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Keeping perspective
It's sometimes astonishing to me how passionate World of Warcraft players can be about the game. This includes myself: I have hot-button topics that absolutely flood me with adrenaline and cause me to rant (just ask my coworkers here at WoW.com all about that some time), and later I'll sit back and be amazed. I'm still amazed I managed to put out a thousand-word column about Sentry Totem. (You have no idea how sad it was for me to not be working on shaman content the day they announced they were going to take Sentry Totem out. Lost a chance for a thousand-word eulogy.) But as passionate and involved as we can get, and as excited about upcoming patches and new expansions and even sparkly ponies, sometimes we lose perspective. The infamous "slap in the face" forum ranting is based on a real mentality that X (fill in whatever you want) is the absolute ruination of the game. Downsizing raids to 25-man max is ruining the game. Arenas are ruining the game. The badge system is ruining the game, hybrids are ruining the game, pures are ruining the game, 10/25 variable raids are ruining the game, micro transactions, dual specs, what have you. The game has been constantly in a state of ruination since early 2005 when some realms were undergoing severe latency on peak nights and it was, you guessed it, ruining the game. Frankly, sometimes rather than posting that comment, forum post, or what have you, we as involved, passionate people need to take a couple of deep breaths and chill out.
A quick and dirty guide to rage normalization for bears
I started playing after Burning Crusade launched, so I don't have any personal history with the rage normalization fiasco that happened in the transition to BC. I'm told by old warrior hands that it went something like this: Blizzard: We're normalizing rage. Warriors: What does that mean? Blizzard: It means that normally you won't have any. Warriors: ... oh. Right now, all of what we know concerning rage normalization for Cataclysm can be found in this post here. I won't repeat stuff we already know but try to look into how the changes will affect bear tanking. Rossi covered the expected effect on warriors yesterday, and while we share a number of these changes, there are a few wrinkles that I expect will have a specific impact on bears.
Breakfast Topic: PC voices
I'll admit it. I rolled a female gnome warrior alt because I enjoyed the idea of a perky short gearhead chick kicking the ass of a big hulky green dude. But you know what's kept me coming back? The voice. Whenever I spam heroic strike and hear my gnome warrior insisting that she "needs more rage" I get a little bit giddy. It seriously is about the most adorable thing in game. She's just so enthusiastic about getting some rage and beating up bad guys and I want to hug her and why is everyone looking at me like that? She's just adorable, all right?
A quick and dirty guide to rage normalization for Warriors
So we're getting rage normalization in Cataclysm. Great, you say. What does that mean for my level 22 warrior in Darkshore? First off, shouldn't you be in Ashenvale by now? Second, rage normalization takes the random factor of rage generation and makes it more predictable, reducing its scaling factor. At present, rage is based on how much damage you deal per attack and how much damage you take, modified by things like the attacker's level and so forth. As a result, we often see peculiar artifacts of the rage system. As a DPS warrior gears up, as an example, his rage generation becomes effectively infinite: He or she does enough damage to make rage a near constant, creating a situation where the only limitation to her or his DPS is the amount of time between abilities and making on-next-swing Heroic Strike effectively unlimited in use. (This is one of the reasons HS is going to become an instant in Cataclysm.) Another artifact of this process is that as they gear up, rage-based tanks often find themselves rage starved in content they outgear, becoming less able to hold threat without removing or substituting their tanking gear. (I wrote more about the current state of rage generation here.) Rage normalization is intended to move from an exponential rage model (the more damage you do/take, the more rage you have), which penalizes lower-geared warriors and rewards the absolute best itemization, toward a more controllable system where the difference between a level 25 warrior in quest greens and a level 85 in full raid gear isn't that they are almost effectively different classes.
