Does UC become instanced, or how does that work on a PvP server?
From what I've seen, it's instanced. Even if it's not, the NPC's with you are on the impressive end of the power scale.
It uses the new phasing thing they've introduced. Works similar to the invisibility effect, in that nobody can see you or the npcs involved, and you can't see anybody not on the quest, even though you're occupying the same space. Supposedly phasing is going to get used a lot in order to allow players to enact permanent change to the game world, even though it's changes only they and other players who have already completed the relevant quest can see.
It's also part of a quest chain, NOT the world event that's launching WotLK. Supposedly that event involves
the Scourge laying siege to Stormwind and Ogrimmar
Does UC become instanced, or how does that work on a PvP server?
It's "phased", like the Death Knight starting area quests. It's not technically an instance -- you're in the same Undercity as everyone else -- but only you can see what's going on.
They also use phasing so that when you finish,
you can no longer see Varimathras, because he's dead to your character. Everyone who hasn't done the quest can still see him though.
I decided to explore the DK starting area once while I was still leveling one of my DKs. Rode through Tyr's Hand and hit an invisible wall. That made me kind of sad. Then I rode through from the other direction and was disappointed but for something else entirely.
People doing the UC questline will probably have to take a portal from somewhere to UC. If you ride into it you probably won't be seeing the quest events happening. So if you talk in General you will be able to converse with other people doing the quests and on other stages but you may not see actual general chat for Undercity.
With all this talk, I had to go see what all the hubbub was about.
Holy fuck.
This is just as, if not cooler than, the DK quest line. Anybody saying Horde are getting jacked in terms of lore and story in WOTLK can do this and be silent.
One question for people who have done it.
When you talk to Alexstrasza, there's an option that says "Show me what happened here", but I think it's bugged, because it doesn't do anything. Does anyone know what happens? I think I have a fair idea, but it still feels like I'm missing a piece of the plot here.
Shit... I'm not turning this quest in. I wanna do it again!
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
make people WANT to play all the BGs, not be forced to.
Heres my list of what I'd want to see changed.
Warsong Gulch:
-the flag carrier debuff was a nice thought, but why not make it that if you have the flag for longer than X minutes, you drop it on the ground and no one from your team can pick it up for 15 seconds. More than enough time for an offense to return it, but short enough that if the enemy is turtling you can just pick it up again.
-put in some sort of way to get rep even if you lose
Arathi Basin:
-I can't think of anything. I love AB.
Eye of the Storm:
-The only reason I hate Eye of the Storm is that people are retarded and think 1 tower + flag could ever win a match. Blizzard can't really do anything about this.
Alterac Valley:
-Give some more incentive to actually PvP, the way it is right now is basically a gigantic PvE environment with optional PvP.
I was thinking about BG's today, with the honor wipe... if I were given one hour and a white board at Blizzard I would probably start with the following:
Remove honor points from the game completely. UNLESS they plan on implementing the PVP ranking system again, which doesn't seem likely. In my mind, all honor points do is encourage the masses to do nothing but blitz AV, then go and kick around in whatever other BG they happen to need tokens from, to the point where "losing preforms" are becoming far too common.
Increase the token requirements of all gear by 50%-100%, and require two types of token per item.
Make tokens a seasonal item. Tokens earned from previous seasons can be exchanged for BG faction rep, city rep, or gold.
Make all non-vendor type NPC's in major cities have a chance to drop BG tokens. Standard guards may only have a 15% chance to drop 1 token. A boss like Thrall may drop something that can be turned in for 20 or 30 tokens once per season per person.
Add a significant speed debuff to flag carriers in WSG. Make flag running an exercise in survivability and healing rather than who can run really fast outdoors and/or has stupidly specialized talents/cooldowns.
Start AB off which each faction in control of their respective "nearby" point, Stables/Farms. Create better BG leader tools al a Tribes that allow the BG leader to send out inc messages based on UI click rather than typing.
I think EotS is pretty much stupid. It's fun to play because it's big an open and a rape fest for any class that can just stay 40 yards away and let loose, but the gameplay is just dumb. I would make point to point travel more interesting. Add obstacles perhaps or implement some sort of NPC mechanic al a AV. Right now this place is just plain boring.
AV. What can I say about AV. AV is basically a mess.
For BG"s they should just make Omni tokens, and up the honor gained in all BG's except AV to compete with AV, 500ish to win 300ish to lose, instead of 3 hours in WSG for 82 honor from a win.
