Warhammer should have just merged all of the servers from the beginning. In my opinion, the game failed mainly because of 2 things:

1. Lack of people for public quests/PVP scenarios.
2. Poor hardware on their end.

Both of these could have been corrected, but they took too long to even try. What a shame.

The PQs were fun as hell when people did them. Group event, lots of different types, cool themes, and a nice reward at the end. If WoW literally ripped off PQs and their entire PVP system, I wouldn't be able to stop playing it.

Plus, I honestly thought the Warhammer lore was more interesting than Warcraft. /sigh

2v2 was cool, it's good for some laughs and such...but it never should have been a path to Gladiator. That was the mistake.

And arena can be fun, but it's like PvE...you have to find a group of people that you can stand and who are willing to take it halfway serious. Then it becomes fun. Otherwise it's just the PvP equivalent of a wipefest.

I think the Arena needed/needs something to counter the cookie-cutter groups that seem to dominate after every patch. There was a time when Shadow Priest/Warlock was untouchable, then changes were made and it became Druid/whatever or Ret Pally/whatever. I don't know that anything could be done, I just know my biggest problem with 2v2 was when you'd run across the cookie-cutter groups over and over (and over and over) and lose accordingly. If you did not have the flavor-of-the-month (patch) setup, you simply did not win. And that was lame.

Yeah, that's why 2v2 should never have given Gladiator. There was just too much imbalance that was impossible to overcome.

Other brackets have counter-comps and such but they're not nearly as big a deal and they weren't insurmountable, but 2's just had total hard counters that steamrolled you.

Yeah, I agree on this count. I was being half serious with my poop statement, but I really believe that there should be a COMPLETELY different set of mechanics/physics/spells/etc for PVP in a PVE game. If you're going to embrace PVP, do it in full without the need for augments/equipments/stats that are meant to bring balance between PVP/PVE. It's an approach I've never understood. Balance decisions made for one aspect should NEVER be impacting (or be part of the consideration for) another.

Well, PvP balance kinda worked at first. It was the damage scaling that got crazy eventually. Once people started getting geared up in purples, PvP became a big one-shot fest as long as you were playing the right class and an exercise in running from the graveyard if you weren't.

There was also the obvious issue that if you were a top end raider you also wrecked people in PvP pretty much by default.

Of course, nerfing the crap out of damage would have caused riots in the streets, so the annoying stat known as resilience came along. =/

The rate at which gear improves in WoW and the large effect it has on your character kind of makes resilience a necessity, unfortunately. Player HP pools will simply never scale at a rate that matches the damage boosts that every tier of content brings.

This has been a pretty constant issue for Blizzard, they always fail to plan ahead for the upward scaling of gear and we always end up with some band-aid near the tail end of content cycles to make up for it.

Yep. I can literally demolish people in BGs in my gear, with no resilience. I go down fast, but i do so well it's not worth farming PVP gear.

Groups that are in the minority often require an over-representation to at least give a semblence of appearance that the authority is attempting to be balanced or at least acknowledging them. In an MMORPG this effect is multiplied, especially if you have a group of forums similar the WoW forums. People would complain non-stop if PVP was even CLOSE to under-represented. That doesn't negate the fact that they could put more effort into it, though, without sacrificing a lot for PVE'ers. Instead of hiring a couple of good map modders to produce some stylish PVP maps en masse, they chose to go the long route and make "quality"(read: overcooked) instead of quantity.

That being said, I would guess that PVPers probably represent a larger portion of the population than many people realize(or at least, more than the PVE-only crowd acknowledges). It remains one of the most variable and unpredictable aspects of the game(yay for human vs human unpredictability), and people tend to flock towards casual competition(this means BGs instead of arenas, mostly, because there are many people that shun serious competitive gaming).

As it relates to the subject, though, I'd say it's valid even if the assumption that over-representation isn't necessary depending on how big/small each portion of the playerbase is. If PVPers represented 20 percent of the players and received 30 percent of the developer attention, I fail to see how that's a massive detriment to the PVE population worthy of complaining about. Each and every PVE'er in that subgroup gets the lion's share of content to play around with. You'll occasionally get a few nerfs due to PVP, but aside from that you've got everything else with regard to the developers' attentions in your favor.

You mean like RMP? =p

Out of curiousity, which 2v2 comps were insurmountable? I'll be the first to agree that druids had a difficult time against some comps, but I always thought on the whole 2v2 was balanced more than 3v3. Been a while since I've done any serious 5v5, but I will say that I think it had a decent amount of balance.

