Around the time of the Third War, an ancient menace known as the troggs surfaced in Gnomeregan from the depths of Azeroth. This barbaric race, thought to have been unintentionally released during the Uldaman excavation, crushed the gnomes' defenses and became entrenched in the lower sections of the city. Gelbin, for all his genius, was at a loss for a way to eradicate the savage invaders until his chief advisor, Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg, proposed that they inundate Gnomeregan with toxic radiation.

Confident in Thermaplugg's radical plan, Mekkatorque gave the order to irradiate the city. This bold move worked at first: toxic radiation spread throughout Gnomeregan and momentarily stopped the troggs' incursion. Soon, however, it was evident that the radiation was killing gnomes as well as troggs. In the end, nearly eighty percent of the gnomish race died, and many of those who survived were mutated into deranged leper gnomes. To add to the tragedy, the troggs then resumed their assault on the city.

Mekkatorque and the healthy survivors evacuated Gnomeregan and were taken in by the dwarves of neighboring Ironforge, but Thermaplugg disappeared. The high tinker later learned troubling news that his former advisor had seized control of the toxic gnomish city and instated himself as its twisted overlord. Much to Mekkatorque's shock, he also discovered that Thermaplugg had secretly desired the office of high tinker and might have been previously aware of or even complicit in the trogg invasion.

The immense loss of life at Gnomeregan weighed heavy on Mekkatorque's shoulders, and in his fury he ordered the death of Thermaplugg. A band of heroes took up the mission and returned with a tale of victory, but after analyzing the claim, Mekkatorque realized that the mechanized overlord defeated in the depths of the city was likely nothing more than a cleverly engineered facsimile of Thermaplugg.

Aware that defeating his nemesis would require a more robust approach, Mekkatorque labored over strategies to retake his city. His tireless brainstorming recently paid off with Operation: Gnomeregan, a brilliant multi-phased assault plan to liberate the gnomish capital and bring the real Thermaplugg to justice. With the operation set to begin, resourceful gnomes such as "Doc" Cogspin, Captain Tread Sparknozzle, and Drill Sergeant Steamcrank have been overseeing preparations and fine-tuning new technology that will be vital to the offensive.

Meanwhile, Mekkatorque has begun rounding up all able-bodied gnomes to join in the attack, and his call to arms has also been heard by other members of the Alliance. The gnomes' techno-savvy has been vital in past conflicts, and many Alliance heroes are likely to join the offensive to recapture the extraordinary inventions within the fallen city. For Mekkatorque, however, his plan goes beyond just reacquiring lost technology. The retaking of Gnomeregan will determine his legacy in history, either as the high tinker who lost the gnomes' beloved capital, or the one who reestablished it as the center of innovation on Azeroth.

Operation: Gnomeregan is now.

Yet for all of the tribe's accomplishments, the Darkspears are still plagued by a tragic history of exile. Long ago they were driven from Stranglethorn Vale's mainland by the more powerful trolls of the Gurubashi empire and then settled on a remote island. The Darkspears later sought refuge with the Horde when their isle was destroyed by a mysterious sea witch, and Thrall granted the trolls new lands on the Echo Isles off the coast of Durotar. Aside from a brief exodus when Daelin Proudmoore's fleet arrived to hunt down orcs, the Darkspears enjoyed relative stability until one of their own, Zalazane, drove his brethren from their latest home.

The witch doctor Zalazane had been one of the tribe's leading mystical instructors when he was inexplicably driven to insanity by the powers under his control. Utilizing dark magic, he enslaved many of his fellow tribespeople and amassed an army of mindless Darkspear trolls. Fearing that all of his tribe would come under Zalazane's sway, Vol'jin ordered the remaining free Darkspears to abandon the Echo Isles.

Vol'jin's Darkspears settled in nearby Sen'jin Village, which they have since used as a staging point to attack Zalazane. Over the years, members of the Horde looking to test their worth have braved the Echo Isles to confront Zalazane, and many of them even returned victorious with his severed head. These victories, however, proved to be nothing more than an illusion created by the twisted witch doctor's dark magic. Days after these trophies were taken to Sen'jin Village, they reverted to their true forms: painted rocks and coconuts adorned with wooden tusks, or even the heads of Zalazane's enslaved trolls.

Despite these setbacks and his preoccupation with advising Thrall on Horde-related matters, Vol'jin has spent considerable time formulating a strategy to recapture the Echo Isles. Now he believes that the time to strike at Zalazane has come. As the Darkspear leader and his close allies Vanira and Champion Uru'zin await approval of their plan from the ancestral spirits, they have begun rounding up new troll recruits and staging reconnaissance missions to learn about Zalazane's minions.

Yet Vol'jin's trolls are short on forces, and the enslaved Darkspears on the Echo Isles outnumber them. The Darkspears are well-known for being among Azeroth's bravest combatants, however, and fortunately many non-trolls have expressed interest in assisting Vol'jin, perhaps hoping that restoring the Echo Isles will eventually bolster the Horde's strength.

