Insanely Reconsidering WoW

[merc669]

The starting area is in the plaguelands.

I went Unholy in spec and it is awesome for DPS and the 20% mount speed increase is welcomed. My only problem is I got so used to the druid's ability to heal that I get myself into tight spots. I am still adjusting to the Warlock/Warrior approach but it is serious dmg even while I am not playing it well.

I think it feels like more fun because it feels different in play style and it feels more powerful.

-mx

Its definitely a different play-style. I am still getting used to the DK but its a learning experience. Not sure if you can heal yourself. Need to research the DK more and see. But have gotten into a little trouble with health but not the norm. From what I have read it is one of the first of new characters. But as someone else already mentioned it may outgrow itself. I have never seen so many new folks on the servers. On my two servers (HellScream and Scarlett Crusade) both had long que's. 30 to 60 minute wait is a real bummer. Took advantage of the free moves and now all my characters are on a new server. But when you want to play and you have to wait an hour you lose a lot of interest in playing and wondering why am I paying for this. from the other boards a lot feel that the game will quickly lose interest for a lot of noobs and they will quit and the realms will settle down to a more normal level. But it could take a while.

Bill....

 

[rasmasyean]

But when you want to play and you have to wait an hour you lose a lot of interest in playing and wondering why am I paying for this. from the other boards a lot feel that the game will quickly lose interest for a lot of noobs and they will quit and the realms will settle down to a more normal level. But it could take a while.

Man, you should've seen when WoW launched in 2004. It was longer...you would play for a bit...then you would drop...then you would cry!

 

[OZMP]

I have started playing WoW again with the Mrs (it is the best and "only" MMO for Mac OSX anyway) after trying WAR and some other MMOs. We don't really like TBC, it is a very messy place. We are hoping Wrath of the Lich King will be better once we hit 68, we are currently level 64 and we are both mages.

Death Knights are making WoW horrible though, since we restarted 2 days ago all you see is death knights, all wanting to dual with you and very rude if I might add.

I hope Blizzard do something about Death Knights being way overpowered above everyone else, I can see raids becoming "Death Knight Only" in the near future.

a raid cant be DK only

they are OP as it allows for players to 'catch up' to the new content. expect things to settle around 70. 70 druid downed 71DK no issues, i was in average gear too.

one DK on a raid would be good though, as it works as an extra OT when needed, or replace your OT with a DK for extra dps.(warrior seems to do that fine though these days)

 

[rasmasyean]

Are Rogues and Hunters still the "bottom of the barrel"? Or have they made them play a more useful role?

 

[7254278]

Are Rogues and Hunters still the "bottom of the barrel"? Or have they made them play a more useful role?

I thought pallys were bottom of the barrel.

 

[rasmasyean]

I thought pallys were bottom of the barrel.

Oh hehe. I guess I was thinking of the lower instances. I just remember ppl use to complain that no one want's them in groups and they had to solo most of their leveling.

Well, it looks like you guys are liking Death Knights for a reason...

From Eurogamer's WotLK review: 10/10

...Everyone should play a Death Knight, if only for two levels. Those two levels would take you through the introduction to the class, a bravura piece of showmanship, storytelling, and gratifying, villainous excess. It's unusual to find such a perfectly self-contained and satisfying single-session experience in an MMO. It enriches Warcraft's world and Wrath of the Lich King's main story immeasurably, and does so with humour and brevity. It's a perfectly encapsulated taste of what's to come.​

http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=978693&popup=1​

 

[motoxpress]

The quests for the DK starting area are indeed really fun. They had a few new twists on how they should work and the final quest is just awesome. I almost deleted my DK and rerolled just to go through it all again.

-mx

 

[Plutonius]

All the quest I have done so far in WotLK are well thought out and pretty enjoyable. It looks like Blizzard put some effort into the story / lore.

 

[HiRez]

Did you want to have it so that when you quit it would sync your 'Addons' folder across or other installs? Well, you could do it with AppleScript or a Shell script if you're mildly proficient with mac.

I'd be OK if I could just tell WoWMatrix to do it when I wanted to sync, although I think it'd be great if Blizzard just made a .mac/Mobile Me synchronizer module, or just build addon-synching options right into the game itself, that would make it super easy. It would also solve another problem of having to have an intermediary server to store settings on, since Blizzard already stores a lot of your WoW prefs and settings on its servers, which are secure and tied to your login.

I could probably work out some script to do it, but that seems like it might be harder than it first appears (not all machines are online, for example, and what if one copy gets an upgrade and another gets played before or during synchronization, or other hard to predict things?).

