Blizzcon Dev Interview, Character Re-Customization, Blue Posts, Blizzcon Pictures

What We've Learned From BlizzCon, Ladders are Still Experimented With, RoS BlizzCon Fan Reviews

BlizzCon 2013 Recap - Open Beta, iPhone, Android, Mystery Minion, and More

Blizzcon Dev Interview
The Instance had a chance to interview Ghostcrawler and Russell Brower at Blizzcon. You can find a recap of the more interesting points below, but this episode is especially entertaining if you have time to listen!

Level 90 Boost
  • One of the problem's with WoW's success is the number of people coming back for a new expansion and not being able to join their friends right away. People may have left the game during previous expansions and would have had to level a lot before they were able to start playing with friends, which is not as much fun as playing right away. Giving everyone one free Level 90 should help out returning players.
  • If you take advantage of the Level 90 boost, the experience will be like Scroll of Resurrection on steroids. All of the skills will be removed from your bar except for the few that you need to be able to kill things. As you complete quests you will get more of your abilities until you have all of them, similar to the Death Knight starting experience.

Items and Professions
  • In the future it would be nice to save armor in a collection for transmog rather than having it fill up your bags.
  • Hit didn't feel like a bonus, just a hoop to jump through before having fun. It is hard to justify keeping a system like that in the game.
  • Tanking gear will have Armor as a tanking stat after Dodge and Parry are gone.
  • Reforging was supposed to be something that let players customize their gear to change their playstyle a little bit. It ended up just being extra work (and math) that had to be done if you wanted the most optimal gear.
  • The devs will try to reduce the economic impact that the Enchanting and Jewelcrafting changes will make. Enchanting might be able to make some weapons or offhands. Jewelcrafters might be able to make some trinkets or other things to sell.

Guilds and Raiding
  • The vast majority of raiders will still have a 10 player raid size option in Normal / Heroic (currently Flex / Normal). The Mythic (currently Heroic) difficulty has just one size to avoid the issues that appear when trying to balance both 10 and 25.
  • Today it is hard for 10 player guilds to grow, as every person that is added to the guild means one more person is sitting out. In the future you can bring that person to your raid thanks to the scaling tech.
  • The devs didn't talk to the top guilds about the Mythic raid size change beforehand.

Garrisons
  • The Garrison will have a farm, mine, and place to fish. Hopefully it will feel like a much, much bigger and cooler version of the farm.
  • Pet Battles and Garrisons seem like they would be nice on mobile devices, but any resources spent on doing that will not be used on the actual game.
  • The Pet Stable in the Garrison will allow you to assign some of your pets to appear in the world there.

Character Customization and Art
  • The team has talked about more customization, such as sub races, for a long time. Some would require different models with different textures. A good way to give players access to the different races would also be required. Perks for the different sub races might also be interesting.
  • The artists have experimented with what a brace of knives would look like on a Rogue's thigh. Quivers are another thing that are being looked at. While they might not be ready for 6.0, they are being worked on.

Misc
  • Draenor should feel scary, similar to the experience with Fel Reavers in Outland. There are giant Gron walking around, making the world a more dangerous place. Flying mount access will be delayed as long as possible, maybe even past Level 100 until Patch 6.1. (Keep in mind this is just an idea being tossed around)
  • Mists of Pandaria only had enough designers and artists to do new raids, as they last longer than a few dungeons. The encounter and art teams have become bigger since then, so more dungeons will hopefully be added in later Warlords patches.
  • Making big changes in the middle of an expansion is dangerous, as players log in and find significant changes that they can't keep up with. With a new expansion some bigger changes are expected, so it is safer to do larger changes for new expansions.

Sound
  • Sound shouldn't be annoying, which is part of reasoning for the new Hunter weapon sounds.
  • The last time there has been so much diversity in the sound required for the expansion was likely Vanilla. There is a lot diversity in the races and zones in Warlords.


Level 100 Talent Calculator
Over the weekend we added the Level 100 Talents to the WoWDB Talent Calculator. Keep in mind these talents will likely change significantly before release and are not final. You can find a text listing of the talents in this recap.



Character Models and Re-Customization
Ghostcrawler and other blue posters made it very clear yesterday that the "no free re-customization" is definitely not a final decision.


Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
New Character Models
So I have to say...I'm disappointed there are no screenshots of any updated human females...are they not getting a new character model update too?
We're still working on many of the character models. They are all (up to goblin and worgen) getting it. We'll consider goblin and worgen too later if it makes sense. (Don't panic.)

