Blue Posts: Remember that MoP talents are not 100% done
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 10th 2012 at 9:00PM
Zarhym's judge-ness been taken up to the Dredd degree.
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Blue posts
Nakatoir -- Remember MoP are not complete
Quote:
Before I begin I am MORE than aware of the talents not being 100% solid and they may change, but as they are shown now I would like to elaborate.
Before I begin I am MORE than aware of the talents not being 100% solid and they may change, but as they are shown now I would like to elaborate.
Thank you for your feedback on the Warlock talents, however as you have mentioned the talents are not set in stone right now and may change. You have to remember that the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator was placed on the website towards the end of November last year and it has not been updated on the website since. During these past few months of development though, there would have been major changes that are not able to see yet.
We will probably not be updating the talent calculator until we're around about at the point of the friends and family alpha test. The reason for this is that it is not exactly useful or efficient for us to be continuously updating the calculator at this stage.
-----
There have been no announcements for when an update to the Talent Calculator will be released. But I am sure we are all hoping for a more up-to-date talent calculator to be revealed, because I know everyone would like to see what has been done to refine and improve upon the ones we see now! :o
Takralus -- Out into the world
Well, one of our aims with Mists is to get players out of the cities and back into the world again, so you'll get your change of scenery :)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Drakkenfyre Feb 10th 2012 9:31PM
"We want players out in the world, instead of sitting around cities, so we're removing portals from Shattrath and Dalaran."
(Places portals to new zones in SW and Orgrimmar.)
Noyou Feb 10th 2012 10:13PM
Yeah, just one of many examples of their double talk. I personally thing that more portals = more people going out. I do fully expect them to take the current portals out of SW. It will be nice if they leave them- especially Hyjal and Uldum, those make some nice short cuts for world travel. I would love for them to throw a portal to Shatt back into Dalaran. I mean, you should always have easy access from one expac to the previous one. Since there is a portal from Shatt to SW/ORG I don't see why not.
Drakkenfyre Feb 10th 2012 10:28PM
Someone posted a very interesting quote from Bashiok in the Diablo 3 beta forums.
The first part is an older comment by a player. The second one was part of Bashiok's response.
"I was reading an earlier thread and someone brought up the idea of end game and how a 4th difficulty could solve the problem of the repetitive end game in diablo 2 and thought it deserved its own thread.
What if in order to stop players from having to play the last part of the game over and over again on hell to level up, if there was a final difficulty where all acts were of at least somewhat equal difficulty where high level 80s or 90s could go to get experience and any point of the game? Obviously there are other issues that could go along with it but it’s an interesting idea."
"I'm sorry for putting the idea down outright, but it's not a very sexy solution to make the end game more interesting or exciting. Sort of just draws it out, or maybe resolves some pacing issues that existed in Diablo II, which was a different game."
Then a few months later, they announce Inferno difficulty level, which is exactly what the player described.
Saying one thing, then doing the complete opposite seems to be becoming a trend with Blizzard lately.
Cyno01 Feb 11th 2012 5:04AM
As much spam and idiocy and [anal] nonsense that goes on... i sorta enjoy trade chat sometimes. Good coverstions with some of the late night regulars, able to catch an old dungeon run or something sometimes, interesting trades maybe. Heck, just tonight i took a port from SW to IF instead of the tram because i was chatting with people in trade and didnt wanna miss anything in the 5 minutes id be in the tram zone. I remember a lot of times in wrath i could have been out farming or something but instead i was sitting in Dalaran in case there was a group for the weekly, or an ICC pug or VoA group forming... Socialization is a big part of the game, but its a big world, you go out in the world to quest or farm or something... youre generally completely alone.
Now maybe im completely wrong about this and everybody would hate this idea, but if blizz wants to get people out of the cities... why not a world general chat channel?
Skarn Feb 11th 2012 2:55PM
"Saying one thing, then doing the complete opposite seems to be becoming a trend with Blizzard lately."
To an extent I can see why this bothers people, but mostly it just seems silly. The idea that Blizzard can NOT change it's mind EVER and that it MUST stick with whatever it said the first time is simply ludicrous. Obviously they've made some bad decisions. So? They're human. Everyone reading this has made stupid decisions that they later looked at and said "why did I DO that?" It flies directly in the face of "Blizzard never listens to the players" complaints. So Blizzard listens to and implements a suggestion for Diablo 3, but we complain about this? I don't get it.
There IS a case to be made for changing their mind too much, but that's still kinda iffy. How do you decide what is too much anyway? While I'm an outsider, I doubt this amount of "design churn" is that unusual for Blizzard. It's likely always been this way since the early days of Warcraft. Everything is vastly more transparent now, possibly the most transparent designers out there.
