at him he stopped to preen and turned into a bear. The bear looks nice, but man is that cat an improvement! I’m really impressed.

Okay, let’s hit the Argent Pavilion. Several new daily quests in here as well — which presumably require Argent Crusade reputation. It looks like you’ll get one of either The Fate of the Fallen (kill Fallen Heroes) or Get Kraken! (kill things from a hippogryph vehicle) each day, and always be able to take Mistcaller Yngvar (kill him) as well. There is also a continuation of the Black Knight’s tale, The Black Knight’s Curse. That one’s not a daily, but I’ll check it out after I finish here.

Ooh, and here’s the Crusader’s Quartermaster, Dame Evniki Kapsalis. She sells:

  • Argent Crusader’s Tabard – 50 Champion’s Seals
  • Argent Warhorse – 100 Champion’s Seals
  • Argent Crusader’s Banner – 15 Champion’s Seals
  • Argent Pony Bridle – 150 Champion’s Seals

The Tabard allows you to teleport to the Argent Tournament with a 30 minute cooldown. The Warhorse is an epic ground mount and the pony provides a mount for your Argent Squire that “allows your squire to run distant errands for you.” That’s presumably the thing that let’s you use your squire for mail, bank, or vendor. It requires level 78 but doesn’t mention a cooldown.

None of the Crusader items mention a reputation requirement, but I assume that there is a requirement of some sort on the quartermaster herself. I really, *really* wish I had saved some Seals, though, because if you didn’t catch that above … Mania can get a pony! Yes, the Argent Warhorse is available to Horde. I think I’m going to faint …

Speaking of which, the new Quest panel is very nice — just like the DoubleWide addon. It makes quests much easier to read. Unfortunately they haven’t done the same with the profession window yet. But it’s a start. The quest objectives on the world map doesn’t seem to be operation yet, though, or perhaps it doesn’t work for daily quests. Oh, no, I take that back — they are working for some quests but apparently not for the newest ones yet.

… Ugh … Short break while I mollify my husband. No one seems to be reading yet anyway so you probably won’t even miss me. *grin*

[edit] We had an emergency contract come up. I’m going to have to continue this later (in another post, most likely). Sorry about that, everyone! Feel free to tell me what cool PTR things you discovered in the comments. *yearnful face*

[edit #2] Ahha! I’m back! Probably not for long, since it’s already 4:30 am here and I need to get to bed, but I can sacrifice a little sleep for the PTR.

Obsidian HatchlingHere, for Ryai, is a screenshot of the Obsidian Hatchling sold by Breanni in Dalaran for 50 gold (minus faction discount). I want to try finding some of the other raptor mini-pets as well, but I haven’t had a chance yet. The angle isn’t the best on this shot, but it’s really hard to find an angle that doesn’t make him look even weirder than he is anyway because .. well, he’s pretty weird-looking. (Reminds me of a mal-nourished Savannah I had once.)

Well, hanging around Icecrown begging other people to buy an Argent Warhorse so I could see it didn’t work, but Rikaku did send me this screenshot (and thank you very much for that!).

Ochre Skeletal WarhorseAfter that failure I headed for a mount I can afford — the new skeletal warhorse. I have a thing for horses — even skeletal ones — so I am very happy to be able to buy another fast bony pony to ride. Especially for the new low price of 8 gold (after faction discount)!

The Ochre Skeletal Warhorse has some very interesting tints that show up differently in different lights. The shot here is from Dalaran to give you an idea. Notice that it has the same striped trappings as the expensive purple Argent Tournament skeletal warhorse.

While I was taking the screenshot of the skeletal warhorse, a player linked their new Venomhide Hatchling in Trade chat. I didn’t see it myself, but the item information says that the hatchling may only be summoned in Un’Goro, Tanaris, or Silithis. So … not a normal mini-pet. The owner told me that he got it in the new quest line in Un’Goro that took a long time — so long, in fact, that he wasn’t going to bother continuing it for the mount. On the other hand, the PTR hasn’t been up that long so it can’t be that bad, right? *crossing fingers*

Shortly after that another interesting item came through Trade chat — there are new categories in the LFG tool, including ways to look for any dungeon or heroic dungeon or any daily dungeon (regular or heroic). Not something I will ever use, but I’m sure those will be popular.

