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Blizzcon 2008 Wrap-Up
This year's Blizzcon saw 15,000 gamers descend from 27 different countries to take part in two days of discussions, tournaments, and sneak peaks at upcoming releases. Several big announcements were scattered among a raft of new details about Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King. The new information went a long way toward drumming up interest for what already appear to be worthy successors to old favorites. Read on for more.
As the convention prepared to get underway Friday morning, people showed up early to get a decent spot in line. When we arrived at about 9:30, we walked for a good 15 minutes to track down the actual end of the line. When we reached the spot where we thought it would be, we instead found a large parking lot filled with a sea of people. The line snaked back and forth across the lot, and it grew ever larger as we watched. Periodic cries of "For the Horde!" were heard, with a resulting roar from the crowd. Inflatable World of Warcraft themed beach balls from the Blizzcon Goody Bag were sent flying around to relieve boredom (at which point we found that WoW players aren't so good at keeping beach balls in the air). Some convention-goers walked around in elaborate costumes, pausing frequently to pose for pictures. Once everyone got inside and seated for the opening ceremony, Blizzard President Mike Morhaime came to the stage and welcomed us to the convention. It wasn't long before he got to the day's first big news — the unveiling of Diablo 3's third class, the Wizard. We were shown a cinematic for the new class, as well as one for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. They were particularly impressive on huge screens with the volume high enough to shake the walls. Shortly thereafter, we were turned loose to partake of all the presentations and entertainment Blizzcon had to offer.
Diablo 3:
In designing the Wizard, the Diablo 3 developers made a conscious decision to focus on what they call "high magic." They said the Wizard was designed with a brash and ambitious personality in mind; she would not choose the safe, easy, or common way to do things. So, when they were looking at possibilities for the first spell a player would use, the designers chose to avoid something like a fireball or frostbolt. Rather than having an elemental attack, they wanted a more "pure" magic attack. As a result, they chose Magic Missile. They explained that Magic Missile was easy to customize and modify; it would make more sense for things like homing missiles, or launching more than one at a time. Another important spell in that regard was Arcane Orb. Functionally, it appeared somewhat similar to Diablo 2's Frozen Orb, but despite being further down the "Arcane" talent tree than Magic Missile, it defined the look and the type of damage for that tree. The Arcane tree has several interesting spells, including Slow Time, which drops a giant permeable orb on the ground which, as the name suggests, slows time within it. Projectiles and enemies inside the orb become very easy to dodge and avoid. The developers said it was originally Stop Time, but that created difficulties for multiplayer balance. Disintegrate is another great new spell within the tree, dubbed a "face melter" by the designers. It launches a continuous beam of energy that you can sweep around the room at your leisure. The longer it hits an enemy, the more damage it does per second, and it has quite a range. Some familiar spells will be returning from Diablo 2, such as Charged Bolt and Teleport. The Blizzard spell will be back as well, which the developers say they paid particular attention to, given that it shares a name with their company. It will be part of the "Storm" skill tree, along with Frost Nova and Electrocute (the new Chain Lightning). The theme for that tree is control of the weather, which was chosen because it "feels epic." The last tree is "Conjure," and its focus is the creation of tools. Hydra is returning as a Conjure skill, and you can make weapons with which to smite your enemies. Shacknews has a look at each of the actual trees and the skills within.
The skill system for Diablo 3 went through a lengthy design process, and the developers admit that it's not quite finished. Most importantly, they will be implementing the ability to respec, the lack of which was one of Diablo 2's biggest weaknesses. They wanted players to not worry about misplacing points. In Diablo 2, it was common to hold onto skill points as a character leveled up, thus decreasing the actual reward for leveling. They wanted to encourage players to get the rewards and immediately enjoy them. Blizzard went on to show us about a half-dozen experimental implementations of the skill system, and how they weighed the pros and cons of the methods used in the previous Diablo games and World of Warcraft. They tried out a radial skill tree, skill "wheels," skill cards (dropped by monsters, which you could combine in different ways to acquire particular abilities), and even a humorous "horadric cube" three-dimensional skill tree. As they tested all of those, they found their design philosophy of "different but worse isn't better; better is better" coming into play, and went back to what worked. The system they currently use is an evolution of Diablo 2's skill trees. There are a few major differences. First, in order to move down to a more powerful tier, you need to spend a certain number of points in the previous tiers. To get Hydra, a 4th-tier Conjure talent, you need to spend at least 15 points in the Conjure tree. Second, the developers decided that not all skills needed huge point investments. They didn't want players dumping 20 points in one skill, moving to another, and doing the same. As as result, activated abilities now tend to take just one point to acquire. Passive skills, such as a percentage-based damage increase, have room for many points, and will be the primary method of advancing to further tiers. The goal was for players to have six activated abilities in common use; they felt that Diablo 2 forced players to focus on just two or three, to the detriment of the gameplay experience.
The Rune system also received a complete redesign. Instead of socketing runes into gear, you'll use them to modify your skills. Each skill can be affected by one rune at a time (which seems to preclude the possibility of runewords), and each rune affects a skill differently. The goal for this was to diversify gameplay even further. Two players with the same class and spec can still use abilities that look and behave quite differently depending on their rune selection. The runes are replaceable, and they will have tiers of power, and corresponding drop rates. The developers say it will change your gameplay as you level, and encourage you to experiment with different runes. They also showed us several examples of how the runes work. First was Teleport. It's primarily a defensive spell; you use it to get away from enemies quickly. However, if you put a Striking rune on Teleport, it will deal damage where you land, effectively making it an offensive spell. Another rune caused what they likened to a "transporter malfunction," spraying destructive energy around the Wizard. Another example was Skull of Flame, a Witchdoctor ability. Normally, the spell is sort of like tossing a grenade; it hits an enemy and explodes, and that's the (very entertaining) end of it. With the Multistrike rune, it will hit enemies, explode, and bounce to the next enemy. With a Power rune, it will leave a small pool of fire where it explodes. The last example was Electrocute. A Multistrike rune will increase the number of jumps, and a Lethality rune will cause targets to explode when they are hit. All in all, it looks extremely fun, and quite cool.
