Most likely Christmas 2012 at the EARLIEST…it’s usually about a year and a half after it gets announced at Blizzcon.
I’m sort of vaguely annoyed; I really wanted new character models. And since Blizzard said before that they were working on them, I kind of expected new models. Instead, we get Farmville for WoW.
I mean, okay, I was down with the pet battles, but Farmville? Seriously?
According to Chris Metzen, that’s exactly what Varian’s going to do.
I’m still waiting for the new /dances we were promised…
Seriously. It would be more enjoyable than World of Pokecraft in Farmville-land.
It’s cool how many different things people are waiting for in the game. To me, it seems weird–every time the topic of “updating things in WoW” comes up, two things are invariably mentioned: new character models (which I totally understand and I’m totally behind) and new dances (which I completely don’t get).
I mean, yeah, I guess it would be fun to have the characters do different dances. I guess. I suppose it would be cool to have the long-promised “dance studio” and be allowed to customize your character’s dance moves. But do people really spend that much time dancing as opposed to all the other things you can do in WoW, that dances are such a big deal that they ALWAYS get mentioned?
I’m not trying to put down anybody for whom this is an important thing–I genuinely want to understand. Cool sidebar thing: yes. Be-all and end-all of the things that need to be done with WoW to update it: not so much.
I guess I always assumed that bitching about not getting new dances was people’s way of explaining just how lame some other added feature is. Along the lines of “even a dumb-ass dance studio would be more useful than Pet Battles”. E.g.: “I can’t believe they added another capture the flag battleground while I’m still waiting for the dance studio!”.
But maybe some folks just really love to dance…
There is one thing that sounds like maybe they are getting right - making Raid Finder loot rolls player vs. computer instead of player v. player. I wouldn’t be opposed to it being that way in regular raids too, except for the fact that then you could have a bad dice week and have nobody get upgrades at all (although that should be offset by the fact that sometimes you would get multiple copies of the same loot).
Even with that caveat it would be nice to no longer have to feel guilty that a friend got an upgrade you wanted (or, conversely, feel guilty for winning gear they needed).
I think my ideal solution would be: Boss dies and everybody rolls. Any rolls over 85 (or whatever) “win”. Then they get to choose something from the bosses hoard (i.e. loot table). The only thing you lose here is random raid-wide loot, which I think most players hate anyway. Another argument against it is that gearing would go too fast and most folks would have everything they need quicker than they do in the current RNG-infested world. I think if you set the roll threshold high enough that won’t happen, but I haven’t done the math.
I saw something akin to this in Warhammer Online in the group fights, PvE or PvP. Players accumulate points of some kind as they play, based on the effective number of actions they took: a participation metric. At the end of the fight, those points are added to a RNG roll for each player and the resulting number sorted. Then the top (X) players got to pick from a treasure chest, in list order.
In essence, the computer enforced a “baddies get no lewt” rule. Very interesting mechanic, and a pretty good motivator to “do your best”. I’m sure it could be gamed, although I can’t specifically see how. (Didn’t actually play the game, just shoulder-surfed it.)
Dances make a fine point of comparison. They’re trivial, although TBH I’d welcome any change in the Friday Night Mostly-Naked Blood Elf Chick dancing events in Orgrimmar. That Britney Spears dance is getting tiresome.
Anyway, as pointed out, the comparison is less about dancing itself, and more about how messed up Blizz’s design choices and prioritization are. The argument goes, “even dance studio would be a more productive and original use of development time than recreating Pokemon.”
It goes without saying that actually bugfixing current content should be highest priority, and then maybe some actual novel PvE or PvP mechanics and encounters rather than “capture the flag” or “control the point” of “a hybrid of capture the flag and control the point”.
The problem is, Blizzard is all tell and no show, and it’s all been via books. Varian needs to do something in-game to undouche-ify himself.
Also, that dude from mmo-champion who is apparently right about almost anything says MoP beta within a week.
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I keep losing my sound (music) every time I change from fishing to battle gear. I have told Blizz about this and they said they’d get back to me, but I never heard back. Has this happened to anyone else (my sound card is okay)
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Besides flying (which you can’t do in TB), is there any way Fishing Buddy can show which areas are “fished out”?
Thanks, guys!
Q
Y’all have probably moved on to other games, but I thought I’d try anyway:
When I just now signed back on, everything was narrow and elongated, and since I wasn’t used to that, I opened a ticket, and my reply was that I would get a response within 9 days.
What do you think is happening?
Thanks
Q
I have no idea what the problem with your graphics is, but the long ticket response time is because the MoP beta just came out and people are making a fuss over it so the GMs are busy.
Well I did the delete Cache, WTF and Interface so the game would reset, but it never did. Then I tried repair, but that didn’t help. I looked at the forums and it seems like folks who have Charter are having trouble all over getting into the game, but that isn’t my problem. I can get in and play, but everything is just narrower and more elongated than usual. Everything else on my machine looks normal.
Q
Never mind, guys, I fixed it myself. Apparently I needed to re-set my screen resolution and everything’s okay now. Thanks anyway, though! Boy, that Beta’s got everyone in an uproar, doesn’t it? Glad I’m not a yearly member! 
Quasi
I’m glad you worked that out.
I’m a computer engineer, and sometimes even I think this crap is too complicated. Too many places to set or adjust what basically amounts to the same thing (like, screen display values… I only have one screen, why do I have to change the settings in so many different places?)
Maybe my children’s generation will figure out stuff like this. Some of the stuff done in mobile devices is a pretty good example of how to simply life and make a computer just a useful instrument rather than a religion.
Thanks, gnoitall.
You know, I kept thinking, “Why is this only happening with WoW?!!!”, and then I finally went into “options” and messed around with the screen resolution and fixed it. Sometimes I can still do that: think hard enough about a problem and be able to solve it, so that’s a good thing, I guess.
I also fixed my music problem. Somehow. Don’t ask me what I did, though. It had begun stopping every time I equipped or unequipped something.
So all is good again at Casa Quasi!
Thanks
Q
I’ve been thinking about getting back into WoW. Is the SDMB guild still going? I had a character or two in it from before.
Could someone send me a Scroll of Resurrection? PM me if you’re able to.
How do I find out if I have a scroll of Resurrection?
If you have a paid account you have them (I don’t know how many you can send out though, it doesn’t make sense for Blizzard to put a cap on it).
If the person is on your realID list, you can send it via a button on the upper left hand corner of the friends list in WoW.
If they aren’t, you go to the WoW website, log in, and on the featured stuff thinger on the homepage, there’s a post about the Scroll of Resurrection with a link to send one.
Actually, you can send the scroll in-game to a non-Realid target. Same button in the Social window, but you just poke in the email address associated with the battle.net account under which the WoW account is languishing. I reactivated a dormant second WoW account that way, and I wouldn’t touch RealID with a 10-yard pole.