I can agree to Dalaran's size being stupid because everyone is crammed in together.
Funny thing is, Shat was relatively spaced out and people bitched about that one for the same reasons. I remember people complaining about frame rate loss there because of all the zomgnpcs, but I never had too much of a problem with it myself (and keep in mind, people with supposedly better PCs than me were reporting "slideshows").
I think they were probably exaggerating their problem.
Actually most of that kind of problem is due to the nature of NAT routers. Few people set them up properly to forward port 3724, which Blizz uses to send character data.
What made Shat run so crappy compared to the Azeroth capitals is that the Azeroth capitals cheat. Stormwind, Ironforge, Undercity, and Orgimmar all cheated by being inside static meshes, using gates to block lines of sight. Thunder Bluff was so elevated that the normal world wasn't loaded, and Darnassus was just huge and spread out and no one ever was really there. Shattrath, in contrast, was not in a walled off environment. It had no walls or tricks to keep character models from being loaded, and as such you loaded the ENTIRETY of the city anytime you got close to it. This was a bitch, to say the least, especially when it came to the battlemasters.
Dalaran was an in-between setup. Yes, it was open to the world, but it was also walled so Dalaran's assets were only visible inside Dalaran. In fact, when you fly over Dalaran you see the map switch from an external map to an internal one in the style of Stormwind, showing you are passing through an invisible wall of sorts. The tight roads also mean that the buildings block line of sight to most of the city, again keeping down on the amount of information drawn, and the Undercity is treated like an entirely different static mesh as well. The walling off of the battleground queue areas (plus the addition of queue from anywhere) cut down on that strain to the rest of the system too.
So, notice a problem in this? Yup... With adding flying anywhere, the cheats used (most visible in Stormwind and UC) will have to be thrown out the window and the cities completely remodeled from scratch. We've already seen pictures of this with Undercity, where it is now actually viewable from overhead. Stormwind will be the bigger challenge, as the cathedral and the keep itself are both low-poly model static meshes when viewed from outside the city, just stuck there. That needs to be redone. My guess is that they'll redo the cities like Dalaran, where they will be a static mesh cheat that requires you to not fly.
I was actually going to post about this, I was thinking about it last night. You can see their corner cutting from all sorts of places in Stormwind. The districts are cut off at the roof tops as if they were separate areas.
I don't think they'll have to remodel them, so to speak. At most, they just need to fill in the gaps and remove invisible walls.
Maybe while they're at it, they can remove that glitch that lets you drop underneath Stormwind. Even when they removed the wall jumping bug, it is still possible to get there (I do it all the time, shut up).
As an aside, Thunder Bluff is my favorite city because it's fairly functional while maintaining the immersive feel. The only bad thing is they need to make the central totem tower with the flight path count as outdoors, because running up it on foot is a tad annoying, or passing through it.
Henroid on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
Oh dude, Undercity looks fucking great in that after shot.
Man ... I want to know when Cataclysm comes out already. Right now I am itching to resubscribe, order WotLK and catch up to the rest of the population ... I haven't played in 2,5 years and all I read about Cataclysm makes it sound awesome. But knowing Blizzard, it will probably be Christmas 2010 before it has any chance of hitting stores ...
One small bit of rumor has been floating around the BlizzCon floor the last couple days: that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released in 2010. We hear these kind of rumors all the time, and don't give them very much credence. Whatever date is up on Game Stop (November 1st, 2010) or Amazon or wherever are just placeholder dates until they start to change or we hear from trusted sources that the dates are correct.
But this time, things are a little bit different.
WoW.com has been able to confirm that during a DirecTV interview, Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard, revealed that Cataclysm is targeted for a 2010 release date.
Now a targeted release date should be clearly understood for what it is. It is a date that Blizzard wants to ship their game, nothing more, nothing less. It means that they have a plan and schedule to get the game ready by then. But as everyone knows, long term schedules can and do change. Please limit the QQ if we don't see Cataclysm next year.
Yeah, exploration. That's a good term for going from Hyjal to Blackrock Spire to Uldum to the Twilight highlands and then to Azshara's city. Even flying in a direct line that shit is gonna take for-fucking-ever.
At least you can fly in a straight line. Goddamn flight paths in Kalimdor and EK are so horrid. There's some places that are next to each other on the map that don't fly directly to one another (like Camp Mojache and Marshall's Refuge). But that's not the worst of it. What makes it bad is the zig-zag bullshit. Or when you fly up to Thunder Bluff, and you're approaching it, then bank off to the right... and circle around... and around, and then finally approach the landing area.