Another thing the developers wanted to do in Diablo 3 was to make everything more "visceral," to give it an exciting visual impact that would keep the player interested in watching everything that goes on. The Wizard was designed as a "light show," with lightning, huge glowing tornadoes, and destructive beams of energy. Witchdoctors use more indirect magic. Instead of spraying fire, they'll summon a horde of bats, set them on fire, and funnel them at an enemy. Similarly, instead of creating a Wall of Fire, the developers took it another step toward crazy and gave Witchdoctors Zombie Wall, which is exactly what it sounds like. In order to keep Barbarians interesting, they'll be able to call on the power of The Ancients for certain special attacks. Another area of particular focus was death animations. Since players will be wading through a sea of monsters, Blizzard wanted to keep the monster deaths from becoming stale or part of the background. So, Diablo 3 will feature a variety of death scenes for each monster. Some deaths will be dependent on damage; the more you do, the messier things get. You'll also see what are called "critical deaths" that tend to feature explosions. Certain skills will have their own death animations; acid will melt an enemy, and Disintegrate will do just that. Rare and special monsters will have interesting animations with extra detail. There is also the possibility for unique player deaths from bosses.
A variety of other features were discussed, such as the inventory system. Gone is the grid system of Diablo 2. Weapons and armor now seem to take up a uniform amount of space, and the amount of total space was increased. What's more, there are now bag slots, and bags which drop off monsters. Playing through the demo level, I quickly acquired three bags which gave me an extra slot apiece. Larger bags will drop in later levels. Also, items have a color-coded background, so it's easy to see which are junk, which are rare, set pieces, etc. A question mark is visible over items that have yet to be identified. The belt system has been replaced by an action bar similar but much smaller than the one in World of Warcraft. It has room for several skills and potions. Potions themselves are much less common; instead, many monsters drop health orbs that will refill your red orb between fights. The developers wanted potions to be used in emergencies, not for nigh-invincibility throughout the game. They say the change opens up more avenues for challenging the player without simply dumping a ton of damage on him. They felt that escape was too easy in Diablo 2. You needn't worry that this change will result in annoyingly long corpse runs, however. The new checkpoint system goes a long way toward making recovery easier. As you go through dungeons and the outside world, you'll frequently come across checkpoints that mark your progress. When you die, you'll respawn at the nearest checkpoint. This keeps the corpse run short and solves the problem of having a hundred monsters waiting for you after you fled up a flight of stairs. Another player-friendly change will be the "toning down" of elemental resistances and immunities. They won't be gone, but they won't be the same brick wall they often were for some classes in Diablo 2.
The difficulty system and the Act system will be very similar to those of Diablo 2. Maps will still be randomly generated with non-random elements. Blizzard was keen to point out the inclusion of scripted events in Diablo 3. The events will range from mini-cutscenes to actual events in which the player can participate, and they're included in levels randomly, so different play-throughs can give you different experiences. In the demo, one event was simply witnessing two NPCs come together and discuss some of the back story of the first quest. Others may involve escort quests and town invasions. And, if players want to ignore these events, they're welcome to. The goal was for the events to help bring the Diablo 3 world to life. Another way they're trying to do so is including more destructible elements of the environment. There are spots where you can knock down walls, chandeliers, and other objects. The best part is that knocking down a wall onto an enemy will deal significant damage. It's a fun progression from smashing barrels. Another addition is the inclusion of kill streaks and experience bonuses. Every so often while smashing through a group of monsters, you'll see text in the bottom right corner of your screen saying "23 Kills! New Record! 300 Bonus Exp!" It'll be interesting to see what else they do with it.
After looking at the game, playing it, and discussing it for two days, we're looking forward to it more than ever. It appears to be as much of an improvement over Diablo2 as Diablo 2 was over Diablo. They're also going out of their way to make multiplayer more appealing. While Diablo 3 won't support offline LAN parties (which, they say, was decision based on keeping the game secure), it will encourage more cooperative play over Battle.net. As we discussed earlier, players in the same game will see different drops, leading to less loot drama and more sharing. They've mentioned the possibility of doing something to monetize Battle.net, but made very clear that they aren't ready to discuss pricing internally, much less publicly. And, they've said that they don't want Diablo 3 to be subscription based. As Rob Pardo stated, it would most likely involve extra services, as has been done for World of Warcraft. The concerns about the art direction were effectively laid to rest in my mind. The game looks great, and it stays true to previous themes.
Starcraft 2:
By now you've probably heard the biggest news about Starcraft 2 at Blizzcon: The game will be divided into a trilogy. When plotting out their ideas for the game, the developers found they had three stories to tell. As they fleshed the stories out, they realized that there was more content than they could reasonably fit in one game. They faced three options; delay the game significantly, cut vast portions of the story, or expand one game into three. Given their commitment to quality over all else, they chose the third option. The games will be divided by campaign: Terran: Wings of Liberty, Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, and Protoss: Legacy of the Void.
Part of the reason for the trilogy was that they wanted to build branching campaigns with multiple paths to an ending. Completing a mission at one planet may open up missions at several other planets. You'll be able to play the same campaign in different ways, but the designers were clear that you'd end in the same place. Each part of the trilogy will have definite ending; there won't be cliffhangers. They also wanted to develop deep story arcs with lots of dialogue and cinematics. Each game will have specially designed environments, maps, and mission hubs. With the increased number of missions, they put a great deal of effort into making them unique and interesting. Most of the missions will have their own "gimmick," and you'll see special units in the campaigns that you won't see in multiplayer. Speaking of which, the multiplayer will be fully developed and balanced for all three races from the start. Blizzard will be doing everything they can to foster competitive and cooperative gaming in Starcraft 2, assisted by the revamped Battle.net.
The Terran campaign will focus on Jim Raynor, a freedom fighter who has seen better times. Starcraft 2 takes places four years after the events of the original game, and it starts on Mar Sara, the same planet that kicked off Starcraft. We were shown a cinematic in which Raynor is approached by Tychus Findlay, the guy who suits up in the cinematic released last year when Starcraft 2 was announced. Findlay and Raynor have a history of fighting together, and Findlay has a business proposition for Raynor. The two characters interact inside a bar, which Blizzard has designed as an interactive environment for between missions. You're able to click on the characters for small cinematics which explain their back story. A jukebox in the corner will play different songs you choose. A television plays news reports, providing further information about missions. A bulletin board has Wanted posters and can contain optional missions players can take. Other environments like these also exist, and they're filled with nice little touches. When the characters end up on a ship later in the game, you can see they've taken the jukebox and nailed it to the ceiling, indispensable piece of hardware that it is. You're also able to look out the main viewscreen at whatever may be there.
The other big Starcraft 2 news was that Kerrigan would be returning as the focus on the Zerg campaign. A cinematic in which she is dimly seen through the fire and smoke of a Zerg invasion of Mar Sara drew a huge round of applause from the crowd. The first Terran mission has Raynor and Findlay holding out against the invasion long enough for Raynor's ship to come rescue him. As it turns out, he's doing better than it seemed. The Protoss campaign will involve Zeratul; another cinematic showed him fighting off hydralisks and briefly encountering Kerrigan. The developers said their intentions were to make the story deep and immersive, much more so than even Warcraft 3.
