General: May 2008 Archives

I was reading this thread, and I keep thinking, and wondering, if people really understand the demon hunters. Many people are saying that their idea for a Demon Hunter would be a progression from the Hunter class. This is not an uncommon thing, really. Battle Mage, Archdruid, and so on are other hero classes with clear lines of progression. However, let me point out to you a few of the Demon Hunter's we have in game now. Illidan Stormrage. Loramus Thalipedes. Altruis the Sufferer. Varedis.

To my knowledge the closest any of these names has to a pet is Altruis and his dragon, though one could argue Illidan has several pets in the form of Lady Vashj and Kael'Thas. I do not believe any of these, or any of the demon hunters in training at the Black Temple use a ranged weapon. Demon Hunters are casters, basically a sorcerer turned demon from when they accept the powers of the legion. Please, for the love of all which is holy, think of another 'progression' from the Hunter class. Thank you.

Steps from his soapbox, dismisses his pet, and flies into the sunset...

Recently we have seen a great number of player punishments in the game around us. While the first incident had some reports of bans, most reports of punishment for Arena win trading were of 72 hour suspensions. For those who don't know about this, it is the practice of selling your team's high rating as a win against for a set amount of gold. Say you have a team rated 2000, I come along and offer you 10,000 gold for 10 wins against your team, set up in the dead of night so as to assure a win. If either team happens to get posted against a different team, the team leaves the fight, neither up nor down points.

In addition to suspending players who do this very frequently, Blizzard has introduced tough new rules for the fourth Arena season. One of these is that if a team leaves or AFKs out of a match, the team will lose the equal rating to what they would have lost had they lost the match in competition. Of course it could be said that if they can't even bear to face the match given them, they likely would have lost had they stayed, so there is no difference.

Many Arena traders complained loudly that Blizzard never said it was against the rules, but Blizzard pointed out the following rule in the ToS that we all agree when we sign in for the first time, and also after every patch.

C. Rules Related to Game Play

Game play is what World of Warcraft is all about, and Blizzard strictly enforces the rules that govern game play. Blizzard considers most conduct to be part of the Game, and not harassment, so player-killing the enemies of your race and/or alliance, including gravestone and/or corpse camping, is considered a part of the Game. Because the Program is a "player vs. player" game, you should always remember to protect yourself in areas where the members of hostile races can attack you, rather than contacting Blizzard's in-game customer service representatives for help when you have been killed by an enemy of your race. Nonetheless, certain acts go beyond what is "fair" and are considered serious violations of these Terms of Use. Those acts include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

1. Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players;
2. Conduct prohibited by the EULA or these Terms of Use, including without limitation that conduct prohibited by Section 2(C); and
3. Anything that Blizzard considers contrary to the "essence" of the Program.

 In the end, It is Blizzard's game, and they make the rules. The win trading practice was undoubtedly a breach of fair play, and needed to be fixed in the mechanics. The problem with withholding punishment in this situation, though, is that it will often simply make people find another way around the changed mechanics. This way, Blizzard has sent a clear and strong message that win trading will not be tolerated, and those caught doing it will be given time in the corner.

Now for the Ban Hammer side of the discussion. A recent filing in the case that Blizzard brought against Wow Glider, in which the petitioner said that blizzard has no right to go after the makers of Glider for making software, that Blizzard needs to go after those using the application to cheat, has come to pass. Many accounts that Blizzard found to be currently or previously using the Wow Glider cheat app have been banned from the game.

There are, as there always are, allegations of false positives. I will not say whether the ones I have heard of were from guilty parties or not, because I simply do not have all of the necessary information, I will point out a line used in the justice system the world over. Ask any random sampling of people in prison, they will all, with very few exceptions, tell you they are innocent. Wrongly accused. False positives.

In the end Blizzard is the only one with the necessary data required to discern whether these 'false positives' are truly false. I suspect, though, that more than a few of these claimed false positives are actually people who dipped their toes in the Glider waters, but for one reason or another stopped using it. Warden likely detected it's presence at least once and flagged the account as a Glider user. Of course this could be me feeling too generous. and giving too much benefit of the doubt, but in the best possible light these are what I figure the alleged false positives will turn out to be.

In  Twitter based conversation about this with two members of the referenced guild, both of whom are accomplished bloggers, I made the point that no one is immune to the desire to get something a little easier, and WoW Glider makes that very easy to do. The perfect example of this was the Arena tournament awhile back where more than half of the final teams were affected by account sharing, residency restrictions and other rules that prevented inclusion in the contest. Of all of these, most were people who had shared accounts and used the excuse that getting a character up high enough to be in a top arena team could not be done by just one person, and thus they were justified in breaking the rules.

