[WoW] Sell/Unsell me

[Darmalus]

I'm in favor of all of these except how Hard Modes are activated, but I don't really feel all that strongly about that anyway.

I really hope that the extra 25 loot bonus isn't just more gear/emblems. Maybe faster Guild Leveling progress, or gold/gems/raid crafting materials, not just extra epics.

I am very happy about many smaller raids, big raids are epic and all, but I'll be lucky if I see the Lich King before Deathwing blows up the planet.

[D.Turtle]

Well, thats the end of 25-player raids.

It simply is too difficult to find 25 players of a similar skill level and with the same motivations.

[Ghost Rider]

LOL, ah now this will splinter guilds. Namely ones who do 25 man but are really 10-15 real players and idiots who walk into slime/fire, can't follow the dumbest directions and the reason the ADR add-on is even looked at. Locking 10/25 basically tells most guilds which is less stress. And even for high end, it's tempting to go "Fuck making sure 25 perfect". Because right now, we are experiencing the joys of what Premo has. Yeah we are doing Heroic LK, but on some attempts we get some failure and Arthas gets another good laugh.

As for the loot changes? Even funnier because they better fucking get it right. I've been sick and was sick of going "Sure, I'll do the 10 man...25% of the shit there is my BiS.". Yeah, yeah experience the dungeon. Aside from the some of Ulduar and the LK? This expansion hasn't been much. Sadly, I am looking at Cataclysm as barely more of the same except I can fly everywhere instead of just the two other places.

Now, I do wonder what they mean about making 10/25 closer. The largest problem is logisitics, and so far the only thing they indicated is that they are going to tighten it up. So is 25 going to be the exact same encounter but more HP, or will 10 man be harder to get done because more shit is going around. Given the philosophy I'll bet the former before the latter.

And the return of gating and heroic toggle...nevermind Blizzard. Really unless you have a heroic Yogg or Arthas at the end, people will destroy your heroic mode, complain louder and you'll be wondering yet again how the fuck did the top 100 destroy your oh-so fabled dungeon. Just make it as you wanted. Make it towards the casual crowd and stop dangling this half assed shit. The top 100-1000 may get ticked, but they'll sort it out along those lines, and everyone else gets to see your dungeon and face your hard crafted move-out of fire, Bad Voice Acted, reused graphic loot pinantas. Except Deathwing. Hopefully you'll fucking do something nice for him like you did Arthas.

Oh, and one last thing. I hope they keep the buff player mechanic. Why? Because if you can't kill regular Arthas with a 30% buff(when it comes out) before Cata? Look for a better PuG. This is leagues better then their hamfisted bullshit of nerfing things far worse then a mere 30% buff.

[Minischoles]

Saw a preview for changes to raiding progression.

Here's what they plan to do:
1. Reduce difficulty gap between 10 and 25
2. 10 and 25 share a raid lockout
3. 10 and 25 drop same gear
4. 25 will drop more gear, gold, and badges per person (If a boss on 10 drops 2 pieces, the 25 version might drop 6+)
5. Gated raids will still exist, but limited attempts won't
6. Hardmodes activated by toggle (like ICC) instead of in-game actions (ie Ulduar)
7. Early raids will be balanced around wearing 85 dungeon blues
8. More patches will have multiple smaller raids as opposed to one big one (or, in the case of TOC, one small one)

There is one word for this: retarded. As GR said, this is pretty much going to shatter more casual guilds, since they're usually 10 or so officers and friends carrying 15 less able people. When they can get the same loot from 10man, why bother with the carrying?

They can't even balance the game properly as it is right now, when they're trying to balance 10 and 25 man, to not only be close in difficulty, but to be close in difficulty for heroic mode as well, you're going to end up with one of two scenarios:
1) 10man being dribbler friendly, where you can go in with any retarded comp and win. And equally, 25man will be completely watered down, and it'll be the death of any serious raiding guild within WoW

2) 25man will be quite hard, and similarly 10man will have to be hard. And that'll mean all fun stuff like class and buff stacking.

Don't try and give any bullshit about spreading out buffs, because they did that for WOTLK, and it's utter bullshit. 10man either has to be incredibly easy, or the moment you come to a hard fight you start the stacking. For example, back when Sartharion was actually current content, you used to stack the shit out of your 10man group to get him down. Now in ICC, the group I do it with is nearly all casters, except for 1 hunter that we use for physical damage on Deathwhisper.

10man always has the restriction, that you can either go mostly melee, or mostly caster. You can't possible balance both, without homogenising the game even more. And don't even get me started on how Blizzard has fucked up balance. Sartharion 3D in 10man is another example, since back when it was current, it was actually the hardest content in the game, since 10man restricts your comp so much.


