General Nazgrim Preview, Dev Interviews, Aug 27 Raid Testing, Blue Posts, News Recap

[Laylriana]

"The Horde version of the cinematic after Garrosh will show the process of the Warchief selection. The Alliance version will be slightly different". Given the whole horde/alliance issues with this expansion I somehow doubt seperate endings are going to pan out I can almost here the argument now 'OMG horde ending was awesome but the alliance one sucked'. Of course I'll be happy to be proven wrong but I sense a final wave in the Alliance vs Horde content of MoP on the rise here.

I predict the Alliance version will be Jaina and Varian arguing over leaving Orgrimmar alone. Some high-minded speech by the new anti-war Varian and reminders of the destructive nature of the Horde by the new adamant Jaina. Looks like these two characters switched personalities. Looks like at least the leaders of the Trolls, Tauren, and Blood Elves will have a voice in the events after Garrosh. Not so sure about Sylvanus or Gallywix. Doubtful the leaders of the other Alliance factions will have much to say.

[Deleted]

Vanion:

Adding a fourth talent spec is not planned, as it is already very difficult to balance the existing specs.

Is this a Typo or a slip up ? Forth Talent Spec but surely we only have 2 talent specs available at the moment - what happened to 3rd Talent Spec ?????

[MasterHamster]

Vanion:


Is this a Typo or a slip up ? Forth Talent Spec but surely we only have 2 talent specs available at the moment - what happened to 3rd Talent Spec ?????

Neither, he's talking about class specs.

[Deleted]

So anything that has to do with coding is really REALLY hard for Blizzard? Spaghetti code much?

[VanishO2]

What? RPGs can be fun even without a good story. I play to have fun, not to live a story that is not even real, I hav my own life and problems >.>

Lol, what a stupid argument... hahahahaha

Screw everything and let all be plain and dull, I alread have a life!

Can't imagine how movies, books, games, etc... would be with this argument... lol. But can imagine ppl saying "don't need the game to have any kind of complex stuff, 1 button to push is enough, I hav my own life and problems" hahahhahaha

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So anything that has to do with coding is really REALLY hard for Blizzard? Spaghetti code much?

The best part is: "It's a ridiculously complicated and changing code base that has to work on 1000s of different hardware configurations.".

Then you look at some bugs that are still there, like canceling the damn cutscene after killing the council in ToT and wonder what the hell that problem has with "1000s of different hardware configurations"...

[Deleted]

Lol, what a stupid argument... hahahahaha

Screw everything and let all be plain and dull, I alread have a life!

Never heard about jokes? Well, that's one.
My point is: I can still play the game without the story, as long as it's fun.
And to be fair, Mop is the only xpac I really enjoyed lorewise.

[Unholyground]

Neither, he's talking about class specs.

I love how he answers the question without saying its not going to happen just that it would be hard. So if it is not a major feature this next expansion it will likely be in a future one.

[Deleted]

My point is: I can still play the game without the story, as long as it's fun.

I can think of a lot of games without a story, like Tetris or pretty much any older game, but without lore (as b-class as it is in this game) WoW would be pretty boring! Without a story you wouldn't have bosses to kill. You'd just run around killing, I don't know, murlocs or something.

But then again even murlocs wouldn't exist without a story as to how they were created. So you'd be killing deers. And squirrels. And all kinds of normal critters from the real world.

I'm not a lore fan, but some bosses get an extra dimension from their background stories. Illidan!

[DeathbyFrostBomb73]

What? RPGs can be fun even without a good story. I play to have fun, not to live a story that is not even real, I hav my own life and problems >.>

The whole basis for a RPG is being part of a story...Role Playing...I know it's that hard of a concept.

[ysbag]

Because when he says that gameplay is higher on the priority list than the lore it makes the lore automtically nonexistent and unimportant ....

Some people need to know that there aren't only extremes in this world. Things like middle ground and compromises exist as well!