Give WSG a strict timer, the flag carrier debuff doesn't really help at all, unless you're a warlock or mage, with berserker buff, charging up soulfire/pyroblast, crit, and 1 shot the guy, the turtle is not going to break from that. (Note you also need a rogue there to return the flag soon as that dude dies)
AV:
1) Either move the Horde NPC's to a point where alliance is going to have to fight them to get to drek like Horde has to fight, pretty much everytime, That dude at the bridge, thunderbrew, the rogue, that nelf and dwarf combo, and sometimes random other NPC's or
2) Put those fucking NPC's under the damned bridge on alliance side, so horde too can just run right by.
In AV's where it's a race, alliance will win everytime, because that gives them what, like 1,000,000 total DMG less they have to do, and who knows how much less healing, jsut dealing with all those BS adds horde gets just for fucking showing up.
Shit, alliance doesn't even have to sacrifice people for RH defense, the NPCs slow horde down enough (unless you're running with a heavy pre-made, that takes them down quick and orderly) then horde is going to take some time before they're ready to go in on Van.
EoTS, just take out the flag, for like the first 5 to 10 min of the game. I'm so fucking tired of coming in and seeing my entire team at the flag, while the other team 4 caps, cause not one person went for a tower.
EWom on
Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
Ah, that's cool. I'm still gonna say the Horde version is better since we get Thrall and Sylvanas. But this might be biased a tad.
Looking over the Alliance version though, there's the potential to make this event even more great, if Blizzard has the programming and server talent to pull it off.
Event spoilers:
It looks like the exact same event for both factions pretty much. In fact, the endings are identical. For Horde, King Wrynn shows up at the end as well and the scene is identical. Everybody gets into a brawl for a few seconds before Jaina tells everybody to cool off (hey look, I made a punny...).
How to make it more awesome? Have both sides do it at the same time, naturally. It sounds like both groups go in separate ways, and since you're sticking to your leaders for the buffs, there's not much chance they'll run into each other until the end. Then you have the end, with both NPC's and PC's staring each other down before all hell breaks loose.
The trick though being, how do you get both events going on in the same area and not have the server take a dump? To be fair, when I did it, there were also 2 others doing it with me, and even with the insane number of mobs you fight, it didn't really chug at all. But add in 10-20 people per side, with their own huge battle going on, and... yeesh. Doubt it'd be pretty.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
So I convinced one of the dudes I used to raid with to let me play around on his beta account.
Awesome times, here I come!
CJTheran on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2008
I read the first three points you made there jasc and I must say they are horrible.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
For BG"s they should just make Omni tokens, and up the honor gained in all BG's except AV to compete with AV, 500ish to win 300ish to lose, instead of 3 hours in WSG for 82 honor from a win.
Give WSG a strict timer, the flag carrier debuff doesn't really help at all, unless you're a warlock or mage, with berserker buff, charging up soulfire/pyroblast, crit, and 1 shot the guy, the turtle is not going to break from that. (Note you also need a rogue there to return the flag soon as that dude dies)
AV:
1) Either move the Horde NPC's to a point where alliance is going to have to fight them to get to drek like Horde has to fight, pretty much everytime, That dude at the bridge, thunderbrew, the rogue, that nelf and dwarf combo, and sometimes random other NPC's or
2) Put those fucking NPC's under the damned bridge on alliance side, so horde too can just run right by.
In AV's where it's a race, alliance will win everytime, because that gives them what, like 1,000,000 total DMG less they have to do, and who knows how much less healing, jsut dealing with all those BS adds horde gets just for fucking showing up.
Shit, alliance doesn't even have to sacrifice people for RH defense, the NPCs slow horde down enough (unless you're running with a heavy pre-made, that takes them down quick and orderly) then horde is going to take some time before they're ready to go in on Van.
EoTS, just take out the flag, for like the first 5 to 10 min of the game. I'm so fucking tired of coming in and seeing my entire team at the flag, while the other team 4 caps, cause not one person went for a tower.
The dude on the bridge doesn't aggro unless one of two things happens:
1. Somebody tags him with some kind of AOE ability
2. A NPC that was already aggroed runs right through him.
I've been in several AVs where he sat there untouched the entire time.
As far as WSG goes, its the only battleground where I'll refuse to even try the daily. Too many alliance premades where there is a feral druid running the flag with two holy paladins alternating blessing of freedom and heals on him for me to even think it could be fun.
If they're going to revamp BG's I think they should just do away with marks, equalize the honor gain for the various maps, and especially get rid of gimmicks like flag carrying.
If they insist on keeping WSG like it is then put a 20 minute time limit on a match as was suggested above by Beyond Normal. Personally I'd make it 15 minutes. If they insist on keeping marks then make it a minimum of 1 mark just for participating and 1 mark per flag cap(up to a total of 3 marks if you manage to cap three flags and win). This way the losing side gets a minimum of 1 and has a chance to get 2 marks. AB should be a minimum of 1 mark...2 marks if you manage to gather 1200+ resources....3 marks for a win.
