Project Lore

Totally pulling a Heartbourne and putting this on the left side of the page.But, really, when are they ever? Balance, as always, is a bit of a chameleon, constantly shifting to meet the demands of a new environment (in this case, the ways in which a player and the game interact).

News of forthcoming class changes comes from a bit of an odd source this time, though -- Blizzard's own World of Warcraft Facebook fan page:

Death knights, druids, hunters, mages, rogues, warlocks, warriors, oh my! For those participating in our public testing of the upcoming minor content patch 3.3.3, look out this week for a host of fascinating new adjustments to these classes. Chains of Ice innately does what? Nature's Grasp has how many charges? Vitality boosts stamina by how much? Stay tuned to find out the answer to these and more questions!

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Love 'em or hate 'em, rogues have got to be sneaky. It's a good part of what defines the class, allows them, as leather-wearers, to deal melee dps without instant death, and sets them apart from other DPSers. So it's no huge surprise that Vanish, one of the key skills that rounds out that specialty, has long been debated because it's, as some players would say, "broken."

Just how is it or isn't it broken? Different players of different classes will give you varying answers. But the debate revolves around players/mobs/pets still being able to attack a rogue who has vanished, and a number of AoE/DoT effects that will immediately pull a vanished rogue back out of stealth. Personally, my main is a rogue, so I tend toward the side that vanish should allow a little bit of lenience to allow some time to get away, heal or regenerate some energy. But I certainly don't want it to be overpowered, either, because then it will inevitably get a nerf.

Enter Patch 3.3 on the PTR, and game developers announced hefty plans to unveil a Vanish fix. The hoopla began about a month ago, with blue poster Ghostcrawler announcing Blizzard's intentions on the WoW forums:

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Haste can sometimes be a hard stat to measure. Not being the mathematics whiz that some of my fellow WoW players are, I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between a spell that takes 2 seconds cast and another that takes only 1.9. Sure, I can generally assume that the latter will lead to more damage somewhere down the road, but does that make it worth gearing for as opposed to other stats that might have a more immediate or obvious effect? Like sand through an hourglass, so are the raids of lives... Well, Ghostcrawler and the rest of the Systems team has a plan to make Haste a more marketable stat than it ever has before: allowing it to effect "Heal over Time" and "Damage over Time" spells. According to a recent post on the official forums, this implementation would decrease the time between ticks on an individual cast, allowing the effects to be felt more frequently. For instance, let's say you know there's going to be some consistent damage coming in and a player is at very low health. You cast a HoT in hopes of keeping him alive, but the damage kills him in-between ticks. In this case, Haste might have saved him by ticking sooner than the damage did. Of course, this may present another problem, as GC points out:

"This means more damage or healing per time but also having to refresh those spells more often. Since there is a trade-off, we're not sure the change is a no-brainer, especially in the healing case."

So what's their solution? Instead of forcing the changes on players, toss Haste-increasing effects onto Glyphs, so they can choose whether or not it makes sense for them to make use of it:

"For 3.3 we are talking about introducing three new glyphs for Shadow Word: Pain, Corruption and Rejuvenation that would allow these spells to tick faster with the more haste you have. There are glyphs of Corruption and Rejuv already, and we're not sure how we're going to resolve those yet. For Shadow Word: Pain, we are likely to rename the current glyph to Glyph of Mind Flay, remove the old Glyph of Mind Flay, and increase Mind Flay by 10 yards in the base spell."

It should be noted that these changes are NOT guaranteed! This is just a concept that the team has been tossing around for a little while, and apparently they've stumbled across some new technology that actually allows them to do it. If they come to pass, though, they'll most likely be available for testing in an upcoming build of Patch 3.3 on the PTR. We'll be sure to keep you guys posted, but in the meantime, do you think that allowing Haste to affect HoTs and DoTs would help or hurt your performance in-game? Perhaps it should only be applied to damage-boosting glyphs so that the stakes are lower for healers?

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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."

Yakov Smirnoff wants his schtick back! 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!

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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. PvPvPvE Would you look at this pair of winners... In one thread, Paladin extraordinaire, Feanorion, wonders:

"why are PvE concerns being trumped by the concerns of such a miniscule portion of the subscriber population? "

And in another, posted the same day, Fireweed puts on her frowny-face:

"Since the Illidan kill in TBC I swore I would not touch PvE ever, ever again. It's mind numbing, forces you to deal with people you never want to deal with on your free time, it requires way too much dedication in the scene/too many people and to stay in a guild that is capable to handle it and so forth... What I really enjoy about this game is arena, even some random battlegrounds here and there with a small group."

This, friends, is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the average complainer's mentality towards the game : "I don't like it, so it shouldn't be there!" I've said time and time again that I'm not particularly in favor of PvP, at least not to its extremes, but that's the way I prefer to play. I'm not going to outright deny the ways in which other people might have fun. But the fact of the matter is that if any decisions to change the underlying structure of Warcraft, it would be based on an entirely different group altogether, as Ghostcrawler so handily points out:

"If you expect us to balance around the most popular way to play the game, then you'd see most of our changes aimed at low level alts and very few end-game raiding tanking changes. "

I think we all get so caught up in the endgame, that we forget most people who subscribe to WoW simply enjoy tooling around, by themselves, or with a couple of close friends, in the lower levels of the game. These are the people that like to level up over a week, not a couple of hours. And these are the people that enjoy picking herbs just because they enjoy picking herbs, not because they need to make flasks for the next raid. And that's why I think Cataclysm is going to be such a big hit with the community. It refocuses the game on these types of players without entirely forgetting those at the level cap. You see, WoW is a lot like this scrum-diddly-umptious cake... (image courtesy of http://www.mmmmbrains.com/blogg/) But even ignoring this group of players, can't we just all accept that PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game? I used to be a nay-sayer, too, but I've long since learned that both styles are like two delicious flavors coming together to make World of Warcraft just as enjoyable as a tasty little peanut butter cup! Ghostcrawler explains in a seperate thread why you will never see them split:

"Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for."

Please Explain Argent Tournament Reset Seems like the Faction Change service includes everything but the kitchen sink. Or, in this case, Argent Tournament progress. Kisirani gives a simple enough answer:

"I'm responding to this thread because it's written in a calm and concise manner, so thank you for that. Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution."

I wish he would've expanded a bit more on that, but then again, that's due to my own curiosity. I'm always intrigued to know how the game is built, how its underlying systems are structured to allow certain things and not others. While I have no way of being specific myself, I imagine it's the case of simply coding, or constructing, the Argent Tournament in a certain way at a time before the requirements for the Faction Change service were fully laid out, leaving the two aspects of the game incompatible with each other. So for those of you still considering a Faction Change, please keep this in mind. You'll have to do the Argent Tournament all over again (though, presumably, the earned reputation with each home city will remain intact, even if the quest progress doesn't). And for those of you who already did, without realizing this caveat, I'm sorry! That's potentially months worth of daily work down the drain! Earthen Power Nerf: Overkill Oh, it's the weekend. I'll throw you guys one more bone to look over! This one's for the Enhancement Shamans out there, in response to the most recent PTR patch update, which makes changes to the way in which Earthen Power works, potentially affecting their performance in Arena teams:

"The 3.2.2 PTR change to earthen power will be crippling to Enhancement Shaman, I am not saying that this talent isn't a bit too powerful, but granting the shaman short term immunity to movement impairing effects is not the issue, the issue is it granting the shamans team mates the immunity. Removing the immunity from the shaman themselves will do nothing but cripple a spec that has just recently regained viability, without showing any form of dominance, except as a part of a counter RMP team in one tournament, a tournament which doesn't well reflect the state of play on live (nothing over item level 213)... I would propose that if you feel earthen power is overly powerful, you remove the snare immunity from allied targets, but leave it on the shaman, else we will see a return enhancement shaman being unable to stick to a target. We already suffer greatly from a lack of controllable damage, reliance on long cooldowns (bloodlust/heroism, spirit wolves), and inability to kill healers. Returning Enhancement Shaman an easy to kite class will severely undermine everything you have done to give us arena viability."

Ghostcrawler explains that they favored Ghost Wolf as a reducer of movement-impairing effects instead:

"We think Earthen Power and the Ghost Wolf change were trying to solve the same problem. Together they felt like overkill to us, and we thought the Ghost Wolf change was more interesting so we kept that one. Your mileage may vary and I would be surprised if many shaman agreed since they were the target of the nerf."

Alright, folks! Have a fantastic weekend, but don't forget to respond and let us know what you think about all of these different subjects before you do!

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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. Yesterday was 9/9/09, guys and gals. An important date in history, and not only for its numerical symmetry! If you hadn't heard yet, it was the day that The Beatles made their triumphant return (as if they could ever, truly, go away). Not only was The Beatles: Rock Band released, but so was the entire remastered album collection. It also marked the 10-year anniversary of the Dreamcast console, arguably the gaming console with the most concentrated amount of awesome in the history of the medium. It didn't last very long, but it really blazed some trails while it did. So what about the forums? Well, they're still kind of reeling from the long weekend, sadly, but there's at least one indication it's back on the road to recovery: Ghostcrawler is posting again! And, thanks to some data-mined PTR patch notes, he's got a helluva Hunter problem to deal with... Bestial Wrath Change Flies from your glaive! According to the new PTR build, the BM Hunter skill "Bestial Wrath" is undergoing some modifications. This "last ditch" technique is being reduced to from 18 seconds to 10. It's companion skill, "The Beast Within," is getting a similar reduction, but now also increases the Hunter's damage by 10% for the duration. It seems as though the primary justification for this change is as follows (according to Ghostcrawler):

"It should be no surprise to anyone who has been on these boards for long that we're trying to chill out abilities that convey offensive and defensive bonuses with the same button press. At the same time, BM damage was a little low and too dependent on the pet. With this change, hopefully, Bestial Wrath becomes more of a defensive ability while taking Beast Within will boost hunter (and just the hunter) damage at all times."

Of course, this change is based mostly on the class' Arena performance. Not specifically that they're good or bad (according to many, Hunters have been nearly shut out from Arena teams altogether), but rather that this particular skill doesn't fit in with Blizzard's philosophy on how Arena should work. In and of itself, it may be one of the Hunter's most powerful PvP abilities, but leaving it alone simply due to poor overall class performance is not fixing the problem. That's to say you don't give a diabetic kid a candy bar just to make him feel better. The way I understand it, Blizzard just doesn't want Hunters relying on "Bestial Wrath" so much, and more positive changes that could offset this nerf, and bring up BM-spec DPS and utility in other ways, will come later. Besides, GC let slip that, even though it's not on the new tooltip yet, "Bestial Wrath" also breaks CC when activated. Let's remember, folks, that this is all still on the PTR. These things aren't final and who knows if they'll even make it to the live servers. Nonetheless, that didn't stop the forums from exploding with complaints. Morobir can't remember where he left his keys and is planning on suing the car company for making such hard-to-find keys. It turns out he simply can't stand that 10% of the population that can go anywhere they want anytime they want just because they have such an easy time staying organized! He rages on the "Bestial Wrath" subject as such:

"Thanks. Thanks so much for basing all your balancing decisions on a stupid mini-game that 90% of WoW players don't play and don't care about. Now that you've nerfed my spec. into the ground I can go into battlegrounds and get completely destroyed while everyone counters all 10 seconds of my Bestial Wrath. That will be so much fun. I could go in untalented and not do much worse."

Now, I am not the most preeminent Arena player in the game. In fact, I've admitted before that I have next to no experience with it. And you know why? Because it's quite involved, it takes a lot of effort to gear up and learn different sorts of strategies in order to compete. A stupid little mini-game, I think not! Even if I'm not a fan, I can see that much. But I honestly expected such complaints to come from someone who favors PvE combat, not a fellow PvP player. Methinks Morobir doesn't quite understand the more flexible nature of Battlegrounds, and Ghostcrawler seems to agree:

"Most of the PvP discussions in these forums tend to focus on Arena balance because frankly that's what most of the participants here seem interested in discussing. If I had to guess, it's because you are constantly running into BG situations in which class balance makes very little difference, say the other team was smarter with how they handled the flags. Or maybe you just plain went up against 20 opponents at once, in which even our most naive posters don't really expect their 51-point talent or whatever to be able to save them... Perhaps Arenas just shine a harsher light on class balance than do BGs."

Indeed, it seems rare that changes to a single skill are going to drastically affect your performance in a Battleground. There are simply too many other factors to consider, from the macro (how did your whole team do) to the micro (were your key skills on cooldown?). Arena matches don't last nearly as long, and you're probably going to find yourself using skills like "Bestial Wrath" only once over the duration. Unless Morobir is one of those "special" people who run around worrying solely about their DPS and Honor Kills instead of actually helping their team capture points and win. Hunters may able to rely on themselves in the wild, but in the middle of a war, they better learn some teamwork! Anyway, I think that's quite enough for this edition of Blue Stew. Sure, I only covered one subject today, but it's an awfully meaty one, and it's most certainly the topic du jour on the official forums. I'd really like to see the Hunters chime in on this one. I might've gone a little harsh on Mr. Morobir there, but I know there are a lot more level-headed folks out there that can perhaps clarify just how they think they'll be affected by the changes to "Bestial Wrath." The floor is yours!

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Blue Stew is a new 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 a surprisingly tame day on the forums, folks. Well, of course there's the usual whining, and some questions about the Paid Faction Change, but if you want to find answers to those or discuss the new service, Project Lore's coverage is a really good place to start (I even wrote it myself!). With that said, I've still managed to cherry-pick a few things that I think are worth looking at: So Explain To Me Again... Weapon Skill: Quite possibly the most useless skill in the game! Wait, wasn't that supposed to be Spirit? Nerthuz must be suffering from Memory Gremlins in her brain again, because she can't remember what she was told last time she asked about Weapon Skill. It must be hard with those nasty little critter eatin' up your thoughts and all. But, hey, she has a point. What is up with Weapon Skill, anyway? This is an issue we've covered here at Project Lore before. Why iTZKoopA posted something about it just one month ago, and he came to the conclusion that it was a sloppy, poorly-implemented stat, though it may have simply been used as a limiter to keep people from tackling mobs way above their current level. But, then, couldn't weapon proficiency simply be built into levels instead of being something you need to raise? Why not just tack on an extra five points every time you ding and automatically pro-rate new skills you learn from Weapon Trainers? Lore-wise, I suppose there is some sort of justification. Ancilorn points out, in accordance with the theme of Nerthuz's original post: "The worlds most skilled swordsman are not so skilled when it comes to wielding axes in combat. They would have to hone their skill to become competent at wielding axes in combat effectively." Indeed, it makes sense that while just about anybody should be able to theoretically wield any weapon, Weapon Skill is associated with how well they can actually do it. In real life, anyone can learn to shoot a gun, but not everybody can be a Bob Munden. Still, I think it's an iffy stat. It's not terribly inconvenient to max out, but it does feel kind of useless. Even if its inclusion can be justified, maybe it should've been tossed out like all those other stats were at BlizzCon. Cataclysm Compilation Nothing snarky to say about Frejya, the kind of person that everyone on the official forums should strive to be. And it seems that Blizzard approves, as well, as they've given her the hallowed green text of a V.I.P. (Very Important Poster). Now that the Cataclysm section has been opened, Nethaera thought it was high time to move Frejya's extensive and resourceful thread on the next expansion to the new forum. The only flaw with it, of course, is the lack of back-linking to Project Lore! Be sure to check it out if you need to know something about Cataclysm on the fly! Two Minute Buffs Need [To Be] Changed! It just wouldn't be a normal day on the forums without Ghostcrawler addressing a little bit of QQ. This time, 'letter Z' fanatic Bearlizion wantz to know why Blizzard dizcriminatez againzt all of hiz two-minute buffz. This is where I bring up something we talked about yesterday, namely people who don't play the game as it is and rather desire to play it the way they want it to be. Usually, this means ignoring basic play mechanics in favor of unrestricted convenience. Why can't people realize that without limiters placed on your class, it wouldn't be fun to play at all? Ghostcrawler's sage advice shines like a light from the heavens once again: "With warrior shouts, the intent is that the resources do matter. You might not have enough rage at any given moment and part of the skill required in playing a warrior is making sure you have enough resources to both shout and do your other damage." The fun in playing the game comes from strategizing in combat and figuring out how to manage your resources and when to use your skills. As I see it, most Warriors (especially tanks), already deal with a rather bland experience and the best thing to do would be to make them more complex, not easier to play. GC goes on to detail a couple of ways in which that could be accomplished, but the common theme seems to be restructuring rage so that a Warrior tank would have to pay attention to it throughout an encounter and not just at the beginning of it. You guys do remember the old days, right? When threat was actually something people had to worry about? I know I can recall the days of having to strategically limit my DPS and make alternate use of Feint and Vanish to clear my aggro on the target. His other core idea is perhaps putting key Warrior buffs on CDs: "Imagine (I am arm waving for a moment) that Battle Shout and Commanding Shout didn't cost any rage and in fact gave you rage, but were on a cooldown. Then using the shouts might become a more interesting choice -- you'd want to use them at moments when you're rage-starved and generally not when you have a full bar. However, you'd also want to keep them going because of their buff so you couldn't neglect to use them too often either. A challenge of playing the class / a test of your skill would be to shout at the right moment to keep the buff up but also make sure you earn the rage when you most needed it." Sure sounds more interesting to me! But I don't play a Warrior as my main, so I'd like to hear what you more experienced players think of this sort of change. Keep in mind that they're only ideas and this is not an indication that the development team is going to suddenly change the class' mechanics. I just happen to believe that making any class more strategic to play can only be a good thing!

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Blue Stew is a new 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 Day 4, and somehow I'm still truckin'. All of this info-gathering business can really take it out of a guy, but I've still got some juicy tidbits for my loyal readers! Without a doubt, the biggest piece of Official World of Warcraft Forum-related news today is the opening of the Cataclysm section. There's not much to be found there yet, but it's sure to be the place to go for developer thoughts on the next expansion in the near future. I think I'm going to shake up the format a little bit today, if that's alright with you folks. Don't worry, I'll keep all the commentary and silly non-sequiturs intact. I just think it might be a tad more readable if I stay away from the bullet points. Paragraph breaks are a good thing, trust me! Guild Advancement Suggestion Quintas wants a Ferrari that brews coffee for you and irons your clothes on the way to work. Outside of some Xzibit-brand charity, she's going to have a hard time making that happen (and she'd probably have to actually own one of those zippy, Italian roadsters in the first place). Likewise, she wonders why we can't have our own Guild Houses that do everything for us, defeating the need to ever visit the outside world again! As WoW players, don't we already have that problem? Amongst her proposed "enhancements" is an Artisan system that attracts specialist NPCs to your guild, supplying them with unique patterns and schematics. Yo, yo, yo! It's yo' boy, Xzibit, here teamin' up with West Fall Customs to bring you the tightest rides this side of the Thandol Span! Like most "good ideas," though, it quickly spirals out of control, and soon enough you're running back and forth around the world collecting materials, doing dailies, and trying your best to woo this demanding NPC for what amounts to very little in return. I'm sure Blizzard isn't short on good ideas, it's more a matter of whether or not they're worth executing, something that I think Qunitas forgot to consider while in the midst of her illustrious proposal. I highlighted this post to once again address the issue of Guild Housing: it's just too much of a hassle. If you ask me, Blizzard's got the right idea. They're implementing most of the features people have always asked for, but they're doing it through the UI, instead of spending resources on constructing virtual domiciles. Think of it this way: why go through the trouble of having to meet up in a Guild Hall every time you want to do something when all of your normal business can be conducted through Guild Chat? Player housing is great when you can implement it from the ground up, and when you have the opportunity to incorporate it into PvP play (sacking fortresses and whatnot), but it's not worth shoe-horning into the game for purely cosmetic purposes. Will we ever see it in WoW? Maybe. Blizzard always used to rebuff the idea of changing Azeroth and, well, look where we are now. I just wouldn't expect it anytime soon when there are clearly so many more interesting things for the development team to work on. My Tiny Crimson Whelp Story Judging by the thread title, Velliana either writes articles for Highlights or has seen one too many episodes of  Taxicab Confessions. I'm not sure what a "Tiny Crimson Whelp" might entail in the world of prostitution, but I bet  you could find out for a couple Benjamins. The (admittedly short) story details her jaunt into Grim Batol, and the epic, emotional struggle she underwent wondering whether or not it would be worth killing a whelp for the mere chance of a drop! You'll have to click through to the thread for the shocking conclusion! What I found most interesting about this post is that it attracted more attention from the Community Management team than even the worst nerf complaint thread. Not one, not two, but three chose to respond, each detailing their own attempts at collecting all of Azeroth's tiny whelps. Thundgot had an especially tough time. It took him over an estimated 5000 kills to lock down all four. Thankfully, he made some extra gold along the way, but it just goes to show you that even Blizzard employees don't get everything handed to them on a silver platter. I don't have any of the whelps myself (I've barely even tried), but how about the rest of you? Were you as lucky as Miss Velliana here or was it a much more laborious and frustrating experience? Elitist Jerks Closes Thread on Unholy DK Ghostcrawler's been on the warpath today, dealing primarily with massive amounts of Hunter QQ. But that's not all! The Death Knights are itching to have their say, too. Now, I'm always a little wary of people who obsess over min-maxing their characters, but I can't deny that Elitist Jerks is one of the best sites to look at if you really want to understand how to play your class (that is, if you can sort through the long threads and gobs of esoteric information). Why Skaven is whining to Blizzard about something someone else decided to do on another forum, I don't know, but he sure is upset about them closing one of his favorite threads. GC reminds us of why he likes Elitist Jerks so much. They conduct the kinds of conversations he likes to see: "One of the things I personally appreciate about the EJ forums is they tend to focus on what is, not in their opinions on what should be. That tends to lead to discussions based on facts and not opinions. Their Unholy DK threads focus on how to maximize dps as Unholy not on petitioning Blizzard to buff Scourge Strike." The way I understand Skaven's complaint is that changes made to Unholy spec now favor one skill over another similar skill. Now we all know that sometimes even small modifications to a class can have a greater impact on the way they work in practice. But, as Ghostcrawler points out, he and so many others, like to complain because their class no longer fits the idea of what they think it should be. In other words, he's freaking out over having to re-learn the ins-and-outs of his Unholy Death Knight, even when the change itself is miniscule. This may seem like pointing out the obvious, but it's clear that there are many people out there who have yet to learn that crying on the forums isn't going to help or change anything. I think that about wraps it up for this edition. Please chime in with your thoughts on all of these topics below, and let me know if you prefer this format over the other one!

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Ah, yes. All of your favorite Blues are back from their trip to BlizzCon, ready to tackle the never-ending Q&A session that is the official World of Warcraft forums. And those of you that didn't attend the convention certainly aren't scared to toss a few inquiries their way! Ghostcrawler was bemused that his sarcasm didn't come off very well over the internet when he unwittingly convinced people that Icecrown Citadel would be home to a whopping 31 different bosses (we now know it to be 12). Well, it seems that it doesn't work any better in real life, either. Ghostcrawler when he doesn't have to deal with the official forums. Referring to the top drop from the very same dungeon (the Legendary 2-handed axe, Shadowmourne) as a "Hunter weapon" didn't fly with the WoW community, apparently. Constantly fretting over nerfs and the unfair advantages of rival classes tends to keep the obsessive players on their toes. While I think most people got the joke, it seems as though GC still had to come right out and say it:

Anyone capable of using a two-handed axe can use Shadowmourne. The stat allocation may not benefit hunters or shamans as much as warriors, DKs or paladins.

So there you go. No need to whine (unless you like to run around in tights with a large wooden stick strapped to your back and make your pet do all the work). It might not even work for Hunters. But even if it does, it's certainly not an exclusive prize. Also, Nethaera is doing her best to keep eager players safe:

As always, when there is a beta, we will announce it. Please be wary of any and all claims of a beta or alpha for the new expansion being held.

Boubouille over at MMO-Champion says he's already received his first beta-invite spam, so let that be a warning to all of ya. If you see anything in your inbox claiming to give you exclusive access to the alpha, beta, or Cataclysm in any form, you might as well just go ahead and drag it to your trash can (or better yet, report the spam). With those caveats out of the way, we can see what Blizzard's saying about all of the interesting new systems they introduced over the past weekend. Here are the paraphrased highlights:

• On the simplification of stats: They were actually worried about oversimplification of items, citing that while some people enjoy doing the complex math associated with min-maxing their gear, most people took this information and just plugged it in on best-in-slot sites (like MaxDPS). In other words, they could probably get away with just giving equipment a name and some art if the trend continued. Folding extraneous stats back into the basic ones allows most players to eyeball which drops they want on the spot. (Amatera's conjecture: This doesn't preclude them from adding new stats again in the future, but this time they'll have a better understanding of how to do so without confusing players.)
• On the guild leveling system: Advancement is based on the Top 20 producers of the guild each day. If your guild is smaller than that, then everyone's contributions will count. Even if you think you've done a lot for the guild on a certain day and still don't appear in the Top 20, it shouldn't affect guild progression much anyway, and since you're doing the sorts of things you'd normally be doing to earn those points, it won't feel like wasted time, either.
• On the lack of new Draenei classes: They didn't think that any of the classes Draenei currently didn't have access to would fit them if they did. Ghostcrawler acknowledges that they have implemented some interesting new choices that some people would find hard to justify in the pre-Cataclysm lore, but maintained that the Draenei already have a well-rounded class structure.
• On changes to old zones: Bornakk says that while the terrain will not change for every zone (aside from those needed to be made to accommodate flying, of course), quest lines within them will be modified to allow for a more natural flow of leveling. Essentially, all those "bread crumb" quests that lead you halfway around the world will now send you, logically, to the hub in an  adjacent leveling area.
• On the new system of Reforging: Blizzard is reinforcing the idea of restrictions. This system is designed to make undesirable drops somewhat more desirable by giving players the ability to restructure its existing stats (the operative term here is "consolation prize"). This should not make said undesirable gear better than those designed to advance your class. Likewise, the best gear you can obtain benefits from Reforging the least, so that it cannot be extensively manipulated by min-maxers to break equipment progression.

So what do you guys think of this clarifications? Do they make you more excited? Have they eased some of your fears or have they made some of these new feature less interesting?

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The biggest news in recent memory is WoW.com's hat eating guarantee over the next expansion's details.  According to sources for the lucky domain squatters, the third expansion is indeed called WoW: Cataclysm, and the previously rumored Goblins and the Worgen are the upcoming playable classes.  The news, that was likely going to be one of BlizzCon's big reveals, has overshadowed all else the past few days, but I am here to put an end to that. Below you will find stories that were lost in the shuffle, abandoned to the fates, and pushed down the stairs.  Some are gems, others are mix-ups, but they were all passed over thanks to the assertions of Cataclysm and our excitement around it.

• Ozzy Ozzborne at BlizzCon - The Ozzy @ BlizzCon 2009 rumor has been around the block.  It first appeared in early July, and I didn't really take it that seriously then.  Sure, he was in a (damn fine) commercial for WoW, but that doesn't mean he's going to perform.  Well, with VideoGamesLive out of the picture this year it does!  Blizzard has confirmed that the junior "Prince of  F&*^ing Darkness" (since 1979) will be rocking out Anaheim in just over a week.  The concert will also be viewable as part of the DirecTV package.  What are the odds that Ozzy actually plays?
• Icecrown to have 31 bosses - "Promising" 31 bosses in a raid for a PvE content junky like myself is more than a pony, Ghostcrawler.  Everyone knows the ratio of boss fights to ponies is 10:1, and here you promise 31:0.  How dare you sir!  And how dare you quip later on that you were joking...maybe.  Damn your brain teasers!  Who do you think you are J.J. Abrams?  /shakesfist
• Battle.net v2.0 news - StarCraft II was "delayed" to 2010 earlier this month, and you can at least partially blame Blizzard's matchmaking, login and purchasing platform known as Battle.net for that.  According to the bigwigs at Activision Blizzard the service is still in the infant stages of re-development with "social networking features, cross-game communication, unified account management" and more being added to the service.  Bobby Kotick stated that the service would be "similar to Xbox Live".  Hopefully the term was used for that service's perceived quality, and not the monetary fee associated with it.  Either way, it appears that BNet 2.0 will be just another gaming service to keep track of.  Sigh.
• Collegehumor WoW video - My friend turned me on to this World of Warcraft-based video last night, and it is absolutely hilarious.  He claims that "that's what it will be like in five years" and although I wish it were true, I just don't believe it.  Thankfully, the laughs it gets are on purpose.  The video is safe for work.

Nothing earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless.  Hope you enjoyed the little recap of the last week or so.  If I missed anything major feel free to leave a comment with the details and the source.

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