PST - Episode 79

[Lore]

This week:
0:17 - Could large-scale organized world PvP be possible with cross-realm zones?
2:50 - After cross-realm zones, are cross-realm auction houses and guilds next?
9:46 - What do you think of the upcoming Black Market feature?
17:52 - Could the Breath of the Black Prince mean a legendary accessible to every class?
23:44 - Is Garrosh the REAL end boss of MoP?
29:45 - Would Blizzard benefit from a more robust free trial?
35:06 - Should secondary professions be account-wide?
38:01 - Is there a way for battlegrounds to reward players based on personal contribution?
43:40 - What are your thoughts on Diablo 3?

[Yggdrasil]

My opinion on a few of the points. Enjoyed the ep!

After cross-realm zones, are cross-realm auction houses and guilds next?
Guilds seems a little.. meh. Hard to put my finger exactly on why, but I just feel if you are in the same guild you should be on the same server. Nice to be able to see each other in the cities, to be able to trade items and trade materials, and just well.. to be on the same server with your guild!

AH might be a different story. I think a world market might be better since competition would be equal and more available and thus making it harder to simply "play" the AH. I know playing on a smaller pop server that those people "playing" the AH hurt the economy. Plus a lot of items and material are sometimes hard to find. Not always, but when you have a raid in 20 minutes you like to have your flasks and food and it sucks that today just happens to be the day no agility flasks up or the few that are up are for 500g a piece.. once again.. because the guy that plays the AH is buying and restocking.



What do you think of the upcoming Black Market feature?
But about the gold. Is gold or time really more valuable. Does it take time to get gold. Plus to hit on the effort. I put in MUCH less effort getting my Tier 2 for transmogrify then I did originally since I was 85 and did it with 2 people. So even back farming isn't putting equal effort. In fact I think if I had to spend 10000 gold for each piece of bloodfang it would actually have been HARDER and MORE EFFORT then just running BWL for 3 weeks in a row a few months ago (topping it off with making a lot of gold on the side as a result thus further increasing the need for gold sink -- yeah I am not a dailies fan).

Really its just to hard to let go of vanity. When it shouldn't be that hard to. Because I know a warrior in my guild that has a Ashbringer -- raided Naxx40 ONCE and got that kill ONCE. Did he work that hard for it, or was he just lucky. I bet some people that killed that boss 30 times when it was legit beg to differ because it simply didn't drop.

That is why you can't measure, add, or take away from anything in this game based on effort unless you were there to see it yourself going down. Drops are random, effort is often only skin deep, and people can be carried. Simply impossible. I wish it was, because well that would REALLY solve that "legendary" question below since I could just pull up a players sheet and tell people, "see, right there.. that's amazing effort points".



Could the Breath of the Black Prince mean a legendary accessible to every class?
I hate the legendary BS. Now it will be 9 or 24 other people kicking and crying either in vent or behind the scene about who got it when and why. I think before it was sadly better because then at least only your rogues rage quit, or your mages rage quit, but not just about anyone in the guild.

I agree with how you feel on it.

[Valaras]

On the black market topic.

I am personally in favor of this. For two reasons. First off, I'm pretty sure those items being sold will be going for ridiculous prices and still only very few people will be able to get them. Thus, they remain unique. Second, I don't think your example of the Al Ar mount is accurate. This mount has been available to every random idiot in the game for 3 years now, since Wrath came out. Somebody who got it 'back in the day' will still feel his accomplishment cheapened by the fact that some guy can not go 3 man KT and get it. I don't see how being able to buy it instead of relying on luck to get it makes anything any worse.

In any case, this is how this game works. You work for something and you get an achievement for it. Any loot, mounts or whatever can then be farmed in the next expansion by much smaller groups of players and require no skill whatsoever. However, the achievement date still remains and shows who earned something when it was hard and who just got it after the expansion ended. The only complaint I understand is about items like T3 which are no longer available. But couldn't you farm those at TBC anyway??

My point, if someone is going to complain about the black market AH, he should also complain about the fact that you can solo vanilla and TBC dungeons to get loot that was once impossible to get for the majority of the players.


On the legendary topic

The problem with the legendaries currently is that they only require time spent and no actual skill to be obtained. I have personally seen a lot of bad rogues who only do decent DPS because of their legendaries. Also, since they are so easy to obtain, mediocre to bad guilds have access to them and rely on them just to be able to meet the DPS or healing requirements to down a hard boss. That's when class selection gets screwed up, since they will just try to get as many classes or players with it as possible.

