Cataclysm

[Ingmar]

I agree it is kind of sloppy. To put on my devil's advocate hat for a bit, I kind of assume the idea is that Bolvar is keeping mostly the giant masses of non-intelligent Scourge in line; there's precedent for intelligent ones breaking free from control, after all. It isn't really clear to me if the more powerful ones like the Valkyr were ever really under any kind of control other than "I can destroy you any time I feel like so you better do what I say", and I don't know if Bolvar can do that with Frostmourne destroyed etc.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Pre-WotLK event had throwaway gear too.

Yeah but they also turned on the old-style Scourge invasion event too, and I got a tabard and novelty trinket out of the deal that I still have. Plus I got to fight zombies and turn into a zombie and so on. This shit is about as exciting as when they used to spawn monsters in town in UO for a month.

Also, lore nerd alert, but what the hell is up with the Scourge in Cataclysm? Sylvanas is recruiting Valkyr, Araj the Summoner is leading a Scourge remnant force in the plaguelands, what the fuck happened to Bolvar and his magic hat keeping them in line? Can't they go one update cycle without contradicting themselves? I'm all for lore retcons where they benefit gameplay, but it should really take more than a couple months for you to need one. This is embarassingly bad writing, even for WoW.

Most intelligent undead followed the lichking not so much because he had direct control over them but more for the fact tha they were evil, uncead and who else are you gonna work for? The lich king's power can raise undead and control the mindless ones and probably the more powerful ones but it's always seemed to have been to a lesser extent. The lich king wasn't directly controlling every single mind, can you imagine that sort of micro-managing in a game like civ? He was their leader, the driving force behind the vast armies of undead and unquestionably powerful but could not be every place.

[Typhon]

The hat takes time to warm up

[WindupAtheist]

Ok let's pretend the "kill Araja again" questline isn't going to have a billion mindless zombies to mow down along the way who all apparently don't care who's wearing the Lich King hat. Also, I still don't know who exactly is supposed to care if all the mindless undead go crazy up there in Northrend. Those walrus guys maybe, I guess. But we pwned all those zombies and shit even when they were united and coordinated, so if anything they should be easier to kill now.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Ok let's pretend the "kill Araja again" questline isn't going to have a billion mindless zombies to mow down along the way who all apparently don't care who's wearing the Lich King hat. Also, I still don't know who exactly is supposed to care if all the mindless undead go crazy up there in Northrend. Those walrus guys maybe, I guess. But we pwned all those zombies and shit even when they were united and coordinated, so if anything they should be easier to kill now.

I don't disagree with you on the whole bolvar "someone should always wear the hat" idiocy but the whole val'kyr working for sylvanas thing makes sense in either case.

[Ingmar]

Ok let's pretend the "kill Araja again" questline isn't going to have a billion mindless zombies to mow down along the way who all apparently don't care who's wearing the Lich King hat. Also, I still don't know who exactly is supposed to care if all the mindless undead go crazy up there in Northrend. Those walrus guys maybe, I guess. But we pwned all those zombies and shit even when they were united and coordinated, so if anything they should be easier to kill now.

Well, we also have precedent for said non-controlled intelligent undead having their own unintelligent guys under their own direct control rather than the LK's. I guess I'm just not sure this is *more* sloppy than usual, they've never been very careful about lore consistency.

[Typhon]

C'mon! "hat needs to warm up"?!  It's the frozen north!  Bolvar is undead!  That hat is never going to warm up!

I can see that you're going to refuse to find any of this funny, so here's my submission to try to make something nonsensical make sense - The orc shaman (name?) had DECADES of bodylessness to get a handle on controlling scourge, and even then some broke free during the Illidan assault.  Bolvar, on the other hand, has neither the orc shaman nor Arthas teaching him how to keep control over the scourge AND a body that is probably in a lot of pain.  Cut him some slack.

"Whoops, a few of the more slippery undead have eluded my mental chains in far off places that I no longer give a shit about.  ...  Sorry, my bad.  HOLY CRAP I'M DEAD AND MY BADLY BURNT BODY STILL HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!11!!1!!1!"

