Latest WoW News

"Bring The Player, Not The Class." - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:34:49 -0500

What Exactly Does Blizzard Mean By This? Since Wrath of the Lich King was announced, Blizzard has been preaching that players should be included in raids for their ability rather than the class that they play. This has been picked up by players and many are asking serious questions since they view it as not being complete fact yet. Here are some comments that Blizzard posted in the forums in response to various questions.
Q u o t e: Come on. Be honest now. Are you guys over at Blizzard kicking yourself yet for saying that? No, of course not. I'm thrilled that so many players got the message loud and clear. It must have been a half-decent soundbite. :) Q u o t e: Every single thread it gets quoted. Every time one class recognizes the tiniest of differences, the tiniest of advantages to another class, and out comes the quote along with demands for immediate buffs/nerfs to bring about 'equality'. Yep, that happens. The same thing happens when a hybrid class fails to out dps a pure dps class (or even more likely, quotes a wws parse on a run in which they weren't even involved). One of the quirks I have noticed about the WoW forums is often (though certainly not in every case) the people shouting the loudest are not the ones directly affected, but the ones who have heard something second or third hand. Q u o t e: Am I the only one who thinks this phrase is getting trotted out entirely too much? That it's being too broadly interpreted? I mean, where's the line? Can I sit here and insist that my 5 DPS class group be a viable heroic composition? Insist on success for my tank-less 25 man? I would mention some less extreme examples, but they've all really been suggested. I can't even parody or satirize them, cause people are actually making ridiculous demands about bringing all of one healing class to a 25 man and similar crap. Blizzard couldn't have truly meant this the way people are taking it, could they? We don't mean that you can select 10 or 25 random people and expect to succeed and thrive. The mantra is not "bring any player." The mantra is not "class is irrelevant." Instead, it means that the class (or spec) involved does not trump all other issues, which we felt was increasingly happening in BC. We honestly heard from a lot of players (and experienced it ourselves) that a group might shelve a good rogue because bringing the shaman for WF was a better overall improvement for dps, even if the shaman was face-roller. That just sounds broken. I think what happens is that players hear "Bring the player, not the class," and add to that "Well, I play my class flawlessly and have perfect gear," and conclude that any failure is because of the game mechanics and not their own skill or gear (and luck certainly plays a factor in any RPG too). The intent is actually that when faced with who to invite to a 5, 10 or 25 player run that you can consider the player involved. You should never have to take a terrible priest over an excellent paladin just because the priest has some uber buff or required spell. If your guild has lots of paladin healers, then go run Naxx with them. The emphasis on encounter design is more about execution, coordination or good old gear checks rather than "at this stage, a mage must cast Counterspell or the boss will wipe the raid." When we are balancing numbers, we can assume that your group has +haste, +AP and +crit without you having to make sure that means a shaman, warrior and feral druid is with you.
You can find the thread here.
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"Bring The Player, Not The Class." - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:31:20 -0500
What Exactly Does Blizzard Mean By This? Since Wrath of the Lich King was announced, Blizzard has been preaching that players should be included in raids for their ability rather than the class that they play. This has been picked up by players and many are asking serious questions since they view it as not being complete fact yet. Here are some comments that Blizzard posted in the forums in response to various questions.