Running missions will earn you credits, which you can then use to upgrade your technology. You'll be able to customize your fighting force to suit whichever playstyle you like. For example, you can upgrade your bunkers to hold more marines if you like playing defensively. There will be a star map for mission selection; planets will glow when a missions is available there. Some will be from distress calls, and you can choose whether or not to answer them. There will even be some Easter egg missions. My time with the Starcraft 2 demo was brief, but the multiplayer map felt very complete, and very much like a new and improved version of Starcraft.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
There was a great deal of discussion about Wrath of the Lich King at Blizzcon, though little of it was new, thanks to the extensive coverage of the beta. A few interesting tidbits were announced, though, such as the fact that the expansion is largely done, and is already being sent to DVD production. At one of the Q&A sessions, Jeffrey Kaplan revealed that mounts would be able to swim after the first content patch. Also included in that patch will be a raid dungeon that hasn't been revealed yet. They also confirmed that the 3.02 patch to prepare for the expansion would be going live today. Patch notes are available at the World of Warcraft site. The last big bit of news was that a dual-spec system was coming at some point after the expansion goes live. Players will be able to swap between two specs in order to facilitate their participation in both PvE and PvP. Glyphs and action bars will most likely be tied to this swap system, so players don't need to spend time and money flipping between specs. A built-in gear swapping interface may also come about. Beyond that, they gave some in-depth previews of various dungeons and arenas, and explained their goals and reasoning for class and gameplay changes.
The PvP panel broke news that the new battleground, Strand of the Ancients, would increase the number of players per side to 15 (from 10), and feature more vehicles than previous iterations. It's a unique battleground in that each side is assigned either defense or offense at the beginning, and plays that side until the game ends. Attackers try to knock down the destructible walls of the fort to get inside. The developers also demonstrated the two new arenas. The Ring of Valor brings new gameplay elements to the arena; moving platforms that periodically interrupt line-of-sight, and fire that will deal damage to anyone who touches it. Teams also start off very close to each other, which facilitates faster battles and quick thinking. The Dalaran Sewer arena contains water spouts that will knock back anyone who touches them. They also spent time talking about Wintergrasp, the open PvP zone that has battles between Alliance and Horde every 2.5 hours, with the battles lasting 30-40 minutes. To prevent the most populous side from having an unfair advantage, a buff will be given to the faction with fewer players. Blizzard wants to diversify the options for PvP and take the focus off arenas. They also want to develop more and more PvP content and create some sort of mechanism for players to gain experience in battlegrounds.
The UI Panel had some interesting information as well. The very simple threat monitoring system is final as it stands in the beta. The developers don't want it to become too complicated for the average player, and mods already exist to monitor threat in greater detail. They've also made changes to threat generation by tanks in order to shift the focus from whether or not players should attack to how they should attack. Backpack size won't be changing, but mounts and certain currencies have been moved from the inventory to their own UI element. A focus frame will be added to the default UI.
The Raids and Dungeons panel took us through several Wrath of the Lich King instances. First was Halls of Lightning, a 5-man dungeon themed on the Titans. It exists within a vast space, though only a fraction of that space is explorable by players. Blizzard wanted to give the dungeons an epic feel. Similarly, they provide views of the outside in order to make the instance seem integrated with the rest of the game world. The instance contains unique art, including statues made of constellations and boss models that the developers had to restrain themselves from re-using elsewhere. The last boss has cinematics before and after the fight. They moved on to Ahn'Kahet, an underground city that's influenced by the Old Gods. They said the city was intended to be what Naxxramas was based on in the game's lore, and the artistic style reflects that. It's another huge, epic space, and the end boss is a Faceless One. He makes use of newly developed phasing technology that allows players to fight clones of their own groupmates. When those are defeated, the player is shunted into another player's phase to help with that player's clones.
The developers emphasized how pleased they were with the decision to include 10-man and 25-man versions of each raid instance. They showed us an introductory-level raid called Chamber of the Aspects, which they said was much better tuned than The Burning Crusade's introductory raids, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair. Chamber of the Aspects contains a main boss, Sartharion, and three drake sub-bosses. The sub-bosses are easy fights on their own, and don't drop much in terms of loot. As an alternative to killing them, however, you can leave them alive when you fight Sartharion, and they will join in to fight against you. You can effectively choose your own difficulty by leaving zero, one, two, or all three drakes alive. The more drakes you leave alive when you kill Sartharion, the better loot drops you receive. The other raid they showed us was the Eye of Eternity, in which you fight Malygos, an aspect of magic. Since it's an iconic battle in Warcraft lore, they went all-out in designing the models, special effects, and phases of the fight. The raid will make use of vehicles, see the destructible building technology at work, and get some timely help from the Red Dragonflight. The Eye of Eternity is also the only raid that will require any sort of key or attunement. A drop from Sapphiron, the second to last boss in Naxxramas, will be required to start the Malygos fight, but only one person in the raid needs the item.
They went on to talk about itemization, and said the progression from dungeon to heroic to raid would be much smoother in Wrath of the Lich King than in previous versions of the game. Heroic dungeons will have their own unique itemization, and it will be a clear step up from regular dungeons. There will be two new versions of The Burning Crusade's Badge of Justice. Emblems of Heroism will drop from heroic dungeons and the 10-man version of Naxxramas. Emblems of Valor will drop from every other raid. The developers also told us that certain raid dungeon set pieces will be purchasable through Emblems. Gears sets will differ between the 10-man and 25-man versions of the dungeons, but they will count toward each other's set bonuses, similar to the way PvP sets work. They also mentioned that it's about time for another caster/healer legendary item, and that it would almost certainly come through a quest, rather than a random drop.
A few other interesting tidbits came out of the Raid panel; Deathwing is something they're "working on," and we will see him at some point. Raids won't be designed with the dual-spec system in mind. You may switch specs between fights, but you certainly won't be required to. There will definitely be a difficulty progression for raids, but we probably won't see anything as difficult as Sunwell. They want to keep thing challenging and fun. Bosses will drop more loot over all, and the Ashbringer story will continue.
The Class panel focused on the directions the developers wanted to go with each of the classes, the Death Knight in particular. They said they wanted to help the shortage of tanks by creating another class that could fill the role. Warriors, Paladins, and Druids also received some modifications to their tanking specs to make it more fun and less of a hassle. Another major goal was to get each talent tree for each class a specific playstyle, even if it was just another method of dealing damage. As a part of that, they revamped the buff and debuff system so give guilds more of an opportunity to bring the people they wanted rather than the people they needed to maximize their chance for success. Blizzard considered revamping the dispel system too — they aren't satisfied with the current implementation — but said they didn't want to introduce another huge set of changes at this time. In addition, they talked about their decision to unify several itemization stats in order to make it easier on some classes to switch roles, and to reduce the number of items required to support all possible specs.
