Some significant posts

July 3, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

My writing attempts are all, completely jammed. So I’ll start with the easy.

There’s a fun post from Caydiem to explain the sense of the copycatted Grab Bag they added on the forums:

Sure. We know that sometimes some significant posts we make get missed in the general banter that occurs from day to day. We don’t want you to miss important or interesting information, so we decided to compile the pertinent posts we’ve made throughout the week and put them up there for you to see. :)

So. “Significant posts” that may “get missed in the general banter”. Of course they do not “want you to miss important or interesting information”. Such as this one:

My latest character is currently 105g away from obtaining his epic mount, and most of the gold was obtained from being aggressive at the Auction House from the point the character was created. There are points when I’m undertaking activities such as raids on high level instances or pvp’ing where I lose a little bit of money, or break even at best. If too many days pass where this is the case, I often find myself farming various locations for gold, so that I’m at least moving forward towards my goal of having a cute but fast as heck raptor.

We need a paid moderator to write that? Now I know that I shouldn’t flag negatively this attempt to organize some information. DAoC’s Grab Bag has exactly the same purposes and has been praised (not by me) more than once as a positive way of communicating with the players.

What I think is, again, the these Community Managers are completely useless. Their role is an important part of the game even if it’s not directly in the game and still it gets ignored or considered superficially. They do not have a direct responsibility over this since they aren’t put in the condition to do much better than that. I guess it could be even frustrating to not be able to say anything if not answer the silliest questions of some newbies.

I still believe that the role of a Community Manager is to encourage, promote and contribute to the discussions, trying to steer them in a positive way that can be useful for both parts. As I wrote many other times the role is a support and organize the communication between the developers and the players. An integration but not a direct replacement.

This is another example of a pattern repeating in many other situations. These are fundamental resources that the industry systematically ignores and wastes.

In Europe, someone knows how Honor Points are calculated

June 19, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

A guide to the Honor Points has been published on the European site as result of this thread (horror! The CMs in Europe are actually useful!), and then carried over to the american site as well.

The guide is clear and well written for the most part and it adds more details to what I aleady knew or deduced from the obscure rules.

Here’s a few points of interest:

Battlegrounds objectives are intended to be a substantial part of your Honor for a week. Don’t ignore them if you want to attain a high Rank.

False. The BGs objectives are badly broken and do not give the supposed reward. There’s a thread on the official fourm spanning 45 pages and growing. This affects both Alterac and Warsong and has been clearly proven to be not just a display problem.

As kills in raids give fewer points to you personally but still count toward your subsequent kill ratio, try get some kills alone or in a small group earlier in the day / evening, then join a raid to collect more kills to meet the cut-off.

No comment here. It’s really THAT stupid and I already explained extensively my stance on these “diminished returns”.

There are 14 Ranks. Behind the Ranks is a hidden number scale, each Rank representing a range of points. These points are not your Honor points for the week, but something we’ll call Rank Points for the sake of this guide. The exact points and scale will not be revealed here.

The point here is: why? There are absolutely no practical reasons to keep these mechanics hidden since they would just help the players to understand how the system work and play with it (which is exactly what games are about). The only two real reasons I can imagine are:
(1) so that adjustements can be done behind the scenes without the players mounting a revolt
(2) so that the players cannot gather solid proofs about mistakes into the claculations that seem to happen quite often.

And finally the most important part, a better explanation of the rank calculations:

– Adjusting your Rank Points and thus your Rank.
# This is done by comparing your points for the week with your Rank Points. If the points for the week are higher than your current Rank Points, your Rank Points are adjusted upwards by a set percentage of the difference. If your points for the week are lower than your Rank Points, your Rank Points are adjusted downwards by a set percentage of the difference. The set percentage is higher for upward adjustments than downward adjustments.

Adding this to what I knew already I think it’s possible to finally figure out how the system works. There is no cumulative pool of points building up with the time. There is just two different “progression bars”. The first bar is the one you build up for the week and that is wiped to zero each week, so with no progression over time. Then there’s a “Permanent Rank” bar that actually determines the Rank threadmill that moves you from Rank 1 to 14.

As you gain your “weekly Honor” your weekly status (the first progression bar) is compared to your Permantent Rank (the second progression bar). If the first is greater than the second you gain an increase in percent over your second progression bar. Till the point where your weekly status is exactly equal to your permanent status (but this only happens in an artificial example where you gain the exact same amount of point each week).

So while the first progression bar is wiped weekly and goes sharply from zero point to whatever you are able to achieve in one week, the other is only moved in percent bonus and malus steps. As you gain up ranks these percent bonuses will become smaller and smaller till it will become mathematically impossible to gain one rank per week, no matter if you transform into a pure PvP grind entity.

That brings to more precise details about the rules:

# Gaining two new Ranks in a single week is possible, but only likely below rank 6.
# Rising in Rank every week is possible until about rank 11. Above that each rank is expected to take two weeks or more, each week with the same high performance as the last.
# Getting to rank 14 is expected to take about three months even for the most efficient and active players. Staying there is also quite a challenge.
# About 5% of the players participating in PvP are expected to have a Rank of 11 or above when the system settles itself after some months.

Which we knew already, even if not about the specifics.

This explains one of the most popular complaints about some players not gaining a rank even if they achieved a sensibly greater standing as opposed to one of their friend that still finished at a rank above. How it is possible to finish in a lower rank and not gain anything even if someone else had a way worst standing and still an higher rank?

It’s simple. The guy at the higher Rank that got a crappy standing position probably went backwards in his progression on the “Permanent Rank” but not enough to lose that rank (since you gain faster than what you lose over time). While the other player that started at the lower rank and had a better standing probably wasn’t able to gather enough of a bonus to jump to the next level. Even if he surely progressed toward that point.

Ultimately this means that the system (albeit still horrible in its gameplay) will remain fair over time. Since there isn’t any accumulation of points you can start to grind it years from now without being at a disadvantage. Roughly it seems that you’ll need at least three months at maximum catass performance to go from rank 0 to 14, and possibly around six more months of inactivity to go from rank 14 back to 0. This is the basic life-cycle of the system that should remain constant over the whole course of the game. So, while definitely and undoubtedly insane, it won’t get worst.

