Officers' Quarters: Patch 4.0.1 -- An officer's perspective
by Scott Andrews 
Sep 20th 2010 at 11:00AM
Most major game patches have a significant impact on guild officers, and in the past I've tried to give an officers' perspective on how the changes to the game will affect the decisions and plans that we make moving forward. Unlike previous patch-perspective columns, however, a reader actually requested this one.
Hey Scott,
I'm a guild leader for a rather small 10-man raiding guild, and I got to thinking today about the upcoming pre-Cata patch that's going to change everything. See, Wrath was the first expansion of WoW that I, and many members of my guild, were ever really active in (a lot of us swapped over from another MMO, together), so I was wondering -- once the pre-Cata patch hits, should we continue raiding? From the grumblings I've been hearing on the PTR, numbers are all out of whack, and with some of the class changes coming, I was wondering if it'd even be a good idea to keep raiding once 4.0.1 hits. I've never experienced the "conversion" from one expansion to another on the raiding front, so I really have no idea what to expect as far as people's attitudes (not just guildies, but possible PUGs, too). In the other games I'd played, an expansion just meant new zones, storyline, etc., but WoW's expansion features a level cap increase, and in this case, a major overhaul in how we play.
Should I expect people to want to keep raiding? If we do keep raiding, should we do so under the pretense that it'll help us learn the major changes to our classes? Or should I just hang it all up and let people do their own thing until the expansion hits and we finish leveling to 85?
Usaya, Elune
Hi, Usaya. Fear not! It's always a strange time during the weeks leading up to an expansion, but it's mostly positive. In general, players will be excited about the game again. You should expect to see more players logging in and more players who want to take care of unfinished business before the new level cap trivializes existing content.
Your questions are focused on raiding, so I'll talk about that aspect of the patch first. The question for many guilds these days isn't whether you should raid but whether you can, given the level of interest and the amount of active players on your roster. Fielding a full team has been a struggle for many guilds, even as far back as February and March, let alone today after the longest content gap in WoW's history.
The raiding situation
If your guild is currently raiding, then there's no reason to stop after the patch drops. Players will want to try out their shiny, shorter talent trees and bust out new abilities against Arthas and his army of undead chumps. If your guild isn't currently raiding, the patch may provide the motivation your guild needs to put together a run. Put something on the schedule and see what happens.
The problem is, as you mention, the numbers will be all out of whack, and even Blizzard isn't sure how it will all shake out. Zarhym mentioned that Blizzard might even have to reduce the 30 percent buff in ICC once the new talents and stat changes go live because the fights would otherwise be far too easy. We won't know for sure how the changes affect our own raid team until we zone in for the first time. Ask your raid leaders to be patient with players while they learn how to deal with all the changes to their class.
If Zarhym's speculation is correct and the patch does indirectly nerf Wrath's raids, then we are likely to see a surge of interest in raiding much like at the end of The Burning Crusade, when raids were directly nerfed by about 30 percent across the board. Players who haven't beaten the Lich King or Halion will want to see those bosses die. Guilds who have been struggling on heroic Putricide or who could never beat Yogg+1 for their proto-drakes will suddenly have a great reason to keep trying.
Another reason to raid would be to farm legendaries for the guild achievement. If your guild doesn't already have a player with Thunderfury, Sulfuras, the Warglaives set, Thori'dal, Val'anyr or Shadowmourne, now is the time to try. You will get credit for obtaining them once guild achievements go live. There's an achievement for obtaining three of them and another one for obtaining all six (the Warglaives set counts as one).
I do recommend, however, taking a break from official guild runs for one or several weeks prior to Cataclysm's release. That gives everyone, especially your raid leaders, a break so they can hit the new content feeling fresh.
Speaking of achievements
Unfortunately, according to Mumper, guild achievements (and leveling) will not go live with 4.0.1 but instead will be added with the expansion itself. That is a major bummer. The new talents and UI changes will be nice for a while, but there won't be much new for players to, you know, do. Officers could have taken their guilds on major achievement-earning sprees to pass the time until Azeroth goes boom, but alas, we'll have to wait to work on the vast majority of them.
Even so, there are a few, like the legendary achievement, that you can get a head start on now or during 4.0.1:
- Guild Vault If you haven't purchased all available bank slots, now is the time to ask members to gather some gold for the cause. Consider hosting some GDKP runs if your guild is gold-poor but gear-rich.
