Talent Build Examples for Blizzard's New Death Knight 130
With Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King NDA out of the way, there has been the inevitable flood of information about the new expansion hitting the streets. One of the most sought-after pieces of information is anything about the new class being introduced, the Death Knight. Massively has a great summary, with video examples, of the three different avenues available to the Death Knight. From the AE strengths of unholy, to the life-stealing blood tree, to the control of the frost tree, it seems that this new juggernaut is certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with.
No! Don't look! (Score:1, Funny)
Too soon! (Score:3, Funny)
Heath just died, and already you're calling it "The Death Knight"?
Too soon guys, too soon.
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PFFF! As if any candy bar has a chance stuck in a room with a bunch of MMOPRGers!
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*woosh*
(The joke was about calling the movie "The Dark Night" "The Death Knight"... not a very good joke but hey)
Re:Too soon! (Score:5, Insightful)
*woosh*
A bit off topic but I see so many people missing jokes on Slashdot and people replying "whoosh" that I seriously think we should have a -1, Whoosh moderation option.
Re:Too soon! (Score:4, Funny)
I seriously think we should have a -1, Whoosh moderation option.
I agree, but only for the comedic possibilities of using it in other situations. E.g. the post "My experiences working with wind tunnels (Score: 0, Whoosh)" and so forth.
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They release plans for the "Death Knight" Way before his death.
Well that certainly calls into question the circumstances of his death now doesn't it!
Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Funny)
Now we finally understand Blizzard's strategy of class balance and all this "e-sport" nonsense! You see, they'll introduce a new class that is so vastly superior to all the others that everyone stops playing the other classes.
Balance issues solved!
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Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Penny-Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/14/ [penny-arcade.com]
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Try actually reading it. Third panel describes exactly what I was replying to.
You see, they'll introduce a new class that is so vastly superior to all the others that everyone stops playing the other classes.
Reminded me of:
Chaos World-Smasher -- balance problems
Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:4, Informative)
Well from the videos I have seen I would sadly have to agree.
Yet as a HERO class what else can they do and still set the class apart? I think their biggest mistake with this class is the fact only one HERO class is coming. They should have had at least two. Still, TBC and further additions of content have turned the game into Monty Hall. You either PvP or Raid else you don't get the shiny stuff. No long drawn out quests compete with raiding epics or welfare epics.
This class seriously risks replacing some classes or variants of classes. Yet I expect the one place where it will be put in its place is among raiders. They don't suffer so much the flavor of the month. So if it shows up in significant numbers during raids that will truly indicate whether or not it is overly powerful. Hardcore raiders are of a different mindset than arena players or pvp bg play. Whereas gimmicks rule the day for pvp (arena,bg) its teamwork and synergy that rule raids.
If anything I guess we needed a monty hall class to go with the monty hall loot.
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Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Informative)
Things will be changing however. Currently tanks (and healers somewhat) simply cannot do enough damage to solo things very well. In the expansion everyone will do more damage, and thus have some solo viability. Threat generated will also be changed and it looks like people will be able to tank more with an off spec. And from what I've seen the tank shortage (aside from the large responsibility) often comes down to the fact that when you are spec'd to tank, that's about all you can do, and many would like to do other things.
The Burning Crusade made a lot of good changes and made many classes viable, but it also seemed to pigeon hole just about everyone into one spec and/or one job. It looks like Blizzard is trying to allow people to have much more versatility in the way they play, while still being viable.
Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Insightful)
If they really want to fix the soloing problem AND the tank/healer shortage all at once, they need to make respecs free. My paladin has a great healing set, and a decent tanking set, and a meh ret set. I am not willing to drop 100G to respec prot and back again to tank some pug that'll likely suck anyway. I also can't afford to drop 100G to respec Retibution to do (some) better damage for soloing.
But if re-specing were free, or at least a heck of a lot cheaper, I might.
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Actually they're looking to do something like that. I can't recall the details off the top of my head, but it was something like you could switch between builds or something to that effect. I'm not sure if it would be free, but I seem to remember them saying it would be more or less.
Blizzard is actually quite perceptive here in my opinion. Some servers are really starting to suffer the talent drain from the gamers who came to World of Warcraft, they played, they conquered, they left for the next challeng
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Talent stables will allow you to freely switch between 2 specs.
