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Blizzcon Writeup
It is very obvious that the developers have been working overtime to bring a TON of new features to World of Warcraft and Starcraft Ghost. I was impressed by the amount of care and attention to detail with so many of the new features. It is quite obvious that the developers have been listening to the general population and life is good.
Starcraft Ghost players were in the definite minority when it came to pure obsession but it should be no less exciting to fans of Blizzard games and console games in particular. Amidst the sea of Xbox consoles that they had set up for players to use I managed to find a seat (briefly, after all, without WoW every couple of hours I get the shakes) and kill a few space marines. The main thing to be noted about Ghost is the aiming interface (or lack thereof). This seemed to be the most talked about aspect of the game after the excitement of playable zerg wore off. Yes, don't let that be too much of a side note, there are playable zerg in all of their infinite sexiness. My corrupted space marine killed more than a few of his previous brethren. The aiming interface, however, made me feel like I was playing with oven mitts on, a fact that the developers also commented on. The promise is that this particular piece of functionality is nowhere near where it will be before they release and seems to be one of the main things that they are working on. The only other complaint that I heard among a sea of praise was that the Terran faction seemed to be horribly "under balanced". At first I couldn't help but agree with this assessment. My FPS skills, especially on the console, are about as bad as Jonathan Wendell's are good. Even with my lack of skill I seemed to be able to dominate over the Terrans most of the first day of the con. However, coming back the second day this was certainly not the case. The Terran faction is a much more "cerebral" gaming experience, you have to learn how to aim, drive vehicles, protect your assets, and work together. Once you are able to master these facets however the Terrans become a horribly lethal race. Definitely keep an eye out for this title as I'm sure it will provide countless hours of entertainment through both a solid single player campaign and a running tally of turning your friends into pixelated giblets.
The World of Warcraft expansion "The Burning Crusade" made its debut this weekend and promises a new race for each faction which was actually a point of quite a bit of resentment from alliance players. The horde's new race, Bloodelves were an incredibly polished race with a promising future in the overall WoW universe while the alliance were left with empty speculation as to what their race would be. The press room seemed to be an endless stream of people trying to squeeze even the smallest piece of information out of the developers about the alliance race to no avail. Do not despair alliance, you may have met disappointment in your new race but patch 1.9 will be your salvation. The rest of the expansion also promised raising the level cap to 70, the opening of the Dark Portal revealing the continent of "Outland", flying mounts, several new instances, Jewelcrafting (the newest profession on the block), socketed items, and quite a bit more. I feel like I am back in the days before beta, waiting on the edge of my seat for any news and counting the days until release.
The upcoming patch also offered quite a bit of excitement for the future of Warcraft. Paladins, who many have considered the longest running joke in World of Warcraft appear to be getting a breath of fresh air. (CT: /dance) The announcement was made and it was as if a million angry shaman cried out in terror and then went silent. The class discussion panel actually spent about 2/3 of the alloted time talking about and answering questions regarding the paladin. The highlight of the new paladin abilities seem to be a greater separation and enhancement of the three talent trees allowing paladins to further specialize into their role as a healer, a tanker (aggro management abilities ala taunt were promised!), or a damage dealing machine. The one announcement that drew more cheers and applause than any other during the weekend was the news that Paladin's would be receiving new blessings that would last 15 minutes in duration. This news alone was enough to draw the complete adoration of every alliance player in the room but when the noise quieted down the developer on the stage was able to further clarify that these 15 minute blessings would be castable by class over the entire raid! This means that if a paladin casts this "group blessing" of might on a rogue, every rogue in the group would get that same buff for 15 minutes. After this the crowd seemed to disintegrate into a gibbering mass of disbelief and excitement seeing nothing but stars for the next few seconds or days, it was hard to tell. The only other thing that could rival this news in terms of excitement was the promise of linked auction houses in every major city. It is very clear to me that a lot of overtime and TLC has been worked into the upcoming additions to the World of Warcraft universe and I cannot wait to see what else they have in store.
Each panel seemed to be custom tailored to fit one or several of the developers consuming obsessions so the level of "exciting news" in each panel really helped to drive the convention at the same frenzied pitch the whole weekend. The "Items and Professions" panel was certainly no different. Some of the more exciting news was that both Tailoring and Alchemy will be getting specialization trees akin to the Blacksmith/Weaponsmith/Armorsmith setup. Word on the street is that Alchemy will get three choices (Elixers, Potions, and Transmutations) but still no word on what tailors will get. There was a shouted suggestion from the back of the room for "Shadoweave Tailoring" followed by a great pause from the presenter and a mumbled "duly noted" which elicited quite a laugh from the crowd. More news on the items and professions front was that epic items will now disenchant into "nexium crystals" for the new high level enchants, new caster items will have a "proc on cast" ability, spell penetration vs spell resistance will be much more pronounced, new tier two graphics (no more placeholders!), enchanters will be getting a new UI for sorting their recipes (thank god), and the new dungeons will offer upgrades to existing spells based on your items. The only other major news to come out of this panel was the unveiling of their new profession "Jewelcrafting" which will have the ability to make necklaces, rings, crowns, and mystic gems that you can place into the new socketed items. The amount of customization and variation that the new items being worked into the game offer is quite exciting and seem to promise that World of Warcraft will remain (at least in the near future) a very dynamic experience for everyone from the casual player to the seasoned power gamer.