With a clear explanation of the mechanics in this FAQ and the upcoming tweaks to the UI, like the progression bar, one of the most radical problem of the system will be solved. So a significant step forward. The problem remains in the gameplay and in the overall design:

– The system still rewards a pure catass mode completely inaccessible to the casual players since it depends on “time” as the main variable (endless grind)
– It is still at the roots a “race”, so forcing the players in a min/maxing process in order to maximize their performance over time. Which requires directly a complete dedication that erodes the potential of the game instead of expanding its possibilities (scope) and appeal
– The reward is still based on “maintenance”, which is directly an unfun mechanic since it’s just a struggle to “catching-up” instead of “achieving”. You are always at loss, always fighting to not lose
– No guild ranking or involvement in the system
– No goals to accomplish outside the battlegrounds
– No public ranking system and ladders
– No dynamic rewards and mechanics (like suriviving many encounters, fast kills and so on)

My proposed Battle System (July 2004) still looks better than this.

And back to the principle I brought up many months ago:

“Designing a game which allows players not to HAVE to play regularly. A possibility, not an obligation.”

Leaked patch notes, again (1.6.0)

June 18, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

From “one of the best MMOG discussion sites on the internet” (and I agree), here are the leaked patch notes of World of Warcraft, planned to go live this week or the following.

(press button)

> Blackwing Lair Released!
Nefarian’s sanctum, Blackwing Lair, can be found at the very height of Blackrock Spire. It is there in the dark recesses of the mountain’s peak that Nefarian has begun to unfold the final stages of his plan to destroy Ragnaros once and for all and lead his army to undisputed supremacy over all the races of Azeroth. Blackwing Lair is a max-level, 40-player raid dungeon, with many new encounters and tempting rewards awaiting the intrepid adventurer that dares enter its halls.

> Darkmoon Faire!
A gathering of the exotic from around the world and beyond, Silas Darkmoon has brought together the Darkmoon Faire as a celebration of the wondrous and mysterious found in Azeroth. While the Faire spends most of their time in parts unknown, they do stop from time to time in Mulgore and Elwynn forest. When the faire is on its way barkers will stop by Ogrimmar and Ironforge to announce its arrival.

> Battlemasters!
There is a new way to enter the battleground queues. Battlemasters! Located in some of the cities, right-clicking on a battlemaster will allow your character to enter a battleground queue just like you normally would if you touched that battlegroundâ�?��?�s entrance portal. The functionality is exactly the same, so when itâ�?��?�s your characterâ�?��?�s time to enter the chosen battleground, you will be teleported directly in. Glordrum Steelbeard stands in the Hall of Arms in Ironforge, serving as the Alliance battlemaster for Alterac Valley. Aethalas of the Silverwing Sentinels stands ready in Darnassus, next to the warrior trainers, to send Alliance characters into Warsong Gulch. And in the Hall of the Brave, located in Orgrimmarâ�?��?�s Valley of Honor, Brakgul Deathbringer serves as the Hordeâ�?��?�s battlemaster for Warsong Gulch, while Kartra Bloodsnarl will send you to bring glory to the Horde in Alterac Valley. Guards in their respective cities can give you directions on how to find them.

General

– There is a new option upon the login screen. If you click the “Remember Name” checkbox on the left side of the screen, the game will automatically fill in your account name when it starts up.
– Will of the Forsaken (Undead Racial) – duration of the lasting immunity effect decreased to 5 seconds.
– Cannibalize (Undead Racial) – Regeneration increased to 35% of a character’s total health over 10 seconds.
– Stoneform (Dwarf Racial) can now be used to cancel self-inflicted poison effects.
– Fist Weapons will now have the normal chance to parry that all weapons use.
– It will no longer be possible to swap any equipment while stunned.
– Pets will now enter passive/follow mode when their masters mount.
– The Dazed effect caused by NPCs will now stack with all other movement slowing effects. Note that the movement slowing effects will not stack, but the debuff icons will remain to ensure the full duration of these effects persist.
– Damage caused by environmental effects will now cancel stealth (e.g. swimming in lava).
– Several creature spells that silenced players are now properly flagged as silence effects, which will allow talents such as Unbreakable Will to provide a higher chance to resist the effects.
– Spells that drain mana will now properly report the amount of mana gained in the combat log.
– Clarified the error message when no corpses are available for the Cannibalize ability.
– Clarified the error message when trying to attack while mounted.
– Resurrection spells should now check range properly when used on targets that have released their spirit.
– Spell reflection effects have greatly improved visuals and functionality.
– Knockback effects are now synchronized with any associated missile impacts.
– Special abilities which are parried will correctly activate abilities which are usable after parrying.
– Damage shield spells no longer damage you if you use spells that damage both you and your enemies.
– Fixed graphical anomalies when using channeled abilities in a group with a grounding totem.
– Fixed the duration of Frostbite on pets which are dismissed and then recalled.
– Fixed a bug where broken off-hand fist weapons would prevent main-hand dagger abilities from being usable.
– Health leech effects no longer give you health while you are a ghost.
– You no longer spout profanity when talking about sitting while drunk.

Macintosh

– Some optimizations for terrain loading and rendering were added for the Macintosh build.
– Enabled multisample support in the video options.
– Fixed an issue where inspecting crafted items on other users could potentially show attributes that those items did not have.
– Updated the Mac sound code to use memory more efficiently.

PvP

Honor System
– There is now a progress bar on the Honor tab of your character window that displays how close you are to your next rank.
– The honor screen now displays a bar indicating how far along your current rank you are (Scout, Private, etc). This will let you know whether you are moving towards your next rank or falling back towards your previous rank. from week to week.
– There is a new “This Week” section of the Honor tab, which will display PvP accomplishments of the current week.
– The “This Session” section of the Honor tab has been changed to “Today”, and will now display the entirety of your accomplishments for the day instead of the most recent session.
– Players rank 11 or higher can now chat in the WorldDefense channel.
– The WorldDefense and LocalDefense channels will now display your rank as well as your name when chatting.
– Battleground scoreboards now display the time elapsed in a battleground.

Warsong Gulch
– Warsong Gulch has new item rewards at the appropriate faction vendor near the entrances to the zone. These are available starting at Honored faction.
– Friendly flag carriers are now displayed on the overhead map in Warsong Gulch.
– Both the Warsong Outrider Supply Officer and the Silverwing Sentinel Supply Officer of Warsong Gulch now offer distinct tabards for purchase. Those heroes who are of Exalted status with one of these factions may purchase the tabard for 5 gold (discounts not included).
– Players now receive a faction bonus for completing the repeatable Warsong Gulch quests.

