Cracks starting to show?

[Sjofn]

Doomhammer's scribes are pants on head retarded, they're even stupider about selling their product than our JCers.

The alternative is to have other servers where the scribes just don't EXIST at all. 

Plenty of scribes on Moon Guard, they just actually realise they're selling something people want and thus should maybe charge some money for it.

[Lantyssa]

What level was that?  You can usually get a decent quest reward weapon in most of the starter zones, followed by another decent Blue quality one from the Goblin Arena Fight questiline mid way through the leveling curve of most brackets that will tide you over till you can get a decent drop in normal / heroic dungeons.

Was at 85.  Guild was dead, and I didn't know about it until I was like two days from the sword in that daily hub.  Baradin or whatever.  I bought a cheap green polearm on the AH and did plenty fine though, so I didn't really care.

Heroics in general were just miserable all around.  I was tanking with barely good enough gear (thankfully everyone else was overgeared), but couldn't get any upgrades to ever drop.  I think I had two pieces from dungeons, everything else was from various rep vendors.  Never did see a better weapon.  That just added to my dislike of Cata.  Hours upon hours banging my head against dungeons and wasn't getting anything out of them, while I think Vu had dungeon gear in almost every slot.  That's pretty brutal as a tank.

[Lakov_Sanite]

PVP

It's just not fun to get your face raped for months before you get enough gear to be competitive. Also once you individually no longer get raped, you also need to rely on your entire team having said gear.

The barrier to fun here is just WAY too high.

[Ingmar]

They're addressing that somewhat, in that (for the first time) there will be new crafted starter PVP gear at a higher tier - so you don't get stuck coming in 3 seasons into an expansion with your blue starter gear from season 1, etc.

[Merusk]

That still doesn't address a team of (mostly) fresh 85's dropping into your BG and acting like HK-Farming idiots.. but that's been true of WoW PVP since forever, so I don't know why LS is complaining now.

I completely identify with the problem he's mentioning, yeah.  Lord knows I've attached my pally to more than one plate-wearer with decent hp only to have them mowed-down by a rogue.  A ROGUE in fewer shots than some clothie.  Upon inspection I discover "oh hey, all pve gear. Well fuck."   My mistake for not inspecting them all in the lead-up, but fairly often I'm also getting in with only 15-20s left before start or mid-BG.

I think a lot boils down to some people just still don't understand resil after all these years.  They get into a BG thinking "man I'm going to wtfpwn in this leet gear now" only to get splattered.  That or they think "fuck those dungeons, I'll just farm HKs for Honor and convert it to justice to get geared up."

Meanwhile I've come across mages in blue Resil sets who could survive dual rogues with me healing them.  The pisser's going to be after tomorrow when new weapons make it in and people get splattered quicker.

[Amaron]

They're addressing that somewhat, in that (for the first time) there will be new crafted starter PVP gear at a higher tier - so you don't get stuck coming in 3 seasons into an expansion with your blue starter gear from season 1, etc.

I thought they were keeping the stupid part where the current season is 2 tiers above honor gear?   I assume this new crafted gear will be one more tier below that? 

[Ingmar]

They're addressing that somewhat, in that (for the first time) there will be new crafted starter PVP gear at a higher tier - so you don't get stuck coming in 3 seasons into an expansion with your blue starter gear from season 1, etc.

I thought they were keeping the stupid part where the current season is 2 tiers above honor gear?   I assume this new crafted gear will be one more tier below that?  

The last season will move down to honor, so it should just be crafted->honor->conquest each one tier apart. There's no 2 tier gap between current season and honor right now? This may not be live right away tomorrow, I would expect the honor/conquest change to not happen til the season change and I don't know if that is perfectly aligned with the patch or not, though it probably is.

[Sjofn]

You can tell PvE plate people on sight. Or at least I can. "Do they look like me, yes/no" was pretty much the test. When I started, yes meant they were just as lame as I was (I had a mix of crafted PvP gear and PvE gear, because I am a lazy person who doesn't care). Now "yes" means that plate wearer and I are going to have a GOOD TIME.

I honestly found gearing up to be perfectly acceptable, and I'm not the most patient of PvP-ers (ask Ingmar!). However, I did it in a battlegroup full of people who are ... not good at PvP, though, so that helps. But I went in expecting to just get splattered everywhere (as I started well after people would've been able to get a full suit of honor gear at the very least), and it didn't really happen.