Striped DawnsaberI relogged briefly onto an Alliance pre-made to check out the other new racial mount, the slow Striped Dawnsaber (now available at level 20!). Unfortunately I forgot that I wouldn’t have enough Darnassus reputation on a pre-made to buy one, but there were plenty of night elves in the area who were willing to let me get a screenshot. This cat looks a lot like the Striped Frostsaber, except that it has an interesting cinnamon cast.

So it’s getting late and I’m getting tired. Time for one more thing before I go to bed. Ravasaurs or Northrend orphans? Hmmm …

Ravasaurs. Definitely ravasaurs. *grin*

Mor'vek the Ravasaur TrainerFlap flap flap down to Un’Goro, reading Junkfood Science while I fly. Then gallop gallop gallop down to the road from Tanaris, where we can once again find Mor’vek the Ravasaur Trainer, now mounted on a ravasaur (and oddly, with a Young Venomhide standing beside him). He tells me to go get poisoned by Venomhides 20 times … and he lets me know that learning to ride a ravasaur will take “a long, LONG time”. Oh, joy.

I accept the first quest, Toxic Tolerance, and go find some Venomhides to poison me. I was hoping to run across the Ravasaur Matriarch as well, but no such luck. And there aren’t nearly enough Venomhides in the area, even with only a few people here. Or maybe I missed the bulk of them somewhere. Although .. I punch the first Venomhide once (unarmed) and then stop attacking while I fiddle with my inventory, and when I look back up he’s posioned me twice. Perhaps this won’t be so bad.

Unfortunately, after I kill him I can’t find any more.

Ahha! There’s one! I get naked and punch him to death as slowly as possible. He splashes me with his venomous blood. And again! And again! Whee!

*cough* Okay, I feel a little weird about this. Should I really be enjoying getting splashed with venomous blood while naked? Heh. Anyway, I’m almost halfway done with this quest.

Oh here’s an interesting thing: my pet has a new icon on the mini-map. Instead of a blue dot, he is now a yellow X with red outlines. I wonder what that’s about.

In fact it only took me four Venomhide Ravasaurs to complete the quest, but finding that last Venomhide took almost 15 minutes. I timed it. :/ And I suspect it will be a bit tougher for anyone who isn’t level 80 yet.

Venomhide HatchlingNext up: a quest called Venomhide Eggs in which you collect … Venomhide eggs! From Venomhide nests … oh which there seem to be plenty, thankfully. After that is They Grow Up So Fast, in which you get that Venomhide Hatchling I heard about on the Trade channel. Apparently it will shed teeth as I run around with it out and when I have collected enough teeth I can … grow it into a mount? I’m not certain.

But in order to get the teeth, it looks like I have to do daily quests. The first one (and possibly only one) my Venomhide Hatchling offers me is Hungry, Hungry Hatchling — collect 15 pieces of fresh dinosaur meat in exchange for one baby tooth. At this rate it will take 20 days to get my mount … although 20 easy dailies is still probably better than the Winterspring Frostsaber. Especially since I seem to be getting a 100% drop rate on the meat.

After feeding my hatchling 15 pieces of meat, he’s full … and I guess I am done until tomorrow. Which is probably for the best since it’s almost 7 am and I am supposed to sleep sometime tonight …

And so I’ll bring this live blogging adventure to a close! Good night all. *grin*

80 thoughts on “Liveblogging the 3.2 PTR”

  1. Wow, interesting stuff! Thanks :) With regards to the Midsummer Festival: there are definitely tents, and bonfires, in Northrend at the moment. Because there’s no achievement for it, a lot of people didn’t realize this. I presume the test realm is also showing them just because of the date (or because they were using it to test their bug fixes for the event before they patched it??)

