The World of Warcraft Thread

[Apokx]

Originally Posted by Shauk

fix'd


seriously, you don't even have to win a single game, it's retarded.

when bosses start dropping epics and set pieces after 10 wipes, you'll have a case.

PvE is earning your gear, is an accomplishment.

PvP is a joke, as you said, balance doesn't exist so *yank yank*

For someone that was talking about epeen stroking, you sure do alot of it for raiders.
PvE and PvP = not hard. They both pretty much boil down to time invested. People who are worse spend more time, better spend less. The one advantage PvE has over PvP is the balance aspect. All specs can do well in a PvE environment. You may not want alot of moonkin or ret paladins, but one of either can improve a raid. There is no wrong class/spec.

Hell, most guilds get the strats to bosses handed to them from other more successful guilds, so you're taking a test with all of the answers.

They even supply PvE's stepping stones to raiding gear. Heroics = easy epic gear and badges = more free epic gear. Hell they even put the pvp healing cloak on the badge vendors instead of the honor vendor.

I love when people whine that someone who constantly gets 1300s in the arena system waits like two months and gets a single piece of epic gear. That team will also not have enough points to complete a full set + weapons anyway.

Yawhateva, I like the idea of arenas. They provide a small scale pvp environment that shouldfocus on individual skill rather than a zerg mentality most BGs have. However they fail in practice because the people who decide what "balance" is are completely inept and selfish.


I hate having every post I make sound like I absolutely hate the game, but I just have this addiction to calling stupid shit when I see it. You'd think they would get some people on their dev team that can actually make good changes while keeping it fair and balanced. I reactivated two weeks ago and they're already making me regret giving them another 15 bucks.

[Frosstbyte]

I agree with basically everything you've said, Apokx. I have never bothered to learn to arena on my hunter, because when I do pvp (which is seldom) I like to do it with my fiancee and my RL friends and none of us are willing to respec and reroll to the cookie-cutter "pro" arena teams.

I think blizzard has totally missed the point of an "e-sport" with regards to WoW. It's not designed for truly balanced competitive play, and it never will be, but they're going to try to force it down our throats either way. Awesome job guys!

[Xazy]

New PVP rules coming season 4!!


When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

[YaWhateva]

another solution to arenas, at least to me, would just to completely get rid of resillience....and make every piece of gear legendary, haha.

[Shauk]

I like the rating change, it means people will finally stop making throwaway arena teams for free welfare epics.

thank god.

[Frosstbyte]

It really hurts you so much that someone spends 5+ weeks on a single piece of gear, huh? That's a major blow to your ability to effectively play the game?

Elitism is stupid. Calling arena gear "welfare" is stupid. Get off your high horse about a video game. Putting ratings on everything doesn't do anything but reward min-maxing instead of rewarding, gasp, having fun in a game. While I understand their shoulder and weapon rating policy, since weapons are very viable for pve use as well as pvp and the shoulders are very signature, everything else is just a way to pretend that they're making the whole system more legit. It doesn't make it more legit and it doesn't introduce any more real competition to the system.

The best measure of "skill" in WoW pvp is going to be the arena tournament realms where everyone has the same gear. Trying to force that onto the normal realms so it's harder for people to catch up and compete is silly, especially the ratings on the honor bought gear.

[Apokx]

Originally Posted by Shauk

raiding takes a lot more effort than joining a throwaway arena team and picking up epics, sorry, it's true.

arena takes NO effort to reap the rewards.

it may not be as fast as the teams that put forth a real effort and play correctly, but in the end, you'll have gear that is only marginally worst than those people with high personal ratings.

seriously, you don't even have to win a single game, it's retarded.

when bosses start dropping epics and set pieces after 10 wipes, you'll have a case.

PvE is earning your gear, is an accomplishment.

PvP is a joke, as you said, balance doesn't exist so *yank yank*

I like the rating change, it means people will finally stop making throwaway arena teams for free welfare epics.

thank god.

