Why Do We Have Cross Faction Nameplates?
After slightly redeeming myself in raiding last night - assuming you consider Vault of Archavon raiding - I was able to participate in my first Wintergrasp in a long time. The battle was nothing special - Alliance fell apart and lost, shocking - but my main mode of defense made me realize something. Why the hell are we able to see nameplates for the other faction? The ability to recognize the opposing side isn't new, and people, yours truly included, have been griping about it since day one. Yet we can still locate baddies thanks to their nameplates. I'm not complaining about being able to identify one troll rogue from another. Or being able to learn someone's name that I am standing next to. I am referring to one's ability to identify a target as hostile when the only identifying marker is the nameplate. That means without it, I would be clueless as to who they are without further investigation. During my hold of a southern tower I completely abused the mechanic. I sat at the top of the stairs, waiting for the nameplates to show up. Show up they did, through the many layers of floors. The markers popped up ages before the attached target was near the top level, so I simply went into stealth and waited. I'm not sure if the unsuspecting horde were able to see me or not. If my streak of kills is anything to go by, they had no idea that I had just committed first degree murder. There are numerous other cases where your nameplate can give you away (see screenshot), or outright get you killed. I know it's a thing of small concern to those who don't bother PvPing, but Blizzard prides itself on the small details. In my opinion, the nameplates should only come up when you're close enough to engage - say 40 yards - and have the person targeted. That would tidy up some of the forms of abuse, such as the edge Solidsamm had, and still be informative. I'm sure the PvPers out there have some good stories on how they took liberties with the mechanic, so let's hear them. Perhaps nameplates explain how some of the apparently random kills came to be? What's your best explanation for the plates existing as they do?
Live Stream Raid Tonight: 25-Man Trial of the Crusader
So far we've cleared the regular version of Trial of the Crusader on 25-man and the heroic version on 10-man. Tonight The Totally Rad Guild will be trying the 25-man version of the instance tonight starting at 7pm PDT/10pm EDT. Once we get through Anub'arak, we might be starting on hard modes of the encounters or maybe we'll do Ulduar. Who knows? After that we will likely try to continue another 10-man run of the instance, so check it out for a night full of raiding! Tomorrow at the same times (7pm PDT/10pm EDT), we'll be continuing our raids, so come back then to see what we have in store next. As usual, I'll be in the USTREAM chat and I'll try to answer any questions that come up whenever I can. The streamed video and chat are embedded below, so come in, join the chat, and check it out. You can also follow Project Lore on twitter or check out our USTREAM channel to find out more! Also, if you happen to miss the stream, there should be some archived videos embedded below!
Blue Stew 9/16/09: In Soviet Russia, Bosses Raid You!
Blue Stew is a new semi-daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. It's once again been a few days since the last update, but don't fret! After having some Chili from Wendy's for lunch, I was inspired to make this Stew extra chunky! Goodbye World of Warcraft You thought you had a bone to pick with Blizzard? Well, I bet 10 gold Pureheart's got you beat! Besides wanting to turn Azeroth into a communist state, he also manages to represent just about everything wrong with the worst of the game's players. Mindless whining? Check. Anti-social attitude while playing a social game? Check. Unfounded sense of entitlement? Check. Need to make his inane opinions known before allegedly "quitting" the game? Double check. Let's see precisely what he has to say about the nature of guilds, raiding, and the resulting rewards:
"First of all its not fun when other players have something you cant get, its bad enough having to put up with this in the real world in the form of rich celebrities who have everything like nice cars, money, etc... unfortunatley the game design doesnt allow for the majority of players to be successful at the game."OK, let's be completely straight here. Even in a fantasy world, you've got to work for what you earn. The real treat is that instead of waiting years for that promotion or pay increase, you can obtain a new piece of gear or a few achievements in the matter of a few hours. The game needs to cater to various types of people willing to put different amounts of time or effort in. With tons of solo-friendly content in the game, I don't understand why someone like Pureheart can't be happy with what he is able to obtain.
