Upcoming patch: is blizzard real?

[zenga]

Link to full list (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2127-Upcoming-Class-Changes-December-27-Hotfixes)

And i quote:

"Tol Barad

Winning as an attacker now rewards players with 1800 Honor Points, up from 180. Winning as a defender still rewards players with 180 Honor Points."

So everyone who has been playing tol barad should know it's totally broken. On my realm alliance outnumbers horde 3:1 at least. Whereas both factions have both around 10 guilds each in the server top 20, the alliance has almost 90% of the guilds from 21-80 (wow progress). It means that there is way more 'decent' alliance queuing up than horde. Yet we've been holding Tol Barad for 2 weeks now, only first week alliance had it now and then.

The real top players who wanted TB rep to exalted for a rep item (caster trinket someone?) have reached it by now. Those players generally are able to read the BG, and they can follow a certain strategy.

I start to feel sorry lately for those decent alliance players who try to win. They are just getting teamed up by an incredible amount of morons. My point being: if the faction that is underpopulated and has less 'average' decent players can hold tol barad for 2 weeks straight, there is something terrible wrong with the design of the BG. It was exactly the same with the WG patch where they would get rid of the buff (name escapes me atm). The underpopulated faction has better chances to win. A simplified example: lets assume 50% of the players are tards, and the other 50% are capable. Let's consider a 3:1 alliance to horde ratio, where 40 horde queue up and 120 alliance, which means that horde is gonna play with 20 tards and 20 decent players, but chances are very likely for alliance (50%) that they end up with more than 20 tards, as they have a pool of 60 to chose from. On top of that, quite some reports have been shown on the web that the queue priority system of blizzard for wg (and TB) favors those who have less bg experience (in terms of wins / achievements / hk's). This is not proven btw.

How does blizzard plan to address this? By adding the rewards for a win, trying to lure in the top pvp'rs into the BG. So the best thing you can do now is win trade, which is illegal. Well just stand there and don't fight back then, that's legal. And cap it back next round (assuming you play at the underpopulated faction). I haven't boxed TB yet, but if we defend, hell i'm gonna /sleep in a corner. A few days and i'll be fully geared from honor.

Am I the only one who think this is bs and ridiculous?

[Shodokan]

Link to full list (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2127-Upcoming-Class-Changes-December-27-Hotfixes)

And i quote:

"Tol Barad

Winning as an attacker now rewards players with 1800 Honor Points, up from 180. Winning as a defender still rewards players with 180 Honor Points."

So everyone who has been playing tol barad should know it's totally broken. On my realm alliance outnumbers horde 3:1 at least. Whereas both factions have both around 10 guilds each in the server top 20, the alliance has almost 90% of the guilds from 21-80 (wow progress). It means that there is way more 'decent' alliance queuing up than horde. Yet we've been holding Tol Barad for 2 weeks now, only first week alliance had it now and then.

The real top players who wanted TB rep to exalted for a rep item (caster trinket someone?) have reached it by now. Those players generally are able to read the BG, and they can follow a certain strategy.

I start to feel sorry lately for those decent alliance players who try to win. They are just getting teamed up by an incredible amount of morons. My point being: if the faction that is underpopulated and has less 'average' decent players can hold tol barad for 2 weeks straight, there is something terrible wrong with the design of the BG. It was exactly the same with the WG patch where they would get rid of the buff (name escapes me atm). The underpopulated faction has better chances to win. A simplified example: lets assume 50% of the players are tards, and the other 50% are capable. Let's consider a 3:1 alliance to horde ratio, where 40 horde queue up and 120 alliance, which means that horde is gonna play with 20 tards and 20 decent players, but chances are very likely for alliance (50%) that they end up with more than 20 tards, as they have a pool of 60 to chose from. On top of that, quite some reports have been shown on the web that the queue priority system of blizzard for wg (and TB) favors those who have less bg experience (in terms of wins / achievements / hk's). This is not proven btw.

How does blizzard plan to address this? By adding the rewards for a win, trying to lure in the top pvp'rs into the BG. So the best thing you can do now is win trade, which is illegal. Well just stand there and don't fight back then, that's legal. And cap it back next round (assuming you play at the underpopulated faction). I haven't boxed TB yet, but if we defend, hell i'm gonna /sleep in a corner. A few days and i'll be fully geared from honor.

Am I the only one who think this is bs and ridiculous?

