Update - Clarified a few misquotes apparently, thankfully everything can be blamed on chaud.

Interviews: Warcraft After Cataclysm
Tom Chilton and Greg Street have been making the rounds again with interviews on IGN and Gamasutra.

Patch 4.3
  • If you add up all of the Deathwing encounter stages, it will be the longest fight in the game.
  • Each stage of the fight will take place in a different location and offer some loot.
  • The encounter starts at Wyrmrest Temple, progressing toward the players being on Deathwing's back while he is flying toward The Maelstrom.
  • The new five man encounters will build up to the Deathwing fight, similar to how the Icecrown five man instances built up to the Lich King.
  • To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet.

After Cataclysm
  • More armor customization could be coming in the future; Transmogrification was a solution that could be finished in time for Patch 4.3.
  • After Patch 4.3, and the world event, the team is going to focus on keeping players entertained and enjoying the game as well as new and potentially returning players.
  • On Mists of Pandaria: "Most of the time when we do anything panda-related it's going to be a comic book or a figurine or something like that."
  • There are more people that played World of Warcraft but no longer play World of Warcraft than currently play World of Warcraft
  • They believe that each spec plays like a separate class, making the game feel as if there are 30 classes.
  • Player created content is still in the back of their minds because of how well it worked in Starcraft II. Developing tools for players would take a lot of work, but the reward would be great as well.


Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Worgen Mounts
These mounts are mainly being added to even up the number of mounts Alliance players can get, compared to Horde players. Mount collectors and those of you interested in going for the mount achievement have been asking for this for a while, and the additional horses will address that issue.

The Worgen's unique racial mount equivalent is the Running Wild skill. That's not going anywhere. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Transmogrification: Incomplete tier sets
This is going to be half the fun for a lot of people looking forward to Transmogrification; finding matching sets and combinations that look awesome together

While it's too early to say for sure, it's possible that after this feature launches, there will be a number of items that people request become available to Transmogrify. We're going to monitor this feedback and hopefully be able to build on the feature based on that, however, that's not to say every item people ask for will suddenly appear in the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Three Talent Specs
Indeed, as Xarthat said, we're still really keen for players to put a lot of thought and decision into their character's chosen talent specs.

Sure, it would be handy to have more specs lined up to swap in or out when faced with a different situation, but right now we feel that your talent spec(s) should be something you choose, maybe refine over time, and hopefully pwn with. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Diablo III Beta Opt In
It is almost time for Diablo III Beta, Blizzard posted another beta opt in reminder on the official blog and DiabloFans has some additional leaked gameplay to go with the screenshots below.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Interested in signing up for an advance look at Diablo’s coming invasion of Sanctuary? To be eligible to participate in the Diablo III beta test, you need an active Battle.net account with any Blizzard game title attached to it. If you don’t already have an account, it’s easy to create one. Once you’ve set up a Battle.net account, or if you’ve already got one, you can access it by visiting http://us.battle.net/en/ and clicking the Account button on the upper right. Then, to opt into the beta, just click the Games & Codes section of your Account Management page, and then select the Beta Profile Settings option from the drop-down menu. You’ll be prompted to download the System Check beta opt-in application; running it will opt you in to the Diablo III beta. If your system specifications change, you can run the System Check application again to update your information.

While running the System Check application doesn’t guarantee you a place in the Diablo III beta, we wish you luck and hope to see you in Sanctuary.

FAQ:
How are beta test participants selected from the opt-in pool?
Beta testers are chosen according to their system specifications and other factors, including an element of luck. Our goal is to have a good variety of system types to best test compatibility.

Will there be any other ways to get into the beta besides the opt-in?
We’ll very likely be providing beta entry giveaways through various promotions on our sites, as well as through our official fansites. We’ll have information available on these promotions as they approach.

How many players do you plan to invite to the beta test?
The number of players we invite will be based on our testing needs. If during the course of testing we determine we need more players to participate, we’ll invite more.

What game content will be available in the beta?
You’ll be able to try out all five character classes and experience the early stages of Diablo III from the start of the game through the Skeleton King encounter. You’ll be able to interact with new and returning characters in New Tristram and fight the reawakened evils emanating from the cursed Tristram Cathedral.

Will the PvP arenas be available in the beta?
We don’t plan to include the PvP arenas in the beta test.

How long will the beta test last?
We have not determined an exact date for the end of the beta test. We will notify participants when the beta test is nearing completion.

Will the Diablo III Auction House be available in the beta?
We currently plan to test the functionality of the Diablo III gold-based auction house sometime after the initial beta launch.

