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Isle of Thunder US - Stage 2 Unlocked

Patch 5.2 Dev Interviews
Let's take a look at another one of the dev interviews today, the MMORPG interview with Ghostcrawler.

  • New character models are still actively being worked on.
  • Pandaren are a good example of how detailed the new models will be. They have facial animations with moving eyes and mouths, fingers that are all individual and not just a mitten, as well as new animations.
  • "MMORPG: As long as my Dwarf looks prettier. That’s a good thing. Greg: It is coming, and the new dwarf is very pretty."
  • Defense of the Alehouse is an experiment right now, with no definite release date.
  • Blizzard is working on other battlegrounds that we likely will see sooner.
  • Patch 5.3 will tell the story that leads up to the Siege of Orgrimmar. Varian will bring the Alliance together and push the Horde apart.
  • Work had started on Patch 5.2 and 5.3 before 5.0 even launched.
  • Blizzard can now plan for the next expansion far enough ahead to put some seeds of what is to come in the current story.
  • On Blizzcon: "I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about."
  • Moving to free to play would require it to be more successful than the current business model, which isn't the case right now.


Throne of Thunder Heroic Progression
Lots of progress this weekend! Method, DREAM Paragon, and Blood Legion are all now 10/13. While there is no video of Heroic Dark Animus yet, Blood Legion has uploaded one of Primordius.

You can keep up with the kills on Manaflask, our forum thread, and WowProgress.





Automatic Flight Path Discovery Unintended
It looks like we can look forward to a post in the coming week about why automatic flight path discovery was unintended and is not coming back.



Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Character
Where's character progression for nonraiders when new valor gear requires raid rep? "Playing my way" was nice while it lasted.
There is gear on the non-raid reps (Sunreaver and Kirin Tor), just not the best gear. (Source)

A lot of post on fixing 25M raiding. I don't think it's broken, but we need some hlp with logistics and management. Any plans?
What would help with logistics and management? (Source)
We rely on third party websites and/or making endless level 1 alts to make contact with players.
Yeah, we need to come up with a communication system players can use for legit needs without opening up new ways for spam. (Source)

We got your stance about PlayerHousing (it's a no-go for now), but what about GuildHousing?
We worry that guild housing is only content for the guild leaders. (Source)

Are the new legendary meta gems replacing our normal meta gems or is it in addition to them?
They are just meta gems, so they replace the one you normally use. (Source)

Why can't your team keep upgrades in for 5.0/5.1 gear only? Make them upgrade through Justice...
There is no technically simple way to do so. We agree upgrading the ilevel of blues in general feels good. (Source)

Why can't Fist-Weapons and daggers be interchangeable like every other 1h weapon for transmog now?
Animation technical limitation. Maybe someday. (Source)
Why doesnt that limitation apply to Guns/Bows/Crossbows, which all use different animations yet can be mogged?
Originally coded that way since the gun sounds bug some players so much. Not an unsolvable problem but it does take some code. (Source)

Hey Greg, I was just wondering: is there any posiblity that in the close future we will see cross realm herilooms?
Yeah, the possibility exists. We have no design objection. Mail wasn't set up to work that way. (Source)
couldn't uou change heirlooms to something like mounts? Scroll down ui that would help keep track. A lot better
Yeah I said last Blizzcon that I'd love to see that. (Source)

Hey guys, is the "Appear offline" feature going to be implemented tomorrow in 5.2? Thanks!
Pretty sure it is not in 5.2. Ran into some technical limitations. Still like the design idea. (Source)

No interviewer has asked this past week about it so here goes: Update on model revamps? Last update was last year iirc
Any answer just tends to build excitement to a scary level so it's best just to keep quiet for now. (Source)

Are you going to fix the proc rate on the 5.2 trinkets? Currently they are way too unreliable.
We're considering some pseudo randomization in players' favor. E.g. if no proc, increase chance next time. Avoids bad streaks. (Source)
I really hope some action is taken on this quickly i'm going to be passing on trinkets in ToT on my shaman until then.
We think we're going to apply the pseudo random thing. We'll write up details somewhere players can see it. (Source)

“Getting new gear is annoying. Cost of reforging, enchanting/gemming, transmogging (void storage all add up. Blah.” @Ghostcrawler
We agree. Too much post-modification takes the fun out of getting a new piece. Need to work on that. (Source)

We also added some protection to the ToT RPPM trinkets to avoid streaks of bad luck and buffed some to boot. Details soon. (Source)
Do you think you may be setting a bad precedent? Soothing Mist and now trinkets have streak protection. Might become expected.
Would that be a bad thing? Quest drops have had it for years and we want to add it to bonus rolls as well. (Source)
Just worried you might be painting yourself into a corner. Precedents have come back to bite you before.
Funny you mention that, because I feel like precedents have become a big part of this job. Like being on a supreme court at times. (Source)