Alterac Valley
– Each team will now gain additional bonus honor if their towers are not destroyed by the end of the map. The more towers that remained intact, the more honor received.
– If you manage to keep your faction’s Captain alive for the duration of a battle, you will be granted extra points upon victory.
– Several Alterac Valley vendor items are now bind on acquire.
– The respawn time for tower guards (assuming the tower has not been destroyed) has been greatly increased.
– Korrak the Bloodrager has gained immunities to many different spell and ability effects.
– The minimum reputation needed to send a cavalry charge has been reduced to Honored.
– Players of Revered or higher reputation may now call offensive air strikes if they have managed to rescue their respective Wing Commanders.
– Alterac Valley’s guard spawn is now controlled via a more intuitive mechanism. Please check the Officer Supply vendors for your faction to read up on the changes.
– Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the Alliance team from receiving honor for destroying towers.
– Fixed a bug that was not awarding Horde credit for owning a mine at the end of a game.

Misc
– Dispel Magic can no longer be used on players participating in a duel unless the caster is in the duel.
– You are considered in combat for the entire duration of a duel.
– You canâ�?��?�t assist players which are engaged in free-for-all PvP unless you are also in free-for-all PvP.
– If you have PvP combat toggled on, it will no longer be cleared when taking a flight.
– Hunter traps work properly in duels if the target is flagged for PvP and the hunter is not.
– Removing an insignia in PvP no longer marks both players as being in combat.

Druid

– Shapeshifting will now counteract the slowing effects of frost-based spells (Frostbolt, Frost Shock, Cone of Cold, etc.).
– Feral Charge – Targets that are immune to immobilizing effects will no longer be affected by Feral Charge’s immobilizing effect. The interrupt will still affect the target.
– Shadowmeld (Night Elf Racial) – Now reports the correct error message when attempted in shapeshift form.
– Druid shapeshift form buttons are no longer dimmed while under the effects of Polymorph.

Hunter

– Counterattack – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
– Wing Clip – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
– Explosive Trap – Fixed a bug where the trap’s effects suffered inappropriate damage reduction against high level targets. In addition, damage caused by this trap should no longer kill opponents in duels.
– Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack – Non-damaging spells and abilities will no longer cause the dazed effect. In addition, when switching between Pack and Cheetah, you should no longer receive the “A more powerful spell is already active” error message.
– Beast Lore – Will no longer flag you for PvP or cause guard retaliation when used on an enemy faction target.

Mage

– Frostbolt – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by Frostbolt’s movement slowing effect. Damage will still be caused.
– Frost Nova – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
– Blast Wave – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
– Cone of Cold – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by Cone of Cold’s movement slowing effect. Damage will still be caused.
– Detect Magic – will no longer cause guard retaliation in Goblin towns.
– Ignite – Can now be dispelled by any effect that dispels magic effects.
– Frost Armor/Ice Armor – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by the Chill’s movement slowing effect. Targets will still have their melee attack speed reduced.
– Arcane Instability – Fixed a bug where rank 3 of this talent was not increasing the periodic damage of various spells by the correct amount (was increasing by 2% and should now properly increase by 3%).

Paladin

– Blessing of Freedom – Will now counter the movement impairing effects of Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Frost Shock. It will no longer prevent the damage taken by Frost Nova, Hamstring, Wing Clip, Mind Flay, Counterattack, or Blast Wave or the melee and ranged attack speed slowing effects of Cripple.
– Consecration – No longer resets weapon timer when cast.
– Improved Seal of Justice – Tooltip updated to be more clear.
– Seal of Command – Should now correctly report damage in the overhead display and the combat log.
– Summon Charger – New icon.
– Fixed a bug where the Paladin did not always die when using the Divine Intervention spell.

Priest

– Mind Flay – Will now cause damage to targets immune to movement slowing effects.
– Shadowform – Changed so all spells except Holy can be cast rather than only Shadow and Discipline spells. Tooltip updated. This fixes several bugs that prevented various actions (creating tradeskill items, mining, summoning a mount, using a hearthstone and many more).
– Spirit of Redemption – Tooltip updated to be more clear.
– Touch of Weakness – Stronger versions of this effect on enemy targets will no longer be replaced by weaker versions.

Rogue

– Riposte – Targets immune to disarm effects will now take damage from Riposte.
– Disarming an enemy faction hunter’s trap will now flag the rogue for PvP.
– Ghostly Strike no longer deals damage to you when you use it.
– Premeditation – Fixed a bug where the combo points gained using the ability were not properly removed after the duration expired. Also increased range and duration.
– The UI now properly shows that Preparation does not clear a Cold Blood setup.

Shaman

– Frost Shock – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by Frost Shock’s movement slowing effect. Damage will still be caused.
– Reincarnation will no longer be an option on death when a Soulstone effect is active on the Shaman. The Soulstone will be used as the higher priority effect.
– Frostbrand Weapon – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by Frostbrand Weapon’s movement slowing effect. Damage will still be caused.
– Call of Flame – Fixed a bug where the damage bonus did not always increase various totems.
– Chain spells cast on PvP targets by an unflagged Shaman will now properly bounce to other PvP targets.
– The tooltip for Fire Nova Totem now correctly reflects the damage the totems deal.

Warlock

– Due to significant talent changes, Warlocks will have all talent points refunded and can be respent.
– Cripple (Doomguard) – Targets that are immune to movement slowing effects will no longer be affected by Cripple’s movement slowing effect. Melee and ranged attack speed slowing effects will still affect these targets.
– Demon Skin/Demon Armor – Now increases health regeneration at all times, as was always intended. Previously, the health regeneration only occurred out of combat. Tooltips updated.
– Demonic Sacrifice – The sacrifice effects for the Voidwalker and Felhunter have changed. The Voidwalker will now regenerate 3% of your total health every 4 seconds. The Felhunter will now regenerate 2% of your total mana every 4 seconds.
– Demonic Sacrifice now works properly on banished summons.
– Summon Dreadsteed – New icon.
– Dark Pact – Fixed a bug where the combat log was reporting an incorrect value of mana gained by the caster when there wasn’t enough mana to drain from the pet.
– Phase Shift (Imp) – While phase shifted, the imp is now targetable but will remain an invalid target for all spells and attacks except self-cast spells.
– Improved Healthstone – The increased effect from this talent should now properly apply to other players that use the Warlock’s Healthstones.
– Ritual of Summoning – Fixed a bug where players could be summoned from outside the same instance as the warlock in some cases.
– Unholy Power – No longer requires the Fel Stamina talent. Is now a tier 4 talent and is a prerequisite for the new Master Demonologist talent.
– Master Conjuror – Talent replaced with a new talent called Master Demonlogist.
– New Talent (Demonology): Master Demonologist – Grants both the Warlock and the summoned demon an effect as long as that demon is active. The effect granted depends on the type of demon summoned.
– Unholy Power – No longer requires the Fel Stamina talent. It now requires the Master Demonologist talent.
– Ritual of Doom – Should now display the cooldown.

