4.01 = No Change to Death Grip
ok.. so 4.0.1 makes my bars look taller... Deathgrip is just as much of an issue as it was before, I can lose 3g signal by picking it up, and often *all reception* altogether...
report in people.. is this proof the iPhone 4 is fundamentally flawed or what?!?
Roll on tomorrow's press conference, if its bumpers all round then I'm giving up on iPhone, especially as I wasted 50 quid on docks that I can't use without popping the bumper off
actually, if you read a lot of the articles the common consensus was that the software update and change to the bars behaviour by more accurate signal strength/quality reporting would actually influence the frequency switching algorithms, making for a lesser extent impact by bridging the antennas.
But yes, as you say.. Apple's press release didn't make such a statement, they've just given us bigger bars... imho, a waste of time to try shut up the simple folk... great
Similar Messages
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IPhone Death Grip and Loss of Signal
There is NO doubt the new iPhone has "death grip" "loss of signal" issues. Including my new iPhone, there are 4 Verizon phones in my home. All 4 phones show 3 bars when laying on the counter. The iPhone consistently, everytime, drops to 1 bar when it is picked up and held in a normal position. The other 3 phones (HTC Incredible, Blackberry Curve 8330, and an LG Cosmos all maintain 3 bars when picked up and held in a normal position. In fact, when I recived my first call on my iPhone the caller complained my voice was breaking up. NONE of my other phones have that problem. I called Verizon support on my iPhone, and they said my call was breaking up. I changed my holding position so I was pinching the the front and back of the phone (not touching any of the metal frame), and they said they could hear me much better. Nice test, huh? I have checked this situation over and over. I am not going to "pinch" my phone to use it. I am not going to spend more money on a bumper or case to use it. I am going to hold Verizon to their promise that that the known antenna issue with the iPhone was fixed. I am going to return my iPhone for a full refund and HIGHLY recommend that ANYONE who thinks the antenna issue is fixed is flat out WRONG. I HAD a lot of confidence in Verizon and Apple before this fiasco. There is NO DOUBT in my mind that both of them new full well that the defect still existed and still hyped and released a defective product. I will be the first to gladly participate in any class action suit that comes out of this - which I am sure it will. DO NOT BUY AN IPHONE 4.
Verizon didn't promise you that the issue no longer existed (if a rep that hadn't had a chance themselves to see the phone until activating them for customers on the 10th told you this they were not the most reliable to respond unfortunately). Technically I don't recall Apple ever officially stating so (they never said they did the antenna changes as a "fix" to the issue...they said they did it to accomodate the CDMA chip), but if they did and it does not happen to be true for you and the phones in your household then by all means return them. At the end of the day, Verizon did not make the equipment....they just finally worked it out to get the rights to sell it with their service for the customers that have been begging for it for years. Be disappointed in Apple (as far as the antenna issue goes). For you, the issue exists. For others, it exists. For many, it does not. So being able to say there is NO doubt that the issue still exists is still very debatable at this point. Personally, I have had almost 1 full week (tomorrow) of crystal clear calls, no antenna issues, no dropped calls or dropped bars other than the normal that occurs with any phone on any network. Actually, the bars on my iPhone are interestingly more stable than those of my Blackberry Tour were.
At any rate, I'm sorry that the iPhone did not live up to your expectations, but your experience is not definitive of all iPhone users any more than mine is. -
I've got a death grip issue withe my new iphone 4s 16GB.
I've got a death grip issue withe my new iphone 4s 16GB. When I touch lower left corner of the device signal goes down and NO SERVIS pops up. When I do not touch this part of device everything is fine.
I am from Slovakia.
I have unlocked device and using T-mobil / Telekom carrier.
Please help me slove this problem. Thank you for any advice / response.get a case. That's the solution. Simple.
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why does the "death grip" only affect 3G network? i am on O2 uk, when i have 3G turned on with 4.0.1 i am always at about 3 bars and can get it to drop down to 1...when i turn 3G off i have full bars and no matter what i do the bars don't move...if its an antenna hardware issue surely with or without 3G when you block the antenna the signal should drop now only when connected to 3g?
Message was edited by: JGTTHDyeah i get that...you didn't read my question! if there is a problem with the HARDWARE of the iphone 4 - IE if you cover the antenna the signal drops SURLEY that should happen ALL the time, not just when on 3G?
that's my point, when i have 3G off and i cover the antenna it works 100% fine, so surely its a SOFTWARE problem NOT a hardware one?? -
Death grip continues on ipad 4
Anyone experiencing death grip on ipad 4? It's the same location as in ipad 2 and 3, when you hold it by the speaker the wifi goes dead.
Any device with WiFi or cellular radios will experience some diminishing of the signal when you hold it in certain places. This is just the physics of radio antennas. I do see some diminishing of signal when I cover the area around the speaker on my 3rd-generation iPad, though I have to grip the iPad in a completely unnatural way to get the signal to diminsh. It does not ever experience a complete dropout. If your signal is already a bit weak, though, it might drop completely for you. If this is a problem for you with multiple iPads held normally, you might want to investiate your WiFi router; it may not be putting out sufficient signal, or it may help shifting to a different band or frequency.
Regards. -
I think my N8 is suffering from the 'death grip' issue.
When I hold my N8 'normally' (as I assume right handed people do- where the palm of the hand covers the area around the camera button and the fingers wrap around the back of the phone, ending on the left side), my phone almost instantly goes from full signal to 1 or 2 bars and sometimes completely loses signal. This happens everywhere, no matter which area I am in. I have tested my family members phones (a Samsung and a Blackberry) and they do not even lose 1 bar, no matter how I hold their phones.
Is this because the cellular antenna is located around the camera button? Is anyone else facing this issue? Please advise.The antenna is as chukka has said in the plastic bottom cover.
It sounds to me that you have a problem. As if in an area where I don't have maximum bars and I wrap both hands around the bottom half of the phone the bars barely drop. I would first suspect that there is a bad or dirty connection between antenna and your phone's motherboard or if not that then an alignment or antenna itself problem with your phone. -
Verizon iPhone having death grip signal loss problems too?
Today I am reading story after story about people having the AT&T death grip signal loss problems on their Veirzon iPhones despite the Verizon phone having a new antenna. Is anyone really having this problem or is it being fabricated to alter sales?
I can understand how possibly covering the antannae with your hand would drop the signal a little bit due to blocking it etc. However, I have watched the youtube video of the person giving evidence that this issue exists with the Vphone and as he was demonstrating it and showing the example, I followed along exactly as he was with my phone and it did not create the same issue at all. I tried several times downloading speed test, calling someone, openeing webpages and just simply could not recreate the issue. Does that mean hes lying? No ,just means i suppose it is not happening to all phones.
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Antenna problem with my iphone 4s (death grip)
hi every one i m having an factory unlocked iphone 4S
and i starts losing my signal bars when i take out my phone from case (bumper)
and sometimes in case also when i hold my phone with some force its again starts lossing its signal bar
Is any 1 having this problem ..!!???
i m having iOS 5.1..!!???Your post reminds me of the joke. Aguy goes to a doctor and says, "My arm hurts in 2 places". The doctor replies, "Don't got to those places."
Two things: keep your iPhone in the case, and don't post a problem more than once. -
Dropped calls - Not 'death grip related'
So, my iPhone 4 running iOS 4.1 drops calls constantly. I tested a couple of things so I could narrow down the problem. I know its not iPhone 4 related, because my 3G had the same problem. I believe it started happening after I updated to 4.0.1. When I bought my iPhone 4 the same problem continued. It seems to be related to data usage. If I'm on wifi, or I disable data, the calls won't drop at all. Anyone having this problem?
I'm having the very same problem. My iPhone 5 running 8.1.1 is now a bit sluggish at times, particularly when first turned on. Now today Safari keeps crashing. I've cleared the cache and restarted the phone, but no luck.
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Strength of cell signal significantly changes
I've noticed the strength of my cell signal significantly changes, it will go from 4 to 5 bars to 1, And I'm not even moving. The reason I moved to AT&T five years ago is that I can look out my home office window and see an AT&T cell tower. I'm aware that the IOS 4.0.1 changed the algorithm on how it shows cellular strength, and in field test mode I also see the negative number changed significantly and I'm not even holding the phone with the death grip.
In the field test mode I will go from a -71 to -108, when I do the test the phone is on my desk. It’s odd that the number doesn't slowly change from -71 to a higher number, that I could understand. In just one second it will change from -71 to a -108 (five bars to one). Such a significant change in numbers so quickly when I'm virtually living next to a cell tower seems a little odd.I noticed the same with the cell phone I was using with AT&T prior to purchasing the original iPhone over 3 years ago which was the same or similar with my original iPhone and 3G and is the same with my iPhone 4. Any problems placing or receiving calls regardless?
Copied from this link.
http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean
The technical term is "EC/I0" (pronounced "ee-see-over-eye-naught") and it refers to the amount of the signal which is usable. In CDMA you can have strong signal (4 bars) and lousy EC/I0 and not be able to carry a call, and you can have low signal (zero bars) and excellent EC/I0 and carry a call fine. But they can't display EC/I0 because it fluctuates wildly (it could go from zero to four bars and back to zero again in just a few seconds) and would terrify users, so they display the signal strength, which at least has the virtue of being stable, though it doesn't really mean much.
The biggest reason why the signal strength isn't very helpful for GSM is what's known as "multipath". The signal reaching you from the cell can arrive by different routes which are slightly different lengths, meaning that they're offset in time. If you've ever seen "ghosts" on a TV when using rabbit-ear antennas, you're seeing the same effect. The "ghost" is a multipath component.
The number of bars shown with my iPhone 4 while I'm in my house fluctuates between 1 to 4 bars and there is an AT&T tower not too far away, but I have no problems placing and receiving calls and no problem with dropped calls while in my house or anywhere else. I had a 30 minute phone call last week while my iPhone showed one bar of reception.
CDMA is better overall inside buildings than GSM. -
Over the last week or so I have been trawling the internet looking for references to weak wifi signals on the Ipad2 and was staggered by the sheer quantity of people who seem to have identical issues, not just with the ipad2 but also with the new ipad. What annoyed me most from reading the reams upon reams of comments made on the Apple community forum is the fairly large number of people who seemed to believe that 'these' people were either just moaners and wingers or else they must have something wrong with their router set-up rather than a serious fault with their ipad and it seems all because there ipad in question works like a dream.
Obviously I can only speak from my experience, and that is, I have an ipad2 32GB with wifi, purchased about 6 months ago and it works like dream with a good 2-3 bar wifi signal through 2 thick stone walls over 30 feet away. My router is a standard one supplied by my broadband supplier compatible with all 'g','b' and 'n' equipment. However, over a week ago now I bought second hand genuine ipad2 16GB with wifi from a close friend who has just purchased a new ipad3 to replace his old ipad2 (had it for over a year so no longer under warranty). When I started it up downstairs from my router, where I always use my other ipad2 which has a very strong wifi signal, I discovered that the new secondhand ipad2 I had purchased couldnt find a network signal at all. So after doing network resets and all other 'fixes' on the device recommended, I took it upstairs to my office where the router is based and found that the device could now locate the network, but the signal was lost over only 12 feet from the router!
I quizzed my good friend about this issue and he informed me that it has always been like this since he first purchased it and he never thought that it was a fault, it was just the way it was. When he first aquired the device he did think at the time that this distance was poor, but thought nothing of it as he didnt have any other ipad to measur ethe signal strength against, and as his router was in his living room anyway he nothing of it. Fair enough.
So, there we have it. One ipad2 with a very good wifi signal and another ipad2 with a very poor wifi signal running off the same router, both with the same IOS 5.0. ?
As well as all of the other isues that customers have picked up on, such as 'death grip' (which I must say does appear to happen, but personally i dont think that this is a serious issue if you are aware of this issue and have a strong signal anyway), my experience seems to be a good example of a 'duff' wifi ipad versus a 'great' wifi ipad', an issue confirmed by complaints from a fairly large number of customers who have also reported the same or similar weak wifi signals with both the ipad2 and the ipad3. So, as this shows the weak wifi signal is a very real issue it seems on a batch of ipad2 and 3's, which to my logic is obviously a hardware issue on a batch of early ipad2's and not a software one, otherwise all ipad's would suffer this problem! So, is it a faulty antenna or a faukty network card in an early batch?
So, the bottom line now is, of course, firstly, how can I get Apple to fix my other ipad2 when the warranty has run out? Any suggestions anyone?
Personally I think good Apple customer service should offer a recall with a replacement on this apparent batch of ipads, dont you?Greetings,
I've never seen this issue, and I handle many iPads, of all versions. WiFi issues are generally local to the WiFi router - they are not all of the same quality, range, immunity to interference, etc. You have distance, building construction, and the biggie - interference.
At home, I use Apple routers, and have no issues with any of my WiFi enabled devices, computers, mobile devices, etc - even the lowly PeeCees. I have locations where I have Juniper Networks, as well as Aruba, and a few Netgears - all of them work as they should.
The cheaper routers, Linksys, D-Link, Seimens home units, and many other no name devices have caused issues of various kinds, and even connectivity.
I have no idea what Starbucks uses, but I always have a good connection, and I go there nearly every morning and get some work done, as well as play.
You could try changing channels, 2.4 to 5 Gigs, changing locations of the router. I have had to do all of these at one time or another over the many years that I have been a Network Engineer.
Good Luck - Cheers,
M. -
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Developer Chat Transcript
Transcript for Chat: 'Live Chat: WoW Mists of Pandaria', Tue Sep 18 18:04:25 CDT 2012
Zarhym: Hello, all, and welcome to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Developer Chat, presented by Best Buy! Blizzard community manager Crithto and I will be helping facilitate the discussion today and filter as many of your questions as possible for our developers to answer.
Crithto: That’s right! Thank you, Zarhym, and welcome everyone. On the panel to answer your questions today we have World of Warcraft lead designers Greg Street, Cory Stockton, Dave Kosak, and Ion Hazzikostas. Questions are pouring in and our developers are preparing their initial responses, so let’s get started!
Guest-47: Is the second son of DeathWing going to be the Second Prince? The achitvment two Princs says that Wration and another 'Prince' will settle something important, is that true?
DaveKosak: To Guest-47 "Two Princes" is a placeholder name that may or may not reflect the final achievements in later patches. Suffice it to say, Wrathion's story will continue!
Guest-101: What was the idea with Monk healing? what mix of elements inspired it and defined it?
GregStreet: To Guest-101 Mostly we wanted it to feel different from existing healers, so there is an emphasis on a channeled spell as the main heal. We also wanted to emphasize movement and damage-dealing to heal, because those were core to the monk class.
