NEW PATCH! Notes up!

[Blackmoore]

You saw it foo! Go n Read!

Durability
Item durability is now in the game. Item durability is an important aspect of World of Warcraft that will work to stabilize the economy, decrease inflation specifically in the high end game, and in general keep prices of player sold items lower than normally would occur without such a feature. Durability should also add additional depth to the game since players will have more variety in their items and more abilities will be added over time to interact with durability. Item durability is different from item decay in that players will never lose items through item durability.

Durability key points
[ ] All armor and weapons have durability, but not trinkets, cloaks, shirts, guild tabards, necklaces and rings.

[ ] Items remain at full effectiveness until they have no durability. Their power does not degrade.

[ ] Items cannot permanently break.

[ ] All armor/weapon vendors can repair durability in exchange for cash.

[ ] When an item reaches zero durability, it no longer gives the player any benefit; it acts as though it does not exist until repaired.

[ ] Professions cannot repair durability, but we will discuss ways for the professions to interact with them in the future.

Raid Groups
Raid groups will no longer receive quest bounties and collections. In the future, we plan to have raid-specific quests that will be possible to complete in raid groups.

General

* If you log out while in flight, you will continue flying when you log back in.

* All enemy targeted spells should now require the target to be in front of the caster.

* Starting characters will now have hearthstones automatically located in their inventory.

* Swimming has been tweaked. To dive, you have to tilt your direction downwards a certain amount with the right mouse button.

* Spirit no longer affects item proc percentage. Item proc percentages are now independent of stat attributes.

* The camera will now stay above or below water depending on which side you are on.

* Your camera view angle and distance are now saved when you exit the game.

* You won't accidentally skip gossip text if you double-click the NPC responses.

* You should no longer be able to breath at the bottom of lakes and ponds.

* Pets swim underwater now, although not all pets have swimming animations.

* Pets no longer use combat abilities while in passive mode.

* Your corpse shows up underwater after you release, however it decomposes when you revive.

* Starting NPCs show their horde or alliance crest.

* Locked boxes show the word "Locked" in the appropriate color for their difficulty.

* Scarlet Sentinels will use their Overpower ability in combat.

* Looting range is now the same as melee range.

PVP

* Goblin guards will attack players who are fighting each other and not dueling - it's bad for business.

* Goblin guards no longer flag you for PvP and they may not be healed or buffed.

* When you finish a duel, debuffs applied during the duel will be removed.

* Resurrecting a PvP-enabled player corpse will flag you for PvP.

* Area effect spells and totems now work correctly in duels.

* Town guards will no longer follow dueling players.

Zones

* Scholomance, a level 57-60 instanced dungeon in Western Plaguelands is now open.

* Ashenvale has gotten a facelift to include more points of interest, and significant changes were made to make it easier to navigate.

* Ragefire Chasm, a low level instance dungeon in Orgrimmar, is now available.

* Deadmines: The Miners in the Deadmines are no longer elite monsters.

* Blackfathom Deeps has been moved to the Zoram Strand in Ashenvale forest near the border of Darkshore.

* More quests have been added for Eastern and Western Plaguelands.

Professions

* Runecloth added to the world as the high end cloth.

* Tailoring now complete with recipes up to skill 300 available.

* The herbs needed to support high end alchemy have been added to the world.

* Rich Thorium Nodes will now drop Arcanite.

Talents

* All warlock talents are now available.

* Many talents for all classes have changed location in their tree or had their effects modified.

Druid

* Travel Form is now only useable outdoors.

* Cower, Growl and Challenging Roar are now useable against targets that are immune to physical attacks.

* New Spell: Hibernate (Level 18).

* Shapeshifting now breaks roots, snares, and freeze effects.

* All Shapeshift forms now include an immunity to polymorph effects.

* Bear Form - HP gain increased.

* Dire Bear Form - HP gain increased.

Hunter

* Cower, Growl and Disengage are now useable against targets that are immune to physical attacks.

Mage

* Polymorph no longer affects Dragonkin or Giants.

* Blink now counters stun effects. Cooldown timer has decreased, and mana cost now scales with level.

Paladin

* Resurrection and Redemption range has been reduced.

* New Spell: Seal of Freedom (Level 20)

Priest

* Holy Smite renamed to Smite.

* Holy Word: Fortitude renamed Power Word: Fortitude.

* Holy Word: Shield renamed Power Word: Shield.

* Resurrection and Combat Resurrection range reduced.

Rogue

* Kidney Shot is now subject to diminishing returns.

* Vanish now breaks root and snare effects.

Shaman

* Stoneclaw Totem is now useable against targets that are immune to nature attacks.

* Rebirth range reduced.

* Ghost Wolf is now only useable outdoors.

* Earthbind Totem movement slow effect has been reduced.

Warlock

* Soothing Kiss, Suffering and Torment are now useable against targets that are immune to shadow attacks.

* Seduction now only works against Humanoids. Banish now works against Demons and lementals only. Cooldown timer and reagent removed, duration increased, replacement added. Curse of Agony - Now deals its damage in three stages, damage increased, mana cost slightly increased.

* Enslave Demon - Soul Shard cost removed, duration reduced.

* Life Tap no longer interrupts mana regeneration.

* Sacrifice now grants the Warlock damage absorption, rather than full immunity. Duration has been increased.

* Soulstones have been changed to now resurrect the soulstone holder automatically 5 seconds after death.

Warrior

* Taunt and Challenging Shout are now useable against targets that are immune to physical attacks.

* Hamstring - Movement slow effect reduced.

* New Spell: Berserker Rage (Level 30)

Mac:

The Mac OS X client has all shader-based features disabled for this patch. The GUI for those preferences will be grayed out. A number of GPU driver issues are being addressed by Apple, ATI and NVIDIA - when these fixes have been completed and made available to the public we will re-enable these features in the game.

Bug Fixes:

* You should no longer drown in the air while in certain caverns.

* Firegut Brute will use his Torch abililty.

* Fishing catches fish again, provides skillups, and doesn't leave bobbers around.

* Yorus Barleybrew no longer cheers for himself when you complete The Rethban Gauntlet.

* Colonel Kurzen won't engage you in melee combat at a distance after using a smoke bomb.

* You can access your user interface again while in flight.

[sakki]

(Thanks very much for posting this. Since I merged threads, I removed this as it was a duplicate. -OMO)

[Tyran_Harasvelg]

Hmm.. Item durabiliy... first thing I see...

*forsees a huge wave of pointless flames on the bnet forums...*

[Blackmoore]

A money sink sort of thing I bet.

[ArkhMori]

"If you log out while in flight, you will continue flying when you log back in."
"You can access your user interface again while in flight."

Yay. So happy.

[MercenaryEDK]

thats great! HMMM druid and warlock news is music to my ears

[Pietoro]

Gods, the first thing I thought when I saw 'Item Durability' was item decay, and that was scary. o_O;

It doesn't sound so bad though.

[Blackmoore]

Who ever edited my post! You rock!

[MercenaryEDK]

great lol money will end up a very required resource even after you get lvl 60 mount since the beter the item the more it will probably cost, unless they just set a limit but it would have to be cheap and ruins the point....

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Well.... not at all unexpected. And item durability is just another way for Blizzard to help keep the insane over-inflation of the online community a bit more manageable. Excellent moneysink, I say.