Warrior

– Due to significant talent changes, Warriors will have all talent points refunded and can be respent.
– Hamstring – Will now cause damage to targets immune to movement slowing effects. Movement slowing effect improved.
– Improved Hamstring – Design changed. No longer improves the movement slowing effect. It is now a 3 point talent that gives a 5/10/15% chance to immobilize the target for 5 seconds.
– Booming Voice – In addition to increasing duration, this talent will now increase the area of effect of Battle Shout and Demoralizing Shout by 10/20/30/40/50%.
– Battle Shout – Tooltip updated to display area of effect (in yards).
– Demoralizing Shout – Tooltip updated to display area of effect (in yards).
– Improved Berserker Rage – No longer increases the duration of the effect. The talent will now generate 5/10 rage when Berserker Rage is used.
– Improved Demoralizing Shout – Effectiveness increase from talent increased to 8/16/24/32/40%.
– Piercing Howl – No longer has a prerequisite (Improved Demoralizing Shout).
– Deathwish – Is now usable while under a Fear effect, which will also remove the Fear effect.
– Bloodthirst – Design changed. Bloodthirst is now an instant melee attack that causes damage equal to 30% of the warrior’s attack power. In addition, the next 5 successful melee attacks will restore health.
– Concussion Blow – No longer requires purchase of the Improved Revenge talent.
– Shield Discipline – Removed and replaced by the new talent Shield Slam.
– New Talent: Shield Slam – Slam the target with your shield, causing damage and has a 50% chance to dispel 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a moderate amount of threat. Requires the purchase of the Concussion Blow talent.
– Heroic Strike/Sunder Armor/Revenge/Mocking Blow – Tooltips updated to indicate the additional threat caused by these abilities. There have been no changes to the amount of threat caused.

Items

Sets
– Felheart, Cenarion, Giantstalker’s and Earthfury item sets now have updated art. The Felheart Skullcap is now also called something more appropriate to the new art.
– Grand Marshal and High Warlord PvP Honor rewards have been updated with improved statistics and new unique art.
– The Alliance Mail and Horde Leather and Mail Epic PvP Honor reward armor sets have received art updates.
– The stealth detection bonus on the Druid PvP set gloves has been changed to work in all forms, including caster form.
– The set bonus for The Champion’s Earthshaker has a revised tooltip to more clearly state that all Shock spells have an increased spell critical chance.
– The 8 piece set bonus for Dreadmist will now appropriately affect shadow spells.
– The tooltip for the improved feint effectiveness set bonus of the Bloodfang armor set has been corrected to show the actual percentage increase.
– When worn by female characters, the Beaststalker’s Tunic had a missing texture piece last patch. This has been corrected.
– Set items which are broken no longer contribute to set bonus listings in the item tooltips.

– The Horde and Alliance PvP Battle Standards may now only be used inside PvP Battlegrounds, but the cooldown has been reduced to 10 minutes.
– The Rank 3 Stormpike Insignia now has the correct health regeneration effect.
– You can now only have one Flask affecting you at a time.
– The Seal of the Dawn trinket now counts as though you were also wearing an Argent Dawn Commission trinket.
– The Goblin Sapper Charge can now be used while moving.
– Dark Iron Bomb tooltip text and stun effect radius has been corrected to be the appropriate 5 yards.
– Librams are now considered to be Books when searching for these items in the Auction House.
– The Discombobulator Ray’s effect has been changed: it now reduces movement speed to 80% of normal and reduces the target’s damage with both spells and melee by 40. The range is now 20 yards.
– Snowblind Shoes are now properly marked as an Epic item.
– Band of Sulfuras is now unique.
– Fireguard Shoulders now have a graphic.
– Flask of Forest Mojo can now be sold.
– The Bloodseeker crossbow’s firing animation has been corrected.
– The damage from Smokey’s Lighter will now show up appropriately in the combat log.
– The water breathing ability of the Hydrocane will now continue to work if the player is shapeshifted.
– Both helpful and harmful effects from the Deviate Fish will remain after logging out.
– Dark Iron Bracers have been changed to Bind on Equip.
– Set bonus for Stormshroud armor improved. It should be more compelling for rogues and druids now.
– Winterâ�?��?�s Might recipe now displays the correct +7 to spell damage instead of +5.
– Fixed a typo in the item tooltip for the Alliance’s Rune of Recall.
– Several lootable items in Alterac Valley have had their stack limit changed.

Professions

– Thorium Brotherhood now offers several new recipes. Additionally, several of the old recipes now have different faction requirements.
– Additional Smithing/Leatherworking/Tailoring/Enchanting Recipes added to Timbermaw at Honored Reputation
– Additional Smithing/Leatherworking/Tailoring/Enchanting Recipes added to Argent Dawn at Honored and Revered Reputation. – Also new First Aid recipe added to Argent Dawn at Honored.
– Lokhtos Darkbargainer in Blackrock Depths now has many additional recipes that can be learned at Honored, Revered and Exalted reputation. Recipes are available for Enchanting, Tailoring, Leatherworking (all three specialty types), Blacksmithing (Armorsmithing, and Weaponsmithing (all three specialty types).

Quest

– There is now an access quest to gain entry to Blackwing Lair. Happy Hunting!
– Shadow Priest Vandis at the Bulwark should now properly buff players who complete any step of the “Return to the Bulwark” quest in Western Plaguelands.
– Fixed a typo in the Horde version of the quest “Reclaimed Treasures”.
– Imps during the Warlock Mount Ritual in Dire Maul will no longer get stuck at their spawn-in portals.
– Using the Collectronic Module on frozen rookery eggs for the quest “Egg Collection” will correctly consume them.
– Obtaining a set of Thievesâ�?��?� Tools in the quest “Tools of the Trade” no longer flags you for PvP.

