1. Yes and yes. Vanilla is still hardest, easily. WotLK is easiest, by far. I'd say Cataclysm in beta right now is about in between WotLK and TBC for difficulty. IN reality, it depends on your instance. Some require more crowd control (and thus more like vanilla) than others. Greens will make it difficult. It will be easy, but nothing on the scale of WotLK.
Video showing Heroic Stonecore. Looking at that, id have to say its the toughest 5 man heroic ive ever seen and easily trumps heroic Shattered Halls and Shad Labs which were the nightmare heroics in TBC. The Bosses and even the trash seem to be much more brutal and require varying levels of co-ordination. If i remember correctly certain packs in Skywall are un-killable without cc and thats on normal.
While i wonder if the average LFD PUG will even make it past the trash without endless wipes, its good to see heroics actually living up to their name again. No doubt Blizz will nerf most of this due to incessant whining from the bads, (they have already nerfed Grim Batol trash) as long as they don't bring it down to the current snooze-fest level we should be fine.
oh and heres part 2 of that video if you wanted to see the rest of the instance.
Yeah stonecore looks great, but we all know if it is not nerfed before it goes live it will be shortly after. But it is a good sign, grimbatol normal looks hard too.
It won't be nerfed until 90% of the population is 85 like it is now. They want everyone to exerpience difficulty before doing anything. Yes, 6 months from now it will probably get the nerfgun because of new subscribers and etcetera.
Silly thing to ask, but what are the odds? Here goes: will there be an open beta?
Well the current beta that the op is in is considered an "open beta". With the sheer subscriber base like WoW's they really don't need to bring the general public and non subscribers into the beta, something a new MMO will have to do. So the beta is only "open" (by invitation) to current wow subscribers.
Keep in mind, most new MMOs are by definition "new" and hence their version of an open beta will differ with WoW's in that aspect.
First, thanks for doing this Q&A thread out of your precious time, greatly appreciated. Now my questions, sorry they're kind of long with personal wishes as well which you probably can't do much about haha, but anyways..
1) To be honest, I am not excited much about the revamp of old areas 1-80. Because at the end of all this leveling, for me that is, the game just becomes grinding the same dungeons / BGs and stuff over and over again to get better gear. This gear quickly gets outdated with each upcoming patch/expansion as you just get more dungeons to grind over and over. Will this game system be changed (probably not I assume)?
2) Is there anything drastically new that brings back excitement to the game? Here I'm not talking about new races / zones / revamped talent tree because these things just get boring real quick personally, but a game mechanic. I guess this is also personal preference but.. example:
In Vanilla when they added the PVP honor/dishonor system and Warsong Gulch. I think this was the start of one of the most intense upgrades to the game that made PVP become a BG grind (good and bad).
In Vanilla when they added way too many guards to cities to stop insane destruction / ganking. ( I think this killed outdoor open PVP and I hated it ). IMO they should have more mechanics that encourage players to drop opposing faction cities / defend their own when under attack for great xp / loot / whatever greatness.
1. Dungeons are harder, but the emblem system is still there. The only change is it's now streamlined. Instead of different tokens for different tiers (arena points, honor points, triumph, conquest, frost, etc.) you now have Honor Points for PvP and Justice Points for PvE. These two currencies will buy anything from any tier for their respective sides. I'd suspect they will lower prices on older tier gear as new tiers are added.
2. Crowd control, easily. Dungeon groups need a brain now (or at least until they're extremely overgeared). Flying in Azeroth is also cool.
Right, just some little ponderings of mine.
1. With the token system, do you mean to say that Blizz is condensing all emblem systems for PvE into the Justice Points, and if so, that they can buy any item that currently requires different emblems? (Triumph, Heroism, etc.)
2. And Crowd Control. Just what do you mean by that? I must admit that fears and sheeps were seen a lot more in Classic Raids then they are in WotLK, but occasionally these abilites do come in handy. What exactly does the new CC system mean? Are the mobs AI's becoming smarter? Are dungeons and raids going to be inundated with large groups of specialised mobs so that we HAVE to use CC to break it up? Hmmm?