[Zstr]

2 different cinematics!?, ofc alliance will be screwed again lorewise

[hobbsey]

I feel like MoP is disconnected in terms of story. previous raid content each teir built to a common goal. Mop....not so much
I guess I disagree somewhat. No sure many raiders could answer what their character's motivation was for Karazhan or Ulduar. (Source)
"Stop Lei Shen. Stop Skek'zeer," may be shallow motivation, but it is motivation. (Source)
With MoP, we it didn't make sense to say "Stop Garrosh" until he had become bad enough to stop. (Source)
In fact, at Blizzcon we didn't even mention the final bad guy. We wanted players to discover where the story went. (Source)
But that confused so many players that we finally just said "Look, Garrosh is the final bad guy." (Source)

I have to agree with Blizz here. The raids, dungeons & scenarios have been beautifully integrated this expansion into the quests and rep factions. I don't follow lore very closely but could tell you the context of all the raids and they all have a good sense of place. I think the "common goal" is exactly what Blizz says, to stop escalating threats to pandara. I don't see how the orginal tweeter could possibly think something like Kara --> SSC/TK --> Hyjal/BT --> Sunwell was some kind of seemless buildup. Or even in WotLK, which gets a nostalgic look back because its last tier was so great, but Ulduar was a totally random lore detour, Naxx was a copy/paste, and that arena-style one was truly lazy storytelling.

[Deleted]

The Nazgrim guide is outdated just fyi. The war song at 100 rage isn't what happens otherwise you could cheese it with cd's.

[Karnige]

some of the comments on twitter are just moronic from players. thank god blizzard doesn't listen to these nerd ragers. yeah 2.5 million subs left because of story. ha ok buddy. maybe a few. in the end its just people are bored and move on or just don't have the time

[Peacemoon]

"Having only one race for both factions allowed the team to focus on making the one new race really great, rather than having to split time between two new races."

Isn't that obvious? Its like saying "Having only one faction allowed us to focus on it more." Doesn't mean it is good design, again it is just stating a simple and obvious fact.

[d0e1ow]

What? RPGs can be fun even without a good story. I play to have fun, not to live a story that is not even real, I hav my own life and problems >.>

I am shocked that people respond with this line about the STORY too. Does having a good story inconvenience you? I ask that because your argument reminds of this one:

"Raiding shouldn't be hard, and we shouldn't have daily quests that are necessary to gain rep because, you know Blizzard, I have a life. I have a spouse, two kids, a dog, a job, and a mortgage, and I also pay for this game, therefore, I should have everything in it be my way! I have a life"!

I'm not trolling you. I'm being serious. Saying, "Well, I have a life." is an argument of nothingness. It's an argument of nothingness in regards to story especially. To you ever watch movies? Read books? Have you ever played, say, Dragon Age Origins? Mass Effect? Do they offend you and cause you stress because "you have your own life and problems"?

Even WoW should be an offense to you since, however poorly it may be told, it does indeed have a story, and that story is full of strife.

No one is asking that they create a story that we can LIVE. I assure you, I have a life too! That doesn't mean that I can't value good story though... that I can't engage in appreciating art. The reason we get upset at them isn't because we want a surrogate life with which to neglect our "own lives and problems", it's because Warcraft as a universe has unlimited potential, and their design philosophy limits that potential vastly.

I can't even believe responses like this... Again, not trolling, but honestly, it comes off as militantly ignorant in a way.

[Azrile]

The whole basis for a RPG is being part of a story...Role Playing...I know it's that hard of a concept.

And you are taking things to absolutes. Nowhere did he say they completely ignore RP or the story. Just that the story has to be written with players actually playing a game in mind. For instance. For a story, it would be cool after SoO the alliance occupied the city and laid a beatdown on all the orcs. But for gameplay, how would a new player feel about rolling an orc, and suddenly being unable to enter their capital city? Or just the logistics and development time of removing all the horde-essential things out of Orgrimmar and putting them in different cities for a few weeks... You want to redo the entire game every time there is a lore moment? The story has to take a back-seat. I quested through Howling Forde.. and guess what.. LK still showed up and tried to scare me, even though we killed him years ago. Gameplay trumps story. It has to, or else you will be running around in a very shallow world without much gameplay OR story.

[ChocoboRanger]

I can understand gameplay > story... but fuck... WoW only got here because of the story from wc3..

[Sil]

Patch 5.4 - General Nazgrim Preview
General Nazgrim is the eight boss

Eight? really?

Eighth*

You're welcome.

[mpphelps]

"The technology for scaling up old content is mostly in place now, but the devs haven't come up with a good rewards scheme for scaled up old dungeons and raids yet. Today, players can go back and solo old content for transmog gear, but if they were going to go back and do it in an appropriately sized group, they would expect something useful other than transmog gear."

Woah, did anybody else expect this? Making old content relevant again would be incredible, so much fun!!! Doing old raids wouldn't feel nostalgic but could actually be useful!