For the holidays Blizzard has released the newest WoW patch 1.8.4 onto the player base. The changes are mostly minimal as the team is working diligently on the new content patch, The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. A few siginificant changes have been made, mostly to battlegrounds though, so check out the notes below.
Battlegrounds
* Battles must now last at least ten minutes after the start of the battle in order for the losing team to receive a Mark of Honor.
World
* New quests for the Feast of Winter Veil have been added! See your Smokywood Pastures customer service representative in Ironforge and Orgrimmar for more details!
* The level of many of last year's Feast of Winter Veil quests have been adjusted so that reputation rewards are available in their full amount for players of all levels able to do them.
* Fixed a bug with both versions of the quest "A Smokywood Pastures' Thank You!" that was sending mail out immediately rather than on the intended delay.
* In a startling discovery, Mistletoe sold on last year's vendors is now named "Fake Mistletoe". A Smokywood Pastures spokesman was quoted as saying, "Sorry, no refunds."
* Some of the Southsea Dock Workers that were working under the boat should now be much more accessible to players.
* Andre Firebeard no longer has a chance of dropping a Wastewander Water Pouch.
* All OOX Distress Beacons are now multi-drop; everyone in a group should be able to receive one if it drops.
* Fixed a bug with Oglethorpe Obnoticus' gossip where he was being much more familiar with strangers than he should have been.
General
* Various preparations added to the client for Patch 1.9.
The Battlegrounds change isn't exactly as intended though. It has been fixed as of today though and Blizzard Poster Ordinn has stated "Battlegrounds now award marks of honor to the losing team in games lasting less then 10 minutes. This hotfix was done early this morning, and didn't require a realm restart. We are sorry for any inconvenience this caused over the past day." The change is to make it so that only people who leave the BG early will get a cooldown of ten minutes to rejoin a queue for a Battleground.
Caydiem helped clarify what exatly is going on, and how Blizzard messed up a little bit.
I will endeavor to clear up the controversy and confusion surrounding the "ten-minute rule."
The idea that players would have to remain in battlegrounds for ten minutes before they'd receive a Mark of Honor for losing was one the developers were seriously considering as an effort to reduce the incentive players had to lose a battle quickly. The concept was simple: it would give players incentive to try and stay in, rather than giving up and allowing a quick loss without any effort expended. However, during further discussions, it was decided that adding a mild punishment to those who /afk out of battlegrounds, in the form of a requeue timer (Deserter debuff), would be preferable to the old "ten-minute rule" idea. In addition, since the problem was primarily found in Arathi Basin matches held during the Arathi Basin "holiday," the developers chose to improve the way in which bonus honor was awarded during Arathi Basin holidays rather than institute the ten-minute rule.
The ten-minute rule had been implemented as part of 1.9, and was set to be removed from 1.9 as the Deserter debuff was put in place. Unfortunately, because 1.8.4 was developed simultaneously with 1.9, the ten-minute rule had actually made its way into 1.8.4 too (which was tested and signed off upon some time ago, around the time this change was being implemented). As such, the ten-minute rule mistakenly went live.
This was not intended by our development team, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The ten-minute rule does not exist on the patch 1.9 test versions that have been on the test realms for some time now (with the exception of Warsong Gulch, which is being fixed), reflecting the fact that the Deserter debuff was intended as a replacement rather than an addition to this mechanic. We intend to fix this bug in a server-side hotfix soon.
Thank you for your patience throughout this. We're keeping a close eye on PvP, battlegrounds, and the Honor System, and will continue to make changes as warranted.
(EDIT: Further answers in the thread, for those seeking blue -- please read them, as they cover the most common questions being asked, such as "Why was it in the patch notes?" and "Why did you post an explanation of why it was made earlier that day then?" link)
Furthermore, if you haven't noticed The Darkmoon Faire is now open for buisness, so make sure Alliance players that you visit Goldshire and Horde players that you visit Mulgore to experience all the festivities that the Darkmoon Faire has to offer!
Happy adventuring players!
Links
World of WarCraft - Source
3DGamers - Patch 1.8.4 Download
