If that is true, it also means a serious reduction of WoW anonymity. It should be fairly straightforward to make a tool that finds all characters on armory with exact same achievements (including dates). Of course it will still be possible to post anonymously on the WoW forums with characters below level 10 since they're not on the armory, unless they change that.
Stunts like disappearing with a guild bank will be much harder.
For those concerned with anonymity, they also mentioned that it's not beyond the functionality of the new guild UI to track people's alts automatically via a collapsible menu. This was another "cool idea" they commented on during the systems Q & A.
It's not too big of a concern at the moment, since it would only work within the guild, but it opens up interesting questions if they ever expanded it to the forums or friends list.
To be honest, I'm excited more about the features of Battle.net II than any other announcement during Blizzcon. They're really taking Online gaming to a new plateau entirely, and some of the examples given by Pardo were just mindblowing. Being able to communicate with friends/guildies across servers, platforms and media now is just tremendous. Some of the examples given included being able to chat with your friends in guild chat whilst watching replays or playing "DotA" in StarCraft II. The StarCraft II "Leagues" was another exciting feature; providing a progression path in a competitive RTS environment whilst grouping players into skill-based categories.
Two more features which excited me tremendously were the "inability to smurf" in Starcraft II. For those not heavily into the RTS universe, top-level players would often create a new account with no ranking, and rampage throughout the lower ranks stomping on all of the legitimately low ranked players. Pardo highlighted that this won't be possible in StarCraft II, as your "rating" (ie. Personal Arena Rating) is linked directly to your Battle.net account, so you'd need to go to all the trouble of registering several e-mail addresses and multiple Battle.net accounts in order to pull it off. Considering the consolidation of Achievements and unlockable features across all Battle.net II games, it's somewhat discouraging to "waste" time on a smurf account. And secondly, having all of these games/accounts unified via a single Battle.net account, it was mentioned that cheating (maphacking, item duplication, etc) in StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be heavily discouraged, as players will risk having their account banned - and with it, all of their WoW characters/time/effort/achievements down the drain.
One thing of note. the Goblin racials are absurd. I didn't get a chance to check out the Worgen, but Goblins have the charge which shares a cooldown with a direct damage ability. It did 37 damage at level 6. They also have the ability to summon what is a portable bank every 30 minutes, 15 to alchemy and 1% haste to melee and casting. Fortunately it does sound like they are looking to revamp all of the classes racials.
It does sound like they learned from Wrath and are releasing 4 full raid instances, as was detailed a few posts back.
And if I heard correctly, please correct me if I am wrong, but the phrase "Races changes will be debuting shortly after faction changes go live" was stated. The implications to this are staggering.
I'm pretty sure the Worgen Racials were documented at least once somewhere earlier in this thread, and if not, they can be found pretty easily via various sources. Nonetheless, to save you the trouble:
Worgen Racials
* Darkflight - Activate your true form, increasing movement speed by 70% for 6 sec. 3 minute cooldown.
* Viciousness - Increases all damage done by 1%. (Passive)
* Abberation - Reduced duration on Curses and Diseases used against you by 15%. (Passive)
* Flayer - +15 to Skinning, Skinning Speed Significantly reduced, no Skinning Knife required.
* The Worgen Form is cosmetic only. When out of Combat, you can choose whether to appear Worgen or Human.
* When in Combat, you'll automatically (instantly) transform into a Worgen.
It does sound like they learned from Wrath and are releasing 4 full raid instances, as was detailed a few posts back.
I'll need to find a video of the raids & dungeons panel to see if they talk about it, but based on this picture, I would interpret those numbers attached to each Raid box to be the number of bosses in that raid. Presuming that is correct, then Cataclysm will have a total of 17 bosses available at launch, Which is actually the same as Wrath (15 in Naxx, plus Sartharion and Malygos).
And if I heard correctly, please correct me if I am wrong, but the phrase "Races changes will be debuting shortly after faction changes go live" was stated. The implications to this are staggering.
