WoD raiding blog confirmed for next week

[Krazzorx]

As per watcher earlier today. (this is on twitter):

"We'll have a lot more information about raid structure and philosophy next week. In the meantime, please try to avoid jumping to conclusions".

[Deja Thoris]

Meh, I remember being psyched when they did the write up on the final 2 bosses of Dragon Soul. How amazing it would be to prise the plates off his back, how the feeling of flying would be there with new technology and how the "grand finale" would blow our mind.

What did we get? The most dreary 2 fights in the history of the game that culminated in us clipping his toenails.

This is why I'm not a big fan of blogs. I almost know what some of it is going to say. "Unifying the raiding size will allow us to implement "epic" mechanics that were hitherto Impossible with the 10/25 split". Granted, they may not use the word "hitherto" so +1 to them for that.

[Mormolyce]

That's cool, should be interesting.

MORE ARTCRAFT CHARACTER MODELS RAAARRRGHHHHHH!!!

[intrinsc]

Did you guys watch that video that watcher and the other 2 dudes did with that woman lady? They showed a bit of the Blackhand encounter. It looked fun from the tiny bit they did show.

[Normie]

This will be great.

They will promise more bold/revolutionary/stupid things that they will do a complete 180 on by the time WoD goes live in January.

[Ryme]

The blog posts are so dull, just endless circle jerking with almost nothing new or of substance in them.

[kamuimac]

The blog posts are so dull, just endless circle jerking with almost nothing new or of substance in them.

they are dull cause they have nothing really new to show if they had we would have beta now not some PR blogs .

[Normie]

they are dull cause they have nothing really new to show if they had we would have beta now not some PR blogs .

Unfortunately the fly on the wall I used to have at Blizzard is now working at Riot, so I am not receiving entertaining direct reports of the chaos that must be taking place there now. The second- and third-hand reports are still filtering in though, and players have absolutely no idea what kind of raw deal they are in for this year.

[Captainn]

Unfortunately the fly on the wall I used to have at Blizzard is now working at Riot, so I am not receiving entertaining direct reports of the chaos that must be taking place there now. The second- and third-hand reports are still filtering in though, and players have absolutely no idea what kind of raw deal they are in for this year.

How couldn't they know the raw deal? We're all aware of how little we're getting. Can't imagine it's going to be worse than what we already know. With the amount of crap we've already learned I can't believe they're not trying to do some disaster relief...

[Osmeric]

Unfortunately the fly on the wall I used to have at Blizzard is now working at Riot, so I am not receiving entertaining direct reports of the chaos that must be taking place there now. The second- and third-hand reports are still filtering in though, and players have absolutely no idea what kind of raw deal they are in for this year.

You mean, as in very little new content until late 2014 or early 2015?

I think we have an inkling of that.

But please, more scuttlebutt from this former mole!

[Redpanda]

Unfortunately the fly on the wall I used to have at Blizzard is now working at Riot, so I am not receiving entertaining direct reports of the chaos that must be taking place there now. The second- and third-hand reports are still filtering in though, and players have absolutely no idea what kind of raw deal they are in for this year.

I do find it amusing that since the departure of gc, blizz releases info when they feel like and people are losing their shit left and right. While with gc every step they took was announced, blogged, tweeted, bilboarded, painted on a mural on the side of a building and what not. TBH I think gc communicated too much. The chaos that goes on on the blizz and and mmoc forums is so lovely to observe. Some men only want watch the world burn, a few others only want to kick up their feet and watch it happen.

[MrExcelion]

I wondered why Watcher was waiting until May 4th to appear on FBTV, and it must be so he can get this blog out first, and then take followups. The blogs do a good job of recollecting what we might have first seen on Twitter. However, Watcher tries to avoid announcing too much over Twitter, so we might see a full boss preview and information on the new coin system.

