ghostcrawler
Latest
Strength polearms are here, Warrior dual wielding is "on the list"
The disappearance of strength polearms has been much lamented over the course of the past year, with not just one, but two questions in The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column, asking whether they will ever return. Ghostcrawler recently answered that question: @albindahlander It's on the list, but unlikely before 5.2. Sorry. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 9, 2013 A light at the end of the tunnel appears! The problem with polearms, for those who weren't aware, is that they have a different animation to other two-handed weapons. Their set of animations includes a sort of poking motion, as well as the usual swinging and overhead smashing. This is the reason why they can't be transmogrified into other two-handed weapons when transmog restrictions are relaxed with patch 5.2. This different animation issue also rears its ugly head when it comes to Titan's Grip -- the fury warrior dual-wield ability. There is no dual-wield animation for polearms, so warriors currently can't dual-wield them. This has likely been what's preventing Blizzard using them as end-game weapons, but Ghostcrawler's tweet heralds their return. There is already a strength polearm in the patch 5.2 loot table, as the tweeter says, so hopefully Blizzard will sort a fix for the dual-wield issue sooner rather than later.
Patch 5.2: Cross-realm 5.0 raids on the way
Patch 5.2 is only a couple of weeks away, so you'd better start prepping for all that it will bring. Although many things can change during PTR testing, it's nice to receive confirmed news. We've assumed for some time now that 5.0 raids would become cross-realm accessible once patch 5.2 hit, and now we don't have to wonder any longer. Ghostcrawler confirmed via Twitter that we will indeed get cross-realm 5.0 raid content in 5.2: @reliqeu @cm_zarhym @bashiok Yes. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 8, 2013 The community has embraced cross-realm raiding since it was introduced in patch 4.3.2, and it remains a great way to catch up on old achievements. With new cross-realm content, players will be given more opportunity to experience MoP raiding -- be sure to revisit the cross-realm resources out there as patch 5.2 gets ready to drop! Are you looking forward to slaying all the things with new and old friends?
The Light and How to Swing It: A not-so-hasty retreat
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. Ghostcrawler created panicked ripples in the tankadin community when he unexpectedly declared on the forums that he had "plans to try and lower the value of haste relative to dodge and parry." I'm sure you, as I, have read over these quotes multiple times, so I won't repeat them all in full for the sake of not wasting the humble electrons shooting through your computer. Nonetheless, the key takeaway is that he feels the main problem is paladin tanks are prioritizing haste, which wasn't supposed to be a major tanking stat, over dodge and parry. (More on that in a bit.) He foresees that a fix might have to involve a nerf to Shield of the Righteous, the primary beneficiary of our haste; though this would be accompanied by some kind of buff to keep our survivability level. Likewise, GC is concerned with protection paladins taking haste plate out of the mouths of those specs it was designed for -- DPS death knights and paladins among them -- and thus causing unnecessary friction in a group. And, of course, he's worried that protection paladins might turn their nose at good tanking gear with dodge and parry stats, considering them garbage. (Again, we'll revisit this.) Thankfully, the crab recognizes that above all, having haste as a tank is fun, and he claims he wants to preserve that. Which is great. So, let's look at this whole crazy mess, and figure out where we are and where this might leave us.
Ghostcrawler and Dave Kosak switch jobs for an evening on Twitter
When the Ghostcrawler is away, apparently the Kosak will play -- or at least, take over Ghostcrawler's job for a few days. Those following Dave "Fargo" Kosak or Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street on Twitter may have caught a flurry of tweets from the two. It all began with an innocent enough notification from everyone's favorite crustacean, letting followers on Twitter know that he would be fairly quiet over the next few days. Dave Kosak decided to respond and note that he would be taking over class tweets in the interim. Chaos, of course, ensued. Rogues? Nerf. Mages? Nerf nerf. Shaman? BUFF. 4th Shaman spec uses HATS instead of totems. Done. - Dave Kosak (@DaveKosak) January 27, 2013
15-man raiding is the option of last resort
Blizzard has made numerous comments over the past year that 15-man raiding seems like a good size compromise between 10-man and 25-man. The 15-person raid can provide enough slots for the necessary class balance, yet let flexibility come into play in exactly how many players of each class are taken. While some players are keen to enter the era of 15-man raiding, others loath the roster moves and guild shakeups this would cause. For those that were not around during the 40-man to 25-man transition in The Burning Crusade, many many guilds fell apart over having to make drastic cuts from their rosters. In a series of tweets, Ghostcrawler notes that the transition to 15-man raiding would cause guilds to prune 10 people from a 25-man roster, however I'd contend it'd be much more than that (around 15 people would need to be cut), due to the fact most 25-man guilds carry several more folks than necessary, which wouldn't be needed in a leaner and meaner raiding crew. However, it appears that a transition to 15-man raiding is essentially off the table. Ghostcrawler tweets:
Did Ghostcrawler just hint at a major new and unannounced MoP feature?
We're not at all sure what to make of Ghostcrawler's tweet today: @rikkireeves We haven't announced it yet. :) - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 22, 2013 Ghostcrawler's known for his sense of humor/wit, so he might be trolling everyone. Then again, he's pretty careful when it comes to public statements, and rarely makes comments like this. He's played coy when talking about specifics of previously announced expansion, but to dodge (sort of) a directed question like this raises an eyebrow. In a follow up tweet to "@Ghostcrawler @RikkiReeves A rip in the time space continuum leading to the eventual merging of Starcraft and Warcraft. #Titan," Ghostcrawler replies "@Originaljkz We could call it Craftcraft." This seems to be him just joking around, unlike his more definitive statement above. We spent some time the last couple days looking at things that haven't come, things we never thought would come, things that were, and even stuff some of us would like to see return. What does crustacean have up his sleeve? Your guess is as good as ours.
Why Ghostcrawler appears in the credits to StarCraft I
Kudos to @PennyRush for noticing WoW's lead system designer's name (Dr. Gregory T. Street) in the credits to the original StarCraft. These credits came out in 1998 when the original StarCraft was released, a whole 10 years before Ghostcrawler joined the WoW team. The reason? @pennyrush True story. I offered a lot of feedback on the mission editor. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 20, 2013 Getting a job with Blizzard through great (and professional) interaction isn't something new, either. A lot of the early WoW guys were hired on, in part, because of their knowledge and skill with the original EverQuest. Well, perhaps I shouldn't call Tigole's interaction's totally professional at that time, his forum and website rants were pretty legendary (yet also 100% correct). It also helped to have Rob Pardo as the guild leader. Nonetheless, let this be a lesson to all the future game designers out there... keep it cool, keep it smart, and you'll make the necessary inroads.
Ghostcrawler: A discussion of gear scaling
It's been a common thing lately to hear "my spec doesn't scale well" as an excuse for poor DPS. People tend to toss the term around a lot without really knowing what it means, or at least what it means in the context of the WoW design team. A a very basic level, scaling is the capability for spells and abilities to grow stronger as your gear (item level) increases. A spell that doesn't scale well is a spell that doesn't get as strong as it should as your gear increases. This is where Ghostcrawler comes in today via a forum post. He talks about the history of scaling (how some abilities used to only do flat damage and not scale with attack power, and thus gear), and how the complex (but really rather simple) interaction in scaling happens between primary and secondary stats today. However, despite the discussion being about gear scaling, my favorite line from Ghostcrawler's thoughts has to be this: Encounter mechanics can have a much bigger impact on DPS than 5-10%. Keep that in mind when reading and talking about his post, which is in full after the break.
Patch 5.2 PTR: More class and set bonus iteration from Ghostcrawler
As testing continues on the patch 5.2 PTR, so dose the iteration from the design team. Some of the highlights from this round: Druid Maim damage has been increased by 100% Druid Cyclone range nerfed a bit due to PvP Warlock 4pc bonus now increases Demonic Fury from all spells by 10% Some changes with Arms warriors were rolled back Ghostcrawler and his team also note at the end of the piece that these design iterations are typical for a PTR. Moreso many of the changes they make on their internal builds never go live, so even though this list is large, in some respects, it could be a heck of a lot worse. Ghostcrawler is right when he says this is pretty normal; since they started making directed design comments after each downtime, this level of iteration is par for the course in just about every aspect of the game's design. Ghostcrawler's full post after the break.
