WoWSocial Addon, Blue Posts, Ghostcrawler's Tweets, Just Another Summer Night

[chaud]

[12/6] Friends & Family Beta Test Hotfixes, New Features Not Likely To Be Added During Beta, Design a Legendary - Part 3

MLG/ManaGrind Tournaments This Weekend, Top 100 Hearthstone Player Rankings - Week 6

WoWSocial Addon (China Only)
A nice new Group Finder feature is coming in Warlords of Draenor, but NetEase has come up with a solution for Chinese players to use today. Players in China are currently testing an addon that allows for group chats, creating groups, and scheduled events with cross realm players.

Unfortunately the addon won't work on US/EU servers in its current state, as it relies on passing messages between servers via officially run characters that serve as message passing proxies.

You can see the translated FAQ and translated screenshots below, but keep in mind that things can be lost in translation. Thanks to ngacnlcq for the translation!

Why can't I click this addon while it keeps flashing after I log in the game?
You need to wait for the end of addon flashing to enable it.

How do I apply to join a group?
You can apply for a group by clicking "Search Group", selecting corresponding group characteristics and activity time, and clicking "Apply to join".

Why can't I join a group after I apply to join that group?
After you apply to join a group, you need to wait for the group administrator's approval. If the group administrator refuse your application, you can't join it, and the addon will not notify you.

How do I leave a group?
Click "My group", right click the group you want to quit, and select "Quit".

How do I view group information?
Click "My group", right click the group you want to view, and select "View Group Information".

How can I chat in the group?
Click "My group" and double click the group in which you want to chat.

Can I view previous chat log?
You can't view the overwritten chat log at the moment.

Can I chat in multiple groups at the same time?
Yes, you can double click multiple groups in "My Group" to open multiple chat boxes.

How many groups can I join?
You can join multiple groups without any limitation.

How to create a group?
There is a button called "Create Group" in the bottom right corner of the addon. Click "Create Group", select group characteristics and activity time to create it. Please note that if you don't select any group characteristics or activity time, other players are not able to find this group.

How many groups can I create?
Each character can create 3 groups at the moment.

How can I modify the group portrait?
Right click the group you created, select "View Profile", left click the portrait, choose a new one, click okay and save.

How can I disband a group?
Only group creator can disband group. In "My group", select the group you want to disband, right click "View Profile" and click "Disband".

How can I invite others after I create a group?
If some players apply for joining your group, the addon will be flashing in the minimap and you can click it to view the information. If you accept the application, tick it, or you can cross it if you refuse. You can also right click the group you created in "My Group" to "View Profile" to view the application.

Blue Posts

Warlords of Draenor Professions
We're actually hoping to do a bunch of work with crafting in Warlords. Nothing I can share any concrete details on yet, but we're talking about it a lot. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raid Finder and Group Browser
So my question becomes are they seriously doing away with the current LFD/LFR system that is in place for WoD, or am I totally misunderstanding this.
We're not getting rid of LFR or LFD. We're just creating an easier way for players who want to do content without random matchmaking to find other players. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Indirect Flight Paths
Ok Blizzard. Please create direct flight paths. Seriously stop wasting our time with connecting flights and slow flight path speeds. This isn't real life, you aren't losing money every time a flight path takes off half empty... PLEASE PLEASE just make direct flights and speed this [fluffy bunny] up. Your just wasting our time on these 5 min flights. That is why people stop playing, poor customer design and input.
We've said it in the past, but I'll repeat it here. If there are bad flight paths that just don't make sense, let us know. We can always take a look at them. We also plan to make sure the flight paths and transportation in Warlords of Draenor is as convenient as possible as well. We don't plan to remove the feeling of traveling feeling like traveling still though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ghostcrawler's Tweets
Today was Ghostcrawler's last day at Blizzard, but he can still be found on Twitter at OccupyGStreet.

Ghostcrawler's Departure
I'm not surprised the internet doesn't actually understand what my job was. I am surprised it is so certain in its bad assumptions. (Source)
To be fair you've not done a whole lot to help dispell the myths.
Really? I am always careful to say "we" when describing a new feature or game change that the design team is going to make. (Source)
We've always assumed it was the royal "we"
Lol. No wonder MMOC posters think I'm arrogant. (Source)

HOnestly, I think the number of people happy he left are greatly exaggerated. Most people think it's a sore loss.
I think that is true as well. In my experience the folks who feel they aren't being heard feel the need to yell louder. (Source)
Doubt most players know who GC is and most do not know he is now gone. Not ment as disrespect btw.
None taken, and I agree completely. Most players have no idea who I am, and many that do have no idea what I do. Just read MMOC. (Source)

To be clear. I've always said Chilton should be the focus of more peoples praise and ire than he's been.
It is telling that the folks who communicate less are also less controversial. Don't reinforce that, internet! (Source)

I like this analogy. You acted as a lightning rod/tank as a direct public voice. I hope someone takes this up.
I remember before I worked here the frustration of not understanding why design decisions were made. It was my goal to fix that. (Source)
I knew a consequence of that would be some players not agreeing with the design, but figured that was better than not knowing. (Source)