Their current designs seem to revolve around FPS match ideas a lot and they're not very creative. The new Lake Wintergrasp area seems like it's going in the right direction though. That will probably end up being AV 2.0.
WSG....should have been a forest map that sort of resembled Ashenvale with Astranaar on one end and the Horde lumber camp on the other. The objective is to destroy the others base. Give all the structures a health bar and make them attackable...first side to raze the opposing team's base to the ground wins.
AB.....should have been a fight to control Stromgarde. It's the logical strong point in that region to capture.
EoTS....I don't mind this one so much but it's lacking. Instead of flag captures, controlling the center should give some sort of powerup. Perhaps if you hold a structure for a certain amount of time as well as the center your side gets a bonus. Holding the Fel Reaver ruins + center for 3 minutes = a couple of mini fel reavers to assist your side, for example. Holding the mage tower + center for 3 minutes = lightning shooting from your bases to zap opposing team members for lots of damage.
AV.....should have been all about fighting in the middle. Keep the reinforcements thing...add siege vehicles and if the battle is still going after 20 minutes the faction leaders from each side start walking to the front to kick some ass.
I'd also like to see an ocean battle map with players commanding fleets of ships. But seriously....do away with capture the flag type stuff and just make interesting maps with nifty items players can use to kill each other with.
That's actually later questline and not part of the opening event.
It's not so much Sylvanas betraying the horde as the pet demon she kept getting some people to turn on her. Undercity ends up in state of civil insurrection and both the Horde and Alliance have quests to retake the city. Relations are at a deep low afterward.
Wait a second...
Alliance help Horde to retake it?
Major spoilers aka dont blame me if you read it:
Talk to Varian to start the event:
Image:GossipGossipIcon.png Reporting for duty, your majesty! Let the assault begin!
5 minutes until the manhunt begins:
King Varian Wrynn yells: Heroes of the Alliance, your King calls! Gather behind me at the entrance to the sewers of the Undercity!
King Varian Wrynn yells: Hidden inside this defiled city is the wretch responsible for murdering our brothers and sisters at the Wrath Gate! He must be brought to justice!
3 minutes:
King Varian Wrynn yells: Soon we march upon this cursed place and cleanse it of its evil taint!
2 minutes:
King Varian Wrynn yells: The hour of our redemption is close at hand! Prepare yourselves!
The manhunt begins:
King Varian Wrynn yells: The march upon the Undercity begins now! Be empowered by your King's strength! Follow me, heroes! FOR THE GLORY OF THE ALLIANCE!
Varian buffs all nearby allies with "Strength of Wrynn", adding 30,000 HP, and a 10k healing on damage taken buff.
King Varian Wryn yells: Onward, brothers and sisters! Destiny awaits!
The party reaches the sewer entrance
King Varian Wrynn says: Our descent into the depts of depravity begins! Be on guard! Jaina, lend us your strength!
Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Right away, your majesty!
Jaina casts "Improved Brilliance Aura", which regenerates more mana/rage/energy/RP that can possibly be used and a runspeed buff. At the bottom of the tunnel, the party stops as waves upon waves of enemies are unleashed.
King Varian Wrynn says: What is this?! Stand your ground! Do not give them an inch!
Eventually, Putress unleashes the Engorged Blight Worm, which has 5 million HP. After the worm is defeated...
King Varian Wrynn yells: Solders, fall in! Guard the halls!
King Varian Wrynn yells: Your abberrations are no match for the Alliance, Putress! We're coming for you!
The party reaches the canals and the corpse of Khanok the Impassable
Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: What's happened here? There are corpses everywhere... the stench... overwhelming...
King Varian Wrynn says: Horde. By the looks of the struggle, they are here in force - somewhere.
King Varian Wrynn says: Stay alert and on guard. There's no telling what horrors await us.
King Varian Wrynn says: ONWARD!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: Do not let them pass, minions!
The party fights a large group of Treacherous Guardians
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: KILL THEM! My work must not be interrupted!
King Varian Wrynn says: The main chamber is this way! Let's go!
The party fights their way through a large group of Perfidious Dreadlords to get to the bottom of the Apothecarium
King Varian Wrynn says: THERE!
King Varian Wrynn yells: There's nowhere to run, monster!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: Stare into the abyss and watch as it blackens your souls!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: You are no match for my creations!
Putress spawns untold numbers of failed experiments.
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: This cannot be happening!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: It will not end like this! I've worked too hard! So many years... I... I will consume more energy!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: The power washes through me! I see... EVERTHING!
Grand Apothecary Putress yells: MORE SUFFERING AWAITS!