    It’ll be interesting if any new hunter pet skins, such as the “Phase Hunter”-like warp stalker skin that Rika noticed and posted about on the forums, will be found in this patch.

  2. I’m curious about these argent warhorses? You say horde can get them, weren’t those supposed to be Paladin only mounts?

    Or is it this “Argent Charger” I’ve seen in the patch notes that paladins get?

  3. Andrea:
    Argent Warhorses and Argent Chargers are two different Argent tourny mounts. Both require you to be a Crusader already (aka have obtained the Crusader title).

    Argent Warhorse: Any class with Crusader title can ride. Looks like an Argent Warhorse you use during the daily quests. No horn, no aura. AKA first non-epic pally mount.

    Argent Charger: Only Paladins who are Crusaders may purchase this mount. Looks like the Argent Charger you see at the Argent Tourny. Horn, has aura (I believe gold aura). AKA recolored epic Pally mount.

    Hope that clears it up =)

    And Mania, we’re always reading ;)

  4. Yes, Midsummer is on in Northrend (live realms) – there are Horde and Alliance tents in every zone except Icecrown and Wintergrasp.

    For the Warhorse – like Andrea, I also thought the Argent version was paladin-only.

  7. wow, sounds like this nex ones going to be great!! I am really looking forward to the druid changes…hmmm might have to go feral for a bit :P
    Hmmm, i guess I should actually do the argent quests and dailies there…i need to make a clone so I can stay home and play, and the clone can go to work!

    *****Important note for Mania*****
    The Brood of Anzu, summoned during the anzu fight, are NOT tamable. beast lore tested June 22,09.

  8. I don’t want green warpstalker, I want red. Reeeed. RED /weep.

    Anyways since it seems once again the ptr is denying me, I’ll be relying on Mania and MMO.

    Oh btw Mania, when you get a chance would you see -which- obsidain raptor Breani[did I get it right?] sells in Dal? Cause there’s two pet models MMO shows, a normal one and one that makes me think ‘dear god Crackbert and Crackjr have a new Cracksibling’

  10. Wain & Phyllixia: Thanks for letting me know about the the Midsummer stuff in Northrend. I missed that completely!

    Ryai: I added a screenshot for you above. :>

  11. Haha thankyou Mania, it does look better ingame [personally I think they went for the 'Chomper' look from Land Before Time .. whatever number], and glad to see it’s NOT the wide eyed one, which is the one that got my cracksibling comment.

    Anyways as again, thankyou. I have a hunch that the dusky grey one [like Takk the leaper] might drop from Takk himself, or mass killings in WC.

  14. I heard some people refer to the Ochre Skeletal Warhorse as “belonging to a circus when it was alive”. Lol. I like it though, it’s very unique.

    I find it rather odd that venomhide raptor pet is limited to a few zones, especially ones people don’t spend much time in anymore…

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  16. Such a cute raptor. I have set to be able to get on the PTR to check anything. I keep getting randomly errors and such. DX So hopefully I will be able to get on fairly soon. I’ll be on the PvE server. >_>

  17. Kinda wanna makes me want to copy a character to the PTR….it’s hard to choose. The 80 hunter or the 61 druid… >.>

  20. Very interesting – especially the part about the ravasaur trainer. Always nice to see the devs giving a little love to the old world!

  21. Well the ravasaur looks better than when I last saw it.

    And oh god. ‘Hungry, Hungry Hatchling’. Aha. I need the PTR to start working.

    And Mania about the pet dot change- it might be because it could get confused with other dots of classes, ok not that much but still everything looks like a circle when you can’t afford to glance at the mini map for more than a few seconds.

    And.

    ‘Ahha! There’s one! I get naked and punch him to death as slowly as possible. He splashes me with his venomous blood. And again! And again! Whee!

    *cough* Okay, I feel a little weird about this. Should I really be enjoying getting splashed with venomous blood while naked? Heh. Anyway, I’m almost halfway done with this quest.’

    You made my day. I couldn’t help but giggle. Aria said the same thing though, there’d be naked 80′s running around once this happens. Ok first, getting my DK’s their 350 blossoms for a pet.

