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  1. #1

    Interview with Greg Street (Ghostcrawler), Winter Veil, EU Blizzard Sale, Fan Art

    Diablo 3 - Beta Patch 8 - Quest Selection Screens and Unofficial class changes

    Post 4.3 Interview with Greg Street (Ghostcrawler)
    Blizzard was nice enough to let us talk to Ghostcrawler about his thoughts on Patch 4.3 now that it has been released and what the future has in store. We were even able to sneak in a few Mists of Pandaria questions for you!



    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    In general, how well do you think Patch 4.3 went?
    We are pretty happy with it, as it was a huge patch for us. Large patches like this always come with a risk that we will screw something up, but it was a pretty smooth launch for as much content as we had in there.

    Are you happy with the difficulty of the Dragon Soul heroic encounters, or do you think the bosses are dying too fast?
    We are pretty happy with the current difficulty, the first boss is designed to be pretty easy, and the next tier of hardcore raiders are at the second or third boss, which is pretty much where we want them to be. The top tier guilds are going through it quickly, as they always do, but they make hundreds of attempts on each boss. Everyone is about where they should be right now.

    Recently you made it so that casters with shields can no longer roll on offhand items, but in previous tiers those items have been very competitive for those specs. Why was this changed?
    That's only in Raid Finder, and we made the change to restrict certain items to certain classes to prevent things like hunters needing on strength swords. We debated the offhand change a lot and we knew that some of the shaman might be unhappy with the fact that we are making them use the shield when they might want to use an offhand, but we also thought the mages, priests, and druids would be upset that the shaman got to roll on the offhand and the shield when they could only roll on the offhand. It could have gone either way and we understand that some players are upset at the way it went. Once players progress to normal mode, they can still use the offhands, so it is only a Raid Finder issue.

    You can easily max out Justice and Valor points right now, so do you plan on adding anything like pets, mounts, or vanity gear to provide some use for the points?
    We talked about it in the past, but we like the way it works now where players hit the cap quickly by doing whatever content they want. We don't want players to feel like they have to log in every night to earn as many Valor points as possible.

    Some guilds are doing up to 20 LFR runs in a week to maximize the amount of gear they can get...
    Yeah, fortunately that isn't very widespread. It is hard to discourage, and if they are enjoying it and it doesn't hurt game balance, we are okay with that.

    Is LFR going to remain a current raid only tool, or will we be able to use it from Dragon Soul onwards?
    Nope, we want to use it from Dragon Soul onwards. We would have loved to turn on LFR for all of the old content in the game, but Raid Finder was actually going to be a Patch 5.0+ feature. Fairly late we thought that it would be great to get into Patch 4.3, but up until the very end it wasn't clear if it would be ready for Patch 4.3. However, we were able to finish it in time with Dragon Soul functionality. If there is time in the future, we would like to go back and get at least some of the older content into it.

    Will there be another patch before Mists of Pandaria?
    We said that we are not going to do another tier of raiding content and PvP season, but we will do the normal pre expansion launch patch. This would include things like the new talents and the other big mechanics changes coming in the expansion, along with the launch event that deals with the Horde vs Alliance story and the introduction of the new continent. The launch event will be similar in magnitude to what we did for Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade.

    Cataclysm brought us guild perks to make raiding easier like Mass Resurrection, Mass Summoning, and lower durability reduction on death. How high do you think the guild level is going to increase to in Mists of Pandaria and what kind of new guild perks do you think we will see?
    We aren't going to double the number of guild levels or anything like that. We had to make up for the lack of it in previous expansions this time around. Players can expect a few more levels, nothing like thirty or forty more. We haven't talked much about the perks guilds will receive yet, but they will be similar to the existing perks. One idea was cheaper transmogrification, which could be fun for players.

    Has there been any progress made on making items account bound and not server bound since you last commented on it?
    We would still love to do it, it isn't a design problem as much as a technical one. We are doing a lot of work to get achievements to be account wide, and it is possible that some of the work we do there will let us do the same thing for items. We can't promise anything though, because it could be the case that the first 90% of the work is really easy, and the last 10% is more difficult. Catching all of the exploits and bugs are part of what makes this something that is hard to do.

    Will the under construction parts of the Darkmoon Faire get filled out before Mists of Pandaria, or is this something that won't be done until later?
    We have vague plans, along the lines of "Hey, we could add a haunted house here", but nothing solid. I would be surprised if it was expanded upon anytime soon, we might add something for the launch event. This depends on the players' reactions to the current one, if they feel like they are running out of things to do, or if there is a lot of love for certain minigames or parts of the Faire, we might be able to add something else. It is hard to provide enough content so that people never run out of things to do, so we are pacing ourselves with the Faire, expanding on it over time.