Obviously I didn't do it all alone. It took a large team to handle all the systems work. I just cleared roadblocks for them. (Source)
Systems design = classes, items, professions, PvP, encounters, UI, combat & major features. I spent most of my time on features (Source)

I figure that any kind of 'lead' is akin to 'coach' or Scrum master supporting the team and freeing them up to do their jobs?
Exactly. I try to remove impediments that keep my team from being able to of their job. (Source)

How much power does a Lead system designer have? example: guy 1 in ur team comes with an idea, can u then just turn it down?
That's not a great way to foster good morale. Typically you should give them pros and cons of their idea and see what they think. (Source)
Our feedback and playtesting processes are usually good enough to catch bad ideas before they go live. (Source)

will you keep the twitter account, or will it be deleted?
It's my personal account so I imagine I will keep it. I might change the name. We'll see. I certainly won't use it to discuss WoW. (Source)

Are you going to become a backseat driver, er, designer for wow then? Calling and telling them they're all wrong?
I'll be ranting on the forums with all you guys. (Source)

Well ghost crawler if you are leaving I hope you have had a great time working blizzard
I did. Blizzard is very much like a family. I made many friends that I will have for life. (Source)

If you're rly leaving...can I have your gold? Srsly though, thank you for years of hard work helping make WoW a great game.
You wouldn't want my gold. Like all of you, we have to earn everything we get in game. (Source)

If you were playing a horde character, what race would you prefer?
I'm partial to the older-looking orcs for melee or female trolls for casters. Female undead tanks are cool too. (Source)

The real question is what race/gender?
Human female. I'm not judging, but I personally have trouble looking at a dude's butt for so long. (Source)

are you healing hc raids without addons ? I can't live without mouseover macros for all heal spells at the very least
I try to heal without addons to get the experience and figure out what changes we need, but I certainly recognize their value. (Source)
Now that you're no longer a dev, do you think you'll be more likely to use addons?
Probably. (Source)

BC class design was a ways off. I hated not being able to tank raids with my Pally which was supposed to be a tank too
I played a Prot warrior at the time, and my guild only ran Heroic Shattered Halls with a pally tank and 3 mages. Not fun. (Source)

shattered halls wasnt that big of a problem. The big problems with cc started in magisters terrace.
I could tank MT fine, but by then we likely outgeared it. SH was an issue because we didn't have epics yet. (Source)

Just resubbed after 2 years because Warlords got me so excited, sad to hear you're leaving, best of luck to you
I'm pretty excited about Warlords. I have high hopes. (Source)

the real question is are you still gonna play? And what are you gonna insta level to 90?
Yes, and I am thinking of leveling the Prot warrior who tanked vanilla or the hunter that was my first character. (Source)

what will you miss the most?
The meetings where I was just sure there was no good solution, and somehow we come out of it with a great idea. (Source)

: What was your proudest moment at Blizz?
Seeing a designer I really respect get a promotion. (Source)
I'm not sure there is design related moment. The experience tends to be more humbling than prideful. (Source)

so was "you can't have both good gameplay and good story" blizzard's company line or your own opinion?
I don't think I ever said that. I said "Gameplay first," which is a Blizzard corporate value. (Source)
Other studios value story first, or world first or social first. (Source)

Some advice: [My pet issue] is why there were sub losses is one of the weaker arguments players use. Players don't have that data (Source)
i've canceled my sub and the data you ask the person to provide is very VAGUE. too vague for ur supposed data
But what if we looked at player history before they quit? What if we could that tell they used to PvP then stopped and when? (Source)
Granted correlation is not causation, but with large enough data sets, you can still detect trends and form hypotheses. (Source)

in your time at blizz what was your biggest idea/feature that never happened?
I think it will still happen, so I can't talk about it. (Source)

Any chance you can talk more about the "big unannounced feature" now?
No, because I still want them to do it! (Source)
but you can talk about titan project?
I guess they can't strictly fire me, but it would be in extremely poor taste. (Source)
so other question are you was on the team of this game (developing)?
I was only ever on WoW at Blizzard. I made very small contributions to other games when I could. (Source)

One of my favorite aspects of your job, was the writing of those tips at the bottom of loading screens. True story.
I admit to writing the Alleria and Turalyon one. (Source)

Wait. Was Transmog you? Do I have to find you and hug you now?
Everything we do is a group effort, but transmog was something on which I worked a lot. (Source)
I had that feeling for some reason, which is why I think we won't get a Transmog Storage revamp now that you're leaving
Nah, there is a ton of support for it on the team, which is usually what counts. (Source)

Was it you who was responsible for the LFD? Even though it had its negatives, I found it to be one of the best additions!
Many of us worked on LFD. I remember the development fondly though because I worked really closely with on it. (Source)

Is there any idea you regret you supported to get implemented into the game?
I wish we had done flex before Raid Finder. Flex still feels like raiding. (Source)
was flex on thw radar when developing lfr?
We've thought about it for years. Balance was always the sticking point, which we finally solved by excluding the hardest level. (Source)

so how much of the ToC patch in wrath was your idea?
IDK. None of it? The raid was an attempt to see if good bosses could carry lack of new art. I feel like that was answered. (Source)
Heh it was Daelo's first raid after he took over from Tigole right? He needs to come back to WoW already also !(Tigole)
Your time frame isn't quite right. Daelo was the lead encounter designer for years and still contributes to WoW. (Source)

