Olivia Grace
Articles by Olivia Grace
Breakfast Topic: Are you kind to your PuGs?
If you follow me on Twitter, or read a lot of my articles here at WoW Insider, you'll know that when I level, I do it via dungeons. And it's true, it's why I always have a slew of hybrids and fewer pure DPS characters, I just love spam-running dungeons. As I build up my US-server alt stable, I'm noticing a distinct absence of kindness. Not that I'm saying US servers are a less friendly place than EU ones, just that I'm noticing a lot of rage. So I'm wondering, are you kind to your PuG-mates? I do my very best to be. I try to educate rather than yell, and don't get overly wound up by people's mistakes. I could tell you all manner of horror stories, as I move towards my 5th US-server level 90 leveled entirely via dungeons, but I don't think it helps to do so. My philosophy is that if the tank is bad, the healers are bad, or the DPS are bad, I play the best I can to make the group a success despite these issues. And if players ask for help, I give it, kindly. I'm a great believer that kindness results in kindness. What about you? Do you do your best to be kind or nice? Or are you less tolerant or patient? Are there things that just set your blood a'boil? And did I make you feel bad yet?
Game Director Tom Chilton's notes on The Burning Crusade
The lead developers have been having fun this week, photographing their old notes and posting them on Twitter. We've seen Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi's design for Benediction/Anathema, Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton's notes on the Death Knight, and Senior Game designer Jonathan LeCraft's notes on Burning Crusade class design. The latest to join the fray is Game Director Tom Chilton, who posted the above notes on The Burning Crusade. Tom's writing isn't the easiest to read, but there's some interesting stuff in there, not least the things that never made it to the game. linked auction houses x-server bgs vehicles + destroyable buildings socketed items jewelcrafting hero system dungeon difficulty levels titles multi-destination flight paths un-learned flight paths spell systems hook to water gladiatorial combat dynamic music guild battles multi-role npc polish. If 1 option auto-select lfg tool leadership sqrt x sidekicking group quests D2 gambling PvP and PvE bounties auction contracts server quests expanded tradeskill customization
PvP Season 14 end confirmed, patch 5.4.7 likely February 18
The official World of Warcraft Twitter account just confirmed the end of PvP Season 14 would take place as estimated, on Tuesday February 18. PvP Season 14 is currently scheduled to conclude with next week's standard realm maintenance. Good luck! http://t.co/MxsaULpaE1 - World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) February 15, 2014 As Brian Holinka has tweeted in the past, the end of the PvP season has, in recent instances, indicated the release of the coinciding patch. Throughout Mists of Pandaria, this is the pattern that has been followed, so it seems likely that patch 5.4.7 will be no exception. You can check out all our patch 5.4.7 coverage in the meantime. WoW Insider also put together a short guide to what you should be doing to prepare for the end of the PvP season, so get those wins in for that mount, cap out that honor by killing those rares, and be ready!
Patch 5.4.7: Targeted nerfs to Garrosh on 10-man Heroic
Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has made a characteristically excellent post on the US forums, detailing targeted nerfs to Garrosh on 10-man Heroic difficulty. Watcher's full post is, as ever, after the break, but the main details are as follows. There were several encounter mechanics where the numbers scaling for 10-man meant that the difficulty was higher than in 25-man. Watcher particularly notes the interaction between Malice clumps and Iron Star triggering. In 25-man, the Malice groups, a total of six players, were never large enough to trigger the Iron Star, when they inevitably overlapped with Bombardment in the fourth Malice. On 10-player heroic, the Malice clump size of three in total would also trigger an Iron Star in the fourth Malice. Now, in 10 Heroic, the Iron Star trigger clump size is four, bringing it in line with 25 Heroic. Additionally, Garrosh's health is reduced by around 5%, and Minion of Y'Sharrj health is reduced by 10%. DPS checks for 10 Heroic were causing guilds to try to single-heal the fight, and 25 Heroic players are able to kite the adds while 10 Heroic guilds don't have the spare manpower. These changes show the process Watcher has discussed in the past, specific targeted nerfs, and will bring the two sizes in line. Hit the break for his full post.
