Garrison Location, WoD Alpha Notes Update, RBG MMR Hotfix, Apr 23 Hotfixes, DLC #437

These kinds of changes are the reason I think Blizzard should provide only general features and not do these in-depth discussions either at Blizzcon or as the work on the expansion progresses; fluidity in development only leads to a roller coaster of excitement/disappointment to fans. Blizzard should roll a big trailer, show the biggest planned features with an asterisk (*Subject to Change), and clam up until a real Beta is ready to test.

Originally Posted by Dawnseven

"will the garrison profession slots be just like having the actual profession or will they be missing things the real prof could do?
Pretty similar to the normal profession."

Ok, this irks me and I'm looking forward to the blogs for more explanation than Twitter can provide. If you don't get an ability benefit of any sort from professions, and everyone can nearly match a profession with a building (meaning I'm also going to make less gold with said profession(s) because the result of this is supply goes up and demand goes down), then what exactly are the benefits of having professions?

Here is how I think it is going to work out.

1. You have a profession building that is your real profession - you will get bonus recipes that nobody else can get, and you will get crafting mats without having to gather them

2. You have a profession building that is not your real profession - once per day you will be able to craft an item from that profession. If you upgrade the building, you will be able to store the raw materials so you don´t have to craft each day, but you will still have very limited crafting attempts per week.

3. Finally, it is important to note that there are other building types that are small. So if you do take 4 profession buildings, you are going to miss out on other things. It really depends on how useful those other buildings are, but for most serious players, we already have alts for other professions or don´t mind buying an item or two from the AH. For me, I am going to use 2 buildings on my main profession, and then the other 2 will be non-profession buildings because I have alts with all the other professions.

re: Dark Legacy Comics #437

LOVED IT!

Originally Posted by Aesahaettr

Pretty much this. I font get this farmville thing, and its hard to see garrissons as anything than an extension to the ranch. If you like that sort of thing it's great, but it's not why I play wow. Making it so central is a little annoying, I planned on doing the bare minimum and ignoring it, sound like it might be forced down our throats.

Frankly the location doesn't bother me, the concept as a whole is the problem I have.

Because most people don´t understand the actual gameplay of Garrisons. The gameplay is NOT plopping down 10 buildings and waving to NPCs.. the gameplay is going to be controlling an army of dozens, maybe a 100 followers and constantly sending them on missions to secure the continent for your faction. The gameplay is going to be finding and recruiting NPCs that have unique talents and traits to do certain missions and then forming groups with them to accomplish that mission. The gameplay is going to be leveling up and equipping your followers so they can do more difficult missions.

The other part of Garrisons that people are missing is the trophies system. going on a raid and bringing back a dragon head on a spike that you can plant in the middle of your garrison.

I am very disappointed that we won´t be able to choose our location. But I am willing to bet 10,000g right now that either at lvl 100, or for the 6.1 patch, we will be able to move it. I think that once they realized they wanted to integrate it with leveling and have it get started in your first hour of the expansion, they ran into the problem of ´what if someone at lvl 90 puts their garrison in the highest level zone of the expansion´.. You wouldn´t want someone who just started MoP to be running around the Vale dealing those mogu.

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Originally Posted by Majestian

These kinds of changes are the reason I think Blizzard should provide only general features and not do these in-depth discussions either at Blizzcon or as the work on the expansion progresses; fluidity in development only leads to a roller coaster of excitement/disappointment to fans. Blizzard should roll a big trailer, show the biggest planned features with an asterisk (*Subject to Change), and clam up until a real Beta is ready to test.

That could happen. But I think most people should realize that a feature that is announced a year before an expansion launches is going to have a lot of changes.

Also. Follow me on this one. Let´s assume they did what you said. And they told us nothing about Garrisons until beta started. That means, right at this moment, we would know nothing about Garrisons and we would not know that Garrisons are locked into the starting zones. We could provide no feedback. So they release beta, we see Garrisons, and players start saying ´ Why can´t we put our garrison in different zones´. Beta has started, the devs say it is a good idea, but there isn´t enough time to add it by launch. Now lets go to the current model. They announced yesterday that we can only put them in starter zones.. there is a TON of player feedback (before beta starts).. and I am fairly confident that they are listening to this feedback and going to give us back the ability to put our garrison anywhere at lvl 100, based on feedback they got before beta started. The devs now have an extra month or two to react to player feedback because they communicated with us early.

