World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.9.0 (2006-01-03)

[Cairenn]

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will house two massive, unique dungeons -- the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, a 20-man raid dungeon, and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, a 40-man raid dungeon. As players delve deeper into the mysteries of Ahn'Qiraj, they will discover revelations of the Silithid infestation and their shadowy masters, the Qiraji. Players will have to complete a world event of massive proportions before they can open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj on their realm.
***During the public test of Ahn'Qiraj, the world event to open the gates will be accelerated to allow testing of the dungeon content.***

Linked Auction Houses

Players will now be able to buy and sell goods with greater effectiveness using the Linked Auction House system. Auction Houses in Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will now share the same pool of Horde player-created auctions, and Alliance players will find the same to be true when visiting Ironforge, Stormwind City, and Darnassus Auction Houses. This system has been expanded to support the neutral Auction Houses as well. Tanaris, Everlook, and Booty Bay will all be linked for players of both factions to access. In addition, the "Looking for Group" and "Trade" channels have been unified among the corresponding cities, meaning, for example, that you can trade your goods or look for groups in Ironforge while in Stormwind.

Multiple Battlegrounds Queues

Players will be able to enter multiple battleground queues. No longer must you make the hard decision of which queue to join -- when queued for all three, you can join the first one available or hold out for that particular battleground which you've really got your heart set on. Should a queue open while you are already in a battleground, you may switch to the new battle or remain in the current on.

Soul Shard Bags

Tailors now can make soul bags to hold soul shards. The smallest is a 20-slot bag, the recipe for which can be purchased in Gadgetzan. The recipe for a larger bag can be found in Scholomance, and one for an even larger bag can be found in Molten Core. In the main UI, these soul bags will display how many shards they contain. So long as the soul bags have room, any soul shards a warlock creates will automatically go into the bag.

Raid Calendar System

The raid-lockout system has undergone a significant change. The new system will have all instances reset at a certain server time, regardless of when you were actually saved to the instance. The reset schedule is as follows:
Molten Core: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance.
Blackwing Lair: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
Onyxia: Every 5 Days
Zul'Gurub: Every 3 Days
Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (40-man): Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20-man): Every 3 Days
All resets will occur during off-hours, when the least amount of raids are active.

Important Note for Mac OS X Users

The minimum supported Mac OS X revision for WoW will be changed in a post-1.9.0 patch, from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9. If you are running 10.3.5 - 10.3.8 and need to get the free update, you can use Software Update or you can click here for the direct download. This change will make it easier for us to release future updates to the game, for example to support upcoming Mac models based on Intel processors.

General

· All Disorient effects have been renamed Incapacitate effects. This includes Gouge, Sap, etc.

· All Confusion effects have been renamed Disorient effects. This includes Blind, Scatter Shot, etc.

· Food and Drink are now in separate categories, so you can only have one food effect and one drink effect on you at a time. The only effect should be that foods that used to stack with each other (you could have two food effects on you at once) no longer will stack.

· On-next-swing abilities will no longer cause multiple weapon procs on a single swing.

· It is now possible to change the game's priority and processor affinity through Task Manager.

PvP & Battlegrounds

· The Defiler's Talisman and Talisman of Arathor are now available at Friendly reputation.

· Level 48, 38, and 28 versions of the Defiler's Talisman and Talisman of Arathor have been added.

· Two new rewards have been added for reaching Friendly reputation level with the Silverwing Sentinel and Warsong Outrider factions.

· New caster ring reward added for reaching Exalted status with the Stormpike or Frostwolf factions.

· When a player leaves a battleground before it concludes, they will be unable to re-enter any battleground queue for 15 minutes.

· Several civilian NPCs, who previously would assist non-civilians, will no longer do so.

· A bug has been fixed with the Warsong Gulch reward vendors that were allowing items achieved at reaching Friendly reputation to be purchased at lower reputation levels.

· Reputation rewards for the PvP Battlegrounds have been adjusted:

· Superior Health Draughts, Superior Mana Draughts, and Battleground-specific bandages are now available uniformly at Friendly reputation.

· Major Health Draughts and Major Mana Draughts are now available uniformly at Honored reputation.

· Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin now offer Battleground-specific rations at Friendly reputation.