Remote Guild Chat Preview
Blizzard posted a small preview of the remote guild chat on the World of Warcraft Remote Services page.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Real time guild chat on your phone. Keep in touch with your guildmates and always be in on your guild's discussions with the new mobile Guild Chat feature. With a subscription to World of Warcraft Remote, you can view and participate in your guild's chat in real time, engage in one-on-one conversations with other guild members, and more!

Subscription Features

  • Stay in touch with your entire guild wherever you are
  • See which guildmates are online
  • Initiate one-on-one conversations with guild members
  • Keep the guild up-to-date with your Arena team and Rated Battlegrounds plans
  • Filter by guild chat, officer chat, and whispers


Savage Defense and Blood Shield "Issues"
Originally Posted by Daxxarri (Blue Tracker)
There are two issues here.

One is that the combat log is saying “refresh” in a confusing way when it’s really just applying damage to the shield (i.e. a new shield has not been created). We’re looking at some ways that might be fixed.

The second issue has to do with our combat log (or third party logs) apparently disagreeing about what happened. Remember, our combat calculations are done on the realm side and then reported to the client, but the client only gets those reports periodically. The message has to travel a potentially long distance between your client and our realms. It’s important that the calculations are done realm-side though, to maintain gameplay integrity.

Because of the latency inherent in client – realm communication, it can appear that a hit lands before the shield procs, yet still applies to the shield, leading to the mistaken impression that the proc isn’t occurring properly. In reality, the server is (probably) performing the steps correctly, but the client sometimes lags behind. For example, there's a case where what actually happened is this sequence: 1) shield proc, 2) hit, 3) absorb, but the client is slightly behind and instead (incorrectly) shows 1) hit, 2) shield proc, 3) absorb in the combat log. Or it could appear that you lost shield points without actually taking less damage, when in reality either the shield or your health pool weren’t affected. Or it could appear that if you take multiple hits nearly simultaneously that the shield did nothing to the later hits, but in reality the shield was gone on the first hit and your client just hasn’t been notified of that fact yet. We will investigate this issue just to make sure, but we’re pretty confident that Savage Defense and Blood Shield are working correctly and are just sometimes getting misreported. With Savage Defense lasting longer in 4.1, you may see this kind of thing more often.

The takeaway is that latency can in some cases cause combat log display issues like the one we’re seeing here. We understand that a lot of you use the combat log as a reporting tool to analyze a fight after the fight has concluded. The combat log as currently implemented is supposed to give you a data feed in real time. We’d like to redesign the combat log to fill that post-combat analysis role better (as Ghostcrawler alluded to in a recent Q&A) but that is a Very Big Task. Just delaying the current combat log so that it was in 100% parity with the server could cause serious issues with third party mods among other things, so we have to be careful not to turn a single screw and end up dismantling the whole machine, so to speak. Despite its limitations, it remains an accurate and useful tool in the vast majority of circumstances.

Blizzard Art Gallery Update
The World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Art gallery has been updated with six pieces representing the Warcraft universe.


This article was originally published in forum thread: Remote Guild Chat Preview, Savage Defense and Blood Shield "Issues", Art Gallery started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 89 Comments
  1. Kreo's Avatar
    Nice, finally.
    Would be nice if they included ventrillo apps in it.
  1. ProphetFlume's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Agallochh View Post
    It should say [W][From][Mocha]. "Poppy" whispered the rogue asking to heal.
    In wow yeah, but there is no "to [Name]: etc" either. Looking at other pictures it seems they have different chat styles so who knows.
  1. Scratches's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by AppleDapples View Post
    Awesome. As if I didn't hate people in my guild enough for using guild chat as their personal WoW-Twitter.

    The dawn of Gwitter is a dark morning.
    It's called Glitter. get it right... lol

    Quote Originally Posted by bregtann View Post
    It's a business you know, not a charity foundation.
    I love it when people try to use this for justification, when Activision is already making money hand-over-fist on this game. Hell, even free2play games return sizable profits (just ask Nexon and NC Soft). Take your Gecko-isms back to Wall Street.
    The very purpose of a business is to satisfy customers (just ask Peter Drucker), not nickel and dime them to death with "value-added" services...
  1. Meleti's Avatar
    It's going to be really tempting to pay for that guild chat thing.
  1. Gwain's Avatar
    I must say, nice feature addition by Blizz....

    However, much better at 1/3rd the price. $3 p.m. is a bit rich for most when there are other (free) ways for guildies to keep in touch.
  1. Joji's Avatar
    way to jump on the bandwagon, blizz.

    the publisher's for guild wars 2 announced a few months ago that there's a guild chat that will be accessible from their future armory sites...at no cost. Other new age mmo's will feature this as well, at no cost as well.