Next patch will have the Hunters and Paladins with their Talents then, I say.

[MercenaryEDK]

and then they can release open beta! or atleast start sign ups come on baby daddy wants a new pair of shoes!

[Sadow]

It will likely be very slow. There was a similar system in DAoC - I believe, in 21 levels, I only had to repair my armor twice.

[sakki]

The info on the mac client is not good though, lets hope osx 3.6 goes out soon with the bug fixes (well most here proberbly doesnt care to much)

[Squarebob Spongepants]

Hey, two threads with the patch notes. I take it the patch is currently in the hands of QA, right?

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[MercenaryEDK]

yea still its there as long as the item isnt gone forever im cool with it =) something to earn money for

[Blackmoore]

Caydiem Says Patch is about 280 MB in size.

[cmsciulli]

Next patch will have the Hunters and Paladins with their Talents then, I say.

Yep, I should hope so. And then perhaps open beta can proceed.

[Grachna]

great lol money will end up a very required resource even after you get lvl 60 mount since the beter the item the more it will probably cost, unless they just set a limit but it would have to be cheap and ruins the point....

Money at level 60 is not a problem anyway; I easily make 10-50g per play session at 60 without even *trying* to accumulate cash. I think the reason this was added was to give level 60's something to do with their money besides jack up auction house prices and buy the 1000g mount.

Since items can never permanently break, and their effectiveness remains at full until the durability reaches 0, I don't really see it as an inconvenience for anyone. Most people stone back to their capital city after a play session to check the AH anyway, it only takes another couple minutes to find a vendor to repair your gear. ;)

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

It will likely be very slow. There was a similar system in DAoC - I believe, in 21 levels, I only had to repair my armor twice.

Remember, Blizzard was the developer of Diablo & Diablo II. So, don't be surprised if it's a little faster than you described. I just don't see it being as frequently as it was in D1 & D2.

[Pub-O]

hm.... im not sure about duarabillity.... if gear depended classes like paladin and warrior will have to use large sums of money and time on making sure their items are up to date, then i think there will be more people playing mana classes.

Im glad that items does not permantly break when they get to 0... they did that in SWG, and each time you used a repair, the max condition would go down, so all items would in the end be lost, which made you sort of... "i dont give a crap about my equipment in the end"...

Im not saying it is bad, im just saying that it will just be more easy to throw lightning balls out from your hands as use magic instead of checking all your tanking and weaponry equipment regularly!

nice to see the last warlock talents added and another high level instance :clap:

we must be getting closer, but i cant wait much longer for raid instances, battlegrounds, the last talents and the pvp ranking system :worship:

[Teh Kurb]

Just me

Or is teh ShapeShifted Druid being Immune to Pollymorph kind of a big deal ?

[ScytheNoire]

those whacky guys at Blizzard

for those who don't know, they had to disable Soulstones (warlock) because they were automatically reviving people with them as soon as they died. this was a problem, because whatever killed you was still around.

so how did they fix it? put a timer??!!

tsk, tsk. Blizzard didn't fix it, they just put a band-aid over the problem. how sad and pathetic. why don't they just admit they screwed up somewhere and don't know what they did.

[Nojin]

Durability sounds pretty neat, I think. The thing is... Warriors were already dependant enough on money, now they'll be even lower on cash. I'm thinking Mage will be the way to go concerning gaining money.

Also what I don't like: Defense Warriors kinda get screwed. =/ Defense Warriors are going to be taking all the hits, thus, they're taking the 'cost' of the battle. As if Warriors needed more incentive to go Combat Stance. :(

Sounds to me, Warlock will be the most effective (take the hits with his Void Walker).

[Squarebob Spongepants]

Remember, Blizzard was the developer of Diablo & Diablo II. So, don't be surprised if it's a little faster than you described. I just don't see it being as frequently as it was in D1 & D2.
For one thing, WoW doesn't have Town Portals, so making a quick trip back to town just to unload loot and repair equipment won't be quite as easy as in the Diablo series, right?

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[Dalamar The Dark]

Hmm.. Item durabiliy... first thing I see...

*forsees a huge wave of pointless flames on the bnet forums...*

lol thats probably true, tons of pointless flames...

[MercenaryEDK]

Just me

Or is teh ShapeShifted Druid being Immune to Pollymorph kind of a big deal ?
not really seeing as in a single battle you should never stay in shapeshift, plus there arnt alot of polymorph stuff what 2 spells 1 maybe 3

[DracoRex]

I find it interesting that they seemed to have gotten rid of Holy. Wonder if christians were complaining... I find that funny

[sakki]

in regards to the durability stuff, i wonder if we will see later as in the diablo series were weapons of same type could have differnt stats and different quality. Not directly linked with durability, but made me think, since quality of the item had high effect on the durability....

[resonance]

Durability = extra money burden on melee classes

[aartamen]

The hearthstone is all but the same.

Yay for fixing fishing, talents and durability!

[MercenaryEDK]

not really since it wont cost that much probably and wont need to happen that often.

[Patroklus]

Best patch item: Druids getting some serious beef ups! Being anti-poly will be absolutely huge, and they can shift to get out of snares and roots, another huge huge bonus.

Lamest Patch item: Taking religious reference out of priest spells...Power Word? ugh.

[Squarebob Spongepants]

I agree. It's not like holy is a synonym for christian.

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[Pietoro]

ANYway, I find the change wierd as well, since games nowadays don't censor things like that, generally. And really, I've never heard of any kind of religious group (Christian or otherwise) ever bring it up as an issue. Its just a game. o_O

[Sadow]

It's likely that it was changed simply for adjustment for the various races. (Read: Troll and Undead priests tend to not be very "holy.") I thought it was rather bizarre that my unholy, undead priest was casting Holy Smite.

[Garibaldi]

Anyone heard what the final talent tree is for the Warlock?

[Pietoro]

It's likely that it was changed simply for adjustment for the various races. (Read: Troll and Undead priests tend to not be very "holy.") I thought it was rather bizarre that my unholy, undead priest was casting Holy Smite.

That's a good point, actually.

[Sadow]

Anyone heard what the final talent tree is for the Warlock?

Following the path of the last recent trees, it is likely it will be Demonology or something of a similar sort. (Probably bonuses to pets or additions to self-buffs.)

I'm glad to hear about Enslave Demon no longer requiring a soul shard. It adds another effective form of crowd control (Albeit, a situational one) and could prove interesting to mess around with. I just wish there wasn't the every five second chance - reminds me too much of the Mentalist in DAoC. (Granted, the Mentalist wasn't a bad class. The increased mana regeneration was excellent.)

[Arioch]

Item Durability / Item Decay was one of my least favorite things about Diablo II... it's just a pain in the butt. I know they're worried about inflation and looking for more and more money sinks... but jeez. Don't punish people for playing a lot.

And professions can't fix lost durability? I can forge a sword from scratch, but I'm too stupid to figure out how to repair it? Give me a friggin' break.

[Sadow]

And professions can't fix lost durability? I can forge a sword from scratch, but I'm too stupid to figure out how to repair it? Give me a friggin' break.

It is, very likely, another form of money sink, and letting players fix it without having to pay a fee would make it pointless. It's likely that the additional things that the tradeskills can do to help will be something like smithing armor that doesn't decay as fast, or making tempers that can be used to decrease the speed that regular armor does decay or something of that sort.

