Posts with tag developers

Ever since earlier this year, Blizzard's API data streams from the WoW Armory have hit the scene in a big way, with developers creating such awesome web tools as apps for better gear checking, more accurate reforging calculators, and transmogrification fashion websites. As Blizzard continues to push its API data to web developers and app creators, the API usage policy is finally here with guidelines on how this data is to be used and what limitations exist for premium applications.

The third-party API usage policy has a lot in common with Blizzard's addon creation and usage policy. No premium applications or web tools that use WoW API data are allowed, which means you will not be able to be charged for access to information that is freely given. App creators will also not be able to put commercials or advertisements inside of applications that hinder the use of the application and data. Developers will, however, be able to host these apps or web tools on hosting that has advertisements -- you just can't force people to watch them or do something in order to use the app. Remember, you should not be paying for applications that use this data.

Take a look at the full third-party API usage policy after the break. If you're interesting in coding with these new APIs to create programs, web tools, or mobile apps, check out Blizzard's community platform API forum on the WoW community site. You will be in awesome company.

Several players and Community Manager Lylirra shared some discussion today on the official World of Warcraft forums about the cooldowns of novelty items crafted through the archaeology profession.

In the thread, the original poster suggested that the cooldowns of certain novelty items were too long in comparison to others and that Blizzard should consider fixing the discrepancies. The poster used Pendant of the Scarab Storm and Bones of Transformation as an example, noting that both items have a vanity effect that lasts 20 seconds but a cooldown difference of 90 minutes.

Lylirra responded, explaining that the cooldowns, though seemingly random, were chosen with specific issues in mind. She explains that with the Pendant of the Scarab Storm specifically, developers were concerned that the item's effect might strain certain players' computers.

Archaeology Items' Cooldowns

The current cooldown was chosen deliberately, but I can see why you might think otherwise (100 minutes is kind of strange for a cooldown time).

Anyway, summoning a harem of scarabs can be pretty taxing on some systems, so there were some initial concerns about putting the pendant on a short cooldown. Based on the feedback we've received, though, we're looking into reducing it. We agree that the effect is pretty cool and would be nice to use it more frequently.

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Personally, a little lore logic behind the items might be nice as well. How is it that my character can summon a god every 3 minutes, but it takes 10 minutes to round up some sassy dwarven ladies?

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Blue poster Nethaera took some time earlier today to answer a few questions posted on the official forums regarding the chain of command between community managers (CMs), developers, and of course, everyone's favorite crustacean, Ghostcrawler (Greg Street, lead systems designer). While Nethaera couldn't answer every question posed, she was able to give a few insights into the interplay between the various departments running the scenes, as well as a few tips about giving constructive feedback.

Nethaera

What examples are best to use to give GC and the Devs an accurate depiction of what has/has been happening?

Information about your class, your playstyle, the types of issues you're running into such as whether you're using a certain spec or certain spells and abilities when you're running into issues. The more specific you can be, the better really. Numbers are good on one level, but sometimes the numbers don't say whether you're having "fun" or not.

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Follow us after the break for more insights.

This should be epic. Are you in the Cataclysm beta? Are you man/woman enough to go toe-to-toe with the big, bad devs themselves? The Cataclysm developers are challenging the players to a focused playtest of Tol Barad on Monday, Sept. 27 at 4 p.m. PST. Here's the full announcement:

Mumper -- Tol Barad Focus Test w/ Devs

We are planning to do a focused playtest on Tol Barad on Monday the 27th at 4pm PST. We would like to get as many players out there on the beta to help us as possible. You must be level 85 to join the battle. We will speed up the game timer so we can play multiple games during the test.

I will make a new feedback post after we finish the test for everyone to post in. Feedback is very important for us at this point so please take your time and try to be as concise as possible with your findings.

Thanks for the help!

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I'll be there with bells on. Maybe an axe or two.

One thing that was missing from the Wrath expansion, conspicuously or not, was a world boss on par with those such as Kazzak and the Emerald Dragons. For better or for worse, Blizzard completely removed them from the game, reserving the massive figures towering over the landscape for instanced quests or dungeons.