Q u o t e: Come on. Be honest now. Are you guys over at Blizzard kicking yourself yet for saying that? No, of course not. I'm thrilled that so many players got the message loud and clear. It must have been a half-decent soundbite. :) Q u o t e: Every single thread it gets quoted. Every time one class recognizes the tiniest of differences, the tiniest of advantages to another class, and out comes the quote along with demands for immediate buffs/nerfs to bring about 'equality'. Yep, that happens. The same thing happens when a hybrid class fails to out dps a pure dps class (or even more likely, quotes a wws parse on a run in which they weren't even involved). One of the quirks I have noticed about the WoW forums is often (though certainly not in every case) the people shouting the loudest are not the ones directly affected, but the ones who have heard something second or third hand. Q u o t e: Am I the only one who thinks this phrase is getting trotted out entirely too much? That it's being too broadly interpreted? I mean, where's the line? Can I sit here and insist that my 5 DPS class group be a viable heroic composition? Insist on success for my tank-less 25 man? I would mention some less extreme examples, but they've all really been suggested. I can't even parody or satirize them, cause people are actually making ridiculous demands about bringing all of one healing class to a 25 man and similar crap. Blizzard couldn't have truly meant this the way people are taking it, could they? We don't mean that you can select 10 or 25 random people and expect to succeed and thrive. The mantra is not "bring any player." The mantra is not "class is irrelevant." Instead, it means that the class (or spec) involved does not trump all other issues, which we felt was increasingly happening in BC. We honestly heard from a lot of players (and experienced it ourselves) that a group might shelve a good rogue because bringing the shaman for WF was a better overall improvement for dps, even if the shaman was face-roller. That just sounds broken. I think what happens is that players hear "Bring the player, not the class," and add to that "Well, I play my class flawlessly and have perfect gear," and conclude that any failure is because of the game mechanics and not their own skill or gear (and luck certainly plays a factor in any RPG too). The intent is actually that when faced with who to invite to a 5, 10 or 25 player run that you can consider the player involved. You should never have to take a terrible priest over an excellent paladin just because the priest has some uber buff or required spell. If your guild has lots of paladin healers, then go run Naxx with them. The emphasis on encounter design is more about execution, coordination or good old gear checks rather than "at this stage, a mage must cast Counterspell or the boss will wipe the raid." When we are balancing numbers, we can assume that your group has +haste, +AP and +crit without you having to make sure that means a shaman, warrior and feral druid is with you.
You can find the thread here.
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Blizzard April Fools Joke a Reality - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:23:08 -0500
Programmer makes good on Blizzard Joke Last year Blizzard announced the launch of an Atari 2600 game that would mimic the World of Warcraft Molten Core raid experience. A programmer recently made good on Blizzards joke with the release of an actual version of the game, that while run on PC, looks like an Atari 2600 game.
4. Q: Why would you do something like this? A: For the fun of it, honestly. I am a big WoW fanatic and this is something of a loveletter to Blizzard for their fantastic games over the years. Also, I wanted to see if I could raise any money through donations for my upcoming wedding (on 11/30/08). But mostly, I wanted to learn and become more proficient with Multimedia Fusion 2 Developer, (and of course, become an internet superstar. ) :P
You can find the game for download here: Gamer's University. You can find Blizzard's original post and joke here.
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Blizzard April Fools Joke a Reality - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:21:41 -0500
Programmer makes good on Blizzard Joke Last year Blizzard announced the launch of an Atari 2600 game that would mimic the World of Warcraft Molten Core raid experience. A programmer recently made good on Blizzards joke with the release of an actual version of the game, that while run on PC, looks like an Atari 2600 game.
4. Q: Why would you do something like this? A: For the fun of it, honestly. I am a big WoW fanatic and this is something of a loveletter to Blizzard for their fantastic games over the years. Also, I wanted to see if I could raise any money through donations for my upcoming wedding (on 11/30/08). But mostly, I wanted to learn and become more proficient with Multimedia Fusion 2 Developer, (and of course, become an internet superstar. ) :P
You can find the game for download here: Gamer's University. You can find Blizzard's original post and joke here.
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When Will WoW Lose Its Luster? - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:52:25 -0500
Is Second Life Dieing? There has been much talk over how long an MMO can last. This article looks at the apparent decline of the game Second Life, however it does talk a little bit about Warcraft, so it's worth looking at.
This membership model has worked wonders for World of Warcraft, another virtual realm. With 11 million subscribers paying up to $15 a month for access to the fantasy world, the game pulls in perhaps $1.9 billion a year. No advertisers required.
You can find the whole article here.
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Wrath of the Lich King Breaking Sales Records - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:31:29 -0500
Big Sales Number WoWinsider released an article about the sales numbers that EB Games saw with the Wrath of the Lich King. Apparently Wrath of the Lich King broke all the records at EB Games, and we will just have to wait to see the final sales numbers from Blizzard.
Pretty incredible. EB Games isn't a small company by any means, and while we knew Wrath was big, it looks like Blizzard's second WoW expansion smashed pretty much every sequel it could in the chain, even toppling some of the console gaming records. Anyone that claimed World of Warcraft had peaked with Burning Crusade should be looking pretty foolish at this point.
You can find the article here.
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Upcoming Death Knight Tanking Changes - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:43:34 -0500
Blizzard to address Death Knight Tanking Issues Many players have found issues with tanking as a Death Knight and Blizzard has started to look at it and will address them shortly. Here is what Ghostcrawler had to say about it in the forums.
