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Rent seeking (or lack thereof) in WoW
Elnia continues posting some interesting (and complicated) insight into the World of Warcraft over at the Pink Pigtail Inn. This time, it's about what she calls "rent seeking," which isn't about trying to find the money to pay for your apartment so much as it's about individuals petitioning authorities (the government, or in this case Blizzard) for their own income. The post dabbles with some complicated market theory, but in the end, the conclusion is this: while players have definitely petitioned Blizzard for changes to their own class, they have generally stayed away from asking for more money, or changes to the rules that would grant it to them. In general, players are fine with Blizzard staying hands-off of the various in-game economies running in Azeroth. As the commenters over there say, there's a good reason for that, and it's because most of the economic play in WoW is completely optional. Aside from repair costs (which can be high for raiders, but for everyone else are fairly inconsequential), you don't really need money at all; given enough time, you can collect whatever you need from somewhere in the world, either by simply collecting ore or herbs, or by running instances and doing quests. But that doesn't mean that the "rent seeking" comparison isn't valid.
A new blogger survey, this time for DPS
Last weekend we spotlighted the big healer survey that went around the blogosphere a little while back -- it was chock full of information straight from healers about their classes and abilities and what they thought of them. Now, Death Goddess is aiming to do the same thing for DPS classes. She's only got a few blogs who've answered so far, but they run a good range, from hunter to warlock to mage, and maybe getting the word out like this will encourage a few more DPS-style bloggers to put their answers in the pot. As long as we're going to keep encouraging this meme (or non-meme, as they may be saying), I'd love to see some of this stuff quantified a little bit more. It'd be interesting to put into numbers which kinds of classes like their roles best, or which situations each role likes to play more (do healers prefer raiding over 5-mans, or do DPS prefer to play solo rather than PvP?). The healer survey was a treasure trove of raw anecdotal information, but it'd be good to see this put into a spreadsheet or graph, and maybe give us a more quantified look at what people think of their class. We'll keep an eye on the DPS data and maybe try hashing it out once the list of those surveyed becomes pretty substantial.
SWTOR's Imperial Spy gets an official reveal
We've pretty much known about it for a while, but Star Wars: The Old Republic now officially has an Imperial Spy class. Granted, even before, we had a pretty good inkling that some kind of spy or rogue class was in the wings for the Empire players -- especially since the Smuggler had no logical counterpart. So what's the big deal about an official announcement? A class page full of juicy information just waiting to be devoured by eager fans. The combat tactics movies are easily the most impressive section of the class page, simply because the abilities shown are exceptionally fun. We can't decide which we like more: the stun dart / targeted blaster strike or the orbital bombardment. Even the ability to throw down an energy shield in the middle of combat looks pretty cool. Whatever your favorite ability or class happens to be, there's no doubt these new screens are looking better than before. We're always excited to see progress being made and it's heartening to have a visual reminder that Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming along.%Gallery-35033%
Jedi Knight officially steps into The Old Republic spotlight
Rumors and speculation have been floating around this week about the Jedi Knight, so no big surprise when BioWare reveals that, yes, Knights of the Jedi persuasion are in fact a player class in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The news comes with all the expected class page accoutrements such as screens, concept art and a few videos showing off three Jedi Knight attacks. It's all standard practice information release at this point, which only slightly dilutes the excitement of the announcement. The videos all show the proper level of Jedi powerhousing that you'd expect, although we're not entirely cool with all the droid destroying that's happening. Sure, we're aware that unlike Sith, Jedi are limited to disabling droids and pushing things around but that's no excuse to pick on the little helpless mechanical people. Yes, we said people -- robots are people too! In all seriousness, this is probably the class reveal everyone has been waiting for and/or expecting all along. Jedi and Sith were a given, so from here on out it's almost entirely anyone's guess. Spy? Rogue? Droids? Wookiees? Albino Ewoks? Okay, that's a little silly, nobody wants to play a rogue over a spy.%Gallery-35034%%Gallery-35033%
Breakfast Topic: Which class am I again?
Tonight, after Trials of the Grand Crusader (four down, bug to go) we decided to hop onto some alts, which led to back to back TotC 10 on my DK and Shaman. Then back to back Ony 10, also on the DK and Shaman. And because I'd spent hours in TotGC 25 on my warrior before that, by the end of the night, I had no idea what class abilities I had anymore. Between popping Army of the Dead when they called for Heroism (it's bound to the same key) to trying desperately to use Chains of Ice when asked to Frost Shock the Ret Pally, I was in rare form. And it wasn't just me, either: the druid healer is usually a mage, the warlock raids as a priest, and the holy paladin healing the second Ony attempt has something like 10 alts at 80. I'm surprised he even knows where he is. We got it all done, mind you, but you can really tell the difference in smoothness between our mains and our alts, even as well geared as the alts often are.So now I put it to you, gentle readers. Do you ever suffer from class bleedover? Are you ever on your druid finding yourself mashing the Consecration button, or on your Mage trying to use Hymn of Hope? Or do you find it easy to keep it all straight?
