Wrath will bring new forum icons
by Mike Schramm 
May 7th 2008 at 4:00PM
Tactial mentions on the forums that all of the Rogues (in fact, this is true about almost everyone) are still in Tier 4. When Burning Crusade first came out and we all reached 70, Tier 4 was where it was at -- some people were excited about being in Tier 4, even if they hadn't earned it yet. But nowadays, Tier 4 ain't that great, and yet all of our forum icons shows us in the (now old) armor.Drysc does say that the Armory is a click away from the forum icons, but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons. It seems like everyone else can render icons out of game -- why can't they? There is some good news for those looking for a forum icon update, though: Drysc says that when we're all level 80, we'll probably have new icons yet again, with shiny T7 on our characters.
Which will be great -- until a few big content patches after Wrath, when T9 will be out and we'll all be whining that we're still dressed in T7. Thus goes the circle, the circle of life.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kaylek May 7th 2008 4:11PM
Well... Paladins, Priests, Mages, Warlocks and (I think) Warriors at least all have Tier 5 icons. So, yeah.
Zorick May 7th 2008 4:21PM
Shaman also have Tier 5 gear on. Hooray for research!
Ryan May 7th 2008 4:31PM
Yea, of course it will; you don't have to create a post every time some CM makes a comment on the forums.
Druid dude May 7th 2008 4:34PM
"...but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons..."
Then why don't you take an afternoon and do something like that for your site? Sounds like a pretty easy thing to do. Just open up Photoshop, download the "Make cool WoW icons instantly" macro, and whip a few out! What could be easier?
dcisko May 7th 2008 4:35PM
"but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons."
Oh, how I hate this kind of ignorant comment. L2Program.
makishima May 7th 2008 4:54PM
/agree
Chuddy May 7th 2008 5:00PM
dc, There is no actual "l2programming" that is involved in the changing of an avatar apart from adding (7-(version they are on now).gif.) any html and .css that directs the page to a thumb. for example this is pointing to the fact you are a gnome..
Alex May 7th 2008 5:08PM
That is completely untrue. Writing code to generate an image based on a person's current gear is nontrivial at the least and to do it for every single character in WoW would require massive amounts of computing power.
makishima May 7th 2008 5:31PM
@Chuddy I don't think anyone here is saying that it would be hard to have someones avatar image constantly changed, what we are saying is writing the code to MAKE that image is the problem, not changing the images themselves.
con-man May 8th 2008 8:03AM
I agree. Mike Schramm doesn't seem to understand the conecpt of coding. Easier said than done Mike.
Oh and T4 is serisz biz!
Amenisis May 7th 2008 4:54PM
OMG! The icons not even in the game havent been updated, even though only the most anal read the Bliz forums anyhow.
Who gives a shit about guild drama, who's recruiting the next "We plan to start raiding Kara soon, then BT!" guilds, Bliz "we don't give a shit" posts and "Where should I put my talent points 1.4 millionth post.
For GODS SAKE, fix the generic icons seen by a few thousand on YOUR forums and not the game models seem by your millions pls bliz!!!
Tychon May 7th 2008 5:01PM
@8
Forget to take your meds today.
If you don't like the website then don't read it
matt May 7th 2008 8:33PM
...
You realize that post numbers change, right? :P
David(Postal) May 7th 2008 5:04PM
As long as I still have my PVP rank. It is my only point of pride on the forums
Chuddy May 7th 2008 5:05PM
Hmm. No html tags allowed..makes sense. Whatever. Line 543-546 in the html point to the gnome point I make in question.
Dont tell someone to l2 program when that's not even of what the whole point blizzard says it's about. Anyways I'd rather them spend time on wotlk than updating the avatar's.
makishima May 7th 2008 5:36PM
I don't think anyone here is saying that it would be hard to have someones avatar image constantly changed, what we are saying is writing the code to MAKE that image is the problem, not changing the images themselves. *I'm guessing this was supposed to be another reply to the above section but the comments here break a lot so I figured I'd ad this again down here*
Kyane May 7th 2008 5:32PM
Mike, I usually can at least see your point of view, but this I just can't.
As a programmer, the comment "but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons. " makes me die a little on the inside. Thanks for trivializing our work. *sigh*
infection May 7th 2008 5:37PM
It's official. The forums are only used for completely random trash that have nothing to do all day and therefore must not be playing WoW.
Who gives 2 sh1t's about avatars but bored retards. I could understand if the forums kept up with your number of post, therefore making trolls more powerful. Also, why is someone posting about this that isn't even decked in tier 6??? And to go along with that, why would everyone be concerned with their icon being tier 6 when a marginal percentage is even decked in tier 6. Yeah... good job.
Message to blizzard, please ignore these morons and continue with something meaningful.
Zarzuur May 7th 2008 5:47PM
Yes, they could do it, and it wouldn't take too much effort since they already have the 3d code, but it is vastly multiplied by the millions of player changes. Separate dedicated servers would be needed just to run through the Armory to render all the images, and then too the Forums would be loading new images for every player. It's easier in terms of bandwidth to have a fixed number of images, and also to have them on the forum server so that one site downtime doesn't directly affect another.
Zakk May 7th 2008 6:19PM
The term "duh" comes to mind xD