General WoD Alpha/Beta Discussion

[Deleted]

Okay this may be a stupid question but didn't they say at Blizzcon that the garrison's would be based on our race? I could have swore something of the sort was said like that. I know we have only seen some of the photos but still...

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Like I said I could have swore they mentioned something about this at Blizzcon. Honestly I would love to see the same, or maybe let us choose the style of our buildings so long as it is part of your faction. I would love to have my paladin who is an engineer have Goblin buildings like you described.

No, they said they would have loved to do it for each race but atm they only plan on doing it for each faction.

[Ceethemage]

Bashiok said recently that they don't have the time to do buildings for each race. So they're going with faction first, he did say that they might come in future patches though. They just want to get it right before they commit to doing one for every race. I hope they change their minds during beta.

Ahh well that is a bummer I really hope they expand on that though in future patches that is a bit disappointing.

[Donair]

Ahh well that is a bummer I really hope they expand on that though in future patches that is a bit disappointing.

It could happen but it would come at the cost of an entire raid tier as described by the blue recently. Since they only have like 3 people working on art. And that is the maximum their lowly budget can afford and throwing any other artists at the game will accomplish nothing because.. ya know.. their productivity is already capped at 3.

[The Hero of Legend]

It could happen but it would come at the cost of an entire raid tier as described by the blue recently. Since they only have like 3 people working on art. And that is the maximum their lowly budget can afford and throwing any other artists at the game will accomplish nothing because.. ya know.. their productivity is already capped at 3.

Only 3? Are you sure about that?

[Gurluas]

I think sacrificing a raid tier is ok to make the garrison feel like a home for our characters

[Krazzorx]

Bashiok said recently that they don't have the time to do buildings for each race. So they're going with faction first, he did say that they might come in future patches though. They just want to get it right before they commit to doing one for every race. I hope they change their minds during beta.

There's no way that will change before launch. The art takes up way too many resources to change mid course. That's one of the largest determinants of content release speed. They already have multiple art teams working on it to just get the faction based ones done in time.

[Hartlin]

Only 3? Are you sure about that?

I think you missed the sarcasm in his post.

[Krazzorx]

Only 3? Are you sure about that?

At the very least, as shown by artcraft, they have both the dungeon and prop teams working on it.

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I think sacrificing a raid tier is ok to make the garrison feel like a home for our characters

The most widely criticized xpac was Cata. Why? It had a very small endgame in exchange for revamped leveling content.

You'd be in the minority judging by how many people use raid and other endgame content.

[Ceethemage]

It could happen but it would come at the cost of an entire raid tier as described by the blue recently. Since they only have like 3 people working on art. And that is the maximum their lowly budget can afford and throwing any other artists at the game will accomplish nothing because.. ya know.. their productivity is already capped at 3.

Okay I have to argue with you on their budget they are actively hiring several artist positions for WoW.

World of Warcraft

VFX Artist

Senior Game Designer

3D Character Animator

3D Character Artist

3D Character Artist, Lead

Associate Software Engineer, Engine

Concept / Visual Development Artist (Environment)

Environment Artist

Lead Software Engineer, Server

Senior Software Engineer, Engine

Senior Software Engineer, Gameplay

Senior Software Engineer, User Interface

Software Engineer, User Interface

However I will say though that if creating different races garrisons came at a cost of a raid tier I wouldn't want that to happen.

[The Hero of Legend]

I think you missed the sarcasm in his post.

Sarcasm can be hard to detect in text.

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There's no way that will change before launch. The art takes up way too many resources to change mid course. That's one of the largest determinants of content release speed. They already have multiple art teams working on it to just get the faction based ones done in time.

Fine, then I hope it comes later.

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However I will say though that if creating different races garrisons came at a cost of a raid tier I wouldn't want that to happen.

Me neither. But it sucks that we can't truly call it our home for some races. It'll feel more like I'm renting the place on my Belf toon.

[Tiberria]

[B]-
Sure, but in this case we can argue quality > quantity. Sure, BC had a crapton on dungeons but all of them shared art assets with at least 3-4 other dungeons. Slave Pens, Underbog, Steamvault, SSC all looked identical. So did Mana Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls and Shadow Lab. Mechanar, Botanica, Arcatraz, and TK were near identical as well. Don't forget about Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Shattered Halls and Mag's Lair. If you really let it 'sink in for a while', you'll realize that all the 15 BC dungeons shared like 4 environments.