Putress joins the fight with a 7.4M HP pool. Melee hits on cloth are over a million, so let Varian tank him. He also throws blight barrels for 10k a tick as the failed experiments keep spawning, though not as quickly as before. Eventually he is defeated.
King Varian Wrynn yells: And justice is served!
Varian loots Putress's corpse.
King Varian Wrynn says: What say you now, Putress?
King Varian Wrynn says: Look around you, brothers and sisters. Open your eyes! Look at what they have done to our kingdom!
King Varian Wrynn says: How much longer will we allow these savages free reign in our world?
King Varian Wrynn says: I have seen the Horde's world. I have been inside their cities. Inside their minds...
King Varian Wrynn says: I know what evil lies in the hearts of orcs.
Thrall yells [Orcish] Mog Osh'kazil gul'rok il mog Ro'th zaga maza TOV'OSH (The Undercity belongs to the Horde once more! LOK'TAR!)
King Varian Wrynn says: THRALL! HERE?
King Varian Wrynn says: ONWARD! We end this now!
Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Varian, stop! I won't help you do this!
Jaina stays behind as the party moves on. Varian and the remainder of the party reach the throne room, where Thrall, Sylavanas and a host of Warsong Battleguards await
King Varian Wrynn says: The orcs have a battle cry: LOK'TAR OGAR! It means "victory or death." Fitting...
King Varian Wrynn says: To the throne room!
The party walks in.
King Varian Wrynn says: I was away for too long. My absence cost us the lives of some of our greatest heroes. Trash like you and this evil witch were allowed to roam free -- unchecked.
King Varian Wrynn says: The time has come to make things right. To disband your treacherous kingdom of murderers and thieves. Putress was the first strike. Many more will come.
King Varian Wrynn says: I've waited a long time for this, Thrall. For every time I was thrown into one of your damned arenas... for every time I killed a green-skinned abberation like you... I could only think of one thing.
King Varian Wrynn says: What our world could be without you and your twisted Horde... It ends now, Warchief.
King Varian Wrynn says: ATTACK! FOR STORMWIND! FOR BOLVAR! FOR THE ALLIANCE!
The fight is joined.
Lady Jaina Proudmoore yells: VARIAN, NO! STOP!
Lady Jaina Proudmoore incapacitates all units with a freeze spell
Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: It did not have to be like this...
Lady Jaina Proudmoore teleports all Alliance forces back to Stormwind
Holy shit, wow. I am, quite impressed.
So am I right in understanding that this is not a "world event" type thing, but in fact a quest that everyone will get to do?
stavesacre on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Thanks to phasing they can make quests for everyone which feel just as awesome as world events, pretty much all of Storm Peaks is a great example of this.
-Dump marks
-A 15 minute timer on WSG
-A non daily repeatable quest for winning a BG. Basically something that synchs the goals of the BG (winning) with the goals of the majority of players (Max honour per hour)
-Revamp EoTS and replace it with a tug of war gametype rather than the zones/ctf bastard child it is now. And make a map with some fucking character for fuck's sake. For something that is the only BG they added with an entire expansion it's the most slapped together at the last minute, dull and boring looking BG ever. Make it based in fucking Nagrand or something.
With all this talk, I had to go see what all the hubbub was about.
Holy fuck.
This is just as, if not cooler than, the DK quest line. Anybody saying Horde are getting jacked in terms of lore and story in WOTLK can do this and be silent.
One question for people who have done it.
When you talk to Alexstrasza, there's an option that says "Show me what happened here", but I think it's bugged, because it doesn't do anything. Does anyone know what happens? I think I have a fair idea, but it still feels like I'm missing a piece of the plot here.
Shit... I'm not turning this quest in. I wanna do it again!
There's a cutscene that's not implemented yet. Talking to Alexstrasza lets you watch it again.
In the cutscene, the Horde and Alliance armies make a combined assault on the Scourge. Varimathras and Apothecary Putress (who hasn't appeared in WoW yet, naturally) show up and unleash the Forsaken plague on everyone and everything. Saurfang the Younger and Bolvar Fordragon are killed, along with the rest of the Horde and Alliance forces.
God WotLK has so many cool lore things that BC did not. When I thought WAR would pull me away Blizzard pulls me back in. I can't wait actually to discuss these things with my guild when we go through it.(RP guild and guild chat is pure rp, we have ooc channels for non-rp stuff.) It will be awesome to see how peoples characters react to such things.
Still wish there was a way you could join the Scourge though. I so would swap sides on my warlock.
I so, so, so hope they raise Fordragon and Saurfang the Younger as Death Knights for us to fight again as a Twin Emps/Eredar Twins type raid fight. That would make me soooo happy.
edit: Hmm just saw this:
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will only be available on DVD, not on CDs. That goes for both the regular box and the Collector's Edition.