[Squarebob Spongepants]

It's likely that it was changed simply for adjustment for the various races. (Read: Troll and Undead priests tend to not be very "holy.") I thought it was rather bizarre that my unholy, undead priest was casting Holy Smite.
Yeah, that's makes sense. It's more neutral now, or will be as soon as the patch is released.

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[Arioch]

So instead of inventing something interesting for the high-level character to spend his gold on, they simply throw in all kinds of meaningless bills for him to pay? Sounds like a cheap cop-out to me.

[Morphina]

Thats a begining towards an ecconomy....Item durabillity.....(loves it)

[Sadow]

So instead of inventing something interesting for the high-level character to spend his gold on, they simply throw in all kinds of meaningless bills for him to pay? Sounds like a cheap cop-out to me.

It's not so much for the high-level player - it's simply a method to drain more money from the economy gradually. A player of any level will be affected by this.

Even so, there is not much you can force a high-level player to spend their money on. Once you have added enchantments to all of your high-end equipment and gotten an Invincinbility Armor, there is not much left to spend your hard-earned cash on. (Besides an Epic Mount.)

[Arioch]

It's not so much for the high-level player - it's simply a method to drain more money from the economy gradually. A player of any level will be affected by this. Well, since as a lower-level player I never had nearly enough money, and now we have to pay for skills too, I don't know where the hell they think the money for weapon maintenance is going to come from.

Even so, there is not much you can force a high-level player to spend their money on. Once you have added enchantments to all of your high-end equipment and gotten an Invincinbility Armor, there is not much left to spend your hard-earned cash on. (Besides an Epic Mount.) There's that word "force" again. I really don't want to be "forced" to do anything, particularly in what's supposed to be an entertaining game that I'm paying real money for. Seems like Blizzard doesn't really want us to "play" their game, but rather be "forced" through a set of pre-determined avenues that they can strictly control. Change your name! Play on ze server ve tell you to! Eine zwei! Eine zwei!

[oodoov]

Haha, j/k .. this isn't at ALL like diablo2 massively multiplayer O.o

In saying that, money sinks are the way to go. As a low level character you hit for less dmg and so your "ub33r sword of leetness" needs to be repaired less.

when fighting elites your weapons will break faster. As a high level player i'll have the money from killing monsters to repair my weapon and kill more monsters ...

Seriously, if you are complaining that this is going to hurt you as a end game player ... there is obviously something you are doing wrong @ 60 ... and the repair costs for low lvl armor that you will discard ANYWAYS in a few levels won't be that much.

- Peter

[Dalamar The Dark]

It's likely that it was changed simply for adjustment for the various races. (Read: Troll and Undead priests tend to not be very "holy.") I thought it was rather bizarre that my unholy, undead priest was casting Holy Smite.

True, for Undead and Troll, but couldent they give night elves and humans holy attacks couldent they? i dont know, i just like Holy Word more than Power Word.. i think power word sounds a bit lame..

[Sadow]

Well, since as a lower-level player I never had nearly enough money, and now we have to pay for skills too, I don't know where the hell they think the money for weapon maintenance is going to come from.

During my lower levels, I almost always had additional money left over from buying various skills. Again, it is likely that the cost to repair will not be very large, or, at the least, it will not be exceptionally fast.

There's that word "force" again. I really don't want to be "forced" to do anything, particularly in what's supposed to be an entertaining game that I'm paying real money for. Seems like Blizzard doesn't really want us to "play" their game, but rather be "forced" through a set of pre-determined avenues that they can strictly control. Change your name! Play on ze server ve tell you to! Eine zwei! Eine zwei!

No one is forcing you to level up, nor are they forcing you to purchase Invincibility Armor or buy an epic steed. However, if you would like to perform at your very best and be able to access much of the higher level content, it would be advisable to.

There are certain things you MUST do in a game in order for the game to be any sort of fun in the long run. Imagine how much fun Doom 3 would have been if you could have just walked right through all those keycarded doors.

-------

True, for Undead and Troll, but couldent they give night elves and humans holy attacks couldent they? i dont know, i just like Holy Word more than Power Word.. i think power word sounds a bit lame..

They could, but it would likely require all sorts of nasty re-coding for the various sides. It's simpler to just remove all ambiguity. I don't particularily like Power Word, either, but there's not much else I can think up to replace it that would fit in the context.

[Arioch]

Again, it is likely that the cost to repair will not be very large, or, at the least, it will not be exceptionally fast. Probably not, but this is only speculation.

No one is forcing you to level up, nor are they forcing you to purchase Invincibility Armor or buy an epic steed. However, if you would like to perform at your very best and be able to access much of the higher level content, it would be advisable to. Since combat is the core of the gameplay, and since combat wears down your gear, then yes, they are forcing you to pay for gear maintenance. Look, it's by no means the end of the world, but this is a feature that I got a belly full of in Diablo II, and I didn't care for it.

There are certain things you MUST do in a game in order for the game to be any sort of fun in the long run. Imagine how much fun Doom 3 would have been if you could have just walked right through all those keycarded doors. Did you think hunting the keycards was fun? I thought it was lame. Granted that task management is what gaming is all about, but there's a fine line between tasks that are fun (I actually like feeding my pet) and tasks that are not fun and are imposed on you for control purposes. Doom 3 is actually a poor example of what is "necessary" in a game... the hunting of the keycards was really a very weak, uninspired, antiquated substitute for more interesting gameplay. Particularly how they seeded the emails with locker combinations in an attempt to get you to read the lame backstory. I stopped playing D3 shortly after the return from Hell, because it was just more of the same, more of the same, run and gun, find the key, run and gun, get jumped from behind, run and gun...

I'm really hoping for WoW to be more of a "Half-Life" than a "Doom". :D

[Sadow]

Since combat is the core of the gameplay, and since combat wears down your gear, then yes, they are forcing you to pay for gear maintenance. Look, it's by no means the end of the world, but this is a feature that I had a lot of experience with in Diablo II, and I didn't care for it.

Again, there was the same system in DAoC, and it was exceptionally lenient at the worst. Until we get the full details on how quickly items tend to decay, it's pointless to speculate over.

Did you think hunting the keycards was fun? I thought it was lame. Granted that task management is what gaming is all about, but there's a fine line between tasks that are fun (I actually like feeding my pet) and tasks that are not fun and are imposed on you for control purposes.

Tasks such as repairing armor or buying new weapons/armor are imposed in order to substantiate the progressive nature of the game. In order to get the items, you must gain money, which requires you to kill monsters in order to reach the goal. It is all part of the grabbing nature of the game - the proverbial carrot-on-a-stick is omnipresent.

Things like hunting keycards tend to be not fun - however, they are there to stretch out gameplay as long as possible. In a subscription based environment, you want to draw as much money from people as you can - thus come the inevitable roadblocks. If everyone blew through the content, they would get very bored of it. Once the horse has the carrot in his mouth, he is not about to go chasing after another one.

Doom 3 is actually a poor example of what is "necessary" in a game... the hunting of the keycards was really a very weak, uninspired substitute for more interesting gameplay. I stopped playing D3 shortly after the return from Hell, because it was just more of the same, more of the same, run and gun, find the key, run and gun, get jumped from behind, run and gun...