Chris Robinson during the art panel said he had wished he could have brought completed screenshots of all of the races and genders but it just wasn't possible. When you take a look at the ones we're able to show currently, you'll be able to see all of the hard work and care being put into them though. Check out a few races on our site- http://us.battle.net/wow/en/warlords...or/#characters

Nethaera, please check these threads on mmo-champion, there's a lot of feedback about the new character models
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...w-undead-model

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Keep-the-Hunch
We'll be keeping an eye on ALL feedback that's coming in on the content we're working on, just keep in mind, the issue with art is it's subjective. No matter what we do, someone else is going to believe they know how it can be better.

They have to finish updating Horde races first. After that's done, they'll start working on Alliance models.
Odd perspective when two of the models being shown on the website are dwarf and gnome and we showed the female gnome and female dwarf a little at BlizzCon. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Free Character Re-Customization
Once again I want to say this. The question didn't mention at all about a free customization. It only asked about if it's possible to get a customization. I think either Jay or whatever read the question wrong or the guy asked it wrong.
Again I think it's just way too early to make a determination, and Tom certainly didn't give a definite answer. Our artists are going to extreme lengths to ensure the new models and animations embody (kyuck knyuck?) what you know and love about your characters. Our hope (and Tom's point) is that you log in, go AWESOME, and enjoy playing your character that still looks and moves and acts like your character - just at a much higher fidelity. If it comes down to it and we just totally miss the mark I'm sure we'd at least seriously consider offering a chance to pick something else. But again, too early to say for sure.

With all due respect, Bash, the quote (including the additional context Chaud just posted) seems fairly definitive to me. It's only not definitive in the "it's pre-beta and anything could change" sense, but his statement was not ambiguous. His current plan is to not offer free recustomizations. Maybe he'll change his mind, but, well, that's the point of this thread: to get the policy changed.
That's cool if you want to take it that way, but there's no policy. It's current thoughts based on sound intent of a faithful update for current looks and options. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Content
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Wrathion and Warlords of Draenor Content
Where did Wrathion go? Why did you scrap the Burning Legion despite all of the chatter about their return? Why did BlizzCon offer so little about actual content and instead focus mainly on Garrisons? I gotta say, I am not really all that thrilled about another filler expansion that is more or less just a huge patch with new features.
I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Wrathion. Keep in mind (not saying this is related to Wrathion btw) that the story bits you've seen are just one part of the expansion's story. There will be plenty more that you'll get to experience. You are going to get to experience the Draenei's real culture, history, and heroes among many others.

There's a ton of new content as well. Garrisons is a new piece of content, as is the new PvP zone, Trial of the Gladiator is completely new and there are a ton of quality of life improvements. Not to mention all of the new (completely new from the ground up) zones, creatures, quests, story lines and much much more.

This next expansion is definitely not filler. It always makes me a bit sad when I see people who say things like this, but we'll do our best to help you see the light with more information releases as we go along.

This is part-and-parcel of a new expansion and certainly would expect nothing less. I've always found the expansions offer tons of new zones, quests, etc. The critique here is that the tone of the game seemed to be shifting in a very obvious direction, but it seems like it was scrapped last-second for Warlords. Based on the presentation--what are the raids, who are the bosses, what is the lore, what story does the cinematic tell--it almost seems like you were not prepared to reveal a new expansion at BlizzCon.

P.S. - I don't mean to make you sad. As you know, the game has a pretty passionate following.
Nothing was built and then "scrapped at the last second" in fact, from what I know, the developers have been working on a lot of this plus more (future more) very very hard. If you read this blog (if you didn't see the live stream) by Bashiok, you can read more of the dungeons and Raids that are planned. The "Warlords of Draenor: The Adventure continues" panel live stream also went more into the story and who you're going to see and meet there (the original warchiefs like Grommash, Durotan etc.)

The trailer shown for the announcement is more of a tease, but if you look at the main image, those are all orc warchiefs that those familiar with the original Warcraft RTS will readily recognize. This is a chance for the Alliance to take the initiative and go after the Iron Horde and it's a chance for the Horde as it is now to rediscover who they are and what they're about. The story is about YOU as a hero as well, facing down an incredibly powerful and dangerous foe in order to protect Azeroth as it is today.

