Cataclysm

[Fordel]

The Beta had some customization of the built in power aura, then it went away and is just a toggle, then it came back for a bit, then away again.


I'm assuming there will be a few more options to customize it eventually.

[Sjofn]

The last year or so suggests the new guy on the armour team is almost certainly colourblind for a start.

Please, the colorblind guy has been working for Blizzard since release.

[Mattemeo]

On demon names, I always kind of felt like the names you had no control over gave them a little more specific personality in a way. It isn't a pet, it is something that would just as soon eat you if you weren't forcing it to your will or whatever, and it certainly won't stand for being called Scruffles.

That would be an awesome implementation.  Give your pet a crappy name and it aggros you!

I would be perfectly fine with this. As I said, I'm aware of the theoretical reasons why they're not player-nameable. I'm chiefly for Warlocks being able to name their pets because I'm tired of running into the same demon name slaved to a different player all the time. I seriously see about 12 'Gribslxax's every time I log in. Never been able to stick to the class so it's not a personal bug-bear or anything.

[Mattemeo]

The last year or so suggests the new guy on the armour team is almost certainly colourblind for a start.

Please, the colorblind guy has been working for Blizzard since release.

It's never been like this bad, though. I mean... just look at everything Troll Druid-form related. Every glowing eye now appears to be powered by some sort of super-saturated rainbow radiation. Every recent teir set has at least one variation with just the right ammount of green, blue and purple components to make you projectile vomit your own eyes. Two to three sets if you're unlucky enough to be a cloth caster.

[Fordel]

Did you just forget about the entirety of Anjihin quinner in vanilla or whatever its called? Sithilus raid shit.

[Sheepherder]

Power Auras vs Default UI: massive gameplay difference.

I'd actually prefer some distinct sound effects, I've always found them to be a better cue.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Power Auras vs Default UI: massive gameplay difference.

I'd actually prefer some distinct sound effects, I've always found them to be a better cue.

The power auras mod actually lets you use sound effects with a graphic or without a graphic. I had the wicked witch laugh for my warr's slam proc.

[Sjofn]

The last year or so suggests the new guy on the armour team is almost certainly colourblind for a start.

Please, the colorblind guy has been working for Blizzard since release.

It's never been like this bad, though. I mean... just look at everything Troll Druid-form related. Every glowing eye now appears to be powered by some sort of super-saturated rainbow radiation. Every recent teir set has at least one variation with just the right ammount of green, blue and purple components to make you projectile vomit your own eyes. Two to three sets if you're unlucky enough to be a cloth caster.

Like Fordel said: You must've put the entire AQ period out of your mind. Orange and purple was extremely common to put together in vanilla. And if that doesn't convince you, TBC set the gold fucking standard in hideous with the Hellfire Clown Suit.

The druid forms are hideous, yes, but the armor is still better than it was in vanilla. By a fucking mile.

[Lakov_Sanite]

oh and T2 warrior....'nuff said.

[Mattemeo]

That's sort of what I'm getting at - yes. The old stuff was bad.

Shouldn't they know better by now? 

[Sjofn]

They DO know better now. I would take every single WotLK set (I would take that skeletor set too) over almost every single vanilla set.


EDIT: Also you originally said "it's never been this bad." Which it has been. 

[Fordel]

Really the new Tree of Life, I dig it except for the head, the head doesn't seem to fit the rest of the form.

[Chimpy]

People saying that the art department has only been colorblind in recent times never had to walk around looking like Barney the Purple Dinosaur Dragon.

[Morfiend]

They DO know better now. I would take every single WotLK set (I would take that skeletor set too) over almost every single vanilla set.

EDIT: Also you originally said "it's never been this bad." Which it has been. 

Bloodfang. Best set ever.

[kildorn]

They DO know better now. I would take every single WotLK set (I would take that skeletor set too) over almost every single vanilla set.


EDIT: Also you originally said "it's never been this bad." Which it has been. 

I agree. While I can bitch about the new priest set: it's very very pretty, just ... what the hell blizzard with the shoulders. But they always do that.

[Sjofn]

People saying that the art department has only been colorblind in recent times never had to walk around looking like Barney the Purple Dinosaur Dragon.

That is the exact set I think of when I bitch about vanilla.


EDIT: The rogue set of these new ones is the one I'm most wtf about. I think it's trying to look like an ethereal but it mostly looks like two different sets mooshed together to make one big WTF.

[K9]

I don't totally buy the notion that there have never been good-looking tier sets. Tier 8 for all classes looked really good I thought, as did Tier 5. Tier 6 was generally outstanding, and most of the Tier 3/7 models were awesome, although the Tier3 skins tend to be the better looking I feel. Tier 9 was a massive letdown, and Tier 1 tended to be a bit dull, as was Tier 4. Tier 10 has some great-looking sets (lock, shaman and DK are all great imo).

