Fighting back against ‘rape’ comments

The Love is in the Air guide is coming I promise!

But now for something completely different.

Theres been a little Twitterstorm going on surrounding Mana Obscura‘s Gazimoff who, when watching videos from Machinima.com came across a video where one of the directors said that ‘women were built for rape’.  Thats an utterly distasteful comment.  Its not a joke – rape is never a joke because rape is a violent, nasty crime that has victims.  For those victims, male or female, it can never be a joke.  Its not ‘acceptable gaming terminology’ and its not funny.  If you think that it is please don’t comment here because all that means is you are an sexist scumbag with no sense of empathy and an ego the size of the moon.

Gazimoff has written to Machinima.com to complain.  You can see his letter via Google+.  I just wanted to raise awareness of what he is doing and applaud him.  I know he will get a lot of abuse for doing this (its a sad thing, but those who stand up against this kind of behaviour do get a lot of abuse from the kind of people I mentioned above who not only think its okay to use that language, but defend the right of people to do it because they think it makes them less of a scumbag if all the cool kids are scumbags too).  Hes already had some people complain on Twitter.

So this is the anti-abuse.  Its the cheering Gazimoff on post.  I often find the haters are more vocal than the support so I wanted to make a point of offering support.

 

Thinking about Looking For Raid

So although theres a few details to iron out, we basically know how LFR will now work.  The points below have either been explicitly stated or are implied.

• LFR will offer 25 man current tier raiding at a lower difficulty level than normal raiding
• LFR will offer gear below the current tier, but (I assume) above the previous normal tier.  If this had been implemented for Firelands I suspect it would ilevel 365 gear.  Its not clear if the gear will be the same items, or different items.  Its not clear how trash drops or tier items will work.
• LFR will be a mirror of LFD in many ways.  It will be cross realm.  It will put together the group for you.  I suspect it will have the same loot limits.
• LFR will work the same way as LFD for lockouts (this was explicitly stated).  I am not clear exactly how this will interact with normal/heroic lockouts.  I suspect it will be completely separate.
• LFR will have its own separate achievements.

What LFR is not going to do
Its not going to eliminate the problems of current raid PuGs if you can’t use LFR for normal difficulty raids too (so far it appears you can’t do that).  Will people still want to PuG normal raids? Probably.  Because the gear in LFR raids just won’t be as good.  LFR is a bit of a misnomer because its not really the equivalent of LFD for raiding.  It won’t stop people doing PuG raids and it won’t prevent the ninja problem.  I think less people will PuG normal raids.  And I think a lot of people will complain about how they can’t get the loot in normal raids.  But in all honesty those are very small down sides compared to what it does do.

What LFR is going to do
So if its not really LFD for raiding, what is LFR.  Well, its quite a few things rolled into one.

• Its Heroics in a 25 man format.  If you can’t raid right now for whatever reason, you never get to experience the epic feel of raiding.  If theres enough interest people should be able to dip in and out.
• Its introductory raiding.  Its where you learn how to not stand in bad and jump through hoops on a larger scale and over a longer period of time.  Its where you learn to tank, heal, dps, etc. on mobs that last long enough to stretch your mana or allow you to manage your cooldowns over time.
• Its where you can gear your alts without dealing with the ninjas and fail-PuGs (when I said I was feral cat that was feral cat – c-a-t not b-e-a-r!!!)
• Its where people who like 25 man raiding but don’t like the politics and pain of a 25 man guild can still get a dose of 25 man raiding.
• Its going to make for smoother normal raiding in guilds by allowing players to go and practice their raids in advance.  Either as a formal part of guild activity, or informally.  I hope that groups up to 25 people will be able to queue so we can take all interested guildies when we go.
• Its going to offer an option if you are short a few raiders one night.  An option where players can bring their mains or alts or whatever.
• Its going to make using alts viable in guilds that aren’t top end.  I do find players who learn a fight only from their point of view and if they are on an alt, they have no clue what they are doing. In LFR they can practice and gear!
• It creates a use for Archeology.  You need something to do while you wait for your queue to pop.

