The Daily Blues

But hey, if the cook thinks he's putting out some bad food, I guess it's ok as long as they are planning on fixing it sometime down the road. Who cares if it tastes bad now.

We have three options to approach issues like this, really. We can lie and tell you we don't think it's a problem. We can say nothing. Or we can tell you that we think it's a problem and eventually want to fix it. This is the road I try to take as much as I can. The fourth option, fix it immediately, isn't on the table as much as you might really, really want it to be, or we would have already done so.

I highly doubt we will see GC post on this thread again, he tends to not come back to threads where he has spouted ignorance and in turn been roflstomped for it.

I think you are mistaking "I disagree" for "LOL I PWNED GC!" :)

If Warriors are balanced around Rend, why is it not in the Protection tree? Or at least at a lower tier in the arms tree? That's kinda like saying Paladins are balanced around Imp Lays of Hands -and- Heart of the Crusader at the same time.

As someone above pointed out, Deflection is not in the Protection tree either. We're not really trying to encourage the 0/0/71 talent spec.

At the same time, going for dps talents as a tank can be an interesting choice. If it's a fight with a lot of quickly spawning adds, having more damage can be useful in picking them up. If it's a dungeon without a big risk of you dying, then going for dps can speed things along. Yet when you run into a situation where keeping you alive may be hard, then you can consider dumping those talents in lieu of something to keep you alive. I understand that given a choice between threat and mitigation that most tanks will choose the latter every time. Still, some of the most fun gear decisions I have had tanking were deciding when I could afford to sacrifice survival for threat and vice versa.

A couple of designers looked at the cooldown, evaluated how often it really mattered, concluded not often, and thought the ability would be simpler to understand, less frustrating, and perhaps a small DK buff without the cooldown.

There's no metric. There's no philosophy. There's just a subjective decision being made. They give DKs a massive survivability buff because they think it makes tooltips read cleaner.

I can't believe I'm letting myself get sucked into this, but these two statements [above] are at odds with each other.

Before I had my yacht, gin and pony, this is what we would call science. Make a hypothesis ("looked"), tested the hypothesis ("evaluated") and decided whether the hypothesis could be rejected or not ("concluded").

The community (or rather a subset of) looks at the cooldown being removed from Will of the Necropolis, perhaps notices for the first time what the talent really does, perhaps disagrees with that course of action and leaps to the conclusion that the inmates must be running the asylum. Short of publishing a peer-reviewed paper that demonstrates our decision was made for sound reasons, we're not going to be able to walk those nay-sayers through all of our logic, nor would they be likely to be swayed by actual evidence anyway, nor do we want to get into a position where we have to ask the community's permission to make a change we think is right for our game. :)

None of that is to argue that some of these decisions aren't very subjective. They are. You can't turn a system as complex as WoW into some kind of mega equation that accurately predicts every outcome in the game. And really, who would want to? It's a game with a lot of math. It's not just math.

Really, though, we're off topic (again). This is why I am often reluctant to post. A thread trying to understand our philosophy on aspects of tanking became another stage for "If I was a WoW designer, I would have avoided all these foolish mistakes!"

This seems to be at odds with putting all the pet classes (and even temporary pet classes) at a DPS disadvantage with a buff. Either the Devs are done with balance or they're not. If they're not done, this is a valid concern. If they are done, they should say so. Everyone cares where they are on the meters in comparison to the rest of their raid. Saying "it doesn't matter" when you play a class unaffected by the discrepancy dilutes the value of your opinion.

We're not done. Did not make a change this instant != done.

It's something we would like to do at some point in the future, but we must admit it's not on top of the list of 'crucial things to do'. We do realize it would be a nice feature though, so watch this space!

We've always held to the premise that the game should be easy to learn and difficult to master. And the intention is that when you start the game, you have all of the information you need to get on the road to that mastery. As you've probably seen, to that end we've changed some of the starting player experience to be a bit more clear and directed as well have updated the in-game tooltips and tutorial. (If you haven't tried leveling a new character in a while, try it and turn on the tutorial.)

You'll also be able to take a look at the new Stat Changes post that we released for information on what we're working toward for Cataclysm. We want stats to mean something, but we also want it to be understandable at the same time.

We're doing what we can to continue to make the in-game experience better for everyone while still giving the challenges that many are looking for.

More advanced players who dig into the higher level stat finessing aren't likely to fit into the definition of "new player" by the time they get up into the end-game experience so getting into the higher-end theorycrafting etc, on our end gets into dangerous territory. We want players to experience the game as intended, but we don't want to dictate to anyone how to play all at the same time. This is a balancing act on a high-wire, with a bear on a unicycle while juggling an apple, banana, and a small coconut while a fiddler dances on the other end. (No swallows were involved in transporting said coconut.)

