I have a Hanns-G HW191A monitor and a very old particle board desk with a nice finish layer. I need a new desk sometime soon, but I just like drawing on this one.
I consider myself a smart internet browser and have yet to ever be logged, but I sometimes type my password in wrong every once in a while, and on occasion I have screwed up multiple times...yeah 6.50 was well worth not getting that couple of seconds when your heart stops.
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Ouch. Just got a random heroic with a horrible DK tank, in half DPS gear, not even close to the Def Cap. I just alt-tabbed. I'll try again in like 10 minutes. This is just really, really bad. And I'm partially drunk. And there's no excuse for this guy to make me do something.
L Ron Howard on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
That guy needs two things: Anger management and a new girlfriend.
I'm so glad I have a GF who plays WoW too and would never ever pull that shit.
That stupid authenticator is only cheap if you're blessed enough to live in the USA. I wanted one for a while, but I was NOT paying 20 bucks for it. .
Indeed. This is SO fucking annoying. I really hope they toss them in every Cataclysm box. Or at least have a special edition of the box with them inside or something.
But seriously, I like the Battle.net intergration thing, but for the love of god why is my email the account name? WTF Blizzard?
I officially hate what I've done to myself over the past week.
I am now 4/5 T9, and have the ilvl 245 helm, all from running heroics. I bought the greatness card, some ilvl 264 boots, won a new trinket (NES), a new neck (ymir something something) and the edge of ruin. I have replaced every single slot except my cloak (probably my first frost purchase when i get enough)... and STILL have not the illusive GS to run anything, at all.
What happened to this game while I was away?
notmetalenough on
Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
I officially hate what I've done to myself over the past week.
I am now 4/5 T9, and have the ilvl 245 helm, all from running heroics. I bought the greatness card, some ilvl 264 boots, won a new trinket (NES), a new neck (ymir something something) and the edge of ruin. I have replaced every single slot except my cloak (probably my first frost purchase when i get enough)... and STILL have not the illusive GS to run anything, at all.
What happened to this game while I was away?
People stopped using gearscore as a method of assessing the potential performance of an individual and started treating it like the sum totality of a person's situational awareness, raid knowledge, personal initiative, and skill.
This hasn't worked out so well.
As a consequence, the average GS required to get into any end-game instance has inflated, in many cases far beyond what's required for it to be on farm, in an attempt to compensate for idiots you invariably pick up who still have great gear.
GS is basically the worst thing to happen to this game in quite some time.
Arkady on
LoL: failboattootoot
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Path of the Titans is gone
The whole Path of the Titans idea has been removed from the game. It will no longer rely on Archeology or on any kind of PvE/PvP progression and instead Blizzard will just introduce a new type of glyphs: Medium Glyphs.
Medium Glyphs will add a "fun factor" to abilities, and it wouldn't be surprising to see something similar to the Fortification or Breakthrough glyphs first previewed during the Blizzcon. (But probably not these exact glyphs, a lot of stuff happened since last year)
No wonder they hadn't revealed any information about it.
Also gone: guild talent points.
Guild Talents are gone
The guild talents are gone and your guild now gets extra bonuses depending on its level. There are 25 levels and each level will automatically reward with more cool stuff. The leveling process remains unchanged and your guild will gain experience through PvP, Dungeon and Raid progression, questing, etc ...
Guild currency has also been removed and rewards will just be "unlocked" after you reach a specific level or complete a guild achievement. Once a reward is unlocked, members will be able to purchase it with gold. Some of the rewards include guild tabards, mounts, heirlooms, and it looks like you will finally be able to have a guild tabard on your mount. (Just like the Argent Tournament banners)
New members of a guild won't be able to buy everything directly, they will have to contribute to the progression of the guild before they can access the top rewards. Each time a player helps towards the leveling he will gain reputation with the guild, the best rewards will require players to be exalted with their guild before they can buy it.
Seriously, i'd shit a brick of happiness if they removed gearscore. As it is, I can't get into ICC, because I need better gear, which I need to get FROM ICC.
edit: All that guild stuff sounds awesome. Highly approve.
edit2: And Path of the Titans being removed entirely is kinda sad. Archaeology sounded a lot cooler before it became Fishing 2.
edit3: THE PRINCESS! SHE IS BEAUTIFUL.
Deepholm
Princess Therazane (yes, that's her) will be a questgiver in Deepholm, in a similar experience to the Sons of Hodir's questline in Storm Peaks.
I'm confused though. Theradras is the hilarious boss in Marudon. Therazane is supposed to be her mom. So she wouldn't be a Princess really.
Seriously, i'd shit a brick of happiness if they removed gearscore. As it is, I can't get into ICC, because I need better gear, which I need to get FROM ICC.
edit: All that guild stuff sounds awesome. Highly approve.
edit2: And Path of the Titans being removed entirely is kinda sad. Archaeology sounded a lot cooler before it became Fishing 2.