"Also the game used to be fun, but now it just seems to be a gear competition, who has the best gear... this is not my idea of fun or cool. Like i said the game is very good, i love the raid boss fights but, the amount of stress and effort involved in getting there isnt worth it for me personally."Gear envy is an interesting phenomenon to me to me, though. Pureheart seems to disply an innate resistance to the mechanics of the end-game, but the problem is that the gear he seems to want is rewarded to players so that they can progress farther within it. Rarely does Blizzard throw a new encounter into the game without taking into account the best currently available gear, ensuring that said progression functions much like a step-ladder. In other words, gear that drops from Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT-002 in Ulduar should prepare you well enough for the fights later in the dungeon. We often forget that high item-level equipment serves a function beyond looking cool, and that's where Pureheart's contradictions kill me. He rails against the very kind of person he reveals himself to be: a loot whore. He hates that World of Warcraft has turned into a gear competition, and yet, he seems angry because he feels that he is unable to obtain the gear that he desires.
"To sum up, to many annoying people and factors in the game, i cant handle it anymore and i dont want to waste time and effort trying, and i cant play without joining a guild because its to annoying when other players have better gear/mounts than me, so all the fun is taken away from this once rich and beautifulk world i really used to enjoy being in."So fun is taken away when the game tries to challenge you? Would it honestly be better if any piece of gear was handed to you anytime you want? I suppose it does for this player, who so desperately wants to "[escape] the capatlist society of real life." Moving on. Tank Balance And Encounter Design Speaking of raiding, how do we feel about the difficulty of the dungeons? Even though this is a surprisingly insightful thread, I don't bring up Lyesmith's post specifically to talk about tanking. Rather, to shed light on the ways in how players react to, and shape, new encounters designed by Blizzard. Lyesmith's beliefs can be summed up as such:
"TL;DR: Tank balance has two sides: the player and the boss. If the bosses favor a particular style, then it will show up player side."Essentially, his argument is that despite what Blizzard reps might say about tank choice ("bring the player, not the class") that certain encounters overwhelmingly favor one type of tank over another. For instance, Mimiron has several abilities that can instantly kill the tank, making a class with more "oh shit buttons" more efficient at taking the brunt of the damage. However, Nilzen claims that encounters are designed the other way around:
"But the truth is, players act a specific way due to encounter mechanics. Encounter mechanics are designed a certain way because of what Blizzard sees that players can do. Avoidance levels were too high. Blizzard makes bosses hit for 80% of a tank's hp because they otherwise avoid too much. Tanks stack stamina. Blizzard makes Impale and other mechanics to counter stamina stacking."So, instead of creating bosses intentionally designed to favor certain tank or class combinations, he asserts that they're designed due to the way the players have reacted and dealt with encounters in the past. Both posters are more or less correct, as game balance is a never-ending cycle created by this dynamic relationship between trend-setting players and the raid design team. So, is there a way to keep tanks on their toes without relying solely on stacking one stat or another? Lyesmith and Nilzen both offered up the idea of making certain boss abilities slightly more random. Therefore, skill and reaction time would be more important than what class currently seems to be leading the pack. Other fine thoughts included increasing raid damage in order to taxs the healers (so keeping the tank up would become even tougher) and tuning down player stats across the board This brings me to the second point that I wanted to touch on, and it more directly relates to difficulty. You can argue that raids have gotten fundamentally easier over time. You can also argue whether or not most players have simply gotten better at playing the game over time. But one thing I don't think anyone can deny is how extra-mechanical elements such as mods and strategy sites have made "figuring out" any given encounter a lot easier than it once was. It seems that Ghostcrawler feels this way, too:
