It's official, Blizzard is retarded.

[apocrypha]

Maybe they plan to add more hardware/address the technical issues/whatever but that it will take time and this is an interim flip-of-a-switch bandaid?

[Fordel]

This is assuming hardware would fix it. What happens if it's some kind of problem in the server code? I'm guessing that is far from trivial to tinker with.

[Gobbeldygook]

As an example of how fucked WG is right now, today on my server the Horde and the Alliance both won WG within 10 seconds of each other.  The Horde defended WG, we got the three-token payout.  It actually came down to the wire as the alliance had JUST broken the door.  So the alliance ran through and clicked the orb and then the Horde got an additional one-token loser payout and nerd raged over losing control of WG.

[SurfD]

I am pretty sure that the underlying problem with WG is simply that WoW (and most other MMO's) are simply not designed to support 200+ people crammed into the same tiny bit of zone realestate.  Especially with the amount of info it needs to be sending regarding spell effects and character positions and what gear everyone is wearing. 

During most WG fights on Tichondrious, the lag in WG is so bad that on my druid, i can cast Starfall, and not even have the damage to opposing players register in my combat log until the cooldown on the spell is almost up and ready to go again.  I am also lucky to be pushing >3 FPS anywhere near the Keep Itself with so many players and spell effects crammed into such a tiny space.

And every time WG starts, Southern Icecrown becomes a lagfest for 5 to 10 minutes.  Like, doing the jousting dailys down there and it takes 30 to 40 seconds for you clicking the Defend button on your mount to even register.

[Draegan]

You guy sounds like the same old burnouts that keep posting on every forum everywhere.  Wah Wah, MMOGs are old, Wah Wah etc.  Take a break, play a console game, play some Empire: Total War.  Go outside.  Watch a movie.  You're allowed to do that.

[Delmania]

I never thought I would completely lose interest in WoW until something better came along.  I was wrong.  After 5 years WoW is tired.  MMO's are tired.  I'd rather beat off and nap.  Wake me up when MMO's aren't the same stupid derivative crap we've been lapping up since '97.

I'd have to agree with this.  I've been thinking recently how the cinematic trailer for Wrath was epic.  To bad this translated into "kill 10 fozzles".  Trailers need to have a disclaimer: "trailer does not reflect gameplay."

[kildorn]

As an example of how fucked WG is right now, today on my server the Horde and the Alliance both won WG within 10 seconds of each other.  The Horde defended WG, we got the three-token payout.  It actually came down to the wire as the alliance had JUST broken the door.  So the alliance ran through and clicked the orb and then the Horde got an additional one-token loser payout and nerd raged over losing control of WG.

It's been like that for a long while. I've been in a few where everyone got 4 tokens, honor for a win and a loss, and zone control was seemingly random.

[Modern Angel]

You guy sounds like the same old burnouts that keep posting on every forum everywhere.  Wah Wah, MMOGs are old, Wah Wah etc.  Take a break, play a console game, play some Empire: Total War.  Go outside.  Watch a movie.  You're allowed to do that.

Oh, I totally do. I log in for Ulduar because that part of the game is fun. I haven't done a WG in two months now. But what I'm personally doing isn't germane to the I think by this point demonstrable fact that WoW now isn't the same top to bottom game WoW was a year or two ago. This WG thing is a piece but it's not the whole. They're losing a step here and there.

[Xanthippe]

This WG thing is a piece but it's not the whole. They're losing a step here and there.

Exactly. 

The Argent Tourney disappointed me greatly.  Noblegarden and Children's Week were both ill-conceived.  Every major step Blizzard has taken in the past 3 months has pretty much been a downer as far as I'm concerned. 

So I barely log in. 

I'm not angry or bitter, just uncaring to the point of not playing much.

[Yegolev]

I'm going to propose that instead of us fixing performance problems, we just restrict our clients' login times.  Surely this is how real companies do business.

