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Darkfall developer sets the record straight
In a recent post over at Darkfall's official forums, associate producer Tasos Flambouras gives us an unofficial update for the community on the state of the game as it stands. He spends most of the post shooting down rumors created by the community, and letting us know the reasons behind the most recent delay in any official updates.As for real information though, we get word of the thought behind the universal banking system and how vehemently opposed the devs are to introducing even more NPCs to the game. Their reasoning is that there are already too many games out there with controllable NPCs to add to your party. Flambouras says, "Even if it's all the rage in MMOs lately we want to further the multiplayer real-time aspect with Darkfall rather than go the other direction. There is no progress in having to introduce single player features such as more NPCs to a MMORPG."
Neth on Death Knights being the only new class
We all know by now that Death Knights are the new class being added with Wrath of the Lich King. And, what's more, they're the only class being added with the new expansion. Skudo (Altar of Storms) doesn't like that much, and would rather see Shadow Hunters or Demon Hunters added. Posts like these are common enough, but Nethaera showed up to add some clarifying candlelight. First, she reiterated that Blizzard isn't closed to the idea of adding more classes in the future. But what she really seems to strive to get across is that adding a class isn't easy. There's a lot that goes into creating a new archetype for players to operate, play, defeat, vanquish, and exploit for every bit of Warcraft goodness. There's balance to consider, and the need to make each class play in unique ways. Heck, we all spend enough time arguing now about whether the existing classes are even balanced. Can you imagine what it's going to be like with a brand new class added? So these things take time. Assuming that Blizzard's team pulls off Death Knights well, I'm pretty sure we'll see more new classes in later expansions. Let's see how the first new class goes, before we put our eggs in new baskets.
Give the LotRO community team a piece of your mind, part IX
The community team for Lord of the Rings Online once again wants to ask you (their players) some questions so they can hear your answers. There's an ongoing thread on the official forums where your answers can be posted. Think of this as both a way to give the community team your feedback and any express thanks you may have for them. There isn't a more auspicious community space than this to make writ your words.Congratulations are due to the Lord of the Rings Online community team for these threads, as they are a wonderful way to speak directly to the entire community team. There's a question in the thread that we felt was worth answering ourselves and that question is, "If you could thank a Turbine representative for something, what would that something be?" Our answer to that is: For being awesome.
Drysc announces forum changes
Drysc has posted that on May 21st, the official forums will undergo a few changes. While most of them are minor, one is a little more meaty.To cut down traffic on the Guild Recruitment forum and give advertisements a little more staying power, the Guild Recruitment forum will be cast aside. In its place will be two forums, one specifically for Alliance advertisements and one for Horde advertisements.That is definitely good news for aggressive recruiters, and I'm sure it will come into play even more in Wrath of the Lich King, when 10 and 25 man raiding starts up in that expansion's life cycle.
Dungeon depth in the past, present and future
The other day, Kromzul of Burning Blade posted a thread in the official Wrath of the Lich King forum about dungeon design. He asks if instances will be deeper than those in the Burning Crusade, and I agree with most of what he says. Essentially, the epic, sprawling dungeon crawls of old have gone extinct with BC.Bornakk chimes in to say that The Burning Crusade dungeon design was heavily influenced by player feedback, wishing for more Scarlet Monastery-esque dungeons. I can see that, and to an extent, I agree with that, too. Scarlet Monastery, while shorter and more linear, was also pretty cool.Personally, I don't think that it really comes down to one or the other. Take Dire Maul, for instance. Each wing could be tackled in a straightforward, linear fashion. However, each of them also had alternative routes, and some of them even had alternative ways of defeating them. For example, Tribute Runs in Dire Maul: North. Plus, they were even connected via the library. If you really want to, you could go from one wing to the other without any loading screen.
World of Rick Roll
I don't know what it is about the WoW community, but every link I see I'm forced to double check its authenticity just so I don't get Rick Rolled. What is this cultural phenomenon of Rick Rolling you ask? No, it's not some sort of new drug, it's just a YouTube video of Rick Astley singing "Never gonna give you up." When you watch the video for the hundredth time it gets a tad annoying. And you do have to watch the whole video, because let's face it, if you don't the tune is just going to sit in your head for the rest of the day. Then you'll be dreaming of Rick Astley, and that's...well... just unsettling.Often times in the official forums people will post a link to some WoWWiki article or something, and instead of the link actually going where it is advertized to go, it'll go to the Rick Roll video instead.I personally am rather tired of always having to check the link to see if the video ends in uuiU, which seems to be the most common YouTube video used to Rick Roll people. There are some browser addons out there that'll stop you from being Rick Rolled, if you're so inclined to install them. But as always, be sure that you're getting these addons from a reputable source.Have you been Rick Rolled lately? Share your tales of horror.