Honestly, it doesn't matter how high quality the art design is in dungeons; if they sacrifice the quantity of content for the sake of having unique art in the content they do release, they are doing more harm than good. Even if the Hellfire/Auchindoun/Tempest Keep/Coilfang instances all shared art resources, having that many unique instances improved the overall longevity of the expansion. If they only have the resources to make 5-6 unique sets of instance art, then fine, why not just make those, but go back to the BC model where you then have 2-3 instances grouped together under the same basic design? That is far better overall. Plus, how much time do you really spend admiring the art work in an instance as opposed to actually paying attention to the fights and DPSing/tanking/healing. Using that as an excuse for the lack of 5 mans is putting art design ahead of gameplay.

[Ceethemage]

Me neither. But it sucks that we can't truly call it our home for some races. It'll feel more like I'm renting the place on my Belf toon.

I know that this joke will suck, but isn't that what they do on Moonguard? I think the RP servers would benefit a lot from the garrisons especially if they were more race associated.

I hope the customization does come in future patches or an expansion. I wonder if it might also depend on how successful garrisons are. I know that they had said that the farm was a test of the system.

[Tiberria]

I think sacrificing a raid tier is ok to make the garrison feel like a home for our characters

Yeah - no. Art work is something that most people get bored of after seeing it a few times/barely notice it in the first place. Removing a raid tier removes hundreds hours of replay value (and customer satisfaction/sub retention) from the game. It's a terrible trade off.

[Edoran]

Yeah - no. Art work is something that most people get bored of after seeing it a few times/barely notice it in the first place. Removing a raid tier removes hundreds hours of replay value (and customer satisfaction/sub retention) from the game. It's a terrible trade off.

Hence why there is no way that happens.

I totally agree that the BC way of doing things (lots of dungeons sharing just a few environments) was the best. Maybe it was the lack of LFD, but it sure felt like those dungeons had a much, MUCH longer lifetime than anything since, especially MoP.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Hence why there is no way that happens.

I totally agree that the BC way of doing things (lots of dungeons sharing just a few environments) was the best. Maybe it was the lack of LFD, but it sure felt like those dungeons had a much, MUCH longer lifetime than anything since, especially MoP.

Well apparently they wanted some LFG tool since BC. At least according to Kalgan.

[Krazzorx]

Hence why there is no way that happens.

I totally agree that the BC way of doing things (lots of dungeons sharing just a few environments) was the best. Maybe it was the lack of LFD, but it sure felt like those dungeons had a much, MUCH longer lifetime than anything since, especially MoP.

A lot of that was the game was still new. People are more content with less when its new.

[xinjun]

Less qq, more news.

[Deleted]

Watcher in that 'Upcoming Siege of Orgrimmar' update thread starts with 'in the upcoming patch 5.4.7.' Does this imply next week since the the last changes were detailed a weeks in advance?

[Krazzorx]

Watcher in that 'Upcoming Siege of Orgrimmar' update thread starts with 'in the upcoming patch 5.4.7.' Does this imply next week since the the last changes were detailed a weeks in advance?

Too hard to tell, you would think so (why delay the nerfs?), but it appears they truly would extend the pvp season a week to get the boost to 90 working. (Note large amounts of PTR maintenance trying to get it to work) Don't know why they would do that unless they actually release boost to 90 on 5.4.7 release.

Of course, they could've fixed the boost to 90 to actually work and release 5.4.7 at earliest possible. They also could not have fixed it but don't care as pre purchase isn't coming on 5.4.7 release anyways so have time to fix it. Or, they could've always planned on a 3 week pvp season ending length and boost to 90 isn't coming with 5.4.7.

So, too many options to actual guess what they are thinking by 5.4.7 release date.

[Gurbz]

Watcher in that 'Upcoming Siege of Orgrimmar' update thread starts with 'in the upcoming patch 5.4.7.' Does this imply next week since the the last changes were detailed a weeks in advance?

Patch 5.4.7 on 02/18 is pretty much guaranteed at this point, and has been since they announced the end of the current PvP season.

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Too hard to tell, you would think so (why delay the nerfs?), but it appears they truly would extend the pvp season a week to get the boost to 90 working. (Note large amounts of PTR maintenance trying to get it to work)

I still don't think that the boost to 90 is going live with the patch. Something that big would be included in patch notes and it is still not as of the latest revision.