[Merusk]

The season ends tonight and the patch notes indicate that the Conquest>Honor conversion will be done tomorrow morning, the same as the 3 T11 pieces being available for JP.

On tiers, I think there's a misconception that there's currently 4 tiers of PVP gear because of the way they have it set up.  Crafted (339), Honor (352), Conq (365) and Conq w/ rating (armor 365, weapons 372).   The cong w/ rating makes people think there's another tier, even though it's got the same stats as the plain old conq gear.  

The weapons DO make a big difference, though.

On PVP gearing, I just got shit luck on both sides.  Alliance I'm up against Illidan, Cho'gal and Destromath, Horde I'm up against Mannaroth, Magtheridon and Bleeding Hollow.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I forget what Moon Guard's battlegroup is called, but it has less PvP servers involved than the other ones or something. I think it's three PvP servers, three RP servers and a whooooole mess of PvE servers.

[Ingmar]

Weapons should be at least somewhat 'solved' with the eventual availability of crafted PVE weapons once we blacksmiths finish our daily grinds to open up the vendors that have the recipes. Weapon is kind of the one slot where you can get away with just plugging in a PVE thing and be fine.

[Amaron]

The last season will move down to honor, so it should just be crafted->honor->conquest each one tier apart. There's no 2 tier gap between current season and honor right now?

Right after an expansion there wasn't a 2 tier gap in the past either.   Usually they'd always set the previous season as a cheaper arena set when a new season finally came.   I looked it up though and they aren't doing that this time.   They're bringing back honor weapons as well which is a nice touch.

[Shrike]

Weapons should be at least somewhat 'solved' with the eventual availability of crafted PVE weapons once we blacksmiths finish our daily grinds to open up the vendors that have the recipes. Weapon is kind of the one slot where you can get away with just plugging in a PVE thing and be fine.

Except, no AGI axes or maces. There're shaman involved, so there can't be any easy weapon availablity. Just wouldn't do.

[Paelos]

Now that I'm back in the country, let's continue our own journey of discovering why people are quitting wow in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT!

Today I bring you the plight of Splice, who is leaving because he just can't take the rep grinds anymore.


Personally I don't disagree with him about applying rep across all toons. Then again, they would have to change the human racial because everyone would just grind it there.

[sinij]

When is next round of financial docs coming out? I am curious to see sub #s.

[Paelos]

When is next round of financial docs coming out? I am curious to see sub #s.

Usually they release in August. It won't matter. They've timed the patch to hit June 28th for a reason. They are going to string them out as long as possible so all the latest round of "Well 4.2 didn't solve anything" people quit in July, and therefore won't impact the quarterly reports.

I continue to believe there's no way around the Q3 numbers, when all the continual subs will have expired, and people will just give up waiting for miracles.

[sinij]

Do you really think that people that already left will come back for 4.2 ? I highly doubt it. Even without playing it is obvious that nothing changed, just more bone-headed decision and "my way or highway" calls from devs.

Highway it is.

[Ingmar]

Do you really think that people that already left will come back for 4.2 ? I highly doubt it. Even without playing it is obvious that nothing changed, just more bone-headed decision and "my way or highway" calls from devs.

Highway it is.

Yes, some people will. Guaranteed.

[Rasix]

I'm pretty sure Rift + single player releases will keep me happy until SWTOR. So, no desire to here at least.  I've always had urges to play again, this just feels odd to not want to at all.

[Paelos]

Do you really think that people that already left will come back for 4.2 ? I highly doubt it. Even without playing it is obvious that nothing changed, just more bone-headed decision and "my way or highway" calls from devs.

Highway it is.

No I think that people will hang on until 4.2 and then leave when it's the same old shit. That will be the next round of "breaking points" for people, and that won't show up in Q2 because they will quit in July.

[Ratman_tf]

So, no desire to here at least.  I've always had urges to play again, this just feels odd to not want to at all.

That's where I'm at. I've often taken breaks, but this time, I sorta felt it in my bones that I'd never be back. I only use my authenticator for SCII now. :/

[Ingmar]

Going to put this here since this is where we're talking about player retention type stuff:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/28/play-world-of-warcraft-for-free-forever-with-the-new-endless-trial-mode/

TLDR: Trial accounts now never expire (so essentially 1-20 is now just free), anyone who only owned classic just got Burning Crusade for free, and Original+TBC price changed to $20.

[Amaron]

No I think that people will hang on until 4.2 and then leave when it's the same old shit.

Didn't they lose like 600~700k last time though?   If a good chunk of those don't come back it will look pretty bad all by itself.

