Cataclysm Release Date, Gathering XP, Blue Posts

[Duster505]

Ahn'kahet forgotten one for the ballistic ball of death .

As a healer i now usually use a chronometer to see how much time some dps are able to stay in the big black void zone without noticing it. Well, some managed to stay in it for the full duration, and then blaming me because their hp was doing the yo-yo.
That's when you want to say "hey no problem, you don't need to thank me for saving your life even if you have such a bad case of tunnel vision that you're not able to see you're inside of a huge black circle dealing continuous damage. I for one prefer that you then spend the whole run to insult me and my family instead on focusing on dpsing, or even surviving for that matter, that's what I live for as a healer."

(Yes that really happened....sadly)

Sadly we might see alot more of these insults in Cata. DPS expects to do nothing but DPS in 5 man dungeons. If someone dies - its always the healer who takes the blame - and harder content (controlled by healing) will lead to more deaths - more healers beeing insulted - and even fewer healers playing the game.

[Muckey]

My god, these kind of statements are so goddamn annoying...


We'll continue to offer some content for the cutting-edge progression raider. There is an encounter in Bastion of Twilight for them. But we also think true pugs shouldn't be stumbling their way through encounters they've never seen before, at least without a very strong or experienced leader.

To use my own guild as an example, in say the Serpentshrine days, we'd take a few weeks to master a new boss. I could probably count the number of time we got two new bosses on one night. I think a progression rate like that feels better to a lot of players. You spend time in between raid nights discussing what you could do differently on a tough boss, but then celebrate each victory.

So WHAT are you trying to say?! Was it too hard in TBC? Is it too hard now? Is it too easy now? Will we see any change for Cata raids? Are they going to be harder or easier? WHAT?

This is the thypical politician answer, where you simply just leave the questions unanswered and just STATE fact that is already stated.

You say: You don't think PUGs should have problems with encounters they have never seen before... Atleast if they DON'T have a good leader? WHAT? Does that even make sense?

You end up telling us that you prefer raid progress where bosses are conquered on different occations, where guilds have to redo tacts etc in between the raids. Yea, sounds good to me. BUT! You just said that you prefer raids where raids don't should have problems.

This was the worst and weirdest post I have seen in a long time, glad to get some responce.

[Deleted]

I thought I'd make a simple count-down site:

cataclysmrelease.com/

gogo bookmark ;>

[Girlyman]

November 2, same day as Gran Turismo 5?
Something has gotta give!

[bethofwow]

1. The patch 4.0.1 bit saddened me a little. Means we won't get to play the new world a couple of weeks before the release of Cataclysm

2. Why do people judge the readiness of the game based on the Beta? It's called Beta for a reason, because it is a secondary and inferior version of the actual product. The main goal is to test how the new stuff will look, and they can live with the bugs.

[Spoiledkid]

We really need a way to add a [Source Needed] or [Rumor] tag to some of these announcements. Any release date that doesn't come from Blizzard is purely speculation. November 2nd seems way too early given the current state of beta and I'm guessing we'll get a real date at BlizzCon next month. My guess would be mid-December.

You should know that Blizzard will release Cataclysm when Bibi wants it to be released.

[Lumocolor]

2. Why do people judge the readiness of the game based on the Beta? It's called Beta for a reason, because it is a secondary and inferior version of the actual product. The main goal is to test how the new stuff will look, and they can live with the bugs.

You mean they have some secret version thats actually finished somewhere?

Beta has 2 zones that don't have any quest rewards and that are only half completed quest wise (only 60-65 quests in the zones while the achievements say complete 1xx quests in said zone). Bugged quests that phase people out where they can't get new quests and can't go back to do the ones in the other phases. Casters and healers going OOM within 20 seconds. Instance bosses that bug and make you have to run and zone out to reset it and hope it's not bugged next pull. And many other issues. If they can fix all that in a month and a half great but i find it hard to believe.

[ent0mbed]

You mean they have some secret version thats actually finished somewhere?