The new system will prevent unlucky streaks, but not lucky ones. Why not a ramping up proc chance from t=0 ? (less variance)
Lucky streaks were what we were trying to deliver. Otherwise, procs might as well be passives since they're so predictable. (Source)

twizzcast: playing alts is just something for times youve got nothing to do? What if people just like to play multiple classes
But, making a main take 100% and all of the alts 0% means you're not actually playing an alt. Needs to be somewhere in the middle. (Source)
The point was that we can't offer mains 20% of the content so that folks with 5 characters would have 100% of the content. (Source)

Doesn't it seem like Valor of the Ancients should trigger when you achieve 1000VP on a realm in a week? Not a specific toon?
Debated that, but it makes you e.g. want to do first dungeon with every alt before playing your main. (Source)

Professions
Odds on a revamp for fishing and lw? Fishing is slow, tedious, uninteractive; LW requires too many mats for how fast you level
Odds are high, but not for 5.2. (Source)

GC, w/ the recent revamps to leveling profs. I want to level a JC. But should I wait? Any plans to revamp leveling JC?
Not for 5.2 and we haven't decided what profs to focus on for 5.3 yet. (Source)

Are we going to get our filters back in Profession windows? Or new filters? I'd like to separate swords from all weapons.
They need much better filtering overall. (Source)

I don't like the Blacksmithing changes, because it dumbs down another aspect of the game. Farming old ore was easy anyway
Usually players use "dumbing down" to mean less skill required not less time commitment. (Source)

That new engineering mount, the sky claw. Is it still in there? No mention of it in patch notes.
It's not. We had to pull it at the last second. Hopefully we can fix it and it will return. (Source)
What about the other engineering items from the 5.2 PTR like the fridge? Are they ever coming out?
We'd like to put them all out together rather than trickling a recipe in here and there. (Source)

Race to World First
Now that the race is on once again, the Race to World First documentary is free to watch for the next two weeks.



Guild Wars 2: The End of Culling
An interesting post popped up this week that demonstrates a solution for game performance during large scale PvP battles. Previously, in large scale PvP, players that were farther away from you were hidden to reduce the load on your client. This led to people that you couldn't see attacking you for several seconds before they became visible.

Under the changed system, the client can render characters using the normal high res models, low res and much more generic model, and the just nameplates only. Players can set the number of characters to render with a model vs nameplates, as well as the quality of models to be used.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Dev Interviews, ToT Progression, Heroic Primordius Video, Blue Tweets, GW2 Culling started by chaud View original post
Comments 47 Comments
  1. Phaidrae's Avatar
    “Getting new gear is annoying. Cost of reforging, enchanting/gemming, transmogging (void storage all add up. Blah.” @Ghostcrawler
    We agree. Too much post-modification takes the fun out of getting a new piece. Need to work on that. (Source)
    I SO hope they work on that. I got a new weapon recently - and between enchanting that, enchanting the off-hand I got to go w/ it and reforging I dropped over 5k gold...Getting a new piece of gear shouldn't feel like such a penalty. I REALLY like the idea of reforging - but the cost of enchanting is just too damn high.
  1. Airwaves's Avatar
    Moving to free to play would require it to be more successful than the current business model, which isn't the case right now.
    And lets hope that never happens.
  1. hawtlol's Avatar
    Fight looks boring. Sick of the whole kill these adds then kill the boss fights are so old and reused. You fight more of the adds in these boss fights than you do the actual boss now.
  1. sociald1077's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hawtlol View Post
    Fight looks boring. Sick of the whole kill these adds then kill the boss fights are so old and reused. You fight more of the adds in these boss fights than you do the actual boss now.
    Whats another way to approach it? More tank&spank? More movement/clicking things? What are new mechanics which could actually be implemented into the game, not just wild crazy things that really couldnt be programmed into the game?
  1. mmoc24665d4db5's Avatar
    I wanna see that new Dwarf model
  1. mmoce1187a0503's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by sociald1077 View Post
    Whats another way to approach it? More tank&spank? More movement/clicking things? What are new mechanics which could actually be implemented into the game, not just wild crazy things that really couldnt be programmed into the game?
    A boss with all D3 champion modifiers at once. Fun garuanteed.
  1. Tarx's Avatar
    paragon11/13
  1. bufferunderrun's Avatar
    twizzcast: playing alts is just something for times youve got nothing to do? What if people just like to play multiple classes
    But, making a main take 100% and all of the alts 0% means you're not actually playing an alt. Needs to be somewhere in the middle. (Source)
    The point was that we can't offer mains 20% of the content so that folks with 5 characters would have 100% of the content. (Source)
    Lie peoples simply ask to reduce the time riquired to manage alts and everything necessary to do it was already in game,
    1) boa flight book buyable when your first char reach 90
    2) heirloom upgradable to 90 with restriction to have at last one char already to 90
    3) boa tabards for rep championing in dungeon requiring your main to be exalted to buy them
    this remove nothing from how much contents your main has and don't remove thing you need to do in order to play alts.
  1. ZeroWashu's Avatar
    They should make flight point unlocks account wide, that way player's will have the discovery aspect for one character and not have to ride down the others, some of which put areas basically off limits or not worth the time (Gadgetzan for alliance is annoying as all get out)