So overall not bad. There are definite stand-out sets, and priests and locks have probably had more good looking sets than bad, while other classes (paladins) have had a rough time with some of their sets. The Tier 11 sets are a bit blah, but generally they don't make the entry-level sets too flashy, or so they say.

[Paelos]

The T3/T7 warrior set still stands head and shoulders above all other iterations.

[Azazel]

I had a friend up in Edmonton get into a terrible wreck and, last I heard, didn't recover much of anything.  Her boyfriend prior to it was a complete stranger but trying to help her reorient to the world, and still trying to do everything he could for her even though it effectively turned them into nothing more than friends.  Probably the nicest guy I've ever met.

Good on you for helping as you can, WUA.

The amnesia was just the climax to a year and a half of lung cancer and associated problems, so I'm philosophical about the whole thing. Her being alive, back to work, and doing well is such an astronomical longshot in itself (we're talking low single-digit percentage here) that I just can't sweat details like having to make friends with her all over again.

And on the bright side, I now have an unassailable reason to keep playing even if the game pisses me off, and thus an ironclad license to rant about it!

 

Not to piss on your parade, but they're gong to change the topography pretty severely in 2 months, so she won't be able to remember /recognise much of anything after that... :/

[ezrast]

I think it's funny that people can still remember what armor sets from 2005 looked like. I can't tell you what my characters are wearing now, much less what they had on five years ago (well, they didn't exist five years ago, but you know). If I'm involved in my character's look, I'll remember it - I remember what vanity pets i keep out on all my characters - but WoW outfits are pure numbers to me.

I guess I'm the weird one?

[Shrike]

Remember? Hell, my warrior still HAS those armor sets from '05. Warrior mastery should be packrat.

That stuff took a lot of work to get. Not giving it up so easily...

[tmp]

Better yet, why don't they finally just let Warlocks choose their own names for the pets.

Maybe they're reluctant to see happy little bunches of warlocks with their pets: Thousand, Gold, one_usd, Website and .com running about. Bit harder to both put on ignore and to track them down through chat monitoring.

[Azazel]

Actually that change is because one of the most popular addons is power auras, which did exactly the same thing although it was much more customizable. It's an addon that was absolutely necessary for me when playing a mage or fury warr because my eyes simply were not on my buff bar so having something pop up in the middle of the screen is necessary.

Yeah, playing a trio of mage specs I constantly had to have one eye on my buff bar to see if I had one of the three different "instant cast proc is up NOW" icons flashing. Wasn't to bad for fire or arcane, well, except that I also had to have one eye on my HP, and one on the aggrometer, and one eye on the tank. For the frost mage, that damn icon just blended in with the rest of the procs there so I barely ever knw when it was up.

I welcome this change.

[Sheepherder]

Really the new Tree of Life, I dig it except for the head, the head doesn't seem to fit the rest of the form.

You know what they absolutely should do instead?

Keeper of the Grove / Dryad form.  With the requisite rigging for all armour/weapon attachment points except for legs and feet.  Including the one gnarly tree hand on the Keeper of the Grove if they can manage it, because it's pretty awesome.

[Nightblade]

They DO know better now. I would take every single WotLK set (I would take that skeletor set too) over almost every single vanilla set.

EDIT: Also you originally said "it's never been this bad." Which it has been. 

Bloodfang. Best set ever.

Bloodfang was definitely the best rogue set they made, too bad only 2/3 pieces were actually good.

[Shrike]

Yeah, playing a trio of mage specs I constantly had to have one eye on my buff bar to see if I had one of the three different "instant cast proc is up NOW" icons flashing. Wasn't to bad for fire or arcane, well, except that I also had to have one eye on my HP, and one on the aggrometer, and one eye on the tank. For the frost mage, that damn icon just blended in with the rest of the procs there so I barely ever knw when it was up.

They make an addon for that...several in fact.

Finally got SCT to work, sorta. I have a special hate for the native scrolling text. They really do need to add some ability to move the text around and put bloody spell school colors on it. Then you'd have native SCT and I wouldn't have rely on Grayhoof's slow ass to update this stuff.  Shock and Awe working, but occasional complaints popping up from what seems to be old LUA paths. Was supposedly fixed, but still getting one on startup.

Aside from those administrative quibbles, things are looking pretty good, shaman-wise. Still fiddling with the priorty queue. After a lackluster (though still not bad) run through heroic Culling, a few changes were implemented and a round on the dummies had some truly smokin' numbers popping up--even if the searing totem still couldn't be convinced to attack the dummy. It had no problem blasting a deer that wandered a bit too close into charcoal briquettes, however. Go figure.

Pulled aggro right and left in Culling, but 37% avoidance, 44% mitigation, shamanistic rage, and wolf-on-demand made even that pretty painless. Did need MW pumped GHW a few times. I think I was pissing the healer off, but I was having fun, so screw him. Interestingly, I have about the same hit points now that my DK has in dps gear. Kinda nice having hit points as a shaman for a change.