And on the down side:

• Its going to bring back the repetitive play problem we had in Wrath, where you felt obliged to do a raid more than once a week.  However, I think this format is better.  You can front load your LFR raiding for gear and because you are getting practice too it will feel valuable.  You shouldn’t need to LFR on your main after a point.
• Its another thing to do.  I really hope an LFR run gives a time appropriate amount of Valor Points to make it a viable alternative to heroics.  For example, Firelands has seven bosses.  So 20 VP per boss leading to 140 (the same amount as a troll heroic) would seem logical.

Morrighan’s verdict
Overall I like it.  In an ideal world LFR would be LFD for raids, but when you start to think about the complications of that … its just too restrictive.  What happens on a one tank fight?  How do you ensure the people going in are vaguely ready without a gear score so high no one would bother?  How would you stop people gaming any gear score with PvP gear?  These could be overcome, but not without changing key game mechanics and restricting raid design.  So this is a good alternative.  I love what this system offers players who can’t commit to raiding and I think it has something to offer raiding guilds too.  It seems a far better implementation that the 10/25 system of Wrath.

Premium WoW services

Yes its ANOTHER comment post on the furore.  Its my blog.  And I always feel the need to comment when the WoW trolls cry louder than my 5 month old child.

So far there are three ‘premium’ services that Blizzard will/does provide:

• Mobile Auction House
• Mobile Guild Chat
• Cross-Realm invites

Now its not clear right now if the last of these will be part of the same premium fee that you pay for the mobile services or a separate fee.  If its a separate fee I expect the same fee will cover an increasing range of services.  Either way I think we can expect to see more of these kinds of premium services, the same way we have seen more and more pets and mounts added.

Non-essential extras
All of these services have one thing in common: they improve your experience of the game but don’t really improve your success in the game.  Now I could find arguments that they can improve your success for each one (the ability to watch for rare items on the auction house, the ability to do dungeon achievements with friends, etc,) but the benefits are marginal and could certainly be achieved without the premium extra.  They are not essential – in some cases they are not even desirable for everyone.

This is similar to realm transfers, faction transfers, etc.  They are paid for because Blizzard did not factor them into its original plan, but players asked for them.

If you do not want these services, if you did not ask for these services, you don’t need to pay for them.  You are in no way disadvantaged by this.  I can’t believe that all of the trolls people complaining about the latest premium addition all asked for this service to be added.

If you are one of the small group of people who particularly wants this service and can’t afford it … well then you have my sympathy.  I can’t afford an Alienware gaming laptop and mobile internet connection so I can play WoW wherever I am either, but thems the breaks.

Yes I know you already pay $15 a month … nearly 7 years on
I’m not the first to say this, but Blizzard has not raised the cost of its subscription in all this time.  However inflation has not only existed, it has risen.  Blizzard will be paying more for wages, more for its facilities and hardware.  The cost of everything has gone up in 7 years, but WoW has not.  Blizzard has chosen to absorb the cost of inflation AND to engage in development outside of its original plan.  So for that development, it wants to charge.

If I support premium services do I pay for them?
Yes and no.  I do buy pets.  I have most of the pets (I think I lack Lil’ Ragnaros).  I don’t have the sparkle pony mount because I despise it.  Its the most stupid looking mount in the game.  In fact, you could create a Frankenstein mount from parts of other mounts in the game and it would still look better than the sparkle pony.

I have realm transferred three characters since the service became available, all Horde to join a real life friends guild.  The most recent of these took the Heirloom cloaks and helms with her to a guild where I don’t have access to these.

I don’t pay for any of the premium subscription services.  I don’t want mobile Auction House access because I couldn’t imagine auctioning without an addon to show me average prices.  I don’t want mobile guild chat enough to consider paying for it at the moment.  When I go back to work I might consider it.  I wouldn’t pay for the cross-realm dungeon invite either because all my cross-realm friends are on a different faction to my main characters and therefore I wouldn’t be able to use the service for the one group of people I would want to play with.