The general con floor offered many other distractions once I was able to tear myself away from the individual shiny bits that could have held me enthralled for several days. The vendor area was relatively small compared to most cons (especially for the amount of potential consumers) but Microsoft was in attendance and bought popularity through a live DJ, comfortable couches, and a fully stocked snack bar complete with what can only be called a butler-esque attendant. Intel, Creative, and NewEgg all had booths with computers allowing you to playtest their hardware with the new expansion which was one of the best kept secrets of the con by the players who didn't want to wait in the 3 hour expansion line. NVidia had a green screen where you could get your picture taken with your friends in one of six locations around Azeroth. Western Digital had a few shiny boxes to catch your eye, a coupon to tempt your wallet, and a flashing bouncy ball that you could annoy your hotel roommates with until the wee hours of the morning. The Penny Arcade crew was there in force with enough t-shirts for an army and indeed many of the con denizens were sporting "Rogues do it from behind" or "/spit" shirts after the first few hours of the con. Unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) for the Penny Arcade guys, Blizzcon came equipped with TWO armies and they were pretty much sold out long before the con ended.
My last panel of the weekend was the combined Penny Arcade, PVP, and GU Comics event. The guys jumped right into questions, handling the crowd with an ease born of time in the webculture limelight. The quick wit and topical humor held the audience enthralled and laughing right up until Caydiem (one of the Blizzard moderators) called for the last question. The questions that they fielded covered a wide range of aspects but most people seemed to want to know where each of the artists drew their inspiration from. After the third or fourth rephrasing of this question Mike "Gabe" Krahulik chimed in that when looking for inspiration on a comic about a dinosaur raping someone he generally looked to Charles Shultz. Krahulik's usual deadpan delivery drew a hearty laugh from the audience and pretty much laid that particular line of questioning to rest. These panelists proved once again that they continue to keep their thumb on the pulse of the gaming community and are rewarded with the respect and adoration of many.
Regardless of how you felt about the convention itself the wrap-up concert on Saturday really helped the con go out with a bang. The act started out a little slow with an in-house act called "Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain" (say that 10 times fast) who seemed to be an old axel rose impersonator turned death-metal band. I admit it wasn't exactly up my alley but they made a good showing as a garage band in their first ever live performance. What a way to start, too, playing as an opening act for The Offspring and getting to use some of their cool toys. The second act was comedian Christian Finnegan who seemed content to perch himself firmly on the fence between insulting the crowd and identifying with growing up as a geek. He drew quite a few laughs but proved to be a poor segue between two pretty intense acts. This was something he commented on when he mentioned that Blizzard had put a heavy metal band on the stage to whip the crowd into a frenzy and then tossed the "worlds biggest pussy" in front of them. I am glad that he put the crowd in a generally good mood because we were forced to wait almost an hour with no explanation before The Offspring were able to take the stage. Once they took the stage, however, it was pure showmanship and excitement until the end. Approaching this concert from a geek perspective there was one thing that I couldn't help but notice, the lighting was fantastic. Now, many people may laugh at this observation but in addition to a great performance by The Offspring their lighting tech looked more like an artist painting his masterpiece than some random roadie who was just along to make the band look good. He freehanded almost as much as did with cues and it was tough to decide what to watch, the main stage or the tech stage as they were equally impressive.
Blizzcon was a great experience and a hell of a "first try" for a convention. One of the real strengths of this con was the ability for the core of Blizzard (the developers and upper management) to really make themselves available to the common man. I even noticed the president and lead developers wandering the showroom floor and stopping to talk to J. Random Citizen. This meeting of the "old guard" of Blizzard also made something that has been rather intangible in the past very clear. While the core of Blizzard that has weathered so many storms together is still just as strong as ever their "public face" is really struggling to keep up. I remember the days of beta and even early launch when the in game GM's were helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable. I even sent several glowing letters of review to their superiors because it was such a welcome change from the Sony mafioso in Star Wars Galaxies that I had just come from. A prime example of how the public relations folk are really struggling was the press/vip line during con check-in. A regular con badge could be accessed and retrieved in a matter of seconds due to a neat little database check-in program written by one of their technophiles. A press/vip pass however could only be found by thumbing through each and every pass, they didn't even have a list of who was authorized. This led to the "loss" of my badge and if it hadn't been for the use of my wife's badge (general admission) I would have missed the unveiling of the expansion, waiting until noon before they could figure things out.