[Chimpy]

I don't totally buy the notion that there have never been good-looking tier sets. Tier 8 for all classes looked really good I thought, as did Tier 5. Tier 6 was generally outstanding, and most of the Tier 3/7 models were awesome, although the Tier3 skins tend to be the better looking I feel. Tier 9 was a massive letdown, and Tier 1 tended to be a bit dull, as was Tier 4. Tier 10 has some great-looking sets (lock, shaman and DK are all great imo).

So overall not bad. There are definite stand-out sets, and priests and locks have probably had more good looking sets than bad, while other classes (paladins) have had a rough time with some of their sets. The Tier 11 sets are a bit blah, but generally they don't make the entry-level sets too flashy, or so they say.

The sets I had various amounts of wearing/seeing in the years I played:

Hunter Tier 1: ridiculous shoulders that looked like unpainted car doors, a metal headband that made your eyes turn red, and "pants" that were shorts that showed off your lovely orc knees above your Uggs boots.
Hunter Tier 2: Barney with yellow accents.
Hunter AQ40: More big spikes, this time with an awesome pink glow! (which they removed)
Hunter Tier 3: Overall ok, but had a ridiculous helmet with 40 eyeballs and the cuffs on the boots and gloves were dumb. Only good looking hunter shoulders ever made.
Hunter Tier 4: Was overall pretty meh but nothing like the tier1 or 2 travesties, though the viking marauder helmet was a bit much.
Hunter Tier 5: Most ridiculously scaled shoulders ever. They were so wide they made it look like you were going to get stuck in every door, and the spikes were a bit much.
Hunter Tier 6: GIANT EYEBALLS OF RIDICULOUSNESS.
Hunter Tier 7: Tier 3 with bad colors and stupid extra spikes on the shoulders.

Now, the hunter was not always the worst of the sets in a given tier. But most, if not all, classes had at least 1 that was really cool during those 7 tiers. Hunters had 1 that was uninspiring in tier4 (which was a pretty bland tier overall) and 1 that was good if you turned helmets off and did not have an aversion to ridiculous floppy boot and glove cuffs in tier3.

And don't forget, we all spent the better part of Vanilla using a bow that was a green vine that had a flower pop out occasionally and came with a free staff of duct tape and broomsticks!

I have not seen anything past tier7 so I can't comment on those, but I am sure they are probably all equally as ridiculous.

[Sheepherder]

Hunter T8:

[Ratman_tf]

See, for example, I want my hunter to look at least in the neighborhood of a Ranger type.





Most all of the tier armor, to me, doesn't look like anything. Just a hodgepodge of skulls or eyeballs or banannas or spikes. Or, if you're really lucky, all of them at once. 

[Fordel]

One of the issues with Tier Armor, is each race has it's own art style as well as each class.


Like those leafy armors, those would work great on the Elves, but on say Orcs? Dwarves?



Which isn't to excuse how terrible some (most) tier armor looks, but it is tricky to nail down all the class/race themes together.

[Merusk]

Except orcs would look ridiculous in all that leafy shit.  Plus, they're hunters, not rangers.  The class theme isn't about a bond with nature, and a sensitive but lonely soul blah blah blah like D&D. It's about tracking down then killing things.. more mountain man less Drizzt.  The armors should have a lot more fur and skin themes to it.  

T1 was my favorite hunter set, but I also played a female elf hunter so it looked good on her.  I agree it looked ridiculous on everyone else. Dragonstalker was a good step but was the wrong fucking color.  The recolor mods that made it red or black were much better than the art department's choice of purple.   Too bad they lost the way after that and all of the sets started going with a spike theme rather than looking like you'd gutted whatever creature the set was named after and wore it like a hat.  (Which is why the Gronnstalker eyeballs never bothered me like some people.)

[apocrypha]

Really the new Tree of Life, I dig it except for the head, the head doesn't seem to fit the rest of the form.

My resto druid doesn't seem to have the new ToL form, he still turns into the old one! What have I done wrong? 

Finally got SCT to work, sorta. I have a special hate for the native scrolling text. They really do need to add some ability to move the text around and put bloody spell school colors on it. Then you'd have native SCT and I wouldn't have rely on Grayhoof's slow ass to update this stuff.

Have you tried Mik's Scrolling Battle Text? Working fine in 4.0.1 and more configurable than SCT I find.

[Paelos]

Hunter T8:

That looks like a warrior set, no a hunter. WTF do you need all that armor for when you're plinking shit at range?

[Mrbloodworth]

Better yet, why don't they finally just let Warlocks choose their own names for the pets.

Yes, yes, I'm fully aware of the whole 'to control a demon, first you must know its true name' issue; who's to say the demons I enslaved aren't called Ritalin, Blue Meany, Joizy Goil and Weed Whacker?

Demons are not pets, demons have names already.

[Paelos]

I logged in last night and dicked around killing things with the new warrior talents. There's really no huge differences that I can tell. The proc thing is cool when you get it on an insta-slam in fury, but it's a PITA when you get spam about executes. I get it, I can execute now. That happens all the time.