Morrighan’s conspiracy theory #138: Blizzard are using this premium dungeon invite service to pay for the technology that will allow BoA’s to be sent cross server.  I have NO evidence for this AT ALL.  But thats my guess.  Whether cross-realm BoAs will be premium or not … who knows!

Patch 4.1 and the little things that make WoW better

Patch 4.1 has some big things.  It has troll heroics and the Call to Arms for LFD.  But it also has some little things that just make the game better.

• Flying mounts can now be used in Ghostlands.

Lets hope they work their way through all of the TBC Azeroth areas.

• A dead player can now be resurrected by targeting them using the Party or Raid Frame even if they have released. No more hunting for corpses.

Win.  Often players release immediately, only to discover someone managed to survive and could res the group quicker.

• All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.

My husband the tank/raid leader has been looking forward to this one for weeks now.  In 10 man it negates the need to lose a dps from where you need them, or put them in a difficult spot just because you need to interrupt.  The first phase of the Council fight in BoT is a prime example.  Unless you have an elemental shaman you lose a melee from a boss where you need to focus all your dps at one point, and that melee has to run in and out or die instantly to Glaciate.

• Several persistent ground effects now display different visuals for hostile and friendly players. The following spells have the same visual effects for friendly players, but new alternate visuals for hostile players: Ring of Frost, Consecration, Desecration, Wild Mushroom, Flare, Ice Trap, Power Word: Barrier, Smoke Bomb, and Hand of Gul’dan. As a general rule, the alternate effects have a red tint or hue indicating they are created by an enemy player.

If you’ve ever come across a mage frost circle thing on the ground in a BG or in Tol Barad and thought ‘hmmm can I step on that or not?’ then this is a change you will welcome.

• Righteous Fury now persists through death.

If you’ve ever mashed Judgement as you ran in only to be one shotted and hear the tank go ‘damn, forgot RF’ then this is a change you will welcome.

• Honor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice.
• Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor.
• Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor.

Gotta love this one.  Heres the thing.  Conquest points are quite easy to get each week up to the cap.  But theres a LOT to buy with those points (theres two whole sets of gear if you want the prestige pretty gear).  Valor is gained more slowly, but you run out of things to buy sooner.  So the last bullet is a win.  Then, Honor is painfully slow to get compared to Justice IMO.  If you play solo, or prefer BGs sure its probably not so much of a grind.  But to run a BG and get only 50-100 Honor and get a slew of abuse into the bargin is not my idea of fun.  I have a limited amount of WoW time and this is not how I want to spend it.  On the other hand you can get at least 280 Justice from a four boss heroic (more with guild perks and even more if you have already done your Valour run).  Morrighan still needs some PvP gear so I will be taking her back into heroics once this patch hits to farm PvP gear.

• Targets and focus targets now display on the mini-map.

I can think of at least two valuable uses for this. Finding that female dwarf rogue for a holiday achievement and finding a rare elite you’ve been looking for.  And thats before you even get to its use in raids and BGs.

Things that make me want to cackle madly

• Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.

Mwhahahahahaha.

Ret Paladin changes
Note this is not a complete list, just the highlights (or lowlights depending on your point of view).

• Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.

This is obviously a nerf for retribution.  In PvE I doubt it will be noticed.  If you notice it in PvE as ret then really you need to look at your healing strategy some more (prot is a different matter all together, but still…).  In arena it will be, and especially in 2s.  I will notice it in 3s if our healer dies.  But I can understand the philosophy behind it and support that.  If you cast WoG more than every 20 seconds you aren’t really doing a lot of dps because it takes a big chunk of that time just to get up to 3 points of Holy Power!

• Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.

This makes DS usable.  I haven’t really used it much in PvE at the moment.  Its useful when you have a group of very little, low health adds and thats it.  And even then Consecration is better.  DS without HP generation is a huge dps loss.  I also had the feeling it needed a boost in dps itself, but maybe not.  We’ll see.