Blizzard had plenty to talk about this year, and they made the most of their time in the spotlight. The demos for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 looked excellent, and had the expected "Blizzard polish" even at this early stage of development. Blizzcon attendees were told that they would receive invites to the Starcraft 2 beta, although it hasn't reached that stage yet, and Diablo 3 is even further away. Wrath of the Lich King will be hitting store shelves in a month, though, and will undoubtedly further World of Warcraft's dominance of the MMO market. As you may recall, we asked you for interview questions for various Blizzard employees; stay tuned, their answers will be up soon.
I went to the previous BlizzCon and was sorely disappointed. This year the costumes were less hardcore (from the photos) leaving me with absolutely no regrets at missing this one. Blizzard used to throw some seriously good LAN Parties at UCI but their conventions are about the people and if you aren't there to meet up with others from your WoW Social Scene (ugh) there's not more than 8 hours of waiting in lines and 1 hour of interesting lecture and 1 hour of wandering around to be found. Most of that you can do WITHOUT the convention. Verdict: waste of time. YMMV based on how bad your "basement seeking behaviour" is.
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What I love about Blizzard is that they really take a lot of time examining what they did right and wrong with previous games, especially the evolution from Diablo 2 to 3. I'm also amazed that they have three big games in development at once, it seems like 10 years ago they only had enough people (or chose to have enough) to work on one big game at a time. Now we have two giant sequels and an expansion to one of the most popular PC games ever on their way. But somehow Blizzard still feels like Blizzard even after all this growth.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
No LAN no THANKS!
Keep the game secure, my ass. :-P No buy from me.
No LAN party option in D3? That was one of the best parts of D2. I don't want to leave it up to Blizzard's servers what patch I run.
They said they wanted to help the shortage of tanks by creating another class that could fill the role. Hey Blizzard, got a question for you. Lets say a prot paladin reaches lvl70. He hasn't been raiding T6 yet - hell, he's not even raiding T4 yet. What the hell is he supposed to use for shoulders? There's a reason every bit of gear I had was purple other than my green shoulders "of defense" which I eventually only replaced because I did finally get a tier drop (t5, which wasn't great anyway). As a contrast, I had stopped playing my shadow priest, and started back up after a few months of not playing him. He was level 49. 3 weeks later I was wearing all purple at lvl70. How? I was able to make most of my own gear with tailoring. Blacksmithing, esp for armor, has been a complete joke for BC. Plate drops have been a joke, esp for certain slots (like shoulders). It's a huge investment in time just to get a functional set of armor for a tank, esp paladins. The problem was never, ever, a lack of classes. It was a lack of gear.
What's the scoop on the new lawsuits Blizzard has planned for '09?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
and seeing into Naxx and to the very end of Sunwell, I am looking forward to all 3.
The downside is for Blizzard though. 4years of WoW has caused my crusade to stop burning. I am not sure WotLK will hold my interest unless it is spectacular (more like PreTBC than TBC). I say downside cause Diablo is free to play online and if I really am burned out, they wont get monthly fees from me for WoW.
But I honestly hope all 3 hold my interest and being a Mac gamer Blizzard is one of the main developers I can look forward too. But assuming not, my Wii will save my gaming needs :)
Are they on crack? I was excited about the game, as everything screamed D2, but better. Better graphics, better skill system, more interactivity, better rune system... but I primarily play D3 with friends, or as a single player. We occasionally can get 6 people together for some Diablo 2 bash fests, and I really don't want to squeeze that over some DSL connection to a far-off server.
Finally, the entire discussion of "monetizing" battle.net by doing something WoW-like, but not going the subscription route is non-sensical. I'm not paying more money for a time-sink, and I have no interest in paying for a matching service.
Seriously, it seems like someone at Blizzard looked at the WoW revenue, and decided to apply it across the board to all games. To which I can only say - "Fuck off". I can afford one subscription game (the limited resource here being time, not money), and I will not get into another money sink. Free LAN play or bust!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
One of the other major items to have come out of Blizzcon is the possibility in the near future (post-Wrath-release) of PvE arenas where teams would square off against bosses from instances who would gain or lose ranking just like players and thus harder bosses would match up against better teams.
No final word yet, and it's still in the idea phase.
And yet you wasted a few more minutes with a worthless reply. I'm amused :)
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
you must be that retard who couldn't spend 5 minutes looking at bs changes for level 80 at one of a half dozen wotlk beta sites, and instead spent several hundred dollars to ask a redundant, stupid quest to devs at the blizz QnA. Theres several pieces of tank gear blacksmiths can make at lv 80, including shields (as well as holy and dps plate), and its all boe!
True dat. I'm still wearing my Warlord shoulders, with everything else Kara or PvP gear. I'd say the solution is to get to level 80. Not a surprise, considering that the real WoW has always started at max level.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Great article. I'd like to see more of this on Slashdot.
why don't they bring back the steel panthers series and be done with it?
Uhm, purples with green "of defense" shoulders? Hopefully you didn't need that to become uncrittable, otherwise here are some good alternatives :
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29316 - Quest Reward from CoT
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27739 - Drop in Botanica
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30291 - Quest reward in Netherstorm
Or just do gruul's once a week and pray for the t4 drop.
Where the "small" size starts at a 40 inch waist.
I'm not asking for a specific day necessarily, or even a specific month - just a year and quarter will satisfy me, I'm not picky. That would be awesome.
Read the patch notes - paladin spells now scale with attack power.
Fixed in WOTLK, with the talent Touched By The Light: Increase your spell power by 30% of your stamina. And also a lot of others. I was in the same boat with my pally, I did Botanica more than 50 times looking for my starter-shoulders before I just gave up (got the mantle of abhrams from kara). But with the above talent, pally tanks dont have to worry about spell power much at all, and you can just wear warrior gear. And since you can get set pieces from the new heroic badge rewards... should not be bad at all.
I spoke to tier drops - I had bad luck for a long time, until eventually getting some. As for the warlord shoulders - parry for a paladin tank is bad news. As a paladin tank (at least, prior to today...) you don't actually want to be swinging that often. High parry is a good way to set off procs on bosses. Paladin tanks (prior to today) got almost none of their threat from melee "white" - it was all from spell.
I think you're missing the point, either way. The point is in the subject line ;) The problem was never a lack of classes able to tank, or a lack of people wanting to tank, it is the lack of ability to get decent gear. I note that one of your suggestions for a green replacement is...green. Yet by the time my spriest was 70, he already had tailoring 375, and already had enough shadowweave (with the help of friends...) to make his frozen shadowweave set. A Belt of blasting and spellstrike hood later, and he was almost completely ready for whatever I wanted to do with him.