Raids and Dungeons

– Several spawns removed from Scholomance. This should make for a more enjoyable 5 player experience.
– Several spawns removed from Stratholme. This should make for a more enjoyable 5 player experience. Also, you will now be able to make additional attempts at Ramstein and/or Baron Rivendare should your initial attempt fail.
– The trapped chests in Stratholme will now show up for Detect Traps and can be disarmed. In addition, the number of creatures that come out of the trapped chests has been reduced.
– Many creatures in Stratholme have gained Detect Invisibility/Stealth.
– The loot tables in Molten Core have been revised slightly.
– Characters that die and release in the Molten Core will now receive a minimap corpse marker and arrow that will lead them to the window next to Lothos Riftwaker in Blackrock Mountain.
– Phase shifted imps are no longer hit by Magmadarâ�?��?�s Lava Bomb.
– Damage and resist messages from Magmadarâ�?��?�s Lava Bomb shows up in the combat log.
– Fixed a bug that was causing the Cache of the Firelord (Majordomo Loot chest), the Chest of the Seven (Blackrock Depths seven dwarves chest) and the Gordok Tribute Chest (Dire Maul) from despawning too soon.
– The chance for an Epic quest item dropping from the Majordomo’s chest has been increased to 100%.
– The Corrupted Forces of Nature in Maraudon will now pursue correctly.
– Dire Maul has had several spawn locations changed and a slight increase in population.
– Crystal Fang, the rare spawn in Blackrock Spire, will now potentially appear.

User Interface

– Raid UI has been significantly improved. You can now open the raid UI and drag the name of a class to your gamefield to have a listing of all players of that class be displayed on the game field. Likewise you can drag a group name to your playfield to have the players in that group displayed on your gamefield. In either case the display will show the health, mana and limited buffs or debuffs on each player in the group or class and you can click on a player listed this way to target that player. You can then right-click on the class or group UI element to make some modifications to how the UI displays or to remove the UI element.
– If you cycle through targets with the Tab key, manually select a different target using another method, then quickly hit Tab again, your last Tab-selected target will be re-selected and you can continue Tab-selecting where you left off. Clearing your target will restart the Tab selection process.
– Items on the action bar now remain there even after they are consumed.
– If you shift-click on an item link while you are entering chat text, the item link will now be pasted into your text.
– Mail recipient auto-completion will now use names from your guild as well as your friends list.
– Hitting Escape will now cancel ranged weapon auto-shots.
– The pet UI will now be greyed out while you are mounted to reflect the fact that you can’t command your pet.
– NPCs which give dishonorable kills have the rank of Civilian and show up with a white title background in the targeting frame.
– The effect of damage resistance and vulnerability is now displayed in the combat log.
– Combat abilities which are fully blocked show up correctly in the combat log.
– Crushing and glancing blows show more information in the combat log.
– Damage from poisons and curses now shows up in the UI after the caster has been killed.
– Players now receive an error message if they try to join a meeting stone queue and are in a raid or are not the party leader.
– TargetUnitsPet() is obsolete and has been removed from the scripting system.
– Added UnitInRaid(), TargetLastTarget() and TargetNearestRaidMember() to the scripting system.
– The GetPlayerMapPosition() script function will only work for you, your party and raid.
– Fixed an issue where chat window positions may not be restored to the correct positions when re-entering the world.
– Fixed occasional crash when speech bubbles are enabled around NPCs that talk a lot.
– Fixed occasional crash when listing a chat channel with a large numbers of players.
– Fixed temporary lockup experienced by spell casting players when they are kicked.

World Environment

Flight Paths
– Added a Wind Rider Master to Camp Taurajo in The Barrens.

New Horde Flight Paths
Camp Taurajo in The Barrens <-> Crossroads in The Barrens
Camp Taurajo in The Barrens <-> Thunder Bluff in Mulgore
Camp Taurajo in The Barrens <-> Freewind Post in Thousand Needles

– Fixed several problems with the flight path from Undercity to Hammerfall while passing through the Ruins of Andorhal.
– Fixed some problems with the Ironforge to Stormwind flight path.
– The Darkshire <-> Booty Bay flight paths no longer fly over the Gurubashi Arena in Stranglethorn Vale, and therefore no longer flag fliers as being in Free-for-All PvP. Also, they should no longer fly through the zeppelins coming in and out of the Grom’gol Base Camp.

Graveyards
– Feralas, Durotar, Mulgore, Darnassus, Tirisfal Glades (excluding the Bulwark graveyard), Elwynn Forest & the Eastern Plaguelands have now all been converted over to the new graveyard system. The system will place your character’s spirit at the closest allowed graveyard in the zone. For example, an Alliance character dying closer to the new Darnassus graveyard, detailed below, will use that graveyard rather than the one located at Dolanaar. Starting area graveyards are still reserved exclusively for characters of similar faction that die within their confines. For example, the spirit of a Horde character dying right outside of Deathknell will not use Deathknell graveyard, but will instead go to the next closest Tirisfal Glades graveyard.
– A Horde-only graveyard has been added in the northern section of Durotar, just to the south of Orgrimmar. In addition to serving northern Durotar, Horde characters dying in Orgrimmar, The Hall of Legends and Ragefire Chasm will use this new graveyard. Alliance characters dying in Durotar will continue to only use the Razor Hill graveyard.
– A Horde-only graveyard has been placed at the northern base of Thunder Bluff in Mulgore. Horde characters dying in Thunder Bluff will also use this new graveyard. Alliance characters dying in Mulgore will continue to only use the graveyard at Bloodhoof Village.
– An Alliance-only graveyard has been added at the eastern end of Darnassus. Alliance characters dying in Darnassus will use this new graveyard. Horde characters dying on Teldrassil will still only be able to use the graveyard at Dolanaar.
– An Alliance-only graveyard has been added just outside of Ironforge, around the side of the mountain. It is only for use by Alliance characters that die inside Ironforge and in the Gates of Ironforge sub-area of Dun Morogh. Horde characters dying therein will continue to only use the Kharanos graveyard.
– The Ruins of Lordaeron above Undercity now has a Horde-only graveyard. Horde characters dying inside the Undercity will use this new graveyard. Alliance characters will continue to solely use the Faol’s Rest graveyard.
– A neutral graveyard has been added at the Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest. The graveyard at Goldshire is now for use by the Alliance exclusively. Horde characters dying in Elwynn Forest and its sub-areas, as well as in Stormwind, The Stockade and the Deeprun Tram, will have their spirits travel to the new graveyard at the Eastvale Logging Camp.
– A neutral graveyard has been added on the island of Caer Darrow in Western Plaguelands. It will serve characters who die on Caer Darrow and in Scholomance.
– A neutral graveyard has been added in the Eastern Plaguelands near the northwestern shore of Blackwood Lake. Characters that die in The Fungal Vale will continue to use the Darrowshire graveyard due to the mountains between it and the new graveyard. Additionally, characters dying in Stratholme will now use the new Blackwood Lake graveyard.
– A neutral graveyard has been added in Feralas, just to the southwest of Dire Maul. Characters dying in Dire Maul will use this new graveyard.

