Patch 7.2 - Unlocking Artifact Traits, BlizzCon Contests, Tweets, Poll, DLC #576

[chaud]

Trinity Series Winner, Stats

Patch 7.2 - Unlocking Artifact Traits
Patch 7.2 brings new Artifact Traits for everyone, along with higher Artifact Knowledge ranks. Unlocking these traits is done by completing a series of quests, with several different versions that depend on your role.

The quest series starts by asking you to unlock all of the traits on your Artifact weapon. After this is done, you head to the Broken Shore to investigate, finding some kind of object. You bring this object back to the Council of Six in Dalaran and then head off on your role's specific quest line.

At the end of the quest line, you return to Dalaran and the Council empowers your Artifact weapon, unlocking the new traits. You can see these new traits in our Artifact Calculator.

BlizzCon 2017 Contests – Mixing Things Up

Greetings, cosplayers, moviemakers, and artists! BlizzCon 2017 is official, and some of you are already eager to get started on your contest creations—but before you set that creativity to full blast, we just wanted to have a quick chat.

After 10 years of BlizzCon—and 10 years of contests—we’re taking a fresh look at our approach to BlizzCon contests. We’re considering some new approaches to how we handle things, and are taking another look at our contests’ structure and format at the show. Ultimately, our goal is to celebrate and showcase you guys the best way possible.

What does this mean for our contestants, you ask? Right now, nothing. Right now we can tell you the Costume Contest is still incoming, so feel free to start crafting away! In the coming weeks however, we will be announcing a few tweaks, and just wanted to give you all a heads up as soon as possible.

Thank you again for continuing to make BlizzCon so very special with all your incredible talents. It’s all of your who make BlizzCon something we look forward to year after year, and can’t wait to see what you create this year!

Blue Tweets

Classes
Any words yet on if hunters is getting more stable slots in 7.2? Or maybe a way to unlock more?
Not in 7.2 (Muffinus)

Art
Can we hope for epicness with Turalyon and a unique model for him ?
you tell us what you think when you see him. My opinion = hell yes! (Alex_Afrasiabi)

Suramar's story might be the BEST WoW's ever been. These characters should definitely remain relevant.
we agree with you! (Alex_Afrasiabi)

PvP
What is the average item level scaled to in PVP War Games? *Tournament mode enabled
In Patch 7.1.5, it's 850.In Patch 7.2, it's 900. (WarcraftDevs)

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

With that recent tire fire that was that Reddit post, you sure have some thick skin, Ben Brode mentioned that being sorta the face of a game opens you up to brunt of the community’s attacks when people asked why him and Yong Woo didn’t do more designer insights. Do you feel it’s important for a dev to have thick skin when dealing with this stuff.
I don’t think you can be a good game designer if you have thin skin. You have to subject your ideas to the crucible of review, whether that happens internally or after players see your design.

I do think you can be a good game designer if you have thick skin, but don’t have thick enough skin to open yourself up to direct communication with players. Some of my favorite games have been made by people that can barely stand to have a conversation with other humans, let alone open themselves up to the internet.

But if you’re going to go that route, you just have to be really, really good at what you do. You need a purity of vision or an ability to foresee problems that just isn’t that common in developers. I don’t have that. Way back at Ensemble, when we weren’t sure if design A or design B made more sense, I said “Let’s just ask players what they think.”

You don’t have to ask up front. You can launch a feature, monitor the response, and then iterate on that feature. But you have to get that feedback at some point. Lead Champion Designer Riot Scruffy the other day said something like “Even when you’ve really thought about it, tested and iterated, your chance of nailing a great design is about 70%. So you have to be prepared to iterate based on player feedback. You have to leave time for the follow-up work.”

(I also don’t mean to imply that asking players on Reddit or forums is the only way we gather feedback.)

Now, I don’t subscribe to the idea that players should just be able to say whatever the hell they want to, and developers should just suck it up because that’s their job. I value communication, and communication is easier if you treat each other like human beings. But I also recognize that players get emotional or frustrated, and I recognize that the power dynamic between passionate player and developer who just doesn’t get it can exacerbate that frustration.

