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[Angry Grimace]

What RP? Don't you have to click a pumpkin and wait a few secs for him to talk and spawn? Nothing worth complaining about. I remember the huge bug from last year when people were just pointing at the damn pumpkin and getting disconnected. Raaage.

He talks, spawns, then talks more. You burn him down, and then he talks more and pulls out pumpkin guys to AoE. Then he talks more and comes back. I guess it's not really RP so much as he just moves around and does a bunch of trivial things that make it at least marginally more time consuming. It's not really annoying until you have 8 characters spamming it for the mount.

@DeathNote - I don't have the exact numbers on it, but I have far more Brewfest mounts than Horseman's mounts, so I can only assume it's rarer. They should just add a permanent Reindeer mount to the Christmas holiday.

 

[strafer]

And Sylvanas and Greymane is up to something too, kinda excited to see what it is.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

if it get it at all, i'm gonna get it on a character i don't want to play, i just know it

yes, reindeer mount please

 

[Angry Grimace]

Okay WoW-GAF, Blizzcon is only days away. What are you expecting at Blizzcon in terms of WoW and what do you expect?

I think it's pretty much impossible for them to not have an expansion. I think there will be a new class, 5 new levels, and some new zones like Kul Tiras, Pandaria, etc. I doubt it will actually be named "Mists of Pandaria," but I think Pandaria will be in the game and the Pandaren's role will be about the same as the Walrus people in Borean Tundra.

I think we'll be seeing new character models and some updates to the game's engine as well.

 

[Einchy]

I'd be really disappointed if we didn't get new character models.

 

[Rokal]

I would hope to see weapons finally integrated into casting animations. It feels so weird to play a caster in WoW after seeing Rift do it.

What am I expecting though? 10 new levels, a new class, no new races, name will remain Mists of Pandaria.

I'm sort of expecting that they're be returning to easier-balanced content too, but I don't know if they'd address that at Blizzcon. Hoping I'm wrong, as the heroic 5-mans at launch were a lot of fun and T11 was balanced perfectly for me.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I would hope to see weapons finally integrated into casting animations. It feels so weird to play a caster in WoW after seeing Rift do it.

What am I expecting though? 10 new levels, a new class, no new races, name will remain Mists of Pandaria.

I'm sort of expecting that they're be returning to easier-balanced content too, but I don't know if they'd address that at Blizzcon. Hoping I'm wrong, as the heroic 5-mans at launch were a lot of fun and T11 was balanced perfectly for me.

It seems like returning to the Burning Legion is the best option, but they're avoiding it for no real reason. We've only really got three recognizable big bads left; Aszhara, Kil'jaeden and Sargeras. No, I didn't forget the Old Gods they just made up and pasted into various expansions.

I think it's going to be really awkward if there's no new class.

 

[Bisnic]

I'd be really disappointed if we didn't get new character models.

Yeah, this. They gave us better skyboxes starting with BC, better shadows in WOTLK and better water in Cataclysm. What's left to upgrade other than character models? Sure, it's a much bigger task than simply upgrading water, but it has to be done.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Yeah, this. They gave us better skyboxes starting with BC, better shadows in WOTLK and better water in Cataclysm. What's left to upgrade other than character models? Sure, it's a much bigger task than simply upgrading water, but it has to be done.

I'm not totally certain what makes it such a big task...is it redoing the way gear fits on the characters?

 

[Bisnic]

I'm not totally certain what makes it such a big task...is it redoing the way gear fits on the characters?

Well that, and probably making models that isn't going to piss off a lot of players... although that WILL happen whatever they do. "waaah i dont like how u made my new orc head change it back plox".
Same shit happened when they changed druid forms. Ex: "all i see is my huge bear ass now". Night elf druid says : "my male druid looks like he's female in cat form QQ"

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Okay WoW-GAF, Blizzcon is only days away. What are you expecting at Blizzcon in terms of WoW and what do you expect?

I think it's pretty much impossible for them to not have an expansion. I think there will be a new class, 5 new levels, and some new zones like Kul Tiras, Pandaria, etc. I doubt it will actually be named "Mists of Pandaria," but I think Pandaria will be in the game and the Pandaren's role will be about the same as the Walrus people in Borean Tundra.

I think we'll be seeing new character models and some updates to the game's engine as well.

I'm pretty much in agreement with you but I'm not expecting a new class from this expansion. My biggest hope is new character models.

Also, does anyone have a Scroll of Resurrection they can send my way? I'll give my e-mail address in case you need it through PM.

 

[Dexa]

expansion without at least a new class and a whole new continent is a disappointment.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I'm pretty much in agreement with you but I'm not expecting a new class from this expansion. My biggest hope is new character models.

Also, does anyone have a Scroll of Resurrection they can send my way? I'll give my e-mail address in case you need it through PM.

