An Open Letter to Blizzard

Dear World of Warcraft Design Team:

I would like to thank you for providing over 4 years of quality entertainment. When World of Warcraft entered the market, it turned the genre on its head. Never before had there been such a vibrant, beautiful and, most importantly, accessible world to play in. While I initially scoffed at how "easy" the game was when compared to my current subscription-based game, I soon came around.

Allow me to tell you a story.

Early in 2005, I was thoroughly engrossed in the world of Vana'diel. I had been playing Final Fantasy XI for a couple years. When World of Warcraft came out, I was completely uninterested. However, something about your game buried itself in the back of my head. I kept going back and reading about it. I realized that the long, boring grind that EVERYTHING in Final Fantasy XI had become was no longer for me. There was a better way.

What led me to realize it was time for a switch?

When I was paying $15 a month for one game, and spending more time reading about ANOTHER game than playing the one I was paying for, I knew it was time for a change.

I was lucky enough to find a copy of your fine product on the shelves of my local game store and was soon a welcome resident of Azeroth. I spent the next four-plus years loving World of Warcraft. I brought friends to join me. I even started up this blog to write about my love of this game.

However, recently, things have been changing. I don't play any more because it's fun. I find myself playing just because it's what I do. If I don't play WoW tonight, what else would I do with my time? With each patch that comes along, I find myself less and less excited.

As my fellow blogger, Big Bear Butt stated in a recent post:

"Honestly, they do this, and even though a lot of the new stuff excites me, the way they make sweeping class changes with a sledgehammer, over and over and over, this ’change for the sake of change’ s***, just makes me want to log off, and not come back."

This really got me thinking. I greatly respect BBB, he was one of the ones who motivated me to start blogging in the first place. I realized that some part of me agrees with this sentiment. Now, back in the day, there were entire content patches dedicated to class changes. At the time, I thought this was awesome. What other company cares about its game so much that it dedicates valuable development time to improving existing gameplay elements?

However, another thought has come to mind. Why were Feral Druids, Protection and Retribution Paladins, Elemental Shamans and any number of other specs completely useless for the better part of two years?

Okay, okay. I'm no game developer. I have no idea how hard it is to balance a game of this scale. Fair enough. However, FOUR years after release, you're telling me you STILL don't have a handle on Paladin tanking?

Since the release of Burning Crusade, we have seen a dropoff in the number of major patches. Or have we? I don't remember massive changes in "minor patches" like we've seen in 2.3.2 or 3.1.3 back when we were receiving "major patches" every 2 months. You're trying to make it look like you're not overhauling the game every month or so while that's exactly what you're doing.

Of course, that's the Butterfly Effect. A small change to one skill or stat completely throws off the precarious balance you're trying to maintain between all the various classes and specs, both PVP and PVE. It's a daunting task, I'm sure. However, somewhere along the way, you stopped developing the game YOU wanted, and started developing the game the FORUMS wanted. I do not like this change in direction.

I don't raid, I don't seriously PVP. I don't care if a Demonologist is 0.3% higher in DPS than my Affliction. But, oh no, there are too many people out there who do.

When you start trying to make everyone happy, you end up making nobody happy.

What did I enjoy about this game? I loved building a character up from scratch.

I loved trying out a new combination of talents. However, now it's all but impossible to attempt anything other than a cookie cutter build.

I loved making gear decisions, figuring out which item would benefit me the most. Now, who cares? I'll outgrow these items in a couple hours.

I loved LEVELING. That has now become a complete joke. Who wants to bother with all this wonderfully designed content when there's EPICS waiting at the end of the road?

Well, I do.

And I accept that World of Warcraft has passed me by.

Do you know how I have come to accept this? Even though you're still getting my fifteen dollars, I have been spending more time researching an falling in love with another game than I have playing yours.

Sound familiar?

Now, I'm not one of those people who jumps ship any time something shinier comes across. I stayed true through Everquest 2, D&D Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan and many other new games. However, this weekend, I participated in a Closed Beta event for Aion, and I completely fell in love with it.

I would like to once again thank you for endless hours of enjoyment. I truly believe that World of Warcraft is one of the most brilliant games ever conceived. Twelve million people can't be wrong. It's just that, taking many recent design decisions into account, I no longer find myself enjoying the game as much as I once did.

