Summer Updates (Gear change, Hyjal, Legendary Transmog, ...)
Posted: 14 Jul 2014, 00:21
Translations: Nederlands | Polski
Please take a moment to read all of the following changes below. Skimming or only reading some information may cause misunderstanding. These changes will be released in the near future, but may not all be released at the same time.
Gear Revamp
After many years of running on the same expansion, change is occasionally necessary to keep the game fresh, clean, and free from stagnation. Smolderforge for the past few years has turned into a very different environment than the one it used to be. These problems proved to be insanely difficult to fix without affecting the majority of the community. For the past few years we’ve let things continue as is with much debate within the community about what we should do. After a long time of debating the issue and internally discussing as a staff we have come to a decision about the path we’re going to lead Smolderforge on.


The Return of Hyjal

Legendary Transmog Items

(Ignore the "Arena Transmog" item description. :P)
Season 4 Gear Cost Lowered
Please take a moment to read all of the following changes below. Skimming or only reading some information may cause misunderstanding. These changes will be released in the near future, but may not all be released at the same time.
Gear Revamp
After many years of running on the same expansion, change is occasionally necessary to keep the game fresh, clean, and free from stagnation. Smolderforge for the past few years has turned into a very different environment than the one it used to be. These problems proved to be insanely difficult to fix without affecting the majority of the community. For the past few years we’ve let things continue as is with much debate within the community about what we should do. After a long time of debating the issue and internally discussing as a staff we have come to a decision about the path we’re going to lead Smolderforge on.
- Tier 6 gear is now the end-game tier of PvE.
- Scarlet Citadel has been adjusted appropriately with Tier 6 gear and will now have a rare chance to drop the Fiery Warhorse mount. All Sunwell weapons will continue to drop here (minus Thori’dal). The spell resistance nerfs have been highly lowered and the raid should be equally fair for melee and casters.
- New vendors have been added to provide more beginner-gear for Tier 5 range, namely a ZA and SSC & TK vendor for gear besides the already-existing Tier 5 set vendor.
- Sunwell weapons will be left in the game; however, all Sunwell-related gear, included crafted items, are to be removed from players. We understand the hostility of this decision by many, but we believe that in order to fix the spiralled-out-of-control state of PvP damage, and insufficient resilience mitigation to this bursty-environment we have created, this change is necessary. We have opted to leave weapons into the game because of a long history of donations, as well as a credit to the players who worked to obtain these items, and lastly so there is still something very appealing at end-game.
- The SWP vendor in the donor mall now sells the non-Kil’jaeden Sunwell weapons for high prices. Additionally, a Black Temple/Hyjal gear vendor has been added to the donor mall to allow access to these items.
- Every character from the wipe will be mailed a compensation package. This package will include 100 Badges of Justice, 10 Marks of Honor for all 4 battlegrounds (40), 7 Transmog Tokens, and Speedy the Turtle pet.


The Return of Hyjal
- Hyjal has now returned, but slightly modified to be more enjoyable. Graveyards are now on flying zeppelins to prevent excessive graveyard camping. Players may parachute down any direction from these ships, or take a teleport to their base.
- The daily quests have been rewritten and instead of killing enemy NPCs in the area, you now are to kill enemy players to complete the quest objectives.
- Yes, the LoS issues still exist, no I cannot fix them, yes it is part of the map. Sorry.


Legendary Transmog Items
- We have designed 60 new legendary items that copy the stats of Season 4 and Sunwell weapons. These weapons however have the models of other weapons. Thunderfury, Warglaives, Benediction, Anathema models, and much, much more.
- These legendary items plan to be obtained through high-rated arena, but additionally possible to obtain for non-arena players.
- We are still developing the system for non-arena players, but it will likely be objective based, not HK farming. We’ll have more details soon!


(Ignore the "Arena Transmog" item description. :P)
Season 4 Gear Cost Lowered
- Helms lowered to 1110 points (down from 2250)
- Boots lowered to 675 points (down from 2250)