Blizzard have announced some very interesting changes on the PTR. They are as follows:
We are currently performing maintenance and applying a patch to the Public Test Realms (PTRs). This patch includes many changes, not the least of which is the new voice chat functionality. The realms will be coming back up at approximately 6:00 PM PDT today. We're opening a new PvP PTR realm as well (and adding 4 more character copies for everyone) to help address some of the large queues that have been occurring.
Voice chat will not be enabled immediately today, although you may see some of the features it interacts with, including a new chat channel "organizer" tab in the social window. We plan to enable voice chat tomorrow morning, and as this is our first large scale test we ask that everyone please bare with us during this initial testing phase. We don't expect any major issues, but with such a large and complex feature we're certainly preparing for them.
Also, for now, voice chat will not be available in the battlegrounds.
Thanks for helping us test this new feature, please keep all feedback and bugs in the Test Realm forum, and we hope to see you on the PTR!
Test Realm Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11572...
PTR site with client download and character copies: http://worldofwarcraft.com/ptr/
There were also a few patch note additions(which were later edited out, but should be available tomorrow when the VOIP patch goes to PTR):
General
- Voice Chat - The new Voice Chat feature is now available in game. Players will need to go into the options menu under Sound & Voice to activate it. Volume sliders are available for the microphone, speakers, and game-audio fade (which automatically lowers the game audio when a voice communication is received), as is a "push-to-talk" setting. Right-clicking on a player's name now includes the option to mute or unmute that player. Muting another player blocks all voice chat from him or her; the ignore feature now blocks both voice chat and text chat from that player.
- Chat Channels- New Chat Channel controls and functionality are now available under the chat tab in the Social Window of the interface. The interface will now show the channels players are in or are available, depending on the area of the world they are in, along with new private channel controls.
- A new feature for reporting players as being AFK in battlegrounds by right clicking has been added. When enough reports are registered, a 30 second debuff will begin to count down. Once the timer is up a new debuff will appear that will prevent the player from gaining any honor while it is on. This debuff can be negated as soon as the player engages in combat.
- Daze: Defense skill will no longer reduce the chance players have to receive the Daze effect when attacked from behind by enemies.
- Non-combat pets now have the tag "Companion" instead of "Minion".
- Damage and health leech effects always affect flying players even if they are immune to the rest of the spell's affects while in flight.
- Dueling players may not use a Lightwell that they didn't create themselves. [Damn! There goes one of Lightwell's few uses.]
Hunter
- Raptors can now learn Dash.
Shaman
- Earth Shield is now canceled at logout.
Items
- Ankhs now stack to ten.
Comments
"Honestly, I wish they'd just release 2.2 already so I can have my increased length pally blessings :( "
you never do arena, do you? o0 paladins will take the biggest nerf ever and you're happy? :S blessing of sacrifice is the main reason why paladins don't suck ass in teams without dispellers other than themselves...
I wish they would release it so I could get my shoulders back, been staring at my ugly ass orc for a while now.
Honestly, I wish they'd just release 2.2 already so I can have my increased length pally blessings :(
That said, I'm going to make a PTR char tonight and check out the voice chat and such!
I love blizz :)