- Dungeon Diplomat, etc. There are guild achievements for being exalted with various groups of factions, culminating in United Nations. The game already has 55 factions, so you can theoretically earn this achievement right now. Take a poll to see who has done the grind for the more difficult or obscure factions in the game. Then support individuals who volunteer to rep up with the factions your guild still needs.
- Dinner Party, etc. You can't get credit for placing feasts yet, but you can gather the mats and cook them. Gigantic Feast is probably the cheapest to craft, but it's not a particularly useful item. The same is true for most of the profession achievements, such as Dust, Dust, and More Dust. You can gather the items for it, but you have to hold onto them for now. I hope you bought all those bank vaults!
- Working as a Team Smaller guilds may not actually have all the professions covered. Consult the new guild UI to see what everyone has leveled up and try to fill in the gaps. Doing so is quite useful beyond earning the achievement.
The changes to the guild UI are pretty sweeping. They range from the mundane (class icons in the roster pane) to the mandatory -- guild leaders would have thrown a fit if Blizzard didn't improve the guild rank functionality (thankfully, they did). If you're planning to make major changes to your ranks, I'd suggest waiting for the patch to drop.
A new feature recently unveiled in the beta is the ability to bar members from specific guild ranks if they don't have an authenticator tied to their account. I'm crossing my fingers that this option goes live. If so, I will require an authenticator for every rank that has any guild bank access at all, and I recommend that every guild leader do the same. Access to any tab is access to everything for a hacker. Personally, it's getting really old putting four dozen stolen and then restored items back into the bank vaults. There is simply no excuse for a player not to have an authenticator these days. They've been available for years now; they're ultra-cheap; shipping is free if you need the hardware version; and they make life easier for yourself, your officers and Blizzard's staff. If you're an officer and you don't have one, you're risking some major hassles for you and your guild.
The new UI will also allow you to create events, manage the bank, sort members by several different criteria (including professions) and see who has done or looted what (much like the armory, but for the whole guild). Eventually, the guild UI will be your source of info for your guild's leveling, perks and rewards, as well as how much each member is contributing to your level.
A few other patch changes of note:
- The currency exchange will meld triumph and frost emblems into a single batch of points. You may want to encourage members who are currently in the process of gearing up to save their triumphs until after the patch. That way, they can use triumphs to purchase frost gear.
- The new stat system will in some cases radically change your players' gear. If you offer or sell gems and enchants from your guild bank, be sure to stock up on them now while there is less overall demand.
- Glyphs are also changing significantly (and will be permanent), so a stockpile of glyphs in the guild bank would be quite helpful to your members as well. In addition, you'll want your scribes to churn out a massive amount of Vanishing Powder so your raiders can optimize glyphs on the fly.
- Hunter pets will suddenly offer a wide array of raid buffs. If your raid is often missing one or more of these buffs, encourage your hunters to level pets of the appropriate type.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Brett Porter Sep 20th 2010 3:09PM
Wow I was going to relate my personal experience with authenticators and account comprimization, but Spark really hit the nail on the head.
I had an authenticator cuz it was free and neat, and took it off for a few days, since I had to switch phones. In that time I lost control of my account, and the hacker added their own authenticator. This happened right before vacation, awesome surprise eh?
I got all my stuffs back and my own authenticator back on, but it was a very frustrating situation. I *was* careful, I didn't go to phishing websites/emails. I still have no idea how they found out my password.
I for one am glad for the guild rank changes requiring an authenticator. So many guilds (or so I've heard) are requiring it anyways, this way it's easier to verify and keep track of.
Pyromelter Sep 20th 2010 3:25PM
@failbots claiming to be awesome cuz they never get hacked:
Something no one ever says is that your password can simply be brute-forced. There is NO... i repeat NO penalty for mis-typing your password. You can mis-type it 900,000,000,000 times, and nothing will happen. This isn't like a work login where 3 tries and your account is locked.
I'm about as sure as I can be that this is how my account was compromised last year, as I had all the precautions that you guys had.
Rialle Sep 20th 2010 5:56PM
@Darboux
I have a strong suspicion that this is the case as well. I believe that some of the lower end fan sites and various guild hosting sites may be less than secure. I have no proof, but it is a hunch.