"If it feels like you aren't struggling to learn these fights as much as you used to, then that's probably true: there are now many sources for videos and strategies that have become a lot more robust and user-friendly, as well as pretty sophisticated UI mods to help you track everything going on. The whole raiding community is just more well-connected than it was in the MC and BWL days. Many casual raiders could name a handful of cutting-edge guilds these days, which just didn't happen 4 years ago."Just think for a second how much tougher certain encounters might be if you didn't have Deadly Boss Mods counting down the time to the next use of an ability or even if in-game warning didn't flash on the screen when the boss was about to use a raid-wiping mechanic. Sure, add-ons like GRID might be slightly more kosher, as they primarily improve play control, but even they offer quick access to data that you'd otherwise have to click on individual players to figure out. The reason for the popularity of these mods is because they fundamentally reduce the innate chaos of an encounter by giving you access to information in an way that is much easier to process. If information is power, then it becomes even stronger than the best gear in the game. The problem is when said information becomes too convenient and starts outstripping its basic ability to reduce the chaos. At that point, it just plain makes a fight easier. And I haven't even touched on top-level strategies that are quickly formed by the best players and then posted on the internet for everyone else to follow. Usually, unless an encounter is changed drastically on live servers, these tactics are learned on the PTR, so you end up with the sort of situation we encounter time and time again where new bosses are being downed the first night they're widely available. I feel like I'm sort of making up for a few days of Blue Stew absence, but the fact of the matter is that this post is already running longer than it probably should be. If you're interested in this subject, I'd go ahead and read the rest of the thread as it's linked above, and I'm always up for rapping with you guys and gals in the comments section if you'd like to explore things further! Until next time, ta-ta!
Raiding: Knocking The Rust Off & Clearing The Cobwebs
Thanks to a lovely excursion to Anaheim, California for something, an enjoyable trip to plague ridden Seattle, and the recovery time from said plague, I've missed a fair bit of raiding. Actually, I have missed almost a month's worth of raiding. I've never missed a full month of raiding unless I was still leveling, or not playing the game at all. Coming back to raiding is a new experience to me, one that makes me feel incredibly dirty. You know that feeling when you haven't showered for a few days; your hair is oily and shaggy, your skin feels like it has an extra layer to it, and your feet have begun to grow a new breed of penicillin? I've felt like that, disgusting, dingy, dirty, during this week of raiding. I've misplaced Tricks of the Trade (be faster on that Feign Death next time!), dropped Slice'n'Dice, blown openers, allowed Hunger for Blood to dissipate and mistimed Envenom after Envenom. In short, I've been a total n00b the last few play sessions. As if completely dropping off of the "good" side of the DPS chart wasn't bad enough, I even did something I haven't done as long as I could remember. I failed at the same thing in an encounter not once, but twice. You better believe that was a night filled with /facepalm. My utter failings came as a complete shock to me. Sure, I've take a week or two off here or there for vacations, I've had friendly rogues come back from excursions only to complain about ruining their spell rotation, but I never thought it was this bad. I never thought it could happen to me! I never dreamed I could be this bad again! But the proof is in the pudding, I've absolutely blown chunks in every possible way since returning. Other than raiding - simply brute forcing my way back to nimble fingers and high DPS - I have no idea what to do. There's nothing I can easily correct. As far as I can tell the only remedy is to simply get back into the rhythm, get playing and get focused. If you guys have any bright ideas on clearing the cobwebs and knocking off the rust of vacation I'd love to hear them. Please, for the sake of my ego, tell me I am not the only person to ever experience a total lack of skill after an extended break. Lie to me if you must.
