Archive for the ‘General’ Category


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He’s picking flowers without any kind of color scheme! Get him!


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The Following is an article I liked from Australian Gammer.com

Opinion from Matt – Thursday, 20 May 2010 @ 6:37pm

There was a time in the dim and distant past where Trade Chat was used for actual trade. People were quite fussy about that, and an off-trade comment could get you quickly pointed towards “general” where such things belong. Then an interesting decision was made to link trade chat between the major cities, so people selling an item in one town could find a buyer in another.

It seems reasonable, but the side effect of that was that trade chat became a universal chat area, in fact a more general chat than… well… general chat. Trade Chat became the place to talk and troll, and no one really minded.

But increasingly people began to use Trade Chat as a replacement LFG channel. Things have gotten now to the point where trade chat is almost completely useless for either chat OR trade, and is now nothing but a quickly scrolling selection of ICC Looking For Group calls.

Often they’re repeatedly spammed, frequently “out of date”. The number of them I’ve seen that say “Need all” and then later in the same message “Healers only.” is quite startling.

Worst of all, these calls aren’t single line or single message. They’re multi-line macros, often with ascii borders. They apparently weren’t shitting me enough with just words that they need to put a retarded fucking box around them to make it entirely clear.

The length of these spam messages is so long that they often go completely out of the space allotted for chat (in my case) and leave you with something along the lines of “NO SCRUBS ALLOWED. JUST KNOW YOUR ROLE”. Which pretty much puts me out of contention twice in as many pseudo-sentences, regardless of where they’re going.

This spamming of trade chat with “LFG ICC 10 5.1 GS MIN, BRYN RSV” and other arcane gibberish is annoying as all hell, and part of me wants to stop it. There’s an option in WoW to right click on a person’s name and “Report as spam”. But I can’t really tell if that’s supposed to be for reporting people who post shit or (as I would assume) specifically for reporting people who who send goldfarm type spam.

It’s tempting to just “Report as spam” them anyway, even if it does the get them banned as gold farmers. Making some examples of people might be a start, and keep people on their toes. Then trade chat can slowly return to what it’s supposed to be for. Trade.

And for fuckwits to amuse themselves typing the word “anal” and then linking spells for a “funny” joke.

How do we fix it?
We can’t. People will be people and that’s just the way it is. Actually, that’s bullshit. This one is Blizzard’s fault, through and through. This one can be fixed, and it wouldn’t even be hard to do. People ARE going be asshats given any opportunity, so it’s up to developers to make damn sure that asshattery is minimised and controlled.

The first thing that needs to be on there is basic flood control. This isn’t difficult. It shouldn’t be difficult and it’s an epic and stupid fail that something like this isn’t in place already, and that there’s no plans to put any such thing in place. A simple system that blocked posts from being made within a few seconds of each other would stop the spam macro megaposts.

Smarter and more advanced programming could make a longer and longer post block depending how often people try to spam, to prevent people simply posting repeated macro comments every couple of seconds.

The second thing that needs to be done is some sort of Spam warning, some clarity to the “Report as Spam” to distinguish between a “Warn fuckwits spamming trade as an LFG” and “Ban gold farmer” functionality. Both of these would serve to allow better control and enforcement of the trade chat and other communication methods.

As a final requirement – fix the problem. People are spamming trade chat because there isn’t a particularly good system for finding raiders. If you had a working system in place people wouldn’t NEED to spam trade to fill a group. Trade chat spam for heroics vanished when the random dungeon finder and improved dungeon LFG came in. And if there IS a Looking For Raid interface (and I think there actually is) people need to be forced or encouraged to use it. It needs to work BETTER than trade chat spam.


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Nethaera
Blizzard Poster

While the Cataclysm updates to many of the professions are still deep in development, we wanted to share some of the work that’s been going on, as well as a high-level look at any lessons learned or changes to their underlying philosophies during the design process. Please be aware that not all professions have the same extent of information available right now, but each is receiving the same love and attention as the next.

Take heed of these teasers as you look forward to your new rank of Illustrious Grand Master!

Please enjoy!

General

  • Perks will continue to exist across all professions, and will upgraded appropriately.