We all need to remember that Blizzard is still the new kid on the MMO block and in many ways is still trying to "find themselves." The public relations department is working overtime to try and catch up to the overwhelming demand that WoW has generated and they are not doing a bad job. However, the problem comes in the fact that due to their inexperience they are trying to emulate other companies that have had some measure of success on the MMO scene, this is the worst thing that they could do. Blizzard gained a large degree of success from not doing things the same old tired way that other companies had already tried. It is my hope that Blizzard came away from this con with just as much learned as their fans did. If, in true Blizzard fashion, they were able to come up with a public relations solution that is all their own and no one else's their fans would love them for it.
I imagine that next year their organization will certainly be much more adept and they will be able to shorten their lines and wait time for many of the different attractions. Given the overwhelming attendance and success of this con I foresee many different vendors trying to get on board possibly leading to a separate vendor hall entirely which I think would help to alleviate some of the lines along with bringing more money into the con. Blizzard may be playing to a very limited audience in terms of scope, but sheer numbers and overwhelming loyalty seem to be more than enough to ensure that Blizzcon will continue to be a successful con for years to come.
All that text and Firefox's Find function (it's not like I was going to read the whole thing) couldn't locate one single reference to Diablo. Oh well.
The horde gets the blood elves, but alliance isn't announced yet.
Rumor has it that they wanted to put the Pandaren in, but are afraid of the reaction of the Chinese to a bunch of people going around killing pandas.
With foam lances in hand, the jousters did their best to not lose their balance while trying to knock each other off of a three-foot-wide square platform
Not knowing the soft "gel like substance" they landed in after being defeated was nothing but the melted transmorgified corpses of their fellow defeated gamers.
Am no fek Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.
This is a post that I made on WoW's general forums a ways back, but which was silently deleted after it received several pages of responses.
...), they decided that they would start throwing an annual event to celebrate the people that had made them successful, their fans.
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Blizz should take a page from id's book
It really irritates me (and several people I know) that Blizz is charging $120 for a ticket to Blizzcon. Why? A little history...
Back in the 1990's, there was this company (which still exists today, actually) called id software. id had some really kickass people, and wrote several wildly popular games. You might have heard of several of them; they're names were generally single words, things like "Quake" and "Doom" (and several sequels). After id made their millions (and millions, and
And thus, Quakecon (http://www.quakecon.org/) was born. Every year around August, id software throws a big ass, multi-day con for their fans. For free. FOR FREE. This past year, there were approximately 10-15,000 attendees. Over 6000 brought their computers to enjoy the largest LAN party in the western hemisphere. Attendees heard keynotes from key personnel at id, Raven, as well as many other companies, browsed through companies' newest products and got to play--for the first time ever--id's newest title Quake 4. For free.
Blizz, take a page from id's book. With revenue in the millions every month from all of your subscribers, the $120 per ticket isn't just wrong. It's plain greedy. And it's disgusting.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard
:o)
You mean they had you sign a release promising them the right to run spyware on your comptuer, then filed a bogus copyright lawsuit against you?
...the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard.
Need I remind everyone of the BNetD case?
For those to lazy to read TFA, Blizzard took these guys to court for reverse engineering and creating a Battle.Net client. In the end, it was ruled that the EULA overrides personal rights. Rediculous IMO.
As a side note, I certainly hope that PLDs can lend a little help tanking. It will let me focus on being a fullforce DPS whore warrior that is just dying to be unleashed.
There are, I noticed, far more adults at the con than I thought. But maybe its because of the guild I run with on Sargeras.
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
No, he means there were long lines, and whenever they got near the vendors they ended up walking really slow, people would appear out of nowhere, and there were lots of pink haired mostly naked short people dancing.
Well, at least this guy thought so. I think in this photo the G indicates that this is a girl.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
I have, btw, a 60 shaman, 60 pally, 60 priest, 60 mage, and a 60 warlock all on PvP servers(all but the pally horde on the same server). I have access to(and have played via character swap with guildies) a 60 rogue, a 60 warrior, and a 60 druid. The only class I can't stand is the hunter.
Now you only need a life. Complaining here just shows how sick you are.
the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard
Hey, as long as they didn't make you replace your name badge, it's all good!
As a mature Alliance player in a mature guild I just can't WAIT for the expansion. Every 13 year old 3l33t dud3 is going to flock to the horde now.
You just wait, Horde. Just wait for the idiots join your side!
Ahahahahahaahhahahahaahahahhaaaaaaaaaaa!
You mean Blizzcon looked great, but came out eighteen months after it was originally scheduled?
It's not a civil right; it's a contract. You want to use the service? Then you have to agree to these terms. Feel that the contract is unnecessarily restrictive? Then don't buy their game!
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
ahhhhh... the sound of fanboys rolling in the warm morning mud is always so unpleasant to watch.