The ToS is very clear about cheating, and about account sharing. Those who shared accounts back then were incredibly fortunate to not lose their accounts all together. Those who were hit with the suspensions for win trading, some of who made the excuse 'my friend borrowed my account and did it!' are also very lucky they didn't lose their accounts, though I would not be surprised if a few of them did after disputing the suspensions. Now, Blizzard has taken stronger measures to remind their players that the rules are there, they should be listened to, and failure to do so can mean a loss of years of late nights, painful dungeon runs, and tough fought victories.

Do you think it is worth it to buy gold, use cheat apps, or take other short cuts to achieve what you want? Do you know someone who has, not caring or knowing the risks, done so? Were they in the recent rounds of punishments? Do you feel sorry for them or do you feel they got their just reward?

I asked the other day about what race I should make my Death Knight on my main realm, Argent Dawn. While I am still divided, there is a great deal more to work out between now and the expansion's launch, so let's move on to the next topic: Name this Death Knight!

To me, the name is important. Perhaps not in the 'what should I name this' sense, but in a 'will I love this name at 70/80 and beyond?' When thinking of a name I naturally wonder if I should make the Death Knight a natural extension of one of my current characters. The main problem with this is that I cannot just name my Death Knight Medros, or Arita, or Ameland, or even Telaan or Traluun, not without deleting their base characters.

With all the time, effort, and thought that has gone into each of my played characters, I am honestly not sure I could just delete one. Perhaps I can make them a slight alteration of the current one. Medrode, or Arista. What do you think about making a character a near copy of one you already have? Do you prefer a little diversity in the look and feel of your toons?

The problem with making a Death Knight and extension of the RP story of your character is the temporal paradox. This is when the two exists in the same timeline. How could Arista be the evolution of Arita when Arita still exists? You must destroy one to make the other, right? I guess all of that goes into a area of science and philosophy that I am not as yet qualified to talk about.

A closer examination of my available played characters shows me there are only two I would get rid of if I had to. These are my Hunters. I guess part of the reason for this is because I find that there are a lot of hunters in the game, and the world doesn't really want or need my two. This is of course ignoring the fact that everyone and their uncle will have a Death Knight on day 1 of Wrath of the Lich King, so I would be essentially dropping one unpopular but over played class for another.

As for slots, since we know we will not be getting the Blizzcon mentioned Hero slot, I already have a slot I cleared up by transferring my nephew's rarely played Warrior to some other realm, though I can't recall which one now. Even if I hadn't, I have 2 mules I emptied out back when the Guild Bank feature came in, Alterrodd and Cuisinier, who can be deleted anytime. I was thinking of doing just that and making a Shaman, but I decided that the guild has just enough of those.

What are your thoughts on whether to progress your character into a Death Knight or if you should just make a new one? What will you do for the first Hero Class in world of Warcraft? What will you name your Death Knight? Are you even going to make one? I know a lot of people who have no desire to wear plate, and will instead wait for a caster or healer hero class. Don't forget that I still want your thoughts on what race I should make my Death Knight, be it one of my current races or a new one. 

It all began with twitter, a micro blogging site out there on the tubes. I checked in randomly, and saw both the WoW Insider account and one of their writer's, Matticus, post that they had received a tip that Gamespy would have new info on Wrath of the Lich King at midnight PST. It was about 25 minutes away, so I opened up the many places I post to, and waited impatiently. What follows is the deluge of info released.

An interesting quote I pulled from the article has Jeff Kaplan saying "going forward, all the five-man heroic dungeons will be itemized completely separately from the lower-level experience." This is an interesting change. Matticus has also posted on Twitter under Patyomatt that he found that all WLK raid dungeons will have 10 and 25 man versions... that is really interesting! Oh, and the two versions, like the 5 man normal and heroics, will be itemized individually.

Coldara, the dungeon in Borean Tundra, is where we will face off against the blue dragons, including an encounter where we get to fly drakes around and use their abilities in the fight. Sounds like a blast! Another thing Blizzard learned is that players like 5 man dungeons that can begin and end within about an hour, which I will concur is very much a welcome change.

Another point on the Raiding and Dungeon front is that there will be no attunements in Wrath, nor will there be any requirement to do a 10 man dungeon in order to do the 25 man, meaning blizzard learned from the frustration that was heroic keys and painfully long attunement chains.

Death comes in many sizes
For the Death Knights, the news starts with the lore, and this is where the Alliance get to share in some Forsaken style stories. The Death Knights will be, much like Forsaken, former servants of Arthas who broke from his control and now battle against him. Other news is a solid standing of how to make a Death Knight, limitations on them, and some of the features.

The main article goes more into how the Death Knight will work, but the more I hear about the system for the DK, the more I think we will need to see and play it, not to mention doing the hero intro quests, in order to properly understand the class. The change from an expected Level 80 epic quest to unlock, to a simple 'have a level 55 or better' is really going to explode the number of Death Knights.