I'm really sick of the whole "There's a massive fanbase for X", or "Y would be a WoW-killer if it just had a chance".
There is no massive conspiracy waiting in the MMO playerbase.
There are no "sleeper-agent fans" waiting to convert once the X or Y is unleashed on the world.
First, thanks for doing this Q&A thread out of your precious time, greatly appreciated. Now my questions, sorry they're kind of long with personal wishes as well which you probably can't do much about haha, but anyways..
1) To be honest, I am not excited much about the revamp of old areas 1-80. Because at the end of all this leveling, for me that is, the game just becomes grinding the same dungeons / BGs and stuff over and over again to get better gear. This gear quickly gets outdated with each upcoming patch/expansion as you just get more dungeons to grind over and over. Will this game system be changed (probably not I assume)?
2) Is there anything drastically new that brings back excitement to the game? Here I'm not talking about new races / zones / revamped talent tree because these things just get boring real quick personally, but a game mechanic. I guess this is also personal preference but.. example:
In Vanilla when they added the PVP honor/dishonor system and Warsong Gulch. I think this was the start of one of the most intense upgrades to the game that made PVP become a BG grind (good and bad).
In Vanilla when they added way too many guards to cities to stop insane destruction / ganking. ( I think this killed outdoor open PVP and I hated it ). IMO they should have more mechanics that encourage players to drop opposing faction cities / defend their own when under attack for great xp / loot / whatever greatness.
1. Dungeons are harder, but the emblem system is still there. The only change is it's now streamlined. Instead of different tokens for different tiers (arena points, honor points, triumph, conquest, frost, etc.) you now have Honor Points for PvP and Justice Points for PvE. These two currencies will buy anything from any tier for their respective sides. I'd suspect they will lower prices on older tier gear as new tiers are added.
2. Crowd control, easily. Dungeon groups need a brain now (or at least until they're extremely overgeared). Flying in Azeroth is also cool.
Right, just some little ponderings of mine.
1. With the token system, do you mean to say that Blizz is condensing all emblem systems for PvE into the Justice Points, and if so, that they can buy any item that currently requires different emblems? (Triumph, Heroism, etc.)
2. And Crowd Control. Just what do you mean by that? I must admit that fears and sheeps were seen a lot more in Classic Raids then they are in WotLK, but occasionally these abilites do come in handy. What exactly does the new CC system mean? Are the mobs AI's becoming smarter? Are dungeons and raids going to be inundated with large groups of specialised mobs so that we HAVE to use CC to break it up? Hmmm?
1. Justice Points will be your "tier 1" emblem. Valor Points will be for high end raid gear. All your current emblems will be converted into Justice Points. Frost emblems will have a better conversion rate then say, Triumph badges. The older emblems, such as heroism, will be converted into money. Wowhead has a conversion calculator here.
2. Crowd control is what it sounds like - controlling the crowd. One or more players (almost always a ranged DPS) will basically "control" a mob in order to help the group. For example, say you have a group of 4 mobs. Three are melee, but one is a very strong caster. You have a mage in your party. The mage turns the caster mob into a sheep, so your party can more easily take down the melee mobs. 5-mans only require 1-2 people to CC right now. Raids will likely require 4-5 CCs.
Starting zones are fun, but I hate leveling, in any video game. Always have, always will, why I love EVE so much - it levels for me and I can still do whatever I want. If you like lore and all that jazz, Cataclysm is definately much better in that department. There's more of the WotLK-style vehicle/lore/awesome quests than there are the standard collect or FedEx quests now.
Probably wont play this expansion because WOTLK gave me cancer.
BUT
and this is depending on your experience with these classes.
Whats the Enhancement Shaman feedback?
Whats the Shadow priest feedback?
How did they deal with bursty heals and burstly DPS for PVP while scaling up for Dungeons and RAIDS, or did they not do anything about it and its worse thatn WOTLK now?
PVP gear do I still have to RAID for it?
and last but not least.
What are the lamest naming trends with the new race/class combinations, more specifically, just how bad are the names for Cow Paladins.
Probably wont play this expansion because WOTLK gave me cancer.
BUT
and this is depending on your experience with these classes.
Whats the Enhancement Shaman feedback?
