Quote:Even more bones to chew on;)

http://pc.ign.com/articles/809/809350p1.html

Quote:On a wild tangent, am I the only one that thinks Zul'aman is the most ridiculous idea they've come up with so far? That it's a raid instance featuring trolls isn't what I mean (hey, Zul'gurub rocked); I mean that it's a raid instance for both factions located inside a Horde zone. This won't really impact people leveling in Ghostlands very much unless the Allies decide to camp Tranquillien while waiting on the rest of their raid (and that will happen), but I know that I'll be setting up a tent city at the EPL portal, ganking and camping Allies porting in.

Quote:I'd be shocked if there were hero classes. They dropped that idea a long time ago. It's just too hard to balance - everybody wants to be a hero, and to balance content properly you would have to assume everybody was one. At that point, no matter how hard it is, most raiders are on that grind. Then try dropping the hero's into an arena.....

Quote:It probably goes without saying, but they can't just give all the classes 10 more points. Can you imagine a warrior with BT and MS? /cower

Quote:What exactly went into the MPQ's in 2.1?

Quote:I dunno. The idea of "hero" is pretty relative, it doesn't have to mean overpowered.

Quote:This was said last time - but in most of those cases Blizzard either moved around talents to prevent it, or made the higher ends of the tree that much more appealing.

Quote:A good post about it here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=100.0

Quote:But it has to mean *something*. And once it does, the hard math checks need to be uptuned to reflect that reality. Plus it can't be that difficult - Johnny casual needs to be able to be a Mountain King or a Dark Ranger. The whole game is pretty much based casuals being allowed to play. Combine a noticeable boost in power with something that is achievable to casuals, and it becomes mandatory for any raider with hopes of seeing the end of the game. Essentially you have just extended the level curve, and probably put a (semi)permanant choice at the end of it. But the level curve is the way it is because Blizzard thinks it is about right, and they already have a semi-permant choice (talents).

Quote:Yeah I know. My point is that they will need a bunch of testing on this. For example rogues vs feral druids is probably balanced properly right now. I'm not that familliar with rogues, but you seem to think that 10 more points would give you a big boost. 10 points would do about nothing for a feral druid, other then a little pvp utility. I don't think adjustments are impossible, just that it's one reason why I don't think the expansion is less then 8 months off, even if it's announced later this week.

Quote:Remember, TBC raiding, except for Kara, was horribly untuned. Hey, I think I'll go preorder Hellgate. The gameplay trailer looks amazing.

Quote:It was, yes, but one patch pretty much cleaned up the vast majority of raiding issues - both class and encounter based. The problem was the patch took too long.

Quote:Buzz around the Net is that the next expansion will be in Northrend. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich-King is the title. Whether or not this will be revealed/playable at Blizzcon is anyone's guess.

This is mostly fueled by news that the German gaming board gave a rating out to something called "Wrath of the Lich-King demo" by Blizzard.

Arthas had to go down eventually, it was just a matter of which expansion it would happen in...

-Bolty

Quote:http://www.wowszene.de/news.php?extend.1182

Who knows how good the info is. The only really interesting bits are that you will fight Arthas, and Death Knight will be the only hero class. You will need to unlock it somehow with your regular characters, then he will start at a high level.

Quote:I look forward to the Lich King demonstrating his wrath by waiting patiently at the end of a raid dungeon until players have beaten his minions.

Quote:Sad, isn't it? He'll also tell his minions to sit back and wait for the heroes to come to them rather than going on the offensive.

If they do put Northrend in next, the Lich King better not be the final "boss" of the expansion. He should, at least for the time being, be an unattainable challenge that only the foolhardy would attempt. I'd love to see footage of players marching bravely towards the Frozen Throne and simply dropping dead all at once. Or maybe every human member of the raid succumbing to the plague and being permanently Mind Controlled until death, sparking threads on Blizzard's forums of "imbalance" and a "slap in the face" to the Alliance.

I can dream, right?

Quote:They should do a pan-race version of that. Everyone should be able to go take a crack at Arthas from Day 1. As soon as you engage him, half the raid (regardless of race) gets 'plagued' (Undispellable, continues until death) and attacks the remaining half of the raid (preferably targeting healers first). If anyone dies, he heals to 100% and plagues more people. At 90%, Arthas says, "This bores me," and plagues anyone left unplagued. Then he teleports your raid of zombies to the outskirts of a nearby city where you attack and the guards slaughter you.

How does he ever get beaten? Blizzard buries a "talisman of no-plague" at the end of the ultimate raid instance, dropping some limited number (say 3) per week. The challenge becomes: How many people do you need to kill Arthas? Maybe it's possible with 15 really skilled players but you can take up to 40 into the instance. If you want to zerg him down with 40 people, have at it. But if you want a server first, you'll probably need to do it with 15 or 20.

Quote:So, the super-epic-story-defining-much-anticipated-last-boss is killable with a zerg?

That would be kinda ... bad.

-Jester