 

[rasmasyean]

I'd be OK if I could just tell WoWMatrix to do it when I wanted to sync, although I think it'd be great if Blizzard just made a .mac/Mobile Me synchronizer module, or just build addon-synching options right into the game itself, that would make it super easy. It would also solve another problem of having to have an intermediary server to store settings on, since Blizzard already stores a lot of your WoW prefs and settings on its servers, which are secure and tied to your login.

I could probably work out some script to do it, but that seems like it might be harder than it first appears (not all machines are online, for example, and what if one copy gets an upgrade and another gets played before or during synchronization, or other hard to predict things?).

These are normally 3rd party works and Blizzard wouldn't "support" it for them in that sense and take responsibility for these kind of things. You can give a suggestion to the parties however and see where that goes.

I'm not quite sure why you want to update WoW add-ons on a computer that's not online, but if you run WoW, it will normally patch before you play and update the WoW client anyway. The add-ons depend on the parties involved.

 

[HiRez]

I'm not quite sure why you want to update WoW add-ons on a computer that's not online, but if you run WoW, it will normally patch before you play and update the WoW client anyway. The add-ons depend on the parties involved.

Right, I'm saying the WoW application itself could do what WoWMatrix does, check addon versions, and optionally download updates, and it could do this as part of the startup process. Letting WoW do it would centralize your addon choices so you get the same addons (and the current version) and the same addon settings across all your WoW machines, from any location. Blizzard doesn't need to officially support anything, just build in the update checking and synchronizing mechanism -- you'd still be running addons "at your own risk", just as you do now.

 

[rasmasyean]

Right, I'm saying the WoW application itself could do what WoWMatrix does, check addon versions, and optionally download updates, and it could do this as part of the startup process. Letting WoW do it would centralize your addon choices so you get the same addons (and the current version) and the same addon settings across all your WoW machines, from any location. Blizzard doesn't need to officially support anything, just build in the update checking and synchronizing mechanism -- you'd still be running addons "at your own risk", just as you do now.

I don't think you understand what "third party" software really is. Blizzard isn't going to serve every wanabe developer's stuff to all their customers...let alone create an extra database just to save everyone's settings for every single addon that someone wants to make.

 

[Plutonius]

To sink my addons between computers (my desktop and laptop), I just copy the WoW folder from one computer to another.

 

[HiRez]

I don't think you understand what "third party" software really is. Blizzard isn't going to serve every wanabe developer's stuff to all their customers...let alone create an extra database just to save everyone's settings for every single addon that someone wants to make.

Uh, yeah, I do understand it just fine, thank you. I think it's you who doesn't understand what I'm asking for, but whatever, forget it.

 

[angelneo]

Uh, yeah, I do understand it just fine, thank you. I think it's you who doesn't understand what I'm asking for, but whatever, forget it.

I will have to agreed with rasmasyean. If Blizzard are to incorporate that into WoW, they have to assume partial responsibilities on the workability of those addons. It doesn't matter if Blizzard says do it at your own risk, players are just going to look for them for support so long as they see Blizzard logo.

 

[palebluedot]

Do most of ya'll mac users play horde or ally? I'm Ally on ED but thinking of rolling Horde to play with an old friend.

 

[sammich]

Another thing to consider as well HiRez is that some addons are pretty big. Questhelper is the biggest by far at 22 megs, the other popular ones: DBM , Auctioneer, Atlasloot, range from 1-3 megs, and uploading and downloading them would take time and bandwidth on your and Blizzard's end.

Maybe you could bring have that terminal/applescript dump all that stuff onto a USB drive you take everywhere?

 

[HiRez]

I will have to agreed with rasmasyean. If Blizzard are to incorporate that into WoW, they have to assume partial responsibilities on the workability of those addons. It doesn't matter if Blizzard says do it at your own risk, players are just going to look for them for support so long as they see Blizzard logo.

But they're already supporting them. They created and published the API to make third-party addons possible. And, they already store the addon settings in the WoW folder hierarchy. They list them in the game, load them, and let you selectively enable and disable them. And, the API restricts access for security reasons. Addons are not unauthorized hacks, they are sanctioned by Blizzard as a part of the game. I don't see how adding a version check and centralizing your list of addons is in any way implying more support than they already have.

 

[HiRez]

Another thing to consider as well HiRez is that some addons are pretty big. Questhelper is the biggest by far at 22 megs, the other popular ones: DBM , Auctioneer, Atlasloot, range from 1-3 megs, and uploading and downloading them would take time and bandwidth on your and Blizzard's end.

That's true but Blizzard would only need to have links to them, the bandwidth needed to download them would only be between your individual machine(s) and the server hosting the addon. Blizzard's servers would not have to be involved with the bulk of it. Just as when there's a linked image in a web page, that image doesn't need to be downloaded through the server where the web page resides, it's downloaded directly from the image server (wherever that is) to the client machine.

