TenFourFox G5 v. 8.0 kicks butt!
Just wanted to report that the latest version of TenFourFox G5 (v. 8.0) leaves all other browsers in the dust on my machine.
I'm a very happy camper.
I HAVE A GENERAL REPLY / QUESTION; This is an older, slower, G 4 PCI "YIKES" ( originally 400 Mhz, Now has a 500 Mhz Encore cpu ), OS X 10.4.11, installed TenFourFox, did the machine search for proper cpu type, also did config. search to set plugins to "true" (on).
Generally it is faster than FF 3.6.24, But is does hang occausionally, sometimes requiring forced shutdown of machine, sometimes I can force just TenFourfox to quit, which it takes is a toss up.
And something I notice all the time is in Yahoo mail, when viewing list of messages, the ad above them (currently Subaru) will, when I scroll a little or alot, double, triple, or sometimes stay as I scroll down the messages, sometimes it goes away itself, sometimes I need to click a message to read, and then with the change to message displayed, it is gone with the change.
Has anyone else seen this Bizzaro thing happen ?? .... And is their a known cure ???
Please keep any answer in laymans terms, as I am dumber than a post, box of rocks, or any other fitting term you like.
And another question I have is about the Java preferencs, cache, lists (?) are all empty ?? But in finder Applications it shows, 1.3.1 and 1.4.2 and J2SE 5.0 and Java Web Start App., and while clicking around looking for info. the only things that show for lists is signer CA & secure Site CA lists that are apparently full of good looking names.
I can do banking & online purchasing and 99.9 % of all webpages look fine and function. So I believe Java is running & working. (????????)
Yet all during the Formula 1 racing season, when I went to their site for live streaming webcast of practice and qualifying, their site said "No JAVA INSTALLED" or Wrong Java installed, to be honest I don't recall which, but the viewer window had a small box that indicated a Java problem ??
Sorry, I should have started a new tread, I got carried away with my sudo hunt and peck typing.
........ wayne146 ........
Similar Messages
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[SOLVED]EasyStroke no longer works after upgrading Xorg....
Hi,
First i would just like to take the time to say, that ArchLinux kicks butt! I just joined the forum, but have been using Arch for about a month. Thus far, i have had very few problems....until tonight
I keep my system really up-to-date (almost everyday i update). Tonight, there was an update for Xorg (1.10? i think).
Anyway, One of the applications that i use is Easystroke - which after the upgrade has stopped working, i even recompiled it (which went fine) but still it doesnt work.
a more detailed explanation;
1. the app starts up fine, and appears to be working.
2. i draw a gesture on the screen, and i can see easystroke drawing them.
3. at this point the usually, i would stop drawing and easystroke would execute my gesture. but now instead, it doesn't properly release the gesture key (second button on my Wacom Bamboo stylus).
4. Easystroke has a "history page" that allows you to see how accurate your gestures are, now it shows absolutely nothing.
I have searched around with google, and no luck. I tried to get a more verbose output from easystroke, but it doesn't tell me anything. So, now i am kind of stuck
After the upgrade (and a reboot), i tested the system to see if there were other problems. So far, i have found zero.
I've tested my tablet, all of my main applications; Maya2011, Mypaint, gimp, Compiz++, Jackd, wine, etc. Everything is fine. I have also went through the log viewer, and nothing caught my eye that would hint to what has gone wrong....
if anyone else is having the same problem, or has a possible solution, please let me know.
I can deal with not using it for now, but not having Easystroke running, seriously hinders my workflow and navigation
on my Arch Desktop.... and now i am wondering whether or not easystroke even runs with the latest X???
jordan
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2011-05-05 06:43:00)ewaller wrote:
Hello,
Welcome to the forums. Your post is fine in every way. Introduction, problem description, what you have done -- perfect. The package you reference is from the AUR which, as you know, is not in the main stream Arch distribution. These community contributions are essential Arch, but have their own area in the forum to differentiate them.
Moving this thread to AUR issues...
