World of Warcraft 3.1 Patch Brings Dual-Specs, New Raid 204
On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.
Real News vs. Advernews (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't news. Real news goes like this:
"World of Warcraft introduces variable difficulties to their in game dungeons."
Advernews goes like this:
"WoW patch 3.1 released with 14 new bosses, dual spec, new GUI choices, and game balancing!"
One key difference, Advernews doesn't make sense to anyone outside of the game's target market.
Sorry for the made-up word.
Thanks but no thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ulduar (Score:3, Insightful)
The huge reduction in difficulty level in WotLK has indeed been pretty annoying. Now, I understand that these tier 7 instances are designed to be accessible to new players who've never touched the level 60 or 70 content, and that's fine. Their difficulty as an introductory tier would have been spot on, IF there had been harder tier 8 content in WotLK on the day it shipped. I was never expecting (nor wanting) the retuned Naxxramas to be pitched at Sunwell Plateau level difficulty.
I understand that back in Burning Crusade, they possibly pitched some of the early raid encounters a little bit too hard. Karazhan was quite a steep curve for new level 70s (to say nothing of the fact that it was the only introductory level instance and could only be done 10 man) and Gruul and Magtheridon, before they got nerfed, were completely out of the sights of most players for quite some time. But even had Burning Crusade's Tier 4 content been easier than it was at launch, there would still have been plenty for the more advanced players to do.
I really hate the philosophy which says that every raid player in the game should be able to blitz through any instance, with a few "hard modes" for the same fights thrown in for advanced players. Back when we were working through Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, just getting to see the next boss was often the biggest reward from defeating the previous one. That's gone now. I'm not sure I want to be playing a game where, once Icecrown Citadel has been released, even the casual guilds have downed Arthas within a fortnight, meaning we then spend the next 9 months trying to kill him while standing on one leg and drinking only the purple fruit juice.
Re:Exams (Score:1, Insightful)
Having this dual-spec system would make it a lot easier for a low level first time player to solo, especially for the low damage classes. It would mean they could easily switch between for example a healer priest for the rare chances they did get in a group/raid and shadow priest for solo.
I quit WoW when I got to level 65, I started getting bored of having to go days waiting for a decent group for an instance. It very much felt like to me, that Blizzard didn't care about new players, they already have enough regular subscribers to keep them going.
Also, I didn't have 1000g available at the time I quit, so even now, I wouldn't be able to use this.
One puff was enough for me (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally, I got sick of wondering that World of Warcraft was all about. I downloaded the free trial. It actually ran in Linux under Wine. I was impressed.
That was about all I was impressed with.
The updates took about 10 hours to fully complete, with each new patch leading to yet another. When the game finally started, I was required to "roll" my character. Having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I selected a Bull, and made it a druid, to get in tune with nature.
The game began. My first mission was to fetch a few feathers "the tribe". A fairly standard tutorial. But it proved tedious. You needed 7 feathers which had to be harvested from these bird creatures which you "fought" by clicking on them and waiting for your characters continuous and slow attacks to finally bring them down(Did I mention that it plays like an RTS). The trouble was that when you killed one of these birds it wouldn't necessarily drop one of these feathers, and even when it did, it could have been a ruined feather. The whole process took around a quarter of a hour. Still I assumed, it was just a tutorial. Things must get better later on.
I was wrong.
Mission after mission ensued. Collect 8 hides. Kill five cats. Harvest 8 tooths. Eventually moved on to the second town where new mission could be had. Now I had to collect 9 hides and 8 claws. etc, etc. But I was a patient man. Surely, I thought, after this drudgery is over, I will do something exciting, something that will explain the allure of the title. In the meantime, I competed with other players for the privilege of slaying a few anti-climactic "bosses", again by clicking once on them and waiting, who respawned at lengthy intervals. There were also "skills" to learn, but each needed items to be of use. Items which were only dropped, on occasion, by slow spawing monsters other players were also trying to kill.
Finally after 6 boring hours of pointless mission after pointless mission, I was approaching my goal. I proceeded towards the "capital", ascending slowly up a large basket elevator to a city on a mountain. My expectation peaked. Finally I thought, finally I will get to see what WoW is all about.
I went into the city, and up to the quest giver. The outlook was good. "We need you to fight for the Horde", they said. Finally! But then he went on. "But first we need supplies. We need you to collect 6 of this and 7 of that and..."
But it was too late. I had logged off World of Warcraft, never to return, and the Horde would never get their supplies, at least until the next poor sap came along, willing to waste another 6 hours of their life on pointless and demeaning chores. I went back to other games, and had some fun. To the end of my days I will never understand how people can pay 15 euros a month for the privilege of playing a handyman sim.