Will Mac users be able to participate in the beta?
Yes, Mac users will be able to participate in the beta at the same time as Windows users.




Burning Crusade Art Gallery Updated
The Burning Crusade game art gallery has been updated with four new pieces.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.3 Interviews, Blue Posts, Diablo III Beta, Art Gallery Update started by chaud View original post
Comments 308 Comments
  1. Karot's Avatar
    "They want to lower the barrier to entry and find some way to bring back players that no longer play." Make it free to play! Seriously! I'm no longer playing because I have no money! And they're still on this idea that some people quit because content no longer felt "elite"? I guess these players are too elite for heroic content, then? If you want to feel like one of the elite, then make a ton of money and control domestic and foreign policy with your power and money, that's what the current elite are doing for fun!
  1. Lumocolor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by reve View Post
    Makes me wonder if this actually means something or if it's just an empty phrase.
    Duh, it means 25 new daily quests to grind, 8 new vanity pets to farm and 5 new mounts like every other patch since 2009...lol. I quit cold turkey in february after 5yrs of hardcore raiding and havent even had the urge to log back on, they keep sending the come back for a free week emails and i keep not coming back. If they went free to play it might be worth going to visit friends who haven't given up yet, but otherwise it's not worth $15 a month for the sit in stormwind and chat program the game has become.
  1. EvilTape's Avatar
    Lower the barrier for entry? It better be a lowered subscription cost.

    ---------- Post added 2011-09-02 at 11:48 PM ----------

    Also: The longest fight in WoW? Maybe... but each stage is a seperate "boss" hence the loot per stage. So they're kinda avoiding saying the RAID is actually long at all.
  1. jibbyjackjoe's Avatar
    If the next expansion is just as beat my head on the wall difficult as this shit, I probably won't get it. My entire guild was so, so pumped for this expansion. Turns out , it was made for the hard core players. What did blizzard want the casual player to do for $15 a month? Our fishing dailies?

    If they would just release another difficulty with better than 5 man normals, on par with 5 man heroics gear, they may find a solution.

    They better do something awesome, rather than just amp up the difficulty forthe exclusionist snowflakes that want me to continue to pay for them to play.
  1. Rustedsaint's Avatar
    I don't know how your guild found this expansion difficult, my guilds are 2 different server were getting atleast 7/13 heroic before 4.2 not to metion working on 3/7 heroic currently.
  1. Montas's Avatar
    If you add up all of the Deathwing encounter stages, it will be the longest fight in the game.Each stage of the fight will take place in a different location and offer some loot.The encounter starts at Wyrmrest Temple, progressing toward the players being on Deathwing's back while he is flying toward The Maelstrom.
    Anyone else have feeling that we will fight ONLY Deathwing in this Raid?
  1. Salech's Avatar
    I think most people stopped playing out of boredom, plus summer you normally lose some people too, it's not because the content is hard per se.
  1. Domiku's Avatar
    Ouch
    There are more people that played World of Warcraft, but no longer play World of Warcraft, than the number of people that currently play World of Warcraft. They want to lower the barrier to entry and find some way to bring back players that no longer play.
    Guess that's another bit of evidence to go with the 900k sub loss that wow is not doing to grate right now. TBH i blame it on the community. If they didnt go spam the forums during wrath saying it was to easy and they wanted harder content this might not have happened. Its like today people screaming wow is to easy still and yet i bet they have not killed any of the heroic modes. Classic example of people thinking / saying they are better than they are. in this case they demand harder content they have no chance in actually doing. when they get given what they asked for and cant do it the QQ and quit. I am sure the above example is only 1 reason for sub loss out of many many more.
  1. mmoc32fbbf5879's Avatar
    "They believe that each spec plays like a separate class, making the game feel as if there are 30 classes." Whut breh? This game has no support classes and roles are the same - dps, tank, heal. So its 3 not 30 >.>
  1. Skulli's Avatar
    Game is easy. Just because some heroics are hard, doesnt mean the whole game is hard.Just look at everything else in the game, it is easy. Questing / leveling, reputation, dungeons etc.If people really just want to see the content, would people raid if the bosses drop on normal (easy) mode only 5m blue heroic gear? People would cry. They want their epics.
  1. mmoc9253cef1ab's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by azzer24 View Post
    I think most people stopped playing out of boredom, plus summer you normally lose some people too, it's not because the content is hard per se.
    I'm quite sure already. Either way it's going to be smaller than ulduar and have many phases of deathwing, so there won't be many other bosses.
  1. Delta279's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Domiku View Post
    Ouch Guess that's another bit of evidence to go with the 900k sub loss that wow is not doing to grate right now. TBH i blame it on the community. If they didnt go spam the forums during wrath saying it was to easy and they wanted harder content this might not have happened. Its like today people screaming wow is to easy still and yet i bet they have not killed any of the heroic modes. Classic example of people thinking / saying they are better than they are. in this case they demand harder content they have no chance in actually doing. when they get given what they asked for and cant do it the QQ and quit. I am sure the above example is only 1 reason for sub loss out of many many more.
    I agree. Though I think Blizzard should start treating us like we do not know what we want because we really do not know what we want. One moment we want things to be easy then the next moment we want things to be hard. Lol
  1. plosion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jibbyjackjoe View Post
    If the next expansion is just as beat my head on the wall difficult as this shit, I probably won't get it. My entire guild was so, so pumped for this expansion. Turns out , it was made for the hard core players. What did blizzard want the casual player to do for $15 a month? Our fishing dailies?

