Recently in From the Blues Category

I first heard this analysis from WoW Insider, and while it is connecting two possibly unrelated dots, I have to agree. Yesterday Eyonix posted on the General forums that the current season of Arena's would be ending when the new patch hit, since the new talents and abilities would lead to an unfair playing field compared to the rest of the season. This makes sense, if for no other reason than because Blizzard will likely still be fine tuning the classes after this patch goes live.

Today, in a not unexpected turn of events, Nethaera posted on the forums that not only would the Arena season be ending soon, which we knew, but that it is expected to end on the 14th of October, the Tuesday after Blizzcon. The date may change, of course, but at this point we can almost certainly expect to see the WoW realms go nuts on the 14th, with mods breaking, players respecccing, and so on as the day wears on. I am very excited to see this patch, and eager to take my experiences from beta and apply them to the live game!

Here is my question for you, friends, when will the Wrath lead up events begin, and what would you like to see happen?

I have noticed while reading the latest Blue Posts that we are beginning to see a list of stuff mentioned at Blizzcon '07 and WWI '08 that I noted that has been added to the 'Not at ship' list. So far I am noticing new Druid form art, already changed from a promised Dire Cat Form, will now not happen until after Wrath ships. I would note they don't seem to be doing it half assed, which is nice, but this makes me wonder if some of the data mined Minor Gyphs that would have changed the look of cat form will actually make it into the game at launch. This also makes me wonder how many minor glyphs, if any, will actually ship, since I am not yet seeing any in beta and only a handful of potential minor glyphs data mined.

We also know now that the former 11 point talent, Trap Mastery, will now be a 41 point talent and is currently broken. Something that saddens me more, though, is that Koraa has stated that the talent will not be improved before Wrath ships, instead getting some changes 'in a future patch', which could mean 3.1, 3.5, or somewhere in between. Add on to this that the shaman ability Riptide will not ship with proper sound and animations, causing complaints from Shamans that caused Tigole, a Dev, to ban at least two players last weekend.

We already knew that Icecrown Citadel would not be in Wrath on the 13th of November, as they have stated all along that it will be in an early 3.x content patch, but I have to wonder what else will change to 'will not ship'. Will many of the minor glyphs change? I would imagine, based on the blue post, that any texture changes to the Druid forms will not be there, so no polar bear tanks in Wrath. Don't get me wrong, I love the level of detail they are aiming for because the Swift Flight Form, for druids at least, looked absolutely awesome, but I just wish that they would stick to their guns on some of the promised coolness.

When I began working on this post, I will admit, the only thing I had was the Druid skin thing, but this post on WoW Insider brought several more issues to my attention. Zach Yonzon, the author of the post, points out, and rightly so, that this is not the usual 'When it's Ready' we get from Blizzard. This has the feel of an expansion being pushed out on a deadline that simply must be met. Is this the result of Activision Blizzard? Devs banning people for complaints that are more plentiful than mosquitoes in July? Titles shipping come hell or high water by a certain date, unfinished or not? I think the poll on WoW Insider says it all about what the fans think, with a 2:1 ratio of folks who want the expansion When it IS ready, versus on the date that was set.

Do you know of anything else that has been stated as 'not when shipped'? Dance Studios? Dual Specs? Dire Cat Form? What features of the game do you fear are at the high probability of being put off to a later patch? Let me know in the comments of the blog here at From the Abbey to Outlands!

Today saw an announcement that the next patch to World of Warcraft will be incoming soon, which will be the pre expansion patch we have all been waiting for. I was luckily in the beta when the news hit, and I got a bit of the early reactions that those in the thick of testing have about the impending release. The first impression I got was that many think it is too early, and others thought that this was one of the many 'Soon™' promises that Blizzard is both legendary and frequently mocked for.

I did a bit of research based on the first expansion, Burning Crusade, and I got some insights into how things might go this time. I would like to point out first that this is not last time, and that was Blizzard's first expansion to an MMO, and they have most likely learned a bit since then. So, the first fact we need to keep in mind was the January 16th release date of Burning Crusade. The next one I dug up was that the 2.0.1 content patch was released on the 5th of December. This was 1 month and 11 days before the release of the expansion.

Now, these two dates do not really have much of a connection now, since we still do not know the date that 3.0.1 will be pushed to the live realms, but keep that in mind when we do get that anticipated patch. The other piece of data we have is that Blizzard, after weeks of speculation about the release date, confirmed the release date on the 9th of November. This was 1 month and 4 days before the patch was released and over 2 months before the expansion was actually released.