Guest-51: Do you feel the way of nerfing Dragon Soul, by nerfing the bosses. Was more successful than the Icecrown Citadel version, by buffing the players health and damage?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-51 Yes, one of the awkward things about the Icecrown Citadel buff was that, over time, it caused players to feel weaker when they were doing anything other than raiding Icecrown. It also had some potentially distorting effects, benefiting some specs and roles more than others. Weakening the enemies instead, as we've done in Dragon Soul, is more in keeping with how we've traditionally handled our tuning adjustments, going all the way back to Vanilla raids.
Guest-43: Where is N'Zoth? He was mentioned at Blizzcon, then was talked about in Dragon Soul. What is going on with him?!
DaveKosak: To Guest-43 N'zoth is still lurking. The Titans couldn't defeat it... maybe someday we'll get our chance? Don't expect to hear anything about him in Pandaria, though!
drwuky: Hello. If someone from a CRZ hits Level 90 as first player on my realm, will he get the Realm First! Level 90 achievement for my realm or for his realm?
IonHazzikostas: To drwuky His realm
parrjj01: It seems like PVP never gets much attention from the devlopers during these type of events. As a hardcore lover of PVP and the many people that are in my guild, we have really gotten frustrated, bored, etc with how PVP is handled. Will you guys ever be implanting anything like how LFR system works. Were there will be healers on each side, for a better chance of your team succeeding? I don't know about anyone else but I really hate being on my side with 0 healers and the horde have 4 in E...
GregStreet: To parrjj01 Our BG queueing system was built a long time ago. Since that time we've engineered the much more powerful system that we use for Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder. We'd now like to reengineer that system to work for BG queues as well, which would give us the ability to better balance healers, item levels, and perhaps even premade vs. PUG. No promises, but it's something we're working on.
Guest-46: The Theramore event was a little... Underwhelming. Developers have previously stated they spent more time on the content in Pandaria than the Theramore event. Will we see more diversity and excitement in the scenarios in Pandaria?
DaveKosak: To Guest-46 There's a LOT of diversity in the scenarios. For example. there's a monkey pirate island where you're running around fetching up brew and fighting randomized bosses, and other insanity. We really tried to experiement with some different mechanics, and we got bolder as development continued.
Gehn: Any chance we will ever see attunements or rep based dungeons again or is that strictly a in-the-past type thing?
IonHazzikostas: To Gehn There's something a bit like a traditional attunement in the 5.0 raids: Players must defeat Grand Empress Shek'zeer in the Heart of Fear raid before they may begin the Terrace of Endless Spring raid. It's definitely something we're open to exploring further in the future.
Guest-30: Hi. I've had a lot of concerns regarding hit / expertise with tanks. Currently in MoP it seems tanks would reforge most their defensive stats into hit / expertise. It's extremely annoying design
GregStreet: To Guest-30 We felt like previously tanks could just ignore even hitting targets because threat was easy to maintain and survivability was based entirely around cooldowns. Now you'll need to hit the target, but you'll gain resources for doing so, so we hope the experience is more engaging to tanks. More *fighting* less standing there.
Guest-98: Will the ability to obtain legendary mats on LFR mode make it required for raiders, at least until they complete the quest?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-98 "Required" is one of those tricky words. We understand that for many players anything that gives even an incremental power gain is seen as mandatory. Progress on one portion of the early steps of the legendary questline may be made in LFR mode, so players who want to obtain their gem from Wrathion as quickly as possible will likely benefit from doing LFR alongside their Normal or Heroic raiding. LFR wings will unlock incrementally, after Normal mode, so when someone in a top progression guild is defeating up to 16 bosses when Heart of Fear and Terrace open, doing LFR will only add 6 to that total (from Mogu'shan Vaults LFR). While in the long run, we'd like to minimize players' obligation to run LFR if they are part of progression raiding guilds, that's challenging at the start of an expansion when everyone is using the same dungeon blues. We hope it'll be different for future tiers. Finally, the true power of Wrathion's gem lies in the combined effect of the weapon and the gem itself; an LFR player's Sha-touched weapon will be significantly less powerful than a Heroic raider's.
Guest-28: As the Cataclysm Expansion is now over. As a team what were your take aways both good and bad?
DaveKosak: To Guest-28 From a quest perspective, we thought that the storytelling in Cataclysm was very strong, but that the zones were very linear. For Pandaria, we wanted to swing the pendulum the other way and open up the game more, rewarding exploration. I think we found a much better balance. Kun-lai Summit, for example, is pretty open-ended, even though it's got some great stories in there. That's just one example - we're always learning from expansions. The other big takeaway was that we wanted more things for players to do, depending on what sort of challenges they want. Challenge Modes, Pet battles, and the new Daily Quest structure all appeal to different people, hoepfully with the goal of giving everyone more content no matter what your playstyle!
Guest-124: How much game time do you think will we get in exploration of the continent of pandaria?
CoryStockton: To Guest-124 We really packed in the content with Mists, that being said the amount of time it takes you is really going to depend on your playstyle. We have so many different things for players to do. Quests, reputations, dailys, sceanrios, pet battles.... The idea is to let players make progress doing whatever kind of activity they like best.
Amd11394: Prior to patch 5.0.4, When we still had the cataclysm 'revised' talent trees, Elemental shamans gained an addition to one of their talents entailing that when flame shock was dispelled we gained a temporary buff entitled 'Lave Flows' This most recent patch, with the new Mists 'revised' Talent trees highlighted the removal of the cataclysm talent system, and with it went Lava Flows, what is your reasoning for removing this valuable ability?
IonHazzikostas: To Amd11394 Defensive dispels are significantly more limited in 5.0 than they were previously. Passives like Lava Flows were designed as an answer to an environment in which defensive dispel magic was spammed constantly, and it was nearly impossible to get a buffed Lava Burst off against an attentive dispeller who could remove your Flame Shock while you were casting the spell. With an 8-second cooldown on dispels now, a healer who dispels a Flame Shock may find that they are unable to dispel the Fear or Polymorph that targets another teammate immediately thereafter. We'll keep an eye on the evolving PvP metagame in light of the new dispel changes, and consider re-adding something like Lava Flows if it proves necessary.
drwuky: Will the storyline of the Sha continue with Patch 5.1 or later patches?
DaveKosak: To drwuky For the most part, the Sha issues will be tackled by players in 5.0. BUT... not everyone wants to let sleeping Sha lie. Someone might start stirring up trouble beginning with the patches...
samich: Can we expect mailboxes on the wandering isle on release? was the removal of the one that was there for quest testing purposes?
DaveKosak: To samich Pandaren Neutrality caused a lot of design issues we had to solve. Mail ended up being a headache. What was easiest -- for us AND for our users -- was to remove mail entirely until you choose a faction. That's nice and clean and prevents a lot of issues people saw on the beta. So, no mailboxes on the Wandering Isle - sorry!
Guest-114: I know you guys recently changed the LFR loot (weapons) from the last boss in a LFR instance, are you guys going to do any other changes to LFR to make heroic raiders not feel as they have to raid 2 formats a week to be competitive?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-114 As I mentioned in reply to an earlier question, it's a goal of ours but it's a tough one to realize in a world where everyone is starting out in dungeon blues and looking to get their hands on any and all epics. It's our expectation that by the time Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFR unlock, most heroic raiders will have replaced their dungeon gear and have less to gain from also running LFR mode. In future raid tiers, people who are already in Heroic gear from the prior raid zone should not find the next tier's LFR gear to be an improvement over what they have.
Guest-260: Will there be an appearance of the Burning Legion in the end of MoP?
DaveKosak: To Guest-260 The threat of the Burning Legion is still out there, and it's very much a threat to Azeroth. The mortal races are mostly focused on the current war, but not everyone has forgotten about what's out there and the challenges to come... Wrathion, in particular, is already trying to look ahead.
Guest-271: Would say that the new challenge mode dungeon gold times are going to be the "Gladiator" equivalent of PVE?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-271 That would be our hope. Seeing someone sporting a set of challenge mode armor in town should be akin to seeing someone on a Gladiator mount -- you know they did something extremely skillful to earn it, and it's not the sort of reward you can outgear and obtain later on.
CoryStockton: To Guest-271 That's probably a pretty close comparison. Beyond gold times we will have server and guild leaderboards too. That's probably where the highest level of competition will be.
Guest-160: Christie Golden mentioned in an interview that she worked closely with the quest team when she wrote Tides of War to make sure everything was very close. However, there are some notable differences between the book and the scenario during the Alliance side of it. Did the storyline of the scenario change late into the book's writing?
DaveKosak: To Guest-160 We worked hard to sync with Golden during development. The Alliance side of the scenario went through LOTS of iterations, including when it happend (before the attack? During the attack? After the attack?) Ultimately we went with the one that gave us the greatest gameplay. We want the events of the book and game to match as closely as possible, but we want the best book possible and the best game possible, so they won't be word-for-word identical. This can create some fun arguments. "Well, according to this book..." "YEAH, but I WAS THERE, MAN!" We work hard to make sure the discrepancies are minor, but we definitely don't struggle for perfection.
Guest-292: Will we ever see cross-server mail or non-boa cross faction mailing phiesibly within the 5.0 content?--Gorebane of Eonar (P.S. Wa
CoryStockton: To Guest-292 It's on our list and something we really want to do. It's really just a matter of the engineering time it takes us to get it in.
im_a_rockstar: WoW has always been a mostly raid or die game. The changes in MoP to Justice Points, the item level difference on gear obtained outside of raid, are kind of steps backwards away from alternatives, pushing us back to having our only choice to be a raid. Are there any plans to give the non-raiders / people with random avaiabilities any form of meaningful character progression in terms of player power, besides only raids?
IonHazzikostas: To im_a_rockstar We have a number of gear acquisition routes that do not involve raiding. We've broadened the avenues for acquiring Valor Points, which can now be earned by doing dungeons, daily quests, scenarios, and so forth. That gear will be at least item level 489 (compared to 476 from LFR). There's also crafted gear. And of course future content updates will continue to provide upgrades outside of raiding. All of that said, I'd encourage you to check out the new raids as well -- the addition of the LFR system makes them more accessible than ever.
NinjaFox: To Dave Kosak: The reddit AMA gave some teasers that Sylvanas, Vol'jin, and Thrall (specifically in 5.1) would be integral parts to the story. Rexxar and Koltira were also mentioned. On the Alliance side, other than Varian, Anduin and Jaina are there any notable leaders/lore figures we can expect to see active through the Pandaria storyline?
DaveKosak: To NinjaFox Great question! Many of the Alliance leaders will come into play. Tyrande has a couple of moments in 5.1. We also want to do more with the dwarven storyline (we're still kicking around ideas of how best to do that.) The trick is making sure those characters have meaningful moments. We'll definitely spend a lot of time with Jaina and King Wrynn.
DeathFish1: With the creation of the farms at Halfhill, the base structure for player and guild housing has subsequently been created as well. Is this the direction you have chosen to go with for player housing or was this even considered as an option. One very good point about this option is that multiple locations for housing can be placed thoughout the game world, preventing the issue of removing players from the world.
CoryStockton: To DeathFish1 It's certainly a baby step in that direction. We are really excited to see how players react to it in Mists. We already have lots of ideas on how we can expand this kind of content in the future too!
DaveKosak: Regarding DeathFish's question (Love the name, Deathfish!) when we think about things like player-housing, we really want to look at how this can contribute to gameplay. The farm is awesome because it ties into a lot of systems, it creates some fun crafting opportunities, it impacts the economy, etc. It's a great experiment for us because if it's popular, it gives us a lot of data into how to create this type of content in the future.
Gosu: What is the design philosophy behind PvP balance and how satisfied are you with PvP balance in Mists of Pandaria?
GhostCrawler: To Gosu One of the main ones was to allow more cross-over of gear at the lower end but not the upper end of content. (In 4.0 it was more of the opposite.) It's not fun to die in PvP over and over until you get decent gear.
Guest-134: How come with this expansion you choose to go with Pandas and not something that was already in the game, such as The Emerald Dream, maybe going into the Dragonflights, or even something more with The Demonic legion.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-134 The pandaren are a race we've been looking to introduce into the WoW universe for some time now, since their introduction as a neutral hero back in the Warcraft 3 expansion. They were originally a top contender for the Alliance race back in Burning Crusade, but we ended up going with the draenei at the time because they better fit the Outland-focused story we were trying to tell, and because it didn't feel right forcing a historically neutral race like the pandaren into one specific faction. When we were looking to make an expansion centered around themes of exploration and discovery against a backdrop of Alliance-Horde conflict, the pandaren just seemed like the right fit: Noble and enigmatic race caught in the middle of the war between the Alliance and Horde as it spirals out of control, forced to choose sides as the outside world descends upon their homeland.
Guest-179: ogue's shadow blades visual effect is lacking, and needs more of a pop. Paladins get ashbringer; could rogues get something equally cool looking?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-179 We agree that some rogue visuals (Shadow Blades, Shadow Walk, etc.) could use some more love. That's something we'd like to do in a future patch.
bocasha: In Pandaria will we see another 9 month period where we will have no new stuff coming out?
CoryStockton: To bocasha We are doing everything within our power to avoid this. We all feel that 9 months without content is pretty much unacceptable to our players. A glimmer of hope: we are already knee deep into both patch 5.1 and 5.2. Our plan is to deliver these much faster than anyone is expecting.
Guest-432: When will we see Sargeras, it's one of the reasons I've stuck around for so long...
DaveKosak: To Guest-432 Sargeras would be one monstrous raid boss! He's one of the most iconic, key villains of the franchise. Believe me, when he comes to Azeroth, you're going to feel it LONG before he even gets there.
khalanil: Have you thought about implementing zones or battlegrounds where players are normalized by level, similar to the gear level normalization in the upcoming challenge mode dungeons? This could allow players to quest or PVP with lower-level friends, and it could be fun to see a trio of level 20s take down a level 90.
DaveKosak: To khalanil This is a tremendous question, because it's something we've been talking about and exploring. With Challenge Modes, we now have tech to scale your item level, so that we can guarantee the right level of difficulty. Having this tech opens lots of doors for us down the line. We don't have anything to announce, but it's a step toward a lot of the features you're describing.
parrjj01: I really love the real ID system, which has helped me communicate with my cousin who lives in Hawaii. The only downfall is, he's horde. Neither of us want to change fractions but we'd love to run toghther doing something. Will you guys ever considor letting us 'group' toghther and duke it out in battlegrounds, but disabling chat (even in real ID terms) so the no communcation rules still apply?
GhostCrawler: To parrjj01 We don't have huge design problems with letting you play with friends from other factions. The biggest challenge is the game was never designed with the concept of letting you be allied with the opposing faction, so it would be a tremendous amount of work. I won't give up hope for it though! (We always joke about a tauren having the Hallow's End 2D gnome mask when you're grouped with him.)
