Opinion: August 2008 Archives

What follows are my early thoughts on the 8885 beta build that went live tonight.

• they missed something that should have been in this build, cause I am getting errors like crazy
• still no weightstones or sharpening stones
• it looks like most glyphs are actually craftable by scribes, including scribes as low as 100
  Paladin judgements are working again
• no noticeable change in xp required per level
• cooking daily quests in, with Dalaran Cooking Award, which can be used to buy recipes in Legerdemain Lounge in north Dalaran
• thanks to Zubr of Arathor, playing on Northrend for the /console error 0 command to stop showing errors
• glyphs seem to be 'used' with 1 hour cooldowns
• scribes will make a killing
  
• Mageroyal seems to be a big in demand herb for early scribe glyphs
• to use a glyph, you right click it. Some say they cannot be used, even when well beyond the level required. Odd.
  
• Overall nice, once you remove the errors, but more time may be required to work out some potential issues

There are many bad changes, many mediocre ones, and many good ones. It's beta, and things will change, but for now, I can play on my Paladin, though I am about to stop my leveling because I want to prep my live toons for the 3.0.2 patch and expansion.

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 know a few people who are in the beta, so I think I have a decent cross section of the player base when I say that right now the beta server I play on, and the one the Europeans(Coldarra) play on are completely useless for actual testing. Beta testing is fun. I love finding bugs to pass along and helping to make the finished release candidate more polished and less bug filled than the current one. I cannot do this, however, if I can only play for 10-30 minute stretches filled with lag and looting problems.

Before, and even since I got into beta, I have listened with an uninterested eye as friends complained about lag filled and crash ridden servers in the beta. I figured, at worst, that these were likely the result of most of them being in Europe and the beta realms being located in the US, even the one for Europe. Not so. I have tried a few times in the last few days to get into the beta realm Northrend, and I get in for between 5 and 30 minutes before I get world server down.

Crashing servers aren't unfamiliar to me, I played in the original beta, in the days after the games release, and in the first few days of Burning Crusade, but this is a little ridiculous. Blizzard has said they are looking into it and working with their server team to find the problems, but in the meantime their beta testers are sitting there, hands on their chest, growing increasingly frustrated at lost opportunities. We all want to make a better release client, but every World Server Down and You have been Disconnected we get makes it all the more likely bugs will slip through.

I was sitting in IRC chat, discussing the beta, and a friend going by the name MrCynical pointed out that it seems Orcs get more play, again, in this expansion than his beloved undead, who you would think have more reason to want to take down the Lich King. I spent time last night exploring a bit and found the Westfall based human settlements in Grizzly Hills, which I noted made major human settlements in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, and Grizzly Hills, in addition to a human leading the Kirin' Tor, Rhonin.

I guess the two separate points struck me as odd. Then I realized something: The majority of the conflicts in the game from start to now seem to boil down to the hatred between Orcs and Humans. In fact, if you look back through the entire franchise, there seems to be a pivotal connection that boils all battles down to these two races. The biggest connection is that these two are the lead races of their faction, making them the big center pieces of many conflicts.

Sure, we have Undead and Humans, Orcs and Night Elves, Orcs and Dwarves, and Draenei and Blood Elves, but most of the major stuff, like the expansions and stuff, is pitting those two lead races against each other. From the start of Warcraft to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King, these two races have taken the lead in the events of the people of Azeroth and Outlands. What do you think about this breakdown? Would you like to see more major roles for other races? Or are you happy with these two races sharing the lead of the game? Let me know in the comments. 

Thanks to a dear friend who had a couple of the card based beta codes, I am now in the beta. I still have opt in on my account, and still have others I know who want keys, but I do want to try and get a key or two to give away on the show and here on the blog. How will I do that? I don't know yet, but stay tuned and subscribed for more info. I will also giving my thoughts as I go through the beta on the *content* that is there. Talents change, specs alter, and game play will change.