Cry more noob ! :)
Ahh, Blizzcon, You have never seen a more wretched hive of geeks and horde in your life. As a longtime fan of Blizzard, (after all what other company does hybrid disks for both Macs and PCs, I ask you, now if only they supported Linux), I have to say it was wonderfully put together, and fully embraced the Blizzard style of not neccesarily adding anything new to a genre of gaming (or in this case a convention), but rather concentrating on polishing the elements; the bits and pieces of which the whole convention was made up of, to full diamondy perfection. Kudos to the inventation of Scott, Tycho and Gabe, whose witty dialogue made for a fun addition that wasn't necessarily fully related to WOW or any of the other franchises, but whose presence I felt added an icing on the provierable cake. The offspring concert was a grand send off and I hope fervently that Blizzard will try another effort such as this sometime in the future. First Post, so please go easy on me...
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
Paladins are a defensive support healer, why are they breaking the class into some sort of mediocre damage dealer? I don't really want to sacrifice the few things I do well to suck less, but still suck, in DPS. I'm cool with playing a defensive support healer, that's why I picked the class, if I wanted to be a DPS class I would've rolled a rogue.
-60 paladin
It's the first Blizzard that has ever visited Anaheim. Though my Grandpa once told me that it snowed there once (I think he said in the 50's).
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Bliz seems to like integrating "real world" cultural themes into their games. Dwaves are somewhat Scottish (in speach and faciniation with alcohol ;)). Trolls have a touch of Jamacian. Tuaren definately have that Naitive American tribal thing going. Why not have a strongly eastern themed race like the Panderan?
Besides I bet a Pandaren Warrior can fend for itself and doesn't need the WWF (that is not the wrestling guys!) to help out. I personally hold out the Allience race is our favorite anthrophoric pandas but the other strong rumor are those creapy ET looking guys you find in Blasted Lands (name of which I'm drawing a blank at the moment).
Your $10/month will be missed.
Warm Regards,
Blizzard Management
Seriously, I thought this was an awsome looking game from when I saw the first screenshots.... but then delay.... delay...DELAY....
I have come to expect delays from blizzard, and I don't mind because the end product is a game of higher quality. But I'm starting to wonder if this game has started down the road to vaporware.
I got nothin'
Actually that's only about 1/2 an hour a day to get 6 characters to 60 over the almost year since release. I probably put in an average of 3-4 a day. It's what I do instead of watching TV.
But, yea, I am sick. MMOs are the devil.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
So, kinda like an exact role-reversal from which the Horde is normally used to?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Just kidding. Do you tihnk Diablo will come out on the next Gen game consoles? I hope so, playing through the web with the headsets would be pretty sweet.
Sorry, didn't mean to come off like a troll or anything. But $120? That is just crazy. You could buy a Nintendo DS for that much.
Every 13 year old 3l33t dud3 is going to flock to the horde now
There are several there already. Just tune into Barrens General Chat.
No sig
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
I went there by myself and really didn't know what to expect. However, they had scheduled realm meetings so when I first got in, I wandered over to our table and met up with a group of players from my server and we wound up hanging together the whole time, forming a team for the Arathi Basin tournament, etc.
Regarding the pally being the running joke of the Alliance, my whole view shifted after playing on the Horde side (for once) in AB and seeing a well played pally become an unstopable force as well as an escape artist. Shammies just don't compare IMHO. Shammies have better burst DPS but loose out on the survivability.
Anyways, here are the pics that I took there:
www.gilbertcon.com/wow
I still don't think Blizz knows what they're doing with the Pally class, or hybrids in general(buffing individual aspects of them to close to pure-class levels, which is getting really insane for classes like druids).
I would've started on the judgement system(which is mostly busted), and then started to play up the sheer annoyance and confusion a pally can inflict on massed horde in large scale PvP. Give em an on-death ability like priests have, which either does a heal or an AoE short-duration stun. Stuff like that.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
He makes Michael look good.
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BTW, my text image word was "specials"
Open-source air-travel only!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
is is true that hardly anyone went to see 'offspring' ?
And honestly, I think druids needed those buffs, but I don't like the fundamental design of the druid class in WoW in general.
You have way too much free time if you have that many 60s. Paladins can deal dmg while immune very very slowly (50% decreased attack speed). They don't deal much dmg in the first place so... that's pretty irrelevent. Tying up resources in PvP? Just don't attack the paladin when it's bubbled. Not a hard concept. You can tell when it's bubbled, move on to another target. Do you stop attacking a mage when it's mana shielded or a priest when it's shielded? Mages and priests can attack while shielded at full force. The hammer can only be used below 20% life and uses more than 300 mana. If you are at the end of a big battle where you are healing you generally don't have 300 mana left to cast it. Comparing it to execute is pretty lame. I would love to have an Alliance Shaman so the Horde can finally see how stupidly powerful the Shaman is. Take away their mail armor and give them leather at level 40 instead and we'll call it even. Please suspend your account so we don't have to hear you whine in game. Thanks.
