The new beginning.

Mistblade. Our first child, the very beginning of Stormforge itself. After almost 2 years, the progression of our MoP realm has finally come to an end. We’ve been watching your struggles against the most dangerous foes in Pandaria, including minions of Lei Shen, spawns of the Old God Y’shaarj, and even your own comrades. You’ve been exchanging blows in arenas and spilled blood on various battlegrounds. Our team was more than happy to see how many MoP enjoyers made Stormforge their new home and we are thrilled to announce a new chapter for our community.

The second season of Mistblade will begin on November 25th at 18:00 CET and will be another chance for players to discover the wonders of Pandaria.

We understand the anticipation building up to Mistblade vol.2 release and assure you that we are working diligently to make it an unforgettable experience for everyone. Our team has been hard at work crafting a realm that will cater to both newcomers and seasoned veterans. We’ve managed to combine features you all know well from Mistblade with a few new things suggested by our community. You’ll find more details below.

Fate of our present MoP realm.

There is one more thing to settle on Mistblade - Season 15 finale. The final Arena phase will end one month before the fresh MoP launch -> October 25th. Before it happens, we’ll verify the entire ladder to get rid of any potential wintrading and players abusing the rules. All rewards shall be distributed to eligible players within a week after the Season’s end. Our team does not plan to close Mistblade - it’s gonna stay as it is, until the second chapter comes to an end. When it happens, we’ll merge two realms into one and then its’ future is going to be decided.

Players will not be able to transfer anything between realms, except Store mounts. We’ll give you an opportunity to use them on Mistblade vol.2 shortly after the realm’s release. Therefore, you’ll not have a feeling that you wasted Stormforge Essence spent on exclusive mounts.

Mistblade vol.2 - Everything you should know

Base rates and details

We think that our base rates for MoP realm were satisfying enough and they do not really need to change. Leveling is quite smooth on MoP, especially with tools such as Dungeon Finder and Experience Boost which will appear after all Class & Race Realm Firsts are achieved.

Note, that rates’ values may be modified after realm’s launch to improve Faction Balance and during Community Events. The remaining rates such as professions or reputation will remain at default level. Mistblade vol.2 shall be based on PvP ruleset, just like its’ predecessor.

Timeline

Our Team has been watching Mistblade progression closely and we came to the conclusion that certain phases were a bit too long, which resulted in players getting bored too soon. We have decided not to publish any stiff timeline in order to make it more flexible, just like we did on our TBC realm Netherwing. Specific content will be introduced in accordance with players’ progress, for both PvE and PvP aspects of the game. This will allow us to respond to your feedback and suggestions more accurately - it is the players who will decide after all.

The first raid - Mogu’shan Vault - will be opened approximately one week after the release of Mistblade vol.2. Dungeons and the first bunch of scenarios should be available from the very beginning.

Crossfaction

We do realize that faction balance is an important factor in determining a player’s gameplay. Our first MoP realm’s population was quite evenly divided for the most part, but the issues showed up when it appeared that the Horde was PvE-dominated when the Alliance players preferred PvP. Although faction balance adjustments such as free Faction Change to the less-populated side of the conflict were effective, we were not completely happy with the results. Therefore, in the last phase of Mistblade, we introduced a full Crossfaction for PvE content. Currently, players are able to create parties and raids with members of opposite factions and join both Dungeon and Raid Finder altogether. Our Developers connected these QoL changes with full crossfaction /world channel, making it even easier to gear your characters.

This experience and your feedback convinced us to extend it even more on Mistblade vol.2, therefore you’ll be able to:

• Create and join groups with members of both main factions;
• Join RDF & LFR;
• Talk on shared /world channel;
• Trade items via common Auction House;
• Join Battlegrounds.

The entire crossfaction system will be available right after the realm’s release.

PvP Adjustments

Stormforge does not forget about PvP enjoyers. We do realize that there were a few issues regarding this aspect of the game on Mistblade and we intend to continue improving on this field. Our team managed to not only fix several class bugs reported by our community but also introduced several features that made your gameplay more pleasant and challenging - we are grateful for your feedback in this matter. All QoL changes we made so far will appear on Mistblade vol. 2 to encourage more activity on Arenas and Battlegrounds. Those include:

• Resilience and Battle Fatigue values, modified in accordance to Season and players’ feedback;
• Custom weekly PvP quests with Black Market rewards;
• Conquest catch-up system, allowing newcomers to stand a chance against well-geared veterans;
• Battlegrounds Crossfaction;
• Arena Spectator - that’s something you’ve been asking us for some time now and we’ll answer;
• More Game Masters dedicated to verifying any abuses of the ladder.

After hearing your suggestions, we’ll also try to look into the MMR calculations and - if possible - adjust them to make your struggles as fair as possible.

Additionally, the length of Arena Seasons will be modified since we believe there was too big of a gap between certain phases. We’ll try to fill these with a few Community Events designed and led by both players and Stormforge Staff representatives. Our team is invariably open to your ideas in this regard.

Language Barrier

Since the beginning of Stormforge, our team has put pressure on our community to strictly follow an “English-only” rule, especially in game channels such as /world. We wanted to create an integrated, fully international environment so people from all around the World could make themselves at home. We’ve received quite a lot of suggestions to create separate non-English channels for a number of players from certain countries and a decision followed. English language will be still the primary tongue used on our official channels, including default /world chat, but we’ll create two new: /world_es for Latin speakers & /world_cn for the Chinese. We believe that in the end, it’ll have a positive impact on our international, multicultural community.

Epilogue

Stay tuned for more information, sneak peeks, and announcements leading up to the big day. Your feedback and input are invaluable to us, so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions on our official forums (here)

Thank you for being part of the Stormforge Community. We are excited to see you on November 25th, as we venture to Pandaria with you once again! Keep an eye on our official channels for updates, and get ready for the return of Mistblade!

Sincerely,
Stormforge Staff.