It is not much different than WoW in that instance - the fact that, in reality, all you are doing in World of Warcraft is killing things to get the keycards so you can continue on through the game. Doom 3 is, yes, not the best example, simply because there was no point to stretch it out to that extent, since they are making back the creation costs by the purchase price alone. Call of Duty is probably the best example of this - exceptionally short, but it was good, and that was enough for people to purchase the $60 box.

I'm kind of expecting WoW to be more of a "Half-Life" than a "Doom".

Quite honestly, Half-Life and Doom are not that far apart. You are still running around and getting keycards, but the keycards, in this case, are presented in a more desirable fashion. (I.E: Beating up the gigantic worm monster by hitting various levers so you can continue instead of blowing up a bunch of imps to collect a keycard.)

[MrMetroid]

I wonder what the third line of Warlock talents is, considering they don't have all of their pets yet. :|

[Aldarida]

Is anyone else having problems getting into the new patch? It keeps saying it failed to apply patch and if problem persists to reinstall or contact technical support. Am I trying to get in too soon or is it just me? It stinks because my dad is the administrator of the computer so he'd have to re-install it and he's out of town for the week! :scratch:

Edit: :rant: Why isn't it working? So agitating...

[Arioch]

Things like hunting keycards tend to be not fun - however, they are there to stretch out gameplay as long as possible. In a subscription based environment, you want to draw as much money from people as you can - thus come the inevitable roadblocks. If everyone blew through the content, they would get very bored of it. I fully undestand the reason for it, but what I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to "stretch" your gameplay. If you find yourself inserting keycards and mazes to stretch your content, then this generally means that you don't have enough content.

Quite honestly, Half-Life and Doom are not that far apart. You are still running around and getting keycards, but the keycards, in this case, are presented in a more desirable fashion. (I.E: Beating up the gigantic worm monster by hitting various levers so you can continue instead of blowing up a bunch of imps to collect a keycard.) Yes, exactly. It's the same mechanic, but the difference is that one is artfully done and the other is weak and uninspired... one is fun and the other is not. Which is my point in its entirety.

[SirMoogie]

I find it interesting that they seemed to have gotten rid of Holy. Wonder if christians were complaining... I find that funny

Holy light still remains... but I'm not suprised everyone forgot to mention this, the Paladin is the forgotten class. Doomed until they decide to fix it and add talents.

As for the durability issues, if ALL crafting professions can eventually repair items using regents or they offer a portable repair kit, I don't see it being an annoyance/time sink. However, if they can't I'd be very dissapointed to be a victim of the main tank becoming naked mid-instance because he/she forgot to repair before entering. As if it wasn't hard enough before to find a good group, now I have to inspect the equipment of my allies and turn them back to town for a repair if needed. This should go over well for the casual players, who already have issues getting into and completing instances in their limited time frames.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

For one thing, WoW doesn't have Town Portals, so making a quick trip back to town just to unload loot and repair equipment won't be quite as easy as in the Diablo series, right?

Which is why I see that they will handle this in a way where it's not absolutely annoying (to even warriors and paladins), they'll be shooting more for a way to keep the inflation down through a money sink. I don't think it will be so bad that a character would have to get his equipment repaired after every time he takes off, but - I can see this possibly openning for other useful developments - like certian attacks do more damage to certian types of armors (and vice-versa - certian kinda of armor do more damage to certian kinds of weapons), for instance.

[Sadow]

I fully undestand the reason for it, but what I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to "stretch" your gameplay. If you find yourself inserting keycards and mazes to stretch your content, then this generally means that you don't have enough content.

Note that quality content (I.E: The final Gnomeragon boss, Archaedes, etc.) usually requires a lot more programming than normal, simply because of the abstract nature of it. Having more content is fine, but trying to load up a game, especially a subscription-based one, with enough quality content to keep a player going for months and months on end is an exercise in futility. There has to be the occasional keycard or maze in order to keep the player occupied while more quality content is created. The carrot on a stick is a powerful motivator, indeed.

Yes, exactly. It's the same mechanic, but the difference is that one is artfully done and the other is weak and uninspired... one is fun and the other is not. Which is my point in its entirety.

I find that most of the content in World of Warcraft is well done, from what I have garnered from my own limited experiences and what I have viewed on Thottbot. Most of the quests have some colorful backstory behind them, and usually some kind of twist. (Collecting cactus apples or drinking a magic potion to go and meet the Manifestation of Earth, for instance.)

Unfortunately, content like that is far more difficult to develop than simply adding in "Kill X for Y and come back to get Z." It would be nice if they re-evaluted some of the quests once a few months have passed and try to make them more enjoyable, although this is one roadblock that cannot be avoided entirely.

[BluBoy1982]

*Please don't hurt me if i am repeating anyone lol*

Just had a few words to say on this patch...

I dont think that its going to cause a HUGE group of people to switch to Casters instead of Melee, it will probably sway a few, but the fact of it is it won't just effect the melee. It will have its own effects on casters aswell... they use armor and weapons too don't they? They may not have to repair as fast as the melee, but they will still have to spend money. Also I think this is a good thing, yes it did get anoying in D1 & D2 but in those once the item was to a durability of "0" it broke and wasn't usable, so I think it prolly won't be as big of a deal as that, but it may be a hassle if *sorry for not quoting* as someone said earlyer in this thread... someone's in a Dungeon and all of a sudden their armor dissapears.

I also think this may be another way to extend the game somewhat. *along with the new content and Dungeons to go to*

I did hear some complaining about some of this but hey, they arn't making a game for JUST you, they want everyone to be happy and have fun aswell as make a game that will last more then a couple months. If ya need more gold find ways to get it, sell more stuff, or stop playing *shrugs*.

As for the other stuff, WOO more content and more Skills... RIGHT ON!?!

[Johanass "Johan" Tassen]

Hold on a minute! (And pardon if this has been mentioned, I skimmed more or less.)

Where did it say item durability would go down with use? Stop jumping to conclusions!!!! :lol: Could it not, hypothetically, degrade over play time? Combat time? Trading? Elements? (i.e snow, water, sand) A combination of all that?

I mean, talk about being presumptuous! People instantly assume item durability equals D2. Wait until they actually tell us HOW the system works and not just that it will exist and what they call it!! :uhhuh:

[True Knight]

Holy light still remains... but I'm not suprised everyone forgot to mention this, the Paladin is the forgotten class. Doomed until they decide to fix it and add talents.

Sadly, yes, quite forgotten...

However--I too noticed that paladin skill names weren't changed, which makes me wonder: could this be an intentional restructuring so that the only class with true "Holy" skills are Paladins? If so, maybe this could be part of a class overhaul that would accomplish a few primary things:

1) Give the paladin more variety of skills and fun-factor (i.e. a bunch of new holy-type skills)

2) Help re-balance paladins vs. undead. Perhaps the paladin's anti-undead skills are being tweaked to be mainly sources of holy damage, and undead will receive a weakness to holy attacks as a racial trait. This would allow them to keep the whole idea of Paladins having specific powers against the undead, but perhaps in less over-powering way, and--more importantly--in a way which would enable those skills to still be used against other types of mobs, since they would be holy damage instead of "undead anti-matter", so to speak.

3) Give paladins a clearly-defined class role. I'm not entirely sure how this would work specifically, but if Holy skills had some specific functions that were useful and desirable to groups, and only Paladins had them, then it would help to give paladins a stronger sense of individuality and purpose as a class, instead of just falling into hybrid syndrome with all of its attendant problems.