On the plus side this comic [penny-arcade.com] makes so much sense to me now.
Re:Eh, I already quit (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a simple reason why "refurbishing" the old dungeons would be a really bad idea from the perspective of Blizzard: The fastpass for new players would go away, increasing the time to the top.
Most MMOs fail after a while for a simple reason: Starting anew is pointless. A game that has been around for 2+ years makes a new player uneasy. Should I start? Everyone has 2 years on me, so I'd have to play 2 years to be where they are today. And they'll yet again be 2 years ahead (or only one, if it takes another year to the expansion). Why the heck should I start?
WoW (and some others) solved this by upping the levelcap every so often. The point is that first you have, say, 60 levels. After you reach 60, you can't "level" anymore. You go grind equipment.
Then, a year later, levelcap increase. And along with it you get new equipment, common items (of level 60something) that make the ultrasuperspecialawesomerarestoftherarest raid superoverthetoppowersword you pulled out after months of grinding like your mom's cooking spoon.
Now, no new player will go into that level 60 dungeon. Why should he? The weapon he could get out of there will drop, more likely and maybe even as a better one, from any random trashmob he kicks while heading for a quest.
But it served its mission. The players that were there from the start had something to do 'til levelcap up, they grinded that superawesome...youknowit for months. And new players don't have to do that. They basically get the fastpass past this grinding, thus starting on roughly equal footing.
Starting a new character, or starting the game as a new player altogether, actually makes sense this way!
Grinding and raiding is, essentially, busywork. To keep you playing and paying.
Not news either way (Score:5, Insightful)
News about patches to a game belong on the game's RSS feed, not a tech news site.
If the latest version comes with new AI so that NPCs happen to tell you about their dreams last night, and how they plan to put them into action today by building putting wheels on a board, adding an engine, and calling this new invention of theirs a "car", then it's worth seeing here.
Re:One puff was enough for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to defend the game's legitimate drawbacks (I gave it up a while back as well), but the fact that you wrote that lengthy and smug criticism without even progressing past auto-attack says less about the game's limitations than it does about your predisposition. It's akin to someone judging and dismissing a windowed interface, happily saying they will never understand how someone can use it when there are single-frame CLIs available, when that person never realized that you can click the mouse, not just wiggle the pointer around on the screen for show and use tab to switch fields.
Warcaft has major shortcomings, but you not only didn't approach them, you didn't even step onto the threshold.
Re:Thanks but no thanks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Exams (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno what GP was talking about on the "tons of low level Draenei and Blood Elves running around". I think he though you meant you started just after BC was released, not WotLK. Having said that, it seem like you were on the wrong server. if you decide to give it another shot, try Thorium Brotherhood. We're a fairly old server, but with only a moderate population. On the disadvantage side, our economy kind of sucks on the low end, and gear for low to mid levels is expensive, and we're not great raiders (only a few guild ever finished Black Temple or Sunwell Plateau). On the nice side, most guild are willing to recruit young and help you out with leveling, and lots of people have multiple alts and there's usually groups to be had for low level instances with only moderate effort. I'm leveling a druid right now and she's done a couple 20s-30s instances.
Re:One puff was enough for me (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than fighting other players for spawns you could have teamed-up with them to complete the goal cooperatively, an essential part of what makes the game appealing.
You also make it sound like combat never changes, which suggests you didn't train new abilities as you gained levels. Combat is quite simplistic at lower levels because, as you say, the game is training you. When you progress you get stronger and more diverse abilities that lead to more subtle combinations of attacks.
But, really, don't look at other players as the enemy, but allies to be made for now and for the future.
Way to catch up! (Score:2, Insightful)
So, you can have a second build for your character now? Way to catch up with City of Heroes, Blizzard!
Re:Not news either way (Score:3, Insightful)
With the enormous amount of players of this game and the overlap with Slashdot readers, this is a good way to keep those readers here for the news and the discussion, also for the ad views.
So yes, this does belong here.
Re:Exams (Score:1, Insightful)
Talderas, I have to disagree with with your 3rd point there, "3. Instances are a boring way to level up, compared to questing." I am/have leveled(-ing) two holy priests (53/80) simply because I genuinely enjoy the instance grind. Some people prefer the community aspect of the game, and meeting people through instances can be very enjoyable. My father, however, would be someone who would agree with #3. I would keep in mind that it isn't very fair to place opinion within a list of facts. The same statement could apply to #1, although I do personally agree with that statement.