What has WoW taught you?
There's a fairly entertaining thread over on the EU forums, blue-tagged by Blizzard Community Manager Taepsilum, asking what WoW has taught you. There's several people commenting, as it's EU, that it's taught them English. Over in the EU, there are 24 official languages, not to mention the unofficial ones, and only 7 localized client options. So, a lot of people who don't speak English natively will end up on English servers, playing the game in English. I can name far more EU friends who aren't English than ones who are. And yet, they all speak it. Many of them cite WoW as the thing that spurred them to learn, and helped them to do so. Me, I'm lucky, I just happened to be from the place where English comes from. I already knew the language, so WoW didn't teach me that. More than anything, I suppose, WoW taught me how to work with strangers to get things done. It's part of why I love 5-mans that are difficult. LFR seems to very rarely have that feeling of getting together and doing things co-operatively. Possibly because it's so big and impersonal, it's easy to disappear and not contribute, so people do. 5-mans, it's harder to hide in the shadows, especially in the Cataclysm ones that were trickier than usual. I've learned how being positive almost always yields better results than being negative, and how much a little kindness can brighten someone's day. What about you?
Preparing for PvP season 15
Back on February 4th, we had the warning that PvP season 14, the current season, could end as soon as two weeks from that date. Well, it's now ten days from February 4th, and we've had no announcement that the season end is delayed. So, assuming the season will end on February 18th, how should prudent PvPers prepare for the season end, and season 15? First up, save your honor, spend your conquest if you can get upgrades. The caps are working just the same, so all conquest will be turned into honor, and all honor will be retained up to a cap of 4,000. So if you have 2,000 honor and 2,000 conquest, you'll have 4,000 honor. If you have 5,000 honor, you'll end up with 4,000 honor and a bit of silver. If you have 5,000 conquest, you'll end up with 4,000 honor and a bit of silver. The good news is that this season's 522 conquest gear will be available for honor. The bad news is that the 496 honor gear won't be available to crafters, as Holinka confirmed. Makes sense, as the Timeless Isle gear would be even more irrelevant than it will become! In more bad news, the Krasarang rares are being nerfed to drop honor only once per day, so that farming method is gone come the patch. If you need to cap out before the patch, they're the most efficient way.
Mila Kunis talks WoW and other gaming
Mila Kunis joined One of Swords podcast's Dan Amrich to talk to the hosts about her gaming life, including her time spent playing World of Warcraft, joining one of her ex-guildmates on the show. She chats about how she had to change her in-game name, as the title "Captain" in her mage's name "Captainpicard" wasn't allowed. She then discussed her gaming history, and how it led to her move into WoW, starting with co-host Hugh Sterbakov as their game night shifted from Settlers of Catan into WoW. She even talks about dragging her friends into the game, including the podcast's other guest, Lisa Sterbakov. They discuss playing all day sessions, questing together, killing mobs and wiping a "raid" in Black Morass while Mila went AFK for a bathroom break. Unfortunately, as her friends quit, Mila eventually lost interest. It's a fun listen, Mila's segment begins from 27 minutes in, and continues after the WoW chat, talking about other games.
Warlords of Draenor: Proving grounds will be updated
As we heard today that Mists challenge modes will be ending at the Warlords of Draenor pre-patch, I wondered what the fate of Proving Grounds might be, as they share the scaling methodology of Challenge Modes, as well as rewarding players with titles, although not mounts or the like. So I asked Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas: @oliviadgrace Proving Grounds serve a different purpose and will be updated for WoD. We think of CMs as a PvE analogue to arena seasons. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 13, 2014 To first address Watcher's point on Challenge Modes as analogous to Arena, it makes a lot of sense. The focus and structure of the reward and rank system is similar to that of arena, as Watcher points out in a subsequent tweet. Both arena and Challenge Modes reward high-end play on a specific class, and as a result the rewards, rankings and titles for Gladiator or Gold are similarly not account wide. Certainly, the number of rewards given out are markedly different, but the principles are comparable. Proving Grounds, conversely, do not work the same. While there are titles available, there is no ranking, and they do not offer similar rewards. While Challenge Modes are designed to be challenging content that is for players at their best, Proving Grounds are for learning. This may well make them easier to update for the new systems, as well as the fact that they focus on one spec at a time.
