Azshara / Stonetalon Videos, Blue Posts, Comics

[Boubouille]

Guild Leveling - Guild Perks
The Guild Perks list is now available in the "Guild Leveling" section of the left menu.


Azshara and Stonetalon Mountains Videos
Azshara and Stonetalon Mountains both got an incredible amount of changes in the expansion, below are 2 videos of the zones on beta servers.

Azshara



Stonetalon Mountains

Blue posts

Updated Player Models
We definitely want to do it. Our artists would love to - believe me. The worgen and goblin took an enormous amount of art and animation time for Cataclysm. It's definitely on the list though. We recognize the problem with old models in shiny new armor. (Source)

Will the gnome/dwarf starting area be revamped?
Yes. (Source)

Environment based spell effects
is there currently any way to implement ability based environment effects? Ie, creating an obstacle in a player's path.
It's technically possible, but really risky in terms of the potential for player abuse. Even in a PvE situation, it would be easy to get a mob stuck in a position where it couldn't path to targets without a ton of bullet-proofing on our part. (Source)

Spell school immune mobs
I can't think of the last time we made a spell school immune mob. Do you run into them often? It's the kind of mechanic we realized was never going to work because we design classes and specializations around schools. (Source)

Duplicate answers in the Twitter Dev Chat
We had the full class design team fielding questions and two community managers compiling their answers. In most cases, the developers were good about communicating with each other about which questions they'd be taking, or which classes each would focus on. It looks like roughly six questions got answered by more than one developer out of nearly 100 questions answered. In some cases, Lylirra and I accidentally double-posted the same Q&A while hurrying to compile the answers -- which did not at all affect the time it took for the developers to field questions. We're going through and removing any duplicates right now (identical questions with identical answers). (Source)

Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Feral at LVL 10
You already have cat and get bear right around the same time. Picking Feral gives you Mangle and you can get some early talents encouraging you to level as a cat. (Source)

Mage (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Lack of Mage questions in the Twitter Dev Chat
We didn't screen them (as far as I know). We just didn't get many. (Source)

Is there any chance to see Invisibility on other classes?
Unlikely. We try not to share around unique abilities unless we feel it's absolutely necessary (like in the case of the mandatory buff scenario). (Source)

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Paladin Rotations in Cataclysm
We felt like we needed to add several new spells to the paladin rotation, including making Holy Wrath a real part of the rotation. With all of those changes, we thought it was hard to justify having a mechanic to choose your Judgement when you were already choosing your Seal and Aura. It's just a different model. If anything at the moment I'm worried that we made paladins too complex and might have to reign it back in a little. We'll see when players can try it out in beta. (Source)

Priest (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Leap of Faith and CC
It won't remove movement impairing effects, at least not innately. That's the kind of thing we might add as a glyph or talent, but you have to be careful about this sort of thing because then the spell would likely be used as a snare-break and not for its main purpose. Likewise, once you mess with threat, that precludes using it on some targets, and again, we don't want priest to feel like they have to use it like a Hand of Salvation instead of to actually move allies. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Shaman Flying/Water Form
It's not in the plans. (Source)

Frost Spells
Shaman only seem to really have 2 frost spells, otherwise it's quite barren. Any plans to explore additional ones?
This idea comes up every now and then, but we haven't yet come up with something really unique that we haven't done before and that shaman need. (Source)

Elemental new spells
Earthquake is their big addition for Cataclysm. They'll get a lot of use out of Spiritwalker's Grace as well -- they were really who we had in mind with that spell. They are also getting some new mechanics, such as Lava Surge. (Source)

The MMO Report
It's monday and it's time for your weekly MMO Report

Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #247 and Teh Gladiators #150 + #151 are out!

[Furbolg]

Wee, news!

[nessla]

Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

[Deleted]

Donald is my personal hero <3

[fulfill_your_destiny]

lookin quite nice to me. I lol'd at the shaman flying/water form part though. Hahaha. :P

[dkrypt911]

lol DLC wins again! new player models? hell yeah it's about time they do something about that... especially the human models..

[Lorthiros]

As I read it you get cat form at lvl 10 if you speccc feral, which truly is a great thing!
Also: WTB improved player models

[Deleted]

" Updated Player Models
We definitely want to do it. "
" We felt like we needed to add several new spells to the paladin rotation...I'm worried that we made paladins too complex... "
ooooooyeah...great news
I hope there wont be that much paladin in the future...DIE NOOBS DIE !!!!

[greyghost]

Hey Boub, a request: do you think you can make a "Systems" or "User Interface" section in the left Cataclysm menu? Cause really, there are a LOT of UI changes with the expansion, it may be a good idea to make a category for them.

edit: And after watching that MMO Report... really? Seriously Casey? Did you and your writers sleep past the over 1000+ news articles written that week which you could have easily seen if you had gone to news.google.com and plug in "RealID"? Did you miss the 40,000 post thread on WoW's own forums, every single page having at least 2 or 3 articulate arguments discussing the obvious implications and security risks about real names being put on such a huge publicly viewable forum?

It's not funny to "put on a big boy face" and pretend that those genuine security risks aren't real. There are a lot more than 17-year-old world-be-damned white males that play MMOs these days.

[Leven]

Frost Spells
Shaman only seem to really have 2 frost spells, otherwise it's quite barren. Any plans to explore additional ones?
This idea comes up every now and then, but we haven't yet come up with something really unique that we haven't done before and that shaman need.

How about a Frost Shield for resto? They want people to make choices when healing, you could choose between Earth Shield on your target and Frost Shield - which absorbs for a bit less than Earth Shield heals for, but also slows attackers.

[Tommy2er]

They confessed! They plan to remake player models oh hallelujah! Shame it won't be out in time for cataclysm though

[Alchemy]

EdGuy <3

[Kynyia]

I can't think of the last time we made a spell school immune mob. Do you run into them often?


Just pointin our the fire ele mobs in WG, They immune to mah fire mage. Nothing i can work around but still kinda annoying =P

[Shoat]

Donald's Comic is win.

[halmotors]

Looks like Boub is partnering up with Blue Plz for all his video needs now. Can't say I'm sad about that. :O

[Deleted]

DLC wins as always!

Azshara looks epic, Stonetalon has a bit less epicness since we are being shown alliance :| We dont need alliance! We need moar Horde stuff!


I wonder if they plan to add our "New WotLK promised" dances, or al teast NEW haircut

[stonhinge]

I can't think of the last time we made a spell school immune mob. Do you run into them often?


Just pointin our the fire ele mobs in WG, They immune to mah fire mage. Nothing i can work around but still kinda annoying =P

Any "traditional" looking elemental mob is generally immune to "their" school. Thankfully, they didn't slip up on any boss mobs. Hopefully with Cataclysm they'll pull most of them out.

[wildi]

Environment based spell effects
is there currently any way to implement ability based environment effects? Ie, creating an obstacle in a player's path.
It's technically possible, but really risky in terms of the potential for player abuse. Even in a PvE situation, it would be easy to get a mob stuck in a position where it couldn't path to targets without a ton of bullet-proofing on our part.

what do you fear ? you already made mobs invincible which can't get to you. What this game needs is more innovation and less simplification.

Spell school immune mobs
I can't think of the last time we made a spell school immune mob. Do you run into them often?

frost dks & frost mages love frost immune mobs in wintergrasp.

[wilhelmer]

"I am dead!" lol

[fapsta]

Am I the only one who thought captain placeholder looks a lot like Guybrush Threepwood in Monkey Island 2?

(in the first video)