Submit Questions for the Devs, Challenge Mode Gear Procs, Hotfixes, MoP Launch Times

What were some of the greatest challenges that you faced when creating content and lore that would fit both the Horde and Alliance integrating the Pandarians into their culture and sided factions?

Question: The Night Elves have been effectively taken down a dark road ever since the launch of WoW. You're talking about the empire that took down (if not eliminated) other empires. From the battle against the Qiraj to taking out the Trolls, the Night Elves have been huge players. In WoW, they've lost their land, had huge lore figures (Cenarius, Malfurion) go neutral and ignore the problem of the Horde destroying the forests, and basically taken a back seat to everything. When will Night Elves be given a spotlight or should we assume that they finally met their match after Archimonde?

I really liked the Warcraft tabletop games and RPGs. Is there a chance we could get perhaps some updates too the current system or perhaps a whole new edition?

I have a question about the Warrior talent Avatar. With Shaman getting a very amazing looking model to go along with their ascendance ability, will we see Avatar and perhaps even Shadow Blades receive similar treatment? It seems there is a lot that can be done with Avatar especially and I feel the current animation for it is very underwhelming. Perhaps a minor glyph for those who wish to keep its current animation?

Question for Developers:

Shaman (PvP) -

One of the major concerns with Elemental Shaman is survivability. Currently with how crazy hybrid healing is, it's less of an issue. When things balance out at 90, it could easily be again. Is there any focus on looking at how easy it is to lock down or train an Elemental Shaman in MoP? If so, do you have any ideas or have you seen any ideas from the fan base that looks like options in the future?

It seems the Auction House has undergone very little visible change since WoW was first released. Speaking as someone who primarily buys items from the AH, I've have the following concerns:
1. The inability to purchase potions of a stack has lead to over buying, and many people flooding the AH with 1 of an item.
2. The deposits seem to be punitive for items whose player value is close to the sell value (e.g. cloth), while meaningless for items without sell values (e.g. enchanting materials)
3. The "abuse" of the neutral AH to move items cross faction by putting an item for sale up and having someone on the other end buy it. This type of transaction is quite insecure.
4. On smaller servers sometimes I simply can't find for sale on the AH at all, even if its something I really need quickly like food for raids.

On PvP servers, can you please elaborate on whether or not PvP actions within towns really will be viable fun once again (i.e. not getting killed in 2-3 hits by a guard for attacking an opposing faction member)? In respect to the guards' damage/health/respawn rate, that is not really an option currently, but I heard this is changing to be more like things used to be.

Question: Can you explain how removing Garosh is of benefit to the alliance? As, the alliance are going to be expending now finite resources in attacking Orgrimmarand I'm curious as to how they are going to accomplish this considering that they have just lost their main supply route into Kalimdor. The horde are to be reunited under one banner and the leader they hate to be removed. Seems like a pretty sweet deal, how does the alliance benefit? And where has this army come from? The alliance has lost almost all of their resources through consistent losses against the horde.

Sorry for the long winded question.

Will we ever see Silvermoon fully rebuilt? SMC/Exo and their respective surrounding zones get flying added to it? Changed to be added to the Azeroth servers instead of the BC servers (no instancing into ghostlands from WPL)?

Will we ever see a third faction (a neutral one, or one that wants to destroy everyone, such as the forsaken revolt led by Putress at Wrathgate)?

Do you have plans to implement more races that could be considered independent of faction loyalties that could choose sides after a few levels or at the character selection screen (ethereals, ogres, arrakoa as examples)?

Will we see possibly worgen, and goblin capital cities? Worgen take back Gilneas, Goblins use Undermine?

Can we get portals to our faction capitals, Dalaran, Shattrath within the main faction capital ... possibly for a portal maintenance fee? So when people start flocking back to capital cities later in the expansion, they can spread out a bit more, especially on faction heavy full servers such as Illidan and Stormrage, where it can cause lag and other issues when a large portion of the players end up in the same area. I know I'd prefer Exodar/Silvermoon (if I could fly), Undercity/Ironforge was popular among others before the removal of Dalaran portals and split the population rather well. Darnassus and Thunder Bluff are really nice if you like the openness and more natural theme to cities. They all deserve appreciation in my humble opinion.

1)The game as a whole is more than likely the best on the market in its genre, but I am wondering if you have played/viewed (through youtube or other such sources)/talked about implementing some of the more fun aspects of other MMO's on the market now into WOW? Examples are like the dynamic real time random zone events as seen in guild wars 2 (could help to further the EXPLORATION theme of this xpac and make the game even more socialable) or the free choice (dark side/light side, money swindler, or out for myself only choices you make in convos) and legacy systems of Star Wars The Old Republic.

2)With 25 man raids seeming to be on their last legs, why haven't we gotten to an option for 15 or 20 man raids? Seems most guilds that did 25 mans in the past still have a good core of about 15 to 20 people and they struggle to fill the rest of the spots for 25 mans so they are forced usually to either stop raiding or go to 2 10 man groups?

3)Why no pre-release event like the zombie invasion/elemental uprising/opening of the dark portal from past xpacs? Why only a very lackluster scenario that is kind of confusing if you havent read the book associated with it?

The new business model is to try and release content faster, however, the main reason for this is because there wasn't enough end game content to keep a player interested in playing. The model has always been. Get to max level -> Run Dungeons -> Run Heroics -> Raid. The options given after that was work on Reputation, Professions, or PvP. Rep and Professions can max out pretty quickly and PvP is just PvP. Outside of PvP and Raiding, there wasn't a lot to do. I know you are trying to fix this in Mists, but when you look at some older games, they offer a lot more for end game content.

