Blizzard answers your questions in Ask the Devs Q&A
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 14th 2011 at 4:00PM
Questions this time out ranged from PvP/PvE balance issues to death knight mastery runeforges to why moonkin don't have Execute. I personally found the discussions on Outland quest flow and why Blizzard doesn't just separate PvP and PvE spells to be pretty interesting. Take a look and pose your own questions if you don't see what you wanted answered this time out.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
kala Mar 14th 2011 4:06PM
Fix the title:
"Blizzard gives same answers to your questions in Ask the Devs Q&A they have been given last 5 years"
Ice Mar 14th 2011 4:22PM
This.
Really disappointing once again. Atleast its more often than twice a year (one of them in blizzcon)
"Will we get more room in bags!"
"Why wont you just seperate pvp/pve"
"Tabards for keyrings?"
"Will we get new char models?"
Then quite few "hows pvp balance in arena/my class?".
Le sigh.
Sky Mar 14th 2011 4:46PM
If you dont want the devs to answer the same questions over and over then stop asking the same questions over and over. Instead of whining and putting the blame on the devs, you should just come up with your own 'interesting' question to ask.
To be fair, not all of them were the same questions. I really liked the Paladin mastery question (which was the subject of a Chase Christian article yesterday) and the Druid execute question.
Seriously guys, the devs are not required to do this for you and yet they still do it for the community. So stop acting like entitled bastards and just appreciate what is given to you instead of whining and complaining all the time.
/endrant
ENOUGH! Mar 14th 2011 4:53PM
Oh when did we get a time machine?
Felt like 2006 all over again. Only them the issues were 4 years younger. So basically expect nothing.
N-train Mar 14th 2011 5:02PM
I honestly fail to see how it is Blizzard's fault that people can't seem to get these answers through their heads.
The guy below this accurately pointed out that they did, in fact, answer most of the top ranked questions.
They took the most popular questions and answered them, which is exactly what they said they would do... They didn't say they'd skip over the same questions they've been asked 900 times.
loop_not_defined Mar 14th 2011 5:45PM
1. Re-iterated points in a blog format that, previously, they've only answered in the needle-in-the-haystack we call the "General Discussion Forums".
2. Specified how they want to "clean up" Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King questing, not just that they want to do it.
3. Specified how they're going to approach the next Archeology update, not just that they want to do it.
4. Implied they might make Rated Battlegrounds more "casual friendly".
5. Implied they'll be upping the reward output of Rated Battlegrounds.
6. Touched on some Death Knight and Paladin masteries, as well as Boomkin and Hunter concerns.
7. Explained their thought on Guild Cauldrons for healers.
I give this one a B+ and look forward to the next Q&A.
Ice Mar 14th 2011 5:49PM
@Sky
I do agree on that somewhat, maybe not that rudely mind you.
I did ask the same what I asked in queue (ZA and ZG as 20-30 instances) but I guess noone really got intrested on those, sadly.. I really wanted their opinion how much they will add low level dungeons too.
But like I said, good thing this will be "weekly" feature not like those "Ask devs hosted by best buy!" or "by twitter" that they do maybe once a year.
Intrested to see how this builds up, I guess I dont mind getting old questions out of the way first. If this was one of those "once a year" types then I would whine even more. Also I totally forgot about the "most upvoted" part, my bad.
Just remember to thumbs up good questions in the blog posts too, not just post questions in future then
loop_not_defined Mar 14th 2011 5:52PM
@kala and ENOUGH,
Nobody was really asking about updated character models, tabards, etc. 5 years ago. That was still Vanilla. Try cutting down on the extreme exaggerations.
Shrikesnest Mar 14th 2011 8:07PM
Huh. People keep asking the same questions, and are FURIOUS that they continue to get the same answer. Gee, guys, I'm sorry the answer to your pet questions wasn't "It's going on the PTR tomorrow!" which I'm sensing is the only answer you would have been happy with.
There is a list of things that some of the players want that's low on the priority list, but not impossible. It'll always be that way. Tough.
mazca13 Mar 14th 2011 4:29PM
While there's a standard torrent of whine in the thread about the devs obviously not answering popular questions, you can see from the threads that they actually answered nearly all of the top-voted questions, with a few exceptions for some particularly unhelpful loaded questions and near-duplicates. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/search?q=Ask%20the%20Devs&s=popularity&f=post
Sagretti Mar 14th 2011 4:31PM
Maybe I'm just a bit jaded, but the answers to most of the more interesting questions read about the same, "We really want to do something, are planning something, but won't give details/timeframe/promises/any details making this worth reading." Their response to the character model issue ("We’re just looking for the right time to dive into that enormous task") is especially disheartening because it implies they haven't even started on it.
I almost wish they would have lumped together the Outlands/Character Model/Customization/etc questions and given them a quick "working on it, can't talk about it" response so they could address more things they can actually talk about.
Skarn Mar 14th 2011 9:04PM
The trick is that if they were ready to announce details regarding an Appearance Slot or Rated Battlegrounds changes or new Archaeology items or updated Character Models or a Tabard Storage System, then they would just make an announcement! They already said (somewhere) that they weren't going to use these Q&As to make huge announcements. In fact, they're probably not even sure what they'll use 'em for except to give answers to common questions in a centralized spot.
The best you are going to get out of generalized questions like new character models, appearance tab, vanilla servers and so on is going to be a general answer. Either it will be "we like the idea and are actively working on it" for models, appearance tab, etc. Or you'll get "the idea is bad and we are not going to do it" for vanilla servers and the like. You might get a bit of their thinking as to why or why not, as was offered in the "PvE/PvP rulesets" question.
You're not going to get "this is the exact plan we have for WoW for the next 5 years" so it's silly to expect that.
Sagretti Mar 14th 2011 11:04PM
I fully agree we won't see better answers to those questions, which is why I wish they'd spend less time focusing on them. They have to acknowledge them since they were highly rated, but it seems too much of the Q&A was spent answering unanswerable things. Hopefully it's just a side-effect of it being the first of the Q&As and they'll avoid such questions a little better in the future.
Skarn Mar 15th 2011 12:26AM
I hope so too. The split topics should help too. Hopefully with a more focused topic than "everything ever" we can get more focused questions too.
perderedeus Mar 14th 2011 4:44PM
To their credit, "flying in Azeroth" was one of those "maybe one day!" items.
Sky Mar 14th 2011 4:47PM
As was dual specs
Pepijn Mar 14th 2011 4:51PM
whats up with the 10yd range of spirit link totem, and even if its range is going to be increased, I don't think this is going to be my favorite cooldown, 10% damage reduction =(, and instead of throwing 1 big heal, you gotta throw like 5 small heals Dx
Boobah Mar 14th 2011 5:58PM
Or you could just throw a Chain Heal or Healing Rain.
Ice Mar 14th 2011 5:59PM
Dont forget it equalises the health of people inside it. Its very strategic totem, sometimes very very good one too. As devs have said in the past "totem placement should matter". I know it can feel clunky but hey..it can be good too.
For example if theres 2 people inside the 10 yards of the spirit totem.
One at 10% one at 90% (numbers are examples) when you pop the totem the guy at 10% will go to 50% and guy at 90% will go to 50% too. Quite unique and interesting mechanic if you ask me =P
TonyKP Mar 14th 2011 4:58PM
Q: Moonkins lack the “execution” phase spell or talent, is that an intended design and why? –輕體小子 (Taiwan)
A: While it’s true that a lot of character classes have a special ability they can use at the 20% health mark, we didn’t set out to make sure everyone had one. Balance druids have changed a lot in the last two expansions and went from a pretty simple rotation (spam Wrath or Starfire) to a pretty complex one. We’re not sure at this time they need yet another mechanic to manage, but it’s a potential design direction to explore for the future.
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Remove Eclipse. Add Execute. Tada, less mechanics to manage, more effective spec.