2.4 changes?

[Righ]

Come On, Righ, you KNOW better.

I know that they won't. However, I know that when I was involved in, ah, more serious software, we did. The real vertex missing from the production triangle is COST. When you want something done fast and done well, you pay more, whether that be by employing better staff, employing more of them, working them longer hours for greater compensation, providing them with better resources to do the job quickly and well, or a combination of these and other factors. Its silly to say that something cannot be done well, fast and free of bugs. It can, but it will cost more. Blizzard are saving their money. Unfortunately, its likely to be mostly for paying shareholders of Vivendi or financing their idiotic losses elsewhere rather than the fannish hope that they're plowing it into the next great game. Most modern businesses are shit, and Blizzard is part of a spectacularly shit one.

[Modern Angel]

Most of the stuff I've read coming with WotLK (or heck, even just Sunwell) aren't all that world-turning. So what is really making things take so long?

Could it be business reasons? Seriously, there's business reasons to hold things out, and having missed Holiday 2007 season, they could have just decided to add an entire year. If you look at their history, they're not exactly "launch when it's ready" type folks. They're more like picking-a-great-market-window with a +/- of a few weeks. We often don't know what that market window is, but they need to at least a few months prior. You don't go from GM build to on-shelf overnight.

Could it also be the CGI movie? Seems the wrong reason to hold back an expansion, but given the fairly public perception that the BC movie was not as good as the launch one, they might be unwilling to having a less-than-perfect WotLK one. At this point, anything that puts a kink in the "we're for the gamers first and only" armor is a weakspot for competitors to exploit. And at this point, they can't afford to be glacial and late and not awesome, otherwise it wouldn't have been worth the wait.

Probably just overthinking it again.

I think it has everything to do with something in their production pipelines. Something just doesn't click for the amount of money they make. In a vacuum, sure, fast frequent and bug free may be too much to ask. But for their budget? Come on. It's only when taken in light of the amount of money they have that it sometimes gets frustrating.

[Falwell]

I also dig what they're doing with the T6 gear for the transition to SW from BT.

Basically they've added in boots, bracers and belt into the T6 set bringing it up to an 8 piece setup. The kicker is, no new set bonuses. Reason?

So you can still get the T6 set bonuses via the new 3 pieces +1 and also get the benefits of the ridiculously nasty T6.5 coming out of SW. I hope this trend continues into WotLK.

Well, for some classes, the off-set legs/hat from BT/Hyjal are actually vastly superior to the t6. I am sure as soon as the belt drops, all of our tanks will go with the offset hat/legs and still keep 4pc.

I find the hunter itemization on those very odd. Hunter t6 has almost no hit on it, and the only way hunters can get close to the hit cap while wearing t6 is by wearing items with hit in the non-set slots. They did not put a single ounce of hit on those new t6 pieces.

It's directly opposite for a holy Paladin. The T6 set bonuses are spectacular, and being able to have those along with the new Sunwell gear is just tasty.

[Ironwood]

I know that they won't. However, I know that when I was involved in, ah, more serious software, we did. The real vertex missing from the production triangle is COST. When you want something done fast and done well, you pay more, whether that be by employing better staff, employing more of them, working them longer hours for greater compensation, providing them with better resources to do the job quickly and well, or a combination of these and other factors. Its silly to say that something cannot be done well, fast and free of bugs. It can, but it will cost more. Blizzard are saving their money. Unfortunately, its likely to be mostly for paying shareholders of Vivendi or financing their idiotic losses elsewhere rather than the fannish hope that they're plowing it into the next great game. Most modern businesses are shit, and Blizzard is part of a spectacularly shit one.

Um.


Yes ?

[Chenghiz]

Well, you know, the Lich King and Naxx are pretty closely linked, lore-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if it was involved somehow.

Speaking of Lore and Nax:  I got into Durnhold early the other day and decided to visit Southshore and check out the Ashbringer discussion again while waiting for my group.  I was surprised to see Kel'thuzad walking up the path towards me.   CoT is such a nifty way to introduce lore into the game for the folks who don't know it.  They need to do a lot more with it.

Check out Southshore's inn sometime in OHB.

[Hutch]

2.4 is on the PTR

[Chimpy]

2.4 is on the PTR

Ya, and thanks to Blizzard STILL refusing to move the PTR onto it's own hardware, the Reckoning battlegroup goes to total shit (last night the servers were up but for an hour everyone got "Error loading character list" messages when logging in) because they apparently are on the same hardware.

[Montague]

2.4 is on the PTR

According to a post by Neth on the general boards, that's probably just the beginning. There's a whole round of class-balancing crap that may (or may not) go up. This patch may be on the PTR for a while.

[MrHat]

Ya, WotLK is basically confirmed for after the summer time (demo @ the blizzard invitational).  2.4 is probably good till like end of march.

[Paelos]

Ya, WotLK is basically confirmed for after the summer time (demo @ the blizzard invitational).  2.4 is probably good till like end of march.

I'd guess 2 months, so April.

[Falwell]

Ya, WotLK is basically confirmed for after the summer time (demo @ the blizzard invitational).  2.4 is probably good till like end of march.

I'd guess 2 months, so April.

Probably about right. 2.4 in early to mid April. That would put WotLK roughly due in July. That makes it actually hit retail in October. It was 15 months from the announcement of TBC to launch, so basically the same for WotLK.

[Jayce]

2.4 is on the PTR

Ya, and thanks to Blizzard STILL refusing to move the PTR onto it's own hardware, the Reckoning battlegroup goes to total shit (last night the servers were up but for an hour everyone got "Error loading character list" messages when logging in) because they apparently are on the same hardware.

I was getting that too last night, and I'm not in the Reckoning battlegroup.

Also - for all you people throwing around the triangle thing - Righ is correct:  "good" and "bug free" are part of the same corner of the pyramid.  It goes "fast, good or cheap - pick one".  And it's a continuum - you can have sort of cheap and sort of fast.  Keep in mind that there is a hard limit on fast though.  You can't bring nine women together and have a baby in a month.

[pants]

You can't bring nine women together and have a baby in a month.

Thanks Mr. Brooks  

[Paelos]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

[Fraeg]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

holding back content? or stockpiling tokens instead of upgrading now?

[Chimpy]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

There won't be large amounts of badge awards, probably a few odd spell haste pieces or items for classes/specs that were not available in the 2.3 batch. I say this simply because Blizzard said like 3 weeks ago that they "had no plans to add more Badge rewards".

[Paelos]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

There won't be large amounts of badge awards, probably a few odd spell haste pieces or items for classes/specs that were not available in the 2.3 batch. I say this simply because Blizzard said like 3 weeks ago that they "had no plans to add more Badge rewards".

Uh, what? You can buy vortexes now for badge rewards. In fact I'm fairly sure they said they WOULD have more rewards. Hell, it's in the first post.

[Fordel]

They haven't unlocked enough of the Shattered Sun Offensive for the badge vendors to show up is my understanding. Probably another week or two till we see what they have.






Druids got a big fat nerf on their 4 piece PVP sets. No more Run speed bonus. 

[Simond]

Druids got a big fat nerf on their 4 piece PVP sets. No more Run speed bonus. 

Don't you mean  ?

[Chimpy]

Uh, what? You can buy vortexes now for badge rewards. In fact I'm fairly sure they said they WOULD have more rewards. Hell, it's in the first post.

I was not saying there would be none, but to expect as much stuff added to the badge vendors as was in 2.3 is pretty crazy. And the vortices on the badge vendor may only be for the test server so people can craft vortex stuff to test (if they added patterns that require vortices).

[Fraeg]

They haven't unlocked enough of the Shattered Sun Offensive for the badge vendors to show up is my understanding. Probably another week or two till we see what they have.






Druids got a big fat nerf on their 4 piece PVP sets. No more Run speed bonus. 

fuck me.  we have had that bonus on all the pvp sets in some form or another for what 2 years? and now suddenly it is time to take it away? 

that is one huge nerf

[Valmorian]

Don't Druids have a travel form anyway?

[Dren]

Don't Druids have a travel form anyway?

Yes, and I believe this stacked onto it.  This is the main reason flag runners are typically druids.

They still will be.  They just won't be as uber.

[Paelos]

Don't Druids have a travel form anyway?

Yes, and I believe this stacked onto it.  This is the main reason flag runners are typically druids.

They still will be.  They just won't be as uber.

The rest of the populace who has ever tried to hunt down the shifting druid as it sheds slows like hair thinks this was probably needed. Hell, I'd say they did the wrong thing, letting druids shift out of debuffs was the problem.

[Fordel]

That is the primary reason why the bonus was so awesome. Bonus + Travel + BootEnchant worked out to roughly ghetto mount speed. It's night and day in terms of survivability for a druid and that bonus. It 'just' lets you out range casts/charges, lets you just pull ahead of a warrior so it can't chain hamstring etc...


The SpeedBonus + Old Drinking is why druids are so dominant in 2v2 brackets. Unless you were a shadow step rogue, you had little chance of actually catching a druid to kill. Those two changes will bring druids way way down in the 2v2 brackets again, most of the FoTM druid+warrior teams will have issues.



Now while I like the new balance set bonus (Wrath gives a chance to decrease starfires cast time by 1.5), the new resto bonus is a cruel joke. .25 cast off of Healing Touch. HT is 3.5 without talents, 3.0 with talents that pvp druids dont have the points to take. Its just WAY to fucking slow for a pvp heal in almost every situation.

[Chenghiz]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

Goof around in ZA, it's a fun instance.

[Paelos]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

Goof around in ZA, it's a fun instance.

I have, it's really not.

[Trouble]

For the uninform, http://www.mmo-champion.com/ has a list of everything new that's been discovered. The badge loot was datamined yesterday and is on there. It has the ilevel of tier 6 but most of the stuff has an inefficient allocation of stats so it's not as good as BT/Hyjal loot.

Also Sunwell loot is on there, which also includes crafted goodies. It follows the same layout of previous tiers of crafted loot. For armor, chests are BoE patterns that produce BoE items. Gloves are BoP patterns that produce BoE items and require Sunmotes to crafted (Sunmote is the Sunwell version of heart of darkness). For jewelcrafters there's BoE neck patterns that produce BoP necks and BoE rings. A lot of that gear is AMAAZZZINNNG like way better than tier 6 quality. The dps caster tailoring chest is light years beyond anything else.

Also tier 6 has been expanded by 3 pieces. Belts, boots, bracers drop in Sunwell. There's no new set bonuses though, it's just to allow you to upgrade to the many offset pieces in Sunwell which are amazing. It's quite crazy, they've managed to pack a ridiculous amount of loot into 6 bosses. A whole tier's worth basically.

[SurfD]

the disgusting part about the new pieces of tier 6 is that if your Tier 5 / season 3 four piece set bonus is hot, you can now swing dual 4 piece set bonuses

[Chenghiz]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

Goof around in ZA, it's a fun instance.

I have, it's really not.

Didn't you dislike Karazhan too? What is your definition of fun?

[Paelos]

Soooooo, when do we think the badge rewards are going to come out? Because I'd like to know if pounding kara over and over is the right idea instead of goofing around in ZA. I'm sure it will be, but this holding back bullshit is really quite ridiculous.

Goof around in ZA, it's a fun instance.

I have, it's really not.

Didn't you dislike Karazhan too? What is your definition of fun?

Things that don't involve annoying trash followed by bosses that are insanely difficult to kill when you want the loot as an actual upgrade. Oh, and 10 mans shouldn't take days. They should take 4 hours max. Now tell me I need to Learn2Play, and that you smoked ZA in 2 hours with blues.

[Calantus]

Kara has been nerfed thoroughly from the days you learnt it Paelos. It's now a piece of piss. Really, there are non-heroic 5mans that I found more challenging as a priest in PVP gear.

[Paelos]

Kara has been nerfed thoroughly from the days you learnt it Paelos. It's now a piece of piss. Really, there are non-heroic 5mans that I found more challenging as a priest in PVP gear.

Yeah...

I ran Kara in 4 hours the other day on a full clear. I wasn't saying Kara is hard now. It was hard and horribly annoying when it first came out. Just like ZA is hard and horribly annoying now. Seriousy, TWO gauntlets? Whoever came up with the dragonhawk trash should be kicked in the nuts by every player that's ever wiped because a scout spawned behind them.

[Fabricated]

Kara has been nerfed thoroughly from the days you learnt it Paelos. It's now a piece of piss. Really, there are non-heroic 5mans that I found more challenging as a priest in PVP gear.

It's a piece of piss if you're going in with people in scads of new badge gear and crafted/welfare epics. It eats a bag of dicks the instant you ran smack into Aran without the necessary classes or overgeared DPS. Which is weird since Illhoof/Netherspite aren't too bad, and there are some semi-reliable safe spots for Prince.

[Chenghiz]

I agree the dragonhawk trash is dumb but by and large it's a fun and cool instance, and I can't even imagine taking 2 days to do through it. To be fair, I did it with a raid leader who knew the stuff already but it wasn't nearly as time consuming as Kara. I'm not mocking your ability as a player, I just wonder at your constant insistence that the raids are shit and not fun, and the fact that you continue to do them.