    If they would just release another difficulty with better than 5 man normals, on par with 5 man heroics gear, they may find a solution.

    They better do something awesome, rather than just amp up the difficulty forthe exclusionist snowflakes that want me to continue to pay for them to play.
    Well you could, you know, play the game? Learn how to play better?

    Heroics are there in order to give casuals something to aim towards, some kind of progress related stuff to do without a huge time commitment. Progressing through content means overcoming challenges with your friends, not a freaking epics/badges/points shop. Heroics aren't supposed to be steamrolled, deal with it.

    As regards to raid, raiding nowadays requires a time commitment that just dwarfs the requirements of wow classic/tbc or other mmos. (the "casual player" was non-existant back then, they weren't just in the target audience, nobody, from the designer to the marketeer gave a shit about them)

    You just login and play, without the need to farmi anything. If you think raids are hardcore exclusive you'd kill yourself if I were to tell you the ancient stories of FARMING just for one boss. Resistance gear, flasks, felwood consumables, potions, enchantments. None of these things exist anymore, and this change was made entirely for casual players.

    Aren't you satisfied yet? Do you really want epics that you don't even need ( because you don't even want to tackle harder content) in your mailbox? Without even trying some part of the game, that's been changed in order to accomodate the needs of people without huge ammounts of time? Namely, you?

    If you don't feel compelled to tackle raids for whatever reason other than the above, then welcome aboard. WOW is shit now as far as quality content goes, just in general the game is terribly boring. For everyone.

    They should craft better content, make it harder to make it last longer (all encompassing statement, I don't mean just raids) or make it faster.
    Why a harder game? Well if the cata wasn't such piss easy in the levelling phase, people would've learned how to freaking play by lvl 85, thus erasing the need of a easier endgame content, allowing the longevity to stretch further. Since they don't want to make levelling somewhat challenging for thumb users, they have to implement some kind of endgame mechanic/content to teach players how to goddamn play on their own right. 1 people istances maybe? Or hunter/priest classquests?
  1. mmoc6ac2e31c48's Avatar
    Every time i read something new from Blizzard it realy looks like they are trying to pull out all the stops to put this "player wanted stuff in" and realy trying to make the new patches very attractive, they also seem to look like there panicing a little. One thing crosses my mind, if warcraft was not losing subscribers, would they be bothering to do this. Would it still be the same old thing and what are the chances of it retuning back to the same old thing.

    Reguardless of what they do i honestly don't know what they would need to do in their game in order for me to go back playing, i realy feel burnt out, like i've stopped playing before but nothing i can think of can rekindle my want to play the game, they would probably need to reright/redo the game engine and put out something similar to GW2....
  1. AmyCape's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by errosync View Post
    Then you didn't play Wrath at all; like, you literally bought the box/digital copy, installed it and then never signed on. The ONLY good thing that came out of Wrath was Ulduar, that's it. The content was too easy (yes, even the Heroic mode content)
    Link your armory, with your HM kill achieves dated to when it was current content.

    Oh wait, you won't do that. You're just another TotalBuscuit, bitching about content when a quick armory inspection will show you never even did it.

    ---------- Post added 2011-09-03 at 07:57 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Delta279 View Post
    [My opinions]Path of the Titans was explained a lot only for Blizzard to tell the whole player base know that it isn't happening. A lot of people was looking forward to make their characters not be like everyone else. When am I going to change the horrible dance my priest has?
    Did you even listen to Chilton at BlizzCon? Path of the Titans was something you would essentially do an action every single day (In his words. "It's accomplished on a day to day basis at the same rate, a casual playing for an hour will progress at the same rate as someone who invests more time") that would give bonuses that were identical to what is achieved with glyphs. They were nothing more than ANOTHER equivalent of a daily quest, which you just complained about in the same post.

