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Forum Post of the Day: Auction houses go faction neutral
Mileiamh has posted an idea for an auction house revamp in the official WoW suggestions forums. Because neutral auction houses are located in neutral towns, and are therefore not frequently used, Mileiamh suggests that Blizzard could place faction neutral auction houses in "each of the pre-BC auction houses". He posits that these new additions would "solve bad econom(ie)s on low pop servers" and eliminate the "need for opposite faction auction house alts". Furthermore, Mileiamh reasons that these auction houses would "likely supersede the old auction house" and therefore, could "replace [them] completely". Seeing "no drawbacks", he seems excited at the prospect that the "items available to both factions" would be "greatly expand[ed]". Taking the neutral auction houses as proof that "[B]lizzard seem[s] to have no problem with horde and alliance selling things to each other", Mileiamh invites everyone for further discussion. What potential benefits and drawbacks could other players point out?
Level 1 cow raid downs 70 mage
The Eagles Pride guild on Malygos US had an interesting idea for a guild event. They all rolled level 1 Tauren alts and staged a raid boss encounter where they had to take down a level 70 mage. Apparently, a lot of thought went into the encounter, with the mage's gear and abilities tuned to create a realistic opponent for the little cows. Additionally, the mage, Belise, limited himself to using his abilities on certain cues and made good use of emote macros to further mimic a scripted boss encounter.You can check out the thread on the official WoW forums which includes links to the two videos of the entire event. The thread also contains more information regarding how they balanced the event and speculation concerning how similar fights would work with other classes. It would also be a good place to express your interest if you'd like to participate in another similar event in the future.I've heard of some interesting guild events in the past, but personally, this one trumps them all. Have you ever taken part in something like this?
Game developer says WoW is wearing thin
According to Joel Bylos, a developer for the upcoming MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, we may soon be seeing a decline in the popularity of WoW. Bylos claims that the "feeling on the internet", including that gleaned from "online communities", seems to be that WoW is "losing its lustre". Of course, if that were really true, developers of upcoming MMOs that will be in competition with WoW would probably not feel the need to claim it. Especially considering the latest push from Blizzard to add to its already massive 9.3 million active subscriber base using celebrity-hosted dynamic commercials, combined with the buzz for the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King, it is doubtful that WoW will be going into decline any time soon. In fact, Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi, has continued to show significant increased revenue that is attributed to the success of WoW. Its recent merger with Activision suggests that indeed, professional predictions by investors remain positive. So why say it at all? Honestly, it's not all wishful thinking. If you head over to these "online communities" such as the official forums, unofficial forums, and even our own comment boxes here at WoW Insider, you will find no shortage of complainants.
L2p Paladin with Eyonix
Earlier today, Eyonix created a rather unique thread on the official WoW Paladin forum. He made it clear that he wasn't asking for feedback to give to the developers on the class, but rather that the questions would come from him as a player of the game. Apparently he made a Paladin alt a couple of weeks ago and is seeking advice regarding the best leveling strategy.Threads like this pop up in the class forums quite commonly. When faced with the grind from level one to seventy, players often turn to the more experienced members of their class for advice on talent builds and leveling strategies. Of course, those players are not also community managers, posting with the hallowed blue text.As you can imagine, the thread is already quite long and only promises to grow longer since Eyonix has mentioned that he'll be keeping it updated through the week with new questions. It's interesting to see a Blizzard employee posting his talent spec and asking typical player questions and there is actually a lot of good advice on playing the class. Head on over to the Paladin forum to check out the thread yourself and L2p Paladin along with Eyonix.
"Welfare epics"
To the best of my recollection, one of the WoW developers first coined the terminology "welfare epics" at last August's Blizzcon. I've had difficulty finding the original source, but as I recall, the context of the talk had to do with the goal of the WoW designers to make all players put forth some degree of effort in obtaining quality gear. The specific gear in question was that purchased with arena points.New arena loot was released to the clamoring masses a couple of days ago, and some of the items have arena rating requirements on them, thus setting in motion the designers' plan to avoid a proliferation of welfare epics. As per usual with changes of this magnitude, the official forums are rife with controversial topics. This time around, its the PvE players arguing with PvP players regarding the quality and accessibility of arena loot. Some of this debate spilled over into the comments on one of my own recent posts, piquing my interest in the issue even further.
