From the Blues: August 2008 Archives

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!