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Just two specs? Druids need at least 11...
PvE:
- Tree
- Boomkin
- Pure Feral DPS
- Hybrid Tank/DPS
PvP(Battlegrounds):
- Healer
- Boomkin
- Feral
PvP(Arena)
- Healer 2vs2+3vs3
- Healer 5vs5
- Boomkin
- Feral
I guess shamans & paladins won't ask for much less :-)
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Free respecc-ing made Guild Wars a million times better. I would push really hard for this in WoW, it will make a world of difference. We (mainly the expert PvP players teamed up with the casual players) had to complain and advocate for months on the forums for the change.
The only real problems it caused were that people strengthened their "the right way" attitudes, where there were particular specs that were deemed the best way to tackle any particular challenge. This happens anyways and people get left ou
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Don't play anymore, but as much as I loved my warrior it is probably the worst class in the game. You're at the mercy of every other class until you can (if you EVER can) get close enough to use your anti-caster talents. And, that's if you're a TANK! Any other spec and you're worthless save soloing. Though, going dual wield and berzerker is fun just to watch your rage build up.
Warriors need natural magic resistances, or better anti-caster tricks. The only other option is to hope you always have an equ
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Even so, the point was that I had an issue with the only "real" tanks being druids and warriors. The DKs are there as the "anti magic" tank. They are going to have a lot of DPS and versatility and not the s
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AFAIK there will be three different levels of raiding epics (heroic, 10-man, 25-man) with their own tier progression so it should be possible to get nice gear with casual gaming in lich king. I'm also guessing that the rating changes in season 4 are a sign of things to come, so the pvp/arena in lich king will require good ratings for epics. I.e. no more welfare epics.
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You either PvP or Raid else you don't get the shiny stuff.
Huh. I guess I imagined my shiny crafted epics. Oh well.
news? (Score:2, Interesting)
What exactly makes this newsworthy? The NDA was lifted over a week ago and it's still alpha and in my experiance alot changes between alpha and release when it comes to blizzard.
Re:news? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm interested in games, i'm even directly interested in WoW and i'm planning to get myself a deathknight, it's just that this isn't terribly new or interesting information.
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"no real endgame"
"grinding factions or farming gold"
You haven't played the wow endgame, or you just hate raiding, heroic dungeons, battlegrounds, arenas, crafting, questing in new zones like Sunwell, and improving your character in ways completely separate from the level. And if that's true, I have to wonder how you managed to play to level 70 without losing interest in the game. As for the vanguard comparison, wow leveling is simple enough (7 days /played time for a 70, or 2-3 months of playing a reasonabl
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
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Woah, a DK with a nerf gun! That would be awesome, it would... hey, hang on, that's silly.
Classes are already out of whack (Score:4, Insightful)
WoW already has unbalanced classes or specs... why makes us think they are going to really care if the Death Knight is out of whack? Isn't that the whole idea as it's a "Hero" class?
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This won't be any different from the DK. Everyone will be able to roll one. At first I thought it'd at least require you to sacrifice a character you already leveled or do a series of quests but I haven't heard anything more about that in a long time.
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I agree with all of the above. WoW is all about RPS [wikipedia.org]. I am a Mage, so restoration Druids could as well be immortal when we fight one on one, but on the other hand I can run away from virtually any class (even hunter, unless BM) and so, in a way, I get to choose my battles.
I don't see what the commotion is all about. DK will fit into that picture just fine, and will probably change considerably over the first six months.
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He could be a fire or elementalist mage. Blazing Speed is a pretty frequent proc against fast attacking Rogues.
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Rogues are the one class you don't want to let get close to you and with Blizzard's nerf of Adrenaline Rush and the buff to Shadowstep, it pushed more rogues to the latter (where some use Mutilate now with the Imp
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Without slowing poison, I just need to blink, slow, and keep running. If a rogue is well prepared with poisons and stuns, it may end badly, but with some luck I can simply insta-sheep and walk away.
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Welcome to class based systems... All that time invested in a single toon and as soon as the nerfbat swings, you're hosed. Your only solution is to have a toon for every possible combination of race/class so you can switch whenever the flavor-of-the-month changes.
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Blizzard has said repeatedly that "Hero" class only means it starts as level 55, not that it should be considered special in any other way.
