eyonix
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Priests are lacking in discipline
It's official: even Blizzard rep Eyonix says that Priests are somewhat vague on the whole discipline thing -- not the virtue, that is, but the talent tree. Responding to a forum question asking "What is the purpose of Discipline?" Eyonix said:Though some priests have found a use for the discipline tree, right now, it doesn't quite have a solid purpose/goal, but rather seems to act as a supporting tree. This is something we plan on addressing with Wrath of the Lich King. Originally, the goal of the tree was primarily intended to provide staying power, vs. the holy tree which provides throughput. Also, so you're aware, the 41-point discipline talent, pain suppression, is being changed to be usable on others for patch 2.3. I'll admit that my own priest is sadly a mere level 8, but I'm aware that this has been one of the big priest issues for a long time. One of my friends strives to be one of those special priests who have "found a use for the discipline tree" and he seems to do pretty well at it, though he admitted that he recently changed some of his talents around, leaving behind lesser-used talents in discipline in exchange for some holy talents. He refuses to give in and become yet another shadow priest, since he revels in succeeding at something few other priests try.I would be quite interested to see how Blizzard changes the discipline talents in the next expansion. Will they stick with the original "staying power" idea, or will they go for something new? What do you think needs to be done?
Back on schedule?
There was a flood of patch 2.3 news yesterday, which almost certainly means the CMs hit some sort of release date for 2.3 info (not to mention that they said they'd talk about 2.3 after 2.2 released, though we didn't realize it would be the day after). At any rate, the CMs made a lot of people happy yesterday-- from numerous amazing class changes (Fear Ward! No Blind reagent!), to info about new Engineering flying mounts and daily PvP and cooking quests, 2.3 is looking pretty groovy all around. Finally, something to get excited about again! Sure, there's the next expansion, but it's tough looking forward to something Blizzard hasn't even designed yet.And the best news is that patch 2.3 is likely to show up sooner rather than later. Eyonix, at the very beginning of the big Blue forum rampage yesterday, once again cited voice chat and the new sound system as the reason for the long wait on 2.2. It wasn't a class balance or content patch, it was a completely technical one. And that's why it's been three months since new content. It'll be interesting to see if Blizzard ever tries something technical like this again-- lots of players have asked about upgrading the graphical engine, but if their efforts on the sound engine are any indication, that's just too large an undertaking for them to handle while also being expected to release new content.But hopefully 2.3 will make up for lost time-- while the coders were working on editing sound channels, hopefully the developers were thinking up new ways to make the classes more powerful and interesting. Of course they haven't announced any release dates (this is Blizzard, after all), but my guess is that we'll see 2.2.2 with a week or two, and 2.3 about a month or so after that, definitely before Christmas.
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.
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.
Mail system changes (ftw?)
In a change that didn't quite make the 2.1.3 patch notes, the behavior of in-game mail has been tweaked in order to help ensure that monetary transactions made via mail are legitimate. To give Blizzard more time to check mail-based money transfers, mail sent with coins attached will now take an hour to arrive (yep, just like all other mail). Now, before you get upset about this, let me add that transfers of both money and items between characters on the same account will remain/become instant. So you can shuffle things around between alts and bank characters faster than ever -- this change only applies if you're sending coin through the mail to other players.Though I doubt this change will stop in-game gold-selling completely, it's good to see Blizzard continuing to be proactive about the issue.
Patch 2.1 live tomorrow!
For those of you who didn't want to wander through the extremely long transcript for the Stratics House of Commons Dev Chat in the last post, I thought I would point out one extremely pertinent bit. According to Tigole, Kalgan, Drysc and Eyonix, patch 2.1 is going live tomorrow morning to all servers. If you've been holding off on running the torrent, or meaning to look for that patch mirror site but never got around to it, you might want to get that download started. In either case, patches generally mean strange bugs and rolling restarts, if not an extended downtime in the first place. Best to prepare for an extended WoW jones now and some frustration as the bugs get worked out of the system.Me? I've got my World of Warcraft home game, WoW Insider, and caffeine. I'm ready to face patch day!What kind of things do you do on patch day? Have any particular things you do on maintenance Tuesdays like the WoW LJ community does with their Caturday - Servers Screwed thread? Share your tips and save your fellow WoW players from boredom tomorrow!Edited to add: Yep, Drysc confirmed extended downtime: We will be performing extended maintenance on May 22 for all realms.
Tseric has now left the building...