There is a bluepost saying that over the next week they are re-evaluating TB and will be working on a fix the following week. They've said they know that the battle is lopsided and are going to do something to fix it. (i personally think it will be another tenacity BS again based on amount of losses in a row)

[Svpernova09]

I think this change (for better or worse) is to push people to take it more serious when attacking. This may directly lead to defense not even caring, because they know they can just farm honor flipping it back and forth every time it comes up.

[Kalros]

Yes, this is the one part of Cataclysm that I am very disappointed with. Did they not do any testing on TB in the Beta?! I can forgive Blizzard for this oversight since they are normally so good about not releasing anything until it meets up to their quality standards, but I sure would have liked to hear SOMETHING by now from them regarding an incoming fix, and no, not just extra honor for successfully attacking.

[Svpernova09]

Yes, this is the one part of Cataclysm that I am very disappointed with. Did they not do any testing on TB in the Beta?! I can forgive Blizzard for this oversight since they are normally so good about not releasing anything until it meets up to their quality standards, but I sure would have liked to hear SOMETHING by now from them regarding an incoming fix, and no, not just extra honor for successfully attacking.

There was extensive TB testing on the beta, at one point a battle was occurring every 15 minutes. Each one I did I never saw more than 10-15 people on each side. Can't blame the devs here, only the testers for not getting out there.

[Shodokan]

I think this change (for better or worse) is to push people to take it more serious when attacking. This may directly lead to defense not even caring, because they know they can just farm honor flipping it back and forth every time it comes up.

Basically their stance right now is to win-trade to maxamize honor while they fix their mistake.

[zenga]

Can't blame the devs here, only the testers for not getting out there.

Of course you can blame the devs for not organizing proper testing. If a certain (major) feature in the game requires 80 vs 89 players, than they should make sure it's been tested extensively before releasing it. When that can't be done by volunteers on the fly, they should pay people to do so on a fixed day.

Blizzard is a standard in the gaming industry, I'm a happy wow customer. But the way some things seems to be done in the gaming industry ... I don't think they would get away with that if they were to develop applications in the real world. Ever since the release of 4.0.1 I have the feeling to be a tester who has to pay to fine tune their product. A simple example: I still can't queue up for more than 1 specific bg at a time. This bug happens on many toons, but not all. And gm's say there is nothing they can do. Just think back about all the bugs over the past 2-3 months, since people seem to forget this pretty fast (slow flyer after icc / toc wipe; horseman event that would lock out and freeze your raid, people being stuck in bg's for ages, random booting from a bg, not being able to join a bg that pops; ... etc). I'm playing wow now for almost 1,5 year, and to me it just feels that the quality of the game I was impressed with at the start is no longer there.

[Apps]

A close friend of mine, operates a GM toon on occasion, for his rotation.

He told me about this upcoming change. I understand it, and I think its a fantastic new idea. Heres how its intended to work.

Problem: Unbalanced servers generally control or maintain control of World PVP areas... thus leaving one faction forever trailing in gear and progression, and perpetuating the unbalance.

Solution: At the same time, slightly discourage a current holder, and encourage an attacker. If say, the Horde occupy at the start of a battle, the horde are less likely to work too hard, knowing they are only going to get 180 pts... they may allow a loss better, and upon the following battle, be very aggressive to get 1800. I.e. 1800 every two rotations is far better and quicker than maintaining a foothold.

this solution promotes better balance within the factions, amongst several other better opportunities to gear up faster, and allow more time to gather additional gear upgrades for the Raid instances, rather than attempting to hurry to get one more enchant, gem, or heroic, vendor gear. A Longer break in between "rotations" will yield more of a gear change too.

[zenga]

A close friend of mine, operates a GM toon on occasion, for his rotation.

He told me about this upcoming change. I understand it, and I think its a fantastic new idea. Heres how its intended to work..

I think it's a very stupid idea that conflicts with a basic gaming theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma). To me claiming that it's a fantastic idea is ignoring that the design of the bg is flawed. What they did now is admitting it, but instead of fixing the design they come up with a stupid rule, a rule that won't attract better players to join the bg to increase the chances for winning but even more 'casuals and afkrs' to not miss out on the honor. One might cover up a bad product by smart marketing for a while, but eventually even the most naive buyers will see the product is bad. The only way to solve the current situation is to reset TB every other 2-3-4 battles, where no one is defending or attacking; but where it's just a matter of holding most keeps to win at the end of bg and defend the next one. The alternative is redesigning TB from scratch.