How to fix it? Simple in my opinion. Make the legendary quest chain both require a large amount of time to get and involve clearing an instance on heroic and/or also having the player (or the entire raid for that matter) on the legendary quest do some crazy stuff that require a lot of skill to be pulled off. Also, make it class specific, always. Now what do these 2 points solve? First off, it remains unique no matter what and is a sign of true skill and dedication, not simply a matter of 'my 25 man guild chose to give 1 of its 10 legendaries to me'. Not to mention that a guild would most likely choose to first get its progression over with and then go for the extra stuff. And there is you balance problem solution. The class specific thing just makes the decision of who to give it to much simpler, and you avoid a lot of potential guild drama that way.

But in any case, it's clear that Blizzard will keep trying to make a legendary accessible to everyone who is part of a guild so I don't have much hope of any of this happening.

[BattleHawk]

Hey Lore, you mentioned at about the 44 minute mark that you don't have a good outlet for non world of warcraft topics, Do you ever consider doing another show like the weekly marmot for all the other games you play? not set to a weekly format or anything like that (I imagine doing another weekly show could end up being too time consuming), just to make one when you have something you really want to talk about (like diablo 3).

Great episode by the way.

[Jazzan]

Here's an idea I just had for the Legendaries...

So, looking at the datamined info, we know that it seems like the legendary items don't refer to a specific class. We also already know that they have the tech for some people to get random drops that the other people in the raid don't. I'm thinking of the Darkmoon artifacts here. In raids, they just sometimes show up in my bags. What if they go back to the "random drop" style Legendary (like in Vanilla/BC), only now the game gives it to you instead of your guild? That would cut out all the guild in-fighting. And I remember from an interview somewhere, they were talking about how they didn't want Legendaries to be as common as they were with Dragonwrath. If the drop chance was really low, that solves that problem too.

I'm sure that would screw with class balance some, but probably not as much as one class, or one "type" getting them (eg. casters).

[Suicideking666]

If they put atiesh greatstaff of the guardian on the black market I will buy it. I had it on an account I sold before TBC and regret not having it on my new account, I want it back...

[Lore]

Low droprates just cause even more issues where legendaries are concerned. They really need to just scrap the concept entirely.

Also I don't really think gold translates well into effort, especially where the black market is concerned. One thing I didn't mention on the show is gold sellers -- I guarantee that people will start buying gold like crazy when something they want shows up on the BMAH.

[Jierda117]

Also I don't really think gold translates well into effort, especially where the black market is concerned. One thing I didn't mention on the show is gold sellers -- I guarantee that people will start buying gold like crazy when something they want shows up on the BMAH.

See this makes me think that we haven't been told everything economy wise that is coming in MOP, Blizzard aren't stupid they must realise that it will cause an increase gold selling/buying unless they have something else up their sleave to counter this maybe sell their own gold or something lol.

Also on the topic of cross realm stuff the AH is the one thing I never want to see go crossrealm as it just leaves it open to even more abuse then it already is. On my server Ragnaros EU their are several people who are gold capped on multiple characters, and if they want they can destroy half the economy. Introducing this cross realm would only increase the chance of this happening and just cause more problems IMO.

[Nagassh]

Brand new character MASTER CHEF, makes about as much RP sense as having your account wide mounts and titles from killing Ragnaros.

[hp2]

A few thoughts on the Black Market AH.

1) Being able to obtain the original 10 man Amani War Bear via gold is not a big deal. On my server, we had raids selling the Amani War Bear for gold to other people. Since you could buy it for gold back then, having it purchased for gold nowadays isn't a big deal.

2) Are all classes capable of solo farming the Ashes of Al'ar? Even though mounts are going to be account-wide in MoP, does this mean that I have to level up a brand new toon capable of soloing 25-man Kael'thas if my current main character is not able to solo it?

3) What if the Black Market AH *is cross-server*? This would be a great way to remove large amounts of gold from the WoW economy as a whole without using heavy handed measures that would affect the average player -- in other words, raising repair costs affects 99% of players; cross-server Black Market AH affects the top 1% of players that are hoarding the largest amounts of gold. Since the competition is cross-server, you can't really play the market since you're competing against 10 million other players. Furthermore, players like yourself that have a Corrupted Ashbringer can still feel 'special' when the item does show up on the Black Market AH every once in a while -- it's not like your server is being flooded with people who got your same rare item via gold; that rare item is showing up someplace among 10 million other players. Heck, it would probably *add prestige* to your rare item because you can brag about how your Corrupted Ashbringer is worth 2 million gold because that's what someone among 10 million players paid just to have it.