Guest-184: Can one stand anywhere in Orgrimmar(including right next to the questgiver that sends you to the gunship) when MoP is activated or do we have to be outside the Garrosh building? Good to know for us who are rushing as fast as we can!
GhostCrawler: To Guest-184 If you are online, you should get the quest pushed to you no matter where you are. We don't want to over-promise though. This is technically challenging stuff and it might be the case that we need everyone to relog. /crosses fingers
Guest-37: The story of Tides of War is really interesting. I don't think players can get engaged if they have no idea what's happening, the bomb dropping is really anticlimactic. I felt a bit disappointed so little got included in the scenario. Was this because of lack of time, of developers or because you rather keep all that info in the novels.
DaveKosak: To Guest-37 I've been watching the Theramore feedback closely, and this comment seems pretty universal. We tried to keep everything all in the scenario, to make it really self-contained, but not burden it with lots of story that you have to slog through every time you played the scenario. It's pretty clear from the feedback that people wanted more story. We should've surrounded the scenarios with more quests or explanations to help round out the story for the people who wanted to know what exactly was happening. Lesson learned!
Dude7198: Will there be a Realm First achievement that involves Pet Battles?
CoryStockton: To Dude7198 We did not make any realm first achievements for pet battles. Our intention for the feature is that its more of a casual activity and a realm first just did not feel like a good fit.
Guest-261: Nobody I know is impressed with the promise of an extra piece of loot for normal 25 mans. What we would be impressed with is separate realm first achievements for each raid format. Any chance of seeing something like this?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-261 Possibly. On several servers that have one top 25-player guild that's far above the rest of the server in progression, that might turn into incentivizing them to split up the week after their 25-player Realm First to snag the 10-player one. Not sure that's great gameplay for anyone. That said, we recognize that there's interest in making it a bit easier to distinguish between 10-player and 25-player kills in statistics or achievements.
Guest-257: Were the stained glass windows in Ulduar forshadowing of the Sha? They look very similar to the Sha.
DaveKosak: To Guest-257 I'd like to say we planned that. [Long pause] But I would be lying. I think it's just a happy coincidence that fits wonderfully into our lore.
Guest-174: When will transmog rules be loosened up a little. Main hand/one hand weapons, for instance.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-174 If I had to guess, we will loosen them at some point. We would probably wait until some time after the MoP launch when players will appreciate it more. It's easy for smaller features to get lost when there is so much new content. The designers will discuss it soon (tm).
Guest-88: We saw some of the animations on the challenge mode gear, will the druid set animations be visible when the druid is shapeshifted?
CoryStockton: To Guest-88 The custom effects are based on the armor itself so they will only be visible when you are in caster form.
Guest-306: Will content come at a faster rate in MoP? It seems that we might be pushing thought content at a much faster rate.
DaveKosak: To Guest-306 That is definitely our goal! As we speak the quest team is simultaneously working on patches 5.1 and 5.2. Our hope is to keep the story and content rolling forward. It's definitely a focus for the team - I can't make any promises, but I guarantee we're trying and I hope you'll notice the results!
CoryStockton: To Guest-306 I know we sound like a broken record on this but we are really pushing hard to deliver content to you guys faster than ever with the Mists patch cycle. As Dave mentioned, we are already making awesome progress on the first set of patches.
Zawani: Hey, I had a question regarding arms warrior pve rotation. It feels like there is to much rng involved with the rotation very rarely do I get more than 2 stacks of taste for blood and sometimes I can use overpower 5 or 6 times without a single proc of it, which then will leave me rage starved and without buttons to press, I was wondering if you could lower the damage bonus of the buff or damage of OP while also increasing the proc chance as well.
GhostCrawler: To Zawani Think of getting a high stack for Taste for Blood as a random bonus, much like getting enraged from a bunch of crits in a row. You shouldn't hold your whole rotation waiting for a 4 or 5 stack, because it won't happen that often. If you're at risk of rage capping, try to Slam. If you don't have the GCD to Slam then it's probably worth just using the Heroic Strike unless you think you'll be able to Colossus Smash really soon.
Guest-43: Will we ever see Magni Bronzebeard return from being frozen under Ironforge?
DaveKosak: To Guest-43 Magni is like the definition of BLING. If we continue his story, we'll make sure to handle it in-game. I wouldn't count on seeing him return during the Pandaren story arc, though.
Guest-313: Greg just said on twitter that the 25s versus 10s situation was handled in the AMA a lot, but nothing came from that apart from an understanding that 25s do have it harder now and could use some more compensation, Don't you have concrete plans for that, more than the tiny bit of extra loot 25s will have? The issue will only get even more pronounced the next weeks during progression.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-313 It's something we discuss frequently internally. We don't have anything final to announce just yet, but we love 25-player raiding and intend to do what we can to preserve it.
Guest-6: Windwalkers have been very upset with a couple things in particular with their spec. The first is Fists of Fury, we don't like being rooted and channeling an attack when our kit is supposed to be mobile. Can we please get this mechanic revisited? As well, we don't have literally any useful raid utility. Zen meditation is very weak. Will this be addressed at all post-launch?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-6 "Mobile" doesn't mean "never, ever stops moving." Like many specs, Windwalkers will do more damage when stationary but can still do some damage when moving. Deciding when you should FoF and when you can't is one of the decision points that separates good monks from great ones. We're not inclined to change it at this time. As far as raid utility goes, we're really reluctant to hand more "must have" buffs. We don't want Windwalkers to be mandatory, especially for smaller, 10-player raid groups. If they are never taken at all, we'll take some kind of action, but I'd be very surprised if that's the case.
Guest-531: Are there plans on fixing the broken Engineering Flying Machine that has been broken since patch 4.1?
CoryStockton: To Guest-531 We will look into this and make sure we get it fixed.
Guest-413: Is there a chance we might see class specific factions developed more? Kirin Tor, Ebon Blade, Argent Bros, Ravenholdt...Could we see something similar arise for Warriors, Hunters etc?
DaveKosak: To Guest-413 We're cooking up some cool Warlock stuff we can hopefully announce soon. In a more general sense, we LOVE class-specific content, but to do it right takes development time (believe me, I have to somehow schedule all this stuff.). When it came down to deciding between more zones of content and more faction content OR class-specific stuff, we opted to create more content for everyone. But, again, we love class-specific content, we'll try to squeeze in some cool challenges for the various challenges in the patches to come...
Guest-74: Are we going to get more story-telling in scenarios? The Theramore scenario was lackluster compared to the book, key story elements haven't even been address in-game yet.(Kirin Tor leader)
DaveKosak: To Guest-74 I addressed this earlier, but keep in mind that we want scenarios to be replayable. We definitely didn't want to burden them with tons of story that you have to wade through every time you play it. As I said for Theramore, people obviously wanted more context, which probably was best served by some one-time quests on either end of the scenario. That's a lesson we're pulling forward.
Guest-335: Will Wintergrasp ever be added as a max level battleground?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-335 Potentially, if there is enough demand for it. We would introduce it as you suggest as a true Battleground to avoid faction imbalance issues.
Guest-28: Beside the lifting on the mist with the clock strikes midnight on the 25th. We have come to expect events to complement the expansion. They have been fascinating and very fun. Should we expect events over the next 6 days? Or was the Scenario it?
CoryStockton: To Guest-28 The Theramore scenario is intended to be a preview of what players can expect from scenarios in Mists. It is by no means a launch event and thats intentional. We made a call early on to put that time into developing more content for Mists that will last and not be over in a week.
Guest-33: I loved the "Visions of the Past" quest-line in Vashj'ir. Will we see anything similar in upcoming content?
DaveKosak: To Guest-33 This is the "Battle-Maiden" questline, where you got to play as a naga badass for a while. I think these are a great break from the standard gameplay if they're well-designed, but we would want to use them sparingly. (After all, it's not WoW if you're not playing your class and kicking butt!) That said, there's a couple fun moments in Pandaria that have similar gameplay. In the Valley of Four Winds, you get to play as Chen Stormstout for a little bit. After kicking around a lot of ideas, we ultimately decided to give you a single 'Chen-Fu' button that makes him randomly do awesome kung-fu moves. It's a short sequence, but it's fun for storytelling and gives you a chance to Chen it up.
Gehn: Any updates on future guild leveling past 25?
CoryStockton: To Gehn We are totally open to increasing guild levels and the associated rewards but only when the game feels like it needs more of that content. A large number of guilds are still nowhere near level 25 so Mists did not feel like a good fit to add more guild levels.
Guest-214: Mists of Pandaria features an ambitious number of 18 raid bosses and I'm very excited about that. Im curious though as to how many bosses we can expect to see in future tiers? Firelands and Dragon Soul felt like small tiers with only 7 or 8 encounters in the tier.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-214 We like big raid tiers too, and will do our best to continue delivering them. We're planning for the next tier after Heart of Fear/Terrace to be a fair bit larger than Firelands or Dragon Soul were.
Guest-197: Whats would your answer be to the players who feel that by making multiple classes bring similar buffs and abilities, that the classes are losing their 'uniqueness'? Introducing combo points to ShadowPriests/Ret Paladins for example
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-197 Ultimately, there are only so many distinct resource mechanisms, and many of them are not great from a gameplay perspective. We'd rather differentiate our classes and specs on the basis of their overall feel and unique capabilities such as Death Grip for Death Knights or shaman' totems. I don't think many people are likely to mistake a shadow priest for a rogue just because they build up a resource and then consume it to deal damage.
Guest-395: Will the gear in Theramore's Fall 85 version be available in the 90 version?
CoryStockton: To Guest-395 The gear and the rewards for the 85 version are only available now. The 90 version has standard scenario rewards (Valor and a chance at a dungeon blue)
Lansuer: Where do you see races that are neutral leaning like the Blood Elves going within the Horde? They seem rather separate from the Horde story since Cata's launch.
DaveKosak: To Lansuer Stick around for patch 5.1 - we pick up the Blood Elves' story and propel it forward. Finally, a chance to interact with Lor'themar! Most players don't even know who he is.
Guest-121: What are your thoughts on healing classes in MoP? Are you seeing the type of balance you want in the new expansion between all classes/specs? I ask because we are seeing a lot of blending of healers into one unit, instead of variety. All healers can do everything now to state it plainly which is making certain classes stronger choices than others for non-healing reasons. Sure some do slightly better in certain situations, but the classic archetypes are no longer as valid. It removes the need fo...
GhostCrawler: To Guest-121 We strive for harmony with the healer design. If healer niches are too well-defined, then you are encouraged to stack Resto druids for one fight and then Holy paladins for the next fight. We'd rather see a diversity of healers. As far as healer balance is currently, we're pretty happy with it at 90. We still need to see Disc priests really figure out all of the nuances of Spirit Shell and we want to make sure all of the healers are really strong for Challenge Mode gold runs.
drwuky: Will you guys decrease the experience needed from 88-89 and 89-90 or increase the experience gained in Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes before release? At the moment you can NOT hit Level 89 if you start with Level 88 and 0% experience in Townlong Steppes (~10% experience missing) and also Level 90 is impossible with Dread Wastes quests only (~5% experience missing). These are datas with the 10% experience guild perk and yes, I've got both zone completed achievements.
CoryStockton: To drwuky We are still actively tuning the XP. We will look into it.
Velenor1: Question for Dave Kosak. I have always wondered why the Alliance has continuously frowned upon the Scarlet Crusade. Their main purpose was to simply eradicate the undead. With their return in MoP, we are tasked with eliminating them -again- with the aid of Lillian Voss. Why is it that we have turned their organization down for so long when we more or less have the same goals in mind?
DaveKosak: To Velenor1 The complexities really aren't in the game, but the Scarlet Crusade was very much a rogue organization. Great priests and warriors who would've otherwise served the Alliance disappear into the crusade, who serves its own ends. (In Northrend, it was clear their leadership had succumbed to demonic influence. It's hard to make up for that.) To be honest, the main reason to revisit the Crusade in 5.1 was a gameplay reason and not a story reason - it was a favorite dungeon that we really wanted to revisit with new mechanics. We didn't think a lot of story was needed.
Guest-553: Question from Munich, Germany. As the Octoberfest here and Brewfest in WoW are coming up, I wondered whether anyone at Blizzard did "field research" for designing Brewfest at the real Octoberfest ? The costumes and music are done really well.
CoryStockton: To Guest-553 We do field research on Brewfest every Friday.
DaveKosak: Sorry - meant to say 5.0 in that last question
Guest-235: Why is the theramore event so boring? Its way too easy and if you didn't read the book then you have no idea what's going on, you also wouldn't know why jaina isn't dead and why azeroth isn't completely destroyed. Do you think it would've been smarter to put more lore in the scenario and would've made it more fun?
Zarhym: To Guest-235 Dave already spoke to the story part of your question (if you missed it Best Buy will be providing a full transcript after the chat). To address your concern of difficulty, we agree it was too easy on release. We pushed a hotfix recently that increased the HP of all enemies in Theramore's Fall. The fact is that Scenarios in Mists will be more tailored for players in quest gear and dungeon blues. But players at level 85 were steamrolling through it in Dragon Soul gear, and the hotfix was to compensate for this a little.
Guest-494: Do all designers use the same in-house editor? Or do you have different tools for different jobs? How do you handle collisions in your edits?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-494 We all use a massive proprietary tool called WoWEdit, which has been showcased a couple of times at Blizzcons in the past. We all use this tool to create and edit everything from creatures to spells to quests, and our level designers use it to actually shape the terrain of the outdoor world. At the end of the day, there are countless columns and rows in tables that define the properties of the game world and the players and monsters that inhabit it. We're only able to do the work that we do because of our amazing Tools team, a dedicated group that is constantly refining and updating our editor to enable us to create content more quickly and with fewer bugs.
Guest-186: On the World of Warcraft website, it lists tradeskill patterns, plans, etc. that the player is missing. Some of those items are no longer in game. Are there any plans to reincorporate those missing plans back into the game so the players have an opportunity to try to get all of their missing tradeskill plans?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-186 I'd hate to add back plans with no real game purpose just for sake of completeness. To be honest, I'd rather get rid of more of the older recipes that don't have a strong purpose.
Guest-160: Compared to designing dungeons, how difficult is it to design scenarios? Does it take more or less resources to make scenarios?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-160 The biggest challenge for us was just figuring out what scenarios should be. How long should they last? Should they be hard? How much variability should they have from run to run? Now that we've gone through that process, they should take much less time to design than dungeons. The biggest time expenditure on dungeons is the amazing art that goes into them.
Amd11394: Considering Dispels remove ALL magic effects, even if they dispelled Fear the Flame shock would go with it, regardless of if they intended to dispel it or not. Would this not constitute it's reinstatement?
