Cataclysm Closed Beta Begins and Patch Notes

Tags : cataclysm closed beta, cataclysm beta patch notes, cataclysm beta

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that closed beta testing for Cataclysm, the highly anticipated third expansion to World of Warcraft, is now underway.

Testers will be tasked with aiding Blizzard by providing feedback that identifies bugs, balance issues, and content polish issues. Of course, testers will get a sneak peek at all the new content as an added bonus!

For those of you living under a rock, Cataclysm represents an effort by Blizzard to explore "horizontal" development. Typically, major game expansions, and especially World of Warcraft expansions focus on "vertical" development: new levels, abilities and content that for the most part override previous challenges.

While Cataclysm will feature new content and a small level bump from 80 to 85, the key feature of the expansion is that of reshaping the entire Old World of Azeroth utilizing much of the knowledge that Blizzard has learned since launching the game back in November in 2004. Knowledge that is easily reflected in the quality of content featured in The Burning Crusade and subsequently in the Wrath of the Lich King expansions.

Veteran WoW players will have a reason to go through it all again (perhaps as one of the two new races!), and Blizzard hopes that new players will be hooked that much more by the improvement in content quality at lower levels and throughout the 1-60 progression.

Cataclysm Beta Patch Notes 6.30.10

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta Patch Notes

Welcome to the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta test! Patch notes listed here are not comprehensive and will be changed throughout the testing process.

General

The Alliance starting experience for worgen is available. Venture through the cursed lands of Gilneas to discover your true path! Currently the female worgen character is not available for testing.
The Horde starting experience for goblins is available. Beginning on the Isle of Kezan in a goblin paradise, players will face a treacherous road ahead!
The level cap for all characters is 82.
Players may use our Character Copy feature for copying existing characters to beta realms, or may choose from high-level pre-made template characters.

Cataclysm Beta Patch Notes - 6.30.10 Zones

Mount Hyjal and Vashj'ir, two new level 78-82 zones, are available for testing. Players may find their way to these zones by speaking with temporary teleportation NPCs located in any major city.
The level ranges of Gilneas and the Lost Isles are in the process of being adjusted slightly. Creature, quest, and quest reward levels are all being altered so that players finish questing in these zones roughly by level 12. Further fine tuning will continue in future content updates.
Several zones have had quest maps integrated.
Eastern Kingdoms
- Arathi Highlands, Blasted Lands, Dun Morogh, Duskwood, Elwynn Forest, Loch Modan, Northshire, Westfall, Hinterlands and Redridge Mountains are ready for testing.
- Stranglethorn Vale (currently Horde only) is available for testing.
Kalimdor
- Most zones in Kalimdor are available for testing, though work continues on polishing the quest experience and flow, as well as zone aesthetics.

Dungeons & Raids

Teleportation NPCs in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and Dalaran can transport players to any available new dungeons, including players who are ghosts.
Blackrock Caverns, a new level 79-81 five-player dungeon, is available for testing.
Throne of the Tides, a new level 79-81 five-player dungeon, is partially available for testing.

Classes: General

Ammo has been removed from the game.
The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
The glyph system is in the process of being altered. Existing glyphs may not be fully supported or functional.
Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
Rage has been normalized.
Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Talents trees have changed and are still in the process of being reworked.

Death Knights

A dedicated tanking tree has been implemented.
The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids. The feature is functional, but the interface art is still a work in-progress.

Hunters

Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Warlocks

Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

User Interface

The ability to use third-party addons has been temporarily disabled for the test environment.
The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
Auto-quests have been added to the game. Players will automatically be given an auto-quest by entering specific areas in the game world. This alert will appear distinctly in the Objectives pane via the Advanced Quest Tracking feature. These quests will still be given to players with full Quest Logs, but will count toward the 25 total allotted quests if the log is not full.
The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

Graphics

Experimental support for DX11 (can be enabled by passing '-d3d11' on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file).
OpenGL Hardware Cursor support (can be enabled on the Video Resolution Panel).
Improved water and lava rendering system (enabled by the Liquid Detail slider on the Video Effects Panel)
- 0 = Classic Water
- 1 = New Water (fake reflections)
- 2 = New Water (ocean has real reflection for terrain)
- These values are likely to change during Beta.
Dynamic Sunshafts effect (enabled by the Sunshafts option on the Video Effects Panel).

Known Issues

Selecting high Liquid Detail when using Geforce 6 & 7 series video cards will currently prevent lava and water from rendering properly. You can temporarily restore liquid to the world by reducing the Liquid Detail setting via the Video Effects Panel, or by typing "waterDetail 0" in your Config.WTF file.

Source: wow.com