Not gonna be able to name our followers I guess

[CosmicGuitars]

I'd rather we get interesting followers with lore behind them like Mankrik, Dagg'um Ty'gor, Gorgonna, etc, rather than just storyless, uninteresting peons who we can assign names.

[Khime]

You guys always act so affronted when Blizzard changes their minds or adjusts something in game. They say one thing and then something else ends up happening and you feel like it's a personal slap in the face. People should know that preordering a game comes with some risk that the finished product won't be what you expect. The reason you preorder is because you're excited about the game in general and want to guarantee a copy of your own on launch day. If your entire enjoyment of a game hinges on the implementation of one minor feature then you really shouldn't be preordering it.

I think it's more of how the information was released:

2013, Blizzcon: You'll be able to rename your followers.
2014, Twitter: No, of course you can't rename followers! They're people! (and after questioning) We changed our minds!

Would've been nice to have had this mind-change mentioned in one of the blog posts they've done about Garrisons, rather than having it be revealed only because someone asked about it (again) on Twitter, and got a different answer than when it was asked at Blizzcon. Instead, their basic attitude seems to be "Yeah, we thought that way then, we feel different now. Cope."

[IxilaFA]

I think it's more of how the information was released:

2013, Blizzcon: You'll be able to rename your followers.
2014, Twitter: No, of course you can't rename followers! They're people! (and after questioning) We changed our minds!

Would've been nice to have had this mind-change mentioned in one of the blog posts they've done about Garrisons, rather than having it be revealed only because someone asked about it (again) on Twitter, and got a different answer than when it was asked at Blizzcon. Instead, their basic attitude seems to be "Yeah, we thought that way then, we feel different now. Cope."

One of the blog posts? I believe we've had, what, 1 blog post about Garrisons? That was published shortly after Blizzcon?

Yeah they changed their mind and no, they don't really care that you're "upset" about it. What do you expect? Want them to get on stage at their headquarters, call a press conference, and declare "We have decided that you can no longer name your followers!" Then do you expect them to do that multiple times for every design iteration they go through?

As for why they said it at Blizzcon and now seem to not remember really saying it at all, I can't explain. But I can guarantee they didn't go "Hmm, you know what, let's screw over the player base and take away this thing that we talked about for 6 seconds at Blizzcon." It's obvious there was a decision probably many months ago to take it out and since then they haven't really thought about it. After all, it's not like these guys have a copy of every thing ever said at Blizzcon so they can double check their twitter statements.

[Wrathonia]

One of the blog posts? I believe we've had, what, 1 blog post about Garrisons? That was published shortly after Blizzcon?

Yeah they changed their mind and no, they don't really care that you're "upset" about it. What do you expect? Want them to get on stage at their headquarters, call a press conference, and declare "We have decided that you can no longer name your followers!" Then do you expect them to do that multiple times for every design iteration they go through?

As for why they said it at Blizzcon and now seem to not remember really saying it at all, I can't explain. But I can guarantee they didn't go "Hmm, you know what, let's screw over the player base and take away this thing that we talked about for 6 seconds at Blizzcon." It's obvious there was a decision probably many months ago to take it out and since then they haven't really thought about it. After all, it's not like these guys have a copy of every thing ever said at Blizzcon so they can double check their twitter statements.

I would rather they stop with all the negative info streaming from their twitter accounts and maybe put it in forum posts or the blogs. You can't convey real meaning via twitter, nor can you hold a proper conversation.

[arcaneshot]

Not even going to bother reading the rest of it. Dude was on stage at Blizzcon during the Garrison part of the panel when he made the statement. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT MENTIONING IT OFFHAND?!

Probably by the fact that a lot of the people in this topic had no idea naming your follower was a thing.

[rhorle]

I would rather they stop with all the negative info streaming from their twitter accounts and maybe put it in forum posts or the blogs. You can't convey real meaning via twitter, nor can you hold a proper conversation.

Sure you can. Just because it is limited to 140 characters doesn't mean you can't convey meaning and have a conversation. Blog posts don't hold any conversation because it is a one way communication. Forums hold some conversation with developers but often has them appearing a few times. Twitter is actually allowing them to convey far more information then they have in the past and far more direct.

Its like the Ask the Devs question posts but faster and quicker.

[Kaganfindel]

Is it not normal to rename your employees? I guess that explains Robert's displeasure of being called Boba Fatt Cheetofingers.

It's not common practice in the civilian workforce, but fraternities and military units sometimes issue nicknames or call signs to new recruits. Since the garrison is a military base you establish for your king/warchief rather than your own private holding, it seems to me that our followers are more like soldiers under your command than employees of your estate. So naming them isn't entirely without precedent, and makes a lot more "real world" sense than a lot of other big decisions they've made. Honestly, it's ridiculous at this point for them to cite practical concerns over naming followers with one side of their face while the other side dismisses practical concerns about dragons forgetting how to fly COZ GAMEPLAY. Customizing things counts as gameplay too.

