Cataclysm

[Azazel]

When are people going to start screaming about bringing back Captain Placeholder!

Que?

[Paelos]

When are people going to start screaming about bringing back Captain Placeholder!

Que?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Captain_Placeholder

[NiX]

Have they set a firm date for this yet or is it still "Soon"?

[Rasix]

Have they set a firm date for this yet or is it still "Soon"?

From MMO-champion:

A few weeks ago I announced that the target release date for Cataclysm was November 2. Well, according to an update I just got, the release has been postponed and Blizzard will try to release the game in early December. (Basically, either December 7 or December 14)

The Cataclysm by itself will happen earlier and will let you play in the "new" zone for a couple of days/weeks before you can buy the expansion and access the level 85 content. Keep in mind that they're mostly inside info, they're not official and I just report them because ... well, I'm sure you all want to know when it's supposed to happen.

edit - I just found the portals, seems you just have to unlock them.  I now have no complaints about travel as horde 

That sounds promising.

[NiX]

Hrm, with the Cataclysm happening earlier, should I start up before the actual expansion is released?

[Ingmar]

Hrm, with the Cataclysm happening earlier, should I start up before the actual expansion is released?

I'd wait until you know for sure that stuff is on the live servers if that's what you were waiting for already. Starting now will just make you miss the new start-from-scratch stuff.

[dd0029]

In playing my worgen druid, I am noticing that the new talent and spell rank thing is kind of meh.  I am finding the lack of "ding, grats, here's something," disconcerting.  Plus, when you do get things seems to have little rhyme or reason.  They forgot these things are skinner boxes.  No weapon skills are nice though.  My staff can occasionally pack quite the punch.  

The quests are better arranged though and do tell more of story now.  Druids lost their class quests though.  I wonder about the other classes with quests.  For worgen and night elves, the Forsaken are becoming way more of a boogey man.  I am interested to see where the Worgen story goes with regards to the Forsaken, because they are real bastards there.  There really need to be Worgen in the Scarlet Crusade.

[Ironwood]

In playing my worgen druid, I am noticing that the new talent and spell rank thing is kind of meh.  I am finding the lack of "ding, grats, here's something," disconcerting.  Plus, when you do get things seems to have little rhyme or reason.  They forgot these things are skinner boxes.  

When I was in beta, this bothered me in particular.  It's sad to hear they haven't yet fixed it.

[Lastwolf]

Shaman class quests are also gone.

No great loss, they sucked. I suppose they got you out into the world and off a linear leveling process (not that was ever the case with vanilla anyway), but travelling to the other side of the world ... on foot (ghost wolf or mount when available) through hostile zones, to talk to one guy that would say 'Yep, water is an element, go right back to the guy you just spoke to and get it' yay!

[Rendakor]

The Water Totem questline is the perfect example of how NOT to do class quests. I didn't even bother with that shit the second time I rolled a shaman til I hit 60 and had a fast mount.

[Sjofn]

When are people going to start screaming about bringing back Captain Placeholder!

Que?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Captain_Placeholder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2xuO8JBepM

[dd0029]

So, I've done two dungeons now in Beta.  WC and DM.  Deadmines got a big change.  But one thing I wanted to mention is that there are now quests inside the enterance of these things like UP.  Kind of niffty.  Granted one of the WC quests is only partially completable in a single run by one member, a quest to pick five of something that appears to only have 4 nodes that are not multi lootable.  But still, quests right there waiting for you.  Oh and there are monkeys in Deadmines now.

[Hawkbit]

I hope they change that up for all dungeon quests, even retro.  It was often spotty to find them before LFD, but once that was in place a lot of my alts missed those quests. 

[WindupAtheist]

Is it true they've added a shitty ability queue? Last time I checked the forum there was a 20 page QQ thread demanding it be removed.

[caladein]

Link?

There already is something that acts very similar to an ability queue because of latency and the only thread I could find seemed to be about the window becoming a bit larger (~1s from .3s).

[Zetor]

They've added a single ability queue back in BC: you can hit the hotkey for a spell while you're already casting another spell, and it'll go off as soon as your previous spell is done. Considering that I play from overseas with 500+ (usually 600+) ping, if they removed it I'd be pretty pissed.

Is that it, or are they adding a 'real' queue?

[Rendakor]

I think this is the thread WUA is talking about; seems to be something new added in Cata/4.0 PTR. What I got from reading the first page or so is that if you push a button while in GCD, that becomes "locked" in queue, leaving you unable to change what skill you would next use (say, to react to a proc).

[Zetor]

I personally don't mind that... anything that reduces buttonmashing is a good thing in my book.  

But seriously, they should allow players to change the queued ability if they want (ie. if you change your mind and press another button while still casting your previous spell, that other ability will replace the ability that was previously in your queue). Or just make the entire functionality toggleable.

edit after reading through the thread: If this was made into a toggle, I'd definitely keep it 'on'. With my ping I end up losing GCDs left and right when using instants (due to not being able to fire them when the client thinks I'm on the GCD), so being able to queue them up would be spiffy.

[Shrike]

I think this is the thread WUA is talking about; seems to be something new added in Cata/4.0 PTR. What I got from reading the first page or so is that if you push a button while in GCD, that becomes "locked" in queue, leaving you unable to change what skill you would next use (say, to react to a proc).

This might be a very real problem for subclasses with priority systems (like arms warriors and especially enhance shaman). Whatever abiilty that is your best damage output changes rapidly and continuously, depending on timers, buffs, debuffs, and a partridge in a pear tree. A large part of really cranking enhance dps is aniticipation of upcoming abilities--then button mashing to make sure it fires. Locking us into a choice that might--and probably will--get superceded before the GCD is up would be...sub-optimal (or teh sux, in the vernacular).

On the other hand, I've heard they've slowed shaman abilities down some, but I still would rather not get locked into anything prior to actually needing the ability.

[Paelos]

Any kind of queuing system should have a toggle, which I imagine they aren't dumb enough to leave out. There's no way in hell I would want one when tanking, as too many of my abilities are totally dependent on the rage situation at play.

[Morfiend]

I personally don't mind that... anything that reduces buttonmashing is a good thing in my book.  

I like button mashing. I hope they dont make this live, or give it a toggle as said above.

[Lastwolf]

I haven't really noticed this.

But then I'm playing an elemental shaman, so I've got a grand total of one proc to watch.

Really, most procs are pretty long these days or at least greater than four seconds so you can hit it up before it fades, unless your really not paying attention in which case that's kind of your own fault. It might be a marginal dps loss if your not tagging the shit out of that proc inside a GCD but the numbers will tell.


I've done a few instances, there are indeed quest givers at the start of all that I've seen. But then, you now need to find the dungeon to queue for it, so usually somewhere along the line you get a quest that tells you 'Hey! go to So MsSoinson at the Halls of Whatever' and it's usually the doorman, it's handy.

[Sheepherder]

People bitching about queues delaying reactive abilities aren't very clever.

[Ratman_tf]

I play games to have fun.  Not to sit on a mount for X period of time.  If WoW decides to not be fun, I will not play WoW.

I don't understand why this is so hard.

Wow needs teleporters between questgivers and quest objectives. I get so fucking aggrivated at that 10 second run.

[Rasix]

 

Enough with the retarded hyperbole.  

[Fordel]

Actually, there are plenty of quests in Cata, especially the newbie zones, where after you fight you way through the big cave to kill the boss and save the princess, the princess will then teleport everyone outside or back to town. 

[Rasix]

Newbies should have to fight their way back out of that shit.  Burning Blade Coven, I'm looking at you.

That's not a terrible mechanic, really.  It's also been used at least once before in WOLK (Icecrown quest if I remember right).  I'm not sure it's something I'd like to see used too much.  I can see these being useful if there's a heavily scripted encounter that's not easily backed out of or there's series of quests similar to the DK starting area. 

[SurfD]

Newbies should have to fight their way back out of that shit.  Burning Blade Coven, I'm looking at you.

That's not a terrible mechanic, really.  It's also been used at least once before in WOLK (Icecrown quest if I remember right).  I'm not sure it's something I'd like to see used too much.  I can see these being useful if there's a heavily scripted encounter that's not easily backed out of or there's series of quests similar to the DK starting area. 

I remember WAY back in the day when that Altar at the very end of Black Fathom Deeps used to teleport you back to the entrance pool outside the instance when you clicked it after finishing the run.  Never did understand why they broke that.

I also never quite managed to figure out why Mechanar and Botanica were both designed so that there was an exit portal right behind the last boss, but Arcatraz just dead ends, forcing you to either hearth out or fucking run 6 minutes to get back to the start of the instance.   I mean, the least thing they could have done was had Millhouse make a portal outside if you saved him.

[Chimpy]

Arcatraz is a prison, you don't leave backdoors on a prison, duh!

[Paelos]

Arcatraz is a prison, you don't leave backdoors on a prison, duh!

Duh, you put REVOLVING doors on them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwhdDv8VrM

[dd0029]

I personally don't mind that... anything that reduces buttonmashing is a good thing in my book.  

I like button mashing. I hope they dont make this live, or give it a toggle as said above.

It is a toggle.  I checked that yesterday.  It is in the game options menu under one of the many choices.  It defaults to not let you switch the que'ed ability, so remember to change it.  I still have not found the option to revert tooltips to give actual damage numbers instead of the suggestions about how to use the spells.  

As a note, if you don't like vehicle quests, this one may not for you.  There are alot of vehicle quests.  I will say they are much easier.  So far most of the vehicle quests I have run into have two maybe three buttons and they have not interacted so far.  Usuaslly one button is to kill one of the quest objectives and the other is for something else.  For things where you need to react with a specific button, like a console QTE, you usually get a big on screen prompt to press a specific button.  For example, getting the underwater mount means you play a cowboy and "break" the horse.  You ride and have to lean into turns or hold on while it tries to buck you off.  When you need to do something, a big giant message comes up and says "Lean Left" and shows a big graphic of the button you need to press.

The opening week or so is probably going to blow.  There are a ton of cinematics and events that just scream problem to me when you scale it up to several hundred players trying to do it all at once.  For example, getting on the the Vash'jir underwater content is a pretty need little in game RP event, not a cinematic.  But it takes a long time.  If you don't get in on it, you need to wait for it to run again or you won't get the quest for underwater breathing that lets you do the whole area.  And then the area you get to is fairly densely populated with mobs, but the instant spawn that will be necessary for the number of players there to start probably means you are going to wind up in combat forever.  Though there are at least two, maybe three starting areas, Hyjal, Vash'jir and possibly Deepholm.

Back to the Forsaken, I can not wait to see the WUA and the other lore people go off on that stuff.  I have not seen any redemptive or even misunderstood sort of stuff from the Forsaken yet, it's all "evil".

I was also going to suggest that you spend badges before the pre-Cataclysm badge to point change because the costs are all kinds of fucked up atm, but I see on MMO-Champion that they are changing up the conversion factors today.  I had wanted to see what I could get with my points, so I copied my warrior to the Beta.  I had had 30 odd frost badges and 90 odd triumphs.  Had I gone all in with a valor conversion, I could get three or maybe 4 pieces with those.  Post conversion, I could afford slightly more than 1 piece.  But MMO has a blue post saying they are switching from 2.75 points per badge to 11.75 points.  Actually, thinking about it I may have transfered over at the new conversion.  My warrior has something like 1200 odd points.  That sounds like a reasonable number for the 11.75 conversion.  Heirlooms are like 900 points.  So, buy your heirlooms with badges now.  MMO-Champ says patch for the first or second Tuesday in October.  

[Paelos]

Are the point conversions per badge, and does the type matter? Or do they just give you the type of points for that particular set? I'm confused about the process involved here.

[dd0029]

Frost and Triumph turn into points, other older badges into cash.

We’ve revised the Justice Points conversion rate for Emblems of Triumph and Emblems of Frost. When the upcoming 4.0.1 patch goes live, these emblems will be converted into 11.58 Justice Points (up from the previously planned 2.75 Justice Points per emblem). Justice Points accrued above the soft cap of 4,000 will be converted to gold at a rate of 47.5 silver per point (down from 2 gold per point) when patch 4.0.3 goes live.

The original explanation thread (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26850245012) and the subsequent conversion math update (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26850245012&sid=1&pageNo=10#184) have been updated to reflect these changes.

The previous conversion rate was intended to devalue Frost and Triumph a bit to discourage some amount of farming and hoarding of points before the conversion, but then we came to the conclusion that no matter what we do people would be farming well above the softcap, and we shouldn't try to make it more difficult for them to do so.

Source

The soft cap is 4000.  Are there really that many people with 4000+ badges?

If you do every single heroic and you do every single boss, both unlikely, you can get 91 badges without repeating an instance.  That's 44 days of doing at least 16 instances a day to hit 4000.  That 700+ instance runs.  Average that at 30 minutes for 5 badges.  I don't want to think about it anymore.

[Morfiend]

The soft cap is 4000.  Are there really that many people with 4000+ badges?

4000 justice points. So the soft cap would be 348 total emblems of Frost and Triumph.

[dd0029]

Good point.  That's a much more reasonable number and fairly achievable. Color me foolish.