It seems that there's still a lot of information that you're missing and if you didn't get the live-stream or don't plan to, might I also suggest spending some time reading the articles on our various fansites and listening to their podcasts? (We'll try to gather as many of them together for you as we can to help too.) I think that might help you understand a bit more about our plans.

As always, this is just the start of things and as development progresses, ideas, and implementation of those ideas may change, but we'll try to share as much as we can as we go along for you.

I must admit the whole garrison thing could have been cool but bliz just flat out got it wrong again... I would much rather see a GUILD garrison. Would it not be completely awesome if your garrison was attacked by random bosses/mobs and had to be defended by your guild. I picture huge armies of gnolls charging your gates or some random rock giant eating your walls... Make the events random and give some world loot for defeating it, or suffer thru massive costly rebuilds if you cant.
Much like the farm was a first step, consider this another step. People kept asking for player housing and we had to find a way to make it truly a part of Warcraft and not just a place to collect dust bunnies. This is what we've come up with. Could guild structures be something that comes about eventually? It just might. Not getting something now doesn't mean it's not possible some time in the future. It may just happen. We didn't just come up with Garrisons overnight. It took time, planning, thought, and technology to all come together. It's a great addition and you'll still be able to bring your friends and guildies into it to visit and maybe even show off your elite Garrison planning skills.

Wait...we're actually getting Draenei Lore? I thought that didn't exist?
Getting some? We're going to their HOME. We get to get up close and intimate with who they are, what they're about, their lore, their, struggles, their triumphs, their defeats. We get to find out so much more about them (plus no one crashes a space ship.) Are you sure you're ready for it?

I am not really missing out on a lot of information--Bashiok's blog post about D&R in WoD is not overly informative (it was mainly about the fact that Flex worked and it's coming back even more so, but we're renaming the difficulties).
We purposefully didn't recap all of the panels because we know how much coverage there would be from fansites etc. I certainly didn't want you to think I was saying you didn't know or understand the lore. I'm going off of all of the extra information that was shared within the panels that had a lot of extra nuance that may have been missed. We'll be doing what we can to fill in the gaps too over time. We just felt it was a good idea to get the basics out there, round up the fansite and media coverage and then as we move forward, start getting into more of the nitty gritty details as we define them more during development. Call it some breathing room if you will.

The story is being moved forward, just in another way. I understand if you might not have an interest in it or have expectations for a different story all together, but it's not directionless development being done. There's a plan in place and hopefully we'll be able to continue to express that plan to everyone in a clear way.

We really do appreciate all of the interest and discussion on it all already as well as the constructive feedback. Please don't think we don't.

Well... do we at least get a quest to crash an Elekk, Gryphon, Gyrocopter or something along those lines at least?

I've heard there's tanks. Will those do?

And here I thought that Draenor wasn't actually the homeworld of the Draenei, that Argus was their homeworld, and that they just landed on Draenor after escaping the Burning Legion. Looks like another Draenei-influenced retcon.
Not a retcon and technically you're correct, it's not their original home, but it's a home that they made their own complete with culture and history. So, you're right on one level and not right on another. They've had several homes, this one though is a pretty big one for them.

Just to touch on Wrathion briefly, it seems Dave Kosak did mention it in a panel that we like Wrathion and he may make an appearance but we have no plans to have him work on a Legendary quest line in Warlords of Draenor. (I checked with the team to see if I missed the answer somewhere and it seems I did.)

While we're discussing the story of WoD, here's something my wife seriously asked me after watching many of the panels:

"Are they going to have a heroic scenario where we discover the secret location that Blizzard is stashing all their female leads for WoD and free them?"

Seriously though, watching them roll out 10 main characters and having them all be men is disappointing. Maybe that works for the testosterone filled 18-24 male age group, but please remember that many of your players are women and men who appreciate a diversified story with actual female characters. Blizzard has always done a fair job of this, so the 10 main characters highlighted being all male felt very 2003 and out of touch for 2013. And frankly it's just boring to have the whole expansion be a sausage-festival.
Valid concern and I can address that only a little right now, but it's worth noting that there are plans for some female characters as well. Historically the clan chiefs are all male, so I can see how with the announcement video that it looks very male heavy. But, there will be female characters that will have their time as well. I'm not going to say 50/50 or equal time since I'm not privy to the specifics right now and wouldn't want to spoil anything anyway, but I can say that the designers are working on it. I don't know how much was covered by Applecidermage when she spoke with quest designer Helen Cheng but from speaking to her (and she's someone that's been critical of this herself), she seemed pretty happy about what she's heard. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Content
Time travel is a concept that in every TV, game or movie I have seen it in means your product has jumped the shark and run out of ideas. The only thing worse in storytelling is the "It was all just a dream!" device. Not sure how they are going to implement it, but I would assume instance-style ala Caverns of Time or phasing. Fine for a patch. But didn't Blizzard just say in Cataclysm that creating a disjointed world was part of the reason it failed? Same with the Garrison concept. It's almost player housing...with phasing...which nobody likes and will be exploited in PVP...