But there are limits.

I don’t block a lot of players on Twitter, but I do block them. I don’t answer stupidly rude questions, except to make a point of the fact that they aren’t going to actually bring me to tears. Sorry.

I’ve had weird phone calls in the middle of the night. I’ve had death threats. I've had Blizzard security offer to monitor my house. I’ve had designers who had to work with the FBI on threats. I’m also an upper class, straight, white dude, and I know developers who aren’t who have gotten much, much worse from players. There’s no reason for that. We all love games. That already gives us a lot in common.

I try and remind players all the time that your communication is going to be more effective if you’re professional about it, because then you’re actually talking about the problem and not venting about how neglected you feel. If you have a job or go to school, you probably have coworkers or teachers you disagree with that you still have to treat like human beings. Developers deserve the same respect. I know it might score you internet points to attack someone in an over the top matter. You’re better than that. Resist the urge. (Source)

Poll - Un'Goro Madness
Did you you take part in the recent Un'Goro Madness micro-holiday?

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Dark Legacy Comics #576
DLC #576 has been released!

[Mic_128]

What does this mean for our contestants, you ask? Right now, nothing. Right now we can tell you the Costume Contest is still incoming, so feel free to start crafting away! In the coming weeks however, we will be announcing a few tweaks, and just wanted to give you all a heads up as soon as possible.

Nothing says annoying like being told "some thing about what you're going to be spending hours and hours on making something for will change."

That's just a dick move.

[furydeath]

let me guess contests no longer stream on VT like half the show

[SecSeibzehn]

When we unlock the new traits, is our Artifact still getting powered up? I remember the devs saying something like it will refund all points above 35, but it will become stronger to compensate or something like that

[Dispirit]

I get that they don't want to make micro holidays mandatory to look at or anything but i dunno, might want to give some sort of incentive if 85% of players didn't give a damn about Un'goro Madness.

[Spirthealer]

Do we know anything about the new relic slot yet?

[Kazuchika]

I get that they don't want to make micro holidays mandatory to look at or anything but i dunno, might want to give some sort of incentive if 85% of players didn't give a damn about Un'goro Madness.

This is exactly why I don't bother. No reward? Not interested.

[Spirthealer]

This is exactly why I don't bother. No reward? Not interested.

I did warn people this would happen, but the fan boys keept saying "but you should do it because its fun" there are a 100 other fun things I would rather do then kill dinos for a 3% buff for 3 days...

[Kazuchika]

I did warn people this would happen, but the fan boys keept saying "but you should do it because its fun" there are a 100 other fun things I would rather do then kill dinos for a 3% buff for 3 days...

I mean hey if people enjoy them that's great good for them. I'm not gonna waste my time if there's no tangible reward from it other than dumb shit like "oh look I have a bird on my shoulder for 24 hours what fun"

[Fritters154]

I get that they don't want to make micro holidays mandatory to look at or anything but i dunno, might want to give some sort of incentive if 85% of players didn't give a damn about Un'goro Madness.

I honestly think it's closer to 95+% not doing it too. The numbers on an MMO Champ poll tend to be people who read the MMO Champ front page stuff, which includes micro holiday announcements. There are plenty of casual players who don't use external websites and also don't notice the postings on the launcher or calendar by Blizz, and probably way more who do see those things and just don't care.

I liked the idea of the Silithus one because it was a memorial for a cool community event. I don't understand the ones like Un'goro Madness at all though.

[Spirthealer]

I honestly think it's closer to 95+% not doing it too. The numbers on an MMO Champ poll tend to be people who read the MMO Champ front page stuff, which includes micro holiday announcements. There are plenty of casual players who don't use external websites and also don't notice the postings on the launcher or calendar by Blizz, and probably way more who do see those things and just don't care.

I liked the idea of the Silithus one because it was a memorial for a cool community event. I don't understand the ones like Un'goro Madness at all though.