Your fan,
Samodean

Note: Fear not, dear reader. This does not mean I'm canceling my subscription... yet. This does not mean I've stopped blogging... yet. Even if I decide to switch focus, I'm enjoying blogging too much to completely abandon it.

3.1 Weekend Wrapup

Okay, I spent some time with my active characters this weekend.

First up, Tarmr the Death Knight.

This may sound insane, but even after all the balancing Bliz gave Death Knights this patch, T seems even STRONGER now. Granted, this is based upon leveling at 70.

Overall, my core abilities are about the same as they were before. The damage mechanics have been re-tuned, but for my playstyle, it seems to still be the same. I knew Diseaseless Blood and Icy Touch Spam were going to be done away with, so I played my DK "as intended."

Icy Touch is hitting for about 400 less than before. However, Plague Strike is hitting for about 600 MORE. One of Bliz's design goals with 3.1 was to get DKs to use all of their diseases. At least for Frost, that seems to have worked out.

Rime now procs off Obliterate instead of Icy Touch, which is great, since I use that skill more often.

Fallen Crusader was toned down to grant only half the Strength of before. However, it now procs much more often. Overall, I'd say this is a boost, at least in my experience. The extra healing from the more frequent procs is great for soloing. Razorice and Cinderglacier may prove to be the better option in pure-DPS scenarios, but I'm sticking with Fallen Crusader for now.

All things considered, 2-Handed Frost is a seriously solid build. I'll expand upon the tree in a future post.

Up next, Haddar the Shaman.

Not many changes to Enhancement this patch. Basically, they've just freed up a couple talent points. Unleashed Rage is now a 3-point talent instead of 5. Also, Improved Stormstrike strikes me as a PVP talent, so that's an extra 2 points to go around, as well.

Enhancement is still solid and way too much fun.

Expect a full 3.1 Enhancement post soon, as well.

Finally, Samodean, Warlock

I may be in the minority here, but I love the new Affliction. Survivability and efficiency while solo are way up.

I'd say DPS is about even. A while back, I ran a thorough DPS test. Compared to then, my DPS is up by about 200. I haven't made 200 DPS worth of upgrades in the interval, but the simpler rotation makes up for the rest. VERY happy. I could do even better with a pure-DPS talent build, but again, more on that another day.

Also, Sam hit up the tournament. Very cool, not nearly as many people there as I would have expected. There's plenty of sites out there with more in-depth coverage than I'll be able to provide, though. Very casual-friendly, however. 3 days of 3 dailies to get to Valiant, then only another 5 days for Champion. After that, the time investment merely depends on what you want out of it.

So, yeah, the big thing in this patch was Ulduar, but there's plenty for the rest of us to like, as well.

The End of the World

Not with a bang, but with a "Waaaaah."

Babies.
Note: image not representative of any one person, but rather the community as a whole.

"Boohoo the realms are down."

Since when is this news? It happens EVERY FRAKKING TIME. I'm sure Bliz tries really hard to have them up on time. But then, 11 million people all try logging on at once. I'm no expert, but I don't think that's good for the servers. Things keep going boom until enough people flat-out give up, that those remaining are able to sneak in.

You know what I did last night? I worked on the blog, watched some TV, read a book and laughed my butt off at all the whining on the web. I haven't tried to log on during a patch day in 3 years.

"The instance servers keep crashing."

See above. A vast portion of those that crashed the authentication servers jumped right in to Ulduar and crashed the instance servers.

"I can't play! My UI doesn't work."

You know, this is worth an entire post tomorrow. UIs have grown entirely out of control. Simple reply: Suck it up, Sally. If you NEED your mount addon in order to play, you're spoiled.

I seem to be a bit bitter today, so I'll cut things short. I just have a hard time figuring out why this is such a big deal. We should be used to this by now.

3.1, Hardcore Casual Style

FINALLY patch day is here. No not because I can go to the Tournament or raid Ulduar.

I can finally comment on the patch notes. As the great George Carlin once said, "I never give credit for unfinished work."

So, let's explore those patch notes! Well, at least the ones that I care about. Apparently, there's a new instance or something.

The Argent Tournament Begins!