We’ve had a lot of questions about death knights recently. This is a new class, and while we’re thrilled overall with how it's been received, we always expected to have to make more changes to death knights than the classes that have had their talents under the microscope for many years. We’re not prepared to announce specific changes to DKs yet, but here are some general areas we are tinkering with. Most of these changes apply predominantly to tanking death knights, so I avoided cross-posting this thread, but there are probably items of interest to dps specs as well. 1) Death knights seem to tank well when they have cooldowns available and take too much damage otherwise. The change here seems obvious – boost Frost presence’s mitigation while reducing the mitigation of some other abilities, especially Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield. 2) One idea we have for Icebound Fortitude is to scale the mitigation based on defense skill. This lets the ability be less of a paladin bubble in PvP for dps knights, while still letting it act more like Shield Wall for tanks. It also has the side effect of making defense slightly more attractive to death knights. (Let me add before it’s asked that yes we understand Ferals have this problem too and we are working on it.) 3) Unholy is a very popular tanking spec, largely on the strength of Bone Shield. Expect to see some buffs to tanking talents in the Blood tree especially. 4) Rune Strike was intended to be a reactive tanking tool, not a rogue killer. We will probably chill its weapon damage and increase its threat. 5) We don’t like the behavior where DKs feel like they are supposed to drop Death and Decay to generate runic power before a pull. It just looks goofy. We will probably lower the runic power costs of Unholy Blight and Horn of Winter, which seem to be the primary reasons to generate RP. Horn of Winter will probably be something like no cost, 30 sec cooldown, generates 10 rp. EDIT: I am refering to using DnD outside of combat just for the runic power (kind of like Bloodrage for warriors). It's totally legit and intended to use it to start a fight to gain threat and hurt the bad guys. 6) There are some odd situations caused by Shadow of Death that we would like to fix. The talent isn’t designed to let you escape durability damage or rez by zoning into an instance. 7) There are some annoying parts of the non-pet ghoul. We want to lower the aggro range (for less accidental pulls) and spawn the ghoul in quicker when dismounting. The ghoul, at least Unholy’s version, could also use some AE avoidance like other pets. 8) We are probably going to add a new spell to let you raise fallen allies so that you don't have to make the decision between bringing back another player (which was just supposed to be a fun bonus) and bringing back your ghoul, which can be pretty crticial for some specs. This isn't everything we're talking about of course, just a little preview.
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Gold Stats Removed From the Armory - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:52:57 -0500
Blizzard see's reason Blizzard announced recently that they would be adding all stats available from the achievement section into the armory for everyone to see. Many players has serious concerns with this as your wealth would be displayed, making wealthy characters prime targets for attack. Blizzard has listened to complaints and all gold related stats have been removed. Hurray!
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Taxes and MMOG's - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:23:36 -0500
Several Countries Passing Taxation Laws Following China's lead in their attempt to tax virtual items, there are now reports that Sweden and South Korea are looking at the same issue. How do you feel about taxing virtual item sales? To me it almost legitimizes them. Here is a clip from an article on the subject.
I'm inclined to side with WoW that keeping real and virtual money separate is the right thing to do. And it's a bit hard to fathom that a digital asset does anything but diminish or have a relative value to that specific game. Besides, what happens if the game company goes out of business? It's not like you get to take your special sword to the Sponge Bob game if WoW suddenly disappears.
You can read it all in the arcticle here.
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Itemization Diversity for Classes - Ten Ton Hammer

Messiah — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:24:24 -0500
Items too similar? That is the complaint by many players. When you are getting upgrades in the Wrath of the Lich King many players feel that too many classes are sharing too much of the gear and that there is not enough diversity. Blizzard had the following to say in the official forums today.
It is not our goal to make sure that every piece you can get is perfect for your class or spec. A lot of the game's depth comes from those tough decisions when you're not sure if a piece is really an upgrade or not, or if that wasted stat is worth the other enormous stat on the piece, or if you are better off passing a minor upgrade to someone else for which it is a huge upgrade. Upgrades are also boring if every piece = your previous piece but with +2 on all of the stats. If someone just can't do their job because they lack critical gear, that's a slightly different issue. There have been cases where a critical item (say a tanking shield) was too rare, or upgrades were too hard to come by (say druid or paladin tanks in Sunwell). We think there is a little bit of that going on at the moment, but not too much, and of course we like to add more drops, vendor items, craftables and enchants and gems over time (and need room to do so).
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