Posts with tag forums

On the EU forums, a character named Redbranch from Thunderhorn came up with what I thought was a pretty nifty idea -- getting his/her fellow players to chime in on a list of 101 things to do in old Azeroth before Cataclysm hits. It's sort of the WoW equivalent of The Bucket List, and the responses range from the violent ("Slaying as many people as possible") to the nostalgic ("Go base jumping again in Feralas") to the practical ("Prepare plentiful supplies of gold").

Then Slorkuz chimed in with the following:

Slorkuz

Quote:

The old world is changing forever. Let's compile a list of things to do before the end.

1) Play through all the starter zones, to give some idea if each race's lore.

Visit the Shimmering Flats!

source

We already know that Thousand Needles is going to be mostly underwater in Cataclysm, but it was another nudge to the realization that the world we know is going bye-bye forever. Right now, my personal "bucket list" includes doing the dungeon set 2 quest line, but I'd love to hear from other players on how they're approaching the "end of the world."

It's sometimes astonishing to me how passionate World of Warcraft players can be about the game. This includes myself: I have hot-button topics that absolutely flood me with adrenaline and cause me to rant (just ask my coworkers here at WoW.com all about that some time), and later I'll sit back and be amazed. I'm still amazed I managed to put out a thousand-word column about Sentry Totem. (You have no idea how sad it was for me to not be working on shaman content the day they announced they were going to take Sentry Totem out. Lost a chance for a thousand-word eulogy.)

But as passionate and involved as we can get, and as excited about upcoming patches and new expansions and even sparkly ponies, sometimes we lose perspective. The infamous "slap in the face" forum ranting is based on a real mentality that X (fill in whatever you want) is the absolute ruination of the game. Downsizing raids to 25-man max is ruining the game. Arenas are ruining the game. The badge system is ruining the game, hybrids are ruining the game, pures are ruining the game, 10/25 variable raids are ruining the game, micro transactions, dual specs, what have you. The game has been constantly in a state of ruination since early 2005 when some realms were undergoing severe latency on peak nights and it was, you guessed it, ruining the game.

Frankly, sometimes rather than posting that comment, forum post, or what have you, we as involved, passionate people need to take a couple of deep breaths and chill out.

This was actually an offhand remark of Ghostcrawler's a few days ago, but it didn't seem to get much attention. In a thread devoted to the possibility of extending buffs like Blessing of Kings to additional classes in Cataclysm, Ghostcrawler mentioned the following:

Ghostcrawler

Obviously things like Rebirth can't just be handed to out to more classes unless we did something like a second exhaustion mechanic for battle rez or whatever. For now we're going to try the cooldown at 30 min again. In Icecrown's world of limited attempts, a 30 min cooldown likely meant you just cooled your heels until the cooldown was available again. In Cataclysm the hope is sometimes you'll have the benefit available but not every time, which scales back on how much of a game-changer it is.

An alternative to a longer cooldown for Rebirth is something where one druid using it would trip everyone's cooldown for a few minutes. That it's a bit gamey, but might solve the problem.

Also keep in mind that Rebirth is much more useful in today's game where people tend to die from massive damage. In a world where people sometimes die because the healers have run out of mana, then Rebirth doesn't buy you quite as much.

source

Fear not, my fellow druids; your feral analysis post is going live later tonight, and resto sometime tomorrow. Daniel Whitcomb and I have been talking about the incoming changes to the spec, and particularly the decision to change the tree of life from a constant form into a cooldown. I honestly didn't know how to feel about it at first. But before we get to that, Ghostcrawler stayed up hellaciously late last night to answer questions from druid players about the Cataclysm changes currently planned, and we've collected all of them here for you.

Something we may not always think about what our spells and abilities actually do in the setting of the game. Sure, for us, the tooltip tells us the basic information and we go on from there, but what are we actually doing? How does Arcane Shot work? Does the hunter just have a special magic arrow they shoot me with? Do they somehow wave the arrow around and it becomes magic, say a few words in Darnassian or Troll or whatever? Some abilities are pretty obviously spells, like almost everything a mage does, but for other classes the border between magic and skill can get pretty blurry... moves like Cloak of Shadows really beggar the imagination to explain in a non magical way.

A recent discussion on the forums about Thunder Clap and its being suppressed by silence effects (it always has, or at least has for so long that I've just accepted it) brings out Ghostcrawler to explain the reasoning. Quite frankly, it's a pretty reasonable explanation: if you're silenced, no one can hear the Thunder Clap going off, and thus, it doesn't do anything.

Nethaera hit the forums this morning, asking for feedback from tanks around the globe. Ghostcrawler has been having a lively discussion with tanks (most specifically protection warriors) recently, and now they seem to be formalizing the discussion for the wider audience.

