World of Warcraft's beta patch 0.12 marked the final pre-release patch of the game. Patch 1.1 was the official release candidate, but this was the final cycle of the beta. Some highlights from this patch include:
The item durability system was implemented.
You could no longer complete standard quests in a raid group.
Scholomance and Ragefire Chasm were implemented.
Let's discuss, shall we?
World of Warcraft beta patch 0.12Major Changes
Durability
Item durability is now in the game. Item durability is an important aspect of World of Warcraft that will work to stabilize the economy, decrease inflation specifically in the high end game, and in general keep prices of player sold items lower than normally would occur without such a feature. Durability should also add additional depth to the game since players will have more variety in their items and more abilities will be added over time to interact with durability. Item durability is different from item decay in that players will never lose items through item durability.
Durability key points
All armor and weapons have durability, but not trinkets, cloaks, shirts, guild tabards, necklaces and rings.
Items remain at full effectiveness until they have no durability. Their power does not degrade.
Items cannot permanently break.
All armor/weapon vendors can repair durability in exchange for cash.
When an item reaches zero durability, it no longer gives the player any benefit; it acts as though it does not exist until repaired.
Professions cannot repair durability, but we will discuss ways for the professions to interact with them in the future.
Raid Groups
Raid groups will no longer receive quest bounties and collections. In the future, we plan to have raid-specific quests that will be possible to complete in raid groups.
Other Changes
General
If you log out while in flight, you will continue flying when you log back in.
All enemy targeted spells should now require the target to be in front of the caster.
Starting characters will now have hearthstones automatically located in their inventory.
Swimming has been tweaked. To dive, you have to tilt your direction downwards a certain amount with the right mouse button.
Spirit no longer affects item proc percentage. Item proc percentages are now independent of stat attributes.
The camera will now stay above or below water depending on which side you are on.
Your camera view angle and distance are now saved when you exit the game.
You won't accidentally skip gossip text if you double-click the NPC responses.
You should no longer be able to breathe at the bottom of lakes and ponds.
Pets swim underwater now, although not all pets have swimming animations.
Pets no longer use combat abilities while in passive mode.
Your corpse shows up underwater after you release, however it decomposes when you revive.
Starting NPCs show their horde or alliance crest.http://www.ign.com/blogs/iystgold/2011/05/02/association-issues-the-standing-of-discrete-event-6-hall-q-a-is-now-up/
Locked boxes show the word "Locked" in the appropriate color for their difficulty.
Scarlet Sentinels will use their Overpower ability in combat.
Looting range is now the same as melee range.http://dragonlee.hpage.com/
PVP
Goblin guards will attack players who are fighting each other and not dueling - it's bad for business.
Goblin guards no longer flag you for PvP and they may not be healed or buffed.
When you finish a duel, debuffs applied during the duel will be removed.
Resurrecting a PvP-enabled player corpse will flag you for PvP.
Area effect spells and totems now work correctly in duels.
Town guards will no longer follow dueling players.
Zones
Scholomance, a level 57-60 instanced dungeon in Western Plaguelands is now open.
Ashenvale has gotten a facelift to include more points of interest, and significant changes were made to make it easier to navigate.
Ragefire Chasm, a low level instance dungeon in Orgrimmar, is now available.
Deadmines: The Miners in the Deadmines are no longer elite monsters.
Blackfathom Deeps has been moved to the Zoram Strand in Ashenvale forest near the border of Darkshore.
More quests have been added for Eastern and Western Plaguelands.
Professions
Runecloth added to the world as the high end cloth.
Tailoring now complete with recipes up to skill 300 available.
The herbs needed to support high end alchemy have been added to the world.
Rich Thorium Nodes will now drop Arcanite.
Talents
All warlock talents are now available.
Many talents for all classes have changed location in their tree or had their effects modified.
Druid
Travel Form is now only usable outdoors.
Cower, Growl and Challenging Roar are now usable against targets that are immune to physical attacks.
New Spell: Hibernate (Level 18).
Shapeshifting now breaks roots, snares, and freeze effects.
All Shapeshift forms now include an immunity to polymorph effects.
Bear Form - HP gain increased.
Dire Bear Form - HP gain increased.
Hunter
Cower, Growl and Disengage are now usable against targets that are immune to physical attacks.