Cataclysm

[Sjofn]

Don't you dare mock "New Patch." Don't you dare. Especially since Ingmar will yell at us for being in-jokey again. :(

[Fordel]

I'm just saying what we found hilarious, wasn't hilarious to everyone and someone else was shaking their fists at us for our silly ways.


I'm sure in 2025 when we are all playing World of Starwars Quest or whatever, we'll have the current retards going "man, remember the good old days of sensible trade chat fun!"

[Brennik]

I don't see why you would think they are isolated.


Most of "us" isolate our selves from them, because we are all old and cranky and want them off our lawns. We also isolate ourselves from each other because we can't stand each other either anymore. 

This. Like someone mentioned earlier, the tradechat spammers know each other and they're from all over the place. A good example is our guild (old, established for years) when we transferred servers, most of us weren't trying to integrate. It was all "set up in a corner and scoff at the outsiders".

[Mattemeo]

Most of "us" isolate our selves from them, because we are all old and cranky and want them off our lawns. We also isolate ourselves from each other because we can't stand each other either anymore. 

Haha, yeah. You guys think I've not logged in for 5 months is because my laptop's GPU died! 





No, really. Is there even going to be anyone there when I ever get back in game...? 

[Lantyssa]

Haha, yeah. You guys think I've not logged in for 5 months is because my laptop's GPU died! 

There will probably be people around.  Maybe.  If RealID doesn't scare everyone off.

[sickrubik]

The amount of people who actually quit will be minimal. Forum readers, let alone posters are a very very small percentage of the playerbase.

Hell, I think I can count on one hand the people who are threatening to quit from our group.

[Lantyssa]

Who knew they meant Cataclysm referred to their forums?

Still, even without this I keep finding myself less and less interested.  I'm not to the point of saying I won't get it though.

[sickrubik]

Who knew they meant Cataclysm referred to their forums?

Still, even without this I keep finding myself less and less interested.  I'm not to the point of saying I won't get it though.

You made two assumptions. One that "maybe" people will be around, and "if" RealID doesn't scare them off. I understand peoples dislike of RealID, but if you don't post, it's not much of an issue. That was my point.

[Soulflame]

Except that exposing your real name on the forums is likely only the first step of a broad range of integrations with Facebook.  It's already shown that RealID is exposed to friends of friends you have given RealID to, not to mention to any mods you have installed.

It's not a matter of "I don't want to post on the forums with my real name."  It's a matter of I value my privacy, and I don't want anyone knowing personal information about me, unless I decide to give it to them myself.  Blizzard is not only removing my decision from the reveal of my personal information, they're broadcasting it to potentially millions of people, and no doubt have plans to monetize it as well.

[sickrubik]

Except that exposing your real name on the forums is likely only the first step of a broad range of integrations with Facebook.  It's already shown that RealID is exposed to friends of friends you have given RealID to, not to mention to any mods you have installed.

It's not a matter of "I don't want to post on the forums with my real name."  It's a matter of I value my privacy, and I don't want anyone knowing personal information about me, unless I decide to give it to them myself.  Blizzard is not only removing my decision from the reveal of my personal information, they're broadcasting it to potentially millions of people, and no doubt have plans to monetize it as well.

They already have the facebook integration, though. I don't see how we immediately assume the jump is there, if it were, it would be using the Facebook login API. I don't doubt they will add stuff, but as everything else has been, I imagine it will be optional.

right now, there is no reason to assume that Blizzard is making the jump to broadcasting the information, openly. Even Facebook doesn't do that if you close off your account.

[Rendakor]

I like that you're getting class-defining abilities at level 10 now; however, I don't like the decreased diversity in builds this will lead to. The odds of there being even a few free talent points to spend beyond the core "build" for most specs are pretty slim.

How is that different than now? Most classes have 2-4 PVE builds that maybe have 5 points you can shift, unless you just want to gimp your character. There isn't any real diversity in builds, you either pick one of a few or choose to play badly. And lots of the talents are just boring - sure getting 5% more damage on your main nuke is useful, but spending 5 levels picking up +1% damage at a time is not interesting. I think they can actually provide much more variety if they take out all of the 'must have' stuff that provides basic abilities or major damage/healing/tanking boosts and just put stuff you don't have to have into the talents you pick.

I'd gladly exchange the occasional odd leveling talent build for actually playing like an arms warrior, enhancement shaman, or assasination rogue while leveling. Most of the not-one-tree leveling builds are there either for one ability that should probably be baseline (like spirit tap for priests) or to compensate for not having any good stuff at low levels.

I guess I just like having those 5 points to shift around, and don't imagine we'll have that much play with only 41 points total. And honestly I've never used a cookie cutter build on my rogue, yet have still consistently lead DPS despite doing things contrary to traditional (EJ) spec, rotation, etc. The real reason I had been psyched for Cata was all the interesting hybrid builds it could have lead to (hybrid meaning 21/51/x).

