Websites putting a fuckton of WOTLK articles up.

[SurfD]

The concept of multiple size tunings of zones is interesting, but I wonder how they will tune Naxx down to 10 man scale?

It is already going to be an entirely different mechanical zone as 25 man (hello 4 horsemen).

No, not really.

We went back to naxx for kicks (and to finish off a guidie's Atiesh) a while back and pretty much steamrolled the place with about 28 level 70 people, 4 horsemen included.  I dont imagine it would take that much effort to re tune the place to account for 15 less persons.

10 person Naxx on the other hand, that would be pretty wierd.  I imagine the 4 horsemen will come at you in phases or something (2 at a time on a timer maybe?)

[Tannhauser]

Jesus Christ, finally I can see all of the content I pay for.  No keys? No attunement?  Be still my casual-gamer heart!  10 man raids for the win.  I am guardedly optimistic.

[WindupAtheist]

With everyone being able to make a free level 55 tank/DPS class on any server they like, I imagine healers will be at more of a premium than ever.  /random

[Zetor]

At level 70, healers aren't really that rare [for pug instances that is]... but there IS a lack of tanks, the influx of eleventy billion gnome death knights [kek] will hopefully help with that.

I'm sticking with my resto shaman though, it's pure for instance and pvp healing (not that good in arenas, but eh).


-- Z.

[Chimpy]

The concept of multiple size tunings of zones is interesting, but I wonder how they will tune Naxx down to 10 man scale?

It is already going to be an entirely different mechanical zone as 25 man (hello 4 horsemen).

No, not really.

We went back to naxx for kicks (and to finish off a guidie's Atiesh) a while back and pretty much steamrolled the place with about 28 level 70 people, 4 horsemen included.  I dont imagine it would take that much effort to re tune the place to account for 15 less persons.

10 person Naxx on the other hand, that would be pretty wierd.  I imagine the 4 horsemen will come at you in phases or something (2 at a time on a timer maybe?)

Doing a lvl 60 tuned zone (which was tuned for no hot stacking, no one but tanks breaking 10k health even when fully buffed/geared for stam out) with 25 level 70s is entirely different than doing a zone that is tuned to the max level.

Not to say it won't be doable, but a lot of things will have to be mechanically changed to make them challenging at 80.

I could see them being able to do it as 25 man, but several of the fights would have to have their entire concept (and why people liked the fights or hated them depending on outlook) changed to fit into a 10 man model. Noth, Gothik, Instructor, 4h, Faerlina all required a lot of off tanking/splitting of the raid.

[Gobbeldygook]

Whether any of those death knights actually tank depends on two factors:

A. Do they have CC?  If they have a sheep, sap, freeze trap, etc quality CC, they'll mostly go DPS and never bother to tank since they can get groups fine as CC.

B. Is their tank tree as versatile as the Feral tree?  That is, can they DPS just by switching their gear set and runes?  If yes, many will be available for tanking.

---

They could preserve the challenge of four horsemen by making the 10-man version a 3 tank fight.  Most groups would get through it by bringing two 'real' tanks, plus a DPSer that can throw on their tank set (e.g. fury warrior).

[Simond]

That's where they got mouthy with their "fix this or we're fucking quitting, asshats" and folks only saw them as bitchy elitists

That's all Furor and Fires of Heaven. I don't remember Tigole or his guild Legacy of Steel doing that. LoS was well-known because it achieved some firsts and was definitely an uberguild, but it wasn't quite up there with Fires of Heaven and Afterlife (led by Thott, of Thottbot fame), which also had a hissy fit over content.

The names "Tigole and Furor" only started being used near each other when Blizzard hired both of them (Tigole as a key member of the WoW team, Furor in a lesser quest design role).

Legacy of Steel had a bunch of Blizzard people in it, including Rob Pardo iirc. Hence why they got "EQ but better".

[Mrbloodworth]

If i'm not mistaken, with the upcoming expansion, LOTRO will have 3, 5, and 24 man raids/instances, ETC...

[Gobbeldygook]

>Eurogamer< has a new interview up.  There's some good info in there, but all of it's meaningless.  No, the reason I linked this article is that it contains the greatest riposte by an interview subject.  Ever.

Eurogamer: Which aspect of the game is going to be moved furthest forward by Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: [Mimes pumping shotgun] Chk-chk, loaded question.

[Simond]

Eurogamer: Some of Wrath of the Lich King seems almost like a greatest hits compilation of original WOW...

It's be more accurate if the interviewer had said "greatest hits compilation of Velious" 

[Tarami]

They've come up with some insane quest things that are absolutely amazing. No-one would have predicted that the bombing missions would be as popular as they were in Burning Crusade, and they've outdone themselves.