Couldn't this be a problem for people who don't have DVD drives? Or is that noone anymore?
e2: Yay for me though, I fucking hate installing wow Vanilla when the 5th fucking CD fails and you have to start over.
I so, so, so hope they raise Fordragon and Saurfang the Younger as Death Knights for us to fight again as a Twin Emps/Eredar Twins type raid fight. That would make me soooo happy.
edit: Hmm just saw this:
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will only be available on DVD, not on CDs. That goes for both the regular box and the Collector's Edition.
Couldn't this be a problem for people who don't have DVD drives? Or is that noone anymore?
e2: Yay for me though, I fucking hate installing wow Vanilla when the 5th fucking CD fails and you have to start over.
So THAT'S who replaces Morgraine as the fourth horsemen.
They could do a power rangers type "It's morphin' time!" and form up to create a giant abomination, whilst the players all hop on Godzilla's back and, whilst each controlling a different part of his body, attempt to fight the undead behemoth whilst demolishing Darnassus in the melee.
edit: Just looked up the power rangers on wikipedia for old times' sake and found this gem:
[Zordon] orders his robotic assistant, Alpha 5, to find five "teenagers with attitude," to defend the Earth
I told my wife about Blizzard wiping the Honor and Marks for the expansion, she was unhappy. She doesn't get to play nearly as many hours a day as most people so only has about 9k honor saved up.
Putting a timer on WSG would just ensure that every single game lasts the max amount of time, because whoever scores first is just going to turtle until the match ends.
I'd prefer they change it so that each flag cap gets you a mark provided you are still there at the end of the game (so winners get 3, losers get 0-2 depending on performance). That would discourage afkers and get people to actually participate if they want their stuff instead of just failing into it. And then make it so that after a certain amount of time (20 minutes?), the rules change so that your flag no longer has to be in your base for you to score (so that the games would end quicker without encouraging turtling).
Across all 9 characters, I probably have 75-100k+ honour stored up, plus literally hundreds and hundreds of marks, but not in nice, even numbers. Most of them have, say, 50-100 AV marks, and then 5-25 of each of the rest, meaning that I'll have trouble converting marks to honour to buy anything (and anything that costs marks other than AV ones will be a bitch to get).
The only way I can see this going painlessly would be if they changed the turn in quest to accept single marks from ANY BG (or just 4 marks from any BG) and the new perks/items ONLY cost honour. Allow people to dump their marks into honour, and then dump their honour into some new toys.
Or let us transfer honour and marks between characters on the same account, allowing people with alts to pool their resources for a few purchases.
Unless the items are account bound, it's unlikely that they'd be upgrades for the rogue (who has the most marks, honour, but also the best gear), whereas most of the alts have 5-10k'ish honour and a smattering of marks, which would just end up wasted.
Honestly, if done wrong, this could kill any BG participation from me again. I accept that MMO's are a time sink, and for me, BG's/most PVP is a time sink in a time sink, but wiping out the rewards for those hours spent across 9 characters would be pretty brutal without an 'out' of some sort.
I'd prefer they change it so that each flag cap gets you a mark provided you are still there at the end of the game (so winners get 3, losers get 0-2 depending on performance).
Change it to "1+flag caps" so losers get 1-3 and winners get 4, and I'd back you on that.
Fuck the idea of spending 10-60 minutes in a WSG and getting 0 marks, on top of the queue times (lessened as they've been over the years).
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
There are two major mistakes I think Blizzard made with WoW. One is including PvP in this game to begin with. They really should have thought it out more and either had another team work on a different PvP-only game entirely or just scrapped the idea, because there is literally no chance of pleasing people with PvP as it is now.
The other is creating pure classes with hybrids. They're having so much trouble balancing classes because they have to try and keep the hybrids happy while trying not to encroach on the pure (read: single function) classes efficacy.
I hope they've learned from these things and that they'll make some serious changes when WoW 2 comes around.
Or let us transfer honour and marks between characters on the same account, allowing people with alts to pool their resources for a few purchases.
There's BoA items that grant 1000 honor on the beta, so you could earn with one of your (and you do have a fair selection) PVP friendly classes for one of your less PVP focused ones.
815165 on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Putting a timer on WSG would just ensure that every single game lasts the max amount of time, because whoever scores first is just going to turtle until the match ends.
I'd prefer they change it so that each flag cap gets you a mark provided you are still there at the end of the game (so winners get 3, losers get 0-2 depending on performance). That would discourage afkers and get people to actually participate if they want their stuff instead of just failing into it. And then make it so that after a certain amount of time (20 minutes?), the rules change so that your flag no longer has to be in your base for you to score (so that the games would end quicker without encouraging turtling).