    GG blizz, as if the sub fee for wow is unable to cover the costs of running the remote guild chat.
  1. falx13's Avatar
    I love all these people QQing about it costing money...seriously? You are asking them to work for free....I know that when you guys go to work (assuming you have a job) you expect to be paid for your efforts. "If you're good at something never do it for free."
  1. Scratches's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by falx13 View Post
    I love all these people QQing about it costing money...seriously? You are asking them to work for free....I know that when you guys go to work (assuming you have a job) you expect to be paid for your efforts. "If you're good at something never do it for free."
    yes, because it's not like we don't already pay a monthly fee for this ga-- oh wait...

    If WoW was free to play, however, a fee for this kind of feature would be completely justified, I feel. But it's not.
  1. PnBoots's Avatar
    anyone who "NEEDS" this app obviously has no social life or girlfriend.
  1. Maleboligia's Avatar
    Another cash grab! Yay. This seems to be designed for a fairly niche market, there is nothing more pressing than being able to chat with your guild? How about using one of the multitude of already available (and free) chat apps? The other features are worth next to nothing to me. To me Blizz is not only focused on generating more revenue, all their decisions are motivated by that. Yes they are a business, but they don't HAVE to generate more income, the game seems to be making them a fair sum of money as is. Customer service would be nice, like for example making tabard's like mounts, so people do not need to carry 10+ in their bags. That idea alone I think would be far more popular to most WoW players, but of course, no way to charge for that. My subscription ends in 2 weeks and I will not be renewing until they change their focus.

    ---------- Post added 2011-04-07 at 04:21 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by falx13 View Post
    I love all these people QQing about it costing money...seriously? You are asking them to work for free....I know that when you guys go to work (assuming you have a job) you expect to be paid for your efforts. "If you're good at something never do it for free."
    I don't expect them to work for free, but I do expect them to not release paid services that only appeal to a very limited market. And why is chat a premium? I think they are testing to see how much they can charge and how many things they can tag onto user's bills before ppl say "enough". I have never heard anyone on WoW or off ask for this. There are a thousand free alternatives, this was not well thought out and I'd bet money ppl at Blizz were not in favor of this. Not a coincidence the number of paid features has skyrocketed since they got bought out.
  1. mmoc3eb006e951's Avatar
    So more paid services instead of actually fixing the problems this game has, or actually creating NEW content and armor/weapon models, why am I not surprised. This game is turning to shit faster and faster.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Novaro View Post
    I hope it will be free.

    Mainly I don't see a reason why Blizzard need to charge for it really, the get millions of dollars a month on subscriptions alone.

    Also here is a question that makes you think and I believe total biscuit brought it up once or twice why are Blizzard making WoW have a pay to play model with a cash shop and paid services (race change, server change)? I would understand if it was free to play for a cash shop and paid services like server change. The funny thing is in the case of server change it is a automated service so no people are personally transferring the data.

    I know it is capitalism at work and because people keep buying these services (especially those the cash shop items that don't have a charitable donation attached to it). I personally have played wow for several years and personally have never used any of there paid services, but does no one else find it interesting?
    You obviously don't know how a business with shareholders are run. Despite the fact that you may think Blizzard makes a boat load of money they probably don't, Think of all the servers, Bandwidth, devs, marketing people, maintenance etc etc. they have to pay its probably a small % overall.
    Look at the rest of the gaming industry for example, a company makes a game it may cost them 5 million to make, it sells 1 million copys the store, advertiser and devs/bosses take 50 of that (this actually happens, maybe not exact numbers but close to it) they end up profiting 5 million of the otherwise 60 million dollars .
    In other words Blizzard doesn't keep everything they make from subs, these services or Xpacs. They have bills to pay like the rest of us.
    An there a company of course they want to profit as much as possible , that's how company's work. No money, no Blizzard.

    People look at Money numbers and automatically think company's just have a big money pit in there building they swim in, hate to tell you but that only happens cartoons not the real world. Sorry if i destroyed your dreams.

    Side note: TotalBiscuit is a shock jock even he said things he says on his show should be taken with a grain of salt

    ---------- Post added 2011-04-07 at 01:33 AM ----------

    I don't expect them to work for free, but I do expect them to not release paid services that only appeal to a very limited market. And why is chat a premium? I think they are testing to see how much they can charge and how many things they can tag onto user's bills before ppl say "enough". I have never heard anyone on WoW or off ask for this. There are a thousand free alternatives, this was not well thought out and I'd bet money ppl at Blizz were not in favor of this. Not a coincidence the number of paid features has skyrocketed since they got bought out.
    Do you read the forums? People have been asking for this for years.

