Guys, I think we just need to eat some cookies.

ZOMGFIRST!

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Q u o t e:

It definitely varies depending on one's position. There are sneak peaks of sorts every so often for most everyone in the company to see, but they're by no means comprehensive. It's more of a presentation of what the different teams are working on. Community managers are typically privy to a lot of information since we spend a lot of time filtering between the developers and the community.

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Cool, thanks!

Something tells me the community would be a lot happier with new content on a monthly basis. Naxx/OS should have been released with the expansion. Obsidian Sanctum should have been released in January. Malygos should have been released last week.

Can you space them out evenly, so we don't get bored so fast?

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Q u o t e:

I have forgotten to mention a lot of things in this thread that could be circulating as baseless theories in the minds of those reading, you're at least right about that. :)

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...Do you guys every give tours? :D

I would love to go inside Blizzard HQ one day and get an autograph from Neth.

No offense Blizzard,

From a PvP point of view..

But how many times did beta testers tell you there was way to much damage going around ??

You had all that time to fix those things but you didn't =(

AV is kinda trashy right now, I hope you guys have plans to fix it up, old AV maybe ?

I dunno

It just seems with all this time you guys had there would be more battlegrounds, more things to do.. Not really into the PvE part, always been a PvP player

Maybe some word on a PVP content patch for us pvp players ? =D

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Q u o t e:

Obtaining knowledge isn't the same as taking a guess, educated or otherwise, so there isn't a need to play off how sure you are of things you don't know.

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So pretty much, what he's saying is the truth and your trying to seem like your above him with your all knowing knowledge. Your acting like a lawyer:P and we all know lawyer's lie......

Considering we only got a retuned Naxx (with 90%+ art/design complete) and a few single encounter raids, I myself am questioning what you're raid and development team worked on for with the expansion? We were essentially told BT should have been released out of the box with TBC, and now here we are waiting again for Ulduar which should have been released out of the box with Wrath.

Forgive me for joining the countless skeptics, but many of us just aren't seeing the raiding content being worked on at all. If we were to compare Wrath to TBC....

EoE + OS + VoA = Gruul/.Mag (roughly in number of encounters/trash)

If the only other raid currently is a retuned Naxx... where is our SSC/TK/Hyjal? Where is the properly tuned content? I must say I'm a little disappointed so far with Wrath, and many of the perpetuated rumors in this thread and others seem to have legs of their own when you look at the content we have been given.

Here is my question, Zarhym...

BC
Release

Kara - Full Raid
Magtheridon - Single Boss
Gruul - Single Boss
SSC - Full Raid
Tempest Keep - Full Raid
Doom Lord Kazzak - Single Boss (World)


Patch

Zul'Aman - Full Raid
Doomwalker - Single Boss (World)
Black Temple - Full Raid

Patch

Sunwell Plateau - Full Raid

WotLK
Release

Naxxramas - Full Raid
OS - Single Boss
EoE - Single Boss
VoA - Single Boss

Patch

Ulduar - Full Raid
VoA (new wing) - Single Boss

So with the release of BC, there were already 6 things that guilds could do. By the end of it there were 10 (not including instances and heroics).

With the release of WotLK, there are only 4, with only 6 as far as we know once the patch comes out.

So to my question... do you guys consider the normal and heroic modes as separate instances when thinking of guilds? I understand that they are different as far as development goes, and there are always pugs, but my guild is small (only 10 80s right now, and only a couple more up-and-coming) and I don't want to HAVE to pug in order to do 25 man content. It just seems like there is less to do than there used to be, and I'm worried that even my guild - who is progressing slower than some - will end up with nothing to do fairly quickly.

**Please note, some of my memory may have remembered incorrectly about releases of bosses in BC.

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Q u o t e:


New content is developed from "scratch" and then made in such a way that it is mostly seamless. It baffles me that so many people think that this is something that can be simply mass-produced. It's a very painstaking labor of love. As a person who has attempted to "make" games myself, I understand the immensity of this undertaking. I only wish more people would put the time in to attempt to actually create a simple game. Then, multiply that by the scope of thousands or hundreds of thousands to see the complexity of the game that our design team has produced. Perhaps then, this argument would fade away into the annals of obscurity as conjecture was replaced by reason. One dares to dream.

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Dude, you guys bring in 150 million a month on subscription fees alone, forget about game sales, transfer/name change etc. Acting like a martyr and making it out like its unreasonable to expect a content patch (which is like 5% or less of the actual game) more than once every 5 months when we've each dumped $75 in subcriptions on your company is just absolutely hilarious. I could buy two whole new games with that.

The only thing I have really noticed is the lack of variety in the way armor looks. I love the graphics of Northrend, and there are some really stunning places, but the armor? All look the same. It's very disappointing. :/

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Q u o t e:


New content is developed from "scratch" and then made in such a way that it is mostly seamless. It baffles me that so many people think that this is something that can be simply mass-produced. It's a very painstaking labor of love. As a person who has attempted to "make" games myself, I understand the immensity of this undertaking. I only wish more people would put the time in to attempt to actually create a simple game. Then, multiply that by the scope of thousands or hundreds of thousands to see the complexity of the game that our design team has produced. Perhaps then, this argument would fade away into the annals of obscurity as conjecture was replaced by reason. One dares to dream.

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I'd question which point along the line, however, that the major slowdown occurs. While I do not deny that there is a LOT going in from the beginning -> end of development, the one part of it one can conclusively point to and say 'This is different' from other analogies is in coding.

