f13.net

Yeah they really better hit the other shit out of the park if they aren't going to add things like that.

Someone make a new thread about the new expansion so I can complain about how I don't like outland, don't like the dranei, find all orcs really one dimensional/boring, am dubious of time travel plots and am not excited enough about this to resub.

Thank you.


I really did assume once the hype train started for the new expansion I would be unable to stop myself from resubbing but meh.  I really hate Dranei male models, way more than pandas, I don't know why I just do.  Every single orc "plot" is rawr rawr we like war yeah yeah we get it.  The main reason I would have resubbed now is to finish off the last raid and plot stuff I haven't done but now that I know Garrosh "get's away" and is back again in the next expansion why bother?  No new race or class either.

And a whole expansion based on time travel?  I'm willing to not care about having dungeons and raids in alternate histories but this seems lazy, especially since it's somewhere we've already been.  I can't wait for some hot Velen on Velen action either...  I mean I know lolore and the plot by now has so many holes and idiotic changes that it is meant to be ignored but how on earth are they going to reconcile two persistent sets of identical characters?

I just got home from a 10 hour shift, and I'm catching up on stuffs...

If I'm reading this right, Garrosh is going to go back in time and prevent the Orcs from drinking the demon blood that makes them invade Azeroth the first time around.

So we're retconning Warcraft 1, 2, 3, Vanilla, and BC (technically Wrath too since the Lich King wouldn't have been created without the orcs falling to the demons as well).

I think we're done here.  The features are nice and all, and mobile support for the garrison stuff would be a REALLY nice touch, but I think it's time to move on.

The garrison stuff is interesting.  The Doff STO missions are cool.  I've been bitching for some time for housing in the world like UO instead of instanced.  Yes, I know some of the problems that entails but still.

Oh God, does this mean more ugly-as-shit Outland armor?

Talking up the Alliance a hell of a lot.

And it IS time travel, Metzen just verified in the lore panel.  But trying to listen to Metzen explain quantum timelines was  :awesome_for_real:

Spirit will be good for healers.

*gets new drop*

Okay, is the item level higher? Alright, cool.

I like how they literally erased a major feature from Cataclysm. At least I think so; Reforging was Cata right?

So much Metzen waaaaaaaaaaaaaank

*gets new drop*

Okay, is the item level higher? Alright, cool.

Reforge as it stands is pointless.  For my shadow priest it's literally max hit then everything into haste.  It's not fun and doesn't provide any customization beyond doing it the right way or the wrong way.  It was a stupid system in the first place, though the IDEA wasn't bad, but the implementation was.

I like how they literally erased a major feature from Cataclysm. At least I think so; Reforging was Cata right?

I haven't followed Warcraft lore since the Burning Crusade. What kind Metzen shit happened? How bad is it?

Why would the item squish interest anybody?  If it actually works the way they want it to it should make zero functional difference.  You could just have an addon that divided all the hp by 100 for display and it would be the same thing.

I guess they are really banking on the movie to bring people in.  The eta on this is Nov/Dec 2014.  They have stated there are no content patches coming until this xpac.

I duno, just a feeling. I last played in WOTLK and when I see people with a billion dps it's just goofy as fuck and unrelatable.

I guess they are really banking on the movie to bring people in.  The eta on this is Nov/Dec 2014.  They have stated there are no content patches coming until this xpac.

It's parallel timelines: Garrosh is a sore loser so he goes back to pre-WC1 Draenor and said "You don't need to drink that demon blood because I've brought back plans for war machines and weapons from half a century in the future instead". So the 'normal' original Horde is replaced by an Iron Horde and the Dark Portal gets aimed back at the main timeline i.e. us (because otherwise who gives a shit?: "Garrosh wants to conquer a parallel Azeroth? Great. More power to him. Keeps him out of our way")

I don't really think that's feasible. I was expecting July. The last expansion cycle was about 21-22 months between Cata and MOP. If they do that again with about 21-22 months, it should release in summer 2014.

Also while I don't think they'll do a pure raid patch, I do think they'll release some content stuff in the interim, possibly a dungeon or something that relates to the timeless isle, or some more faction stuff, etc.

   Q: "Typically after you announce something it is another year, but we are at Patch 5.4 now. What content do you have planned for between now and then?"
A: "Any content we do now will delay the expansion by the same amount of time it took us to make that content. We are completely focused on making the next expansion and will try to deliver that as soon as we can, hopefully on a shorter cycle than players are imagining, but you never know, we will have to see."

Q: "Typically that would be in the Winter of next year. Does that mean it is a goal to bring it in to Summer or Spring?"
A: "Well certainly the goal is before that, but we'll see, it is very hard for us to predict."

I'd be really surprised if this took a year before it was ready. Someone asked a dev if they were shooting for spring/summer and they said that they'd hope to have it done before then.

My sense of order is still disrupted by Death Knights being the only Hero class.  I wish they would add some other Hero Class.  Mountain King would be nice.  But every class got homogenized into blandness anyway in Cataclysm, so I guess it doesn't matter much.   

I need to share this (http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/09/breakfast-topic-blizzard-just-saved-the-world-of-warcraft/) because I love embarrassing, super-breathless predictions.

That drive, and that passion, is what is going to lead this game to the next decade of its life. Mark my words: November 8, 2013 will be looked back at as the turning point for WoW. It is a fixed point in time, when what came before was one way, and what came after was another.

I need to share this (http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/09/breakfast-topic-blizzard-just-saved-the-world-of-warcraft/) because I love embarrassing, super-breathless predictions.

I need to share this (http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/09/breakfast-topic-blizzard-just-saved-the-world-of-warcraft/) because I love embarrassing, super-breathless predictions.

Funny thing is that if he'd made a post just as hyperbolic but negative, most people here would be thoughtfully stroking their neckbeards and going "hmmm, yase, that is certainly an accurate article".  :awesome_for_real:

I need to share this (http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/09/breakfast-topic-blizzard-just-saved-the-world-of-warcraft/) because I love embarrassing, super-breathless predictions.

The spark is lit, Blizzard started down the path to restoring WoW. I haven't felt the vibe of a BlizzCon like this in a long time. Chris Metzen was beaming with excitement and pride yesterday, Dave Kosak could barely contain himself when talking about the lore, and the Art Panel delivered a presentation for the ages. Yesterday saw a team of game designers not defeated, not making content patches for a game that's going to die off in five years, not just biding their time until something better comes along. Yesterday we saw the full force of one of the world's greatest entertainment companies come to bear on a game that needed a helping hand.

And finally last but not least, the third thing that demonstrates Blizzard turned a new page on WoW yesterday was the new character models. We've known for a couple years these were being worked on. It's been a not-so-secret-secret, occasionally talked about, often mislead in subtle statements of unclarity. But yesterday the gloves came off and we saw what our characters will soon look like.

Amazing doesn't describe it. The transformation are astounding, they're revolutionary.

I don't, like, know what you guys were expecting, but WoW Insider is, like, the cheerleadiest of the Blizzard cheerleader sites.
And that author is, like, the Head Cheerleader.

The followers thing with the garrisons is interesting.  Seems like they're taking the interesting parts of SWTORs companion system.

But what if the WoW companions are voiced by that Mt. Hyjal intro dragon dude?  :awesome_for_real:

I don't think I recognized any actual union voice talent (like Cam Clarke who did like...a shitload of characters from Vanilla->WoTLK) in Cata or Pandaria. Been a while though.

Christopher Lee is a well known actor from movies above and beyond such as The God Father and Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He voices Shao-Tien Executioner in N [90] The Mogu's Message, Qiang the Merciless in Mogu'shan Vaults, Hu'seng the Gatekeeper in A [90] A Bold Idea/H [90] Decisive Action and Emperor Lei Shen also known as the Thunder King at the start of Tear Down This Wall! and in Throne of Thunder.

the hilariously awful screams at post-Wrathgate (aaaaaah.)

For another example.  :awesome_for_real:

Looking at the truths of a game like WoW is important; and it's important to do it even more so when you have so much invested in it. I have spent the majority of my professional life reporting on it.

Do you know the number of females dwarves I've known in nine years of playing this game constantly? One.

Man, don't make it weird!  :why_so_serious:

Dude must have not really been playing for nine years, because in Vanilla, you HAD to have several Dwarf Priests in a raid because they were the only ones with fear ward.  We had at least 3 in our AQ/Naxx raid.

No flying in Draenor until first major patch. Because walking is so much fun.  :oh_i_see:

I'm not seeing a problem with this?

In all other expansions flying was enabled once you hit max level and had the cash to pay for it.  If they are saying they just aren't allowing any flying until the first major patch that is a huge change.  Most people will be max level in a couple weeks while the first major patch takes a few months.  Imagine walking from the current pandarian city to your farm or faction quest givers every day, that would be fucking horrible.

I'm all for forcing people to walk while they are levelling but after that you should be free as a bird, literally.

In all other expansions flying was enabled once you hit max level and had the cash to pay for it.  If they are saying they just aren't allowing any flying until the first major patch that is a huge change.  Most people will be max level in a couple weeks while the first major patch takes a few months.  Imagine walking from the current pandarian city to your farm or faction quest givers every day, that would be fucking horrible.

I'm all for forcing people to walk while they are levelling but after that you should be free as a bird, literally.

You're all pussies and cry babies. No flying is probably the best thing they can do for the game and getting that original feeling back.

You could just take a taxi? I've seen no mention of them removing the flight masters or whatever they are. You should only have to walk it once.

As others have noted, there's being a cheerleader, and then there's ... that. It wraps around from being excited about a new expansion into a creepy sort of desperation that this expansion has just got to turn shit around, that new character models are exactly what was needed to right the ship, and MARK THIS DATE DOWN, EVERYONE, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED FOREVER.

I'm betting the Zandalari trolls will do the time-travel thing with Garrosh and join up with him... because it isn't a real WOW expansion without a troll dungeon/raid, mon!

/troll stuff

Where were the trolls in Burning Crusade? It's been so long I can't remember.

Of all the stuff they reuse, the troll stuff is probably the least awful frankly.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Zul%27Aman

Was Firelands not in 4.1? I wasn't raiding anymore by then, though, so I wouldn't have cared about a missing raid.

It still remains as the worst expansion of all time in WoW. I mean looking back at what we know now, it still stands up as horribly offensive how little content they actually put in the game outside of the world redo.

There was plenty of skipping of the second half of zones because the leveling outpaced the amount of content, actually. It was pretty rare that I wasn't in green or even gray quests if I stayed in a zone the whole time.

All the way until 50 you could pretty much skip half of the zones completely (horde side).  There were really 2 distinct leveling paths.  

Between all the heirloom items, a smaller exp curve, and guild buffs, you blaze through 1-60 in a very short amount of playtime. With heirlooms and the guild buff you outlevel zones before you complete all the quests in them, and usually I found myself gaining about 10 levels per zone if I completed it to the quest achievement quota even if that zone was only supposed to support 5 levels.

Looking at this (http://katetarygos.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/levelflow.jpg) leveling chart, as an alliance player there are:

5 1-10 zones
5 10-20 zones
4 20-25 zones
3 25-30 zones
4 30-35 zones
3 35-40 zones
2 40-45 zones
5 45-50 zones
4 50-55 zones
1 55-60 zone (Silithus and Winterspring are still in the game, but they weren't redone)

This may seem like a decent spread, if not a little bulky, until you realize that with heirlooms and the guild buff one of those 20-25 zones will last you until level 30. It's actually more like 7 20-30 zones in function, and the same is true for 30-40, 40-50, and 50-60. By the time you reach level 60 with heirloom items, you'll have completed maybe 6/36 zones if you finish the quests in each, or about 17% of the redone content. There was no reason to remake that many zones, most players probably would have been happy with 2 different zones for each level range, not 3-5 (or 6-10 with this particular leveling speed). But instead of remaking half the number of zones they did and leaving the other half untouched, or putting fewer quests in each zone and expecting players to move to new zones faster, they remade everything (save Winterspring and Silithus)

The actual Cataclysm xpac released with a redo of BWL, a completely forgettable set of raids with Cho'gall and a wind god, and Baradin Hold, the PVP thing.

What, you didn't enjoy being waffle stomped every zone?  :why_so_serious:

The world redo, while it made the zones flow better, was so horde-biased that it killed the game for me.  It's the biggest reason why I quit.

Plus it kept the game from getting bogged down with fanservice, where Blizzard writers Metzen basks in how cool their only his characters are.

You could skip the remainder of a zone. You couldn't skip to the end of a zone's story though.

A+ to the folks over there that approved those years worth of work for redundant zones. Instant-90s in WoD is the final admission at how big of a waste it all really was.

This is such an odd sentiment to me. Everyone wants options in how they play. People who have been around for a long time want to skip things on that reroll or alt when the class balance deck gets shuffled. So now you have options. The content is still there. You can level through it or you can level to 90. Or both! The notion that's a waste is just beyond me. It's not an admission of anything, other than maybe that everyone in the MMO game realizing that leveling at all is starting to lose its luster. And if it's that, there's no real way for them to reverse engineer it into the game at this point. Or EQ2 or Rift or LOTRO, who are doing similar things.

Any new expansion at this point is just going to be a small speed bump in the road of falling subs. There's realistically nothing they can do at this point to rejuvenate the game. The idea that an expansion that simplifies things while adding few new features is going to give WoW a huge shot in the arm is ridiculous. "The problem with WoW is that it's just too damn complicated!" said nobody.

The news arrives after the company reported that the number of subscribers dropped 100,000 in 3Q 2013 to 7.6 million. That's good news despite the loss, as the MMORPG shed a whopping 1.3 million subscribers in the first quarter, followed by 600,000 subscribers in the second quarter.

That was my big annoyance with Cata.  They revamped the zones into theme parks. OK, some of them were pretty good.  But you out-level the zone before the 'ride' is over.  I'm not OCD, but I have a problem with that.  Your 'ride' isn't fun enough to keep me in a grayed out zone.

At this point, they need to go f2p.  Their content, IMO, isn't good enough for sub anymore.  Just use the STO model, not the LOTRO one.

Simond must not be around today.  I was fully expecting another 15 post back and forth about how it was only equalizing the overly pro-alliance game that had come  before.  :awesome_for_real:

All this whining her makes me wonder if they'll come up with "classic" servers...

Miss the good old times? Want to see how it all started? Subscribe again and join our new vanilla servers!

Oh how I pine for the days of being an innervation and combat res bot.

Actually the subs decline is pretty much bottoming out: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/blizzard-free-to-play-f2p-mmorpg-world-of-warcraft,25030.html

Welp, we're down to only seven and a half million paying subscribers.

Take a look at those online 2012 & 2013 numbers again, Paelos.  :oh_i_see:

I don't think the revamp can be construed as anything but a waste of time now, though. Not only are they letting people skip the content with a main, but with all the xp enhancements, I don't think there's a way you can make it through an entire zone anymore without wasting time on underleveled quests.

I mean if the back end of every zone is unnecessary now, and the fact there's several of those zones, the amount of manhours that could have actually gone into keeping customers with current content is just mind-boggling.

I don't see what you mean. I'm referring to the Shareholder Summary Report for Q3 (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/2793687460x0x704806/3381e7b8-505d-4e09-a303-b5a9b1bd5952/01.10%20Q3%20Summary%2011-6-13%2011am2.pdf) which details the online subscription revenue platform.

I don't see how you can be a grown man and feel cool with being a WOW fanboy this day and age.

http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

Q3 2012 subscription/licensing/etc. income: 880m
Q3 2013 subscription (etc) income: 1,016m

And I suspect that, unless they flat out allow anyone to roll as may level 90s as they want with no restrictions, more people will be seeing the revamped low level content than will be, say, grinding Firelands dailies or running level 85 Raids.  Not that the revamped content is flawless or anything, but it's WAY better than the vanilla quests were.

I don't see how you can be a grown man and feel cool with being a WOW fanboy this day and age.

I don't see how you can be a grown man and feel cool with being a WOW fanboy this day and age.

Member of the <I spent too much money on HEX> fanclub.

How's the MMO fansite business going, Draegan?

if it means anything when I was at Blizzcon it was super obvious that Metzen was high out of his mind the entire time

So spines, shoulders and legs rotted through but tits, ass and lips perfect and pert.

Somethings never change.

The bra was the first thing that made me go  :uhrr: because that's not ... that's not how bras work.

So spines, shoulders and legs rotted through but tits, ass and lips perfect and pert.

Glad I wasn't the only one who immediately noticed that. Undead asses you can bounce a silver off of.

Metzen can't write a female character. This is pretty well established.

It's not like I don't agree with the lack of good female characters, but why is this suddenly an issue? How many prominent female characters are there in WoW?

It's not like I don't agree with the lack of good female characters, but why is this suddenly an issue? How many prominent female characters are there in WoW?

 Judging by the way they are reusing old content maybe that will be the next expansion where alternate outland leads to alternate Northrend and the Lich King needs to be defeated, again.

It's not suddenly an issue. It's suddenly that it's vocalized enough that you're hearing it.

Or: water doesn't boil the second you turn the heat on high.

Yep. People have been complaining about this almost as long as I can remember some way or another (mostly about how Tyrande got turned from an assertive, if stupid, leader into a nonentity in the early days, if I remember right). And it's one of those things where it might not bother someone at first (like in Vanilla, you could rationalize it that well, there weren't that many women characters to start with, and they need to lay the This Is Warcraft foundation first) but over time gets more obvious, more annoying, and harder to excuse (they've had plenty of time to up the decent female character count and they still keep not doing it).

To be fair, it bothers me less in WoW because, as Zetor said, Metzen can't write anything.

What has always amused me is this;  Point to ONE known female at Blizzard. Now point to two.  Can you make it to three?  How many of those have you seen at a Blizzcon, ever, or on panels, ever?

It should be surprising to nobody that this company (or most game companies) can't write or maintain realistic females.  It suffers from manchild woman-hater club more than any profession save construction and even that one is starting to clean itself up.

It’s the New Year, and 2014 is going to be a big one for World of Warcraft. This November marks the game’s 10-year anniversary and the 20-year anniversary of the entire Warcraft series. We’re looking forward to celebrating these milestones with everyone, but in the meantime, we’ve got a few Warlords of Draenor–related updates to share.

Preparing for Battle
At BlizzCon, we laid out our plans to send you into battle against some of the biggest and baddest enemies in Warcraft history. While the Iron Horde gears up for war on Draenor, back here on earth we’re making preparations for the expansion’s upcoming closed beta test. If you’d like to be considered, now’s a great time to make sure you’re opted in to Warcraft betas and that the hardware specs in your Beta Profile are up to date. (Full instructions can be found here.)

Report from the Front Lines
From the outset, players will find themselves hurled into a chaotic conflict with the Iron Horde at a new Dark Portal on Draenor. The situation for Azeroth is grim, and the war effort needs heroes—from new recruits to retired champions to warriors still tending wounds earned at the Siege of Orgrimmar. To get everyone straight to the action, when you buy the expansion, it will come with a boost to level 90 for one character on your WoW account. We’re getting ready to test the functionality for that on the PTR, and we wanted to provide a quick update on how it will work with the upcoming expansion presales.

Warlords of Draenor will be available for pre-purchase digitally Soon™, and we’re once again planning to have standard digital and Digital Deluxe versions (along with a physical Collector’s Edition—more on that at a later date). This time, if you pre-purchase the Digital Deluxe edition you’ll get your exclusive World of Warcraft pet and mount right away, allowing you to bring a little bit of Draenor past into Azeroth present.

In addition, when you pre-purchase either digital version, we’re going to grant you your level-90 boost at the time of pre-purchase. That’s a little different from the plan we laid out at BlizzCon, but based on the feedback, it’s obvious that many of you would like the chance to get acquainted with a new class before heading into the expansion. This will also give more players the opportunity to experience the current end-game content and the events leading up to Garrosh’s exodus to Draenor. Maybe you’ll get your Legendary cloak from Wrathion and level 90–100 Heirloom weapon in the process.

Bolster the Ranks
We’ve also heard feedback from players that they’d be interested in boosting multiple characters to 90, including alts they play with friends on other factions and realms. We’ve been evaluating ways to make that possible without having players go through roundabout methods (such as purchasing multiple boxes and performing multiple character transfers), and in the near future we’ll be testing out a feature that gives you the option to purchase a character upgrade directly. We’ll have more information to share later—including details on our character-upgrade plans for Asian regions where players don’t buy expansion boxes—but you’ll start seeing pieces of the process soon on the PTR, so keep an eye out.

We’re looking forward to the closed beta test, and we’re excited we’re able to give players their character boost immediately upon pre-purchasing—hopefully that will help tide you over while you’re waiting for the epic battle for Draenor to begin. Stay tuned for more information on presales and our beta plans, and we hope you’ll join in and help us test this stuff out when it hits the PTR.

Caydiem. Hunter representative. She was possibly the only Blizzard rep that was passionate about representing hunters in their god-awful days.

They fired promoted her

They managed to tell us all about monetization of the game, and almost nothing about the xpac itself.

That bodes well...

They managed to tell us all about monetization of the game, and almost nothing about the xpac itself.

That bodes well...

"As soon as we can figure out how to gouge you to raise each toon to 90 to skip our BS content we'll get back to you."

Am I reading this right? In Eve you pay a subscription to level while not playing the game. In WoW you pay a subscription and a fee to level while not playing the game.

Anyone who didn't see this coming after the single freebie announced for WoD is dumb as hell.

Hi, I’m Chris Robinson, senior art director of World of Warcraft, and this is the first in a series of articles we're creating to bring you all closer to the development of the player character model revamps we announced at BlizzCon. In this series, we'll give you an inside look at the process we go through to do one of these revamps, discuss the kinds of art issues we're addressing with the new models, and provide a bit of insight our future plans for their continued polish.

We're happy to begin our series by sharing a first look at where we're at with the Human female. While future articles won’t always be about revealing a new model, we thought this would be a great introduction to the approach we take for every one of these redesigns.

We’re looking at these model revamps as a sort of “spiritual update” to the art content that currently exists in-game—except we’re completely redoing them from scratch. That includes the base model, skin tone variations, customization options (e.g. wrinkles, scars, moles, earrings, etc.), hairstyles, and any skin variations for NPCs you see out in the world, like Iron Dwarves or Leper Gnomes. We’re pretty excited about some of the ideas you've given us for new customization and skin options you’d like to see, but our first goal—which is already a monumental endeavor—is to make sure that the visual content that currently exists is brought up to or surpasses the level of quality you see in current boss models, the Pandaren, and central NPCs like the new Vol’jin model.

With the revamp, we’re completely overhauling every aspect of the player models, but our goal is to do so while retaining the core look and feel that has always made them your character. We'll feel like we've succeeded if you see the updated version of your character and it still feels like you’re looking at the character you’ve been playing for the past however many years—only someone has finally focused a lens.

To achieve this, we’re increasing the polygon count significantly (in some cases going from less than 1,000 to over 5,000), more than doubling the texture resolution, increasing bone count significantly to support updated animation and facial expression, and retouching nearly every animation for all of the characters. For animation alone, that’s roughly 180 animations per character, times 10 races in both male and female variants, equaling approximately 3,600 animations. We’re also incorporating the rigging technology we introduced with the Pandaren into every character to provide better posing, smoother animation, and the ability to pull off some fantastic facial expressions. In the weeks and months ahead, we’re going to be bringing you in for a closer look at some of the processes, challenges, and results of this revamp process.

What you’re looking at here for the Human female is a single face option and a single skin tone on the base model without any animation or posing. When developing the base model we keep the expression on the face as devoid of emotion or expression as possible, as that allows our animators a greater range of motion when they start posing and morphing the face into different expressions. If we were to put any amount of expression—even a slight smile or mildly angry eyebrows—in the base model, that would carry through to every animation, and we'd end up with some very confused-looking characters.

Joe Keller is a senior character artist on our team and was responsible for the lion’s share of modeling and texturing the Human female. Here's what he had this to say about this challenge:

“Everyone is pretty familiar with the Human character models in WoW, but working on these updates gives us a chance to embellish and fill in the blanks. For the Human female this meant we could give her more muscle definition and personality in the face while still staying true to the overall look and spirit of the original. Hopefully this will also help show her as more of the capable fighter that she is.”
This process has been a welcome challenge for all of us on the World of Warcraft art team. We’ve all wanted to address the player models and bring them up to a more current fidelity for some time now, and we’re as excited as you are to get these models into the game. We hope you’ll enjoy this series as we invite you to meet the team and see more on our development process.

Thanks so much, and see you next time.

What you’re looking at here for the Human female is a single face option and a single skin tone on the base model without any animation or posing. When developing the base model we keep the expression on the face as devoid of emotion or expression as possible, as that allows our animators a greater range of motion when they start posing and morphing the face into different expressions. If we were to put any amount of expression—even a slight smile or mildly angry eyebrows—in the base model, that would carry through to every animation, and we'd end up with some very confused-looking characters.

I'll say it again just because: They could remodel everything except my character's head into an untextured skeleton and it would probably take me six months to notice. I guess NPCs will look nicer. The ones not wearing too much armor, that is. If you zoom in enough to care how many polygons go into their hair or whatever.

Who am I kidding? What a complete waste of resources. No new race, no new class, but they had time for this? Jesus.

I really hope there is an eye size slider so things can be brought down below "anime saucer plates".

Boy are you guys going to hate Wildstar's models.

Boy are you guys going to hate Wildstar's models.

Took a look.  No, because they followed the basic rules of proportions for faces so even though things are oversized they don't look as ridiculous.

As of December 31, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG, with approximately 7.8 million subscribers.

Were those D3 boxes sold on PC or does that 1m figure represent the console launch?

*Resists urge to say mean things about blood elves not belonging in the Horde anyway*  :grin:

It's all the fault of the Alliance that the Blood Elves joined the Horde.  Well.  That one guy.  Fuck that guy.

They still haven't said anything about this coming out have they?

bliddy bliddy blah

You think everything is awful.

It's way too high. If you made it $10-$20 people would be buying that shit like candy. Starting an alt? Toss in $20 to get going. No one will do that with $60 for the most part.

They have to price it above the transfer price; that doesn't mean it isn't too high, but it's the "right" price given how they have other things priced. Which is too high.

"Get going"? 90 is the level cap right now. If you buy this upgrade your character is effectively "done" unless you want to do the gear treadmill. From Blizzard's perspective there needs to be a pretty strong financial disincentive to the 90 upgrade so that people don't insta-upgrade a bunch of characters, find themselves without anything interesting left to do, and unsub. Wouldn't be surprised to see this change to "instant 100" after 6-8 months of WoD with the price still at $60. I don't think the price is ever coming down considering what you get and how the other premium services (like transfers) are priced.

Do they have to price it above the transfer price? I agree though, compared to the rest of the stuff they sell, this is about right. It's all stupid though.

Oh come the fuck on, this is fucking hilarious. This game has always been about the gear treadmill and other level cap activities (crafting, rep grinding, pvp, raiding, dungeon grinding, doing old raids for skins, achievements). You stick a $$ pricetag on the level boost, and unless it's not like $1, people won't "insta upgrade a bunch of characters". That's pretty fucking ridiculous.

They would make serious fuck you money if it was priced lower. I am pretty sure $60 doesn't maximize their revenue from it, they'd probably benefit from pricing it at 20 or 30 and slashing the transfer fees accordingly.

You get one free boost to 90 when you buy the expansion no matter what.

I think the point was that this was priced so high as to dissuade someone from purchasing the xpac entirely.

Orc females are ugly no matter what.

The Orc female has always been one of my favourite WoW models - not hyper-sexualised, reasonably proportioned, great "attitude", tough without being too badly clichéd.

However, it's also always been one of the worst actual in-game models. Terrible animation, far too low and too obvious a polygon count and some awful clipping and deformation. Just have a look at the existing model arms and elbows and they way they look like they've been made out of cardboard by a drunken shot-putter!

That redo looks great - very true to the original but actually decently made. I approve!

Paelos seems to think they're reusing the TBC map. How silly!

60 bucks is fine. A server + faction change is 55 bucks, so that's a good deal.

They have to price it above the transfer price; that doesn't mean it isn't too high, but it's the "right" price given how they have other things priced. Which is too high.

I have no doubt that they're putting as much effort into these new zones as they did for the MoP zones, which were excellent. It's just not a very interesting or exciting idea. Exploring a "less broken" version of Outlands with a lame time travel story feels half-assed compared to showing us places and stories that are new.

I get that that for them, this is also a way to tell the Warcraft 1-3 storylines to WoW players that never bothered with or were too young for that game, but it's misguided. Those storylines aren't worth revisiting for an entire expansion.

The absence of a new class, new race, or (conceptually) new zones feels like it should have given them a chance to crank out some serious 90-100 content, but from what we know this expansion will launch with fewer dungeons than any in the past. Where is the effort?

I think the fact that Titan fell apart really bit them in the ass. They were planning on beginning the transition away from WoW by now.

Well you see the REAL content are the raids and~*faaaaaaaaaaaaart*

It has been kept under wraps surprisingly well. The fact that it's still something of a mystery kinda indicates to me it was really, shamefully bad unless they -really- intend to reboot it and keep the assets/engine they developed for it.

Just 2 new raids at launch, less than MoP launched with, so the effort didn't go there either.

timeline of history dot jpg

Are there even going to be 'phat loots' in heroics to begin with? If anything, they should've gated LFR behind PG... (though admittedly PG mechanics aren't too raid-like)

So the latest I'm reading about WoD is that they're going to gate heroics behind the Proving Grounds.  You have to prove yourself competent enough in your role before you can queue up for phat loots.

IMO, this is truly  :awesome_for_real:.  And will probably get removed after the first patch anyways  :why_so_serious:

$30 seems too small to me. Why the hell would I bother leveling a character? What's that in hours? 80-100?

At that point Blizzard is trading 2 months of time for a complete reroll. I'm not sure that's a good trade even in larger numbers.

Also, I think that's a good point about the x-pac and cost.

Defile
Replaces Death and Decay
Lasts 10 seconds. 30 second cooldown.
Deals damage to all enemies standing in it. Damage and area increase by 5% every time it deals damage, maximum of 3 times per second.
Enemies standing in your Defile deal 10% less damage to you.

Necrotic Plague
Replaces Frost Fever and Blood Plague
When Necrotic Plague deals damage it spreads itself to nearby targets and gains a stack. Maximum of 15 stacks.
You gain 5 Runic Power when an enemy with Necrotic Plague deals damage to you.


Breath of Sindragosa
Consumes Runic Power to continuously deal damage to all enemies in front of you. Enemies damaged by this breath are Marked. Targets with the Mark of Sindragosa deal 5% less magical damage to you.

And if it's not $40, I have absolutely zero shot at playing it. I don't give a damn about boosting anything. I have two characters at 90 and that's all I have time for.

(Or SindraaaAAAaaaaAAAAAAAaaAAAagosaAAAAA)

Oh how I hated that actress' voice.  BE TRAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYSZZZ EWEEEEEEEE

So are DKs really so under-represented now that they're getting buffed like this? I know they lost a lot of the fun to their play in Cata through MoP but there still seemed to be a bunch of them when I stopped playing last April or whenever.

I'd love to get a report on their sales for that upgrade, just to see how many deep pockets are still involved in WoW. Or if they are offended by this move.

No, the expansion without level 90 boost is $49.99 which is $10 more than the Mists of Panderia standard edition price of $39.99.

Also, we have a hard-deadline of 12/20/14 for release.  It could be before that, but it looks like they didn't wanna look shaky by putting up pre-orders without some kind of expectation for when people could play.

Boost complete.  I find myself on the Timeless Isle, all geared out and ready to rock  :drill:

That's absolutely insane. The expectation was that they were going to stop patching to move faster past the lag of the prior expansions. The expectation was they would have something out by summer at the latest. And now we're hearing that they are going slower than ever AND giving us less content?

Forget it, there's no way I'm paying for that after being out of the game for over a year.

I think something has completely come off the rails over there. Several people I know that worked there bailed, for reason that weren't clear, and the time gap here is one of the largest ever between content updates if it goes to term.

Well, "we just won't care" was what I meant by similar results  :awesome_for_real: I don't know anyone who was actually enthusiastic about Ruby Sanctum except for a small group of uber-raiders. But I bet they'll do something like that anyway just to say "here is your content, now shuddap!"

edit: words

They may, but I just don't see it coming.

I unsubbed in December giving the same reason. I figured the wait was going to be 6 months to expansion. I had no idea it was going to be a year.

Didn't they only give up on Titan recently though? Blizzard doesn't do anything quickly, so I'm not surprised that they're slow at reassigning personnel.

They've been promising faster patch/expansion time since early WOTLK-era at least. I'm not sure why people are still surprised that things take forever.

Rumor and scuttlebutt: We already know that flying won't be enabled for WoD for at least the first patch.  The word is now that such a restriction may be put in place for the entire expansion.

Discuss  :grin:

Rumor and scuttlebutt: We already know that flying won't be enabled for WoD for at least the first patch.  The word is now that such a restriction may be put in place for the entire expansion.

Discuss  :grin:

Also... doesn't the collectors edition of WoD come with a flying mount?

 :awesome_for_real:

The customers love it. The customers demanded it because so much of the travel was complete tedium.

They've subtly bitched about flying before, and if I can recall there was an interview where a Blizzard employee said that they wish they could go back in time and never put it in.

The customers love it. The customers demanded it because so much of the travel was complete tedium. We don't want to aggro trains of mobs riding horses around on the way to the fun.

Zones don't need to be quite as big if they don't support flying. Blizzard also stated that the Timeless isle content model might by re-used in WoD.

Rumor and scuttlebutt: We already know that flying won't be enabled for WoD for at least the first patch.  The word is now that such a restriction may be put in place for the entire expansion.

Discuss  :grin:

They could just make flying slower than riding.

 :why_so_serious:

CoH did that and we fucking loved it...

I realize this is a stupid, often used, argument but if you don't like flying mounts, why not just play without them?

They took out flight points in the game?

What are you walking towards anyway? Doesn't the game put you into groups and into instances automatically anyway these days?

I realize this is a stupid, often used, argument but if you don't like flying mounts, why not just play without them?

It's not about whether you as a player like them or not, though; it's about what you can't do in your zone design (mostly in terms of narrative) because they break it.

I'll resub if they took away flying mounts. It might actually make the world design fun.

I wasn't aware anyone was still playing WoW for their gripping narrative.

I wasn't aware anyone was still playing WoW for their gripping narrative.

same zones

Doesn't matter if we do or not, if they even sort of care about that (their story is shit, but I am convinced they think it's worth giving a shit about), that's going to be something they think about.

I realize this is a stupid, often used, argument but if you don't like flying mounts, why not just play without them?

Because world and game design vary greatly based on flying mounts.

I wonder if they are floating this kind of stuff out there because they are running into technical problems during development. Maybe some issue with garrisons or with the new PVP island or something. I get limiting flying until 100, but no flying just seems silly to me.

“If you’re a former WoW player, you’re going to get hit with some crazy nostalgia,” Afrasiabi explained, describing the setup behind Draenor and the basis for the Iron Horde’s mass invasion of Azeroth.

“it’ll be a prolonged event where we’re basically fighting off these Iron Horde war machines … and doing everything we can to stop it but nothing seems to work,” he outlines. “We’re trying to blow up the portal, we’re killing them, they don’t stop, it’s endless. So it becomes dire, the point where these guys are actually marching across and gaining ground through Azeroth, which gets us to launch day.”

“Instead of giant demons marching up to the gates and we were fending them off, now it’s going to be you and your army and what you see is a scene of just fifty thousand [orcs], just orcs everywhere.” It’s a very deliberate, narrative-focused setup, one that mirrors the Burning Crusade, and something Afrasiabi channels a lot during our talk.

“This becomes a Death Knight-like experience in Wrath, or even now, you go through a one and a half hour experience, it’s very custom tailored to the death knights,” he says. “We’re going to put you into this experience, where its 40 to 45 minutes and we really amp up the action, the suspense, the drama, we show you those guys, we really make you see the face of your enemy, we make you interact with them, we make you understand why these guys need to be stopped, why the Iron Horde needs to be stopped.”

That would pretty much prevent me from buying the expansion and may in fact cure me of WoW forever.

Flying is unquestionably my favourite thing in WoW.

Chakra, when the walls fell.

To make playing a Mage more enjoyable, players who use the words “tray,” “food,” “drink,” “table,” “snack,” “mage,” or “pls” in Raid, Party, Battleground, Say, Yell, General, or Trade channels within a Mage’s hearing are killed instantly.

 :drill:

Care to be more specific?

That’s a lot of big changes for healers: reduced throughput, a more deliberate pace, less powerful “smart” heals, weaker absorbs, fewer spells, and a new focus on efficiency decisions. We’re confident that we can apply lessons learned from previous expansions to make this the best healer experience yet: more dynamic, less punishing, and frankly a lot more fun.

And here. We. Go.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor%E2%84%A2-alpha-patch-notes-4-3-2014

It'll be fun to watch them backpedal off of this stupid shit for the nth time.

When, 6 months after launch?

Oh, I have.  I just like watching the train wreck from the sidelines.

Blizzard:  Watch me pull a hardcore game system for WoW out of my hat!
Playerbase:  Again?  That trick never works!
Blizzard:  This time for sure!  Presto!
*that trick doesn't work*
Blizzard:  Now, here's something we hope you'll really like!

The changes to stat tanking will kill any chance of people wanting to tank. Your gear was semi-useless before with the active model. Now, when they take out both dodge and parry from gear AND remove the gains from strength and agility stats? Fuck you, tanks, you're button mashers now. No amount of gearing can save you. In a gear game, they have removed the gear factor, and that's braindead stupid.

- "Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists)" OMG they said it again. Meaningful DPS. We're tanking, not DPSing. I don't want to think about my DPS. It shouldn't be an issue. We have two specs now so we don't have to tank in the regular world. AAAAAARGH.

Hahahahahaha. Thanks for saving me $40; nothing in there makes me want to ever touch this game again.

Lmao; just make it so each class is like a MOBA character and only has enough abilities to map to like 4-5 keys and get it the fuck over with.

Hunter pets no longer have crowd-control abilities.

very little actual content.

They redid everything in Cataclysm too.

I was hoping they would move away from the tanking model that's basically run off anybody who tanked in the past. Looks unlikely, since they are doubling down on the stat changes.

Shadowmoon Valley

    The Tainted Woods
    Akama's Scar
    The Iron March
    Grommar
    Gar'mak Quarry
    [PH] Alliance Bastion
        [PH] Alliance Bastion Lvl 1
        [PH] Alliance Bastion Lvl 2
        [PH] Alliance Bastion Lvl 3
    The Burial Fields
    Shaz'gul
    Light's Fall
    Teluuna Observatory
    Starfall Outpost
    Gul'var
    Watcher's Den
    Secluded Glade
    [PH] - SMV - Alliance Garrison
    West Camp
    [UNUSED]Hidey-Hole
    Gloomshade Grove
    The Shadow Rise
    Indentation Landing
    Twilight Glade
    Den of Despair
    Terrace of the Stars
    Shadowmoon Overlook
    Mount Teluuna
    Vindicator Ledge
    Darktide Roost
    Plains of Serenity
    Moonflower Valley
    Embaari Village
    Karabor
    Path of the Light
    Gardens of Eternity
    Tranquil Court
    Amphitheater of Echoes
    Karabor Harbor
    Palemoon Village
    Pilgrim's Sojourn
    Bloodthorn Cave
    The Verdant Mire
    Ancestor's Grotto
    Waning Crescent
    Moonwillow Peak
    Bloodthorn Hill
    The Nightmarsh
    Dyvari Overgrowth
    Glade of Shadows
    Shadowmoon Mine


Gorgrond

    Explosion Town [NOT TEMP NAME]
    Bastion Rise
    Laughing Skull
    Tailthrasher Basin
    Skullchief's Stand
    Prototype Proving Grounds
    Blackrock Station
    The Forgotten Caves
    Blackrock Pipeworks
    Dry Riverbed
    Belcher Cauldron
    Draenataur Cavern
    Stonemaul Slave Camp
    Stonemaul Slave Mine
    Spinebloom Spires
    Gorgrond Garrison Area
    Smokebelcher Depot
    Blackrock Foundry
    Lake Oasis
    Gronn Cave
    Highland Pass
    Elemental Hollow
    Blackrock Shipyard
    Tankworks
    Shrubby Plateau
    Salt Flats
    Blackrock Foundry Base
    Gorgrond Pass
    The Iron Front
    The Screaming Geyser
    Emberfall Lake
    Ulon Oasis
    The Binding Trench
    Spineling Crevice
    The Sulfic Refuge
    Canyon Pass
    Throne of Stonemaul
    The Broken Crater
    Thaelin's Retreat
    Blook's Overlook


Spires of Arak

    Lower Quarter
    Grand Spire
    The Overlook
    [PH] Spires Coast
    Spires Garrison
    [PH] Spires Dry Region
    [PH] SpiresThorny Region
    Lower Skettis
    Dreadtalon Peak
    Ravenskar
    Veil Terokk
    Living Explosion [PH]

   
Tanaan Jungle

    No subzones


Nagrand

    Sabermaw
    Warsong Lookout
    Gol'gor
    Wor'var
    Prowler Ridge
    Yrel's Watch
    Riverside Post
    The Stones of Prophecy
    Lok-rath
    Nagrand Corral
    Kil'sorrow Fortress
    Grommashar
    Gates of Grommashar
    Ironfist Harbor
    Clowder Rise
    Ancestral Grounds
    Ring of Trials
    Telaar
    Sabermaw Den
    Telaari Station

Faralohn

    Brawnbelly Barracks
    Digger Flats
    The Pits
    Blightstone Quarry
    The Iron Tower
    [PH] Test Zone
    [PH] Test Zone 2


Grommar

    The Shadow Tower
    Shadowmoon Grotto
    Grommar Hold
    Grommar Docks


Bloodmaul Slag Mines

    No subzones


[PH] Heroes Through Time

    No subzones


Draenor Auchindoun

    No subzones


Shadowmoon Burial Grounds

    No subzones


Talador

    No subzones


Blasted Lands

    Shattered Beachhead
    Shattered Landing
    The Shattered Front
    Okril'lon Hold
    The Forge Grounds
    Dreadmaul Rise


[PH] Ashran - World PvP Zone

    Ashran - Center Lane
    [PH] Ashran - The Arena


Blackrock Shipyard

    No subzones


Bonetown Scenario

    No subzones


Blackrock Train Depot

    No subzones


Spires of Arak

    No subzones


Highmaul Raid

    No subzones


Tanaan Jungle

    The Dark Portal
    Heartblood Tangle
    The Bleeding Altar
    Kargathar Proving Grounds
    Heartblood
    Umbral Halls
    Blackrock Quarry
    The Path of Glory
    Iron Bastion


Blackrock Foundry

    No subzones


[PH] Ashran [TRANSITION ZONE]

    No subzones


Remains of Xandros

    No subzones


Defense of Karabor

    No subzones

   
Frostfire Ridge

    Frostwind Dunes
    Throm'var
    Daggermaw Ravine
    The Savage Crag
    Icescar Boneyard
    Lashwind Cleft
    The Cracking Plains
    Grombolash
    The Boneslag
    Stonefang Outpost
    Icewind Drifts
    Grom'gar
    The First Anvil
    Ascent of Frostfire
    Refuse Pit
    The Ice Forge
    The Forge Gates
    Giant's Fall
    Grimfrost Hill
    Turgall's Den
    Sootstained Mines
    Sootstained Mining Camp
    Grulloc's Lair
    Bladespire Fortress
    Circle of Blood
    Hall of the Great Hunt
    Wor'gol
    Farseer's Rock
    Bladespire Throne
    Reeg'ak's Nest
    Melted Burrow
    Gormaul Watch
    Eastwatch
    Mor'dul Tower
    Pit of the Devourer
    Frostboar Drifts
    Butcher's Rise
    Gronnstalkers' Cache
    Pool of Visions
    Bladespire Ravine
    Stonefang Ridge
    Thunder Pass
    Windswept Lowland
    Bloodmaul Territory
    Bloodmaul Slag Mines
    Iron Siegeworks
    Bones of Agurak
    Agurak's Fall
    Frostwall
    Snowfall Alcove
    Coldsnap Bluffs
    Frost Den
    Frostbite Hollow
    Sleeper's Lair
    Bloodmaul Stronghold
    Thunder Pass
    Ruins of Ata'gar
    The Gloomspire
    Iceblister Den
    Darkspear's Edge
    Forbidden Glacier
    Blade's Edge Mountain
    Southwind Cliffs
    The Bleeding Mountain
    The Burning Glacier
    Wolf's Stand
    Iron Waystation
    Lowland Cave


Talador

    Gul'rok
    Shattrath Metropolitan Area
    Court of Souls
    Liadrin's Watch
    Deathweb Hollow
    Telmor
    Aruuna
    Anchorite's Sojourn
    Veil Shadar
    Duskfall Island
    The Pilgrim's Road
    Terokkar Refuge
    Sharptusk Lake
    Kuuros Farm
    [PH] Talador Beach
    [PH] Bluff Base
    Tuurem
    [PH] Logging Camp
    Aruuna Crystal Mine
    Light's Rest
    Tomb of Souls
    Shattrath
    Jorune Mine
    Ango'rosh Ruins
    Seat of Depravity
    Sunsworn Camp
    Retribution Point
    The Burning Front
    Exarch's Refuge
    Garden of K'ure
    Aruuna Desolation
    Tomb of Lights

It's entirely possible that, according to metrics that aren't "do tanks want to run LFR when flex offers a similar & superior experience?", the active mitigation model was well-liked by the majority of the playerbase.

The main problem is that for someone like me who skipped MoP

Nowhere in his post does it say he skipped WotLK.

That being said, there was very little that MoP brought that was great,

The content?

The content?

The initial content was so gated and annoying

lol if you thought the initial faction grind of MoP was good.

Nah, that sucked but reducing the content of MoP (levelling & max) to "Well the dailies in 5.0 were bad therefore the expansion was the Worst Thing Ever" is p. dumb.

I don't expect them to rehash the end game of 5.0s faction grind.  But IMO, if they plan to go full tilt with Timeless Isle style gameplay, I'd rather have the faction grind back.  I'm cool with the RNG gods dictating when/if/what gear I get.  Not so much with general gameplay.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=233324/technical-game-designer-chadd-celestalon-nervig-talks-warlords-of-draenor

I encourage everyone to read those interview notes.

As we suspected, Draenor Perks will be learned randomly between 91 and 100. The reason for their randomness is to provide variety, and also to remove the problem of choice, and the pressure of making the wrong choice.

Lmao; just make it so each class is like a MOBA character and only has enough abilities to map to like 4-5 keys and get it the fuck over with.

Whether you agree with Paelos or not on the "retread" thing (and for the record, I don't think it's a retread of TBC ... the attraction of the new areas is going to be "this is what orcplanet looked like before everything got totally ruined, neat" not "Outland: AGAIN!"), that is how it comes across to a lot of people, and that's the problem. You can stamp your foot that it'll look different all you want, but for people who wandered off and were glancing over this expansion thinking about maybe coming back, the first impression is going to be "I already WENT to Outland. And I thought they killed Garrosh already. No new races or classes? They want me to pay how much for this?!"

And for people like me, it's also "fuck I am so fucking sick of orcorcorcorcorcorcs." Orcs are the new trolls.

I would play that game. Probably would be the best design decision they ever made.

I would too, tbh. I don't think there needs to be more than a bar of abilities for any MMO, especially since so many abilities are just doing the same thing on different cool downs with slightly different variations.

There's a loud minority of people on the forums that want downranking back. I can see why they did take it out, because the fault was with the system that may downranking important in the first place.

EQ2 abilities or GW2 abilities?
I'll take GW2 every time, thanks.

EQ2 abilities or GW2 abilities?
I'll take GW2 every time, thanks.

Berserker Rage doesn't Enrage you anymore

I need to keep reminding myself that the Horde Garrison buildings are going to be stupid and ugly and out of character for my paladin and I don't need to try it out.

You could always reroll Alliance: http://imgur.com/a/xGkxI

Since we are being blessed with new character models (Which can be disabled? Yes, no?)

Blue response from earlier.

This is a terrible, terrible idea.

Wow, that's dumb. I figured worst case scenario we'd be stuck with our own race's art style, but in my ideal implementation we'd be able to purchase other styles (of our faction, others, places we've grinded rep with, etc.).

I was under the impression the models people were not necessarily the same as the environment people. But that Blizzcon was years ago.  :why_so_serious:

I'm not surprised that they decided visual customization for garrisons isn't important. These are the same people completely blindsided by people liking transmog so much. But it's still disappointing. Especially since it's the YAY NEW FEATURE of the expansion.

As far as I'm concerned it's the only killer app feature they have. If they don't give people reason to come back and try that out, what are they coming back for that they haven't seen already?

Well, the fact that every other MMO out there is worse?

I don't know why they aren't just copying LOTRO housing with a few tweaks.  A few small quirks aside, it nailed what housing should be  for a sandbox MMO in my opinion. 

All housing except UO and  SWG sucks.  I want my house in the game world and yes I realize the technical problems this creates.

I don't remember what LOTRO's housing was like, could you give me a brief reminder?

Well, the fact that every other MMO out there is worse?

I was under the impression the models people were not necessarily the same as the environment people. But that Blizzcon was years ago.  :why_so_serious:

I'm not surprised that they decided visual customization for garrisons isn't important. These are the same people completely blindsided by people liking transmog so much. But it's still disappointing. Especially since it's the YAY NEW FEATURE of the expansion.

Well, the fact that every other MMO out there is worse?

OK, so I wasn't forgetting some sort of super interesting housing thing in LotRO or anything.

Rift actually has the best housing system at this point. The last major patch added a crafting profession (Dreamweaving (http://community.riftgame.com/en/2014/02/28/dream-weaving-101/)) that can create VFX for player housing. The whole system is so flexible and easy to use, it puts the rest of the housing systems in MMOs to shame. I have to imagine the tech in WoW is so old at this point that introducing housing in even a barely-competent way has to be a major undertaking. Likewise for making improvements to LOTRO's housing system.

Did EQ2 housing even have exteriors? I only played it long enough to get a shitty shack apartment in whatever the evil city was. Which is not necessarily a problem, I think I prefer non-sprawl housing overall.

So Rift's just about caught up with EQ2's housing system, then?

Yeah, pretty straight forward stuff.  A few different sized houses available, but a couple of clan properties available in each neighborhood.  It wasn't that LOTRO did something amazing, but it was just well down, the towns were really pleasant to be in and really had the flavor for each race, the house/yard decorating was sufficient, etc.  I would have thought anyone trying to do housing in a sandbox game would basically use that as the model. 

I don't think of WoW as anything like a sandbox game, and I'm not even a little bit surprised they wanted to do more than LotRO's housing, as they have an obsession with making things "matter." That said, everything I've read about the garrisons sounds really fun mechanically. Just not Full Expansion Price fun.

And certainly not Higher Than Normal Expansion Price fun.

Doesn't really take into account the reduction in distribution costs of the new download model. If anything, games should cost less than they did when studios had to crank out millions of boxes, CDs, and cases.

And they do. There's a reason ATVI is making billions in profits. Not sales, profits.

Doesn't really take into account the reduction in distribution costs of the new download model. If anything, games should cost less than they did when studios had to crank out millions of boxes, CDs, and cases.

And they do. There's a reason ATVI is making billions in profits. Not sales, profits.

(http://i.minus.com/jpXVXHNf9B4Np.png) (http://minus.com/i/pXVXHNf9B4Np)

Hey look, MoP cost $8 less than it should have. BLIZZARD!!!  :grin:

Meh, I guess I'm the black sheep here then.  Garrisons intrigue me to no end, and I welcome a lot of the changes being made.  And while I understand this may be the Bitching thread (which has almost reached Maximum Bitch-status), I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing several of your B.net tags waving the WoW flag within a few months of WoD's launch.   :grin:

The real profit margin in downloads is in cutting out retail, who typically get 20-25% of the $60 cost.

We knew that about reforging already, didn't we?

Also, mastery for tanks is now  :awesome_for_real:

Updated alpha notes are out.  I'll give you a preview: Reforging is out.  Enjoy!

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3922-Paladin-Tier-17-Preview-Warlords-of-Draenor-Alpha-Official-Notes-Update

Hahahah, if the rest of the tier sets are redone Tier 4 I might just die of laughter.

Hey, we're redoing Outland/Draenor.  Might as well go all the way  :why_so_serious:

One of the reasons the lore has gone off the rails is they started putting it in terrible novels instead of the games. Because they can make more cash selling the books.

I still to this day don't know why we had to raid Obsidian Sanctum.

  Pandaria I don't recall reading a single text.  Not one. I don't even know the back story for the big animal things it the locked valley. I had to hunt for too much and the books weren't going to get bought.  I don't have time for that shit on top of the time demands of the game.

So I became disengaged with the game when the second raid came out and I had no idea what was going on.  I stopped logging in.  Then when the alliance and horde began in axing I said fuck this and it was a pretty quick unsub after that. 

When players who care beyond the latest phat pests don't know what's going on they're not going to remain. Your $9 addition revenue cost you recurring $250 and in game store purchases.   Whoops.