World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume 3 Preview, Blue Posts, Allcraft, Curse Hiring

Originally Posted by Master Guns

Small and Localized, but Vocal Community: “Blizzard, we’re not happy with __________.”

Blizzard: “We actually feel the larger community as a whole is pretty happy with it, but thanks.”

Fixed that for you. The larger community does not have to step up and defend what it likes every single time a group of 5-20 people steps up and makes between 20 and 30 threads about a topic demanding they be heard because they're "the Community."

The best example for this to date is Personal Loot as it was introduced in Warlords of Draenor. When the expansion started, Blizzard pushed Personal Loot as the default in Dungeonfinder groups. Random dungeons remained steadily used, but a handful of people complained enough that they reverted this to group loot. Upon seeing the data that doing this suddenly displayed a marked drop in participation, yet only a scant few decided to speak up about it, Blizzard brought personal loot back, but gave premade groups the option to change the system.

They have plenty of data after almost 15 years to help guide them without tending to every brush fire.

The new illustrations in the third book look so much worse than in the first one. A lot more cartoonish.

Epic Pantheon Trinket and RNG:
I mean at this point a 5 year old could think of a better loot system
I'd be eager to hear your suggestions on how it could be better. I mean, the existing one has functioned pretty well for the past 13 years for WoW specifically and for the past 20 years across an entire genre of games (other genres too, but you get my point).

Anything is better and more innovative.

I Think these are "Chronicles" are nice for those who only want to know the "nutshell version" of everything that has happened in Azeroth. I Just wonder how those who wrote all of the novels feel? LOL

Another cronicle. cool.

I think Ythisens might be wrong claiming that the loot system that WoW has now is the same as it was 13 years ago and that is seen in other games, not only because Group Loot is no longer the default system (and tbh loot council/master has been the system for guild raids more often than that) and personal loot is now more of the standard but because the Blizz devs themselves have stated personal loot calculates drop rates differently from loot that just drops (e.g. because it's targeted and so there's a lower item pool and although they claim that it should lead to a higher item drop rate per player there's no actual way to confirm it considering we can't see how it's calculated not to mention group loot always objectively rewarded more for individual players).

Then again if he's just talking about the system of monster dies, die rolls, loot table fills and you get what you're given then yeah the system functions but is then usually supplemented by the ability or systems to target and obtain upgrades of similar quality alongside the RNG loot rolls to offset the random nature so that it "works". Also considering that crafted gear stops far below current raid gear level and that we have no clear idea what other additional calculations may come into the loot drop chances (ones we know about: item rarity, raid/group size, individual gear drop percentages) then saying it's exactly the same is pretty off the mark.

Originally Posted by Edlarel

Fixed that for you. The larger community does not have to step up and defend what it likes every single time a group of 5-20 people steps up and makes between 20 and 30 threads about a topic demanding they be heard because they're "the Community."

The best example for this to date is Personal Loot as it was introduced in Warlords of Draenor. When the expansion started, Blizzard pushed Personal Loot as the default in Dungeonfinder groups. Random dungeons remained steadily used, but a handful of people complained enough that they reverted this to group loot. Upon seeing the data that doing this suddenly displayed a marked drop in participation, yet only a scant few decided to speak up about it, Blizzard brought personal loot back, but gave premade groups the option to change the system.

They have plenty of data after almost 15 years to help guide them without tending to every brush fire.

What data? Like 30 people submitted reports and whined on the forums that people were "taking their gear" when group loot was re-enabled because people could greed and disenchant again. So Blizzard switched it back and ignored the few who said doing that would mess up Enchanting costs and prices which is why Enchants sky rocketed until the 2nd raid was out.

Not to mention the 50 vocal people who got Blizzard to "listen" and got flying removed from the game for "current content" (but still want it permanently gone) say "Hi" after repeatedly using the subjective complaints of:

• "I'm forced to use it."
• "It's destroying World PvP."
• "It makes the world seem smaller."
• "People can get to my herbs/mines before me."
• "I don't like."
• "It's cheating that people can fly over mobs."
• "It destroys game immersion."

And then pointed to the fact that people were enjoying Timeless Isle as an example of people hating flying and having fun without it (ignoring the people who figured out how to get pseudo flying working) and how that means it should be gone. Of course Blizzard then listened to the actual majority of the player base after:

• A near six million sub loss with flying being unavailable being cited as one of or the reason among the majority of explanations for unsubbing.
• A public petition numbering in the thousands of signers explaining why a significant portion of the player base enjoyed flight and wanted it to be enabled soon (this was before the 6.2 announcement).
• Massive negative backlash after the announcement of the permanent removal of flight from the future of the game after having strung along players for six months (though if you take it from Bashiok's post first talking about it in December 2013 then it was even longer) with claims that they were addressing it/working on a new unlock system and it would be in a future patch.

Which after the biggest turnabout in Blizzard history (I mean the Diablo 3 launch bug and RMAH and Starcraft 2 issues took far longer to resolve than this) resulted in the unlock system we have now, even with people pointing out the pointlessness of locking the achievement until a future patch instead of when the long requirements for the achievement are finally fulfilled and others saying just flat out remove it.

