Gnome and troll events have begun.

[Fordel]

We don't need to have that argument again because Ingmar lost it last time.

[Ingmar]

Eh, the closest I think I've ever come to supporting Blizzard's customization position is that I'd rather not be able to customize my armor than have to see people tanking PUG heroics in a lovely black dress, and that remains true. They could fix that pretty easily though.

I prefer to save my Blizzard-rage for things like what they're doing to Staghelm. 

[Sjofn]

The Staghelm thing makes me so mad. 

[Paelos]

He's an elf. They suck.

Fucking deal.

[pxib]

Eh, the closest I think I've ever come to supporting Blizzard's customization position is that I'd rather not be able to customize my armor than have to see people tanking PUG heroics in a lovely black dress, and that remains true. They could fix that pretty easily though.

Yeah, all they'd have to do is "you can wear any piece of that particular sort of armor you've ever found." Plate is plate, cloth is cloth, leather is leather. You'll still get the occasional jackass who dresses up in garish colors to look like a clown, but frankly he'd have a hard time competing with the folks leveling from 30-50 right this moment.

[Xuri]

Gnomeregan event is bugged to fuckery btw. High Tinker Twatatorque routinely just stops at the top of the tunnel into Gnomeregan and does nothing... for about 5 minutes and then it resets and loads of 80 elites spawn and kill everyone there, all of whom no longer have the LOLInvincible buff.

Waste of time, x100.

Had this happen to me just now. Apparently it bugs out if any players grab aggro from the waves of mobs that appear, before the gnome king does, or some such. There's at least a ton of "DON'T STAND IN FRONT OF THE KING! GET BACK!"-screaming going on. :P

[Sjofn]

Eh, the closest I think I've ever come to supporting Blizzard's customization position is that I'd rather not be able to customize my armor than have to see people tanking PUG heroics in a lovely black dress, and that remains true. They could fix that pretty easily though.

Yeah, all they'd have to do is "you can wear any piece of that particular sort of armor you've ever found." Plate is plate, cloth is cloth, leather is leather. You'll still get the occasional jackass who dresses up in garish colors to look like a clown, but frankly he'd have a hard time competing with the folks leveling from 30-50 right this moment.

Hey, don't sell the Outland levels short. I still have nightmares about what my priest was wearing on the way out of Hellfire. 

[Fordel]

Gnomeregan event is bugged to fuckery btw. High Tinker Twatatorque routinely just stops at the top of the tunnel into Gnomeregan and does nothing... for about 5 minutes and then it resets and loads of 80 elites spawn and kill everyone there, all of whom no longer have the LOLInvincible buff.

Waste of time, x100.

Had this happen to me just now. Apparently it bugs out if any players grab aggro from the waves of mobs that appear, before the gnome king does, or some such. There's at least a ton of "DON'T STAND IN FRONT OF THE KING! GET BACK!"-screaming going on. :P

All you need to do is make sure the King can see the big boss trogg. That is the event trigger for the next step. If idiots are keeping it inside the tunnel, taunt/grip/drag it to the king and/or dot it and run to the king to force him to the trogg.

[Azazel]

It is half they don't want people to ignore the new art and half we-want-people-to-be-able-to-visually-ID-someone's-awesomeness-level, I think.

Look, they've said many times in the past that they want people to be able to visually identify the class of players from a distance/silhouette. That's why all casters look the same now, as do pretty much all the other armour classes.
 

[Xeyi]

The most disappointing part of this event was the lack of phasing at the end.  At least on the horde side of things after completing this you can run to where the level 10 Zalazane once was and... he's still there, complete with his horde of hostile trolls.

I was expecting them to do it isle of quel'danas unlock style, where the whole faction would do daily quests to unlock part of the area at a time (along with more daily quests).  It may have been slightly grindy but I just think it would have worked better.

[Lantyssa]

Blizzard is still sticking to that silly line and probably pulled the one thing about it a lot of people were looking forward to?  That's a laugh.

EQ2 Extended lets you do appearance items from LEVEL ONE now.  You can even choose a different weapon and off-hand than what you're really using.

And it's free.

[Paelos]

EQ2 Extended lets you do appearance items from LEVEL ONE now.  You can even choose a different weapon and off-hand than what you're really using.

And it's free.

It's also failing miserably.

[Morat20]

It's also failing miserably.

Yes, but not because they let you customize appearances.

[Lantyssa]

Is it?  It's seemed packed to me.  And I've seen as many Cloud mounts as I ever saw Star Ponies.

[Merusk]

If only I still didn't feel EQ2 looked like ass in the Armor/ Equipment department.  The "everyone is a scaled humanoid" thing really shouldn't mean all armor looks like crap.

[Zetor]

People have different definitions for "failing miserably". Even though EQ2/COH/LOTRO/etc don't have anywhere near WOW subscriber levels by an order of magnitude or two, I'm sure they're generating an ok profit. Otherwise what'd be the point in maintaining them?

[Rendakor]

If they were making a sustainable profit, why would they be going F2P?

[WindupAtheist]

The thread in question for the "Hiding your cloak with an overcloak would be overpowered!" debacle:

Link

The blues have steadfastly refused to explain themselves or post again at all in the face of 50 pages of "WTF we can already hide our cloaks though!" but unsurprisingly there's several of those blue-posted "What's your favorite spell/class/whatever?" fluff threads they throw out there whenever they want to distract the plebes.

It would be swell if someone could post once in a while and keep it on the front page. Sadly however I got myself banned from the forums years ago for a bunch of "Look at this sweet PVP video! (Youtube link to fat guy in spandex shitting himself)" grief posts.

[Modern Angel]

If they were making a sustainable profit, why would they be going F2P?

