drysc
Latest
Armory add-on for Firefox going live soon
CM Drysc announced on the WoW General Forum that they are developing a Firefox add-on for searching the Armory.For those of you who are not familiar with Mozilla's Firefox, it is a browser that can be used on Macs or PCs (even Linux) and has a great dropdown search function for quick lookups on certain sites. Wowhead has one as does WoWwiki and so do we here at WoW Insider (link goes to add-on). You can go to the Firefox Search Engine page to install any of these add-ons onto your version of Firefox. Drysc says to check in at the Armory over the next couple of days for the announcement that the search engine has been completed.
No attunement for the new Naxx (and counting your chickens before they hatch)
When Byrthor asks whether folks attuned for the old Naxx will be attuned for it when it returns in Wrath, Drysc answers with what will sound like music to most raiders' ears: there is no attunement planned for the new Naxx. Blizzard learned their lesson in Burning Crusade about wacky attunements, and so while they're likely not gone from the game completely, there will probably be fewer barriers to raiding, especially early on in progression.There is something else about this thread that irks me a bit, however. In the past day, the CMs have been hit with tons of questions about Wrath of the Lich King, and in almost all cases, the answer has been the same: maybe. Why don't they know what's going on? Because all indications are, guys, that Wrath hasn't even been designed yet. Blizzard hasn't determined if Atiesh will show up, or if flying mounts will work, or if we'll each get our own Arthas windup doll, because the expansion is still way into the planning stages. It's fine to be ready for 2.2, or excited about 2.3, or interested in what we might see in the Sunwell. But if you're excited to find out what's in the next expansion, have a seat and take a deep breath, because it's going to be a long, long time before the CMs can even know anything worth not telling us. Ya dig?That said, I can't fault players for being excited about upcoming content, no matter how far off it is. But it does make me wonder about Blizzard's focus. They could just as easily had us playing Zul'Aman or even the Sunwell at BlizzCon-- both of those will show up long before Northrend will. With Wrath so far away, why did they push it so hard at BlizzCon? Why didn't they just announce it, and leave the rest of the hype to something we'll actually see before the Beijing Olympics?
Daze of our lives season finale: changes not incoming
Just like a soap opera, the "daze" ability has had a lot of ups and downs lately. First they said it was working fine, then they said it wasn't working fine. Well, now they say it is working fine after all. Drysc tells us:A change to the "Daze" mechanic was originally planned for introduction in patch 2.2. This change would have removed additional defense rating as a factor in reducing the chance of being dazed, equalizing the chance for heavy armor wearers to become dazed as compared to light armor wearers. With further testing and discussion it was decided that players would be too negatively affected in their ability to tank and reposition their targets, and this change will no longer be included with 2.2. We currently have no plans to reintroduce this change at a later time. Apparently the developers really do listen to what the forum goers say and go try things out for themselves now and then. Now, at last, we can put the whole issue to rest.
Blue notes for Rogues
Rogues got a good bit of blue response on the forums today. First, player Snlper of Ysondre server wanted to know why Vanish and Blind still required reagents. The Fadeleaf component to make Blinding Powder is particularly annoying to her as it has to be gathered with Herbalism, pickpocketed or bought at inflated price on the Auction House. Community Manager Drysc thought the complaint holds merit and will hopefully bring it to the attention of the devs.Next, player Istarian of Lightninghoof suggested a new talent/skill that shifts some unused combo points to the next target when the current target dies before the rogue can pull off a finishing move. This is how he worded it:Redirect FocusPassiveWhen your target dies with 3/4/5 combo points on it, your next attacked hostile target within 15 seconds gains 1/2/3 of those combo points. (This effect will only be active if you have at least 3 combo points on your target). CM Drysc responded that the dev team has considered ways to deal with unused combo points, but hasn't decided on anything yet. Finally, this last bit of blue lovin' is a clarification on the melee haste nerf and the impact on casters. Drysc explained that haste and attack power were of similar value to melee players at their base level, but +haste was scaling much faster than +attack power when a player loaded up on it through equipment. Blizzard is bringing down the benefit of +haste for all classes. But then they noticed it impacted casters too much and now they are bringing back up (all the way? a little bit? just for casters? that wasn't clear.)
