Cataclysm: Preparing For Patch 4.0.1

[K9]

The OED disagrees with you. 

[Lantyssa]

What does Oxford know about English?

[Bzalthek]

He actually spelt it the correct way. 

Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize it as anything but grain.  Shakespeare is not a good source for your grammar lessons.

Merriam-Webster actually does. You have to look at the other entries of the word, which they provide links for right at the top (it's hard and confusing!)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spelt

[WindupAtheist]

[Bzalthek]

Back to WoW:  I'm leveling a mage and I'm encountering so many bugs.  Not being able to collect resources which I have the skill for, NPCs that die and remain missing, and more.  I guess with the world revamp these things are a lesser priority, but damn, it's kinda frustrating.

[Azazel]

He actually spelt it the correct way. 

Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize it as anything but grain.  Shakespeare is not a good source for your grammar lessons.

Many of you kids are speaking a different dialect of English as well. Round these parts, "spelt" is the primary variation.

As for your mage, the current patch was poorly tested and is full of bugs. Despite all the "Activision hands-off" stuff, they are clearly pushing unfinished shit out the door to meet their pre-Christmas release schedule, which is a bit of a contrast to TBC, which released in Jan. (aka "When it's done"). Hopefully 4.0.2 fixes it, but I fear it's just going to be full of pre-cata eventage and few fixes.

[Merusk]

Listening to a few of the panels at Blizzcon makes it even more apparent that it's being pushed out the door.  Several things aren't going to make it in for launch and will not be available until 4.1 or 4.2, like many of the old world dungeon revamps.

[Simond]

Unlike vanilla, TBC and WotLK which were all clearly feature-complete and fully-balanced when shipped. 

[SurfD]

Listening to a few of the panels at Blizzcon makes it even more apparent that it's being pushed out the door.  Several things aren't going to make it in for launch and will not be available until 4.1 or 4.2, like many of the old world dungeon revamps.

I wish i knew who was responsible for the whole "old world dungeon revamp thing", so I could go to his house and punch him repeatedly in the nuts.  I dont care if newbies are lost and confused when they go into Wailing Caverns, Sunken Temple, Maraudon or the like for the first time.  You stay away from my awesome sprawling non linear dungeons, you fucks.   I miss the days when a dungeon crawl actuall FELT like a dungeon crawl, and not like a walk down a long hallway with bosses every 200 yards.

[Chimpy]

You can take Wailing Caverns and the temple of various shades of Jade Green and do with them what you will. Hated both of those places. Mauradon was not so bad once you were inside. Finding the fucking door was the annoying part.

[SurfD]

Eh, the only really confusing place was Sunken Temple, and that was mostly due to the fact that it has so many vertical layers to it (and that pretty much no one EVER went to the basement), and it suffers from "wheres the fucking door" sindrome WAY harder then Maraudon ever did.  It took me all of 3 runs through WC to have pretty much a complete lock on the layout of the place.

[Chimpy]

The real problem with ST is the fact that the mini-map has been broken since 1.0 and you can't find your group even when they are standing 10 feet away, and that the entire thing is the same dark green with vines. Can't tell one spot from another.

[Maledict]

Despite all the "Activision hands-off" stuff, they are clearly pushing unfinished shit out the door to meet their pre-Christmas release schedule, which is a bit of a contrast to TBC, which released in Jan. (aka "When it's done"). Hopefully 4.0.2 fixes it, but I fear it's just going to be full of pre-cata eventage and few fixes.

Um, I'm not sure if you were playing at the launch of TBC, but this just isn't correct.

i) The patch that implemented TBC talents and changes completely and utterly wrecked the game for most guilds at the time. DPs went wildly out of contro, and everyone pvped madly until the expansion hit. Hunters were battleground gods, and tons of crap was wildly unbalanced and unfinished. Same thing that happened with WotLK patch as well.

ii) TBC was not, by ANY means, polished on release. TBC initial raiding was the most wildly unbalanced content Blizzard had ever put out. They had to go back and retune *all* of it - repeatedly. It was the most unfun stuff they have ever released, by a *long* way.

iii) TBC also had huge amounts of dead areas that were patched in later - in patches 2.1 and 2.2 respectively. i.e. Sketthis, the Ogre stuff in Blade edge Mountains, the Netherwing dailies etc.

