Questions for the Devs Round Two

[garicasha]

We've gotten some of the basic questions answered, here's some of my burning ones still:

--When will the sharding at release be deactivated?

--What, if any, specific balance changes will be made?

--What, if any, bugs will be fixed?

--Are there any anticipated problems / bugs from the game residing on the 7.3.5 engine?

--Will there be seasons?

--Will there eventually be progression to BC?

--What reunification efforts will be made?

--Will people have dibs on old toon names?

--Will Molten Core or other earlier raids be tuned up a bit to compensate for threat gen and DPS gains by patch 1.12, plus Dire Maul gear?

--Will server merges be announced ahead of time?

--Will group-finding addons be allowed?

--Will any addons legal in 7.3.5 on live not be allowed in classic?

--What armory functions will be available online?

--What will server population be?

--If server populations are different from classic, what will spawn rates of mobs / herbs be changed to?

--How will it be communicated to players that did not play classic that performance of various specs wasn't balanced to the level it is now?

--How will griefing on world bosses be handled?

--What will the names of the servers be?

--What is the anticipated number of players in the first few weeks?

--What is the anticipated number of players after the first month?

--Will the old old mounts be available?

--Will special characters be allowed in names?

Answered Questions:
--Did they say wall walking in BGs will be fixed?
--Battlegrounds will be cross-realm
--Dire Maul is in the first round, so that gear will be available immediately, correct?
--Loot trading will be available
--Server transfers will be available
--There will be an AQ event

From other posters:
--Will the nights be dark like it used to be?
--Will the geometry of Maexxna's room be fixed?

Random stuff I'm not making a separate thread for:
Any chance at non-1.12 Alterac Valley?

Will it be made clear what servers will be merged (edit: connected) when the time comes? Something like "Frostwolf 1" "Frostwolf 2" "Frostwolf 3" with unique names on all 3 versions so when they're merged there's no conflicts. Or even just indications of which servers will be merged when the time comes.

[Echocho]

--Will people have dibs on old toon names?

On every single server? Doubtful.

--Will server merges be announced ahead of time?

Why do you assume that they will merge servers? They never did that during vanilla, in fact they've never ever done that. Connected realms is the closest but that's very un-vanilla.

--What will server population be?

Same as in vanilla obviously, why would they start making changes to the game for no good reason when they've stated multiple times that they are going to recreate the game as authentic as possible.

[garicasha]

The thing is that the population of vanilla started strong and grew continuously.

I'm guessing that the population of classic will start out AT OVER 9,000 KRAKLENHEIT but crater.

If true, something very un-vanilla is going to happen with server pops they'll be forced to do something different. (i.e. either absurdly overcrowded realms at launch or absurdly dead ones in two-three years). And all I'm really saying is that they should communicate which realms will be connected at the beginning instead of randomly announcing them later.

[anon5123]

Will Molten Core or other earlier raids be tuned up a bit to compensate for threat gen and DPS gains by patch 1.12, plus Dire Maul gear?

"buffing" raids won't make them harder.

Boss has more HP? Just takes longer to kill.

Boss has more damage? Just makes you take a couple more healers.

Boss has different mechanics? Not vanilla.

And all three of these are not 1.12; we're going to blizzlike here, not a funserver.

[garicasha]

As other regulars in the forum have pointed out, warrior threat gen in 1.12 is Much higher than it was before that, when most guilds were progressing through 'da Core.

[AceofH]

balance changes they have said no to already. as a a matter of fact, at blizzcon they said that.
bugs will be fixed, as per what they said a while ago as well.
seasons is highly doubtful, as its just classic, they aren't making this diablo 3 style or adding arena or rated battle grounds. not sure why you would think those would exist.
reunification efforts? what is this?
they have stated that if classic does well bc is a strong possibility, as is wrath.
there will be no raid tuning. also according to what they have said.
group finding and other addons from what i've seen would fall under automated stuff like decursive and healbot and be broken.

[Vineri]

Some good questions, .. like

Will there be seasons? I hope so.

Will there be sharding? According to a blue post, yes, at launch and at any other time thereafter where "they" deem necessary. Which could be Capitol city raids, or just people standing around cities, who knows.

Many dumb questions though. What will be the population? Will modern addons be allowed? Give me a break.