None of us are as dumb as all of us.
Druids buff for 1 hour. Why should Paladins suck so bad and only have 15 minutes? That's just plain ridiculous.
...the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that.
BBC Article URL
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Penny Arcade has an opinion posted.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
Worstening the side discrepancy even more(there's what, an average of 2-3 alliance to every horde across all servers, with only 2 servers having a large horde->alliance discrepancy) and ensuring the alliance doesn't get a chance to PvP.
I seriously think that the Bloodelves race, will seriously tip this balance. Some people select their race because of their presentation, some races by belief/affinity. I hope the alliance will get something like a semi-giants race to counter the Tauren in size.
Shaman lottery burst DPS is insane(a series of windfury procs is like the hand of god coming down). And their ability to control-burst DPS is pretty decent via shocks, but all in all their consistant DPS isn't *that* much higher than a paladin's.
Judgements do suck, and they should really be fixed. So do blessings(inconvienant as hell), totems(party only and cost a lot of mana), inner fire for priests(3 min duration and provides attack power!?), and shards not stacking for warlocks(which is because of soulfire, but still sucks).
The problem with druids, is they've been buffed too far now. A feral druid in mainly blues now hits for 400, critting for 800, with higher AC than most warriors. They can out-MT-heal a priest and have a decent mana pool in caster gear. They can break CC via shapeshifting. They have access to the most powerful ability in the game, stealth, by default, and now, via feral, can effectively dish out almost as much damage as a rogue. It's really starting to get very, very silly as they've almost become a priest/rogue/warrior all rolled into one. IMO, a pure-class should blow a hybrid out of the water when it comes to what they specialize in(since they do little else) and specced appropriately. Warriors for tanking, Rogues for melee DPS, priests for healing.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Okay, that's all fine and good...
But was there any word on when we're going to see the next iteration of strategy games?
It seems there has been a complete and total shift to MMORPG and abandonment of the RTS roots.
Hello, Blizzard? Where is Starcraft 2?
So, what's the over/under on how many next generation console systems will be released before this game sees the light of day? Quickly followed by, how much of an additional delay will ensuring xbox 360 compatibility introduce?
spend that time coding and furthering the OSS movement.
that'll cure you
Could someone explain why Slashdot did not declaired a boycott on all things related to Blizzard and Vivendi long ago?
Honestly, what does it take for them to be labeled as worthless assholes?
O RLY?
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
It's CAYDIEM.. thanks
You know, I kinda thought they might be angling to open up the Paladins to the Horde and the Shaman's to the Alliance through their choice of new races. Blood Elven paladins aren't that much of a stretch and Pandarin shamans seem almost a given.
I certainly don't have a problem with it. I'd love to see the diehard Horde types play the freaking Paladin that they sooo incessantly complain about, and vice versa with the alliance and the supposedly unstoppable shamans.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Sorry I call bs. It has become documented by many players that it takes the most hardcore of players only 8 days playtime to reach 60 with casual players like you are trying to claim to be on up to 16+ days. This comes out to be 192 hours. If you played only 1/2 an hour a day you'd have to play 384 days on one character. If you played more like what it sounds, 4 hours a day at least, it would take you 48 days to reach 60 with one character, which would mean it would take you 284 days to get 6 characters to 60.
I'm sorry, but in reality you've probably logged 6-8+ hours daily since 8 days was only for the most hardcore.
Very few people understand how hard it is to provide good customer service for an MMORPG.
This is due in no small part to the subscription fees being too low. (yes, that's right, too LOW).
Blizzard may have room for improvement, but they're doing as good a job as any large-scale MMO has ever done. Certainly a better job than Sony/Verant has ever done!
Yeah, that's givin' him the bird ... :D
it's the chinese gold market that will suffer.
The same applies to Seal of Command, really... get a lucky string of procs/crits and you'll get lots of "O RLY?"s from people. Anyway though, I think the current druid issues extend back to the core design of the class, you either make them so close an analog to the classes they shift between they are an acceptable substitute, or not so close and unacceptable. It was thought perhaps the ability to shift between roles would make up for not doing a role acceptably, but this turned out to be untrue.
I beg to differ with your new content. I don't believe the WoW patches really add all that much content compared to Asheron's Call monthly story lines. I've had the please to play Asheron's Call (the first doh) for over 4 years. It's what kept people playing. Even it's sequel AC2 is dying off in a few weeks...
I call bullshit. It took me about nine days of playing time to get to level 60 with ONE character, and thirty minutes a day for 365 days is only about 8 days of total time, which is a hell of a lot less than the average amount of time it takes to hit sixty.
Your amazing ability to level 6 characters to 60 in 80% of the time it takes a normal insane WoW junkie to hit 60 with ONE character, leads me to the only possible conclusion: No freaking way.