Current Challenge Modes to become Feats of Strength
WoW Insider posted recently about Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas' tweet regarding Challenge Modes, and now an official Blizzard Blog has surfaced regarding the fate of the current Challenge Mode dungeons. The current challenge modes will no longer be available come Warlords pre-patch, when the item squish, stat squish and other changes also appear, rendering the scaling invalid. The achievements awarded by the current challenge modes will become Feats of Strength The current reward items will remain available for those who qualified prior to the end of the season -- which is when the pre-patch launches After the pre-patch launches, new players will not be able to earn the Mists challenge mode achievements. New Challenge Modes are coming with Warlords. If you want the transmog gear, or the title, or the mount, you'll need to hurry up and get started on Challenge Modes! WoW Insider also has some class-specific guides and further information to aid you in your quest for glory.
Heroes of the Storm client leaked, screenshots, hints of beta
WoW Insider first noted these Heroes of the Storm leaks on Adriacraft yesterday, where the title screens were posted showing the various options and the like. This morning, a hero list also appeared, where there were several additional heroes added from the list we already had following BlizzCon. The screenshots reveal pretty much what we were expecting, no huge surprises there. We're seeing all the standard configuration options, and the social screen shows ignore lists and block lists in the config section rather than an in-game social one. While the hero abilities are mostly what we had seen already, given that 18 of these characters were playable at BlizzCon, there are five new ones since November. Sgt. Hammer, Tychus, Zeratul, and Muradin are all new, and E.T.C. was not playable at BlizzCon although we knew a lot about him as he was discussed at great length during the panels. The most exciting part of these leaks is the implication that Heroes beta may well be coming soon! Edited to add: Heroes Community Manage Cloaken posted on Reddit to clarify that the images are legitimate, and no surprise to the team. He also adds a warning about phishing -- be vigilant! You can check out what we saw at BlizzCon and subsequent Q&As as well as my review of the game, and the gallery below!
Warlords of Draenor: Raids will be non-linear wherever possible
Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has taken to Twitter to discuss the developers' plans for raid linearity in Warlords of Draenor: @Featherkin Varied layouts, but aiming for nonlinear where possible. Highmaul layout resembles Firelands; Blackrock Foundry more like ICC. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 12, 2014 We can see the map for Blackrock Foundry above, and understand what Watcher means with regard to the ICC-esque layout. The circular room at the top is likely to be the room you're looking to unlock by completing wings. And a Firelands-ish layout has much the same effect on raiders. While the world first progression guilds will dislike it, as they thrive on assessing who's behind and who's ahead in the race, they're a tiny percentage of the total raiding playerbase. For the rest of us, it's incredibly frustrating to get stuck on a boss, for whatever reason, and feel like there's nothing you can do but repeatedly throw yourselves at that same encounter.
The wonders and perils of betas
Here at WoW Insider, like in many other places, we've got betas on the brain. Mists of Pandaria had WoW's largest beta, with a huge audience thanks to the Annual Pass sign-up system. In case you don't recall, the Annual Pass gave players a copy of Diablo III, as well as guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, in return for committing to play WoW for another year. As a result, the beta access was huge. Not to mention problematic, as it took Blizzard a really long time to roll out beta access to all the players who'd signed up for the Annual Pass. It was a bit of a nightmare for them, one would imagine, as players felt they had the right to access Mists beta from day one, and just got more and more angry as wave after wave of invitations went out, without theirs. So, before players even got into the beta, there were problems. Betas, originally, were for testing and testing alone. Testing by a slightly larger group than Alphas. Now, beta access seems to have evolved into a different beast altogether. It's early access, it's getting to play a game before your friends, it's status as someone in the know. Betas have become a way for game designers to get their games promoted via streams and YouTube, and the exclusivity of access creates a culture of have and have-not. Everyone wants to be in the beta, with little regard for how it affects their enjoyment of the game.