[outdrsyguy1]

i agree, this is a silly rule that will just have it flip flop constantly, and the win is expected, and not a reward. terrible change. they def need to rewrite TB

[Apps]

Zenga, I think I get what you are trying to say, but Im not sure.

what is the "basic gaming theory"? Is this something in writing and a law or something like that?

The solution is actually already in place. It was copied from the PVP holds in Hellfire. There is a repeatable quest that offers PVP rewards upon a set capture, for each faction. If the Alliance hold all three, other than farming honor, whats the incentive to keep it?

In the case of TB, there is an Instance attached to winning and control. I believe... (my opinion), from purely catering to the masses of a business; blizzard is trying to make the dungeon available to everyone, more often.

Example; Servers that have a large faction population difference, maintain VoA. If a player were of the lesser populated faction, wouldnt this be grossly unfair, as he/she can not control the server population, and thus is denied a portion of the game which he/she pays for?

Course this is only my opinion, and it matters nothing to anyone but me. Im ok with that. :) I still think the solution is "thinking outside the box", and is a fantastic step. Whether it stays or gets modified further is yet to be determined.

:)

[Boylston]

what is the "basic gaming theory"? Is this something in writing and a law or something like that?


Game theory is a very specialized branch of applied mathematics that is very useful for a broad variety of disciplines. Economics, pure science, psychology, biology, and yes, computer games like this one.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a classic example of a Game Theory problem.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I find it improper that the best stratagy for maximum advancement is to lose, because I play to win.

[Tonuss]

Of course you can blame the devs for not organizing proper testing. If a certain (major) feature in the game requires 80 vs 89 players, than they should make sure it's been tested extensively before releasing it. When that can't be done by volunteers on the fly, they should pay people to do so on a fixed day.
Blizzard is in a position where taking the lazy way out (pushing poorly-tested content to live and letting players pay to test it) is the most efficient solution, in the purely practical sense. This is a company that is riding on record sales after record sales and will probably record another set of record sales when D3 ships. We'll beta test TB on live servers for them, and both they and we know it.

[Apps]

Game theory is a very specialized branch of applied mathematics that is very useful for a broad variety of disciplines. Economics, pure science, psychology, biology, and yes, computer games like this one.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a classic example of a Game Theory problem.


Cool! I just learned something there. I read the entire article on Game Theory, and the one for The Prisioner's Dilemma.

Since this one was cited, I think its quite possibly most appropriate to Game Theory now, and what Blizzard is proposing.
I.e. If the Horde and Alliance work together, and alternate, they both win. If the one defending TB holds, they win, but only slightly. Similarly to the ...



CooperateDefectCooperate-1, -1-10, 0Defect0, -10-5, -5
http://www.beyondintractability.org/images/aha/Game_Theory_prisoners-dilemma.gif
The Prisoner's Dilemma
On the other hand, some scholars see game theory not as a predictive tool for the behavior of human beings, but as a suggestion for how people ought to behave. Since a Nash equilibrium (http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/Nash_equilibrium) of a game constitutes one's best response (http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/Best_response) to the actions of the other players, playing a strategy that is part of a Nash equilibrium seems appropriate. However, this use for game theory has also come under criticism. First, in some cases it is appropriate to play a non-equilibrium strategy if one expects others to play non-equilibrium strategies as well. For an example, see Guess 2/3 of the average (http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average).

[zenga]

Just won a TB while attacking. A few screenies to support my point.
So we (horde) are far outnumbered on our server. We've been holding TB in the last 14 days all the time. One way or another someone misread the post on mmo champ and though hotfix was already live, so they convinced the horde to lose deliberately.

Screen 1 (http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8960/wowscrnshot122810182105.jpg) Screen 2 (http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6573/wowscrnshot122810182120.jpg)

20 minutes later ...

Screen 3 (http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/8396/wowscrnshot122810183950.jpg)

This while prior to the WG tenacity patch, alliance was holding wg 80% of the time. And when asking around this seems to be the case on many many servers.

[zenga]

Cool! I just learned something there. I read the entire article on Game Theory, and the one for The Prisioner's Dilemma.

Since this one was cited, I think its quite possibly most appropriate to Game Theory now, and what Blizzard is proposing.
I.e. If the Horde and Alliance work together, and alternate, they both win. If the one defending TB holds, they win, but only slightly. Similarly to the ...