Nethaera

We're currently working on the tanking cooldowns for tanks in Cataclysm. We're interested in feedback from the community on what makes cooldowns fun and useful. For example, what is the sweet spot in cooldown duration between an ability with such a short cooldown that you must mash it constantly versus an ability with such a long cooldown? Which current abilities are fun? Putting aside any rose-colored glasses, were there cooldowns in Burning Crusade or classic WoW that you miss in Lich King? What, in your minds, should the role be for talents and glyphs. For example, if glyphs shouldn't reduce cooldowns, what can they do?

source

Nethaera goes on to remind people that this thread isn't the place for balance discussions necessarily, and certainly not a place to debate who's overpowered. This feedback also won't dictate exactly what the developers will do, it will simply help them make the right decisions. Do you have an opinion? Then head on over to the forums and make it known! Politely, of course.

If you play on EU servers, not only are you probably far more handsome and personable than I am (to be fair, so is just about every other human being in existence) but you now have more options as to what servers you can play on. Wryxian posted a list of realms and free character moves available. There will be Alliance and Horde only transfers off of various realms not only to these realms, but to others as well. (It should be noted that Vek'nilash appears to have been open since February, and Boulderfist since March 10th.)

The full text of the post will be included after the jump.

With all the news regarding the WoW Trading Card Game, avid players have been wondering exactly what's going on, where the license is going, and who's going to be producing new cards, if any. While there aren't any answers to these questions specifically, it's heartening to note that Blizzard just added a new Trading Card Game section to the official forums, solely for discussion about the TCG. The card game hasn't been forgotten, and neither have its players.

The question of what the future of the TCG will bring has already been addressed on the forums by Eyonix, who restated Blizzard's earlier announcement that Blizzard and UDE would be parting ways. He also reassured players that Blizzard is committed to supporting the TCG and will be releasing new content in the near future, although there are still no new details as to who is picking up the license.

While this also doesn't really answer any questions, it's good to know that Blizzard is still thinking about the TCG community -- and this gives an ideal place for Blizzard to post any updates regarding the game's production. Hopefully we'll see more news on the future of the TCG soon.

We were just talking about it on today's podcast (thrill to the sound of three people barely awake trying to coherently discuss World of Warcraft) and hey, look, Ghostcrawler reads my mind from across the interwebs. Well, okay, no, he responded to a forum thread, but it's still interesting. Yes, interesting enough that I'm going to replicate the post here before discussing it. I am out of control, a renegade, I should hand in my posting badge and keyboard.

Ghostcrawler - Re: What's wrong with an Active Mana Regen Model?

I'm not sure we'd ever do a "deal damage to heal" model. It might work for new classes, but feels like a big change to existing classes that players know and love.

Having choices to get mana back is good. Standing around to regen mana is bad.

However, we still ultimately need a way that healers who are playing badly, trying to keep alive an undergeared / underskilled tank, or just tackling content that they're not yet ready for, can run out of mana to the extent that the encounter is over.

source

Personally, I hope that 'it might work for new classes' statement means we'll finally get something like a Warhammer Warrior Priest. I'm still jazzed from seeing Diablo III's version of the Monk and I'd be thrilled if they created a cloth wearing, staff wielding, spirit and intellect utilizing melee healer. I'm sad that they've ruled it out for any current classes (man, it would rock for paladins in my opinion and would single handedly make me like that class) but I'm very hopeful we'll be monking it up in an expansion or two.

After the changes to Devastate made in an attempt to 'buff warrior tank DPS' (I'm sure you all remember our coverage of said change) many warriors reported that one of the side effects of this change was to make Revenge, a long time warrior tanking ability, less than useful. With Devastate threat up (especially when glyphed) there's just less reason to use Revenge when it lights up. Now, Ghostcrawler interjects into a post that yes, Revenge will likely see some changes.

This is interesting to me for two reasons. First, because it's a fairly rapid statement of intent compared to past issues, where months could pass before anyone would address an issue (Thunder Clap only hitting four targets, for example, which was a huge problem for warriors for most of BC) and secondly because it highlights the domino effect that changing class abilities can have and showcases just how difficult class balance really can be. They knew even when they were making the change to Devastate that this might be necessary, but they understandably wanted to roll out any changes in an incremental way.

My expectation is either a threat buff for Revenge (which, frankly, isn't really all that interesting a change), a DPS increase (which isn't likely) or perhaps a small bit of AoE viability like a cleave effect. That last bit would be a good way of adding some AoE bite without replicating the paladin model which we've already been told is a touch over the top.

Every so often someone looks back to 40-man raiding: this time it's Zarhym on the official forums, answering a question about raiding's future and their possible return. I have to say that every time someone decides that the 40-man raid game should come back, I cringe a little bit. So Zarhym's answer works for me.

Right now our plan is to look back on 40-player raids fondly as a format by which we were able to evolve and customize what we feel to be the best raid formats for World of Warcraft. I don't believe our developers have ever stated that they'll absolutely never do a 40-player raid again, but we're really happy with the raid variety we have now with 10- and 25-player raids featuring normal and Heroic difficulties.

