BlizzCon - Announcements

[Lbelle]

I dont play WoW but checked out the stream. The Dev team seems to really know wtf is going on in their own game. Its kinda surprising. Its as if they actually play the games themselves on a hardcore lv not just testing. (all compared to FFXI ofcourse)

is this sarcasm?

[Guitarman]

yeah they do, it's refreshing after coming from years of ffxi "wut?". The gm service sucks ass, way too little gm's for how big the playerbase is, but beyond that the support is really solid.

[Enygma55]

Compliment not sarcasm. Any dev panel from FFXI gives us only technical aspects. Nothing indept like what I just heard at this panel. Its almost like they are going out of their way to visually add lore into the playing field.

I guess all MMO have that one moment where an Expansion changes the known world forever. The way they did this is just a complete overhaul. I dont know how big limiting flying zones was but Free flight everywhere just sounds awesome and game breaking.

[ravbane]

Didn't see this posted anywhere but:
Malfurion is back from the Emerald Dream.

[Correction]

Awww Grubby lost. Grats to Lyn on his 2nd straight win at Blizzcon, the other guy won't stand a chance.

[Correction]

Damn that's a lot of racials for Goblins. Nerf Horde already.

Holy shit at the class redesigns:

http://i31.tinypic.com/2h7kqxy.jpg

No mana for hunters, lol ranged rogues.

mp5, ArPen, Defense, Block Value, Spell Power and Attack Power gone!

Spoiler: show

http://i30.tinypic.com/2lsy6b7.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/2dcdfzp.jpg
http://i25.tinypic.com/2ikqq8p.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/qx6w76.jpg
http://i25.tinypic.com/2eanjmc.jpg

[Ezek]

They're completely revamping the entire game in not just areas, but gameplay mechanics of entire classes...I'm not sure if I should be happy or afraid, mostly because I'm 100% sure they'll fuck shit up.

[Boyiee]

battlegrounds are going to be rated, you see that shit lol

[SamanosukeShiva]

no mana for hunters? what they gonna use energy?

[Boyiee]

Focus

[Ksandra]

got back late last night.

zones look awesome, they are all phased so as you progress shit looks worse and worse. (though UC and desolace look better and better).

They showed a shot of Barrens, and the dude @ wailing caverns that's been trying to grow his forest there? succeeded.

Desolace has a new river so now is full of plant life.

Darkshore=destroyed






dungeons:

onyxia= getting revamped for September's 5 year anniversary.

Deadmines + RFK= getting heroic versions!

pvp:

3 new bgs (one he described sounded similar to AV where you take over the enemy's castle by getting checkpoints a long the way)

5 new arena instances.


stats:

as someone mentioned attp spellp arp are all gone. They also sound like they're really revamping a lot of gear so "plate dps stop stealing other people's gear".

soul shards seem more like runic power now, and are no longer in your bag. They are only used for 1 spell

arrows are also no longer in your inventory, sounds though that they haven't quite figured out how to implement this yet.

Ability Progression: Abilities no longer have ranks. Instead of having to do "jumps" in dmg every time you're high enough for a rank, instead abilities are going to get stronger with every lvl. (no idea if that means you still buy them or not).

trio-spec? sadly, probably not, the devs said they really want people to focus on "what kind" of mage (et al.) you are vs. being every kind. They said maybe far far into the future but it was unlikely.

think that's all I remember atm, if I think of more I'll post. Also sorry if I repeated anything, wanted to get it all out of my head before I forgot. ><;

[Maguspk]

Are all the original quests in the Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor going to be redone due to the terrain change? I am thinking it will be phased between 1~80 and ~80+ for obvious reasons (ganking and mob levels) but, they will have to have redone almost every quest since the terrain changed and some stuff just isn't there anymore...

[Ksandra]

Are all the original quests in the Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor going to be redone due to the terrain change? I am thinking it will be phased between 1~80 and ~80+ for obvious reasons (ganking and mob levels) but, they will have to have redone almost every quest since the terrain changed and some stuff just isn't there anymore...

I would imagine so, since a lot of zones are different lvls. not sure how phasing will work with quests.


I forgot to mention too:

you will be able to fly in old areas now!

also, underwater mounts for all~

[Correction]

There was only one demonstration of terrain phasing shown off and from what I saw all they were doing was changing the sea level elevation. I'm not sure they'll phase out stuff like the cracks in Barrens or the new foliage in Desolace.

One thing's for sure though some ugly-ass zones in Kalimdor are about to get a lot more asthetically pleasing.

[Ksandra]

There was only one demonstration of terrain phasing shown off and from what I saw all they were doing was changing the sea level elevation. I'm not sure they'll phase out stuff like the cracks in Barrens or the new foliage in Desolace.

One thing's for sure though some ugly-ass zones in Kalimdor are about to get a lot more asthetically pleasing.

they showed three stages for barrens and three stages for auberdine there was another one but I forgot.

[Jodwahh]

Zoram Strand.

[Boyiee]

MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies

All of the announcements are organized nicely there, just discuss them here. No need to repost things over and over like flying in vanilla and the mp5/ap/sp/defense changes when it's been out for 24hours on that site. He manages to get them on the front page right away and I haven't had any trouble loading the site considering how hard it's probably being slammed.

Not trying to be rude, apologize if I come off that way, just trying to clean up the thread a bit.

edit: maybe just quote the things off MMO champ to the OP in a spoiler comment as they appear, and discuss everything following, deleting any posts not discussing it.

[Correction]

The OP hasn't shown a very strong interest in keeping shit organized, and clicking back and forth between sites is pretty obnoxious.

[Ksandra]

The OP hasn't shown a very strong interest in keeping shit organized, and clicking back and forth between sites is pretty obnoxious.

this^ there's nothing wrong with posting the info here. >.>; sorry I was late on stuff XD didn't have a comp (sonomaa wasn't even allowed to bring his laptop in).