World of Warcraft: Bringing People Together
It's easy to be cynical when you play online games. Between the illiterate malcontents, guild drama, and unreliable party members, it can be tough to remember why you even started playing World of Warcraft in the first place. I mean, a man can only take so much Trade chat before he's driven to the crazy house! And that's not even getting into the additional stresses placed upon hardcore players like repeated encounter wipes, angry raid leaders, and the never-ending gear treadmill. It's a wonder that everyone who plays the game isn't a big ball of fuss. Well, its an easy page to skip over when you're looking for information about the game, but it's worth hopping over to the Story Archive once in awhile. Blizzard has found a few very personal player stories that they think exemplify one of the best aspects of WoW: the way in which it can bring people together. Yes, that's right. As much as the clueless pundits and self-proclaimed social scientists might want to tell you that you're wasting your time and alienating the people around you by playing video games, that is not necessarily the case. I'd argue that even the most angry, ornery person out there -- the type that likes to solo and makes no outward effort to communicate with others -- plays this game for its social nature. It's a great comfort to some people just to know that there are other people out there, whether or not they choose to interact with them. But these tales are primarily about those who do openly seek out companionship, whether it''s in the game or from people outside the game that they'd like to get to know better by playing with them. One of the first stories details a whole family that was drifting apart, but finds love and warmth again while exploring Azeroth:
"We were growing apart in real life, each of us going our own ways to do our own things. My father's friend suggested to him that he play World of Warcraft with him. Dad saw this as an opportunity to have fun while bringing us all back together. It would be something that we would all enjoy, because we were all gamers at heart...
It may seem like a little thing, but truly gaming together can be an enjoyable experience for the entire family."I think what's even more endearing about the yarn is that nor only do they come closer to each other, they significantly increase the size of their family by creating a guild, getting to know all sorts of new people that they would consider one of their own. While most of the stories focus on family and budding romantic relationships, one of the most recently added highlights the escapist nature of video games. Some would malign players who forgo the real world for a virtual one, but that would be ignoring those cases in which a person actually has a pretty good reason to do so. Take 50-year-old Crossfire from the Shadris server:
I am a stay-at-home grandma, while my daughter and her hubby are deployed to Afghanistan at the moment. I hadn't spoke with my youngest daughter in a long time, and when my youngest son moved in with us, we got his sister into it also; now we quest, raid, and just have plain old fun... I recently found out I have two tumors in my chest and will be having surgery on the 11th of September...of all days, and plan to be sitting and playing World of Warcraft during my recuperation. I am a survivor of breast cancer, and am praying that it hasn't returned, but if it has, I'll be playing 'til my last breath...! Overall though, I have learned to relax and have fun and use my brain for something other than the drama of real life. I can escape for a couple of hours and in the end I have no worries other than maybe the next achievement or leveling of a lower character.I hate to pull so strongly on the heart-strings and all, but that's a pretty touching story. Not only is the game able to connect people together that have not spoken with each other in quite some time, it can also help with rehabilitation by taking one's mind of the things that ail them. Hey, we all know that Warcraft can be an excellent time-waster, but virtue can be found even in that. But, you might, ask: aren't most of these benefits true of all video games, especially social ones like MMOs? Well, maybe. I don't think it particularly matters which game people play as long as they can all enjoy it. But then, maybe that's what makes World of Warcraft so special. It openly caters to a casual audience. With an engaging story, lots to do, and a ton of ways to connect with fellow players, it's no wonder that just about anybody can pick the game up and have some fun. And the best way to bring any group of people together, whether that be a family or otherwise, is to give them a common goal to work towards. So maybe that's a 5-man dungeon instead of a camping trip (not that there's anything wrong with that, either). If you're ever feeling down about your World of Warcraft experience, I'd urge you to seek out the Player Stories page and peruse the archive. People can and do find happiness within the game all the time, and that means that you can, too. And maybe it'll even convince you to connect with that long-lost relative or pal. Tell them to pick up the game, create an alt, and go level with them for awhile. See what comes of it. I bet you'll have a good time! We here at Project Lore would like to hear some of your stories, too, if you care to share them. Please post them in the comments box below!
Check Out 10-Man ToC and Hard Modes Live Stream Tonight
Last week we cleared all of ToC and its hard mode, ToGC so tonight The Totally Rad Guild will be trying the 10-man version of the instance tonight starting right now at 7pm PDT/10pm EDT. Once we get through Anub'arak, we will be starting on hard modes of the encounters. Last week we finished ToGC with 25 attempts left. This week we hope to do much better. Tomorrow at the same times (7pm PDT/10pm EDT), we'll be running through the 25-man version of the same instances. So if you want to see the differences, come back tomorrow and see! As usual, I'll be in the USTREAM chat and I'll try to answer any questions that come up whenever I can. The streamed video and chat are embedded below, so come in, join the chat, and check it out. You can also follow Project Lore on twitter or check out our USTREAM channel to find out more! Also, if you happen to miss the stream, there should be some archived videos embedded below!
Pandaren Monk Show Off His Skills
As you may have read, one of the new pets slated to be included with patch 3.2.2 is the Pandaren Monk. This miniature kung-fu fighter remains the only in-game implementation of the ursine race. Though they once held an ancient empire in the center of Kalimdor, the Pandaren race have since hidden themselves away in the uncharted regions of Azeroth. Will they one day return en masse? My guess is only when their home is threatened by some massive, outside force. But despite their isolationist tendencies, some Pandaren evidently find their way to the main continents, not entirely unlike Twoflower on vacation. The only thing I know for sure is that I wish Blizzard would stop teasing us about it! More data-mining goodness from over at MMO-Champion has revealed the Monk's intricate martial artistry, and it is only making the wait even harder:
I have to admit that I'm really loving the animations here, and I hope its a preview of things to come way down the road. Not including Pandaren at this point is like not including the Cow Level in Diablo II, it would just be cruel not to! Besides, next to stealthy-roguey-assassination types, my favorite kind of class to play is a hand-to-hand fighter, and that's something that World of Warcraft is sorely lacking at this point.
If you're wondering how you can get your mitts on this pint-sized pugilist, well, we still don't know just yet. There's no specific indication as to where the Monk might drop, and it doesn't appear to be one of the trading card game's new loot cards, either. We here at Project Lore will let you know when we hear something about it. Here's to hoping that it's not a region-specific gift!
Obviously, we're pretty excited about the Pandaren Monk, but what about the rest of you? Knowing how cool the animations are and how rare it will likely be, no doubt this will be one of the most sought-after pets in the game! Is it worth going out of your way to get one for yourself?
Cataclysm's Abyssal Maw Previewed By Blizzard
Playing WoW On 24 Million Pixels
The hardware aficionados out their likely heard of ATi's new invention. The graphics card maker recently unveiled a new technology, Eyefinity, that allows a single discrete (read add-in) video card to power six high resolution monitors. And you thought your fancy two monitor rig was something to gloat about. Upon its unveiling, we saw things like DiRT2 under DirectX 11, Microsoft's latest Flight Simulator and even a little zombie mayhem courtesy of Left 4 Dead. What we did not see was World of Warcraft. Well, we can now. Yeap, that is a screenshot of World of Warcraft running at 7680x3200 resolution. 7680x3200, and you thought that 1080p or 1920x1200 was high tech! Eat your heart out "Full HD" moniker. You may be asking yourself "Why the hell do you need six monitors?" Of course most of us don't, but ATi felt that they had to do something new to push the company's latest line of graphics cards, the HD 5800 series. Considering that video games haven't really pushed the graphical envelope in a few years, arguably no major leaps since Crysis, the manufacturer needed something to tout the upcoming card's power. Powering six high-resolution monitors off a single GPU while keeping the games playable certainly got my attention. For most of us, the only thing to take home is the fact that one, two, three, six, eighteen monitors can now act as a single entity. And that you'll finally be able to locate Gnome rogues in Battlegrounds. Thanks to Eyefinity, gamers will no longer have to struggle with Windows' terrible multi-monitor implementation. Things should just work, and work well, once the technology is out in the wild. Hmm, 18 30" monitors at 2560x1600, could our brains even process that magnitude of pixels? Looks like monitor manufacturers need to start making units with as thin a frame as possible.