The problem is that if you don't get a new class, there's no incentive to play beyond more of the same shit we got from every other expansion unless there's some crazy overhaul of the core way World of Warcraft works or plays.

Can you really see people coming back from not playing if they say, "hey, your character looks marginally different now!"

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm pretty much in agreement with you but I'm not expecting a new class from this expansion. My biggest hope is new character models.

Also, does anyone have a Scroll of Resurrection they can send my way? I'll give my e-mail address in case you need it through PM.

Melee-based healer? The Field Surgeon.

I say 5 new levels, a singular new continent (with maybe some new areas pasted elsewhere), and perhaps a focus more on PvP than previous expansions (though this may not happen with the missteps that have occurred in the raiding world.)


And if you need a scroll (and are U.S.), you can PM whoever either your email address, or a Character Name + Realm.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Melee-based healer? The Field Surgeon.

I say 5 new levels, a singular new continent (with maybe some new areas pasted elsewhere), and perhaps a focus more on PvP than previous expansions (though this may not happen with the missteps that have occurred in the raiding world.)


And if you need a scroll (and are U.S.), you can PM whoever either your email address, or a Character Name + Realm.

Obviously, nobody will stop talking about monks, but I don't know. Maybe if they could do heals/tanks/dps...I mean, we've got 4 tanks, 4 heals and 4 pure dps right now.

I don't think you're going to see any real focus on PvP in the expansion for the sole reason that people who PvP probably don't quit for the same reasons as PvE players, which is what expansions tend to alleviate.

 

[Rokam]

Want to buy Shadow Hunter. Casting tree, Healing Tree, Ranged DPS tree uses Bows/Thrown. Too bad Warlock, Hunter, and Shaman are already in game , I just want to be a badass like Vol'Jin.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Obviously, nobody will stop talking about monks, but I don't know. Maybe if they could do heals/tanks/dps...I mean, we've got 4 tanks, 4 heals and 4 pure dps right now.

I don't think you're going to see any real focus on PvP in the expansion for the sole reason that people who PvP probably don't quit for the same reasons as PvE players, which is what expansions tend to alleviate.

I guess you're right in that sense. For the most part, PvP is more sport-like than PvE - the Arena or Battleground is just a playing field/pitch/what have you and there can be countless scenarios that play out on them. Football doesn't need a new map every season to keep things fresh and exciting.

I think I mean that (I hope) there will be an attempt to bring some world PvP objectives back, like Halaa, or the stuff in Silithus (compared to the lesser effects of most of the other world PvP objectives.) Just something that gets max level characters out roaming the world when they're done questing and they don't farm herbs/ore. I think the game is in a dire need of a revitalization like that right now.

Sitting in a dungeon queue is convenient, but it doesn't encourage player to player interaction, which is what I think one of the primary goal of MMOs should be. It's less of a problem at the start of an expansion when the definite best way to do dungeons is with a group you can trust, but becomes more of an issue as time goes on, and you start to experience gear inflation.

As for initial dungeon difficulty - I think the initial tuning of heroics could be turned down a tad - it was fine for me, with a solid group, and probably fine after all the nerfs, but I was done with them before most of those went into effect. T11 raids were I think tuned well in difficulty, but didn't have the most friendly early boss design. 3 out of the first 4 encounters you could do were more complex multi-target, multi-tank fights. Only Magmaw was relatively "simple" in this regard.

For the first tier of an expansion, definitely, the fights should start out with less complexity. Just looking back at Wrath you can see (without listing them all, as it would take awhile) about the first 1/4 of a given raid tier/instance has some pretty simple bosses (at least on normal). Throwing people at Conclave and Omnotron especially - two "council" fights, (Halfus less so - though the weekly randomness here could be frustrating) was not the best design.

 

[Rokal]

I would be very surprised if pvp was emphasized in the next expansion. Their biggest investment in pvp for an expansion so far was Wintergrasp which was a direct response to Warhammer Online. The result was pretty flawed, but they stole some of Warhammer’s thunder. At this point, pvp is even less popular than it was then. MOBA games like League of Legends provide the same sort of pvp gameplay but for free and with better balancing due to their design (no persistent gear, every character has 4 abilities instead of 40, etc.). Statistics about the trend. I'm betting you'll see a new battleground in the next expansion, and a new 'world pvp' objective like Tol'barad. Nothing else.

If you really want to see where the next expansion is going, you should probably just look at their upcoming competition. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an expansion that is marketed as being much more story driven than previous ones.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I would be very surprised if pvp was emphasized in the next expansion. Their biggest investment in pvp for an expansion so far was Wintergrasp which was a direct response to Warhammer Online. The result was pretty flawed, but they stole some of Warhammer’s thunder. At this point, pvp is even less popular than it was then. MOBA games like League of Legends provide the same sort of pvp gameplay but for free and with better balancing due to their design (no persistent gear, every character has 4 abilities instead of 40, etc.). Statistics about the trend. I'm betting you'll see a new battleground in the next expansion, and a new 'world pvp' objective like Tol'barad. Nothing else.

