14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment has released a “test realm” update for the Mac version of World of Warcraft. The World of Warcraft PTR Updater provides new features and changes that are applied to the test environment (realm) in order to more effectively test new features making their way into the official WoW game. The test realm patch notes only apply to features that exist on the public test realms.
According to the release notes, the Forge of Souls, the first wing of the five-player dungeon, is now available for testing. Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds, Blizzard reveals, pointing out that creatures attacking a player from behind can no longer cause players level 1-5 to be dazed, and have a reduced chance to cause players level 6-10 to be dazed. Developers also made changes so that copied test realm characters would no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character-copy process.
Speaking about general Class changes, Blizzard mentions the following additions:
Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon.
Glancing Blows: The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes.
Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player's level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.
Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.
By recalibrating Racial Attribute Bonuses, Blizzard hopes to even out the amount of starting health on the various races available in World of Warcraft. “All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina,” the PTR patch notes reveal. “For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total,” Blizzard Entertainment says.
To join the battle on the WoW test environment (realm), gamers must use a WoW Account Name / Battle.net E-mail address and their password, or create a World of Warcraft account.