Open beta invites have been pretty liberal, so if you haven't gotten one yet, but want one, let me know. I was able to get Sola and a few others in for F&F but haven't played much since then.

I'd love one, if you have one to spare for me :p

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same =p

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I want to check out the worgen and get a look at the new trees. Still trying to decide which class out of my 4 80's i want to change over to my main.

This assumes anyone from my guild even returns lol.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

EQ2 has offered some of the best PvP several times. It seems that they get something good going and hear a couple of whiners that just can't PvP so they change everything for them and then it sucks.

WAR had a real opportunity to make a good game. I forget his name, but the lead guy was just too stubborn to make the necessary changes as he felt it equated defeat if the made them.

I finally just gave up on EQII's PvP and went to AB. I have to say, EQII is a great PvE game, much better than I remembered. I've been with EQII since the beginning and played PvE in the beginning and then went to PvP since it's opening and now i'm on AB. It's been years since i've played a game with solely PvE and I have to say it is actually good.

I've not played WoW in some time so I can't comment in terms of comparisons but EQII has to be at least the second most solid game out right now, if not the first to some.

You can get a look at the trees on the PTR, heh. I copied over all my 80s and I'm not at all hurt over any of the tree changes. Discipline on my priest feels weird healing via dps, but I can manage...

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

RMP has always been strong in 3v3 but not nearly as bad as the 2v2 comps. The bad 2v2 matchups change season to season though, based on who gets buffed/nerfed. It usually lasts the whole season, though some of the extra silly comps were nerfed mid season (ret pally at one point was silly in 2v2):
Comps that were way too good at one point:

Warlock/Shadow Priest (when dot damage was buffed and resil didnt affect it at all)
Druid/War
Druid/Rogue
Pally/SK
Disc Priest/Rogue
Hunter and Priest or Lock (pre mana-drain nerf)

Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. They each had different times in the sun, then got nerfed. It all boils down to percentages. In 2v2 a CC chain can take out half of the opposing team. The more players that are involved, the less CC matters. Not that it ever isn't important in PvP, but it 2v2 it's effects are even more magnified.

Eh, if you've got one for me or my wife, one of us will surely try it. If so, thanks in advance.

K fine. I want to PLAY a worgen. =P

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

so do I, but I'll willingly wait for cata's release. I want the experience fresh (I never once touched a dk in the wotlk beta for that purpose)

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I don't remember seeing any of these at the points RMP has steadily maintained over the years. At several points IIRC, RMP made up around 60-70 percent of the top 100 teams. I don't recall any of these 2v2 teams coming close. Even with season 1-4 when... if I recall correctly one of the team comps was Druid Warrior... I'm thinking last one was rogue, and that comp ended up taking up a huge percentage, maybe 30-40 with RMP still retaining dominance.

Lock/SP seemed like sort of a crapshoot. If the other team had a rogue and a competent healer, or even a decent double-DPS comp, it was easily managable. It was good during season 1-3 or so, then gradually got nerfed. WOTLK gave it a semi-comeback IIRC, but no where near its former glory. It was never really insurmountable though if people had any inkling of how to properly shut down the lock's casts.

Druid/warrior depended on the warrior's skill primarily, and his/her twitch timing and connection speed. Druid had to know what he was doing, but to make the comp fully work the warrior had to be good. This was not as much the case during season 1 and 2 before druids and warriors got nerfed steadily over time. There were obviously plenty of ezmode druid/warrior comps before then. It wasn't insurmountable though, most people back then were simply clueless about how to properly kite warriors and shut down druids.

Druid/rogue? Honestly I don't remember a time when they were particularly high up the ladder, though they've always been a semi-respectable comp. Could be wrong. I remember double dps rogue/druid being up there for a bit, but not quite on the level of the others that you mentioned. I think the effect of this comp was multiplied in effectiveness if the other team was too stupid to understand stealth mechanics and the druid/rogue *always* ended up getting the jump on people without proper coordination around pillars and such for stealth breaks.

Pally/SK? Did you mean Death Knight? =x EQ and EQ2 are old and boring now. Anyway, I assume pally healing and DK gib spec back in early WOTLK, because that was pretty popular. On this one it's tough to argue, because both of those classes were very high-powered at the time. Personally, I still wouldn't call it an insurmountable comp. There were plenty of times I was able to take the comp down with good pressure playing and kiting the DK. All things being equal it was an uphill battle, no doubt about it, but not so imbalanced that it wasn't possible for any other given comp to take on.