IonHazzikostas: To Amd11394 Guessing this is a follow-up to my earlier reply. I meant that if you dispel Flame Shock off yourself, or off Teammate A, maybe you can't dispel Teammate B's Fear or Polymorph a few seconds later, and now they're stuck in CC for its full duration. In general, we expect that players have to be much more careful about how and when they use their magic dispels.
Guest-399: Rogues are famous for using daggers, and that's all that we seem to be able to use, but I like to play Combat Spec, and it's described as being a swashbuckler spec. As such, I'd like to use 1handed swords along with daggers, but there are next to no 1handed rogue compatible swords, will we ever get to use swords as part of a rogue's arsenal? Afterall, there is no longer a block on what weapons a rogue can use on their abilties.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-399 It's less of a design concern and more about how many different items we can drop. Things like e.g. Intellect axes don't have a lot of customers, so we just don't make them very often. This might be the kind of thing that transmog can eventually help address too.
basketballer259: I assume I ask this question on behalf of thousands of vanilla WoW fans: Do you ever plan on bringing back "Server-wide" Events? An example would be the Opening of AQ, which allowed the entire server to collaborate their efforts. An event of the same theory would be an incredible experience for all players to witness. It was incredibly rewarding when the whole server gathered enough materials for the opening ceremony!
DaveKosak: To basketballer259 From the standpoint of, "Everyone gather at the same place at the same time to see a big event and if you miss it its gone forever assuming you all don't crash the server," then no, no more events like that. BUT, we love the feeling of server progression, similar to the Isle of Quel'denas. Is there a way to build that progression into the game such that players who come in a couple months later don't miss out on all the fun? We think there is. And we're planning something that we'd like to try in the 5.0 patch cycle... so stay tuned! [No guarantees here, but we're actively tinkering with something.]
Shnitzel: With the pet battle system, pets which you can acquire multiples of, have lost the 'Already Known' tag. This is pretty annoying when shopping for pets for example, as you constantly have to search through your journal ("Do I have the red tickbird or the white one?"). Will this be changed? perhaps add an 'Already Known' tag in a different color?
CoryStockton: To Shnitzel Sorry for the inconvenience on that, we have already redesigned the tooltips to fix this in patch 5.1.0. Tooltips will display if you already own the pet in addition to how many.
Guest-892: Have you thought of introducing titles to reward realm 1st times for the new challenge mode dungeons. Something similar to how the PvP titles work now.
CoryStockton: To Guest-892 We actually have! The idea was that you would only have the title for as long as you held the top time. Main issue we ran into was that the title could be changing hands so fast that you might only have it for a few seconds. It's an awesome idea though and we want to explore it more.
Guest-489: Can we have a rough timeframe on when we can expect the Trials of the High King questline to be implimented? Are we taking around patch 5.1 or something closer to the Siege of Orgrimmar patch?
DaveKosak: To Guest-489 Varian Wrynn's first trial will happen in 5.1. But to set expectations, the development of Varian's character happens across the entire patch cycle and beyond - it doesn't all happen in one event or one scenario. His trials are many.
Guest-776: Transmog has become a very important part of my gaming fun. Will we be able to farm Dragon Soul LFR recolor gear at level 90, since the LFR tool won't work for it at that level ? This goes for future expansions and MoP content, of course.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-776 We aren't going to support Raid Finder for content that is much lower level than your character, but we are going to allow you to enter old raids solo without being in a raid in a future patch (ideally the next major one, but standard no promises). That should facilitiate a lot of transmog farming.
Guest-727: The Reliquary is an interesting faction (at least in my opinion), but it hasn't been really visible in Cataclysm. Any chance we'll see them in Pandaria, as a counterpart to Brann ? Or at least some way to get their tabard ?
DaveKosak: To Guest-727 No plan for a tabard, but starting in 5.1 they're going to start poking around Pandaria for relics...
Guest-763: Were Orges ever thought of as a playalbe race, at one time? (Greg marry me /kiss) Irth
GhostCrawler: To Guest-763 Yep. We considered them for Cataclysm instead of goblins. Figuring out the females and the two-headed mages would be (fun!) challenges. Maybe someday.
Zarhym: Way to ignore that marriage proposal follow-up, GC. ;p
Cueball: First: Hi guys, including Zarhym (didn't know you'd be here). Anyway, is there anything to Jaina's words that it is "time to bring Dalaran down" to the land and that she is still in support of fighting against the Horde?
DaveKosak: To Cueball Jaina's story will continue starting in patch 5.1. We'll try to catch players up with where she is at the end of the book, and then move on from there.
Guest-571: With the introduction of Pet Battles, do you think we can see pets dropping in raids again? There hasn't been a pet drop in a raid since Karazhan IIRC so a prime example in today's standing could be Ragnaros dropping Mini Ragnaros instead of it being on the store.
CoryStockton: To Guest-571 I don't see why not! We just need to make sure it's a good fit with the content.
Guest-736: Is there any plans to allow players to have more then one Death Knight per server?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-736 We agree that it feels like an antiquated rule at this point. We'll see how hard it is to remove that restriction.
sdk: I am wondering about the incentives to 25 man. This game is a social game so why does it seem that 25 man guilds are dieing off and they are going to 10 mans. Paragon recently posted that they were going to 10 man. Is there any other way to fix it so that people are drawn to do 25 mans because they want to raid with friends and get the good gear?
IonHazzikostas: To sdk In Paragon's specific case, I suspect they'd find no lack of capable people more than willing to raid with them, but maintaining a Finnish-speaking roster is a core part of their guild culture, and they've made what was no doubt a very difficult decision to scale down to 10-player raiding rather than compromise that culture. As I noted in the Reddit AMA, ultimately there are heavier logistical burdens, particularly placed on the officers and raid leaders, in sustaining a 25-player roster versus only needing 10 players. We're actively discussing ways of ensuring that 25-player raiders feel properly incentivized and rewarded without necessarily elevating one raid size over the other. We definitely welcome ongoing community discussion and feedback on that topic.
Alablaster: As Developers, what was your biggest hurdle in building the new features we will see in Mists and how did you overcome them? Also I want to send kudos out to the art team - the beta was visually stunning!
CoryStockton: To Alablaster Our biggest issue with new features is adding more complexity to the game. It's somethign we struggle with every expansion. I will pass your kind words on to the art team too!
Wamogri: Will the baby shark pet ever get added back into the game?
CoryStockton: To Wamogri Yes! That's what those sweet new water bubbles are for!
Guest-525: Recently in Twitter Ghostcrawler mentioned the possibility of making subraces such as Maghar orcs and Wildhammer dwarfs available with the player character model updates, how high chance is there that this would also allow us to play as Broken or Taunka?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-525 If we ever opened up more races, I suspect we'd be pretty liberal about it, but to be clear, that feature is no more than a twinkle in some designer's eye at this stage.
artimadours: Are there any plans to allow for heirloom items to be sent cross realm?
CoryStockton: To artimadours We want this as bad as you guys do. It's on the list and we are looking into it.
Nize: You mentioned in a previous Q&A that legendary weapon components would be done in a manner to lessen drama within in a guild. One step was the implementation of components achievable through LFR. My question is how will components from normal and heroic raids be distributed. Will it be distributed similarly to how Deathwing's essences or new LFR are, or will the raid leaders still choose who to give those components to?
GhostCrawler: To Nize In 5.0 it's not a competitive issue at all. In Raid Finder, it's a random drop for some players. In Normal and Heroic there is a chance of a drop, at which point it is multi-lootable and every player on the quest will get it.
Guest-787: There has been some speculation as to whether Turalyon and Alleria might make a triumphant comeback in Mists of Pandaria. Any comments on this, or are they saved for a later expansion pack? The Alliance sure could use something to turn the tide of war.
DaveKosak: To Guest-787 ...and also, I think the Alliance can take this!
DaveKosak: To Guest-787 There's no plan to continue their story in Pandaria.
DaveKosak: (Reverse the order of those replies.
Guest-212: Are we going to have the ability to remove players who dc or log off from scenario groups and add in new players from the queue?
CoryStockton: To Guest-212 Not at launch but we hope to have it in for the 5.1 patch. We understand the concern.
lilm123: Do you guys plan on giving out title for challgenge modes, like how you do for PvP (0.0% - 0.5%: Gladiator 0.5% - 3%: Duelist 3% - 10%: Rival 10% - 35%: Challenger)
IonHazzikostas: To lilm123 If and when we move on to future challenge mode "seasons", titles to recognize players' past accomplishments are definitely something we'll consider.
Guest-913: With all these new changes to get players out into the world (great idea), is it a goal of the development team to possibly bring back World-PvP? Coming from someone who plays on a PvP Realm, I would love to relive the old days of huge scale open world PvP battles. I'm sure many others feel the same way.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-913 We are trying to encourage it. Spots like the Black Market and the shrines (the faction "cities" in the Vale) will probably have a lot of PvP on PvP servers. Remember, guards are much weaker on PvP servers now and there are no sanctuaries in Pandaria.
Guest-883: At the end of the Klaxxi questline, the mantid mentioned that at one point in time, they worshipped Y'shaarj, an old god. However, he was slain by the Titans and was split into "shadows of his former self". Is he, in some way, in relations with the Sha and will we see Y'shaarj in future content patches?
DaveKosak: To Guest-883 Y'shaarj breathed love and exhaled hate, inhaled peace and breathed violence... Plus, his name was y'SHAarj. It's pretty safe to connect the dots. But Y'shaarj itself is very, very, very dead.
Guest-728: WIll we see a Heroic Version of Ragefire Chasm?
CoryStockton: To Guest-728 Certainly not out of the question. Heroic versions of classic dungeons have been some of our most popular content. We will keep doing them as long as people keem playing em'.
Guest-508: What exaclty (If you can answer without spoiling the story line!) has turned Garrosh Hellscream into the monster we all hate now?
DaveKosak: To Guest-508 Garrosh is not a monster. He has a very clear vision of the Horde, and the future of the orcs, and he gives very little thought to anyone who stands between him and that future. As he gets more powerful, and gets away with more, his vision becomes clearer. This has put him in conflict in the Alliance, and ultimately will cause problems within the Horde.
Ünseen: I love the little mana bomb received from the Theramoore scenario, but the cooldown is making it really hard to have fun with. Any chance this will be reduced to allow a bit more spammability? Maybe like a 30 second cd?
CoryStockton: To Ünseen Glad you liked the reward! Unfortunately, that kind of mana power takes a long time to recharge!
Guest-749: The new LFR system you have in WoW now seems like a great way for people who dont have alot of time to donate to raiding guild environments a chance to see content that was most of the time closed to them, however im not a big fan of 25man raids. Is there any plans to add a 10man choice to the LFR system?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-749 We think 25 works better for Raid Finder. The ratios of DPS to non DPS more matches the player population and there is less risk of getting an unviable group. In 25s you can afford to have a few deaths and you can even pull if you're backfilling a few players. Both really make you stop in your tracks on 10s. In 25, it's easier to fade back into the group if you're still not 100% confident in what you're doing. In 10s, it's harder to be a wallflower.
Guest-986: "Turalyon and Alleria" is it possible in anyway to know if there are any plans to continue their story? I had HUGE hopes to see them in game when BC came out and their SON poped out of nowhere saying they where alive. anything would do!... plz!?
DaveKosak: To Guest-986 Oh, their story will continue!!
Guest-51: How are group compositions gonna work into Challenge Modes? Surely every group would want to have a Bloodlust. And atleast a kings buff.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-51 Realistically, if you're aiming for Gold, you're going to want a shaman or a mage or a hunter in your group, though Gold is absolutely possible without using Heroism/Bloodlust or equivalent effects. Realistically that probably saves you 15-20 seconds at best, and we've seen groups beat some Gold times by more than that. When constructing a 5-player dungeon group, you're inevitably going to have some strengths and some weaknesses in your composition, and players may find that the sorts of abilities they find invaluable are not the ones they're used to viewing in that light. (Pop quiz -- Which is likely to help you more in an 18-minute challenge mode run: Bloodlust, or an AoE stun that you can a couple of times a minute?)
Vaengence: Ok, I am going to be the one to ask the dreaded question, mainly because my guild members know that I continue to fight for them and have asked me to still chase this question. 25 mans - GC you have said it would be a good topic for a Watercooler, which is good, and recent tweets say not enough is being done for them.The only change we know about is the loot change and that is onl 1 item different for Normals from the majority of Cata which, excuse the sentiment here, seems a little underwhelmin...
GhostCrawler: To Vaengence Sadly, we don't have any details to announce yet, but we have a couple of ideas that should make the 25 players happy. We'll talk about them when we're confident that they are good ideas. Remember, the result can't be that all the 10 players stampede back to 25.
DeathFish1: Any chance we will see the option to upgrade out current legendary to be maybe not the equal to the current ilvl but maybe raid finder ilvl or just a little below so that they are not just taking up space in out banks, or bags in the case of dragonwrath.
GhostCrawler: To DeathFish1 Not sure we would let you upgrade a legendary, but we could potentially allow you to transmog them. Our reluctance has always been that Thunderfuy feels less special when you see 30 of them running around AV.
Guest-924: If some gamers are thinking about coming back to WoW to exp Mist of Pandaria content, is there any special program "come back" that will launch with the release?
CoryStockton: To Guest-924 Scroll of Resurrection is awesome for returning players!
Bolting: Have you changed your design philosophy of the quest flow in mists of pandaria? In previous expansions, moving to a new zone as soon as you are eligble left enough experience to cause no issues. Do you intend for all zones to be finished from beginning to end in order, and if so why did you feel the need to add breadcrumbs to the next zone prior to being able to go without issues further down the road?
DaveKosak: To Bolting Pandaria is like a huge novel that you can read in any order. You can skip ahead to other chapters as soon as you're eligible. It's worth it to stick through a full zone to wrap up the storylines and maybe get some blue quest rewards, but you're welcome to play through however you want. We definitely put in the effort to make this expansion much more open and non-linear.
Crithto: That about wraps things up, everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Best Buy Dev Chat, sending us really great questions, and for your patience. On behalf of Greg, Cory, Ion, Dave, and Zarhym, we truly appreciate your time and passion for World of Warcraft. Have a GREAT rest of the week, and we'll see you in Pandaria next Tuesday!
DaveKosak: This was a lot of fun. Thank you everyone! Only days to go... Pandaria awaits!
CoryStockton: Tons of great questions guys, that was a lot of fun! Can't wait to see everyone in Pandaria in just a few days!
GhostCrawler: We can't wait for you guys to see all of the new Mists content. We are really proud of what we've been able to deliver with this expansion. It's going to be good. Hugs, GC.
Dorothy-BBY: Thanks guys!
