Awesomelaser

Yo have to admit- its a good trick to get the devs believing it. . .

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean the logs are personal only, though if they were I'd be fine with it. It means less tools for pugs to be successfult, but on content where dps matters, I've always been a fan of guild runs anyway. And guilds doing content where dps matters will make you submit your personal logs, so it wouldn't make much of a difference there.

Yes, and the easy availability of such gear isn't a good thing, IMO. Everyone wants the shiny, so BW makes it available too easy, and raid progression becomes too easy. I do not want to hit 50 and be decked out in a full set of awesome gear within a couple of weeks. I'd rather work for it and have it mean something. And if I move forward to the next raid, I want it to be because my team has progressed and earned the right to be there.

I haven't raided in is game yet, no. But I assume you get commendations as drops from bosses in the raids? I raided for about a year a couple of years back- never with pugs, but certainly not hard core. I respect the hard core raiders, though. My thought was not to increase the work at all for raiders, but to address the problem (as I see it) that getting raid ready gear from non raid sources causes.

Yes, which is why it is better if there is only one path for stat upgrades for beating raids- with multiple ways to earn the same gear, people get the gear faster and the content is beaten faster. My proposal is to make raiding a pure stat grind while allowing everyone to take part in wearing cool looking gear by allowing multiple paths to the cool looking gear. If it was craft able, as has been suggested, then it's all about earning credits and trading for the best looking gear. But that aspect of the game can be totally separated from the stat grind that keeps the raids going.

I dunno- I think of gear as simething you wear that people can see. Probably an incorrect definition- I was up too late when I wrote this, tbh.

Seems to be pretty positive feedback for this- I hadn't thought of how this in terms of craftable oranges, but I see how it would be a nice intersection between sandbox and theme park play. I think the mod system is really cool, I just would like to see it taken advantage of.

I think the general complaint is that raiding is only one way to earn rewards. Stat upgrades are essential to raid progression, and my belief is that allowing these stats to be earned outside of raids hurts the raid progression cycle because then the gear gets acquired too fast, or people star skipping ahead- all which makes the content get burned through quickly. And really, the stats aren't needed for other end game endeavors. The same goes with PvP stats, which are tweaked differently. That being said, there are lots of ways people play the game and are successful who will visually want to show off their success- to me raiding is really the only thing that I care enough to work at, but I know PvP, leveling alts (measured through legacy xp), and crafting are other things people spend time on once they hit the max level. If people are going to work through the game in a non-raiding way, they'll want to get rewarded too, and who's to say which is a better way to play the game more worthy of a reward? Really, we ought not to hold our own way of playing above others- and when someone sees the vid of the BA gunslinger space cowboy, they are going to want to be able to have a fun path through the game that will lead to that cool look.

Well, that's what I was trying to address. I guess, though, it depends on what you think of as a reward. To me stats are just tools used to do more hard hitting content, where a new "look" is the reward. In a well balanced MMO, I would expect not to get through all the nightmare ops, but at least be able to clear the normal ops and work on hard modes- this should keep me busy while devs work on new content. It would not bother me in the slightest that more hard core folks had better stats than me, but I'd love the chance at some great looking gear- the same chance that a guy who never steps in a op would have.

That's sad, because I really enjoy raiding, even if I don't get to do it as much as I'd like.

Well that's not what I was going for- obviously there has to be some reward to keep people going. That's true of any part of this- if there's no reward for maxing crafting, people won't- if there's nothing to gain from questing, people won't. What if there were no levels and the whole game was just a bunch of quests with no rewards? People wouldn't do them. But my point is that the mod system could allow BW to keep the stat carrot around (that is really only useful for raiders trying to unlock more hard hitting PvE content) while still letting everyone have access to the best looking gear and earn it in a variety of different ways (and it would still take effort, because the best looking gear could require a metric ton of commendations).

What if only mods were dropped in raids (and only the best PvE mods) to enable raid progression? The same could be done with PvP mods for PvP effort, and the best looking orange gear could be purchased with commendations (no mods). Through this system, those that want to grind end game stats (raid or PvP) could, while those who don't want to can still earn the best looking gear in the game. Seems to me that would allow people to play as casually or hard core as they want, or somewhere in the middle.