[anon5123]

As other regulars in the forum have pointed out, warrior threat gen in 1.12 is Much higher than it was before that, when most guilds were progressing through 'da Core.

So DPS will have to slow down and the only significant change this makes is raids take slightly longer to clear. Not harder, just takes longer.

/shrug

I really don't get why people are expecting a 15 year old game to be super difficult. The only way to truly make raids difficult would be to erase our memories of them and delete any and all guides so that they are "new" again.

....and make everyone play on DSL connections, and on computers that struggle to hit 15fps in a 40man raid, with really crappy 2005 addons, and laggy servers that randomly disconnect you, and.....yeah, no, that ain't happening.

Point is, a lot of the things that made vanilla raids hard, cannot be replicated through software alone. Even if we got a flawless re-creation of patch 1.1 talents/spells/items, raids would still be cleared pretty easily since we have intimate knowledge of classes, gear, buffs, consumes, and raid strategies.

MC and BWL will never be "hard" again. Stop trying to make them hard with non-blizzlike funserver changes.

[Gavll]

So DPS will have to slow down and the only significant change this makes is raids take slightly longer to clear. Not harder, just takes longer.

/shrug

I really don't get why people are expecting a 15 year old game to be super difficult. The only way to truly make raids difficult would be to erase our memories of them and delete any and all guides so that they are "new" again.

....and make everyone play on DSL connections, and on computers that struggle to hit 15fps in a 40man raid, with really crappy 2005 addons, and laggy servers that randomly disconnect you, and.....yeah, no, that ain't happening.

Point is, a lot of the things that made vanilla raids hard, cannot be replicated through software alone. Even if we got a flawless re-creation of patch 1.1 talents/spells/items, raids would still be cleared pretty easily since we have intimate knowledge of classes, gear, buffs, consumes, and raid strategies.

MC and BWL will never be "hard" again. Stop trying to make them hard with non-blizzlike funserver changes.

That's like saying that having better gear only makes raids shorter, not easier. Of course bosses having more HP and doing more damage makes it harder. Same with trash. Will it make it hard? No. Harder? Yes.

[Vaelorian]

snip

- will there be weather conditions?
- will the nights be dark like it used to be? not like how it currently is nor with the "flasks"
- will current addons be allowed to work? (I hope not unless it is bartender)
- will threat/aggro be exactly like it was in Vanilla? (I hope so)
- will healing be preemptive like it was in Vanilla instead of reactive like it is now?
- will we have crushing blows?
- will the webbed walls in Maexna's room (Spider in Naxx40) be as fucked up as in Vanilla?
- will the bosses themselves in Naxx40 be exactly the same in terms of tactics as they were in Vanilla? (Priests MCing understudies for example instead of MC orbs)

[deniter]

"buffing" raids won't make them harder.

Boss has more HP? Just takes longer to kill.

Boss has more damage? Just makes you take a couple more healers.

Boss has different mechanics? Not vanilla.

And all three of these are not 1.12; we're going to blizzlike here, not a funserver.

I don't think you understand this fully.

If a boss has more HP and it takes longer to kill it, healers need to heal longer and are in danger to go oom. This means tanks have to be better geared in order to mitigate more damage so that healers can heal throughout the fight. It also means dps has to be better geared so that the boss goes down before the healer mana is gone.

If you take a couple of more healers, it means you have a couple of less dps, which again means fights will take longer and your healers might go oom before the boss dies.

[anon5123]

That's like saying that having better gear only makes raids shorter, not easier. Of course bosses having more HP and doing more damage makes it harder. Same with trash. Will it make it hard? No. Harder? Yes.

So takes more time = "harder" ?

I guess Desert Bus is the hardest game in existence since it takes 792 hours to max out the score counter.

If a boss has more HP and it takes longer to kill it, healers need to heal longer and are in danger to go oom.This means tanks have to be better geared in order to mitigate more damage so that healers can heal throughout the fight. It also means dps has to be better geared so that the boss goes down before the healer mana is gone.

If you take a couple of more healers, it means you have a couple of less dps, which again means fights will take longer and your healers might go oom before the boss dies.

None of that makes it "harder". Just takes longer.

MC will not magically become more difficult when each boss fight takes 90 seconds instead of 70 seconds.