Misc
– Darkmoon Cards have been seen dropping from high level Humanoids around the world. Collect a set of them and bring them to the Darkmoon Faire when it is in town!
– The “Human, Theramore” faction is now the “Theramore” faction. This faction is allied with the Alliance and is at war with the Horde.
– High Elves now have their own distinct faction â�?��?? “Silvermoon Remnant”. This faction is allied with the Alliance and is at war with the Horde. Not all High Elves are a part of this faction.
– Several NPCs around the world are now associated with the proper faction.
– Dimetradons in Un’Goro Crater should be found more regularly now.
– Fire Elementals in Searing Gorge should be easier to find.
– The pair of gryphons guarding the entrance to the Hinterlands have finally decided to stop staring at one another and will now wander around the entrance to the pass.
– Rashona Straglash was moved to be with other cloth-centric citizens in Orgrimmar.
– Several NPCs that were not marked as Civilians are now correctly labeled.
– Dark Strand Cultist and Enforcers are now correctly labeled Humanoid.
– Morbent Felâ�?��?�s level was slightly reduced to better fit the level range of Duskwood.
– Brinna Valanaar in Azshara now sells higher level arrows.
– Hadoken Swiftstrider of Camp Mojache, Feralas and Dinita Stonemantle in Ironforge received promotions; they are now significantly tougher than before.
– Certain floating herbs, minerals, and chests should now be more down to earth.
– The Barrens should now feel more alive.
– Sickly Gazelles now have a sickly look to them.
– Jarven Thunderbrew in Kharanos warns players in Common now, and not in Dwarvish.
– The Wastewander Scufflaw of Tanaris now spells his own name correctly.
– Swift Green Raptor has been renamed to Swift Olive Raptor for clarity.
– An icon has been added at the Kalimdor continent map level for Revantusk Village.
– Revantusk Village will now have an arrow pointing in its direction on the mini-map when you get close enough to it.
– Fixed some typos in Gilnid’s text in The Deadmines.
– Fixed some typos in Supervisor Raelen’s text in Elwynn Forest.

Saved in the case the censorship reaches again the FoH forums (which went directly down, how fun).

Btw, after having read carefully everything I can say that at least the Warrior changes (the only class I know well) are really smart and outstanding. Kalgan may suck greatly at developing interesting PvP models but he is really that good when planning classes. With a few minor tweaks here and there he addressed a bunch of problems at a radical level that seemed just too complex to solve without breaking everything else. Impressive.

Also good the changes to the instances (and the integration of the indispensable CT_RaidAssist). I just wonder, if new creatures detecting invisibility/stealth were added to Strat, why nothing is being done to LBRS? That raid has been DESTROYED thanks to groups sneaking in and bypassing the whole instance just to farm the boss mobs. It’s just impossible to find druids and rogues to join a raid, which makes the whole thing really annoying since the healers are rare even in normal conditions.

Isn’t that issue serious enough to get solved?

And finally the possibility to access the BGs from the capitals. Noooo, I didn’t see this coming from miles away. Quoting myself:

Who wants to bet that the next step will be the possibility to enter the BGs no matter where you are?

And the longer comment where I explain why this decision is just the result of a big flaw in the game:

WoW’s battlegrounds are the manifestation of this process. The game needs insta-ports because the principles on which the game was being built have been eroded to a point that they became completely unexcused. I need to fly from Ironforge to Ashenvale but …why? At the end I’m going into a portal and join a specific instance completely cut-out from the game-world. I do not care what happens in other instances, what I do in mine doesn’t affect the world outside, I do not care who is going to win. The key here is “I do not care”. Everything is contingent, the space is negated, the purpose doesn’t exist. The player isn’t anymore put in a context, he is outside that context, he makes the context and uses it. He makes it up, he hallucinates himself. And, outside, nothing exists, nothing has consequences and nothing “breathes”.

What is left of a mmorpg? The time I spend flying from Ironforge to Ashenvale and vice-versa. What is left of a mmorpg is an unexcused burden that will be ultimately removed. Even in WoW (you’ll see).

I was right again.

Do not overestimate the beast, do not underestimate it either

June 17, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

When considering the insane success of WoW we shouldn’t forget that the game isn’t stopping from LAUNCHING. Everywhere.

We do not know if the game is hemorrhaging subscribers in the USA or maintaining a good retention, we just have the evidence that there is an insane growth due to the game “conquering spaces”. End of Novermber it launched in the USA, in January it launched in Korea, February was the time of Europe and now we have the China which will flood all the useful statistics you can pull from all this.

I mean, the geographical space on the earth isn’t infinite. There’s only so much you can conquer and I’m not sure how many people can be interested in the game in Africa. At least if Blizzard isn’t planning to sell the game to the aliens.

So remember that we do not have any evidence of the lasting appeal of the game. Which is the sole thing that matters in this genre.

The other consideration I find interesting is how much is irrelevant in this case the problem of the localization. It is surely important to localize and adapt the practical aspect, the costs, the distribution but the fact that the game is able to “win” the players everywhere in the world is always a demonstration of an undeniable quality.

But this could be a discussion about the culture that would require a deep analysis instead of a superficial glance.

In the meantime Grimwell has a thread to doubt of the game again:

Blizzard has a long history of taking existing game concepts, and simplifying them to a point where they are accessible to a much larger public. WoW is to MMORPG what Diablo is to CRPG and Warcraft to strategy games: The most successful title, but not very deep. And in all previous cases the Blizzard titles had some bad effects on their respective genres.

And that is the big danger. The MMORPG genre is wide, even wider than other video game genres. It is possible that a good developer could make a MMORPG which sells as well as WoW, but is based on a completely different approach. There could be good world-like MMORPG, good games which aren’t based on levels, good games which are based on a lot more social interaction. But the blinding success of World of Warcraft risks to get the concepts of these games stamped as “not like WoW” and thrown into the bin before they ever got a chance to prove their worth.

With Geldon going straight to the point this time:

While it’s true that World of Warcraft’s outstanding success will influence MMORPGs of the future, the fact of the matter is that most people aren’t going to interpret why WoW was a success correctly.

