f13.net

http://www.wowhead.com/

are they gonna be ready? Is warhammer?

Warhammer will be just fine I'm sure. Conan however will be a ghost town.

Excellent, that gives me 2 months to get my back into shape for levelling er.. 8 characters to 80 :p

Anyone who wishes to apologise can do so here I guess. Or just fuck off.

Dren? Over to you.

What are we apologising for now ?

Just Dren, really. For being wrong and wrong in an annoying manner.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14245.msg501627#msg501627

Though technically I guess you could say "damn, I was wrong, you were right" for this"

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13254.msg472968#msg472968

But you shouldn't really. The stuff Dren wrote lower down there was much stupid too. :)

Er.

Ok.

I don't think you said what you think you said.

Also, if the patch hits this wednesday, you're still technically wrong.  Which is the worst kind of wrong.

Oh, and who gives a fuck ?

(I think I've covered everything, except the crack about your writing.  I'll leave that for now.)

 :drill:

I don't know what I said neither. I can't write or read at the moment because I'm trying to write lots elsewhere so yeah.

And I give a fuck, because Dren is a dickhead and dickheads who don't respond to common sense should at the very least recognise reality when it asserts their stupidity in incontrovertible ways.

 :heart:

Now it's up on the WoW site. If you navigate there, you get redirected to this splash page. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/splash-wrathdate.htm)

No announcement of a CE yet, huh.

It also seems awfuly rushed since lots of classes are still wonky in the beta.  I've fully decided to abandon the hunter as that class is fooked and FEELS fooked when I play.  I'm going to go with the pally.  Prot ftw.

Uh, when has this ever happened ?  In religion, in politics, in online gaming ?

When ?

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/collector/index.xml (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/collector/index.xml)

They've shaken up a bunch of stuff. I'm not in the beta, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still working out class talents long after Nov 13. Same for the changes they're making with spell power, etc.

Jesus. Can't you assholes take this back to the thread it originated in? I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't care who was wrong when, and I don't care if you ever resolve it, just please confine the "discussion" to one place. Mm K Thx.

Ok, we'll leave you to discuss the highly conversational, er, release date.

Oh, no, wait, it's a fact, it's not a discussion.  It's getting released on November the 13th.  You read the subject, you've read it all.

Now go fuck yourself.

Not up on Amazon yet. Curse them.

I'm unsure how I should feel about the fact that I was going to make this exact post, word for word, and then decided not to.

Not up on Amazon yet. Curse them.
[/quote]

Gamestop has them up now, just ordered mine. 

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=72700

AMZN has it up:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Wrath-Lich-Expansion-Pc/dp/B000VJTJNE

A lot of stores around here said their pages were not fully up with the CE info most should have them up later this afternoon or tomorrow morning

I ordered the CE.  I feel so dirty...

I nabbed one as well. I'm a sucker for the pet.

CE for life!

Then I'll have all three collector's editions.

 :drill:

Sounds like your life is approaching complete.

You tease.. that's just the base game.
Me too. I'm so sad, but a mini Diablo was too tempting to resist.  Plus I had the D2 CE and loved the art book so I figured it was a good place to throw money.  I was right!

I ... don't know if releasing that soon is a great idea. I mean, it feels like the quests/zones/dungeons/etc are ready, but the classes and tradeskills are really, really not.

wotlk does not excite me, and that makes me sad  :heartbreak:

Rushed? Two months to go, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if this flips to January like BC. This has been in beta for some time now and it's not perfect, but the parts that need to work just need fixing, not wholesale patch-in-later creation.

I dunno about that, the zones aren't all in and/or functioning properly yet.

how long till Arthas is patched into the game, 6 months again?

 :tinfoil: Time!

Announcing the release date to make sure it hits the Christmas rush, even though a lot of beta people seem to have concerns that the beta still has a fair way to go, doesn't seem particularly Blizzardlike.  Burning Crusade proved a lot of people (including me) wrong by releasing in Jan/Feb, after the Christmas rush, so they could get clear air and presumably fix up whatever issues were in beta at the time.  Ensuring its out for Christmas is classic date-before-quality scheduling, which is not something Blizzard is known for.  Combine this with the pimping of the recruit-a-friend stuff, and you can come up with some great tinfoil theories.

Perhaps Blizzard is being told by their corporate overlords 'Make more cash!  Make more cash!' - the 'When its done' theory isn't strong enough - rather theyve got to get phat sales for Christmas for some type of quarterly reporting period? 

WotLK will be more finished than TBC when it is released, thus everything you just said is BS.

Problem with your theory. A date was never announced for TBC until they told us the after-Christmas date. if their methodology is the same - and by all indications it is - WotLK is as close to release quality as TBC was when they told us a date for that. All the November date really tells us is either WotLK hasn't slipped past their initial estimates, or they started heavy work on it 2 months earlier compared to TBC.

I'd love to be able to say how finished or unfinished things are, but I haven't been able to login to Northrend and do anything for 3 days.  When I do there's either no NPCs or the server lag is between 10-15 seconds (minimum) after every action IF the zone is up (it was down all day yesterday.)  I'm not exaggerating here.

The DK area was pretty fun and made nifty use of the invisibility code mechanics, however.

November looks like being expensive. GTA IV, WotLK and Left 4 Dead all being released within a week of each other is a nightmare both for my wallet and any meaningful family life I was hoping to have in the last month of the year.

I don't see anyone getting his arm tatooed with that date yet....seems rushed.

I'll play doubting Thomas and believe it when the box is in my hands.....

Blizzard (or more accurately Vivendi) did the same thing for the original WoW release.

I seem to recall that I started playing WoW in October or November, which was at launch.  Am I remembering incorrectly?

I do recall that the date was pushed a few times but I'm pretty sure I was playing well before Christmas.

Thanksgiving weekend 2004 was the first weekend WOW was open, IIRC.  Wikipedia says release was November 23, 2004.

Bah!  Mere details!  I shall not let facts get in the way of my tinfoil theories!

I'm not in the Beta, so I can't judge whether I think it's 2 months from release or not.  BC launch was pretty smooth.  WoW original launch was...not.  I do remember saying WoW wasn't ready for release, and honestly it wasn't, when it was pushed out.  It in many ways amazes me how popular it was back then considering the number of problems.

Whatever happens it is unlikely to significantly adversely affect them, no matter how not-ready they are when they launch.  I do hope that it goes smoothly like BC, not as rough as the WoW original launch, though, because for once I'm actually rather interested in the expansion, which I wasn't so much for BC.

My recollection is the problems with WoW at release were mostly backend problems - the way their database handled inventory transactions, etc. Problems of scale, combined with a shitty Oracle implementation. WotLK is having a lot of technical problems with lag and the like too, but it has another layer of unfinished content and class balancing that is more significant than anything WoW was lacking in that department at initial release. I think they can still make it, but I'm a little worried that they won't.

So what if TBC was pretty smooth (which it wasn't for a few servers, btw), it still wasn't finished. Remember the huge patch that came out 5 months later?

This will be interesting for me because this is the first time I've had a level-capped character for a MMOG expansion. I usually run behind the Joneses on the achiever scale, so I can give an expansion a few months until I catch up.

What, the Black Temple patch?  I can't really think of anything significant I'd call unfinished that they put in with that patch.  They added dailies, Ogri'la and Skettis, one more arena...  I suppose druid epic flight form should have been in at launch.  They adjusted a bunch of things, fixed some bugs and made balance changes to a ton of things including making a lot of dungeons easier...but there was nothing that I remember jumping up and down in anger that it was unfinished.

Too soon, Executus, too soon...

They've got a ton of class balance work left. Hell, basic talent structure. Shaman, for one, are a real mess right now. Windfury doesn't even work.

Man, I don't now about this. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Another kick in the "they aren't ready" pants: if you ever want the Onyxia achievement for your Alliance characters get them keyed now.  The patch on test has removed the Ony key quest, but not the requirement for the amulet to get into her lair, according to one of my friends.  He figured when the king was put in and Ony removed - along with the starter quest in the 55 zone- they removed the key req.  Nope.

So apparently while you'll be able to zone in, kill Ony with a few 80s and get her head for the achievement points, it'll only be if you keyed prior to the next content patch.  No idea how this plays out for you hordies.

removing a key requirement to zone in takes all of five minutes, i seriously doubt they will leave it in. the sky isn't falling. move along

It actually isn't ready.

I'm in beta atm and it's like 40% done. Unless they have sekrit miracle patch up their sleeves, this shit needs a lot of CONTENT and BALANCE help, never mind any technical issues.

The game could run like jesus, but the fact that they need a lot of number/ability tweaks (these uhh actually take a while to get right, once you factor how complex the game is) is telling that it really, really will not be ready.

I'd say its really more like 75%-85%. The quest content is basically all done. There's work to do in the instances and on itemization, plus class balance but that is getting better every patch. If anything holds it back from November I think it is going to be the technical problems.

ITS SEPTEMBER. SO LIKE IT'S ANOTHER 2 MONTHS TO GO. ITS NOT LIKE THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF A RELEASE DATE MEANS THEY'RE GOING TO GO BOWLING AND RELEASE WHATS IN GAME NOW INSTEAD OF SPENDING THOSE TWO MONTHS WORKING ON IT.

(Capslock is cruise control for i'm speaking to fucking idiots maybe being loud will get through to them or at least give them brain damage so they stop posting)

The level-headed question would be. Is wotlk as complete as BC was two months prior to it's release and personal opinions don't count.

That comparison only works if they have the same number of people working on it now as they did then.

Yes....two months to the release date.

But that means only about 1 month to complete code, because the final cut needs to go to the people to burn about a million CDs.  Once that is done, the CDs must be packaged and shipped all over the World to get to the proper outlets to sell the item on Release day.

....then again.....I might just be a "fucking idiot".......

The cds may need to be pressed a month out, but that doesn't mean they'd stop work on any problems.  That'd leave a month to finish and put everything left into a patch. 

I seem to remember having to patch the game even after I loaded the BC disc.

So, they can press disc's now and patch in the fun later.

It's not so much a concern about their inability to change the game after install as it is an understanding of just how long Blizzard takes to do ANYTHING.  2 months in Sony & Mythic time can equate to 3-4 patch cycles.  2 Months in Blizzard time is one patch if it's a QUICK cycle.

I've been watching the beta and the new builds have been coming almost weekly.

Actually, almost daily. Or so.

New shaman stuff up again. Nerf to toughness, WF is fixed (supposedly), new lava lash CD. More talent tier changes. Mana use adjustments. Other stuff. Geez, I hope they get this stuff squared away in two months. Shaman still seem to thoroughly confound Blizzard's attempts to find a role for us. My confidence in all this is approaching an all time low.

God, I hate expansions.

I began to think that as many devs play Shamans as they do Hunters about a year ago when talking with several folks who played shaman.  I know it wasn't the usual "my class sux, buff  us" stuff because they, like me, are altaholics and played several other healer/ dps classes.  They all felt shaman were just plain lackluster and only needed for windfury and/ or chain heal.

Poor hybrids.  :heartbreak:  I hope you get some love like Pallies got.  Protadin is even more fun than it once was (although the Hardcore Protadins bitching up a storm that "we're not as good as warriors! Give us intercept/ last stand/ every other warrior tool" are getting on my nerves.)

My shaman is a freaking damage juggernaut on live, but I play elemental. Enhance seems to have some issues to me, but that could just be because the only enhance guy we have in guild is an alien.

My current main's an enhance shammy, and I have a blast with him.  He doesn't top the charts compared to some of the other melee dpsers, but I help them do even more damage, so I'm fine with that.  Some of the changes to stuff like the talents sound fun to me, some of the mechanics changes I'm a bit meh on, but overall, I'm tentatively looking forward to the patch.  But, I've not studied the changes in detail, just skimmed over things and looked at the talent builders.

Yeah, my "BC main" was a resto shammy. It's a really powerful healer, but has several huge shortcomings [esp in arena as the 'easiest to shut down / gib' healer] that are not really getting addressed. I'm considering playing my enchanter mule priest as my WOTLK main instead...

(as an aside, with the influx of roughly eleventy billion DKs, good healers [and to a lesser extent, tanks] will be in huge demand... at least that's my speculation.)


-- Z.

Just for the  :awesome_for_real:

Even if they release WotLK with Shaman not properly fixed or some quest or dungeon not entirely awesome is anyone really dumb enough to make some sort of argument about how that justifies them delaying the game for months?

This is a game that has had issues with various classes and gameplay element for years at a time.

WotLK with be ready and fine if it is in the same state as TBC at launch, nothing more. To expect each expension to get a bit better is reaonsable, but to expect the fundamental problems of balance and design to all of a sudden disappear and the game to be 'complete' at release is just stupid.

The game will have most of the quests working, most of the leveling dungeons working, and some raids to do. Even if all this is acomplished it will likely be in a better state than TBC was. Many of you are not fuckwits who level to cap inside a week, but I was and I can assure you there there were a number of things that didn't work early in TBC, despite things being pretty good on the whole. (This is of course not counting the raid game, which was a mess.) WotLK will just as good by the time it is patched up after you install.

The class balance changes in PVE with the buff combination and the tanking changes are also far more extreme than TBC. They could tweak numbers for years. Expect rough seas ahead on some of that stuff, but I don't think that will hold back release.

Enhances big issue on live (for earthlings at least) is it's pretty much point and pray. Strike, Shock, Wait, Repeat.

Maelstrom Weapon and Lava Lash should help that some. Give the DPS rotations a little more thought.



Resto Shamans are getting a instant cast HoT (Holy Paladins collectively implode around now) spell to replace Spirit Link. I'm kinda sad to see Spirit Link get the axe, but it was too unwieldy a mechanic to iron out.


Elementals will have to do something other then 222322232223 ... the horror  :ye_gods:

Really, it is an amusing contrast to Balance Druids, which will actually cast fewer spells, despite the Devs best efforts to make use cycle between Wrath and Starfire.

Anyone notice that nearly every caster class now gets a pet? (talents)

Yep.

Lots of them live longer than Hunter/ Lock pets too, from what I've been told.   :awesome_for_real:

The DK one will fuck you up bad, too. Before the DK gets in there and eats you up/ dies and rezzes as a ghoul to continue on.  :drill:

Army of the dead is comedic

As a priest I don't really want a pet. I like my shadowfiend, but that's more of an unintelligent DoT than anything else.

The DK one if specced for it, IS a real pet.

The Druid/Shaman/Mage pets are all one AE and dead. The Mage one is the only one with any real use. The plus side is my Treants finally have a pet bar, so they might actually attack a target more then once a week  :heart: but like the Shadowfiend, they are just really fancy DoTs on a long cool down. There old 'utility' was the fact there is 3 of them, and it was pushback hell for anyone not bright enough to AE and move on. That is a moot point now.

Still.  No one find it odd EVERY caster class now has pets?  Long ago it was only the Lock and Hunter, now everyone has an aggro/pet-pull capability.  I just wonder about balance.  May not be a serious issue, but I saw DAoC partly go down the toilet once they started handing out pets/turrets etc.

Warlocks and hunters have pets that are always out.  Pretty much everyone else has a 'pet' that's on a timer that makes it an occasional deal, on top of most of them needing to spec deep into a talent tree to obtain.  Add in that usefulness can be somewhat limited, especially in late game encounters, I don't see it as a problem at all.  And I have a warlock. 

You are severely over-estimating the value of these 'pets'. The only temporary pet with any real ability is the mage pet, which they have to spend quite a few talent points on.

at 70, my Treants have roughly 2500 HP, no resistance or avoidance at all. The only thing that makes them remotely useful is the fact most people just freak out when they get tossed out. They are stupidly easy to kill, stupidly easy to confuse and only live 30 seconds.


It's nothing like say, DaoC Animists and their unlimited shroom spawning. (which has been nerfed again and again and again to the point of being reasonable.)


They're just glorified DoTs.

Fire elemental is pretty much the same thing, with the added bonus of the fractionally brighter people having the (bad*) idea to try and kill the totem.


*Why is it a bad idea? Because the elemental totems have about the same number of hps as I do so if you're killing that...you're not killing me.  :grin:

The totem only has 3k hp and zero armor/dodge/resil/etc, it's a lot easier to kill than any non-enhancement shaman. On my resto shaman, if they stay on me, I get a ton of free damage from the fire elemental (edit: resto shamans are notoriously hard to kill in a BG environment unless they have mortal strike on them and at least one attentive counterspeller/dispeller); but any dps class will just 3-shot the totem instead. Sure, that gives me the time to cast.. maybe one lightning bolt. Or I can run away about 20 yards with a snare on me, followed up by a shadowstep/intercept/etc, so I'm back to where I was.

Edit: Some classes aren't getting pets in WOTLK either; paladins, warriors and rogues are petless (with good reason). Though it'd be semi-amusing to have a "summon healbot" spell as a warrior.  :drill:


-- Z.

November 13 can't come fast enough. I already got my Hunter to 70, which was my main goal before the xpac. But other than grinding out Engineering to get him his nice new gun, I'm just not motivated to seek out any gear that will be vendored in my first few hours in Northrend. And I just don't have the tolerace for repetition to grind out gold for my epic flyer training on any of my characters. So I'm really at a low point for wanting to log in right now. Hopefully the pre-xpac patch will come soon, it will be fun to mess around with the new talents.

If you've got badges, get the x-bow from the Shattered Sun vendor.  Nothing's going to replace that for a while in Northrend and it lets you sell off other weaps for gold or DE them for mats.   (last quest reward bow I saw was about 84-85dps.. the badge bow is 95)

As far as other armor for hunters, all I've seen is complaints that - like BC - the quest rewards have very little AGI and lots of them have spellpower.  Since I've been playing a pally I figure that's probably the case, but haven't looked closely.  I did notice all plate has been DPS gear, as you'd expect when leveling-up.  Almost no Dodge/ Parry/ Def on any rewards in the first zone.

I said I wanted Blizzard to do just what they are doing.  They are releasing the **NON Expansion features** well before release of the expansion.  If it releases tomorrow, that gives us 2 months to chew on it.

I'm not sure what your point is other than not predicting the release date right.  Fine, congratulations or something.

Ok if it comes out tomorrow I'll cede you're not a complete fuckwit.

Given the number of bugged abilities on the PTR, I sincerely doubt the patch will be live as soon as some people think.

Some talents still aren't implemented at all yet.

Hmm.. hunter changes.  Like Aimed shot's new direction.. it actually starts to address the whole "Hunters have to stand still to do ANY real damage" problem.


Hee hee hee.  *snort* tee hee hee.

I can't stop laughing.