    ---------- Post added 2011-09-03 at 08:01 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by plosion View Post
    They should craft better content, make it harder to make it last longer
    Hahaha. Idiots like you that got jobs at development houses are the reason the term Fake Difficulty exists and is a joke used only a punchline these days. Luckily for me, and every other person with a life who doesn't play 40 hours a week, Blizzard disagrees, and you can continue crying while I steamroll heroics and buy your precious purple gear with my points.

    Don't worry, when you grow up and take on the responsibilities of a grown up like the rest of us, you'll start to play games as a pass time, a hobby for entertainment, and not as a job that you can fill the void in your life with pretend items, titles or purple letters to feel like you have accomplished anything in life.
  1. Maester's Avatar
    I'm just SO freaking happy that Mists of Pandaria is not the next expansion! That probably would've been what made me quit.
  1. Delta279's Avatar
    MMO's shouldn't be easy. If I want to play an easy game with dungeons in it, I'd get Dungeon Siege and use cheats. Plain and simple. If I want to do the same thing everyday, I would want a job that pays real money. Sorry Blizzard, dailies is a job to do because if you want that chopper, well guess what? Do the dailies till you have 13.5k to spend for that one character. Oh you want one for your alt too? Well do the dailies to get another 13.5k for that alt! Dailies aren't fun but they are boring if you were trying to achieve something. Dailies = players will get chinese farmer's illegal gold because it lets them pass the boring dailies. Yay for in game jobs! GG Blizzard, GG. Also plosion, I agree. Most of WoW player base do not know exactly what they want. If you asked them if they want easy content or hard content, you get 4 answers. Easy, Hard, idk, and idc. Blizzard needs to do what ever they want to the game and not care about the difficulty of the dungeon.
  1. Gualdim's Avatar
    Blizzard needs to realize that their customer base is growing up and doesn't have time to set specific times with specific people for specific raids.

    It's the reason why I stopped raiding mostly, I want to raid on a lazy Sat afternoon one week and Friday night the next, and maybe a Monday morning on a public holiday.

    I am looking with interest towards this raid finder option maybe it will give us the solution to this issue.

    Surely I can't be the only one in this boat...
  1. plosion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Delta279 View Post
    [My opinions]In Vanilla/BC you had to be in a raiding guild to do the raids but in WoTLK, you could pug raids. Yes Arthas, we could pug you. Another thing that got people to leave are the dailies.
    Now Blizzard tried to fix the problems that was going on in WoTLK but it seem to backfire a little. Everything is insanely harder than they should. Th

    Another thing that may have caused some players to leave the game is the constant promises that don't happen. Dance Studio. Path of the Titans. Most likely new skin models for the old races. Why? We do not know. It was either it wouldn't be out in time or we're worried it will make the PvP imbalanced or what every other excuse they come up with.
    Raiding without a guid does not make any sense, really why would you raid without people you know? Without your friends?
    It's like playing a coop game with bots. (single player left 4 dead is shallow as hell for example).

    What blizzard needs to change in people is their egoism, they should promote cohesion between people, in order to let them forge long lasting relationships (that's what mmos are about, not the gameplay, that's shitty by definition compared to a conventional game) WHILE enjoying the content.

    People nowadays are all about epics, points points, and not about friendship and fun. If you play with friends you get 10 times as much fun compared to playing alone, and you improve at a much faster rate. You become better, while having fun, and getting epics.

    Seriously consider quitting pugging, it's not worth it. You spoil the content and your fun. Gents, realize that being in a guild doesn't mean applying for a job. That may have been the case years ago, but now there are tons of casual guilds ( read, with time restrictions, like 2 raids a week) who do well, and manage to complete normal content in a reasonable time.

    Dailies are there to combat chinese farmers, and to encourage players to log in every day, thus improving the chances of them socializing more. (yes they are a job sorta, but they are entirely optional so..)

    I agree with the last part, blizzard definitely dropped the ball as far as content goes. Quality went down, quantity went down, promises got blasted into hell.
  1. Makronette's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Revengica View Post
    I think they're just misleading us...the patent was clear it was not a comic book or whatever..it was clearly digital
    Reminds me of when they were trying to mislead us with Cataclysm, saying Garwal was changed because he didn't fit in to any pet trees yet poeple had tamed a Slime and Hydra that were apparently Crocalisks... they're not very good at trying to mislead us or they think we are stupid enough to be mislead by some lames excuses like those.

    You don't patent CDs or online game content if it's going to be a comic book or something...

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