Patch 5.4.2 - In-Game Store, Gear Changes in Warlords of Draenor, Black Friday, Comic

[Thepiegod]

Apparently people's definitions of the word "casual" change on a daily basis.

One of our other goals is to reduce the amount of work an item takes. Currently, the amount of work (math! MATH!) you have to do in order to even put on a piece of gear takes away from the enjoyment of the actual item dropping. We want you to spend more time killing creatures and getting better gear and less time figuring out how that piece that dropped effects specific stat levels (hit, expertise, haste, etc.), what gems you need cut, and what enchant to put on it. We’re not removing all of those choices, but we’re drastically tuning down the amount of required work. Get your boots, put them on, next boss!

You reading the same thing I am?

[MasterHamster]

World of Casualcraft inc.

2007 wants its joke back.

[Zyranthian]

I for one will be checking for any games he works on, and not buying them. While I liked many of his concepts, his rudeness to paying customers and treatment in particular of feedback to the CRZ threads has made this a well deserved departure. Hopefully the next Dev removes it along with whatever coding errors are left. A seamless Game world > than a non seamless game world.

You realise most devs at most game companies don't have a line of communication with the users AT ALL. The fact that he was on forums directly communicating with the players, and later on Twitter, I don't think people understand how rare having that sort of direct line of communication with a lead designer on a game is. It. Never. Happens.

Whether you think his contributions were good for the game or bad for the game, he did something amazing as far as communicating with the players go. You might think he was crap at his job and you hate CRZ with a passion, but because of him you had the opportunity to converse DIRECTLY with him and tell him your opinions and give your feedback right to the lead systems designer. You might not get your way, you might not get what you want, but you could get HEARD. Respect where respect is due, thats huge.

[Extremity]

One of our other goals is to reduce the amount of work an item takes. Currently, the amount of work (math! MATH!) you have to do in order to even put on a piece of gear takes away from the enjoyment of the actual item dropping. We want you to spend more time killing creatures and getting better gear and less time figuring out how that piece that dropped effects specific stat levels (hit, expertise, haste, etc.), what gems you need cut, and what enchant to put on it. We’re not removing all of those choices, but we’re drastically tuning down the amount of required work. Get your boots, put them on, next boss!

You reading the same thing I am?

Yeah. And to me, spending time reforging/regemming isn't what MAKES you hardcore. It's a requirement to be hardcore at this point, but hardcore is the time and effort you put into raiding. A casual is somebody who logs on and doesn't put any serious effort into doing anything, doesn't spend much time on, possibly isn't very good at the game, etc. To be a hardcore raider, you are required to reforge/regem with almost every significant upgrade. To be a hardcore PVPer you must do the same, but to a lesser extent sometimes. Either way, a hardcore raider is still a hardcore raider whether he has to reforge after every upgrade or after every 4 upgrades. So yes, I am reading the same thing as you. Are you reading the same post I made before this? Peoples definitions of the word "casual" change on a daily basis, especially if not "casual" means "not wanting to have to hearth out of the raid every time you get a significant upgrade to compensate for the stat differences on a ring"

- - - Updated - - -

You realise most devs at most game companies don't have a line of communication with the users AT ALL. The fact that he was on forums directly communicating with the players, and later on Twitter, I don't think people understand how rare having that sort of direct line of communication with a lead designer on a game is. It. Never. Happens.

Whether you think his contributions were good for the game or shit for the game, he did something amazing as far as communicating with the players go. You might think he was shit at his job and you hate CRZ with a passion, but because of him you had the opportunity to converse DIRECTLY with him and tell him your opinions and give your feedback right to the lead systems designer. You might not get your way, you might not get what you want, but you could get HEARD. Respect where respect is due, thats huge.

I agree. Anybody who has the audacity to call Ghostcrawler "rude" just hasn't been a part of the MMO genre for long. The amount of communication he offered has been pretty much unheard of until now, especially on a constant, reliable basis.

And the comment about "whatever coding errors are left" just shows how little people really know about his role and how game development works. If you think code or any potential coding errors are automatically on him, then... well, you've basically countered your own point with that one comment. Being the lead systems designer doesn't mean you're sitting there coding everything. In fact, as the lead systems DESIGNER I'd argue that he probably spent the least time coding out of everybody in his team.

[Darksoldierr]

"We want you to spend more time killing creatures and getting better gear and less time figuring out how that piece that dropped effects specific stat levels"

I didn't knew WoW was renamed to Diablo

[Sarodan]

am i the only one that sees problems inc with this thrid stat random bonus like inspiration or avoidance....i just don't wanne farm my ass off to be the most effective

[Deleted]

Oh it's brack fwaiday bunduru time!