Pandaren Monk pet has moves
MMO Champion has datamined up some video of the new Pandaren Monk vanity pet that's been floating around, and as you can see above, it's pretty darned awesome. Just like the Grunty the Murloc pet, this one comes with some fun animations, and they look terrific. Blizzard has been pretty coy about getting the Pandaren into the game, and they're teasing big here, too -- this little bear's got moves that would make the Diablo III Monk hang his head in shame.However, the question remains: how do we get it? At this point, it's just speculation and rumor -- some say it might be a special anniversary pet for people who've been subscribed all five years of the game's life, some suggest it might be part of the Cataclysm collector's edition (past CEs have had a pet in each one, including a Diablo figure in the first box), and still others suggest that the Monk will be a new pet in the upcoming Brewfest holiday. How do we get it, really? We won't know for sure until we hear it from Blizz.
Anti-Aliased: Socially awkward
So, ok, we've been talking about Champions Online recently here in the column. Been talking about it a lot, as a matter of fact. I don't feel like risking having this column turn into a Champions love fest (as much fun as I'm having with the game), so we're going to change gears significantly this time and get onto a completely new train of thought.This week's topic: social gameplay. No, I don't mean those games you play obsessively/compulsively on Facebook or your social network of choice. I'm talking about how some aspects of gameplay completely rely on human interaction, for better or for worse. It's present in all of our games, but are we really taking advantage of it? We're going to take a look at some games that do take advantage of human-powered conflict, and why, perhaps, it might be a wave of the future for online games.
Encrypted Text: The Rogue Q&A in review
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about the Rogue Q & A recently released by Blizzard.Last week, Blizzard released the long-awaited (at least by me) Rogue Q&A series. Ghostcrawler and the rest of the community team answered many of our long-standing questions, and gave us some insight into where Rogues are headed as a class. You can read the full details of the Q&A that Eliah posted for us.After reading the questions and answers, I breathed a sigh of relief. No hints or indications of any nerfs coming our way, and Blizzard actually acknowledged several longstanding flaws with the class. Not only that, but they actually provided possible solutions; I'll be taking them with a grain of salt. New Rogues are excited about our class' complexity and diversity, while experienced Rogues are proud that we are now respected as damage dealers instead of being seen as second-class DPS.The highlights are after the cut.
Priest Q&A Released
The priest Q&A has just been released. This is the final Q&A in the entire class Q&A series, and has some answers that many in the Priest community have been looking for. The Rogue Q&A was also released this afternoon.Some of the highlights of the Priest Q&A include: The Shadow tree needs to have more talents which affect overall damage, and less on DoT only damage. This is so the Shadow Priest isn't penalized during encounters in which DoTs are not usable. Dispelling DoTs is not too easy right now. Regarding the Glyph of Mind Flay: "...at this point we don't think it would be a problem if the glyph just bumped the range without the penalty. It's probably too conservative a glyph." Blizzard is considering removing the backlash from Shadow Word: Death if the target is within Execute range. Blizzard recognizes the disparity between Greater Heal and Flash Heal, but doesn't really offer any solid solution. There are no concrete plans to change Lightwell into something useful. Blizzard is not happy that Dispels can miss, but they don't have an easy fix for it. The full Q&A after the break.
The Queue: RaF'd dailies are delicious
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.I have to admit, o' faithful Queue readers, that I considered pawning off answering questions today to someone else so I could have more time to catch up on other work. Patch days can get quite busy around the WoW.com head quarters. Last night for example. Alex, Mike Sacco, and I had heard that there was a new raid lockout extension feature in place, so we rushed onto the Patch 3.2 PTR to grab some screenshots. Of course that meant we had to deal with the thing crashing every few minutes. And once we finally did make it into ZG to get a quick boss kill, Sacco disconnected and the server announced a shutdown in 5 minutes. But hey, we got the kill off and the screenshots captured with 15 seconds left until the shutdown. We won!Aideros asked..."When are more "hero classes", like the Death Knight, coming out? What are the speculations? Has anything been said about them since WotLK?"
