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The War Within Alpha - Warbands Feature Overview
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MMO-Champion
Cataclysm Press Tour - Extra Information
Someone pointed on the forums that I suck at my job. In an effort to unsuck, I will point out two nice interviews on GamePlanet:
Ghostcrawler Interview on GamePlanet.co.nz
Cory Stockton Interview on GamePlanet.co.nz
We learn a couple of new things there :
- Reforging will be done by NPCs in cities, it will let you reduce a secondary stat by 40% and put those points into a different stat. Secondary stats are pretty much any "rating" stats, you cannot reforge primary stats such as Strength, Stamina, Intellect, etc ... The cost of reforging will be the vendor cost of the item, it can be done on any item from green to purple.
- Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines should be shipped in Patch 4.1
- The CoT: War of the Ancients raid will be introduced between Patch 4.1 and 4.3
Blue posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard EntertainmentPath of the Titans
Path of the Titans Removal
We still think it would be cool to add some kind of post-game progression to allow for player customization, but we would have to be very careful and do it right. Nobody wanted to see a feature that felt like it delivered on half its potential. Nobody wanted to be thinking about how we were going to "fix the flawed Paths system" in 5.0. If we can come up with a design we like, then we'll try again in the future.
A big part of game design is triage -- knowing when something is good enough, knowing when something can be good with just a little more work, and knowing when something is a lost cause... at least for now. There are very few WoW features that we kill outright. Most go into a design parking lot, and we get together every few months to review those features and consider what to work on next.
[...] Fortunately, one of the benefits of being Blizzard is we don't have to ship a product until we think it's ready. Our marketing department works with us on the game, but they understand that when the game is ready is ultimately up to the team. We didn't cut it because we ran out of time. We cut it because we didn't think the design we had was fun. At the high level we still like the idea, and if we can solve some of the problems we might bring it back in the future. (Source)
Glyphs / Inscription
Glyphs in Cataclysm
Minor glyphs are fine in our opinion. They weren't intended to offer power and they are certainly much more flexible than major glyphs. Some classes need some better minor glyphs though (e.g. warlock).
Medium glyphs are the kind of glyph you'd take if you had more choices. For example, a Fury warrior these days in PvE probably takes Execution, Whirlwind and Heroic Strike. Why wouldn't you? You hit all of those buttons a lot. The glyph of Cleave isn't bad, but you just don't find yourself in situations where you would use it as much as Heroic Strike, so it just never competes. If it wasn't competing with Heroic Strike though, say it was in a different category, then it might be worth considering. Bloodthirst would be an excellent medium glyph, because it is useful but doesn't contribute to dps. Medium glyphs are good for situational abilities, cooldowns, defense and utility.
Now having said that, we are also taking a hard look at the major glyphs. Glyph of Sprint (movement speed) is a pretty interesting one. It is probably a dps increase given that it helps your time on target, but it's hard to put a number on that. It's very easy to put a number on Glyph of Eviscerate (crit chance). It's a math problem. That glyph is either going to be demonstrably better or worse than the other majors, leading to the cookie-cutter mentality. We already have plenty parts of the game where there really isn't a wrong choice to be made -- with enchants and meta-gems for example, there is typically a right or wrong answer given that we don't make several per spec. We do make several glyphs per spec, so we think they can be cooler. Customization was our original design for glyphs, and frankly we just didn't deliver on it. They feel like talents, and pretty simple talents at that.
The challenge for us is that ALL glyphs have to follow this model. If they don't for some classes, as happened in LK, then eventually the whole thing unravels. We have a much better feel for what makes an interesting gylph now. I'm not going to promise we're going to deliver on it this time around, because we weren't able to the first time. But it is a goal and we're going to spend a lot of time on it. (Source)
Non-Consumable/Learnable Glyphs in Cataclysm
Making glyphs more interesting to every player is more important than making consumable glyphs a reliable money-maker for Inscription, given that there are plenty of other ways to handle the latter. (Source)
Guild Talents / Leveling
Guild Talents removal
Guilds aren't a new feature for WoW, and we are really sensitive about imposing any kind of structure on them that might make you feel like you aren't supposed to stay with your current guildies any longer. To that end, there were flaws with guild talents that we didn't like.
Guilds are, for the most part, groups of friends. We don't want features to drive wedges between them. We don't want you to guild hop looking for the talents that suit you best; we want you to play (or in many cases keep playing) with your friends. With a talent tree, guilds would naturally have different talent trees, which creates a reason to bail or guild hop that doesn't exist today. If you didn't like the direction the guild was taking (for example, you were a PvP guy with a GM focused on raid-progression) you might feel like you should leave. That can happen today of course, but you can also stay in a PvE guild just because you like the members even if you don't participate in the same content because you're not losing out on inherent guild benefits.
Furthermore, we felt like the decision-making, for many guilds, would be up to a relatively few people, possibly as few as the guild master. Talent trees work for classes because the decision is up to you. We didn't want to create the risk of drama over choosing those talents or even not being consulted in choosing them.
Another advantage of the perks system is that it's easily expandable. If we want to add new levels and / or perks in later patches or expansions, we can, without having to rejuggle a talent tree. (Source)
PvP
Interrupts in PvP
We don't want interrupts to be binary either. They shouldn't be able to lock a caster down. We currently have something of an arms race where the melee got more mobility and interrupts, so the casters got more escape methods and instant spells. We just need some bilateral disarmament, so that melee can sometimes interrupt spells. (Source)
Characters with existing PvP ranks titles
The plan at the moment is to grandfather in anyone with an existing BG PvP title and just let you keep it. (Source)
Raids & Dungeons
Movement in Cataclysm
Movement is supposed to be a challenge in PvE. Handling the times when you have to move elegantly is one of the differences between a kill and a wipe. For Cataclysm we are making sure everyone has something they can do when mobile, whether it's Moonfire for Balance or Fel Flame for warlocks. In the same way you need to master when to AE and when to single target, you need to master when to use the mobile spells and when to not use them. (Source)
25/10 Man Raids shared raid ID
We thought the LK design was asking raiders to raid more than they wanted to. When you see a boss twice a week, you just burn out on the fight that much faster.