Heroic Strike changes in Cataclysm
The announced warrior and druid rage normalization changes in Cataclysm have brought with them a ton of questions and speculation on how numerous abilities are going to function. One of the largest changes is the removal of "on next swing" attacks. This means the old and trusted Heroic Strike is going to be undergoing a major revmap. Ghostcrawler has provided clarification: Ghostcrawler To clarify on Heroic Strike, it costs a third of your rage bar when you hit the button, but you can't hit it unless you have 10 rage and it will only ever take a max of 30 (since that's essentially a third of your full bar). The intent is that when you don't have a lot of rage, it's not an attractive button. When you are gaining too much rage, then you want to start pushing it. We debated whether or not to push this story before we talked about all of the warrior changes in Cataclysm. In the end we decided players might not focus on anything but the rage changes if we announced them at the same time. However, some of this will make a little more sense with the additional context of the warrior changes. For example, we have a plan to keep tank damage and threat high and we have other systems to let you convert excess rage into damage. source
Rage normalization in Cataclysm
Straight from the mouth of Bornakk this morning comes some critical news for warriors and druids concerning the rage mechanic in Cataclysm. The short summary: rage is going to be normalized, each auto-attack will give a set amount of rage. This will solve rage starvation at lower levels and make rage an interesting mechanic at the higher tiers of raiding. Some of the major points: Rage [will be] no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage. Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster. Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character's level, but instead will based on the health of the warrior or druid. All "on next swing" attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. Personally, I find the removal of the "on next swing" attacks to be a major change that is long overdue. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially given the years of theory-crafting and playing style that has been devoted to rage management. It's all going to change when Cataclysm comes out. The full statement after the break. This post is currently being edited.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Terror, fear, loathing and rage
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, those lovable, squeezable, strokeable bundles of pure joy who seethe with a burning inner fire, a rage that can only be quenched in blood. Matthew Rossi tries quenching it in delicious caffeinated beverages. You'd be surprised how often that works. Rage is a broken mechanic. It's broken in that it allows DPS warriors (well, okay, fury warriors) to do DPS almost equivalent to that of "pure" DPS classes, if the warriors are wearing the absolutely perfectly ideal gear setup and are in an encounter that is absolutely, perfectly suited to them (i.e., one that allows for a lot of Heroic Strike and Cleave spamming with minimal lost time that keeps rage generation down). It's also broken in that it constricts lesser-geared warriors to doing a fraction of equivalent hybrid-class DPS. Rage is broken in that it starts at zero, forcing a warrior to either take damage or deal white damage to generate rage or use an ability like Bloodrage, while other classes start with some or all of their resources and can open up with a powerful ability to start. This makes it far harder for warrior tanks to generate snap aggro and keeps warriors from having any sort of a rotation, forcing them to rely on priority systems instead. Both tanking and DPS warriors tend to find themselves spamming abilities to generate threat/damage, with one of the biggest culprits being Heroic Strike.
GNILLEY: the game where you scream to survive
Do you like video games? Are you filled with rage? Then GNILLEY just might be the game you've been waiting for. Developed by Glen Forrester (a.k.a. Radix) for Global Game Jam 2010, the game apparently started out as being about "pitch and color," but quickly became "all about yelling at everything," and ended up winning the award for most original game at the competition. Head on past the break to check it out for yourself -- we're sure you'll agree he made the right decision.
Blood Sport: Resource mechanics in arena, Part I
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. Listening Music: Roger Waters and the classic combination of Pink Floyd's "The Happiest Days of Our Lives + Another Brick In The Wall, part II." I hate when the radio only plays half of this piece. Even though Floyd split the piece into two on the album, I find it hard pressed to do the latter half justice by dropping the epic "intro." The helicopters and interlude scream is the best part, be honest with yourselves. Last Week: We addressed the issue of protection warriors in arena. We talked a bit about a few of Ghostcrawler's posts dealing with the most annoying specialization to face. After that, we discussed some of the problems with both perception and design. This Week: Before getting back to the beginner's guide to arenas, we'll be discussing energy, focus, and rage. Each have individual benefits and detriments in an arena setting, often very different from one another. More after the break!
Rumor: Wives of Rockstar San Diego rally for better work conditions
According a Gamasutra user blog penned by "Rockstar spouse," working conditions at Rockstar San Diego -- the studio responsible for not just the Red Dead franchise, but also Rockstar's proprietary "RAGE" game engine -- have been deteriorating for quite some time due to "mismanagement." Claims ranging from a neverending "crunch" cycle to lack of appreciation to straight up "dishonesty" are leveled in the post, with a handful of comments (some anonymous, some from verified ex-Rockstar San Diego employees) corroborating, and often adding to, the complaints. "This is EXACTLY the reason I left Rockstar San Diego in February 2009," commented one ex-Rockstar employee. An alleged employee speaking anonymously said, "There were extended core hours, frustrations rising, and then a false promise of the dropping of mandatory Saturdays, which seemed to last for about three such Saturdays." The "Quality of Life" issue discussed in the piece isn't a new one for the games industry. It was first brought up in late 2004 with the "EA Spouse" letter (also anonymous), and again mid last year with Epic Games exec Mike Capps. We've contacted Rockstar and followed up with Rockstar San Diego employees for more information.
