Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 news[1.Local]: Smoother Dungeon Finding for all?
by Lisa Poisso 
Feb 21st 2010 at 2:00PM
The buzz this weekend is all about the upcoming improvements to the Dungeon Finder tool.
Snuzzle: "The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes." Awesome. Maybe this will help prevent whiny tanks from dropping group because something didn't go their way if they know they're faced with a queue time as long as a DPS.
"Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked." Also awesome, will hopefully prevent said whiny tanks from kicking DPS "because I feel like it." I they actually have to make up a reason on the fly, maybe they'll be less likely to do so. I won't click "yes" to kick without a reason, and almost no one says the reason in chat. Maybe they think it should be apparent, but most of the time when I ask them it's just "because I feel like it."
"Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role." Complete win.
I am glad Blizzard is continuing to improve upon their already awesome Dungeon Finder. They saw a lot of ways it was being exploited or used to grief other players and are working to prevent such. Bravo.
Find more on the upcoming patch changes and additional in-depth coverage throughout the weekend's posts -- and more of the chatter in [1.Local] after the break.
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More epic, or just more crowded? Did raids feel more "epic" back in the days when they required 40 players? Even if we take off our Rose Colored Goggles, it's easy to lump outdated mechanics and poorly thought-out encounter designs along with the simple fact of larger raid groups. Which parts were the good parts, and which parts were less savory? Killer: I don't miss waiting in MC for an hour while the rest of the group is formed then getting kicked from the raid for falling asleep while waiting. I once was removed from a guild for falling asleep before Onyxia. Ah, those were the good old days. I got more sleep back then. LOL Braundo: Nice post. Not enough people remember the fire resistance buff from UBRS that you mentioned. There were a lot of things about raiding that were monstrously inconvenient (not even to mention the task of wrangling 40 players), and pure nostalgia has caused a lot of people to forget those things. Raiding as a mage, conjuring water four bottles at a time and passing it out to 39 other people manually ranks up there as well. I know paladins had big hassles with having to rebuff the entire raid (one person at a time) every five minutes with standard blessings, too. There were some good times, for sure, but don't let the rose-colored glasses cloud your vision. Nathanyel: Take all of your fond classic memories, then look at each of them, and tell me, was any of them defined or even made better by the fact there were 40 instead of 25 people in the raid? Mr. Tastix: 24 people screaming and doing random sh*t in Vent is no better than 39 people doing the same thing. It'll still annoy you. What do you think about the idea of having 39 other people along during your raids: epic, or annoying? |
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Just the tip What's the point of giving a tip to your craftsperson, anyway? Cathubodva: As a former bartender, I have to point out TIPS does not mean To Insure "Proper" Service but "Prompt" service. Tipping is completely optional on the part of the consumer. However, as a 'tender in a crowded bar, I always made sure my regular tippers got taken care of first. If I was coming up with new recipes for drinks, I'd hand 'em out to the customer to try. People who were notorious for not tipping got taken care of, just not as promptly as the tippers ~.o In game, I have a JC. While I don't require tips, if I get repeat service from a tipper, I'll go meet them where they're at and buff them up when I leave. Tipping in game is much like tipping in real life. While it's not required, it's certainly very nice to do and to receive a tip. Do you tip your craftspeople in game? If so, how much? |
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Why WoW players should just get a room One reader hypothesizes that the reason so many players seem lukewarm to the idea of in-game housing is simply because they've never played a game that featured housing before. RogueJedi86: The lack of housing frustrates me. The problem is so many people start MMOs with WoW, and they get used to what WoW has and decide they don't want anything WoW doesn't. WoW doesn't have player/guild housing, so people get used to the idea of not having them, to the point where they don't see a use for them in other games. With 11 million WoW players not seeing the point of housing, makers of future MMOs don't see a point in adding housing that the WoW crowd won't care for, which ruins the variety in future MMOs too. I don't want all MMOs to