What I do know is that this the first time I have ever leaned heavily towards not buying the Xpack. As an average player, that makes me feel like I am not alone, and that there needs to be more of the things I would expect in a patch. What I see right now does NOT make me want for fork over $50. (New character models!!! Really?)

Cmon Blizzard, give me a better reason to stay! What is missing that you need to see from this Xpack? For me, the minimum needs to be a new race/new zone. Otherwise, what am I paying for?
First, it's not a story of time travel. It's a story of Draenor. There's not moment where you've disrupted the space/time continuum. There's no moment when you will worry about running into your double. It's an opportunity to experience it in it's (savage) glory. Nothing more.

Second, while you may feel disappointed right now, (though from what I've seen you might be one of the few), you may just change your mind. Have you watched the Live-Stream at all? There is an awful lot to get excited about.

That said, I respect that you may feel the way you do, but I think you need to really look at it all again and then keep an eye on our updates we'll be providing along the way.

I think you may just feel you've gotten a new race just by the character updates. We're not just talking about a re-skin, but talking about more bones, more movement in hair, facial expressions that bring characters even more to life, animation, and even improvements to how they SOUND when they walk. (Sound Panel for those that missed it.) We also have to ask ourselves if a new race and class is necessary or even makes sense. There are so many to choose from already and a lot of work that's gone into each existing one as it is. Do we really have room for more? Maybe someday in the future. Is now the time for it? Perhaps not.

If you want new zones, there are plenty of those see here. There are seven of them all being built from the ground up.

If you're hinging your total enjoyment on whether or not there's a new class or race though, then yes, you're probably going to be a bit disappointed.

Sorry, but that WOULD make it a revamped Outlands. A new zone wouldn't need to be based on anything, that's what NEW implies.

Blizzard's definition of new and the actual dictionary definition of new are apparently two different things. See Neth's comments on how the new character models will be like getting all-new races.
My words taken out of context are just that. Don't make it sound as if it was a pithy remark to dismiss a concern someone had. There was more to the answer there. My point was that it may well feel (to some) like a new character with the enhancements/updates.

Outland is not being revamped. Draenor is a completely new world. Outland is the shadow of what Draenor was before it was shattered. We're not putting the pieces back together though. We're creating Draenor for you to experience as it was prior to it being shattered. It's being built (literally built) from the ground up. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor and Time Travel
Blizzard sucks at realism. It's natural.
Please share your real time travel with the rest of us.

You are from universe A, going to parallel universe B 30 years ago. Anything happen in universe B won't affect history of universe A.
Right. Garrosh goes back to Draenor and starts messing with things to make his perfect Horde which creates an alternate timeline. From that alternate timeline they find a way to come through the Dark Portal to our present. A very real danger to our current Azeroth, but changes on the alternate timeline's past would not affect our present (except for the angry murder-orcs spilling out of the Dark Portal).

As Dave said it's not something you need to worry about, this isn't the time travel/paradox expansion; it's about exploring that setting, visiting those locations, meeting or facing these legendary names and figures from the past, and experiencing some extremely important settings of Warcraft's history in a bigger way than we've ever done before. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Account Wide Reputations
Even the account-wide systems have limitations/exceptions, and most are based on the idea that you're still playing individual characters that are making progress within the world they inhabit. Making various systems account-wide is obviously convenient and time-saving, but it can have a downside of reducing attachment and meaning for the actions of your individual characters. Despite some player's intent to reduce the game to its core systems, we do still hold that this should be an immersive roleplaying game, and that your character's actions aren't just numbers or an entry in a database.

In quite a few cases we're ok with sacrificing some character individuality for the sake of convenience, but even with those there are exceptions where achievements/mounts/etc. are character-specific. We don't really want the game to be a platform where you swap characters in at out at-will because there's no difference between them except a skin and set of abilities. Ideally you're making an alt because you want to play them.