Some people enjoy flying around or running around and exploring hidden out of the way places or having to travel between points rather than click a button and boom, they're there. It helps make the world feel bigger, more epic in scope when you actually have to travel somewhere. Look at Eve Online. To go from one end of the galaxy to the next would take well over 250 jumps at least. Maybe twice that and take hours. Maybe even two entire evenings just devoted to traveling.
It may seem like a pain in the ass, but most people never have to travel more than 20 jumps which takes about an hour, provided you don't run into any gatecamps or pirates.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
One small bit of rumor has been floating around the BlizzCon floor the last couple days: that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released in 2010. We hear these kind of rumors all the time, and don't give them very much credence. Whatever date is up on Game Stop (November 1st, 2010) or Amazon or wherever are just placeholder dates until they start to change or we hear from trusted sources that the dates are correct.
But this time, things are a little bit different.
WoW.com has been able to confirm that during a DirecTV interview, Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard, revealed that Cataclysm is targeted for a 2010 release date.
Now a targeted release date should be clearly understood for what it is. It is a date that Blizzard wants to ship their game, nothing more, nothing less. It means that they have a plan and schedule to get the game ready by then. But as everyone knows, long term schedules can and do change. Please limit the QQ if we don't see Cataclysm next year.
Interesting news nonetheless!
Well ... thats not really big news now is it. I would have been really, really surprised if it would take them til 2011 before Cataclysm hits shelves. I fully expect them to release it Christmas 2010 at the very latest.
What I want tho is for them to release it Christmas 2009!
Jo Garcia is fucking stupid. She was a terrible floor "reporter" because she had no idea what the fuck she was even reporting on. Every time she came on screen I wanted to slap her. How can someone so ignorant about the subject matter be allowed such access.
Unrelated to the above, but still related to BlizzCon, who was Ozzy's guitarist? I was expecting Zakk Wylde. I pulled up the wikipedia entry for the band and whoever it was is not on the wiki page. Gus something or another.
Jo Garcia is fucking stupid. She was a terrible floor "reporter" because she had no idea what the fuck she was even reporting on. Every time she came on screen I wanted to slap her. How can someone so ignorant about the subject matter be allowed such access.
Unrelated to the above, but still related to BlizzCon, who was Ozzy's guitarist? I was expecting Zakk Wylde. I pulled up the wikipedia entry for the band and whoever it was is not on the wiki page. Gus something or another.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited August 2009
So Nefarian is coming back.
Does this mean...Razorgore? Hmmmmmmmmmm?
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
"It will increase the bonuses you receive from the tree into which you've invested the most talent points. It'll also have other passive bonuses depending on your class and spec." according to whoever put that up on Wowwiki.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
Here's the basics of mastery, subject to change.
Your talents will have 3 levels of stats attached to them. The first will be the "core" bonus that class needs, like attack power, armor pen, whatever. The second will be a fun little element that helps define what that particular talent tree is, without being specialized. Mastery will be the third level, which represents the heart of the talent tree.
Mastery on GEAR will be a bonus to whatever your mastery skill is. It is different for everyone. This helps with the whole reduction in itemization they want to head towards. It is the only tier that can be directly affected by gear.
A pic will help at this point, spoiled for hscroll but I don't want to.
See how that one stat is green? That is being affected by gear, because that is the highest talent tree and thus the focus of your mastery.
I can agree to Dalaran's size being stupid because everyone is crammed in together.
Funny thing is, Shat was relatively spaced out and people bitched about that one for the same reasons. I remember people complaining about frame rate loss there because of all the zomgnpcs, but I never had too much of a problem with it myself (and keep in mind, people with supposedly better PCs than me were reporting "slideshows").
I think they were probably exaggerating their problem.
At least the lag can't potentially kill you anymore like it did in Shat.
Cataclysm better be out in early 2010. If 3.3 is the last big content patch for Wrath, there's going to be a long period of nothing to do.
We will still get patch 4.0 before Cata to clean up on the existing gear and stats.
Tyberius 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 August 2009
Hopefully patch 4.0 will make one of my classes ridiculously overpowered again.
That was a fun 24 hours.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
0
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
No. It will be a completely new instance with new art, creatures, and loot.