Gated Raids - FUCK YOU Blizzard, stop fucking arbitrarily deciding how much I can play your fucking game. If I want to spend hours upon hours pounding through your dungeon on the first day it comes out, fucking let me. Don't gate my progress, just so you can stretch out a raid for even longer and be lazy little shits in game design. Case in point, ToTC, the gated instance, was utterly retarded because all of the fights were stupidly easy, yet because you gated it, it lasted a good few weeks, not because of any good design on boss fights, but because of some arbitrary bullshit.

Gated raids, just lead to lazy fight design, because Blizzard doesn't have to bother making a hard boss that will keep guilds interested, they can simply design shitty bosses, but then just make people wait. The heroic toggle is just pure laziness.
Ulduar is the stand out instance of this expansion, almost always when you get a group of raiders together, they'll say Ulduar. The perfect blend of easy and hard fights in normal mode, and nearly all the heroics had an interesting way to access them, and most importantly that heroic mode WAS ACTUALLY HARDER instead of just being more hp/damage. Just take a look at the difference between the fight boss, Flame Leviathon on normal and with 4 towers up. The fight is almost completely different, adding so many new mechanics that it becomes a true test of skill. Or even something like XT, or Thorim. Not even mentioning the best fights like Iron Council, Freya (pre nerf), Vezax and Yogg, and the absolute best fight in the game, right up there with pre-nerf Mu'ru - Mimiron hardmode before it got nerfed. I absolutely loved that fight, and it's a real pity we won't see it's like again.

[Civil War Man]

New info on the badge system. Stuff will no longer drop badges, but give points (like PvP).

Hero points - Heroics
Valor points - Daily randoms and raids
Honor points - Battlegrounds and world PvP
Conquest points - Arena and rated battlegrounds

Valor and Conquest will buy the top-tier PvE and PvP gear, respectively. Hero and Honor will buy the lower tier. Going back to their progression changes, killing a boss in 25 mode will give you more Valor than killing it in 10 mode.

When a new tier is released, any Valor points you have are converted to Hero points, and Conquest points are converted to Honor points. Probably to prevent pre-patch hoarding. Presumably the gear that was top-tier before the patch would then be repriced to be purchasable with Hero or Honor.

All points will have a cap for how many you can have at one time. Valor and Conquest will also have a cap for how many you can earn a week (probably so hardmode raiders no longer have to feel obligated to run daily heroics to maximize points).

PvE points can be converted to PvP points, and vice versa, but not 1:1, so you'd be converting at a loss.

Also rating requirements for high-end PvP gear are going away. If you grind the Arena or Rated BGs enough, you'll eventually get that PvP weapon.

[Ghost Rider]

New info on the badge system. Stuff will no longer drop badges, but give points (like PvP).

Hero points - Heroics
Valor points - Daily randoms and raids
Honor points - Battlegrounds and world PvP
Conquest points - Arena and rated battlegrounds

Okay, not too bad really. A decent split versus gather 200 badges.

Valor and Conquest will buy the top-tier PvE and PvP gear, respectively. Hero and Honor will buy the lower tier. Going back to their progression changes, killing a boss in 25 mode will give you more Valor than killing it in 10 mode.

Motivation, but a bit of the wrong since it's the problem of how much a difference and challenge.

When a new tier is released, any Valor points you have are converted to Hero points, and Conquest points are converted to Honor points. Probably to prevent pre-patch hoarding. Presumably the gear that was top-tier before the patch would then be repriced to be purchasable with Hero or Honor.

Same as it's always been, except PvP will be different. Unless they make all the PvP items need the higher points(meaning trinkets and cloaks) are all needing the higher for current, it will difficult. Likely PvP is going to get screwed harder by the grinding needs.

All points will have a cap for how many you can have at one time. Valor and Conquest will also have a cap for how many you can earn a week (probably so hardmode raiders no longer have to feel obligated to run daily heroics to maximize points).

Now this can lead into fuck up land for PvE. Usually I horde badges not because of hodring but I need two items to make the set or even the stats to work. If a cloak is better overall except it lacks Hit, I see what I can get or see if buying two-three pieces will circumvent RNG. This means I have to be more at the mercy of RNG. Not really a great direction, especially in light of the fact the points get converted anyways to...prevent hording.

PvE points can be converted to PvP points, and vice versa, but not 1:1, so you'd be converting at a loss.

Which means nothing to those that raid enough. So they are getting better shots at weapons, and getting more to spend on PvP. Unless the cost is massive.

Also rating requirements for high-end PvP gear are going away. If you grind the Arena or Rated BGs enough, you'll eventually get that PvP weapon.

LOL, *snerk*

I agree with the weapon since I always found it funny how fucking stupid it was. The reason people PvPed for the weapon? Because your RNG blew fucking donkey balls Blizzard. You want all of your classes dependant on weapons(physical more then magical) but have them drop basically 1-2 per raid. And now less raid bosses? So, yeah...