Yeah, I like Blizzard. They do a good job. Sure, they screw up sometimes. Welcome to life.
Drakkenfyre Feb 11th 2012 3:54PM
No, changing their minds is fine. But when they say "We aren't doing this", then turn around and do it anyway, or do the opposite, it gets to be annoying.
When they give one reason for doing something, then turn around and do exactly what they said the previous change is for, it looks like they are flat-out lying to us. They removed the portals out of Shattrath City and Dalaran because they didn't want people hanging out in those cities and porting everywhere, instead of hanging out in the shiny new areas. But they give us the excuse "we want players out in the world" when they PUT THE ACCESS TO THE NEW ZONES EXCLUSIVELY IN THE MAIN FACTION CAPITALS. That's smacks of an excuse. Don't lie to us. Tell us you want us to leave old content (Blizzard has always dropped old content quickly as soon as new content comes out, which makes sense in one way, but can frustrate people who are still doing the old content, or when the new content lacks (such as the lack of portals) compared to the old content) instead of giving us bullshit reasons which you will just prove isn't the reason to begin with.
The Diablo 3 quote is funny because the player described a very real problem, and a solution. Bashiok replied basically "sorry, this idea sucks, and we won't implement such a crappy idea", then the team turns around and announces the very thing the player described (even showing the new difficulty level at gaming expos and BlizzCon.) Of course in this situation, it's a difference of months, but when one of the top game CM's says "idea sucks, we won't use it", then turns around and they use it, no one can deny it looks funny.
They have also flipped back and forth on chat channels. Bashiok has announced they aren't doing public chat, then they are, then they aren't, now they are again. People want public chat channels, but each time they said they weren't doing them, they gave us bullshit reasons why not. The fact is they don't want public chat channels were people can troll and spam. So because of that, they were going to remove a very popular feature of Diablo 2 that most people actually used for it's intended purpose. But the excuse we got fed is some bullshit blah blah blah "not productive to the game/personal chat is better/our solution is better" or whatever the excuse is at the time. The current word is we are getting public chat channels.
Changing your mind while making a game is fine, But don't give us a bullshit excuse for why you did something one way, while turning around and doing something else contrary to the bullshit excuse you gave us in the first place. Don't act like your players are idiots and can't see the real reason here, and why you are doing what you said you are doing.
Al Feb 11th 2012 5:47PM
That's another vexing thing about Blizzard; their mutually exclusive goals.
What happened to the Dalaran portals? "We want people out in the world."
Why is everything useful only in SW/Org? "Those are the faction 'main' capitals, as such we want them to feel like cities."
Great, I'll be in Ironforge until you can pick a direction.
Noyou Feb 10th 2012 10:12PM
"We will probably not be updating the talent calculator until we're around about at the point of the friends and family alpha test." - Very nice piece of info, thank you Nakatoir!
So we will know approximately when they start F&FA. I'm guessing they will let them play with the current model for at least a week before they tweak it.
Amaxe Feb 10th 2012 10:20PM
It's an interesting point all right. I was wondering how long it was from F&Fa alpha to release. Given it's February now, and considering it will take some time to press the discs (unless they go pure download) and ship to the stores, I'm wondering how long they'll have to test the game if they're shooting for a 2012 release.
Given how rushed some of the Cata talents and tradeskills felt, I don't want them rushing MoP.
Snuzzle Feb 11th 2012 10:59AM
Yeah, I was anticipating the March press release to be the announcement of Beta starting. I was convinced they had to be in alpha by now, with how polished everything looked at Blizzcon and the talent updates they've been doing. I guess I was wrong, and this pretty much rules out a Summer release.
If Alpha starts in March, then they have their average 2 months' alpha, 4 months' beta, that puts us at the earliest a September release. That's another expansion with a year of raiding the final big baddie. No one wants that. So the alternative is rushing? Hamfisting in another Ruby Sanctum? I don't know.
We all like Blizzard quality, but having to sit around doing the same thing for a year is no fun for anyone, and we'll see a LOT more subs drop if they do this.
Amaxe Feb 10th 2012 10:11PM
If they really wanted to get serious about getting people out of the cities, they'd make the instances like Vanilla and TBC where you had to actually travel to them, not removing portals. (If you want to queue for a random, get to a summoning stone).
Most of the people in the cities are waiting for their queue to pop up.
/It doesn't matter how fast I duck, I'm going to get slammed for that one ;-P
As for the Blue comment, "the talents are not set in stone right now and may change" is it too much to hope for that they'll dump the idea and reform the system used from Vanilla to now?