[Boyiee]

Being excited about it and reposting it is fine, in fact i'm jealous that I can't be there and as excited about it.

But why not just quote mmo champ and mod it into first post so you don't have to repeat things for everyone.

here since I'm preaching it lol, until OP gets updated:

Q&A Day2 From MMOchampion

Spoiler: show

General

* More character slots might be added but maybe not for Cataclysm.
* You might be able to reorder the characters on your character selection screen at some point.
* There are some ideas for "mentoring" to let people of varied levels play together without powerleveling. Things like downleveling yourself to play with them is a possibility but it might not be for Cataclysm.
* Character visual customization is something they would like to adress, but they don't really know what the right solution is. They have a few ideas in mind and might do something about it soon.
* Oceanic servers will get their own maintenance time at some point.
* Dancing is still in the work and the animation is working on them, there is still some work to do to make it a real feature.


Races

* Race changes will be available shortly after Faction changes. There is no point in not allowing that since you can't really prevent people with multiple accounts to play both side on PvP servers anyway.
* All races will have updated racials with Cataclysm, they should be similar to what the Goblins have. (Increased health/mana potion effects, etc ...)


Guild Leveling System

* The idea behind the guild leveling system is to make people want to be in guilds and make people feel better about being in a guild. The goal is to take that feature and make it the best they can. (Guild Talent Trees, etc ...)
* You will be able to create guild heirlooms with the new guild leveling system, you can buy profession plans and anyone in your guild can wear that item, it will scale with level.


Professions

* Armorsmith and Weaponsmith specialization really felt like the Blacksmith was limited by his choice, that's why it was ignored in Wrath of the Lich King. Ultimately it's better if the player can craft more stuff instead of just being able to craft 2H swords or whatever.
* Herbs and Ore Nodes will be reitemized with the revamp.


Player vs. Player

* XP in Battlegrounds need to be fixed because there is a lot of XP leeching in the 71-80 Brackets. Once it's fixed, it will be improved across the board.


Raids & Dungeons

* You can't get Frostmourne because it would take control of your soul. Frostmourne would be playing your character, not you. The weapon has an unique fate and the encounter is going to be mega.
* There won't be any option to do Onyxia at level 60 anymore after the revamp in 3.2.2.


Cataclysm

* There isn't any plan to prevent ganking in the contested zones of Azeroth, even with flying mounts available here. This is just part of being on a PvP server.
* They can't spoil the Thrall / Garrosh storyline, but with the cataclysm raging everywhere, what do you think the world's mightiest shaman would need to do?
* Northrend and Outland won't really be affected by the Cataclysm but some of the areas will be updated for the expansion. For example, you will be able to level up Archeology in Outland.


Itemization

* The 5 second rule might be removed with the changes made to spirit but there isn't any final decision about that.
* There is no plans to prevent Paladins and Shamans from using cloth, but there were some discussions to limit it somehow.
* Armor Penetration is removed from the gear but not from the game. There are plans to reintroduce it in another way to allow players to kill plate wearers. (Armor Penetration talents, etc ...)
* Spirit is going to be a healer stat only, it won't exist on DPS Gear. Healers need it to regen and other casters don't use it at all. (Other casters will use Intellect for Spell Power)


Classes

* They won't add a new class in Cataclysm, they have to be very careful about adding more classes and do not want tons of them.
* The philosophy about pure DPS classes is still the same, they don't want hybrid to do everything they can do. The elevated hybrid DPS in Wrath of the Lich King is in a "good place" now.


Classes - Pets

* In Patch 3.3, pets will scale of all of your stats and allow buffs from raid encounters to affect them.
* In Patch 3.3, there will be changes to make sure that pets can't be hit by AOEs from bosses but others (PvP) will be able to affect them.
* Pets classes might get a "move to this location" command for their pet, long cooldown abilities that let your pet teleport to you to get out of trouble. This would be good feature since developers can't make pet AI as smart as a player.


Druid

* There isn't any immediate plan to give feral druids a legendary, casters are next on the list.
* Trolls and Worgens Druids will get their own bear, cat, travel, and aquatic forms.


Hunter

* Hunters might be able to choose the talent tree of their pet to let them pick the pet that looks best to them. Zhevra is a possibility for Cataclysm.


Mage

* Night Elves Mages have been added because it sounded pretty cool to have Elves using arcane when they shouldn't be anymore.
* Mage abilities like Molten Armor will be changed to use other stats since mages won't have Spirit anymore.


Rogue

* They want to see rogues use more daggers, they're THE rogue weapon and we don't see enough of them. In Patch 3.2.2 they might add an assassination talent to make daggers more attractive.
* One of the plans for cataclysm is to take a lot of the early subtlety tree and make it passive for the class. The unattractive stuff will be taken out to let you get the cool talents.


Shaman

* Sacrificying the group utility of mana tide totem to give it a much better regen is a possibility.
* Enhancement Shamans do not use INT anymore and will be given talents to not need it just like Retribution Paladins.
* Enhancement Shamans having to run in and out of melee ranges to redrop totem and sacrifice DPS is a legitimate problem, they don't want enhancement to have to run out like that.


Warlock

* Warlock's survavibility wasn't really good at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, but they're in a pretty good place right now.


Warrior

* Arms lost their iconic ability when Mortal Strike was given to more classes. They need to find a new ability to fill that niche or make Arms' MS the "ultimate" mortal strike.

obviously a lot more to come since it's pretty early in the day, but it's bedtime for me. I bolded a line cause it's my favorite. Depending on how good worgen is, and with the new mechanics in rage/focus/energy and other things, It might be worth it.