I believe you are confusing things here:
Alternating wins = defect /cooperate (1 side plays to win, other sides plays to lose)
The reward for cooperate / cooperate (both sides play to win) should always be bigger for both sides than the rewards for defect/cooperate.

I prefer to play games that are cooperate / cooperate, else they might just give us the gear or send us the honorpoints by mail. What sam said a few posts earlier is hitting the nail on the head (if that is proper English).

The idea that blizzard goes for a defect/cooperate approach here is just ridiculous. Luckily it won't last long, as it won't change shit. Eventually they'll have to change/fix something fundamental.

[Ualaa]

I'd think, each time you lose the battle (and every attacking side has lost at least once) the sides should be skewed by +/- 5 players or so. So that in each subsequent losing battle, the attackers get a slight (but cummulative) edge.

And once they win, and become the defenders, set the other side back to only +5 players.

So if 30 horde and 100 alliance queue...
If the horde are defending, go with 30 Horde / 35 Alliance (and add +5 Alliance, each battle until the Alliance wins).
If the alliance are defending, go with 30 Horde / 25 Alliance (and decrease the Alliance by -5, each battle until the Horde wins).
That is assuming, a constant 30/100 player ratio.

The trick would be encouraging equal numbers to participate on both factions.




Ideally, you can enter as a group of five, but no larger.
The game looks at the average BG/Arena internal rating of all the players involved (queuing) on both sides.
And then divides the entire group into two balanced sides, with either equal participants or one side has the extra player; call them Red team and Blue team.

That kind of defeats the horde vs alliance thing.
But every BG/TB etc., would be balanced in terms of total numbers and average rating level on both sides.

[Apps]

yeah, I see what youre getting at Zenga. I was looking at the alternating as cooperate / cooperate... I.e. you win, they win, you win , they win. Perhaps I am way over thinking this. Even now, as I rethink it, seeming to say a win, loss, win, loss as working together (Cooperating), might be a stretch because the opposing faction may decide to defect, and thus its win, loss, loss, loss.

dunno. I think my buddy may have been overly excited about it, since its new to the game.

Regardless, it tends to reason that there is still work yet to be done. I now think Tonuss is onto them.

[Tonuss]

I'd think, each time you lose the battle (and every attacking side has lost at least once) the sides should be skewed by +/- 5 players or so. So that in each subsequent losing battle, the attackers get a slight (but cummulative) edge.
I always saw this as a better option for WG, and I can see it as a good option for TB. Add +5 slots to the losing side for the next battle, after a minimum of XX players join for each side. In other words, if you lose, the next time you get +5 player slots so that you can have a 5-player advantage, but only after ten or fifteen players have joined. That keeps it from being seven versus two or something equally silly. If you lose with a +5 advantage, then it's +10 the next time, and +15 the time after that. Then it resets, because if you can't win with +15 players then frankly, you really don't deserve it.

I would really rather that they simplify these "open-zone" PVP events, though. Why not just make it a resource race? Three towers, each faction begins at opposite ends of the map. You have XX resources that are depleted via player deaths. For each tower you hold, the opposite faction loses one additional resource per kill. The event is over when one side reaches zero or 30 minutes are up. If the game is tied after 30 minutes, winner is the faction that got the final kill. Your goals are entirely defined by killing the other players and avoiding death. Your secondary goal simply makes the killing more profitable. Holding the control points is only useful if you kill other players. The win condition makes it imperative that you go fucking berserk if the timer is running out on a close game.

It's PVP. Let the players do just that.

[Zub]

sounds like they are rewarding for losing TB every second game.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Would you rather have the expansion delay another two months and not have players beta test it?

Anyone complaining about the lack of finish has to except more delay.

[genghiskhan]

I agree with sam, if you want a finished product then you should be fine with a release date of say, 12/20/12. This is how wow has always worked. Xpac releases unfinished, they spend 2 years fixing it while releasing new content and fixing that, then BAM! New xpac! Cycle starts again...

[Mosg2]

I think everyone is overstating how buggy things and underselling how much work got done for the Cata release. None of the bugs mentioned are game breakers--Nothing prevents you from playing the game and most are nuisances. Expansions are huge. They take the work of thousands of people. Getting all of that coordinated and pushed out somewhere near "on-time" is a huge accomplishment.