To everyone bitching in this thread about Facebook, RealID, etc., could you guys please take it to the RealID thread?

[Lantyssa]

You made two assumptions. One that "maybe" people will be around, and "if" RealID doesn't scare them off. I understand peoples dislike of RealID, but if you don't post, it's not much of an issue. That was my point.

I was being fascetious.  And amused at the coincidence.  My loss of interest is due to actual game-related reveals.  Nothing of late has made me go OMG I MUST GET THIS GAME NOW.  Rather quite the opposite with a "Why am I bothering?"

Let's keep the serious RealID stuff to its own thread.  It's a subject that will devour anything it touches.

[Typhon]

Put me in the camp that likes the tree changes - IF they manage to meet their design goals (a big if, I think).  I'd much rather see talents that  add abilities or add odd effects to abilities rather than "add +1% damage".  It also seems to make more sense from a balancing perspective - the relative DPS that a player does is consistent throughout level, they just get access to a variety of flavor in how they deal damage (heal, etc).

[Pantastic]

I guess I just like having those 5 points to shift around, and don't imagine we'll have that much play with only 41 points total.

I think there will be much more play with the new tree, as you won't be spending most of your points on stuff like '5 points of +1% to ability 1, 5 points of +1% to crit, 1 point to get the special move that defines this tree, 6 points for the boosts to the special move that make it really good, 4 points in something random that doesn't do much so I can get to the stuff later on the tree'. I don't really see the appeal of '5 points that don't make much difference', if they do the new trees right you'll be spending talents for interesting abilities instead of either 'eh, whatever' or '+1%'. When they know you'll spec 'arms' while leveling, they can give you all of the important arms stuff without worrying about a fury/arms spec being overpowered by combining things, leaving the talents for real choices.

And honestly I've never used a cookie cutter build on my rogue, yet have still consistently lead DPS despite doing things contrary to traditional (EJ) spec, rotation, etc. The real reason I had been psyched for Cata was all the interesting hybrid builds it could have lead to (hybrid meaning 21/51/x).

Can you post one of the builds on a calculator or at tell me how many talent points it has that differ from one of the standard shadowpanther builds? How different is your rotation from the traditional one, are you just using 1 or 2 things in a different order, or are you contradicting most of a standard rotation? Generally the last few points of a spec or the fine points of a rotation are only a tiny % difference or only work on certain fights, so I doubt you're really deviating as much as you think from a cookie cutter build. I made most of the standard mutilate build when I decided to try mutilate while leveling and grabbed talents that look like they'd be good based on the description, I just don't see that there are a lot of non-obvious choices.

I can come in first in a race across the park if the other competitors decide to just stroll around. Unless you're in a hardcore guild or running with DPSers with that mindset, 'leading the chart' is pretty much meaningless. Lots of people just don't play the game all that well, and lots of other people will slack off most of the time, so if you just show up to a PUG or casual guild, have decent gear for the instance, and actually try hard to top charts you probably will. I don't really want to get into an argument about whether or not your guild or groups are good, it's just that 'topping the charts' is not a useful fact because there's a good chance that the rest of the chart isn't anything to write home about.

[Rendakor]

TtT over CQC, gemming Agi over AP, and the inclusion of Rupture into the rotation are the major changes. Numerous rogues (even those from more serious guilds, or who were better geared than me) have argued with me up and down about both points, and lost DPS parses. Of course, my evidence is anecdotal, but comparing "my" spec/rotation with the EJ one I've always come up with better dps using my own. Of course it's as you say, there isn't that much room for deviation, and I'm not trying to turn this into a "MAH ROUGE IS AWSUM!" thread. I just feel that with less talent points available, there will be even less room for deviation from the "optimal".

[Ingmar]

There's also the issue that which group buffs you might have on a particular night have a huge effect on the dps of various talents, and also that these other rogues may just not be executing as well as you. In other words, the only person you should really be comparing your dps to on a per spec basis is you, and even then it can be hard to duplicate the right conditions to know for sure whether you're really making the most optimal choice. That's why the spreadsheet environments are pretty valuable for making those choices - they put things into a nice neutral context for comparison.

[Pantastic]

TtT over CQC, gemming Agi over AP, and the inclusion of Rupture into the rotation are the major changes. Numerous rogues (even those from more serious guilds, or who were better geared than me) have argued with me up and down about both points, and lost DPS parses. Of course, my evidence is anecdotal, but comparing "my" spec/rotation with the EJ one I've always come up with better dps using my own. Of course it's as you say, there isn't that much room for deviation, and I'm not trying to turn this into a "MAH ROUGE IS AWSUM!" thread. I  

I think you're proving my point about lack of diversity, since you're following the cookie cutter spec, gemming, and rotation except for incredibly minor chages, less than the '5 points' I mentioned. You shifted 3 talent points from CQC to TtT, that's the only change in spec. Although the non-talent stuff isn't really relevant here,  Shadowpanther only ranks AP as 3% better than agility, so if you have 200 stat points in gems (10 slots) you're looking at a theoretical difference equivalent to 6 agility, which is not even worth mentioning. IIRC rupture or not is only theoretically a small change, and whether it's recommended or not is dependent on your overall gear (though I haven't followed discussions on it for a long while).