WoW Archivist: Many memes, handle it
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Last week, Archivist celebrated the Ulduar raid, including Thorim's famous IN THE MOUNTAINS speech -- one of Wrath's most memorable memes. In its eight years, World of Warcraft and its players have spawned dozens of memes. Today, Archivist remembers some of the best and most enduring. If you've ever wondered where some of these memes come from, read on! The earliest memes WoW memes began almost instantly after the game's release. One of the first was Mankrik's wife. For an early Horde quest in the Barrens, the orc Mankrik sent you to locate her. His directions were rather vague, so many players had trouble locating her. It didn't help that she wasn't an upright and alive NPC, but rather a dead body laying on the ground -- killed by marauding quilboars. Confused players asked where they could find her in the zone's chat. Many, many players. Because the massive zone spanned 15 levels, everyone leveling through it saw that same question asked over and over again. It got to the point where people would ask just to troll the chat channel. The quest is no longer in the game, but players can now visit her grave near Grol'dom Farm. Trolling Barrens chat became something of a hobby for early players. Many in the Horde didn't know about the other leveling zones across the ocean. Some who did ran up against the ongoing Tarren Mill/Southshore lagfest wars and took the first boat back to Kalimdor. The combination of a captive audience and a high saturation of new players made the Barrens the perfect zone to troll. In time, Barrens chat became its own meme, even inspiring T shirts.
Ghostcrawler discusses PTR class and set bonus issues
Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street posted today on the US forums, pre-empting questions about class balance and tier 15 set bonuses. Ghostcrawler describes the purpose of the thread as follows: Ghostcrawler Whenever a PTR build goes up, we get a flurry of simple questions that we want to address, but that don't feel patch note worthy. We are going to be posting the answers to some of these in this thread. We're going to leave the thread unlocked. Feel free to leave feedback here, but be aware that this is just a running list of explanations and don't expect a lot of back and forth discussion. Likewise, you don't need to ask your question here. We'll try and cover anything we see in our forums, other forums, Twitter, etc. The focus of this thread is on class mechanics and set bonuses. We aren't going to cover e.g. achievements, raid encounters, pet battles, account issues, or GC's favorite cover bands. Likewise, these are simple answers, not "What is your vision for my class?" Ghostcrawler then goes into some of the finer points about Tier 15 set bonuses.
Ghostcrawler tells 8 year old how to be a game designer
Rarely are the forums heartwarming, but this forum thread not only delivers on the heartwarming aspect but it also gives us a reasonably detailed peek at what companies like Blizzard are looking at when they look for new designers. When forum poster Aaiya made a thread on behalf of his or her eight year old son who is interested in becoming a game designer someday, we first got a solid response from Peratryn and then Daxxari comes in with a response from Ghostcrawler. Not only is it cool that the people who work at Blizzard would take the time to answer the thread in the first place, but upon reading Daxxari's post with Ghostcrawler's response, I know I felt like I'd learned something new, and I figured a lot of us would be interested in reading it over. Rather than pick it apart, we'll reproduce Daxxari's entire post after the cut.
Breakfast Topic: Efficiency
In a post yesterday about the easiness of low level dungeons, wiserwaylander commented on an interesting aspect of the game: efficiency. He even quoted a tweet from Ghostcrawler on the topic, which read as follows: @davericketts02 I would not have predicted that players would become so focused on efficiency. Not fun or improving themselves. Efficiency. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) October 25, 2012 I was first surprised by this assertion, and then, on reflection, agreed with it. Players are definitely focused on efficiency, in the quest towards end-game content, and it seems likely that it has to do with the social aspect of the game -- the main social elements, while certainly present while leveling, really appear in earnest once a player's character has reached max level. It would certainly be foolish to pretend that there is no such thing as a twinking community, but the current PvP season, the current raids, the current gear grind, all of those happen mostly at maximum level. So is it any wonder that players' focus is to take the most efficient path through the game to get to that end goal? And once players are there, then efficiency loses no importance. The most efficient rotation for DPS, the most efficient threat generation and cooldown use for tanks, the most efficient way for healers to put their blue bar into the raid's green bar. A big part of the game is efficiency. But are players to focused on efficiency over fun? Would WoW be a happier place if we stopped to smell the roses along the leveling path, particularly, just because roses are awesome? And are you focused on efficiency over fun or self-improvement? Think about it before answering, I know I had to.