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring

  • Many of the green (and possibly some blue) items made during the process of leveling these professions will contain random stats. In most examples, two stats on these items will be set, and two will be random. The idea with these items is to mix up the skill leveling items so you’re not just, for example, creating 10 pairs of boots that are all exactly the same.
  • Superior-quality items that require more materials than other recipes in the same skill range provide multiple skill-ups. For example, if a recipe takes three times the reagents, it will give you three skill-ups.
  • We didn’t feel like we were getting much flexibility from specializations, so they have been removed for all three of these professions. The intent was to help people diversify their profession to feel different from that of other players, but through other professions we’ve found systems that work better to this end, such as simply making recipes available that you can earn over time.
  • To follow up the previous change, all items that required a specialization are now useable by anyone.
  • Tailoring the high-end Cataclysm items will center around a single cloth type that can be crafted through five different recipes — each with their own material components and a long cooldown.
  • All three professions will create their starter sets of PVP gear, which will be upgraded with new recipes every season. In general, these are meant to keep pace as an entry-level PvP set below whatever the current Hero Point set is.

Alchemy

  • New elixirs will be about 75% as strong as flasks. So you can get more total stat points with two elixirs, but flasks will still be the best at giving you a single offensive or defensive stat.
  • New unique material used by nearly all high-level recipes will be created by alchemists on a one-day cooldown.
  • New Mysterious Potion created with common materials restores health and mana in a massively random range, as well as sometimes granting the benefit of another potion. The health and mana range is from 1-20,000 and is able to crit. The minimum amount restored, however, is scaled upwards by the Alchemy skill, making it a great choice for alchemists to keep for themselves.
  • All potions and elixirs now use the same basic vial type. Flasks still use a fancy vial.
  • New Alchemist Stone.

Enchanting

  • In general, material component costs for most recipes are more moderate in how much they require, while the highest-end recipes will still require large quantities. The goal of this change is to make the leveling recipes more consistent and not create unintended roadblocks in getting to the higher skill levels.
  • An enchanter vanity pet is being added.

New Cataclysm weapon enchantment preview:

  • Avalanche — Chance to deal Nature damage on melee hit/spell hit.
  • Elemental Slayer — As expected, this enchantment helps players deal devastating damage to elemental creatures.
  • Hurricane — A stacking haste proc.
  • Heartsong — Mana regeneration through increased Spirit when chain-casting spells.
  • Many more maximum-level enchantments are still in progress.

Engineering

  • Engineering is still being designed, but expect new unpredictable gadgets to use on yourself or enemies. Toys, explosives, and even a new vanity pet or two. Oh, and powerful mechanical bows and crossbows in addition to guns.
  • In general, we want Engineering to remain a tradeskill mainly focused on creating fun or useful gadgets for the engineer, but we are exploring options for items that can be sold to other players for profit.

Inscription

  • With the large number of class changes coming with Cataclysm, many existing glyphs will see new functionality.
  • Minor glyphs are woefully uneven from one class to the next right now, so they’re a focus for us to clean them up and try to ensure that everyone has minor glyphs they’re excited about.
  • New Darkmoon Cards will be added, with hopes they’ll all be as awesome as the Greatness card.
  • We’ll be adding more major glyphs as well, but in the hopes of making them as balanced as possible, we’ll likely wait until after the expansion ships to add any for the new abilities in Cataclysm.
  • New and more desirable off-hand and relic recipes will be added.

Jewelcrafting

  • Some gem colors have changed! Hit is now blue. Mastery and Dodge are yellow. Intellect is now red. These simple changes have created a much more diverse matrix of gem cuts.
  • New Jewelcrafting dailies will be introduced.
  • Many cuts are being added to support the new Mastery stat.
  • Some new Cataclysm jewelry recipes have completely random properties, and can sometimes create superior and epic versions.
  • Jewelcrafters will have some fun new (and potentially lucrative) vanity items, including fist weapons, rhinestone sunglasses, monocles, and stardust (sprinkle on players for entertainment).

Herbalism, Skinning, and Mining

  • All Cataclysm herbs have the chance of containing Volatile Life.
  • There won’t be a new Lotus equivalent in Cataclysm. Alchemists will use the more reliably-found Volatile Life to create the new high level flasks.
    Herb Example:

    • “Heartblossom — Named for its deep red color, this delicate flower grows close to the ground, and always in pairs. If one blossom is taken, the other flower begins to wilt immediately and dies soon after. It is considered very unlucky to disturb a Heartblossom without blessing it first.”
  • Savage Leather, the basic Cataclysm leather, can be gathered from most creatures found in the expansion areas and can be converted to Heavy Savage Leather at a 6:1 rate.
  • Pristine Hide, the rare Cataclysm hide, can be found when skinning creatures in the expansion areas, or be converted from Heavy Savage Leather.
  • Obsidian is the new common mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems, Volatile Fire, and Volatile Shadow.
  • Elementium is the new uncommon mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems, Volatile Fire, Volatile Water, or Volatile Earth.
  • Pyrite is the new rare mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems and Volatile Fire.
  • Previous Elementium Ore and Bar used for classic quests will be renamed to Elementium Ingot and Hardened Elementium Bar.
  • We like the gathering perks as they are; not a game-changing bonus but something themed and fun. But as all tradeskills are in the design stages these are still being discussed to a degree.