Whats the Shadow priest feedback?
How did they deal with bursty heals and burstly DPS for PVP while scaling up for Dungeons and RAIDS, or did they not do anything about it and its worse thatn WOTLK now?
PVP gear do I still have to RAID for it?
and last but not least.
What are the lamest naming trends with the new race/class combinations, more specifically, just how bad are the names for Cow Paladins.
1. The highest shaman I have is level 30.
2. Alas a priest question, my main and favorite class. I play disc with a shadow OS and I'll try and answer to the best of my ability. To by quite honost, the priest hasn't changed much. The biggest shadow change is our new ability, called Mind Spike. Now instead of mind flay and blast, we now have spike to help when low on mana, or just quickly soloing something. It's our new nuke spell and believe me when I say, really helps my DPS and the fun factor of shadow. We alas have an ability that doesn't take more than 2 seconds to cast In the end though, priest still isn't that much different than say, a Paladin in Cataclysm would be. Just more awesome. P.S. they removed Spirit. You only need to do fort and shadow prot buffs now.
3. The PvP in Cataclysm is weird right now. They're still trying to scale it properly with leveling players. Still a bit unsure of what you really mean though.
4. They have rated BGs and you now just have one base PvP emblem. There's also more PvP dailies at Tol Barad. There will be a VoA-like dungeon though for Tol Barad if that is what you are asking. As for Tol Barad itself...I find Wintergrasp more centralized and funner for a newcomer to PvP, or a non-PvPer. Tol Barad is much more open and skirmish-based (ala there's a lot less siege engines) then Wintergrasp was.
5. I've seen Holycow, Holybeef, Teamjacob, Greenjoo, Bambikillur and many a more stupid names. The beta also allows people to put numbers and capitals in their names. There's a 90% chance that won't happen on live, but don't quote me on that.
Toxilium I just want to thank you. I cannot wait for cataclysm and you obviously have a firm grasp of WOW in general and have done an excellent job. I haven't read a 3 page thread in....ever. Anyways I know its a small consolation but this was a great read and hopefully I read your next thread if there is another expansion. CHEERS!
uber black and red temple of nod gaming case 4 fuckin gigs of random access memory ge force chopper sick balls over 9000 vid card bra holy shit im bragging about my computer to play mmo's processor!
Funny from reading these responses everyone hates WOTLK.
I think the magic combination is Vanilla raids and world pvp and BC PVP and gear scaling.
WHAT have they done about the cheaters? Ive see death knights pvp by walking on air and then dissapear and reapper behind me, gold farmers walking on the sky and under the mountain and everything else you can imagine. And the corpse writing has to go.
And since you play a priest just how is mana regen, because in WOTLK we had a slower regen rate than paladins and Druids, level 40 druids got better regen than level 60 priests, ..... which eternally pissed me off.
Are there a whole lot of "regardless who has aggro mob randomly runs off and attacks random player" mechanics in the new dungeons? Its really annoying to have to have so many tanking addons so you know if you actually have aggro on a toon, did someone pull it off? or did it just do one of its random attacks.
Does a feature exist that allows you to lock your level/xp gain down to keep from outleveling content? I haven't played for years, but I might be willing to give it a try again if I can actually experience it.
there is a npc now where you can turn off xp gain. its mostly for battleground players who want to stay in a level bracket but when you do that it puts you against only people who are also locked out of gaining xp.
Does a feature exist that allows you to lock your level/xp gain down to keep from outleveling content? I haven't played for years, but I might be willing to give it a try again if I can actually experience it.
They actually have this feature in game right now. For Alliance, if you go to Stormwind Castle there's a guy there who will stop XP flow for you, say if you want to PvP at 70 or something. I'd assume he would be in Garrosh's keep, and Stormwind again when Cataclysm launches.
Funny from reading these responses everyone hates WOTLK.
I think the magic combination is Vanilla raids and world pvp and BC PVP and gear scaling.
WHAT have they done about the cheaters? Ive see death knights pvp by walking on air and then dissapear and reapper behind me, gold farmers walking on the sky and under the mountain and everything else you can imagine. And the corpse writing has to go.