Not "finished", but they absolutely have a version of Cata that's not the same as the one on the beta realm. By the time the game is pressed onto DVDs it will be different than the one that beta testers saw last. Of course they saw most of the stuff but with the amount of design being done on this game it isn't possible (or necessary) to keep the beta realm current.

EDIT: Personally I believe Boubouille's information is probably pretty close if not exact. He provides us *awesome* info constantly and is very rarely wrong. I bet we have a Blizzard announcement within the next week.

Also, in regard to Blizzcon... I'm sure Cata will be a topic and probably a fully playable version at the convention (full release version probably). I think SC2 expansion almost certainly. New Diablo 3 class (the last one left to announce I believe). Maybe the Cataclysm cinematic if it's not out by then. I'm still shocked that Cata won't be out before Blizzcon.

[Sig]

If I had to guess the release date (though probably someone else already guessed it) I'd say the 7th of December. Why? Because in the Gnomer retaking fluff text on Blizz's website, the person talks of a "12.7% chance of a cataclysmic event". 12.7.

Which is a Tuesday, by the way.

Just saying.

[Alayea]

I was hoping Cataclysm would get an October release so players could have some new content to finally play (Ruby Sanctum doesn't count), but I don't like stuff getting rushed either... *sigh* Whatever the official release date turns out to be, I'm betting we'll still be stuck with ICC for another long while. (Is 3.3 already the longest content patch ever?)

Also, DLC had me laughing pretty good. It reminded me of an episode from "The Adventures of Billy and Mandy" where Mandy gets into a pageant contest and has to smile at the end of her play. The end result is aptly described by the raven(?): "You fool! You've messed with the natural order!" *rofl*

[xertoh]

Personally I believe Boubouille's information is probably pretty close if not exact. He provides us *awesome* info constantly and is very rarely wrong. I bet we have a Blizzard announcement within the next week.

I'm inclined to agree with ent0mbed on this one. Boubouille's track record for important information has been amazing, albiet not perfect, but amazing nonetheless. I can understand doubting him, its safer that way, but to flat out say he is wrong is a little too much. I can safely say Boubouille's info is a hell of a lot better than any of our opinions, especially mine. So I suppose that makes this post moot.

Anyways, November 2nd. *crosses fingers* Cheers.

[Deleted]

I'm inclined to agree with ent0mbed on this one. Boubouille's track record for important information has been amazing, albiet not perfect, but amazing nonetheless. I can understand doubting him, its safer that way, but to flat out say he is wrong is a little too much. I can safely say Boubouille's info is a hell of a lot better than any of our opinions, especially mine. So I suppose that makes this post moot.

Anyways, November 2nd. *crosses fingers* Cheers.

Another moot post, but I agree

[Hoodi]

I'm inclined to agree with ent0mbed on this one. Boubouille's track record for important information has been amazing, albiet not perfect, but amazing nonetheless. I can understand doubting him, its safer that way, but to flat out say he is wrong is a little too much. I can safely say Boubouille's info is a hell of a lot better than any of our opinions, especially mine. So I suppose that makes this post moot.

Anyways, November 2nd. *crosses fingers* Cheers.

This time hes wrong

[Gihon]

IF (that's a big if) Boub is wrong it'll only be by a matter of weeks - it'll be out by Thanksgiving I'm sure, just in time for the holiday season.

[Deleted]

> and the next part of the pre-Cataclysm event will probably happen in 2 or 4 weeks depending on their schedule.

Any Infos on that yet?
What will happen next?

[Bogrim]

We want healing to be fun for people who like healing. If that means the mages and rouges have to wait 15 minutes for Dungeon Finder instead of 5 minutes, I think we can live with that.

The worst crap I've ever heard a Blizzard employee spell out. So faction balance is enough of an issue to literally butcher your lore and feel to the game for an entire expansion, but class role balance and people spending their time PLAYING the game WAITING to play the game isn't?

I know that the solution isn't to make healers super boring to play, but it doesn't have to be that way either. You could stop being so afraid of healers doing something else than besides healing in the dungeon like say, damage that's not completely pathetic? Like healing spells giving procs that can be used both offensively and defensively, like in the style of what you're doing with the Discipline Priest only without the need to literally choose between damage and healing talents.