Zarhym: Thank you, everyone! For those who got here late or weren't able to follow along for the whole chat, Best Buy will be providing a full transcript here momentarily: http://bbyurl.us/MistsofPandariaChat
Kyle-BBY: Great chat everyone! Thank you everyone for joining us and Blizzard for totally rocking!
Sean|Senior Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
Private MessageTranscript for Chat: 'Live Chat: WoW Mists of Pandaria', Tue Sep 18 18:04:25 CDT 2012
Zarhym: Hello, all, and welcome to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Developer Chat, presented by Best Buy! Blizzard community manager Crithto and I will be helping facilitate the discussion today and filter as many of your questions as possible for our developers to answer.
Crithto: That’s right! Thank you, Zarhym, and welcome everyone. On the panel to answer your questions today we have World of Warcraft lead designers Greg Street, Cory Stockton, Dave Kosak, and Ion Hazzikostas. Questions are pouring in and our developers are preparing their initial responses, so let’s get started!
Guest-47: Is the second son of DeathWing going to be the Second Prince? The achitvment two Princs says that Wration and another 'Prince' will settle something important, is that true?
DaveKosak: To Guest-47 "Two Princes" is a placeholder name that may or may not reflect the final achievements in later patches. Suffice it to say, Wrathion's story will continue!
Guest-101: What was the idea with Monk healing? what mix of elements inspired it and defined it?
GregStreet: To Guest-101 Mostly we wanted it to feel different from existing healers, so there is an emphasis on a channeled spell as the main heal. We also wanted to emphasize movement and damage-dealing to heal, because those were core to the monk class.
Guest-51: Do you feel the way of nerfing Dragon Soul, by nerfing the bosses. Was more successful than the Icecrown Citadel version, by buffing the players health and damage?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-51 Yes, one of the awkward things about the Icecrown Citadel buff was that, over time, it caused players to feel weaker when they were doing anything other than raiding Icecrown. It also had some potentially distorting effects, benefiting some specs and roles more than others. Weakening the enemies instead, as we've done in Dragon Soul, is more in keeping with how we've traditionally handled our tuning adjustments, going all the way back to Vanilla raids.
Guest-43: Where is N'Zoth? He was mentioned at Blizzcon, then was talked about in Dragon Soul. What is going on with him?!
DaveKosak: To Guest-43 N'zoth is still lurking. The Titans couldn't defeat it... maybe someday we'll get our chance? Don't expect to hear anything about him in Pandaria, though!
drwuky: Hello. If someone from a CRZ hits Level 90 as first player on my realm, will he get the Realm First! Level 90 achievement for my realm or for his realm?
IonHazzikostas: To drwuky His realm
parrjj01: It seems like PVP never gets much attention from the devlopers during these type of events. As a hardcore lover of PVP and the many people that are in my guild, we have really gotten frustrated, bored, etc with how PVP is handled. Will you guys ever be implanting anything like how LFR system works. Were there will be healers on each side, for a better chance of your team succeeding? I don't know about anyone else but I really hate being on my side with 0 healers and the horde have 4 in E...
GregStreet: To parrjj01 Our BG queueing system was built a long time ago. Since that time we've engineered the much more powerful system that we use for Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder. We'd now like to reengineer that system to work for BG queues as well, which would give us the ability to better balance healers, item levels, and perhaps even premade vs. PUG. No promises, but it's something we're working on.
Guest-46: The Theramore event was a little... Underwhelming. Developers have previously stated they spent more time on the content in Pandaria than the Theramore event. Will we see more diversity and excitement in the scenarios in Pandaria?
DaveKosak: To Guest-46 There's a LOT of diversity in the scenarios. For example. there's a monkey pirate island where you're running around fetching up brew and fighting randomized bosses, and other insanity. We really tried to experiement with some different mechanics, and we got bolder as development continued.
Gehn: Any chance we will ever see attunements or rep based dungeons again or is that strictly a in-the-past type thing?
IonHazzikostas: To Gehn There's something a bit like a traditional attunement in the 5.0 raids: Players must defeat Grand Empress Shek'zeer in the Heart of Fear raid before they may begin the Terrace of Endless Spring raid. It's definitely something we're open to exploring further in the future.
Guest-30: Hi. I've had a lot of concerns regarding hit / expertise with tanks. Currently in MoP it seems tanks would reforge most their defensive stats into hit / expertise. It's extremely annoying design
GregStreet: To Guest-30 We felt like previously tanks could just ignore even hitting targets because threat was easy to maintain and survivability was based entirely around cooldowns. Now you'll need to hit the target, but you'll gain resources for doing so, so we hope the experience is more engaging to tanks. More *fighting* less standing there.
Guest-98: Will the ability to obtain legendary mats on LFR mode make it required for raiders, at least until they complete the quest?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-98 "Required" is one of those tricky words. We understand that for many players anything that gives even an incremental power gain is seen as mandatory. Progress on one portion of the early steps of the legendary questline may be made in LFR mode, so players who want to obtain their gem from Wrathion as quickly as possible will likely benefit from doing LFR alongside their Normal or Heroic raiding. LFR wings will unlock incrementally, after Normal mode, so when someone in a top progression guild is defeating up to 16 bosses when Heart of Fear and Terrace open, doing LFR will only add 6 to that total (from Mogu'shan Vaults LFR). While in the long run, we'd like to minimize players' obligation to run LFR if they are part of progression raiding guilds, that's challenging at the start of an expansion when everyone is using the same dungeon blues. We hope it'll be different for future tiers. Finally, the true power of Wrathion's gem lies in the combined effect of the weapon and the gem itself; an LFR player's Sha-touched weapon will be significantly less powerful than a Heroic raider's.
Guest-28: As the Cataclysm Expansion is now over. As a team what were your take aways both good and bad?
DaveKosak: To Guest-28 From a quest perspective, we thought that the storytelling in Cataclysm was very strong, but that the zones were very linear. For Pandaria, we wanted to swing the pendulum the other way and open up the game more, rewarding exploration. I think we found a much better balance. Kun-lai Summit, for example, is pretty open-ended, even though it's got some great stories in there. That's just one example - we're always learning from expansions. The other big takeaway was that we wanted more things for players to do, depending on what sort of challenges they want. Challenge Modes, Pet battles, and the new Daily Quest structure all appeal to different people, hoepfully with the goal of giving everyone more content no matter what your playstyle!
Guest-124: How much game time do you think will we get in exploration of the continent of pandaria?
CoryStockton: To Guest-124 We really packed in the content with Mists, that being said the amount of time it takes you is really going to depend on your playstyle. We have so many different things for players to do. Quests, reputations, dailys, sceanrios, pet battles.... The idea is to let players make progress doing whatever kind of activity they like best.
Amd11394: Prior to patch 5.0.4, When we still had the cataclysm 'revised' talent trees, Elemental shamans gained an addition to one of their talents entailing that when flame shock was dispelled we gained a temporary buff entitled 'Lave Flows' This most recent patch, with the new Mists 'revised' Talent trees highlighted the removal of the cataclysm talent system, and with it went Lava Flows, what is your reasoning for removing this valuable ability?
IonHazzikostas: To Amd11394 Defensive dispels are significantly more limited in 5.0 than they were previously. Passives like Lava Flows were designed as an answer to an environment in which defensive dispel magic was spammed constantly, and it was nearly impossible to get a buffed Lava Burst off against an attentive dispeller who could remove your Flame Shock while you were casting the spell. With an 8-second cooldown on dispels now, a healer who dispels a Flame Shock may find that they are unable to dispel the Fear or Polymorph that targets another teammate immediately thereafter. We'll keep an eye on the evolving PvP metagame in light of the new dispel changes, and consider re-adding something like Lava Flows if it proves necessary.
drwuky: Will the storyline of the Sha continue with Patch 5.1 or later patches?
DaveKosak: To drwuky For the most part, the Sha issues will be tackled by players in 5.0. BUT... not everyone wants to let sleeping Sha lie. Someone might start stirring up trouble beginning with the patches...
samich: Can we expect mailboxes on the wandering isle on release? was the removal of the one that was there for quest testing purposes?
DaveKosak: To samich Pandaren Neutrality caused a lot of design issues we had to solve. Mail ended up being a headache. What was easiest -- for us AND for our users -- was to remove mail entirely until you choose a faction. That's nice and clean and prevents a lot of issues people saw on the beta. So, no mailboxes on the Wandering Isle - sorry!
Guest-114: I know you guys recently changed the LFR loot (weapons) from the last boss in a LFR instance, are you guys going to do any other changes to LFR to make heroic raiders not feel as they have to raid 2 formats a week to be competitive?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-114 As I mentioned in reply to an earlier question, it's a goal of ours but it's a tough one to realize in a world where everyone is starting out in dungeon blues and looking to get their hands on any and all epics. It's our expectation that by the time Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFR unlock, most heroic raiders will have replaced their dungeon gear and have less to gain from also running LFR mode. In future raid tiers, people who are already in Heroic gear from the prior raid zone should not find the next tier's LFR gear to be an improvement over what they have.
Guest-260: Will there be an appearance of the Burning Legion in the end of MoP?
DaveKosak: To Guest-260 The threat of the Burning Legion is still out there, and it's very much a threat to Azeroth. The mortal races are mostly focused on the current war, but not everyone has forgotten about what's out there and the challenges to come... Wrathion, in particular, is already trying to look ahead.
Guest-271: Would say that the new challenge mode dungeon gold times are going to be the "Gladiator" equivalent of PVE?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-271 That would be our hope. Seeing someone sporting a set of challenge mode armor in town should be akin to seeing someone on a Gladiator mount -- you know they did something extremely skillful to earn it, and it's not the sort of reward you can outgear and obtain later on.
CoryStockton: To Guest-271 That's probably a pretty close comparison. Beyond gold times we will have server and guild leaderboards too. That's probably where the highest level of competition will be.
Guest-160: Christie Golden mentioned in an interview that she worked closely with the quest team when she wrote Tides of War to make sure everything was very close. However, there are some notable differences between the book and the scenario during the Alliance side of it. Did the storyline of the scenario change late into the book's writing?
DaveKosak: To Guest-160 We worked hard to sync with Golden during development. The Alliance side of the scenario went through LOTS of iterations, including when it happend (before the attack? During the attack? After the attack?) Ultimately we went with the one that gave us the greatest gameplay. We want the events of the book and game to match as closely as possible, but we want the best book possible and the best game possible, so they won't be word-for-word identical. This can create some fun arguments. "Well, according to this book..." "YEAH, but I WAS THERE, MAN!" We work hard to make sure the discrepancies are minor, but we definitely don't struggle for perfection.
Guest-292: Will we ever see cross-server mail or non-boa cross faction mailing phiesibly within the 5.0 content?--Gorebane of Eonar (P.S. Wa
CoryStockton: To Guest-292 It's on our list and something we really want to do. It's really just a matter of the engineering time it takes us to get it in.
im_a_rockstar: WoW has always been a mostly raid or die game. The changes in MoP to Justice Points, the item level difference on gear obtained outside of raid, are kind of steps backwards away from alternatives, pushing us back to having our only choice to be a raid. Are there any plans to give the non-raiders / people with random avaiabilities any form of meaningful character progression in terms of player power, besides only raids?
IonHazzikostas: To im_a_rockstar We have a number of gear acquisition routes that do not involve raiding. We've broadened the avenues for acquiring Valor Points, which can now be earned by doing dungeons, daily quests, scenarios, and so forth. That gear will be at least item level 489 (compared to 476 from LFR). There's also crafted gear. And of course future content updates will continue to provide upgrades outside of raiding. All of that said, I'd encourage you to check out the new raids as well -- the addition of the LFR system makes them more accessible than ever.
NinjaFox: To Dave Kosak: The reddit AMA gave some teasers that Sylvanas, Vol'jin, and Thrall (specifically in 5.1) would be integral parts to the story. Rexxar and Koltira were also mentioned. On the Alliance side, other than Varian, Anduin and Jaina are there any notable leaders/lore figures we can expect to see active through the Pandaria storyline?
DaveKosak: To NinjaFox Great question! Many of the Alliance leaders will come into play. Tyrande has a couple of moments in 5.1. We also want to do more with the dwarven storyline (we're still kicking around ideas of how best to do that.) The trick is making sure those characters have meaningful moments. We'll definitely spend a lot of time with Jaina and King Wrynn.
DeathFish1: With the creation of the farms at Halfhill, the base structure for player and guild housing has subsequently been created as well. Is this the direction you have chosen to go with for player housing or was this even considered as an option. One very good point about this option is that multiple locations for housing can be placed thoughout the game world, preventing the issue of removing players from the world.
CoryStockton: To DeathFish1 It's certainly a baby step in that direction. We are really excited to see how players react to it in Mists. We already have lots of ideas on how we can expand this kind of content in the future too!
DaveKosak: Regarding DeathFish's question (Love the name, Deathfish!) when we think about things like player-housing, we really want to look at how this can contribute to gameplay. The farm is awesome because it ties into a lot of systems, it creates some fun crafting opportunities, it impacts the economy, etc. It's a great experiment for us because if it's popular, it gives us a lot of data into how to create this type of content in the future.
Gosu: What is the design philosophy behind PvP balance and how satisfied are you with PvP balance in Mists of Pandaria?
GhostCrawler: To Gosu One of the main ones was to allow more cross-over of gear at the lower end but not the upper end of content. (In 4.0 it was more of the opposite.) It's not fun to die in PvP over and over until you get decent gear.
Guest-134: How come with this expansion you choose to go with Pandas and not something that was already in the game, such as The Emerald Dream, maybe going into the Dragonflights, or even something more with The Demonic legion.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-134 The pandaren are a race we've been looking to introduce into the WoW universe for some time now, since their introduction as a neutral hero back in the Warcraft 3 expansion. They were originally a top contender for the Alliance race back in Burning Crusade, but we ended up going with the draenei at the time because they better fit the Outland-focused story we were trying to tell, and because it didn't feel right forcing a historically neutral race like the pandaren into one specific faction. When we were looking to make an expansion centered around themes of exploration and discovery against a backdrop of Alliance-Horde conflict, the pandaren just seemed like the right fit: Noble and enigmatic race caught in the middle of the war between the Alliance and Horde as it spirals out of control, forced to choose sides as the outside world descends upon their homeland.
Guest-179: ogue's shadow blades visual effect is lacking, and needs more of a pop. Paladins get ashbringer; could rogues get something equally cool looking?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-179 We agree that some rogue visuals (Shadow Blades, Shadow Walk, etc.) could use some more love. That's something we'd like to do in a future patch.
bocasha: In Pandaria will we see another 9 month period where we will have no new stuff coming out?