The only way I could see to definitively break GS would be to eliminate item levels entirely.
Which stopping to think about it... wouldn't be that horrible an idea. Still have item stats per normal, just eliminate the whole item level tab in the spreadsheet before putting the item in. Technically, nothing should be broken. And in a way, it kind of fits with Blizz's view on items. They don't want people just looking at the bare item level and saying "that number is higher, therefore that's an upgrade", they've always said they want people to think about their gear. With no more ilevel to look at, people will pay more attention to actual stats. And there'll be no more bullshit number for GS to output.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
Path of the Titans: Removed!
Blizzard has scrapped the entire Path of the Titans progression system. As it is, it may be coming back—but not likely.
Tom Chilton explained that Blizzard had spent a long time working on the Path of the Titans system, trying to balance making it complicated enough to be interesting, but simple enough to be understandable. At the end of the day, they realized that they had ripped it all down until it resembled an upgrade to the glyph system. Simultaneously, they felt that the Glyph system wasn't as much of a game-changer in WotLK as they had originally wanted it to be, so they've decided instead to scrap the Path of the Titans concept, and instead focus on making the glyph system into the feature they had originally wanted.
Glyph System Changes
To accomplish this, they've added a new tier of glyphs: Medium Glyphs. Tom explained that in Wrath, people were really powergaming their glyph choices—that glyphs, like talents, had gotten to a point where everyone agreed on what the "best" glyphs were for each class and spec, and anyone who chose otherwise was dumb. With medium glyphs, they're trying to break that system up a bit—major glyphs are still critical, but minor and medium glyphs have more flexibility.
On the UI side, there have also been a few changes—I was asked not to take photos, but the glyph UI now lists all the possible glyphs for your class. Tom Chilton pointed out that up until now there had been no way to get a complete list of all your possible glyphs in-game—the only option was to go to the Auction House and look through what was available (or to patronize our own fine establishment).
There was also talk about making glyphs permanent rather than consumable—so that as soon as you used a glyph for the first time, it was added to your "list", and thereafter you could rearrange your glyphs later on as you chose.
Guild Advancement
Guild Reputation
Firstly, the whole guild currency idea has been scrapped. The rewards that they had originally had in mind for that system, like special guild tabards and mounts (with your guild insignia on them and everything!) are now unlocked by guild achievements. Rather than buying them with guild currency, you buy them with simple gold—but which rewards you can buy is restricted by your guild reputation.
You farm guild rep by doing four things:
Completing quests
Doing rated Battlegrounds
Killing raid bosses (to get credit, the raid that downs the boss must be mostly comprised of guild members—7/10 for 10-mans, and 20/25 for 25-mans)
Earning guild achievements
Basically, you'll be farming rep with your guild in exactly the same way you would farm any endgame rep—and the rewards will (presumably) be similar. A final decision hasn't been made yet about how guild reputation will transfer (if at all) between alts, but they did say that leaving a guild won't immediately wipe your guild reputation—though joining a new guild probably will.
Guild Achievements
Some examples of possible guild achievements were offered:
10,000 total quests completed
Having a max-rank of every profession
Having an 85 of every class
etc.
In addition, some of the existing achievements (like the classic raiding meta) are being converted into guild achievements, to give players a reason to go back and do them. This allows players to farm achievements to help their guild's rank and their guild reputation, even if they already have them all.
As it stands now, guild achievements will be retained by the guild, even if all the members of the guild who were present when the achievement was earned have left the guild. The guild achievement pane actually lists the guild members who were present at the time the achievement was originally earned.
Guild Leveling
The whole guild talents idea has been scrapped as well. Tom Chilton talked for a while about the issues they faced—Can only the guild leader pick the talents? Do you have respecs? Who pays for them? How do you make all the players feel involved? Do you min-max builds, so that all guilds feel the same? Instead, they've altered it to a simpler system: each guild progresses normally from level 1 to level 25, and gains a new perk at each level—just like a character learning new spells. The guild menu will now show you what your existing perks are, and what the perks will be come the next guild level. No information was given about how exactly guilds would progress, but it's easy to guess at possible methods—raiding, group pvp, guild achievements, etc.
New Guild Interface
Another thing I was frustrated not to be able to photograph, guilds now have a fully revamped interface with a lot of long-awaited features.
First of all, there's a new guild landing page, with a news feed—something broadly similar to the character feed for individual characters on the Armory, but for the entire guild—listing recent successes in raiding, new characters hitting max level, etc. You can also flag items as "sticky", in case you want to make sure the Message of the Day stays up there, or you're exceptionally proud of a recent kill.
In addition, the guild roster is now filterable. You can now see the professions of your guild members from the guild menu—and sort players by profession. This enables you to do things like searching for a crafter in your guild who can make the item you need, so you can easily contact them—a HUGE time-saver.
