MMO-Champion - Siege of Niuzao Temple Preview, New Character Creation Screen, Blue Posts, Fan Art
Diablo 3 - Cyclone Strike Runed, Two Jay Wilson Interviews, Blue Posts

Siege of Niuzao Temple Dungeon Preview
Siege of Niuzao Temple is a Level 90 Dungeon located in Townlong Steppes, in which you fight against the Mantid.

New Character Creation Screen
Each faction now uses the same background when creating a character, with Horde and Pandaren being updated so far. Alliance is currently using the default generic background, but you can expect an update for them in the future. The selection screens also zoom in to make changing facial details easier, but some camera positions still need to be corrected.

Character selection screens are also starting to see updates, with Human and Tauren characters being the first to receive a new background.

Thrall: Not the New Warchief?
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Erm...He's (Thrall) going back to being Warchief of the Horde. Which apparently isn't supposed to bother all the Alliance that have been working with him for the last few years.


Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
MoP Pet Battle System is Complete Overkill?
And for what? Vanity? Just pure vanity?
For fun. We're adding something new to the game we think a large number of players will enjoy given its accessibility.

You could've worked on character models. You could've worked on more battlegrounds, dungeons, raids, and arenas.
By and large you're not talking at all about the same developers/artists/programmers. The development team isn't just a pool of people, all with the exact same skill sets. That's too big an assumption on your part with regard to what could've been created in the absence of pet battles, not to mention whether or not the payoff would actually be better if development resources were dedicated to other projects.

Pet collectors will be the only WoW players mutually interested in this.
We'll see. That's a bold claim.

Now that you've added it, it's going to be continually updated, continually wasting hours, and continually voiding the biggest issues with this game.
You're entitled to your opinion and we're listening, but you don't decide for the general WoW population what are the biggest issues with the game, nor are you attuned to our production schedule and how resources are distributed to various projects within the design department. Bold claims AND big assumptions.

It would be great if you polled us with a simple question like this: "Should we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on this silly vanity idea?" before taking the initiative to do it. Please do that next time, I guarantee my soul the results will shock you.
We absolutely want to make the best game possible and want people to love it. The means to that end, however, isn't design by democracy. Aside from finding and fixing bugs, there's a reason why we have beta tests. We can't just write a list of feature descriptions down on paper, put them up for a vote, and expect to obtain the best actionable development ideas (yes, even if we framed the questions to be just a little more fair than your example).

We create. You play. You provide feedback. We iterate.

P.S. You're going off of bits and pieces of information datamined from the beta. The system isn't even live yet and we have a lot more information coming to explain how we want it to work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Why the lack of Patch Notes?
We tend to iterate pretty quickly during beta. It's a luxury we don't have when we're making patches to the live game. We can use beta to try some crazy ideas and then quickly back them out again if we don't like the way they are going.

Closely related, because we want to iterate on beta quickly, we don't all sit down together and agree on when is the best time to make a beta push. Usually we try to stabilize things for a little bit to make the build, but even then, you're going to see a lot of things that are half-implemented, not quite working yet, or in the process of being backed out because someone realized it was a bad idea.

We understand our betas can be a confusing, bewildering and sometimes frustrating experience. They aren't for everyone. Betas are emphatically not demos. Unless you're really good at looking past all the baling wire and duct tape, it can be hard to get an impression of how the final product will be. Also keep in mind that it's not just the designers who are testing things out, and sadly testing out new code is even less glamorous than testing out new features.

On the topic of account level mounts, we are still evolving our design philosophy, so it's a great thing upon which to offer feedback. We have heard from some players who are thrilled that they don't need to play their "mounty" character to the exclusion of their other characters. We have heard from others who feel like their accomplishments are watered down since they got so many mounts "for free." We're not sure which mounts will be account-level or not. It's weird to have paladin, warlock and DK mounts shared across classes, so there's a good bet those still be character only. What about the others? Let us know what you think.

That philosophy goes for a lot of features. We're all busy working on the game, so we don't have a ton of bandwidth to continually explain our design intent on all of the various features in the beta (keeping in mind that our intent often changes). We'll try to hit some major philosophical points when we can, but if you need a lot of blue explanation or direction for how to beta test in order to get anything out of it, then I can understand why it might be a frustrating experience.

My advice is just to play and let us know how things feel. If we haven't changed a feature in awhile, it could mean that we're happy with how it is, but it could also mean we're just working on other features at the moment. We'll read all of your feedback, but we probably won't have a lot of opportunities to respond. Rest assured that what you say is really important to us and to the development process. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Why is Wow's in-game music so terrible?
This topic title makes me sad.

We put a lot of effort into our music. If you actually go through it and listen you'll find a much broader breadth of styles than you might notice in the game. There are a few photos available via that link as well that provide just a glimpse of the recording and mixing processes. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP and bringing the "War" back in World of Warcraft
We like specifics. We like hearing about your own personal experiences. We like hearing what you like personally (or dislike). We like hearing your feedback. That's more valuable than attacking someone else for their play style or opinions.

Why do PVP players have to be subject to restrictions on pvp realms due to the wants and desires of people who play on pve realms?
The reason (in part) those restrictions have been there is more about development and the additional difficulties that occur in trying to separate the two types of realms too much. You end up (essentially) developing two separate games. That's not what we want to do. If the rule sets diverged too much, that's what we would have ended up with. That's not to say that if we don't have the opportunity or a means to make that less painful on the development team, we won't do it (within reason.)

I'd love to say that all PvPers want the same thing from PvP, but that's not true either. I could talk to ten different people and be told 10 different goals and desires. Some love world PvP. Others won't take part in it unless they know there is some reward for being the victor. Some won't take part if the odds are stacked against them. Others will take part for exactly that reason. They want to prove they can overcome those odds.

To do an analogy (albeit perhaps a weak one), it's like ice cream. All ice cream has similar properties and you'd think that everyone that likes ice cream likes all ice cream. But we know that's not true. People like various kinds of ice cream and dislike various types. So, how do you serve a flavor everyone likes to some degree? That's an oversimplification, but it stands to reason that you have to find something relatively neutral that has the potential to appeal to as many people as possible. You can add in some additional toppings to spice it up as an option for those that want more out of their ice cream.

This is why I'll probably unsubscribe when MoP comes. I hate PVP, I hate being endlessly ganked and graveyard camped and I have better things to do with my time. So, enjoy your design philosophy, because I'm outa here.
Whether you choose to continue to play or purchase Mists of Pandaria is up to you. I'd suggest waiting until you see/hear about the plans first before making any decisions. As I've tried to emphasize, we are working toward making sure we ameliorate your fears as someone who isn't interested in PvP. I think though, that you're putting the cart before the horse in this case and assuming the worst, much the same as those who are on the PvP side of the fence. We haven't even fully discussed the details of the design philosophy with you as of yet for you to dislike it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mogu'shan Palace Corpse Run

Priest (Forums)
Holy Concentration: what's the plan?
It's not the number of mechanics that is important (so long as everyone has sufficient flexibility). What is most important is what is the overall mana per time regen that the various healers have, taking into account all of their various mana regen systems (and including factors such as paladins casting several mana-free spells).

If you think one healer is struggling for mana compared to another, let us know. One mechanic we are still adjusting a lot is Rapture, because we want to make sure that the worst-case mana regen scenario for Disc still isn't all that bad. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Fan Art

This article was originally published in forum thread: Siege of Niuzao Temple Preview, New Character Creation Screen, Blue Posts, Fan Art started by chaud View original post
Comments 101 Comments
  1. Tybudd33's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    This is win on so many levels.

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