• Sacred Shield’s internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.

Well of course I don’t like it.  But I can see why they did it.  I was glad to see Sacred Shield back and can understand that in PvP all the other classes don’t feel that way.

• Selfless Healer: The damage bonus from this talent now has a 30 sec duration instead of 10 sec.

Again supporting the use of WoG as an occasional heal.  This means you at least get the debuff for long enough to get your Holy Power back, and then a bit longer.  I think you’ll see more WoG in PvE with this and it will make the cooldown less painful in PvP.  If I save the mage with a WoG I then get more of a dps boost to help burn our enemies.

Holy/Shadow Priest changes
Note this is not a complete list, just the highlights (or lowlights depending on your point of view).

• Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.

Booooo.  I know it brings us in line with the other healers.  I wonder if this also affects Mass Dispel?

• Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope.

Cheer.  Theres nothing more irritating than channelling one of these only to have some adds spawn and interrupt it.

• Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.

Good.  I know its rare to use it and you could just use something else.  But I always felt this was wrong.

• Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.

Another point in the ‘helping forgetful raiders’ column.

• Mind Sear damage has been doubled.

Needed.  Much needed.  Mind Sear is terrible right now.

• Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.

Although its a nerf I don’t think its a huge change other than were you pre-cast shields.  You’d only really notice it in PvE when your shield wasn’t needed anyway.

• Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.

This is confusing as I’m not clear if its a talent or a part of choosing to be Holy.

• Chakra now lasts until canceled, up from 1 minute.

Useful for pre-casting.  Or if you cast it and then get distracted and don’t use it.  The problem with both of those is you often end up with the wrong Chakra state because you need to cast a different type of heal anyway.

• Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.

Needed.  Once I realised how underpowered this was for how much mana it cost, especially in constrast to the instant heal from the other Chakra state, I stopped using it.  Which is a shame because its pretty.

• Surge of Light can now also trigger from Binding Heal.

Nice.  I use Binding Heal quite a bit.

LFD: Guild vs PuG

So today we woke up to this gem:

In patch 4.1 we’ll be introducing Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms, a new system intended to lower queue times. Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon.

Any time the Dungeon Finder queue is longer than a few minutes for level-85 Heroics, the Call to Arms system kicks in and determines which role is the least represented. In the case of tanking being the least represented role, the “Call to Arms: Tanks” icon will display in the Dungeon Finder UI menu where class roles are selected, and will also display on the UI when the queue pops and you are selected to enter a dungeon. Regardless of your role, you’ll always be able to see which role currently has been Called to Arms, if any.

Call to Arms is meant to lower wait times by offering additional rewards for queuing as the currently least represented role. To be eligible for the additional rewards you must solo queue for a random level-85 Heroic in the role that is currently being Called to Arms, and complete the dungeon by killing the final boss. Every time you hit these requirements (there is no daily limit) you’ll receive a goodie bag that will contain some gold, a chance at a rare gem, a chance at a flask/elixir (determined by spec), a good chance of receiving a non-combat pet (including cross faction pets), and a very rare chance at receiving a mount. The pets offered come from a wide variety of sources, and include companions like the Razzashi Hatchling, Cockatiel, and Tiny Sporebat, but the mounts are those specifically only available through dungeons (not raids), like the Reins of the Raven Lord from Sethekk Halls, Swift White Hawkstrider from Magister’s Terrace, and Deathcharger’s Reins from Stratholme.

This system is meant to address the unacceptable queue times currently being experienced by those that queue for the DPS role at max level. The long queue times are, of course, caused by a very simple lack of representation in the Dungeon Finder by tanks, and to some extent healers. We don’t feel the tanking and healing roles have any inherent issues that are causing the representation disparity, except that fulfilling them carries more responsibility. Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers, but perhaps we can bribe them a little. While this system gives tanks and healers something extra, the incentive is being provided so that we can help players in the DPS role get into more dungeons, get better gear, and continue progressing.