The content, the lore, the stories, those are likely to not change much. For your pleasure, though, I will preface any lore or story post with 'SPOILER:' just so you know when you might get ruined. Finally, if you are playing on Northrend(PvE) and alliance side, let me know your toon's names in the comments, and I will add you as a friend in game. Maybe we will get an All Things Azeroth guild set up. I might also do an end of beta round table show to get some of the tester's thoughts on the expansion pre launch.

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!

You may have wondered where I have been these last few days. Well, I have been away from blog. AFB. I love the beta. I wish I was in it. I want to be testing and trying and learning. I want to poke and prod and see what breaks. I want to see what is good, and bad, and learn from the beta. Sadly, as I said, I am not in the beta yet. Therefore I must rely on the reporting of sites like Deathknight.info, WoW Insider, wotlkwiki.info, and MMO Champion.

While the WoWHead wrath Talent Calculators are good, they just can't adjust to the changing state of talents on the beta realms. Reminiscent of the original beta, Hunters and Paladins are the last to have received their Wrath talents, and therefore the talents for these classes are changing often. Within a day or two of my recent piece on the Retribution tree for Paladins, the layout of the tree I spent days writing a post about, as well as several critical items in it, were changed.

I wouldn't choose Art of War for any money now. My prospective tree breaks by tier 4. I do not know of anywhere that keeps a record of the talent trees as they change from patch to hot fix to beta round. Dire Cat Form was 'wrongly stated' since it will just be a Cat Form version 2, with a new look via inscription, apparently. Yes, just because Tom Chilton, Lead Game Designer for World of Warcraft, says that something is coming, doesn't mean a thing. Can't count on 'it's coming' from anyone at all, it seems.

So, I guess you could say that I am tired of being bitten by the Beta bug. Sure, more pet slots, spell based mounts and vanity pets, and all the great abilities coming, or stated they will be coming, are here, or in the next patch, all of this looks awesome. And all of it is a single patch from being gone, as well. Maybe the vanity pet and mount system is too tech intensive. Maybe the pet slots make a hunter just too over powered. Maybe... maybe this is beta, and it's just not worth blogging about? Yeah, I think that might be it. 

I posted on my Twitter today that it is beginning to feel, after so many professions nerfs, the Blizzard is at war with their own professions. Make them too good, and you have to increase the difficulty and requirements of the encounters in raids, or so I hear so often. Having done a little raiding, I can see that they have a point, to a degree. I do, though, have some questions. I made a few of these in this post about the seeming death of the Alchemy profession with the huge nerf of potions.

I once heard an opinion that if you don't an idea of how to solve a problem, don't bother mentioning it. Well, here is my best solution. There are items and abilities which cannot, and could not once upon a time, be used in a particular place. There was a time when you couldn't summon at all in Netherstorm. You cannot use some long cooldown abilities in Arenas. Blizzard has even changed the cooldown of some abilities to make them either able or unable to be used in those situations.

My suggestion is that Blizzard, instead of nerfing these items across the whole game, make them work differently when in a raid. Instead of giving us Tennitus whenever a drum is used in game, make it so that this effect only happens in a raid, be it dungeon or world raid encounters. The same would go for the Potion Sickness. Perhaps, just to be fair, give them a 5% buff to the effects when in a raid group, but then you get the debuff. This would solve the raid encounter issue, but not take away the benefits of using potions and drums in your game play.

My biggest concern, and the reason I used in my previous post, is still a valid one. I found more than once in leveling my 4 70s through Outlands that there is a nasty habit of mobs to swarm a player. From Fel Orcs in Terrokar, to vultures in Hellfire, to mana wyrms up on Bash'ir Landing. Attack the one on the edge, and before you know it you are surrounded by mobs and have little chance of surviving the fight. Except you have pots or you have drums. Not all of us are Paladins or other self healing and other survivor based classes.

What do you think of this suggestion? Are you one of those who feel this is much needed to make raids more accessible? Or do you feel that Blizzard is taking a heavy hand across the board with stuff that they feel isn't helping one aspect of one portion of the game? Let me know and sound off, you might even get audio played on the podcast if you send it in.