Shane Dibiri, Jeff Kaplan, Tom Chilton, Rob Pardo talking about WoW (of course) and other games.
Not much *hardcore* infos but still pretty interesting. (Turns out Onyxia's deep breath is just totally random, DOTs be damned. Thank you for not crucifying me if you already knew that)
I don't believe that onyxia's deep breath is random. When we went in with 10 people she would deep breath nonstop (like 12 times in a row). When we went in with 40 dps'ing fairly solid, she didn't deep breath for 6 months. I realize there is a time issue, but not that much. Perhaps we're just hella lucky and won lotto - 90 times or so in a row. Perhaps the devs have bugs in their encounters... then again we all know SSC is perfection. Anyway, they seem utterly convinced its random. The only interesting parts of the entire interview are when Kaplan is talking; he's the only who seems genuinely passionate about the game.
I always had a lingering feeling of it being random so at least it was confirmed. Probably the most amusing part of the interview was their mentioning of a UBRS run. I can only imagine joining pugs and listening to what the crazy people are saying.
I definitely understand where Jeff is coming from with asking questions. It was something I always did, but in my old guild I always would read here or other sites and post info like this is coming in the patch notes, or hey here is a neat item. The running joke then was that I worked for Blizzard since I always seemed to have the "insider info".
Thanks for pointing this out. it was indeed fun to watch. I didnt really have that specific information about their background, so that was new information for me. Well worth watching. Maybe that WoW TV thingie they mentioned will some day be serving us with possibility to watch arena games.
I don't believe that onyxia's deep breath is random. When we went in with 10 people she would deep breath nonstop (like 12 times in a row). When we went in with 40 dps'ing fairly solid, she didn't deep breath for 6 months. I realize there is a time issue, but not that much. Perhaps we're just hella lucky and won lotto - 90 times or so in a row. Perhaps the devs have bugs in their encounters... then again we all know SSC is perfection. Anyway, they seem utterly convinced its random. The only interesting parts of the entire interview are when Kaplan is talking; he's the only who seems genuinely passionate about the game.
We've gone in with 5-10 and had her chain-breath one attempt and not breath at all the next, with no changes to what we did. I'm willing to believe it's programmed as random, at least, with Wi-flag style bugs possibly scattered somewhere in the code...anyway derail off
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
We've gone in with 5-10 and had her chain-breath one attempt and not breath at all the next, with no changes to what we did. I'm willing to believe it's programmed as random, at least, with Wi-flag style bugs possibly scattered somewhere in the code...anyway derail off
And if I'm not mistaken, the Wi-flag style bugs were sworn upon by players for a long time, while the devs claimed it didn't exist. Yet, in the end, it did. Again, maybe we won the lottery. If she doesn't deep breath immediately then it would make more sense, as she dies before the first gap. Their random number generator though, or just random ability usage is pretty awful though - I've done nightbane before where he didn't fear a single time - and their consistency patch still had moments where he wouldn't fear for an entire phase 1.
IIRC, the Wi flag was certain character IDs causing the player's distance to mob calculation (when it came to choosing who to attack) to get screwed up. Like wrapping around. So when a party of equal level players entered a room, some of them would be correctly out of detectable range, but a Wi-flagged character would not be, and everything would make a beeline for them.
IIRC, the Wi flag was certain character IDs causing the player's distance to mob calculation (when it came to choosing who to attack) to get screwed up. Like wrapping around. So when a party of equal level players entered a room, some of them would be correctly out of detectable range, but a Wi-flagged character would not be, and everything would make a beeline for them.
Basically there was a hidden attribute for each character that was somehow affecting aggro (in that game aggro had very little to do with damage, and more to do with distance). Wi was a player who basically had anything aggro him, regardless of what anyone else was doing.
The Wi-flag was indeed exactly as Quigon says, people swore up and down that it existed, the devs swore that it did not, but it ended up indeed existing. Ony's Deep Breath could be the same.