Test realm forum offline, possible pointer to WotLK beta
More news for all you hungry Wrath of the Lich King fans out there. The test realm forum has been taken offline and is showing as undergoing a change, although we don't know what that is just yet. The exact submessage is "The forum you're trying to access is not ready." This is significant for a couple reasons.First, the test realm forum is usually left up for a while after the patch so folks have some place to go and reference everything that was learned during the beta. I know that I've used the forum for up to a month to go and get necessary information.Secondly, this comes less than a day after the World of Warcraft beta site experienced a change. When getting public releases of software ready, it's often a process of "First, get the site going – but don't link it to the public. Second, take down the public systems and get them ready." This is quite possibly what we're seeing here.Finally, this forum always goes down before something beta-ish is released. This could mean they're just clearing it to implement a 2.4.2 release or something, but I doubt that given they've usually only cleared it for major point release. Ie: 2.2, 2.3, 2.4.An interesting tid bit of WotLK news for you all this morning. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that within a month we'll see some major announcements concerning the next expansion.%Gallery-5525%
Do you read your realm forums?
Do you read your realm forums? Simple question, eh? Personally, I make sure I at least take a look at my realm forums once a day, even if I don't post.Admittedly, realm forums are quite often just a pile of drama. Who cybered who, who ninja'd from who, who ganked who. Blah blah blah. Hidden behind all of that, though, there is usually a lot of helpful information. Patch note discussions, recruitment notices, maybe even server progression lists or charts of who on the server has rare crafting recipes. I've been amazed a few times by people that desperately search for raiding guilds to join on the server, but have not once looked at the official realm boards to see who is even recruiting. Plus, as an officer in a raiding guild, it's just a little bothersome to find out there are so many people that may have been interested in that open spot you had for two months, you just had no way to reach them or know about them.I've been under the impression that most people who play more than a few hours a week read their realm boards, but I'm not so sure that's the case. That would be a lot of people, when you think about it. So what about you guys? Do you read? Do you post? Patch 2.4 sounds great, but what's in it for you? Find out on our Sunwell Isle page where we list the impact on classes, professions, PvP, Raiders and many other playstyles and interests including walkthroughs on the new Sunwell Daily Quests. Looking for more great info? Check out the WoW Insider Directory for the best of our guides and analysis.
Mark Jacobs rails against official forums
The issue of whether major MMO releases should be accompanied by official forums is a hot topic in the industry these days. While some recent games like Tabula Rasa have opted to without official forums, to mixed results, others like Lord of the Rings Online have shown that they can still be a valued resource. It seems like discussions on the topic are ever-present. We've known for a while now that Warhammer Online was opting out of official forums, but general manager Mark Jacobs chimed in on the Warhammer Alliance forums to reiterate Mythic's position on the subject.He lays out a mock-schedule for the way player (mis)behavior would develop as the game moved closer to release, poking fun at the schizophrenic nature of official forums - how the community as a whole can be both loving and hateful, cynical and naive, reactionary and... well, usually just reactionary. He also says that he doesn't want to have to put himself or any of his community team through that kind of hell, and that's what informed their decision to stay away from official forums. It's not like it stops people from flaming the game though, and community reps still need to wade through community forums anyway, so why not put it all in one place? I almost wish they'd just admit it was the money...
Breakfast Topic: What will kill WoW?
If you're a regular reader of the official World of Warcraft forums, you're familiar with this idea. For every patch, every tweak, every proposed change, there are ten threads (at least!) suggesting this will be the one change that will kill the game. While the forum speculation is usually a bit over the top, they're inspired by a legitimate fear: with the many changes Blizzard makes to the game, there's always the chance that one of them may spoil your particular style of gameplay. So this morning I ask: what change (by Blizzard or otherwise) do you think will really kill WoW?
