The Daily Quest: A modest proposal
by Anne Stickney 
Apr 8th 2011 at 9:00PM
WoW Insider's on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
There's been a lot of new news from the 4.1 PTR and elsewhere lately, from the standard nerfs and buffs to changes in the way things work, like new incentives for the dungeon finder and new features for the World of Warcraft Remote service. As with all changes, people are talking about them, and today we've got a few posts from around the blogosphere with reactions and suggestions to those changes.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
- Cynwise's Battlefield Manual mourns the lost puppy and ponders the powers of the girl everyone hates.
- Big Bear Butt considers the potentials of the new guild chat options for phones.
- The Noisy Rogue has some controversial suggestions for alternatives to the new dungeon finder Call to Arms.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
cyanea85 Apr 8th 2011 9:25PM
The last article is...wow. Someone's bitter.
DragonFireKai Apr 9th 2011 4:14AM
The Noisy rogue's proposal is poorly thought out, short sighted, spiteful, and would have the exact opposite effect of what Blizzard is trying to acheive with CtA. Punishing tanks will increase the amount of time that DPS spend in queue by a very wide marging, as every tank that leaves the LFD pool means 3 more DPS get stuck in line. And by bleeding the punishment over into other facets of the game, they'd get many tanks to quit the game entirely. All he'd wind up with is a server populated by rogues, mages, locks, and hunters, all wondering why they've been waiting in the queue for 6 hours and why they can't find a single tank to carry them in BH.
Karcharos Apr 9th 2011 7:41AM
There's a nice rejoinder in the comments on that post:
"So how about an account flag that doesn’t let you queue as dps in LFD unless you have tanked one on an alt that day?"
DragonFireKai Apr 9th 2011 8:34AM
DragonFireKai Apr 9th 2011 8:32AM
I was bouncing around ideas for lowering DPS queues in Blacksen's threads on MMO champ and on battle.net, and I had a similar idea. A better setup for that particular idea was to give account credits for tanking an instance that allowed you to jump ahead of people without the credits in the DPS queue if you queue as DPS on a different character.
The problem with suggestions like that is that they run counter to Blizzard's ideas that people shouldn't be penalized for what they can and can't do. That's why Blizz has opted to reward tanks for tanking, rather than penalizing DPS. Adding a credit system, or a tank debt system, like was suggested, while they would lower the queue for DPS who participate in the system, DPS who refuse to tank would suffer even longer queues than they do already, effectively penalizing them for not tanking.
The current CtA setup is smart. It's flexible and will adjust to shifts in the population. It's based on proven principles, and is garunteed to lower queue times. Most importantly, however, is that everyone is better off with CtA, than they were without it, even the people who don't get the satchel reap benefits.
Sleutel Apr 9th 2011 9:13PM
Maybe next week he'll suggest sending hired goons to my apartment to beat the shit out of me if I don't queue for at least three random dungeons each week.
WoW is a game. Games are for fun. Being forced to queue for dungeons I don't need so that someone who rolled a DPS spec can have a shorter queue, even though I need literally nothing out of that dungeon, is the most selfish, stupid, short-sighted suggestion I can possibly imagine.
Blizzard figured out early on that people respond much better to rewards than to punishments--consider how they altered the rested XP system. This guy is just another blogger no one on the dev team will ever (fortunately) listen to.
Chrisvolta Apr 8th 2011 9:44PM
Just roll a healer or tank...I haven't got a dps class to it higest lvl yet but I have 3 healers and a tank...
Amaxe Apr 9th 2011 9:44AM
Not all of us can.
I've never had a Instance level healer because my latency makes me unable to give the rapid response needed.
I used to Tank in Vanilla/TBC. Quite simply, I disliked it (and now that I am at high latency, I know I can't).
Since the game should be about playing what you want and not being shanghaied into a set role (that was how I was brought into tanking at about level 50), I think this is the problem which needs to be addressed, not "Bribe the lowest represented role to play more"
Chrisvolta Apr 9th 2011 5:23PM
I don't think its an issue at all. If you play a class no one wants to play you get rewarded ie. a Healer or Tank. I mean both the healer and tank are still less than half the whole party and way less then half the whole wow population. And as far as latency is concerned I live in Yosemite National Park pretty much in the middle of nowhere and my latency is high but I deal with it and still am able to heal at a high lvl.
MusedMoose Apr 8th 2011 10:02PM
So the Noisy Rogue's solution to the tanking shortage in heroics is... give them a buff that will help them raid, which they can only get by tanking heroics, thus forcing them to run those heroics if they want to raid effectively.
....right. Because forcing tanks to do something they don't want to do with people whom they probably don't want to do it with will keep tanks queueing. Of course.
*facepalm*
omedon666 Apr 8th 2011 10:12PM
Perfect timing!
After a bit of a dragon age fueled hiatus, the CTA was enough to fire up "Tales from the Void" again!
http://omedon666.livejournal.com/80293.html
Kurtzilla1111 Apr 8th 2011 10:56PM
Your reference to A Modest Proposal (With the pictures) is terrifyingly amazing. I first read this satirical essay not even a week ago in English class. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest that you do so.
http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/mdprp10.htm
MusedMoose Apr 8th 2011 11:24PM
I'm just glad I'm not the only one who got the reference. ^_^
Saeadame Apr 9th 2011 6:24AM
Heh, I still remember that from my English 101 class a few years ago. It's quite a memorable essay.
adam200 Apr 10th 2011 9:28PM
I too am I glad I'm not the only one who thought of that.
gojou Apr 11th 2011 4:32AM
Same here.
Kurtzilla1111 Apr 8th 2011 11:05PM
Your reference to A Modest Proposal (With the pictures) is terrifyingly amazing. I first read this satirical essay not even a week ago in English class. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest that you do so.
http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/mdprp10.htm
bobikinbobwalker Apr 9th 2011 12:03AM
Wow, that third post is... wow.
So, are tanks the enemy now? Do - do you guys hate me? Please don't hate me.
Amaxe Apr 9th 2011 12:44AM
Tanks aren't the enemies. The enemies are the "QQ moar" types who don't care about what doesn't hurt them.
Unfortunately they come in Tank, Heals and DPS varieties.
It's the second reason why I wouldn't PuG (the first being bad latency and not wanting to hold anyone back).
Personally, I think the problem with the whole "bribe the tank" system is that the design system is flawed. There has always been a tank shortage, and Blizz has never been able to fill that need because the demand for tanks is higher than those who want to tank.
There may be no good way to make it work, but I wish we could get away from the tank+healer+3 DPS model and let the players bring along the toons they think are most fun to play.
BenMS Apr 9th 2011 12:35AM
Yeah, controversial is certainly one word you could use to describe that last guy's post.
Ineffably fucking retarded are also words that could be used.
Amaxe Apr 9th 2011 12:46AM
Ultimately this is the most likely problem with Blizz' proposal:
http://www.thedailyblink.com/comics/2011-04-08-133.jpg