Still the QQing will be immense on the reversion and Blizzard will either change it back when Season 12 comes around or something. Why Season 12? Because the end game DPS goes fucking absurd ...again... and Blizzard will be complaining about people destroying their hard work too quickly.

[Minischoles]

Yay - welcome back the TBC pvp grind. Forget not wanting to pvp at all, if you can't get your weapon through pve, have fun grinding out umpteen numbers of points to get a pvp weapon to stay competitive.

If anything, this is going to be one gigantic grind fest. And it runs into a problem, that was aptly described over on the US forums.

Where do you draw the line? lets say the weapons for pvp have tons of resilience on them, to discourage use in pve. They'd have to have so much on them, that they'd lose a lot of dps stats, and suddenly pve weapons are best for pvp again. Or you can itemise them normally, in which case, pvp weapons become equal with raid gear. This will be even funnier, when you'll be able to have a 95% loss rate in Rated BGs and Arena, yet as long as you've got the patience, eventually you'll get a hardmode level weapon.

I've always been for rating requirements. You should have to earn something like that, by getting better at the game. The same as people who get Shadowmourne, they're generally going to be pretty decent at the pve side of the game, since they're in a guild that can access the bosses they need to achieve it. In Cata, even if you completely suck balls, you're still going to get the same gear eventually.

Hell at least this will (hopefully) stop the sub 1800 whiners who complain that if they had pvp weapons they'd hit high rating. No doubt these same people will be the ones getting destroyed in rated BGs and arenas in Cata. While gear makes some difference above 2k rating, the gear is pretty much the same - even including the powerful pve trinkets, and then the difference comes down to skill over gear.

[Ghost Rider]

Actually for PvP weapon, they really should've made something that was above the crafted but below the season weapon. Something no can go "Oh, ah" over, but enough to satisfy those bitching with something that is 200 DPS.

But as for grinding, of course a return to it. Hell this expansion is having more and more earmarks of TBC with some pickings from WotLK.

[Civil War Man]

There was a clarification on PvP weapons from Bornakk. Apparently ratings aren't going away entirely. Conquest points will be able to buy a weapon on par with one that drops from a normal mode raid boss. They will also be able to buy a weapon on par with one that drops from a hard mode raid boss if you have a high enough personal PvP rating.

[Minischoles]

Bumping this, since as per usual, Boubouille over at mmo-champion is doing his work with the alpha stuff, posting a lot of information about it, especially a ton of screenshots, and at least a very very very early version of the talent trees we'll be looking at. Got all kinds of cool stuff like world maps and screenshots of areas.

All I can say so far, is Orgimmar looks really really good with the changes, and some of the new world maps look prospectively pretty damn nice.

[Ghost Rider]

A couple bits.

1. Orgimmar looks nicer. So does the other parts, but particularly the change to the main Horde city involving the reflection of change.

2. Finally we get enchants of Str/Agi, and a real fucking movement enchant. The other enchants are stanard reflections of the expansion. I hate that I have to rely upon Cat's Grace.

3. Tailor taking a week per cloth piece? Oh yes...people are going to their friend's alts for this.

[Minischoles]

A couple bits.

1. Orgimmar looks nicer. So does the other parts, but particularly the change to the main Horde city involving the reflection of change.

2. Finally we get enchants of Str/Agi, and a real fucking movement enchant. The other enchants are stanard reflections of the expansion. I hate that I have to rely upon Cat's Grace.

3. Tailor taking a week per cloth piece? Oh yes...people are going to their friend's alts for this.

Yeah, number 3 is pretty much the reason I already have 3 of my 70+ chars with tailoring, and i'll pretty much be keeping them that way. Tailoring cloths being on that kind of CD is going to make me bloody rich, everyone is going to be beggining alts and tailor friends to save CDs for them.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm seeing some crazy stuff! Thousand Needles flooded and pirates sailing through... new farms in western plaguelands, and a goblin golf course in azhara.

What. The. Balls.

[Ghost Rider]

A couple bits.

1. Orgimmar looks nicer. So does the other parts, but particularly the change to the main Horde city involving the reflection of change.

2. Finally we get enchants of Str/Agi, and a real fucking movement enchant. The other enchants are stanard reflections of the expansion. I hate that I have to rely upon Cat's Grace.

3. Tailor taking a week per cloth piece? Oh yes...people are going to their friend's alts for this.

Yeah, number 3 is pretty much the reason I already have 3 of my 70+ chars with tailoring, and i'll pretty much be keeping them that way. Tailoring cloths being on that kind of CD is going to make me bloody rich, everyone is going to be beggining alts and tailor friends to save CDs for them.

