Level 90 Talent Animations Preview, Peak of Serenity, Jade Forest Going Offline

[painweaver]

Is it me or was the warlock talent animations the exact same animations from two already existing spells, i.e., drain life and rain of fire....

[Tira3l]

Anyone catch the fact that Monks get a return spell for their class specific teleport while Druids/DKs have to use their hearthstone to get back?

[Laylriana]

When I saw Jade Forest going offline temporarily I thought it could mean putting in the training for the serpent mount and also expanding the horde-alliance war that only has the one quest at Wayward Landing now.

[Alayea]

I hope we don't get stuck with the "low-quality from the other's view" for spells. If I wanted to distinguish between mine and another player's then I would, but I don't care about being able to. Hopefully Blizzard will either backtrack on the change or turn it into a default turned-off option. (But don't we have something like that already, anyway?)

[Sensa]

They are already raiding on the closed beta F&F servers.. my God, check out the patch notes from weeks ago. Do you really think they are making adjustments to the achievements for raiding without anyone actually doing the raids already? What people have to realize is that because of the Annual Pass situation, the ópen´beta is a very old version of what they are actually working on. You hear this from GC constantly when he talks about a change to a spell and says that a change he already implemented and is playing won´t be on the beta servers for a patch or two. This beta is drastically different than any of the others because the AP numbers got out of control.

As for Jade Forest, sorry to burst your bubble, but they are not doing major quest revamps or any new secret stuff. The downtime is to optimize the new cross realm/ multi-zone feature, which will need to be used extensively in Jade Forest to prevent Hellfire Pen issues (since 95% of a servers population will be in that one zone the first week). More specifically, they are optimizing the way it will work on pvp realms to balance factions when a single realm has more than one ´copy´of Jade Forest.

This response is so full of win...

First, everyone and their dogs knows that they internally test stuff and are several builds ahead of beta. That fact in no ways explains why they have to take the zone offline for "an extended period of time" (blue words) to "update" it. In fact, according to your logic, these changes should have already have been made and tested and not require the zone being offline "for an extended period of time".

Second, to the best of my knowledge there was no F&F Alpha for MoP due to the fact that Beta was open to APers (and if there was ever an F&F beta I'm pretty sure MMO Champion would have mentioned it at some point).

Thirdly, where is there any proof that the largest beta in history "is a very old version" and the rate of its deployment on the servers, is different then the rate they deployed new content in previous betas and is negatively affected by the AP nature of this Beta. If you're going to make such claims it would be useful to actually have some evidence to support that.

Fourth, they could well be fine tuning the cross-realm features as part and parcel of the "updates" to the zone. However, if that was their sole purpose, another claim you make without absolutely any evidence to back up your assertion, then why not come out and say that. They simply and straightforwardly could have said we are taking the zone offline to improve/de-bug/ensure the feature and your gameplay experience are top notch or words to that effect. But that is not what they said. So, according to your baseless assertion as to what they are doing, they have released a misleading statement that implies "new" things or "updates" to the zone not previously shared with the community but are actually just tweaking an already announced feature. anyone with any understanding of marketing would know that using vague or misleading language that may raise expectations of unannounced changes is an unwise idea and bad public relations if all you are doing is fine tuning an already announced feature.

Lastly, if they are indeed tweaking the cross-realm feature - "for an extended period of time" then their internal builds are not nearly as far ahead as you think they are. And since you claim this feature is vitally important to a successful launch of MoP this is precisely the type of feature that needs to be stressed tested in a massive public beta. So after the "extended period of time" that the zone is offline they will have to spend another week or two subjecting this feature to a live beta stress test. This, of course, suggests that the beta testing of MoP will last longer than anticipated and the release date will be delayed by at least a few weeks.


I'm merely taking Blizzard at their word and doing some very basic math that suggests that these "updates" requiring the zone to be offline "for an extended period of time" will delay the release beyond August, a date many were unrealistically hoping for. Simple math and logic. Im sorry it is so difficult for you to accept.

[Celegil]

Sensa, haven't you left this thread at least twice? haters gonna hate, I guess.