Or you could go something like:
0 flag caps = 1 mark.
1 " " = 2 marks + ¼X bonus honor.
2 " " = 3 marks + ½X bonus honor.
3 " " = 3 marks + X bonus honor.
This gives an incentive to play hard, since even losing will give some honor and it doesn't punish the poor pug that runs into a pre-made.
You get honor for losing WSG. Awhile back they started kicking a bit of extra honor at people who actually finish a game. Even the winners get a bit extra on top of what they get for 3 captures.
I would kind of like to see it become like TF2s CTF games, you score even if your flag is out on the field somewhere. People will actually try to stop the other teams carrier while they are midfield.
Or let us transfer honour and marks between characters on the same account, allowing people with alts to pool their resources for a few purchases.
There's BoA items that grant 1000 honor on the beta, so you could earn with one of your (and you do have a fair selection) PVP friendly classes for one of your less PVP focused ones.
And yet with marks in the system (and being wiped), being able to hand out honour like candy doesn't mean much if I have to do 14-40 WSG's for a pair of boots on that alt.
Honour is easy to get, marks are the hard part (aside from AV, given my faction and battlegroup), and I'll lament the loss of hundreds of marks far more than the loss of a hundred thousand honour.
The other possible up side would be that hopefully they'll lower the number of marks needed per item. Even with back to back wins in a premade group, it just takes forever to snag enough marks of a certain type at times.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
You get honor for losing WSG. Awhile back they started kicking a bit of extra honor at people who actually finish a game. Even the winners get a bit extra on top of what they get for 3 captures.
I would kind of like to see it become like TF2s CTF games, you score even if your flag is out on the field somewhere. People will actually try to stop the other teams carrier while they are midfield.
I should have been clearer. It would be on top of the base honor. A huge reason people get bored is that whole "Meh, my team isn't up by two flag caps so I'm just going to sit here and get my mark" which leads to insanely boring matches. If you do try to win, then you're frustrated by the lazy people just waiting for their mark. If you don't try to win, you're just waiting for the game to end.
Which is a shame, because a tightly contested WSG can be a hell of a lot of fun. There is a stick in the form of the anti-afk stuff, now I think it's time to add a carrot.
Posts
It uses the new phasing thing they've introduced. Works similar to the invisibility effect, in that nobody can see you or the npcs involved, and you can't see anybody not on the quest, even though you're occupying the same space. Supposedly phasing is going to get used a lot in order to allow players to enact permanent change to the game world, even though it's changes only they and other players who have already completed the relevant quest can see.
It's also part of a quest chain, NOT the world event that's launching WotLK. Supposedly that event involves
I decided to explore the DK starting area once while I was still leveling one of my DKs. Rode through Tyr's Hand and hit an invisible wall. That made me kind of sad. Then I rode through from the other direction and was disappointed but for something else entirely.
People doing the UC questline will probably have to take a portal from somewhere to UC. If you ride into it you probably won't be seeing the quest events happening. So if you talk in General you will be able to converse with other people doing the quests and on other stages but you may not see actual general chat for Undercity.
Holy fuck.
This is just as, if not cooler than, the DK quest line. Anybody saying Horde are getting jacked in terms of lore and story in WOTLK can do this and be silent.
One question for people who have done it.
Shit... I'm not turning this quest in. I wanna do it again!
I was thinking about BG's today, with the honor wipe... if I were given one hour and a white board at Blizzard I would probably start with the following:
Remove honor points from the game completely. UNLESS they plan on implementing the PVP ranking system again, which doesn't seem likely. In my mind, all honor points do is encourage the masses to do nothing but blitz AV, then go and kick around in whatever other BG they happen to need tokens from, to the point where "losing preforms" are becoming far too common.
Increase the token requirements of all gear by 50%-100%, and require two types of token per item.
Make tokens a seasonal item. Tokens earned from previous seasons can be exchanged for BG faction rep, city rep, or gold.
Make all non-vendor type NPC's in major cities have a chance to drop BG tokens. Standard guards may only have a 15% chance to drop 1 token. A boss like Thrall may drop something that can be turned in for 20 or 30 tokens once per season per person.
Add a significant speed debuff to flag carriers in WSG. Make flag running an exercise in survivability and healing rather than who can run really fast outdoors and/or has stupidly specialized talents/cooldowns.
Start AB off which each faction in control of their respective "nearby" point, Stables/Farms. Create better BG leader tools al a Tribes that allow the BG leader to send out inc messages based on UI click rather than typing.
I think EotS is pretty much stupid. It's fun to play because it's big an open and a rape fest for any class that can just stay 40 yards away and let loose, but the gameplay is just dumb. I would make point to point travel more interesting. Add obstacles perhaps or implement some sort of NPC mechanic al a AV. Right now this place is just plain boring.
