E3 2010: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - Lead Systems Designer Interview

Tharwen

Ep. VI: Return of the turret
May 7, 2009
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What's the bet Blizzard will try to sell Battle.net compatibility to other developers in a few years' time?
 

Toeys

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Mar 30, 2010
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I'm happy i left it. The learning curve has been lowered way too much, it's too easy to obtain gear and the chat of WoW has been reduced in quality to something you will see when playing games like CoD mw2 with minors.

I'm gonna have to say that it was all so much better in vanilla, struggling to get poorly itemized gear, and running from instance to instance to get buffs, just so you could get summoned to the raidboss and wipe at 1%.

I agree that the game is far more balanced, requires less grinding and let more ppl see content through how it is today. But it gets to the point where all of this makes it conviniently boring rather than awkwardly hilarious through doing insane stunts to get a 1-1000 chance on a boss.
 

Vhite

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Aug 17, 2009
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Philbyy said:
The idea that Worgen are being brought in as a monstrous race for the alliance makes me giggle a little. The simple fact is, yes, they are techinically monstrous, but they are also undenyably furry and thus I suspect a number of furries will be drawn into WoW. Amusuingly, they will be joining the alliance, already widley slated- I find- for being incompetent ten-year-olds. I wonder if they'll improve or worsen this?

For the record, I'm not baised against the alliance, I play alliance :p
Let me correct you.

Furry:
Not furry:

10 year olds are on both sides, you are just blind with racism :)
 

Unoriginal069

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Jan 7, 2010
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John Funk said:
Pink dragon said:
How can they remove armor penatration?
As a rogue my gear is stacked to the max with armor penatration,well I might as well stack Attack power
And therein lies his point. It's so good that you don't want anything else, because the more you have the better it is. It's inverse diminishing returns.
I gotta say i'm a little confused by this being an issue.

'The more you have, the better it is'.....
..when did this become a bad thing?

In this reasoning you have the basic premise of an MMO....continually strive to obtain X so that you can be better at your job (ie: healing, tanking, dps in this case).

Or in real world terms, if i'm ...say....amazing in bed......
(if only...)

...why would I need to learn how to cook?

' )

Speaking as both a rogue and pally tank, I gotta say this reversal kinda makes me wonder why I bothered to better myself gaining gear to improve my role all this time.

Subsequently, this also makes me wonder why I should bother re-acclimating to whatever new system they put in, as they apparently can destroy all our hours/years of progression on a whim.

(yeah yeah..I understand MMO's change all the time...still doesn't make changes like this sting less)
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Unoriginal069 said:
John Funk said:
Pink dragon said:
How can they remove armor penatration?
As a rogue my gear is stacked to the max with armor penatration,well I might as well stack Attack power
And therein lies his point. It's so good that you don't want anything else, because the more you have the better it is. It's inverse diminishing returns.
I gotta say i'm a little confused by this being an issue.

'The more you have, the better it is'.....
..when did this become a bad thing?

In this reasoning you have the basic premise of an MMO....continually strive to obtain X so that you can be better at your job (ie: healing, tanking, dps in this case).

Or in real world terms, if i'm ...say....amazing in bed......
(if only...)

...why would I need to learn how to cook?

' )

Speaking as both a rogue and pally tank, I gotta say this reversal kinda makes me wonder why I bothered to better myself gaining gear to improve my role all this time.

Subsequently, this also makes me wonder why I should bother re-acclimating to whatever new system they put in, as they apparently can destroy all our hours/years of progression on a whim.

(yeah yeah..I understand MMO's change all the time...still doesn't make changes like this sting less)
You're missing the point. Take crit rating, for example. It has diminishing returns; as you start to get more, then you get less benefit from GETTING more. The higher your crit, the less you get per point of crit rating. That encourages people not to just stack any one stat (in theory).

With armor penetration, it is more effective as you get more. The higher your ArP, the more you get per point of ArP rating. That isn't something codeable, it's just in how armor works in the game (removing a flat % of damage).
 