As it turns out. This isn't a bug in AUR/easystroke. It is a bug in the latest xserver 1.10.902 (found in the "extra" repo) Many applications are affected. Opera, chrome (if you are using the mouse gestures features for navigation) and it turns out that while i thought Maya wasn't affected, in reality, it is totally affected. most applications that use a mouse with right-clicks, middle clicks do not work properly.
it's an upstream bug, that affects all distributions using the latest Xorg. I am not filing a bug report, because as i understand it, this bug has already been reported upstream by Ubuntu-devs (on launchpad).
that latest update for Xserver, should have been tested better, before being an update available through pacman.
On my system, i do not use any testing repos, only core, extra, and community. I do this to avoid situations, just like this. lol.
I have work i need to get done today, but unfortunately, the only way that could happen is if i downgrade xserver (which i don't think is a smart idea). So, i guess i must wait for the next xserver update for arch. hopefully this happens in the next 24hours.
I suppose i will have to use OSX for now, until this is properly addressed and fixed.
anyway, i just wanted to point out that this bug has nothing to do (specifically) with Easystroke or AUR, that is just how i first noticed the bug. ( i just wanted to point that out, as you are a moderator ). This bug is in the main repos for Arch, and anyone updating today (or yesterday) will be affected, if they use applications where it's noticable.
jordan -
Hey! I've been using Macs since...well, don't ask LOL. I am stumped with a problem I know I should have found a solution...but duh... :/ I just picked up a cherry iMac G3/500 with OS 9.2.2. After cleaning up the system, it really kicks butt on the G3. But, you know, OS 10 is...OS 10. Tried to install from a Leo disk (OS 10.5) and there is no way. How far back with OS 10 am I gonna have to go to be able to install OVER 9.2.2? Can I simple zero out the hard drive then install OS 10.5? I feel really stupid here but can somebody give me a kick on this?!? Thanks so much
zona_bru, welcome to Apple Discussions.
Leopard will not run on the G3 iMac. Here's the various OS X requirements.
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger system requirements http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301341
OS 10.3 Panther requirements
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106163
Leopard 10.5 Technical Requirements
http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/
Go fo Tiger 10.4. You will need a retail version (black with silver X) of the install DVD. You can't use a gray, model specific DVD.
Cheers, Tom -
Macbook Pro overheating Apps "Quit Unexpectedly"
PROBLEMS WITH MY UNIBODY MACBOOK PRO
GPU/CPU Problems? Logic Board bad? I'm not sure what the issue is. Please Help!
Hi, I have an:
· Early 2009
· 17 inch
· Unibody Macbook Pro (UMBP) (5,2)
· Intel Core2Duo 2.66GHz
· Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT 512MB graphics (kept on Performance mode – not power saver – because it usually sits on my desk plugged into AC wall-wart 85watt mag-safe power like an iMac), (Nvidia GeForce 9400M onboard too)
· I have an external 27” monitor connected and mirrored - with the internal screen off (brightness is all the way down – thus running cooler)
· (Note: all the problems existed before any/all my upgrades – including the external monitor.)
· I have upgraded to 8Gb’s of 1066 DDR2 RAM
· 500Gb Seagate Hybrid HDD
· The UMBP is Running the latest OS 10.8.4 (with automatic updates) – and it had the list of problems (below) with OS Leopard, and Snow Leopard too!
1) It will not play *Netflix streaming*, or youtube or any other internet video without stuttering, stopping, and hesitating in video and audio!! I have CHARTER Cable Internet which runs between 20-50Mb’s :-) This is NOT slow internet.
