Thread: Patch 3.3 Cutscene, Blue posts

Jeff Kaplan interview on GameInformer
GameInformer.com sat down with Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) to talk about World of Warcraft's past and future. It's just like any other World of Warcraft interview without anything really new (it's still worth reading!) but there is a very interesting answer here. Tigole confirms that there will be a cinematic just like the Wrath Gate one in Patch 3.3, most likely featuring the Lich King.

It's not on PTRs yet and a minor patch released a few months after 3.3 to introduce Season 8 and the Cinematic is very likely. They could always push the season 8 models and the cinematic in the final version of Patch 3.3 but I don't think they would do that without testing at least the models of Season 8 armor. (And they're definitely not here for the moment)

Originally Posted by Tigole (Blue Tracker)

: I would agree that the game has gotten much better at showing rather than telling, but Wrath of the Lich King also saw the introduction of cutscenes to the game. It’s obviously much easier to tell the story in that, but you’re also taking the player out of the game. Do you think that those will keep showing up future expansions as well? Is it something you’ll use sparingly?

Jeff Kaplan: Cutscenes will always be something that we use sparingly, yes. We never want to interrupt gameplay too frequently or for too long of a period of time. The Wrathgate cutscene was a big experiment for us. It was our first foray into in-game cutscenes in World of Warcraft. I don’t think we’ve fully refined how we want cutscenes to work with future World of Warcraft content.

We debate like crazy. We debate the length, we debate the frequency, and we have a lot of theories, but Blizzard is a really iterative development house. I think what’s going to have to happen is that you’ll see more cutscenes come into the game for us to really refine our strategy with them. We definitely have an eye toward more cutscenes, but at the same time, we don’t want to become just a cutscene game.

Even before Cataclysm, in patch 3.3, there’s going to be a really exciting cutscene moment that’s going to be our next experiment with that.

Blue posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Elemental "sacrifice" to debuff the raid
We want classes to have to take a hit for buffing the raid, but we don't want it to be a gigantic one. Again, on the one hand players are eager for these buffs because it "secures them a slot!" but on the other hand, they want someone else to do the buff so they don't have to.

The problem is some of our implementations (and to be fair, more of the newer versions of these buffs) come with less opportunistic cost, or the talent specs make it easier to include the buff, or it happens automatically instead of requiring player action. We realize these are rough edges that still need to be polished down.

We made some pretty massive strides in Lich King to overhaul the way buffs and debuffs work. It's in a lot better place than it was, but we still have a lot of work to do.

[...] I said that Ele shaman don't want to have to drop ToW because of the personal dps loss, but they also want to have ToW because it's an attractive raid buff. That is what I meant. (Source)

Fire Totems changes in 3.3
We like the fire totem changes. It's a new change and I'm sure it will require some iteration before it feels exactly right, but we like the mechanic overall. It's not critical that Searing Totem be an uber form of dps in the same way that Sentry Totem's very existence might offend you. We did a big update of totems for Lich King. They're not perfect yet, but when you remember what they used to be like, they're in a much better place now.

We see Elementals "turretiness" as a slightly different issue, and one we want to fix. No spec should be so terrified of moving, even one dependent on stationary points on the map where their totems are.

Also be very careful that you aren't just describing totems in general as a clunky mechanic. I see that kind of thing a lot, but totems are virtually synonymous with shaman in our minds. If you really, really hate totems, you might not be playing the class that best suits your play style. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Demonic Pact / Totem of Wrath
Yes, we want to fix the discrepancy. We'd like to get it done before Cataclysm. I'm not going to promise we're going to be able to for the reasons I can't and don't ever promise anything. You can see how many shaman have even hung on to my saying "we'd like to fix it by Cataclysm." I think in the future I'm going to have to be even more careful about saying stuff like that.

I'm pretty sure you all know the issue, but for the record (and being brief to the point of being flippant):

• Some shaman are convinced they won't be brought if ToW doesn't compete with or trump DP.
• Some Demo locks are convinced they won't be brought if DP doesn't complete with or trump DP. I'm slightly more sympathetic with the locks here, because shaman do have other desirable buffs. I realize this is somewhat subjective though.
• Many shaman don't want to have to drop ToW at all. They tend to be happier when a Demo lock comes too. It all depends on how secure they feel with their slot in the raid. In my experience, most players obsess way too much over getting sat. If they are getting sat, it might be a personal performance problem. If their personal performance is good, it might be that their raid leader is misinformed and puts way too much emphasis on a spellpower and crit buff when it's possible to improve their dps by much more in other (more L2P) ways. At the very high end, eeking out a 2 or 3% dps buff can be huge. But even in those guilds, I still see plenty of Elemental and Demonology. My slightly unrelated advice is you'll be happier playing the game if you find a guild less focused on constantly replacing their players.
• We are really trying to move away from the "I get a slot because of my awesome buff." Some days I think we'd be better off with none at all and players just got brought because they were good players. (We're not going to do this, but it would certainly chill out a lot of the raid utility anxiety.)

[...] The problem, once again, is that many shaman are happy not to have to drop ToW anyway, and Elemental shaman without ToW are probably a lot more attractive than Demo locks without DP, and possibly even if the two were identical. It's going to take a lot of changes to get things more where we want them and if only get in part of the changes, we'll probably be in a worse state than today. As I've said, it's definitely a priority to get it fixed, but we have a very long list of stuff we want to get fixed. (Source)

I just hope the "cinematic" is more than just the scene at the beginning of Halls of Reflection.

Finally... they have finally realised ToW and DP need an overhaul..............

Originally Posted by DrRight

Yeah I'm not sure I agree with their assessment that cut scenes take the player out of the game. Yes, literally they do, but I find I am way more into things after a cutscene then without one. It assigns a level of importance to the event.

Definetly. But they do seem to be aware that cutscenes can take over, so they might just want to use it for things like the Wrathgate were putting the player in the context would not work for what's going to happen.

Originally Posted by Aratra

Did Ghostcrawler really just attribute elemental dps shortfalls to everyone just not knowing how to play? Really? From the guy who told shaman if their reincarnation cooldown is too short, people will start killing themselves to get mana or teleport from their place of death?

I wasn't to thirlled with a lot of his comments, but I guess I am at least a little bit happy that it is beeing looked in to.

Originally Posted by Frozenbeef

cutscenes and cinematics are the best part of each patch.

/signed

Originally Posted by Aratra

From what I read, it's not even being looked into. They're aware of some of the issues, and would like to fix them, but as far as that goes elemental shaman shouldn't hold their breath for some time. Maybe next expansion.

Oh, I had no delusions of anything productive being done.

It's like hating the current TV program that is on, but the remote is on the side of the room. Damn you hate Oprah, but you're just to lazy to get the remote.

[e] Typing fail