Rage will be published by Bethesda, EA out of the picture
In a tersely worded press release, ZeniMax Media – parent company of Fallout 3-dev Bethesda Softworks and, as of June, FPS hall-of-famer id Software – has "announced today that it has picked up the publishing rights for Rage, the video game under development at id Software." First announced in July 2008 during Electronic Arts' E3 press conference, Rage was to be published under EA's successful EA Partners program, home to other major titles from outside developers, like Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, and Brutal Legend. Unlike ZeniMax's other development studio, Bethesda, id Software will not be self-publishing Rage; instead, "Rage will be published by Bethesda Softworks," the press release states. It concludes, "As a result, Electronic Arts Inc. ... will not be involved in the sales and marketing of Rage. The ongoing development of Rage is unaffected by this development." With EA out of the picture and publishing duties for Rage in ZeniMax's hands, the partnership between the two companies can finally be consummated without having to wait for Doom 4, or whatever's next in the Wolfenstein franchise. Ah, love. %Gallery-28861%
The Daily Grind: Here comes your nineteenth system meltdown
We play enough games on the computer to know better than your average user. We're fully aware that the machine doesn't hate us, for one thing. But we sometimes turn it on, and suddenly find that our graphics card has decided to turn into a miniature sun within the plastic case, melting all of our valuable components into a reasonably-sized dinner plate at a time when we can't really drop the thousand-odd dollars on a new machine. Thus begins the process of pulling things out, confirming that they're dead, calling tech support and being told that you should buy a new computer, and you wondering where your pleasant evening has gone. Perhaps you didn't find your computer going nova. Maybe it decided to just fail to boot for no reason, necessitating a hard drive replacement. Or perhaps it was your connection erupting in a shower of failure followed by a string of support techs claiming to dispatch new people and lying. Whatever the case, in a hobby that seems to be constantly subject to a particularly draconic form of Murphy's Law, we ask you: what's the worst meltdown you've had? Was it the most costly to fix, the most inopportune time, or just frustrating and stressful for some other reason?
Table-flipping becomes subject of Japanese arcade game
We all occasionally get the urge to make a showy fuss by sending a table -- and all the items said table is supporting -- sailing through the air. Whether you've just landed on a hotel-equipped Park Place in Monopoly, or if you've recently realized the downward spiral your half-finished life has embarked upon, the desire to dramatically rearrange furniture eventually visits us all. However, Destructoid recently turned our attention to a new Japanese arcade game that may prove cathartic enough to keep your dining room intact: Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, which translates to "Upending the Tea Table." The game takes players through a number of enraging scenarios, forcing them to pound on the table to demand the attention of nearby diners, ultimately culminating in the titular Upending. You can check out two videos of rage-filled people playing the game after the jump.
Officers' Quarters: Guild leader loot rage
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.This week's e-mail describes a fairly typical loot drama situation. What makes it unique is that it involves the guild leader, who did not handle the issue very well at all, as you will see. As officers, we have to be very careful about how we handle loot for our own characters. We have to set the example for how we'd like our members to deal with loot issues. Let's look at the e-mail first. Then I'll talk about what this guild leader should have done differently. Hello -- I have written to you before regarding an attendance issue in the guild I was in. Your response was very timely and incredibly helpful -- once 3.2 hit we made raids happen a lot quicker. Recently, we made an adventure into Ulduar. We did very well for a small guild and got up to Thorim in one night. After a few wipes, one person had to leave and was replaced with a new person. We made the decision to have the new person switch to his DPS spec and had one of our existing DPS go to a tank spec. We downed him that attempt (which was awesome). I was the Master Looter, so I opened up the chest and a Tier token dropped, along with the epic mace Legacy of Thunder. The DPS who had switched to tank was a Warrior, and the mace was a huge upgrade for him. I said in raid, "Roll for Legacy". The Warrior rolled and a Paladin, the guild master, rolled against him. The Warrior won the roll, so I gave the item to him. The GM whispered me a message along the lines of "way to do loot". I didn't think too much of his comment, and logged off for the night.
id: Xbox 360 Rage may have separate discs for campaign and multiplayer
In an interview with Shacknews, id Software prez Todd Hollenshead brought up a novel approach that the developer may use to minimize disc-swapping with the Xbox 360 version of Rage: give the game's single-player and multiplayer modes their own discs."We'll probably have two DVDs for sure, and then the question is, will multiplayer be on a separate disc or not?" Hollenshead posed. "It makes no sense for a player to swap that disc in multiplayer, right? That's fail. They have to keep one disc in during multiplayer, can you just put all the multiplayer content on one DVD?"Sounds like a good idea to us; although, in the same interview, the id boss implies that the final number of DVDs the the Xbox 360 version of Rage will ship on isn't exactly settled, wondering, "Will we have to go to three?" We don't care how many discs it's on -- just make sure the game goes to 11.