And with my Windows 7 (64bit Intel QuadCore) Desktop PC using the exact same wifi internet connection there’s *No stuttering*, no stopping, no hesitation in video OR audio! It’s an older Gateway desktop with a tiny USB wifi dongle. And the desktop runs *on-board* Graphics – no graphics card in the machine...at least not until I upgrade the power supply – then I can install one. ;-)
2) System Information crashes - “Quits Unexpectedly”. SOooooo frustrating! I can’t even get the current specs so you guys know what we’re dealing with. So I looked them up in a file I have kept since I did all my research online to buy this UMBP. So, I copied all the data that was just now sent to Apple (not that anything will be done with it – they don’t care – my Mac is out of warranty). This app crashing has happened *numerous* times in the past couple years and I just didn’t know what to do about all these problems (the list continues below) because it’s been out of warranty since before I bought it used on eBay.
3) I canNOT get Adobe Reader to run on my UMBP - it crashes within seconds! I finally uninstalled it and re-downloaded it and then reinstalled it – still same problem. So, I waited a few months and then re-downloaded it and re-installed it again – still same issue. And I know that Reader had been updated more than once in that time.
I think that the following is unrelated but I figure I should put in all the information I can. The battery never says 100% (it’s always between 97-99% full. When I first got the UMBP it kept telling me to get a new battery (for $250!) And the seller sent the UMBP with a 65 watt (not 85 watt) mag-safe power supply…which I didn’t even realize until months later (hey, this was my first and still is my only Mac, so ya gotta give me some grace here. I hate(d) Microslave *so much* after living with WinVista for 2 years that I HAD to get a Mac..and I don’t ever want to go back! ;-) The only reason I even have a Windows box is because a friend of mine (who was borrowing my then spare beat up old car for like 3 months) gave me one when he got it as partial payment for a job he did on a small business network (yeah, he’s even more geek than me!)
At first I was thinking that it was the NVidia GPUs, but now I’m beginning to think that all three: the CPU and both GPUs are in need of re-soldering to the Logic Board. It seems that I’m not the only one online that agrees that the system cooling fans are subpar in UMBP’s (lots of complaints about burned fingers, etc.) – so, I run a small 6 inch fan (on high) across the top of the keyboard 24/7 so that it won’t completely fry! (Well, at night when I put my UMBP to sleep I usually turn off the fan…but anyway.) It doesn’t wake up at night to do any background downloads or Time Machine (USB ext drive) work – it would most likely wake me up if it did (I’m a very light sleeper). The fan does a good job at keeping the surface (aluminum) “warm” (as opposed to HOT) so that IF I were to use the built-in keyboard I wouldn’t burn my fingers (like I used to – until I bought an external Bluetooth Apple keyboard – those keyboards are so nice!).
So, yeah, I could send it to someone on eBay (along with $200) who will reflow or reball the chips to the Logic Board, but that seems to be a band aid on a situation that is quite likely to happen again…right?
As I see it: Apple didn’t put enough cooling into the system – the fans are too slow/small – and thus I have a serious problem with the Logic Board.
And I was just on eBay looking at Logic Boards and they cost at least as much as most of the UMBP’s like mine. So that would be way too expensive – I might as well just buy another UMBP like mine – but that’s not going to happen.
The closest Apple store is 2.5 hours drive away from where I live. And the closest authorized apple repair shop is 1.5 hours away and it’s not likely that they will run system tests for free…and the Best Buy here in town is not authorized to work on Macs – they didn’t show up in the search results at locate.apple.com/service/….
So, what can/should I do??
I didn’t write all this just to “vent” – I really need this fixed!
ONE SMALL ADDITION:
IF ANYONE suggests that I do the following:
> System Preferences > Energy Saver > Graphics: Better battery life
(Previously it was set to "Higher performance")
Then I will…do something (hmmm it’s the internet, what can I do??)…for their IDIOCY!!!
Doing that *is doing this*: Paying $3,000 for a Macbook (NOT Pro!!)
I mean think about it for one second: the specs on the Macbook is the cheaper/slower Graphics Chip (GPU) and buying a Macbook costs THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS LESS than a MBP! Right?
IF Apple suggested doing that then that is just Apple’s lame-a$$ way of trying to get away from the fact that they underpowered/under-designed the cooling system (fans et al).
That’s the same answer I got from HP when my notebook overheated to the point of dying!!! HELLO?!?!?