AV. What can I say about AV. AV is basically a mess.
Those are just some ideas. None of em perfect.
That's funny, because Alliance has a counterpart to this same event. So we're in the same position.
Wait what? The Alliance does?
Edit - Now with more tags.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=7175488&postcount=1660
Give WSG a strict timer, the flag carrier debuff doesn't really help at all, unless you're a warlock or mage, with berserker buff, charging up soulfire/pyroblast, crit, and 1 shot the guy, the turtle is not going to break from that. (Note you also need a rogue there to return the flag soon as that dude dies)
AV:
1) Either move the Horde NPC's to a point where alliance is going to have to fight them to get to drek like Horde has to fight, pretty much everytime, That dude at the bridge, thunderbrew, the rogue, that nelf and dwarf combo, and sometimes random other NPC's or
2) Put those fucking NPC's under the damned bridge on alliance side, so horde too can just run right by.
In AV's where it's a race, alliance will win everytime, because that gives them what, like 1,000,000 total DMG less they have to do, and who knows how much less healing, jsut dealing with all those BS adds horde gets just for fucking showing up.
Shit, alliance doesn't even have to sacrifice people for RH defense, the NPCs slow horde down enough (unless you're running with a heavy pre-made, that takes them down quick and orderly) then horde is going to take some time before they're ready to go in on Van.
EoTS, just take out the flag, for like the first 5 to 10 min of the game. I'm so fucking tired of coming in and seeing my entire team at the flag, while the other team 4 caps, cause not one person went for a tower.
Looking over the Alliance version though, there's the potential to make this event even more great, if Blizzard has the programming and server talent to pull it off.
Event spoilers:
How to make it more awesome? Have both sides do it at the same time, naturally. It sounds like both groups go in separate ways, and since you're sticking to your leaders for the buffs, there's not much chance they'll run into each other until the end. Then you have the end, with both NPC's and PC's staring each other down before all hell breaks loose.
The trick though being, how do you get both events going on in the same area and not have the server take a dump? To be fair, when I did it, there were also 2 others doing it with me, and even with the insane number of mobs you fight, it didn't really chug at all. But add in 10-20 people per side, with their own huge battle going on, and... yeesh. Doubt it'd be pretty.
Awesome times, here I come!
The dude on the bridge doesn't aggro unless one of two things happens:
1. Somebody tags him with some kind of AOE ability
2. A NPC that was already aggroed runs right through him.
I've been in several AVs where he sat there untouched the entire time.
As far as WSG goes, its the only battleground where I'll refuse to even try the daily. Too many alliance premades where there is a feral druid running the flag with two holy paladins alternating blessing of freedom and heals on him for me to even think it could be fun.
If they insist on keeping WSG like it is then put a 20 minute time limit on a match as was suggested above by Beyond Normal. Personally I'd make it 15 minutes. If they insist on keeping marks then make it a minimum of 1 mark just for participating and 1 mark per flag cap(up to a total of 3 marks if you manage to cap three flags and win). This way the losing side gets a minimum of 1 and has a chance to get 2 marks. AB should be a minimum of 1 mark...2 marks if you manage to gather 1200+ resources....3 marks for a win.
Their current designs seem to revolve around FPS match ideas a lot and they're not very creative. The new Lake Wintergrasp area seems like it's going in the right direction though. That will probably end up being AV 2.0.
WSG....should have been a forest map that sort of resembled Ashenvale with Astranaar on one end and the Horde lumber camp on the other. The objective is to destroy the others base. Give all the structures a health bar and make them attackable...first side to raze the opposing team's base to the ground wins.
AB.....should have been a fight to control Stromgarde. It's the logical strong point in that region to capture.
EoTS....I don't mind this one so much but it's lacking. Instead of flag captures, controlling the center should give some sort of powerup. Perhaps if you hold a structure for a certain amount of time as well as the center your side gets a bonus. Holding the Fel Reaver ruins + center for 3 minutes = a couple of mini fel reavers to assist your side, for example. Holding the mage tower + center for 3 minutes = lightning shooting from your bases to zap opposing team members for lots of damage.
AV.....should have been all about fighting in the middle. Keep the reinforcements thing...add siege vehicles and if the battle is still going after 20 minutes the faction leaders from each side start walking to the front to kick some ass.
I'd also like to see an ocean battle map with players commanding fleets of ships. But seriously....do away with capture the flag type stuff and just make interesting maps with nifty items players can use to kill each other with.
Holy shit, wow. I am, quite impressed.
So am I right in understanding that this is not a "world event" type thing, but in fact a quest that everyone will get to do?