CoX costume token, free respec delay
As astute players may remember, the City of Heroes team had promised to offer a free respec and free costume token to coincide with the release of Issue 11, which hit servers yesterday morning. Those expecting the free goodies were probably a bit distraught, and are probably curious just what happened. Counting ourselves among this group, we headed over to the official City of Heroes forums and found the answer from the esteemed community manager, Lighthouse.Turns out that they couldn't quite fit everything into the patch that they had hoped, and among the things that ended up slipping through the rungs were the aforementioned respec and costume token. But fear not, because they were only delayed, not canceled. The free costume token will be assessed to all active character accounts during the usual morning maintenance period tomorrow, Friday the 30th. As for the free respec, you'll have to wait a bit longer, as that won't be going active until December 7th. The timing seems a little strange, since the respec is supposed to compensate for all the balance challenges put in Issue 11, and letting people respec a full week and a half later is just... curious.
LotRO's official forums just got more efficient
You asked, they delivered; it's nice when that happens once in a while. Turbine has opened up server-specific Kinship and Trade forums for The Lord of the Rings Online on their official community site. Up to this point the general topic forums for the different servers have been filled to the brim with posts by people recruiting into or looking for kinships. Many servers attempted to clean up the clutter by sticky-ing threads dedicated to kinship recruiting, but it didn't solve the problem completely.Now you can advertise your outrageously priced Tolkien-ganja on the forums while also looking for a hobbit-only RP guild dedicated completely to farming and smoking said pipe weed. No, really, that sort of stuff actually exists in LotRO.
Tabula Rasa to go without official forums, common sense
No, you're not taking crazy pills - that headline says "without official forums." In a moment of inspiration, blogger noisyparker thought to write down Tabula Rasa's community model, as it was described in their now-defunct beta forums. Most of it is fairly standard fare. A blog with an RSS feed to chronicle press releases, community news, the usual. Conspicuously absent though are official forums. The reason? The TR crew feels that official forums aren't conducive to a community atmosphere, because people's posting habits tend towards the dogmatic when they think there's a developer listening. Most people have had to endure the pain and self-loathing involved in browsing official forums before, so we know the behavior they're talking about. Still, it seems like a questionable decision to eliminate what is typically the primary conduit for communication between developers and players. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how it works out.
Forum Post of the Day: Features you wish were in WoW
Over on the official forums, Granada asks what features you've seen in other games that you wish were available in World of Warcraft. Sure, some of the suggestions are just silliness (do we really need chainsaws and nailguns?), but there's quite a bit of good info in the thread as well. Some common suggestions: The music-playing system from Lord of the Rings Online Player or guild housing found in many games Fully automated NPCs that could be hired to fill party slots, as in Guild Wars Armor dyes found in many games So, have you seen anything in another game that you'd like to find it World of Warcraft one day?
Beware of posting spoilers on the US forums, too!
Last week we heard that they were going to be taking spoiler postings seriously on the European forums -- and that spoiling other players' enjoyment of books or movies would be a quick way to get yourself banned. However, Drysc has recently reminded US forum-goers that they take the subject just as seriously. Drysc tells us: We would like to remind our forum goers of our strong stance against trolling by way of posting spoilers for movies, tv shows, and books. We take these attempts to cause others grief and produce general unrest on these forums very seriously, and we take a harsh stance against any outright or veiled attempts to spoil the enjoyment of others. Posting spoilers can result in a lengthy suspension, up to and most likely a permanent removal of all posting privileges from these forums. I'm quite glad to see they're taking a strong stance on the subject, since nothing's worse than having a book or movie's ending spoiled for you. However, I still think the best case is going to be to avoid this, and all other internet forums until after you finish reading that last Harry Potter book. After all, CMs are only human, and there are a lot of spoilsports out there.[via World of Warcraft Warcry]
Forum Post of the Day: Notice of legal action
If you aren't familiar with the Shattrath City and its the Aldor's home within, I'll explain. The Aldor reside on an upper level of the city, which is reachable either by lift or by flying mount. Says forum poster Nalle announces: This is a notice of legal action against the Aldor. Their platform is a danger to all who use it, without safety precautions there is a danger both to residents of the Aldor terrace and the floor below. Many residents have already fallen to their unnecessary deaths, as well as taken expenses of durability in a location supposedly guaranteed to be safe by the Naaru. But, of course, this legal action is started by a member of the Alliance. Any Horde are long-since familiar with the dangers of in-game elevator platforms via the Undercity elevators. CM Drysc responds to this complaint with:Well, we are actually taking precautions to help make sure future elevators don't pose such serious health risks. At this time, however, the Aldor elevator is protected by the Sha'Tari Historic Landmarks Act of '28, enacted by the Sha'Tari Council of Self Preservation and Advancement. Our hands are unfortunately tied in these matters.Hey, Drysc! What about those Undercity elevators, eh?!