    The game has gotten bigger since they first released it in 2004 things also cost more money now. (Did you know the US is just now recovering from the biggest recession ever?) This is there way of making up costs while not increasing your monthly charge, you don't like you don't buy.
    But they have a right to make money to pay there bills and maybe profit a little just like any other company.
    They could have just increased your sub by 3 dollars, would you rather have that?
  1. Ethesae's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bahska View Post
    You obviously don't know how a business with shareholders are run. Despite the fact that you may think Blizzard makes a boat load of money they probably don't, Think of all the servers, Bandwidth, devs, marketing people, maintenance etc etc. they have to pay its probably a small % overall.
    Look at the rest of the gaming industry for example, a company makes a game it may cost them 5 million to make, it sells 1 million copys the store, advertiser and devs/bosses take 50 of that (this actually happens, maybe not exact numbers but close to it) they end up profiting 5 million of the otherwise 60 million dollars .
    In other words Blizzard doesn't keep everything they make from subs, these services or Xpacs. They have bills to pay like the rest of us.
    An there a company of course they want to profit as much as possible , that's how company's work. No money, no Blizzard.
    A thousand times this. Go look at Activision Blizzard's financial reports. Their profits are pretty reasonable, in fact a little low, especially for a volatile business model like the video game industry.
  1. Skryn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Scratches View Post
    It's called Glitter. get it right... lol


    I love it when people try to use this for justification, when Activision is already making money hand-over-fist on this game. Hell, even free2play games return sizable profits (just ask Nexon and NC Soft). Take your Gecko-isms back to Wall Street.
    The very purpose of a business is to satisfy customers (just ask Peter Drucker), not nickel and dime them to death with "value-added" services...
    Wrong.

    The purpose of a business, in most cases, is to earn profit.
    Profit is earned by providing services and/or products people are willing to pay for.

    No one is forcing you to subscribe to these optional services. So, please, remind me, why are you complaining again?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bantokar View Post
    So more paid services instead of actually fixing the problems this game has, or actually creating NEW content and armor/weapon models, why am I not surprised. This game is turning to shit faster and faster.
    You realize, of course, that companies this large have many, many different departments working on entirely different things. Right?

    Why is that so hard to understand?

    Quote Originally Posted by Joji View Post
    GG blizz, as if the sub fee for wow is unable to cover the costs of running the remote guild chat.
    Sure the profit incurred from player subscriptions could cover the cost, but then that's profit lost. Whereas they can provide a completely optional service and have those interested paying a very minimal addition to their monthly subscription to gain the benefit of these additional, non game breaking services.

    Gee. I wonder what option you'd choose if you were running a business, too.
  1. mmoc6af618f320's Avatar
    Hmm interesting stuff. Could swear I read that the chat protocol was for some reason never gonna be available outside of WoW. Apparently I am wrong.
  1. mmoc59625055a0's Avatar
    I <3 this, hoping that Blizz ever do something helpful to yell at guildies to wait for meh with raid, cause I'm on my way home.

    ...anyway I still waiting for official Armory for Android phones.
  1. Fatpob's Avatar
    though I would like to use this, and i do use free mobile armoury for looking at cal and stuff, I don't pay for the AH use, and I don't think I ever will. They should bundle the Chat with the free version, as a service not another paid for service.
  1. wiIdi's Avatar
    guild chat on your phone
    No thanks. I think blizzard is spending too much time on stupid features.
  1. kathor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Scratches View Post
    *sigh* ...There's no way I'm forkin' over another $3/month just to talk to guildmates without having to play WoW. (That's what Vent and Mumble are for >_> heh)

    Cool idea, I'll definitely give them that, but I can't help but wonder where Blizzard's priorities are at this point. On the game, or on the money?
    Charging extra monthly for something that could set them well above competition if it were free..?

    edit: Also, how does this add value to the game? Are players more likely to play longer because of this?
    This is wrong...

    Remote Auction House is already available, for the same monthly fee... This is just added functionality (and implemented for an extra platform), nothing extra is being charged... This will be good in so many ways! If you cannot afford $3 per month, then don't... WoW is already an incredible cheap way of entertainment, compared to pretty much everything when you consider how many hours worth of experience you get from it per month.
  1. kappesante's Avatar
    so sad. this chat feature should be free since years. using a blizzard chat client on mac and pc too.

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