Patch 3.0.2, Achievements, Dungeon Loot, Blue posts

[furydeath]

Any news on if the patch would include the new change to items.

[Finer08]

Lalz furry warriors!

[Fugazi]

I'd bet on 3.0 being made live on September 16 in the US and September 17 in the EU seeing as how WAR is gonna release on September 18.

Half of talents are broken, other half are shit. No way we will see live 3.0 sooner than 2 months from now - 1-1.5 month before wotlk release, just like it was with 2.0 and TBC.

[Spl4sh3r]

awesome.. about time 'firsts' get ingame recognition.

i'm taking a week off work to level up in the expansion 8)

A week? That is a very long time....I'm aiming on 3-4 days max :P

[rothomp3]

I hope they won't destroy raiding in 3.0, would be a shame.

The only reason 2.0 "destroyed" pre-BC raiding (it didn't, by the way, but that's the myth you're working from) was because everyone decided to grind BGs for HWL gear instead. That's already going on today on live servers, and 3.0 won't do anything to change it either way!

Also, to those saying WotLK won't be out until late December/January... you're wrong. The place we're at now in WotLK beta is equivalent to where we were in late November or early December for BC beta. They have opened up level 80 on the Wrath beta already, after all. Expect WotLK out in October or early November at the latest.

[Manip]

The only reason 2.0 "destroyed" pre-BC raiding (it didn't, by the way, but that's the myth you're working from) was because everyone decided to grind BGs for HWL gear instead.

Or that they broke a whole ton of raid encounters making them impossible to complete?

A myth? Did you even try and raid after 2.0 was released? Everything went to hell in a handbasket and that had nothing to with with attendance.

Also, to those saying WotLK won't be out until late December/January... you're wrong.

Mr. IKnowI'mRight please tell us the exact date of release? You seem to have some inside information we aren't aware of...

But my *theory* is still Dec. 5th for the Christmas market/holiday. That would allow Bliz to get Northrend a lot more polished than it is if they shipped today.

[Xentropy]

Indeed Blizzard is just making sure everything is right at this point.
Design is complete, now they have to do all to make it "Just Right" for the release.

I drew this awesome flying car on a piece of paper.

Now all I have to do is make it just right for release.

I expect to have them rolling off the assembly line by September 17th.

Translation for the satire-impaired: Many, many, MANY new talents aren't even IMPLEMENTED yet. Much of the beta is still design-complete ON PAPER but not even begun to be BUILT. Many other talents have gone through several iterations of BROKEN, proving implementation is not trivial. In addition, the design itself isn't even necessarily complete, as many aspects of balance and raid buff design have been thrown into question by recent blue posts, showing the design itself is still in flux, so really they haven't even drawn the flying car yet and are still in the erasing the fins to redraw them slightly differently over and over again phase.

[Calaba]

Or that they broke a whole ton of raid encounters making them impossible to complete?

A myth? Did you even try and raid after 2.0 was released? Everything went to hell in a handbasket and that had nothing to with with attendance.

Mr. IKnowI'mRight please tell us the exact date of release? You seem to have some inside information we aren't aware of...

But my *theory* is still Dec. 5th for the Christmas market/holiday. That would allow Bliz to get Northrend a lot more polished than it is if they shipped today.

The reasons raiding stopped were mostly down to
1: everyone went to do PvP, as patch 2.0 saw the introduction of "welfare epics"
2: decursive was bugged. decursive was just too important for many 40-man bosses. For any guild which did Chromagus in BWL with this addon, having it removed was a SERIOUS problem. Never mind other bosses being bugged, this was enough of an issue to put people off.

This time, neither of these things will cause any issues. We have Welfare Epics already, and decursive isn't as important as it once was, due to decreased raid size. The most likely problem this time is Illidan's sheer when shield block gets changed, or if scaling adjustments on some classes effect Sunwell bosses too badly.

As for your estimate at the date, i'd agree, they'll want to release in time for Christmas, so early December sounds right.

[Amgyn]

blizzard devs are the only ones that know how 'ready' they are. they could already have a ready-to-be-shipped version in their offices now....

[ultraviolet]

RE: Dalaran not having any flying mounts

They state the reason for this being that they want the city to seem more like old world capital cities, ie: bustling with activity and seeming more like a city. The only way it's going to seem like a "city bustling with activity" is if they put an AH in there, quick access to profession/class trainers, and possibly somewhere to duel. Otherwise, people are still just going to hang around Ironforge and Orgrimmar.

It's not just because you could fly in Shattrath that people don't like hanging out there. It's because there's nothing to do there except go to the bank. I think it would be silly to do away with flying in a city. But as far as I know, Blizzard doesn't plan on having either class trainers or an AH in Dalaran, so... boo.

Anyway, my two cents.

[Amgyn]

It's not just because you could fly in Shattrath that people don't like hanging out there. It's because there's nothing to do there except go to the bank. I think it would be silly to do away with flying in a city. But as far as I know, Blizzard doesn't plan on having either class trainers or an AH in Dalaran, so... boo.

BG, arena, daily quests and banks keep people busy enough on my server to hang out in shattrath all day.

[vlad]

RE: Dalaran not having any flying mounts

They state the reason for this being that they want the city to seem more like old world capital cities, ie: bustling with activity and seeming more like a city. The only way it's going to seem like a "city bustling with activity" is if they put an AH in there, quick access to profession/class trainers, and possibly somewhere to duel. Otherwise, people are still just going to hang around Ironforge and Orgrimmar.

It's not just because you could fly in Shattrath that people don't like hanging out there. It's because there's nothing to do there except go to the bank. I think it would be silly to do away with flying in a city. But as far as I know, Blizzard doesn't plan on having either class trainers or an AH in Dalaran, so... boo.