be homogenized just because people are comfortable with WoW's stagnant situation on some features from other MMOs. I'm convinced that if these players actually played a game with housing, they'd learn to love it. FFXI and SWG and LotRO all have some form of housing, and the populations embrace them. In fact, I think player housing is one of the things that's kept SWG from completely dying and closing down. It's oddly soothing to sit in your house and place objects you looted in the world, either as trophies of conquest or just some pretty objects you found. You'd be amazed at the impressive decorations people make in SWG just from random inane loot. Stuff like AT-ATs and X-Wings and Christmas trees and anything else you can think of, just from the SWG equivalent of vendor trash. So yeah, I quite enjoy player/guild housing, thank you very much. And to be a bit on-topic and constructive, you could easily add guild housing to WoW and keep players in cities. It's easy, just make Auction Houses and banks only accessible from the cities themselves. Maybe put a guild bank in a guild house, but everything else in the cities proper. It's the method Blizz has used to keep people using the old cities after Shatt and Dalaran, and I think it'd work here too. Is the idea of player and guild housing something you find intriguing? |
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The art of the stealth kill Sudden, unexpected death -- isn't the frisson of danger the very reason you rolled a character on a PvP realm, anyway? hotek: I play a discipline priest on a PvP realm, and I must say that being ganked while leveling is what I have to thank for the deeper understanding and appreciation of my class, my abilities and my weaknesses and how to compensate for them. Playing a healer in PvE can feel like a prolonged game of whack-a-mole at times, but when I'm out herbing and I hear that "whooooosh" noise, POP goes Reflective Shield and Renew, trinket ready and I'm ready to fight. ^_^ While yes, griefing leveling players continuously is infantile, ganking is a tradition on PvP servers, and those of us of reasonable mental persuasions do not stay bitter about it all the way to 80. We look forward to presenting a challenge to our would-be gankers and ultimately killing them when they try. I let them rez, /salute and fly off. Good try, mate -- better luck next time. Sound like your style? Try our 20 tips for leveling on a PvP realm. |
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I got her! I got her! In the face of all this Big, Important Dialogue about Big, Important Topics, and capped of course by the Big, Important News about Big, Important Upcoming Changes, we find our funny bone tickled most by Panduh's simple but eloquent comment from the perspective of a humble Durotar Scorpid. Dischordant:The note about dueling away from PvE mobs is a good one. I remember dueling a friend of mine in Durotar (both of us 80), and she agroed one of the little level 5 scorpions just as the duel ended, with her on 1 HP. As amusing as it was to see a level 80 killed by a level 5 mob, it's something to watch out for. :P Panduh: I bet it made that scorpion's day! *scorpid runs back to all his friends screaming, "I GOT HER! I GOT HER!"* |
Ha, caughtcha looking! Hey, don't scroll away ... Come join the conversation on these and other posts around the WoW.com community. We'll see you around in [1.Local]!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, [1.Local]
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Deadly. Off. Topic. Feb 22nd 2010 11:30AM
The perspective of this article is that many tanks think they're god's gift and have the right to act condescending, rude and insulting to players who are not performing to the ideals they hold. Often time these ideals are unrealistic in a pug group where you'll probably never see that player again.
It's one thing to be a good tank doing the job you know best and having idiotic dps who don't know what they're doing, but it's quite another having dps who do know what they're doing and are insulted and treated like crap just because the tank thinks he can.
Kylenne Feb 21st 2010 4:45PM
RE: player housing, god forbid I actually agree with Mr. Jedi about something, but he's dead on about that. My Mog House is by far the thing I miss most about FFXI (my first MMO proper after years and years of MUDs). It was fun for roleplaying but even people who didn't RP went ape decorating and gardening and whatnot in their houses. And the cities were hardly empty (well, except Sandy, lol) because you the only real gameplay functions in your house were storage and changing your jobs. You still had to be out in town proper to use the Auction House, etc.
I would squee forever if I could have a house in SMC. With hookahs and those fancy silk pillows. Azeroth Cribes, here I come!
Kylenne Feb 21st 2010 4:46PM
*Cribs
wtb edit button pst.
