Dev Interviews, ToT Progression, Flight Paths, March 14 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Comic

"Merging or shutting down realms isn't possible because many players like their realm, have a character name they like, and don't want to be forced out or to change their name."

"changes in Patch 5.2 was the removal of automatic flight path discovery. "

So Blizz doesn't make changes that people won't like... yet takes away automatic flight path discovery.

What BS.

Originally Posted by Xihuitl

Love it . You complain about hyperbole (which it obviously was and was intended to be for emphasis), and then you go on to do it yourself.

The irony obviously escapes you.

I saw the same, regarding complaining about hyperbole just before being hyperbolic. I got a good laugh

---------- Post added 2013-03-15 at 10:35 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Necrotica

Must be nice, none of my alts got any drops the first week of LFR in the 5.0 content raids (or world bosses either), but my main goes into the new LFR raid and get a piece right off the bat... *sigh*

I decided the drop rate in LFR is directly proportional to how little you need the upgrade. I had the same thing happen. My main has only 2 upgrades left from LFR, got neither of them but got nearly full tier and a couple other drops besides running only Terrace and Heart of Fear and not using any coins, while my alt who can use items in almost every slot got bracers and an offspec weapon and that was with using coins.

Originally Posted by Necrotica

*LIKE*

I'd like to personally see mega servers, they basically exist with CRZ anyhow, right?

I'd like to see CRZ cross continents and link Europe and the Americas. I had an 80ms latency connecting from Austria to the Chicago data center, just imagine what it could do for off-hours queue times if there is always someone playing at all times of the day. I know this still doesn't address dead and dying servers, but it could help with queues as well as help instances run smoother since they could then pair Latino with Spanish players, Brazilian with Portuguese, and American/Australian English with British English realms. Perhaps the Quebecois would enjoy getting to play with the French, French Canadians lack a localized version of WoW at this time.

"Merging or shutting down realms isn't possible because many players like their realm, have a character name they like, and don't want to be forced out or to change their name."

1. Im pretty sure the absolute majority wants to move out of the server.

2. So names are the reason i have to pay money to enjoy a MMO!?

"In Mists of Pandaria, it isn't as easy to gear alts because there is a lot more for players to do."

is this guy making a joke?
do some hcs, convert jp to honor get full 476gear, do 1-2 weeks of lfr +galleon and sha and u got enough to do the new lfr.. you get friendly instantly and u will have enough vp for your first 522item the week after you dinged 90.

gearing alts is as easy now as it ever have been, since blizz listned to all the whiners on forums they made sure there is absolutley nothing you need from rep now in 5.2
was less then a week ago my panda dinged 90 and already there is litterarly nothing left to do for me to upgrade the gear baring joining a raidiong guild for normal modes. wich makes me wonder, why did they remove the upgrade system?! id love to keep farming some honor and upgrade all my 476 to 484 gear.. thou i guess that whould ahve made things to easy..

I just hope that they do not cave in to requests to nerf the Warlock Green Fire chain....

GC declares that low population realms are not fun and then says that there are players who enjoy them. Make up your mind. If you are worried about players flocking to high population servers then reinstate server locks blocking transfers to high population realms and dominate factions on imbalanced servers that was in place before. It was implemented for a reason GC. If you are not going to do anything about it then stop complaining about it being a problem.

"Players that are coming back to the game shouldn't be able to jump right in to end game content with players that have been playing for several months, as some catch up will be required."

Why not? They were pretty much able to the past couple expansions (Wrath and Cata) except for Vanilla and BC. People won't come back to play if they can't see the new content and the queue times for old content are too long because folks have moved on.


"The team and systems are finally set up to where Blizzard can really deliver content faster."

After over 8 years of millions of subscribers dumping $15/month into Blizzards pockets, now they are ready to deliver content at a decent pace?!?! Sorry but this was long overdue...

Originally Posted by Aphrel

do some hcs, convert jp to honor get full 476gear, do 1-2 weeks of lfr +galleon and sha and u got enough to do the new lfr.