CoryStockton: To bocasha We are doing everything within our power to avoid this. We all feel that 9 months without content is pretty much unacceptable to our players. A glimmer of hope: we are already knee deep into both patch 5.1 and 5.2. Our plan is to deliver these much faster than anyone is expecting.
Guest-432: When will we see Sargeras, it's one of the reasons I've stuck around for so long...
DaveKosak: To Guest-432 Sargeras would be one monstrous raid boss! He's one of the most iconic, key villains of the franchise. Believe me, when he comes to Azeroth, you're going to feel it LONG before he even gets there.
khalanil: Have you thought about implementing zones or battlegrounds where players are normalized by level, similar to the gear level normalization in the upcoming challenge mode dungeons? This could allow players to quest or PVP with lower-level friends, and it could be fun to see a trio of level 20s take down a level 90.
DaveKosak: To khalanil This is a tremendous question, because it's something we've been talking about and exploring. With Challenge Modes, we now have tech to scale your item level, so that we can guarantee the right level of difficulty. Having this tech opens lots of doors for us down the line. We don't have anything to announce, but it's a step toward a lot of the features you're describing.
parrjj01: I really love the real ID system, which has helped me communicate with my cousin who lives in Hawaii. The only downfall is, he's horde. Neither of us want to change fractions but we'd love to run toghther doing something. Will you guys ever considor letting us 'group' toghther and duke it out in battlegrounds, but disabling chat (even in real ID terms) so the no communcation rules still apply?
GhostCrawler: To parrjj01 We don't have huge design problems with letting you play with friends from other factions. The biggest challenge is the game was never designed with the concept of letting you be allied with the opposing faction, so it would be a tremendous amount of work. I won't give up hope for it though! (We always joke about a tauren having the Hallow's End 2D gnome mask when you're grouped with him.)
Guest-184: Can one stand anywhere in Orgrimmar(including right next to the questgiver that sends you to the gunship) when MoP is activated or do we have to be outside the Garrosh building? Good to know for us who are rushing as fast as we can!
GhostCrawler: To Guest-184 If you are online, you should get the quest pushed to you no matter where you are. We don't want to over-promise though. This is technically challenging stuff and it might be the case that we need everyone to relog. /crosses fingers
Guest-37: The story of Tides of War is really interesting. I don't think players can get engaged if they have no idea what's happening, the bomb dropping is really anticlimactic. I felt a bit disappointed so little got included in the scenario. Was this because of lack of time, of developers or because you rather keep all that info in the novels.
DaveKosak: To Guest-37 I've been watching the Theramore feedback closely, and this comment seems pretty universal. We tried to keep everything all in the scenario, to make it really self-contained, but not burden it with lots of story that you have to slog through every time you played the scenario. It's pretty clear from the feedback that people wanted more story. We should've surrounded the scenarios with more quests or explanations to help round out the story for the people who wanted to know what exactly was happening. Lesson learned!
Dude7198: Will there be a Realm First achievement that involves Pet Battles?
CoryStockton: To Dude7198 We did not make any realm first achievements for pet battles. Our intention for the feature is that its more of a casual activity and a realm first just did not feel like a good fit.
Guest-261: Nobody I know is impressed with the promise of an extra piece of loot for normal 25 mans. What we would be impressed with is separate realm first achievements for each raid format. Any chance of seeing something like this?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-261 Possibly. On several servers that have one top 25-player guild that's far above the rest of the server in progression, that might turn into incentivizing them to split up the week after their 25-player Realm First to snag the 10-player one. Not sure that's great gameplay for anyone. That said, we recognize that there's interest in making it a bit easier to distinguish between 10-player and 25-player kills in statistics or achievements.
Guest-257: Were the stained glass windows in Ulduar forshadowing of the Sha? They look very similar to the Sha.
DaveKosak: To Guest-257 I'd like to say we planned that. [Long pause] But I would be lying. I think it's just a happy coincidence that fits wonderfully into our lore.
Guest-174: When will transmog rules be loosened up a little. Main hand/one hand weapons, for instance.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-174 If I had to guess, we will loosen them at some point. We would probably wait until some time after the MoP launch when players will appreciate it more. It's easy for smaller features to get lost when there is so much new content. The designers will discuss it soon (tm).
Guest-88: We saw some of the animations on the challenge mode gear, will the druid set animations be visible when the druid is shapeshifted?
CoryStockton: To Guest-88 The custom effects are based on the armor itself so they will only be visible when you are in caster form.
Guest-306: Will content come at a faster rate in MoP? It seems that we might be pushing thought content at a much faster rate.
DaveKosak: To Guest-306 That is definitely our goal! As we speak the quest team is simultaneously working on patches 5.1 and 5.2. Our hope is to keep the story and content rolling forward. It's definitely a focus for the team - I can't make any promises, but I guarantee we're trying and I hope you'll notice the results!
CoryStockton: To Guest-306 I know we sound like a broken record on this but we are really pushing hard to deliver content to you guys faster than ever with the Mists patch cycle. As Dave mentioned, we are already making awesome progress on the first set of patches.
Zawani: Hey, I had a question regarding arms warrior pve rotation. It feels like there is to much rng involved with the rotation very rarely do I get more than 2 stacks of taste for blood and sometimes I can use overpower 5 or 6 times without a single proc of it, which then will leave me rage starved and without buttons to press, I was wondering if you could lower the damage bonus of the buff or damage of OP while also increasing the proc chance as well.
GhostCrawler: To Zawani Think of getting a high stack for Taste for Blood as a random bonus, much like getting enraged from a bunch of crits in a row. You shouldn't hold your whole rotation waiting for a 4 or 5 stack, because it won't happen that often. If you're at risk of rage capping, try to Slam. If you don't have the GCD to Slam then it's probably worth just using the Heroic Strike unless you think you'll be able to Colossus Smash really soon.
Guest-43: Will we ever see Magni Bronzebeard return from being frozen under Ironforge?
DaveKosak: To Guest-43 Magni is like the definition of BLING. If we continue his story, we'll make sure to handle it in-game. I wouldn't count on seeing him return during the Pandaren story arc, though.
Guest-313: Greg just said on twitter that the 25s versus 10s situation was handled in the AMA a lot, but nothing came from that apart from an understanding that 25s do have it harder now and could use some more compensation, Don't you have concrete plans for that, more than the tiny bit of extra loot 25s will have? The issue will only get even more pronounced the next weeks during progression.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-313 It's something we discuss frequently internally. We don't have anything final to announce just yet, but we love 25-player raiding and intend to do what we can to preserve it.
Guest-6: Windwalkers have been very upset with a couple things in particular with their spec. The first is Fists of Fury, we don't like being rooted and channeling an attack when our kit is supposed to be mobile. Can we please get this mechanic revisited? As well, we don't have literally any useful raid utility. Zen meditation is very weak. Will this be addressed at all post-launch?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-6 "Mobile" doesn't mean "never, ever stops moving." Like many specs, Windwalkers will do more damage when stationary but can still do some damage when moving. Deciding when you should FoF and when you can't is one of the decision points that separates good monks from great ones. We're not inclined to change it at this time. As far as raid utility goes, we're really reluctant to hand more "must have" buffs. We don't want Windwalkers to be mandatory, especially for smaller, 10-player raid groups. If they are never taken at all, we'll take some kind of action, but I'd be very surprised if that's the case.
Guest-531: Are there plans on fixing the broken Engineering Flying Machine that has been broken since patch 4.1?
CoryStockton: To Guest-531 We will look into this and make sure we get it fixed.
Guest-413: Is there a chance we might see class specific factions developed more? Kirin Tor, Ebon Blade, Argent Bros, Ravenholdt...Could we see something similar arise for Warriors, Hunters etc?
DaveKosak: To Guest-413 We're cooking up some cool Warlock stuff we can hopefully announce soon. In a more general sense, we LOVE class-specific content, but to do it right takes development time (believe me, I have to somehow schedule all this stuff.). When it came down to deciding between more zones of content and more faction content OR class-specific stuff, we opted to create more content for everyone. But, again, we love class-specific content, we'll try to squeeze in some cool challenges for the various challenges in the patches to come...
Guest-74: Are we going to get more story-telling in scenarios? The Theramore scenario was lackluster compared to the book, key story elements haven't even been address in-game yet.(Kirin Tor leader)
DaveKosak: To Guest-74 I addressed this earlier, but keep in mind that we want scenarios to be replayable. We definitely didn't want to burden them with tons of story that you have to wade through every time you play it. As I said for Theramore, people obviously wanted more context, which probably was best served by some one-time quests on either end of the scenario. That's a lesson we're pulling forward.
Guest-335: Will Wintergrasp ever be added as a max level battleground?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-335 Potentially, if there is enough demand for it. We would introduce it as you suggest as a true Battleground to avoid faction imbalance issues.
Guest-28: Beside the lifting on the mist with the clock strikes midnight on the 25th. We have come to expect events to complement the expansion. They have been fascinating and very fun. Should we expect events over the next 6 days? Or was the Scenario it?
CoryStockton: To Guest-28 The Theramore scenario is intended to be a preview of what players can expect from scenarios in Mists. It is by no means a launch event and thats intentional. We made a call early on to put that time into developing more content for Mists that will last and not be over in a week.
Guest-33: I loved the "Visions of the Past" quest-line in Vashj'ir. Will we see anything similar in upcoming content?
DaveKosak: To Guest-33 This is the "Battle-Maiden" questline, where you got to play as a naga badass for a while. I think these are a great break from the standard gameplay if they're well-designed, but we would want to use them sparingly. (After all, it's not WoW if you're not playing your class and kicking butt!) That said, there's a couple fun moments in Pandaria that have similar gameplay. In the Valley of Four Winds, you get to play as Chen Stormstout for a little bit. After kicking around a lot of ideas, we ultimately decided to give you a single 'Chen-Fu' button that makes him randomly do awesome kung-fu moves. It's a short sequence, but it's fun for storytelling and gives you a chance to Chen it up.
Gehn: Any updates on future guild leveling past 25?
CoryStockton: To Gehn We are totally open to increasing guild levels and the associated rewards but only when the game feels like it needs more of that content. A large number of guilds are still nowhere near level 25 so Mists did not feel like a good fit to add more guild levels.
Guest-214: Mists of Pandaria features an ambitious number of 18 raid bosses and I'm very excited about that. Im curious though as to how many bosses we can expect to see in future tiers? Firelands and Dragon Soul felt like small tiers with only 7 or 8 encounters in the tier.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-214 We like big raid tiers too, and will do our best to continue delivering them. We're planning for the next tier after Heart of Fear/Terrace to be a fair bit larger than Firelands or Dragon Soul were.
Guest-197: Whats would your answer be to the players who feel that by making multiple classes bring similar buffs and abilities, that the classes are losing their 'uniqueness'? Introducing combo points to ShadowPriests/Ret Paladins for example
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-197 Ultimately, there are only so many distinct resource mechanisms, and many of them are not great from a gameplay perspective. We'd rather differentiate our classes and specs on the basis of their overall feel and unique capabilities such as Death Grip for Death Knights or shaman' totems. I don't think many people are likely to mistake a shadow priest for a rogue just because they build up a resource and then consume it to deal damage.
Guest-395: Will the gear in Theramore's Fall 85 version be available in the 90 version?
CoryStockton: To Guest-395 The gear and the rewards for the 85 version are only available now. The 90 version has standard scenario rewards (Valor and a chance at a dungeon blue)
Lansuer: Where do you see races that are neutral leaning like the Blood Elves going within the Horde? They seem rather separate from the Horde story since Cata's launch.
DaveKosak: To Lansuer Stick around for patch 5.1 - we pick up the Blood Elves' story and propel it forward. Finally, a chance to interact with Lor'themar! Most players don't even know who he is.
Guest-121: What are your thoughts on healing classes in MoP? Are you seeing the type of balance you want in the new expansion between all classes/specs? I ask because we are seeing a lot of blending of healers into one unit, instead of variety. All healers can do everything now to state it plainly which is making certain classes stronger choices than others for non-healing reasons. Sure some do slightly better in certain situations, but the classic archetypes are no longer as valid. It removes the need fo...
GhostCrawler: To Guest-121 We strive for harmony with the healer design. If healer niches are too well-defined, then you are encouraged to stack Resto druids for one fight and then Holy paladins for the next fight. We'd rather see a diversity of healers. As far as healer balance is currently, we're pretty happy with it at 90. We still need to see Disc priests really figure out all of the nuances of Spirit Shell and we want to make sure all of the healers are really strong for Challenge Mode gold runs.
drwuky: Will you guys decrease the experience needed from 88-89 and 89-90 or increase the experience gained in Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes before release? At the moment you can NOT hit Level 89 if you start with Level 88 and 0% experience in Townlong Steppes (~10% experience missing) and also Level 90 is impossible with Dread Wastes quests only (~5% experience missing). These are datas with the 10% experience guild perk and yes, I've got both zone completed achievements.
CoryStockton: To drwuky We are still actively tuning the XP. We will look into it.
Velenor1: Question for Dave Kosak. I have always wondered why the Alliance has continuously frowned upon the Scarlet Crusade. Their main purpose was to simply eradicate the undead. With their return in MoP, we are tasked with eliminating them -again- with the aid of Lillian Voss. Why is it that we have turned their organization down for so long when we more or less have the same goals in mind?
DaveKosak: To Velenor1 The complexities really aren't in the game, but the Scarlet Crusade was very much a rogue organization. Great priests and warriors who would've otherwise served the Alliance disappear into the crusade, who serves its own ends. (In Northrend, it was clear their leadership had succumbed to demonic influence. It's hard to make up for that.) To be honest, the main reason to revisit the Crusade in 5.1 was a gameplay reason and not a story reason - it was a favorite dungeon that we really wanted to revisit with new mechanics. We didn't think a lot of story was needed.
Guest-553: Question from Munich, Germany. As the Octoberfest here and Brewfest in WoW are coming up, I wondered whether anyone at Blizzard did "field research" for designing Brewfest at the real Octoberfest ? The costumes and music are done really well.
CoryStockton: To Guest-553 We do field research on Brewfest every Friday.
DaveKosak: Sorry - meant to say 5.0 in that last question
Guest-235: Why is the theramore event so boring? Its way too easy and if you didn't read the book then you have no idea what's going on, you also wouldn't know why jaina isn't dead and why azeroth isn't completely destroyed. Do you think it would've been smarter to put more lore in the scenario and would've made it more fun?
Zarhym: To Guest-235 Dave already spoke to the story part of your question (if you missed it Best Buy will be providing a full transcript after the chat). To address your concern of difficulty, we agree it was too easy on release. We pushed a hotfix recently that increased the HP of all enemies in Theramore's Fall. The fact is that Scenarios in Mists will be more tailored for players in quest gear and dungeon blues. But players at level 85 were steamrolling through it in Dragon Soul gear, and the hotfix was to compensate for this a little.