    THEN, ptr hitting with a bat.

  22. I finally got some sleep after the PTR madness @_@ Gonna see if I can spot any of those images as new pets. I’m almost certain that “Blackmaw” image everyone is seeing *not* a new spirit beast, but rather an in game mini pet called “Onyx Panther”.

    If I do find anything new pet/mount, I’ll let you know Mania =)

  24. The question I have is: if you currently have a Sunreaver Dragonhawk as a pet (the ones belonging to the flight masters of the Sunreavers, which is now not tameable), will its skin change to match either the red and black armored mount model, or the unarmored black one you said you flew on?

  25. Raenne:
    No. Only the model file for the Sunreaver got changed. The actual file is now called a SunreaverDragonhawkmount (or something like that) instead of the placeholder file which was the current pet coloring you see on live. Hunters with this pet need not worry, your pet will remain unchanged.

  26. That is an interesting thought if that will be changed over…

    A living horse for the Horde? YES PLEASE!

    Non-phased Icecrown bonespiders tameable! Nice to see that if I absolutely need to send Pishacha on a vacation, I’ll know which station to pick her up at=)!

    Any changes on the summoning animation pets, or old world wasps?

    Also, I’ve never had a Frostsaber mount. Does that one scale with riding speed or is it only +60%? I love that Ravasaur, but will be sad is she ain’t as fast… Plus would be cool to have an unarmored raptor that is epic just for something different…

  27. (also I’d join the PTR but I’m on an older laptop and don’t have the patience, connection, time, or disk space to screw round there, so sorry if I’m askin’ too many questions about what it’s like over there…)

  28. Saranette:
    So far, no changes on summoning animation. Which frostsaber mount are you inquiring about? To my knowledge, no mounts other than the DK’s bone gryphon and the Blizzcon Bear scale with riding speed. The new Striped Dawnsaber is only a 60% mount.

  30. I just heard that it takes about 20 days to get the Ravasaur mount. Not sure if that’s true or not, but I will do more research into it. It does, however, have a feat of strength in obtaining one.

  31. I love the look of the new Sunreaver Mount – though I am concerned for all those people going for the 100 mount Achievement. Seems like taking their thunder that some players (of right faction) can get a Sunreaver mount without getting 100 mount acheivement.

    Perhaps this mean they’ll change the 100 mount reward. Otherwise that’s…just kinda crappy. Takes away from the rareness – IMO – of the 100 mount reward (even if the look is different…)

    Just seems kinda off…

  32. Saranette: It will be like the Frostsaber. Require basic speed but be a 100% speed mount. These are the only two in game like that, they don’t scale, they are both 100% speed mounts. They’re just unarmored like the unarmored talbuks.

    20 days of grinding isn’t bad, compared to my netherdrake rep grinding of half a year lol.

  34. I agree Koriani. Keep the blue alliance dragonhawk since it looks distinct enough on it’s own, but change the horde reward for 100 mounts. A bat would be cool, since they haven’t used them yet!

  35. While its nice to hear about the new content…. any news in regards to the actual hunter changes??? Anyone???

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  39. OMIGOSH OMIGOSH!!! LOOK HOW CUTE THE RAPTOR MINI PETS ARE!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH TOOO CUTE!!! It will take me FOREVER to get too level 80 but I’m trying double hard now for these CUTE mini-pets! I’m asking a friend to buy that raptor for me!! Ahhhh!!! SO CUTE!! I now have a new love for raptors and OMIGOSH a pony!!! THIS IS JUST WAY TOO MUCH!

  41. I’m assuming that there’s going to be one raptor baby of each of the colours that the old-style raptors were available in? (Grey, blue, green, red, pink, orange, yellow and brown) Also, I see that in the MMO-Champion raptor picture, there’s two brown ones… I see the one with the bigger-looking eyes is the ravasaur hatchling and the other one is the obsidian one bought from Breanni… Otherwise, I’d say that the remaining raptors are farmed off of the Gundrak raptors, Takk the Leaper, the Ravasaur Matriarch, Dart, the Razzashi raptors from Zul’Gurub, the deviate raptors of Wailing Caverns and lastly, off of the Ravasaur Matriarch.