TBC was delayed because it literally wasn't going to be playable at it's original launch date. Cataclysm is most definitely further along than TBC in every respect at this stage.

[Azazel]

I've played on and off since, well, original Beta.

i) The last couple of months before the expansion launch has always had some balance issues and players being gods on earth for a month or so. Not sure what you mean by "completely and utterly wrecked the game for most guilds at the time" unless you mean that catassing Naxx was no longer the fun it had been until then? I saw plenty of people raiding and doing their other shit right up to the line.

ii) More importantly, I'm not talking about the fucking raiding game. I'm talking about the actual game. Things working and not being massive buggyt pieces of shit.

iii) Blades Edge Ogres and Netherwing stuff is not especially different to the Argent Tourney stuff in Icecrown. They have always added more content over the course of time. Particularly shit involving dailies, which were being newly implemented in TBC.

But most importantly, the game wasn't nearly as buggy and broken as this prior to TBC or LK. 

[Setanta]

ii) TBC was not, by ANY means, polished on release. TBC initial raiding was the most wildly unbalanced content Blizzard had ever put out. They had to go back and retune *all* of it - repeatedly. It was the most unfun stuff they have ever released, by a *long* way.

All you had to say was "Release version of Shade of Aran" :D

Wreath, chains, elementals AND the god damn storm all at the same time 

[Simond]

But most importantly, the game wasn't nearly as buggy and broken as this prior to TBC or LK.  

Except yes it was.

And I guaren-damn-tee that two years from now people will be bitching about how new_expansion is terrible and buggy, and that Cataclysm was never this bad, and Activision!   

[Sheepherder]

[Paelos]

Did they bring back the falling through the world bugs from release? Sweet, anyone who's new didn't get to find those the first time. 

[Chimpy]

From release? Falling through the world happened throughout most of vanilla, and I saw it happen a couple times in BC.

[Simond]

Did they bring back the falling through the world bugs from release? Sweet, anyone who's new didn't get to find those the first time. 

Look at the "Patch x.y.z is now live" in both chats.

[SurfD]

I wish i still had my "pillars of corpses" screenshot from back when TBC launched.

There was a nice bug where if your instance crashed, it dumped you out under the world, somewhere in stonetallon mountains, where you would then fall to your death.   Strange part was, people would hit "bottom" and die at different heights, and different instances seemed to have different "exit points".   The resullt was about 5 or 6 big pillars of dead bodies hanging under the mountains.

[Ratman_tf]

Yahs. WoW has been laggy and buggy same old since launch and to this very day. How many years did it take them to fix the lootlock bug? I wouldn't be shocked if it just disappered one day, from an unrelated patch, and Blizzibodies just went "Whew! Cool!"

It just keeps people talking and interested when they're between expansions. 

[Sjofn]

So ideally, we'd join a mature bunch of competent players that don't care if we raid or not.  That doesn't exist on our server. We'd probably be a pretty good fit for Ingmar's guild, but my friend's brother is a bit outspoken and hasn't found a guild (besides ours) that he won't ragequit within days of joining.

Nah, we have our share of incompetence.  

(I'll answer shit from two or three pages ago and you'll like it!)

[Rendakor]

I wish i still had my "pillars of corpses" screenshot from back when TBC launched.

There was a nice bug where if your instance crashed, it dumped you out under the world, somewhere in stonetallon mountains, where you would then fall to your death.   Strange part was, people would hit "bottom" and die at different heights, and different instances seemed to have different "exit points".   The resullt was about 5 or 6 big pillars of dead bodies hanging under the mountains.

One of these? Not my pic, found it somewhere online back in vanilla.

[Azazel]

Never seen those bugs, so I stand corrected.
I'll modify my stance to the fact that I didn't encounter any major bugs pre-BC or -LK, but seem to be finding them left and right with the current pre-Cata implementation. Awesome screenshots, though. 

