Cataclysm

[Shrike]

Don't forget you can buy gems with both honor and tokens. This can cover the inevitable expense after 4.0 when everyone and both their dogs is regemming for the new stats. Not looking forward to this... 

[Azazel]

Meh, my existing gear will do me just fine through till Cata comes out and I start replacing it. All those spellpower+ gems should just automagically transform into int+ ones, I'm assuming (as opposed to FUCK YOU ALL YOUR GEMS NO LONGER WORK).

I see the game as being at the point of heirlooms, alt levels, mounts and titles to be the only things that will still be worth any kind of value inside just over a month, so my energy will go to that. And hey, if I'm lucky, the equipment and gear rejigging might drop my GS low enough to no longer qualify for HHOR, Pit of Sauron and the other ICC instance. 

[Shrike]

When shaman went from a STR based class to a halfway AGI based class, all our STR gems basically stayed STR gems and, yeah, we had to regem--at enormous expense. I look for a repeat performance, though to somewhat lesser degree.

[Azazel]

Well, given that they are saying that Int will replace spellpower, and the only thing I have gemmed besides SP is a bit of hit, sta and spi, I'm not too fussed.

[Ingmar]

The only real gotcha is going to be a few things change colors (dodge is yellow now for example, I think hit is now blue, int is red) so some socket bonuses or meta gems might break. SP gems are turning into int gems, MP5 gems are turning into spirit gems, AP gems are turning into agility gems, armor pen gems are turning into... crit gems I think? Not sure on that last one.

[Rendakor]

Yeah, I haven't looked at those or cared about them since the end of BC, where the only way for my playstyle to get upgrades was via PvP. Once the conversion comes in, I'll just cash what little of them I have left in for extra honor. Any idea how much the Heirloom PVP stuff will be? I can't access MMO-champion from work.

Good to hear about he Argent badges, I guess. I'll be able to do a week's worth of trial of the crusader till the patch kills the PUG game and then just do dailies, even post-80 to get my griff. :)

The PVP token (WSG, AV) conversion is in now, and has been since 3.3.

Edit:

Don't forget you can buy gems with both honor and tokens. This can cover the inevitable expense after 4.0 when everyone and both their dogs is regemming for the new stats. Not looking forward to this... 

As of 4.0.1 you will no longer be able to buy gems with honor. Not sure if they're still on the heroism (or whatever its called now) vendor, but the PVP guy is gone.

[SurfD]

As of 4.0.1 you will no longer be able to buy gems with honor. Not sure if they're still on the heroism (or whatever its called now) vendor, but the PVP guy is gone. [/quote]
Really?

Hmmm.  If that is true, then combined with the removal of the cooldown on Alchemist gem xmutes, Xmute spec alchemists may stand to make a killing immediately after the patch goes live.  Time to stock up on Frozen orbs and blue quality gems perhaps?

[Sky]

Is there a good summary for people like me who:

Played release for 8 weeks and then quit
Played burning region for 4 weeks and then quit
Played liche king for 4 weeks and then quit


Basically, I want to know if it's worth $40/mo for one month.

I think of WoW every now and again, and their pricing is what always turns me away. I only have vanilla, so I'd have to buy 3 expansions to play. A barrier to entry only conceivable by the market pwner. For the price of getting back into WoW, I can pretty much get Rift, TOR and GW2 :P

[Ingmar]

FWIW you will be able to go 1-60 in all the new old world content with just the old vanilla box.

[Rendakor]

I'm sure they'll put out a battle chest with Vanilla, BC and WotLK sometime in the near future; probably priced in the $40 range.

[Sky]

So...buy the new expansion for $40 and the two old ones for basically $20/ea? Or buy Rift and TOR :P Sorry, $80 buy-in is still a deal-breaker, especially since I wouldn't get a free month unless I started a new account, so $95 for a month!

That's one thing EQ2 does right - just buy the expansion and you get everything previous included. Oh, well. You'll all play WoW and I won't, same as ever :P Just chiming in with an outsider's opinion.

[Rasix]

So...buy the new expansion for $40 and the two old ones for basically $20/ea? Or buy Rift and TOR :P Sorry, $80 buy-in is still a deal-breaker, especially since I wouldn't get a free month unless I started a new account, so $95 for a month!

That's one thing EQ2 does right - just buy the expansion and you get everything previous included. Oh, well. You'll all play WoW and I won't, same as ever :P Just chiming in with an outsider's opinion.

Pretty sure initial box/account purchase comes with a free month.

[Ingmar]

You could also just buy nothing (well, a month of subscription I guess) and see how you like the new lower level stuff when it hits.

[Morfiend]

So...buy the new expansion for $40 and the two old ones for basically $20/ea? Or buy Rift and TOR :P Sorry, $80 buy-in is still a deal-breaker, especially since I wouldn't get a free month unless I started a new account, so $95 for a month!

That's one thing EQ2 does right - just buy the expansion and you get everything previous included. Oh, well. You'll all play WoW and I won't, same as ever :P Just chiming in with an outsider's opinion.