Change incoming for new meta gem
Yesterday I posted regarding the odd drop behavior of the design for the new meta gem, the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond. Many readers commented that the gem requirements were too stringent, making the gem undesirable for them. Unlike the majority of other gems, this one required exactly two blue gems in order to activate its bonus stats. Most meta gems have quantifiers like "at least" or "more than" and players found that limiting themselves to a specific number of gems was, well, too limiting.Today a player brought their complaint regarding this requirement to the official WoW forums and was able to garner a blue response. Drysc posted in the thread, mentioning that the gem has already been changed in an upcoming patch. Specifically, the "exactly two blue gems" requirement will be changed to "at least two blue gems". Additionally, he stated that other meta gems with similar requirements are being reviewed as well (although I know of only one other that might fit that category).What do you think? Is there any doubt now that this will be the best meta gem for most DPS caster builds?
Sticks and stones...
Yesterday a player on the WoW forums pointed out that the Warrior skill Demoralizing Shout would be interesting to see in action. According to Undamian's interpretation, essentially, the skill involves insulting your opponents to throw them off balance in combat. Taunt, Challenging Shout, Piercing Howl and Intimidating Shout could also be viewed in a like manner. Unlike similar skills in other classes, warriors aren't considered magic users, so they must have an extensive vocabulary and a lot of creativity in order to affect their foes with mere words and body language.The original poster's idea, of course, led to a slew of suggestions as to what it is that warrior's actually say when they use these abilities. Community Manager Nethaera even proffered a suggestion, and as the thread progressed, other skills, such as Commanding and Battle Shout were included. Some players even posted catch phrases that they have bound to their abilities in game via macros. What do you imagine your character would say when using these skills? Please keep it clean.
Disastrous AFKs
While I'm sure we've all had the experience where a crucial group member went away from their keyboard at a bad time, a whole different type of disastrous AFK was brought up on the WoW forums the other day. An earthquake in the San Francisco area was cause for a lot of sudden AFKs for many posters, including Delthen who started the thread. It seems that many of the posters actually told their group that they were going away from the keyboard. Apparently they failed to read the recent article on the subject by our own Robin Torres. Nethaera chimed in with her own story of a group member needing to leave the game due to a tornado warning, one which I've seen occur in-game myself. Personally, the worst thing that's suddenly taken my attention from the game is my dog getting sick or maybe a desperate cry for me to kill a spider that's harassing my wife. What's the worst thing that's caused you to go AFK?
More AV changes coming
Big changes are coming to the Alterac Valley battleground in patch 2.3, and, as is often the case with these things, players are already expressing their discontent. Nethaera responded to a thread on the official forums yesterday in order to address such complaints. She reminded everyone that the developers are currently monitoring the changes to AV and are tweaking the honor earned in order to keep the overall gain as similar as possible to the current rate on the live realms.The most interesting part of her post, of course, regards a change being implemented regarding the mechanics of capturing a mine. When a mine is captured by a player, his or her team will be awarded a steady stream of reinforcements. According to Neth, the capturing team will receive about one reinforcement every forty-five seconds or so. Since I haven't played the new AV on the PTR, it's difficult for me to develop an opinion on this change. What do you think?Update: Blizzard poster Salthem has posted a few more details of the change to the mines.
More polls on the WoW forums
The first poll on the official WoW forums was mentioned on WoW Insider when it was posted a few weeks ago, but since then a few more polls have been created. While one of them is obviously just for fun, the other two are more interesting.When asked "What is your favorite arena?" the Ring of Trials in Nagrand won out as everyone's favorite with 46.3% of the votes. The Ruins of Lordaeron received second place with a tally of 25.14% of the votes. While I didn't vote in this particular poll, my choices would have matched these results.Admittedly, I'm pretty much a noob to the arena. Like many other players, I mostly just get my ten matches a week to scrape up enough points for some welfare epics. Probably due to this fact, I dislike the Blade's Edge arena. The ramps, pillars, ropes and bridge create a lot of variables during an already hectic fight which can lead to panic, confusion and ultimately an inglorious defeat. Even more inglorious than normal, that is. Also, this arena in particular makes it more difficult for stealthy types (my 2v2 team is composed of a rogue and druid) to get the drop on their foes because the narrow catwalk makes a convenient place for an opposing team to make a stand with their AoE and stealth detection. What are your thoughts on the poll? Do they match the results?
New official WoW forums!
Blizzard has added three new categories on its official WoW forums. You can't see them from the main forum list, but they are available if you go to the drop-down menu in any specific forum. The new forums are:
