The Daily Blues

U mad bro.

It [the u mad bro thread] was a bad thread. Usually we just lock those and they silently slip off of the first few pages, but once in awhile we figure it's worth reminding players that bad threads get locked.

I'd never mock a player for a legit concern expressed constructively.

Gin helps.

Really though, I've been in this industry for awhile, and you just get to a point where you let the negativity roll off of you. I talk to enough players to know that by and large most of them still love the game. In fact, many of the haters still love the game or they would have moved on. They only get upset because it's important to them (or else they just enjoy trolling).

You can't take the venom that shows up in every public forum (whether you're talking about games, movies, politics or global warming) as an indication of the health of the entire community. I'm a gamer at heart, so I make it a minigame of never getting upset no matter what the nattering nabobs might say. It's a game I almost always win. Gin helps.

Finding good info here is one of those needle in a haystack deals. We have some exceptional posters, and their feedback makes it all worth while. If we ever get to the point where those A+ comments stop showing up, then I probably will as well. So far, it's still worth it to get a sense for what players think of the game, what problems they're having, or when they are or are not having fun.

On the flip side, whatever you guys can do to improve that signal to noise ratio is in your best interest. You want information getting to the developers as quickly and succinctly as possible. The occasional offtopic thread (like this one) isn't a big deal. Very long threads that essentially rehash the same idea over and over again are more of a stumbling block. Ranty threads with little actual information are just wasting everyone's time.

Edit: Turns out "nabobs" has no Y.

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There is no law in this world that you can't make a point and be rude at the same time, and most people seem to embrace this.

Nope, there is no law, but I will likely ignore it.

We're willing to take the risk that some amazing gem of design genius might be lost inside a ranting or whining post. If you want us to take your feedback seriously, communicate the way grown men and women communicate in civil society. We're not asking for something unreasonable here. :)

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you seem to live in a 60's sitcom. You dont seem aware that the average person curses every 3 words in everyday life, and thats considered normal by most, not rude.

I make full use of the entirety of the English language myself. You should probably tone it down here since this is a relatively public place and profanity understandably offends some people. But really that's not what I meant.

The anonymity of the Internet has fostered a culture where being ridiculously over the top with your communication is pretty typical. We're just asking you not to do it here. If it helps, imagine you're in a meeting room with all of the WoW designers and you have 30 seconds to make your point. Are you going to waste it on whining, you-hate-my-class, you-don't-play-the-game stuff? Or are you going to try to make an intelligent point that the designers will actually listen to and hopefully take under advisement?

If you've ever seen a court of law or a government debate, those discussions can get pretty heated, but the participants generally try to maintain a modicum of respect for each other. They want to focus on the legal and / or logical strength of the argument and not the color of the delivery.

In writing, you are generally supposed to show restraint in your use of adjectives and adverbs. Yes, they are necessary in specific situations, but if you overuse them, you risk bloating, confusing or derailing the actual point you're trying to make. The same is true of a forum post. Don't dress it up with junk, which around these parts is typically QQ. Speak plainly. There was a recent thread whose thesis was "Blizzard lies and here's an idea I had for a spell." The mistake there sort of speaks for itself.

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Ever used capillary electrophoresis? I bet GC has run many of gels back in the day...

Ugh. Bad memories there. I hope I have PCR'd my last PCR. I respect the heck out of scientists and science educators, I really do, but orcs are more fun.

GC, arent you a systems analyst with a PhD?

Oceanography. I studied benthic ecology (hence the crab), and ecology uses a lot of statistics. The data sets tend to be large and noisy since so many variables are involved when you're looking at the way organisms interact with their environment. It's a complex system and in that way not unlike the virtual ecology of Azeroth.

Stamina is always going to be valuable for tanks, so I'm not sure a strategy of trying to force tanks to gem / enchant other stats is ever going to feel good. That said, tanks used to worry more about being the mana sponge. The way to alleviate being the mana sponge is to take less damage and a great way to take less damage is to dodge more.

The relative value of dodge vs. parry is something we'll have to play with. My gut reaction is that parry needs to be cheaper since avoiding 100% of one hit is more valuable than avoiding 50% of two hits, but I'm not sure how much cheaper. Avoiding spikiness (which dodge will contribute to) also has value, and if the second hit after a parry is dodged instead (such that you lose the parry "charge") that plays into the cost as well.

The passive talent tree bonuses for tanks will probably be something like 1) reduces damage taken, 2) increases damage done, 3) reduces damage taken in a way unique to your tree.

Yes, we're still dodging the DK question. For now. :)

I'm not sure we'd ever do a "deal damage to heal" model. It might work for new classes, but feels like a big change to existing classes that players know and love.

Having choices to get mana back is good. Standing around to regen mana is bad.

However, we still ultimately need a way that healers who are playing badly, trying to keep alive an undergeared / underskilled tank, or just tackling content that they're not yet ready for, can run out of mana to the extent that the encounter is over.

I think my point there was that the healer will eventually run out of mana. If they are able to damage you while healing themselves though, they will likely win.

It comes down to this: If a healer can't beat a dps one on one, then there is no way a healer will be able to keep an entire three-person team alive. In that scenario you might as well just run with 3 dps and there becomes no role for the healer in Arena teams.

Note: this does not mean that in every single case that a dps spec defeats a healing spec in a duel that there is a problem with the class. :)

Today we feature some of Yesyaw's work with a piece entitled: Earthbind. Take a moment to check out this crafty shaman and his feral companion.

We're always looking for new fan art and if you're an artist, you can submit your work to us here. We update the Gallery regularly and encourage you to check regularly to see what new and talented submissions are on display.

Fan art page: http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/community/fanart/index.html
Fan art submission page: http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/community/fanart/rules.html

We've updated World of Warcraft's five-year anniversary site to include two fansite interviews.

Exorsus, currently the third best guild in the world, is also the top Russian and former top European guild. We met Viksh, its leader, to talk about how the guild was created, what makes it different from others, and how a team should be ruled to be efficient.

In the second interview, we speak with Fraya, the leader of the Enigma guild on the Deathwing realm, about his most memorable moments over five years of playing, Enigma's experience in high-end raiding, and where the guild expects to find itself in Cataclysm and beyond.

Check out the anniversary site to read the full interviews.

Anniversary Site: http://www.wow-europe.com/wowanniversary/interview/
Exorsus Interview: http://www.wow-europe.com/wowanniversary/interview/exorsus.xml
Enigma Interview: http://www.wow-europe.com/wowanniversary/interview/enigma.xml

Hey all,

We need your help in collecting information on issues you may be running into while using the Random Battleground feature. Specifically we want to know if you are experiencing the following (and when you experienced these issues):

If you've come across other issues related to Battlegrounds that are not included in the list, please feel free to describe what you were seeing and when you were seeing it.

Thanks!

We do agree that it is a cool idea to have mailboxes closer to the starter area, but we don't think that it would be a good thing if mailboxes would actually be placed inside the starter areas.

We are currently focused on making certain that the starting experience is as streamlined as is possible, and adding additional elements to the starter area could potentially overwhelm and cause confusion amongst brand new players.

Instead, we are considering to add a mailbox closer to the starting area than the first town and make it accessible enough that experienced players would know where to find it quickly.

Touching up some of the original models is actually something that we are giving some thought, as we would like to bring them up to par with the newer models.

Although we have no intentions to change the current proportions of the original models, it is a possibility that we will add additional polygons to improve detail levels and such.