[Deleted]

The daily blink might as well have just posted some tears on a blank sheet, they are always crying about something while using snide forms of sarcasm, bunch of losers.

[Santoryu]

I can now finally see and watch embedded videos on this site on my iOS devices. Thanks!

[Arbs]

When the strip went on hiatus, I switched to a much less expensive hosting plan since I didn't need all the extra performance. Should have had the foresight to realize a new strip might mean an MMO-C cameo. I went back in to the site config and turned it back up for the next couple days, hopefully that should help.

Skippy we miss you, Mages will be buffed no longer !!

[chaud]

I can now finally see and watch embedded videos on this site on my iOS devices. Thanks!

FWIW we changed nothing. They are still embedded with Flash.

[Santoryu]

FWIW we changed nothing. They are still embedded with Flash.

That's most curious.

[Yakshamash]

Everytime I tried to buy something from in-game shop on PTR says "Payment failed, you don't have valid payment method" and bring me to account page where I have indeed added CC. Someone knows what's the problem or shop doesnt work with EU?

[zrankfappa]

"Getting gear is fun. We like getting gear and we like the feeling that on any given boss, there should always be something that you would want. What we’re doing with items in Warlords is just an evolution of the Thunderforged version to make it a little more interesting. You’ll probably see more bonus pieces than you did Thunderforged in the past, but getting an item that has all 3 bonuses will be very, very (very!) rare. Remember, you’ll be just fine with the baseline pieces of gear, and most of your character will be made up of this gear. But each and every time you kill a boss, there’s that chance of getting something slightly better."

So in a nutshell: yes, it's about extending the gear grind.

On the one hand, I really don't care as I don't see myself playing this expac that much. Then on the other hand, it seems like a pretty shitty thing to do.

This does make it alot easier for RL's, no more of that "who doesn't need this boss?" stuff ... cause everyone is chasing the perfect affix.

[Vutar]

Uh, no, he's saying "We understand that it's a pain for the jewelcrafters to possibly lose a portion of their income and we will do everything we can to compensate for that, but you cannot expect us to balance the game and an entire expansion of changes around one profession and the people that have it wanting to earn more gold with it, especially considering that they are not locked to the profession and can change it at any time."

You're playing a patch and expansion based game. Things change. Frequently. You can't get upset every time a change is not in your favor. I've swapped professions more times than I can count just to min/max, you can swap a profession once at the start of an expansion if you are unhappy with its gold output.

Uh, yes, he is saying that "we do not care about the profession you chose." Saying "things change" because this is a patch and expansion based game is unreasonable. That would be like Blizzard deciding to nerf warriors into the ground with the new xpac to the point they are useless. Then them throwing out "oh hey we are thinking about possibly giving them a new ability that would make them less useless." By your reasoning this would be acceptable because after all, this is a patch and expansion based game.

An MMO company could literally get away with doing anything they wanted by using your reasoning and fanboi's could trot out this line at all times.

[Trassk]

1 - The ingame store is NOT something that should be celebrated, or advertised like someone finding a cure for cancer, its an ingame mechanic to bleed more money from wows subs, because if its made more apparently to the public eye, more people will use it, more money spent on useless crap, and more pushing the notion of corporate greed winning over the stupid people.

2 - Mixed feelings of ghostcrawler, he fucked many things up, but he made some good things to, and he kept a communication with the community and devs, so without him, the connection between devs and player will likely desolve, meaning less feedback reached between the two.

[Kelimbror]

1 - The ingame store is NOT something that should be celebrated, or advertised like someone finding a cure for cancer, its an ingame mechanic to bleed more money from wows subs, because if its made more apparently to the public eye, more people will use it, more money spent on useless crap, and more pushing the notion of corporate greed winning over the stupid people.

This is of course operating under the misguided perception that only you can judge what is and isn't valuable to all people, then deem their mental capabilities lesser than your own accordingly. While I'm not a huge proponent of this, I'm not so conceited that I think people are stupid for buying pets and mounts. It's their money, they can do what they want with it. Until they are sacrificing sustenance and/or necessities for living (needs) then we can hardly deem them mentally unfit.

[Deleted]

Omg greg street leave blizzard lol, welcome to ffa !

This opens the door to all the shit for good public ...

[Laylriana]

Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) is leaving? I, for one, will miss him. Who is going to talk to us now? But I still have him as my main BM hunter pet.

[Darmalus]

am i the only one that sees problems inc with this thrid stat random bonus like inspiration or avoidance....i just don't wanne farm my ass off to be the most effective

That's the point of the new design. It will be easy to get "good enough" gear, but hard bordering on impossible to get "perfect" gear due to the random extra stats.