Unoriginal069

New member
Jan 7, 2010
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John Funk said:
Unoriginal069 said:
John Funk said:
Pink dragon said:
How can they remove armor penatration?
As a rogue my gear is stacked to the max with armor penatration,well I might as well stack Attack power
And therein lies his point. It's so good that you don't want anything else, because the more you have the better it is. It's inverse diminishing returns.
I gotta say i'm a little confused by this being an issue.

'The more you have, the better it is'.....
..when did this become a bad thing?

In this reasoning you have the basic premise of an MMO....continually strive to obtain X so that you can be better at your job (ie: healing, tanking, dps in this case).

Or in real world terms, if i'm ...say....amazing in bed......
(if only...)

...why would I need to learn how to cook?

' )

Speaking as both a rogue and pally tank, I gotta say this reversal kinda makes me wonder why I bothered to better myself gaining gear to improve my role all this time.

Subsequently, this also makes me wonder why I should bother re-acclimating to whatever new system they put in, as they apparently can destroy all our hours/years of progression on a whim.

(yeah yeah..I understand MMO's change all the time...still doesn't make changes like this sting less)
You're missing the point. Take crit rating, for example. It has diminishing returns; as you start to get more, then you get less benefit from GETTING more. The higher your crit, the less you get per point of crit rating. That encourages people not to just stack any one stat (in theory).

With armor penetration, it is more effective as you get more. The higher your ArP, the more you get per point of ArP rating. That isn't something codeable, it's just in how armor works in the game (removing a flat % of damage).

I suppose I can see your point John.

Tho I still contend it's unfortunate that they have to scrap a stat outright to fix this.
That fine line the devs have to burn in the name of 'balance' in this ever-evolving medium I guess.

But having lived through the last re-itemization that Pally's had to go through (Strength now instead of spellpower?? wtf??) i'm almost not looking forward to the expansion in a way.

And that makes me a sad panda.


Figure i'll give it a month, then check back to see what the fine folks at Elitist Jerks have come up with so I can be effective again after the 'improvements'.

' )
 

peterwolfe

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Aug 2, 2008
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An okay interview, though I would have liked some follow-up questions on a few points (namely why was it a more difficult decision to Make Gobs a playable Horde race). The part about his Troll character going to the Barrens made me remember when I first entered that evil place.
Also, it's good to know why ArP is being done away with. A friend of mine tried explaining it to me, but he didn't really understand himself, so it was mainly just him hating on Blizzard.

Philbyy said:
The idea that Worgen are being brought in as a monstrous race for the alliance makes me giggle a little. The simple fact is, yes, they are techinically monstrous, but they are also undenyably furry and thus I suspect a number of furries will be drawn into WoW. Amusuingly, they will be joining the alliance, already widley slated- I find- for being incompetent ten-year-olds. I wonder if they'll improve or worsen this?
What are Tauren but cow-people, or Draani but goat-people? Don't answer that. I doubt wolf-people will make that big an impact on the furry population of WoW, so don't worry about them...worry about Twilight fans :D
Plus the Worgen help to lessen the difference in terms of pure physical strength between Horde and Alliance, which is pretty neato.
 

Philbyy

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May 25, 2010
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peterwolfe said:
I doubt wolf-people will make that big an impact on the furry population of WoW, so don't worry about them...worry about Twilight fans :D
...oh lord, I hadn't even thought of that...
 

Seamus8

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Mar 26, 2008
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Mackheath said:
I'm sorry, what? Racist? You sound like a whining bleeding-heart liberal. This is the more correct version:
Do you not recall the Blood Elf campaign in TFT? Racism, or at least extreme ethnocentrism/xenophobia, is an accurate description of many humans. Varian Wyrnn among them. Night Elves so missed their great tree that they made a fake/cloned/impure copy just to not feel as feeble as the lesser races.

Practicing voodoo in a game is bad? That's idiotic. Regardless of what your own religious bias is against voodoo is in real life in games it becomes necessary to vary up cultures from race to race to give each race its own unique feel. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether their cause is just or not. Alliance are prettyboys, but they do not represent the moral highground of the WoW mythos, something EQ and DnD converts to the series have been failing to grasp for a long time.