BTW - having 41 def on the shoulders allowed me to not need as much def on other items - I could concentrate on raising my spell damage (for aggro) and stamina. They were actually very hard to replace, in the end. If blacksmithing for armor were half as useful as tailoring is for any caster, I wouldn't have had that problem. There's a huge disparity between crafted plate and crafted leather/cloth...coupled with a huge disparity in plate drops and anything else. *that* is the problem...not a lack of tank classes.
yes! Red Alert 3 is coming out as-well soon (this month), and also Starcraft 2 like mentioned.
This is going to be a fun year.
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*sigh*
The complaint Blizzard was addressing is that there aren't enough people playing tanks in *BC*. That we can get to 80 now, and have new abilities now, has nothing to do with what the problem *was*.
There wasn't a lack of people wanting to play tanks...or a lack of tank classes...there was a lack of ways to get gear.
Of /course/ it will change for WotLK. It's just that when you're trying to solve for a problem, you should address what is actually causing the problem. The problem could have been fixed with no new added classes, just by making blacksmithing actually worth something, and creating new drops for some of the harder to fill slots (like shoulders).
yes, but in every statement they make about the Deathknight, they say one of the primary design intentions for the class was to address the lack of people playing tanks.
The point I'm trying to make, obviously unsuccessfully, is that it wasn't a lack of classes, or a lack of people wanting to tank, it was a gear problem.
Perhaps I'm just trying to apply basic engineering principles to what is just a marketing problem; when solving for a problem, one should ensure that the solution actually addresses, well, the problem. Were they to have made no other changes, and done nothing other than introduce the Deathknight class, the problem of a lack of people playing tanks would have been unchanged. Were they to have not introduced the deathknight class, and merely made the other changes that they made, then there would be less of a problem for tanks. I'm not really all that impressed with the blacksmithing gear in WotLK either, but at least it's /available/; there's nothing I would have made myself (and I do have 375 blacksmithing) in my 60s, and there's not a single bit of blacksmithing tankadin gear at 70 that makes sense; any slots that actually have options, those same slots are easily filled with drops. Why do the extreme expense of blacksmithing at all?
Gruuls? Who wants to drag a tankadin along that can't yet tank that instance, for a 25-man raid that lasts 1/4 of the time it takes to just organize it? making the entry-level item come from something that hits so damn hard, and is a 25-man raid with only one real boss...thus my point. Gear for a tank, esp a tankadin, is phenomenally more difficult to get than gear for anything else.
If a dps is undergeared, they can still contribute, and the raid will do fine. If a healer is undergeared, just have an extra healer. If a tank is undergeared, the entire raid wipes. Thus, the fact that blacksmithing in BC sucks (even with 50k gold and stacks of every mat imaginable, I wouldn't be able to make anything useful) and drops are so spotty, is *why tanks are hard to get*. It's not a lack of tank classes. :)
While I played WoW, that was one of my biggest complaints with the game.
I'm not paying so that I can grind my way up to max level and "start having fun!"
I would like to enjoy the time on the way up, thanks... I fail to understand why Blizzard keeps designing their new content with end-game as the sole thing that keeps people interested. I think it's caused a huge problem in how people perceive games now. People don't actually enjoy the process of going through the game, they just think "how can I get to the 'end?' How can I get max level?!" and they never remember any fun in between.
Parrying as a paladin was never the problem, it was *being* parried -- where expertise came in handy to prevent it. Parrying yourself is a *good* thing, as that's more SoR/SoW procs.
Crafted plate focused more on melee dps and holy paladins, which is, I agree, sad. However that's fixed in WotLK.
High parry is a good way to set off procs on bosses.
Wrong. High parry is good for mitigation since you parry an attack. If a boss parries you (which is affected by expertise) that will reset their swing timer.
As for your gear issue, go hit a few heroics. There are decent epic tank shoulders from Heroic Sethekk halls, even.
If you'd just do what we tell you and quit yer gripin' everything would be chocolate sprinkles and rainbows! -AC
Well, you may be somewhat correct about the gear problem, but lack of gear was by far not the only problem keeping people from playing Tanks. The bigger problem was it simply wasn't fun for most people. No big numbers, and all you really get to do is try to keep your threat high enough on the mob(s) you are tanking. And to make matters worse, tank specs are generally the most boring to do anything solo with. (Yes, even more boring than most heal specs for a lot of players, thanks to the spell dmg on healing gear.) So they're giving the old tank classes new abilities in their tank talent trees, and adding a new tank class that *should* be a fresh play style. Sounds to me like they're on the right track. Although for me, after playing a tank in City of Heroes I'm not sure I will ever be able to play a tank in WoW again.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
the more often one swings, the more often one is susceptible to things that the boss does when it gets hit. Better to just let them get hit by consecrate ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5e6eG6bXAQ
no, but you're certainly the retard that didn't actually read what I was saying in my post.
Solutions should actually solve the problem they were intended to solve. The deathknight class will have no real long-term impact on the number of tanks. Making new plans, and raising the level cap to 80, has nothing to do with the reason tanks were hard to find in BC.
kkthnxbye
If a boss does something funny when it gets hit, just turn off autoattack and rely on RetAura, Consecrate and Holy Shield for threat. This worked wonders in phase 2 of Prince where he's a parrying beast of a boss. Granted I could use exorcism on every cooldown for extra threat, but you can do the same in Hyjal/BT for the most part.
I agree 102.4% on this post. I'm a pally tank and all the other people in my small guild have full epic sets and can run Kara and like easily. As a main tank, I've having to not only get creative, but spend hundreds of gold to gain 10 def here or 10 dodge there. Pally tanking would be far more fun if it wasn't the hardest spec to gear for. Yes there is a shortage of tanks, but only because getting gear takes 5 times longer for a tank vs. any other class type. Ug. Blizzard needs to get their head out of their butt and make some decent, pre-kara pally tank gear. I don't care about STR, I need intellect and with other tank stats.
-Kouretes: Durotan
I have to disagree. Tanking is fun, and most people will tell you they would rather be out in the front calling the shots. Well, maybe not most, but at least more than the 20% that we need. It really is a gear problem.
Take for example my two chars. I have an spriest and a prot war. My spriest was doing heroics in laughable 70 gear. My warrior, in full 70 blues and a few epics, has trouble in heroics unless there is a fully epicced healer. And, you tell me I have to drag this healer around to 20+ different runs (only one per day, too, mind you) to even have a chance of getting any of the tanking gear I need? No thanks.