Of all my professions, I will admit this makes the burst income for nearly no effort.

Gathering is time consuming for little results in comparison. Some of them are also...too mercurial to the market. Flasks/gems sell nicely when raids are fresh and people are regemming and pushing. Later on, guilds provide partials. Though enchant mats are always awesome depending on if you have access for tailored/JC goods.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Also... Deathwing. Hell yeah.

[Kuja]

Also... Deathwing. Hell yeah.

Now that's the shit I'm talking about. A dragon who looks like he tried to fuck a locomotive and just left the pieces hanging off him out of spite.

[SirNitram]

I may be the only one, but fuck yes, this is the art style I love.

I am a far more casual player, raid wise(My current guild runs weekly 10mans, and we only just got to reliably downing Rotface.), but this mostly sounds better to me. I don't come to raid constantly. I love raids, especially with fun mechanics(Flame Leviathan and the Airship Battle are my favorite, as they are far from normal.), but I'm also a HUGE DORK who likes storylines. The DK starting zone is pure win, and I hope it's a model for the new ones(Worgen, Troll, Goblin..).

[Teleros]

but I'm also a HUGE DORK who likes storylines. The DK starting zone is pure win, and I hope it's a model for the new ones(Worgen, Troll, Goblin..).

Worgen & Goblin zones should be like it I think. Dunno about troll & gnome starting areas - from what I've seen they'll be done in more traditional ways.

[Ghost Rider]

Ony Undead?! Goddamn, let the bitch die. Hell, her 80 version was sad because it killed raids because they were so incompetent that they didn't get things like "Don't stand behind the dragon".

Giant Waterspout Guy is interesting design in that they put more into him then color Rags blue.

Again, I want to see what they really do to the mechanics because for me...a lot of WoW died with the LK. Sure, Deathwing was always out there, and hints of his plans scattered throughout both expansions. But he's lifeless. They need to give him at least the presence of Nefarion without screwing it up.

So far, sadly the alpha is not drawing me. This is with the changes they proposed to the classes and going "Yeah, we're going to rape you."

[Civil War Man]

Ony Undead?! Goddamn, let the bitch die. Hell, her 80 version was sad because it killed raids because they were so incompetent that they didn't get things like "Don't stand behind the dragon".

On the topic of undead Onyxia, it is a very nice touch that the model has stitches going around the neck. So they do acknowledge that they had to sew her head back on.

[Darmalus]

The only thing I'm not sold on is the RealID, with my friends friends being able to see me. I think I shall opt out until that is either optional or removed. Judging from the WoW forums, I am not alone in my concern here.

Other than that, I can't wait for Cataclysm!

[Civil War Man]

The RealID thing is optional. In order for people to be able to talk to you through that they have to 1) know your battle.net ID, and 2) have you approve of them adding you to that friends list.

[Minischoles]

Little more is being revealed about the alpha, including this very spoilerific little SS and dialogue, basically setting out how the Trolls get themselves expelled from Orgimmar.


Vol'jin
Spoiler

Garrosh Hellscream: Don't talk back to me, troll. You know who was left in charge here. Have you not stopped to ask yourself why Thrall chose me instead of you?

Vol'Jin: Dere's no question why, Garrosh. He gave ya the title because he needed ta see once and for all if ya could overcome the pride and bloodlust dat have long run in ya family. I t'ink he did not expect de answer to be apparent so soon.

Garrosh Hellscream: You're lucky I don't gut you right here, whelp. You are foolish to think you can speak to your Warchief in such ways.

Vol'Jin: You're no Warchief of mine. Ya've not earned my respect, and I'll not see the Horde destroyed by ya thirst for war.

Garrosh Hellscream: And what exactly do you think that you are going to do about it? Your threats are hollow. Go slink away with the rest of your kind to the slums; I will endure your filth in my throne room no longer.

Vol'Jin: I know exactly what I am going to do about it, son of Hellscream. I will watch and wait as ya people slowly become aware of ya ineptitude. I will laugh as dey grow to despise ya as I do.

Vol'Jin: And when da time comes dat ya failure is complete and ya "power" is meaningless, I will be dere to end ya rule swiftly and silently.

Vol'Jin: Ya will spend ya reign glancin' over ya shoulder and fearin' the shadows, for when da time comes and ya blood slowly drains out, ya will know exactly who fired da arrow dat pierced ya heart.

Garrosh Hellscream: You have sealed your fate, troll.

Garrosh spits at Vol'Jin.

Vol'Jin: And you yours, "Warchief."

[White Haven]

Thrall is such a tool for leaving him in charge.

[Teleros]

Pretty much. Reminds me (again) of that thread where people were offering alternative warchiefs to Garrosh. As I recall a Basic Campfire did pretty well...