While the gold, gems, flasks, and elixirs are OK incentives, we knew we needed something more substantial. We had briefly considered Valor Points and epics, but decided that wouldn’t be working toward the goal of helping DPS players progress, and ultimately wouldn’t keep tanks and healers in the Dungeon Finder system for very long. We settled on pets and dungeon-found mounts as they’re cosmetic/achievement items that players tend to try to get on their own, so why not change that up and offer them a chance to get some of those elusive pets and mounts in a way that also helps other players? Even if they don’t get a pet or mount, or get one they already have, the gold and other goodies still feel rewarding enough that it won’t feel like a waste of effort.

We think it’s a pretty solid incentive to get tanks and healers queuing, give max-level players another way to collect the pets and mounts they so desire, and above all, to improve wait times for DPS players sitting in queues. In the case of lower level dungeons, it’s actually not uncommon for DPS to be the least represented role, and so if this new system works out and we’re pleased with the results, we may consider applying this same mechanic to lower level dungeons as well.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Would the possibility of pets and mounts cause you to not do a run with your guild (since Call to Arms only works if you solo queue)?
• Do we think this will see a sudden rush of undergeared and inexperienced tanks and healers trying to cash in on this?
• If this had been posted on April Fool’s day, would you have thought it was a joke.

My first thought was ‘yes those queue times need to go down’.  But then I realised this was yet ANOTHER way for the LFD to penalise people for running with their guild.  I’m lucky as my guild is mostly full of generous souls who help each other and who like to do guild runs.  But imagine if your not in a guild like Dreamstate?  In fact it may lengthen queues because all the DPS who were in guild runs will now get stuck in the queue too as their tanks and healers will want to queue on their own.

Enough with the complaining – what do Blizzard do about it?
Actually I have a solution!  You need to match this change with a change that rewards people for running with their guild.  Where a guild gets a full five people, they should have a reward too.  You could make it quite minimal.  I would suggest a random player out of the five gets the same bag with the rewards in it.  This should tip the balance back toward all-guild runs and encourage tanks and healers to run more than their minimum number of runs.  Even if you no longer get Valor Points, you still have a chance at the bag.

Ask the Devs – summary version

I thought I’d help out and summarise the questions that people have posted on the thread and the answers to them. It’ll save you reading them.

****WARNING: EXTREME SARCASM INCOMING****

Q: Will you buff my class?
A: No.

Q: Everyone knows my class is terrible at the thing I want to do, when will you fix it?
A: Its not terrible, its just not overpowered.  No we aren’t going to make you overpowered.

Q: When will you fix the engine so I can get top graphics on my terrible PC?
A: When we manage to change the laws of physics.

Q: Please explain again this issue you’ve already explained a dozen times (raid size, class design, mastery, class balance, etc.)
A: Learn to search.

Now maybe we can focus on real questions?

My Love-Hate Relationship with the Blue Tracker

I know I don’t have to read it.  I could just read the front page of MMO Champion and find out all the key information.  Thats what other people do.  Its probably sensible.  But at some point I started reading the Blue Tracker too.  The good thing about the Blue Tracker is it gives context to what ends up on the front page.  Those comments on game design don’t just appear out of the blue – they are responses to comments posted by the community.  I tend to find that the hints make much more sense in context and that I am better prepared for whats coming from reading the Blue Tracker.

But … the stupidity is just endless.  Not from the Blues, but from the community.  Heres just a sample of recent stupidity:

1 Arendorm asks why we can’t have a class changing service.  This is a good example of ‘fails to understand the bigger picture’ stupidity.

/RANT MODE ON

Of course we can’t have a class changing service.  It would destroy the game in at least two ways.  Firstly, some classes would disappear as raiding guilds require their members to change to the most powerful classes out there in order to progress faster.  Half the playerbase would quit because they want to make a choice rather than be forced (I’m in this camp) and the other half would be constantly switching class as Blizzard attempted to find balance.  Secondly, levelling different characters gives the game replayability.  I would spend perhaps a quarter of the time I do playing without my alts.  And I’d soon run out of things to do.  Plus those things I could do would be difficulty because everyone else was trying to do them, rather than being spread across other content.  If you could only play at end game, Stormwind would be unvisitable, mining would take five times as long and involve constant ganking on a PvP realm and we’d run out of instance servers again.  So before you post an ‘I want’ post about the bigger picture.