[Musashi]

They can't fix population imbalance issues.  But, WG was a piece of shit from the word go.  Beating on a mage with 45,000 hit points isn't fun.  He's basically god.  I really don't get how this change puts you over the top.  Yea fewer honor dailies.  The new BG rapes for honor/hr.  Do a couple.

WG was never about pvp.  It's about the rise of the machines.  You kill them, or they kill you.  They're only kinda fun.  Pop imbalance on some servers basically means a guaranteed loss - offense/defense no matter.  We're operating on the assumption that it's the server population that fixes the imbalance on one side's favor more frequently.  While that obviously plays a role, it's only part of the problem.  The rest of the problem is that on servers where one side loses more often, people get discouraged from playing, thus making losing a self fulfilling prophecy for their side.  While I'm not sure this change will help, it might curb that a little.  So who knows.

But the Blizzard death of a thousand 'little mistake' cuts theory.  THAT's clownshoes.  You're too close.  Step away from the PC.  Your dog misses you.

[WindupAtheist]

It's not "death" you god damned nimrods, it's the observation that they're not as strong as they used to be, coupled with the realization that it's not likely to matter anytime soon since they have no competition. Ali after the Thrilla in Manilla. They're looking kinda fat between matches and their speech doesn't quite flow the way it used to, but even when they're off their game they'll still beat the hell out of everyone else currently out there.

[Rasix]

Such insight! 

[Paelos]

I log in for Ulduar now. There is absolutely no point for me to log in other than that. The problem with 3.1 so far is that they added one thing. The VoA thing was an added wing on an existing loot house. The tournament thing wasn't an addition at all imo, because it sucks. In all honesty, we should at least have another 5 man by now to spend time on, and a new dragon wing open in OS at the minimum.

But we don't. The first round of expansion content was demolished by a large amount of folks in March. Then we waited a month for one dungeon. So we run that dungeon. Note that we're exactly 6 months into this expansion, and there isn't even a whisper of when we'll actually get to fight the guy on the box. ZERO.

That's frustrating to me.

EDIT: It also bothers me because Blizzard released Black Temple faster than they released Ulduar.

[Ingmar]

After 5 years WoW is tired.

Since you're posting from the future, any stock tips you want to give out?

I think the talk here is a little overblown. There's already enough raid content right now that I don't have enough time to schedule everything my little guild still needs to do, and that's just raid content. I don't care for the Argent Tournament, but I know a fair number of people who like it fine.

As far as the "Illidan came out faster than Icecrown!" complaint, keep in mind that Blizzard considers Black Temple (and from what I've read, the entire TBC content release schedule to an extent) a mistake to some degree, one they had to patch by adding an extra raid *after* Illidan. They want Arthas to be in the Kil'Jaeden position this expansion, not the Illidan one, which seems sensible to me.

I will agree that the Wintergrasp change is a bad one. Even catassing WG 24/7 it takes a long damn time to get the honor for a full suit of PVP gear. If they're going to make this change they need to couple it with improved honor rewards from the BGs at a minimum.

[Modern Angel]

I did WG on MG earlier today just to see what the performance was like mid-day on a big server. So no critical mass of primetime players, no huge group of daily players... just standard pop and probably primetime pop on medium to low pop servers.

Any guesses as to how it went and how we might extrapolate that to the future, post change WG?

[kildorn]

New round of WG nerfs posted. ~50% reductions across the board to honor earned for events (towers, winning/losing)

[Fordel]

New round of WG nerfs posted. ~50% reductions across the board to honor earned for events (towers, winning/losing)

Wat. 


Mother fuckers.