As the might of the Scourge wanes under the pressure of Azeroth’s heroes, the Argent Crusade have taken a foothold in Arthas’s back yard. Off the northeastern coast of Icecrown, the Argent Crusade have sounded the call for the most bold and brave adventurers of the Horde and Alliance to take part in the Argent Tournament. Representatives of all ten faction capitols, from Undercity to Exodar, have traveled to the tournament grounds to find champions among their heroes who will prepare for the inevitable battle against the enemy of all living beings, the Lich King.
As excited as I am to participate in this, I think I'll avoid it for the first week or two. Once the madness dies down, I'll be all over it.

General

All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
For the record, I called swimming mounts during last year's Blizzcon.

Players level 40 and higher will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent specialization feature.
I'm not as excited about this as others, but I do like the flexibility for my Paladin and Shaman. Still a little unsure on the implementation, but that's for another post.

Death Knight

OMFGEverything
Yeah, DKs were severely BALANCED in this patch. Please note the absence of the word "nerf" in that sentence. Now I'll have to COMPLETELY rework T's Guide.

Hunter

Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built into the hunter's Auto Shot.
Nice. Still stage one of the plan for ammo to be completely non-consumable, which I believe will lead to special effect ammo.

Gorillas now have a new family ability, Pummel, which works like the warrior ability and has a single rank.
Thunderstomp is no longer a gorilla-specific family ability and is now available to all Tenacity pets. It has been reduced to one rank.
I love this for one reason: less Gorillas. I love my monkey and will be happy when he's more unique.

Paladin

Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers. It is now available deep in the Protection tree for 2 ranks at 5/10%.
Lots of crying over this one. I'm 100% behind this for "working as intended" reasons.

Lots of Protection changes that I will have to look into in more depth. Expect a post about this later.

Shaman

Flametongue Weapon: Bonus damage from spell power now based on weapon speed. Slower weapons will benefit more from spell power.
FINALLY an end to the Shaman weapon speed/imbue debate. Once again "working as intended" with slow/slow Windfury/Flametongue.

Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks.
Very nice, especially since a significant portion of Enhancement's damage comes from spells.

Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 seconds.
Improved Stormstrike redesigned: When you Stormstrike, you have a 50/100% chance to immediately grant you 20% of your base mana.
Still undecided on this. I felt Shaman mana regen was in a good place. Possibly a change for PVP purposes?

Unleashed Rage: Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. No longer increases agility, but instead increases your total expertise by 3/6/9.
It bothered me that other classes had similar talents for less than 5 points. Thank you Blizz.

Warlock

Curse of the Elements (Rank 5): Increased to 13% spell damage, up from 10%.
I liked this in Affliction, but I'm cool that it makes room for the new Malediction.

Malediction: No longer increases the effect of Curse of the Elements, but now also increases the periodic critical strike chance of your Corruption and Unstable Affliction spells by 3/6/9%.
Pandemic: This talent has been reduced to a 1-point talent. Now grants your Corruption and Unstable Affliction the capability to critically hit.
Still a little unsure on this whole "DoT crit" thing.

Suppression: Now increases spell hit for all of your spells.
Nice!

Lots of other Affliction changes. Siphon Life is rolled into Corruption. Immolate is out of the rotation. While I though Affliction could use a LITTLE fine-tuning, I wonder if this is too much. I'd hate for it to become easymode top DPS.

Again, further posts to follow.

Professions

Northrend herbs now yield more herbs on average.
Whee! Herb amounts were balanced around one craft using them in the old days. Now, with Inscription, demand has risen without much supply increase.

Added around 50 new glyph recipes. These new recipes can be obtained from Books of Glyph Mastery found as world drops on Northrend monsters. Reading a Book of Glyph Mastery randomly discovers one of the newly-added recipes.
I like. Hopefully the drop rate isn't retarded.

The Lightweave tailoring enchant now sometimes grants a temporary spell power bonus instead of dealing direct damage to your target.
Warlock FTW. I hated the idea of dealing HOLY damage.

All in all, good patch for Sam and Co. I'm sure there are others out there upset over some changes, but they're not here, are they?

What else do you like/hate?

The Argent Tournament

Matticus just brought this to my attention literally 30 seconds ago, and I thought I'd share it. I don't usually do news posts, but this is too potentially awesome to pass up.