-HP

[Yggdrasil]

Also I don't really think gold translates well into effort, especially where the black market is concerned. One thing I didn't mention on the show is gold sellers -- I guarantee that people will start buying gold like crazy when something they want shows up on the BMAH.

I agree with you completely. But isn't that the case if the items are new or old? Hard to really say but something tells me people that collect every mount or pet will buy gold if they are to lazy to get it themselves. As we all know path of easiest resistance, although I believe most gammers are 'moral' on this issue, I still think anything you put in the game that takes strictly gold will created a reason for gold sellers to profit.

[Vol]

I am also of the opinion that the BMAH is not a good way to reimplement removed items, as it just comes down to who has the highest spending power. I wholeheartedly believe that no longer obtainable items need to be obtainable to the masses of players again, as if they were never removed.

If they're going to make that sort of stuff accessible to people, it should be something that requires a similar amount of effort, or at least a very similar amount of personal investment.

The problem I have with this sentiment is that this only applies to items no longer obtainable due to their instance of origin being removed. I don't think it makes any sense to say "you need to put the same amount effort into obtaining Tier 3 items that others did when it was current" while also accepting that the acquisition of other tiers requires nowhere near the same amount of effort as it did when it was current when the only difference is that one was removed arbitrarily.

Given that other, higher tiers are farmable without effort and that Naxxramas is once again old content (i.e. not a part of the current expansion), I suggest that Tier 3 should simply be added to the loot tables of the level 80 bosses; yes, even Atiesh and Ashbringer*. The count and consistency (four horsement have changed, slightly) of the bosses being the same would make it fairly easy to say "[Death's Bargain] dropped from 60 Gluth, now it drops from 80 Gluth."

*The argument that the item is in Tirion's hands now holds no weight with me given that the weapon was not taken from players. "Shouldn't be obtainable = shouldn't be possessed" in my humble opinion. If Blizzard has a different mind set, that is their business.

[Jazzan]

Low droprates just cause even more issues where legendaries are concerned. They really need to just scrap the concept entirely.

Oh, I'm not saying that it won't still cause issues. I'm just speculating if thats the direction they are going, based on the (admittedly little) info that's been datamined.

[tawnos]

People seem to be really dismissive about the difficulty of getting gold. For ashes of alar and what was said on Legendary, the expected value of 1 year of farming a zone that a number of classes can solo (from what I understand) is 1 ashes of alar. Thats what? A couple hours a week for a year? If it takes you hundreds of hours to make the gold playing the AH that it costs to buy the thing off the Black Market AH, how is that not 'earning it' in the same way? Very few people are going to be able to South Park style grind their way to enough gold and the amount of thought/preparation it takes to make gold is more akin to that dedicated to raiding than to mindless daily repetition. I'd say its definitely more difficult to efficiently farm gold than it is to farm for that mount at least ( the mimiron head might be a different story ).

If they're popping out an ashes of alar every other day then yeah it might make sense that 'just having some gold' isn't enough time/effort to merit getting it, but if it turns into a bidding war for hundreds of thousands of gold everytime I can't see how that isn't equivalent to farming for it at this point. And if there is something so rare it goes for millions - I find that to be more effort and (dare i say) skill to obtain than anything but the very top end raiding.

[Gregasaurous]

Great, now i'm playing a unicorn game with a ..... "unique" music soundtrack.... Thanks a lot Lore.

[Lrot]

Also I don't really think gold translates well into effort, especially where the black market is concerned.

I agree with you on this, but being lucky enough to even see the phoenix drop, let alone win the roll, is also no way to measure effort.

One thing I didn't mention on the show is gold sellers -- I guarantee that people will start buying gold like crazy when something they want shows up on the BMAH.

Hidden in that statement is what I suspect is the real reason Blizzard is looking at a BMAH concept. I think it may simply be an attempt to lure people who buy gold into "outing" themselves. Blizzard will know exactly who is shelling out huge sums of gold for items in the BMAH, and a quick inspection of the character data should reveal to those policing such matters exactly how they acquired that gold. Yes, they can do that now, but knowing exactly who to investigate will make the process of finding and dealing with gold buyers much simpler.