Get it? ALL these notebook manufacturers’ designers and engineers are all using the same data/designs! Yet, I’m paying TWICE THE PRICE for an Apple product (expecting a cool running notebook) vs. a custom-built HP 17” notebook PC that I bought brand new a few years ago (with Vista – ARGH!)! One which would run simultaneous DUAL EXTERNAL monitors at 1080p! That GPU kicked butt! AND it had DUAL SATA2 INTERNAL Hard Disk Drives (with the internal DVD burner)! And this was made in 2009 people!
I thought Apple cared more! Especially at this price!
Maybe you DON’T “get what you pay for” anymore…?..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Mac maintenance steps -
Can two Motorola E815s sync up to one family address book?
Hey all, thanks for looking. Apologies if this is an obvious RTFM issue, but I can't find talk of it anywhere. There must be many couples with two cell phones who could/would share the same address book via bluetooth.
Will our iBook G4 with Bluetooth sync the Mac address book onto two different wireless phones? That would be so cool. We use only one account on the Mac, therefore one address book (I think).
We see the Motorola E815 has iSync, which kicks butt, and we're thinking of buying two of them. Thanks again for looking.
If it can't be done, how could we decide who gets to Sync, and who must type it all in manually?David, nice to hear from you again, hope you are well.
This user tip might help you understand how accounts work with Address Book.
I believe you have duplicates because you have two sets of contacts. "iCloud" and "On My Mac". Once you have created all your contacts in the iCloud account, you should delete them from On My Mac.
You can move contacts simply by dragging and dropping from one account to the other, you don't need to export them all to the desktop (although doind so will serve as a good back up if all goes wrong). You should note that this copies them though rather than simply move them, so you'll need to delete the old set when you are done.
As for preserving groups from the On My Mac Account, you can't but you can simplify recreating them by copying contacts (drag and drop) from an on my mac group to an empty group in iCloud.
Not sure about the contacts that you are struggling to move.
Many aspects of iCloud are difficult to understand, have a mull through what I've said so far and come back if everything still doesn't fall into place. -
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 -
IPod formatted for windows... not working on mac! ***????
Hi all...
My iPod mini was my first apple product over a year ago... worked awesome on my Dell laptop. Then I got this Dual Core G5 and the dang thing isn't recognizing any music?!?! Because it is formatted for windows, I can't install an update it is telling me it needs. I am assuming this is why itunes can't see it and my kick butt G5 is being ******** with not showing any of the music on it... any ideas?
I have read the other threads and can't find anything like this... so how can I use this thing on both machines? or did Apple "F" this thing up?
ThanksYes, it shows up on desktop but only the calendar, notes, contacts are accessible...
No, iTunes does not recognize it even if I force it into Disk Mode... weird. I am beginning to think I need to keep it on the mac 100% and stop using it on me PC... but that stinks? My Dell is portable, this G5 is not! -
IMic, Garageband, and I'm ready to throw this thing...
Sorry ya'll, for the threat of violence against this expensive piece of machinary - but I'm seriously at the end of my rope...someone help?
I have a new MacBook Pro. Woot. I've got Garageband 3.0.4. Ok. I want to record. Nothing crazy - just a Griffin iMic, a Shure 58, and an acoustic guitar.
Problems I'm having:
1. hum. WAY too much hum on the iMic. It sounds like I'm recording onto my old GE tape recorder. This is unacceptable. Either the iMic is crap (not my particular one, but the product in general), or I'm doing something wrong. I have it plugged in to the USB port, and into it I've got a Shure 58 connected to an XLR - male 1/4" at the other end, which is made into an 1/8" via an adapter to plug into the iMic (seriously, why can't anyone get smart and realize that ALL REAL AUDIO EQUIPMENT USES XLR OR 1/4" and STOP with this 1/8" nonsense???).
2. If I follow the instructions for the iMic, I should have the toggle put toward the 'input' side. Thing is, if I do that, the recording level is ridiculously low. So I turn it toward the 'output' side. Could this have something to do with the hum? I saw another post about 'grounding the iMic' - how the heck do I ground something in a plastic case????