--Could something like this be on the horizon?

[Shar]

The Druid changes look pretty nice, but no Travel Form indoors makes me sad. It looked like a nice convinience to be able to run around towns at a higher speed, considering that Travel Form is essentially made obsolete by the faster Mounts. The nerf seems kind of unnecessary.

[Scorch_Hellfire]

the only thing i didnt like about this patch was the changing of holy word to power word... while i understand it makes more since with the evil priests, it still sounds kinda stupid :grrr: (it reminds of the power rangers)... also the fact that they seriously nerfed banish by making it only affect demons and elementals... even though it makes since becuz they come from a different plane and i guess banish would send them back, i think it should stay like the original, as in the bloodmage version... oh well...

and also i have a question that has to do with the whole 'holy' thing... they changed holy resistance to arcane resistance right?... so does that mean that "holy" spells and damage are actually doing arcane damage or does that mean that nothing can resist holy stuff?... :scratch:

[Ambient]

http://gallery.image4free.com/albums/userpics/10046/WIN_.JPG

[Cursive]

OMFG! LOL!!! What?

[The Romulans]

lol :P

I am happy with this item durability thing... well, if they do it right, which I suspect they will. I don't see it being annoying, and I don't see myself suddenly becoming naked in the middle of battle - I'm sure there will be a good warning when gear needs to be repaired, and hopefully you'll be able to tell from a glance at your inventory (ie. a shade of yellow when it starts getting close, red when its almost there).

I find it cool that there is another reason to go back to town and do a bit of wandering around the local shops. It makes sense to me to go back and get my stuff repaired after some use. I have faith that "some use" is not going to be a silly amount of use.

That said, I agree that you should be able to repair things if you are in your chosen profession. Maybe you need some materials for the repair and it'd take a little longer and it'd probably be easier just to go down to the shop and get it repaired, who knows. But it should still be able to be done in an "if you can create it, you can repair it" fashion.

[Solaquin]

The name changes seem aimed primarily at having the undead not using "Holy" magic. "Power Word" does sound awfully lame though, I think they can do better than that.

When Durability is mentioned we automatically think of the D2 model because it worked in a logical fashion. You expect your gear to lose durabilty faster if you are taking a beating than if you aren't. There are plenty of ways to balance this without fundamentally changing the model.

1. Have Defensive Stance reduce the rate at which item durability is lost. This will help the tank keep from racking up massive maintennance costs compared to the rest of the group.

2. Have area damage and magic potentially damage equipment the same way physical attacks do. Sure, the mages will still have fewer opportunities to have their gear damaged, but it'll have less durability to begin with, so it'd balance out.

[Hydro]

The durability of items go down RIDICULOUSLY fast, like after a wailing caverns run I need to fix my items. Not cool, good idea, needs to be slowed to 1/10th. This is only after a couple hours play, ill get back with my other thoughts later.

[Sadow]

Here is the final Warlock talent tree, Demonology, as taken from the beta boards. (With it editted for clarity.)

------------

First Tier:

Demonic Embrace (0/5)
Increases total stamina by 3%, but lowers spirit by 1%.

Improved Imp (0/3)
Increases the effects of Firebolt, Fire Shield, and Blood Pact by 10% per level.

Improved Healthstone (0/2)
Increases the amount healed by 10% per level.

Second Tier:

Fel Intellect (0/5)
Increases the total mana of of the imp, voidwalker, succubus, and felhunter by 3% per point.

Improved Voidwalker (0/3)
Increases Voidwalker spell effects (Torment, Consume Shadows, etc.) by 8%.

Improved Health Funnel (0/2)
Improves the health transferred by 10% per point.

Third Tier:

Improved Stamina (0/5):
Increases pet health by 2% per point.

Fel Domination (0/1)
15 minute cooldown
Instacast
Lowers pet summoning time by 5.5 seconds and halves the mana cost.

Improved Succubus (0/3)
The spell effects and duration of the Succubus spells are increased by 8% per point.

Fourth Tier:

Master Conjurer (0/2)
Reduces the summoning cost and time of stones by 20%.

Master Summoner (0/2)
Reduces the cast time on summoning spells by 2 seconds per level.

Fifth Tier:

Enslave Demon (0/5)
Reduces the penalties associated with the spell by 2% per point.

Demonic Sacrifice (0/1)
Sacrifices your current pet to obtain one of the following effects for 30 minutes:

Imp: +15% fire damage
Voidwalker: +15% total health
Succubus: +15% shadow damage
Felhunter: +20% total mana

If a pet is summoned while this is still in effect, this effect is instantly cancelled.

Improved Firestone (0/2)
Increases firestone damage by 15% per point.

Sixth Tier:

Unholy Power (0/5)
Pet melee attacks are increased by 3% per point.

Seventh Tier:

Soul Link (0/1)
Instacast
When used, you split 25% of any incoming damage with your pet. Lasts 30 seconds.

Improved Spellstone (0/2)
15% more magic damage is absorbed per point.

[Ifrit18]

Bah, those are some serious pet buffs.

Kind of a weak tree but certainly PvE bound.

Sacrificing a pet for some tasty self buffs looks pretty nice though.

[Arioch]

The durability of items go down RIDICULOUSLY fast, like after a wailing caverns run I need to fix my items. Not cool, good idea, needs to be slowed to 1/10th. This is only after a couple hours play, ill get back with my other thoughts later. (gnashes teeth maniacally) :rant:

[Sadow]

It's pretty much entirely PVE-based. Pets, as a general rule in any game, tend to only be useful in PVP if they are healing-based pets. (If you ever get a chance, dig up any DAoC PVP movies featuring Sorcerers with that Empyrean healer pet from the Hibernian lands. The Sorcerers can melee the warrior classes to death - it's quite funny.)

[Shar]

I posted these on the Druid board, but here they are in case anybody's interested:

Hibernate (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=7738&p=1#post7824) is a spell that puts beasts and dragonkin asleep. I suppose this is the new crowd control thing that was mentioned in an earlier Blizz post.

Some interesting undocumented Druid changes:

Self-rez is gone (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=7740&p=2). It's been replaced with a talent that gives you 100% mana regeneration while casting for 20 seconds, with a 6 minute cooldown. So basically that 5-second delay in which you don't regen any mana after casting doesn't apply for 20 seconds. To put it politely--eh.

The Feline Swiftness (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=7886) got nerfed alongside Travel Form. The 30% movement speed increase only works outdoors now.

And some other Talent changes (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=7819) and Talent Tree rearrangements.

[Ifrit18]

Holy Tree
---------


Tier 1 ------

Holy Specialization - 5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1% per level.

Improved Holy Smite - 3 points (Changed)
Increases the damage of your Holy Smite ability by 2% per level.


Tier 2 ------

Spiritual Healing - 5 point (No longer requires anything)
Increases your Mana regeneration rate by 50% after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell. Your Mana may regenerate at a 10% per level rate while casting. Lasts 10 seconds.

Inspiration - 5 points
Increases your target's armor value from items by 5% per level for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.


Tier 3 ------

Improved Renew - 5 points
Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 4% per level.

Improved Resurrection - 2 points
Reduces the resurrection sickness penalty of your Resurrection spell by 10/25%.