Disc Priest Rogue is, again, a very common comp that traditionally has had a lot of power behind it. Not to the degree of the Pally/DK, but very strong against most other comps. But again, insurmountable? I'll grant that a lot of it depends on which comp you're playing against them with, but most comps have a fair shot at them provided they understand how and when to do things properly against the rogue's cooldowns(and where to do them). Most of the time people lose against them because someone gets stupid and gets stunlocked at low health with a trinket burned on a cheap shot, or the healer allows themselves to get continually mana burned.

Mana drain teams were annoying, but no where close to insurmountable. Hunters have, most of the time, been quite burnable(especially before they got the jumpback... disengage or whatever it's called). It's even easier to pillar kite and distance from priest burns. Locks have an annoying burn, but almost everything they have has a decent cast time, and using their burn means they aren't causing as much damage which leaves you open to play the distance game more often. If your team was a longevity-based comp, sure, it probably would have been more difficult.. but it still usually came down to strategic positioning, avoidance of burns, and conservation of mana. If yours is a dps comp, or even one with potential to burn a target, then there's still not too much in the way of excuses to not be able to burn a target(most of the time).

I guess I'm just not big on the word "insurmountable". I can't count the number of times I've heard people say "You know what, I did everything PERFECTLY, and we still lost... that comp is just broken, nothing we could do." Uh, no. There's almost always something more you can do. 2v2 teams with traditionally incompatible comps would not make it to the 2300-2400's if that was true, because they'd constantly go back and forth as they faced the latest "overpowered comp". I'm convinced that most people simply give up too easily, or decide not to think outside of the box at all when coming up with proper strategy.

ok

That's the point.

RMP has been consistently good for a long time, but not completely broken.

At various points in time, different 2v2 comps have been completely and utterly broken based on what class buffs/nerfs happened around those times.

There's a big difference between, "RMP has always been good." and "DK/Pal is the only comp in 2v2 in S5."

I got a dk to around 70 and deleted it out of sheer boredom. Then again, I also got a warrior to 55 and shelved him. I seem to have fun with Zomgpewpew classes like my rogue, hunter, lock and now my 54 mage.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

This is actually why I quit arena pvp altogether. The previous season was Warrior and *insert resto class*

The pally/DK God combo was just too much.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I fail to see why 60-70 percent isn't "completely broken" for a couple seasons while maintaining high points throughout the other seasons, while one season of DK/Pally(which I'm not even sure if it reached the 70 percent high point, though I'm sure it was close) and a few other class comps that never even got close to 70 percent representation denegrates the legitimacy of 2v2 entirely.

It's not simply "RMP has always been good", it's risen to the very top of the ladder in more than one season, never received a serious nerf, and retains its position as the top contender for around 6-7 seasons straight. You can't really ignore that and then turn around to complain about 2v2 being grossly imbalanced compared to other brackets with a straight face.

As I said, the only thing that really came close to it was DK/Pally. Rogue/priest semi-close, but never got that representation percentage. The rest of the comps were complained about on the boards primarily by bad players who didn't understand class mechanics.

edit - just to add, there were many different comps in Season 5 that actually succeeded, mainly by good players. I remember in the Nightfall BG the top team was actually warrior/shaman. Most of the first page was DK/Pally, and the 2nd page... and the 3rd page... but there were still teams that managed to make it against the odds. They didn't do it by complaining, whining, or caring about imbalance. They did it with skill and strategy.

So one 'professional' team managed to beat the odds and beat the cookie-cutter teams, so that means that it was never a problem and anyone who saw the imbalance as a problem was just a whiner and complainer. Got it.

Nope, but it's indicative that it's not "insurmountable". More often than not(at least from what I've seen from competition videos, some experience, and word of mouth), it's not some intangible thing or even split-second timing that's making these teams magically win, it's because they're consistently thinking of new ways to counter a commonly-used strategy/comp. They aren't rising to the top because someone elected them cool kids on the block on a whim.

edit - "These teams" meaning any team that goes against the traditional composition in the face of bad odds, such as Pally/DK season.

It's not "insurmountable" but part of the appeal of PVP - for me at least - is you know, having a little fun. When you play 50 games in a row and 45 of them are against Pally/DK (or whatever FOTM team it is), it gets old. Fast. Yes, this team could be beaten in its heyday, but only if YOUR team had a specific makeup (for the most part). If you like it, more power to you. As I said, millions still PVP every day so obviously it's not THAT bad. I just got tired of it and I know many other people did/are as well. You obviously don't see it as a problem. Different strokes for different folks, and all that jazz.