I've never had my account compromised, but I also use a different username/password for each forum. In addition, I use different email addresses for various forums, and have a separate email account for each every game I play. (For example, my Battle.net account has one email address (and authenticator), my Turbine account has another, and my Sony Station account has yet another.)
This may be on the paranoid send of things, but I know immediately if a supposed mail related to a game is spam if it ends up in the wrong email box. Nobody but me and Blizzard should know the address on my Battle.net account.
However, I've noticed that I've recently gotten a lot of obviously spam emails sent to an address I used for guild forums a while back. While I never allow forums to publicly post my emails, somehow the spammers got this address. I suspect the forum's server may have been compromised and, at the very least, player email addresses were harvested. A bit after the spam started, I found out that one of the officers in the guild associated with these forums had their WoW account compromised. This could be a coincidence, though. People get phished/keylogged all the time.
Either way, you make a good point. You should keep your Battle.net password separate from passwords used in other places.
Rob Oct 12th 2010 7:37AM
So basically if a bear shat in the woods and you didn't see it, it didn't happen? Since you've never been hacked, will therefor lead to ever being hacked? What kind of arguement is this? It's nonsense.
Its probabilities. Even my best friend who refuses to use his authenticator (sigh), i'm sure will be hacked at some point. It's just statistics. No matter what.
Its just like STDs. You have sex enough with different people, you will get it. Its almost inevitable (unless you wear a condom, every single time you've EVER had sex). Do you know the rates of genetal herpes in this country? Something like 1 in 5. The clap isn't that far behind. Yeah yeah will never happen to you right. Sometimes i worry about the future.
chyllyphylly Sep 20th 2010 12:11PM
On the 4.0.1 PTR, I did a TOTC normal 10 man and the tanks were getting 2 shotted on Acidmaw & Dreadscale. They was wearing ICC gear.
I think the 30% buff would still be handy
(cutaia) Sep 20th 2010 12:40PM
Tanks in ICC gear have been getting one-shot in Naxx-10 on the PTR. It's because talents that are supposed to make tanks uncrittable weren't working in the beginning. I'm not sure if they're still broken on the test realm or not, but I don't think I'd worry about that come live.
Hiwa Sep 20th 2010 12:44PM
The first time my ICC geared resto druid healed a random in the beta was a couple weeks ago. We did CoS and--I kid you not--wiped 5 times. I've been scared to heal since then.
mdumoulin.home Sep 20th 2010 12:48PM
i've heard somewhere that they hadn't done any mobs-rebalancing for all WoTLK raids, yet.
Boobah Sep 20th 2010 12:57PM
One of Blizzard's encounter guys mentioned this past week that some of the background data that many, many, mobs use to determine their stats was modified recently; specifically, it (unintentionally) boosted the ICC mobs, in particular.
Since I suspect (on no real basis, mind you) that it was more-or-less the same action that boosted the stats of all the 65+ mobs out in the open, it would obviously apply to not just ICC but all the Wrath dungeons and raids (and most of the BC ones, to a lesser extent since the modification scaled with level.)
Of course, having your (in theory) crit-immune tanks get crit is likely to also cause problems.
Kira Sep 20th 2010 12:38PM
Personally, if the authenticator lock goes live, I won't be playing anymore until they start either A] Making them available for free in the hardware version, or B] making them availble on a much MUCH wider array of mobile platforms. Not everyone has the disposable income for an iPhone or hardware authenticator. Buying an authenticator would mean not playing wow for a month for me anyway, and if I'm going to be hassled that much just to play a game, I'd rather give my money to CCP and hunt pirates in EvE.
(cutaia) Sep 20th 2010 12:44PM
That reasoning is a bit flawed. Blizzard is hardly forcing you to buy an authenticator. They're simply giving officers the ability to protect certain levels of guild bank access via authenticators.
Find a guild that doesn't require it, or accept a guild rank that doesn't require it and you'll be set, sans-authenticator. Either way, it's your GM/officers you need to appeal to...not Blizzard.
ramblingrose29 Sep 20th 2010 1:10PM
blizzard authenticator hardware version is $6.50 last time i looked. If you can afford to play wow, you can afford to buy one. Pure and simple.
Kira Sep 20th 2010 1:13PM
no it isnt... if you have just enough to squeeze wow into your budget, and no money after that, you dont have enough to buy an authenticator... playing wow doesnt magically give you additional money to buy an authenticator...