[Lkcynric]

This legendary is gonna be a pain... as someone who never got one nor had a chance to I never saw them as a bad thing. But after all your rants I understand how broken (and unfair) it is.

Fell free to skip the rest of the post, its probably useless!
.

But what puzzles me is that to be continued. Can they be trying something new in regards or legendary life spawn? Will we maybe see the legendary go up to the final patch? To be honest I think that would be awesome. Working the whole expansion for your legendary. And only get orange pixels in the last patch.

But, then what do you get at 5.0 and .1 and .2? will the "soon(tm) to be" orange be the BIS for the whole MOP? taht would be weird. Also, would people have to go to .0 raids to start it over and over again? that would be a pain. And all the rest of the problems (if the raider leaves and so on).

Still, as a person who see legendarys as a cool thing, I would love to see blizzard do that.

But fantasy's aside. Yeah you are right Lore. Legendary's are a pain and should go away as gear. Make it transmog e-peen gear or mounts/pets. Heck make it a a LEGENDARY POKEMON! i mean.. pet...

.

Still the to be continued puzzle me. What can that mean?

EDIT:

I forgot I had a real question.. why did blizzard make RMAH? Do they really need a gold sink that bad? if so they could do anything else, why this? are they simply looking at a way to put old items back into the game for transmog? Didn't they do that with the new darkmoon?

I find it strange they put this in. If they did I am sure they have big plans for it. Or maybe I give them too much credit and they didn't think on how will this influence the game.

Still, why do you guys think they put it in for? a simple gold sink?

Thanks.

[Gregasaurous]

But, then what do you get at 5.0 and .1 and .2? will the "soon(tm) to be" orange be the BIS for the whole MOP? taht would be weird. Also, would people have to go to .0 raids to start it over and over again? that would be a pain. And all the rest of the problems (if the raider leaves and so on).

Somebody correct me if i'm wrong but blizzard did say something along the lines of us not getting a legendary at release... SO i'm thinking that we have to do a quest in the release raids that carry's over to 5.1 or something. So we won't actually receive orange pixels until the next tier. Thhis could very posibly remove a lot of the strain and stress of the "Farm every raid boss" quests on singular raid members since there will be a period of well over 6 months(?) to do that portion of the quest.

[Lkcynric]

Somebody correct me if i'm wrong but blizzard did say something along the lines of us not getting a legendary at release... SO i'm thinking that we have to do a quest in the release raids that carry's over to 5.1 or something. So we won't actually receive orange pixels until the next tier. Thhis could very posibly remove a lot of the strain and stress of the "Farm every raid boss" quests on singular raid members since there will be a period of well over 6 months(?) to do that portion of the quest.
[/INDENT]

Or add way more sincethat "makes it possible" to farm it for more people.. and also ads the problem of come back to t5.0 when t5.1 comes out. If it is indeed that way.

But from the way lore talked about it, seams its not, since you upgrade weapons from 5.0, or so I though.

[Cyoor]

9:46 - What do you think of the upcoming Black Market feature?

Haha funny thing. I just got trolled by youtube thinking it was you trolling. When you read the question and the part where "Wont this cause people to buy gold from external webpages", I got a commersial banner popping up with: "Buy wow gold at this site"

23:44 - Is Garrosh the REAL end boss of MoP?

On the topic of Blizzard saying that the information "is not accurate", couldnt they just say that to try and get it "unspoiled" by lying about it as they did qith the name "Mists of pandaria" when they said: "Oh no, its not a wow expantion, its something much smaller" and people started to speculate of a board game or something like that?

29:45 - Would Blizzard benefit from a more robust free trial?

Couldnt they just make it up to 85, you could Bee in a guild for 1 month total once getting to lvl 85, then getting autokicked (switching guild at 15 days would leave you with 15 days left in the next guild), then they could have it so you could do 10 raid lockouts, 20 heroic dungeon lockouts, 30 normal dungeon runs (all at 85). And do as much group content as you wanted below lvl 85.
(Ofc all of this should be rised to 90 once MOP is out)
They could also make it so you once every time you log in, once every 30 min of play or something and every time you try to do something you arnt alowed to do, get a popup with "Do you like wow, go buy it here".
They could also have like a commersial banner like at the top of the screen in the client (Outside of the UI) with adds for all of their games.
Some mounts and stuff like that should also be so that you couldnt get them ofc.

// Cyoor