It makes perfect sense for the Lich King armor to be within the Frozen Throne. You only see the Helm of Domination in the cinematic, but he clearly changes all of his armor completely. There's nothing Arthas about this armor.

Did Blizzard really forget to label Zandalar on the map of Azeroth? Yay.

Originally Posted by AxellSlade

Did Blizzard really forget to label Zandalar on the map of Azeroth? Yay.

Above the Kalimdor map it says the Lands of Azeroth BEFORE the Third War, which would mean that Zandalar was not known by the various races and factions that were involved in the conflict, including the Darkspear.

Originally Posted by Findlyn

I can't stand all craft for one reason, nothing against the guy but in a dialogue like this, I really don't think hotted is a good choice as a host.

Seems like anytime I hear him speak, he is off about something random clearly not paying attention, or he is just pretty much parroting what everyone else is saying.

This is every fan driven video/streamer. I cannot for the life me understand why people want to watch videos or streams of a bunch of no-life losers talk about a video game. It sets a bad example for young impressionable millennials that think hey, maybe I can get a bunch of nerd plastic toys on a shelf behind me and stream my life away in my parents basement. That's making something of myself!

What little videos I have watched, I can always notice how scummy of an area these people live in. Maybe if they played less video games, got an education, a real job, and invested in something other than plastic nerd toys to put on a shelf, they'd look less like they live in the projects.

Fast forward 20-30 years in life, these streamers, and the losers that watch them, are living off the government because mom and dad are long gone.

Originally Posted by Findlyn

I can't stand all craft for one reason, nothing against the guy but in a dialogue like this, I really don't think hotted is a good choice as a host.

Seems like anytime I hear him speak, he is off about something random clearly not paying attention, or he is just pretty much parroting what everyone else is saying.

"The prominence of commentary over news online and on cable news feels backward, and dangerously so. It is exactly our fealty to the crowd — to what other people are saying about the news, rather than the news itself — that makes us susceptible to misinformation." Source.

Man, Blizzard's condescending replies annoy the shit out of me sometimes lol. They honestly think they're always right and we're wrong.

I don't enjoy doing rated bgs and then wait a week, get 1500 honor and get a piece I already have. It's just counterproductive and unnecessary. They put these loot systems in place and they get so stubborn with them and won't change them.

Originally Posted by Reek

Man, Blizzard's condescending replies annoy the shit out of me sometimes lol. They honestly think they're always right and we're wrong.

Well, they are not working at a small indie game company. So the huge face comes with that. Plus they always ban the people with different opinion. Lots of my friends and me got banned for posting new solutions. Like: removing passive gold making, lowering gold rewards, better and faster AH system, make a team for old content bug fixing etc.

Good thing next year when vanilla hits I can enjoy the game again.

allcraft.. maybe im to old but for me this show is CRAP!

Originally Posted by Grapefruitsnz

Above the Kalimdor map it says the Lands of Azeroth BEFORE the Third War, which would mean that Zandalar was not known by the various races and factions that were involved in the conflict, including the Darkspear.

Well, then the "Broken Isles" should only be the Tomb of Sargeras; the "Draenei Islands" shouldn't be there, Pandaria and the Wandering Isle shouldn't be there, Kul Tiras should be in it's original position next to Gilneas and Khaz Modan before the shattering moved it... That makes no sense.

Well this is just WC3 et TFT, nothing really interesting in this tome 3

As much as W3-Cata timeline is needed, it's a bit dissapointing that there will be no new info in C3.

Originally Posted by Rioo

The new illustrations in the third book look so much worse than in the first one. A lot more cartoonish.

Yes, I thought the same! I loved the first Chronicle and purchased it, it felt nice to have a high quality piece of print in my hands -maybe the old school (old) person inside me just misses the smell of print -and the artwork and direction made it feel like a grown up treat.

However the cartoonesque art direction on display in this edition is somewhat off putting. Hopefully the selection here is not representative of the art direction throughout the latest Chronicle.

Originally Posted by AxellSlade

Well, then the "Broken Isles" should only be the Tomb of Sargeras; the "Draenei Islands" shouldn't be there, Pandaria and the Wandering Isle shouldn't be there, Kul Tiras should be in it's original position next to Gilneas and Khaz Modan before the shattering moved it... That makes no sense.

After looking at the EK side, it does actually look like Zandalar is there, it just isn't labelled which is what you initially said, apologies for that. As to why all of the islands and land masses from post the Third War are there, the only reason I could give is that they want the whole world to be in perspective, or some of the lands that were visited post Third War would have been known about (Kul'Tiras, parts of the Broken Isles) and instead of just having some of them labelled and on the map, they out all of them to avoid confusion.

Originally Posted by Grapefruitsnz

After looking at the EK side, it does actually look like Zandalar is there, it just isn't labelled which is what you initially said, apologies for that. As to why all of the islands and land masses from post the Third War are there, the only reason I could give is that they want the whole world to be in perspective, or some of the lands that were visited post Third War would have been known about (Kul'Tiras, parts of the Broken Isles) and instead of just having some of them labelled and on the map, they out all of them to avoid confusion.

Well, no idea what they were aiming for, really. I'll just assume it's laziness on their part: as many stated before in here the quality in this third book is subpar even compared to the second which was already sloppy.