I'm still betting on August release, myself. I'm not sure they can wait much longer than that without losing a large number of subs. Things are already pretty dead on the servers with raiding pretty much done for the xpac and 7 out of 10 peeps on my real id are playing Diablo... I'm just not sure they can put it off for much longer than mid summer. Peeps at Blizz aren't newbs. They are aware of the short attention spans prevalent in the gaming community. Its easier to keep your playerbase than to have to win it back.

[Alayea]

I don't think the offlining of Jade Forest in the upcoming beta patch is of any real significance at this point in time, but that's just me.

[Sensa]

Sensa, haven't you left this thread at least twice? haters gonna hate, I guess.

I'm still betting on August release, myself. I'm not sure they can wait much longer than that without losing a large number of subs. Things are already pretty dead on the servers with raiding pretty much done for the xpac and 7 out of 10 peeps on my real id are playing Diablo... I'm just not sure they can put it off for much longer than mid summer. Peeps at Blizz aren't newbs. They are aware of the short attention spans prevalent in the gaming community. Its easier to keep your playerbase than to have to win it back.

You right I did leave twice but felt compelled to respond to that post.

The funny thing, throughout my posts, I never said it was a bad thing they were taking the zone offline for "an extended period of time" but rather merely speculated on how it would effect the release date.

In fact it may actually be a good thing.

Considering how SWTOR's launch was negatively impacted by being rushed to market and all the heat Blizzard has taken over all the problems with D3's launch and major content delays (error 37, AH instability, RMAH and PvP not available on launch) the fact that they may be slowing down to improve, update, de-bug aspects of MoP may ultimately be better for all concerned.

It was somewhat funny to see the over the top responses to a mere suggestion, albeit based on common sense and taking blizzard at their word, that was evoked by my original posts.

Feel free to call me out in August if I'm wrong...only time will tell.

[Azrile]

You right I did leave twice but felt compelled to respond to that post.

The funny thing, throughout my posts, I never said it was a bad thing they were taking the zone offline for "an extended period of time" but rather merely speculated on how it would effect the release date.

In fact it may actually be a good thing.

Considering how SWTOR's launch was negatively impacted by being rushed to market and all the heat Blizzard has taken over all the problems with D3's launch and major content delays (error 37, AH instability, RMAH and PvP not available on launch) the fact that they may be slowing down to improve, update, de-bug aspects of MoP may ultimately be better for all concerned.

It was somewhat funny to see the over the top responses to a mere suggestion, albeit based on common sense and taking blizzard at their word, that was evoked by my original posts.

Feel free to call me out in August if I'm wrong...only time will tell.

What is funny is that people who constantly make over the top negative comments think reasonable people are ´over the top´ and unreasonable. It couldn´t possibly be you who is extreme.. it obviously is everyone else who is crazy.

D3´s launch was fine, they said months before launch that PVP wouldn´t be included... and really, nobody wanted it at launch anyway since why bother to pvp when you are replacing gear so rapidly. Same thing with the RMAH.. it wasn´t delayed at the last minute, it was planned for awhile to work the way it is working.

And same thing with SWTOR.. I am not sure what you consider rushed, but SWTOR was fine.. the gameplay is boring and slow, and they spent way to much money on voice-acting.. but the game was polished without tons of bugs.

I think you are living in a dream world were these companies should sit on a product for a year to squeeze every last issue before launch. Sorry kid, these aren´t play companies. Blizzards launches are never perfect, but they are better than every other gaming company out there. Maybe in your fantasy land a company can launch a MMORPG perfectly.. but not in the real world where companies need to make money.

[Sensa]

D3´s launch was fine.....

stopped reading right there...

[the9tail]

Is it me or was the warlock talent animations the exact same animations from two already existing spells, i.e., drain life and rain of fire....

Though you may have a point with the rain of fire, you may actually want to read about what Kil'Jaedens Cunning actually is if you think it's life drain.

[Strafer]

Peak of Serenity looks cool.

[Runeweaver]

Zen Pilgrimage looks very nice indeed (graphical effect wise). Although it makes me wonder if they are going to add a similar return spell for Druids and DK's, since we still need to hearthstone back