Its designed to trick people into thinking ur getting lots of "Compelling content" when its just easy copy paste crap to make fanboys jump on people with real feedback about bad content, all we are getting now is just scaled up numbers and more AP grinds.

People can hate me for saying it, but its the truth. I look forward to 7.2, but again its just re scaled old content.

[Deleted]

Funny to see statistic for that Un'goro event. I remember even since Wotlk people saying that they play only for fun, not for loot, calling other "loot whores" if they said they went 20th time on raid because of loot, not because its fun. Now if you look on statistic for that event which is only pure fun and totally new (so no 20th time) there is very little people who actually care (although some might simply have missed the event). That is the truth, not people saying pretty words while not being anonymous.

[mooe]

Micro-holidays for me were an interesting addition and spanning over a few days is a great thing. I gave a shot for the hippogryph-event and the lure for me was the possibility to have something funny toy'ish to show off when playing with my friends (i.e. the bird on my shoulder). After getting it on with the multiple day duration, I soon did a daily casual arena just to notice the bird was gone for good already when zoning to the pvp-instance. Talk about mood killer.

To me, these events don't seem to be tested enough. You may be able to accomplish the "reward" there is (should we thank PTR testers here?), but its integrability to the external world isn't confirmed even in a very basic level. I'm eagerly following when an event causes some serious troubles at the world, such as exploits.

[FelPlague]

Do we know anything about the new relic slot yet?

No there is no new relic slot coming in 7.2

- - - Updated - - -

When we unlock the new traits, is our Artifact still getting powered up? I remember the devs saying something like it will refund all points above 35, but it will become stronger to compensate or something like that

Yes when you complete the quest to get refunded down to 35 your wepoan just gains the full paragon. Damage and Stan. So if you have it you keep it. If you don't you get it.

[Airbag888]

That Ungoro micro holiday just cost us a raid tier >_>

[Nevcairiel]

I did warn people this would happen, but the fan boys keept saying "but you should do it because its fun" there are a 100 other fun things I would rather do then kill dinos for a 3% buff for 3 days...

And thats fine, you don't have to take part in it.
I had fun killing those dinos for an hour or two, traveling with a huge pack of players in an area we don't often go to anymore. If anyone didn't, well, nothing I can do about that.

If it had any rewards, you wouldn't have had any more fun with it, but still feel compelled to do it, wouldn't that be worse?

[Deleted]

Funny to see statistic for that Un'goro event. I remember even since Wotlk people saying that they play only for fun, not for loot, calling other "loot whores" if they said they went 20th time on raid because of loot, not because its fun. Now if you look on statistic for that event which is only pure fun and totally new (so no 20th time) there is very little people who actually care (although some might simply have missed the event). That is the truth, not people saying pretty words while not being anonymous.

I mix both. I play for rewards if I play alone - but these rewards can vary (I am not only motivated by loot, but also by vanity items and achievements, and sometimes also for experience, this is the reason why I have at least one character of each class at a high level). But I also play for fun, like when I am doing things with guild buddies which I usually don't need much anymore.

These micro-holidays have no value for me whatsoever. They don't have collectable rewards, and they don't have much of a special experience for me to offer, because they are completely disconnected from the current storyline. Normal holiday events at least have a connection to real-life holiday, interpreted through the PoV of Azeroth. These micro-events have nothing which would bother me, and none of my guild mates wanted to participate either, so I did not even had a social motivator to go there.

[Grimalkin of Old]

I remember even since Wotlk people saying that they play only for fun, not for loot,

A lot of things changed in Blizzard since then, and the current development team is struggling to came up with fun things to do, that's why everything boils down to mindless grind nowadays.

[lb]

Some might think WoW is developed in Korea/Taiwan - that grind - in a year we will end up like in Korean/Taiwanese MMORPGs with this raising grind factor ...

[Arvandor]

micro holidays without a reward to collect are a waste of time for the players and the devs!