If you ever feel like stepping up and being part of the big boy discussion, feel free. This isn't the wow forums, so that "QQ arena is welfare epics" elitist bullshit isn't going to fly. I actually took you off my ignored posters list thinking you were going to provide examples of why you think PvE is so much harder and impressive than PvP.

From someone that has little to no interest in PvE, I don't understand what infuriates you so much about seeing me standing around in a major city in my epic PvP gear waiting for a BG queue to pop.

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

The best measure of "skill" in WoW pvp is going to be the arena tournament realms where everyone has the same gear. Trying to force that onto the normal realms so it's harder for people to catch up and compete is silly, especially the ratings on the honor bought gear.

I just wanted to point out how ironic their tournament server is. You pay a fee to have the same class selection/gear as anyone else.

The first time someone pointed it out to me, and all I could think of was "So I have to pay more money for fair PvP?"

[Shauk]

I really could care less about this thread, this game, if you have me on ignore, or if you agree with me.

This is all bullshit, it's all too little, too late, and for fucks sake, I haven't played this game at level 70 since the middle of last year. I exited the TBC shitstain just prior to the end of season 1 because I knew it wasn't going to get any better. The only reason I even play is to sell accounts since I get paid to play at work. I'll let someone else suffer the endless hamster wheel grindfest that is TBC, the carrot isn't real, and the only real sense of accomplishment is PvE progression, PvP was an afterthought.

You SERIOUSLY think it's "cool" for the concept of a "competitive arena" to just hand out gear to people who dont make the grade when it comes to competition? Is it not the purpose of the "reward" for your skill and effort to get this gear? What IS your grand vision for arenas? free gear?
I'm kind of a purist when it comes to gaming anyway, I don't use cheat codes, I don't expect free gear, My highest arena team only broke 1800 5v5's Shouldn't I bitch about entitlement in a competitive bracket now? Nope, My team didn't deserve it, we lost games that we could have won, why give us the "goodies" for underperforming? min-maxing is what this game is about, why don't you understand this?

the game was better before Arenas even existed to begin with. There is nothing preventing you from "having fun" There is no requirement for TOP TIER pvp epics in order to "have fun"

your comment about "big boys" and "this isn't the wow forums" are laughable, fucking hell, I don't post there I'd say to go outside and stop mouth breathing all over this subject, and I'm going to follow my own advice, I'm done.

[Apokx]

Originally Posted by Shauk

I'm going to follow my own advice, I'm done.

Excellent news.

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by Xazy

New PVP rules coming season 4!!


When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

Quite possibly the dumbest thing Blizzard is doing. I guess I'm pretty much fucked since I can only play on the weekends and I play with RL friends and we're not one of those leet class comps for 3v3. Sigh.

[Frosstbyte]

Whether you read or respond to this, I'm going to respond. What I value most in games is the ability for people to set and realistically achieve goals and to feel like they're progressing. What TBC has done best is allow people to continue to do that at all levels of play through increasingly high ilvl badge loot and the arena system. It's not perfect game design, but it's worlds ahead of the idiocy of the old rank-based pvp system and the loot gap between 5 mans and 20 mans and Naxx.

Of course you don't need the best gear so you can compete, but it's fun to upgrade. It's a sense of accomplishment, of time spent having a return. You can LOLACCOMPLISHMENTINAVIDEOGAMEWAT all you want, but no one does anything if they don't feel like they're getting something back. In WoW, the only thing to "get back" is gear and gold, which people use to get new gear anyway. There's nothing free about spending two hours every week for at least a month to get one piece of gear. And certainly there's nothing free amount the absolutely stupid amounts of time required to acquire any of the honor-bought gear. For most people, I expect arena to be exactly that-an alternate method of getting gear and getting upgrades. For people who are serious about pvp, I expect that arena will be a place where they can compete with each other to be the best. For the former, doing the work in whatever bracket they compete in, the gear is the reward. For the latter, the gear is means by which the goal of being the best team on the battlegroup can be achieved.