I enjoyed the challenge of it, yes. I went with warrior/shaman at the time, and we won maybe 60 percent of our matches against DK/Pally. None of them easy in the slightest, but we usually came out ahead at the end of the day. Different strokes for different folks - but my opinion is that most of the "strokes" for those folks consist of being easily frustrated over mundane challenges that can be overcome if they wouldn't throw themselves against a wall repeatedly, use the exact same strategy, and expect different results. Even saying THAT is probably a stretch. People simply give up too easily, which is well over half the battle.

The comps I listed weren't always good. For example, you said Lock/SP was a crapshoot, but for a couple months it wasn't. It was almost unbeatable...which is why they made resil affect dots. Then all of a sudden it was mediocre and back to normal amount of representation. I think Pally/DK and Warrior/Druid both had the longest runs, and while they were on top they were an incredible amount of the top, middle and even low ratings teams. I am not claiming RMP wasn't OP for 3s, but you are exaggerating it's representation. Since RMP has been OP for such a long time, I would say it's the single most OP combo, but the 2s teams as a collective whole (relative to each ones day in the sun) makes it not even a close comparison. Blizzard seems to agree based on what they did with arena the past season (where 2s cant qualify for weapons).

They pretty much had to when every DK from adult to 12 year old squeaker and his Pally partner were in head to toe arena gear.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I think you're missing the point here.

The only reason broken 2's comps don't stay broken for long is that Blizzard is constantly played catch-up, nerfing and buffing abilities while trying to stay ahead of the Arena FotM. It might have seemed balanced to you just because you didn't see the constant dance between Blizzard and Players in the background. (How many times did the DR category and debuff type on blind change based on what partner rogues were OP with that month? Hah.)

Blizzard finally just got sick of it or wised up and just took titles and weapons out of 2v2 and was done with it. Problem solved.

There you have it....December 7th, Deathwing bombs Pearl Harbor....err, I mean Azeroth.

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Good news. Sooooo bored.

Looks like my guild is going to stay as a 25-man guild and see what happens. I still can't decide what class I want to play, though. Sticking with the hunter has some appeal. I like the new changes, after playing with them on PTR and taking a look. But, the only role I've not played yet is melee dps, so switching to rogue looks interesting, too.

Yeah I've not decided on which main yet. I've actually gotten so bored that I've leveled a lvl 1 bank alt with his own guildbank and whatnot to like 55 lol....

Looking forward to worgen but I'm hoping my guild actually returns. Summers are always slow but we've still not had even 20% of our folks return and this is a guild that has been around for a long long time. I'd almost be willing to transfer servers but I tend to play WoW in a UO style where I have a char for each of the tradeskills and rely on that in house network for supplies. Transferring my account would just be too damn expensive but man.....my server is just horrid.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I dunno what class I want to play in Cat, either. I'm actually thinking my Death Knight. Even though it's not even max level yet, it seems very different and interesting. It's also fun to solo basically anything...I soloed all of Stratholme from level 58 to 61. Killed Baron one time and the mount dropped, wee. Soloing Outlands instances for XP now, it's fun. =D

I had settled on my Paladin before the news came about the new Combo Point...er....Holy Power system and the Ret changes and I just didn't like the sound of any of it, so I dropped that one. I've got 7 80's total now and I don't really think I'm loving any of them right now.

Haven't been raiding or anything, I've just been busy gathering 5 guild bank tabs worth of herbs to level 5 more alchemists before Cataclysm...it's only taken a few days and I'm almost done, thanks cheap farmer herbs on the AH. It should all pay for itself in the first week of epic gem transmutes alone, nevermind the sick amount of cash I should be able to pull in once Cataclysm hits.

Holy power isn't terrible. It's just something else to track now besides art of war procs.

I don't know which of my 4 80s will be my main right now, or if I'll go back to my mid 70s warlock or level 70 hunter.

I do know that at some point I'll have a goblin shaman and a worgen mage.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

For WOTLK, given the stupid new heroic lockout rules, I think I'll get more serious about an alt to do 10-man runs. Otherwise it will be a lot less raiding per week.

People still play WoW?!?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Honestly, with this expansion I'm tempted to reroll yet again.

I've been lurking on beta for a few months now, and honest to God one of few things which could bring me back is just playing the game from start to finish. I've done 1 to 60 on both a Goblin and Worgen (yes with Bind on Account gear, I cheated and copied all of my pieces over) and the game almost quite literally feels brand new.