[Chimpy]

Never seen those bugs, so I stand corrected.
I'll modify my stance to the fact that I didn't encounter any major bugs pre-BC or -LK, but seem to be finding them left and right with the current pre-Cata implementation. Awesome screenshots, though. 

Falling through the world pillars of doom only happened when a raid instance (or a Alterac Valley as in that screenshot) crashed you would end up falling to your death and when you released you would be a ghost at a graveyard way the hell away from where you died, I know horde ended up in Stonetalon, for some reason I thought alliance was somewhere in Eastern Kingdoms, Redridge maybe?

It happened a lot in the 1.8.x builds, 1.9 was A'Q and had its own share of problems, but apparently bringing the 4 green dragons out of the Emerald Dream brought some random holes in the world.

[SurfD]

I wish i still had my "pillars of corpses" screenshot from back when TBC launched.

There was a nice bug where if your instance crashed, it dumped you out under the world, somewhere in stonetallon mountains, where you would then fall to your death.   Strange part was, people would hit "bottom" and die at different heights, and different instances seemed to have different "exit points".   The resullt was about 5 or 6 big pillars of dead bodies hanging under the mountains.

One of these? Not my pic, found it somewhere online back in vanilla.

Yep.  Except the one i remember best had a good 4 or 5 columns in it.  Good times.

[Ingmar]

There is a lot of really retarded speculation about the guild system going on.

Small guilds are not going to be fucked. Mine is small-ish, maybe 25-30 active players tops. I am not even a tiny bit worried about us not having access to the useful things.

The only shit you are going to miss out on in a guild that can't hit that 80% mark for achievements is stuff tied to the actual guild raid achievements themselves, which is what, a couple mounts etc. at the moment? So, same as it ever was. If you can do the fancy achievement shit you get a mount. So not worried.

[Typhon]

25-30 active player is "smallish"?

Just shows how clueless I am.  Here's what I thought:

5 active players - small
15 active player - average
25 + active players - large
75 + active players - huge, also mostly unmanageable (guild chat is virtually indistinguishable from barrens /trade chat, little to no cohesiveness amongst the guild members except for within clicks of "average" size)

[Ironwood]

Me, I start at 10 (you know, the minimum for starting a guild) and work up from there.

 

[Typhon]

That they removed the weapon disparity between 10 and 25 raids led me (possibly erroneously) to conclude the 10 active players is the average guild size, not the smallish guild size.

Which was my thinking when I started with 10-15 being the medium/average. 

25-30 active players being smallish implied to me that something larger was the medium/average-sized guild.  If that was the case, why would they de-emphasize the 25-man raids?

[Paelos]

25-30 active players being smallish implied to me that something larger was the medium/average-sized guild.  If that was the case, why would they de-emphasize the 25-man raids?

They wouldn't. The average guild isn't big. Also, total numbers within a guild may be misleading. Raiding is only about how many people are online on average during the popular nights.

[Lantyssa]

SLAP is not small.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't raid much at all anymore but my guild does and is fairly large with 173 total characters(alts included) and even though on raid nights there's around 30 people online when not raiding there's only ever about 15 'active' members on.  Though I bet a lot of the reason people arent online much is due to general boredom and waiting for the xpac, I expect that to change soon.

[Mnemon]

This isn't like battling bosses effectively as a gate to better equipment. I can't think of a single reason why it wouldn't make more sense to split all the "xp gains" towards your guild level equally across all members, thereby giving more to the guild with more people participating. The All or Nothing aspect of it is completely absurd from a design standpoint.

It's completely absurd for your particular needs, but I think big picture it makes sense. They want guilds mattering. After that the solution is really up to you. Your alliance can form one guild. Or they can all try and find more members and use each other to fill the odd spot from time to time.

Also keep in mind Bliz capped the number members that contribute to your guild experience. You can have 600 people in your guild, but only the top 20 (I think that was the number) will directly impact your guild experience any given day. So while being bigger might have advantages (making sure 20 people contribute each day and having the best possible 20 contribute), having 600 people won't give you an advantage.

(the one area it will however is after they get the 10 percent gold guild achievement - basically free money).