And since you play a priest just how is mana regen, because in WOTLK we had a slower regen rate than paladins and Druids, level 40 druids got better regen than level 60 priests, ..... which eternally pissed me off.
1. I can't speak for what Blizzard is doing to combat hackers and cheaters, sorry. No one complain though - it's no where near as bad as APB was.
2. It's a bit better? I haven't really noticed. Just pop dispersion and a few pots in long fights, ask for innervates, I'm fine almost all the time. I get a better mana regen in shadow, simply because of dispersion.
Are there a whole lot of "regardless who has aggro mob randomly runs off and attacks random player" mechanics in the new dungeons? Its really annoying to have to have so many tanking addons so you know if you actually have aggro on a toon, did someone pull it off? or did it just do one of its random attacks.
Yes, but that's why they made crowd control a viable maneveur now. I haven't encountered any AN-like spider mobs who randomly knock people over though. It's mainly casters who'll need CC.
Comments
It won't be nerfed until 90% of the population is 85 like it is now. They want everyone to exerpience difficulty before doing anything. Yes, 6 months from now it will probably get the nerfgun because of new subscribers and etcetera.
Silly thing to ask, but what are the odds? Here goes: will there be an open beta?
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Ok give me serveral reasons why old veterans of the game would want to come back to play Cataclysm. What are the pros and cons you have seen so far ?
Well the current beta that the op is in is considered an "open beta". With the sheer subscriber base like WoW's they really don't need to bring the general public and non subscribers into the beta, something a new MMO will have to do. So the beta is only "open" (by invitation) to current wow subscribers.
Keep in mind, most new MMOs are by definition "new" and hence their version of an open beta will differ with WoW's in that aspect.
They are already in open beta. You just need to have them send you an invite randomly.
This is a very subjective question, but I already answered something similar here:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3790041#3790041
Someone would have to know what the old veterans were looking for in order to answer that question.
Right, just some little ponderings of mine.
1. With the token system, do you mean to say that Blizz is condensing all emblem systems for PvE into the Justice Points, and if so, that they can buy any item that currently requires different emblems? (Triumph, Heroism, etc.)
2. And Crowd Control. Just what do you mean by that? I must admit that fears and sheeps were seen a lot more in Classic Raids then they are in WotLK, but occasionally these abilites do come in handy. What exactly does the new CC system mean? Are the mobs AI's becoming smarter? Are dungeons and raids going to be inundated with large groups of specialised mobs so that we HAVE to use CC to break it up? Hmmm?
I'm really sick of the whole "There's a massive fanbase for X", or "Y would be a WoW-killer if it just had a chance".
There is no massive conspiracy waiting in the MMO playerbase.
There are no "sleeper-agent fans" waiting to convert once the X or Y is unleashed on the world.
1. Justice Points will be your "tier 1" emblem. Valor Points will be for high end raid gear. All your current emblems will be converted into Justice Points. Frost emblems will have a better conversion rate then say, Triumph badges. The older emblems, such as heroism, will be converted into money. Wowhead has a conversion calculator here.
2. Crowd control is what it sounds like - controlling the crowd. One or more players (almost always a ranged DPS) will basically "control" a mob in order to help the group. For example, say you have a group of 4 mobs. Three are melee, but one is a very strong caster. You have a mage in your party. The mage turns the caster mob into a sheep, so your party can more easily take down the melee mobs. 5-mans only require 1-2 people to CC right now. Raids will likely require 4-5 CCs.
is it now more fun to roll a new character..?
Starting zones are fun, but I hate leveling, in any video game. Always have, always will, why I love EVE so much - it levels for me and I can still do whatever I want. If you like lore and all that jazz, Cataclysm is definately much better in that department. There's more of the WotLK-style vehicle/lore/awesome quests than there are the standard collect or FedEx quests now.
Have you tested the Rogue mechanics? I am a Rogue fan through and through, how does the rogue stand in the group as far as its role?
Please don't tell me primarily CC, I was a Vanilla rogue and loved it, then came BC and then WotlK. How does Cata handle the rogue class?
WinnTech
Probably wont play this expansion because WOTLK gave me cancer.
BUT
and this is depending on your experience with these classes.
