Another Blizzard dev chat on Twitter today – here are the druid-related questions and answers. Full questions are here.



Q. Will druids finally get shapeshifting on a separate global cooldown like hunter aspects & warrior stances?
A. We have no plans to remove shapeshifting from the global cooldown. Shapeshifting can be used to escape Root and Polymorph mechanics, and so cannot have no global cooldown.

Q: Any plan to make “Crit Immunity” passive from choosing a tank tree instead of spending talents on it?
A. No, and you can blame the druids. We want a tanking specialization in Bear Form to feel different from a DPS specialization in Cat Form, otherwise it doesn’t feel fair to other classes when the Feral druid can do everything with the same talent specialization. We try to put crit immunity in talents you would normally take.

Q. Is Moonfire designed to be a damage-over-time spell with an instant cast nuke, or the other way around?
A. Both. We want the instant nuke to be more meaningful in Cataclysm, especially on the move.

Q. Can we expect more fun talents and maybe even shiny new abilities in further iterations of the new talent trees?
A. Yes, the current beta trees are still very much works in progress. As paladins in particular will see shortly, that ongoing work certainly can include fun talents and shiny new abilities.
Note: I put this in because I’m fairly certain it applies to us as well. Hopefully we’ll get shinies.

Q: What is the conversion rate for intellect to spell power for Cataclysm? Will it differ with each class?
A. Each point of intellect grants one point of spell power, excepting the first 10 points. This is vaguely similar to attack power, where each point of strength or agility gives two attack power, excepting the first 10 points. We realize this slightly reduces the spell power per budget on items, so we also increased the amount of spell power granted by caster weapons, and that increase entirely makes up for the deficit. Those weapons will continue to have spell power as well as intellect, and the amount of spell power will be significantly larger than in 3.3.5.

Q. Last time I checked the Feral druid tree, there were only 5 points in the first tier which means NO choices. Is that getting fixed?
A. Still working on early Feral.

Q: Cat and Bear builds are only off by about 3 talent points. Why not just consolidate fully at that point?
A. This is definitely one of our concerns. We don’t want a player to be able to have an optimal DPS specialization in Cat Form and be able to tank. We will definitely engineer the Feral tree such that being a viable tank, or even off-tank, will have some cost in terms of lost DPS while in Cat Form. The druid talent trees currently in beta are very rough and need more polish.

Q. What’s the deal with Typhoon? Is it going back into talents or will it be a standard druid spell?
A. Typhoon is now back in the tree. Sorry about that. : )

Q: Any word on that cosmetic Tree of Life Form glyph? Some players are sad to lose Tree of Life Form completely.
A. The only new glyph we are ready to announce right now is the Glyph of Divine Shield, which reduces the cast time of your Hearthstone whenever Divine Shield is active. ; )
Sigh, making light of something that concerns a lot of people, and that we’ve waited months to hear news about… poor form. Why not just say “not at this time”?

Q: Moonkin: What are your plans for Eclipse, and why does it infect so many of our talents? What are your plans to make Moonkin fun?
A. The model we are trying now lets Solar and Lunar Eclipse procs last for about 45 seconds, and each spell of the appropriate type that you cast moves the bar back closer to the middle again. The buff is canceled by reaching the middle. This should let Moonkin “hold” the buff for short periods of time when they need to move or get out of the fire.

Q. Why was the Feral druid’s mana reduction cost removed from King of the Jungle? And what happened to two combo points on critical strikes?
A. These are data errors that will be corrected. Neither is intended to be cut.

Q. Skull Bash has a 1-minute cooldown. Is it supposed to be that way, or can we expect it to be lowered to the likes of Shield Bash?
A. The base cooldown is 60 seconds to keep the ability from being used by Balance and Restoration druids to layer too much crowd control. A Feral tree talent reduces the cooldown to 10 seconds, putting it in line with Kick and other similar interrupt abilities.

Q. Druids were always a “jack of all trades, but master of none” and usually mocked when specializing. Will new talents change this?
A. In my own raids, I find druids of all 3 specializations that excel at their chosen specialization. So, I don’t understand your question.

Q. Druids now get Swiftmend at level 10 for being Restoration, but it is a talent in the tree. What is the plan there?
A. This was a data error and has been corrected.



These are just for fun.

Q: Are there any plans to add Ghostcrawler in-game as a critter or elite crab?
A. Ghostcrawler would be very emo were he to gaze down from his Throne of Lies and behold the mass crustacean slaughter that would result in having more manifestations of his persona in the game.