Raids
10-Mans and 25-Mans
You guys already know that Blizzard is planning to consolidate 10-man and 25-man raiding into less of a difficulty setting and more of a playstyle choice. This means that 10-man and 25-man encounters will be designed to have roughly the same difficulty level, and will drop items from the same loot table. To compensate for the additional logistical hassle of getting 25 players online rather than 10, Blizzard will be giving out more loot per player in 25-mans—specifically, about 50% more. It was strongly hinted that this extra loot would come in the form of Emblems.
What they hadn't announced previously is the ability to "downshift" your raid. Imagine if you do a 25-man run of a new instance, get about halfway through, and call it a night. The next day you get back together to do another run, but—big surprise—only 20 people show up. Well, now you can "downshift" your raid into two separate 10-man groups, and just keep right on going. The maximum number of 10-mans you can make out of one 25-man is three—meaning, if the remaining five guys show up the next day, they can swap down to a 10-man as well and keep right on going.
Blizzard is not allowing players to "upshift". They explained that they felt this would cause a lot of pressure on guild to pull some really unpleasant maneuvers—for instance, stripping out the bottom 15 players to do some particularly difficult encounter, and then inviting them all back in for trash. They figured the legitimate use-cases for upshifting a raid were much more rare.
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
New Zones
Stormwind
Has been completely redesigned to accomodate fly-overs. A lot of attention specifically has been paid to Stormwind Keep.
A second trade district—mailbox, auction house, bank, etc.—has been added to the Dwarven District.
On the way out of Blackrock mountain, Deathwing has destroyed the Park completely. Have no fear—the druid trainers have relocated.
They've added some new areas in the back—some lake area, as well as a city cemetery. Some quests have been added here to help flesh them out.
Orgrimmar
Garrosh is hanging out in the center of Orgimmar, not the Valley of Wisdom. A metaphor?
The goblins have their own area, the Goblin Slums, in the west end of the Valley of Spirits. Garrosh doesn't think much of them.
There is a second trade district in Orgrimmar too—in the Valley of Honor. They're also adding more forges.
The Valley of Wisdom is now a Tauren district.
There's now a back gate, leading into Azshara—providing a convenient entrance for goblins leveling through that zone.
The Drag is the only throwback to old Orgrimmar.
The Bastion of Twilight
This will be a raid offshoot of Grim Batol, run by the Twilight's Hammer.
This is the "Naxxramas" of Cataclysm—entry level raiding.
5 boss fights, plus a sixth Algalon-style optional, ultra-hard boss.
Will include a "council" fight of Twilight Ascendants, cultist ascended into elementals
Final (non-optional) boss: Cho'gall!
Skywall
The elemental plane of air, home to both a dungeon and a raid
Vortex Pinnacle: 5-man, will battle against the minions of Al'Akir the Windlord. Bosses include a djinn, a storm dragon, and a lesser elemental lord
You will be able to use your flying mount to fly from platform to platform (real mount, unlike The Oculus)
Raid is similar to this, but larger in scope—you WILL fight Al'Akir himself
Holy cow I wish I could take pictures, this place looks gorgeous. It's like a cross between Ulduar, Dalaran, and clouds.
Deepholm
The Orgrim's Hammer has crash-landed in this zone! The Skybreaker is still in the air, and you will be tasked with finding out what happened!
Deepholm USED to be settled, but when Deathwing broke out of the Earth temple, the whole zone became disrupted.
Therazane the Stonemother will be hanging out here. She'll run a quest hub with dailies and a rep similar to the Sons of Hodir, but, you know, better.
Uldum
This is like WoW does Egypt. Like titan architecture, but with squares and pyramids instead of circles and globes.
Denizens of Uldum are called the "Tol'Vir", and are connected somehow with Al'Akir's wind elementals.
Other Juicy Tidbits
The Shimmering Flats is mostly submerged, but the majority of the gameplay still takes place above water.
You will be hearing brand new music in familiar zones.
The Forsaken are coming into their own—you'll be seeing their own unique architecture as they spread across Silverpine Forest and other zones.
When you gain a level, an announcement appears in the center of the screen letting you know what new abilities you have access to, and advising you to see your trainer. Skills you're leveled for but haven't trained yet will be marked as such in your spellbook.
Archaeology will let you find two types of items—Common Artifacts, which are kind of a collection game where you're trying to find all of the artifacts for a particular race, and Rare Items which will produce actual usable items. Most Rare Items will be cosmetic only, but a few will have actual effects.
Cross-server raiding still hasn't been solved. They're working on it, but it's not there yet.
There will be more Algalon-style encounters—ultra-hard optional bosses for hardcore players only.
The current heirlooms will stop growing after level 80. There will be a whole new crop of heirlooms for Cataclysm. Goblins and Worgen will be able to start using heirlooms immediately at launch.