    That’s all a guess where those other raptors come from, BTW.

  42. The reason theres 2 raptors that are “obsidian” hatchlings is one is a regular mini-pet and the other has something to do with the Ravasaur mount (or at least a specific quest).

    All the other hatchlings are drops off rare & elite raptors throughout the world.

  43. I copied over four premades, none of which have made it to the realm yet. I was really looking forward to testing the new druid skins.

    I’m moving tomorrow, so I will check here for updates on the ptr whenever I can find an internet connection.

    You’re my “lifeline” to wow mania!!

  44. Knarcus: Be glad you got them copied, I finally got the ptr patch to work, go to the copy character screen. The queue for both are FULL. I NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS BEFORE.

    AURG.

    Raggle fraggle.

    Anyways, as I told Aria that’s what I figured for the raptor hatchlings, and it’ll probably be easiest to farm the instance/raid ones as, once my paladin gets to 80 as I’ve started leveling him again, I can just go destroy everything mwahahaha.

    I mean er find an orphaned hatchling. Yes. Truly. It’s not my fault..

  46. A question:
    1) Is the Ravasaur learned like a normal minipet?

    if so, I hope alliance can farm it off ravasaurs. heh

  47. Well Blizzard finally decided to copy my premades over earlier this morning, and the pve realm didn’t crash once!! (omgwtfbbq!?!?)

    Anyway, I, once again, forgot to pick hunter as one of my premades, so I can’t comment on that..though I did see a few BM hunters outside Org dueling, so maybe that is a good sign??

    One of the more interesting, and rather humorous bugs I have found is shamans get unlimited grounding totems with no CD.
    As far as the druid skins go..I love the cat form..love everything about it..especially the darker skin. Bear form, however, is a completely different story.

    They have the exact shape of the bear mounts, including the HUGE backside. It’s very distracting and obstructive when trying to tank when all you can see is your bear’s huge round butt.

    For those interested, and please forgive me if this has already been posted here(any of this post actually) it’s been a long night of refreshing the character copy status screen.

    Anyway! For those interested, the Zeppelin to Thunder Bluff From Orgrimmar is on the same tower as the one to Northrend. The Flight takes approximately three and a half minutes, and has some decent scenery of the Barrens, and it docks on the Thunder Bluff side on the Elder Rise.

    As far as the portal to Outlands from Orgrimmar, I never found it.

    Oh yea..almost forgot..the new 40man battleground, isle of Conquest..is fun, but the games are maybe..7-10 min. long. First team to get the airship wins. Not really any way around it unless they cap how many can ride the airship, or give some form of interior defense for the General.

    Sorry for the huge wall of text..probably going to end up being another tl;dr type deal, but for those that read the whole thing, thanks lol.

    I doubt I will be able to post anymore after this, so I figured why not just say it all in one post?

    -Knarcus

  48. I am very excited to go see if there are any new tameable hunter pets (like the bone spiders we discovered) but the PTR isn’t letting me play! I coppied my toons, updated it all, installed it all, and now it’s giving me an error saying I do not have Lich King installed (which obviously I do! lol) any advice?

  49. Zhanael:
    Which screenshot? I’m not sure which one you mean. Let me know and I’ll fix it.

    Takuro:
    The Obsidian hatchling (aka ravasaur with the regular evil eye) is purchaseable from Breanni in Dalaran. The other 8) one is part of the Horde ravasaur mount quest and to my knowledge, not obtainable for allies as it is not a real minipet. But I’m not 100% sure.

    Knarcus:
    I was in a non-premade Isle and it took a long long time. Like 15 mins to accomplish. I think the fact that so many people are using pre-mades with some wicked gear is having an effect on it’s timer =o

    Tillamooke:
    This is an actual bug, the best I can tell you is go to wow’s main forums, and go to the PTR forum. There’s a long thread that a blue/dev is posting in right now for people experiencing that problem.

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