Now, again, as I said before, things may well be different this time. Mike Morhaime has stated emphatically that the expansion will be released in 2008, so even if the date is announced on December 1st, I would think it is unlikely it will be a 2 month wait. Second, Blizzard was being pummeled by it's fans and the press for a release date, or at least a confirm or deny on the matter. This could have forced Blizzard to give a release date before they were ready. Lastly, as I said in the beginning and repeatedly, things can be different. Things likely will be different. Tomorrow Blizz could give us a release date. They could do it at Blizzcon. They could release it at Blizzcon! In the end, we'll have to wait and see, but these are just a few of my ideas of what the announcement could mean.

I mentioned in my About page that I began my love affair with WoW way back in September of 2004 with the Stress Test. I recall sometime in those early days one CM or another, being asked about talent point allocation, saying that putting all your eggs(points) in one basket(tree) would be bad, and make for a boring character. The idea behind giving you more than needed to get the big skill at the 'top' of the tree was to allow you to put some points in other trees.

Fast forward 4 years or so to the current Wrath Beta talents, and we now hear about talent Bloat. As described by the class designer Koraa in this thread:

Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices.

Wait, what? Now we should be putting all our points in one tree, and in fact should have more goodies in that tree than we have points to spend them on? When did this change? The reason I ask is that I did not, and do not feel that the current Retribution tree is in this position, as I still have room for Kings over in the Prot tree. Looking at my attempted build back in an earlier beta build, I did find that I just couldn't spare the points in Ret to go anywhere near the Prot tree.

I just find it a little amusing that the perspective of class design has changed so radically from those earlier 'spread em out' specs that I think it was Caydiem was advising back in those early days of Blizzard's MMO experience. What do you think? Do you like the old way of thinking or the new? Would you prefer less than mind blowing options scattered throughout the trees which would allow you to put points in other trees, or would you prefer having more juicy talents than places to put them? Sound off in the comments below!

I was surfing through the forums and I came across a forum thread where a Blizzard rep(herein referred to as a 'Blue') had commented. This is a topic I get a lot when I talk to the uneducated about WoW. "It's an advanced game and my computer isn't great". "I am sure Blizzard want to run on the best they can get". All of this and more plague me as 1) a WoW addict and 2) a knowledgeable and educated geek.

In the thread we have a person pointing out, in a really uneducated and generalized way, that all the best PC games now require Windows Vista, this coming from their friend who works in a game shop. No doubt these game makers 'require' Vista Ultimate, with Aero Glass and all the cool(read:useless) features involved. Thankfully Blizzard, that game maker we all love and hate in equal measure, is far brighter en mass and more kind to their customers and fans.

While Nethaera, in her responses, tried to hedge her answers in her first two replies, she finally came out and said what I knew the answer was.

The Expansion is not going to require users to upgrade to Vista. We have some things in the works on the end of graphics, but it's not anything that is going to require this specific upgrade.

There you have it. Let me break it down for you. Wrath of the Lich King will not require Windows Vista. You heard it there first. Or here. Whichever. This if for all the reason I mentioned in my reply, and the reasons mentioned in other's replies. blizzard has always done, and prided themselves in the fact that they make their games playable by as many people as possible, and this could well be the driving force behind over 10 million people playing worldwide.

Blizzard releases not only a Mac copy of the game, but at the same time as the PC version. Blizzard had gone so far as to begin a beta for a Spanish version of the US game to address the Spanish American and South American audience with the game. They made version for Taiwan, China, and Europe, and even made Oceanic specific servers for Australia and New Zealand part of the world.

Why in hell would Blizzard make the biggest mistake in their company's history by making the PC side of Wrath of the Lich King require a version of an OS that most of the employees at the company who makes it won't even run? I know a few employees of Microsoft and not one of them will run Windows Vista. Hell, upon asking today if I should run the 'fix to the Vista OS' as I heard one Microsoft sales person call SP1 today, I was told that if I run Vista yes, but it is not enough of a reason to install Vista if you aren't.

Blizzard can see the warning signs, folks, and they aren't about to ignore the 'Beware, deadly drop ahead' and 'Warning barrier is electrified and may cause death' signs plastered all over the path that leads to Vista. If other game makers want to lower themselves down the dark, lonely hole of Vista and it's myriad problems, that is fine, but I know Blizzard won't lead their customers to like lemmings.