Whats the Enhancement Shaman feedback?
Whats the Shadow priest feedback?
How did they deal with bursty heals and burstly DPS for PVP while scaling up for Dungeons and RAIDS, or did they not do anything about it and its worse thatn WOTLK now?
PVP gear do I still have to RAID for it?
and last but not least.
What are the lamest naming trends with the new race/class combinations, more specifically, just how bad are the names for Cow Paladins.
Sorry, I don't have a rogue character.
1. The highest shaman I have is level 30.
2. Alas a priest question, my main and favorite class. I play disc with a shadow OS and I'll try and answer to the best of my ability. To by quite honost, the priest hasn't changed much. The biggest shadow change is our new ability, called Mind Spike. Now instead of mind flay and blast, we now have spike to help when low on mana, or just quickly soloing something. It's our new nuke spell and believe me when I say, really helps my DPS and the fun factor of shadow. We alas have an ability that doesn't take more than 2 seconds to cast In the end though, priest still isn't that much different than say, a Paladin in Cataclysm would be. Just more awesome. P.S. they removed Spirit. You only need to do fort and shadow prot buffs now.
3. The PvP in Cataclysm is weird right now. They're still trying to scale it properly with leveling players. Still a bit unsure of what you really mean though.
4. They have rated BGs and you now just have one base PvP emblem. There's also more PvP dailies at Tol Barad. There will be a VoA-like dungeon though for Tol Barad if that is what you are asking. As for Tol Barad itself...I find Wintergrasp more centralized and funner for a newcomer to PvP, or a non-PvPer. Tol Barad is much more open and skirmish-based (ala there's a lot less siege engines) then Wintergrasp was.
5. I've seen Holycow, Holybeef, Teamjacob, Greenjoo, Bambikillur and many a more stupid names. The beta also allows people to put numbers and capitals in their names. There's a 90% chance that won't happen on live, but don't quote me on that.
1-20 or so is faster. 20-58 is about the same, but that doesn't matter since most people run dungeons anyway.
Toxilium I just want to thank you. I cannot wait for cataclysm and you obviously have a firm grasp of WOW in general and have done an excellent job. I haven't read a 3 page thread in....ever. Anyways I know its a small consolation but this was a great read and hopefully I read your next thread if there is another expansion. CHEERS!
uber black and red temple of nod gaming case
4 fuckin gigs of random access memory
ge force chopper sick balls over 9000 vid card bra
holy shit im bragging about my computer to play mmo's processor!
Funny from reading these responses everyone hates WOTLK.
I think the magic combination is Vanilla raids and world pvp and BC PVP and gear scaling.
WHAT have they done about the cheaters? Ive see death knights pvp by walking on air and then dissapear and reapper behind me, gold farmers walking on the sky and under the mountain and everything else you can imagine. And the corpse writing has to go.
And since you play a priest just how is mana regen, because in WOTLK we had a slower regen rate than paladins and Druids, level 40 druids got better regen than level 60 priests, ..... which eternally pissed me off.
Are there a whole lot of "regardless who has aggro mob randomly runs off and attacks random player" mechanics in the new dungeons? Its really annoying to have to have so many tanking addons so you know if you actually have aggro on a toon, did someone pull it off? or did it just do one of its random attacks.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
there is a npc now where you can turn off xp gain. its mostly for battleground players who want to stay in a level bracket but when you do that it puts you against only people who are also locked out of gaining xp.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
They actually have this feature in game right now. For Alliance, if you go to Stormwind Castle there's a guy there who will stop XP flow for you, say if you want to PvP at 70 or something. I'd assume he would be in Garrosh's keep, and Stormwind again when Cataclysm launches.
1. I can't speak for what Blizzard is doing to combat hackers and cheaters, sorry. No one complain though - it's no where near as bad as APB was.
2. It's a bit better? I haven't really noticed. Just pop dispersion and a few pots in long fights, ask for innervates, I'm fine almost all the time. I get a better mana regen in shadow, simply because of dispersion.
Yes, but that's why they made crowd control a viable maneveur now. I haven't encountered any AN-like spider mobs who randomly knock people over though. It's mainly casters who'll need CC.