That's assuming the items you need drop. It's still possible to go through LFR without a single drop, and while heroics are repeatable they lack variety and drops are just as unreliable. The new system lacks a consistent and reliable upgrade path, and placing items behind both a rep and VP cost is highly restrictive for players looking to keep an alt relevant in their spare time. Gearing alts requires a dedicated long term effort now, and that's just not necessary. The old rep and VP vendors from past expansions did a great job of providing meaningful upgrades for alts that allowed them to stay somewhat 'current', but without placing them on par with dedicated raiders or PvPers.

Beyond that, LFR shouldn't be the catch-all for entry level gearing, alt or otherwise. For players that like solo and small group content, there should be an avenue for them as well. With 11 classes, following the same routine to progress a character will get old over time, just as does playing the same character day in and day out. It's not just about providing endless amounts of content for a single character, it's about providing variety and choice, too. It surprises me that they hold alts in such low regard, I would have expected that they wanted people to fully explore all aspects of the game, otherwise, why let us have more than one character in the first place?

Originally Posted by Tython

"Players that are coming back to the game shouldn't be able to jump right in to end game content with players that have been playing for several months, as some catch up will be required."

Why not? They were pretty much able to the past couple expansions (Wrath and Cata) except for Vanilla and BC. People won't come back to play if they can't see the new content and the queue times for old content are too long because folks have moved on.


"The team and systems are finally set up to where Blizzard can really deliver content faster."

After over 8 years of millions of subscribers dumping $15/month into Blizzards pockets, now they are ready to deliver content at a decent pace?!?! Sorry but this was long overdue...

It goes against the mentality that the developers was trying to push for and would call out players who wanted a progression system, elitists and special snowflakes that need to sit in a corner. From Classic to Cata it was about cutting out grinds to make things casual friendly for those with little time on their hands. Now they are going back to catering to those with a lot of time on their hands that hide behind the name of a casual. How do no-lifers get to be called casuals? Just because you dont like to raid does not make you a casual; especially when you spend more time in a game than most raiders.

All of Cata players was being told that it is not possible for them to pump out more content and that adding more employees does not mean it would help. Then come MoP and Blizzard pulls content out of their ass and says btw we hired more people and restructured our teams and are finally reaching out goal of releasing more smaller patches sooner that we said we would in a stock holders conference almost two years ago.

Posted by raps
" They haven't given us more. They took what was there, spread it out and restricted you so that it takes longer to get. "

Ding ding ding We have a winner folks /hands the man a kewpie doll.

Originally Posted by Tython

"Players that are coming back to the game shouldn't be able to jump right in to end game content with players that have been playing for several months, as some catch up will be required."

Why not? They were pretty much able to the past couple expansions (Wrath and Cata) except for Vanilla and BC. People won't come back to play if they can't see the new content and the queue times for old content are too long because folks have moved on.

I understand what they're saying, they don't want to undermine the efforts of dedicated raiders by letting people leapfrog difficult content, but at the same time isn't that part of why they removed attunements? No one wanted to go back and do old content just so the new guy can finally come along. That was why they introduced gear vendors and late expansion heroics, to allow people jumping back in to get some decent gear to help them catch up.

Here's the problem with the current system: as time goes on, we're going to be left with those who have stayed on top of content, and those just coming back and catching up. The gear gap will widen, and we'll soon only have people running LFR MSV, and whatever the most recent LFR raid is. Who's going to run ToES and HoF when the gear is so much better in the newest raid? We saw the same issue with leveling dungeons before the likes of cross realm dungeons - there was no one to level and dungeon with because the bulk of players were playing the most recent expansion, and at max level. They fixed this by increasing the ways to level, making leveling quicker by lowering the XP needed and introducing XP multipliers, and providing quick upgrades for players looking to level rapidly. Same with PvP, they introduced several tiers of PvP gear for players looking to jump in mid season because the item gap was so huge.

So why are there so many hoops to jump through for players looking to get some decent PvE gear at 90? We don't need to hand them heroic elite thunderforged gear, but we don't have to dangle irrelevant epics just out of reach, either. Who is really offended if a guy farms several hours a night to quickly nab some 476 or 483 gear, in this time where every dedicated raider is busy getting 522 or higher loot?