If you really want to see where the next expansion is going, you should probably just look at their upcoming competition. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an expansion that is marketed as being much more story driven than previous ones.

They should have a world PvP objective in every new zone and you have to control 2/3 of them to unlock the VOA dungeon.

Spoiler

not really

 

[strafer]

HA!

Another Hallow's End, another Hallow's End bug.

Last year it was the cogwheel and now it's loot that vanishes if you loot before zoning out.

GG Blizz.

 

[Dot50Cal]

Damnit, The Horseman's Sinister Saber is yet another Agility based weapon. We just had one during Brewfest. Arugghh.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Damnit, The Horseman's Sinister Saber is yet another Agility based weapon. We just had one during Brewfest. Arugghh.

Hope you're a combat rogue

By the way, don't believe anyone that tells you that any of the new 5-man dungeons were tough. They only seem like they're tuned that way because you have a debuff that lowers your gear to 353 regardless of what you wear in on the PTR. They're super easy in any remotely competent group, regardless of what you're wearing.

 

[lordmrw]

Sounds about right. The two that I did when I jumped on the PTR were about average in challenge, the only frustrating element was doing them without my addons like rogue powers bars and comergy and the asshole tank we were saddled with.

 

[Entropia]

Hope you're a combat rogue

By the way, don't believe anyone that tells you that any of the new 5-man dungeons were tough. They only seem like they're tuned that way because you have a debuff that lowers your gear to 353 regardless of what you wear in on the PTR. They're super easy in any remotely competent group, regardless of what you're wearing.

They're suppppppppper easy even with the scaled down gear.

 

[Bisnic]

Damnit, The Horseman's Sinister Saber is yet another Agility based weapon. We just had one during Brewfest. Arugghh.

That weapon was always agility based in past years, so you had to expect this yet again.

Anyway, you'll get better weapons from 4.3 five mans.
And are they that much easier than ZA/ZG when those heroics were new? No bosses with instant kill attacks? No difficult trash pulls? As easy as those from WOTLK?

 

[Angry Grimace]

That weapon was always agility based in past years, so you had to expect this yet again.

Anyway, you'll get better weapons from 4.3 five mans.
And are they that much easier than ZA/ZG when those heroics were new? No bosses with instant kill attacks? No difficult trash pulls? As easy as those from WOTLK?

Well I knew it was since it's been in Atlasloot since 4.2.

 

[TheYanger]

They're suppppppppper easy even with the scaled down gear.

Super buggy too in the case of the well of eternity ;p To be fair, they DID make these marginally harder at some point, but it's mostly the stupid gear buff still. It doesn't scale correctly between classes it feels like, when I go in with my caster friends they can still do like 25k dps, and I'll barely top 20 even on large Ae pulls which is preposterously low. Lose something like 1/3 of my attack power in these dungeons.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Super buggy too in the case of the well of eternity ;p To be fair, they DID make these marginally harder at some point, but it's mostly the stupid gear buff still. It doesn't scale correctly between classes it feels like, when I go in with my caster friends they can still do like 25k dps, and I'll barely top 20 even on large Ae pulls which is preposterously low. Lose something like 1/3 of my attack power in these dungeons.

My recount still doesn't work on PTR last I checked; did they fix that recently?

If it's working, I might go in an check out how Fire Mage is doing; I always liked that spec but it's been (from what I read) literally bottom of the meters since 4.1.

I'd also like to check out whether Destro Lock is back too, those buffs seem like it should be ahead of demo again, but who knows? Destro is pretty complicated as far as rotations go, but once you really get into it, it's kind of like riding a bike.

Edit:

Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest: The chance for this item’s effect to be triggered has been reduced.

Rage incoming

Last Defender of Azeroth - Thrall, now the Earth-Warder of Azeroth, blesses all tanks with the immovable strength of the ancient stones of the world. Reduces defensive cooldowns by 50% and increases defensive ability durations by 100%.

Fucking Metzen.

 

[devildog820]

Fucking Metzen.

'Splain

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

Twilight Eruption - After 6 minutes have passed, Ultraxion's instability reaches uncontainable levels, erupting outwards as a massive explosion that destroys all nearby foes and Ultraxion himself.

Ultraxion strat: Stay alive for 6 minutes and then have a pally bubble and mass rez.

 

[strafer]

Thrall is Metzens favorite so why wouldn't this happen.

 

[TheYanger]

we've known that was going to happen since last blizzcon...