Guest-494: Do all designers use the same in-house editor? Or do you have different tools for different jobs? How do you handle collisions in your edits?
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-494 We all use a massive proprietary tool called WoWEdit, which has been showcased a couple of times at Blizzcons in the past. We all use this tool to create and edit everything from creatures to spells to quests, and our level designers use it to actually shape the terrain of the outdoor world. At the end of the day, there are countless columns and rows in tables that define the properties of the game world and the players and monsters that inhabit it. We're only able to do the work that we do because of our amazing Tools team, a dedicated group that is constantly refining and updating our editor to enable us to create content more quickly and with fewer bugs.
Guest-186: On the World of Warcraft website, it lists tradeskill patterns, plans, etc. that the player is missing. Some of those items are no longer in game. Are there any plans to reincorporate those missing plans back into the game so the players have an opportunity to try to get all of their missing tradeskill plans?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-186 I'd hate to add back plans with no real game purpose just for sake of completeness. To be honest, I'd rather get rid of more of the older recipes that don't have a strong purpose.
Guest-160: Compared to designing dungeons, how difficult is it to design scenarios? Does it take more or less resources to make scenarios?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-160 The biggest challenge for us was just figuring out what scenarios should be. How long should they last? Should they be hard? How much variability should they have from run to run? Now that we've gone through that process, they should take much less time to design than dungeons. The biggest time expenditure on dungeons is the amazing art that goes into them.
Amd11394: Considering Dispels remove ALL magic effects, even if they dispelled Fear the Flame shock would go with it, regardless of if they intended to dispel it or not. Would this not constitute it's reinstatement?
IonHazzikostas: To Amd11394 Guessing this is a follow-up to my earlier reply. I meant that if you dispel Flame Shock off yourself, or off Teammate A, maybe you can't dispel Teammate B's Fear or Polymorph a few seconds later, and now they're stuck in CC for its full duration. In general, we expect that players have to be much more careful about how and when they use their magic dispels.
Guest-399: Rogues are famous for using daggers, and that's all that we seem to be able to use, but I like to play Combat Spec, and it's described as being a swashbuckler spec. As such, I'd like to use 1handed swords along with daggers, but there are next to no 1handed rogue compatible swords, will we ever get to use swords as part of a rogue's arsenal? Afterall, there is no longer a block on what weapons a rogue can use on their abilties.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-399 It's less of a design concern and more about how many different items we can drop. Things like e.g. Intellect axes don't have a lot of customers, so we just don't make them very often. This might be the kind of thing that transmog can eventually help address too.
basketballer259: I assume I ask this question on behalf of thousands of vanilla WoW fans: Do you ever plan on bringing back "Server-wide" Events? An example would be the Opening of AQ, which allowed the entire server to collaborate their efforts. An event of the same theory would be an incredible experience for all players to witness. It was incredibly rewarding when the whole server gathered enough materials for the opening ceremony!
DaveKosak: To basketballer259 From the standpoint of, "Everyone gather at the same place at the same time to see a big event and if you miss it its gone forever assuming you all don't crash the server," then no, no more events like that. BUT, we love the feeling of server progression, similar to the Isle of Quel'denas. Is there a way to build that progression into the game such that players who come in a couple months later don't miss out on all the fun? We think there is. And we're planning something that we'd like to try in the 5.0 patch cycle... so stay tuned! [No guarantees here, but we're actively tinkering with something.]
Shnitzel: With the pet battle system, pets which you can acquire multiples of, have lost the 'Already Known' tag. This is pretty annoying when shopping for pets for example, as you constantly have to search through your journal ("Do I have the red tickbird or the white one?"). Will this be changed? perhaps add an 'Already Known' tag in a different color?
CoryStockton: To Shnitzel Sorry for the inconvenience on that, we have already redesigned the tooltips to fix this in patch 5.1.0. Tooltips will display if you already own the pet in addition to how many.
Guest-892: Have you thought of introducing titles to reward realm 1st times for the new challenge mode dungeons. Something similar to how the PvP titles work now.
CoryStockton: To Guest-892 We actually have! The idea was that you would only have the title for as long as you held the top time. Main issue we ran into was that the title could be changing hands so fast that you might only have it for a few seconds. It's an awesome idea though and we want to explore it more.
Guest-489: Can we have a rough timeframe on when we can expect the Trials of the High King questline to be implimented? Are we taking around patch 5.1 or something closer to the Siege of Orgrimmar patch?
DaveKosak: To Guest-489 Varian Wrynn's first trial will happen in 5.1. But to set expectations, the development of Varian's character happens across the entire patch cycle and beyond - it doesn't all happen in one event or one scenario. His trials are many.
Guest-776: Transmog has become a very important part of my gaming fun. Will we be able to farm Dragon Soul LFR recolor gear at level 90, since the LFR tool won't work for it at that level ? This goes for future expansions and MoP content, of course.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-776 We aren't going to support Raid Finder for content that is much lower level than your character, but we are going to allow you to enter old raids solo without being in a raid in a future patch (ideally the next major one, but standard no promises). That should facilitiate a lot of transmog farming.
Guest-727: The Reliquary is an interesting faction (at least in my opinion), but it hasn't been really visible in Cataclysm. Any chance we'll see them in Pandaria, as a counterpart to Brann ? Or at least some way to get their tabard ?
DaveKosak: To Guest-727 No plan for a tabard, but starting in 5.1 they're going to start poking around Pandaria for relics...
Guest-763: Were Orges ever thought of as a playalbe race, at one time? (Greg marry me /kiss) Irth
GhostCrawler: To Guest-763 Yep. We considered them for Cataclysm instead of goblins. Figuring out the females and the two-headed mages would be (fun!) challenges. Maybe someday.
Zarhym: Way to ignore that marriage proposal follow-up, GC. ;p
Cueball: First: Hi guys, including Zarhym (didn't know you'd be here). Anyway, is there anything to Jaina's words that it is "time to bring Dalaran down" to the land and that she is still in support of fighting against the Horde?
DaveKosak: To Cueball Jaina's story will continue starting in patch 5.1. We'll try to catch players up with where she is at the end of the book, and then move on from there.
Guest-571: With the introduction of Pet Battles, do you think we can see pets dropping in raids again? There hasn't been a pet drop in a raid since Karazhan IIRC so a prime example in today's standing could be Ragnaros dropping Mini Ragnaros instead of it being on the store.
CoryStockton: To Guest-571 I don't see why not! We just need to make sure it's a good fit with the content.
Guest-736: Is there any plans to allow players to have more then one Death Knight per server?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-736 We agree that it feels like an antiquated rule at this point. We'll see how hard it is to remove that restriction.
sdk: I am wondering about the incentives to 25 man. This game is a social game so why does it seem that 25 man guilds are dieing off and they are going to 10 mans. Paragon recently posted that they were going to 10 man. Is there any other way to fix it so that people are drawn to do 25 mans because they want to raid with friends and get the good gear?
IonHazzikostas: To sdk In Paragon's specific case, I suspect they'd find no lack of capable people more than willing to raid with them, but maintaining a Finnish-speaking roster is a core part of their guild culture, and they've made what was no doubt a very difficult decision to scale down to 10-player raiding rather than compromise that culture. As I noted in the Reddit AMA, ultimately there are heavier logistical burdens, particularly placed on the officers and raid leaders, in sustaining a 25-player roster versus only needing 10 players. We're actively discussing ways of ensuring that 25-player raiders feel properly incentivized and rewarded without necessarily elevating one raid size over the other. We definitely welcome ongoing community discussion and feedback on that topic.
Alablaster: As Developers, what was your biggest hurdle in building the new features we will see in Mists and how did you overcome them? Also I want to send kudos out to the art team - the beta was visually stunning!
CoryStockton: To Alablaster Our biggest issue with new features is adding more complexity to the game. It's somethign we struggle with every expansion. I will pass your kind words on to the art team too!
Wamogri: Will the baby shark pet ever get added back into the game?
CoryStockton: To Wamogri Yes! That's what those sweet new water bubbles are for!
Guest-525: Recently in Twitter Ghostcrawler mentioned the possibility of making subraces such as Maghar orcs and Wildhammer dwarfs available with the player character model updates, how high chance is there that this would also allow us to play as Broken or Taunka?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-525 If we ever opened up more races, I suspect we'd be pretty liberal about it, but to be clear, that feature is no more than a twinkle in some designer's eye at this stage.
artimadours: Are there any plans to allow for heirloom items to be sent cross realm?
CoryStockton: To artimadours We want this as bad as you guys do. It's on the list and we are looking into it.
Nize: You mentioned in a previous Q&A that legendary weapon components would be done in a manner to lessen drama within in a guild. One step was the implementation of components achievable through LFR. My question is how will components from normal and heroic raids be distributed. Will it be distributed similarly to how Deathwing's essences or new LFR are, or will the raid leaders still choose who to give those components to?
GhostCrawler: To Nize In 5.0 it's not a competitive issue at all. In Raid Finder, it's a random drop for some players. In Normal and Heroic there is a chance of a drop, at which point it is multi-lootable and every player on the quest will get it.
Guest-787: There has been some speculation as to whether Turalyon and Alleria might make a triumphant comeback in Mists of Pandaria. Any comments on this, or are they saved for a later expansion pack? The Alliance sure could use something to turn the tide of war.
DaveKosak: To Guest-787 ...and also, I think the Alliance can take this!
DaveKosak: To Guest-787 There's no plan to continue their story in Pandaria.
DaveKosak: (Reverse the order of those replies.
Guest-212: Are we going to have the ability to remove players who dc or log off from scenario groups and add in new players from the queue?
CoryStockton: To Guest-212 Not at launch but we hope to have it in for the 5.1 patch. We understand the concern.
lilm123: Do you guys plan on giving out title for challgenge modes, like how you do for PvP (0.0% - 0.5%: Gladiator 0.5% - 3%: Duelist 3% - 10%: Rival 10% - 35%: Challenger)
IonHazzikostas: To lilm123 If and when we move on to future challenge mode "seasons", titles to recognize players' past accomplishments are definitely something we'll consider.
Guest-913: With all these new changes to get players out into the world (great idea), is it a goal of the development team to possibly bring back World-PvP? Coming from someone who plays on a PvP Realm, I would love to relive the old days of huge scale open world PvP battles. I'm sure many others feel the same way.
GhostCrawler: To Guest-913 We are trying to encourage it. Spots like the Black Market and the shrines (the faction "cities" in the Vale) will probably have a lot of PvP on PvP servers. Remember, guards are much weaker on PvP servers now and there are no sanctuaries in Pandaria.
Guest-883: At the end of the Klaxxi questline, the mantid mentioned that at one point in time, they worshipped Y'shaarj, an old god. However, he was slain by the Titans and was split into "shadows of his former self". Is he, in some way, in relations with the Sha and will we see Y'shaarj in future content patches?
DaveKosak: To Guest-883 Y'shaarj breathed love and exhaled hate, inhaled peace and breathed violence... Plus, his name was y'SHAarj. It's pretty safe to connect the dots. But Y'shaarj itself is very, very, very dead.
Guest-728: WIll we see a Heroic Version of Ragefire Chasm?
CoryStockton: To Guest-728 Certainly not out of the question. Heroic versions of classic dungeons have been some of our most popular content. We will keep doing them as long as people keem playing em'.
Guest-508: What exaclty (If you can answer without spoiling the story line!) has turned Garrosh Hellscream into the monster we all hate now?
DaveKosak: To Guest-508 Garrosh is not a monster. He has a very clear vision of the Horde, and the future of the orcs, and he gives very little thought to anyone who stands between him and that future. As he gets more powerful, and gets away with more, his vision becomes clearer. This has put him in conflict in the Alliance, and ultimately will cause problems within the Horde.
Ünseen: I love the little mana bomb received from the Theramoore scenario, but the cooldown is making it really hard to have fun with. Any chance this will be reduced to allow a bit more spammability? Maybe like a 30 second cd?
CoryStockton: To Ünseen Glad you liked the reward! Unfortunately, that kind of mana power takes a long time to recharge!
Guest-749: The new LFR system you have in WoW now seems like a great way for people who dont have alot of time to donate to raiding guild environments a chance to see content that was most of the time closed to them, however im not a big fan of 25man raids. Is there any plans to add a 10man choice to the LFR system?
GhostCrawler: To Guest-749 We think 25 works better for Raid Finder. The ratios of DPS to non DPS more matches the player population and there is less risk of getting an unviable group. In 25s you can afford to have a few deaths and you can even pull if you're backfilling a few players. Both really make you stop in your tracks on 10s. In 25, it's easier to fade back into the group if you're still not 100% confident in what you're doing. In 10s, it's harder to be a wallflower.
Guest-986: "Turalyon and Alleria" is it possible in anyway to know if there are any plans to continue their story? I had HUGE hopes to see them in game when BC came out and their SON poped out of nowhere saying they where alive. anything would do!... plz!?
DaveKosak: To Guest-986 Oh, their story will continue!!
Guest-51: How are group compositions gonna work into Challenge Modes? Surely every group would want to have a Bloodlust. And atleast a kings buff.
IonHazzikostas: To Guest-51 Realistically, if you're aiming for Gold, you're going to want a shaman or a mage or a hunter in your group, though Gold is absolutely possible without using Heroism/Bloodlust or equivalent effects. Realistically that probably saves you 15-20 seconds at best, and we've seen groups beat some Gold times by more than that. When constructing a 5-player dungeon group, you're inevitably going to have some strengths and some weaknesses in your composition, and players may find that the sorts of abilities they find invaluable are not the ones they're used to viewing in that light. (Pop quiz -- Which is likely to help you more in an 18-minute challenge mode run: Bloodlust, or an AoE stun that you can a couple of times a minute?)
Vaengence: Ok, I am going to be the one to ask the dreaded question, mainly because my guild members know that I continue to fight for them and have asked me to still chase this question. 25 mans - GC you have said it would be a good topic for a Watercooler, which is good, and recent tweets say not enough is being done for them.The only change we know about is the loot change and that is onl 1 item different for Normals from the majority of Cata which, excuse the sentiment here, seems a little underwhelmin...
GhostCrawler: To Vaengence Sadly, we don't have any details to announce yet, but we have a couple of ideas that should make the 25 players happy. We'll talk about them when we're confident that they are good ideas. Remember, the result can't be that all the 10 players stampede back to 25.
DeathFish1: Any chance we will see the option to upgrade out current legendary to be maybe not the equal to the current ilvl but maybe raid finder ilvl or just a little below so that they are not just taking up space in out banks, or bags in the case of dragonwrath.
GhostCrawler: To DeathFish1 Not sure we would let you upgrade a legendary, but we could potentially allow you to transmog them. Our reluctance has always been that Thunderfuy feels less special when you see 30 of them running around AV.