Q: What size shoes does Ghostcrawler wear?
A. I generally go barefoot on the yacht. Around on the office, I am often carried on gnome palanquin, so shoes are not required.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

Just a quickie guys – I am updating my blogroll (down on the right sidebar, there).

Have I missed you? Please let me know.

It’s highly likely I subscribe to you, but I need to manually add you to that sidebar list, and I’m very forgetful. I found a few long-standing blogs that weren’t on that list, despite the fact that I’ve subscribed for ages. *hangs head*

Please leave a comment, or send me a quick note, and I’ll add you to the list. The more resto druid blogs, the merrier!

Thanks!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Short break
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• BRK druid shirts – one week only

Public service announcement: BRK is selling druid shirts for one week only.

We will be taking orders for seven days, ending next Monday night. We will collect all the orders, send them to the BRK Tshirt Manufacturer, receive the order, then mail the shirts to you lucky b@stards.

Shipping is by Priority Mail via the USPS, international orders are accepted too. We are using USPS’s pricing structure exclusively for shipping and not tacking on our own “shipping fee”, okie-day?

Tell your druid friends what’s going on here! If we get a good order, we might do other class-shirts as well. Gotta keep our BRK EA employed, don’t we?



For sizes & prices, visit bigredkitty.net.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• Slayer of Dragons

*giggle*

Internet Dragons!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

We won; no real names on the forums.

It’s a hollow victory though – because (like many others) I feel that something has changed, now. They hid the knowledge of the Real ID plan from us. When they introduced it in-game, I thought it was a nifty thing. I’d missed my cross-server buddies. I liked using it. But, shortly after that, they announced the forums plan – which, obviously, had been in planning for a long time – so why did they pretend that Real ID in your friends list was the full extent of the plan for now?

I feel deceived.

And because I feel deceived, I’m not sure I can ever really believe them again, nor stop worrying about when the next big announcement will be, and at what cost.

I want to leave this game when either A) real life drags me away (kicking and screaming), OR B) the game actually ends. But for the first time, I saw myself quitting. Real ID on your friends list, and even on the forums – I can handle that. But the question was – where next? In the armory? In trade chat? In mouseover tooltips?

I don’t subscribe to most of the arms-flailing, slippery slope cries – but after this, it’s hard to ignore that we could be heading towards a transformation, chipping away at our privacy (and immersion) bit by bit, until we’re all playing World of FacebookCraft.

And the sad, sad realisation for me was that if they did that, I simply couldn’t continue to support them. I can’t support a company that thinks it is ok to share everyone’s personal information. None of us signed up for that.

RealID can be a COOL feature, a feature that people will LOVE and embrace – but ONLY if you listen to us when we tell you the features that we need included – like the ability to hide from friends-of-friends, to use aliases if we want (after all, once we’ve found our RL buddies, they can add a note to say “this is Keeva”), and ways to appear offline. And NEVER force it on us, or make it opt-out only.

Treat us like you value us. Give us the features we need, and make it opt-IN.

I would hate to leave – I love the game, and I love this blog especially, and I’m not ready to give it up. But yesterday, I was genuinely concerned that the time to quit was somewhere around the corner. Blizzard’s statements don’t do anything to ease my concerns:

Q: Is there a possibility that a future game will require a person to use their real identity?

A: We haven’t announced any plans along these lines.

Sidestepping makes me a little nervous (not that ANY of us are surprised that it’s a “not at this time” response). I don’t think this is over.

I am not normally a cynical person – and excuse the melodrama – but this hit me pretty hard, and I felt pretty depressed over it. I saw my beloved game going downhill, and fast, because the bosses at Activision Blizzard don’t seem to be in touch with their customers. It seems that this time, 50,000+ voices made a difference, and they listened. But that doesn’t for one second convince me that they are actually in touch with us after all.

For now, I’ll keep playing, keep enjoying, keep looking forward to Cataclysm.

But I’m afraid I see this as a stay of execution, not a pardon.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

Make me a moderator. No, really. I mean it.


We don’t need real names to weed out the trolls. We all know that isn’t going to work. Look:

• Trolls still be trollin’.
• This will force valued posters away, which is a sad loss for the community.
• Some have already quit, and that makes me sad.
• If the bosses can’t see the potential for bad stuff happening, they’re idiots.
• We play this game for INTERNET DRAGONS, not to be Bob Smith the Warlock.

But since there are, MANY bloggers expanding on these, so I won’t go into my feelings at length. What I will say is this:

We don’t need real names to restore civility on the forums.