Avan Feb 21st 2010 6:06PM
Except that storage is already provided by banks and you can't change your class in WoW. (Jobs in FFXI are basically classes, right?) So housing is pointless in this regard.
Monkey Feb 22nd 2010 3:50PM
@Avan: People like collecting and opportunities to show that collection to friends. I'd kill for a way to display my extensive hat collection.
Deathknighty Feb 21st 2010 5:05PM
On the subject of tips, I met a guy who didn't seem to understand to know what the word meant.
I'm looking for an enchanter, he whispers me. I go to dala, and meet him in the square. He asks me to wait a sec, so I do. Five minutes later, I ask him if he can enchant my gear now. He tells me to keep waiting. I'm now getting a little irritated. Eventually, he enchants my gear. It's my mats, and before he does the trade enchanting the last piece of gear, he says: "that's four enchants, so a 75g tip please". He wastes my time, keeps going AFK, goes AFK while the trade window is open, then not only does he demand a tip, he demands a ridiculously high one. ???
He didn't even deserve a tip in the first place!
Noscy Feb 21st 2010 5:22PM
LFG Tool - All I seem to get is tools... well sometimes...
Smid Feb 21st 2010 7:56PM
Well, thank god I'm hitting the heroic gear plateau... One less tank...
And people ask about "the tank shortage".
My trouble is really bad dps. Not the amount. I'd favour a 1200dps member far more than the 4.5K dps who starts chain pulling and complains cos I stop to tell him not to pull. Those are my the ones I hate.
As for healers who are bored... Why not take some of your gear off if you want a challenge?
I'm there to pull, take aggro and get the job done.
But with the 30 mins debuff, I don't think I will be now.
Oomu Feb 21st 2010 9:04PM
I still think housing would be great in wow to bring diversity, a way to create a little something and to show in it all the crazy stuff we found in wow.
it could be done near the cities, and people will still be in the street to go to the ah and shops.
hint : blizzard put in the city something to do : mini-games, animation, whatever. people will come.
Repairbill Feb 21st 2010 9:06PM
I imagine the 30 min debuff is just going to make it so once people want to leave, they just stop doing anything until the group kicks them to avoid the debuff.
Robbydog Feb 21st 2010 9:53PM
Having read all the comments in this thread I noticed a similar theme emerging, everyone is pleased as it means a tank is less likely to drop group.
This concerns me as it means one things, everyone wants to hang onto the tank...
So what happens when i'm assigned a nightmare of a tank to heal that insists on pulling all the mobs between bosses (knowing we will make it round the instance but only because i'll be doing twice as much work as anyone else healing my ass off). Normally I would drop group wait 15 minutes and pickup the next group (I have 3 healer and tanks pulling more than they can tank happens A LOT).
I guess I could start a kick vote on the tank, reason "pulls too many mobs", but judging by everyones comments "good this means the tank is less likely to drop group" there's no way it will pass. Instead i'll find myself voted out...
What will happens when HoS and Oculus pop too, will the tanks that currently instantly drop group decide than 30 minute debuff is too much and just wipe the group in an effort to get kick voted?
So many potential problems and so many geifing opportunities it scares me!
30 minutes debuff for dropping a group, I have a feeling this is going to be a bad change.
aisenfaire Feb 21st 2010 9:54PM
On tipping:
Note that the difference between WoW and the real world is:
Your friendly pizza guy/ waiter/ bartender/ cab driver/ etc. is getting paid for the job ASIDE from the tip (or lack of one).
The crafter you ask to meet up with and make your item does not receive a monthly salary from Kirin' Tor (or whatever faction you please) to be at your service. The "tip" you give him is his only pay, assuming he is already maxed out and is not gaining crafting levels from it.
So please, DO "tip" whatever you can.
Pucelle Feb 22nd 2010 1:38AM
Actually, at least in the US, quite a few servers only make a wage if tipped.