How long have you been playing WoW? And do you have any rare mounts or mini-pets that you're particularly proud of obtaining?
I started playing in the Mauradon patch. I'm not much of a collector but there are a few rare drakes that I ride. (Source)

I think he is going to design EverquestNext? Seems like the only big game in development thats worth leaving blizz.
Not sure I'd want to work on an MMO again. Anything would feel anticlimactic after WoW. (Source)

Game designers must adopt the values of their studio to some extent. Somewhere else I would design differently. (Source)
will we see you in the game designer position again?
Yes, but my impression is less in the trenches work and more guidance. We shall see. (Source)

Will you still attend Blizzcon?
Probably as a guest, if I didn't feel it would detract from the actual developers. (Source)

u can finally stop pretend everything is wonderful and perfect now! Gratz, Blizz can finally get someone serious
I think you will find WoW design philosophy comes from the team and not any one individual. Don't expect many changes. (Source)
I'm just waiting for the rage posts, "this happened because ghostcrawler left!"
Those tweets will come from me though, perhaps lessening the effect. (Source)

with you being gone from the dev team, what kind of changes do you see might happen in wow down the road.
Nothing drastic. Radical change probably isn't a good strategy for a 9-year-old game. (Source)

Is someone going to get a post of Lead System Desinger?
Not for me to say, but I suspect they will structure things a little differently for the time being. (Source)

I wouldn't want to take credit for MoP if I was you either, it's far from a masterpiece.
We're pretty happy with it. Still the fact remains that our game development isn't like a kitchen with some all powerful head chef. (Source)

How important do you thing esports will be for a game to maintain longevity in the future? (esp they get more visibility)
Depends on the game. Minecraft had no real esport. (Source)
Minecraft didn't have much of a game to be frank. Still esports and the tight balance needed hurt variety in WoW.
Not sure it was esport per say. Arena was easier to balance when we only cared about RMP. That didn't sit well with everyone else. (Source)

Try to stay involved with the game community in your new job. I know it sucks a ton of time from design but it is appreciated.
I love interacting with the community. I wouldn't want to give that up. (Source)

Do you feel that with your comunication, you kinda spoiled the gaming comunity and set the bar too high for other companies?
I don't know how much of that is on me, but if it encourages more dev communication with players, then it's well worth it. (Source)

Do you think your Twitter "experiment" was a success? I think so! Thank you for taking your time to talk and hear to us.
I think so overall. It has let me communicate with a lot more players in more regions than forum posts did. (Source)
It forces players (and developers!) to be concise in discussions and nobody has the expectation of long diatribes. (Source)
On the con side, I lose the ability to add caveats like "the system isn't perfect" or "I see where you're coming from." (Source)
And I think that leads to our answers sounding curt or trite or more certain than we ever really are. (Source)

I hope you saved that tag for someone or to retire it! Would suck to see someone take it and say stupid internet things.
Blizzard has the account name, and it will indeed be retired... at least until the inevitable reboot. (Source)

Just Another Summer Night
AFKPlayers made a followup to the Blizzcon Movie Contest video.

[reckoner04]

Quite the effort from NetEase, lol.

[Nytsua]

Quite a lovely story. I'm a little upset that Anduin had to die though.

[Speaker]

Lol, twas funny.

[Deleted]

Simple yet amazing machinima. the voice acting is really cute damn those chinese xD

[Asphyxiate9]

loved the transformation

[Andaja]

This one was far far better then previous one

[Menesha]

Would be awesome if that WoWSocial Addon was available to EU/US then our guild's Alliance and Horde divisions could have 1 merged guild chat

[Darksoldierr]

Amazing video "No more spoilers"

[Deathpath]

That was a great machinima! i cant wait to see what the new models have in store for machinima making.

[Deleted]

"will i get married?!" just cleaned the floor near my computer xD

[jangkun]

So awesome video! really fun!

[Zstr]

we got oqueue , don't need that
nice machinima

[Deleted]

The machina made my day, lol XD

[Omians]

ah.. so thats were that garrosh transformation came from, rofl

[Pacster]

*The real question is what race/gender?
Human female. I'm not judging, but I personally have trouble looking at a dude's butt for so long.*

Not judging, but I personally think it's a bit creepy to imagine ghostcrawler staring at the butt of a female toon given that he seems to have a strictly sexual point of view. ;-)

[Solidusbr]

AFKPl@yers Machinimas are amazing.

[Tishiq]

That video ending made my day best ever

[wowaccounttom]

loved the sailor moon "vanilla" transformation

[Guenhwyvaria]

we got oqueue , don't need that
nice machinima

The UI of oqueue is horrible, this chinese addon looks a lot more user friendly and intuitive. Being able to chat before you join a group is huge. oqueue was originaly made for PvPers, and since there has been a huge influx of pve'rs using it, it still has a lot of pvp features that can't be turned off that make it really bloated.