The opposite of Heroics
Reader Malos on Nagrand sent me an interesting idea that I thought was worth some discussion. For a long time now, I've been a big fan of the idea of turning the old instances into Heroic versions -- I think it would be really fun to play Deadmines as a level 80, or roll through Scarlet Monastery for badges. But obviously the problem there is that Blizzard already has enough to do -- they're focused on creating new content, not revamping old instances that people have already played.So Malos has a solution: instead of tweaking the instances to us, how about tweaking us to the instances? He suggests a set of gear, much like the Heirloom gear, that matches your character to whatever instance you happen to step into -- if you enter Deadmines, it powers down your level 80 character to an appropriate power and level for the instance. That way, all Blizzard has to do is make one set of gear per class (that could even scale upwards, so they never have to make it again), and boom, every instance could be played at the standard difficulty by any character any time.Will it happen? Probably not. But I really like the idea of tweaking the players, not the instances, and I think there's a lot of possibility there for Blizzard. They've had such a tough time trying to balance out content for all kinds of players (including all of the hard modes and extra gameplay in Ulduar), that it might be interesting to try and measure the difficulty by going the other way -- balancing players out for all kinds of content.
Breakfast Topic: Is your class missing out on in-game lore?
When it comes to lore, Druids, Mages, Death Knights and Paladins have it covered. Druids have the Emerald Dream, Mages the Kirin Tor and Dalaran. Meanwhile Paladins and Death Knights' lore revolve around this chap called Arthas who did bad things and became one of the biggest bads in all of Azeroth. But what about the other classes? When was the last time you heard of a decent bit of Warlock or Warrior lore? And I'm not just talking a class quest here, but actual lore with a capital L?Shamans got a bit in The Burning Crusade but only if you were a Draenei. What about Hunters, Rogues, and Priests? So I want to know, dear readers, do you wish there was more lore specific to your class? Do you feel neglected as a sub-group within Azeroth? What kind of lore would you like to see associated with your (insert class here)? Speak up and drop your thoughts in the comment box below.
Japanese university tracking students via free iPhones
If you happen to be enrolling in Aoyama Gakuin University's School of Social Informatics in Tokyo this year, make sure to stop by the admissions office to pick up your free iPhone -- the school made a deal with Softbank Corporation, the iPhone's vendor in Japan, to give the phones to 550 students for school usage. But oh, there is one catch: they're also going to use the phones' GPS to track students, and make sure they're attending class on time. It looks like skipping class is an issue -- the students at the school, despite having to answer an attendance check and/or hand in an attendance card, are still skipping out on class and having their classmates cover them. But apparently university officials think the iPhone plan will work better, because students will be less inclined, they believe, to pass off their iPhone to a buddy. Need to keep track of truant students? There is, apparently, an app for that. [via Ars]
Poll For The Day: Which class does Blizzard hate the most?
The patch 3.1 changes have not been sitting well with some players. Death Knights are up in arms about their nerfs, and Mages are feeling as rejected as ever.And Warlocks? Who plays those anymore. I received a free level 70 Death Knight in exchange for deleting mine. True story.All kidding aside, I personally don't think Blizzard has it out for any one class. But I know that many in the community don't share my feelings. And while nerfs are never personal (aka, Ghostcrawler doesn't say "That damn Holisky, just because he posted this article we're going to nerf Shamans!"), they are often taken quite personal by the player base.So for today's important poll (all polls are important after all): what class does Blizzard hate the most?%Poll-29324%
Bioware profiles first Old Republic class: Bounty Hunter
If your prospective career path in Bioware's upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't involve lightsabers or force powers, you might want to turn your attention to the game's official site, where the developer recently posted the first class profile page, giving details, screenshots and short videos about the cutthroat, money-wise Bounty Hunter.It looks like Bioware is preserving the intricacies of the manhuntin' profession as detailed by the films -- those who roll a Bounty Hunter will find themselves with a sweet arsenal of handheld ordnances, Mandalorian armor, jetpacks, wrist-mounted flamethrowers, and the ability to get totally sad when you see your dad get decapitated right in front of you.[Via Massively]
How to apply to a guild
Our friend Lassirra (who has just recently started writing Scattered Shots for us here at WoW Insider) has a great post over on her personal blog telling Hunters how to apply for a guild, but really, most of her advice would work for anyone trying to move on up to a better guild situation. I've long said that one of the key indicators of a guild worth getting into is that they require you to apply, so following these tips when actually filling out that application will very much help you find your spot in the game, whether it's raiding at the highest levels, teaming up with other PvP afficionados, or just getting yourself in the right casual circles.The first few suggestions are just about following the rules: answer all of the questions, don't be weird, and don't put anything on the app (like major drama in your history or major spelling errors or offensive language) that would let the guild's officers give you a definite "no" right away. Second, know your character and your class. As Lassirra's twitter people say, the standards for most guilds' recruitment (even great guilds) are pretty low. As long as you're easy-going and you know how to play your class and have an interest in bettering your character, you're going to be pretty much instantly accepted into 90% of guilds out there. You don't have to throw together a big Flash presentation (though it might help). And finally, don't worry about rejection. This may all sound like applying for a job, but it's not nearly that serious -- if one guild decides to pass on your app, go find another one you like and apply there. The extra time will be worth it: if all you've done in terms of being in a guild so far is join up with someone shouting in the Trade chat, you owe it to yourself to, as Lassirra says, put the time in to find a guild that's right for you.
