Valor Point Item Upgrades, MoP Music Update, Botting Ban, Blue Posts, MMO Report

[chaud]

Diablo 3 - Ranged Barbarian Build, Witch Doctor Inferno Guide, Demon Hunter DPS Calculator Spreadsheet, Unidentified Items and Patch 1.1

Valor Point Item Upgrades
In Mists of Pandaria, Valor Points can be used to upgrade your gear. This feature is not in the game yet and not intended to be previewed at this time. All of the numbers used here are fake (except the item level 375 requirement) and for demonstration purposes only.

• The minimum item level to upgrade gear is 375.
• The left side shows the gear item level (500) and the player's item level (489).
• The right side shows the increase in item level, and the new item level (525) and player's item level (491).
• Right now all stats are upgraded, you can see the increase in individual stats on the right side (+35) and the new stat amount (255).
• This example only shows one stat, but in the final product all of the stats on an item will be increased.
• Each item has a limited number of times it can be upgraded, which is shown at the top right (2/3), with the upgrade cost directly above it (300).

Mists of Pandaria Music Update
The previous beta build added even more music!

South Korea Bans Botting
The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is preparing a new law that will outlaw virtual item trades and farming items for commercial use in games. This new law is supposed to encourage students to avoid wasting time and improve the environment of games. The law prohibits players from using software that allows characters to farm items in a game without the need for a human to be playing.

The article in The Korea Times doesn't make it very clear, but this ban may also impact Arcade games that sell something you have to physically go and purchase to redeem for an item in game.

The Ministry claims that the "main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes", which doesn't include farming items for money! They also mentioned that virtual item trades contribute to many problems in society, including teenage crime. The police department is supposed to enforce this law which has a maximum punishment of a $43,000 USD fine and up to five years in prison.

Blue Posts

Forced Cross Realm PVP
When we go live, cross realm zones won't put PvP and PvE realms together.

During beta testing, you're going to see a lot of crazy stuff. Please keep in mind that beta is not a demo of the game. It is a testing environment in which we can get feedback from players but also in which we can test out many of our new features, some of which, like this one, are quite technically complex.

If you find yourself overly frustrated by the chaotic nature of beta, whether it's from cross-realm testing, broken quests or class bugs, my suggestion would be to wait until we launch. It's not worth getting frustrated over. You'll have plenty of opportunities to explore Pandaria. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Rogue (Forums)
Rogue Feedback
He hasn't answere anything about the Prep/Step issue.
Again, I feel like we have made plenty of responses to the topic. I think it's one of those deals where because some players don't like the answer, they say the topic has not been addressed.

For the record, as many players will tell you, Sub is nearly impossible to balance with both Preparation and Shadowstep. On the other hand, having two talents that are both so good that you want them both and have to think long and hard about which one to take and perhaps even swap back and forth from time to time is pretty much exactly what we are trying to deliver with the new talent system. Are rogues doomed in PvP without both? I doubt that. Is it hard t o choose? Of course, and that's the point. If we conclude that it's just too cruel to ask rogues to choose between them, we'd likely just cut Prep from the game and perhaps lower a few cooldowns slightly. I really hope though that we aren't in a space where every cool talent has to become mandatory or deleted.

Leeching and paralytic locking each other out
Again, asked and answered. We said that we understand that very optimized rogues won't want both talents because you can only use one at a time. That depends a very great deal on how often you'd use the competing talents. If you find yourself using leeching poison then swapping to paralytic often, you may be better off just keeping both talents than constantly swapping. A Disc priest (on live) doesn't necessarily drop the Atonement talent evey time they think they might not Smite, though very min/max players probably do.

We're going to be underfunded for the first patch of MoP
Do you have any evidence of this? Even anecdotes are better than nothing (though not much better). The classes on beta are getting pretty well balanced at this point at both level 85 and 90 (modulo the occasional bug that creeps in), so if you think you're seeing something we're not, please let us know.

As an aside, I'm not a huge fan of simulations as evidence, because it requires us to debug them first. I used to spend more effort doing that, but it's a chore, and my time is probably better spent elsewhere. Sims are fantastic for suggesting to you that you might want to try a different rotation or stat allocation. They aren't great for "Hey Bliz, my dps is low. Please buff."