The best option I ever found was to OT kara, or go as a DPS fury build.
Conversely, for my spriest, I was easily able to go to kara/heroics and quickly build up gear (DPS had very small issues with scaling to heroic/raid), on top of my tailored FSW and Spellstrike.
Tailoring is definitely OP.
Unfortunately everything I've read and heard about RA3 so far indicates it will be a huge bucket of suckage. Which is very disappointing to me, as my favorite RTS to date is still RA2, even though there's other 'better' ones like Starcraft.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Is your server in Bizzaro Universe? Because almost everyone I ever met who plays WoW would rather heal or DPS than tank. There's a select few (very small percentage, which you apparently are part of) that actually like it, and another few more who will play it simply because they know they can always find a group. BTW, tanking in no way guarantees you will be 'out in front calling the shots'. I've ran plenty of raids with raid leaders calling the shots who were not tanks. And you're not going to be 'out in front' until the raid/party leader tells you to. At least, not if you don't want to get booted.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
There was no mention of whether or not Hardcore would still be available. In hopes that someone at Blizzard reads this, *please* do. Those that played D2 in Hardcore did so because there was more risk. To have made it to L74 with a character without perishing once was an accomplishment and celebrated. If there is no option for hardcore, there is a good chance I might not even purchase the game, and I'm probably not the only one.
Onto the potions. Assuming you are keeping hardcore, you may wish to consider the health orbs and the frequency of potions dropping inside of hardcore. I'm not saying the orbs aren't a good idea, they sound great, but you've got to be a lot more careful in Hardcore and having reserves is necessary.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Diablo and Diablo2. Unfortunately, I had to give up the hardcore playing because clicking the mouse like a maniac for hours killed my hand. Have they done anything to tone down the insane amount of mouse clicks needed to play the game?
I think it should be made clear that Starcraft 2 will not be separated into three different GAMES but into ONE GAME and TWO EXPANSIONS. It says this clearly on the Blizzcon website. You will get the different campaigns through the expansions. Full multiplayer support will be available straight from the first game. So many news outlets seem to be getting this wrong.
People don't actually enjoy the process of going through the game, they just think "how can I get to the 'end?' How can I get max level?!" and they never remember any fun in between.
hmm, yeah, you mean how people are having fun levelling up in WAR? Oh wait, everybody is just sitting in the warcamp(s) waiting for scenarios to pop, and PQs and RvR are empty wastelands in T2-T3...
-- the cake is a lie
Did exactly the same thing with exactly the same reason. And then tried to get users to switch to their subscription based offering.
That's exactly what I'm talking about... in WAR there is plenty of content to experience in between rank 1 and rank 40, but people are picking "the most efficient" route to get to rank 40, and they aren't giving anything in between a shot.
When people actually try out keep sieges and defending a keep, it is extremely fun! But no one wants to do it because the experience rewards aren't amazing.
What killed tanking for me was none of the above. It was the lack of other tanks. Oh, look, Botched logged on, hey, can you switch to your tank? Can you tank a heroic? Can you tank Kara/ZA/etc? Always in demand, too much demand. I had to switch specs *AND* vendor my tanking gear before the harassment stopped.
The dual spec thing feels like a ginormous copout to me in game design.
WoW's character classes have 3 talent trees, and blizzard drove the game in two entirely different directions for pvp/pve so many classes have a 'pvp tree' and a 'pve tree' (with the exception of the dps/tank/healing variation that some hybrids have to choose from).
In PVE many of the skills/talents that are designed to work on players have no effect on NPC's at all. They are simply immune or unaffected.
In PVE tanks are central, threat management/taunting has entire skill trees dedicated to it. None of this has any impact whatsoever against other players.
Also, gear-wise, in PVP there is a stat called resilience that everybody MUST have to even contend in a minimal way. This stat is on all PVP gear, and no PVE gear. This stat also has absolutely 0 effect against NPC's.
Similar divides exist throughout the game forcing people to specify their hugely variable talent trees specifically 'like this' or 'like that', negating any potential (limited) variety that existed.
Now of course they can do both. I don't understand why a player would care to invest time and effort in an 'RPG' to build up and personally be forced to select a premade archetype. Why not just skip to the chase and give us a selection of premade toons so we can at least go out and see all the content that is limited access, and pvp on equal footing right out of the gate?
Ok. Sounds good.
Yeah, that's definitely not the common way to do things! Way to think outside the box.
I am not so sure about how fun it will be, when I read that end game RvR is all small instanced PQs I stopped playing WAR entirely and went back to WoW.
As much as blizz made some mistakes in wow over the years, I think they are going in the right direction with wotlk, while WAR was shaping up to be pretty interesting (I did buy it after all) but in the end is a big let down for me due to the very very very grind-y feeling and complete lack of community (I wonder who came up with the idea of not having any sort of tier-wide chat in-game, it feels like playing oblivion and alt-tabbing to wow for a bg)
-- the cake is a lie
Have they done anything to tone down the insane amount of mouse clicks needed to play the game?
I think that's actually a selling point for the game.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
One word for you:
hack-n-slash
Preference: Have killed Illidan (I retired after a few Illidan kills and SWP was not out yet.) with my Feral Druid, has a early T5ish Orc Warrior, and was working on a Tankadin (level 66) when I left the game. Unsure if I'm going to check out LK but I digress.
The whole thing about TBC was that they did a few things that impacted tanking. First and foremost was the idea that Warriors were not going to be the only real tanks anymore. This was a major shift from pre-TBC, aka WoW 1.x, where for all intents and purposes Warriors where the only tanks. While raiding Naxx pre-TBC we did actually have a Feral Druid at one point but I mean he still had to use the Warden Staff.
With TBC came the idea that Warriors were not going to be the only tanks anymore. However this was not to be an easy transition. First of all many Warriors thought they should always be the only tanks. Never mind that in WoW 1.x they were the only real hybrids (Tanking/DPS) in the game but that's a whole other can of worms. So they put up quite a fuss when the Feral Druids hit the scene and started, "Taking der jerbs!" So TBC started with Feral Druids hit with one of the biggest nerfs in the game ever. Such a hard nerf that Blizzard had to go back and hotfix them so that they could generate enough threat to continue tanking at all.
Now I'll say that early on Feral Druids were a bit OP to start with but the problem then became one of scale. Feral Druids ended up scaling poorly at T6+ levels and blah blah blah. Bottom line is that it was not exactly a seamless transition. And we've not even gotten to the Tankadins or the impact that Arena PvP had on the the Warrior population yet!