It seems to me that since followers will now vary in rarity, capability and prominence in the story, they could be categorized like loot. Then if the developers want their precious "lore characters" to retain their names they could remain protected from renaming by virtue of their follower designation (you know, like legendaries not being eligible for transmog,) while everyone else you hire on to man your garrison could be issued a call sign. If you want to put gameplay before storytelling, you could even let the player flesh in the backstory for OrcTankFollower_0882 and decide who he was, where he came from and what his mama named him. Give the player something to do at the cost of control over a negligible bit of the "lore," because giving people something fun to do is supposed to be Job One.

This comes back, of course, to the basic failing of this development team. They don't consider building and customization to be gameplay. They've categorized all the making and naming and storytelling as their fun, and sitting back and consuming it as our fun, and can't bring themselves to allow any transfer of material across that membrane.

[Verain]

Sure you can. Just because it is limited to 140 characters doesn't mean you can't convey meaning and have a conversation.

I sorta disagree. Twitter is a poor communication medium, full stop.

People can't bring up supporting points, give examples. Miscommunication is RIFE.

Here's Celestalon tweeting back to me about a complaint about restless blades in pvp:

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...72759091200001


For the non-rogues in the audience, "restless blades" is a combat ability that advances killing spree, adrenaline rush, and shadow blades cooldowns every time you press eviscerate or rupture. The reduction is VERY nontrivial- 2 seconds per combo points, or normally 10 seconds per move pressed.

In PvE, you have a lot of boss uptime, and the only finishers you use are slice and dice (long duration), rupture, and eviscerate. This means that you cycle cooldowns rapidly- during one AR/blades time, you'll finish every 2-3 seconds for 10 seconds, wailing away at those cooldowns such that they'll be available next time. In fact, combat is only viable in PvE because of its intense cooldown uptime.

In PvP, you don't get to press eviscerate or rupture nearly as often. In addition to the commonsense things brought about in pvp, such as kiting, crowd control, dodges, parries, and immunities, you ALSO spend your combo points on Kidney Shot, your primary stun, and Recuperate, your self heal / survival tool. Other rogues also do the same thing, and many classes of course spend resources defensively instead of offensively in PvP at times, to try to counteract enemy actions- but this doesn't have the second order penalty that it does for combat.

The problem, of course, is that the combat cooldowns end up being very long indeed in PvP, but combat's damage outside of cooldowns isn't somehow better or more interesting- in fact, it's terrible. If restless blades wasn't a mechanic for combat- if rogues in pve were balanced around using their cooldowns once every 3 minutes instead of well over twice that often- then you would see combat's pressure being threatening instead of an absolute joke, and you'd probably see combat rogues in arena sometimes. Allowing recuperate, deadly throw, and kidney shot to advance restless blades would go a lot towards making the spec acceptable in pvp.


Instead of answering my question, he asked for clarification. This means that I wasn't clear enough in my tweet, because I had to make assumptions. The answer to my question appears to be "no changes planned", but I don't even know if he read all that stuff.

Its like the Ask the Devs question posts but faster and quicker.

That is its advantage, but the disadvantage is the lack of comms.

[Thage]

Not quite sure why i would re-name a person who works for me.

I'd do it just to be an asshole. "Rutherford, gird your loins for adventure!" "My name's Drex, boss." "Rutherford, do we need to beat you with the hose again?" "No sir :C"

[Khime]

One of the blog posts? I believe we've had, what, 1 blog post about Garrisons? That was published shortly after Blizzcon?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/115...FAQ-10_30_2013
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/11502044

Yeah they changed their mind and no, they don't really care that you're "upset" about it. What do you expect? Want them to get on stage at their headquarters, call a press conference, and declare "We have decided that you can no longer name your followers!" Then do you expect them to do that multiple times for every design iteration they go through?

Hyperbole much? There is a middle ground between the two, something along of the line of just initially saying "It's something we planned on, but we rethought it since then," instead of reacting to the whole idea of renaming followers as ludicrous, and then using "that was then, this is now" as their explanation as to why they said something different at Blizzcon.

As for why they said it at Blizzcon and now seem to not remember really saying it at all, I can't explain. But I can guarantee they didn't go "Hmm, you know what, let's screw over the player base and take away this thing that we talked about for 6 seconds at Blizzcon." It's obvious there was a decision probably many months ago to take it out and since then they haven't really thought about it. After all, it's not like these guys have a copy of every thing ever said at Blizzcon so they can double check their twitter statements.

Oh, wait, they *do* have a copy of everything they said - it's all on video!