I agree that there were some very epic moments in the old raid game: last night for instance I was looking at old screenshots of myself from those days and gabbing with the people who work here about our respective accomplishments and experiences in original WoW raiding. The great C'thun death beam chain ride, where we all mounted our bugs and rode in at once to see how high we could get it to go (I believe I took 6 million damage, with another 6 million resisted), the night I got my Sulfuras, the Onyxia attunement chain and what an incredible pain it was to wander around Desolace looking for Rexxar.

I'm a veteran of the 40-man raid game from both the Horde and Alliance side, and I have to say, I really only miss the experiences through the patina of time buffing up all the glory moments like killing the bosses for the first time and letting you forget the pure hassle of getting 40 people together. The griping over having to break up into 15-man groups to go run UBRS and MC the mobs there for a fire resistance buff for Vaelastrasz is long since forgotten. I think in the end 40-man raiding was cool and fun and an artifact of the games that preceded WoW, and it belongs in its place of honor but definitely in the past.

Last week Eyonix started a poll on the forums asking players what they do directly after logging in (all of the options are listed in the picture above). For me, it's no contest -- before I do anything else, I always pop the friends list up to see who's around. The only time this doesn't happen is if I'm logging on in a rush for the night's raid, but I try to limit the number of times that occurs. Reading this poll has made me realize the extent to which I depend on my bank alt for mail and AH-related business; my main very rarely needs to check her mail.

If you're interested in responding to the poll, it'll be running for another day or so, and you can find it here. Because it's on the official forums, you'll be prompted to log in to your forum account before replying.

No, it's not just a case of the obvious being stated. In a discussion of DK design in arenas, Dr. Street comments to clarify the intended role of death knights in arena and other factors. He also makes a good point about the forums in general that bears repeating for emphasis.

"We don't intend for these forums to be the primary way the team communicates our vision for the game and upcoming changes to the community. You'll get a little of that on a few select subjects through the forums and sadly that's all you're ever going to get. It's not that we don't care. It's that forums are not a great medium for that kind of mass communication. I wish sometimes you guys could be satisfied with the fact that we used to not communicate at all and now are able to communicate a little."

Moving on to the specific issue at hand in this thread, the discussion is the old shadow/frost spec that turned the death knight into a much more ranged caster, generating runic power quickly and then converting that runic power into Death Coils at range. It wasn't intended for the class. They have no problem with Death Coil itself being a popular attack, as long as the death knight has to put an effort into staying in melee with its attendant disadvantages to do so.

"The DK that runs around and does nothing but Icy Touch or Howling Blast or Death Coil feels like a rogue who forgoes combo points and openers and everything just to spam Fan of Knives and nothing else."

It's interesting to see players managing to find ways to bend the class out of the original design intent and how Blizzard responds to that: specs like shadow/frost or diseaseless blood DPS were adjusted quickly to put the class back to where Blizzard intended it.

Any caster worth their salt can remember the frustration involved in trying to nab the elusive Illustration of the Dragon Soul trinket from Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum. We tried everything we could to get it, from creating our own melee-heavy raid groups, to participating only in "3D zerg" runs hoping that participants would be too over-geared to want it, to participating in Less Is More achievement runs just so there would be less competition for it.

Towards the end of the Patch 3.2 days, people would run OS25 once a week just to try and get that one trinket. Most weeks, it wouldn't even drop. When it did, you'd have to beat a good twelve or thirteen people in a roll for it.

The Illustration was so valuable (1) because it was a darn good trinket with gobs of spell power, and (2) it seemed impossible get it -- or any good trinket, for that matter. You can still head to Dalaran and buy trinkets with emblems, like the Talisman of Resurgence, but their use is painfully specialized and their value is often less than trinkets you can find in lower level heroics.

It turns out that good trinkets are hard to find for a reason: Blizzard like it that way. Bornakk at the official World of Warcraft forums wrote today:

"Trinkets are really the one item (weapons are to a lesser extent) that we use to try and capture that old slot machine feel from the classic Molten Core days. Yes, completely random loot with huge loot tables can be frustrating but we are pretty far from being completely random these days. Trinkets however are still somewhat random, they can be hard to acquire, and there is often a lot of competition for them."

Poster Sennshi makes a post to the general forums questioning why we have to run the whole dungeon to get the two frost emblems for completing our first random dungeon of the day. Thankfully, Crygil comes in and makes sure it is known that skipping to the end isn't something Blizzard has in mind for heroics. It's kind of sad that it even needed to be said, but at least they've said it.

I have to say, and keep in mind I'm one of the bitter sour curmudgeonly tanks who constantly gripes even when things are going well, but if you can't endure a 20 minute instance run to get 2 frost badges, you need to reconsider running random heroics. Even the longest heroic dungeon is hardly so huge an imposition that you can't get through it without asking for some kind of magical backdoor that summons the boss to you. We've seen changes to dungeons like Oculus to give players an incentive to run them or streamline them, going to some weird Thunderdome of boss summoning would be a step backwards in my opinion.