Taking a relatively low amount of time to 60 (ten days) and multiplying it by 6 gives me 60 days, otherwise known as 2 months, which, spread out over a year would indicate a minimum of four hours a day, and you'd have to instantly stop playing a lvl 60 as soon as you hit 60, and move on to the next one, something which seems utterly pointless and unlikely.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Not really, I put in about 3-4 hours a day since release(it's been almost a year). It's what I do on weeknights and early mornings/afternoons on weekends now instead of watching TV or playing around on the internet. WoW is easy to level in. Takes about 20 days of playtime for your first 60 and you can get additional 60s in 9-10 days of playtime. Plus me and my roommate(a chef, keeps insane hours) played each other's alts. Oh and I took two weeks off work to powerlevel characters, because I know how I get with these games(It's not pretty, I'm a sick, sick individual).
I have fought shamans, as alliance(on a pally) and as horde via duels. I've played both sides of the fence. Try playing the other side, you'll see how balanced things actually are.
Priest and Mage shields are: A. Dispellable, and B. Do not scale with gear progression. While Power Word Shield used to be great, it's now taken out in less than a hit in the end game, and you can't chain cast it(even multiple targets, as it has a cooldown). Mage shields, AKA mana shield, drain mana for each hit, quickly, and are comparably weak. Mana is the very thing a mage needs to be useful, and if you're considering mana shield, mana shield probably isn't going to save you(it sucks, bad). There is also no gear in the game that improves either of these abilities. Pally shields are time based, and thus DO SCALE. They always protect the pally for the same amount of time regardless of how much damage that pally is taking and regardless of a paladin's gear. They're also, in the case of Divine Shield, reactive. They can break magic-based CC. They are equally effective against 1 person and 40 epic-geared people. The two classes of shields are not comparable in utility.
I can tell that if you even play the game, you're evidentally part of the teeming horde of incredibly shitty paladins, and I have no desire to educate you on how to be effective. I'll just say that the actual problems with the paladin class are not the ones bitched about by your ilk.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
one thing that worries me is that they are releasing Ghost, on the XBOX, NEXT YEAR! that time is when the next-gen consoles are hyped the most, no one is going to pay attention to a non-next-gen game unless they know what they are looking for. i heard a back a month ago that Blizz was hire next-gen graphic designers and there was rumour about Ghost being released on XBOX 360, that would have made more sense and would put Ghost up on the par next year with all the new next-gen titles. but then Blizzard can also design the game so well that people would actualy buy it and play it on their XBOX 360 with the back-wards compatible feature... but thats not likely because everyone will probably get hyped up about the new games with awsome graphics and stuff... but then again, im a PC gamer... so i'd probably have to go to a friend's house to play it >.> i wanted to cry when they said Ghost was strickly for Consoles O N L Y >.
considering...the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard.
We've heard about the two hour queues. But did the convention center randomly crash, kicking everyone out and make them queue all over again too?
SoC seems to do it less often than Windfury does. But yea, they're *about* equivalent.
Anyway, druids, the problem I have with that concept is, why would I play something other than a druid now? I can fill in for any of 3 roles. What do those 3 core-classes get that puts them above and beyond a druid? So far, nothing. By elevating the druid class, they've demeaned all the classes the druid can fill in for. Priests(which is my main and original character) especially are pretty pissed off about it, because we feel if we go raidspec we should make a druid healer look like a sick joke, and their big thing in a raid(if they go that way) is supporting us via innervate.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Well, having recently rebuilt a druid to be all feral, which is the pure melee tree for those who don't know druids, I can definitely say my healing has gone to hell. It's not like being a pally, where you can fight and heal at the same time. I can fight, OR I can heal, and my heals aren't anywhere near as effective.
Mind you, I freaking rule in melee. But I'm not as good a rogue as a rogue, and I'm not as good a fighter as a fighter. And the lack of a real focus bites you in the ass, as often as not.
I'll be interested to see what they can do with the pally specializations. Right now you either get a little good damage dealing with Retribution (and pay for it by being gimpy in instances), or you get solid defense with Protection, and pay for it by having zero DPS. If you go 100% Holy, you're roadkill.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Dunemaul? Barrens chat scares me. Anyway, Blizzard had better hurry with Ghost, as it is going to be released for Current-gen consoles and the X-Box 360 is only a month away...
Ehh I fucked up my math, and me and my roommate played each other's alts. I put in about 3-4 hours a day on a typical day, not counting the two weeks straight of 18 hour WoW days I put in for my "vacation." It took me 20 days to hit 60 on my first character, 15 on my other-side char, and around 9 a pop of playtime per alt. Average is around 5 hours a day, not all of it put in by me.