So, in-short, we prefer that reputations are an enjoyable way to track your progress while playing, or something earned by a hero that so impressed a faction as to gain their highest esteem and reverence, and for those reasons we have no intention to make reputations account-wide at the current time. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Cost Of Leveling Gear
You can make more mining, skinning and herb picking in lowbie areas than in the higher zones. What does that do to lowbies trying to raise their profession, trying to make money, and to equip themselves?
Probably makes them fairly wealthy off-the-bat if they have a gathering profession, which most do as the guides out there recommend against dual-crafting professions for new characters. Likely a what-if situation more than a real problem a lot of people run into. If low-level things on the AH are going for a lot, it means low-level players are going to sell the stuff they find for a lot, and they'll be able to get into the economy fairly quickly.

The redesign of 1-60 in Cataclysm also brought the quest/dungeon itemization in-line with newer designs, so crafting that OP Enchanting wand that'd last you until level 20 isn't really a thing any more. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Race or Class
We're making new character models for all original races (and likely draenei/blood elves as well) including redone hair/skin/appearance options and animations. We're essentially implementing 8 (10) "new" races, as far as the amount of work goes. It's been a long-time coming, it's been one of your guys' main requests for the game, one of our biggest wish-list items, and we're finally delivering on new character models. That's huge.

As far as a new class, when we take a long-term view of World of Warcraft we don't see a game where we ended up having 50 classes. A new class is a big deal, and while it can be a lot of fun, it's also a big shakeup to people's understanding of the game ("Who is this new guy and what does he do?" /in your best Arnold voice). Even if you don't play one they'll be in your groups and so it requires that everyone essentially learn the new class. We are intentionally cautious about adding new ones. Plus we just added monk and the class landscape right now feels pretty good. There will of course be class tweaks and changes in Warlords of Draenor, but having an expansion with the same talent system as the expansion before it (*gasp*), and with more or less the same ability/class lineup will be a nice change of pace and allow both our designers and players to focus on the big new features and quality of life improvements to the game's core systems. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Female Characters in Warlords of Draenor
After watching the Blizzcon panels my wife asked me the following: "Are we going to get a heroic scenario where we discover the secret location Blizzard has hidden all of their female lead characters so we can liberate them?"

I've come to understand that so heavily weighting your stories to an all-male cast isn't just mindlessly sexist, it's downright bad storytelling as well. And it's a surefire way to make your story freaking boring (there are others of course, but this is a big one).

Of course I can appreciate that Blizzard has been hard at work, in secret, to build the WoD story and game. In that crucible of fire and secrecy, a lot of ideas are thrown in that will not pass a more public scrutiny. It is in that vein that I offer this post.

Now that you've opened up the process to the fans, allow me to help give you some perspective. And I'll also give you a little reminder that this is 2013, not 2003, and boring one-dimensional stories aren't going to cut it anymore.
I answered you (I believe it was you) in another thread, but I wanted to reiterate. As with any time we announce new expansions, we haven't revealed a lot of the story. Some things are just going to have to be experienced or revealed later if we choose to reveal them. That said, there are female characters that will be showing up to be a part of the adventure. I know of one at least that I'm really looking forward to learning more of.

Personally, I'm really happy to have so many in the community come forward and ask to see these wonderful female characters to get more air time. Hopefully the designers will be able to satisfy a bit of this for you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)


Toy Collection in Warlords of Draenor
I think the new inventory features for toys and heirlooms are great! But....how do I get back all the toys I had to destroy because I didn't have room for them?
We'll see what happens, but it may be possible to get you back the toys that were quest rewards. We'll have to see about anything else though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvE
Do you see other types of PvE based content (i.e. raid alternatives, not faction grind/dailies) coming into WoW?
It is possible but certainly not trivial to design. (Source)

regarding encounter design, why do "tank swaps" keep getting used? Is there no other way to force a second tank into a 10m?
Swaps are one tool, along with just tanking different things, but we want to be able to have one boss fights as well. (Source)
We no longer do saber lash-style damage soaking, which tanks as a group were pretty down on. (Source)

Hey gc, how do you feel about the change from Hmode being activated through mechanics (like ulduar) vs clicking a menu button?
People tend to remember Mimiron and maybe Freya, but the fact is we were going to run out of "button" ideas really quickly. (Source)

Blizzcon Coverage Update
The World of Warcraft: What's Next panel notes have now been updated to include more detail. A mega recap is forthcoming after all panel notes have been updated!