Yes.
I'm really hoping they nail the badass look for Wrynn with the upcoming redesign. My tiny gnome needs someone to look up to.
-Dump marks
-A 15 minute timer on WSG
-A non daily repeatable quest for winning a BG. Basically something that synchs the goals of the BG (winning) with the goals of the majority of players (Max honour per hour)
-Revamp EoTS and replace it with a tug of war gametype rather than the zones/ctf bastard child it is now. And make a map with some fucking character for fuck's sake. For something that is the only BG they added with an entire expansion it's the most slapped together at the last minute, dull and boring looking BG ever. Make it based in fucking Nagrand or something.
In the cutscene, the Horde and Alliance armies make a combined assault on the Scourge. Varimathras and Apothecary Putress (who hasn't appeared in WoW yet, naturally) show up and unleash the Forsaken plague on everyone and everything. Saurfang the Younger and Bolvar Fordragon are killed, along with the rest of the Horde and Alliance forces.
Still wish there was a way you could join the Scourge though. I so would swap sides on my warlock.
edit: Hmm just saw this:
Couldn't this be a problem for people who don't have DVD drives? Or is that noone anymore?
e2: Yay for me though, I fucking hate installing wow Vanilla when the 5th fucking CD fails and you have to start over.
I don't care if it's a lie.
I want this to be true
Thank god. I really hated trying to keep track of all those disks.
Also, my idea was way cooler.
Also,
edit: Just looked up the power rangers on wikipedia for old times' sake and found this gem: It's like Shakespeare.
I'd prefer they change it so that each flag cap gets you a mark provided you are still there at the end of the game (so winners get 3, losers get 0-2 depending on performance). That would discourage afkers and get people to actually participate if they want their stuff instead of just failing into it. And then make it so that after a certain amount of time (20 minutes?), the rules change so that your flag no longer has to be in your base for you to score (so that the games would end quicker without encouraging turtling).
The only way I can see this going painlessly would be if they changed the turn in quest to accept single marks from ANY BG (or just 4 marks from any BG) and the new perks/items ONLY cost honour. Allow people to dump their marks into honour, and then dump their honour into some new toys.
Or let us transfer honour and marks between characters on the same account, allowing people with alts to pool their resources for a few purchases.
Unless the items are account bound, it's unlikely that they'd be upgrades for the rogue (who has the most marks, honour, but also the best gear), whereas most of the alts have 5-10k'ish honour and a smattering of marks, which would just end up wasted.
Honestly, if done wrong, this could kill any BG participation from me again. I accept that MMO's are a time sink, and for me, BG's/most PVP is a time sink in a time sink, but wiping out the rewards for those hours spent across 9 characters would be pretty brutal without an 'out' of some sort.
Change it to "1+flag caps" so losers get 1-3 and winners get 4, and I'd back you on that.
Fuck the idea of spending 10-60 minutes in a WSG and getting 0 marks, on top of the queue times (lessened as they've been over the years).
The other is creating pure classes with hybrids. They're having so much trouble balancing classes because they have to try and keep the hybrids happy while trying not to encroach on the pure (read: single function) classes efficacy.
I hope they've learned from these things and that they'll make some serious changes when WoW 2 comes around.
Or you could go something like:
0 flag caps = 1 mark.
1 " " = 2 marks + ¼X bonus honor.
2 " " = 3 marks + ½X bonus honor.
3 " " = 3 marks + X bonus honor.
This gives an incentive to play hard, since even losing will give some honor and it doesn't punish the poor pug that runs into a pre-made.
I would kind of like to see it become like TF2s CTF games, you score even if your flag is out on the field somewhere. People will actually try to stop the other teams carrier while they are midfield.
And yet with marks in the system (and being wiped), being able to hand out honour like candy doesn't mean much if I have to do 14-40 WSG's for a pair of boots on that alt.
Honour is easy to get, marks are the hard part (aside from AV, given my faction and battlegroup), and I'll lament the loss of hundreds of marks far more than the loss of a hundred thousand honour.
The other possible up side would be that hopefully they'll lower the number of marks needed per item. Even with back to back wins in a premade group, it just takes forever to snag enough marks of a certain type at times.
I hope so anyway.
I should have been clearer. It would be on top of the base honor. A huge reason people get bored is that whole "Meh, my team isn't up by two flag caps so I'm just going to sit here and get my mark" which leads to insanely boring matches. If you do try to win, then you're frustrated by the lazy people just waiting for their mark. If you don't try to win, you're just waiting for the game to end.
Which is a shame, because a tightly contested WSG can be a hell of a lot of fun. There is a stick in the form of the anti-afk stuff, now I think it's time to add a carrot.