Dirty Tricks just sounds like a bug. I don't have our bug database in front of me, but it's hard to make assumptions about neglect based on when a bug gets fixed, so long as it does before launch. It could be that the developer is waiting on a code change to fix the bug. It could be that he or she is pondering how to fix it or if a redesign in the functionality (not the base design) is warranted.

I've been doing this a long time, and one of the truths I have uncovered is that apparently easy bugs are often the hardest to fix and things you predict would take weeks of programming time can be done in a few lines. It's hard to diagnose from the outside.

If you see bugs, report them in the bug forum. Once you have done so, stop worrying about it until we get close to launch.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

MMO-Report
The MMO Report is back with a special E3 episode!

[Rhozul]

Has anything been said on whether or not you'll be able to upgrade PvP gear with Valor Points? Because if so ... then darn, looks like you'll have to either A) be able to do the same thing with Conquest Points or B) force PvP players to go do some PvE.

Valor Points upgrading gear does not look like it is going to be a good game mechanic at all.

[Cobelarus]

Interesting way to use valor points :X

edit: Also loving how the musics turning out

[Deleted]

Has anything been said on whether or not you'll be able to upgrade PvP gear with Valor Points? Because if so ... then darn, looks like you'll have to either A) be able to do the same thing with Conquest Points or B) force PvP players to go do some PvE.

Valor Points upgrading gear does not look like it is going to be a good game mechanic at all.

It's the best thing they've come up with since introducing valor points.

Loot should only drop from raids, and valor should enhance the gear but not boost your way into raiding.

As for pvp everything stays the same, you get honor, conquest and elite gear with the same acquiring as currently on live.

[Shawaam]

Holy balls. Wasn't South Korea the sane country? Five years in prison for making a computer play a videogame? Sanity!

[Nylara]

Interesting idea. I'm not too sure if I quite like it...

[Pèd]

Hmm intresting feature, the upgrading.. However i'd rather raid for my upgrades

[mynameisjoey]

love the new music!

[Pannekaker]

Lovely! I'm looking so forward to this!

[Boricha]

Not sure how I feel about the new valor system....

[Stormgnoef]

Hmm intresting feature, the upgrading.. However i'd rather raid for my upgrades

For best gear you still gonna have to raid and upgrade .Its not like you gonna get 450 item lvl gear and change into 483.

[Tastyfish]

So what happens then with Ledgendaries now I wonder. It will be interesting to see if they allow them to be upgraded

[Alayea]

Feeling rather mixed about the idea of the Valor system for Mists of Pandaria. I hope the feature gets added to the beta soon so people can see it for themselves.

So what happens then with Ledgendaries now I wonder. It will be interesting to see if they allow them to be upgraded

That might not be too far-fetched, within reason. It could spare Blizzard from a repeat of Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings.

[S7orm]

botting against law and insane connection speeds

looks like there's a nation 20 years ahead the rest of the world about gaming :P

[Pannekaker]

I sort of hope not, they would kinda lose their legendarity if you could simply upgrade them. :P

So what happens then with Ledgendaries now I wonder. It will be interesting to see if they allow them to be upgraded

[Somarlane]

Pfffft. And South Korea expects to be able to enforce this, how?

[Comrade1182]

Pfffft. And South Korea expects to be able to enforce this, how?

I'd have thought it would have some easy ways to go about it. Such as y'know, asking Blizzard to share the list of players banned on the Asian servers for botting.

[Somarlane]

I sort of hope not, they would kinda lose their legendarity if you could simply upgrade them. :P

I doubt it, in my opinion. Legendaries are neat for a couple of patches and then bite the dust. I'm not saying make them BiS, but legendaries ought to be timeless bad-@$$es. There is some serious farming grinds for them as well, so it's not like everyone and his pet gnome would have them equipped.

[Venziir]

Urgh TES Online looks terrible... Like someone nuked Skyrim with the Disney Bomb. Urgh.

[Singen]

That music is fantastic imo. I paused what I was listening to, to play it and completely forgot I wasn't listening to my own music lol. I could honestly play that in the background while working... I think it's great.

On the subject of botting, I'm not sure how they will enforce it. They will have to spend an enormous amount of resources to go through each case unless they are specifically detected by Warden.