Rialle Sep 20th 2010 1:14PM
Actually, this is one of the smartest things Blizzard has ever done. We've all seen or heard of guild banks being wiped out because a single officer was loose with their credentials, or got infected with malware. This way a guild leader can ensure that every account with significant access to the guild bank is reasonably secured. In fact, I'd even go as far to say that any leader who doesn't use this feature is being irresponsible.
I know that there are a lot of guilds that won't use it because they have officers who like to swap account info. So I'm sure you can find a guild who doesn't use it if you don't like it.
I honestly wish that Blizzard WOULD force everyone on Battle.net to have an authenticator, period, but I understand that many people would complain about it. This solution is a reasonable compromise, because at least the guild leaders can take measures to lock their banks down.
Kira Sep 20th 2010 1:23PM
to be clear, I have nothing against locking people without authenticators out of the guild bank, in fact, I think thats a slendid idea and think it should be mandatory. The thing I have a problem with is locking people out of officer ranks because they dont have one. I'm an officer in my guild, and our officers aren't responsible for getting things from the guild bank for people for the most part, but having it so guild bank item requests go through an officer, or at least some member with an authenticator would be nice.
Although I do have to point out that hackers have been adding authenticators to accounts they hack lately, so it wouldn't necessarily keep the guild bank safe anyway.
(cutaia) Sep 20th 2010 2:12PM
"to be clear, I have nothing against locking people without authenticators out of the guild bank, in fact, I think thats a slendid idea and think it should be mandatory. The thing I have a problem with is locking people out of officer ranks"
But...ranks=guild bank access. So, if this is that huge of a problem, then why can't your GM make an authenticator-free officer rank without guild bank access for folks like you? Presumably, if you're a valued enough member of the guild to become an officer, this is something the GM would do for you, right?
"Although I do have to point out that hackers have been adding authenticators to accounts they hack lately, so it wouldn't necessarily keep the guild bank safe anyway."
Hey there! You just proved exactly why you're wrong here.
Option one: Set authenticators to be required for "ranks." So, if a lower ranking member gets hacked and an authenticator gets added...so? They're still in a "rank" that has no guild bank access. So, unless your GM promotes the hacker to a higher rank, then nothing will happen.
Option two: Set authenticators to be required for "guild bank access." A member has a good rank (like say you, an officer), but doesn't have access to the guild bank because they don't have an authenticator. They get hacked and an authenticator is added. Yay! Now the hacker DOES have guild bank access!
Kira Sep 20th 2010 12:49PM
I shouldn't have to choose between guild and authenticator. Personally, I think the authenticators should be free anyway. I don't see any good guild not turning this on though, so it's pretty much a no win situation for me. Not to mention that at the rate I lose thumb drives, and the authenticator being about the same size, I'd probably end up losing it, and the fact that I have seen my friends with authenticators get hacked, where as I have not, mostly by using my wow computer for nothing but wow, not even web surfing, and still putting it in fort knox mode. (I know, you'd think I would take the easier route of getting an authenticator) but the fact of the matter is that I could afford the time spent on securing my system where I could not afford the money to buy an authenticator or an iphone. If I could actually get the mobile app on my phone, I would, but I can't, and the only person who can change that is blizzard.
Chad Carlson Sep 20th 2010 1:20PM
I just had to laugh when I read this comment. everyone must allocate their money as they see fit, but it seems a bit of a logic gap for someone who can afford to have a "wow only" computer, and another computer for web surfing (i.e. commenting on this site), to give as their reason for not having a $6.50 authenticator as "not being able to afford one". Maybe that's just me not having a clear picture of the situation though.
nieboh Sep 20th 2010 1:23PM
I agree with you that the authenticators should be free. I think one should be included in the expansion box along with the dvd and whatever else comes in the box.
However, since it seems unlikely they will do that, you might consider taking a month off so you can save up that $6 and buy the authenticator.
Eyhk Sep 20th 2010 1:26PM
It's $6.50 for one. If you can afford a happy meal, and you are in good enough health to skip a meal, you'll have an authenticator. Just latch it to your keys and you should be good to go (hopefully you don't lose your keys at the rate you lose your thumb drives). It's still hardware that needs to be built and has a cost. If your guild likes you and trusts you as much as you like your guild, they might ease up the rules. If your guild decides not to add the authenticator rule, then you are all set. Again, that's for your guild to decide, not Blizzard.