Jack Mynock Feb 10th 2012 10:50PM
Probably not, since the new system is more interesting, more flexible, and pretty much just better.
Shrikesnest Feb 10th 2012 10:59PM
Sorry, Amaxe. I like ya. But going backward on queues is slashing your jugular vein to spite your face. Getting people out in the world is a less pressing concern than making dungeons take an hour to queue for, and having everyone clustered around various group stones instead of in cities isn't really a vibrant new direction for the world. Certainly not a worthy tradeoff for the first thing.
If I may engage in a little douchey self-quoting, "Complaining about not having to spam trade for groups is like complaining that video games were more fun when the packages were harder to open."
Noyou Feb 10th 2012 11:24PM
I agree with part of that Amaxe. If they really wanted people to be out- they would make substantial reasons to go out. I can't stand staying in SW, so I will go out just about anywhere else. Even if it's the little lake or driving around in the canals (waterwalking and chopper ftw) I don't know how people can just stand or hover on their mount. I am assuming they are chatting or playing/watching a movie. If I want to watch a movie- I will watch a movie- I don't get that whole phenomenon either. I'm probably just old. For the people who do like to travel- I wish Blizzard would reward us with the portals we had in LK along with the ability to do dailies in more cities (I'm looking at you Exodar and SMC). I would keep all my toons out of SW if I didn't have to do the JC daily there.
DarkWalker Feb 10th 2012 11:22PM
For me, making me travel to the instance in order to queue won't make me travel more. It will make me queue, and play, less.
Akin to what I plan to do regarding scenarios. The last word about them is that we will have to travel to them in order to queue. This basically means I will do each one once, to see the story unfold, and then ignore them ever after. The way I hate travel time, I would rather have a 20-minutes queue for a heroic dungeon than have to spend 5 extra minutes traveling in order to have instant queues for a scenario.
brain314 Feb 10th 2012 11:28PM
I miss traveling to dungeons, but the genie's been let out of the lamp. We all now know the ease and convenience of the current LFD system. Removing that will result in endless QQs.
Amaxe Feb 10th 2012 11:59PM
FWIW, I don't expect Blizz to actually go that route, and it isn't really practical. It just seems odd to me that Blizz is missing the point on what makes people hang around in cities.
I think the queue system and people hanging around in cities is permanently linked, and they would need to break one to solve the other. They won't, so they really are missing the point by removing portals. That's merely inconveniencing the people who want to go outside of the cities and quest.
As for the MoP talents, sorry, but I hate the feel and fear it will be the "Holy Bar" of MoP (did I mention I hated that?)
icepyro Feb 11th 2012 12:02AM
For once, I disagree with you.
If they want people to leave the cities, they do need to give a reason. That reason shall not be going to portal stones and spamming /1 looking for a group. Not only is that time consuming for little to no gain, but it removes the everything LFD tried to do: make getting into an instance faster, easier, cross-realm, etc.
No, if they want people to leave, they can give us a reason. And they are working on it, it seems. DMF is better than ever, the holidays are nice and keeping me busy at least, and they are working on trying to make dailies into something worth doing, although admitedly they still haven't made them not feel like just a chore.
As for the talent thing, I think there needs to be something in between current and the new. While putting a point into something there is only one place it can go seems silly, it shows a level of progression that going back to your trainer just doesn't do. At the same time, choosing between talents that are supposedly equal may give some choice (and a chance to pick up things that were not part of your favorite spec previously), but if it really doesn't matter, then well, it doesn't really matter, does it? Not to mention that it's nice when in a dungeon or far out that you can get some abilities without a trainer. Passive abilities in particular just feel right not needing a trainer.
Amaxe Feb 11th 2012 12:08AM
"For once, I disagree with you."
You mean somebody actually agreed with me sometime? O_O;;;
more seriously, I hope my clarification above makes my point better. The queue isn't going away of course (and probably would tick off too many people to succeed). I just think Blizz has been missing the point of why people gather in cities in their attempts to encourage people to leave cities by getting rid of portals.
I mean while leveling people will be out there leveling, but come level 90 things will back to the same old same old.
Hopefully that makes my point more clear.
SamLowry Feb 11th 2012 2:52AM
Remember in the final days of Wrath we were told that we wouldn't be able to even queue for a Cata dungeon until after we had visited it? So what did folks do? They visited them with alts they didn't care about to see what they were like, and after deciding which were the bad ones they never visited them with their mains.
How long did that last before Blizz said "Screw it, we're going back to the old way," eh?