3. I also have a nice Digidesign MBox. Problem is, my computer won't recognize it. What's up with that? I saw somewhere else, in response to another post I left, that with 10.4.10 people have been having problems with USB audio interfaces? WHAT? What does that even mean? How do I fix this problem?
Thanks to anyone willing to try to answer these questions, I'm seriously, seriously frustrated. I bought this thing thinking I'd finally be able to record decent, bedroom-recording style audio with no fuss. It's been nothing but fuss.
So again. Thanks. Hope someone out there can help.
Paz,
RobbyI tried that set up for a while and all the fiddling didn't help. You've got a kick butt mic (same as mine) and you want to get real sounds. Do yourself a favour and get something like the Line 6 TonePort UX-1. It has an XLR for a mic input. It has proper amp & pre-amp options for the mic and the guitar through it's GearBox software. If you ever break down and get an acoustic electric it's got instument in (and it's wicked for electric guitar). It's not expensive and will make your headache go away overnight (and crank your fun up big time).
The notes below are accurate. You have a line level problem and a grounding problem. I like the iMic, I just don't use it much anymore. -
How do I make a 3-d rotating text in Flash cs4?
Hi, Thunder BoomCat PowWow here.
I'm a student in this Virtual Enterprise class and am in charge of learning flash and making a kick-butt commercial for our firm: Uncommon Ground.
I was wanted to make some text rotate AROUND a sphere in flash (the sphere is going to be a picture of the earth).
I want the text to go in one direction, wrapping around the sphere, and appearing on the other side like it went all the way around.
Can anyone tell me how to do that using Flash?
Thanks in advanced,
TBCPW
Sole employee of the media departmentflash can't make 3d objects. cs5 can make 2d objects that move in apparent 3d space but that's the limit of flash'es capabilities.
however, there are other programs that can be used to make 3d objects and then animate those objects in flash. -
Has anyone created a T43 version of Help Center for Productivity Center?
Just curious. Running Windows Se7en Ultimate on a 2Gig T43 (2668) and everything works great. (The 40 Gig drive is half full, but when I can find a larger hard drive mfg. that doesn't give me 2010 error, then I'll upgrade. I know, lotsa luck with that! Heh heh.)
Loaded the T43's IBM Access application - works fine, but it's support links are way out of date. Productivity Center is great, but I'm just missing T43 Help Center to make it complete.
Overall, I'm impressed that my *dated* T43 still kicks butt with Windows Se7en and is rock solid performance-wise (not to mention it has outlasted 3 Dell Inspirons).
Vista never really worked all that well on the T43 and ran sluggish, crashed, etc. Windows Se7en - took to the T43 like a fish to water and it runs like a champ.
Life is just one big "Beta Test"
Happy owner of a T43 (Windows 7) and T23 (Windows XP)If you can't get the discs from hp then you might want to try the following link:
http://www.computersurgeons.com/
HP Recovery Link:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph07143
I am an HP employee.
Please post rather than sending a Private Message. It's good for the community and I might not be able to get back quickly.- Thank you.
Please click the White Kudos star on the left to say thanks.
Please mark Accept As Solution if this resolves your issue. -
Hello:
I have been shopping around for a few months for a replacement for my Thinkpad T60p.
I was convinced I would by a w520 but then I started considering desktops.
I’m semi-retired and don’t really need a laptop as much as I did when working full time.
Besides, my T60p works just fine for work related stuff and travel. I also have an x200t.
I have found 2 pre-configured E31s at a reseller that are the same except for the graphics card.
Model 2555-47U has a Quadro 600 card and Model 2555-48U has a Quadro 2000 card. Both have the Xeon E3-1230V2 CPU.
The price difference is $300.
My usage will be for ripping CDs, A to D conversion (LPs to digital), raw photo processing (Canon’s free software; no Adobe), and maybe some video editing—files from a Canon DSLR.