Blizzcon Pictures
We have a small selection of the things you can see at Blizzcon! If you went to Blizzcon and took any interesting pictures, feel free to share them in the comments.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Blizzcon Dev Interview, Character Re-Customization, Blue Posts, Blizzcon Pictures started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-11-12 10:22 AM
80 Comments
Comments 80 Comments
  1. nekobaka's Avatar
    Reforging was supposed to be something that let players customize their gear to change their playstyle a little bit. It ended up just being extra work (and math) that had to be done if you wanted the most optimal gear.
    Well no shit if you want things to be optimal there is going to be extra effort involved. Might as well make gems and enchants only boost primary stats with that kind of mindset.
  1. Dizzy Praxis's Avatar
    So, I quit the game in early Cataclysm and I am considering playingi t again because this sounds like it would be great. That, and I want to play with Divine Clarity on a Shadow Priest. With Mind Spike, Vampiric Embrace, and Shadow Word: Death as my Major Glyphs. xD
    Shadow Mender Priest LFG!!
  1. mmoccf7793ba86's Avatar
    I like the fact that they disable flying for a while
    Looking forward to it!
  1. Nuvuk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zokten View Post
    yea, because that works
    When did I say that? I dont remember saying that about Enchanting and Jewel crafting.
  1. nekobaka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Exerus View Post
    When did I say that? I dont remember saying that about Enchanting and Jewel crafting.
    They probably screwed up quoting by using the reply function to make a quote while not removing the user ID instead of just using the quote button.
  1. ringpriest's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by stabetha View Post
    Actually most women and many men think it's ridiculous to get your panties in a twist over whether or not the pixels on the screen are shaped like tits. it's the girls and boys that care.
    Well, as long as you're speaking for the human race, mind telling me who's going to win the next U.S. presidential election? I'd like to get some money down while the odds are still long.
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    "Flying mount access will be delayed as long as possible, maybe even past Level 100 until Patch 6.1."

    Know what else will be delayed? My expansion purchase and subscription fee.

    - - - Updated - - -

    "The encounter and art teams have become bigger since then, so more dungeons will hopefully be added in later Warlords patches."

    If that were true we wouldn't have only 3 new dungeons to level with. All I'm reading are excuses.
  1. arcaneshot's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by a_geek_tragedy View Post
    I get it. I was being unnecessarily harsh, I guess. It just irritates me that we go through this same song-and-dance every expansion, whereby Blizz creates a ground-based leveling experience that prohibits flying, rather than trying to integrate flying into the leveling process. Personally, I hate leveling: it's the part of the game I find most tedious, most time-consuming, and most annoying. So, I typically want to get it done as quickly as possible. I could get it done more quickly if I could fly, but every expansion, I'm relegated back to my ground mount. Now I'm being told I might not even be able to fly until the first post-expansion patch? That's really frustrating.
    They disabled flying while leveling in every expansion save Cataclysm. The Cataclysm experience wasn't helped at all by the flying right off the bat-- since they knew you were flying, the most obnoxious garbage was put between quest nodes. Heck, in Hyjal, you had to fly across half the zone from that giant tree in the middle to Serthia's Roost to continue just one chain. That sort of thing wouldn't happen if you were confined to the ground.
  1. nekobaka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by arcaneshot View Post
    They disabled flying while leveling in every expansion save Cataclysm. The Cataclysm experience wasn't helped at all by the flying right off the bat-- since they knew you were flying, the most obnoxious garbage was put between quest nodes. Heck, in Hyjal, you had to fly across half the zone from that giant tree in the middle to Serthia's Roost to continue just one chain. That sort of thing wouldn't happen if you were confined to the ground.
    Part of my hate for Hyjal was it effectively being designed around helicopter questing and the zone just being too tightly packed for PVP to be of any fun as someone was going to pull a group of mobs no mater what and even when questing I was accidentally pulling extra mobs making it a bigger pain than had the zone been designed for ground mounts. It was just over packed. The other zones was not much of a problem while still designed around flying. Players complaints of pulling mobs on the side while riding was rarely an issue for me in MoP and previous expansions. More often than not if you are being reckless then it will have consequences or it wouldnt have been reckless in the first place.
  1. usiris's Avatar
    Hey guys,