[parcus]

Yes, it does. Vanilla had a very special mechanic called mana, this was a finite resource that casters had to expend in order to use their abilities. Particularly important for healers. It was removed at some point in WOTLK, that is why you don’t remember it. This limited how long fights could take. More time = less mistakes allowed = harder. It added to the tactical aspect of the game back then too, since teams had time to react to RNGs and players fuck ups.

[deniter]

None of that makes it "harder". Just takes longer.

MC will not magically become more difficult when each boss fight takes 90 seconds instead of 70 seconds.

Ok, maybe i have to speak in retail language: Your raid group needs a higher gear score in order to clear a boss fight that lasts 20 seconds longer, which means it's more difficult than a fight you can clear wearing lower item level gear.

And it has nothing to do with magic, it's pure mathematics.

[Gavll]

So takes more time = "harder" ?

I guess Desert Bus is the hardest game in existence since it takes 792 hours to max out the score counter.



None of that makes it "harder". Just takes longer.

MC will not magically become more difficult when each boss fight takes 90 seconds instead of 70 seconds.

It does because your ranged dps and healers have finite mana. If all of the raid is taking more damage, healers will OOM quicker or people will die. If ranged DPS OOM, your total dps drops. You need more total damage than before since the boss now has more HP.

Less guilds will clear MC at a given average gear level if the bosses and trash have more HP and do more damage. It's just a fact.

Have you ever played a game that has difficulty levels? First thing that happens in most of those games when you turn up the difficulty? Enemies get more HP and damage.

Will it be harder when you're farming it in AQ40 gear? Technically. Will you notice? No. Will you notice when you're fresh into MC in the first month or 2? Yes.

Your facetious argument about Desert Bus is pointless.

[Trend]

The answer to most of your questions will be non-answers because either it's too early to say and/or there is no way in hell they would announce to the public what they're thinking anyway. You have to remember too that Blizzard has always been terrible with communication and they'll fully embrace the #nochanges philosophy on that one to be sure.

But I do think you could come up with questions that would be somewhat more likely to be answered.

[trapmaster]

We've gotten some of the basic questions answered, here's some of my burning ones still:

--When will the sharding at release be deactivated?

--What, if any, specific balance changes will be made?

--What, if any, bugs will be fixed?

--Are there any anticipated problems / bugs from the game residing on the 7.3.5 engine?

--Will there be seasons?

--Will there eventually be progression to BC?

--What reunification efforts will be made?

--Will people have dibs on old toon names?

--Will Molten Core or other earlier raids be tuned up a bit to compensate for threat gen and DPS gains by patch 1.12, plus Dire Maul gear?

--Will server merges be announced ahead of time?

--Will group-finding addons be allowed?

--Will any addons legal in 7.3.5 on live not be allowed in classic?

--What armory functions will be available online?

--What will server population be?

--If server populations are different from classic, what will spawn rates of mobs / herbs be changed to?

--How will it be communicated to players that did not play classic that performance of various specs wasn't balanced to the level it is now?

--How will griefing on world bosses be handled?

--What will the names of the servers be?

--What is the anticipated number of players in the first few weeks?

--What is the anticipated number of players after the first month?

--Will the old old mounts be available?

--Will special characters be allowed in names?

Answered Questions:
--Did they say wall walking in BGs will be fixed?
--Battlegrounds will be cross-realm
--Dire Maul is in the first round, so that gear will be available immediately, correct?
--Loot trading will be available
--Server transfers will be available
--There will be an AQ event

From other posters:
--Will the nights be dark like it used to be?
--Will the geometry of Maexxna's room be fixed?

Random stuff I'm not making a separate thread for:
Any chance at non-1.12 Alterac Valley?

Will it be made clear what servers will be merged (edit: connected) when the time comes? Something like "Frostwolf 1" "Frostwolf 2" "Frostwolf 3" with unique names on all 3 versions so when they're merged there's no conflicts. Or even just indications of which servers will be merged when the time comes.

i am more likely want to know if all loots are aoeable instead LOOTING each goddamn bodies for loots.

[AceofH]

i am more likely want to know if all loots are aoeable instead LOOTING each goddamn bodies for loots.

No aoe looting. It wasn't in vanilla and it wasn't in the demo.

And really the only classes it would benefit is mages and paladins