IMO, they're finally striking a perfect balance between blogging and twitter, and the main WoW site serves a purpose other than posting hotfixes. The Dev Watercoolers were few and far between, and now they've commissioned their own news show, and schedule interviews with big twitch streamers and fansites before every tier. This sort of framework wasn't in place 3 years ago. Love it.

[Normie]

You mean, as in very little new content until late 2014 or early 2015?

I think we have an inkling of that.

But please, more scuttlebutt from this former mole!

The only scuttlebutt that I got wind of recently was that the only interesting new WoW feature announcement tentatively scheduled for BlizzCon is/was the mobile garrison client. But that's up in the air now like everything else.

Oh, and the choppers thing is an embarrassment to almost everyone.

[Osmeric]

Oh, and the choppers thing is an embarrassment to almost everyone.

If it's any consolation to any Blizz people forced to be involved with it, I've ignored it from the start.

[Normie]

If it's any consolation to any Blizz people forced to be involved with it, I've ignored it from the start.

I will say, the vibe is that people in the WoW teams are frustrated with the severe churn and reorgs and interviewing and training and inability to produce content.

They really would like to make some more WoW.

But yeah choppers is likely the most ridiculous and insulting thing ever in the history of marketing to descend upon the development team.

[Vigilate]

I wondered why Watcher was waiting until May 4th to appear on FBTV, and it must be so he can get this blog out first, and then take followups. The blogs do a good job of recollecting what we might have first seen on Twitter. However, Watcher tries to avoid announcing too much over Twitter, so we might see a full boss preview and information on the new coin system.

IMO, they're finally striking a perfect balance between blogging and twitter, and the main WoW site serves a purpose other than posting hotfixes. The Dev Watercoolers were few and far between, and now they've commissioned their own news show, and schedule interviews with big twitch streamers and fansites before every tier. This sort of framework wasn't in place 3 years ago. Love it.

He'll likely be touching upon what he responded to me over Twitter about a couple of months ago. The tweets almost no one paid attention to.

I will say, the vibe is that people in the WoW teams are frustrated with the severe churn and reorgs and interviewing and training and inability to produce content.

They really would like to make some more WoW.

But yeah choppers is likely the most ridiculous and insulting thing ever in the history of marketing to descend upon the development team.

Sums up my opinion of Azeroth Choppers quite nicely. You've got to love maybe a couple minutes of real content cut and edited into an hour long, scripted reality show that's released over the course of a month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc

[Osmeric]

I will say, the vibe is that people in the WoW teams are frustrated with the severe churn and reorgs and interviewing and training and inability to produce content.

Sounds like a Brooks's Law situation.

[fierydemise]

I do find it amusing that since the departure of gc, blizz releases info when they feel like and people are losing their shit left and right. While with gc every step they took was announced, blogged, tweeted, bilboarded, painted on a mural on the side of a building and what not. TBH I think gc communicated too much. The chaos that goes on on the blizz and and mmoc forums is so lovely to observe. Some men only want watch the world burn, a few others only want to kick up their feet and watch it happen.

Blizzard's been pretty good with info since GC left, we have a clearer picture now of their goals and game direction than we had before any other beta. Part of this is because this beta has been so badly delayed but part of it is also Blizzard is trying to hold information so they can give a complete picture. I loved GC posts but the big problem with them was they often gave a very incomplete picture, GC would talk about one aspect of the warrior rage model but those statements often didn't generalize or were personal musings more than direct design statements. This was nice in the sense that we got a better view of how GC thought about design but it often gave people a misunderstanding of the direction of the game.

Blizzard's communication strategy pre-GC was pretty abysmal but there were substantial problems with the wrath model as well. Players rule lawyering previous GC statements to "prove" that Blizzard had to make some change. Blizzard's new approach recognizes that they need to communicate better with the playerbase but also understands that information releases need to be carefully written so players do not get the wrong idea/draw the wrong conclusions. It isn't perfect, it can create huge information droughts like we had before we got the massive patch notes but its a much better system than what they used to do.