"Treacherous" on the official forums pointed out a new CM opening on the Blizzard site, then asked if Tseric's recent absence was somehow related. The very next response was Eyonix with the following statement: Tseric is now pursuing other opportunities and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.While I know Tseric's opinion wasn't always popular, I did think that he was an excellent CM for a very long time. He brought some of the better zings to the forums, and until the last bit, was generally a pretty nice guy from what I saw of him. Many people are still hotly divided on whether or not it was his right to reply like he did to that one post... Was he right or wrong to reply in that gruff of a manner? And just how far is too far when you're dealing with customers? Obviously we don't know if he walked out on the job after dealing with the forums for 2+ years, or if he was let go due to that bit of forum head-explody that happened. (And Blizzard wouldn't dare tell anyone because that's a lawsuit in the making.) But in either case, I personally would like to wish Tseric the very best for his future, and I hope we'll hear from him somewhere down the road./salute Tseric/bye
Roleplay IRL style
Eyonix has posted another mention of Blizzard's partnership with Renaissance Entertainment Productions on the forums. It seems that World of Warcraft and the almighty Renaissance Pleasure Faire are tied together now, at least in the spirit of common commerce. I grew up going to the Southern faire as those on this coast call it, and although it's been years since I've been able to attend, I cherish my memories of those times as the start of my geekhood. I can honestly credit my creative writing degree to the 30 second Hamlet. Now these experiences can be yours, and for a pretty hefty discount. Huzzah for the coupons! World of Warcraft players will get 20% off tickets. This wouldn't be that big of a deal if it were only in Southern California, but Renaissance Entertainment Productions hosts several faires around the country including Wisconsin and New York, and WoW players will be able to use the coupons at each of them. These are also the best faires in the country, folks, so if you get the chance you shouldn't pass up a really good time. Imagine, whole 10-man raids on the steak-on-a-stake vendor! Orcs and night elves everywhere! The opportunities for cosplay are endless. It's enough to make me want to break out my bodice and recorder and head on south. Look for the Southern faire between now and May 20th, and check the website for dates on the other faires across the US. [via WoW forums]
CM chaos on the PTR
The community managers showed up on the PTR on Friday, and as you might imagine, chaos ensued. Eyonix appeared as a level one gnome, and he and Tseric both got invited to a player guild, where they chatted with players for a couple of hours. I don't know if any actually battleground matching systems got tested (that was originally their reason for showing up), but apparently lots and lots of people got killed by Gruul, Baron Rivendare, and even Nefarian appearing in Lower City Shattrath.Hopefully a CM event like this (as has happened before, when the expansion beta ended) signals that the end of the PTR (and the patch going live) is right around the corner.%Gallery-2985%
Another week, another maintenance cycle...
Well, this week we don't quite have live maintenance, but we don't have a full regular maintenance, either. Eyonix informs us that starting at 5:00 AM PDT (or 8:00 AM EST) all servers will be offline for approximately three hours for maintenance to the authentication databases. Most US players won't notice an early morning maintenance like this, but sadly, it still falls right in prime time for Australian players, for whom it starts between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM, depending on their time zone. Sorry, folks -- I'd be pretty frustrated if regular maintenance hit during my prime time play schedule, too.
Maintenance goes long to fix "balancing issues," realm splits imminent?
Eyonix posted a short note earlier this evening that tomorrow's maintenance is going a little long-- realms will be offline tomrrow morning at 3AM PST and hopefully back online at 11:00AM PST. The reason for the delay is "a small patch" that's supposed to fix bugs and, here's the important part, "balancing issues."Now, I'd assume Blizzard would give us more notice than that if there were going to officially split realms. But that "balancing issues" phrase worries me a little bit-- we know that they're ready to take steps (mandatory, if necessary) to make sure overpopulated realms balance their population appropriately.Adding fuel to the speculatory fire, you'll also note that the realm transfers are only available until... tomorrow morning at 3 AM (right when the maintenance is starting). Could players log on tomorrow with their alts on completely different realms? I guess we'll know by 11 tomorrow morning.Update: This is just speculation, don't freak out. Sol-El helpfully points out in the comments that Blizzard has previously promised two weeks notice (in-game, too, not just on the message boards) on any mandatory realm splits. Still doesn't explain what "balancing issues" are fixed, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.Update2: Clearly, I was out on a limb by myself last night. The updates have hit, and everyone but me seemed to realize that Blizzard meant class balancing issues, not population balancing issues. Wishful thinking on my part, I guess-- with the way lag and spawn camping are on overpopulated realms, I was almost hoping my characters would appear on a less populated server this morning.
Changing a light bulb...
Normally, I wouldn't take a second glance at a post with a title like this. However, the little Blizzard icon next to it, indicating a response from a Blizzard employee, compelled me to investigate further. And, if you're in need of a good laugh, perhaps you should take a look at Eyonix's explanation of how many World of Warcraft forum posters it takes to change a light bulb: 1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed 6 to share that they were the first to read and respond to the light bulb being changed 5 to convey disatisfaction for failing to be the first to read and respond to the light bulb being changed 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs 7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs 5 to flame the spell checkers 3 to correct spelling/grammar flames 6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid 2 proclaimed industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp" 15 who claim that they were previously in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct 19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum 11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum 36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty 7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs 4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's 3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group 4 to discuss how Paladins need to be fixed 5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy 13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs" 1 to respond to the original post 6 months later to start it all over again.
No Open Beta for Burning Crusade
Lucipher from Burning Blade asks on the forums if there will be an open beta for Burning Crusade, and Eyonix says, pretty unequivocally: Nope.Well that's kind of a bummer. If you haven't got a beta key from Blizzcon, aren't rich enough to buy one, and don't know anyone who works at Blizzard, you're pretty much out of luck. In one sense, it's not really a bad thing-- playing in an open beta, especially for an expansion, is like reading a gigantic spoiler of a movie you can't wait to see. But as Lucipher says, it does mean no demo for the Burning Crusade. Either you'll be paying full price to check out the new talents, dungeons, and races, or you won't be playing them at all. Then again, are there still people out there who haven't decided whether they're getting the expansion or not? I would guess that by now you know what you're going to do once that box hits stores.Of course, you could go the cynical route. Tyrus from Executus points out (not uninsightfully), that "open beta will be the 6 months after BC goes retail of course." It's funny-- because it's probably true.
Xfire's E3 Coverage
Xfire has posted a video of their E3 interviews. It's not really focusing on news (which we've probably all seen by this point already), but commentary (some interesting and some just for comic value) from Jeff Kaplan (Tigole), Caydiem, Ordinn, and Eyonix. It's an entertaining watch with a few interesting tidbits, though I must admit that I had to laugh when Tigole commented, "We know the honor system is a bit of a grind."