What happened was that when mobs would spawn, the total distance of all the players in range of a mob, to the mob, would be added up. For example, say you have a party of 5 people who are each 5 meters from the mob. That means that you a total distance of 25 meters. Then you look at the ratio of your distance from the mob to the total distance. So now each person has a .2 ratio. But since Turbine wanted a closer distance to have a higher chance to "gain aggro", they took the reverse of that ratio: 1-X. So now you have each player in my example having a .8 ratio. So that means that now added up, one has to generate a random number between 0 and 4.0, since each player has a .8 range...except that Turbine's code only ever rolled a number between 0 and 1. That means that whoever had their "aggro chance" parsed first by the server would almost always end up with aggro...and since your "parsing order" was assigned by your instanceID, which was an immutable number assigned to your character on creation, many players would ALWAYS end up on the low end of the distance table and be "Wi-flagged" for death.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
That was a great watch. I really enjoy getting this kind of info from the devs, to see what their backgrounds are and why the game plays out because of it.
And this interview was pretty telling. The focus of the game has been raiding since before it's inception. Yet they will never put this to words, and continue to try to "casualize" the game, despite the fact that everything is tuned around raiding ...from crafting to talents.
That's a shame. This game has much more potential than that.
A lot of nostalgia in that video. Conquest 'sploits and explanation of UO complete with screenshot of Lum (how'd that get in there?). Good stuff. It's reassuring that the guys who make WoW are oldschool MMO vets themselves.
That was a great watch. I really enjoy getting this kind of info from the devs, to see what their backgrounds are and why the game plays out because of it.
And this interview was pretty telling. The focus of the game has been raiding since before it's inception.
That's all they were asked about. I'm sure if he asked about pvp and arenas they'd have lots to say
That was a great watch. I really enjoy getting this kind of info from the devs, to see what their backgrounds are and why the game plays out because of it.
And this interview was pretty telling. The focus of the game has been raiding since before it's inception. Yet they will never put this to words, and continue to try to "casualize" the game, despite the fact that everything is tuned around raiding ...from crafting to talents.
That's a shame. This game has much more potential than that.
It isnt suprising thats the angle the round table took since the guy from the news site 1up (luke smith) was raidleader for a high end raidguild with top 10 worldfirst kills on some bosses.
Do you have more info about Luke Smiths guild, or perhaps his character? I know few guys from GameSpot play WoW actively, but on more casual level I think.
It isnt suprising thats the angle the round table took since the guy from the news site 1up (luke smith) was raidleader for a high end raidguild with top 10 worldfirst kills on some bosses.
I don't know the Luke guy, but that's not exactly what I meant.
I was more referencing the point Kaplan made when he talked about Naxx having been under construction before release. All tuning in the game has been done based on this (raiding), which I am NOT suggesting is some horrible thing. But simply that it's a pretty skewed system the players play in. Essentially, nothing you do really has [progressive] value unless you raid, since all items and content are geared towards that end. It's no wonder the honor system failed under that design philosophy.
Last edited by Astiron : 06/09/07 at 7:15 AM.
Reason: clarity
I have to say it's pretty fun to hear them (especially Jeff) talk about WoW this open. I mean, I dont think alot of lead designers would ridicule their own playerbase like that . I personally would have loved some more discussion about the future of WoW instead of it's past, allthough the Conquest part made me grin too. A sneak preview of whatever they are planning now would be a good move though, Does anyone really know what blizzard is working on besides Zul Aman? With BT out we need a new carrot to look forward to.
Do you have more info about Luke Smiths guild, or perhaps his character? I know few guys from GameSpot play WoW actively, but on more casual level I think.
I dont no.
I have just heard him talk about it whenever he was on the 1up wow podcast (the legendary thread). It was kinda funny because you have a whole bunch of really casual players (many who had not hit 60) and then this superhardcore guy.
I dont no.
I have just heard him talk about it whenever he was on the 1up wow podcast (the legendary thread). It was kinda funny because you have a whole bunch of really casual players (many who had not hit 60) and then this superhardcore guy.
sounds like fun, must look for it, thanks for the tip
06/08/07, 7:35 PM
. I personally would have loved some more discussion about the future of WoW instead of it's past, allthough the Conquest part made me grin too. A sneak preview of whatever they are planning now would be a good move though, Does anyone really know what blizzard is working on besides Zul Aman? With BT out we need a new carrot to look forward to.