I think that your skill in playing the character and issues like latency have a much bigger effect on DPS than the 3 talent points and 6 agility equivalent and arguable rotation thing you deviated from cookie cutter, so the contests don't really show us much. And I think if you shifted significantly more than 5 points in your talent build, you'd end up losing many more contests like that.

I just feel that with less talent points available, there will be even less room for deviation from the "optimal".

Well, you're deviating from the optimal by following a cookie-cutter build but shifting a whopping 3 talent points. I really can't see how they would end up with less room for deviation unless they actively tried to include no deviation at all, since the current room is just so tiny.

[Outlawedprod]

REALDID, Talent tree changes, the cataclysm begun it has!

[sickrubik]

It'a ALMOST like English, but not quite.

[Outlawedprod]

It'a ALMOST like English, but not quite.

These announced changes just struck me as well thought out as the Star Wars Clone Wars movie.  I tried to do my best Yoda impersonation.

[Merusk]

Who knew they meant Cataclysm referred to their forums?

Still, even without this I keep finding myself less and less interested.  I'm not to the point of saying I won't get it though.

That's because you forgot SOE's SW game will be out around the same time.. 

[Lantyssa]

I didn't forget it.  Even if I love it to death, I doubt it will be able to hold me for months on end as my primary game.

[WindupAtheist]

It'a ALMOST like English, but not quite.

These announced changes just struck me as well thought out as the Star Wars Clone Wars movie.  I tried to do my best Yoda impersonation.

Prequels were awesome.

/derail

[sickrubik]

Who knew they meant Cataclysm referred to their forums?

Still, even without this I keep finding myself less and less interested.  I'm not to the point of saying I won't get it though.

That's because you forgot SOE's SW game will be out around the same time.. 

The SW game coming out is NOT put out by SOE, but by Bioware.

[Ingmar]

They're not talking about SWTOR, there's another one along the lines of Free Realms that SOE is putting out, Clone Wars something something.

[caladein]

They're not talking about SWTOR, there's another one along the lines of Free Realms that SOE is putting out, Clone Wars something something.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19301.0

[Merusk]

Yep, that one.  SWTOR is looking more and more like a trainwreck than a fun game.  Free Realms was fun but the setting didn't grab me.  Free Realms with a Star Wars skin will be fun for me and the kids.

[sickrubik]

They're not talking about SWTOR, there's another one along the lines of Free Realms that SOE is putting out, Clone Wars something something.

Oh crap, right, THAT thing. I don't even register that thing in my mind as an option, for whatever reason. Mea culpa.

[Fordel]

New Talents and stuff : http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/

[koro]

I'm reserving judgement until the talents are given the pass-over that Blizzard says they're going to get. The trees as they stand at the moment are a mess, to put it charitably. Resto Shaman have almost no incentive to put points outside of Resto for anything but the +mana talent from Enhancement, it seems, and Disc Priests have to sacrifice the entire list of new Smite-oriented talents to be able to pick up essentially anything of utility in Holy.

[SurfD]

Yeah, the new trees are a bit of a mess.  Just for kicks, I tried to see what kind of "variation" you could get in a moonkin build.   5pts resto, everything else balance looked to be pretty much your only choice, and that basicly left you with all but 3 talent points in balance completely filled. 

[Fordel]

The Balance Tree specifically is just the 'old' new tree, minus all the 3-5-10% damage increasing talents. More then a few are just complete rough drafts, just to highlight what they are going for.

[caladein]

Yeah, they're taking a few things away from Disc that I'll miss: -Cast Time on Mass Dispel and Desperate Prayer being the main two.

That said, the tree's don't play out to differently from how they do now.  Go to the bottom of Disc and then get Inspiration.

As for the Mastery abilities, they're pretty much brilliant all around.  The one lame one that sticks out to me is Holy Priests getting Desperate Prayer, but I imagine it'll get reworked in the mean time.

[Xuri]

Why don't they just automate the entire talent tree thing? Like, you pick which type of character you want to play (tank, healer, dps, whatever) and they just automatically fill out the talent tree for you, as they currently do with attributes such as strength, agility, etc. It's not like you'll have any real "choices" to make after the talent tree revamps anyway, so might as well just automate it. -_-

[Fordel]

Yeah, they're taking a few things away from Disc that I'll miss: -Cast Time on Mass Dispel and Desperate Prayer being the main two.

That said, the tree's don't play out to differently from how they do now.  Go to the bottom of Disc and then get Inspiration.

As for the Mastery abilities, they're pretty much brilliant all around.  The one lame one that sticks out to me is Holy Priests getting Desperate Prayer, but I imagine it'll get reworked in the mean time.

Desperate Prayer is apparently being changed.


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968989947&pageNo=1&sid=1#13