Wrath of the Lich King had about 1000 new quests. Cataclysm has over 3000.
Raids & Dungeons Split
Raid leaders will be able to split an ongoing 25-man raid into up to three 10-man raids. Those 10-man raids will be able to continue from that point on, with bosses already down.
So far it looks like it won't be possible to merge 10-man raids into 25-man raids, for obvious reasons.
Remember that lockout system we were talking about last thread?
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
Gearscore isn't going away. We all hate it, but there's simply no way to disable it.
Force item levels to be hidden? At the very least, make it count gems and enchants?
Sounds annoying as fuck for everyone involved. Item Levels are very useful for looking at your own gear.
As long as there is /inspect, there will be Gearscore or something like it. Get used to it.
Annoying how? Why? If you want to look at your gear... then look at your gear. What ultimate use is it to know that this item is 219, but this one is 226? Other than it being a super basic indicator that one is better than the other... but then again, that was supposed basis for GS to begin with, before people degenerated into stupid laziness. If you want to know why item A is better than item B, you can look at the actual stats it's changing. If you're looking solely at the ilevel to determine upgrades, you're just being a lazy bum.
I really don't see what would drastically change if they removed the number, other than people would actually have to look at their gear more.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
I am really not mourning the death of Path of the Titans or Guild Talent Trees. The first looked like a universal balancing nightmare since all the classes could use the same items but could be affected by their individual skills. The latter prevents guild abandoning because of "less than optimal talent builds."
Gearscore isn't going away. We all hate it, but there's simply no way to disable it.
Force item levels to be hidden? At the very least, make it count gems and enchants?
Sounds annoying as fuck for everyone involved. Item Levels are very useful for looking at your own gear.
As long as there is /inspect, there will be Gearscore or something like it. Get used to it.
Annoying how? Why? If you want to look at your gear... then look at your gear. What ultimate use is it to know that this item is 219, but this one is 226? Other than it being a super basic indicator that one is better than the other... but then again, that was supposed basis for GS to begin with, before people degenerated into stupid laziness. If you want to know why item A is better than item B, you can look at the actual stats it's changing. If you're looking solely at the ilevel to determine upgrades, you're just being a lazy bum.
I really don't see what would drastically change if they removed the number, other than people would actually have to look at their gear more.
They'd go back to "link ach plz."
Also, this was the thing that tried tanking. I have no problems with new 80s, but at least TRY and make it look like you're putting forth an effort... /me is still unnecessarily angry
Removing item levels is worthless if you can still read the stats of an item with an add-on. The GS numbers would change to totals of all stats on the gear. I would think removing this would break a ton of shit--and if not, someone would just make an add-on with an item database of stat totals that would effectively do the same thing(EDIT: like vendor prices back in the day, but a number that is str+agi+ratings+etc.)
Gearscore isn't going away. We all hate it, but there's simply no way to disable it.
Force item levels to be hidden? At the very least, make it count gems and enchants?
Sounds annoying as fuck for everyone involved. Item Levels are very useful for looking at your own gear.
As long as there is /inspect, there will be Gearscore or something like it. Get used to it.
Annoying how? Why? If you want to look at your gear... then look at your gear. What ultimate use is it to know that this item is 219, but this one is 226? Other than it being a super basic indicator that one is better than the other... but then again, that was supposed basis for GS to begin with, before people degenerated into stupid laziness. If you want to know why item A is better than item B, you can look at the actual stats it's changing. If you're looking solely at the ilevel to determine upgrades, you're just being a lazy bum.
I really don't see what would drastically change if they removed the number, other than people would actually have to look at their gear more.
They'd go back to "link ach plz."
Also, this was the thing that tried tanking. I have no problems with new 80s, but at least TRY and make it look like you're putting forth an effort... /me is still unnecessarily angry
That's fine, you can fake achievements. And I am also fine with elitist group, as it actually gives you a useful metric to judge someone on. But gs has the double whammy of being both a tool for massive elitism and completely useless for telling you anything useful about a person.
Remember that lockout system we were talking about last thread?
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
Hell ya!
How is it total freedom if I need to have a very specific set of bosses unkilled in order to join? :P
Remember that lockout system we were talking about last thread?
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
Hell ya!
How is it total freedom if I need to have a very specific set of bosses unkilled in order to join? :P
Your guild is running 2 10 person groups, both make it to the 6th boss and call it a night, next night one of the raids is running with people from the other raid and then 2 nights after that the other raid can run with people who missed the previous attempt.
Seg on
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
I guess i am one of the few disappointed people with the cuts. Path of the titans added some actual growth of something other than stats to the post game, and I have been killing for some "general customization" that would allow every class to pick from the same pool. Also guild talents would be fun too, although I think I can live without those as there most likely would just be a straight up cookie cutter guild anyway.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
I read that whole info dump as "Holy shit we have to finish this expansion soon! Get me the scissors!"