Pharezon 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 August 2009
Razoooooorgooooooooooooore
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
0
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The lore around Deathwing is pretty sweet. As an added bonus, Blizzard can stop making the aspects all go crazy and have to be killed for random/retarded reasons since they now have a common enemy to concentrate on, as well as the raiding populace having another dragon to kill.
One of the awesome things about the original warcraft lore was that dragons were heroes. *shrug*
Derrick on
Steam and CFN: Enexemander
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The lore around Deathwing is pretty sweet. As an added bonus, Blizzard can stop making the aspects all go crazy and have to be killed for random/retarded reasons since they now have a common enemy to concentrate on, as well as the raiding populace having another dragon to kill.
One of the awesome things about the original warcraft lore was that dragons were heroes. *shrug*
Blizzard's already said that the events in LK will play a direct role in the cataclysm, especially Ulduar. I'll be frank, it's gonna be a BITCH to kill Deathwing with 3 of the 4 remaining aspects either insane or dead. Even if you add in the Nether dragonflight it will be a bitch, although I suspect they just want to be left alone.
I expect the lore to address this before we get to Deathwing. Something has to step up and be the new aspect of blue, and Ysondre needs to be freed from the Old Gods. But it would take a Titan to do that, right?
so path of the titans, guess you can actually have multiple different "glyphs" in one rank.
for example
+healing on bandages or
5 min CD spell that reduces damage taken by 10%. what a hard choice!
you know, when you think about it, all of the recent changes are brilliant from a money making perpective
lower the barriers to getting alts to 80, lower the barriers to getting good enough gear to tackle the latest raid, follow up that by saying the next big content patch will revisit well-loved old raids plus tackle the biggest storyline bad guy in what appears to be one of the coolest raids.
then follow all of that up with a huge, world-altering expansion pack with shittons more to do only a few months or so after all the above
blizzard is going to make so much fucking money it's insane
The lore around Deathwing is pretty sweet. As an added bonus, Blizzard can stop making the aspects all go crazy and have to be killed for random/retarded reasons since they now have a common enemy to concentrate on, as well as the raiding populace having another dragon to kill.
One of the awesome things about the original warcraft lore was that dragons were heroes. *shrug*
Blizzard's already said that the events in LK will play a direct role in the cataclysm, especially Ulduar. I'll be frank, it's gonna be a BITCH to kill Deathwing with 3 of the 4 remaining aspects either insane or dead. Even if you add in the Nether dragonflight it will be a bitch, although I suspect they just want to be left alone.
I expect the lore to address this before we get to Deathwing. Something has to step up and be the new aspect of blue, and Ysondre needs to be freed from the Old Gods. But it would take a Titan to do that, right?
Halls of Origination... hmm.
It took the titans to empower the aspects, yeah? Maybe the blues will just set someone up as an interim aspect and empower them through arcane magic or some such. Liberating Ysera could probably be done lorewise by Cenarius or Malfurion, in game by them, you, and 24 of your closest friends.
The lore around Deathwing is pretty sweet. As an added bonus, Blizzard can stop making the aspects all go crazy and have to be killed for random/retarded reasons since they now have a common enemy to concentrate on, as well as the raiding populace having another dragon to kill.
One of the awesome things about the original warcraft lore was that dragons were heroes. *shrug*
Blizzard's already said that the events in LK will play a direct role in the cataclysm, especially Ulduar. I'll be frank, it's gonna be a BITCH to kill Deathwing with 3 of the 4 remaining aspects either insane or dead. Even if you add in the Nether dragonflight it will be a bitch, although I suspect they just want to be left alone.
I expect the lore to address this before we get to Deathwing. Something has to step up and be the new aspect of blue, and Ysondre needs to be freed from the Old Gods. But it would take a Titan to do that, right?
Halls of Origination... hmm.
It took the titans to empower the aspects, yeah? Maybe the blues will just set someone up as an interim aspect and empower them through arcane magic or some such. Liberating Ysera could probably be done lorewise by Cenarius or Malfurion, in game by them, you, and 24 of your closest friends.
Well, with the quest starting from the key to the focusing iris, you bring his heart to Alexstrasza. My assumption from that was that she'll take charge and pick a new aspect, and empower him from the heart of Malygos.
Posts
I was actually going to post about this, I was thinking about it last night. You can see their corner cutting from all sorts of places in Stormwind. The districts are cut off at the roof tops as if they were separate areas.