You heard correctly.
I don't see what's so staggering about it though, sure there'll always be a few min-maxers that want to squeeze out that extra 0.1 (made up number) DPS/healing/mitigation and will swap race based on something as minimal as a new weapon for example. I don't think Blizzard cares really, if you want to change then change. Also we don't know if or how they'll redo racials, the argument against allowing this seems to consist of "but every class X will be race Y because of arenas!" Far from everyone plays arena, I have no interest at all in it for example. Also if a racial is that good, a far better solution would be to bring it into line with all the other racials, rather than making a decision you made up to almost 5 years ago have such a big impact on your current gameplay.
I think this is more of a feature to allow people to enjoy the game more, some of us like diversity in our chars. I'm a bit upset that I don't have any in my alts. My main is undead, and I have quite a few alts I play at least once in a while, except the DK they're all orc or undead. I'll change a few of these the day this is released. Can't wait for an undead hunter, goblin warlock for example.
Could I just level up new alts instead? Of course, but after having leveled a lot of chars (I have chars on other servers also) I'm very fed up with leveling, even if it's easier than ever with heirlooms it's still a mundane and boring task. I rather just give Blizzard a bit of money and not having to bother with it.
On a final note I'm upset that they went with Goblins instead of Ogres. Not that I seriously think they'll ever add Ogres as playable race as there's too much content that portrays them as stupid, but I'd reroll in a second if I could be an ogre mage without the use of expensive suits.
On one hand, part of the point of the expansion is that even if you've leveled to the cap quite a few times, you're going to get a brand new experience this time, even if it's with the same class and with an "older" (non-Goblin/Wargen) race.
On the other hand, Blizzard knows that some people will still not care for going through that treadmill again. If a subset of the population is going to be using the faction-change feature to switch to races anyway (albeit only within Alliance anyway), why not give them the freedom to change their race within the same faction?
I have no doubt that they have numbers on how long an average player takes to get to the cap, so it would be relatively simple to charge a players for relatively the same amount of subscription time had they chosen to level from scratch. Any money they lose from that person not needing to level is made back by that person staying in the game for longer than he would have had be burnt out from the leveling process.
You heard correctly.
Also we don't know if or how they'll redo racials, the argument against allowing this seems to consist of "but every class X will be race Y because of arenas!" Far from everyone plays arena, I have no interest at all in it for example. Also if a racial is that good, a far better solution would be to bring it into line with all the other racials, rather than making a decision you made up to almost 5 years ago have such a big impact on your current gameplay.
Actually the best solution would to be just disabling all racials in arenas. Racials are actually very powerful and many matches are solely won/lost because of them. Look at the arena tournament finals at blizzcon for example, at least one set of matches was lost due to a team using a blood elf instead of an undead. Undead and human racials are the best at the moment and can make or break a fight especially when it comes down to mirror comps. They've been unchanged since 3.0 and it dosent look like blizzard is going to change that until their cataclysm racial updates.
They may try to solve the caster leather/mail problem by giving all the gear the base stats of stam, int, crit and haste and let players customize the gear to their liking via reforging. Healers would give up stamina for spirit, casters would sacrifice stamina for hit. One size fits all.
They could also give one of the current cloth casters the ability to wear leather with level 85. If I remember correctly, Warlocks used to wear leather back in WoW alpha. But they changed that and now we have the problem, of having 9 caster specs (2 heal, 7 DD) wanting cloth, while only 2 specs need leather and 2 specs need mail.
In terms of mail armor, they could just completely remove it from the loot tables and give blacksmiths the ability to stud leather armor with mail parts to convert it into mail armor. That is, how mail armor was actually made in reality. This would also solve the impending problem of leather armor maybe being better for hunters and enhancement shamans then mail. For holy paladins, while a bit unrealistic, they could just do the same with cloth -> plate.
