WoW Patch 2.4.0, Fury of the Sunwell, now Live

[Cairenn]

Fury of the Sunwell

• The glorious fount of arcane energy known as the Sunwell empowered the high elves for millennia, until the death knight Arthas laid siege to the elven kingdom and corrupted its sacred energies. Seeing no other alternative, a band of survivors led by Prince Kael’thas destroyed the ancient fount. Over time the surviving elves fell pray to a crippling magical withdrawal. Now, promising salvation for his people, Kael’thas has returned. Soon the Sunwell will shine once again, but whether the sacred fount will usher in deliverance or destruction remains to be seen.

In Memoriam: Gary Gygax

• Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate the patch in memory of Gary Gygax. His work on D&D was an inspiration to us in many ways and helped spark our passion for creating games of our own. As avid D&D players and fellow game developers, we were all saddened by the news of his passing; we feel we’ve lost a true adventuring companion. Thanks for everything and farewell, Gary. You will be missed.

Combat Log Improvements

• The combat log has undergone improvements that allow more robust combat text filtering including the ability to define custom colors for enemies and friends, as well as combat text filtering for self and others.

Global Arena Tournament

• Players will be able to create level-70 characters with epic equipment and compete on special tournament realms in a new global arena tournament. For more information, details and entry requirements, please visit the official tournament pages.

General

• The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5 and 25-player instances.
• The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of daily quests.
• A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.
• Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
• Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
• Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now be cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to miss, be dispelled, or be resisted.
• Resilience: Now reduces the magnitude of mana draining effects by the same amount that it reduces critical strike damage. The Tooltip has been revised to reflect this.
• Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.
• Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for levels 1 through 59.
• The Daily Quest limit has been increased to 25.
• Non-self % based haste spells will no longer stack with each other.

Of immediate interest for our community:

User Interface

• The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns that interact with the Interface Options screen will need to be updated.
• Combat Log Improvements
  • New tabs are available for sorting combat messages.
  • ctrl-right clicking functionality has been added for individual information sorting
  • Colors may now be assigned for friends and enemies
  • The WoWCombatLog.txt file format has been changed to make it easier for programs to read.
  • The ability to chat-link player spells and talents.
• Cast sequences work with slot numbers again.
• GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name.
• You can now declare war on a faction in the reputation UI while you are in combat.
• Spell haste and Armor Penetration will now display on the character sheet. (Armor Penetration displays in the hit rating section). Spell Penetration now displays under the spell hit section.
• Weapon enchants are now shown at the character selection screen.
• The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note icon to add a note for a particular friend.
• There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on, your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available in all your bags.
• You can now link quests into the chat log by Shift-Clicking on the quest name in the quest log.
• Merchants now display how many pages of merchandise they sell (Page 1 of 2).
• Guild Bank Changes
  • Ranks can now be set to allow withdraw of funds or allow repair with funds or both.
  • When purchasing a bank tab, it takes money out of the guild bank before it takes your personal money. This is logged as well.
  • Each Tab now has an info pane. This pane can be used for requests or for rules about the tab or anything at all really.
• When looting Bind on Pickup items, the confirmation dialogue now lists the name of the item in the dialogue. You can now verify that you are picking up the correct bind on pickup item.
• Bind on Pickup items that only you can pick up (Heroic Badges for instance) will no longer bring up a confirmation dialogue.
• Players can now opt out of looting for group loot, round robin and need before greed looting styles. If a player turns this on, they will not get a looting turn in the loot cycle. This can be turned on from the right-click menu on your own portrait.
• In Master Loot mode, all players in the group will see sparkles on corpses that have loot above the master loot threshold. This lets everyone see what the master loot items are, though they cannot interact with them. Only the master looter can loot those items still.
• Searching for an item in the tradeskill search box should now hide empty categories.
• The names over the heads of nearby players who are on your friends list will appear in a different color now so you can tell when they are nearby.
• Stacked items for sale at the auction house now display the per unit price and per unit buyout price in the item mouseover.
• The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for items by socket color, by effect ("Critical Strike" for instance) or search gems by their effect ("Strength" for instance). In addition, the searching of items by level has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level with "15-20" to search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required of 15 to 20.
• The Tooltip for player Dodge/Block/Parry in the character sheet has been changed slightly.
• Optimized particle system rendering for improved frame rates.
• The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard (mage) or Rain of Fire (warlock) with spell haste.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

You can get the full details on the exact UI changes in Iriel's concise list.

Read the full patch notes.