Blizzard developer interviews
After WoW Insider's Anne Stickney rounded off Blizzard's Developer Interview schedule with her chat to Cory Stockton and Dave Kosak, discussing patch 5.1, brawler's guild, lore, dailies, proving grounds, scenarios and player housing, WoW Insider thought we should bring together all the interviews in the recent set. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street: Legendary, GAMEBREAKER.tv Ghostcrawler discusses raiding, PvP, alts, reputation, dailies and cross realm zones with the Legendary hosts. All Things Azeroth Design, Cataclysm vs. Mists, patch 5.2 release schedule, classes, transmogrification changes. Wowjuju Brawler's guild, daily quests, transmogrification, 10man vs 25man, the gear grind, pet gear for battle pets? Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas Convert2Raid Scenarios, challenge modes, Brawler's Guild, dailies, and, of course, raids. Method Coming soon! Lead Content Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton: Curse Coming soon! Warcraft Pets Pet design process, pets in future expansions, pet battles, potential for pet gender and breeding, pet model updates, "boss" pets Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak Darkmoon Herald Hidden quests, easter eggs, phasing, lore, future questing changes, interesting activities, tillers, dailies. Wowhead Patch 5.1 factions, brawlers' guild, scenarios and their lore involvement, dailies, alts, faction grinds, cooking changes. Lead Designer Tom Chilton ArenaJunkies Coming soon! Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Breakfast Topic: What is its own reward?
It's a slightly confusing title, I grant you, but fear not, all will become clear. What is its own reward? What element of WoW, if any, do you find fun enough that you keep doing it even when there's no discernible reward other than your own amusement? I've seen a few blue posts recently, and even heard in an interview with Ghostcrawler, that Blizzard's team want to add in more things for PvPers to spend their conquest points on. I agree that it's a little tiresome to have a huge glut of conquest points and absolutely no use for them. But, one of the posts to which Nakatoir recently responded said that something was needed to give players an incentive to keep doing arenas after hitting 2200. I've said a few times recently in discussions about this that I feel arenas are their own reward. I enjoy arenas enough that I will keep doing them when I'm capped for conquest, when I'm gaining rating, whenever. Arenas are fun enough for me that I don't mind not getting shiny things in return for doing them. Brawler's Guild, on the PTR at least as I am too unlucky and too poor to have an invitation on live servers, was another thing that I felt was its own reward. If the queue times are short enough, I would keep on doing it for hours, despite not getting anything back for it. But I'm curious about you. Are there things in WoW that are fun enough for you to keep doing them with no loot? No points? No mount or toy or gear to aim for? Or does everything need to have a reward tied to it to keep your attention?
Has Patch 5.1 broken PvP?
If you read the forums, you may well think it is. There are several very vocal threads about the state of PvP right now, about the heavy burst coming from melee classes with the weapons upgrade, and the absence of a resilience upgrade to repair it. Those threads are always very vocal, always very convinced that PvP is worse now than it's ever been. While I try my best to be positive about the game, I'm not entirely sure that the forums are wrong, this time around at least. PvP Power and PvP Resilience Patch 5.1 brought about some changes to these two stats, introduced by Blizzard to help make PvP balance easier. They essentially provide a dial, which allows the increase and reduction of damage, healing and defense in PvP, without those changes impacting PvE. They're a great idea, but before Patch 5.1, as I spoke about months back, they weren't quite working as intended. One of the stated aims of PvP Power particularly was to remove the viability of PvE items in PvP. Blizzard's team have been very keen that PvE gear does not become viable in PvP, and up until recently, PvP weapons were, for melee classes in particular who are far more directly affected by weapon stats than casters, not the best choice for maximum damage output.
