Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Heroes PTR Updates

[chaud]

Fan Creation - Necromancer

Popular Constructed Decks of the Week, The Worst Arena Cards Ever

Heroes of the Storm Medic & Artanis PTR Patch - Hero Changes & More

Armory Stats - Battle Pet Leveling and Achievement Points
It's still Pet Battle Bonus Weekend, and we are concluding the pet battle related posts by taking a look at the remaining battle pet achievements. Today's data is from 2.1 million players (not characters) that were active after August 1st.

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Blue Tweets - Developer Communication

How many game designers have been fired via online petition? Asking for a friend.(holinka)
Hmm maybe you know @OccupyGStreet? (holinka)
#AndThatsHowRumourStarts
Ha ha, no I just mean he had many of these silly petitions in his time. Just pointing out we've seen this before. (holinka)
The more likely outcome is your boss says "Keep doing what you're doing, but stop talking to players because it's controversial." (OccupyGStreet)
Yep, ties into that "why game devs don't communicate with players" article you linked previously. (Celestalon)
I don't think this particular group cares about communication. They are unhappy and want corrective action. (holinka)
They are operating under the false belief that I am standing in the way of them getting what they want. (holinka)

Can't punish communication to all players due to a horrible few.
Our team's strategy is to communicate through @WarcraftDevs & not our personal accounts. That's fine. (holinka)

Jay Wilson
Ha! I know for a fact that isn't true. (holinka)
I know, but I still think he was majorly unfairly crucified in the community. They also seem to take 'credit' for him leaving.
Yes certainly unfortunate. He is like a design buddha. Kind and helpful to everyone he meets. (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

With an MMO, not necessarily WoW mind, how important should micro vs macro customization be? Are big choices more fun?
Typically you don't get to make the big choices very often so having the "tweaky" little ones can feel satisfying IMO. (OccupyGStreet)

is it a lost cause to try to get players to express right feedback versus the wrong type of feedback?
I find it cumbersome to give players too many rule about how they can provide feedback. (OccupyGStreet)
If you can get them to consider how their feedback will be viewed (oh this guy is just ranting) that can focus their point. (OccupyGStreet)

Computers - Setup of the Month
Each month or so we will post a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!

This month
The current SSD prices are fairly flat right now, with most SSDs under $0.50 per gigabyte when on sale.

New CPUs from Intel and GPUs from AMD are here, but they aren't huge improvements over the previous generation.

Depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14.

Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or streaming, you do not need the 6700K and should spend that money elsewhere.

Make sure to keep your AMD and Nvidia drivers up to date.

Don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!

Peripherals/Monitors

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Monitor	ASUS VS228H-P 22-Inch Monitor - $115	ASUS VS248H-P 24-Inch Monitor - $140
Keyboard	Kensington Pro Fit Media Keyboard - $22	Cyborg V.5 - $58
Mouse	Logitech G402 - $50	Razer DeathAdder - $53
Speakers	Creative A250 2.1 Speaker System - $30	Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $32
Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Monitor	Dell P2414H Monitor - $200	Dell U2412M - $263
Keyboard	Logitech G510s - $77	Corsair Vengeance K70 - $123
Mouse	Logitech G502 - $58	Razer Naga 2014 - $70
Speakers	Logitech Z323 2.1 Speaker System - $50	Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $86

Puppy and Dolphin
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Case	NZXT Source 210 - $48	NZXT Source 210 - $48
Power Supply	EVGA 600B - $63	EVGA 600B - $63
CPU	AMD FX-6300 - $100	AMD FX-8320 - $140
Heatsink	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31
Motherboard	ASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $94	ASUS M5A99FX PRO - $104
Memory	Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1866 - $44	8GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $54
Graphics Card	MSI R7 260X - $130	R9 270X / GTX 960 - $200 / $171
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - $36	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $82
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$567	$714 - 743

Narwhal and Unicorn
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.

Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Case	Cooler Master HAF 912 - $66	Corsair Air 540 - $137
Power Supply	EVGA G2 650W - $100	EVGA G2 650W - $100
CPU	Intel 6600K - $275	Intel 6600K - $275
Heatsink	Scythe Mugen 4 - $52	Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $76
Motherboard	ASUS Z170-A - $164	ASUS Z170-A - $164
Memory	8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $50	16GB Kingston HyperX FURY DDR4 2133 - $116
Graphics Card	Gigabyte R9 380 - $230	Gigabyte R9 390 OR ASUS GTX 970 - $310 / $320
Hard Drive	Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $116	Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $116
SSD	Crucial BX100 250GB (Review) - $85 OR SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB (Review) - $89	SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB (Review) - $120 OR SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (Review) - $133
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$1159 - 1207	$1400 - 1458

Heroes of the Storm PTR - New Skins, Mounts, and Animations
More goodies from the PTR today, with new skins and mounts previewed, along with the new and upgraded animations.

[moveth]

Pet battling has never really interested me all that much, but I really love collecting pets.

[chaud]

Pet battling has never really interested me all that much, but I really love collecting pets.

Thankfully that is the last of the pet battle stats, HFC boss kill rates are in the queue now!

[Vanaline]

Id imagine if jay wilson was fired it was more because the vanilla iteration of Diablo IIII was one of the worst loot hacks ever made.

[ElDoorO]

Those are some dev's desperately looking for some validation.

When GC openly encouraged people, via a post on WoW's website, to mock lesser skilled players to "make them better" -- you have a problem communicating with the community combined with an elitist attitude. Instead, what they should admit is they need the casual but don't *want* the casuals. That's the elephant in the room they refuse to discuss.

[Thage]

Those are some dev's desperately looking for some validation.

When GC openly encouraged people, via a post on WoW's website, to mock lesser skilled players to "make them better" -- you have a problem communicating with the community combined with an elitist attitude. Instead, what they should admit is they need the casual but don't *want* the casuals. That's the elephant in the room they refuse to discuss.

Depressingly accurate, given Warlords of Draenor's design philosophy and how it was the sum total of the gradual disemboweling of casual endgame choices since Wrath.

[Shudder]

Well I don't recall ghostcrawler getting butthurt and making them reserve his name because of a ton of "fire ghostcrawler" guilds popping up.

[moveth]

Thankfully that is the last of the pet battle stats, HFC boss kill rates are in the queue now!

I love seeing these types of stats so it doesnt bother me Im glad you guys have more stats posts.

[Euphonious Monk]

How are there more people with 75 pets to level 25 than there are with 75 pets to level 10 or 30 pets to level 75 than 30 pets to level 10? That math does not check out....

[Simca]

How are there more people with 75 pets to level 25 than there are with 75 pets to level 10 or 30 pets to level 75 than 30 pets to level 10? That math does not check out....

If you catch a pet at level 20 and raise it to level 25, it would only count for the 'Raise X pets to level 25' achievement and not the 'Raise X pets to level 10' achievement.

[Nerraw]

If you catch a pet at level 20 and raise it to level 25, it would only count for the 'Raise X pets to level 25' achievement and not the 'Raise X pets to level 10' achievement.

As someone who only lacks the "75 to level 10" achievement, this is seriously annoying me.

[Deleted]

I say cater more too the elite 1 % .
They are the most dedicated and skillfull players arround .
I am sure blizz bosses wont mind having 100k subs instead of 10 million .

[Kaedis]

RE: CPU Processors, you're better off with an i7-4790k these days. Only ~$50 USD more than the i5-6600k, and benchmarks a whopping 43% faster. Ya, it's still an LGA 1150 socket, instead of the newer 1151, but it's a powerhouse of a CPU. Even the new i7-6700k benchmarks lower than the 4790k. Yes, the limitation to 1150 sockets prevents, to my knowledge, running DDR4 RAM as well, but honestly, DDR4 isn't even really that much of an upgrade over DDR3 at that point. All of the new processor and RAM generations seem to be concerned with reducing power consumption rather than increasing performance, which doesn't really do anything useful for gaming towers.

[heinz0r]

holinka really drank too much of his own coolaid... he is responsible for creating a good experience for the pvp players and he has made it even worse coming from mop. It was quite bad then, and he managed to make it even worse, as impossible as some may have thought that would have been. But now we know better. Of course those petitions are just some joke and nothing will happen, that still does not change the fact that probably noone in their right mind would say that he is doing a great job, especially not when he basically now tells players to f* themselves if they are not swimming on his wave.