Upcoming 3.1 class changes: Rogue, Priest, Shaman
Development just relayed major class changes coming in content patch 3.1 for rogues, priests, and shaman on the forums. Eyonix advises the list is in no way comprehensive, is subject to change, and is likely to receive additions as the weeks go by. Major class changes include: Priest's Divine Spirit is now a base ability of all Priests. Priest's Power Word: Barrier, a new Disc Priest talent that acts like a Power Word: Shield for the entire group. Rogue's Killing Spree increases damage an additional 20%. Rogue's Mace Spec now additionally increases haste. Shaman's Mana Spring and Healing Spring totems combined, along with Poison Cleansing and Disease Cleansing combined. Shaman's Spirit Weapons now reduces all threat. Shaman's Chain Lightning now hits 4 targets. What are you waiting for? Check out after the break to read 'em all!
Ask Twitter: What's the fastest class to level?
This morning, reader Jipi wrote to us pointing out a post, written way back in 2007, discussing which classes were the fastest levelers. But, being as it's a good year and a half out of date, Jipi wanted to know which classes were the fastest levelers now. We thought that the Twitter community might have some insight on the matter -- so we asked them! (On Twitter? Follow us! We'll talk WoW!) Some of the answers we received echoed our original post: Hunters and Warlocks still get a nod as some of your best options. Both do excellent DPS and have pets to lend a hand. Also high on the list were Druids, who received praise for their versatility. And, unsurprisingly, Death Knights are new on the list -- not only do they have the advantage of skipping the first 55 levels, but they also do great DPS with high survivability. For everyone's on Twitter's answers to this question (in 140 characters or less) -- or to add your own (in as many characters as you'd like) -- read on!
Name one thing you'd change about your class
Ghostcrawler is known to recite this line here and there. He mentions often that the purpose of saying such a thing isn't to get them (Blizzard) to change just one thing in a class the next patch, but to get people to zone in on a real problem.A real problem is something like "Fury Warriors do not have enough survivability and therefore are less effective in terms of spike PvP and PvE damage."A non real problem is something like "Blizzard hates Shamans and doesn't pay enough attention to them."So as an exercise this evening let's see what the WoW Insider readers think. Name one thing you would like changed about your class.As a full time PvE Protection Warrior, I think that we have a problem with obtaining the hit cap and would like to see more +hit gear drop in heroics and 10-man raid instances. I think an inclusion of items that have both +hit and +parry would help solve this wonderfully. I've also been known to dabble in Holy Paladins once in a while.
MapleStory set to be boarded, mateys
Ever wanted to take on monsters and swagger around, with nary a care for lesser landlubbers? Well Nexon's got just the thing for you in their newly created MapleStory player class - Pirates! Launching this month, the addition of the Pirate class adds a new facet on this already popular game. Players start with the Pirate, but can choose one of two job paths as their levels increase. At level 30, players can specialize in the fast melee attacks of the Brawler, or go for the ranged-attack prowess of the Gunslinger. Both job trees continue up to Buccaneer or Corsair at level 120, respectively. Additionally, pirates gain several fun new abilities like sneaking past monsters in barrels, the ability to summon sea creatures to help, and even transformative battle powers.As if that weren't timber-shivering enough to give players an incentive for rolling a Pirate, MapleStory is also adding in a series of new maps and areas to experience aboard the Pirate ship Nautilus, just full of new adventures. They're also planning a series of contests based around the new class, including a costume contest, a user-generated content contest and even a competition for pirate-themed guilds. To top it all off, MapleStory is introducing a new server for people to play on - Demethos - which should give new players a chance to be on a more even footing as everyone levels up. Sounds like some serious sea fun to us. Yarr!
