The Queue: Ten points from Mitchindor

No, Mitch, just no.

I mean… unless I get my own house and we can be arch-enemies. (Or arch-frenemies?) I could go for that.

Seeing how Blizzard handles the loss of our Artifact abilities is going to be interesting, because without their abilities and buffs we’ll actively backslide in power as we step into the next expansion, which would feel weird. But for the most part, abilities are pretty closely tied to to the Artifact itself. Looking at the Silver Hand (because I’ve been playing my Paladin lately), your active ability is Tyr’s Deliverance, which “releases the Light within the Silver Hand” to heal.. It would be odd to simply add this as a baseline ability or talent when you don’t have the Silver Hand.

And Blizzard has never dealt with a situation quite like this, so I am very curious to see what happens next. I see a few possibilities, which could be mixed and matched:

• They do a big class rework that integrates the stuff that works and tosses the stuff that doesn’t. This wouldn’t be odd for the start of an expansion anyway, and it’s very likely to happen no matter how they handle the Artifact situation.
• Blizzard could change the names or descriptions of existing Artifact abilities and toss them in baseline or as talents. This seems entirely possible for specs whose Artifact ability has become a key part of their play.
• We could get a straight-up power boost to make up for the loss of our Artifact.
• The mobs in 8.0 could get a power nerf so they don’t feel harder than 7.0 mobs even though our power level has gone down.

I think the most likely is a class rework, which could include a bit of everything: new abilities or talents that mimic existing Artifact abilities, with power adjustments to make a smooth transition from 7.0 to 8.0.

But it’s up in the air until Hazzikostas says otherwise.

Honestly, I feel overwhelmed sometimes, too. I don’t have the time to be a hardcore player these days, so I’m rarely at the top tier of content — and when I’ve fallen behind, sometimes it’s hard to figure out just how to keep up.

But it’s not a new problem. I think WoW and MMOs in general have always been and continue to be hard to keep up with when you don’t log on every day. WoW maybe feels a little more so lately because they’ve kept to an aggressive schedule of new content — especially compared to the light patch schedule of Warlords — but I think the problem’s always been there. Sometimes a lack of content just hides it better.

So how could Blizzard fix this?  It’s primarily a communication problem: how do you keep players (who may not log on regularly) in the loop with everything that’s going on when there’s so much going on? Blizzard doesn’t do much to get players up to date if they haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on… but there’s quite a lot they could do.

First, I think patch notes are a problem. Even if you read the 7.2.5 patch notes, by now there have been a half dozen hotfixes that you have to read through to see the state of the game right now. Keeping an up to date list of what’s new would make it easier to see what’s in game right now. Heck, even I would have to go review a half a dozen hotfix posts to give you a rundown of the state of classes that I actively play. When Blizzard is making notable gameplay changes by hotfix, it’s quite hard to stay on top of things. Though I suspect this isn’t a big deal for the average come and go player (hotfix changes aren’t always that major), they make it difficult for someone who’s trying to keep up but doesn’t watch every minute’s news to know what’s going on.

Some TLDR summaries would help, too, so you have a big picture view, and developer comments in those patch notes could help players understand that big picture, too. I really like the developer’s comments in Heroes of the Storm patch notes, which give the intent behind the changes — in WoW you often have to read between the lines.

After each major patch, the game does pop up with a notice of what’s new when you log on, which is helpful… but only goes so far. It would be great if there were something more personalized here, like “this is what’s new for you since you last logged on” or possibly reminders for content you haven’t done yet. (But at the same time, both could easily fall into annoyance territory.)

However, this is a tough nut to crack because each player has very different goals. Some players are collectors who want to know about every new pet and achievement. Some are raiders who need to stay on top of all the latest hotfixes that change the latest raid and the class they’re playing, but their interest in everything else may be limited. How do you constantly keep such a disparate player base up to date on what’s important to them?

It’s tough when you keep putting out content. And I don’t think the content itself is the problem, because some people (even those of us who get through content slowly) will get bored when content comes out too slowly. The balance between “too much” and “too little” is difficult, but at least with too much to do we can log on and have things to do.

The TLDR here is that, yes, Blizzard could do better (and should try to do better), but the problem is probably harder to solve than you might think.

I miss them, too, mostly because it let me leave Mitch to answer the hard questions while I could be lazy. Now I have to answer everything all by myself. It’s really a lot of effort.
As to hijacking his Queues, mostly I don’t want to give him any ideas. Once he realizes he can edit other people’s posts we’re all doomed.

Mitch edit: DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! >:D

This really depends on how you want to define “best.” The WoW quote most burned into my mind is definitely BY FIRE BE PURGED, but I think my vote has to go to C’thun. You are already dead. Your friends will abandon you.

Creepy.

I have no thoughts on the Human racial (except that I wish I had it for collecting reputations; I guess I need to level a human), but I do agree that Stitch is the best Disney Prince. (That’s not saying much, because a lot of the lineup is pretty dull. Prince Charming doesn’t even have an actual name.)

P.s. Archmage RC had some actual analysis on the matter of Stitch that was really good, though the princess lineup is a bit more competitive:

• Stitch was threatened with death and escaped to a place that was alien and foreign to him, ala Snow White.
• Stitch has no parents, like many Disney Princesses
• Stitch has a sidekick that’s a different species than him (Pocahontas, etc)
• Stitch is also badass, like Mulan.
• Stitch gets his happy ending and a new family
• Conclusion: Agreed, Stitch is the best Disney Princess.