[Paelos]

No I think that people will hang on until 4.2 and then leave when it's the same old shit.

Didn't they lose like 600~700k last time though?   If a good chunk of those don't come back it will look pretty bad all by itself.

I think they are beyond that. Those people, like many of us who list our grievances here, aren't coming back in the normal cycle of development as we used to. Now they are going to see the collective losses of the accounts in the second quarter plus the losses coming when people see 4.2 wasn't worth the wait.

[Merusk]

And it TOTALLY wasn't worth it if you're on the bubble.   The Thrall quest was ho-hum and his wife talks too much.  No new 5-mans and you can't complete the T11 set via JP, you'll still have to kill the end bosses of the T11 raids to do so.  Even the PVP weapons have some odd requirements on 'honor earned this season' to purchase them.

[Paelos]

Today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! Delendam has had enough of your ridiculous questing!

[Sjofn]

... and you can't complete the T11 set via JP, you'll still have to kill the end bosses of the T11 raids to do so.  

This is the main thing that screams "wtf" to me. Everything else is fine, as I'm cool with new gated dailies and still haven't done much with the Zul'Whatevers (I'm shy!), but not being able to finish T11 without raiding is very, very eye-rollingly stupid, especially since it's just not going to take that long for people to buy the parts they CAN buy.


EDIT: Actually, I'm lying, the latest FUCK YOU I'M OUT from Paelos touches on another WTF for me. Making it so people HAVE to have done Hyjal on EVERY CHARACTER that might want to do those dailies is just fucking idiotic. I assume it's because they want it to make some vague amount of sense (why would we assault the firelands when all of Hyjal is obviously still on fire?) and get everyone in the same phase, but it's still fucking stupid. Catacylsm already has way less replayability because of the fewer leveling up zones (you could level in WotLK at least twice without repeating shit if it was important to you), but this makes it worse.  

[Tannhauser]

I'm done with WoW.  This latest patch gives me no urge to re-sub.  It's just over for me, the game has moved past me.  What's crazy is I currently have no MMO and I always have an MMO. 

I do enjoy the QQ though!

[Merusk]

The Hyjal thing is a huge error on their part for wanting it to be down at Malorne instead of up at the zone-in.  They should have just dropped new druids in place instead of reusing the Malorne guys since you can't see those NPCs until you've done the quests.  It's such a simple thing to do but they fucked it all up.

Hell, IMO the quests all should have been down in the Molten area, not in the regrowth at all.  WTF happens in that segment of the map anyway?

[Ingmar]

I suspect we move down to that in later phases, but maybe not. The heavy phasing across the zone is the real reason for the quest progression requirement I suspect.

[Merusk]

Oh it's absolutely because of the phasing.. I'm just puzzled as to why they didn't move it to that area, as it's not phased.  Perhaps you're right about the move-down, but if not it makes the decision even more of a WTF.

[amiable]

My friends and I just  all quit (5 of us).  Pve was an incredible pain, and you need 10 people to accomplish anything.  We liked pvp but rated bg's are a miserable failure and arenas were just painful cc-fests where whoever has the most crowd control wins.  The introduction of the new tier and the decision that conquest points are going to be gated the same way raid points are and require a similar amount of coordination to acquire was just the last nail in the coffin. Honestly I do not see any of us ever coming back.

[Hawkbit]

How did the wheels come off the bus?  Was it Blizzard continuing to do what they do and the players simply moved on, or did the upper team management (Kaplan??) shifting projects really affect this cycle, or what?  Like Tannhauser above, I'm just done with WoW.  I feel no connection to it anymore, from someone who played mostly non-stop from 11/04 to 1/11. 

[Merusk]

The merger happened.  It's about revenue on the upper end, not fun.  Vivendi always gave Blizzard a long leash because they knew it would pay off.  Kotick won't allow such leeway or nonsense.  Profit now, not later, he's got an empire to build.

[Paelos]

The merger happened.  It's about revenue on the upper end, not fun.  Vivendi always gave Blizzard a long leash because they knew it would pay off.  Kotick won't allow such leeway or nonsense.  Profit now, not later, he's got an empire to build.

I disagree with your assessment that it's profit now, not later. I think the reverse is the case right now. Blizzard has planned obsolesence for WoW and have diverted the most productive assets to future development projects that will net them greater gains. I think Blizzard wants to be mostly out of the WoW business by 2014 (10 year plan) and have something else that's started with brand new engines, expectations, IP.