    Items from Archaeology have low item levels compared to the new and easy to access gear added in Patch 4.3, Are there any plans to scale or add new Archaeology items that will be relevant to the current content?
    We will likely add new items, we didn't want to compete with heirlooms and give alt characters more gear than they could possibly use, allowing them to level without caring at all about loot gained while leveling. We like the idea of artifacts remaining something that you can trade between characters on your account. If you get a healer trinket that you can't use right now because you don't have a healer, it could be something you use one day, rather than solving your healer trinket problems forever.

    With the advent of LFR, casual players can see all of the content, while Heroic raids seem to be harder now. Is this type of difficulty something you want to move forward doing?
    The advantage of having three difficulty levels is that we can tailor each one to the audience. Before LFR we could target Normal difficulty raids at organized guilds, which left nothing for PuGs to do, or we could target them at PuGs, making them too easy for organized guilds. This would leave normal guilds only Heroic difficulty for a challenging encounter, leaving nothing for the more hardcore guilds to do. The three difficulty levels let us tailor each difficulty so that everyone has something to do.

    Are there any plans to promote Voice Chat use?
    The Voice Chat we included is not a good feature. We tried, we made some mistakes, and we accept that it isn't something used by a lot of players. It is on the wishlist of things we would eventually like to improve. A big thing it is missing now that we would like to fix is the ability to communicate with people before you get into the game, having to be logged in to use it makes it less useful than something like Ventrilo or Mumble.

    Are you planning on adding chat channels for healing, DPS, and tanking in LFR?
    We haven't thought about it, but it wouldn't be hard to do. We would just add people to the channel based on their role.

    Okay, great. Thank you so much for your time!

    Winter Veil Changes
    Blizzard has made a few changes to Winter Veil this year, including making You're a Mean One... into a group quest.

    He would be difficult to defeat on your own, but anyone in the area is allowed to loot the Stolen Treats after he is dead and free Metzen. Doing so will reward you with a Stolen Present, which can contain a number of things, including previous year's gifts, Lump of Coal, and a Miniature Winter Veil Tree.





    EU Celestial Steed and Pandaren Monk 50% Off
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Need to complete your pet collection? Want to travel Azeroth in style? Now is the perfect time, because during this holiday season you can trade up to an epic Celestial Steed mount or get the noble Pandaren Monk companion at half price! Click here to take advantage of this great offer.

    But don´t wait too long, because this promotion ends on January 2!

    MMO-Champion T-Shirts from J!NX
    For a limited time at J!NX, get $10 off when you spend $35 or more on Curse merchandise! Simply use code MILKANDCOOKIES at checkout. There’s still time left to order for the Holidays, but the deal ends on December 18th at midnight, so don’t wait! Please note that this offer can’t be combined with any other offers or discounts.





    New Warcraft Fan Art
    The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with fourteen new pieces of fan artwork.




  2. #2
    Ya finally First !!!

  3. #3
    Elemental Lord Korgoth's Avatar
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    What a totally useless Q and A! How about next time you throw him a real question like, "Why are you leaving Resto Druids, Arms Warriors, and Enh Shaman completely gimp in pvp for 2 whole seasons while Mages, Locks and Resto Shamans get to continue on being blatantly overpowered?"or maybe, "Why is C Smash still nerfed on Arms warriors in pvp when the spec is doing horribly, and almost every other class gets 100% armor penetration and are bursting for 30-50k a global?"or my favorite, "How many more subscribers have to quit before your untalented biased ass gets fired?"

  4. #4
    Scarab Lord Loaf Lord's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Korgoth View Post
    What a totally useless Q and A! How about next time you throw him a real question like, "Why are you leaving Resto Druids, Arms Warriors, and Enh Shaman completely gimp in pvp for 2 whole seasons while Mages, Locks and Resto Shamans get to continue on being blatantly overpowered?"or maybe, "Why is C Smash still nerfed on Arms warriors in pvp when the spec is doing horribly, and almost every other class gets 100% armor penetration and are bursting for 30-50k a global?"or my favorite, "How many more subscribers have to quit before your untalented biased ass gets fired?"
    I don't think there has ever been a useful blizzard Q and A.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Korgoth View Post
    What a totally useless Q and A! How about next time you throw him a real question like, "Why are you leaving Resto Druids, Arms Warriors, and Enh Shaman completely gimp in pvp for 2 whole seasons while Mages, Locks and Resto Shamans get to continue on being blatantly overpowered?"or maybe, "Why is C Smash still nerfed on Arms warriors in pvp when the spec is doing horribly, and almost every other class gets 100% armor penetration and are bursting for 30-50k a global?"or my favorite, "How many more subscribers have to quit before your untalented biased ass gets fired?"
    Considering how much they are redoing the talents for 5.0 I wouldn't be surprised if they just gave up on balance for now.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Off-hand, mages? They really don't know their own game...