Will the Q2000 benefit me in any way over the Q600 for these tasks?
Don’t mind spending the extra $300 if it gains me something.
I also looked at an M92p tower (Model 2992-A5U) with the i7-3770 CPU and Radeon 7450 graphics card.
It is about the same price as the E31 w/Q600, but has the HD4000 integrated graphics along with the Radeon 7450.
Would this be a better choice?
I have the perception that the E31 is "better" than the M92p because it is a certified workstation.
One bonus of the M92p is the 3-year on-site warranty, but that’s not as important as the CPU/graphics to me.
If it matters, I connect to an NEC LCD2190UXi (1600 x 1200) monitor and plan to purchase an NEC P241W (1900 x 1200). I use SpectraView calibration software.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
doherrick
doherrick
X200T (wife), X201T (travel), T60pFan probalby got off balance. Some times after they heat up the expand and distort a little and it sounds like the cause.
Your probalby on the right track to replace it. I dont' think you can replace the fan. the one I suggested below should be pretty kick butt.
PNY - GeForce GT 640 Graphic Card - 900 MHz Core - 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM - PCI-Express 3.0 x16
Model: VCGGT640XPB | SKU: 5771799
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Sale: $96.98 -
Is 7200 RPM HDD a problem for the MAc Mini?
I need to replace my Mac-mini HDD. I purchased a Travelstar 500Gb Drive.
It is 7200 RPM.
Will I have any problems? I understand most mac mini 2.26Ghz HDDs are 5200 RPMs.I put one of those into my 2010 Mac Mini almost a year ago and it kicks butt on the 5400 RPM HDD.
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I've switched to Nokia from Samsung and am having usage issues with the X6 - actually, some are the same issues I had with Samsung, to be honest.
Number 1 issue with the X6 is one that I didn't have with the Samsung, which is image slideshows.
As a photographer, the ability to keep a number of folders with a collection of images in each one to show prospective customers is a great thing. The Samsung i8510 had a slideshow app pre-loaded which did at least one slideshow. The X6 doesn't even have that.
I use Y-Browser to browse to an image in a folder and bring it up ... but there is no way to actually browse to the next image in the folder; I have to close that image and then open the next manually.
This is not a good state of affairs and iPhone has kicked butt on this issue for a good while.
Problem 2 - Audio playlists. This was a problem on the i8510 as well.
I have a good deal of audio on the system ... also, it changes regularly. I want a no-fuss method of compiling playlists, but that is impossible with the X6.
I create folders of files according to mood and I put different files in or out of these folders as my mood takes me. I want to say, "Create a playlist of the files in this folder" ... or even just, "Play the songs in this folder." ... but no, it isn't possible; and I'm certainly not using that other playlist generator that wants me to profile and rate my song list ... I'm not wasting my life like that; the collection is too big.
Again, using Y-Browser I can find the folder and the files very easily and bring up any song immediately in the player, but the next and previous buttons then won't work.
The last thing I want to do is spend a portion of my life scrolling through a massive list of audio files in order to add them to a playlist ... and because all the files are different songs, different artists and some of them are recordings I've taken off my vinyl collection so haven't got metadata ... I don't know whether each song is in the list by artist, file name ... you get the idea ... this is driving me absolutely crazy.
PLEASE give me the ability to add songs by file name only ... that would be a great help ... or even to create a playlist which is actually a link to a folder in which the files can change dynamically.
At the moment, I'm faced with having to find the location on the phone, of the playlist files and actually edit them myself using a text editor ... it will be a good deal quicker than using this playlist editing system on the phone.
Problem 3 - the camera.
The camera does not remember my option for the flash. I have to switch the thing off EVERY time that I use it. This isn't very funny. Direct flash kills many pictures. Also, even when I've switched the flash off, the phone uses it as a focus assist anyway ... I want to switch that off as well. Lastly, I am not able to select an option to turn the sound off for the shutter actuator. In order to make it silent, i've got to turn the phone to silent profile before I open the camera, and then switch it back to general profile after ... this is a PAIN. The i8510 handled these issues perfectly.
