Armory Update - Model Viewer and Character Feeds!
One of the most interesting armory update is here, I announced it a couple of weeks ago and it is now live on the US armory site and will be available shortly on the EU one. Here is what you can get on any armory profile

3D Model Viewer
Every character profile now has a 3D model viewer that displays the character in his or her currently equipped gear, and accurately displays the character's physical features, hairstyle, and helm/cloak display as they appear in-game. Mousing over the character model window brings up a control panel with the following controls :


  • Camera controls: To rotate the camera around a character, click and hold the left mouse button while moving the mouse left and right, or click the arrow buttons in the top left of the window. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel while hovering over the character window, or click the zoom buttons in the top left of the window. To move the character within the frame, right-click and drag the character in the window (or on the small square in the bottom left corner of the window).
  • Animations: Each character has a selection of animations that they can perform. Use the arrows next to the animation's name to cycle through them. The available animations are determined by the character's class and currently equipped weapons.
  • Capture pose: If you are logged in, you can set the default pose of any character on your account. Use the camera and animation controls to create a pose, then click the save icon to set it as the default. All visitors to the character's profile will then see the character in that pose.
  • Play controls: The rewind, pause, and fast forward buttons allow you to fine-tune a pose for a character.
  • Fullscreen mode: You can view the character in a fullscreen display against a selection of backgrounds. All controls will continue to function in fullscreen mode.
  • Embed: You can embed a standalone, interactive version of the character's model viewer in a compatible website, such as a social networking site, guild website, or forum.
  • Options: Extra options include selecting a background in fullscreen mode and toggling the display of a character's helm, cloak, or tabard.


Refer to the Character Sheet FAQ for more details.



Character and Calendar Feeds
You can export your character information and calendar events to other websites and applications using the Armory's new customization tools. These features can be accessed through a logged-in character profile or through the Armory's main navigation menu.


  • Character Activity Feeds: Each character's activity feed shows the most recent in-game actions of the character that can be recorded by the Armory. These include achievements, boss kills, item acquisitions, and more. Character feeds can be customized using our customization tool, then exported as RSS feeds to your RSS reader of choice. Refer to the Character Feed FAQ for more details.
  • Player Calendar Feeds: Another new Armory tool allows you to export in-game player calendar data to online calendars such as Google Calendar. The tool can aggregate up to five characters on your account in a single feed, and is automatically synched with the characters' in-game player calendars. Refer to the Calendar Feed FAQ for more details.



<div align="center">Developer Chat on Twitter -- 1/15/10
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)
Following the response to our first Developer Chat on Twitter, we will be holding the next one on Friday, January 15, at 5:00 p.m. PST with World of Warcraft’s senior game producer and lead systems designer. This chat session will focus on the recently released Fall of the Lich King content.

Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account at https://twitter.com/signup and follow account @Warcraft in order to participate!

To submit a question for the Developer Chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00pm and 6:00pm PST on January 15. Due to the limitations of providing complete answers within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the forums in a dedicated thread.

Link to the first Developer Chat: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77768276&sid=1



Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Professor Putricide "buff"
As a point of clarification, this was not a buff so much as a bug fix. The AEs being cast by the abomination driver in P1, P2 and the tanks in P3 were being affected by the player AE cap, thus diminishing the amount of raid damage being done in 25 player Putricide. We fixed that bug in a hotfix. Of course we waited until Tuesday&#39;s server maintenance to apply the hotfix so as not to unfairly punish people that raided later in the week.

Furthermore, the encounter was designed to utilize 3 tanks. If you&#39;re just barely making the DPS check killing Putricide with 2 tanks, you might have a problem. Essentially, if you&#39;re using 2 tanks and both tanks are at a 4 stack your raid should be dead. With that said, I have a hard time believing a guild capable of meeting the DPS requirement for Festergut can&#39;t make a substitution in their raid comp to overcome the bug fix.

If all else fails, zonewide buffs will be available soon enough, allowing you to crush Professor Putricide, see his oozes driven before you, and hear the lamentation of his abominations. (Source)

Burst damage in PvP
We think everything is a little too intense right now, almost like playing the game on fast forward. Yes, damage can come in too quickly, but that is partially because healing is also so huge that without some amount of burst, it would seem as though nobody would ever die. It&#39;s as if players are either at 100% health or 0% health, and very infrequently effective in between. If we just drastically toned down PvP damage across the board -- say, by inflating resilience or health pools -- then healers would dominate, much as was the case in The Burning Crusade. In return, the only way to win a match would be to chain crowd control or possibly mana drain the healer. We certainly want to make sure these abilities have their place in PvP, but the game can also be frustrating when excessive healing gives players the feeling that fights are just being reset consistently until healers are completely out of mana (which in most cases can take a very long time).

On the flip side, we could tone down damage and healing, but that has huge PvE ramifications and we&#39;re not ready to re-balance the entire game -- though this is the intent for Cataclysm. What we&#39;ll likely do for the next expansion is ramp damage up a little as players advance, but have health pools increase greatly and healing increase by marginal amounts. The same change would have benefits for PvE too because mana then becomes a consideration for healers -- they must make a more determined choice between an efficient strategy and a spamming strategy -- and tanks won&#39;t constantly face dying by two unfortunate strikes. In PvP, you&#39;ll ideally see more players in a wounded state, and they can eventually be worn down rather than blown up in a couple of global cooldowns. (Source)

Resilience in next season
We are discussing the idea of increasing the benefits of resilience for the next Arena season. We will have to see what effect this has on healing and whether or not weapon inflation from the newest items can adequately offset any of those effects. (Source)




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