On topic:

I read in beta that the plan was to give the attacker a slight advantage that ramps up for each offensive game you lose. I know they said that tenacity is right out--Most likely this means increased numbers for the attacking side. I'm all for this. Overall I love Tol Barad--It's their best attempt yet at world pvp. Have you tried to do dailies right after a game? :) It's crazy!

[zenga]

So win trading is happening on my realm. My first battle of the day, horde (we) were attacking. Capped TB within 2 minutes. Wonder what they going to do know. I went in with the intentions to fight alliance and have a normal battle. No way I can get punished for the win trading of others. Yet alone that it's even remotely doable to pick out the players who are actually causing the win trade.

so even getting worse:

-> they made a design error with a BG
-> wasn't properly tested or they would've noticed the flaws
-> the decided to rectify it with a reward rule which ignores gaming theory
-> the outcome is a ban-able situation (win-trading) that is not possible to check/enforce
-> inflation of the honor points

jaj

[Sbrowne55]

Zenga I totally agree, the last few months all I feel like I have been doing is trying to fix shit. Spending a good portion of my time on bliz tech forums trouble shhoting bugs, and lag issues. Along with the major changes with classes and now nerfs I'm frustrated. I may just play some console games instead

[Apps]

There has been quite a lot of rumor and opinion discussion on a lot of other boards n fourms which indicate blizz rushed Cata to counter the release of KotOR. With all the content issues, I think im begining to agree with this rumor.

[blast3r]

Okay, so from now on...if you are red you are dead. So stay away from me unless you want me to get points. :)

[Bigfish]

I'm about to hop on the " go play something else then" bandwagon, as far as my feeling towards this thread goes. It's like every new expansion release people have to be reminded mmo releases are buggy by nature, and we've done this same dance three times before in WoW alone.

I hear ffxiv is looking for players.

[zenga]

Bigfish, you miss the point of the thread. It's about the flaw in the design and a stupid counter measure. Not about a bug. The 'bug' statements popped in when svpernova stated that it's the testers their fault that TB wasn't tested properly.

We can discuss things here, can't we?

[Bigfish]

Buggy, misbalanced, whatever. The point still stands that we should all be well aware the pirates were going to come alive and eat the tourists. Want to complain about it? Fine, but you're not getting any sympathy from me.

[zenga]

Do you really believe that I post this to vent frustration/complaints, or even better, to get your sympathy? One can also start a thread to discuss something, exchange views. And I've put an effort in explaining my views. Just like the other posters here. What do you say? Go play another game. Nothing but trolling mate. It's through comments like yours that topics derail, and after that any sense to discuss a topic in an intellectual honest way is gone. If you don't understand that simple principle, maybe posting on a forum ain't your cup of tea.

[Mukade]

The more I play WoW the more I get the impression that the game's dev team are a bunch of art school frat boys, with very little understanding of actual game coding or design beyond the purely aesthetic, and very little understanding of how people interract in the real world (Why the PvP in the game is seriously lacking in many respects).

Sucess has most certainly gone to their heads, as they are unwilling to accept and act on criticism, are largely ignorant of the community, and must go their own way instead of using proven and effective methods of game development and management.

The list of ill concieved additions to the game that facilitate or encourage griefing or cheating is always increasing, while the obvious method of controlling them, ie giving GMs the ability to actually moderate players, and not just act as in game customer support, seems to be beyond Blizzard, because even if a player is an a-hole, they are a paying a-hole, so Bliz stand to lose out doubly if they have to pay and train GMs, and have them ban players.

Testing is where they fall down in a big way. PTRs are not a suitable place to test game features, as they are not an accurate representation of what happens on live servers, with players split between many servers, and not drawn in by the novelty of what is being tested to the point where they will tolerate faults to a much greater degree. Proper organised play testing with a proper reporting system would give much more useful information, but of course, that is another area where costs are cut. Valve are a great example of a company that understands how to conduct effective play testing, and it shows in their games.

WoW is a success only in terms of the number of players it has, and resultingly, the amount of money it's making for it's shareholders.

Among the gaming press and gaming community at large, it is far from being noteworthy for any other reasons, and is largely seen as a joke.

[Bigfish]

Do you often accuse anyone who disagrees with you trolling? Seems to me a simple non-response would have sufficed just as well. At this point, you seem to have derailed the topic yourself by trying by trying to ad hominem me.