I don't think they'll have to remodel them, so to speak. At most, they just need to fill in the gaps and remove invisible walls.
Maybe while they're at it, they can remove that glitch that lets you drop underneath Stormwind. Even when they removed the wall jumping bug, it is still possible to get there (I do it all the time, shut up).
As an aside, Thunder Bluff is my favorite city because it's fairly functional while maintaining the immersive feel. The only bad thing is they need to make the central totem tower with the flight path count as outdoors, because running up it on foot is a tad annoying, or passing through it.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
The panel those pics were from was EPIC.
I'm betting the capitals will have airborne defenders like Outland did.
(damn, top of the page, check out the pic I posted last page.)
Wait, isn't that the Charred Vale in Stonetalon? The path in the background looks like it's the one that leads to Desolace.
But the trees not in the lava-wrecked part are alive.
... in any case, so much for that tauren's effort to restore that bitch.
I need to get around to looking at the screens from the panels.
Yup. You can walk all the way to the shore now.
Yup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t0VqrBDaN8
lvl80 tauren elite chiefcon
It may seem like a pain in the ass, but most people never have to travel more than 20 jumps which takes about an hour, provided you don't run into any gatecamps or pirates.
Well ... thats not really big news now is it. I would have been really, really surprised if it would take them til 2011 before Cataclysm hits shelves. I fully expect them to release it Christmas 2010 at the very latest.
What I want tho is for them to release it Christmas 2009!
Unrelated to the above, but still related to BlizzCon, who was Ozzy's guitarist? I was expecting Zakk Wylde. I pulled up the wikipedia entry for the band and whoever it was is not on the wiki page. Gus something or another.
http://metal-archives.com/band.php?id=73525
Does this mean...Razorgore? Hmmmmmmmmmm?
This here, my game plan.
Your talents will have 3 levels of stats attached to them. The first will be the "core" bonus that class needs, like attack power, armor pen, whatever. The second will be a fun little element that helps define what that particular talent tree is, without being specialized. Mastery will be the third level, which represents the heart of the talent tree.
Mastery on GEAR will be a bonus to whatever your mastery skill is. It is different for everyone. This helps with the whole reduction in itemization they want to head towards. It is the only tier that can be directly affected by gear.
A pic will help at this point, spoiled for hscroll but I don't want to.
See how that one stat is green? That is being affected by gear, because that is the highest talent tree and thus the focus of your mastery.
Here's another pic, using an unfinished pally.
With them going to a single "talented" style pane for the talent trees, they are re-doing the background.
I like the undead druid better.
We will still get patch 4.0 before Cata to clean up on the existing gear and stats.
That was a fun 24 hours.
Mentioned earlier, but it bears repeating:
No. It will be a completely new instance with new art, creatures, and loot.
And some old friends.
Although the Beast will be in the Caverns, not the Descent (which looks like an ascent, and has to be due to the layout of BRM, but whatever.)
One of the awesome things about the original warcraft lore was that dragons were heroes. *shrug*
Blizzard's already said that the events in LK will play a direct role in the cataclysm, especially Ulduar. I'll be frank, it's gonna be a BITCH to kill Deathwing with 3 of the 4 remaining aspects either insane or dead. Even if you add in the Nether dragonflight it will be a bitch, although I suspect they just want to be left alone.
I expect the lore to address this before we get to Deathwing. Something has to step up and be the new aspect of blue, and Ysondre needs to be freed from the Old Gods. But it would take a Titan to do that, right?
Halls of Origination... hmm.
for example
+healing on bandages or
5 min CD spell that reduces damage taken by 10%. what a hard choice!
Battletag: Kain#1658
lower the barriers to getting alts to 80, lower the barriers to getting good enough gear to tackle the latest raid, follow up that by saying the next big content patch will revisit well-loved old raids plus tackle the biggest storyline bad guy in what appears to be one of the coolest raids.
then follow all of that up with a huge, world-altering expansion pack with shittons more to do only a few months or so after all the above
blizzard is going to make so much fucking money it's insane
It took the titans to empower the aspects, yeah? Maybe the blues will just set someone up as an interim aspect and empower them through arcane magic or some such. Liberating Ysera could probably be done lorewise by Cenarius or Malfurion, in game by them, you, and 24 of your closest friends.
Well, with the quest starting from the key to the focusing iris, you bring his heart to Alexstrasza. My assumption from that was that she'll take charge and pick a new aspect, and empower him from the heart of Malygos.