Giving players choice is a good thing. Taking EverQuest as an example, they have numerous systems in place that allows for an incredible amount of choice. It may seem overwhelming, but the key word here is choice. From grinding exp out in the world for the Alternate Adavancement system, to leveling up a Spirit Shroud, to being able to actually do all professions in the game instead of just two (a suggestion on that in a moment), to player housing, etc... there is always something unique you can choose to do when you log in. Some of it feels mandatory.. some of it doesn't.

On the subject of professions.. if WoW were to allow someone to do all professions, I think a system could be implemented where you still choose your two main professions and you gain the bonuses from them. All other primary professions would allow you to perform the basic recipes, but not gain any of the bonuses. Example.. if I'm Enchanting and Jewelcrafting.. I cannot benefit from Engineering games, or extended flask durations, etc. We could also switch professions like specs.. perhaps with a reagent or a steep gold charge to gain those benefits, but at the cost of the price and losing the other benefits. Might be a nice idea.

The Darkmoon Faire is another great example of a missed opportunity. One week per month was a let down when it had so much potential. This could have been our "Gold Saucer (Final Fantasy 7 reference, btw)" of WoW. There could have been many more mini games, great rewards for high amounts of points making you play the games over and over. The arena there was a great idea... perhaps even an instance where you could fight a series of increasing difficult mobs that randomized each time. You could say this is copying another game, but Mists is already bringing us Pokemon and Farmville.. and you already have a Plants vs Zombies copy in the game (which should have been in the Darkmoon Faire) so I don't think there is much argument for copying something else.

I know the backstory of this question is a bit long-winded, but with these concerns, what does Blizzard have in mind to keep offering choice to players and give them an incentive or a will to log into the game because Daily Quests get really old really fast.

Question for the Devs:

Would it be possible to have an option when queueing for LFR (LFD) to include or exclude partially completed runs?
It becomes somewhat frustrating to wait in the queue for upwards of 45 minutes and then get the LFR notification of 3/4 bosses dead, hit leave queue and have to queue up and wait all over again. This process may have to be repeated 3-4 times to get a "fresh" run.

I don't mind the 45 minute wait time but waiting 3-4 times for 45 minutes each time can even push me (a relatively patient person) to get irritated. So if we could opt out of the partially completed runs and still only wait the initial 45 minutes, that would be swell.

Thanks for the consideration.

In 5.0, there aren't any Flask Cauldrons, and the feasts aren't as good as personal food. Why did you guys opt to go this direction for consumables?

1)- With Pet Battles coming, what options are being considered for other minigames? I'd personally like to see a card game in game (think Magic: The Gathering). But will the idea of sub-games that are handled as their own BattleNet blobs be continued?

Personally, I'm super excited about the pet battles.


2)- Is there ANY chance we can see weapons whose abilities match their art? No'kaled, for instance, could have had somthing to indicate that it could proc elemental damage. It would be super cool if it had animated differently, or if motes appeared to indicate the element that would happen next. Or for instance, DKs don't actually have runes as a resource, it is on their weapon. Wouldn't it be awesome if when you first runeforged a weapon, the runes appeared on it physically? These verisimilitude options would really score nerd points.

3)- Maybe a bit scarier a question, how much do you consider what each class brings to the table when designing content? For instance, a lot of this expansion has featured a lot of "dot cleave" fights from the raiding perspective, but it always looked to me as if simply adding a few powerful monsters to the encounter who aren't clearly flagged as aoe-able guys equals "dot cleave"- in a "natural" encounter, of the sort you might see in a fantasy or adventure movie, or a D&D encounter on the grid, a "dot" class would normally be able to tag a lot of targets. Is it more that the content guys expect the class guys to give roughly similar powers? Or how is it?

My question is, why did you make the game easier for MoP but, not make it more challenging like you did in the BC expansion, A lot of players i know are quitting the game because of this.

When are u gonna merge the damn servers that have almost no people playing on them. SAVE THOSE PEOPLE

Not sure if anyone has asked this in this threads replies but :

1. Will there ever be an option to Opt out of CRZ's?

2. Are there plans for gathering nodes to be person specific(shared?) like GW2 if there is no option to Opt out of CRZ's? (hopefully someone can phrase/re-write that better than I can)

Would the devs consider introducing a new battleground that would be designed around recapturing some of the old style AV magic that cannot be found anywhere else in the game right now? IoC and the current iteration of AV feel more like PvE encounters 90% of the time, Wintergrasp has been abandoned, and Tol Barad was focused around co-ordination and mobility mechanics instead of valuing actual fighting. The true 40man battle experience is sorely missed by the players!

How come Goblins can't be very class in the game? For years they have traded with both factions. You would think they would of picked up on everything by now? There is even a quest in the Twilight Highlands where a goblin wonders how they can make money as a Shaman.

I'm a big fan of alts. I love leveling them, and taking different paths for each one. But for me, the real test of taking it to 85 is just getting the alt through 60-70. I'm sure others can agree that we're getting really tired of Hellfire Peninsula, and the instances tied to them. The story behind the quests is also... weird. Apparently Illidan is still around? I can understand in Northrend that the Lich King is technically still around, despite the quest dialogue not really reflecting these changes.

Anyway, I love 1-60, hate 60-70, getting tired of Outland and its forced linearity (at least at the beginning). Any thoughts on doing a revamp for those zones, or maybe lowering the leveling requirement for entering Outland so we can actually experience some of the zones again? I bet there's players out there who have never even seen Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley.