Project Lore

Here are The Rockstars Of The Day Note: The below information was covered as part of our Live Blogging & Tweeting during the show.  But the information is simply too important to be glossed over.  Here are the major gameplay changes in one convenient, to the point package. I love math, but the number crunching in World of Warcraft has become incredibly complex lately.  To the point were it can become very difficult to decipher which piece of gear is best for one's spec.  I'm not referring to weighing just a few extra crit to a couple additional attack power.  I refer to the complex matrix of attack power, crit, hit, expertise, agility, armor penetration and stamina that Solidsamm has to worry about on a daily basis.  Then there are some statistics that overlap, Spirit and Mana per 5 seconds, or the stats that are damn near impossible to figure out without Blizzard's help.  It's because of this that Blizzard has decided to reorganize the core statistics, merging the overlaps, dropping some from gear or abandoning others entirely.

• Attack Power - AP is being removed from gear, and replaced with Agility for most classes (Druid, Rogues, Hunters, Shamans).  It's unconfirmed, but assumed, that plate wearers will gain AP from Strength.  We'll be receiving 2AP from each Agil/Str point.  One panelist stated that the side effect is that plate wearers will no longer want to steal "lesser" gear.
• Haste - Haste will no longer increase the speed of one's attacks.  Instead it is going to increase the rate of resource generation (energy, rage, runes, focus), excluding mana (see below).
• Spell Power - Spell Power is being tossed in with Intellect "to make it (Intellect) stop sucking".  Wasn't that a side effect of Intellect back in vanilla WoW?  I can't remember.
• Mana Per 5 Seconds (Mp5) - Like Spell Power, this stat will be merged with another, Spirit.  Spirit is to become the catch all statistic for mana regeneration.  Following that logic, every mana user will be given a Meditation type spell for situational regen purposes.
• Armor Penetration - The fact that Blizzard had to outright explain this stat, in detail, eludes to its confusing nature.  All you need to know is that it'll be gone when Cataclysm drops.
• Tanking - There's actually a pair of changes for the tanks out there.  Most importantly the Defense stat is getting booted from gear.  Instead, tank capable classes will cap the needed statistic via talents, like bear tanks.  Block Value is also taking a walk.  Let's not confuse this with the change made to blocking an attack.  A blocked attack will mitigate a percentage of the damage.
• Stamina - "GONE!" Obviously the panel was joking.  Stamina isn't seeing any direct changes, but the designers believe it will be a more level HP pool after all the other changes are put in place.  I believe it was Ghostcrawler that put it as "no more plate HP envy."

There are many players out there claiming that Blizzard is once again dumbing down the game, but I just don't see it that way.  As evidenced by the details above, most of the categories that are disappearing are being merged into another statistic because they were redundant.  Agility has always given Attack Power, so why have them be distinct points on gear?  Spell Power has always been a caster's AP, so the same logic follows. Tanks still need to worry about picking up the right talents to be defense capped, so that isn't any "dumber." The only changes that I can see as a dumbing down of WoW are the removal of Armor Penetration and the merger of Mp5 into Spirit.  That being said, Mp5 effectively is Spirit, just in an incredibly convoluted (quadratic equation fun time!) form.  And as I stated a few times already, ArmPen was drastically misunderstood until it was explained. I'll have follow up post(s) for other major changes later this week.  If there is anything specific you want us to go into then leave a comment here, @ProjectLore, @iTZKooPA or for one of the other bloggers.

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Now with presents actually under the Winter Veil Trees in Ironforge and Orgrimmar, all of us in Azeroth have a bunch of ways to show off our holiday cheer. Blizzard has put in a lot of great ways for players to interact with each other - we can sprinkle handfuls of snowflakes on people, kiss under the mistletoe, have snowball fights, play with our new racecars, build a snowman, bake cookies for our friends, or do all of the above and show off our new Merrymaker titles. I've always been a proponent of using the in game mechanics as a jumping off point for having fun with other players, which is why what happened a few days ago in Dalaran really amused me. A couple of days back I was hoping for a heroic group to form or I don't know what else, but I was wandering around Dalaran as usual. I saw a horde character named Byerly walking around, and I mean press the slash button on your keypad walking, on his reindeer mount. It was interesting to me, and the walk/run toggle button is one of my favorites for horsing around during downtime. Anyway, I hopped on my mount and used some fresh holly to transform it into a reindeer and joined him in his slow march around the main portion of Dalaran. More players were intrigued and joined in on their reindeer, and eventually we had a mixture of about ten horde and alliance marching around Dalaran at a slow pace spreading holiday cheer... or at least having a good time. It was hilarious watching the slow line of riders. I got a couple of screen shots but only the above one turned out any good. It was nice to see that some horde can have fun with the alliance at least during the holiday season. Have you guys seen any interesting ways that players have been celebrating the holidays? Or what about gifts, did you get anything good this year?

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