Reddit Q&A Round-up

Brawl: It's Raining Mana, Season Issues Update, CDC Finalist Voting, Headed to Legend S18

Rotation for Sept. 1, 2015, Upcoming Shop Sales, Kharazim Cost Reduction and Lore

Patch 6.2.2 - Timewarped Badge Rewards
The developers confirmed the mount is intended to take a long time to earn.



Patch 6.2.2 Hotfixes - September 2
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Raids and Dungeons
Siege of Orgrimmar
  • Spoils of Pandaria
    • Spoils of Pandaria can now be started by 1 player (down from 5) on Raid Finder difficulty.

PvP
General
  • Winning an Arena Skirmish match now award 40 Honor Points and 25 Conquest Points (up from 20 Honor Points). Skirmishes continue to award bonus Honor if a match goes on for an extended period of time.
  • [Hotfix in testing] Mercenary Mode is now only available to level-100 characters.

Bug Fixes
  • A number of Gnomish NPCs should no longer be unfashionably early in dressing up for Feast of Winter Veil.
  • Fixed an issue with a patch of ocean between Tanaan Jungle and Ashran that could cause characters to disconnect if they fly or swim over it.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Is timewarped gear ment to scale with your level? Warped gear i got at lv70, is still lv70 gear even tho i'm 100 now.
No, Timewarped gear scales to your current level when created, but remains fixed there. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Developer Communication
How about this question instead: "what can developers do if they actually care about engaging meaningfully with (at least some section) of their playerbase?"
Great question.

Let me say first that I don't want to come off across as the grandmaster of this shit. I make a ton of mistakes.

1) Don't come across as arrogant. This is really hard because you do want to come across as confident. Players don't want to hear that you really have no idea what you're doing. I try to couch things in terms of intentions or goals rather than promises or certainties. I try not to take myself too seriously.

2) Show empathy. Chances are the players are engaging because your game is important to them. Their idea or suggestion may be ridiculous. It might ruin the game. That doesn't matter. You still need to put yourself in their shoes and understand *why* they are saying what they are saying. This can be as simple as acknowledging that the player is upset. Being upset is a totally valid way for them to feel! Players are often better at detecting problems than they are at suggesting solutions. Try and understand the problems they are trying to solve. But at the same time, don't dismiss or belittle their suggestions, even if they aren't feasible.

3) Build trust. This can take a long time and unfortunately can erode quickly. But if you have a reputation then players will often forgive the mistakes that you are almost invariably going to make.

4) Be authentic. This is a great way to build trust. Be as honest as you can. Don't leak information or throw colleagues under the bus, but otherwise try and be transparent about your reasoning. Admitting mistakes here can help a lot.

5) Don't get sucked into arguments. Yeah, I know: sometimes people on the internet are wrong. But it's not your job to win arguments. It's your job to communicate with players. If something has gone back and forth a couple of times, it may be time to move on.

6) Stick to higher ground. This one is tough, but the fact is you are in a position of power since you are the one working on the game. If you pick on a player, even if they made an abusive comment and totally deserve it, you are going to come across as a bully. If you insult someone who insulted you, it's only your comment that will get quoted across the internet.

7) Be transparent about the process. You don't want to convey that your opinion is set in stone, but you also don't want to suggest that it's up to player vote (unless it is). The way I try and describe it is that developers want to make informed decisions. The players provide the information, but the development team makes the final call.

8) Don't get addicted. This is a mistake I see a lot of developers make who are new to community interaction, and no doubt I did it myself on my first job. Having players hang on your every word can be exciting. Making someone happy by promising a change can be rewarding. Just be careful. It's easy to over-promise. It's easy to neglect your day-to-day responsibilities by trying to be too responsive to player engagement. Players would rather have you for a year than every hour for only a week.



Road to BlizzCon – Watch the Americas Regionals Live September 12–13
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Eight teams have qualified for the 2015 World of Warcraft Arena Americas Regionals tournament—one from Latin America, one from Australia and New Zealand, and six from North America. On September 12 and 13, three of those teams will advance to the WoW Arena World Championship at BlizzCon 2015 . . . and five will be heading back home.

You’ll be able to watch the carnage unfold live on Twitch.tv/WoW on September 12 and 13 at 12 p.m. PT—but in the meantime, let’s meet the contenders who’ve risen through the ranks over the past few months


Guild Wars 2 - Base Game Free to Play
ArenaNet made the base Guild Wars 2 game free to play over the weekend! You will still need to purchase the new Heart of Thorns expansion if you want to play the new content, but you can still play the base game for free without purchasing it. You can see the different account restrictions in the official FAQ.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Timewarped Badge Rewards, September 2 Hotfixes, Tweets, GW2 Base Game Free to Play started by chaud View original post
Comments 81 Comments
  1. moveth's Avatar
    I honestly expected GW2 to go Free to play earlier than this.
  1. Xidion1284's Avatar
    It's really just a version of WoW's free trial. You're locked out of a bunch of things until you actually pay for it.
  1. Tublerone's Avatar
    8 Months for a mount? Blizzard really throwing some bones for the playerbase to have something to do EleGiggle
  1. Shailyn's Avatar
    I still play gw2 and it's very much alive and well loads of people still play it. And creating this trial account is one of their best ideas.
    One the core game is free for them and two, anet has made the sensible desicion of only having them pay for heart of thorns if they want the full game. If I was a new player that would interest me very much, people in the game still don't quite understand it but I personally think it's a great move.
  1. Explicit Teemo Nudes's Avatar
    "[Hotfix in testing] Mercenary Mode is now only available to level-100 characters."