But back ON TOPIC, do you have a counter argument to PvP being a buggy, imbalanced affair that perverts incentives and that after 6 years, expectations of anything else is just silly?

Or do you just want to play internet tough guy some more?

[jinkobi]

The more I play WoW the more I get the impression that the game's dev team are a bunch of art school frat boys, with very little understanding of actual game coding or design beyond the purely aesthetic, and very little understanding of how people interract in the real world (Why the PvP in the game is seriously lacking in many respects).

Sucess has most certainly gone to their heads, as they are unwilling to accept and act on criticism, are largely ignorant of the community, and must go their own way instead of using proven and effective methods of game development and management.

The list of ill concieved additions to the game that facilitate or encourage griefing or cheating is always increasing, while the obvious method of controlling them, ie giving GMs the ability to actually moderate players, and not just act as in game customer support, seems to be beyond Blizzard, because even if a player is an a-hole, they are a paying a-hole, so Bliz stand to lose out doubly if they have to pay and train GMs, and have them ban players.

Testing is where they fall down in a big way. PTRs are not a suitable place to test game features, as they are not an accurate representation of what happens on live servers, with players split between many servers, and not drawn in by the novelty of what is being tested to the point where they will tolerate faults to a much greater degree. Proper organised play testing with a proper reporting system would give much more useful information, but of course, that is another area where costs are cut. Valve are a great example of a company that understands how to conduct effective play testing, and it shows in their games.

WoW is a success only in terms of the number of players it has, and resultingly, the amount of money it's making for it's shareholders.

Among the gaming press and gaming community at large, it is far from being noteworthy for any other reasons, and is largely seen as a joke.

Well... WOW pretty much created the model for the modern day MMORPG. Let's give credit where credit is due. They were groundbreaking.

These days I feel like the game has a huge flaw. This flaw is how WOW expansions work and I have come to realize it isn't fun. I've started from scratch in TBC, WOTLK, and I still haven't bought Cata. The changes while awesome- the starting from scratch once again got to me this time. Still WOW is very hard to walk away from and I keep tabs on the game and still come to Dualboxing because I like you guys. Not in a gay way though :D

Renewed my main account to just fart around. Still can't seem to get into the game. Kind of sucks, lol. It's weird since I still love WOW at heart- just don't feel like playing. Maybe I'm just burnt on WOW.

Wish WOW's expansions were done differently. For example City of Heroes. They come out with new content constantly without raising the leveling cap. It's a bit complicated to explain in just a few lines but you never feel like you're starting from scratch. Basically they come out with harder taskforces/dungeons and give you the ability to become more powerful to compensate. Also you can adjust taskforce/dungeon difficulty infinitely. Want a more challenging mission just change the difficulty.

What I see is WOW becoming free to play before the next expansion. Then they'll sell expansions and BS making even more money than they are now.

/rant off

What were we talking about again? lol

[Bigfish]

The more I play WoW the more I get the impression that the game's dev team are a bunch of art school frat boys, with very little understanding of actual game coding or design beyond the purely aesthetic, and very little understanding of how people interract in the real world (Why the PvP in the game is seriously lacking in many respects).

Sucess has most certainly gone to their heads, as they are unwilling to accept and act on criticism, are largely ignorant of the community, and must go their own way instead of using proven and effective methods of game development and management.

The list of ill concieved additions to the game that facilitate or encourage griefing or cheating is always increasing, while the obvious method of controlling them, ie giving GMs the ability to actually moderate players, and not just act as in game customer support, seems to be beyond Blizzard, because even if a player is an a-hole, they are a paying a-hole, so Bliz stand to lose out doubly if they have to pay and train GMs, and have them ban players.

Testing is where they fall down in a big way. PTRs are not a suitable place to test game features, as they are not an accurate representation of what happens on live servers, with players split between many servers, and not drawn in by the novelty of what is being tested to the point where they will tolerate faults to a much greater degree. Proper organised play testing with a proper reporting system would give much more useful information, but of course, that is another area where costs are cut. Valve are a great example of a company that understands how to conduct effective play testing, and it shows in their games.

WoW is a success only in terms of the number of players it has, and resultingly, the amount of money it's making for it's shareholders.

Among the gaming press and gaming community at large, it is far from being noteworthy for any other reasons, and is largely seen as a joke.


A lot of those points can be disarmed with a simple "damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach, especially when it comes to any concept of human interaction. Base PvP on how people actually behave? Players complain about jerkwads and outnumbering. Base PvP on trying to get a certain outcome? Players complain about balancing and unfair advantages.