Most of the cut shit was fluff anyways.
I agree with Rorus, given that Path of the Titans was a major bullet point of the expansion it's absolutely ridiculous that it's been cut. That's not fluff, it was THE way your character was going to progress past 85, and was their sort of "out" for not having the full 10 levels of extra progression in this expansion. I realize that there's a lot going into Cataclysm already, but cutting a major feature like that is retarded.
And what do we get in its place: medium glyphs. Medium glyphs? Really? Consider now that we have Major and Minor glyphs, and for a lot of classes, most of the Minor Glyphs are shit and the major ones are mandatory. They haven't even fleshed those out well enough yet and now they're adding a third designation? Good christ.
Also, this little tidbit:
There was also talk about making glyphs permanent rather than consumable—so that as soon as you used a glyph for the first time, it was added to your "list", and thereafter you could rearrange your glyphs later on as you chose.
Guild Advancement
Say bye bye to making any money on Inscription (other than perhaps the bit from Vellums).
This is really discouraging news, and like Rorus said, just smacks of not being prepared (ha!). If there's a consolation to this at all, I hope this means that they will actually release the expansion sooner than October or November.
The apathay would be bad
O here they come again for the douchebag
Meh let them hopefully they don't mess with the ah again
Heh, I feel that way about it now. When I see people spamming "Oh no, the alliance is headed to Org", I can't help but think "So?".
The way it is now, we lose/gain nothing by defending the capital cities, and they rarely kill anyone of importance. I usually just figure it's better let them get through, kill the dudes and move on.
They'd almost have to introduce some buff or benefit gain for killing opposite-faction players inside your capital, and then figure out how to do it in such a way that doesn't promote collusion.
I officially hate what I've done to myself over the past week.
I am now 4/5 T9, and have the ilvl 245 helm, all from running heroics. I bought the greatness card, some ilvl 264 boots, won a new trinket (NES), a new neck (ymir something something) and the edge of ruin. I have replaced every single slot except my cloak (probably my first frost purchase when i get enough)... and STILL have not the illusive GS to run anything, at all.
What happened to this game while I was away?
I've got a few pieces of T10, the frost badge cape and a few other pieces of decent gear, but otherwise am still wearing 200/219 stuff on my rogue and I haven't had too much trouble getting into ICC. Although I do occasionally have the "I don't like how you're gemmed/enchanted/etc" thing, which is funny because seriously, not going to spend several hundred gold enchanting items that will be replaced within a raid or two.
edit: Oh shit, all that Cata news is wonderful. Better glyph choices makes me happy, and if they really do make "You had it once, you can use it forever" the new system with glyphs that'd be awesome too since it'd help kill some of the crazy gold inflation.
Also, hooray for no longer being stuck without finishing most of a raid after a pug raid falls apart partway through ICC on Tuesday.
Vincent Grayson on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Remember that lockout system we were talking about last thread?
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
Hell ya!
How is it total freedom if I need to have a very specific set of bosses unkilled in order to join? :P
You're right, if they're not going to completely remove the lockout function they shouldn't improve it in small ways at all.
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Also, Reforging changes:
Is reforging still in the games as it was rumored to be connected with Path of the Titans.
Yes its still ingame but its no longer part of a profession. There will be a seperate NPC to change Items for Gold. Its like a trade window..you choose the stat you want to replace..like 100 Stamina gets converted to 50 haste and 50 stamina.
Will there be any restrictions or cooldowns?
No cooldowns just some gold to reforge the item. But you can only reforge an item ONCE.
Say bye bye to making any money on Inscription (other than perhaps the bit from Vellums).
As someone who had his income gutted by the changes to disenchanting (and oh how everyone here told me to suck it up) allow me to be the first to play the world's tinniest violin for all the Inscriptionists.
Say bye bye to making any money on Inscription (other than perhaps the bit from Vellums).
As someone who had his income gutted by the changes to disenchanting (and oh how everyone here told me to suck it up) allow me to be the first to play the world's tinniest violin for all the Inscriptionists.
My main's an Enchanter too so I hear you, believe me, but making any profession go from profitable to goldsink (potentially) is moving in the wrong direction, in my opinion.
Posts
Monitor stand can also double as a USB steering wheel.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Also protects me from these events:
(There is a small f-bomb in there as a heads up)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGBOGamm1x4
I'm so glad I have a GF who plays WoW too and would never ever pull that shit.
Indeed. This is SO fucking annoying. I really hope they toss them in every Cataclysm box. Or at least have a special edition of the box with them inside or something.
But seriously, I like the Battle.net intergration thing, but for the love of god why is my email the account name? WTF Blizzard?
I am now 4/5 T9, and have the ilvl 245 helm, all from running heroics. I bought the greatness card, some ilvl 264 boots, won a new trinket (NES), a new neck (ymir something something) and the edge of ruin. I have replaced every single slot except my cloak (probably my first frost purchase when i get enough)... and STILL have not the illusive GS to run anything, at all.