Now, I know there's a general opinion that BC got better quests than the original, but I never got that feeling during the 7 levels of BC I played. They were, from an advancement perspective, smoother, but the actual execution was horribly bland. They felt very artificial in their difficulty/geographical distribution. They did nothing for me as an explory type, while the original ones made me travel and look around way more. But I'm repeating myself. I just hope WotLK is better in this regard.

[Tale]

>Eurogamer< has a new interview up.  There's some good info in there, but all of it's meaningless.  No, the reason I linked this article is that it contains the greatest riposte by an interview subject.  Ever.

Eurogamer: Which aspect of the game is going to be moved furthest forward by Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: [Mimes pumping shotgun] Chk-chk, loaded question.

Actually that was an awesome interview, especially Tigole saying exactly what I thought about Burning Crusade (he also talks a bit about his EQ1 days):

Jeff Kaplan: But I think Burning Crusade was way too hardcore out of the gate, at the lower raiding tiers. Even the entry-level 25-person raid, Magtheridon, was way too difficult. I'd like to have the 10 and 25 both start off very accessible and understandable, so that players of any skill level who had hit max level would be able to have success, and then progress from there.

Eurogamer: So it becomes more about player skill than social organisation, in terms of moving through the game.

Jeff Kaplan: Later on, much later on. That's the thing - we didn't have any curve in Burning Crusade. We just had: "OK, welcome to level 70, here's a brick wall. Maybe you can climb it." Some players did and some players didn't. I'd rather have players start experiencing raiding and then decide for themselves if they want to keep progressing through it.

[Fabricated]

What's really funny is that in the rant the guild leader of Death and Taxes posted on his guild breaking up basically complained about all of BC being too easy despite also complaining about 'cockblocks' and of course the cursed "casualization" of the game. He said that Sunwell was great and a good replacement for Naxx (another ridiculous wankfest for people who are way too hardcore for a videogame) but the rest wasn't any good.

[Fordel]

They've come up with some insane quest things that are absolutely amazing. No-one would have predicted that the bombing missions would be as popular as they were in Burning Crusade, and they've outdone themselves.

Now, I know there's a general opinion that BC got better quests than the original, but I never got that feeling during the 7 levels of BC I played. They were, from an advancement perspective, smoother, but the actual execution was horribly bland. They felt very artificial in their difficulty/geographical distribution. They did nothing for me as an explory type, while the original ones made me travel and look around way more. But I'm repeating myself. I just hope WotLK is better in this regard.

Did you play Horde or Alliance? I've always gotten the impression the Horde quests were far more interesting the the Alliance ones. You can still hear Thrall shouting in Nagrand every other day :)


This is one thing I am surprised by though, that Blizz hasn't put in a 'badge' system, like CoH or LoTRO. People love them some badges, will go to RIDICULOUS lengths to unlock them. Seems like a sure fire way to enthrall another chunk of players to WoW.

[Simond]

They've come up with some insane quest things that are absolutely amazing. No-one would have predicted that the bombing missions would be as popular as they were in Burning Crusade, and they've outdone themselves.

Now, I know there's a general opinion that BC got better quests than the original, but I never got that feeling during the 7 levels of BC I played. They were, from an advancement perspective, smoother, but the actual execution was horribly bland. They felt very artificial in their difficulty/geographical distribution. They did nothing for me as an explory type, while the original ones made me travel and look around way more. But I'm repeating myself. I just hope WotLK is better in this regard.

Quests that exploreres enjoy just push everyone else over to the IGE database sites, so I'm thinking you won't see too many "Go look for random_npc_234...somewhere north of here" in WotLK either.

[Tarami]

Did you play Horde or Alliance? I've always gotten the impression the Horde quests were far more interesting the the Alliance ones. You can still hear Thrall shouting in Nagrand every other day :)

This is one thing I am surprised by though, that Blizz hasn't put in a 'badge' system, like CoH or LoTRO. People love them some badges, will go to RIDICULOUS lengths to unlock them. Seems like a sure fire way to enthrall another chunk of players to WoW.

I did play Alliance, I don't know if that is what's at fault. Perhaps. :)

By badge system, you mean things like titles/customisation fluff? I recall seeing threads on the WoW boards around LotRO's release where the OP suggested having titles for WoW too, but from the replies it seemed like the consensus was "meh, pointless".

I think WoW's playerbase, content-starved as they are, see things like that as something very mutually exclusive. You get a badge system, which means you can't get that new five-man instance - and so on. Doing both isn't an option, it's something Blizzard themselves have convinced their players of.

[Typhon]

A sub-set of CoX badges are of the "explorer" type.  You need to find plaques or little stones in the game, clicking on the plaque or moving over the stone credits you for having found that plaque/stone.  The stones trigger immediately, the plaques require you to see all of a set before you get full credit for the badge.