Beware of posting spoilers on the official forums
Over on the European forums, Aeus is getting serious about banning people from the forums for posting spoilers. (Likely due to the immenent release of the final Harry Potter book, though he's clear that bans will come down for people posting any type of spoiler.) Says Aeus: Posting spoilers is one of the worst ways to troll; not to mention the amount of players whose enjoyment and anticipation can potentially be utterly ruined. If you were around the day the previous Harry Potter book was released, you would understand where Aeus was coming from. Every forum was packed with posts giving away the book's ending, in the titles of the posts and hidden behind misleading titles. And, I don't know about you, but I visit the official forums to talk about World of Warcraft. Aeus is off to an enthusiastic start, telling a spoiler-posting player: Suspended for 9 days, that's when the book comes out. If... [the spoiler occurs] this becomes a permanent.But while I admire his enthusiasm, with the number of posts on the topic that appeared with the release of the last book, I wonder if it will be practical to keep the forums spoiler-free. However, if you're a fan of the Potter series, I've got to recommend staying away from the forums -- and the general chat channels -- until after you've finished the book.
Forum Post of the Day: What if Blizzard let you design your own quest?
Of course, this design-a-quest thread started by Sheeplle on the US forums is full of all sorts of silliness, but in between that there's some interesting quest ideas. Basically, Sheeplle asks anyone on the forums what they would do if Blizzard let them design one (just one) quest for World of Warcraft. Ideas I'd love Blizzard to take some inspiration from include a low-level quest allowing you to jump to level 58 (if you already have a level 60 or 70 character) and a new Scarlet Monastery quest awarding players a trinket that increases the amount of experience gained in Azeroth. (I'm all for anything that speeds up the grind of new characters through Azeroth, though, so perhaps that's why these stand out to me -- after all, I think most of us have played through everything in Azeroth at least once.)But what about you? If you had a chance to design just one quest for the game, what would you create?
Should multiboxing be illegal?
In the wake of some of the crazy multiboxing stories going around recently, on the forums there's some interesting discussion on whether multiboxing should even be legal. On one hand, someone playing five characters at once (not to mention ten or twenty!) clearly has a power advantage against you. (Plus they never have to spend tedious hours in LFG trying to find people to join them for an instance run -- a huge boon in and of itself!) But on the other hand, that power comes at a cost. To play five characters (for example), you need five active accounts ($75/mo, plus the $95 initial cost for 5 game-boxes and the $175 initial cost for 5 expansion packs), plus five computers capable of running World of Warcraft, and a friendly internet connection or ISP that doesn't simply explode from the traffic you'd be causing with all of that. And, of course, the cost scales upwards with the more characters you try to play. But making multiboxing work is a matter of doing more than throwing money at the problem -- there's the entire issue of being able to control multiple characters at once, which in my mind, is really a matter of skill. But what do you fine folks think -- is there anything wrong with multiboxing?
Forum post of the day: Patch 2.2... not really
While I have to admit, I wouldn't normally have thought of the Shaman forums as being the party place to be lately, this thread claiming that it had the 2.2 Patch Notes has certainly lived up to that feeling more than most. Sure, some of it is pretty dark (such as the part claiming that they've just deleted Shamans altogether) but I have to admit, even the parts that poked fun at my favorite classes were fairly funny. Here's a few of the highlights: General Notes * Changed flight points to make them go the scenic route more often * Adjusted flight point costs to reflect the longer distances. Longer distances = more money. * Poor players will no longer be able to speak. Sorry. No begging or gold website advertising. * Will of the Forsaken will be removed, due to popular opinion. Replacing it will be Emo Feelings of the Forsaken, which makes the /dance emote cooler. I mean, coolioo.So for a Forum thread that is full of silly fun (or perhaps just full of weird, depending on your sense of humor) head on over to the Shaman forums and check the "2.2 patch notes" out. [via the Shaman Forums]
