Day: June 9, 2010

MMO-Champion: The Cataclysm

MMO-Champion: The Cataclysm
Something is happening to MMO-Champion… Something catalysmic.

Very soon, we will be migrating the forums from SMF to vBulletin. This is going to be a very big update to the website and will require at minimum 10 hours of downtime to prepare for it. We're all working very hard on our end to get everything in place and ready for use, but there's some things that you can all do to pitch in and help us with the transition.
 
Avatars
As I'm sure you have all previously read our rules regarding avatar filesizes, you will be happy to know we are now enforcing these rules in a manner that cannot be accidentally broken. After the migration avatars will be uploaded to MMO-Champions webserver, where it will verify the filesize and type. What this means is that if your avatar is too big, you can't use it. No more angry PMs from moderators telling you that you've broken a rule that you probably didn't know about.

The good aspect of this avatar change is that avatars will probably be a lot faster to load now than some random picture dump site you grabbed it from. You also won't run into your bandwidth limit on photobucket or the like within minutes now.

The bad thing, however, is that this requires a total wipe of all avatars. They will not be copied with the transfer. We're really sorry that we're unable to do this, but it would require incredible amounts of bandwidth, will slow down the transition process to a matter of days and will probably have us receive a lot of angry emails from webmasters all over the world wondering why we're downloading hundreds of images from them. We just can't do that. On this note, we ask you all to make sure you have a copy of your avatar URL saved somewhere so that you can reapply it later.

Signatures
Nothing too drastic to report here, you'll be pleased to know. However, there's a slight tweak in how BBCode works in signatures so that people with custom font sizes will need to readjust their signatures post-migration. We'd recommend removing any custom size text before we migrate to save some time.

With the tweaks to the site design coming, quotes and blizzquotes may change in size. This can inadvertently cause your signature to go oversize and break the signature guidelines. We will not go crazy over any minor violations for breaking these guidelines so soon after the migration, however, so you will have a few days to readjust your signature as required.

Private Messages
We have hundreds of thousands of private messages stored in the database, most of which are not needed and stored only for archiving purposes by you guys (and girls). They take up a lot of time processing them for importing to vBulletin, so we have a request for all of you.

We really do not want to totally wipe private messages or not import them at all, but we do ask that anyone who has private messages that they do not need, please delete them from your inbox (don't forget to check your sent PMs too). There's a handy tool to delete old PMs but for some people we understand there may be one or two messages you just want to keep so it may not be advisable for all.

Please also note we are experiencing a little trouble perfectly importing all private messages and they may look slightly different or BBCode will not work for old messages. We're really sorry, but this can't be helped.

Custom Titles
Some users have custom titles. Just fun things given to them by admins that don't mean anything special other than just for giggles. These will not be imported to vBulletin and will be lost. Sorry!

Site Layout
We're not totally revamping the layout, but it's a close call! Unfortunately we have had a little difficulty with the site design on vBulletin and there may be a few quirks as we sort everything out post-migration, but please bear with us as we try our hardest to get it all fixed Smiley

Site Permalinks
Any links to topics, forums or users on the website might break. We're trying our hardest to make sure this won't happen and this is a very big priority for us, but we cannot guarantee everything will still link up fine. This is only a warning, unfortunately there is nothing you can do to help this.

Cookies
Are available on demand. Please see your local witchdoctor for more information.

Blizzard Survey, Remote AH, Blue posts

Blizzard survey hints at extra character slots … potentially
Earlier this week, a survey was sent to european players to gather data on … tons of things related to WoW. Hidden among the general WoW questions was a fairly interesting one :

Apparently, Blizzard is seriously considering offering more character slots to players but you might have to pay for that. Just keep in mind that this is just a survey for the moment and it doesn't accurately reflect what we will or will not get in the future.

Access the Auction House From Almost Anywhere
The beta test has ended and the Auction House is now a premium feature.

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
So you're wondering how your auction for that rare blacksmithing pattern is going, but the game isn't installed on any computers around you. Well, starting right now, you can view the World of Warcraft Auction House from just about anywhere where you have an Internet connection, via the Armory website, the Mobile Armory app for iPhone® and iPod touch®, or the new Remote Auction House app for Android™. We're pleased to announce that with the new Auction House section of the Armory, World of Warcraft players are now able to browse their characters’ local Auction Houses with the same search functionality available in the game, as well as see the real-time status of each of their current bids and auctions: https://us.battle.net/login/login.xml?cr=true&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fus.wowarmory.com%2Fauctionhouse%2Findex.xml&app=armory

In addition, with a paid subscription to the new World of Warcraft Remote service (http://us.wowarmory.com/wow-remote.xml), also launched today, you’ll be able to use the Armory website or mobile app to:

  • Post items for sale from your character’s bag, bank, or mailbox on your faction’s Auction House or the realm’s cross-faction Auction House.
  • Place bids or make buyout purchases on the Auction House.
  • Collect the gold earned from a successful auction or reclaim the gold from an unsuccessful bid.