And yea, only one of my characters, my initial one, is effectively geared up with anything other than BoEs.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The most important point would be how they are going to implement an xpansion pack. I cant see them making new xpack servers, and they cant force us to buy the new game, yet must support the old one. I would guess this means some of the content will be free as a D/L (like a patch), and the xpack will simple unlock a few more sections?
Being affiliated with horde or anyone for that matter makes about as much sense as Tauren being affiliated with the Forsaken and Night Elves with Dwarves and Gnomes.
Lorewise Tauren and Night Elves should have their own faction and Blood Elves are... well not associated with trolls. They make more sense as an Alliance race than Night Elves.
Wow, I'm a nerd =\
"nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard."
Do you mean this excellence?
I don't get how anyone still likes Blizzard...
A friend of mine showed me a week or two ago a password protected post on his guild's forum. It stated blood elves would be the new horde race and dranei the new alliance race. It also said that northrend would be a 80 man raid with 40 alliance and 40 horde working together with the Argent Dawn to take down Arthas.
I dunno about the rest, but the blood elves at least turned out to be right.
The new class is supposed to be the spellbreaker, with talent trees doing different crazy things. One is a talent that turns you into an evolving ooze (once every 10 minutes you become immune to the school of magic that just affected you). Talents for raising resists to different schools of magic, etc.
Overall, I guess they could be interesting.
Meh, I quit playing awhile ago because being a druid was so tedious in group (heal more). Perhaps I should go back now, seems like they finally made us viable, are druids still forced to heal after the patch? If yes, then you don't have to worry about them being over powered, since they aren't allowed to play still.
:)
If not, you still don't have to worry much, since they can't do EVERYTHING, when in feral they have no mana, so just try to out last them, they'll run out of heals quick enough. In their in caster gear, just trinket out of roots, they have no armor AC. If in MK, then they have no health whatsoever.
It's a gear class, you need to compensate for their gear, not their abilities.
Perhaps you should be bitching about shammies? They are the ALPHA overpowered hybrid. We were the underpowered one, we got buffed, next is pallies, meaning we will be underpowered again.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It's not the games and displays and booths and things (though they are perks), BLUE CHICKS!!!
Because of the way the trees are made, you really don't get more dps from retribution than from protection.
The retribution tree is crap. Vengeance is better with fast weapons - but seal of command, the only realistic pvp damage seal, requires a slow weapon to be any good. Contrast that with enrage or flurry. Conviction, the 5 point melee crit talent is tier *6* compared to the much lower tiers other classes. Improved retribution aura gives *1* extra damage per talent point (5 point talent)! Anticipation, which increases the defense skill is in the retribution tree, which makes no sense at all (neither does improved retribution aura, despite the name. It fits the theme of protection far better). I could go on.
The paladin trees are horseshit and have been from the beginning.
Dead on about holy, though. That's the worst of the three trees. A tier six talent that gives +10% strength? What the fuck were they smoking? Sanctity aura's 10% extra holy damage is almost NEVER better than unimproved retribution aura in terms of increased dps, despite sanctity being a tier 5 talent and having no extra utility.
There's no way paladin changes should have waited this long - the paladin as it is shouldn't have made it through beta. Period.
Reposted from an earlier comment.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
For that Diablo 3 goodness, try Guild Wars.
Dont you think?
My qualms arise from the fact that game makes expect me to pay $50 for their game (give or take a few dollars depending on the title) and then pay to play it every month. Frankly, I flatly refuse to do it. If you want me to pay by the month, fine - sell me the game for cheap. It should cost well under $20 and the monthly fee should be reasonable. While the monthly fee to pay WoW is fairly reasonable (about $15/month), paying $50 for the game so that I turn around and pay another $15/month to play my game isn't.
How hard is it to do the math? Charge me $20 for the game and $18/month to play. Over the course of 18 months, you've actually made an extra $4 per player and you likely have more players.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
rest bonus ftw!
The fact that there was an entry fee, unlike QuakeCon, didn't help either. Charging people $140 just to get in (not to mention hotel, travel and food costs) is not a good way to start a convention let alone a convention aimed solely at Blizzard games (E3 this ain't).
Maybe it will be like everquest.
You won't be able to access the new areas until you buy the expansion pack (and they won't be downloaded since you won't need it). You will probably download (via a patch) the artwork for the new races, tho you won't (or might not) be able to roll one of those.
No sig
I'm dreading the wait for StarCraft 2. Let's see, StarCraft 1 was released in 1997. Here it's almost 2006 and nothing has even been mentioned about StarCraft 2. Assuming they start leaking info about StarCraft 2 by 2010, it'll be 2015 before we might be able to play.
... I'll be how old then? And when StarCraft 2 finally comes out, I'll be like "wow, I remember the good old days back when I was a kid in high school and StarCraft 1 came out". *sigh*
Hmmm, 2015
There are plenty of companies with cutting edge technology and the ethics that match up with what people want. If you went to Blizzcon or pay them a single cent for their games then you are just a whore for their crap. You pay for the lawyers that represent them in court, suing people who make a non-commercial alternative to their control of your life. Be ashamed. Be very ashamed.