 

[Entropia]

Super buggy too in the case of the well of eternity ;p To be fair, they DID make these marginally harder at some point, but it's mostly the stupid gear buff still. It doesn't scale correctly between classes it feels like, when I go in with my caster friends they can still do like 25k dps, and I'll barely top 20 even on large Ae pulls which is preposterously low. Lose something like 1/3 of my attack power in these dungeons.

My Warrior buddy was QQ'ing because of the exp/hit loss from the scale down.

I haven't come across any bugs in terms of the encounters. Only issues I've had are server related.

 

[TheYanger]

My Warrior buddy was QQ'ing because of the exp/hit loss from the scale down.

I haven't come across any bugs in terms of the encounters. Only issues I've had are server related.

I considered that, but since it's a 5 man it actually made no difference. I was just hitting like a wet noodle.

 

[Rokam]

we've known that was going to happen since last blizzcon...

Except in the book it states Thrall can't become an aspect.

 

[Angry Grimace]

we've known that was going to happen since last blizzcon...

It has nothing to do with surprise and everything to do with Thrall being a shitty character, coupled with the fact that the obvious choice for Earth-Warder is Wrathion, but instead some Mary Sue pet character gets to be Earth-Warder for the purposes of letting Metzen give his favorite character more powers.

I shudder to think what they'll do if both WoW-Jesuses (Thrall and Med'an) meet up.

 

[Rokam]

"He was not, could never be, an Aspect. But he was who helped bind them together, to do what they needed to do."

Think he's just taking up the title of Earth Warder.

 

[Rokal]

I hope this means Thrall catches the old-god flu in a couple expansions and we get to kill him.

/wishfulthinking

 

[Bisnic]

A cat...with glowing eyes...a witch hat...and a flying broom.

http://www.abload.de/img/wow2011-10-1820-08-56-oqwh.png

Best companion ever.

 

[Angry Grimace]

http://i.imgur.com/S5IGg.jpgy

This was their second attempt. Try some tuning, Blizz

http://i.imgur.com/w19cm.jpg


This, however, looks pretty damn cool.

 

[Bisnic]

Damn. Deathwing is really huge huh. Looks pretty cool indeed.

 

[TheYanger]

http://i.imgur.com/S5IGg.jpgy

This was their second attempt. Try some tuning, Blizz

http://i.imgur.com/w19cm.jpg


This, however, looks pretty damn cool.

Spine was a really friggin fun fight, looks like most of the kills got brute forced, but us and one or two others got it while doing it how we THINK is approximately intended, really really fun.

http://www.twitch.tv/theyanger/b/297800734 1:25:00 in the first video until partway through part 2 is the complete fight, I didn't restart the audio and it stutters badly, you may need to mute it (can hear my mic fine but incoming audio is fucked), or if you're interested in seeing the learning process from pulling a boss none of us have even read the dungeon journal about, watch more of it. it's like an hour and a half from starting the stream until it dies.

 

[Tworak]

whoa at deathwing. that is crazy awesome.

 

[Angry Grimace]

As an aside, it turns out the Madness fight wasn't even supposed to be active.

Apparently it was a bug that raids could even get there, so take whatever the encounter's difficulty looked like with a grain of salt, although I'm sure the higher end guilds will just pound through it.

 

[ampere]

Can't wait until the fucker is dead, he keeps ganking me while I'm doing archaeology :/

 

[Angry Grimace]

Can't wait until the fucker is dead, he keeps ganking me while I'm doing archaeology :/

http://i.imgur.com/YeMnd.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
He's probably trying to tell you something about Archeology

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Are there any sorts of stats on how often he comes around burning people? I've only seen him about 3 times.

I hope they turn up the occurrences in 4.3 before he gets killed, or make them more regular, so that everyone can have a chance to get that achievement. I'd still like to know if he'll go away only when normal mode of him is defeated, or if it will only be heroic. Server-first heroic would make more sense, certainly.

Either way, I think the concept was neat, even if the execution was a little lackluster, of having the big bad inspire terror everywhere in the world. Though it's a poor replacement for actually integrating him into the quests, like Arthas was in Wrath. You see as much, if not more of Deathwing in the 1-60 quests than you do in the 80-85 ones.

 

[Rokal]

He'll probably stop flying around when 4.3 launches. Chalk it up to him "being distracted elsewhere" and then eventually "being dead".

 

[ToyMachine228]

Okay WoW-GAF, Blizzcon is only days away. What are you expecting at Blizzcon in terms of WoW and what do you expect?

I'm surprised there aren't more BlizzCon related rumors swirling. I think unveiling the next expansion is a no brainer. The population has dwindled since Cataclysm released, and this expansion let a lot of people down as a whole. They need something strong not only for WoW's health but also in the face of Bioware's Star Wars MMO which is the most serious competitor to WoW since its launch really. We shall see what Blizz has in store...

 

[Tamanon]

I just can't even really think of who the boss of the next expansion will be.

I'm thinking a hero class will be announced along with another drastic talent revamp.