Subtlety - 5 points (Moved from tier 1)
Reduces the threat generated by your healing spells by 4% per level.

Holy Fire - 1 point (Moved from tier 4, no longer requires anything.)
Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 136 to 173 Fire damage and an additional 36 Fire damage over 8 seconds.


Tier 4 ------

Improved Healing - 5 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by 3% per level.

Improved Flash Heal - 2 points (No longer requires anything.)
Gives you a 35/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Flash Heal.


Tier 5 ------

Improved Prayer of Healing - 2 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing spell by 10/20%.

Combat Resurrection - 1 point
Brings a dead player back to life with 50% of their health and mana. The target does not suffer from resurrection sickness.

Improved Shadow Protection - Removed

Devine Fury(NEW) - 5 points, requires 1 in Holy Fire
Decreases the cast time of Smite by 0.1 seconds per level.


Tier 6 ------

Master Healer - 5 point, requires 5 in Improved Healing
Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 2% per level.


Tier 7 ------

Holy Nova - 1/1 point
Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 84 to 93 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 seconds.

********************************************




Discipline Tree
---------------


Tier 1 ------

Unbreakable Will - 5 points
Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 3% per level.

Silent Resolve - 1/5 point
Reduces the threat generated by your damage spells by 4% per level.


Tier 2 ------

Improved Holy Word: Shield - 3 point
Reduces the duration of your Holy Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 5 seconds per level.

Improved Holy Word: Fortitude - 2 point
Increases the effect of your Holy Word: Fortitude spell by 15% per level.

Wand Specialization - 5 points
Increases your damage with Wands by 5% per level.

Martyrdom - 2 points (Moved from tier 3)
Gives you a 50% per level chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.


Tier 3 ------

Focused Casting - 1 point, requires 2 in Martyrdom (Moved from tier 5)
While active, you no longer lose casting time from taking damage. Lasts 8 seconds.

Mental Agility - 5 points
Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 2% per level.


Tier 4 ------

Improved Shackle Undead - 2 point (Moved from tier 3)
Decreases the chance that your target can resist your Shackle Undead spell by 5% per level.

Improved Inner Fire - 3 points
Increases the effects of your Inner Fire spell by 15% per level.

Mental Strength(NEW) - 5 points
Increases mana pool by 2% per level


Tier 5 ------

Meditation - 5 points (Moved from tier 4, CHANGED)
Allows 2% per level or mana regenration to continue while casting.

Inner Focus - 1 point, requires 5 points in Mental Agility (Moved from tier 4)
When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.

Improved Mana Burn - 2 points (Moved from tier 6)
Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by 0.5 seconds per level.


Tier 6 ------

Force of Will(NEW) - 5 points
Increases the critical strike chance and damage of all offencive spells by 1% per level.

Tier 7 ------

Divine Spirit - 1 point, requires 5 in meditation.
Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 23 for 30 minutes.


***********************************************************




Shadow Tree
-----------


Tier 1 ------

Spirit Tap - 0/5 points
Gives you a 20% per level chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target. For the duration, your Mana may regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 seconds.

Blackout - 0/5
Gives your Shadow damage spells a 2% per level chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.


Tier 2 ------

Improved Shadow Word: Pain - 2 point
Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 3 seconds per level.

Shadow Affinity - 5 points
Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 5% per level.

Shadow Focus - 5 points
Reduces your target's chance to resist your Shadow spells by 2% per level.


Tier 3 ------

Improved Mind Blast - 5 point
Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 0.5 seconds per level.

Mind Flay - 1 point (Moved from tier 4, no longer requires anything, NERFED HARECORE)
Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 126 damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.

Improved Psychic Scream - 2 points (Moved from tier 4)
Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by 2 seconds per level.


Tier 4 ------

Shadow Reach - 3 point
Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 6/13/20%.

Improved Fade - 2 points (Moved from tier 3, no longer requires anything.)
Increases the duration of your Fade ability by 5 seconds per level.


Tier 5 ------

Vampiric Embrace - 1 point
Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 1 minute.

Shadow Weaving - 5 points (Moved from tier 4)
Your Shadow damage spells have a 20% chance per level to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 4% and lasts 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

Silence - 1 point (Moved from tier 6) requires 2 points in Improved Psychic Scream
Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 seconds.


Tier 6 ------

Darkness - 5 point, requires 5 in Shadow Weaving
Increases your Shadow spell damage by 2% per level.


Tier 7 ------

Shadowform - 1/1 point
Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 20% and reducing Physical damage done to you by 20%. However, you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells while in this form.

A few tweaks here and there. Mind flay is a bit weaker but still useful.

[Wormwart]

Durability sounds pretty neat, I think. The thing is... Warriors were already dependant enough on money, now they'll be even lower on cash. I'm thinking Mage will be the way to go concerning gaining money.

Also what I don't like: Defense Warriors kinda get screwed. =/ Defense Warriors are going to be taking all the hits, thus, they're taking the 'cost' of the battle. As if Warriors needed more incentive to go Combat Stance. :(

Sounds to me, Warlock will be the most effective (take the hits with his Void Walker).

I don't see it working very well, unless they base the loss of item durability on the length of time in combat, which all party members share equally.

Another way to drain money would be to have a tax on the gold holdings of each player. Make it a progressive tax if you want to reduce disparity of wealth.

[Pai Mai]

Well.... not at all unexpected. And item durability is just another way for Blizzard to help keep the insane over-inflation of the online community a bit more manageable. Excellent moneysink, I say.

Next patch will have the Hunters and Paladins with their Talents then, I say.
Except that for people who are not yet 60 and have a hard enough time getting money as it is, this is NOT helpful in the least. Can't wait to get that mount at level 40? Too bad, because you are waiting until after you are 60 now. Do you know how much items decay now? You cannot play for more than 2.5 hours as a warrior and not have to end up completely repairing your gear. You can't even finish an instance as a warrior without having an extra set of gear now. Do you think that it's "fair" that a warrior, rogue or paladin now has to spend 75% of their total income just to have functioning gear?

NO ONE who is playing likes this change at all, inflation or not. There are MANY better ways to implement money sinks than this. More and more each patch they are showing how they have ZERO innovation skills and how everything past the "polished" level 40 game is a complete rip off of already existing games, namely SOE games. Each patch releases sweeping gameplay changes or implements a new "feature" that the majority of the players do not like at all. And the "it's still BETA" excuse was no longer valid after about a month ago.

[The Romulans]

Sounds like I had too much faith... :\

[Arioch]

You can't even finish an instance as a warrior without having an extra set of gear now. Pardon my French, but that's ****ed up.

[Shar]

The durability system is going to have some tweaks soon, I would imagine. Some quotes from Enoyls (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=412487&P=2):


a) we do already charge more money for blue and purple items since these are the players that tend to be richer than others
b) it is our intention to find an acceptable amount of repair time so as to NOT cause you to have to go back to town in the middle of dungeon adventures. Ideally, you will only need to repair once every 1-2 daysSo I wouldn't be too worried. There's a lot more comments from him in that thread. It's an interesting read.

Stuff like item repair kits (http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=413443&p=1) are likely going to be implemented too.

[Scytale]

durability is good i mean duran durans new album isnt that great

[Dalamar The Dark]

Arrh Shar you just had to say it on last page didnt you.. just when i was about to :(

[aartamen]

Pai Mai is just negative.