  7. #7
    That Malfurion and Tyrande piece is badass.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Korgoth View Post
    What a totally useless Q and A! How about next time you throw him a real question like, "Why are you leaving Resto Druids, Arms Warriors, and Enh Shaman completely gimp in pvp for 2 whole seasons while Mages, Locks and Resto Shamans get to continue on being blatantly overpowered?"or maybe, "Why is C Smash still nerfed on Arms warriors in pvp when the spec is doing horribly, and almost every other class gets 100% armor penetration and are bursting for 30-50k a global?"
    "We will fix it in MoP"

    This was supposed to focus on Patch 4.3, not future class changes. Thanks for your feedback!

  9. #9
    Awesome fan art, as usual. u guys rock

  10. #10
    Elemental Lord Korgoth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    "We will fix it in MoP"

    This was supposed to focus on Patch 4.3, not future class changes. Thanks for your feedback!
    Yeah well F%&^ that. 4.3 is the current patch, 4.3 is a terrible patch as it did nothing to fix the hugely obvious pvp imbalances, and in fact made them worse then before. A real Q and A should have asked about it. But this is just another PR department garbage Q and A that MMO-C puts up to get page views, and wouldnt dare to ask a real question because then they might get cut off from Blizzard's favor.
    "Gamer" is not a bad word. I identify as a gamer. When calling out those who persecute and harass, the word you're looking for is "asshole." @_DonAdams
    When you see someone in a thread making the same canned responses over and over, click their name, click view forum posts, and see if they are a troll. Then don't feed them.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Alkestis View Post
    Off-hand, mages? They really don't know their own game...
    Is not a 1hander/offhand generally the best right now for most casters due to the Int enchant for offhands?
    Quote Originally Posted by Porcell View Post
    "Sir, you'll have to move, you are blocking the fire exit."
    "Excuse me, but if you have legs and are flammable, you are NEVER blocking a fire exit." I'd run.
    Quote Originally Posted by Arkhias View Post
    Actually, the deluge has been very enlightening to me. Lesson of the week is to not go out of your way to treat people with respect because there is a 90% chance they are narcissistic douchebags.

  12. #12
    I'm too busy enjoying end game content to worry about "balance" and my kill/death ratio.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Necrotan View Post
    Is not a 1hander/offhand generally the best right now for most casters due to the Int enchant for offhands?
    No, mostly due to how easily available the legendary is but in either case the off-hand that he's talking about is a spirit offhand, hence the comment.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Korgoth View Post
    What a totally useless Q and A! How about next time you throw him a real question like, "Why are you leaving Resto Druids, Arms Warriors, and Enh Shaman completely gimp in pvp for 2 whole seasons while Mages, Locks and Resto Shamans get to continue on being blatantly overpowered?"or maybe, "Why is C Smash still nerfed on Arms warriors in pvp when the spec is doing horribly, and almost every other class gets 100% armor penetration and are bursting for 30-50k a global?"or my favorite, "How many more subscribers have to quit before your untalented biased ass gets fired?"
    Greg Street, useless?

    He's a dolt, to put it politely. He couldn't make it in a field that actually required a brain so he decided to make a mockery of video games.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Question weren't critical enough imo.Asking about coming features seems like a waste of time when talking to someone like Ghostcrawler. You could have had a way better discussion going.

    Why not ask him about the downsides of the LFR and how it allows almost everyone to "complete" the game within a few weeks.

    Ask him how Blizzard intends to curb the downwards spiral which the game seems to be in at the moment.

    Ask him about his opinion on 15 man raids and if there's any chance we might see them anytime soon.

    Ask him about a 3rd pillar of endgame content that can coexist with Raids and Arena.

    Ask him to reflect on some of the design decisions made in Cataclysm.

    Ask him to react to some of the criticism directed at WoW.


    But no, instead you talk about the Darkmoon Fair and sweet-talk the LFR...
    Last edited by mmoc433ceb40ad; 2011-12-17 at 05:23 AM.

  16. #16
    The responsible for the current state of WoW... I still think that he is a spy or a saboteur.

  17. #17
    Another. agility. holiday weapon.No words, smileys, or ragefaces can truly express my anger for this.

  18. #18
    Why are we getting the 2008+ pets AND the achievement from this holiday? No recolor, no different achievement, nothing unique. Way to punish the older players...

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    "We will fix it in MoP"

    This was supposed to focus on Patch 4.3, not future class changes. Thanks for your feedback!
    I've been waiting for my class to be fixed about over two expansions.

  20. #20
    It's good hearing Greg's voice...I miss his frequent posts on the forums. He was such a good connection between what blizzard was thinking and what the community was asking for. Wish he went back to his old position <3 Greg.

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