Agreed.. I want Starcraft 2 more than anything. I'm SICK of Blizzard milking the Warcraft franchise. We've had 3 Warcraft games in a row now, soon to be 4 with the expansion. And I could care less about SC:Ghost. It's console only, not Blizzard developed, and has been delayed for ages now.
"Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain" was not exactly a garage band, they were Blizzard employees. That was part of the fun of it.
Level 60 camping me waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Why can't you fucking idiots say (type) the word "paladin"?
Yes. We definitely need an "Age 35+" server.
You obviously didn't see the Hott Succubus in the costume contest.
She can violate my DMCA any day!
(This post was sarcasm.)
s'wut i sed.
Um...because a group buff (which is cast once) is insanely powerful and cheap?
/me plays a warlock. On a PvP server. You don't know ridiculous.
Besides, Druids were DESIGNED to be "support", not tanks like the pally. Buffs + Combat rez FTW!
When they migrated to that stupid CD/DRM scheme. Kids love Blizzard. I have kids. But they are not allowed to play with the originals. No backups, no purchase. I have all my original game media since 1979.
$400 worth of Blizzard games and I get from Blizzard support, 'You can't make a copy, but your allowed one backup'. Screw them, I'm not a re-occuring fee customer.
End rant,
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
Druids are good to have around. We've had 6 or 7 shammies in a 20-man and at most 2 druids, if any. A couple people now have druid alts coming up, myself included. We recently recruited a druid who insisted on /ginvites for his warrior and rogue buddies. We might not have taken some random warrior or rogue, but for a druid ? We took 'em gladly.
Druids are, like shammies, a jack of all trades class. Much more than shammies, they are dependent on gear and spec to succeed in their chosen path. A shammie can cast heals while Earthshock is on cooldown, but a druid in her healing gear can't pick up a Core Hound if the MT goes down. A druid realy has to pick a path and stick to it, or be prepared to respec often and carry an extra set of gear.
We, incidentally, are The Steel Pack on Bonechewer. Come get some. I'm Khalgrim.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
bro. get a life!
The bass player is in fact the Co-founder and CEO of Blizzard.
Yep. The lead screamer is none other than Samwise, the guy who prettymuch dictates what Warcraft looks like. www.sonsofthestorm.com
SI Games put their Football Manager games on PC/Mac discs, *woohoo*
The delay of SC: Ghost is not Blizzards fautl, they farmed that title out. Not a very good idea, they should have done it in house. They NEED modern console dev experience badly.
Although I'm sure that BlizzCon was cool, GenCon will no doubt remain the king of geek gatherings. And I enthusiastically attend with my husband every year. ;)
I can MT a hound in healing, sadly I can only do it for 20secs.
I really have been avoiding WoW, perhaps I should head back and give Panthra some lovin'.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I find it amusing that there is actually a serious discussion of Pallies and dps. The protection and holy trees are the only trees worth using, because any thought of increasing a pally's dps is completely, and utterly stupid.
If you wanted a dps class, you should have rolled a rogue, warrior, shadow priest, or mage. Hunters figure in there somewhere, too.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
the dropped group buffs Gift of the Wild are one hour and require a regent (wild thornroot at several silver a piece for the top of that line).
Regular Mark of the Wild is 30 minutes, Thorns are 10 minutes, and if specced to have it Omen Of Clarity is 5 minutes.
Near Strat, there is a night elf named Adon. This is likely the area you cannot access without the XPack.
Still a garage band. Just a garage band composed of Blizzard Employees.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
I guess this explains what they've been doing instead of fixing the MANY bugs that remain in the product a year after retail. And the many holes: things like endless 40-man raiding being the ultimate goal of the game, poorly designed and terribly performing Battlegrounds, talent trees full of talents that are well-known to be worthless (because of class evolution since beta), way too much grinding, many ways of griefing left in the system, professions that don't provide much benefit or income, etc, etc.
They're so busy puffing the NEW stuff (maybe a year out) and my guess is this gives full permission to ignore the current problems. Glad I stopped paying my monthly fee. (Had a 60 Shaman and a 60 Warlock.)
I used to respect Blizzard as the BEST game company. The early Warcraft series were AMAZING. They're in over their heads on this one, which might not be so bad if they were honest, but instead they resort to arrogant "working as intended" answers -- when they occasionally do answer -- they ignore their user base when meaningful suggestions are made (Warlock) yet cave in to popular demand (Paladin), and they insist they will change something and never do then turn around and say they'll never change something and then do a 180.
If they'd established a track record of meaningful beta testing, waiting to release new patches until they were debugged, listening to customer feedback when it's well-reasoned, and communicating with users, I'd be second-guessing my decision to quit. As it is, I see even more content that will have the same problems. No thanks.