What we NEED is more people to stomp on the pointless/nasty posts that make the forums horrible.

That’s all. It’s that simple.

Trolls be trollin’. Real names won’t sort that out. That’s crazy talk. What we NEED is people to stomp on the troll posts, the rubbish, the spam, the bots, the abuse, the negative.

And I’m more than willing to put on my stomping boots and lend a hand. Here’s a visual aid!

Keeva’s note: I figure when Real ID is in full swing, everyone will
be able to find my embarrassing photos, so I’m getting in first.
TADA! Wellies.

I have written to Blizzard a number of times with forum issues, and asked if there is a way that I could “help” with moderating my realm forums. Either they don’t have enough moderators on the job (to be able to keep an eye on everything), or the current system isn’t working. How does it work, anyway? If I flag a post, does it ping a mod? Do you need 10 flags before it pings a mod? Do you need 10 of a single poster’s offensive posts to be flagged before it pings a mod? I genuinely wanted to know about moderation, how it worked, and if I could help to improve it. I never got an answer.

I don’t even know how to get a mod’s attention on the forums (the biohazard flag doesn’t seem to do anything), so I usually just email Blizzard direct – which is very effective, I must say – but this just highlights the fact that moderation on the forums seems very hit and miss, and that if you want something done, you have to tug on someone’s sleeve and ask for help directly.

Will the new system of downranking mean that mods will be stepping into all low-ranked threads to see if there’s bad stuff going on, without the need to flag posts?

How many forum mods do we have? How often are they watching? Do they watch all the time, or do a sweep once a week? Is there one for each realm, or only a handful, responsible for all of them?

There’s just so much rubbish on the forums, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to keep up with it all.



Let us self-moderate

The solution is simple though. Blizzard – allow us to self-moderate. Take a leaf out of WoW.com’s books – have the terrible posts greyed out by downranking them. You’ve already said you’re going in that direction anyway – we don’t need real names on top of that. Let us help keep our community neat and tidy. Let us grey out all the rubbish. Nice bright blue posts are the valuable ones, and dark grey (almost black and illegible) for the trolls or the pointless posts. It really is that simple.

Reporting posts is fairly time-consuming (and paying enough moderators to clean them all up must be prohibitive, I’m guessing). Downranking posts is EEEEEEEEEEASY. Click, done. Relegated to the junk pile, or raised up as a shining beacon of WoW-wisdom.

Let the community look after the community. Put on a few more “real” moderators, but let us all do the bulk of it.

I’ll clean up this town, one malicious post at a time.

RARRRR! *stomp stomp stomp*

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

This post: +1 internets. Just go. Right now.

http://greyshades.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/an-open-letter-to-blizzard/

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
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Lath from HoTs & DoTs is compiling info on how guilds make their money (and how they spend it).

Here’s how we run ours.


Making money

We sit around the 70,000 mark; I don’t like to fall below 50,000.

We charge 100g for all offspec items (main spec items are on EPGP). This is a small “trickle” income.

We also auction off all BOE epics within the guild – again, offspec or alt – you can’t buy main spec gear with gold and cheat the EPGP system. The items must be for your character/s, not to sell for a profit.

This is a fairly new tactic, because our gold was dipping low and I wanted to bump it back up again.

All BOE epics are in full view of all members; they then send me a minimum and maximum bid through the mail. The minimum bid is approximately half the normal AH price. If there’s not much interest, or if there are tied bids, I usually post on the forums to drum up some interest or get people re-bidding.

On Tuesday, the bank is cleared “old” BOEs; the BOEs that have been won are held in my bags until I get payment for them; the leftovers are sent to my bank alt to AH at full price.

This way, guildies get super bargain BOEs (someone got a Wodin’s neck for 5k – they are selling for 13k), and the bank still gets a nice income. The guild gets plenty of time to put their hand up for epics, and if nobody is interested – I can still sell for a good price on the AH.

Patterns are usually offered for free, and I just sell off any surplus.

I also sell anything that we have in surplus – eg we always seem to have thousands of Infinite Dust.


Spending money

Repairs are open to everyone, trials and alts included. Nobody ever has to worry about repair bills.

Feasts are provided (although guildies often donate these, so the bank doesn’t always pay).

Enchant mats, gems etc are half price.

Flasks can be purchased if there are none on the AH, but nobody relies on them.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• BRK druid shirts – one week only

Psynister tagged me to do a “Warcraft – year in review” post a couple of weeks ago, but being in Christmas whirlwind mode, I decided to save it for an almost new year post (I figured it was apt anyway).