    Now in my guild we found that people are just sitting in queue and not bothering to quest at some levels because travel time makes it not worthwhile. With heirlooms and LFD some found it faster to queue than to ride.
  1. alexday14's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xilurm View Post
    Who gives a shit about the stinking dwarfs? I want to see Humans, Night Elves, Draenei and Blood Elves. Oh and the Forsaken cause I can't stand them.

    Actually those are my favorites, I want to see them all.

    Gimme gimme GIMME!!!
    I give many shits about Dwarves and their new models!
    You can keep your disgusting 'pretty-female' races, GIVE ME TEXTURED BEARDS!
  1. F-Minus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaidrae View Post
    I SO hope they work on that. I got a new weapon recently - and between enchanting that, enchanting the off-hand I got to go w/ it and reforging I dropped over 5k gold...Getting a new piece of gear shouldn't feel like such a penalty. I REALLY like the idea of reforging - but the cost of enchanting is just too damn high.
    Point being? I make 5k gold in about a week (that's slow) by just doing some dungeons, scenarios, dailys and raiding. Prices of enchants are fine, it's not like you change gear every day 5 times, let alone weapons.
  1. Kuja's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Blizzard can now plan for the next expansion far enough ahead to put some seeds of what is to come in the current story.
    This pretty much confirms that the next expansion is Burning Legion related. So many hints everywhere, even the new TCG card is basically a Legion expansion.
  1. Exeris's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Quakefan View Post
    I wanna see that new Dwarf model
    Me to!

    Hope it's not to pretty though, leave my manliness alone!
  1. Sarevokcz's Avatar
    Holy crap, are they serious? the FP change is horrible. Yes, it was convenient, but now, people will level through dungeons even more, since doing dungeons will be like domino effect. Do 3 or 4 dungs and you completely outlevel your current zone, so you have to ride through atleast one zone... and in the meantime, you que and do another dungeon or three... and by the time you get there, you outlevel the new zone again, I guess population in Orgrimmar was too low sine Cata
  1. Darmalus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    The reason the faces are that way is because they're so detailed.

    On old models, you could stick eyes and eyebrows any old place, because the faces were fairly static. Pandaren eyebrows and other facial features basically HAVE to sit where they do, as they would otherwise not synch up with the complex eyebrow/mouth animations.
    Even then, the old faces were all identical skulls with different face lines drawn on, no different than fur patterns. The differences between the old faces is no deeper than the pandaren ones, but people love to fool themselves.
  1. Ickabob's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hamsterbom View Post
    Me to!

    Hope it's not to pretty though, leave my manliness alone!
    "MMORPG: As long as my Dwarf looks prettier. That’s a good thing. Greg: It is coming, and the new dwarf is very pretty."

    I think this might be aimed at fem dorfs, who lets face it, could use some love. I'd actually play one if she looked pretty.
  1. maulgryve's Avatar
    Not having automatic flight points is pretty stupid. It is like going to the airport to buy a ticket to New York and then the person at the counter saying, "Have you been there before? No? In that case, sorry, we don't know where that is either."
  1. Eleveneleven's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by maulgryve View Post
    Not having automatic flight points is pretty stupid. It is like going to the airport to buy a ticket to New York and then the person at the counter saying, "Have you been there before? No? In that case, sorry, we don't know where that is either."
    Except the real world doesn't have a mission to make you a traveller. Blizzard's mission with MoP is to get people out in the world more and they want you to roam and discover first.
  1. Charo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ickabob View Post
    "MMORPG: As long as my Dwarf looks prettier. That’s a good thing. Greg: It is coming, and the new dwarf is very pretty."

    I think this might be aimed at fem dorfs, who lets face it, could use some love. I'd actually play one if she looked pretty.
    They do look pretty, they look perfectly appropriate as a female dwarf... If they made fem-dwarves as sexualized as say female blood elves, they better be offering me free race changes.
  1. ZeroWashu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eleveneleven View Post
    Except the real world doesn't have a mission to make you a traveller. Blizzard's mission with MoP is to get people out in the world more and they want you to roam and discover first.

    Then keep that model in the current expansion areas only.

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