If you collect a whole set of badges, you can get some minor permanent enhancements.

[stray]

If you collect a whole set of badges, you can get some minor permanent enhancements.

.... and then it stops becoming a "subset of the explorer type". 

[Xanthippe]

If you collect a whole set of badges, you can get some minor permanent enhancements.

.... and then it stops becoming a "subset of the explorer type". 

I'm going to have to go look these up so I can race my way to the enhancements!

[Tarami]

.... and then it stops becoming a "subset of the explorer type". 

Touché.

[Merusk]

If you collect a whole set of badges, you can get some minor permanent enhancements.

.... and then it stops becoming a "subset of the explorer type". 

I'm going to have to go look these up so I can race my way to the enhancements!

Were the enhancements added later? I don't remember getting enhancements for badges when I played, back when the badges were first added. 

[Typhon]

I remember the archmage badge from shortly after they implemented badges (probably release immediately after they first appeared) - but my old brain should be considered suspect.

Here's a site that lists them - Batches, we need da stinkin batches!

[Glazius]

Were the enhancements added later? I don't remember getting enhancements for badges when I played, back when the badges were first added. 

Actually, they're "accolade powers".

Blueside and Redside.

Some of them are small boosts to your health and endurance total, others are every-30-minutes activatable stuff: a freeze ray, a Wall Mode power (high resistance and defense, no recharge or accuracy), a Berserker Mode power (high recovery, recharge, and accuracy, low defense), and a power boost (better buffs, more duration on status effects). Also a portable crafting station linked to the crafting badges.

[justdave]

And acolade powers are truly not that useful to anyone. Grind2minmax matters when a game -has- an endgame. 

[lamaros]

I'm not keen on the suggested "no 10-man raids till a 25 man group has done it" solution. Considering the people I will likely play it with it means I'd be waiting on someone else because I'm allowed to progress.

Hopefully they can come up with a better way.

The stuff about Heroics being completely itemised and even having new areas/bosses etc not included in the normal modes sounds good to me too. The most stuff like Shatt Halls, 45min Strath, BRD events, etc the more genuine fun content there will be in the game.

[Simond]

leet alpha infoz.
New title theme is  , talents & spells are also  (and probably fake  ).

[Gobbeldygook]

leet alpha infoz.
New title theme is  , talents & spells are also  (and probably fake  ).

New talent/spells are legit, although obviously this is alpha and subject to change etc.  The alpha client was briefly downloadable by the public, so now people are datamining it.

I like how step 1 of the alpha is 'overpower the fuck out of warlocks in pvp'.

[WindupAtheist]

The big ugly wood-and-steel weapons fill me with joy after all that fucking stupid pink crystal TBC shit.

[Paelos]

The big ugly wood-and-steel weapons fill me with joy after all that fucking stupid pink crystal TBC shit.

Ugh, it was like purple threw up everywhere in that expansion.

[Simond]

More talent info: HERE.
Deathknight looks more and more - corpse explosion? Yes please.

[Dren]

Deathknight is looking more and more like a class that thrives on mass destruction.  My guess is that they will really shine in fights that involve high numbers of mobs.  I'm not sure how their agro management will be handled though.  With all that AOE DD and DOTs, corpse explosions, bust cold damage, etc. how are they not going to have every mob in a given area on them throughout a battle?

I know none of this will be known until they launch some testing, but it looks like groups will consist of one Deathknight and the rest are healers and cc.....for the Deathknight.

The reality will be, of course, everyone will be a Deathknight.

[Merusk]

Deathknight is looking more and more like a class that thrives on mass destruction.  My guess is that they will really shine in fights that involve high numbers of mobs.  I'm not sure how their agro management will be handled though.  With all that AOE DD and DOTs, corpse explosions, bust cold damage, etc. how are they not going to have every mob in a given area on them throughout a battle?

They're supposed to, they're tanks.  Their DPS survivability will be much like Fury warriors for PVE.. back off or be a stain on the floor because no sane healer will waste mana on you.

[Chimpy]

Hey look! Hunters are not listed at all again.

Maybe they will actually delete the class and give me a refund this time like I was hoping for last time.

[Polysorbate80]

Could be worse...the one Paladin talent listed is basically "Throw yourself on a grenade"

[Fordel]

Hey look! Hunters are not listed at all again.

Maybe they will actually delete the class and give me a refund this time like I was hoping for last time.

I hope they do, it would instantly balance the Alliance/Horde PvE population ratios 



The abilities stink of fake to me, if only for this line:

Titan's Grip - Allows you to equip two-handed axes, maces and swords in one hand, but you attack 28/26/24/22/20% slower then normal (fury)


I could swear they already used this fake patch note!