WoWFlix: Honor Killz
WoWFlix is a weekly column featuring videos from around the web related to World of Warcraft. If you find something you’d like to be featured, leave a comment or send a tweet to @Heartbourne. Warning: some harsh language and adult themes. Nyhm has long been one of my favorite machinima creators. This collaboration with Gigi, Decision, Abandonation, Demineon, and RedEye (collectively known as the Azerothian 6, or A6) is the epitome of their work. Red did a fantastic job on the video, and each of their lyrical styles come through in the video. Nyhm keeps up with his witty puns, Decision spits some sweet flows, Gigi is sassy, Abandonation picks up the pace, and Demineon breaks it down. Be sure to go to Gigi's site and grab the MP3 and check out their other stuff if you are a fan of this! [Chorus] I'm sick of all this raiding Well screw arena rating But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills I'm done with all these dailys And auction house trading But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills [Decision] Cool, guild downed Archavon Where a couple of healers inside are gone It's Mr. DC with a heal up his sleeve Crawl up on you like a murloc steez.. I can't describe the gear I get When I roll agianst 6 people And damn i missed.. Ah s*** The ret got it.. F***** d*** Just look at spec real quick These Kills make me hallucinate Then I Grind till I own all the human fakes Holy DPS asks "Whats happenin?" Just another alliance kid tryna rap again So crit, crit, c'mon crit I said c'mon crit Everybody in Warsong just laugh a bit No at Xylan, dumb***, hes s***. We rock crits, better ask around Always got GIGI to track em down Gnomey, your team is losin now Better reroll horde or Alt - F4 out [Nyhm] Screw HKs you know its on When i start killing kiddies down in Gnomeregan And you're done when I'm running with Demineon Waitin at the GY for when your ass respawn Starting wars in Southshore triggerin alarms It's like a nooby farm Just havin fun, run son you've been outdone And now Abandon got you locked with stun "Silly Nyhm i bet you thought you won But you're gonna die when all of our mains log on" Allies acting stupid Hit his 55 mage in the face With a few shadowbolt crits Maybe i gank too much But grays drop in one touch Tanks huntards shamans and priests charge the GY he released! [Chorus] I'm sick of all this raiding Well Screw arena rating But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills I'm done with all these dailys And auction house trading But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills [Decision] Hordey cousins Lvl 80 Baby, yah.. We grind all day-yee That's why the alliance Hate us and they hate each other Cuz we gonna take um to BGs And we gonna own them Crittin, crittin crittin crittin crittin, i dunno [Gigi] Top Kills Kills I top Top your kills With Dragonhawk Wipe your crew and Ill be your mop Thought it was amusing to make your e-peen flop I wanna, shoot away Like I'm in an arcade And zombies keep coming like the underpaid Feinding financial aid Look for a bloke to smoke No oki dok You pack up your head with hope (cough) Or is that gonja smoke? Coming at me like that like real bad joke Ahh, poor baby Victim of my KB's Now Frosty wont need a snack (You're crazy!) [Abandonation] Did someone say gonja smoke? Nah I'm jokin' hand me that gnome to choke I'll show him the ropes and lure him with emotes An HK earned this is Murder that He Wrote I dual wield blades like dudes of Bushido Your AFK I'll dot you with Hemo Better call the paramedics I think you need cemo NATION WHY YOU DO THAT? You sound like Emo Gut you like a fish and I don't mean Nemo Maybe I do mean Nemo whatever hoe Am I really ODin' off of honor kills? Thank God I'll never think of poppin' pills [Chorus] I'm sick of all this raiding Well Screw arena rating But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills I'm done with all these dailys And auction house trading But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills [Demineon] Caped in points And still i kill Honer points are just for thrills I be critin critin critin critin Till it blurs ya vision No need for permission I slice with perfect precision I charge emission for entering my battleground without consonance I come from another dimension My rhymes they will make u listen So efficient officially make u pay attention to What I'm about to do is School you noob alliance kids In the fundamentals of PVP [Chorus] I'm sick of all this raiding Well Screw arena rating But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills I'm done with all these dailys And auction house trading But nothing compares To pursuing all these honor kills [Decision] Hordey cousins Lvl 80 Baby, yah.. We grind all day-yee That's why the alliance Hate us and they hate each other Cuz we gonna take um to the bg's And gonna own them Crittin, crittin crittin crittin crittin, i dunno