Forum Necromancy
Forum necromancy (a.k.a. Thread necromancy) is the dark art of resurrecting long-dead forum threads on the official WoW forums by posting something new in them and sending them to the very top of the list. This heinous act is not to be mistaken with a "bump" -- sending a baby thread with trouble attracting viewers' eyeballs back to the top of the list. "Bumping" is no more reprehensible than "grinding" is. But beware those who seek to raise dead topics from the grave! These people are dangerous and Blizzard will punish them.I have proof! In an ancient era long forgotten -- back in May -- a young dwarf named Grothym asked if his character, after many many in-game alcoholic beverages, could black out or even die from alcohol poisoning. Drysc, the Blizzard Community manager, rightly thought this was a funny suggestion and commented: "I proposed that eventually the screen goes black and you wake up in a random capital city of the opposite faction, but it didn't fly." Then the thread went on for a few more pages and petered out. Aside from a brief stint in July, the thread remained dead until just a few days ago, when some druid with an impossible-to-pronounce name raised this thread from the depths of the forum archives, back onto the front page. No doubt he had been inspired by the Lich King.Fortunately, Blizzard's Gruul-like defender of the forums smashed this zombie-thread with the following words:As a rule of thumb, bumping an old discarded thread to the first page is considered to be against the Forum Code of Conduct. While there are indeed exceptions based on the topic and circumstances, in general it is recommended not to post in this manner, as it can lead to suspensions of one's posting privileges. A good guideline to go by is that if the most recent post in a thread is over a month old then it would be better not to reply to that thread.Yes. You read that right: suspensions of one's posting privileges for unleashing undeath upon the hapless citizens of the official WoW forums. Beware temptation to turn to the dark side. Post in living threads only.
Low level hunter pets to level faster... someday
So there you are, a proud hunter at level 70, and you suddenly realize that you absolutely must have a low-level pet, such as the famous translucent ghost saber? What do you do? Up till now the conventional answer was: "suffer." Low level pets only gain experience when you kill something around your level range, not theirs, so the only choice is to just bear with it for a very long time while you try to kill high-level monsters with a low-level pet, or else just give up and not do it.Well finally it looks like Blizzard has in mind something to do about it. Drysc tells us: We have plans to adjust how quickly a hunter's pet will level if there's a large gap between it and the hunter's level. However, it's still just a plan and not something we've implemented and thus are not ready to discuss it.Something's going to happen -- we just don't know what it is yet. But really, for hunters anything would be better than what it is now. It's always nice to remove needless tedium don't you think?
Daze of our lives: The continuing story
Remember back at the end of June when Drysc said that Daze was working as intended? Drysc said that since your base defense skill reduced the chance of getting Dazed, you should try to keep it maxed. He also said we just perceived that we were getting Dazed more in Outland for a variety of reasons including that we ran into more same level or higher mobs in Outland than on Azeroth. Mike called this a "little shaky". It seems that the programmers thought so too, looked into the mechanics a bit deeper and lo and behold we have this note in Patch 2.2:Daze: Defense skill will no longer reduce the chance players have to receive the Daze effect when attacked from behind by enemies. Bunnies (female Gnome, of course) called out Drysc on the forums to explain the descrepancy. Happily, Drysc took the challenge: Shortly after that write up, and due to us going back through the code, the programmers found that a character's defense as a whole was being taken in to account, and not just their base defense as intended. It was definitely our mistake in only looking at what values are taken into account when calculating daze, and not how those values are generated. They're separate bits of code in different locations, so it wasn't easily or immediately apparent.
Bigger backpacks (and more) coming soon
Gaslaw asks on the forums whether backpacks will be bigger in Wrath of the Lich King, and (kind of surprisingly) Drysc says it's not beyond the realm of possibility.I guess it's not that surprising-- it does seem like we are carrying more stuff around lately, in terms of quest and rep items, if not just plain old extra gear sets. We've already had lots of ideas on how to fix things, from creating more keychain setups, to just plain coming up with more bag space. But fortunately, Drysc doesn't seem to have just bigger bags in mind-- he seems to have "better stuff in the works."What that could be, we have no idea. Pack mules? Dimensional suitcases (made, naturally, of sapient pearwood)? Finally, player housing? Drysc says we'll find out soon.
Realm mergers are a last resort
Realm population problems don't affect me too much, thankfully -- my server has neither too many people nor too few, and the faction balance tilts in my favor. But some people complain that their servers are ghost worlds, with not much at the auction house and not many to group for quests and dungeons. The "Recommended" tag Blizzard is using to help out low-population realms sometimes just doesn't do the trick: people play there for a while, see that no one is home, then decide to go somewhere else.So, while some people say the only way is to combine two low-pop realms into one, Drysc says that such mergers can only be a last resort:There are a couple issues with merging realms though that we would need to take into heavy consideration if one were to be considered. As many of the lower population realms are PvP, faction balance has to be taken into careful consideration. Would a merge worsen, improve, or leave any faction balance unchanged? Would a merge move the population up too high, queuing or leading to queues for the realm after that point? Do we have realms of the same time zone and type that would merge well under these conditions? There also many logistical issues with merges which ultimately effect the end user, such as conflicting character and guild names. So, in the end, a merge would only be considered if all other possible options have been completely exhausted. We're not just throwing recommended tags up on realms, and calling it a day. The recommended tag has done a lot of good for a lot of realms, but if we're seeing that they're no longer helping reach the type of population numbers we would like to see, then we would investigate alternate means. That's sort of where we're at now.So, what is there to do besides merge realms? Drysc calls that the "million dollar question," which I figure means that Blizzard doesn't know for sure, though at least a couple ideas come to my mind: They could have some kind of incentive to players who join low-population realms (that's what the Army is doing, I hear), or perhaps all but force new players to start out there unless they have a referral from another player. Of course any solution to this problem is going to create still more problems of another sort. What do you think would work best?
Changes coming to Alterac Valley
It looks like Blizzard is finally starting to take this issue of AFKing in Alterac Valley seriously, and not just with the AFK-reporting feature that you've likely already heard about.In response to one poster who begged Blizzard not to implement this reporting feature because he says the map is imbalanced and the Horde always loses anyways, Drysc gave us a relatively long list of changes that Blizzard is making in order to help solve the problem -- not just reporting AFKers, but also finding other ways to encourage them to get in the game as well, such as fixing exploits, changing or removing NPCs, and yes even modifying the map a little bit.Here's what he said: There are quite a few changes coming, all of which we hope will culminate into making players want to participate, and ultimately win the battleground. Obviously as most people know we have the anti-afk reporting measure, by which you can right click on someone in the battleground and mark them as AFK. With enough reports they receive a debuff that keeps them from earning honor in that battleground, and only by entering combat can they remove that debuff. It's going to help, but it's certainly not enough on its own. Other things we're doing are changing or pulling out NPCs in key locations to help even out the balance of time and effort each side has to take to push through. As well as some minor changes to locations that people find are easily exploited to advance faster. We're shifting some of the honor from the earlier NPCs, that help make AFKing so lucrative, to the end of the battleground and more for actually winning. The graveyard spawning is being changed so that players aren't sent back to the cave unless there is nowhere else to spawn, which should help encourage horde to play a bit more defense if they're being beaten back. And we're also correcting the ... I think Jeff referred to them as "creative pulling mechanics" with the general's. Everything together, we feel, should help encourage players to participate, while also improving overall balance.
Death Knights' "rune" system might take some skill
"Oh my frikkin dog, everybody and their second cousin is gonna wanna be Death Knights!" was the cry heard throughout Outland when the new Hero Class was announced. WoW players everywhere had visions of dungeons and raids filled with only Death Knights; as well as Alliance and Horde cities alike all filled wall-to-wall with thousands of players who abandoned their original class to become Death Knights, only to discover (along with rogues and hunters) that it ain't so easy being uber-cool and powerful when everyone else is uber-cool and powerful too -- because everyone else is taking your raid spot.Well Drysc has a ray of light to shed on this despair... or, in the case of Death Knights, perhaps that should be a big tank of unholy frozen blood to spill on it (assuming that would help): I expect just about everyone is going to want to try one, but is everyone going to want to drop their long-time proffered class for one? I seriously doubt it. Also there's some amount of self regulation that will really be required to keep group composition equalized. Not only will the other 9 classes still be needed to succeed in any group effort, but the tactics involved in playing a Death Knight might be too hard for the average Stanley Noobsauce to master. In response to one player who felt that the rune system Death Knights will be using seemed "clunky and not fun," Drysc responded:
Arena season 1 set to be purchasable with honor
Apparently, this was mentioned at BlizzCon, but even reading all the marvelous coverage of BlizzCon here at WoW Insider, I managed to miss it. Drysc tells us that "as arena sets fall off they would make their way to the honor system. So when a season 3 set is released, season 1 would fall off the arena vendors and onto the honor vendors, but this may not include weapons."So! Have you been hoarding up your honor points for that one great day when you'd be able to buy something epic with them? Are you prepared for hours and hours of hanging out in battlegrounds in order to get your desired set without having to do well in the arenas? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, you may be in luck. No official word on when Season three will come along however.