Guest-924: If some gamers are thinking about coming back to WoW to exp Mist of Pandaria content, is there any special program "come back" that will launch with the release?
CoryStockton: To Guest-924 Scroll of Resurrection is awesome for returning players!
Bolting: Have you changed your design philosophy of the quest flow in mists of pandaria? In previous expansions, moving to a new zone as soon as you are eligble left enough experience to cause no issues. Do you intend for all zones to be finished from beginning to end in order, and if so why did you feel the need to add breadcrumbs to the next zone prior to being able to go without issues further down the road?
DaveKosak: To Bolting Pandaria is like a huge novel that you can read in any order. You can skip ahead to other chapters as soon as you're eligible. It's worth it to stick through a full zone to wrap up the storylines and maybe get some blue quest rewards, but you're welcome to play through however you want. We definitely put in the effort to make this expansion much more open and non-linear.
Crithto: That about wraps things up, everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Best Buy Dev Chat, sending us really great questions, and for your patience. On behalf of Greg, Cory, Ion, Dave, and Zarhym, we truly appreciate your time and passion for World of Warcraft. Have a GREAT rest of the week, and we'll see you in Pandaria next Tuesday!
DaveKosak: This was a lot of fun. Thank you everyone! Only days to go... Pandaria awaits!
CoryStockton: Tons of great questions guys, that was a lot of fun! Can't wait to see everyone in Pandaria in just a few days!
GhostCrawler: We can't wait for you guys to see all of the new Mists content. We are really proud of what we've been able to deliver with this expansion. It's going to be good. Hugs, GC.
Dorothy-BBY: Thanks guys!
Zarhym: Thank you, everyone! For those who got here late or weren't able to follow along for the whole chat, Best Buy will be providing a full transcript here momentarily: http://bbyurl.us/MistsofPandariaChat
Kyle-BBY: Great chat everyone! Thank you everyone for joining us and Blizzard for totally rocking!
Sean|Senior Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
Private Message -
My iPhone 4 signal issues are gone...
Well, like many of people here I had the obnoxious signal loosing issue that is affecting a staggering amount of iPhone 4 users. However, I never realized I inadvertedly fixed the issue until just 10 minutes ago. I had signal issues since Day 1.
Bear with me thru this small story. I saw here a thread on MacRumors about a user experiencing camera issues on his iPhone 4. Said issue was that the camera showed a green spot in the center. I was sorta curious but never really paid much attention to it. This was 4 days ago. Flash forward to yesterday.
I was on the Apple Store picking out a new case for my iPhone 4, along with the respective screen protector. While I was doing that I saw an empty iPhone 4 demo unit and I decided to test drive FaceTime. I fired up both my iPhone 4 and the demo unit and connected. Disaster struck, my iPhone suffered from the same green spot effect as the iPhone from the user on MacRumors. Knowing full well, it was a hardware problem I set up an appointment for today at 6:30 PM.
Flash forward to today 6:30 PM. I got there at 6:15 and the Genius helped me out right away. He saw the problem, diagnosed my phone and concluded as previously stated it was hardware problem. Obviously warranty kicks in. He takes out my Micro SIM card and puts in the new iPhone (this was a brand new, not refurb unit). He activates it and hands it to me for mini inspection. first thing I do is check the camera, and against ALL odds, the same issue plagued this new phone. The Genius and I were, to say the least, shocked. Same issue, different phone. Now, how does this relate to the signal loss? Well, I am getting there so hang on tight.
The Genius does a comparisson between my iPhone and replacement unit to find the exact spot. He then pulls out his and does the comparisson to find his iPhone 4 too suffers from the dreaded green blob/spot. He then tells me there is no other replacement unit for my iPhone and that I had 2 choices. Take my current iPhone and wait if a software fix comes along, or take the replacement phone with me. I decided to wait and keep my phone (it is a hassle to resotre everything to previous state). So the Genius reswaped the SIM card to my phone back and handed it to me. (My iPhone spent 15 minutes with out SIM card while the Genius did all his tests on my and replacement unit, and while he asked for 2nd opinions on the green blob issue)
I went on my merry way, but realized something now. No matter what position I held my iPhone 4 in, the signal never decreased. I held it the many ways I know the signal issue pops and nothing. No bar loss, no signal loss, no call drop. NOTHING. So there you have it.
I am theorizing that moving the SIM card had something to do with the signal issue, because the only thing I have done to my iPhone 4 differently is take out and reinsert the SIM card. Other than that no other changes to it. No setting change, no software change no nothing. Just reinsertion of the SIM card. Now, to prove my theory, I need people who can test this and see if this fixes their iPhone. I know it did on mine, but on yours?
Check it out.
PS - No, I did not have the green blob issue fixed.
My original thread is found here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=955742
Many users are claiming (me included) the signal issues being fixed.I have "death-grip" issue. Just ejected SIM card to test SIM contacting the SIM tray issue. I have a 10x loupe and inspected the area in question (SIM card gold contacts touching tray) and I found that there is a space between contacts and SIM tray. Under 10x magnification you can easily see how precice my SIM card was made and cut. There's also a relief rout around contact area. Also there is a thin film of some non-conducting material between SIM card and SIM tray where the tray supports the card. This SIM tray even has the IMEI and Serial number etched on it and under 10x magnification you can appreciate the fabrication and close tolerances even this SIM tray is made to.
I followed all instructions on the macrumors forum and this "DID NOT" solve my "death-grip" issue and I can verify with 100% certainty that the SIM contacts are not touching the SIM tray anywhere.
I do hope this helps others but I am still hoping that this can be rectified with software. -
Read this after press conference, what do you think?
Okay here's the deal. Apple had a press conference today, and they have thoroughly addressed the antenna issues or apparently lack of with the iPhone 4, now dubbed as "antennagate".
Now, I will just throw a "light" breakdown of thoughts on this and also leave the live blog provided by Endgaget down below for you to read for yourself.
So apple changes the design of the iPhone. It's beautiful. It's suppose to run better and perform better than previous models. But wait, what's this?
An antenna on the outside of a phone? Wow!
Guess What?
Now, people know exactly where the antenna has been placed and can visibly see and can physically touch it on the outside of the phone. They are now aware of it more than with any other phone and can manipulate it by covering it up with their big meaty, greasy, stinky, sweaty, hands.
Or clean, manicured, dainty hands.
So they do, as they should be able too.
Then they watch the signal drop!
Oh no!
You see, with other phones, internal antennas have never really been in the publics "eye" and has escaped the general public knowledge of how cell phones work and can be affected by holding or covering up the antenna area.
Apple created the first (that I've known of) external antenna that is located in the same place an internal antennas. Therefore causing you to actually grip it while in use.
What does this mean? Does it actually hurt it's signal more than internal antennas? Has Apple done their homework?
Ultimately it seems they have. As you should and would expect a multi Billion dollar company who is considered the world over as the best technology company out there. Why wouldn't they?
So what's the problem?
Now I think this report basically says (with out Apple outing their business partner AT&T) that the main issues are within the signal provider, area signal strength. Then there is fact that they basically but a big "X marks the spot" or "cover this up with your hand to make signal worse" area on the phone made aware to everyone when they had their keynote stating that the frame was doubled as an atenna.
The media doesn't' help either. As new customers are made and switch over from other companies such as Verizon for the iphone 4, then they come home to read or see this "antennagate" on you tube, they begin to attribute all their AT&T issues (dropped calls) to the design of the iPhone 4. Yet, studies, actual scientific studies have shown to have better reliability than older models of the iphone.
Here I think Apple proves this, and one must read between the lines on what they can and cannot say about the business and their relationship with AT&T.
But, I think they have proven the point they have a great phone for making calls. They have done their homework and yet still had to answer to this media sensation. They had to make some remedy despite that all the testing and statistics about the iphone 4's performance states that there is no antenna issue. That it isn't significantly much different than any other antenna placed out in todays current cell phone market.
Not to mention the sheep, and Apple haters or competitors who join the fray.
Does Apple have sheep followers? Sure. But they also have people who for whatever personal or business reasons despise them.
But, the sheep I refer too, are the people who just hear of, or read one report on this "antenna gate", and do no research for themselves to actually understand the issue or intelligently assess their problems with phone properly. Then they start to raise **** over something that may actually not an issue.
For example, many people have complained tirelessly over this "death grip" and how they drop calls all the time, only to find out that the whole time it must have been AT&T dropping them because they have been using a bluetooth device or a case around the phone which prevents this issue from coming from the antenna
Sheep.
The decision to apply and antenna icon on every phone in the cellular market was made to let consumers rate or judge their signal strength and calling area. 1 bar doesn't mean a call cant be made. just as 5 bars doesn't mean "superduper great signal you'll never drop a call ever ever".
Many specialists believe that the cell phone market should drop this antenna signal strength meter, because of its subjective nature, and tthe fact hat it doesn't actually work like a "gas tank meter" in a car, nor functions like one.
Anyone who's ever studied this "signal meter" knows that you can go from full 5 bars to no bars in less than a microsecond with no feasible reason, on any network. It's not about, "my network never drops calls" it's about consistency.
So why mislead consumers? Why not just have a green light, red light?
Back to Apple's choices.
They had to do something, had too. No matter what tests show, statistics, fanboys, haters, or competitors. They had too, without slapping AT&T in the face.
Enter the Press Conference.
Below is the blow by blow.
In the end I feel a bit sorry for how things turned out. Apple looses millions on basically an issue that every company, and carrier has. Block the antenna, loose some signal.
Call it what you want but they are giving away free cases that costs millions of dollars to Apple, unnecessarily just to cool this thing down.
To all those who complain I say try this. Just use your phone naturally, don't try to "death Grip" the mother. Just use it and if you get dropped calls, try a case or bluetooth, or a headset, and if you get dropped calls, be open to the fact that it's probable AT&T, or just the nature of cellphones. Not an antenna issue that Nokia, Sony, Apple, Motorola, HTC, Samsung and every other maker faces . . . despite what they say.
Apple loses, because they currently are considered to be the king of the hill in the smart phone market (and others for that matter) and they told everyone "HEY! EVERYONE! Our antenna is on the outside, and it's right 'X' here!"
They Still apologized and gave away millions to make any and everyone happy.
Had their been and actual Hardware defect, I would have said RECALL. As things sit I think Apple handled things correctly. Had you anyone asked me earlier in the week, I would have scoffed at the idea of a bumper fix. But it's not a fix, there is nothing to fix, it's an act of good faith.
Maybe it's also a way to get more cases out their so when September rolls around they can have a better call drop ratio to the 3GS.
After the meeting I couldnt help but think, had I made something that wasn't broken, and people said I'd have to try and fix it, I think that all you would have seen from me would've been the middle finger.
It's a ish snow ball thrown down hill, and Apple is saying sorry you got hit on the way down but we didn't' toss it.
Here's something for your trouble.
Remember you can return it, and Apple is having a "case is sill open" approach and will continue to work on it. As for now, it appears that they really is nothing wrong with your antenna on your iPhone 4.
Maybe you should start to smile, or go to Verizon?Hello everybody.
I am a would-be Iphone 4 user, which will now surely not become one.
I did read all the fuss about the antenna, and I did watch the conference, and here is what I think.
Saying that, even with the issues, “it is still useable”, is in my opinion ridiculous.
Guys, we’re talking about a 650 € mobile here.
The Iphone 4 is a top of the line phone. It’s not a 29 € mobile bought at a supermarket.
And if a 29 € can work as a phone perfectly, I expect that a mobile that costs 20 times that, can at least give me the same functionality that the cheap one gives.
Yes, the Iphone offers so much more, and that’s the reason why I wanted to buy it (so I am not an Apple naysayer, in fact I really wanted to buy an Iphone, and even defended it in front of friends in discussions), but really I need it first and foremost for work, and I NEED to be able to receive and make phone calls, and can’t afford to have dropped calls in bad reception areas.
This is an issue ALL smartphones have? To be sincere, I highly doubt that.
But even if it were, then I would go on with my non-smartphone mobile, until this thing is solved, because seriously, I think before adding in all kinds of gadgets and whatsoever, making sure you can use a phone to make phone calls everywhere without dropping calls should be the priority number 1.
There is no possible hardware solution? Now, I am not an expert, but if you look at the pictures of the antenna, and without making any particularly intelligent change… why not just rotate the antenna position 180°? So that the black band is on the top right, where nobody holds it, rather than on the bottom left, where most people hold it? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist in my opinion.
What I think is that we WILL see a hardware solution, in my opinion Apple already knows what needs to be done. But you can’t just change production from one day to the next. Apple has a lot of phones ready yet, and lots are being built, that it can’t just throw away.
So, until 30 September (or until these models will be dispatched) we’ll get this model with a bumper.
When the stock will be over, we’ll get a new model with the magical fix.
Until then… +“if you don’t want an Iphone 4 – don’t buy it”.+
Smart suggestion mr. Jobs gave, I’ll follow it.
Have a nice day. -
New User to the IPhone Family got some questions
Hey guys,
Well the IPhone4 is my first smart phone and I will have to say I love the thing. Except I'm experiencing some weird issues. First is the proximity sensor now I have done a lot of research and people are saying that there could be a fix for that when a update comes out. Is that correct to assume that?
Also, im having a weird reception issue. I heard about the death grip problems so I got a case to solve the issues. But with the case off sitting on a desk I get 5 bars when I pick it up in my hand to make a call I now will have 3 bars. When I put the case on and leave it on the desk I get 4 bars and when I pick it up in my hand to make a call now i get 2 bars. I have yet to drop a call and hold it like i normally would im not doing the death grip and trying to make it drop as much signal as possible. Should there be this much of a difference with and without a case? I also want to keep the case on since im always afraid of dropping the thing.
Also, as a side note on the reception issue is there a way to make it show the dBm instead of the bars so i can actually see how much signal im loosing?
Thanks guys,
Marcneomac3444 wrote:
Its not unusable i only hit speaker phone or mute occasionally. It almost seems to be an intermittent problem with the sensor.
I've had the sensor problem one time.
In looking back I realized three things, first the sensor is above the ear 'speaker'; two the sensor is slightly less sensitive than the one on my iPhone 3GS; and three I sometimes have a tendency to move the voice mic closer to my mouth--this rotates the sensor away from my head. With it's decreased sensitivity and its location being farther up the phone this action will cause the sensor to 'trip' and the phone to 'think' I've moved it away from my head and turn the display back on. As long as I keep the earpiece next to my ear I never have a problem.
I have two iPhone 4 units and they both behave this way and I can see where people who tend to move the phone around a lot while speaking could have real difficulties. The sensor 'sensitivity' really needs to be increased. Lets hope a software change can modify the sensitivity.
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