Players just need to be a bit smarter about understanding game development, especially when the devs are talking about something that is a year away. If you can´t handle that EVERYTHING can change, then you shouldn´t pay attention to what is being talked about until right before the expansion launches. It would be stupid for the devs to announce garrisons, then design and test it, find out something needs to be changed, then not be able to change it because of 5 slides they included in a slideshow 6 months ago. Players also need to stop this ´promise´ bullshit. They devs never promise anything, they simply tell us what their current thinking is, and what their current plans are.

Anyone else see the hammer of the righteous thing as a nerf? I loved using HotR while stacking Chastise, anyone else feel the same?

Well, this pretty much killed my last bit of interest in garrisons off. I was already bummed that we don't get to pick our own theme for the base, the orc theme is just incredibly bland and boring. And now we can't even locate it in any zone we want... so this ''new'' feature is basically a bigger Sunsong Ranch. Might aswell turn it into another quest hub.

Lol. JUST LOL.

Such lazy cunts these days - what did I tell ya? ;P
You do realise that the reason why they even implemented Garrisons into leveling in the first place is to serve as "content filler" for gaining XP. Just like they can't be arsed with real questing anymore (outside of the main storyline chain), & balancing PvE min/max gameplay (by pruning/locking out abilities), they're just using this "new feature" as an excuse to fill out the content for grinding 10 more levels. In short, they just CBA.

Ugh, so been tip-toeing on the fence about whether I'm even gonna bother with this xpac for the last few months (only real motivation is my guild/buddies) .... this, combined with the excessive ability pruning, the mandatory aspect of Garrisons (shoe-horned into the leveling process, no less), sameface models, & lack of real RPG questing content, just made it alot harder for me to justify even attempting to get into it.

I seriously don't see how any good news is gonna come between now and the xpac's launch ... at most, will be just more bad news most likely.

Originally Posted by Azrile

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That could happen. But I think most people should realize that a feature that is announced a year before an expansion launches is going to have a lot of changes.

Also. Follow me on this one. Let´s assume they did what you said. And they told us nothing about Garrisons until beta started. That means, right at this moment, we would know nothing about Garrisons and we would not know that Garrisons are locked into the starting zones. We could provide no feedback. So they release beta, we see Garrisons, and players start saying ´ Why can´t we put our garrison in different zones´. Beta has started, the devs say it is a good idea, but there isn´t enough time to add it by launch. Now lets go to the current model. They announced yesterday that we can only put them in starter zones.. there is a TON of player feedback (before beta starts).. and I am fairly confident that they are listening to this feedback and going to give us back the ability to put our garrison anywhere at lvl 100, based on feedback they got before beta started. The devs now have an extra month or two to react to player feedback because they communicated with us early.

I see your point. There are advantages to semi-democratized development, especially in a game with such a massive playerbase as WoW.

I guess I've always been in the "take what you're given" camp because I grew up on the Atari and NES, playing games that were what they were (good or bad). Heck, I don't think developers should release public beta of their games, and even the WoW PTRs always rubbed me the wrong way. Then again, I'm just a player and not a developer, so I have no idea of the pressures related to game development.

Am I the only guardian druid sad to see bear hug being removed? That was one of my favorite abilities to use for MOP.

Originally Posted by Majestian

I see your point. There are advantages to semi-democratized development, especially in a game with such a massive playerbase as WoW.

I guess I've always been in the "take what you're given" camp because I grew up on the Atari and NES, playing games that were what they were (good or bad). Heck, I don't think developers should release public beta of their games, and even the WoW PTRs always rubbed me the wrong way. Then again, I'm just a player and not a developer, so I have no idea of the pressures related to game development.

Just too many bugs would make it to live if they didn´t have a public beta. Twice now ( that I am aware), WOW has released a boss fight that never was tested by the public in a beta or PTR. Both times, the boss was crushed by raid guilds who found a way to bypass the fight´s main mechanisms and completely trivialize what was meant to be a difficult fight.

I think people are just flat out wrong in their opinion of Garrisons though. So many people are comparing it to player housing (decorative) or sunset farm ( easy mats), when the biggest part of it is going to be a mini-game unlike anything we ever had in WOW. There are games out there who have similar gameplay (Stronghold Kingdoms) and we are getting all that gameplay INSIDE of WOW. The player housing part, and the sunset farm parts of Garrisons are a very minor part of it. So without having actually seen it or understanding how it is going to play, there is a lot of rubbish feedback going on.

Prices go up, content goes down.
But its okay, the good sheppard Blizzard wont lose their sheep.
Soon you will have to swipe your creditcard everytime you wanna log in.

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Originally Posted by Faldric

And the cycle continues.
Promise much, hold little.