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However, it can be removed by a Priest, Paladin or a Warlock's Felhunter as it is a magic effect.
Sorry yer not good enough... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Tanks get replaced by Druids? (Feral tanks actually scale badly past T4 content, Warriors and Paladins are safe, and Warriors are in fact specifically required.)
Vanilla WoW not having content only the most hardcore with the best gear can do? (Never heard of the great blunder, Naxxramus? So few people saw that one they're redoing it and putting it back in Wrath.)
Man, did you stop playing 2 years ago or something?
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Feral tanks don't scale badly past T4 content, it's just a real pain to get the required gear. Feral tanks can handle all of Hyjal and all of BT except for Illidan and RoS, since Illidan requires shield block and RoS requires spell reflect. Having said that, the best feral tanking weapon drops in the first real 25 man raid (SSC), the only tanking options for certain slots are tier gear, whereas warriors and paladins get lots of options, and maintaining crit immunity actually gets harder as you progress,
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A few points:
1) Only insanely well geared people saw most of the endgame content before BC.
2) BC raiding is more casual friendly than pre-BC raiding.
3) Heroic Dungeons were a good idea implemented badly.
3b) The development resources used to create Heroic Dungeons wouldn't have been enough to create a new raid (they're probably separate teams anyway).
4) There's plenty of fun to be had already, and Blizzard looks poised to improve further still.
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First off, your entire post makes you seem like someone who hasn't even experienced most of the game you're trying to talk about.
My greatest concern is that rather than focusing on new content that everyone can enjoy as they did in the original, instead they have just ramped up the difficulty on mobs so much that only insanely well geared people will even SEE most of the end game content.
There was a gear reset at 70, everyone was on an even level. You have just as much of a chance at getting to the end-game as everyone else who's seen it has. How do you think they got that gear? It didn't just fall from the sky. There will be a gear reset at 80 as well. The entire point of an MMO is to entice people to want more and better stuff. If you got to a point where t
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Blizzard is actually changing this in WotLK by taking a few key talents in each class that has a tanking capability and adding them into the skills. For example, warriors will now get Shield Slam at level 40. Also, Defensive Stance will now receive the additional threat enhancement from Defiance by default
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Removal of attunements was a godsend for the billion and one alts out there these days. Why should someone have to go through the whole process of attunement AGAIN, which is really just an arbitrary time sink (when my prot pally did BM for the kara key I so overgeared the instance that it was a joke - I took no damage and ended up tanking the instance half naked). Sure it means wo
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Actually, the elitist jerk type attitude would be to say that removing the attunements for BT/Hyjal was going too far to appease the casuals because the first 8 loot pinata bosses in those (combined) instances were meant as rewards for progressing that far. There are guilds getting loot from BT/Hyjal that still can't kill Kael or Vashj.
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Wow's a good game, but its not the class skills... (Score:2, Interesting)
...that will make it overpowered. If does not get the gear to push those talents and skills they may very well flop. Druids specced feral before the expansion was released where considered sub-par DPS and not a great threat to players PvP wise. After when the gear designed for them was released, the weeping was so great they have to scale back some of the abilities.
If they are not thought of in the itemization then or their gear is itemized poorly. Then no matter how cool the abilities are, Deathknights
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Which is tragic, because these Hero classes don't feel so... heroic.
I thought hero classes should have been progression based depending on class. As it stands essentially the hero class is nothing more than 'just another tank' or 'just another melee dps' or 'omg war with deathcoil? NERF!' It appears to have nothing to do with the main avatar you are playing.
Yes yes, I understand that the leveling curve in WoW has gotten so easy that many people have multiple characters on one account, but seriously, this
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While I agree with your proposition about unlocking abilities per-toon, I think the problem is that Bliz is facing is that they want to get new people interested. However, without them nerfing the leveling curve and/or doing this whole hero class toon starting out so high up thing, they're only going to appeal to existing players.
Of course, if I were Blizzard, I'd be more concerned about keeping my existing player base interested, figuring that I'd rather see slower but consistent long-term monthly account
Wotl (Score:2)
Too many new abilities (Score:2)
Re:Age of Conan much more interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
Translation: Not to start a flamewar, but let's talk about something off topic, since it's sure to be something that will get under the skin of the types of people who would read this particular article..