The Tankadins, while having a lot of gear now to choose from, were still kinda squishy. All the more so given there preferred method of tanking. (CC == Constant Consecration) So they needed a few buffs to bring them up to speed. And they got them eventually which was a good thing. But still when it came to raiding they were still often viewed as the trash tank who then put on some shaman gear to heal with when it was time to fight the boss. (Or booted from the raid for the more hardcore even.)
In short there were a number of balance issues that the tanks had to deal with due to a poorly implemented move to making Warriors no longer the only tank. Add to this the fact, which was pretty apparent but never really said until the LK beta forums, that the whole design of TBC was based around the idea of the Warrior still being the 'primary' tank with Druids/Paladins being more support tanks.
Enter LK. As I said before the idea of a 'primary' tank is supposedly gone. GK has said a number of times that they want all 4 of the tanking classes to be able to be the MT if they, and their guild, so choose. Time will tell as to how this all will play out but they sure have said it enough such that I tend to think that they are at least trying. This is, and they have said this as well, a shift in design philosophy that is even different from what happened in TBC.
So while gear was an issue it's not the whole part of the issue when it came to tanking in TBC. There was an underlying design philosophy that caused what happened. Along with a number of, if you want to be kind, honest mistakes as they were making the transition from Warriors being the only tanks to other classes being viable in that role.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
yes! Red Alert 3 is coming out.
RA3 has the new and improved SecuROM function too, have fun with that.
Have they done anything to tone down the insane amount of mouse clicks needed to play the game?
I so wish they'd add an "Auto-Attack" feature.
You'd think it'd be easy enough to implement.
That way you could take a break once in a while.
It could be made more interesting by choosing more than one attack type for your character to randomly (perhaps weighted) use in this mode. Or combos, etc.
Blizzard: "We heard how much our fans enjoyed clicking in the first 2 games, so we have implemented a new DOUBLE-CLICK system. Now, when you want to do something, you double-click. This way you get to click twice as much, without being significantly detrimental the game-play"
In fact your raid leader probably shouldn't be a tank or healer, they have too much to do at the tactical level to be effective at the strategic level (generally).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I agree. Tanking is fun, being the critical piece that holds a run together. But gear is way too hard to get, people only want to run end content and you cant tank end bosses unless you have the best gear so what are you supposed to do to get it when you cant tank the instances it drops in?
If a tank does have the gear then they are the raids hero but if not they are ignored and usually replaced with another dps. No one wants to help them bridge the gear gap.
Watch TBN, and keep donatin' to our Crutch of Benny Hinh. Oh, and keep watchin for the New Channel from Vivendi Documentation Services, witch blends Christian Rap with PayPal banking to teach you how to pay your taxes while you shop.
Did anyone else immediately think of StarFox64 after reading that? You can "choose" different planets by completing levels differently, but all paths lead to the same endpoint. If Starcraft 2 has a planet selection screen too, I can picture it being almost exactly like it, but with a little more visual dress.
I wrote Blizzard and this is what they said:
--
Thank you for contacting Blizzard Technical Support!
Blizzard currently does not develop for the Linux platform; however, we are keeping an eye on the progress of Linux and may change in the future. Currently we only support our games on the platforms listed on the box/website. There are some issues with Linux that may interfere with a connection to our servers as well. Overall, we do not support the use of our games on Linux.
Thank you again for contacting Blizzard Technical Support and please let me know if I can be of any further assistance!
Sincerely,
Leah C.
Technical Support
Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com/support
--
Fuck Blizzard, they don't even deserve to appear on Slashdot.
That sounds to me like failure of the game not failure of players.
Full disclosure: I played WAR Beta, and yes I feel it's pretty fail
Although WoW QA/support has been much better recently, I'm worried they just wiped my characters. 90 mins past the rollout and counting, and the realms still aren't back up...and the next update isn't for another hour. hurry up blizzard! i wanna see how bad you nerfed my warrior
Hey, here's an idea. The next time you post something here, summarize it. If I want to read it all, give me a link. I came here to waste a few minutes--not all day. I'd love to know the highlights of the article, but that is more time that I have. Someone who has the time, how about a two minutes highlight summary posted for the rest of us.
It was a very entertaining read; the author a good writer. If you can't appreciate that, here's my cereal box.
In the spirit of single-player stories, how many sequels are better than the original? Reusing the same heros from SC1 as the main characters in SC2 is a bad idea, IMO. I've seen enough of Kerrigan and Raynor in SC1. I want new characters with fresh personalities and attitudes. It would be fine to use them to introduce new characters during the first couple introductory levels, but not as the main characters throughout the entire game.
Multi-player, however, will kick ass.
In my day, Tanks were the central core of the raid party. Being a good tank on the server was synonymous with being a celebrity, because out of the thousands, there were about 4 that really, truly got the job done right. The raid group began and ended with the tank knowing what he was doing. If you wanted to be the main tank, you busted your hump to get the best gear available with one of the worst grinding/pvp specs imaginable. Your guild busted their humps to get you the best gear available. When you improved your chances of survival against an internet dragon, everyone improved their chances of survival. Now you got these guys trying to be pallydinns and tanks at the same time in an excuse to take the best tank drops first. You got Blizzard nerfing warriors to scale down their pvp domination to the point where the tank is nothing feasible outside of a 25+ man raid group You got 10 year olds with inferiority complexes wanting to be the next wonderman on their server and be in charge of something they deem important. A gods-only class isn't going to repair this problem. Giving pallys everything they want isn't going to fix it. Buffing the talents a tank never uses won't fix it either. Alas, a cancer has taken over the tanking position in World of Warcraft. The approaches to aiding this problem will be drastic or fatal if they are ever intended to work.
He's not alone. I also love tanking. I levelled as Fury and went Prot at 70 after getting some decent tanking gear. My girlfriend is a resto Shaman so we find it incredibly easy to find groups!
There is no knowledge that is not power.
That is a hell of a wall of text. Why don't we see this kind of in-depth coverage for more technical topics?
In fact your raid leader probably shouldn't be a tank or healer, they have too much to do at the tactical level to be effective at the strategic level (generally).
Couldn't disagree with this more. Any time I've had a DPS foccused RL they've not understood the constraints the tanks and healers are operating under. They've been all about speed and pewpew and how can I get my numbers high (positioning) and not about how do we keep the tank alive and ensure the healers ilwl have mana to last the fight, or range on who they have to heal or whatever other tactical decisions the RL needs to make.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I fail to understand why Blizzard keeps designing their new content with end-game as the sole thing that keeps people interested.
Because they don't. I have two level 70s and the only single piece of purple gear I have is a burning axe that dropped in STV (currently being used by a level 43 Shaman alt).
I'm a WoW player because Blizzard does keep in mind the more casual player with family, job, etc.