[Pub-O]

Like eno said, they have taken it into consideration that caster classes will also need to repair much.


Remember that this is not just a money sink... Why on earth do you think that you need to go to town to repair?

Thats right... besides Inns and trainers, there are not much to do currently in towns, and this is a great way to get people back to town regular.

Eno said that there where suposed to go 1-2 days before needing to repair.. if this means 24-48 hours of gameplay, then thats fine with me!

Im 100% sure that fee and decay time will change based on player feedback.

This will make this game harder, and that is only good IMO! We must not forget that this kind of complexity will help the game!

Hopefully it will also create a chance for players to be more "sticked-together"

I can already imagine the little gnome and the dwarf talking about the nasty horde while repairing their steel weaponry, and making groups and stuff.

I can see the point in this, and just like rest, I think people will eventually accept it.

Mounts, and uber armor should not be easy to require! This is end game... gold should mean something.

In SWG people just suddenly had freakin 20 million credits... that goes probably for what the emperor had in the movies:P

and people where just handing out 500k credits out to all noobs like it was candy...

that was not balanced, realistic or a fun economy giving that credits was allot of the reward for doing quests around the galaxy.

I think there will be more money sinks in the future..

I heard rumors about large sums of gold needed for making a guild in retail and even more for a tabbard.. ohh well... at least it will forge a group of people together for a long term goal!

I dont think that a player should do this all the time...

Just as an example, lets just take lord of the rings..:P quite a few times you see aragon sleeving his sword with a rock or something(on the way to rivendal in FOTR and the night before going to rohan in TTT).... It should be done allot but not constantly. I would prefere a higher fee over doing it constantly.

It should be like... "well i really wanna go on the raid with you guys, but i just have to go to town and get some beer and fix my steel! will be back in 3 minutes..."!

Eno has confirmed that this is not suposed to be a time sink which is fortunate, for casual gamers and just regular players alike!

what is even more important that items do not break forever when they reach all their duarabillity like in many other MMOs:)

[AgeOfAbnegation]

Pai Mai is just negative.

No, he's being honest. Durability SUCKS. Just one more thing to worry about. Takes the joy out of finding that new dagger or whatever. Try hitting one of those big instances, and cutting through legions of elites. After a greulling 4 hours of play, you reach boss bada$$ with bare fists. Its frikin rediculous, and should be banned. Furthermore, smart capitalists should be rewarded for their business savvy. If people don't know how to make money in the game, it's their own damn fault. I for one am upset by this new game mechanic.

[Sadow]

I for one am upset by this new game mechanic.

By the amount of screaming currently emenating from the beta boards, I would be knocked out of my seat if they left durability in as it currently is by retail.

We really should learn more lessons from DAoC. Whatever anyone says about it, it was still a good game, and had a lot of excellent ideas about the whole MMORPG genre that were put forth.

[Solaquin]

The durability of items go down RIDICULOUSLY fast, like after a wailing caverns run I need to fix my items. Not cool, good idea, needs to be slowed to 1/10th. This is only after a couple hours play, ill get back with my other thoughts later.

Ow. Ideally if all your stuff is freshly repaired you should be able to tackle the longest instances without anything breaking, with a bit of durability to spare. Well I'm sure it will be tweaked.

[Dalamar The Dark]

No, he's being honest. Durability SUCKS. Just one more thing to worry about. Takes the joy out of finding that new dagger or whatever. Try hitting one of those big instances, and cutting through legions of elites. After a greulling 4 hours of play, you reach boss bada$$ with bare fists. Its frikin rediculous, and should be banned. Furthermore, smart capitalists should be rewarded for their business savvy. If people don't know how to make money in the game, it's their own damn fault. I for one am upset by this new game mechanic.

If you look a little above on this page, find Shars post and use the link to the world of warcraft forums, you'd see they're trying to make it so repairs will be only 1-2 a day.. you can allways just repair before the instance and then it wont break inside it. simple logic.

[Squarebob Spongepants]

If you look a little above on this page, find Shars post and use the link to the world of warcraft forums, you'd see they're trying to make it so repairs will be only 1-2 a day.. you can allways just repair before the instance and then it wont break inside it. simple logic.
Here's the link again, for those of you who are too lazy to scroll back up to find it :p

EnoYls on Item Durability. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=412487&s=blizzard#blizzard)

He made a few more posts further down in that thread.

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[Solaquin]

The argument that this is still a beta is perfectly valid, as it is still a beta. The whole point is to tweak and alter the feature set in ways you wouldn't once you have paying customers playing the game. Durability is definitely a pre-release sort of feature; you don't add a money-sink without new benefits post-release. The Durability code is also plainly in a beta state. Remember when Rest States were introduced? The boards were on fire over that; blizzard listened, took the nerf bat to the penalty, and tweaked the code so that it's no longer a big deal. Obviously the same will happen with Durability.

People who are good at making money will still make a heap of money once Durability is tweaked. Bliz will want to adjust the overall costs so that the average player isn't completely broken by it. So anyone who is better than average at making money will still wind up with money lying around. I suppose that could be taken as an argument against Durability, as it won't stop people from making money. It will slow the money-making down though, which will serve as a control over inflation. You'll still wind up with a fat stack of gold, but it'll take you longer to get it. It buys Blizzard time to come up with and code more creative and interesting things for us to spend our gold on.

From the thread linked in the post above:

This happens because of the "mode" the team is in. We are still adding many new features while also fixing bugs and trying to get patches to the servers. I do apologize for how unstable new patches tend to be, and once we do go retail we will be testing patches in our QA department longer and have a test server to furthur test patches, but it is simply more time efficient to use the beta server as our "test" server until release. It has nothing to do with rushing towards a release, all our betas have had this :)

[MercenaryEDK]

ageofabnegation or whatever it is is just one of those people that take somethings too seriously, duribility is a good idea because it would happen in real life but maybe they should just slow it down some, if you beat the crap out of a whole crap load of monsters or huminoids with armor or think skin or even flesh that blades gonna be dented and jacked up just because ur a lazy bastard and dont feel like spending money to repair a weapon.....deal with it new ideas are tested then worked out but if they felt the need to add it then they think its a good idea so its gonna stay, might change a little but it will stay

[Xinhuan]

Perhaps weapons and armor can have have a "dented" or "stained" look as its durability goes down. Some of this can be done by applying different textures.

[AgeOfAbnegation]

ageofabnegation or whatever it is is just one of those people that take somethings too seriously, duribility is a good idea because it would happen in real life but maybe they should just slow it down some, if you beat the crap out of a whole crap load of monsters or huminoids with armor or think skin or even flesh that blades gonna be dented and jacked up just because ur a lazy bastard and dont feel like spending money to repair a weapon.....deal with it new ideas are tested then worked out but if they felt the need to add it then they think its a good idea so its gonna stay, might change a little but it will stay

The idea should, and will be worked on, but I'm generally not inclined to the idea, and that's my opinion. Other than that, don't troll someone for having a different opinion thx.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Having your own opinion is fine. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's about time it was put into the game. If done right, it will help regulate the economy a bit more.

[RavenFirecaster]

Having your own opinion is fine. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's about time it was put into the game. If done right, it will help regulate the economy a bit more.
Agreed, fully and whole-heartedly. While beta testers have the right to voice their opinions, they have no right to whine and prattle about how this change affected a few hours of their playing time when the masses of us can't even play!