Maybe it's just me, but isn't that the definition of trying to start a flamewar?
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AoC is more interesting visually, and from levels 1-20.
That's about all.
Crappy content, annoying bugs, stealth changes/nerfs every tuesday.
Yeah, I subscribed for 3 months to give them a little boost, but I knew I'd stop playing after 1.
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Ever since I became aware of AoC a few years back, I have been holding out hope that it will address what feels like the biggest failing of WoW: that content is spread so freakishly thinly across the world. I like the way Tycho on Penny-Arcade put it, that standing in Lakeshire makes you wonder why they don't bother making a game out of all the raw material they have in the world. You show up in a place, do a quest for 6 minutes, and then you leave the area, never to return.
Anyway, I hope that AoC invests m
Re:Age of Conan much more interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like the way Tycho on Penny-Arcade put it, that standing in Lakeshire makes you wonder why they don't bother making a game out of all the raw material they have in the world.
It might not be the game Tycho wants. They made their game, and while somewhat entertaining it wasn't what I wanted.
And that's the heart of the problem. Some people want crazy continent-wide PvP. Some people just want to explore. Some people want to destroy the largest monsters in the world. Some people want shiny stuff. Some people want to be involved with, or be the focus of, a story. And some people just want to buy/sell/create stuff and never leave town. And everyone wants to do it at varying speeds (the casual vs. hardcore).
You can't please everyone. You can certainly try, but Blizzard has certainly given up in a lot of places. World PvP and crafting are definitely two that come to mind right off the bat. They are going to try for some things in regards to world PvP in WotLK but we'll see how that goes. They tried updates to world PvP in BC as well and that didn't turn out so great. Crafting is more of a money sink than anything else and is considered by many to be one of the worst crafting systems in MMOs. I doubt that will change.
Re:Age of Conan much more interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Crafting is another touch situation. If you can craft anything that is profitable, then everyone will jump on that wagon and drive the value down.
I have played a lot of MMORPGs (the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL back in the early 1990s, right up through WoW and have yet to find a game that can fairly and accurately balance a PvE and PvP situation to keep a majority of people happy - WoW comes closest, but there will always be people who are unhappy.
BTW - I'm playing Dungeon Runners [dungonerunners.com] right now and it's a blast (if a bit simple) and you can't argue with the price (free, or $5/mo if you want all the features).
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Any game that features PvE and PvP is never going to please everyone.
That's very much true. Shamus Young wrote an interesting article [shamusyoung.com] about that just that last week. In it, he has a neat little analogy involving Will Wright and Cliff Bleszinski, representing the two types of players, making sandcastles on the beach.
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The problem with BC world PVP is that there isn't much of a reward for doing it. The item rewards are pretty useless. You will out level them before you get them. Since there isn't really a compelling reason to control the world pvp areas, people rarely bother.
I'm sure if they opened up a level 70 PVP area in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley and rewarded badges of justice that would see some activity.
Re:Age of Conan much more interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem with world PvP is that too many servers are faction imbalanced. When one side outnumbers the other 2:1 at ANY encounter, the whole thing becomes pointless.
Making it give rewards makes the problem worse, since the bigger side always wins, it'll also outgear the smaller side. It also encourages people to leech (such as AFKing in BGs and the rampant cheating in Season 3 arenas) to get the rewards faster, instead of actually playing.
(Honestly, world PvP was at its best in the days of the original Taren Mill vs. Southshore fights, which had no rewards whatsoever. People did it because it was fun, not to get l33t shinies.)
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Unless you were lvl 30 or so and trying to quest, and instead kept getting one-shot by bored level 60s. The biggest problem with world PvP in WoW is that there's no reward for winning a fair fight, and no punishment for destroying someone who isn't a challenge to you.
In Team Fortress 2 there are advantages/disadvantages based on class, but for the most part, it's all about player skill. In WoW it's about level difference first, gear difference second, class difference third, and player skill last. Occ
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I always loved that comic :)
AoC has solved the issue in one regard: Due to travel requirements you have to at least RIDE THROUGH the old content again to get to the higher level content. Granted, it wastes 20 minutes of your time, but at least you can appreciate how nice it was to level in zones with sufficient quests to level you.