And GMs moderating players? Please. That's just another way of saying "I don't like some guy, some guy needs banned", as if multiboxers don't top that list amongst a great deal of people. GMs can and do suspend people. They just don't send you a message that they did so.

Your entire post boils down to "WoW is the worst MMO out there, except for all the other ones". Well, its also filled with vague euphamisms for how development resources should be spent, which I'm sure they'll take in to consideration once they finish perusing your resume and weigh in all the game devekopment experience you have.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Overall seems to me everything is great. New zones look amazing, and you can fly most anywhere. I don't quest so I could care less about quests and by the time I am 85 I am sure the things will be fixed.

Don't forget Furor works for Blizzard and he was one of the top raiders in EQ1, so its not just people who have never played the game.

Ok there are some issues that need correction but overall the release seems to me to be almost flawless.

I have all but nothing to complain about.

[genghiskhan]

@bigfish Cant we all just get high?

[Mosg2]

Now on KJ here's what you see:

On defensive battles both sides que up about 15 people. On offensive battles you see 100+ from both sides. This results in a virtually-unplayable game for both sides--I've gotten two toons into a game que'ing for 6 TB's so far.

[Nsaeyn]

I agree. I can never get anyone into a TB game. What a mess. I remember back when they announced Wintergrasp and how it was going to be this open environment that was "True PVP" now it is just a lame bg that one can fly over. YEAH! Just scrap the idea if you can't build it right and put more effort into bg maps. I think they should release new maps every month and teams should start in different areas randomly. That would make each game unique even if it was the same map and type. Look at how they keep halo fresh.

A note: most of the time I have a max of 5 on 5 in my Wintergrasp due to the balance issue on my server.

[Slats]

What they need to do is take the idea of Diablo random dungeon generation and apply it to PvP Maps. Have osme core rules about certian points can't be more than x yards from each other and use some kind of symmetry checking so that neither sie is too lucky in getting a map that favors them.

That way they would always be fresh.

[Ualaa]

I like that idea, quite a bit.

[Mercbeast]

Well... WOW pretty much created the model for the modern day MMORPG. Let's give credit where credit is due. They were groundbreaking.

These days I feel like the game has a huge flaw. This flaw is how WOW expansions work and I have come to realize it isn't fun. I've started from scratch in TBC, WOTLK, and I still haven't bought Cata. The changes while awesome- the starting from scratch once again got to me this time. Still WOW is very hard to walk away from and I keep tabs on the game and still come to Dualboxing because I like you guys. Not in a gay way though :D

Renewed my main account to just fart around. Still can't seem to get into the game. Kind of sucks, lol. It's weird since I still love WOW at heart- just don't feel like playing. Maybe I'm just burnt on WOW.

Wish WOW's expansions were done differently. For example City of Heroes. They come out with new content constantly without raising the leveling cap. It's a bit complicated to explain in just a few lines but you never feel like you're starting from scratch. Basically they come out with harder taskforces/dungeons and give you the ability to become more powerful to compensate. Also you can adjust taskforce/dungeon difficulty infinitely. Want a more challenging mission just change the difficulty.

What I see is WOW becoming free to play before the next expansion. Then they'll sell expansions and BS making even more money than they are now.

/rant off

What were we talking about again? lol

No, WoW did not. If anything Everquest did. About 95% of the MMO's on the market today can trace their ultimate inspiration in the MMO genre to EQ and the diku mud fundamentals that game was based on. If anyone says "Ultimate Online" I'd have to disagree, while UO was the first real MMO on the market, UO and its sandbox style of game play has been essentially extinct since EQ released. There have been a few attempts into the sandbox market by small budget essentially amateur start up teams and I think that is a large market that is therefore basically untouched. The safe money was to copy EQ, and then to progress to copying WoW. Although, maybe it isn't such a safe bet since almost every MMO that has gone that route with the exception of just a few have failed spectacularly.

The guy who ultimately designed WoW is Jeff Kaplan, he was the guild leader of a guild called Legacy of Steel, along with Fires of Heaven and Afterlife. Those guilds were the big three in EQ. Legacy of Steel happened to have 4 or 5 Blizzard artists/programmers in it, Tigole, or Jeff Kaplan got a position with Blizzard and eventually went on to design WoW.