I'm so tired of everything coming down to "Baaaw if we make healers fun to play in dungeons it'll ruin Pee vee pee!" and the alternate being directly admitting to purposely make players have queues to run a dungeon like a bloody theme park. Admit making DPS wait 15 minutes because you can't entertain healers some more, please.

[Reclaim]

So depending on the amount of exp you gain from gathering nodes; Does that mean that the dudes serious on server first 85s will be running 2 gathering profs?

Hmm.

[peaman]

I think Nov 2nd sounds about right, they will try not to release it too close to christmas and thanksgiving, cause after all blizzard are people too ( i think), don't think we'll hear it officialy until the first week or October

[Deleted]

The worst crap I've ever heard a Blizzard employee spell out. So faction balance is enough of an issue to literally butcher your lore and feel to the game for an entire expansion, but class role balance and people spending their time PLAYING the game WAITING to play the game isn't?

I know that the solution isn't to make healers super boring to play, but it doesn't have to be that way either. You could stop being so afraid of healers doing something else than besides healing in the dungeon like say, damage that's not completely pathetic? Like healing spells giving procs that can be used both offensively and defensively, like in the style of what you're doing with the Discipline Priest only without the need to literally choose between damage and healing talents.

I'm so tired of everything coming down to "Baaaw if we make healers fun to play in dungeons it'll ruin Pee vee pee!" and the alternate being directly admitting to purposely make players have queues to run a dungeon like a bloody theme park. Admit making DPS wait 15 minutes because you can't entertain healers some more, please.

First of all, they are increasing the damage healers can do. You can't really make healers do as good dps as the real dpsers though as then there would be no point in rolling pure dps classes.

Secondly, they DID admit they can't really make healing more entertaining for the masses without making it too easy. It just is not possible to cater to both the group who can't heal properly and need to be held by the hand and those who can heal properly and enjoy healing when it's challenging. Those are just too contradictory groups.

It'd be really silly if healing was suddenly made so god damn easy that any kind of a retard could come and keep the group alive without any effort. Atleast now it requires a person who is genuinely interested in such.

[Bogrim]

First of all, they are increasing the damage healers can do. You can't really make healers do as good dps as the real dpsers though as then there would be no point in rolling pure dps classes.

That's not really the problem either, is it. We're looking at the core of it at this moment - when players get better, and not just in terms of gear, then healing becomes mind-numbingly easier. Everyone looks back at TBC as "the real heroics" where some instances were still challenging long into the end of the expansion - except for the healer's challenge, which *always* lessened when the players did their job right. And at the same time you see healers complaining about those mistakes, complaining about DPS not watching out for avoidable damage and tanks not being properly geared, because it makes their job harder and not always doable. You can't just narrow it down to "there would be no point if healers could-" or "it wouldn't work if healing was too easy-".

Secondly, they DID admit they can't really make healing more entertaining for the masses without making it too easy. It just is not possible to cater to both the group who can't heal properly and need to be held by the hand and those who can heal properly and enjoy healing when it's challenging. Those are just too contradictory groups.

If only there was some way to specialize the classes like say, points you could spend making choices for how your class should excel to satisfy players of different tastes. Talent specs have become incredibly static and lack their original purpose for a very long time. Now that talents are being revamped, now is the time to expand the concept and allow more flexibility in the player's choices other than "Should I go for Cauterize or Blazing Speed for survival".

They said they'd get rid of static talents, but going down the talent trees I still see plenty of them. Talents which could have been replaced with actual choices to how you want to play your healer. Here's a suggestion for a talent of such nature; "When you overheal a target, you have a percentage chance to empower your next Smite spell enough to make it worth casting." Whoops, suddenly topping people off in a boring run would still let the healer take some interest in running the dungeon.

Alternatively, you can give the healer choices like Paladins are getting with Holy Power. Make them spend their resources, and allow it to be turned into damage if there's not a need for healing at the present moment.