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Gamescom Raid Q&A with the Devs: Nerfs, the raid finder and more
You may have spotted Monday's post on how to design a raid, which was the first half of the Gamescom 2012 Raids and Dungeons round table with Ion Hazzikostas and John Lagrave. The second half of the Round Table was a Q&A session in which many interesting questions were asked, shedding light on some hot issues as well as simply providing a little more insight into the Blizzard Encounter Design Team's creative processes. Again, these aren't verbatim quotations from Ion and John, as I simply can't write that fast, but the overall statements are accurate representations of their responses. Are there any encounters Blizzard have had to alter or leave out due to technical constraints? There was a boss leading up to the Lich King who you had to heal (Valithria Dreamwalker), and that was a huge challenge for their existing technology. If you think about it, Ion explained, up to that point, every healing spell in the game was designed to be cast on a friendly target, that is to say, a player. So the devs were faced with the task of reworking every healing spell in the game. They didn't want players to only be able to use certain spells on her, as that would have been bad, so they redid every healing spell. The technical team changed the game's design so that the boss basically became a raid team member. Ion and John explained that it's all about working out creative ways to implement the designers' ideas.
Breakfast Topic: What do you think of the travel changes?
Traveling through Azeroth used to be a real pain (especially if you were -- like me -- Alliance) but Blizzard's latest round of changes has been directed at traveling. This means mounts and travel forms are about become accessible much earlier, even if they cost the same. This isn't the first time a travel form has been changed to make it easier to get, nor is it the first time the level at which you can get your (insert racial mount here) has been nixed. This is the first time there have been dramatic changes across the board, regardless of class and the reason is simple: to make it easier to hit 80.So, constant readers, I'm curious to know if you think this is a good or a bad thing? Will it encourage you to finally get that alt of yours past level 22? Have you just entered Azeroth, perhaps, do you think this will make it easier to move through the old world on your quest to 80? Tell us in the box below.
Breakfast Topic: Why do you keep playing?
Some people call them "nerfs." Some people call them "balance." (And usually this is exactly proportional to how the change impacts your own class.) But however you want to phrase it, gameplay in World of Warcraft changes -- and it doesn't always change for to the benefit of your playstyle. So how do you keep yourself playing when you seem to have hit the bottom of the nerfing/balancing cycle? Reroll? Play alts? Explore areas you've ignored in the past? Tell us, why do you keep playing?
Nerf the naughty
This idea from Terra Nova would certainly help clean up Barrens chat: nerfing characters as a penalty for bad behaviour in-game. If you use an alt to misbehave, then they'll all lose a level every time you break the bounds of decency.Key problems with this idea include inconsistency between GMs (we've already seen the trouble one slightly misguided GM can cause) and the systematic targeting of players; if you really want to hurt someone, get everyone you know to report them and suddenly they'll be back at level 0.As Terra Nova's commenters observe, social pressure and access control (making the players ashamed to misbehave, and banning them) are the most effective ways to control behaviour at the moment. However, if you lost a little bit of xp every time you called someone "gay" in general chat, you might well be less inclined to bigotry in public--the idea's got some potential.