    Made a small album on imgur for my blizzcon photos

    http://imgur.com/a/eplVY

    will be updating...soon(tm)
  1. rebecca191's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by arcaneshot View Post
    They disabled flying while leveling in every expansion save Cataclysm. The Cataclysm experience wasn't helped at all by the flying right off the bat-- since they knew you were flying, the most obnoxious garbage was put between quest nodes. Heck, in Hyjal, you had to fly across half the zone from that giant tree in the middle to Serthia's Roost to continue just one chain. That sort of thing wouldn't happen if you were confined to the ground.
    I strongly prefer having flying at all times but I thought WotLK was a decent compromise. You could get flying at lv 77, there were some quests/zones designed for flying while leveling, and after a few months you could buy the book and your alts could fly from the start (I delayed leveling alts as I didn't want to do ground travel again). What they are considering for WoD isn't a compromise it's pretty much the anti flying people get everything those of us who love to fly get a few scraps tossed our way in a few months... yeah no thanks I won't pay for that, I'll come back later on if things change and enough features look interesting.
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Anticaster View Post
    Is sexism the new race card? Oh no they didn't put enough females in the story yet sexism. Get over it.
    Come to think of it I can't recall any black characters either. All the humans seem to be white.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kektonic View Post
    After watching the Blizzcon panels my wife asked me the following: "Are we going to get a heroic scenario where we discover the secret location Blizzard has hidden all of their female lead characters so we can liberate them?"

    Take that shit to tumblr jesus christ.
    Yeah take equality to tumblr.
    We get it, you were born with a dick, how lucky for you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alexander Krizak View Post
    The problem is that EVERYBODY makes fruit salad with more apples than blueberries and then is shocked when people say that they'd like something with more blueberries. They protest, "But this is the way fruit salad has always been made! This is the way it's SUPPOSED to be made!" They never consider that many people are sick of the same apple-focused fruit salad that has been served to them for centuries and would like something with more blueberries for a change.
    Not to mention the blueberries get paid less than the apples for the same jobs, have been oppressed for thousands of years, been denied education and basic rights, are treated like second class citizens. When the blueberries go to parties they have to worry about being raped, the apples have to worry about passing out and having genitalia drawn on their face. But the apples don't like to think about that stuff so it's best we just don't talk about it.
  1. FinalBlink's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Come to think of it I can't recall any black characters either. All the humans seem to be white.



    Yeah take equality to tumblr.
    We get it, you were born with a dick, how lucky for you.

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    Not to mention the blueberries get paid less than the apples for the same jobs, have been oppressed for thousands of years, been denied education and basic rights, are treated like second class citizens. When the blueberries go to parties they have to worry about being raped, the apples have to worry about passing out and having genitalia drawn on their face. But the apples don't like to think about that stuff so it's best we just don't talk about it.
    Claiming sexism where none exist makes people less able to sympathise when the real issues of sexism arise. The same goes for racism. Did I get wound up over the lack of white characters in Fresh Prince? Cosby Show? Keanan and Kel? What about the lack of Male characters in the Barbie range? (seem to recall they axed Ken altogether). My point is its easy to find "isms" in anything, the trick is to know when something is being intentionally sexist.
  1. mooikiye's Avatar
    One thing that was talked about with GC after the show is someone notice on one of the slides shown of the Garrison at Blizzcon had one building called "Dance Studio". He played it off as they would never tease the player base with something.

    Can be seen:

    media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/november/bconWoWRAD020.jpg
  1. xeku's Avatar
    "Making big changes in the middle of an expansion is dangerous, as players log in and find significant changes that they can't keep up with. With a new expansion some bigger changes are expected, so it is safer to do larger changes for new expansions."

    Yeah cause it's not like they did that as 5.4 came out and they completely gutted the warlock class and playstyle
  1. Phantasm's Avatar
    The one thing that annoys me about the no free re-customization, is that I made a few of my characters with a backstory in mind. So one of my Forsaken is the pale grey, with no decay and the normal face, with black hair. I haven't heard anything to say that when the updates come out that she won't all of a sudden be green, with half her face missing and blue hair. Now, if the update just takes our characters and keeps them the same, but with the definition Pandaren have, then I'm ok with the no free re-customization.
  1. varkar's Avatar
    Giving everyone one free Level 90 should help out returning players.
    As illustrated by around half of all players online at a time being under max level (do random /who searches), around half of all WoW playtime is presently spent leveling.