Originally Posted by Arganis

The double standard is Blizzard saying they want to make sure "everybody" gets the tome knowing full well only a handful can/will actually get green fire. You didn't get what I meant because you didn't want to get it. You're probably one of those people whining about how low the drop rate is and how you've had to kill 82345 rares with no dice. Boohoo for you but if somebody says "I can't kill Kanrethad", well fuck'em, anybody who doesn't want to "invest time" in getting green fire doesn't deserve it right? Well then shut your trap about the drop rate and go "invest" some of your own "time". Get it now?

Exactly, it isn´t gated behind the drop rate, which is fairly high, it is gated behind the combat. In other words, good players will get it now, bad players will get it after they get much better gear or whatever.

Originally Posted by SumoSizeIt

I understand what they're saying, they don't want to undermine the efforts of dedicated raiders by letting people leapfrog difficult content, but at the same time isn't that part of why they removed attunements? No one wanted to go back and do old content just so the new guy can finally come along. That was why they introduced gear vendors and late expansion heroics, to allow people jumping back in to get some decent gear to help them catch up.

Here's the problem with the current system: as time goes on, we're going to be left with those who have stayed on top of content, and those just coming back and catching up. The gear gap will widen, and we'll soon only have people running LFR MSV, and whatever the most recent LFR raid is. Who's going to run ToES and HoF when the gear is so much better in the newest raid? We saw the same issue with leveling dungeons before the likes of cross realm dungeons - there was no one to level and dungeon with because the bulk of players were playing the most recent expansion, and at max level. They fixed this by increasing the ways to level, making leveling quicker by lowering the XP needed and introducing XP multipliers, and providing quick upgrades for players looking to level rapidly. Same with PvP, they introduced several tiers of PvP gear for players looking to jump in mid season because the item gap was so huge.

So why are there so many hoops to jump through for players looking to get some decent PvE gear at 90? We don't need to hand them heroic elite thunderforged gear, but we don't have to dangle irrelevant epics just out of reach, either. Who is really offended if a guy farms several hours a night to quickly nab some 476 or 483 gear, in this time where every dedicated raider is busy getting 522 or higher loot?

Thanks! You and nekobaka spelled things out quite well with how I feel. Why is Blizzards making it harder to level and gear alts too? That's what I liked about Wrath and Cata; playing the game was fun and relaxing. Right now gearing is kinda rough and I'm just doing LFR's and the Wrathion quest line...

Originally Posted by Tython

"Players that are coming back to the game shouldn't be able to jump right in to end game content with players that have been playing for several months, as some catch up will be required."

Why not? They were pretty much able to the past couple expansions (Wrath and Cata) except for Vanilla and BC. People won't come back to play if they can't see the new content and the queue times for old content are too long because folks have moved on.


"The team and systems are finally set up to where Blizzard can really deliver content faster."

After over 8 years of millions of subscribers dumping $15/month into Blizzards pockets, now they are ready to deliver content at a decent pace?!?! Sorry but this was long overdue...

If you join today, with a lvl 85. It will take about 20 hrs to hit lvl 90. It will then take about 2 weeks of raiding the 5.0 LFR (which is new content to that player) to be able to get into the 5.2 raids. You have LFRx2, Sha boots, Sha dropsx2, Galleon dropx2, the 522 neck from SPA.. Honestly, this is very easy, but appropriate.. it is NOTHING like BC was. Most players could be raid ready for the 5.2 raids within 3 weeks of coming back. And if that person really wants to raid, they probably have friends or a guild they plan to raid with who could help them with craftables etc.

for the flight paths I guess thats cool. Since blizz has given us free abilities. I wonder if org and TBluff are still connected or if you have to discover the FP.

Originally Posted by Articuno

Or maybe you could just deal with it and stop being lazy. Millions of people played the game when you had to walk uphill both ways, so you sure as hell can play the game when you have to walk a few steps upward.