It's a beta test, the dev's are aware of the issues and have already posted that they're working on it. Comment on and critique the changes intelligently (some of you have within this thread), but please don't throw childish tantrums about the changes, especially in this forum where (as far as I can assume) no Blizzard employee is registered or able to see the feedback!

[Drakeon]

As soon as durability is fixed and made how Eno said its supposed to be (repair every 1-2 days, not every 2-3 hours) then I might be willing to accept it.

As of now, I just put all my talents into elemental (I'm a shaman) until they fix durability, as I don't want to deal with repairing my stuff every few hours.

[Arioch]

All these elaborate money sinks will do is to impoverish the normal player. The power-farmers will still be rolling in cash... they will optimize their activities to minimize the cost... but those of us who just want to quest and play will be flat broke. And it won't fix inflation... as I seem to recall, Diablo II had almost exactly the same durability system, and I don't recall it fixing inflation.

This is exactly like the original version of the Rest system that imposed an experience penalty for tired characters... it punishes you for playing the game. When you're expecting people to continue to pay a monthly fee for playing... it's not such a good idea to punish them for playing.

[AgeOfAbnegation]

Agreed, fully and whole-heartedly. While beta testers have the right to voice their opinions, they have no right to whine and prattle about how this change affected a few hours of their playing time when the masses of us can't even play!


I'm not sure this was directed at me or not, but I'll point out a few things regardless. I'd say if anything is a whine, it's that last statement of yours, in regards to feeling slighted at not being able to play. What do non-testers have to do with testers offering feedback? Blizzard set up the /bug feature, as well as a means to discuss things with GM's in game. I'd offer that a tester's job is not simply to "play the game for free", but to test the game and critique it. Blizzard demands perfection, and this only comes through a very pointed critique. This does not detract from the joy testers have in game - its a wonderful game. Yet, there is always room for improvement, and testers are sanctioned by Blizzard to offer this feedback. In alot of cases, the more whining, the more attention Blizz gives to that particular instance. If you don't like to hear about people's critiques, simply because it hurts your eyes to see some people playing the game, while you're on the backburner, then don't bother reading the forums.


no Blizzard employee is registered or able to see the feedback!

That demonstrates sheer naievete on your part. You don't think Blizz employees read these forums? THink again! Blizz has helped out this site in a variety of ways that needs no explanation. Furthermore, it only makes sense that developers would seek out information hubs in order to deliberate on changes. So if anything, plz stop your whining. :uhhuh:

[Ifrit18]

Durability on armor/weapons breaks way too fast. The rate it breaks down needs to be not as fast, at least 60% slower.

Its very hard to do a long instance (Schoolmance, Stratholme) without busting weapons.

Its mainly fast weapons such as daggers that are affected by this.

[xXxDraGoNxXx1123]

That demonstrates sheer naievete on your part. You don't think Blizz employees read these forums? THink again! Blizz has helped out this site in a variety of ways that needs no explanation. Furthermore, it only makes sense that developers would seek out information hubs in order to deliberate on changes. So if anything, plz stop your whining. :uhhuh:

To add to that last point, at one point a Blizzard employee "borrowed" Maullus' avatar for about a month. Blizzard does indeed read these forums.

[Squarebob Spongepants]

Yeah. OMO himself said not long ago that they get several hits each day from Blizzard IPs. He did not say if any Blizzard employees are actually registered here and post on these forums but I can understand why he wouldn't tell us. Imagine what would happen if people all of a sudden thought that there were Blizzard folk posting among us mortals. For one thing, many would be bombarding OMO and the other mods with questions such as "Who are the devs? What're their forum names?".

_______________________________

The game is ready for lunch.

[AgeOfAbnegation]

Durability on armor/weapons breaks way too fast. The rate it breaks down needs to be not as fast, at least 60% slower.

Its very hard to do a long instance (Schoolmance, Stratholme) without busting weapons.

Its mainly fast weapons such as daggers that are affected by this.

Good point Ifrit - as a dual dagger wielding rogue, I have to worry about this especially. I've no doubt that Blizz WILL tweak the system after a bit of testing, but if and when I get to the bottom of the sunken temple for instance with my blades worn down to the sharpness of a tablespoon, I'll be raising hell with a GM. THat's how it should be. The goal is to have fun. Our bellyaching over problematics means your gaming enjoyment later. Think about it.

[OneMadOgre]

I 'd be happy to tell you what IPs and forum names they are registered under.... hey what's that noise at my door? *Whoomph* Ouch. Hey stop that.... No, no, no. No Gnomes! Argh.... help..........

[Tevush Kasht]

If durability is balanced to require repairs every, say, 12 hours killing things (which is 1-2 days on average), then I'm all for it. It doesn't sound unreasonable, but it shouldn't interfere with gameplay too much. This sounds like a minor thing once it's properly implemented. I think people are just a little bit on edge (on both sides) because we're closing in on the release date.

[RavenFirecaster]

I 'd be happy to tell you what IPs and forum names they are registered under.... hey what's that noise at my door? *Whoomph* Ouch. Hey stop that.... No, no, no. No Gnomes! Argh.... help..........
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Ahhh, I see the Gnomes found the server room, too... *chuckle*

[Dalamar The Dark]

I 'd be happy to tell you what IPs and forum names they are registered under.... hey what's that noise at my door? *Whoomph* Ouch. Hey stop that.... No, no, no. No Gnomes! Argh.... help..........

"They are the gnomes, resistance is futile"

Please note i said They not We because i most certainly wont be playing a little midget :lol:

[Scorch_Hellfire]

will no one answer my question?... :(

[Dalamar The Dark]

will no one answer my question?... :(

heh, sorry dont know the answer :(

[Shar]

Check out the Priest board on the official site, Scorch_Hellfire. You'll likely learn more about the Priest there.

As for durability, it sounds like kind of a pain, but not enough to be a major inconvenience. Once it's tweaked to 1-2 days, it won't be an issue really. The cities in the Stress Test were almost entirely deserted, and that was with level 15-30 lowbies in the game only. I wouldn't mind seeing people a bit more often.

[The Romulans]

One item in that WoW.com thread I thought sounded cool - using this new durability mechanic as part of a weapon's special abilities. Some sort of huge maul for example, having a chance to cause 0 durability on armour for example. Cool :)

[xXxDraGoNxXx1123]

I 'd be happy to tell you what IPs and forum names they are registered under.... hey what's that noise at my door? *Whoomph* Ouch. Hey stop that.... No, no, no. No Gnomes! Argh.... help..........

After having a short(pun intended) "talk" with OMO, he regrets to inform you that there are no Blizzard employees on this board. In fact, there are none on the official forums either, it is a clever ruse perpetrated by horde villains. You may go back to your lives now, there are no Blizzard employees here, yes... listen... obey.

[Scorch_Hellfire]

Check out the Priest board on the official site, Scorch_Hellfire. You'll likely learn more about the Priest there.

As for durability, it sounds like kind of a pain, but not enough to be a major inconvenience. Once it's tweaked to 1-2 days, it won't be an issue really. The cities in the Stress Test were almost entirely deserted, and that was with level 15-30 lowbies in the game only. I wouldn't mind seeing people a bit more often.

its not just the priest.... its anything with holy spells... i just want to know what the whole deal with that is....