Way to go dude, always great practice to piss the players off. They are the reason you even have this job. I am sure your bosses will love that attitude too. But then again, it seems to be totally the standard that the devs currently set for themselves. Always defend your stuff, no matter how bad of a mistake it was, you can always say "oh yeah back then we messed up, but next time we will totally get it right.". problem is, youre not doing much right ever since wrath ended. And that is quite a couple of years away from now...

[Doomislav]

RE: CPU Processors, you're better off with an i7-4790k these days. Only ~$50 USD more than the i5-6600k, and benchmarks a whopping 43% faster. Ya, it's still an LGA 1150 socket, instead of the newer 1151, but it's a powerhouse of a CPU. Even the new i7-6700k benchmarks lower than the 4790k. Yes, the limitation to 1150 sockets prevents, to my knowledge, running DDR4 RAM as well, but honestly, DDR4 isn't even really that much of an upgrade over DDR3 at that point. All of the new processor and RAM generations seem to be concerned with reducing power consumption rather than increasing performance, which doesn't really do anything useful for gaming towers.

I found the i5-6600k to be an odd choice too. Not really a great 'bang for the buck' option, and not really a great high end option either.

Doom

[davidcryix]

problem is, youre not doing much right ever since wrath ended. And that is quite a couple of years away from now...

I don't believe that and I don't think a lot of other players do either. If you take out the long, long drought between release of SOO and Warlords, I think we would all look back at Mists of Pandaria as the second best expansion for all kinds of reasons. Hell even factoring in the drought i don't think it was so bad. The legendary cloak holidays weren't as good as real content but at least helped people come back in and get caught up and i think more people actually participated in "for real" raiding content than ever thanks to the group finder and openraid and whatnot.

I think if you look at how many people came back during that time and how many more showed up for warlords you can see that its not like the well was poisoned.

I honestly think that the biggest problem wow has is that half (maybe less than half) of us are simply too good at this game after 11 years (thanks to addons, websites, strat videos, fan sites, etc) and the rest are turned off - or turned away - by an increasingly elitist and exasperated attitude of the long time, "hardcore" subscribers.

The fundamental content model of world of warcraft cannot ever provide enough content to satiate the "world first mythic" guilds who chew through the content in days because its literally their jobs, nor can it keep up with players who run each dungeon once or twice on normal, find out that the heroics are more of the same and wonder why they have to run the same things over and over and over. People have never felt more "done" so fast than Warlords (for good reasons) and it doesn't help that we are no longer getting new content 7 months after release. Some people turn to PVP but by its very nature, you will lose 50% of the time if the game is doing its job correctly and PVP players HATE to lose. I've never met a single one who could handle it (myself included - it's discouraging at best).

I don't know what the answer is to that question but they have to come up with something for Legion. Leverage all past content through timewalking maybe. Maybe each week the LFR/LFD picks from random expansions to put those people in with a bias towards new content early in each patch? At least "the grind" wouldn't be so monotonous.

[Deleted]

I guess Blizzard are finally realising something which the long term players, from vanilla, had told them all along would happen:

In general, no one gives a flying fuck about pets. This will not change.

Even when Wow 2 comes out in 2/3 years and millions pour back into the game, and we have more animated pets, there should be more to do than that. It's just not worth caring about.

[Multistryke]

Pet battleslol, so much wasted resources ...

[leviathonlx]

I'd be careful with the R9's mentioned in the build for the time being. AMD is having a problem that's taking them forever to resolve when it comes to crashing in DX11 they just now finally put that in their 'Known Issues' tab in today's Beta Driver.

[heinz0r]

I don't believe that and I don't think a lot of other players do either. If you take out the long, long drought between release of SOO and Warlords, I think we would all look back at Mists of Pandaria as the second best expansion for all kinds of reasons. Hell even factoring in the drought i don't think it was so bad. The legendary cloak holidays weren't as good as real content but at least helped people come back in and get caught up and i think more people actually participated in "for real" raiding content than ever thanks to the group finder and openraid and whatnot.
*cut off*

Brian Holinka is responsible for the pvp experience, yet you come here and tell me I am wrong, then start talking about things that have no connection to pvp. The things you said may all be true, I will neither comment or deny that, but you are simply barking at the wrong tree here