Anyway, my two cents.

you kinda answered yourself there.

blizz wants us to hang in Org and IF. they have said that all along. its the exact reason thats where the ah and trainers and dualling areas are. they also want us on the ground in dal to give the old city "feel". not to make it like an old city but to just make it feel busier. the city is not a hang out. its smaller than any other capital city so its not really going for that home base kinda thing like shatt had.

[rothomp3]

I drew this awesome flying car on a piece of paper.

Now all I have to do is make it just right for release.

I expect to have them rolling off the assembly line by September 17th.

Translation for the satire-impaired: Many, many, MANY new talents aren't even IMPLEMENTED yet. Much of the beta is still design-complete ON PAPER but not even begun to be BUILT. Many other talents have gone through several iterations of BROKEN, proving implementation is not trivial. In addition, the design itself isn't even necessarily complete, as many aspects of balance and raid buff design have been thrown into question by recent blue posts, showing the design itself is still in flux, so really they haven't even drawn the flying car yet and are still in the erasing the fins to redraw them slightly differently over and over again phase.

Are you even remotely aware of what the most time consuming part of producing an expansion like this is? From your post I'll assume not, so I'll tell you: the art. The time required to create the art so incredibly dwarfs the rest of the process that you may as well round the rest to zero.

The art, from most reports, is mostly done. That means the expansion is mostly done. Implementing talents isn't a process that takes weeks. It's something one person does in hours (and that's being very generous to your point of view). And yes, I am a programmer... you need to understand that they already have the tools in place. They are not writing a large application from scratch, they are adding to it using tools designed to make it easy to add to it. Yes, they then have to test for bugs and that is time consuming. Implementing the talents? No way, no how does that take more than a couple of hours max.

So yes, they are much, much closer to release than you seem to think they are. Implementing the NYI talents is something they are doing on a class-by-class basis. Why do people assume that the developers at Blizzard are standing around picking their noses except for the one moment of the week when a new build is released? Internal testing is certainly several builds ahead of the beta.

And also remember... when 2.0 came out, it was not based on the most recent BC beta build! It still had Cloak of Shadows as a 41 point talent, among many other things, when the active BC beta client had it as a trained skill! So, don't expect things to be in their final state just because they push out a 3.0. The WotLK beta will continue for at least a month after 3.0 hits the live servers.

[Aureoloss]

Are you even remotely aware of what the most time consuming part of producing an expansion like this is? From your post I'll assume not, so I'll tell you: the art. The time required to create the art so incredibly dwarfs the rest of the process that you may as well round the rest to zero.

The art, from most reports, is mostly done. That means the expansion is mostly done. Implementing talents isn't a process that takes weeks. It's something one person does in hours (and that's being very generous to your point of view). And yes, I am a programmer... you need to understand that they already have the tools in place. They are not writing a large application from scratch, they are adding to it using tools designed to make it easy to add to it. Yes, they then have to test for bugs and that is time consuming. Implementing the talents? No way, no how does that take more than a couple of hours max.

So yes, they are much, much closer to release than you seem to think they are. Implementing the NYI talents is something they are doing on a class-by-class basis. Why do people assume that the developers at Blizzard are standing around picking their noses except for the one moment of the week when a new build is released? Internal testing is certainly several builds ahead of the beta.

And also remember... when 2.0 came out, it was not based on the most recent BC beta build! It still had Cloak of Shadows as a 41 point talent, among many other things, when the active BC beta client had it as a trained skill! So, don't expect things to be in their final state just because they push out a 3.0. The WotLK beta will continue for at least a month after 3.0 hits the live servers.

finally someone who shares my opinion.

[Calaba]

And also remember... when 2.0 came out, it was not based on the most recent BC beta build! It still had Cloak of Shadows as a 41 point talent, among many other things, when the active BC beta client had it as a trained skill! So, don't expect things to be in their final state just because they push out a 3.0. The WotLK beta will continue for at least a month after 3.0 hits the live servers.

Yeh. They basically did 2 patches.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_2.0.1 --- talent trees, arenas, etc
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_2.0.3 --- class balance, and other issues.
So yeh, don't expect stuff they release with the pre-patch to remain the same.

[Amgyn]

Yup thanks for writing that out aureoloss

changing a variable takes so no time ... adding/removing an effect from a spell is as easy at typing a "1" or a "0".. even changing a boss encounter so he cleaves every 15 seconds instead of 10 is trivial... this is all relative to creating a new creature model, or even creating sound effects.

[Jalek]

Yup thanks for writing that out aureoloss

changing a variable takes so no time ... adding/removing an effect from a spell is as easy at typing a "1" or a "0".. even changing a boss encounter so he cleaves every 15 seconds instead of 10 is trivial... this is all relative to creating a new creature model, or even creating sound effects.

They are creating more models? Most I've seen have been used before. Recycling Earthfury for shamans etc.

Balancing talents and testing them does in fact take quite a while as you need to build up enough statistical data (eg 1000s of Dr Boom tests) to ensure that the talents are effecting abilities properly.

[hirurg]

realm firsts ftw

[Tel]

Or that they broke a whole ton of raid encounters making them impossible to complete?

A myth? Did you even try and raid after 2.0 was released? Everything went to hell in a handbasket and that had nothing to with with attendance.

Sorry, which raid encounters? I was (and still am) leading a raiding guild who although not bleeding edge, are fairly competant. On the day of 2.0 we walked into Naxx, and cleared all of the spider wing, all of the plague wing, and up to 4HM in the DK wing... The only issue was no decursive on Noth, and it took us all of 2 wipes to realise that spreading out and making mages focus on decursing would win that for us.

[bbr]

Raids will slow down in the holiday season anyway.
Grinding pvp gear etc will be a good way to prepare for WotLK.