TradeChat takes on the history of WoW
Taking on the entire history of a game like World of Warcraft, from its announcement back in 2001 all the way up to today is a huge task, but TradeChat is up to it. She has created an epic 16 minute video taking on all the famous landmarks on the way, starting with that Leeroy Jenkins incident, the MOAR DOTS video, WoW's appearance on South Park, and the Corrupted Blood incident that's been used as a model for disease spread in countless studies. There's even an appearance in a question on Jeopardy! featuring Jenkins himself! Panser has done an amazing job here, hitting the pop culture references, the first parodies, the subscription rise and fall, the releases and trailers of all the expansions and major patches. Adverts, both by other companies such as Moutain Dew and Toyota and those for World of Warcraft itself. She has Mila Kunis' famous interview with Jimmy Kimmel, talking about raiding,and countless other tidbits you might not have known before! What I love is how she's taken the announcement videos from all the expansions, and actually shows us all the things she's talking about instead of just marking time.
Warlords of Draenor: Changes coming to casting on the move
Blizzard Community Manager Lore posted yesterday, giving players further information on the ability squish coming with Warlords of Draenor. He's talking about the likes and dislikes of the dev team when it comes to a rather hot topic: casting while moving. We all know that change is coming, and it all seems brilliant until it affects us directly, and it seems like some of the changes Lore is discussing fall a little close to home, as he uses shaman as an example. Spiritwalker's Grace, he says, is a type of casting with movement that they like. It's a cooldown, it's a temporary movement ability, it requires intelligent use. The opposing example is Lightning Bolt, currently castable while moving all the time. The devs don't like that. And I for one agree with them. When I found out about the Lightning Bolt movement changes, my first reaction was that resto didn't need them. Elemental, sure, they are a bit of a turret otherwise, Enhance not really, but they are melee so have more instants. Resto definitely didn't need them in my book, and they're mindless, there's no additional skill there, no real gameplay, especially when we have Spiritwalker's for those times when we really need to move.
Patch 5.4.2 Hotfixes for February 10
Another small round of hotfixes has been applied to patch 5.4.2 following the last set on February 5. The couple of changes we're seeing relate to some terrain changes in Battle for Gilneas, making hills lower to reduce sight lines. There's also a change to Siegecrafter Blackfuse on all difficulty levels, indicative of the targeted Siege of Orgrimmar nerfs Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas has described in the past. Rygarius February 10 Quests The Battle for Gilneas City: Reduced Sylvanas and Gorerot's hitpoints. Rapier of the Gilnean Patriots no longer heals enemies. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios Siege of Orgrimmar Siegecrafter Blackfuse: Significantly reduced the damage of Blackfuse Sellsword's Envenomed Shadowstep on all difficulty modes. source
Warlords of Draenor: Details on the art of garrisons
Senior Art Director Chris Robinson has been keeping us on tenterhooks awaiting the next Artcraft installment, dealing with Garrisons, and it's here! It's a fascinating post, giving way more than just art, an insight into the design process and the "gameplay first" approach the designers have taken. We also hear from Wendy Vetter, the Dungeon Team's lead artist, who walks players through the process of making the new old, and the old new, as they borrow and adapt older textures and assets while still bringing them up to date with the new systems and graphical quality. There's also input from the props team, giving information on the elements they've added into the mix, the storytelling side of design, creating a whole with items and their use. They're the team working on decoration and filling the space in the buildings. It's another great installment in the series and a fascinating read!