For more information about the new Armory Auction House functionality and the subscription-based World of Warcraft Remote service, check out the Web Auction House FAQ (http://us.wowarmory.com/faq-auction-house.xml) and World of Warcraft Remote FAQ (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&tag=REMOTE&rhtml=true).

To download the free Mobile Armory app for iPhone and iPod touch, go here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/world-warcraft-mobile-armory/id321057000?mt=8

To download the free Remote Auction House app for Android, search for the "Remote Auction House" in the Android Market on your phone. To subscribe to World of Warcraft Remote, visit Account Management.

Blue posts

Quote from Blizzard staff
Existing Currencies/Badges in Cataclysm
We think it's fair to let you know what's going to happen to all of that old currency. It's not yet time for us to discuss that entire plan, but we'll do so in enough time for your to react.

Overall, you can expect that there won't be much motivation to hoard and even less to go out and farm old content in preparation for the Cataclysm launch.

We would definitely like to get some of that stuff out of your currency UI so you don't have to look at that lonely Badge of Justice for the rest of your character's career. (Source)

Masteries – Investing in multiple trees
Almost everyone at max level will want at least 51 / something / something to gain full benefit of their passive talent trees. A Shadow priest might be something like today's 14/0/57, (Maybe 21/0/55? Maybe 15/0/61?) because we're not giving them much reason so far to subspec Holy at all. A warlock or hunter at the moment (in Cataclysm) might choose a 51/10/15, meaning points in all 3 trees. This is all early though and sometimes players don't end up going with the builds we think they will and we want you to have more flexibility than you do today. (Source)

200% Spell Crit in Cataclysm
If so, does that mean smaller crits, or does that mean 200% spell crits baseline?
We're not sure yet. For the hybrid classes, having the 200% crits is a good way to distinguish the casters from the non-casters (jn terms of keeping healers or melee specs from doing quite so much damage with spells). For mages and locks there is less reason for them. (Source)

"Chaotic" world in Cataclysm
For all of the zones that take a turn for the worse, I would say there's an equal number of zones which improve in the chaos. Our goal is not to make the leveling experience dreary, or show you how much we can decimate familiar places. We want to add some vigor back into the old world in the wake of cataclysmic change.

[…] Just to clarify, in many cases there are different areas in each zone with different types of changes. So, maybe the Barrens has been ruptured in half and made a tumultuous place of battle between the Alliance and the Horde in the south, but there are areas of the Barrens that look more beautiful than ever before. The changes in cataclysm aren't being made to shift the scale toward ugly, unforgiving terrain. You'll find a multitude of differing environments within each zone, and within the overall world. (Source)

Armory: Guild Bank Logs Outdated
We are aware of an issue which exists presently on the World of Warcraft Armory site preventing guild bank logs from properly updating. We’re working to apply a fix for this issue and will provide an update when we have an estimated timeframe for resolution. (Source)

European Beta Guild Contest
This is pretty much the case; we'll just have to see. Obviously the EU has a lot more countries and laws to take into account. Anyhow, should we have any similar announcement to make, you won't have to ask here to find out about it. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Arcane Missiles
The idea is to keep Arcane Missiles as a core mechanic that all mages want to use when it procs, but it's possible some spec may end up not using it if their other spells are propped up enough that you don't want to spend the cast time. We'll have to see when we get a little further in beta. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Warlocks in Cataclysm
Sorry, we just don't agree that that is a problem. It doesn't really matter if the talents are in a tree with a different name than your spec as along as the talents are useful, and those 15 certainly are.

To reiterate, we like Affliction using Shadow Bolt. We don't want Affliction to rely so much on Drain Soul because that feels a lot like a Shadow priest, and we don't like any class casting nothing but dots. So Shadow Bolt is sticking around. We also don't have a problem with Shadow Bolt being a Destruction spell and being buffed by the Destruction tree. Furthermore, we have no problem with Destro using something other than Shadow Bolt even though it's a Destruction spell. Finally, we don't mind that all of those talent points buff one spell. It's a really important spell! If you had to spend 15 points to buff a spell that was a trivial amount of your damage it would be a bigger deal, but then I'm fairly sure nobody would make that talent point investment in the first place.

All of those arguments seem like they offend your logic or something, which isn't enough grounds for us to want to change it. Different classes work differently. Mages focus on a school of magic while warlocks focus more on a source of damage (dots, pets and nukes) but even in that case, that doesn't mean they focus on their damage source to an extent that the mage focuses on Fire, Frost or Arcane (and in Cataclysm all mages will care a lot about Arcane Missiles in any event). We are really trying to resist class homogenization and having talent trees constructed similarly for every class works against that goal. Not similar is fine. Not functional is not fine.

What does bother us is having to get both Affliction and Destruction versions of hit, threat reduction, pushback resistance and range in addition to the crit damage from Ruin. Our plan is to put generic (affects all spells) talents for hit and pushback resistance in the first tier of Demonology and then just make the spells longer range so there is no need for a range talent. We're getting rid of all threat reduction talents. With the extra Cataclysm talent points, you should have more t…