Either you're trolling hard or you're seriously not wanting to understand simple logic of what I'm saying. What is it, three times now I said that it wasn't a big deal about the FP's? Yet you're fixated on that one aspect as if you're counting the tree as the entire fucking forest. You're simply refusing to understand anything I'm telling you because you know that I'm correct that one thing can lead to another being accepted.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure you're trolling, judging from me giving you the very definition of "slippery slope" and linked to the Webster page for you so you didn't have to do the work of finding where I got that, and then spelling out, clear as fucking day, that while the FP thing isn't a big deal, responding to people who didn't like it the way you just responded to me (gratz for providing a clear example of said attitude in action, by the way) will just lead the way to more serious nerfs that we accept which would be more annoying than this one.

Am I making this clear? Are you understanding what I'm telling you? Or are you just going to respond with more vitriol?

Originally Posted by Azrile

If you join today, with a lvl 85. It will take about 20 hrs to hit lvl 90. It will then take about 2 weeks of raiding the 5.0 LFR (which is new content to that player) to be able to get into the 5.2 raids. You have LFRx2, Sha boots, Sha dropsx2, Galleon dropx2, the 522 neck from SPA.. Honestly, this is very easy, but appropriate.. it is NOTHING like BC was. Most players could be raid ready for the 5.2 raids within 3 weeks of coming back. And if that person really wants to raid, they probably have friends or a guild they plan to raid with who could help them with craftables etc.

Or, you know, you could also get nothing but gold bags for two weeks. It happens despite the supposed rise in LFR drop rates. There's also a higher ilvl requirement to move beyond LFR MSV, so if a player doesn't get mad drops there, they can be stuck shy of the requirement for weeks, and the inability to upgrade items now certainly exacerbates that issue.

And we can't assume that a player has access to friends or a guild. Players come and go all the time, entire guilds die off, and not everyone has the time or resources to craft loot in their spare time and hand it out willy nilly.

So the picture you're painting is very much that of ideal and perfect circumstances, which won't happen for most players who decide on a whim to come back and see how the game is. BC was on par if not easier than the current system, and Wrath and Cata were both fantastic for gearing alts, where instead of praying to the RNG gods for good drops, we farmed dungeons and rep and spent our gold and VP immediately on entry level items that no longtime raider would be jealous of.

Originally Posted by redraven937

I don't think anyone here is suggesting all that exist should be High Pop realms. If you like Medium Pop, great! Those of us that were on Medium Pop servers that then collapsed into Low Pop, or the people suckered into "Recommended Severs" five years ago only to find world barren, would like OUR $15/month to actually be purchasing the "intented experience" that GC was talking about without having to fork over hundreds of dollars to abandon ship.

The server I am on now is good. I would rather have a balance of Horde vs. Alliance on each server, and for them to address when one side on a server gets too populated in comparison to another so those that like one faction but don't want to change servers are not being punished in that sense. And like I said, I wouldn't want them forcing us to be on a high popped server, just like I don't want to be forced into doing PvP if I don't want to do it.

Honestly, how does your gameplay experience change with Free Transfers or your four-digit Battletag appearing next to your name? Where is the harm?

Honestly...when did I ever bring up anything about Battletags?

I'm not even sure I want to be on a High Pop server; I simply desire somewhere with more than 74 pages of items in the AH. Somewhere that might still have a single 25m guild still active, or more than five 10m guilds, or more than one Rated BG team going.

It, again, depends on what I'm concerned about. On Alleria, I would say that Alliance outnumbers Horde by 10 to 1. That's not good if you want to roll a Horde toon on that server not knowing what you're getting into since there's nothing in the way of explaining the situation there or Blizz doing anything about that. Alliance might have AH pages for days while the Horde side has little to nothing in theirs. Fixing pops by themselves won't tackle that issue. Encouraging players to try the other faction, or do free transfers for a specific faction to a specific server that has this sort of issue could be a step in the right direction. Wouldn't be a silver bullet, but it's better than doing nothing.

Originally Posted by darkpower

do free transfers for a specific faction to a specific server that has this sort of issue could be a step in the right direction. Wouldn't be a silver bullet, but it's better than doing nothing.

I remember them doing this all the time in Vanilla and BC, opening transfers to a realm for one faction only, locking the other for new character creation only for accounts already established there. Wonder why we haven't seen it in so long.