I see no reason why both of those systems cannot coexist without conflict, and I don't know why you or blizzard or anyone else would be so dead set on making sure they can't.

I understand the prestige of the shoulders and the raw power of the weapons, but putting rating requirements on everything else accomplishes nothing positive. It's only function is to dress up the system like it's actually competitive and fair and "e-sport" ready. It isn't, it's not and it never will be. The game simply isn't designed to work in that way.

[Ustwo]

WoW blew it for me when they forgot the last W was for war.

Sadly their netcode wasn't up to the task though anyways, someone needs to find out how they managed in planetside and use it for MMO's.

[Apokx]

Some new Death Knight abilities:

* Death Coil -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target.
* Death Grip -- This is the Death Knight's "taunt" ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy!
* Chains of Ice -- Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out.
* Raise Dead -- Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration -- gaining access to the ghoul's abilities.
o The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
+ Leap to the target
+ Rend for decent damage-over-time
+ Stun target, and of course more
* Death Pact -- Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight.
* Death and Decay -- Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared.
* Frost Presence -- Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time.
* Unholy Presence -- Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the "PvP" presence.
* Anti-magic Shield -- Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power.
* Strangulate -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds.
* Summon Deathcharger -- Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts.

There are some differences in the abilities between different interviews, but some other abilities are being discussed, like the Blood presence, that increases DPS and heals the DK when hit.

[Scorps]

Oh the death knight is going to be to much fun.

[Shauk]

I wonder what they have planned for the other classes 70-80 to appeal to would-be rerollers to keep their current class.

[Apokx]

Originally Posted by Scorps

Oh the death knight is going to be to much fun.

Yeah. I'm not sure if this is a sign that more classes will have several control abilities (like the DK has a counter for almost every archtype) or if the DK is just going to be so badass.


I've been waiting since release for this class to come out, and it doesent look like I will be dissapointed. They have my money for the collector's edition already.

[ObieX]

dunno if anyone posted this here yet but there's a very good interview about the expansion on gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/video/942519...e;videos;img;2

[Shauk]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/ is pretty much the end-all be all of WoW source information these days (and they link to all the sources which is nice)

[Shauk]

[Ustwo]

I forget when I quit playing WoW, but whatever the expansion is, it will work like the last.

Day 1 - all of the previous epics are now obsolete.
Week 1 - non-thinking casual players think they are 'even' with the hard core players.
Month 1 - Hard core players now have epics you can't get with a life.
Month 6 - New expansion is announced.

Rinse/Repeat

[Jadedfox]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I forget when I quit playing WoW, but whatever the expansion is, it will work like the last.

Day 1 - all of the previous epics are now obsolete.
Week 1 - non-thinking casual players think they are 'even' with the hard core players.
Month 1 - Hard core players now have epics you can't get with a life.
Month 6 - New expansion is announced.

Rinse/Repeat

And yet the WoW population is still growing.

--jaded

[Shauk]

Originally Posted by Jadedfox

And yet the WoW population is still growing.

--jaded

according to a source that wont verify it's source.


lol

damn blizzard.

[Reese]

We just downed Illidari Council. One of the funnest and definitely one of the longest fights in the game. There's just so much that can go wrong.

[Shauk]

http://wotlk.wikidot.com/

So, the client goes out for download and a few hours later it's up on torrent sites, being mined for new MPQ data like models and talents.

If you (or someone you know) are in the Alpha, for god's sake (and theirs) just keep it to yourself. People can and will get fired over stuff like this.

That said, here's the most recent compendium of stuff: Talents, new models, some crazy shit if it's all true.

[Jadedfox]

Originally Posted by Shauk

http://wotlk.wikidot.com/
If you (or someone you know) are in the Alpha, for god's sake (and theirs) just keep it to yourself. People can and will get fired over stuff like this.