Goblin Shaman is actually a lot of fun. With Enhance getting DW/LL at level 10 plus Primal Strike until you can talent Stormstrike, it makes the playstyle for leveling a lot more akin to rogue without stealth. Once you hit 30, and have all 4 totems, you'll actually bother to drop them. Plus, leveling a Gobo is fuckin great with the trike mounts. I will admit that I did skip some of the natural leveling flow in favor of checking out North STV and South STV, besides that the flow was very natural and fitting. You get a good bit of lore explaining the current political structure of the Horde + some good story about the Elements and Old Gods.

Not to deviate from the norm, I leveled a Worgen Hunter so I could get used to the Focus mechanic from the ground up. I'm not terribly happy with Blizzard pulling a 6 year switch on Mana to Focus but now that a lot of adjustments have been made I can see the potential. BM is still the best leveling spec as far as I'm concerned, since the changes allow for the pet to be able to agro lock fairly well and healing in/out combat is better. Far less downtime. BM also has far less bullshit crap talents for leveling. As far as the Alliance leveling flow goes, I broke off the Worgen path right from the beginning. As soon as I got out of the Starting Zone, I went to Westfall instead of doing Darkshore...and it was amazing. The improvements to Westfall/Red Ridge/Duskwood are incredible.

As for end-game, far to early to tell. Heroics right now are ball-bustingly hard and overtuned and since it is likely no raid testing will be done externally I'm not even going to speculate.

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Yeah, can you believe so many people are putting their SC2 pro gaming career on hold to play it?

I will definitely be doing the digital download. Wonder if you can get that started before the midnight release.

And, I can't wait to switch whatever toon I wind up playing to goblin. Or, maybe an undead hunter.

The feedback that I've been hearing is that they're not overtuned, they're returning to the TBC system of heroics actually being a challenge rather than mindless badge farms right from day 1 they way they were in Wrath.

I've been sitting on a beta invite, I guess I could just go look for myself...

If they're that hard.. they're overtuned. They will get changed once the wave of WOTLK-trained players start breaking against it. We all know this. But, after watching so many pussies disband after getting a halls of reflection group because it's "too hard", i really can't wait to see it.

I'm looking forward to it. =)

[20:13] <@Furor> turn on pro-tool tips bro if you have a problem with understanding your CC skills
[20:15] <@Furor> watching people try to do Stonecore heroic is like watching early EQ PoFear breaks
[20:49] <@Furor> press your button ffs, this isn't icc

Felt I needed to share some IRC fun from Furor. He asked a few of us in IRC to do some instances last night, get some data off us.

I know the direction they want to go is more like how Heroics were in TBC but it still needs some fine-tuning for sure. Heroic Deadmines is fucking assrape...

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I guess I'm having a hard time seeing a problem with that.

If it's tuned so that it's clearable by people in starter blues but they wipe horribly if they can't CC and do it right, that sounds cool to me.

To YOU, yes. But to the millions of other people used to having everything handed to them on a vanity pet-filled platter? There will be an uproar.

Yes there will be. =)

Sweet, sweet WrathKid tears. Mmmmm.

Having doubts playing my hunter after testing on the PTR. I love the focus but they keep over killing shit when they "fix" things.

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The biggest problem with 4.01 at the moment is the fix they put in that queues abilities. To fix an exploit of some sort. It's really pretty fucking awful.

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but as someone who doesn't play or really care about WoW, did Blizzard ban 6 million accounts? What happened there?

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Not sure, but if you take into account the 15 or so bots forming shapes and letters in each of the major cities in both factions on every server....times the 500 or so (total guesstimate) realms worldwide you're looking at 60,000 accounts for the sole purpose of bot spam. This doesn't even factor in gold spammers, leveling bots, resource bots etc...

There are a LOT of illegitimate accounts out there to be banned. Problem is most of those accounts are also hacked accounts of actual players.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Guessing that is from when WoW was taken offline in China for several months.

Personal quibble? Cause I noticed it earlier in this post.

None of us fuckers (myself included) rolled shit to make a WoW character.

Why are you "rolling" or "rerolling"?; to make a character?

You aren't. You're making one. Get that shit right, pls?

Kind of an insult when you think about it to the actual process for table top roleplaying games.

That, and PST in any MMO is absolutely fucking idiotic. Like if I don't use it or you don't. I'm not going to talk to you if I want to talk about whatever it is you are doing or selling?

I'm; in a mood. /rant off

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

You're kind of an insult to forum posting.

Yeah that was pretty bad, and I know pretty bad (my posting)

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what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]