Maybe you could bring have that terminal/applescript dump all that stuff onto a USB drive you take everywhere?

Yeah, I probably could do that, I just need to decide whether the overhead of writing it would be worth it. It'd just be nice to have an easier, standardized system that everyone can use. Maybe I'm the only person running WoW on more than one computer.

 

[Randman]

I'm using Carbonite and it's a far better quest helper, it seems. Not as much of a memory hog and I was grouped with some people with QuestHelper and they couldn't find the target when I had it right on my map.

Anyway, just hit 76 so doing a level a day. About the same level as last xpac but it seems slow as around 20 guildies are already 80 and doing 10-man Naxx and hitting 25-man this weekend when I'll still be pushing toward 80. Then again, I work full-time so ...

Also, I've found the quests and lore to be so much better than TBC. It feels like you're working toward something. And some quests are pretty fun and the instances are quick and easy.

 

[angelneo]

But they're already supporting them. They created and published the API to make third-party addons possible. And, they already store the addon settings in the WoW folder hierarchy. They list them in the game, load them, and let you selectively enable and disable them. And, the API restricts access for security reasons. Addons are not unauthorized hacks, they are sanctioned by Blizzard as a part of the game. I don't see how adding a version check and centralizing your list of addons is in any way implying more support than they already have.

They did actively support addons, but if you notice, any new players coming into WoW has no way of getting addons unless they know where to look and most of their support aids in troubleshooting problematic addons (disabling them, resetting your UI etc). They offer no help currently in getting new addons because they do not want to be responsible for problems that arise, since these are 3rd parties and Blizzard have no way of controlling them.

EDIT: adding on, version checking means developers have to register with Blizzard and Blizzard has to make sure that the addon works, otherwise if someone uploaded some insane addon, who do most people blame? Blizzard or that anonymous developer?

 

[saltyzoo]

But they're already supporting them. They created and published the API to make third-party addons possible. And, they already store the addon settings in the WoW folder hierarchy. They list them in the game, load them, and let you selectively enable and disable them. And, the API restricts access for security reasons. Addons are not unauthorized hacks, they are sanctioned by Blizzard as a part of the game. I don't see how adding a version check and centralizing your list of addons is in any way implying more support than they already have.

It costs money for servers, network bandwidth, employees to maintain them, employees to update and upgrade them.

These things aren't free and they would provide Blizzard with no extra revenue. So they have no incentive to do it.

They provide an interface that is more than capable of enjoying the game with. They also provide an API so that you can extend that interface if you want to - that costs them 0 dollars to provide.

They do NOT SUPPORT 3rd party add-ons. They make that very clear. If you call their support lines they make it clear that if an addon is causing your problem then uninstall it. End of story. They will not help you fix a problem that does not occur with no 3rd party addons installed.

 

[rasmasyean]

Actually many add-ons can be borderline "cheating".

I mean, you just know exactly where to go and what to do by the add-on.

Even "logging" all the data with drop-rates. The way you're "supposed" to play it is to find out for yourself where to get what and build relations to share info. But when a large section of the populace automate data uploads into servers for "statistical analysis"...

Then you have the "encounter timing" add-ons that spam not only info for you, but info for the entire party...

 

[sammich]

Actually many add-ons can be borderline "cheating".

I mean, you just know exactly where to go and what to do by the add-on.

Even "logging" all the data with drop-rates. The way you're "supposed" to play it is to find out for yourself where to get what and build relations to share info. But when a large section of the populace automate data uploads into servers for "statistical analysis"...

Then you have the "encounter timing" add-ons that spam not only info for you, but info for the entire party...

True as that may be, and I partially agree with you there, World of Warcraft is so overwhelmingly large that doing the game completely without the help of addons is so monumentally choresome, it would put about 95% of the people off the game.

Honestly, try doing a raid WITHOUT DeadlyBoss/any threat monitor.

It's a game where everyone has the advantage of 'cheating', thereby levelling the field. I guess you can liken it to having stockmarket analysis programs. Would you rather blindly choose or have proven software that will give you the best return?

 

[Randman]

Actually many add-ons can be borderline "cheating".

I mean, you just know exactly where to go and what to do by the add-on.

Even "logging" all the data with drop-rates. The way you're "supposed" to play it is to find out for yourself where to get what and build relations to share info. But when a large section of the populace automate data uploads into servers for "statistical analysis"...

Then you have the "encounter timing" add-ons that spam not only info for you, but info for the entire party...

That's not cheating. If you get mods from a site such as Curse or wowinterface, you're going to find third-party mods that do not break the rules. If you try botting or using an exploit, that is a bannable offense.

Besides, you can know all the info but you still have to play it.