What happened to this game while I was away?
People stopped using gearscore as a method of assessing the potential performance of an individual and started treating it like the sum totality of a person's situational awareness, raid knowledge, personal initiative, and skill.
This hasn't worked out so well.
As a consequence, the average GS required to get into any end-game instance has inflated, in many cases far beyond what's required for it to be on farm, in an attempt to compensate for idiots you invariably pick up who still have great gear.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
LoL: failboattootoot
No wonder they hadn't revealed any information about it.
Also gone: guild talent points.
Source: MMO Champ.
edit: All that guild stuff sounds awesome. Highly approve.
edit2: And Path of the Titans being removed entirely is kinda sad. Archaeology sounded a lot cooler before it became Fishing 2.
edit3: THE PRINCESS! SHE IS BEAUTIFUL.
Deepholm
Princess Therazane (yes, that's her) will be a questgiver in Deepholm, in a similar experience to the Sons of Hodir's questline in Storm Peaks.
I'm confused though. Theradras is the hilarious boss in Marudon. Therazane is supposed to be her mom. So she wouldn't be a Princess really.
Force item levels to be hidden? At the very least, make it count gems and enchants?
The only way I could see to definitively break GS would be to eliminate item levels entirely.
Which stopping to think about it... wouldn't be that horrible an idea. Still have item stats per normal, just eliminate the whole item level tab in the spreadsheet before putting the item in. Technically, nothing should be broken. And in a way, it kind of fits with Blizz's view on items. They don't want people just looking at the bare item level and saying "that number is higher, therefore that's an upgrade", they've always said they want people to think about their gear. With no more ilevel to look at, people will pay more attention to actual stats. And there'll be no more bullshit number for GS to output.
SOURCE
Path of the Titans: Removed!
Blizzard has scrapped the entire Path of the Titans progression system. As it is, it may be coming back—but not likely.
Tom Chilton explained that Blizzard had spent a long time working on the Path of the Titans system, trying to balance making it complicated enough to be interesting, but simple enough to be understandable. At the end of the day, they realized that they had ripped it all down until it resembled an upgrade to the glyph system. Simultaneously, they felt that the Glyph system wasn't as much of a game-changer in WotLK as they had originally wanted it to be, so they've decided instead to scrap the Path of the Titans concept, and instead focus on making the glyph system into the feature they had originally wanted.
Glyph System Changes
To accomplish this, they've added a new tier of glyphs: Medium Glyphs. Tom explained that in Wrath, people were really powergaming their glyph choices—that glyphs, like talents, had gotten to a point where everyone agreed on what the "best" glyphs were for each class and spec, and anyone who chose otherwise was dumb. With medium glyphs, they're trying to break that system up a bit—major glyphs are still critical, but minor and medium glyphs have more flexibility.
On the UI side, there have also been a few changes—I was asked not to take photos, but the glyph UI now lists all the possible glyphs for your class. Tom Chilton pointed out that up until now there had been no way to get a complete list of all your possible glyphs in-game—the only option was to go to the Auction House and look through what was available (or to patronize our own fine establishment).
There was also talk about making glyphs permanent rather than consumable—so that as soon as you used a glyph for the first time, it was added to your "list", and thereafter you could rearrange your glyphs later on as you chose.
Guild Advancement
Guild Reputation
Firstly, the whole guild currency idea has been scrapped. The rewards that they had originally had in mind for that system, like special guild tabards and mounts (with your guild insignia on them and everything!) are now unlocked by guild achievements. Rather than buying them with guild currency, you buy them with simple gold—but which rewards you can buy is restricted by your guild reputation.
You farm guild rep by doing four things:
Completing quests
Doing rated Battlegrounds
Killing raid bosses (to get credit, the raid that downs the boss must be mostly comprised of guild members—7/10 for 10-mans, and 20/25 for 25-mans)
Earning guild achievements
Basically, you'll be farming rep with your guild in exactly the same way you would farm any endgame rep—and the rewards will (presumably) be similar. A final decision hasn't been made yet about how guild reputation will transfer (if at all) between alts, but they did say that leaving a guild won't immediately wipe your guild reputation—though joining a new guild probably will.
Guild Achievements
Some examples of possible guild achievements were offered:
10,000 total quests completed
Having a max-rank of every profession
Having an 85 of every class
etc.
In addition, some of the existing achievements (like the classic raiding meta) are being converted into guild achievements, to give players a reason to go back and do them. This allows players to farm achievements to help their guild's rank and their guild reputation, even if they already have them all.
As it stands now, guild achievements will be retained by the guild, even if all the members of the guild who were present when the achievement was earned have left the guild. The guild achievement pane actually lists the guild members who were present at the time the achievement was originally earned.