If you really love raiding, as many of us do, bring an alt the second time around.
5 Bosses in the Bastion of Twilight (Grim Batol Raid)
As to the number of bosses, the 5 is just from Bastion of Twilight. There are two additional raid instances in the first tier of content and together they'll offer enough bosses for us to fully itemize, around a dozen or so. (Source)
Archaeology
Archaeology
We have some end-game plans for Archaeology. I would compare it to Cooking, which isn't mandatory, but useful enough that nobody is surprised at the appearance of a Fish Feast. (Source)
Archaeology rewards
Many of the archaeology items are stored in your journal, not your bags, so inventory space shouldn't be a big problem. While many of the artifacts are only there for rewards, the rare finds run the gamut from unique toys to usable weapons to special pets. (Source)
Miscellaneous
Spell haste in Cataclysm
We're not getting rid of spell haste and I agree it's fun to get quick spells.
I was talking more about the PvP environment (and to a lesser extent PvE) where the balance has shifted too heavily towards very fast or instant spells that leave the other side with no chance to predict, react or attempt to counter what you're going to do. It's a problem with CC, I'd agree, but it's also a problem with some of the really hard-hitting nukes where someone can die in a couple of GCDs before they can pop a defensive cooldown or even get healed.
We want combat to be less binary, where someone can get into a wounded state and then move either towards being fully healed or being dead depending on what they and everyone else involved in the battle do. We want there to be some back and forth -- some chances to make mistakes and then recover from them. PvP can currently feel like a tennis match where the team who scores the first point wins.
There still need to be moments where if you line up all your cooldowns you can kill someone who is wounded, but those need to be not every spell you cast. Given talents and gear, fully three-second cast time spells aren't really going to be that common for actual casters, but spell interactions are balanced around having a cast time so that the other side has a chance to respond. When every spell is at the GCD cap or hasted by a talent or proc then you sometimes die before you even know what happened. (Source)
31/41/51 Points Talents
We design the 31, 41 and 51-point talents to be attractive if not mandatory. There are very few builds that don't go down to the bottom of a tree and we don't think the ones that don't are in some way more interesting builds.
Remember, the passive bonuses are just that -- bonuses. If you find a build that avoids 51 points in one tree but picks up something really awesome instead, you will still be fully functional. (Source)
Solo players
You can still choose to level up Archaeology, which is going to have quite a bit of content. We are also updating all of the other professions to make them more interesting. In addition to goblins and worgen, we have redone the questing for most of the original zones, and all of the lower-level zones. If you like solo play, you will find literally thousands of new quests. We will also offer more achievements, many of which are designed with the solo player in mind.
There are also two buckets of solo players: one is the type of player who pretty much treats WoW as a single-player game and doesn't interact much with other players. The other category is the player who may have lots of friends online but doesn't feel like they have the time commitment for very organized and scheduled PvP or raiding. The new dungeons and BGs will also offer you lots of content if you are someone who plays alone but doesn't mind working together with strangers for short periods of time. The big Cataclysm feature you will miss out on as a solo player is the guild revamp. Again, if you just like to play alone but don't mind being part of a guild, you will still be able to help your guild contribute though. (Source)
Lead developers are all working on the new MMO and we're all going to die
I know this is a popular sentiment among the tinfoil-hat conspiracy crowd, but it's false. We have almost the same team in place that we had for LK. We have many developers who have been working on World of Warcraft since its inception. Most of our leads have been leads for years. (Source)
Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator)
Lifebloom
Lifebloom is positioned as a tank-healing tool in PvE. We don't think there will be much use for using single stacks on non-tanks given how many other heals you have available that will likely do the job better. In PvE, you will likely get a 3 stack up, and then shift to Nourish to maintain the stack, throwing out Swiftmends or Healing Touch as necessary. In PvP, Lifebloom will still probably get use because of its bloom mechanic. (Source)
Tree of Life
1. With the addition of the tree of life cooldown, will trees still be under the elemental heading and therefore bannishable by locks?
No. You won't open yourself up to new forms of crowd control, and neither will locks or DKs using their abilities. (Source)
GC, care to comment on the ToL speed reduction returning? Snaring yourself doesnt' seem like a good design, neither in PvE nor PvP.
The speed reduction thing is something we're trying again. We know it's going to be controversial and it's possible it won't stick. We really want the ability to be used at the right time, not just on cooldown. There has to be a wrong time to use it. In PvP, we want there to be a way to counter the druid, especially given that the built-in crowd control is gone. The other consideration is that we plan on getting a new model that looks more like an ancient and less like a treant, so moving slower might fit. (Source)
Will I be able to cancel ToL form after activating it, and if so will I be able to return to it before the duration is up?
I imagine you can cancel it. Like all cooldowns though, if you waste it, you waste it. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator)
Complexity of Elemental in AE Situations
Yeah, I'd agree that Elemental has a lot going on for AE situations. Not all classes do though. We could add AE rotations to everyone, but I'm not sure the bang for the buck is really there when we could also just ask players to use their single target rotations more frequently. (Source)
Cataclysm - Revamped Cities Video
A trailer of the revamped Stormwind and Orgrimmar appeared on Gametrailers yesterday.
The MMO Report
Look! It's another MMO Report!
Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #242 and Teh Gladiators #140 + #141 are out!
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Originally Posted by Boubouille