Pretty sure initial box/account purchase comes with a free month.

I believe each expansion comes with a free month, so its more like paying $5 for each expansion, as long as you plan to sub for 3+ months.

This might have changed.

[Simond]

Probably doesn't affect many people here, but hope nobody's in a big guild.

We will be introducing a new, hard cap of 600 members in a single guild for Cataclysm. This function will go live with patch 4.0.1 and is already live on the beta and PTR's.

As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.

The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.

The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.

And to clarify the weasel word, "members" means characters, not accounts.

[NiX]

I believe each expansion comes with a free month, so its more like paying $5 for each expansion, as long as you plan to sub for 3+ months.

This might have changed.

I'll be willing to buy in if that's true. Right now I'm in the same boat as Sky, it's looking way too expensive to get started with all the xpacs.

[Chimpy]

The idea that any guild would have problems with even the 500 member cap in this day and age boggles the mind.

[Ingmar]

Probably doesn't affect many people here, but hope nobody's in a big guild.

We will be introducing a new, hard cap of 600 members in a single guild for Cataclysm. This function will go live with patch 4.0.1 and is already live on the beta and PTR's.

As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.

The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.

The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.

And to clarify the weasel word, "members" means characters, not accounts.

It would have to be a *really goddamn big* guild for that to matter. 60 people with all 10 alt spots used is huge, and most guilds there are plenty of people who don't use all their character slots.

[Simond]

Like I said, it probably won't affect most people but it is fucking over some for no apparent reason other than "Programming guild UIs is unfair to some"
Like, say, Taint - the 5000+ strong LGBT guild on US-Proudmore.

[Ingmar]

"No apparent reason" could be any number of technical limitations, they don't really owe us an explanation of their database structure or what stresses the new guild functions place on their backend stuff.

[Merusk]

Tracking 5000 bits and shunting them into the same toggle at the same time shouldn't be a problem, right?

[Morfiend]

I guess we can expect like 50 different Goonsquads.

[Simond]

Goon Squad/Ye Olde Goon Squade/Goon Platoon/Goons/Gune Skwad/Gone Squid/Squon Gwad/etc.
What's going to be interesting to see is how many guilds out there are going to be caught unawares when this goes live next week.

[Threash]

No guild can possibly have 600 active members, even that gay and lesbian guild is probably full of people who never play.

[Soulflame]

Goon Squad probably does have 600+.

[Chimpy]

Goon Squad/Ye Olde Goon Squade/Goon Platoon/Goons/Gune Skwad/Gone Squid/Squon Gwad/etc.
What's going to be interesting to see is how many guilds out there are going to be caught unawares when this goes live next week.

How would being caught unawares by an INCREASE in guild size cause anything interesting?

[Ingmar]

Goon Squad/Ye Olde Goon Squade/Goon Platoon/Goons/Gune Skwad/Gone Squid/Squon Gwad/etc.
What's going to be interesting to see is how many guilds out there are going to be caught unawares when this goes live next week.

How would being caught unawares by an INCREASE in guild size cause anything interesting?

Right now it is a 'soft cap'. The UI breaks over 500 people but they can still be in the guild. They're going to a *hard* cap at 600 instead. I doubt this is likely to be a widespread issue but there are a few really large guilds out there who will have to cull the herd a bit.

[Chimpy]

I thought they had a "no more invites over 500" mechanism in place at WotLK release.

[Ingmar]

If that is the case then the blue post makes no sense to me.

[Lantyssa]

I'll be willing to buy in if that's true. Right now I'm in the same boat as Sky, it's looking way too expensive to get started with all the xpacs.

Y'all could also have someone try to send you a Scroll of Resurrection.  Not sure what the account limitations will be based on who's purchased what expansion, but if it works then you'd get to trial a few weeks.

[Rendakor]

I'd be willing to Scroll of Resurrect anyone who needs it. Just shoot me a PM if you need one.

To everyone who's saying large guilds are fucked, did you not read the blue post?

The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.

[Hawkbit]

My personal opinion is that the account limit on guilds should be small, but add alliance functionality in the game for those that want big groups.

Looking back at every guild I've been in, we've always had cliques.  Why not make the cliques the guilds and the other people that you like to be around your alliance?

[Register]

The key issue for me for Cataclysm is that all my 10 character slots on the server are filled. And mostly with 80s and 70s at that. 

There seems to be some talk back then about the possibility of more character slots with Cataclysm - maybe an option to purchase additional character slots, but are there any further updates on this matter?

[Simond]

No guild can possibly have 600 active members, even that gay and lesbian guild is probably full of people who never play.

Goon Squad US had ~900 active characters last month. Taint & AIE have between twice and three times that. And that's a quiet month in the pre-expansion dead time.

[Tannhauser]

Can someone with beta experience tell me
A.  Is the game harder to solo now?
B.  Are group instances harder now, such as you MUST mez a mob or be overwhelmed?

I love Wow, but if the instances are all srs bsns now then it'll be solo for me.  Wotlk dungeon finder instances were my preference.