APOLLO

It’s been half a year since our last Mists of Pandaria Devblog post, but our developers have been working hard on new features and bug fixes during this time, and now it’s time to tell you about all the amazing new things that have been added!

First off, there have been an immense number of general bug fixes and improvements, done in no small part thanks to your testing and contributions to our bug tracker. There have been numerous fixes in all Pandaria dungeons and scenarios (achievements, spirit healers in scenarios etc.), but also in older battlegrounds (cosmetic NPCs). The flight path system has also been improved, fixing some of the lingering bugs from Cataclysm. Flight nodes will also no longer be automatically discovered. There were also fixes for the spell queue and creature movement (for example follow and chase in water). Lastly, there was a general database cleanup to improve performance, and a lot of other optimizations.

Starting with the zones, Krasarang Wilds and Dread Wastes have been almost completed, with only a few minor details remaining. This means that all of the initially available zones are now done or close to being done, and are awaiting your testing. We have also implemented zone-based layering, or sharding, so each zone can have its own layers (we can adjust the number as needed), which will radically improve performance when Pandaria starts to get overcrowded. We have also implemented the vignette system, which allows you to see special objects or rare creatures on the minimap.

Speaking of creatures, the health and power regeneration system has been reworked, matching retail. Another new system is temporary threat ‒ threat from abilities like Tricks of the Trade or Misdirection will now fade over time. Many creatures both in Pandaria and the old zones now also have increased visibility distance, so creatures like the Sha of Anger or Fel Reavers in Outland will no longer appear out of nowhere.

Specialization-specific looting has been implemented, meaning the server will generate items matching your specialization (mostly in Looking For Group/Raid reward satchels). Toy items like the Stack of Wooden Boards and similar were also implemented.

At the time of the previous devblog post, we were working on the Death Knight class. Not only has this class been already finished, but the Hunter and Warlock are done as well, including pet spells. Therefore, all classes are now available on the PTR and ready for your testing! A lot of things have been reworked for pets ‒ a retail-like scaling system has been added, pet cooldowns are now saved properly, and auto casting has been greatly improved (pet spells now have many different cast conditions). Support for chain casting has also been added (meaning some pets now don’t have to wait between their casts).

Pet battles have also seen improvements, with a lot of pet tamers and their pets correctly spawned, and new ability effects, achievements and bug fixes also done. All pet battle-related quests, including new account-wide quests, should be working now, but there is still some remaining work to do.

Regarding raids, Terrace of Endless Spring and Heart of Fear have been completed, including all bosses, achievements and specific versions. Our work on Mogu’shan Vaults has also reached a point where it is ready to be tested. We would greatly appreciate if you could test them all and report any issues you find.

Lastly, there were many smaller additions and improvements added over the time, for example:

• Sorting items in the auction is now auction-wide, meaning that, for example, the cheapest item in the whole auction will always be on the first page if you sort by price, not just the cheapest item from the current page.
• Item buyback persists after relogging.
• Cross-faction battlegrounds were added, in the same fashion as they are on Cataclysm.
• The first part (5.0) of the legendary cloak questline was added.
• Destroying an item provided for a quest will abandon the quest.
• Archaeology fragments locations were fixed, and Pandaria-specific locations were added.
• If a cooking specialization is learned, it will start from skill 525 and have its own independent skill bar.

The progress on this expansion is steadily reaching completion, as the vast majority of the hard work has been done. There are still a few things to do, mainly doing some extensive testing of both new and old content, primarily new dungeons, raids, and scenarios, ensuring that they are in the best shape possible, finishing player spells and fixing reported issues regarding them, and a few minor details and implementations.

As our devblog post comes to its end, we would like to thank all of you who were participating on our MoP PTR and providing us with valuable feedback. As always, you can check the current progress of the development on our website and bug tracker.

See you next time!