Muse Feb 22nd 2010 7:13AM
On the other side, your character doesn't have to pay rent.
yiNXs Feb 21st 2010 11:40PM
I'm not happy with this change. For example: I've had to leave a group today, simply because the healer was in fact a dps that queued as healer to be faster. Now a dps could easily keep me up if he's willing to throw a hot every now and then (all my gear is 232 or higher), so I didn't mind at first (it was just VH), but this one wasn't even doing that. I constantly got down to 10% HP before he did anything, and two people died on the trash, because he didn't even heal the low damage mindflays those mobs do. And all he said was "awwww... I'm sorry about that, lololol" in chat. Yeah, real funny if the bill isn't yours.
Kicking this person couldn't be done, because the 15 minute wait time wasn't up, and VH doesn't lend it self well to wait for a replacement healer anyway. I also sure as hell refuse to continue with someone like that. I'm paying the repairs, so I'm gone before I get killed myself. I would hate to get punished for 30 minutes for not willing to put up with somebody else's bad habbits.
About the reason for kicking: I've also been kicked out of the group on my resto shaman for no reason at all. Everything went smooth, nobody ever got below 80%. My gear couldn't it be either (I'm top healer in my guild, we're doing ICC, to get an idea). Then, just at the Ick boss pull in POS HC, I suddenly found myself back in Dalaran. It took me a while to realize I was kicked from the dungeon, and even longer wondering why. Then I realized: there was another shaman, and this boss dropped a mail caster item. That's the only reason I could come up with. Why the others just voted away their healer right before a pull (the tank running in was the last thing I saw) is still a mystery to me. But if I did something so wrong it deserved a kick, I would certainly like to know what.
So, great that there the need for a reason now, perhaps some people will think before they mindlessly click "yes". But why the hell can't the one being kicked see it? They deserve to know if they're supposed to learn anything from it. And I'm pretty sure there are at least just as many people kicked for a bad reason than a good one, if not more.
Heremod Feb 22nd 2010 1:52AM
Please let the person kicked see the reason why.
/signed.
From the perspective of someone getting kicked, I want to know why, if only to know it's a bad reason :-p. Or maybe something I have to change :-p.
From the perspective of someone doing the kicking, I REALLY want them to know why. If they don't know why, the first thing they'll think/say is "lol, bunchanoobs kickid m3 4 new rsn" . . . I'd like them to at least see "your racist, sexist, rude, inappropriate, homophobic, immature language is unacceptable" or even "your dps is below this elitist groups expectations" . . . or "you took three afk breaks, sorry, that's too many" . . . they can decide if they want to change or not, or if they think the reason was valid or not, but give them the opportunity.
And, hey, if people start giving offensive reasons to kick, well, good, that new player will know he was kicked because he was in a group with a bunch of people who he'd rather have on his ignore list anyways, and not because of something he did wrong.
Jane-Marie Feb 22nd 2010 4:36AM
On my realm we regularly hear of 4 grouped up players kicking the random right towards the end. Its a daily occurrence. The LFG tool is good but until its able to address this problem it is not one that is fair to individuals using it.
mojofrodo_26 Feb 22nd 2010 9:24AM
I think the person moaning about whiney tanks needs to learn more about tanking. the reason I moan in LFG groups when I am tanking is that the DPS don't understand about threat. inappropriate use of frost nova is also annoying as it doesn't allow you to reposition enemies. Before moaning about the whiney tanks try playing a day in their shoes.
Daz Feb 22nd 2010 5:53AM
In my BG at least, it feels like a significant number of players are self destructive. They will complain of long queue times due to the shortage of tanks and yet immediately berate me for turning up to tank with my def capped but "only" 27k hp Warrior.
My personal opinion is that Blizzard should be very concerned about the current state of the game and the expectations of the players. Cataclysm desperately needs to redress the balance.
I'm off to Tankaholics anonymous for another round of therapy.
mooma Feb 22nd 2010 6:38AM
Please let the person kicked see the reason why.
/signed also
And rather than asking the kicker to type in a reason, why not have a list of options, like:
- afk
- undergeared for instance
- underperforming for instance
- inappropriate behaviour