Blue post:

In patch 3.1, a new world event titled “The Argent Tournament” will be coming to Northrend! This tournament will be live on the 3.1 PTR and open for testing, though certain aspects are still in development. Players will find a host of new features here, including:


* The ability to prove your worth to a capital city of your choosing through our new mounted combat system (still in development)
* New daily quests to construct the great Argent Crusade coliseum for glorious battles to come
* All new rewards - new items, titles, banners, tabards, pets, mounts, and more
* All new achievements
* Many more festivities, and more to come in future content updates!


Players will find the Argent Tournament in Icecrown. Speaking to any Northrend flight master will get you on track to prove your worth to the Argent Crusade, your faction’s leaders, and all denizens of Azeroth!

Calm Down!

Another short one today. Then again, most of my posts seem to be a bit long-winded, so this may be for the best.

Look around the web and you'll find hundreds, thousands, nay BAJILLIONS of people complaining about how Patch 3.1 will destroy the game.

*sigh*

This is why I don't comment on patches until they're live.

FIRST, if it's not live, it's not final. This is why these things are tested. Anything is subject to change. Heck, less than a week later, they've already scrapped the non-consumable ammo idea.

SECOND, it's not even the full patch notes. It's just a list of changes they're trying to implement. It's not even on the PTR yet. Right now, all the ranting and raving and yes, even Theorycrafting is nothing more than conjecture.

THIRD, since it's not full notes, and it's not even up for testing, this patch is AT LEAST 2 months away. Play the game you have now. Leave the rest of us with sense alone.

3.0.8 Thoughts

Patch 3.0.8 went live today with a lot of changes. I try not to comment too much on unreleased content, but now that's it's official, I'll give my opinions on several items.

General

Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night Elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You’re not seeing things.
I've got to get a Strider for my Shaman.

Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
Finally! No more stolen mobs while on Warlock. Why did this take 4 years?

We have added over 60 new graveyards to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at a bonus 75% speed.
They're making death more convenient? There are a few areas where dying is a pain, but I've never really had a problem wiht it overall.

Reputation rewarded for killing mobs will no longer automatically deprecate. This means trivial mobs will continue to give out their full amounts of reputation on kill for the majority of cases in the game (level 70 creatures in Stratholme, for example, will continue to award the full amount of rep to level 80 players seeking to boost their Argent Dawn faction).
Excellent. Now I won't have to stop at 70 to grind Ullic's AD rep.

Death Knight

Lots of changes here. Lots of balance is to be expected with a new class.

Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 20 second cooldown
I've already commented on this previously.

Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
A nice buff. This is a great talent that previously was MUCH better for Dual-Wielders than it was for 2-Handers.

Hunter

Lots of balancing here, too. Hunters were insane at the beginning of Wrath.

Hunter Aspects are now off the Global Cooldown again. They still have a shared 1 second cooldown.
I fail to see why this is necessary.

Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
Ferocious Inspiration: This talent now also increase the damage the Hunter does with Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%.
This gives Beastmasters an actual rotation instead of just spamming Steady Shot.

Professions

Many recipes, especially Enchanting have been simplified. Those Enchants were completely ridiculous, so this is a good thing.

Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.
Once again, why did this take 4 years?

Also, there have been many, many changes to Glyphs. Previously, there were too many Glyphs where the negative effects outweighed the benefits. These have been rebalanced. Additionally, some useless Glyphs have been retooled. All in all, this gives players more options for choosing their Glyphs which is always a good thing.

All patch changes, including undocumented ones, can be found at MMO Champion.

Unnecessary Death Knight Buff

Just a quickie tonight.

While researching for Part 4 of my Death Knight Guide (which I swear I'm close to finishing), I happened upon a change in the upcoming Patch 3.0.8

Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 20 second cooldown.

What?

By removing the cost, Blizzard is guaranteeing that this buff will always be active, with absolutely no skill on the part of the Death Knight. Just click the button once every 2 minutes. At this point, they might as well just make it an Aura.

Also, I don't know how necessary the Runic Power gain is. Adding an extra click into your rotation just to gain 10 RP honestly doesn't seem like a good use of a GCD.

Horn of Winter does not stack with Strength of Earth, so if a Shaman is present, there's going to be a wasted buff somewhere, especially if it's talented. The only other worthwhile Earth Totem is Stoneskin, and 1k armor really isn't that much at current equipment levels.