[Sheepherder]

Well, we also have precedent for said non-controlled intelligent undead having their own unintelligent guys under their own direct control rather than the LK's. I guess I'm just not sure this is *more* sloppy than usual, they've never been very careful about lore consistency.

Blizzard still has lolore on their website which indicates that intelligent Scourge are not directly controlled by the LK, but are compelled with the threat of brainfucking them into unintelligent ones.

[fuser]

Question for beta people is there a CC choice in the LFD tool?

[Soulflame]

C'mon! "hat needs to warm up"?!  It's the frozen north!  Bolvar is undead!  That hat is never going to warm up!

I can see that you're going to refuse to find any of this funny, so here's my submission to try to make something nonsensical make sense - The orc shaman (name?) had DECADES of bodylessness to get a handle on controlling scourge, and even then some broke free during the Illidan assault.  Bolvar, on the other hand, has neither the orc shaman nor Arthas teaching him how to keep control over the scourge AND a body that is probably in a lot of pain.  Cut him some slack.

"Whoops, a few of the more slippery undead have eluded my mental chains in far off places that I no longer give a shit about.  ...  Sorry, my bad.  HOLY CRAP I'M DEAD AND MY BADLY BURNT BODY STILL HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!11!!1!!1!"

Ner'Zhul.

/nerd

[Sjofn]

The hat takes time to warm up

That made me laugh. 

[Arrrgh]

Question for beta people is there a CC choice in the LFD tool?

No, the usual tank/heal/DPS choices they have now.

My group today was tank/heals/mage/warrior/warrior. It was a wipefest. I'll check back in on tanking again in a month.

I predict a return to the good old days of BC again with tank/healer/mage/mage/lock.

[Merusk]

There's a reason I'm leveling a mage now that I'm playing again. 

With the focus changes and ranged traps, hunters might be a better CC choice than rogues so keep an eye out there, too.

[Soulflame]

Wasn't BC more Warrior/Druid|Priest/mage/lock/lucky dps?

[Merusk]

Depended how bad your groupmates sucked.  There were a lot of dual-mage PUGs on Alleria.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Wasn't BC more Warrior/Druid|Priest/mage/lock/lucky dps?

I had precisely 1 good druid tank in all my *many* BC heroics, and only about 5 druid tanks total. Almost all warriors and pallies.

[Ashamanchill]

Me personally, I think they are making a mistake with the whole 'lets make everything tough as hell and teethgrinding to pug' idea. The game, in it's current aoe fest, has never been more accesable, and yes, fun. I dont see how turning the clock back to having only a few people able to relaibly do heroics is a good choice overall.

[Ingmar]

Beginning of TBC, before they got nerfed, druid tanks were the choice. At the end, paladins were the choice. Warriors were kind of #2 through the expansion in terms of desirability. You saw a LOT of "need paladin tank for heroic group" in trade at the end of the expansion, because the paladin enabled you to do the instances without needing CCers much - so all the DPS that couldn't CC would try to put together groups with paladins. (This is all for heroics, raids were another matter, warriors were still king there generally.)

[WindupAtheist]

Me personally, I think they are making a mistake with the whole 'lets make everything tough as hell and teethgrinding to pug' idea. The game, in it's current aoe fest, has never been more accesable, and yes, fun. I dont see how turning the clock back to having only a few people able to relaibly do heroics is a good choice overall.

They'll relent and nerf everything after a couple months of LFD pug hilarity and the ensuing storm of QQ.

[Paelos]

Me personally, I think they are making a mistake with the whole 'lets make everything tough as hell and teethgrinding to pug' idea. The game, in it's current aoe fest, has never been more accesable, and yes, fun. I dont see how turning the clock back to having only a few people able to relaibly do heroics is a good choice overall.

They'll relent and nerf everything after a couple months of LFD pug hilarity and the ensuing storm of QQ.

The way it should be. Set the bar and bring it down after the gnashing of teeth.

[Rendakor]

Maybe they'll just add a scaling buff to heroics that increases as time goes on. 