Blizzard touched a bit on why they've not used world bosses in Wrath in the recent Twitter developer chat. They observed that there are issues with the bosses that have prevented them from feeling comfortable making more world bosses, such as issues with groups racing to bosses, or the ability of people outside raid groups to deliberately mess up boss attempts. On the other side of the coin, though, they did imply that they like world bosses, and will probably implement more in Cataclysm if and when they can find a satisfactory work-around for the problems.

The dance studio is perhaps the most enduring piece of vapor ware in WoW to date. First hinted at in the original WotLK trailer and announced in the months leading up to release, it was conspicuously absent from the finished product, however, and now that we're on the final major patch of the expansion, it still hasn't made it in game. The closest we've gotten to any sort of official word on it, barring the dance battle April fool's joke, is from a Curse interview with the developers that suggests the dance studio won't be in Wrath at all.

This post by Eric Heimburg on the excellent MMO design blog Elder Game, alleging that WoW is currently run by Blizzard's B-team, has ignited a fair amount of controversy around the blogosphere. The general argument appears to be that the people previously in charge of WoW, like Jeff Kaplan, have moved on to other projects. As a consequence knee-jerk changes are being pushed through very fast, without being sufficiently tested first. "Back in the day," claims the article, "QA held the game to a higher standard."

My reaction to these claims are mixed. Kaplan may not be in charge of WoW anymore, but I don't think that "the steady hand has left the rudder," or if it has, maybe a less straight-ahead course is a good thing. Changes may be getting pushed through very quickly - Ghostcrawler routinely refers to players getting whiplash from the frequency of balance changes - but in many cases, I think this is for the best.

Second up in the class Q&A (Shamans were first) are Mages, those lovable glass cannons. Or are they? The Q&A opens with Ghostcrawler discussing public perception of the class, with a prompt of "a lot has changed since the days when the 'glass cannon' description was applied."

General

GC describes the mage as "the iconic caster:" deals magic damage from range. They should be versatile enough to do single-target damage, AoE damage, and crowd control, and every group should want one. (I'm noticing a trend here -- GC also described Shamans as a class every group should want. I guess every group should want all classes.)

They like the different feel between the three trees is in a good place, with Frostfire possibly providing a fourth aesthetic. They have decided that "king of AoE" is no longer a good niche to put any class in, so now they're trying to give both AoE and single-target to all DPS specs (with "extra effort" to make sure mages do good AoE).

The first answer post from the class Q&A series is up! 6:30 PM on a Tuesday night is not exactly when I expected this to drop, but I'm not complaining, and neither are most shamans, I expect. 4,400 words from the devs answering the community's questions is always nice. I've summarized the major points below; my summary may seem long, but it is only 20% of the original post.

As of Wrath, the goal is for all three Shaman trees to be viable in end-game raiding, and for Shaman DPS to be not necessarily quite as high as pure classes, but close; the goal is that "no raid worth its salt would turn down" any shaman out of concerns that the class is underpowered.

They do think Shamans are a bit underpowered in PvP, especially smaller Arenas, and view that as a problem. They mention particularly wanting to improve Shaman performance on 2v2s.

Tonight from 4:00 p.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. EDT until 6:30 p.m. PDT / 9:30 p.m. EDT the Blizzard developers will be on the PTR facing off against players in Battlegrounds and in Arenas.

The developer's home will be Alliance on Broxigar (PvE), however the Patch 3.1.2 PTR servers are all linked together for PvP Arenas and Battlegrounds, so you'll be able to face them no matter where you are.

We've previously covered some of these events, and you can see results in our gallery below. There is no word if the infamous Ghostcrawler will be making an appearance. But I suggest all you disgruntled <insert your class here> show up and hope for the best. After all, he promised you a pony and you didn't get it.

Our podcast returns for another live broadcast tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern (over on our Ustream page), and this one's a doozy: Turpster and I will host special guest Alex Albrecht, from TechTV's long-ago program The Screen Savers, and more recently from the popular Diggnation podcast, as well as the WoW video podcast Project Lore. We'll also have French friend of the show Patrick Beja on, and WoW Insider Contributing Editor Michael Sacco (who is represented by a talbuk in the machinima video of our song above, made by very talented fan Jack R.).