This thread is all about the fact that people will try to emulate World of Warcraft because of it’s success. The entire point of my message here is this: most designers either can’t identify or can’t emulate what World of Warcraft did well. So they’ll emulate other parts of World of Warcraft that they liked: The graphical styling, the battlegrounds, the casual friendliness, ect.

A concept somewhat backed up even by Anyuzer:

The problem with the term is that it’s a derogatory term. When a developer tells its fan base, that its upcoming game: “isn’t going to be an EQ clone” the term is used in an attempt to express that: “if you didn’t like EverQuest, you’re going to like our game!”

What baffles me about that is simply the short sightedness of every designer/developer who has claimed that, because it automatically suggests to me that they never took a close look at what made EQ tick.

These are all points I’ve discussed extensively in the past. While I strongly criticize some of the aspects of the game, in particular when it comes to PvP, I do not dismiss the quality that is surely there.

And I definitely agree with Geldon, it’s obvious that WoW will trigger a process of emulation everywhere, inesorably. It’s already happening, all the mmorpgs out there are ripping features constantly and systematically. But the point is again about delving deeper than a superficial level that won’t bring to any decent result.

I did already my homework (and in many other comments I wrote) and offer my own point of view on “what made the game tick” as Anyuzer would say. I’m not sure how many others arrived to the same conclusions without dismissing and trivializing the argument on the way.

So yes, it will be systematically cloned and I expect all these clones to fail miserably.

World of Warcraft causes 3rd World War

June 14, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

There’s a fancy Press Release.

So the game reaches two million of paying subscribers. The rumor was already floating around and even SirBruce updated his charts accordingly before the press release.

You know what? Blizzard is done. Done. They can leave completely the game as it is, without a patch for years and they’ll still cash a fuckload of money. They triggered an out-of-scale process that can be exploited without any commitment. They are in a position that will prevent them to pay for their mistakes and it’s exactly the point where something breaks. Now they can fuck the game just for fun and watch the reaction amusedly. Development-wise they are done.

You say that some parts of the game are broken? HA! Two million subscribers. Rimshot.

This game is going to break China. Phenomena like the “Leroy video” demonstated how this game is becoming more than a game and nearer to a cultural symbol outside the boundaries of the game itself. I really don’t know how China will react to this but I’m starting to believe that the third World War will be triggered by a videogame.

Fun times.

We were not prepared

June 13, 2005 by Abalieno | 2 Comments

Old stuff.

There’s around an interview with Paul Sams not so different from another released some months ago.

we have in excess of a million and a half paying subscribers – it’s been going really, really well.

Each of the other markets have been going really well for us. We’re number one in North America, we’re number one in Europe, and in Korea we kind of move back and forth between number two and three. We expect for that to continue to go up – that’s probably the most competitive market in the world for these types of games. In China, from a concurrency perspective in open beta, we’ve broken all records in Chinese history for these types of games, so we’re quite excited.

We were able to respond and provide additional hardware very quickly, because we had another full datacentre ready to light, so we were able to do that and to get the capacity up.

[…]

In doing the whole planning process, we had to look at historical data from other companies. We looked at what their typical concurrency was as a percentage of their overall subscribership, we used all those things – we kind of padded those a bit, and we also looked at historical sales trends… We did all the different things that intelligent businesspeople would do to effectively plan for such a launch. The challenge is that the demand was so much greater than any other company had experienced, not to mention beyond the padding that we put on top of that.

We said, okay, let’s for the sake of planning just assume that from a numbers perspective, it’s equal to the biggest thing out there. Then let’s add to it, and say let’s be ready for more. Well, when you do that, and you still have demand that outpaces that… [laughs] That’s challenging! And so we’ve had to work very hard to deal with that.

As I wrote on QT3 I don’t believe those excuses about the problems at launch. This because those problems are still alive and well right now, just showing in a different form (same as when I write about “symptoms” and “causes”). The game, as many other in the genre, has problems of population and accessibility. The Battlegrounds launched recently and brought a long list of problems both on the design and the implementation. Some of the most serious are rooted in a structure that wasn’t properly planned and that brought to the initial problems with the queues after the release and now with the queues on the Battleground.

These Battlegrounds are a novelty now and many players are checking them. Still, on most servers there aren’t enough players to keep the instances up without long to infinite queues that become even worst thanks to the faction unbalance. What will happen six months down the road when the players will be bored to tears by repetitive gameplay that doesn’t go anywhere and that is available without a monthly fee in other games? How this form of PvP will be accessible in a low populated server or during the off-peak?

These problems cannot be ignored or justified in any way. That’s “design” and it should have been solved YEARS ago, when the project started. Not seven month after release. Not as a “surprise”. There is no fucking surprise if we deal with something that everyone else with some experience in the genre already saw coming.

Give a look to this thread. We were already anticipating and discussing these problems. We also suggested possible solutions:

Mark Asher:
One of the things they might be able to do with instanced battlegrounds is draw upon all the servers to fill them. Instead of requiring enough level 25-30 Alliance players on one server, that instanced battleground will be filled with Alliance players from all the servers.

If they do something like that they shouldn’t have any problems with low population instances.

But what was going to happen is what I anticipated. It’s my skepticism:

Well, really, it’s a great idea that opens even more possibilities. I don’t think Blizzard will experiment and innovate this much.

Now what I say is that I do not tolerate justifications. The management of a game doesn’t belong here. This is a duty of the designer. This is a crucial aspect of how the game is built and it’s not tolerable that it gets systematically ignored. As I wrote this is a deliberate choice. They chose to ignore an important fundament of the game and they are going to suffer that choice as everyone else doing the same mistake. Not for two months after release because the servers have queues or are crashing, but for the whole course of the game because the gameplay and the accessibility is hindered by a plan that doesn’t work and that noone cared to focus on.

There is NOTHING more important than this. There isn’t a single aspect of the game design in general (in this genre) that is more important. I do not tolerate that this argument is easily dismissed.

At least now I have Guild Wars. That’s a game that isn’t run by idiots and that planned correctly the structure of the game before everything else.

As I said, Battlegrounds are broken

June 11, 2005 by Abalieno | 3 Comments

It’s impossible even to list down all the issues between broken queues, exploits and bugged calculation of points and reputation. This is a message taken from the boards that demonstrates how the Contribution Points are broken in Warsong:

Unfortunately this is likely going to get lost as the problems seems isolated to Hellscream, but here goes.

Hellscream is not receiving CPs for Warsong wins. I have talked to 10 different people now all of whom have CP totals that are less than half what they are supposed to be. I myself noticed a problem on Wed and held on to my tokens from Thursday. I had 8 total and ended up with 8000 CPs on the day. Something is amiss. The problem is on both Alliance and Horde.