Don't be dim.

[Ingmar]

If they were making a sustainable profit, why would they be going F2P?

I'm pretty sure LoTRO at least was already profitable. Their reason for going F2P is more along the lines of "holy shit look how much money we're making with F2P DDO," I suspect.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The thread in question for the "Hiding your cloak with an overcloak would be overpowered!" debacle:

Link

The blues have steadfastly refused to explain themselves or post again at all in the face of 50 pages of "WTF we can already hide our cloaks though!" but unsurprisingly there's several of those blue-posted "What's your favorite spell/class/whatever?" fluff threads they throw out there whenever they want to distract the plebes.

It would be swell if someone could post once in a while and keep it on the front page. Sadly however I got myself banned from the forums years ago for a bunch of "Look at this sweet PVP video! (Youtube link to fat guy in spandex shitting himself)" grief posts.

Short answer?  They are going to put overcloaks and other appearance related things in the battle/net store and charge a small fee for them.

[Sjofn]

You know, I honestly don't think it's even that. I think they're honestly just being stubborn and butthurt that people don't instantly love every armor set they design and want more control over how they look. They've certainly been fussy and footstampy about "uh, that armor set is really ugly" feedback in the past.

[Rendakor]

If they were making a sustainable profit, why would they be going F2P?

Don't be dim.

EQ2 had been on life support for a while, and EQ2E is clearly an act of desperation. Not sure about LOTRO.

[Merusk]

I thought there was a chart or report somewhere regarding D&D f2p that showed people were actually paying more per person than they ever did on subs.  There were more players, but the top end were paying something ridiculous like $40 a month.  That would be why LOTRO went the same route.

It could have been a fever dream, too.  I won't rule that out as I only tangentially follow cash shop game news.

[Modern Angel]

EQ2's move is entirely about keeping someone, anyone, invested in a game post-EQ3. It wasn't some amazing accident that the f2p move came in the same general time frame as the EQ3 announcement.

LOTRO's been in secondish place as far as games by a Western developer since its launch. It's never closed a server, never done a merge. Best estimates have had them pegged at 300-500k for years now. The notion that they had to do this to keep the lights on is ludicrous; as stated above, they see insane amounts of money in this because people went retarded on buying DDO stuff.

Are they trying to wring money from older games? Of course. Is that an indication the older games are on life support? Christ, no. Do you *really* think EQ2's operating costs after six years are that high? You don't need a million subscribers to be successful; you only need enough to cover your initial costs, get your investors/suits off your ass by year two and then cruise into profit mode. I imagine either of these games could churn along indefinitely with 75k subs; they both have more than that already.

[Shrike]

You know, I honestly don't think it's even that. I think they're honestly just being stubborn and butthurt that people don't instantly love every armor set they design and want more control over how they look. They've certainly been fussy and footstampy about "uh, that armor set is really ugly" feedback in the past.

Is this why shaman are still stuck with chainmail ballgowns? Elemental and resto I can kinda see; they stand still for the most part. Enhance is highly mobile and we still get stuck with a dress. One that usually looks like hell (T8 being a rare exception to that rule). I generally grab hunter offset legs, but still. Would a chainmail tunic be too much to ask for the enhance subclass? Draenai have the pins for that (screw those dorfs).

[Ratman_tf]

You know, I honestly don't think it's even that. I think they're honestly just being stubborn and butthurt that people don't instantly love every armor set they design and want more control over how they look. They've certainly been fussy and footstampy about "uh, that armor set is really ugly" feedback in the past.

Gah. I'd be satisfied if they limited it to can look like a same armor type. Go farm a Defias set for your leather if you're a Rogue, or a lesser tier set if you prefer it.

But these are the people who were shocked that players wanted haircuts. 

[Sjofn]

But these are the people who were shocked that players wanted haircuts.  

Yeah exactly, that's why I don't think it's some sort of nefarious plot to get us to pay for an appearance tab but instead clueless dipshittery.

[K9]

Finally did this; glad to see Blizzard is true to form and slaps a 4 hour cooldown on an entirely fun and cosmetic item.

I actually just AFKed through the event and came back to find the quest complete.

[Xanthippe]

The troll trinket is awesome; the gnome trinket less so.

Wth is with having a 4 hour cooldown?  Freakin' Blizz morons.  Can you imagine an AV filled with gnomes vs. trolls?  Esp. if it was oldstyle AV with all the fighting in the Field of Strife. 

(I am apparently in the tiny minority of WoW players who looks back fondly upon 4 hour AV battles - I would play oldstyle AV even if it didn't grant honor.)

This event is pretty meh.  Did Blizz put all their talent on WoW v.2 or something?  Can I blame Bobby Kotick for this?

[Azazel]

Our level 29/30 blood elves didn't get any "come help the trolls" letters in the mail. My level 1 alliance mules even got letters on Ally side.

[Xanthippe]

That's odd.  I have a level 15 BE paladin mule who got one.

[Ingmar]

Can you imagine an AV filled with gnomes vs. trolls?

This would be funny exactly once, after which it would become incredibly annoying, just like fighting 10 noggenfoggered people in WSG is.

[Hawkbit]

I tried this damn thing four times on my pally before I finally got it because it bugged at the tunnel each time.  Now I just tried with my hunter and it bugged again first time.  WTF.

I hear there's lots of this scripted stuff in Cata... this actually has me concerned.  If I have to sit through these events multiple times I'm going to get peeved. 

[Hawkbit]

Second attempt bugged at the tunnel.  This time I watched and not a single person or mob even came close to the tunnel entrance.  The big trogg never spawned.  I'm starting to think it has less to do with the tunnel entrance and more to simply being a broken pos.