Vol'jin is also aware of the strategic importance that a Darkspear homeland offers his allies, but he is motivated by more personal reasons. Zalazane's betrayal was an affront against Vol'jin's dream of a better life for his tribe, a destiny that his late father, Sen'jin, envisioned years ago. Only by retaking the Echo Isles will Vol'jin be able to honor his father and at long last secure a permanent homeland for the long-exiled Darkspear tribe.

• Blood-Queen Lana'thel: Pact of the Darkfallen now applies damage twice as often, but for half the damage. This change will make the removal of the spell a bit more responsive.
• Hellscream's Warsong and Strength of Wrynn now provide their bonuses to player pet health and damage, as well as the absorption amounts of Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Glyphs

• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude: Now always grants at least 40% damage reduction.

Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Tier 10

• Priest Tier-10 4-Piece Healing Set Bonus: Redesigned. This bonus now increases the effectiveness of the caster's Power Word: Shield by 5% and Circle of Healing by 10%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Scourge Imprisonment: Now reduces the cast time of Shackle Undead by 1 second, up from 0.5 seconds.

Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Glyphs

• Glyph of Deadly Throw: Now increases the slowing effect on Deadly Throw by 20%, up from 10%.
• Glyph of Expose Armor: Now increases the duration of Expose Armor by 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
• Glyph of Feint: Now reduces the energy cost of Feint by 20, up from 10.

If you're at the show stop by the NVIDIA booth and say hi!

http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/
http://www.nvidia.com/object/paxeast.html

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wowanniversary/interview/

We like the general concept of dispels as a counter. Making a good decision to spend resources (including GCDs) based on what another player is doing is what allows players to win because of their skill and not just because of their gear. The problem is that dispels were designed around (antiquated) PvE content such as Molten Core, where spamming dispels was something we asked you to do frequently. A better world would be one in which a dispel was a meaningful choice, meaning they would have a real mana cost and require you to actually push a button. There needs to be a cost for dispelling at the wrong time, just as there's a cost for using your trinket or Ice Block at the wrong time. If we make this change, we'd balance the PvE encounters accordingly, such as asking you to occasionally dispel big curses (or whatever) instead of constantly remove spammy, aggravating ones. (Source)

Bind on Account Emblems?
We currently don't plan to do this as we feel it makes sense to run a couple of normal dungeons (possibly) on the character you'd like to gear up and then run heroics until your heart is content.

[…] It's true that a main character can pile up a bunch of triumph/frost emblems at this point and not be too sure what to do with them. You could always make some gold via epic gems though – that will empty out your stores pretty fast.

We mainly just want to try and keep players focused on the idea of playing a character they want to gear up and not allow their one main character to take care of a whole set of alts. (Source)

Overpowered combat ratings in WotLK
As players above pointed out, the ratings would have worked fine had we not introduced extra item levels of gear to support the heroic modes of the last three tiers. Now we could have nerfed your ratings then, and maybe we should have, but that would have felt pretty harsh. Maybe Icecrown Radiance felt harsh enough that we should have done that. You can also argue that we should have guessed or at least planned in the possible addition of extra tiers. Maybe we'll do that in the future. Our model though is that player stats stop advancing from level and start advancing solely from gear at the level cap. We need some target for our combat ratings because they are expressly for the purpose of preventing players from maxxing out every stat with enough gear. Having creatures in later tiers scale along with your gear is one way that we're exploring. (Source)

Gear Scaling
Ni, I think you're just talking about a different kind of experience. The way RPGs traditionally work is that you defeat the monsters to get better gear to challenge more powerful monsters. The goal, typically, isn't to get so powerful that the monsters are no longer a challenge. Now I understand that seeing your dodge number actually go down might be a bummer, but that's because you're looking at a percentage and not the rating (which only goes up). If we expressed health as a percentage relative to the damage done by a boss, it would behave the same way — go down with every new tier, then start to go back up again.

Currently, your health and armor go up, but the more powerful monsters in later dungeons hit harder. It's not that they are less of a threat to you than earlier monsters, and in many case the opposite true. It's more that you couldn't even have a hope of facing them without having amassed all of the armor you have. We're just talking about doing the same thing with other stats. It doesn't make sense that you avoid Saphiron 30% of the time, but avoid Sindragosa (who is supposed to be a much more powerful opponent and has the stats to prove it) 60% of the time. In the same way, the mage shouldn't be critting the more powerful opponent more than the weaker opponent. It just does strange things to the game, where the later bosses have to hit so much harder to make up for the fact that you're avoiding them more, which ironically (but mathematically) means that your avoidance is less valuable since it doesn't actually keep you alive.

Really all we're talking about here is the distinction between absolute and relative differences. Bosses in higher tiers shouldn't be relatively easier to avoid. In fact, the opposite is arguably true. (Source)

Tanking
AE Tanking
Yeah, we'd basically agree with that. The risk should be that the tank will die, not that the tank can't hold aggro. However I have to caveat that because otherwise any time anyone ever fails to hold aggro for whatever reason they'll blame it on their tools instead of taking some responsibility for hitting the right button or gearing correctly. Threat still needs to matter as a mechanic

And without launching into class warfare again, we think the paladin is a little too good in the AE …

• The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. This change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objective…

• The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. This change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objective…