    Why are they so against balancing low level bg queues? I'm very disappointed.
  1. Fjordkeeper's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by moveth View Post
    I honestly expected GW2 to go Free to play earlier than this.
    Why? The game was buy to play to begin with, why would they make it free to play without an addon?
  1. Strakha's Avatar
    I can't wait til they nerf these mounts in the future, or sell them on the Mount Shop.

    Not even worth trying to grind them. 5 TW if you never raided, for everyone else, dont think anyone cares.
  1. Spirthealer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by moveth View Post
    I honestly expected GW2 to go Free to play earlier than this.
    I don't think you understand free to play, it always has been as long as you buy the base game, nothing has change here other then that the full base game comes if you just buy the new X-pack and u get 100% of the game. while if u don't want to pay that u get 50% of the game. and even then most parts of the base game are locked up like extra bag space ect.
  1. thilicen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by moveth View Post
    I honestly expected GW2 to go Free to play earlier than this.
    That wouldn't make much sense. They had a very solid income from people buying the game even at the reduced prices they usually went with. That and the in-game shop has been a very good model that honestly I wish WoW would adapt. There is no need for sub fees if you can put some real stuff up in the in-game store without compromising the rewards from playing the game itself. Making the old content free (some restrictions here though) and having people pay for the addon is the right way to go here.
  1. Exedore's Avatar
    GW2 made the core free to play because it has an expansion releasing Oct 23. It's akin to WoW having the base game include all expansions except the latest.

    The Free-to-Play version of GW2 is similar to WoW's free trial accounts, but far less restrictive (for example, GW2 free accounts can go to max level). Most of the restrictions are to prevent RMT bots and trolls from abusing the system.
  1. DrMcNinja's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xidion1284 View Post
    It's really just a version of WoW's free trial. You're locked out of a bunch of things until you actually pay for it.
    But actually, it's also not just a simple trial. You can still do all the content from level 1 to max.
  1. TheRevenantHero's Avatar
    ....8 fucking months to get a mount. Fuck you Blizzard.
  1. mmoc5337f9d117's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shailyn View Post
    If I was a new player that would interest me very much, people in the game still don't quite understand it but I personally think it's a great move.
    Yes, it's great for new players. But what about those that already bought the base game for 40-50 don't remeber how much it was. We still have to bus HoT for another 50 while new players get the same base game and HoT for 50.
  1. tussee's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tublerone View Post
    8 Months for a mount? Blizzard really throwing some bones for the playerbase to have something to do EleGiggle
    Meanwhile you can use one of your other mounts.... They Run/fly equally fast....

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Strakha View Post
    I can't wait til they nerf these mounts in the future, or sell them on the Mount Shop.

    Not even worth trying to grind them. 5 TW if you never raided, for everyone else, dont think anyone cares.
    Use your other mounts untill you EARN the Timewalker mounts, it's not like you don't have any alternatives.....
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    I might actually get into GW2 now, there F2P model seems to be far more lenient compared to SWToR's and even Wildstars soon to be F2P model, heck makes ESO's look minor not to mention Rift..
  1. Zephre's Avatar
    The mounts simply are not worth the effort. When designing rewards you need to consider if the items in question are worth a vast time grind, the mounts for me are not. You've got a TBC textured dragonhawk which does not look appealing at all and a ground mount which will probably never find it's usage apart from on alts.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Spirthealer View Post
    I don't think you understand free to play, it always has been as long as you buy the base game, nothing has change here other then that the full base game comes if you just buy the new X-pack and u get 100% of the game. while if u don't want to pay that u get 50% of the game. and even then most parts of the base game are locked up like extra bag space ect.
    Actually that isn't free to play. Heroes of the storm is free to play, Hearthstone is free to play. Guild wars 2 was just no subscription. You still bought something to be able to play, it was not free.
  1. MyndZero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xidion1284 View Post
    It's really just a version of WoW's free trial. You're locked out of a bunch of things until you actually pay for it.
    Except you can hit max level, etc etc.
  1. beanman12345's Avatar
    The mount was meant for the store. People endlessly bitch about store mounts not being available as in game reward, but they make this one available and the same people bitching.
  1. mmocc1f11a099b's Avatar
    I see time walking mounts as optional rewards and as they aren't too pretty or original. I don't think I will concentrate on farming them. It is still a nice side reward if you let's say play two years forward, do some TW dungeons (but not every time) and one day discover that you got so many coins that you can buy mount. It is same as with that mount reward for all achievements during years festivials (Winter Veil, Hallows End etc) - if you think of it like its farm then you may hate Blizz, if you think of it like optional cool reward for those who anyway like to do most of things during an event (and need some motivation to do all instead of most) then its perfect. I think that people get angry because they think that everything in game is to be achieved easily or during short time and yes most of things are (you can get plenty mounts by doing very little farm, making them or buying them for gold) but there are some very rare things aswell (like ZG mounts) that are just optional for those lucky or those persistent to farm.
    I wonder if people who whined so much about flying and how it not being available ruins game, now enjoy game so much that they got no time to write here how happy they are. Nope, actually, suddenly its so silent and people moved on from one thing to whine to another. No "thanks Blizz", just "yeah finally you gave us what we *deserved*". Sad. When I logged to WoW first thing that welcome me was someone commenting in trade chat that he is flying and bored already. Wish Blizz never made that stupid WoD flying as those who wanted it just dont deserve it.

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