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Beginning of TBC, before they got nerfed, druid tanks were the choice. At the end, paladins were the choice. Warriors were kind of #2 through the expansion in terms of desirability. You saw a LOT of "need paladin tank for heroic group" in trade at the end of the expansion, because the paladin enabled you to do the instances without needing CCers much - so all the DPS that couldn't CC would try to put together groups with paladins. (This is all for heroics, raids were another matter, warriors were still king there generally.)

I never needed a paladin tank because my warrior tank buddy was amazing. 
He never needed CC regardless of the instance, and only lost aggro when I frontloaded with a double-WF crit before he had a chance to get going. I rarely pugged without him tanking, but I do remember preferring a pally tank for things like... H Shattered Halls. Pulls of 7 mobs suck.

[Soulflame]

Wasn't BC more Warrior/Druid|Priest/mage/lock/lucky dps?

I had precisely 1 good druid tank in all my *many* BC heroics, and only about 5 druid tanks total. Almost all warriors and pallies.

Tank:  Warrior
Healer:  Druid or Priest

Sorry for the confusion.

[Azazel]

Any sign of dual-ride flying mounts that are readily accessible, or is the closest thing that refer-a-friend jobbie?

[Brennik]

Any sign of dual-ride flying mounts that are readily accessible, or is the closest thing that refer-a-friend jobbie?

Yea, there's an alchemist-only dragon, http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/93328/vial-of-the-sands/. No idea how attainable that will be until they datamine that missing component.

[Yoshimaru]

Any sign of dual-ride flying mounts that are readily accessible, or is the closest thing that refer-a-friend jobbie?

Yea, there's an alchemist-only dragon, http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/93328/vial-of-the-sands/. No idea how attainable that will be until they datamine that missing component.

It almost makes me want to take up Alchemy right nao. Almost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7txAJXad3o

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Wasn't BC more Warrior/Druid|Priest/mage/lock/lucky dps?

I had precisely 1 good druid tank in all my *many* BC heroics, and only about 5 druid tanks total. Almost all warriors and pallies.

Tank:  Warrior
Healer:  Druid or Priest

Sorry for the confusion.

Oh, no wonder. I was almost always healing so I almost never think of other healers groups.

[Simond]

Another new build up on MMO-C.

E: About the Scourge splinter groups, it's hardly without precedent that such groups form when the LK's attention is distracted (Forsaken via Illidan trying to nuke Icecrown, or the Ebon Blade via the Greatest Living Paladin smacking the Lich King around the head on consecrated ground with a proto-archangel in the form of a sword). It'd be more lore-breaking if none had formed in the gap between "Arthas is beaten like a pinata" and "Bolvar gets a new hat".

[Paelos]

I'm amazed people still try to rationalize the lore when all the decisions are game-based. If the devs decide they need a raging horde of hive-mind vampire Pandarens that are wandering around the countryside as the result of some earth-shattered event, they would just blame it on the old Gods, the fact that it's always been this way every 1000 years, and that we just hadn't noticed.

[Lakov_Sanite]

So what you're trying to say is that the people who created these fictional characters can at a whim determine how those characters will act? Moreover that this 'authors' of the characters destiny can shape the world as they see fit?

That's just crazy 

[Lantyssa]

More that they like pulling ideas out of their ass.  Any relation to previous arse-ideas is irrelevant.  (Basically what Paelos said.)

[Chimpy]

Also, at this point, the original asses that the ideas were pulled out of are long gone and working elsewhere either at Blizzard or another company. Hell, I would bet the people who wrote the "story" for the last expansion probably don't even work on the game anymore.

[Azazel]

Did any of you ever play Everquest and try to follow the lore with every bi-annual expansion?

Just asking. 

[Lantyssa]

Nope.

[Simond]

Also, at this point, the original asses that the ideas were pulled out of are long gone and working elsewhere either at Blizzard or another company. Hell, I would bet the people who wrote the "story" for the last expansion probably don't even work on the game anymore.

Or, you know, not.