/RANT MODE OFF

2 Nasseorava whines about the role of Blue posts.  This is the angry moron type of stupidity.

/RANT MODE ON

Whining about intelligent threads (which may have run over years apparently making them … er… totally outdated?) not getting a response works better if you write intelligently – learn to use paragraphs.  What he meant was ‘CMs never respond to what I post’ and the reason is simple.  CMs have better things to do than respond to solid walls of WHINE.  The fact that he is whining about CMs not responding to well written threads is what opens him up to criticism of his own writing.  Of course this post does look intelligent in comparison to this thread where the poster calls the CMs a bunch of retards and then expects to not have his thread locked?  Oh and of course the PvP forums are where you should post a whine about the CMs.  Really.  For some reason players seem to think that their $15 a month entitles them to responses on the forums.  There was a post about the math

/RANT MODE OFF

Many posts combine the above too.  The request for the class changing service is polite.  Most people don’t bother.  They post

So why do I still read the Blue Tracker?  If it irritates me this much?  To find little gems like the fact that the way you get your Wintersaber mount will change in 4.1 so you don’t have to waste time doing the current incredibly dull quests. I will continue to read it.  I’m sure I’m not the only one either!

Ret palas will spout lightning in Cataclysm

Take a look here to see it in glorious purple.

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2010/september/catadarkmoon.jpg

But for anyone on a reader heres the text:

Darkmoon Card: Hurricane
+321 Strength
Equip: Chance to strike your melee target with lightning for 5000 Nature damage.

Yes thats right.  You remember that trinket you always took for fun?  This time it has enough strength on it to justify it.  Ret palas will spout bolts of lightning in Cataclysm.  I hope the graphic is good.

Cataclysm class previews

16 April.  Add that date to your diary now.  Underline it.  Add some exclamation marks.  Then prepare to grumble that every single other class is getting displayed before us.

Apparently the paladin is still in development.  I suspect because paladins need an overhaul throughout.  They have very few active talents, a lot of passive talents (which Blizzard have said they want to get rid of) and levelling them is incredibly dull right now.  You have one button to hit (unless you want to run out of mana/pretend your a caster) until you can reach Art of War on the ret tree.

Morrighan’s predictions:

• A new active ability – at least one available at low levels
• Abilities interact a little more to make the rotation more than GCD watching
• (More of a wish) a tidy up of the 30s shared cooldown between various abilities – please take wings OFF of this – I’ll even pay talent points for that!
• A pony to be provided to all paladin players

So how about this new patch?

With patch 3.3.3.3.3.3.3 ‘likely’ to drop this week (according to MMO Champion) I thought I had better make some mention fast.

There is nothing ret pala specific in the patch notes.

Heres a quick summary of the best features:

• …
• …
• I guess the fix to Culling of Stratholme is good!
• …
• More honour per kill is kinda nice.
• …
• Ok heres something worth a post. The buff changes. Several buffs are having the range increased to stop them from dropping and being reapplied throughout fights. Equally several procs with 100% effective uptime are being turned into passive buffs. This is all with the intention of reducing server spam and therefore lag. Being on a high population realm (Lagsorrow as its more commonly known) this is a good thing.
• Frozen Orbs will now be rolled on automatically (no more orb ninjas) which is good because you can now use them for nice things like Frost Lotuses and Eternal Fires … well I stopped reading there because all mine will go on those two items. I’ve been collecting them for some time. Legitimately I might add!
• Titansteel no longer has a cooldown to smelt. Yay.
• …
• The Battleground Finder now works much more like the Dungeon Finder?

All in all, its not an exciting patch. What I don’t mention is a whole load of fixes for niggly issues. Coming soon, to a server near you.