Perhaps people can bump this if they get a chance.

If he has eight tokens it means he won eight times. This alone is equal to 1660 x 8 = 13280 Contribution Points. Without counting the Honor Kills. Instead he collected 8000.

This confirms my test. One day I won two sessions, all three flags returned and I ended up with 3k of points. The following day I did the same but leaving the BG after two flag returned, without waiting for the third. And I ended up with nearly 6k of points.

It’s also kind of interesting how all the radical design holes are starting to show. The servers have huge population unbalances, same for the factions. This brings to endless queues making the game unplayable for most of the players and also shows other design shortcomings. Try to play PvP in a low populated server during the off peak, it’s not possible. Even if you manage to get in after insane long queues you’ll be stuck to kill the same players over and over and over. Without getting points thanks to the “diminishing returns”. And this right now that these battlegrounds are a novelty and everyone is checking them. Think to what will happen a few months down the road.

Blizzard has stated various times that they are currently researching ways to ease the faction and population unbalances. Idiots. This is not something you do seven months after release. This is something you plan right at the start of the project. You’ve been noobs, now it’s too late and you suffer another huge design shortcoming.

Enjoy. The PvP in WoW is broken beyond repair. There’s nothing good aside the deatmatch mode they stole from different genres and that required no talent at all to copy. The rest of the design is an insane clusterfuck where you really cannot find anything to save. Anything.

Idle Times

June 10, 2005 by Abalieno | 1 Comment

I don’t like the battlegrounds in World of Warcraft, in particular I don’t like the direction where the game is going. This time I don’t want to comment the bugs or the mechanics I don’t like or consider broken, I just want to say that I don’t expect much from the overall approach. The first day after the patch I heard a guild mate say: “this isn’t anymore a mmorpg”. And that is also my point.

It’s not important to define and categorize what is a mmorpg and decide if WoW betrayed an ideal or not. The point is that this implementation of the PvP is arid and leading nowhere. I believe the latest Penny Arcade comic describes this approach. Blizzard didn’t even try to suggest an interesting PvP model, they didn’t even pick up the challenge. They simply took a consolidated mechanic like the CTF and adapted it into the game. The risk is zero here because there isn’t anything to design aside the conversion itself. By adding a CTF you cannot go wrong because it is a mechanic that has been tested for years between many different titles.

But where is the “world”? From this perspective the battleground are a failure. A failure because if the genre isn’t able to gain its own definition and personality, it will just inherit what worked from other games. The same dynamics, the same structures. Guild Wars is a “landingplace”. If so many parts of these games have failed, the new trend is to question even their existence. Why we need to walk from point A to point B? So we get insta-ports. This example is becoming a consolidated dynamic. These games are losing their personality, they are losing their own specific design, their are being emptied of relevance and purpose till there isn’t anything left. When this process will be over a “mmorpg” will become just an empty box that you can fill with whatever you like, even consolidated deathmatches.

Right now the implementation of the CTF in WoW is revealing. Why I need to fly from Ironforge to Menethil, take a boat, move to the other continent, fly again to Ashenvale and then ride till the entrance of the BG? And why I need to backtrack all that in order to go back to Ironforge in the case I want to do some PvE? Yes, I want insta-ports. All these dynamics are: idle times. I’m being idle for most of the time I pass logged in. I’m idle to move between points and I’m idle while waiting on queues, I’m idel while LFG. There is no gameplay and these idle times have zero use since I alt-tab out of the game. They are unexcused.

Now what I want to reveal is that all these consequences aren’t natural. It’s not natural that you can join the local channels form everywhere in the game-world. It’s not natural that the concept of “space” becomes so devoid of relevance that I feel seriously the need of insta-ports. What happened is that there was a deliberate choice in the design to empty the game from purpose and relevance. These aspects have no depth and no meaning anymore but because the design, again as an action and a choice, has decided that they have no role. This is a systematic attack that this genre is constantly suffering. This is what will kill these games.

What this approach to the design is achieving is the negation of the principles. The negation of the origin of the genre itself. Those roots are being killed and when all the ties with the past will be gone, the genre will be ready to be conquered by the consolidated archetypes already existing. Consoles, sport games, FPS, RTS and so on. This is what brought to my comments on Dave’s blog. For sure this genre is going to last for long, but what it will become isn’t even remotely near what we expect and will be completely estranged from its own origin.

WoW’s battlegrounds are the manifestation of this process. The game needs insta-ports because the principles on which the game was being built have been eroded to a point that they became completely unexcused. I need to fly from Ironforge to Ashenvale but …why? At the end I’m going into a portal and join a specific instance completely cut-out from the game-world. I do not care what happens in other instances, what I do in mine doesn’t affect the world outside, I do not care who is going to win. The key here is “I do not care”. Everything is contingent, the space is negated, the purpose doesn’t exist. The player isn’t anymore put in a context, he is outside that context, he makes the context and uses it. He makes it up, he hallucinates himself. And, outside, nothing exists, nothing has consequences and nothing “breathes”.

What is left of a mmorpg? The time I spend flying from Ironforge to Ashenvale and vice-versa. What is left of a mmorpg is an unexcused burden that will be ultimately removed. Even in WoW (you’ll see).

Aside all these considerations the battlegrounds are a fun diversion. They are fun because they copy directly consolidated mechanics that cannot go wrong if not in the implementation. But after some time they will grow old. Very old. The gameplay is limited, repetitive and unexcused. The rewards become plainful grinds that bore you to tears. They add nothing in the long term because they are estranged from the fabric of the world. They are time-bonuses for a live team that isn’t able to match the expectations of the players on the content.

And again that gap between the expectations of the players and the concrete possibilities of the dev team isn’t an unavoidable fact but just the direct result of a broken approach.

OMG, we killed Kenny, but it dropped nothing

June 9, 2005 by Abalieno | Leave a comment

On the other window I have corpse of Azuregos (one of the two PvE outdoor raid encounters) in front of my character.

It took some time to gather the raid and four attempts to succeed, which equals to about three hours.

I guess we should be partying at the moment but there was no drop aside 170~ gold to share. Yes, no drops at all.

On the forums there are various threads about nasty bugs in the loot system that are ruining many raids. This may be related or not, I don’t know.

What I know is that there aren’t many parts of the game that aren’t broken in a way or another.

EDIT- It seems that the loot was dropped by a GM. Next time you know who’s your true target. (I won nothing)

A cesspit.

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