I had to give up the hardcore playing because clicking the mouse like a maniac for hours killed my hand.
Blizzard was forced to change the interface by Amazon.com who were threatening to sue them for patent infringement on their one-click patent.
I went and got the pvp healing gear for paladins, so that I could go on raids as a healer, get the tier tokens, and then turn them in for tanking gear.
And yet, every single time Blizz mentions Deathknights, they talk about how there was a lack of tanks...it's not because of a lack of tank classes or people wanting to tank, Blizz!
Eh, I have fun anyway. It would be as if my wife decided missionary was called doggy, and doggy missionary - I'd disagree with her on the whats and hows, but that wouldn't keep me from participating!
Erm, "end game RvR is all small instanced PQ's"? I have to ask, Are you on crack sir?
Due to the fact that they don't answer to such questions on their own forum, I doubt they'll answer here...
Actually the major differences in these games means they really don't overlap: 1) In WAR, the difference between the best drops in the game and quest rewards/public quests is not great enough to ruin pvp balance. You are still effective at what your class is designed to do regardless. Healers in greens and blue items can heal well enough to be a primary in any rvr raid regardless of clothing, and similarly in the case of dps. 2) WAR encourages taking your time to enjoy the tiers. There is just as much fun at T1 as T4. Often this fun is completely different since you have access to different RvR areas and scenarios. This is the most refreshing change for me coming out of WoW since level 1-60 currently you basically are non-existent and unable to participate in most of the game. Leveling in WAR is easy and seems to only be there to keep level ups from being completely free. I expect however that eventually people will make toons for tiers more than anything since the maps in the rvr and scenarios are so different. 3) WoW has no pvp element compared to WAR. Every part is WAR is oriented to pvp. There aren't separate specs only gear sometimes. Everything about WAR encourages you to take on the other side from the reduced death penalties to the renown rewards, etc. I wish we could talk to the other faction but such is life. 3) WoW is ultimately a raiding game. All of the best of the game requires a 10-40 man group to obtain. In WAR, a good seven man team obtains everything. You don't necessarily need full groups to accomplish anything in WAR. For me, the negatives of WoW prohibit any interest for me. I work full time, and have kids. I have a couple of hours a day to devote to gaming and WoW requires you to have nothing in your life but that game to go anywhere. I'll pass.
You know you can just hold down the mouse button, right?
I used "of the Bold" for over a year, did Kara every week and never saw the shoulders from Netherspite. Eventually got the ones from the ZA timed chest. Our warrior tank had the exact same issue - of the Bold for a year.
Blizzard is only outputting information. Why would anyone go to such a convention, when Blizzard considers your views as completely unworthy of attention?
Yep. Watch the gameplay trailer at the official site.
They have replaced the potion bar with an action bar that can be mapped to the keyboard. Using skills will be more like WoW, albeit with a smaller bar. The action bar will also work in conjunction with mouse button hotswapping for the people who prefer to use just the mouse.
From the article: They also want to develop more and more PvP content and create some sort of mechanism for players to gain experience in battlegrounds. Is this true? I could renew my subscription if I know I could progress my charcter through BGs instead having to be forced doing PvE...
"There was a great deal of discussion about Wrath of the Lich King at Blizzcon"
Translation - How can we prevent the loss of players moving to Warhammer for serious pvp?
"Players will be able to swap between two specs in order to facilitate their participation in both PvE and PvP."
Translation - For the first time since release players will be able to enjoy the game and have decent gear! OMG!
"Blizzard wants to diversify the options for PvP and take the focus off arenas. They also want to develop more and more PvP content and create some sort of mechanism for players to gain experience in battlegrounds."
Translation - Ok guys... everyone who used to enjoy PvP is going to warhammer, quick, steal their ideas!
"They said they wanted to help the shortage of tanks by creating another class that could fill the role."
Translation - After 4 years of every class who tanks asking for a viable method of actually tanking we've decided to offer them the option to reroll. LOL
"Another major goal was to get each talent tree for each class a specific playstyle"
Translation - We hope that this time around we'll give all classes 3 actual trees instead of just our favorites.
"Blizzard considered revamping the dispel system too -- they aren't satisfied with the current implementation -- but said they didn't want to introduce another huge set of changes at this time."
Translation - There were talks here at blizzard of allowing certain classes to use more then one button in raids and still win. Sadly, that was shot down because we don't want everyone having fun.
"In addition, they talked about their decision to unify several itemization stats in order to make it easier on some classes to switch roles, and to reduce the number of items required to support all possible specs."
Translation - THIS JUST IN! Hybrids are going to finally have a functional inventory!
"As you may recall, we asked you for interview questions for various Blizzard employees; stay tuned, their answers will be up soon."
Translation - You are cordially invited to watch us stroke our Massive E-Peen.
To be exact - the trip to 70 is fun the first time around. But by the time I started my second character, the fun was dead. Especially since I was playing on a PvP server, where the Elf lands were nothing more than a horde gank fest.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
My first thought was 'tldr dept.' - why'd they skip the n? I spend way too much time on windows. Btw, isn't that a tad long for a summary?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
You based a gameplay decision on what you read and not actually finding out for yourself? You went back to WoW over hearsay?
When you bought WAR you got the first 30 days free. What exactly did you do with those 30 days? It is not impossible to grind to level 20 in less than a week. 6 hours of gameplay gets me to level 6 or 7. You can get XP either with PvE, RvR or PvP. The fastest of course is just RvR hence the complaints about scenario camping or warcamping. But that inherently has more to say about players than the game itself. Some players just aren't interested in the lore (which is very good) or sightseeing (The Inevitable City is amazing). 6 hours straight of RvR gets you further than 6 hours of PvE. But it's obvious why: There is no travel time in RvR, you are instantly placed in profitable target central.
WAR is based heavily on DAoC: You should expect the endgame to be the similar but with a GW flavour. It will eventually be a sort of a World Series or Olympics Association of the best guilds pretty much equal in gear and counterpart classes thus winning primarily through superior skill and tactics. You are allowed and encouraged to re-spec your masteries (translation: skill trees) to suit the scenario or RvR or siege. AFAIK it is free to re-spec. In this sense WAR begins to lead more towards an interactive Chess or even table-top wargaming feel. This is why the gear seems bland and very limited in cross-class utility. Mythic was aiming at not letting anyone have ubergear that cheapened skill at a class. I predict they will change this though. Cross-class gear will appear as it is a very successful mechanic (albeit accidental) in WoW having seen WoW Druids using staffs meant for Priests and Mages because Druid staffs were pretty useless.
They are pretty late in the fixing but they have now added tier-wide chat channels in the latest patch. It hasn't done much, I do agree that EA/Mythic messed up this part.