.jpg.cf.jpg)
You haven't seen the last of The Venture Trading Co.
We've all had our runs in with this mercenary group. Illegally mining in Mulgore. Secretly running the economy of Stranglethorn Vale. Infiltrating the Exodar. Just about every player remembers tangling with a member of this group, but not much has been seen of them lately.CM Drysc let us know that though the Venture Trading Company has met hard times, we may be seeing them again in the future. I'm glad to hear Blizzard isn't letting this evil corporation fall away. They are part of my early Warcraft experience and I would like to see what they are up to next.Is there any group from pre-TBC that you would like to see make a comeback in a patch or expansion?
Breakfast Topic: Worst designed zone in the game
I generally don't like to post negative questions, but I think we all have a story here. Player Mementomori of the Dethecus server kicked off the discussion by picking Desolace as the worst zone in the game. He cites a badly placed graveyard and lack of decent quests. Its only redeeming value is being of comparable level to Stranglethorn Vale, so it's a good place to avoid that overrun zone.Popular vote getters are Un'Goro (which gets my vote with those damn dirty raptors plus being so far away from Alliance cities), Azshara and Swamp of Sorrows. Even a blue threw in his two cents. CM Drysc's vote went to Shimmering Flats. Great to look at, not much to do. In fact, that seems to be the theme of most of the complaints about zones: visually appealing, but lacks significant content.What about you? What do you consider the worst zone in the game? And why?
Experience is going to get faster sooner
Blizzard's plans to speed up the old Azeroth leveling experience 1-58 have been pretty vague so far, about some additions to Dustwallow Marsh and some kind of general speed increase at some point in the future. Drysc has made things a little bit more clear though: we can expect to see a "pre-expansion change to the experience curve and gain." You won't have to wait until the expansion comes out to finish leveling that alt you've always wanted to play but couldn't make time for. Exactly when "pre-expansion" this will be isn't clear of course, but it's nice to know it shouldn't take as long as some had feared.In addition, Drysc goes on to add that they are interested in "refining (?)" a couple of the old-world instances, namely Gnomeregan and Uldaman, because apparently those dungeons tend to get more people more often during the leveling process. "Refining" those dungeons could mean anything from changing some of the trash mobs to really reorganizing parts of the instance, and the effect could be for better or for worse -- several of my friends tremble with hatred at the mention of those two instances, and would much rather Blizzard removed Gnomeregan and Uldaman altogether than encourage us to go back to an "refined" version anytime soon.For my part, any refining of old-world content is a good thing. It would be good to speed through content that most of us have already seen before, and it would be refreshing to revisit some old dungeons with new twists for those of us who haven't already done them to death. Some players, however, are crying bloody murder -- apparently ones who enjoy repeatedly slogging through hours and hours of the same old content and think that everyone else should have to also.
Happy Birthday CMs
Does anyone but me think it's a little weird that three of the WoW community managers have birthdays within days of each other? Today is Neth's birthday, and apparently Eyonix and Drysc just had their birthdays this past weekend. Happy birthday to all three of them!Of course, having early August birthdays means they're all Leos. And of course that means that they're born leaders, known for their enthusiasm, determination and charisma. They have a fondness for competition, dance, and gambling.Oh, and they're also very prone to work with both animals and children. Ahem. Read into that what you will. Happy birthday again to the Forum CMs!Update: Ugh, Astrology. Apparently they're not Leos, they're Cancer, which means they're kind, emotional, imaginative and romantic, and they're strongly associated with "tribes, clans, and closely-knit family groups." Which I guess fits, too.