So it should be a great time. We'll be chatting about the most popular stories of the past week, including where all the Arena players are, another nice bonus for Alchemists, and what's next for addon developers (and why Blizzard doesn't want them making money in the first place). Plus, we'll answer your emails -- you can send us anything you like anytime at theshow@wow.com.

For those of you who always have trouble figuring out when the show is, we've cooked up something special for you. This should show you, from whatever time zone you're coming from, exactly when the show will be. This week's show will be at: March 28, 2009 3:30 PM EDT . You can watch it, as always, over on our Ustream page, or right here after the break. See you then!

The good folks over at the Escapist are giving March Madness a little game developer spin -- they've pitted 64 different videogame developers up against each other in an NCAA Basketball-style showdown, with readers voting for which dev moves on to the next match. And our favorite developer, Activision-Blizzard, is still in the running after a few rounds: they've beaten Wideload Games and Crytek, and are currently facing Relic Entertainment (makers of the Dawn of War RTS series, as well as the classic Homeworld). Unfortunately, Escapist had to list them as "Activision-Blizzard," though what we're really voting for here is Blizzard, since companies who make Activision's other hits (like Infinity Ward, who make the best Call of Duty games, as well as Neversoft, who've overseen most of the Guitar Hero games lately) have their own places in the showdown.

Blizzard's got a tough road ahead, though -- if they win, they're likely facing fan favorite Harmonix (heck, I love Harmonix), and then will probably show down against either Bioware or Rockstar, both extremely popular developers. The other side of the bracket will likely have heavyweights like Nintendo and Valve coming out of it, too, so it'll be a tough road if Blizzard wants to make it to the top.

To vote, you just have to head over to The Escapist's forums -- the next round starts tomorrow morning, and every few days they're moving the developers on to the next matchup. The final round will be decided on April 8th, and while of course winning means nothing at all, this is a nice chance to show off your developer pride. Say what you want about the recent class changes, but Blizzard has given you Starcraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft -- how can you not vote for them?

Players complain that dual specs are available only at the highest level, and Blizzard drops them down to level 40 (and removes the reagent, to boot). Engineers complain they don't have a self-buff, and they get one. Hunters are finally getting that last bag back. Even after the Love is in the Air holiday ends, Blizzard decided to nerf the achievement so everyone can get it anyway. And when ghetto hearthing, a much-loved exploit, is removed from the game, Blizzard decides to nerf, of all things, the hearthstone cooldown. Is it just us, or is Blizzard doing a lot of spelunking lately?

Not that it bothers us -- most of those changes are welcome. The good thing about Blizzard caving is that at least it'll make somebody happy. But on the other hand (just to play devil's advocate here), this game is great because the devs made it, not because the players did. If Blizzard caves in every time players throw a fit on the forums, won't that hurt the game?

It's not happening, says Zarhym. He says the Hearthstone change, as well as presumably all of the other changes above, came about not because of constant pestering of the devs, but because they sat down and made the decision that it was right for the game. He doesn't say they never cave (we can probably all agree that the dual spec at 40 change likely came about from player feedback, even if it was very insightful feedback), but Zarhym says the devs won't move on stands they believe in. Given that patch 3.1 is like an early tax return with all of the bonuses we're getting back, we wonder what exactly those are.

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Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

Freya recently posted a plea on the forums: Please, Blizzard, get rid of raid IDs. Raid IDs were put in the game as a way to make sure the best loot in the game didn't flow freely: rather than just running endgame raids over and over (and over), Blizzard put a hold on just how much one player can run them. If you get saved to a raid ID, you're usually out of that raid until things reset on Tuesdays.

But there are lots of issues -- at this point, agrees Zarhym, it's too easy to get saved to a raid. It's lame to jump in on a PuG where you do one boss and then the group breaks up for the rest of the week, and it's even lamer to have your raid ID ninja'ed by a few folks who decide they want to disband the group early. The mechanic is important to keep around, though -- if you think it's too easy to get endgame gear now, just think what things would be like if people could run Naxx or OS daily or even hourly.

But the actual saving is an issue, and one that the developers are working on -- they're planning on making it so that you would only be saved to an instanced when it's partially or even completely cleared (though that too would likely spread a little more loot around than wanted -- people would run the instance until the last boss and reset it to do it all over again). We'll have to see how this pans out.