Cooking

  • Cooking is still in the early stages, but we plan on continuing with daily quests, feasts, and some fun new recipes.
  • We liked the cooking dailies that had players picking up items that spawned in the world near the quest giver, so most if not all new cooking dailies will work similarly.

First Aid

  • Bandages will have a short cast time and put a heal over time effect on the target for 8 seconds. This effect is broken by damage.
  • Three new bandages! That’s right: THREE!

Bandage preview:

  • ” Dense Embersilk Bandage” Heals for 34,800 over 8 seconds. Requires 3 Embersilk to create.

Fishing

  • Lots of new fish and other fun items to catch! Fish are still used to make premium food.
  • New fishing dailies.
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The worst part is they rolled on who would get to kill me..


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Wow, epic announcement from Blizzard tonight with Ghostcrawler making the following statement

Blizzard Poster

We’re doing our Cataclysm preview on the death knight changes later this week, but we knew one change risked overshadowing all the others, so we figured we’d go ahead and drop the proverbial Blood bomb today.

In Cataclysm, death knights will have a dedicated tanking tree, much like the other three tank classes. That tree will be Blood.

We’ll go into more detail in the upcoming preview, but we wanted to take the opportunity to explain the reasoning for such a big change.

Why the about face? We actually thought the “tri tank” experiment worked out okay. We suspected there would always be a “best” tanking tree, because that’s the way these things shake out, but we hoped it would be close enough that many players could tank with their favorite tree. When we tried out this design for Wrath of the Lich King, we were using it as a test case to see if we wanted to do similar things with the warrior and paladin talent trees.

A lot has happened since that time. We introduced the dual-spec feature, allowing players to have a tanking spec and dps spec that they could switch between. We introduced Dungeon Finder, which makes it easier to find players who want to tank, and even let players level up using a dedicated tank spec. In Cataclysm, we are introducing the concept of passive talent tree bonuses and we think that feature is a lot stronger when the talent tree has a particular focus (such as damage, tanking or healing). For example, it’s safer to give more passive damage to a tanking tree than we can a dps tree. Above all, we were just spending a lot of effort trying to balance three trees (though it was really six trees, since each tree was trying to do two things).

It started to feel unfair to the other tank classes that we had to spend so much effort tweaking three types of DK tanks, and it even started to feel unfair to the DK that we couldn’t focus their tanking experience. One bit of feedback that really struck home was the DK players who said, essentially, “I look at the Protection tree and I’m jealous of all of the cool tools they have to help their tanking. As a DK, I have to pick and choose tanking talents from within a sea of dps talents.” Rather than have a strong focus, the trees felt a little watered down because they were trying to do so much. With Frost as a dual-wield, spell and runic power focused tree, Unholy as a disease and minion focused tree, and Blood as a self-healing, defensive cooldown, tanking tree, we think the focus of each tree is a lot clearer and cooler.

In Cataclysm, Blood will be the death knight version of a Protection tree. It will have passive talent tree bonuses that reflect tanking. It will have tools, such as a Demo Shout equivalent, necessary for tanking. Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood. We will be able to revise (or even remove) clunky mechanics like Rune Strike and focus on letting DKs generate threat with their normal Blood tanking rotation.

This is major change, and we understand it will be met with some disappointment from players who really liked the flexibility, those who appreciated the unorthodox talent tree design, or those few of you who really liked Blood dps. Nevertheless, we are convinced that this is the right change for the game.

More exciting death knight news coming up soon in the preview.



Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

Yup, I am going to go to my cornor and cry now, because I loved dps as a blood spec, but my offspec was dual wield frost dps, so…I guess I won’t have that big of a problem going back to frost dps, but still all I can say is, I am still waiting on my moose Ghosty…still waiting.


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Oxhorn put out a new video for the Easter holiday and all the guys are back for this short film enjoy!


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