Guild Leveling
The whole guild talents idea has been scrapped as well. Tom Chilton talked for a while about the issues they faced—Can only the guild leader pick the talents? Do you have respecs? Who pays for them? How do you make all the players feel involved? Do you min-max builds, so that all guilds feel the same? Instead, they've altered it to a simpler system: each guild progresses normally from level 1 to level 25, and gains a new perk at each level—just like a character learning new spells. The guild menu will now show you what your existing perks are, and what the perks will be come the next guild level. No information was given about how exactly guilds would progress, but it's easy to guess at possible methods—raiding, group pvp, guild achievements, etc.
New Guild Interface
Another thing I was frustrated not to be able to photograph, guilds now have a fully revamped interface with a lot of long-awaited features.
First of all, there's a new guild landing page, with a news feed—something broadly similar to the character feed for individual characters on the Armory, but for the entire guild—listing recent successes in raiding, new characters hitting max level, etc. You can also flag items as "sticky", in case you want to make sure the Message of the Day stays up there, or you're exceptionally proud of a recent kill.
In addition, the guild roster is now filterable. You can now see the professions of your guild members from the guild menu—and sort players by profession. This enables you to do things like searching for a crafter in your guild who can make the item you need, so you can easily contact them—a HUGE time-saver.
Raids
10-Mans and 25-Mans
You guys already know that Blizzard is planning to consolidate 10-man and 25-man raiding into less of a difficulty setting and more of a playstyle choice. This means that 10-man and 25-man encounters will be designed to have roughly the same difficulty level, and will drop items from the same loot table. To compensate for the additional logistical hassle of getting 25 players online rather than 10, Blizzard will be giving out more loot per player in 25-mans—specifically, about 50% more. It was strongly hinted that this extra loot would come in the form of Emblems.
What they hadn't announced previously is the ability to "downshift" your raid. Imagine if you do a 25-man run of a new instance, get about halfway through, and call it a night. The next day you get back together to do another run, but—big surprise—only 20 people show up. Well, now you can "downshift" your raid into two separate 10-man groups, and just keep right on going. The maximum number of 10-mans you can make out of one 25-man is three—meaning, if the remaining five guys show up the next day, they can swap down to a 10-man as well and keep right on going.
Blizzard is not allowing players to "upshift". They explained that they felt this would cause a lot of pressure on guild to pull some really unpleasant maneuvers—for instance, stripping out the bottom 15 players to do some particularly difficult encounter, and then inviting them all back in for trash. They figured the legitimate use-cases for upshifting a raid were much more rare.
Raid Lockouts
Here's another big change—they've added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn't have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you're not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
New Zones
Stormwind
Has been completely redesigned to accomodate fly-overs. A lot of attention specifically has been paid to Stormwind Keep.
A second trade district—mailbox, auction house, bank, etc.—has been added to the Dwarven District.
On the way out of Blackrock mountain, Deathwing has destroyed the Park completely. Have no fear—the druid trainers have relocated.
They've added some new areas in the back—some lake area, as well as a city cemetery. Some quests have been added here to help flesh them out.
Orgrimmar
Garrosh is hanging out in the center of Orgimmar, not the Valley of Wisdom. A metaphor?
The goblins have their own area, the Goblin Slums, in the west end of the Valley of Spirits. Garrosh doesn't think much of them.
There is a second trade district in Orgrimmar too—in the Valley of Honor. They're also adding more forges.
The Valley of Wisdom is now a Tauren district.
There's now a back gate, leading into Azshara—providing a convenient entrance for goblins leveling through that zone.
The Drag is the only throwback to old Orgrimmar.
The Bastion of Twilight
This will be a raid offshoot of Grim Batol, run by the Twilight's Hammer.
This is the "Naxxramas" of Cataclysm—entry level raiding.
5 boss fights, plus a sixth Algalon-style optional, ultra-hard boss.
Will include a "council" fight of Twilight Ascendants, cultist ascended into elementals
Final (non-optional) boss: Cho'gall!
Skywall
The elemental plane of air, home to both a dungeon and a raid
Vortex Pinnacle: 5-man, will battle against the minions of Al'Akir the Windlord. Bosses include a djinn, a storm dragon, and a lesser elemental lord
You will be able to use your flying mount to fly from platform to platform (real mount, unlike The Oculus)
Raid is similar to this, but larger in scope—you WILL fight Al'Akir himself
Holy cow I wish I could take pictures, this place looks gorgeous. It's like a cross between Ulduar, Dalaran, and clouds.
Deepholm
The Orgrim's Hammer has crash-landed in this zone! The Skybreaker is still in the air, and you will be tasked with finding out what happened!
Deepholm USED to be settled, but when Deathwing broke out of the Earth temple, the whole zone became disrupted.