Warlords of Draenor begins making an appearance in the launcher and in the Blizzard store
We all know it's coming, there's nobody reading WoW Insider today who will be surprised to hear that there's an expansion in the works and that pre-orders will open soon, hopefully with a beta arriving at a similar time. We've heard about it a few times already, but the recent addition of CSS to the battle.net site and images to the battle.net launcher only serves to increase our suspicions that it's coming with or shortly after patch 5.4.7. You can see a composite image of the launcher background and assets discovered by our friends at Adriacraft in the header. The CSS file, if you don't want to read through it yourself, indicates the addition of Warlords of Draenor in the same pattern as the ones we've come to expect for Mists, Cata and so on. There's also the Digital Deluxe edition upgrade, but there isn't a pre-order date stated in the CSS, and nor has Blizzard announced one. While it certainly shouldn't be taken as any assertion that a new Scroll of Resurrection is coming, there is new imaging for it and it's mentioned in the same updated CSS. Why don't we think a new one is coming? Well it's certainly not impossible, but it would seem rather odd for Blizzard to allow long-abandoned accounts to receive a level 80 just for rejoining when they want us to shell out some cash for the Warlords of Draenor expansion and a "free" level 90 boost. Not to mention the likely addition of purchasable level 90 boosts coming soon, as the feature is tested on the PTR.
Breakfast Topic: The most elusive holiday reward
This year. This year it's mine. This year will be the year I finally get the Big Love Rocket. I've got a small army of 90s, and a couple of nearly-90s who'll be able to queue for it soon. I've got time on my hands, and a burning hatred for apothecaries Hummel, Baxter and Frye. The Love Rocket is the one that's escaped me for so long over the years, and continues to do so on day one of Love is in the Air, at least. I was really lucky with the Headless Horseman's Reins, got it on my first ever try and it's been one of my favorites ever since. The Brewfest Kodo? No big deal. Coren gave me duff barrels for a while, but eventually he ponied up the Kodo for me. But that rocket. Every time I open a heart-shaped box, I'm convinced it'll be this one. This time I'll get it. And this year I'm estimating that, across all accounts, I'll have almost 200 chances. There'll be no time for love, only killing and boxes. But which holiday reward eludes you still? Which is your nemesis? Which are you chasing? And do you have the Big Love Rocket?!
Warlords of Draenor: More Garrison tidbits from Mumper
Over the weekend, Lead Content Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton tweeted several exciting tidbits about Warlords' much-anticipated Garrisons feature. Wowhead rounds up the key tweets, which cover things like the focus of Garrisons, and some exciting hints at buildings. When we were talking last week about things that make your Garrison feel like home, one thing that cropped up was ways to show off achievements past. Mumper mentions that there will be Monuments that players can place, earned from achievements. However he does go on to clarify that Garrisons are not about placing furniture and decorating. This isn't The Sims in WoW, after all. Most exciting, though, he talks about one building, a Mage Tower spec called City Portals that opens ports to every major city. It seems from his later tweets that the tower will not be mage-specific, but will need to be specced and upgraded like any other building to get the portal setup. His response to another tweet confirms that the plans will be from drops, quest rewards and vendors, again implying the buildings will be available to all.
Warlords of Draenor: New Challenge Modes coming, with new rewards
Lovers of Challenge Mode dungeons may have been feeling a little uneasy with all the talk of how 5-mans are going to be a bigger part of WoW again in Warlords of Draenor. Simply because the popular opinion seems to be that Challenge Modes weren't a great replacement for difficult heroic mode dungeons. But fear not, Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas' tweet will put your fears to bed: @DarkwindBakey @MagdalenaDK There will be new CMs in WoD with new rewards. More info about the MoP CMs should be forthcoming soon. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) February 10, 2014 Along with the greater frequency of 5-mans, we'll be seeing new Challenge Modes appear too, and they'll feature new rewards. I'm wondering what the rewards will be -- were the transmog sets and a little Valor enough for players to feel motivated to do Challenge Modes? Or should there be additional rewards for the most tricky of difficulties? Too much good stuff and they become "mandatory", too little and the proposed harder heroics will replace them. We will have to wait and see what happens to the Mists Challenge Modes. Personally I hope they're scaled up to max level, or altered to reward big chunks of XP, or they will be abandoned forever. Bumped up to level 100, with new gear scaling added, they could continue to be enduring content for Warlords.