id: Rage won't have Doom 3's 'Monster Closets'
There was a major design element in Doom 3 that a lot of players took issue with -- and no, we're not talking about the protagonist's inability to hold a firearm and a source of illumination at the same time. The element was the game's enemy spawning mechanic, which would make baddies appear when the player reaches set points in the level -- a practice which has since been nicknamed "monster closets." Fortunately, it seems id's next angrily-named project won't feature this oft-harangued spawning system.In a recent interview with 1UP, Rage lead designer Matt Hooper explained that enemies in a certain section of the game's demo will be "doing whatever they're supposed to be doing. If they're supposed to be defending against you coming there, they'll be doing that. If they're just tinkering or having a conversation they'll do that." Sounds like id's AI has actual motivation now. Well, motivation beyond "scare the crap out of then murder space marines," anyway.
QuakeCon 2009: You'll be angry if you miss this Rage trailer
id Software just unveiled the new trailer for Rage, which, to our eyes, combines high-quality visuals and exciting action with some mid-'90s-level cheese. It's hard for us to look at those characters without imagining them asking us if we want some rye. ("'Course ya do!") It's cutting-edge and nostalgic at the same time! QuakeCon attendees will actually have the opportunity to play Rage, but the rest of us can savor the apocalyptic Wild West-ish setting and buggy combat (as in, dune buggies, not software issues) in the trailer above. Download in HD (114MB) %Gallery-69562%
QuakeCon 2009 detailed, first public demos of Rage and Brink
Nothing more clearly shows the new relationship forged by Zenimax Media between id Software and Bethesda Softworks than this year's QuakeCon lineup. Littered with little extras like an hour-long presentation by Bethesda's Todd Howard and the first public demonstration of Splash Damage's Brink, QuakeCon 2009 is clearly accommodating some new faces.That being said, id Software's John Carmack will be giving this year's keynote speech, and the event is still very much PC-centric, with Alienware, NVIDA and Ventrilo hosting a handful of events. Upcoming post-apocalyptic, not-Mad Max FPS Rage will also be getting its first public demo at the show, further asserting id Software into the event. For those of you attending, we encourage hounding Todd Howard for information on the next Elder Scrolls game during his Q&A -- if not for us, do it for the kids.
RAGE screens show up in id Tech 5 presentation
click to enrage Curious what id Software's John Carmack has been doing with that big brain since the 2004 release of Doom 3? The latest engine out of the Dallas-based developer is called id Tech 5 and RAGE is the very first game to take advantage of it. Thing is, this latest batch of information isn't from Carmack; instead, we've been scanning a PDF of J.M.P. van Waveren's – senior programmer at id Software – presentation at this year's SIGGRAPH conference. Titled "id Tech 5 Challenges: From Texture Virtualization to Massive Parallelization" the 37 page presentation also includes a half dozen high-resolution screenshots of the game, which we've tucked into the gallery below. We know, we know – who cares about screenshots? What you want to hear about is the "texture pyramid with sparse page residency" or perhaps the similarly exciting "latency tolerant computational services model." Well, lucky for you, we've also linked the PDF. Go get 'em! %Gallery-69562% [Via Shacknews] PDF link – id Tech 5 Challenges: From Texture Virtualization to Massive Parallelization
Edge: Rage runs at 60fps on 360, 'just 20 to 30fps' on PS3 [update]
CVG details an extensive 10-page feature on id Software's Rage in the latest issue of UK games magazine Edge. The piece includes confirmation by John Carmack that the Xbox 360 version of the game will run at a brisk 60 frames per second, but that he has found PS3 to be at a disadvantage to Microsoft's console in terms of rendering power. "The PS3 lags a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it," he said.As a result, Edge reports that the game runs at "just 20-30fps" on Sony's console. Carmack places the blame on the PS3's GPU -- the RSX -- saying that, "The rasterizer is just a little bit slower -- no two ways about that...the RSX is slower than what we have in the 360." He sees both consoles as being comparable in terms of raw processing power, however. "The CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off," he told the magazine. "...that's what a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3."Now, before you go making a comment you can't take back, know that the Edge article doesn't clarify whether or not the performance of the PS3 version will be improved prior to release. It's also telling that Carmack states that the PS3 is only "a little bit slower" than 360 in his findings -- if that's the case, we can't imagine that the finished will run at fully half the speed.Update: Further comments from the Edge piece reveal that the developer is indeed aiming for parity between all platforms. "Everything is designed as a 60 hertz game. We expect this to be 60 hertz on every supported platform."