What he did, was take EQ, and remove all the aspects of the game he hated. Open world raid content, which prevented 99.9% of the player base from ever experiencing it. Gone. Consequences for dying, gone, no more 4 hour corpse runs or 4 hours of grinding gone. Leveling up via grinding, removed, replaced with questing.

What we can credit WoW with, is being far and away the most successful MMO to date, the easiest MMO to play and achieve success in, to date. It took Everquest and refined it and released a game with a high degree of polish. Personally I would argue whether WoW is an actual improvement in the genre over EQ, or DAOC or any of the diku mud derivatives because I don't equate catering to the lowest possible denominator as "improvement" rather I would say it is successful.

The way they run expansions is both brilliant and frustrating. It is brilliant because people who have quit the game can return and be on equal footing with everyone else. It is frustrating for people who have devoted hundreds if not thousands of hours of their lives to be on the cutting edge of the game and content progression for the past 2 years. At the end of the day, Blizzard follows the path of least resistance on all things. There is more money to be had by resetting the game every 2 years than to create an insular environment where a small cadre of players get further and further ahead of the curve with each expansion.

I have a love hate relationship with Blizzard. I generally hate their games because they are neither particularly innovative, or complex. I imagine in 10 years we will be looking at Starcraft 3, Warcraft 5, and Diablo 5, I'd be shocked if they added any more IP to their collection, or rather stole anymore :p I love them because they always manage to release a quality, highly polished product which aside from Bioware(Pre EA) didn't exist in the market.

[Maxion]

I have a love hate relationship with Blizzard. I generally hate their games because they are neither particularly innovative, or complex. I imagine in 10 years we will be looking at Starcraft 3, Warcraft 5, and Diablo 5, I'd be shocked if they added any more IP to their collection, or rather stole anymore :p I love them because they always manage to release a quality, highly polished product which aside from Bioware(Pre EA) didn't exist in the market.

Then I guess you can already color yourself shocked, since they are releasing a new IP in the next 1-2 years ;)
Or knowing their habit of delays, perhaps a bit longer.

[Tonuss]

WoW is a success only in terms of the number of players it has, and resultingly, the amount of money it's making for it's shareholders.
So it's "only" a success in two of the primary measures of success for any business?

I think they can live with that.

[Tonuss]

Don't forget Furor works for Blizzard and he was one of the top raiders in EQ1, so its not just people who have never played the game.
So was Tigole. And ironically, both of them used to frequently post rants on their guild websites ripping the EQ dev team. Now they're on the other end of it. It'd be interesting to see how the experience has affected their point of view.

I'll say this for them, many people complain about the game and how it sucks or how it could be improved. Blizzard seems to have a lot of people who were given the chance to make a better game, and they did. For however many flaws it has, it has remained an entertaining game and a relatively cheap way to spend a few hours a month or week or day.

[Toned]

Our server has win trading basically setup. The defense side almost never queues... which means offense never gets in. Thus the 4395734975934573489573945 people standing on the bridge waiting to rush in at the end for honor. it's epic lols. Rep and I basically replaced all our gear this weekend with full pvp gear. Thanks to the TB hotfix that hands out free gear.

[Apps]

What they need to do is take the idea of Diablo random dungeon generation and apply it to PvP Maps. Have osme core rules about certian points can't be more than x yards from each other and use some kind of symmetry checking so that neither sie is too lucky in getting a map that favors them.

That way they would always be fresh.

This is actually a great idea. I like this. ^^

[ebony]

been hotfixed about a hour a go to 360 now if you win.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1417737786

[Toned]

EDIT: US hotfixed as well.

[zenga]

Originally Posted by Zarhym (Source (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/148681/tol-barad-honor-change))
As you’re probably aware by now, an update was applied to Tol Barad shortly before the holidays which granted the attacking side 1800 Honor Points for a victory. While the goal with that change was to provide more incentive for the attacking forces to claim victory, it ultimately led to an undermining of the spirit of competition in Tol Barad. We’ve just applied a hotfix which has lowered the attacking faction’s gain to 360 Honor Points for a victory. The defending faction will still earn 180 Honor Points for a victory.

We appreciate all of your feedback regarding this change. We'll continue working to make Tol Barad a fun and engaging PvP environment.

Whats the word on the bridge exploit?
We're working on a fix for this right now.

They still don't seem to get it that they need to fix the design rather than fooling around with rewards. One would expect that 2/2 fails would open their eyes ...