Sadly, I have to agree with the above poster that while interesting for levels 1-20 and having some nifty visuals, the game has failed on too many other levels from obviously ru
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Embrace the deathport, the only *real* way to travel in AOC. (43 PoM before realizing the game was only half baked.)
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I'm glad I tried AoC but I'm glad I quit too.
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I'm not sure what you mean about there not being enough quests in each zone to level (in WoW). A few months back they released a massive patch that changed the whole 1-60 game. They changed quests to give a lot more xp, reduced the amount of xp you needed to level, and re-itemized quest rewards and instance loot so that they're actually somewhat useful rather than being random garbage.
In the latest patch, they threw a bone in to make it even easier - mounts are now gotten at 30, for less gold, instead of at
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Re:Age of Conan much more interesting. (Score:4, Funny)
And then you hit Hellfire Peninsula and spend three or more long, painful levels staring a the Mars like terrain getting squished by random fel reavers. Then you leave and are happy never to return to it.
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Personally, I loved Hellfire Peninsula. The first time I walked through the portal, heard the music, saw the rampaging demons and the spacious sky I was simply awed.
Then I got squished by a Fel Reaver a half dozen times and became paranoid. I remember weeping once when I watched a line of Alliance and Horde questers get squished one after the other as they fought quest mobs, oblivious to the shaking ground.
Good times.
parent is not offtopic (Score:2)
whomever modded the parent offtopic is either someone who didnt play both of the games or a fanboi of world of warcraft. or clueless. either applies. combinations may apply too.
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In a post about Death Knight talent specs, someone spends an entire post talking about another game.
What planet do you live on where thats not offtopic? Its no different then going into a post about kernel licensing and talking about some new doodad in Vista.
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if you had, you'd see that it is basically almost on the same outline as wow, however improved.
vista and linux are not comparable items. they are fundamentally different not only in their code and implementation, but philosophy. this doesnt apply here.
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Pfft. That's not even true (Score:3, Funny)
Pfft. That's not even true.
I'll have you know that my barbarian in EQ2 had some delicate earrings and a delicate necklace with a butterfly pendant. And let's just say that the "monk outfit" showed so much skin that you'd think skin cancer was all the rage. If you think being grouped with some Faeries made him look "teh ghey", you haven't seen him ;)
Re:Why is this even on slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen just as many asswipes in other games as in WoW. While many of them leave for WoW eventually, most don't -- some even bring back bad habits from WoW.
I think the other poster is right -- it's got nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with the scale.
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Having played several other MMOs in the post-WoW era, I found three things:
1. Morons, same as WoW has
2. Elitist jerks who think they're cool because they're playing some less popular game, no matter how much of a half-baked buggy mess it happens to be. This varies from the WoW Elitist jerks, who feel that way because they have more purples or bought a higher arena rating.
3. Relatively normal people who enjoy playing the game and like playing with others who also enjoy playing it.
The only real difference is
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the example post i linked to has a frequency graph for spell effects on weapon speeds for goodness sake...
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What a hilarious reference, Elitistjerks.com, who knew such a thing existed?
And in true l33t fashion, their homepage design is god awful. 1/3 of the horizontal real estate wasted on a stat counter, and the rest of it blown to hell with megabytes worth of images at insane resolutions.
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Quibbling about page layout is just arrogance on your part.
That wasn't quibbling, that was pointing out completely horrid design, the kind of stuff any site would get mocked for on Slashdot, good content or not.
I don't understand why nerd culture has to belittle everything.
The same reason people hold themselves to be elitists and look down on others.
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Actually, I think it has more to do with insecurity. Got picked on too much in gym class so now they have to pick on other people because they have the misconception that they are mentally superior (which may or may not be the case). If you are
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Actually, if you follow the link, you'll see that that is just the front page.
The front page is the face to the world. It's like sending in a resume full of typos. These guys have extremely high standards if you look at their forum announcements [elitistjerks.com], so it's extremely glaring to have such an amateurish front page.
Actually, I think it has more to do with insecurity.
I'm sure that's part of it. There's also annoyance and frustration at things that are obviously wrong. This is a result of thinking critically all the time. Look at their announcements that I linked to. I support most of their high standards, but many average gamers would
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have you looked in a mirror? (Score:5, Insightful)
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