Here are the questions/topics:

My Warcraft Year in Review
1. What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?
2. What was your favorite new place that you visited?
3. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
4. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
5. What was your biggest failure?
6. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
7. What do you wish you’d done less of?
8. What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?
9. Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.


1. What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Levelled a druid for something different (hahaha – just kidding!)

I embraced 10 man raiding. Back when I was raiding 25s “hardcore”, I had no time for 10s. They were not progression for me, so I had no interest in them. I got angry when people tried to make me do them; why would I want to do the same fights AGAIN but in a smaller raid – for lesser loot, and no progression recognition? I didn’t care about 10 man ladders, or even 10 man achievements, so why would I bother?

But then my guild fell apart, and reformed later as a close group of friends, to do 10 mans – and I discovered how much fun that size raid can be. Now I enjoy doing both size raids.

2. What was your favorite new place that you visited?

Hmm. I love “green” zones – like Howling Fjord, the basin, etc. I adore the music in Storm Peaks, I can’t even tell you how much. The phasing in Icecrown is exciting to progress through. I was impatient for the Culling of Stratholme instance because I love Caverns of Time instances where you can see how the landscape once looked (I was just disappointed that it doesn’t allow you to wander, as you can in Old Hillsbrad). It’s tough to pick a favourite.. but I think I’ll go with Storm Peaks. The music, the quest lines.. and even the Hodir quests – I love it all.

3. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Guild stability.

4. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Bringing Inexorable back.

5. What was your biggest failure?

Not blogging consistently. Two jobs and reforming a guild makes it difficult. In 2010 I’d like to be more consistent with the timing of my posts, even if I can only post once a week.

6. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I absolutely love the new dungeon finder system, I think Blizzard have done an amazing job with it. I love doing random groups with people, but I always hated that I would get an invite, then start heading to the instance, only to find that the others haven’t left Dalaran yet, so after they finally get a wriggle on and get out there, it’s 10-15 minutes later before we can start. This way, I can hit a button, find a group, and zip straight there (and straight out). No more waiting for stragglers – which was what I hated most.

I NEVER used the old LFG tool, ever. I was unsure about using the new one – but as soon as I tried it, I fell in love. Good job, Blizz!

I also got very excited for Ulduar’s release, because I’m in love with titan architecture, and couldn’t wait to see if the inside lived up to the outside.

7. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Stressing over guild dramas, and being the guild mother. I want to be a guildmaster, not a guildmother.

8. What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

There are a few that I really enjoy, I like Restokin for all things druid (leaning more to the theorycrafting side), Matticus for general healing and guild relations.. but there are a whole bunch on my blogroll that are a great mix of beefy content, random musings, gorgeous site design, wit and humour, etc. It’s hard to pick a favourite because I like them all for different reasons

9. Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.

1. Never let your raid team fall into the habit of relying on a single person to push them through content, to the point where if that person is absent, the group falls to the floor and people claim that they can’t go on (and that the officers are failing because they’re not stepping in to start pushing people again). I’m talking about seasoned raiders who could do Naxx25 in their sleep, but whining that the raids are horrible/bad/messy when one person isn’t there to lead. I’m not buying that anymore. You can’t do Naxx25 without someone telling you what to do? I want raiders who don’t need to have someone holding their hand to know the trash pulls, or get through frogger, or run back and buff up.

2. Bite the bullet and get rid of the bad eggs before things get worse. Basically, I’m not going to tolerate people acting like jerks this round, no matter how good they are at raiding. I don’t often put my GM hat on, I like to think that the guild can mostly run itself, but if I see you treating people badly, acting like a jerk, or giving us a bad name, expect to cop an earful, a benching, maybe even a boot. The health and atmosphere of my guild is more important to me than having a “top DPSer” on the roster.

I don’t expect people to hold hands and sing songs, but I won’t put up with people stirring trouble, talking others down, or generally acting like idiots. No more Mr Nice Keeva!


Farewell 2009, onto 2010!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Short break
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

Just in case some of our respective readerships don’t overlap – Lissanna from Restokin is running a Resto Druid survey on the official Druid forum.

Hey everyone! I’m going to work on my 3.3 healing guide. However, before I do that – I want to get some input from all of you! I’m looking for people who are already level 80 who heal in PvE (either 5-mans or raids).

So, I created a short healer survey designed so that I can compile a little bit of data before I finalize my decisions about what my new healing guide will look like.


It’s a multiple-choice survey, so it only takes a few minutes. Go post!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• BRK druid shirts – one week only