Day: February 12, 2010

With that being said, we do have some additional PvE and PvP content and changes we plan to implement prior to the release of the big Cataclysm patch and subsequent retail release of that third expansion. We'll be discussing these new features in more detail in the coming weeks.

[…] As we stated before releasing Wrath of the Lich King, we still intend for Icecrown Citadel to be the final raid of the expansion in terms of tiered progression.

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843880&sid=1

02/11

• Using a "Bag of Heart Candies" with a full inventory will now cause the local postmaster to send you any candy not recieved.
• Sindragosa will now be more consistent in her application of Unchained Magic in 25-player difficulty.

Can't play without healing debuffs in PvP
I agree it's an issue and we do have some plans. (Source)

Bryntroll and other proc weapons
I wouldn't worry so much about how much percentage of your damage the proc is doing. I mentioned that once when comparing various proc weapons and it became adopted as the design goal for all proc weapons. It isn't.

The only real salient comparison is Bryntroll to other two handed dps weapons of the same ilevel (or Zod's to other bows or Trauma to other healing weapons, etc.) Procs are always going to be more random than pure stats, and we can live with that. If you're very intolerant of RNG mechanics, then proc weapons probably aren't for you. If swapping from Bryntroll to another item on the same tier of content is a significant dps increase (taking class, spec and other gear considerations in mind of course), then there is a problem with the weapon. It's as simple as that. (Source)

Game balance in Cataclysm
However, we're going to back off of talking about Cataclysm for a little bit. We're excited about it, so we've been wanting to share our philosophy, plans and ideas as they relate to class design. However, it may be a little too soon. I think it's clear that some players are mistaking our excitement for Cataclysm as our giving up on Lich King. ("Cataclysm will fix it.") That's not our intent nor plan, but I can understand how you might draw that conclusion. We'll talk more about the upcoming expansion soon ™. (Source)

40-players raids
Right now our plan is to look back on 40-player raids fondly as a format by which we were able to evolve and customize what we feel to be the best raid formats for World of Warcraft. I don't believe our developers have ever stated that they'll absolutely never do a 40-player raid again, but we're really happy with the raid variety we have now with 10- and 25-player raids featuring normal and Heroic difficulties.

The game did rapidly expand from 2004-2006, but I'm not sure it's safe to assume that such a growth in the size of the player base related specifically to what was happening at the endgame. In fact, it had much more to do with the game's overall accessibility, engaging quest experiences, interesting lore, and strong game play mechanics. It was such a growth that ultimately encouraged our desire to make the raiding game more accessible to the new types of people we were introducing to the MMORPG genre.

So while we haven't rapidly expanded our player base over the last year, we've retained our record subscription numbers after five years since World of Warcraft's release. We feel this in part due to the updates we've made to the endgame. We see a greater percentage of players raiding now than ever before, and not just one or two of the easier raid dungeons as in the original game and first expansion. We're seeing much more casual-oriented players serious about fighting the Lich King, while also seeing some of the most advanced guilds in the world begin to work out the strategies for besting him on Heroic difficulty. Our next step is to go back to the early game in Cataclysm and provide additional updates and improvements to bring it closer in line with our development experience, today's technology, and the type of gamers we want to attract. This is in addition to encouraging existing players to try the game again, but have it feel much more like a new experience.

As a long story short, we'll continue to iterate upon the raiding game to improve it, but we feel we have a working formula right now. In order to appeal to a wider range of players, sheer numbers and time devoted should not be the primary determining factors of success in this game. (Source)

Is Icecrown Citadel too easy compared to old raids?
Let's keep things in perspective here. There is a very small percentage of players who have defeated every raid boss in this game consistently for five years straight now. That kind of experience is unparalleled. There's also a very thick system of online resources for providing and sharing strategies which were not nearly as robust for the original game as they are today. The community that's grown around this game has somewhat changed the way the game is played. That's okay though. That's natural.

The fact that at least 25 members of our player base have killed Sindragosa on Heroic difficulty doesn't say much about whether or not the encounter is more complicated than, say, Twin Emperors. In fact, most of the raiders I've talked to who are at, or have killed the Lich King in 25-player mode say that Icecrown Citadel has provided some of the most fun and interesting mechanics this game has yet to offer. Most of the fights today are technically more complex than the fights of old, but the difference is in the tuning and the polish.

I can think of at least a couple of bosses that took a long time for any guild to kill where bugs were a major factor. As soon as the bugs were fixed, the bosses were defeated. There were also several bosses, take Princess Huhuran for example, which weren't necessarily incredibly challenging from a mechanic perspective. The challenge came in the form of requiring that players farm resistance gear from that same instance for weeks and weeks until they stood a chance. Resistance fights have since more or less disappeared. We want the interesting mechanics of a fight and the fun factor of that fight to be what players remember, not that they had to wait for major bugs to get fixed, or farm enough of a specific type of stat to even stand a chance. Of course there are gear checks still in the game, but they're much more reasonable. They allow you to customize your character to your wishes and prove your talent by successfully performing your class/spec role, while also successfully learning and reacting to the mechanics of each fight. These are areas in which guilds like the one to which you're referring excel to an impressive degree. (Source)