Encrypted Text: Rogues in theory vs practice
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. The goal of every rogue is to deal the maximum possible damage. In order to accomplish that goal, we have to figure out the best stat and rotation configuration. Discovering the best stat and rotation configuration would take weeks of work if done empirically. We can't simply apply brute force to make the issue go away. That strategy only works against mages and hunters. In order to quickly determine the optimal configuration, many intelligent rogues have worked on modelling our damage and rotations mathematically. As WoW's mechanics and systems have evolved, so have these models. While they're getting more and more accurate at predicting rogue performance, they're still not 100% in sync with what actually happens in-game. Rogues are a class played with a keyboard, not a pen and paper.
Spiritual Guidance: A quick look at Patch 5.1 for priests
WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore is a discipline priest by reputation, but still enjoys melting faces as shadow and bugging her raid to click the Lightwell as holy. Since launch, priests have received most of their buffs and nerfs through hot fixes, but the arrival of patch 5.1 still brings some changes for us. Holy priests in particular have received several buffs which will improve their quality of life. One such change allows Chakra to persist through death, meaning the days of seeing Holy Word: Chatise on your bars when you're 2 minutes into a pull, frustratedly wondering why Holy word: Sanctuary isn't working, are over. Another holy change buffs Chakra: Chastise so that damage dealt by shadow and holy spells while in the stance will now do 50% increased damage, instead of 15%. An excellent change, since prior to the patch, it took holy priests 15*(2^27) Smite casts to kill a mob. Now it should only take about 10.
Breakfast Topic: Alts in Mists of Pandaria
Back on November 20, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street tweeted the following: @rigelwow We agree we need more alt solutions. MoP was designed to be compelling without alts. That means if you have alts, there's too much - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) November 20, 2012 This got me thinking about my own alts, and it's been spinning around in my head for a few days now. I was online on Saturday, and most of my guild were too, principally leveling alts. We're just getting started with raiding, having had a few people afk at the start of the expansion thanks to holidays and house moves, but even those folks seem to be prioritizing alt leveling over smashing out the gear grind on their mains. And I kept thinking about Ghostcrawler's tweet. Mists is designed to be compelling without alts. As someone who PvPs, end-game content hasn't ever really been a big problem for me, although I did put a stop to Dragon Soul and Firelands raiding after a point. So at the end of Cataclysm, I had some time on my hands, and like everyone else I leveled some alts. Not that many, mind you, I only had six level 85 characters at the end of Cataclysm. But I liked it! I really enjoyed having alts. I liked that, if there was a raid that called for one tank, I could easily switch onto my shaman and heal, or my priest and heal or DPS, or my mage, and so on. I liked that all these characters were decently geared, and that I could perform fairly well with all of them. And I liked the variety. So I'm wondering if Blizzard's philosophy here is actually a bit wrongheaded. Is it good to have alts, or would you rather just have one main character if there was enough to do? Are alts only there for when you're bored, or are they a vital part of the game? I lean very strongly towards the latter, but how about you? And do you have alts?
Parting the mists: World of Warcraft turns eight
World of Warcraft's eighth anniversary arrives after a rough year for the franchise. Cataclysm, the expansion that redesigned much of the old world and trumpeted the return of archvillain Deathwing, also saw subscriber numbers drop from their highest point, reached during the Wrath of the Lich King years. Players expressed discontent over the empty zones and the lack of anything to do save run endless heroic dungeons or chain battlegrounds. It's said that humans often prepare to fight the next war by devising tactics to deal with the last war, and World of Warcraft's newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is definitely a reaction to player complaints about the previous one. The past year saw the game transition from one with two separate, segregated endgames to a game with a great deal more variety for players who've reached max level. Whether you loved or hated Cataclysm, you can't deny that the past year has seen more change than the entire expansion dedicated to changing the game ever provided.