In terms of art & modeling, I cannot see how the popular 'Throw money at it (EG hire more people)' argument can't hold up - Unless there is a lack of some sort of standardized model construction used for WoW.

Now, coming up with, say, bossfights, sure, it's not easy - But one can take many of the heroics in WotLK as evidence of how many fights are the same with a tiny tweak in key elements. Loken and Keristrasza's auras, for example. You negate one by moving, and mitigate the other by being near the boss, while on Sapphiron, or Vaelastrasz to go way back you just had to take it. But conceptually they are all auras the boss is constantly pulsing, and it's not hard to imagine one could twist it once more - taking one which would certainly be clumsy (Mostly due to shadowform) would be one who debuffs you after using a spell, and it stacks up damagewise on you if you stick to the same element, resulting in mages jumping between arcane & X, or fire & X, or locks doing fire & shadow, druids arcane & nature, etc.

One can point to Wizards of the Coast, Magic specifically, as an example of that type of design - They are constantly tweaking the game in relatively small, yet substantial ways, and produce on a very rigid schedule where one can predict like clockwork both in and out of the company how much content to expect per year - Which holds true until design philosophy changes and they choose to alter counts.

Magic definitely has similarities to WoW - As does one of the first MMOs, Everquest. I could be feeling rose-glasses here, but I distinctly recall the pace of expansion as being radically faster than WoW, though I fully admit I lack knowledge of the precise reasoning this would be true. I'm sure Furor would have some knowledge on the subject, being one of the most, oh, well-known voices in the community at the time!

Anyway, I do not mean to be harsh, so much as questioning - One says it is 'Highly difficult', but the feel I get from player replies is essentially 'Yes, they say this, but where's the evidence?' - It's hard to believe in something that frustrates you when all you have is the word of someone to go by, regardless of how right or wrong one is in one's frustrations.

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Q u o t e:

Art assets take quite a bit of time. If dungeon and model art for something like Dire Maul is mostly completed long before the patch is slated to go live, it's going to take a lot less time to prepare that dungeon. Ulduar's been virtually built from the ground up since the release of Wrath of the Lich King. A lot of new art is being fed into this dungeon.

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Q u o t e:

That's why I said we're not making it up as we go, and have pretty clear outlines far in advance. For instance, a lot of art and programming for Ulduar has been in progress since before Wrath was released, and is very much still in progress now. At the same time though, every day there is a more clear picture of what 3.2 and beyond will bring. We're always looking and developing in advance, but a lot more of the basic structures and art assets for many of the 1.X content patches were already fairly far into development by the time the preceding patch was released.

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It's one or the other Zarhym sir, can't have both.

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Q u o t e:

Obtaining knowledge isn't the same as taking a guess, educated or otherwise, so there isn't a need to play off how sure you are of things you don't know.

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If he is that incorrect, why do you even bother responding to such an outlandish statement?

Starts to sound defensive..

just sayin...

xD

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Q u o t e:


If he is that incorrect, why do you even bother responding to such an outlandish statement?

Starts to sound defensive..

just sayin...

xD

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Yeah, thats the feeling I was getting, not a fact, just a feeling.

PS why is my Avatr still at 70, and still on my old realm?

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Q u o t e:
The only thing I have really noticed is the lack of variety in the way armor looks. I love the graphics of Northrend, and there are some really stunning places, but the armor? All look the same. It's very disappointing. :/

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I remember them hyping up how "arena sets will look unique and different than PvE sets". Lol, joke was on us. They made the arena sets look like level 40 greens, whole lotta effort went into that. But hey, they but alot of work into the tier PvE sets!! O wait.. reused the graphics from vanilla wow. So basically, no new fancy tier sets were made for this expansion at all. Talk about slacking.

Wow, there are a lot of misinformed individuals with in this thread.

Thank you to Crygil and Zaryhm for the information you are presenting to us.

To those commenting on the merger and where Blizzard falls into that equation, perhaps some more research would do you well. Vivendi aquired Activision, and merged that company with Blizzard, Activision did not buy Blizzard.

Now for those commenting on content, Naxx was re-released because so few people were able to experience the raid so it made sense to reopen it and let others view the content with in. I would rather they take their time and make sure the new areas work before releasing them, rather then just releasing it to satisfy the few people who are too impatient to wait for them to complete their work.

If any of you ever watched the bonus dvds that came with the collectors set, they talk a little of what goes into making something like Wrath of the Lich King, and its not as simple as many may think. So just relax, let them do their job. Their the ones with the degrees, and to this point I have been very satisfied with the beautiful job that has been done with in the new zones and for the new quests.

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Q u o t e:
Wow, there are a lot of misinformed individuals with in this thread.

Thank you to Crygil and Zaryhm for the information you are presenting to us.

To those commenting on the merger and where Blizzard falls into that equation, perhaps some more research would do you well. Vivendi aquired Activision, and merged that company with Blizzard, Activision did not buy Blizzard.

Now for those commenting on content, Naxx was re-released because so few people were able to experience the raid so it made sense to reopen it and let others view the content with in. I would rather they take their time and make sure the new areas work before releasing them, rather then just releasing it to satisfy the few people who are too impatient to wait for them to complete their work.

If any of you ever watched the bonus dvds that came with the collectors set, they talk a little of what goes into making something like Wrath of the Lich King, and its not as simple as many may think. So just relax, let them do their job. Their the ones with the degrees, and to this point I have been very satisfied with the beautiful job that has been done with in the new zones and for the new quests.

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Actually, Vivendi has a 68% controlling share over Activision/Blizzard.