If they implement something like that, loot distribution would look much better than today:
Plate with physical dps stats -> Warriors (arms/fury), Death Knights (all specs), Paladins (retribution)
Plate with tank stats (if made at all) -> Warriors (protection), Death Knights (all specs), Paladins (protection)
Physical dps leather would be a bit crowded, but as these four classes have some differences in their need of stats (hunters don't want expertise, rogues/enhancement shamans can use more hit rating then ferals/hunters), there would be no problem with a bit more drops.
Originally Posted by Prinsesa
We're probably going to see INT disappear from physical DPS mail completely. Hunters are going to get their focus system, while Shaman are going to get their mana regen from a combination of talents, the haste rating redesign or some other mechanic Blizzard is going to throw in (also for Ret Paladins).
Since both Hunters and Shaman are going to derive 2 AP from 1 AGI, then physical DPS mail stats are going to be something like AGI, STA, plus the ratings: Crit, Hit, Haste, ArPen/Mastery and possibly Expertise.
This change affects enhancement almost as much as hunters. Today we need our large manapool, because we have much higher upfront mana-costs then for example retribution paladins. Putting my 4 totems down alone cost me over 2k mana. Also I need the big pool to get from SR to SR, especially in PvP and small scale PvE without Replenishment. And at last this much mana allows me to switch roles to heal or ranged damage mid fight, something that the other melee hybrids can't do and is one nice advantage of enhancement shamans, making him the most hybrid hybrid. The probably easiest solution would be to change our current AP->SP talent to Agi->Int.
Last edited by SentinelBorg : 08/24/09 at 9:11 AM.
The instance servers are definitely currently server based. You can be on one server and have the instance launch issues going on, but if you log onto a lower population realm on the same battlegroup you can enter them no problem. That should also make it clear as to why this helps solve the problem, they're pooling all the instance servers together for a battlegroup, which will spread the load much better over multiple servers as each battlegroup has both high and low population servers in it. Even if the instance limit were reached, the much larger instance pool this brings also means the wait time is likely to be lower as there'll be an increased amount of people entering/leaving instances at any time.
This is partially incorrect. I know for a fact BG9 instance servers are battlegroup based and at least one other battlegroup is. Not all of them are though and it seems like they are planning to make every group like this.
As to my sources, multiple friends of mine are GMs.
This is partially incorrect. I know for a fact BG9 instance servers are battlegroup based and at least one other battlegroup is. Not all of them are though and it seems like they are planning to make every group like this.
As to my sources, multiple friends of mine are GMs.
That is because making the instance servers battlegroup based is the fix to the instance creation issues. Bloodlust, which you're calling BG9, is one of the American battlegroups that have been fixed.
Actually, the guy said First Legendary on deck would be for dps casters (in response to a complaint about lack of caster legendaries). The first legendary is going to be a 2h axe.
Just for the sake of clarity, the 2H axe (Shadowmourne) is going to come from Icecrown Citadel in the 3.3 patch. The first legendary in Cataclysm will be a caster weapon.
That is because making the instance servers battlegroup based is the fix to the instance creation issues. Bloodlust, which you're calling BG9, is one of the American battlegroups that have been fixed.
I know, my response was to you saying that the instance servers are all currently server based. As far as I can remember, BG9 has been sharing instance servers with each other as early as February, maybe earlier.
I couldn't find anything on a caster legendary, but I'm assuming that whatever was said about it being in the first raid in Cataclysm to be correct.
Although it should be noted that GC recently clarified that it is usable by all classes who can wield a 2H axe, but that isn't all too relevant to this discussion.
Since both Hunters and Shaman are going to derive 2 AP from 1 AGI, then physical DPS mail stats are going to be something like AGI, STA, plus the ratings: Crit, Hit, Haste, ArPen/Mastery and possibly Expertise.