    Unless average lifetime playtime per player at max level doubles (which may be the dream but is highly unlikely), average playtime per player will drop after WoD level boosting and so will Blizzard's revenues in the long term.

    Not all but most players don't play very long, too soon feeling done with the game, after no longer having new abilities or large yet-unexplored zones to look forward to. Sure, some may do such as a raid on normal mode, then repeat on hard mode for token blatantly artificial difficulty on what they already experienced visually and otherwise. But many will just do the former then be done. (PvP can help, but much depends on aspects of it down to whether level 90-100 health to DPS ratios are reasonable or just an insta-die fest spending most of the time coming back from the graveyard, something yet to be seen).

    Unlike SoR (which applied only to a minority of players) and buying of accounts from gold farmers today (both bannable and costing an order of magnitude more), future Blizzard-supported level 90 character buying can become the dominate means of getting level 90 characters after WoD is out.

    There is no 1/person limit when anyone can buy multiple CD keys and transfer the resulting characters to 1 account. If the cost was thousands of $, it would be irrelevant, and, if hundreds of $, it would be uncommon. But, as tens of $ presumably, it will be so common as to turn level 1-89 into a relative ghosttown.

    MMORPG after MMORPG falls into the modern design assumption that faster leveling is the solution (as if a max-level gear grind in a few areas was intrinsically superior to a sub-max-level gear+ability grind visiting more areas), only to have that backfire horribly in what percentage of players leave a few weeks after release.

    Almost anything different would be better than cheaply selling level 90 accounts, better than what the WoD change amounts to in practice. If really wanting, give RAF and BoA bonuses to new players for faster but not instant leveling. Or ease play with friends by scaling up stats when a lowbie is grouped with high levels (leaving the lowbie to still have ability gain over a long period of time to look forward to). But Blizzard shouldn't do this.
  1. Pantelija's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Come to think of it I can't recall any black characters either. All the humans seem to be white.



    Yeah take equality to tumblr.
    We get it, you were born with a dick, how lucky for you.

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    Not to mention the blueberries get paid less than the apples for the same jobs, have been oppressed for thousands of years, been denied education and basic rights, are treated like second class citizens. When the blueberries go to parties they have to worry about being raped, the apples have to worry about passing out and having genitalia drawn on their face. But the apples don't like to think about that stuff so it's best we just don't talk about it.
    This is a gaming forum not political scene for your agenda pushing, take your shit back to tumblr and other "social justice" sites.
  1. Estrellia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xeku View Post
    Yeah cause it's not like they did that as 5.4 came out and they completely gutted the warlock class and playstyle
    You're right, they didn't do that. I mean, I logged into my 'lock after months of not touching it, and it plays exactly the same.

    And I noticed that the 'lock talents for level 100 would actually change your playstyle entirely. You can have a Terrorguard or Abyssal as a permanent pet, or if you're Demo you can be permanently in Metamorphosis form. Mages, meanwhile, got more clutter for their action bars, with nothing that really changes basic gameplay. =/

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pantelija View Post
    This is a gaming forum not political scene for your agenda pushing, take your shit back to tumblr and other "social justice" sites.
    Or, we could remember that this was originally a complaint about the game. If they had taken us back to Draenor of 100 years ago, and all 7 tribal chiefs had been women... that wouldn't have looked weird to you? It's a fantasy world that Blizzard controls 100%. There is literally nothing stopping them from making a majority (or even ALL) major new lore characters in an expansion women. Instead, it looks like zero of them are (to be fair, there is supposed to be 1 major dranei female... out of probably 10+ new major lore figures).

    If you look at MOP, how many major lore figures it introduced were female? Again, a minority. If you're a woman (and many, many WoWers are), or if you're a man who notices this kind of thing (as many, many men do), then it's glaring.

    This doesn't mean that Blizzard is actively sexist. But it does literally indicate structural sexism (which is an emergent behavior from a series of seemingly innocuous decisions).

    If you didn't notice it, and you don't care, that's fine. But then clearly, you won't care if other people point it out, or if Blizzard does something about it. The other option is you're actively a misogynist, and don't *want* major female lore characters at all, in which case we all get to actively label you sexist.

    Honestly, I suspect the people negatively reacting to calls for more women characters are just reacting. I doubt any of you care either way. So why not just let people who *do* care raise the point, and see what can be done about it?
  1. pewpewheals's Avatar
    Thanks for the new level 100 calculator
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