Problem number 4 - Separation of videos and images.
The image browser also has the videos included. I keep a number of short phtography lighting videos on the phone and to have them all mixed together is making my life difficult as I have to hunt. At the moment ... you guessed it ... I'm using Y-browser to go to the video file I want and then play it from there.
The phone has much going for it; true, the processor is underpowered and drag scroll doesn't work in the application menus, but the openness of the phone is impressive and as a phone/e-mail system it scores highly enabling me to keep up to date with works and private e-mails as well as my calender; it has improved the organisation of my life without having to hulk around a separate PDA. As a multimedia machine, however, it is badly lacking and I still have to carry a small point and shoot camera.
Technology should be here to help me ... not waste my life.
If this isn't sorted out by the time my contract is next up for renewal, this will be my first and last Nokia phone since I ditched nokia for Samsung in the late 90's.
Cone on, Nokia, step up to the plate and don't let me down ... and none of that rubbish that Samsung gave me about the operating system applications not being within their control. You've got the power. Use it.Thank you for the feedback.
1) Many thanks, I'll look in to this tonight.
2) I aready classify the songs by putting them in my folder collections; it is the easiest way to port the music l like to different devices ... and there is a lot of music. I don't want to have to mess around classifying them again ... I just want to be able to mark a selection of files and say, "Play those." My view is, "If I change mobile phone every year, how much time am I wasting by having to re-classify everything, every year."
3) As a photographer, I appreciate that even a phone camera is an awesome tool provided it gives the photographer the control they need. The camera is not just a phone camera. There are even competitions for camera phone photogrpahy and as the i8510 proved, as did the u700, the d60 and the d500 before that, it is perfectly possible to use ambient light for focusing with a small lens. I need the choice; the control. Professional photographers are making use of these cameras; just check out Chase Jarvis and his phone app for the iPhone; I forget what he called it.
If it mucks up, it is not a function of a bad camera, it is the function of a bad photographer; but if the system doesn't allow me that control, I haven't got the choice. At the moment, I carry the i8510 around with me as well as the X6.
The symbian operating system should have moved on considerably to reach this point. it has been at this state on the i8510 since it was released and hasn't moved from there. I put these arguments to Samsung and got the bums rush; they didn't care about the OS that they gave their customers ... the question is whether Nokia will do the same, or whether they will up the ante and work towards getting the default applications to a better state of usability. I'm not asking for singing and dancing apps; just something I can use easily.
In the life of the i8510 Samsung never attempted to improve the situation; now I am asking the same of Nokia.
Incidentally, I haven't been able to find the playlist files yet. Anyone know where they are on the system please? -
Excel or table style grid in text cast member
I copied an Excel style table out of MS Word and pasted it
into a text cast member and to my surprise, the grid lines came
with the text, nicely formatted and everything. Having a
spreadsheet like grid (or something like an HTML table) that would
auto fit the contents of each cell sure would help.
Anyone know how to apply grid lines to text cast members I
create from scratch? and are there any formatting options I can
access from lingo to modify the grid?Check out the data grid in Inplicity, a fantastic set of
add-ins for Director. All Lingo based. They kick butt.
http://www.inplicitytoolkit.com/
best,
FBC -
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I have a drop down menu on a website. I need to adjust the height of SOME of the columns so that the viewer does not need to scroll to see the whole drop down menu.
How would I do this?
Go to http://scomputing.com/q3/ and look at the electronics drop down to see what I mean.
Thanks,See http://www.bestbuy.com/
You could try googling 'mega menu' and it will throw up a bunch of different ways to accomplish this task. I found this CSS3 one which seems fairly straight-forward.
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/how-to-build-a-kick-butt-css3-mega-d rop-down-menu/
However, to reduce the space around those items, try modifying the padding
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display:none;
padding:10px;
padding:5px 10px; /* top/bottom, left/right */
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