Speaking of Death Knights, the site also has an article specifically about the class, detailing what I say above, and giving a bit more info on them. First, the Death Knight will be able to summon undead, sort of like the Druid trees from the Balance side. Second, the DK will be able to ressurect a friendly or enemy fallen, though not in their form, and not in their control, instead using them as a Ghoul that they can choose to control or set wild on surrounding mobs.

For you Warriors out there, worried about losing your raid spots to some up and coming young Death Knight, we got some more information on how the DK tanking will be. First, there will be no shield for the Death Knight. "their primary forms of mitigation will come in the form of Parrying, and the inherent power of their Presences and rune abilities." writes Gerald Villoria. He adds that Blood will, contrary to early speculation, not be the DPS runes, but the primary tanking runes. Not surprising, though, Frost will be the CC type runes.

With a reported niche in magic dealing bosses, versus melee bosses, the Death Knight will definitely fill some roles that current tanks need major healing through. I will definitely agree with Mr. Villoria, there is a lot that players will be outraged about when it comes to this hero class, but like many have asked for, this new class is feeling a lot more heroic as more details emerge.

The videos
With this new deluge of info on Gamespy, we also received 5 new zone videos. I am going to give my thoughts on them here.

Borean Tundra - I love the whale under the water, but I hope we don't need to kill them. They look too cool, and I have waited too long for non monster water life to appear. The tuskarr look neat, but very cartoonish. Ok, even more cartoonish than the rest of WoW. The Alliance town by the sea actually looks like I had expected Menethil to, large, bustling, and ever growing. Oh god, not more Harvest Golems! I thought I was rid of them at level 20! Wow, Coldara looks awesome! No, it's not just the epic LOTR style of music either. Oh, nice, platforms, more places for me to fall off of!Definite goblin presence. Some very neat looking undead structures, I am guessing this is the vaunted 'first time the undead make something instead of take it over' type settlement.

Sholazar Basin - AKA Un'goro Crater: The Sequel! Looks like a jungle, with palm trees and great waterfalls. Can I bring my Canon 350D into WoW? Please? Whoa! Vehicle combat? Looks sort of cool... umm... did he just shoot some flying beasts out of the sky in his fighter plane? What about looting the bodies? This looks so cool, it makes the TBC bombing runs look almost boring! Ahh, those 'flying things' were gargoyles. Oh, look, his fighter plane even comes with a parachute that is so tattered he couldn't float if he were made of feathers. Still, it looks really neat.

Zul'Drak - Another troll dungeon or zone. Yay? Ahh, troll, abominations, and spiders. What else can they throw in a dungeon? Aww, the Lich has his own Dalaran bubble.. how cute! Hmm, that looks like a skeletal form of Hakkar... but smaller I think. Another place I could spend hours with my camera at if it were real... and not filled with stuff trying to kill me. Wait, what? Red forests reminscent of the area near Silvermoon? Huh? Ok, now I am confused, back to back shots of what looks like the same place, one has everything covered in snow, the other, looks like it could be a summer evening. Have to look into that more.

Dragonblight - Wow, that was a loud intro. Lots of channeling for some reason. Is that the boss from Magister's Terrace? The guy from the fight that is just like Curator? Nice dragon bones. Umm, why did they include a shot that looks barely rendered and not even colored or textured? Do giants in Northrend have no color or texture? More red foliage. Hmm. The Alliance under attack. Shocking. Naxx perhaps? With flying skeletal dragons partoling nearby? They look reminscent of the Wyrms from the Manga that the scourge was raising. Ok... now we are onto... Grizzly Hills - Another busy Alliance port city. Will these boats actually move? Be used? Horde deforestation... *sigh* Enough sterotypes, Blizz! Whoa! Ironforge in Northrend! Oh, wait, probably Ulduar. Looking impressive for sure.

Howling Fjord - Wait, ok, so this is where the Undead settlement is. I guess the one before was scourge or Nerubian. Did I mention that the undead scourge buildings and structures are largely Nerubian by design? Oops. We also have a Thunder Bluff type rise. Weren't there supposed to be ancestors to the Tauren out in Northrend? Requisite Dragon. Looks like a Vrykul settlement, and I do not want to know if that 'dragon hide' draped over a steel skeleton is real hide. neat, flaming ancient in a flaming forest ala Charred vale in Stonetalon. I sooo want to fly through this continent on my bird or dragon. Utgarde Keep looks cool, with some really neat fights and mechanics. I look forward to LFG UT in a few months.

That is about it for the videos. Some really amazing stuff to be seen, and I cannot wait for WLK to ship. Sadly, my predicted release range of summer keeps slipping. Maybe I thought too highly of Blizzard's ability to ship this game in less time than the last took. Look for a podcast between now and Saturday morning. 
More coming soon...