What? You work at blizzard? lol

--jaded

[Shauk]

friend of a guild mate actually. not anyone involved in development or anything, just a service rep

[Jadedfox]

Originally Posted by Shauk

friend of a guild mate actually. not anyone involved in development or anything, just a service rep

That's pretty cool anyway

--jaded

[Shauk]

new port in stormwind eh?

[ObieX]

looks more like a shipyard to me. probably both tho. From what i read on a previous post up there ships will be leaving from theramore and menethil for the alliance (thus the new mage teleport to theramore). Its hard to tell if the part between the docks and the ship in the water there is shoreline or where the deep water kicks in from this angle.

Dunno what that white thing is directly to the west of the dwarven district is either.

[Scorps]

Im still waiting to see what that portal in SW is behind that gate.

[ObieX]

iirc that goes to old stormwind which was never released. i think it was in early beta o before that. there's a similar area in ironforge behind one fo the doors in the king's chamber, tho that one isnt a portal. still plenty of unreleased areas in the old world.

[Scorps]

Originally Posted by ObieX

iirc that goes to old stormwind which was never released. i think it was in early beta o before that. there's a similar area in ironforge behind one fo the doors in the king's chamber, tho that one isnt a portal. still plenty of unreleased areas in the old world.

Ya heard about people getting into old IF and selling a summon for like 100g...morons

[Crack]

I have been to old IF, pretty cool stuff in there, no NPCs, but meh, I have also been to hyjal. The real hyjal, in dark whisper gorge... ran around all over the place in there when I was 60.

[Reese]

Speaking of places that weren't meant to be accessed...

I'll use links instead of messing up the forums this time.
Climbing Karazhan.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/.../karahigh2.jpg

Above Ironforge, who HASN'T been here..
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/.../ironforge.jpg

Hopping over the blasted Lands wall beside the Dark Portal.. leads to Zul Gurub..
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/...69/WaytoZG.jpg

This is in Tristfal Glades, in the open inaccessible area west of Undercity.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/...9/flatwall.jpg

This one is inside the Karazhan instance.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/.../underkara.jpg


There's still a few places you can get too, the empty area in tristfal glades is still accessible, You can climb one of the walls and get passed the invisible wall in Hyjal Past allowing you to see the rest of the instance, gotta be an engineer, paladin or lucky with the noggenfoggers though. You can still get above Ironforge and under Stormwind too. Seriously I have nothing better to do so I just go out looking for hills to climb.

Edit: Too many smiley faces and not enough capitalization.

[Scorps]

that last one is in Kara? looks more like ZA

[Reese]

Yup it's under kara. They copy and pasted ZG landscaping and built Kara on top of it. To get there you need to be at the guys that do that stacking str/agi debuff. In the back of the room there's an area you can climb up to, The grey wall there is just for looks if you walk through it you fall a few hundred feet and probably die if you dont have any kind of slowfall.

[Shauk]

The original design plan for Karazhan included an inverse mirror of the tower beneath it.

It also called for being such a big instance that you were supposed to take a flight path to the top at one point.

they didn't do a lot of what they wanted to do with it. *shrug*

[Scorps]

To bad they nurfed wall jumping or I would try that.

[Reese]

So, It's been a while, What's everyone playing nowadays? I've been raiding on my Orc Hunter for a while now. We've been working on Illidan. I don't know if it's the hardest fight so far but having to clear all the way up to him and only getting in 1 day of attempts per week is annoying.

[ObieX]

Illidan really isn't that bad of a fight, you guys will get it eventually. The biggest problems you'll probably have are with the tanks in phase 2 and people controlling their agro during transitions for the next step.

I think the most drastic thing we do for him is to make all the mages (myself included) respec to frost just for this fight. No matter how much they bitch and complain about it (and they will) you *really* need improved blizzard and lots of it for the squids that come out when Illidan is in demon form.