[kildorn]

Lake Wintergrasp

    * Wintergrasp Victory now rewards 3000 Honor. (Down from 5000 Honor)
    * Wintergrasp Defeat now rewards 1250 Honor. (Down from 3000 Honor)
    * Tower Damaged now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Tower Destroyed now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Damaged Building Reward now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Intact Building Defender now grants up to 1500 Honor. (Down from 2500 Honor)

[Fordel]

Lake Wintergrasp

    * Wintergrasp Victory now rewards 3000 Honor. (Down from 5000 Honor)
    * Wintergrasp Defeat now rewards 1250 Honor. (Down from 3000 Honor)
    * Tower Damaged now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Tower Destroyed now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Damaged Building Reward now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
    * Intact Building Defender now grants up to 1500 Honor. (Down from 2500 Honor)

I'm shooting the messenger and blaming all of this on you Kild. You cunt. 

[Paelos]

This is stupid because it won't have the effect they want. Don't play smallball and take the incentives away. WG is a victim of it's own success.

[Fordel]

Look Ingmar, someone else dislikes smallball too!

[Ingmar]

Which part of "I agree that the Wintergrasp change is bad" did you misunderstand?

[Khaldun]

Has any game ever managed to handle 200-400 connections active in the same area engaged in a related activity? It just may not be possible no matter what the server code is or the hardware.

[Musashi]

This is stupid because it won't have the effect they want. Don't play smallball and take the incentives away. WG is a victim of it's own success.

Wut success?  It did suck, sucks, and will continue to suck.  Who cares.  Kaplan even admitted that shoehorning in siege weapons was a mistake.

If you want more than the regularly scheduled 'when they're done' updates every six months, you're gonna be a sad panda forever.  Might as well just set your mind on enjoying Ulduar, because as the rest of the market has proven, this is the only alternative.

I got my tier 8 BP last night.  Feels good man.

[kildorn]

Actually, WG is a lot of fun when it doesn't lag out.

[Ingmar]

The only 'bad' in WG besides the lag issues is ... teammates. Which of course, is an issue that will never be solved.

[Jack9]

On Tichondrius Northrend just crashes. Not every time, but once a day and more than once a day fri-sun is not uncommon. Also all your raids are fucked because ppl were dead outside or the instance dies with the server.

[Tannhauser]

This is stupid because it won't have the effect they want. Don't play smallball and take the incentives away. WG is a victim of it's own success.

Wut success?  It did suck, sucks, and will continue to suck.  Who cares.  Kaplan even admitted that shoehorning in siege weapons was a mistake.

If you want more than the regularly scheduled 'when they're done' updates every six months, you're gonna be a sad panda forever.  Might as well just set your mind on enjoying Ulduar, because as the rest of the market has proven, this is the only alternative.

I got my tier 8 BP last night.  Feels good man.

Not Blizzard's fault you can't quit their 'sucky' game.  Sorry about your 6 month wait for new content, LOTRO always has something in the pipeline.  So WoW is the only alternative?  I mean I love WoW but I unsubbed when I ran out of content.  I would do that to LOTRO but they add it faster than I can do it.

[Rasix]

LOTRO feels wrong.  Always will.  10 day trial couldn't keep me interested past zoning into Archet.

[WindupAtheist]

As has been said elsewhere, they really ought to just make WG go once every 60 or 90 minutes or something. Less people dropping what they're doing to get to WG, more people going "Eh, I'll catch the next one." In which case it would then make sense to nerf the honor a bit.

[Paelos]

If they did that, they would have to remove the PvE zone from there so it's not constantly turning over while you get your groups together. I'm actually in favor of that though, since I have never been a fan of putting pve in your pvp.

[WindupAtheist]

Or they make it so you can't leave the PVE instance the way you came in. You can only leave through a portal that dumps you back in Dalaran. Then you can spend the entire hour getting your group together, and it won't matter if it turns over while you're in there since you're not about to run back out into the relic chamber.

[dusematic]

At a certain point you've been to the puppet show and you've seen the strings.  MMO's are pure shit. The novelty has worn thin.  I'm just disappointed in myself that it took me this long to realize it. 

[Rasix]

Thx info.

edit: Decided on a shorter version.