Quoting an older post to ask the following question. Do we still believe that Mastery will be a stat of some sort along side Crit, Hit, etc. or were the Devs simply talking about the Mastery System which are the passive bonuses embedded in the talent trees? The quote when they announced the removal of Armor Penetration as a stat on gear was "It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!" but from all I have seen, there was no further mention of Mastery as an actual stat or how it might affect Damage(or healing I suppose).
Quoting an older post to ask the following question. Do we still believe that Mastery will be a stat of some sort along side Crit, Hit, etc. or were the Devs simply talking about the Mastery System which are the passive bonuses embedded in the talent trees? The quote when they announced the removal of Armor Penetration as a stat on gear was "It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!" but from all I have seen, there was no further mention of Mastery as an actual stat or how it might affect Damage(or healing I suppose).
This and this seem to suggest rather strongly that it's going to be a separate stat. It wasn't mentioned explicitly as far as I can recall (watched the stream), nor whether it was going to be a stat like the base stats or a rating (though they compare it to haste and crit in the first picture, so I'd be willing to bet a bit on it being a rating).
Quoting an older post to ask the following question. Do we still believe that Mastery will be a stat of some sort along side Crit, Hit, etc. or were the Devs simply talking about the Mastery System which are the passive bonuses embedded in the talent trees? The quote when they announced the removal of Armor Penetration as a stat on gear was "It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!" but from all I have seen, there was no further mention of Mastery as an actual stat or how it might affect Damage(or healing I suppose).
Myea, the way I understood it is that spending points in a tree improves the first two passive bonuses and whichever tree has the most points chooses the third bonus. Which is then improved by the mastery stat on gear. Of course I could be mistaken.
Myea, the way I understood it is that spending points in a tree improves the first two passive bonuses and whichever tree has the most points chooses the third bonus. Which is then improved by the mastery stat on gear. Of course I could be mistaken.
So far from the pictures, if you have sufficient talent points in any tree, you get some of the third bonus, not just the one you have the most spent in.
My question is then of course, what happens if you purposefully put equal points in all talent trees?
Myea, the way I understood it is that spending points in a tree improves the first two passive bonuses and whichever tree has the most points chooses the third bonus. Which is then improved by the mastery stat on gear. Of course I could be mistaken.
Basically. Each of your three trees may have three different stats which are improved by spending points in the tree. The third stat for each tree, which is the "defining" stat of that tree, is the "mastery" stat. This is the stat that is improved by the generic Mastery stat on gear. In the UI, the Mastery stat on gear is automatically translated into whichever actual stat is currently being improved by Mastery. So one player looking at an item may see additional block amount, while another player looking at the same item may see lower ability cooldowns.
Which stat gets the modification is determined by the tree in which you've spent the most points. If you somehow manage to spend an equal number of points in all trees, Ghostcrawler stated that they're not sure yet what will happen.
All of this was covered in detail during the Game Systems panel.
Which stat gets the modification is determined by the tree in which you've spent the most points. If you somehow manage to spend an equal number of points in all trees, Ghostcrawler stated that they're not sure yet what will happen.
Unless my math is wrong, that won't be able to happen unless you don't spend all your points. We'll have 76 talent points at 85, so the closest you can get to equal is 26/25/25.
E: I supposed there would still be a problem by putting equal points in two of the three trees, i.e. 26/26/24
It doesnt appear to be the case in the linked screenshot, but my money would be on the 51pt talent of a tree unlocking the 'Mastery' stat for that tree. No 51pt talent? No benefit from the Mastery stat on gear.
That would assume there's no mastery gear before level 85. I'd expect them to give us some time to learn how it works and not be purely max level drop.
Codewise, the easiest solution is likely to not grant any Mastery bonus at all if there's an even split, given current functionality. Tying the bonus to a 51 pt talent means that the stat is utterly useless until level 60, and kills a lot of potential builds unnecessarily (mostly PvP builds).
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity. Monte's LoL Blog
08/23/09, 7:09 PM