So what is the alternative to a gear grind? How else are they going to motivate players to keep playing the same content for 6 months while they create new content? What form of "progression" are you thinking of that will enable developers to create content that will keep people busy while they work on the next content patch? FWIW, I stopped playing WoW altogether when my wife got pregnant (I was running a casual raiding guild), so I understand where you're coming from- but now I have more free time to play so I want something to do with my game time. I don't plan on sleeping 3 hours so I can chew through content, but if you can get everyone geared through a handful of runs through a raid, even for someone like me I'm going to get bored very quickly when I finally get to 50.

The obvious solution here is to have people be able to earn cool looking oranges through whatever means they like- pvp/crafting/grinding dailies/raiding. Have them be purchasable through commendations. Then make the best pve mods drop from bosses and pvp mods earned through pvp. If raids ONLY dropped mods that kept the raid grind going, would that keep everyone happy, or would raiders QQ about sharing their look and non-raiders QQ that they can't have the best stats? Probably they would, but it still seems like a good solution to me. I will say, of all the doomsday stuff I've read on this forum, OP is the first that has given me pause. I am only level 34, but I plan to raid at 50 and I don't really want to level more toons. If I get all the available gear in a few weeks of hitting 50, I will get board really fast.

Apparently using them allows you to more easily compare mods- I have not tried this yet.

This is really good info. Thanks for sharing- it will hell me a great deal in the future.

The great benefit of add ons is that they allow for a simple, developer create interface that can be used by the masses without getting confused by all of the options available, while the more intense raiders and pvpers can get something that suits their needs a lot better than a UI designed for leveling. If WoW had shipped with the interface I used for raiding, or even had the mountain of options availabke to make it look that way, I'd have probably quit the game in the first 10 levels- but once I knew what I wanted to push the game to the max, add ons made it so much more enjoyable.

Well you're wrong unless you have only one developer. You have to balance priorities with how hard something is to fix and the resources available. It is a lot better to have some people focused on game breaking issues and others fixing the 'fluff'- a lot of times the fluff will be easier to fix and deploy first, but it doesn't meant that you aren't putting as much effort as possible into fixing the big issues.

For most software developers I know, you are wrong. Putting pressure doesn't make them work harder or better. In fact, it tends to degrade their performance with low morale. Conversely, software developers tend to be very self motivating and work hard toward making a product great, especially if they feel like the work they are doing is appreciated. If every improvement made results in consistent beratement and complaining, it's that much harder to stay motivated to work the extra hours on into the night. I know personally the best part of being a developer is seeing people enjoy my work and hearing that it has improved their lives somehow. Take that away, and honestly I just start showing up to get a paycheck. I produce fine, but not nearly to the level I do when I feel appreciated for my hard work. Perhaps you work better when people are complaining to you, but for the typical software developer mindset (and I assume it's as true for game developers as it is the developers I usually interact with, you catch way more flies with honey.

Ok- so last time I was in I was in a group looking for a healer for a heroic- had two dps and a tank. Spent an hour in the group while the person who formed the group kept asking in general chat "anyone want to heal for xyz heroic- just need a healer and then gtg." After a while of this frustrating (for us) repetition, someone in general chat got frustrated and started giving the guy a hard time. Told him to shut up, ect. They got into a fight of words, and the other people joined in to defend or attack, calling each other names, etc. I ended up logging off without doing the heroic and a head full of negative conversation and name calling. That is not community building- it is community destroying (and actually, I understand why both sides were frustrated). I haven't played WoW in over two years and I don't know how thee cross sever stuff works. Back when I was playing the LFG tool works great and there was tons of positive interaction in all the groups I was in. And it helped me meet new people.

I think this question was a good way to assess the quality of the raid leader and probably saved you from a horrible raid. I don't think you need to worry about this particular metric in the future.

If you've never run groups with master looter, you won't understand why /roll is so important. Can you just accept that some people play the game differently than you, that for some groups master looter plus /roll is preferable, and that it's a well established way of running raids (we aren't just talking about a few people with fringe raiding practices)? @OP- most of these changes do not need to be in this month, nor should you expect them. I agree with many of them and believe they are important, but I am OK to wait, as I am having fun playing the game in its current state. I will have more fun once a lot of these features are implemented, though (and I expect they will be).

This is a horrible thing to say.

So far, the best for me was when she asked for a statue of her if she died. That was in the hammer station dialog I think? I tried to find the exact text, but google failed me. I only regret I wasn't in a group.