Therazane the Stonemother will be hanging out here. She'll run a quest hub with dailies and a rep similar to the Sons of Hodir, but, you know, better.
Uldum
This is like WoW does Egypt. Like titan architecture, but with squares and pyramids instead of circles and globes.
Denizens of Uldum are called the "Tol'Vir", and are connected somehow with Al'Akir's wind elementals.
Other Juicy Tidbits
The Shimmering Flats is mostly submerged, but the majority of the gameplay still takes place above water.
You will be hearing brand new music in familiar zones.
The Forsaken are coming into their own—you'll be seeing their own unique architecture as they spread across Silverpine Forest and other zones.
When you gain a level, an announcement appears in the center of the screen letting you know what new abilities you have access to, and advising you to see your trainer. Skills you're leveled for but haven't trained yet will be marked as such in your spellbook.
Archaeology will let you find two types of items—Common Artifacts, which are kind of a collection game where you're trying to find all of the artifacts for a particular race, and Rare Items which will produce actual usable items. Most Rare Items will be cosmetic only, but a few will have actual effects.
Cross-server raiding still hasn't been solved. They're working on it, but it's not there yet.
There will be more Algalon-style encounters—ultra-hard optional bosses for hardcore players only.
The current heirlooms will stop growing after level 80. There will be a whole new crop of heirlooms for Cataclysm. Goblins and Worgen will be able to start using heirlooms immediately at launch.
Wrath of the Lich King had about 1000 new quests. Cataclysm has over 3000.
Wowhead's Blizz Approved Zone Changes Video
Im ok with this.
Sounds annoying as fuck for everyone involved. Item Levels are very useful for looking at your own gear.
As long as there is /inspect, there will be Gearscore or something like it. Get used to it.
Hell ya!
Annoying how? Why? If you want to look at your gear... then look at your gear. What ultimate use is it to know that this item is 219, but this one is 226? Other than it being a super basic indicator that one is better than the other... but then again, that was supposed basis for GS to begin with, before people degenerated into stupid laziness. If you want to know why item A is better than item B, you can look at the actual stats it's changing. If you're looking solely at the ilevel to determine upgrades, you're just being a lazy bum.
I really don't see what would drastically change if they removed the number, other than people would actually have to look at their gear more.
They'd go back to "link ach plz."
Also, this was the thing that tried tanking. I have no problems with new 80s, but at least TRY and make it look like you're putting forth an effort... /me is still unnecessarily angry
GS is not worth trying to kill at this point.
That's fine, you can fake achievements. And I am also fine with elitist group, as it actually gives you a useful metric to judge someone on. But gs has the double whammy of being both a tool for massive elitism and completely useless for telling you anything useful about a person.
LoL: failboattootoot
Most of the cut shit was fluff anyways.
I feel so secure!
How is it total freedom if I need to have a very specific set of bosses unkilled in order to join? :P
Your guild is running 2 10 person groups, both make it to the 6th boss and call it a night, next night one of the raids is running with people from the other raid and then 2 nights after that the other raid can run with people who missed the previous attempt.
And what do we get in its place: medium glyphs. Medium glyphs? Really? Consider now that we have Major and Minor glyphs, and for a lot of classes, most of the Minor Glyphs are shit and the major ones are mandatory. They haven't even fleshed those out well enough yet and now they're adding a third designation? Good christ.
Also, this little tidbit: Say bye bye to making any money on Inscription (other than perhaps the bit from Vellums).
This is really discouraging news, and like Rorus said, just smacks of not being prepared (ha!). If there's a consolation to this at all, I hope this means that they will actually release the expansion sooner than October or November.
Heh, I feel that way about it now. When I see people spamming "Oh no, the alliance is headed to Org", I can't help but think "So?".
The way it is now, we lose/gain nothing by defending the capital cities, and they rarely kill anyone of importance. I usually just figure it's better let them get through, kill the dudes and move on.
I've got a few pieces of T10, the frost badge cape and a few other pieces of decent gear, but otherwise am still wearing 200/219 stuff on my rogue and I haven't had too much trouble getting into ICC. Although I do occasionally have the "I don't like how you're gemmed/enchanted/etc" thing, which is funny because seriously, not going to spend several hundred gold enchanting items that will be replaced within a raid or two.
edit: Oh shit, all that Cata news is wonderful. Better glyph choices makes me happy, and if they really do make "You had it once, you can use it forever" the new system with glyphs that'd be awesome too since it'd help kill some of the crazy gold inflation.
Also, hooray for no longer being stuck without finishing most of a raid after a pug raid falls apart partway through ICC on Tuesday.
You're right, if they're not going to completely remove the lockout function they shouldn't improve it in small ways at all.
Now we get Medium Glyphs.
God damnit.
As someone who had his income gutted by the changes to disenchanting (and oh how everyone here told me to suck it up) allow me to be the first to play the world's tinniest violin for all the Inscriptionists.