Oh man, I remember this forums during Blizzcon:
No new class/race: Doesn't matter we get new character models.
No noteworthy new mechanics: We got garrisons!!!! They are the most creative thing Blizz has ever done!!!!

So with the character models not finished for release and Blizz taking the easy way to implement garrisons and take away lots of its appeal:
Are we finally allowed to call this the cheap, puke-over-lore, quick cash-in, time travel expansion it is?

"We regularly review our pricing and services around the world to make sure we’re offering what we feel is the best entertainment value for the cost, and the upcoming adjustments are being made with that goal still in mind."

WTF. The entertainment value (whatever that is) remains the same because they do not change anything on the services. So the entertainment per cost actually went down by this change. Just write you are increasing cost because you want to make more money in the UK. The reasoning given is just laughable.

Well atleast they havent scrapped it yet like previous features, some that they even dared to advertise on the actual box of the game, like Aerial combat, Dance studios, Path of the titans, etc. Promise much, hold little indeed. But hey, Bobby Kotick loves y'all tough.

So is healing going to be a repeat of the "do nothing, use raid CD, do nothing" that plagued Mists? Can't they make healers actually heal during the whole encounter, that's why we play the role, right?

Because most people don´t understand the actual gameplay of Garrisons. The gameplay is NOT plopping down 10 buildings and waving to NPCs.. the gameplay is going to be controlling an army of dozens, maybe a 100 followers and constantly sending them on missions to secure the continent for your faction. The gameplay is going to be finding and recruiting NPCs that have unique talents and traits to do certain missions and then forming groups with them to accomplish that mission. The gameplay is going to be leveling up and equipping your followers so they can do more difficult missions.

But I'm pretty sure that will boil down to clicking on a follower, or group of followers, then saying "do this" then waiting x time to get the reward. Doesn't sound that interesting to me. Same mechanic as the farm, dressed up differently.

Originally Posted by Aesahaettr

But I'm pretty sure that will boil down to clicking on a follower, or group of followers, then saying "do this" then waiting x time to get the reward. Doesn't sound that interesting to me. Same mechanic as the farm, dressed up differently.

LOL Ssssshhhh. Let him believe he's going to single-handedly pick an army of a hundred npc's and march with them into battle.

Originally Posted by Aesahaettr

But I'm pretty sure that will boil down to clicking on a follower, or group of followers, then saying "do this" then waiting x time to get the reward. Doesn't sound that interesting to me. Same mechanic as the farm, dressed up differently.

Exactly, something you essentially have been able to do already in SWtOR since launch. It's a lacklustre feature anyway, just a mesh of stuff you can already find in other mmos. Nevermind that though, them taking away an element that the fanbase clearly liked about it, was quite possibly the dumbest move they could've made, bar scrapping it ... oh! and making it mandatory...oh wait...they already did that, didn't they? INB4 "But you can skip it by not actually playing the new leveling content!" Yeah but sorry - I wanna actually play new quest content whilst leveling in a new xpac (that I'm shelling out for), thankyou very much - not queue for BGs and Dungeons on my main (like I've done on alts for previous xpacs).

I don't care about the numbers but I can't imagine the Jab energy increase for WW Monks isn't going to make it slower to play, and that is a huge misstep I think given the fast pace of the class was part of its design and its appeal.

A few thoughts...

Comic about Combo Points was pretty funny.

I like how BF now applies poisons.

I'm really really annoyed by losing FoK as Combat. I play combat exclusively and when I'm in farming mode in old content, I like to just run through hitting FoK repeatedly. It's a nice convenience. I would not mind if it required me to arm daggers, but now I have to make a different spec and switch back and forth, which while mildly annoying is just that, annoying. Sorry, it doesn't add more flavor or differentiate between the specs and it really wasn't much use in 99% of fights outside mass kill farming.

Maybe for PvP it makes a difference, in that you can't spam it to knock someone out of stealth (Do combat rogues PvP?), or on the Le Shi fight, you can't spam it to dmg the Le Shi when she's hidden...so if there are any fights like that, just more pressure to run Mut, oh yeah.

"Garrisons are visually distinct depending on whether you’re a Horde or Alliance player, and you’ll be able to place your Garrison in one of several zones on Draenor. "

Taken from WoD Garrison article on their site, cant post links because I am still a new user


Several, not one. But obviously blizz has removed that, along with quest texts from non-main storyline quests, along with a raid tier due to diverting resources to do the Azeroth Choppers show

So increasing the cost is "offering what we feel is the best entertainment value for the cost"
I would have thought that meant the exact opposite.