2h Axes and Maces might be free for Shamans
While we were at BlizzCon, Eliah did a great job of catching something even I missed (and I played-- and respecced-- my Shaman on the event server, although I don't have any points in Enhancement, so that's probably why I missed it). Shaman are very likely picking up some serious buffs in an upcoming patch. And now, Drysc has confirmed that if one of those buffs, Shamanistic Focus, goes through, then Shaman will get 2h Axes and Maces as a baseline ability, no talent points needed.Pretty darn sweet-- now, I can use my healing mace to heal, my spell damage dagger to DPS, and my 2h mace (haven't found one yet, but I will) to melee. And think of the itemization in the future-- a 2h mace with uber spell damage and Windfury on it? Hawt!The original thread that brought about Drysc's comment was asking for Shaman swords, and I do agree that even if 2h talent doesn't get made free, Shaman should be able to pick up 1h swords-- we're already at enough of a disadvantage with our low mana efficiency to have to pass on those swords to Mages and Warlocks (sure, the lore doesn't really fit, but this is Shamans we're talking about!). But I'm more than willing to trade those away for free 2h Axes and Maces (and the promise of itemization for us in WotLK). Because what I really want to wield as a Shaman is one of those gigantic 2h totems, and Maces are just a step away from that.
Arena gear swapping looking at a nerf
Currently, in Arena matches, once in the arena, you can still swap your gear before combat starts. Why would you want to do this? There is an immense amount of difference in what my resto Shaman can do depending on whether he's wearing his healing gear of his damage gear, and being able to choose my set after I've seen the other team can be an advantage.Too much of an advantage, says Blizzard. Even though they haven't changed things on the PTRs yet, Drysc says that when DoTs are affected by resilience, Arena players will no longer be able to swap their gear once inside. Apparently the reasoning is that when opposing players see a Warlock/Shadow Priest combo, they real quick switch on their shadow resist gear, and so casters are hoping for a nerf to gear swapping to come at the same time the DoT resilience shows up (which is what Drysc promises).It's an interesting little QQ session, and like all good PvP worries, it means a whole lot to the people who are affected by it, and not much to anyone else. Still, nerfing gear swapping seems like a big change to make just to deal with folks who are trying to duck shadow damage in 2v2 Arenas. But it seems like, as soon as 2.2, Blizzard might be telling arena players to pick a set and stick to it.
Epic mount price drop rumors
Some people are passing the rumor around that the Epic Flying Mount prices have dropped to 3000g on the PTR. This is not true. The price is still 5000g and will probably remain so until there is another expansion or later. Drysc confirms: Depending on how mount riding skills are going to progress, the most likely point for a price drop would be with the release of the next expansion, just as the ground mount prices dropped when Burning Crusade was released. Again it would likely depend on a few factors, and may actually not change. But that's a question for a later time.Three days have passed since Quiham first posted this topic and it is still on the front page of the WoW General Discussion Forum, so this is a hot topic.Do you think, as Mike does, that the current Epic Flying Mount price is too steep? Or are you happy that only the privileged few have them? Or do you agree with many of the posters, that the "privileged few" = "players with no life outside WoW"?
The CMs ain't so bad after all
Eona from Durotan saw a picture of Drysc (perhaps via that very helpful faces of BlizzCon guide yesterday), and determined something that might surprise you: the CMs are people after all. Who knew?But seriously, I've always kind of felt for the CMs-- they're given the responsibility of transmitting messages to the community without actually being given all the information. There might be all kinds of good reasons that your class buff didn't show up in the patch, and yet while they may even know some of them, the CMs can't just say it was because the devs wanted to wait until the Northrend expansion, or because they clashed with something you'll find when the actual patch is released in a few days, or because this really amazing item that hasn't dropped yet makes it irrelevant anyway. At times, Drysc, Neth, Eyonix, and all the rest can seem like the Iraqi Information Minister, but more often than not, I'd guess they're just not allowed to tell us the whole story.So if you do see the CMs at Blizzcon, suppress that urge to run up and ask them why Shaman clearcasting got nerfed. Instead, give them a hug show them your support in a completely nonphysical and nonthreatening way. Because while the CMs may play as NPCs, apparently they really are people too.