We have many more things that we would like to do both in game and out of game to help players get into the game from the start and make the entire experience from there to end-game the type of experience we all want to have as gamers too.

Community News
Vaneras, Slorkuz, Wryxian & Ancilorn 05/03/2010


Fansites:

WoW.gaming.dk have started a new initiative on their site, which is to live stream raids that the fansite members participate in. This service is here for all to enjoy, but it is specially aimed for those who are interested in raiding, but haven't got the feel of it quite yet.
- http://wow.gaming.dk/1621
This site have also posted a nice best-in-slot guide for Moonkins.
- http://wow.gaming.dk/1613

Wow.battlenet.pl are working hard to translate the most important WoW related news into Polish, and this week you can find translations of the 13th BlizzCast, The Developer Chat on Twitter and of the stat system in Cataclysm.
- http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/643/BlizzCast_13_i_Developer_Chat.html
- http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/644/Tlumaczenie_Developer_Chata.html
- http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/645/Statystyki_w_Cataclysm.html
Additionally they can inform us that their Guild List system is a growing success, which now has more than 130 Polish guilds registered.
- http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/640/Spis_polskich_gildii.html

WoW Nederland are also working on a Guild List system, where Dutch guilds can register and find members.
http://www.wow-nl.com/guilds/new.php
There are many other updates as well on this site, and amongst them you can find information about the Ruby Sanctum and the Stats changes in Cataclysm.
- http://www.wow-nl.com/nieuws.php?call=247
- http://www.wow-nl.com/nieuws.php?call=260
You can also read about the world's first 10 man heroic Lich King kill, and of course the world's first Glory of the Raider (25 man) achievement.
- http://www.wow-nl.com/nieuws.php?call=262
- http://www.wow-nl.com/nieuws.php?call=261

WoWJuju have updated their site with a poll where you can vote on the best WoW fanart of 2009.
- http://www.wowjuju.com/gfx-and-comics/the-best-2009-wow-fanart-poll/
Another update on this site should be of extra interest to everybody, as it tells you how to protect your WoW account.
- http://www.wowjuju.com/guides/how-to-protect-your-world-of-warcraft-account/

WorldofWar.net have an interesting update about the Blasted Lands, which digs into the history of the zone as well as known future plans.
- http://wow.incgamers.com/blog/comments/cataclysm-the-new-blasted-lands/
On this site you can also find an interview with Julian Rignall, who is the editorial director of the World Of WarCraft: Official Magazine
- http://wow.incgamers.com/blog/comments/world-of-warcraft-official-magazine-editorial-director-interview/

Plenty more news and updates can be found on the official World of Warcraft fansites in different languages, so give them visit if you do not wish to miss out on anything.
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/links/fansites.html


World of ComicCraft:

When a king looks silly, do you tell him that he looks silly?
http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/336

It is the Gnome Druids who keep the Humans from wiping the Orcs off the face of the world!
http://www.tehgladiators.com/?p=115

Anyone who dies as a part of a story line is dead for good, a fact which may be exploited???
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/227.html

She killed him in self defence! He can't hurt anyone any more!
http://beyondthetree.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/180-a-matter-of-guilt/

Failure to Bring gifts for both tribes means pain!
http://woweh.com/?p=708

"If you bail out now, I'll sit on you." When those words come from a Tauren, you better listen!
http://www.arena-inside.com/?p=513

WoW apps are cool and all, but let's just hope that some WoW apps won't come to fruition.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/5/


Other Stuff:

The Friday Thread has been posted - this week it contains a bunch a cool links as well as the usual opportunity to share and discuss weekend plans :-)
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12829732958&sid=1

The Dalaran Inn, an Australian WoW fansite, has managed to score an exclusive interview with Wowhead.com, which is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) WoW database sites. This is interesting stuff, so don't miss it.
http://www.thedalaraninn.com/2010/03/an-interview-with-the-notorious-wowhead-com/

We all know the story of Arthas Menethil and how he became the Lich King, or at least so we think??? Here is the story of Arthas Menethil, seen from another point of view!
http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=140957

And last but not least; the second episode of the Wish upon a Gnome series (WuaG), entitled "The Purple Pixel Plan" have been released. The WuaG series revolves around Jimmy, an overly ambitious gnome who's sole purpose in life is to gain honour and glory. Not to mention escaping his mad mother...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyQwB5s074I

Have a glorious weekend everybody. :-)

* Links on this news post may expire over time and some are created by other companies/individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment.

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I approve of this.