---

Q u o t e:


The "QQ", which I even pointed out didn't impact this decision at all. My job is to present feedback made by players to the design team, and I've become fairly adept at ignoring the noise - and tend to focus only on constructive core points. I gathered the fundemental and most legitimate concerns players had with the changes, and ultimately the decision was made simply because we had allowed the "ghetto hearthing" method of travel to persist long enough that not being able to do so, would feel somewhat punitive to players -- the hearthstone cooldown change compensates for this change.

---

That is like saying "People have been getting under stormwind since the first release of WoW so since we have not blocked this ability since then we will now make it easyer for people to get down there"

I'm with Zake. I kind of came here initially to point out some of the inconsistencies I felt were in line with lowering the Hearth cooldowns. I was debating the fact that if it was an hour long there were ways to make it work without a flaw in the system being inherently there. I'm glad something is being addressed one way or another, but I will admit I think things went a little over the top. I think a single fix would be the ability to hearth from the Caverns of Time instances via the NPC's generally located there, but...

If this works, then so be it. I am a little afraid for some of the end results of this being put into play, but only time will tell if what I suspect will happen, will be true or not.

---

Q u o t e:
I'm with Zake. I kind of came here initially to point out some of the inconsistencies I felt were in line with lowering the Hearth cooldowns. I was debating the fact that if it was an hour long there were ways to make it work without a flaw in the system being inherently there. I'm glad something is being addressed one way or another, but I will admit I think things went a little over the top. I think a single fix would be the ability to hearth from the Caverns of Time instances via the NPC's generally located there, but...

If this works, then so be it. I am a little afraid for some of the end results of this being put into play, but only time will tell if what I suspect will happen, will be true or not.

---

so wait a minute are we saying I really was a huge factor in making this happen ROFL, slap me pleaseee

---

Q u o t e:
Would be a nice change, but for some reason the blizzard fanboy sheeps don't agree. Anything to make the game more accessible and fun, and remove the excessive travel time sinks.

---

FAIL

Accessibility is the bane of a good game. Blizzard literally hands you free loot, free mounts, free armor, extremely cheap portals, easy instances, and you complain because they remove a badly abused mechanic?

You pansies need to play Hello Kitty Island Adventure. No really. You're existence is ruining this game.
Back in "Vanilla WoW", we had to hike it on foot basically everywhere until level 40. *GASP* FOURTY? DIDN'T YOU HAVE A MOUNT BY THEN???? No. Does anyone remembers back in the day, when the stairs in ZF took some co-ordination, and in ST, when you had to kill everyone mob in the friggin instance, or else you would wipe on the last boss? If you do, then you know that Blizzard has made content retardedly easy. (Yush, retardedly. New word.)

What about Karazhan? That was a tough raid. SSC? TK? Those were HARD. If old Naxx makes Kara look like pie, then Kara makes new Naxx look like cotton candy.

Blizzard caters to you whiners. And see what happens? Vault of Archimonde is free loot. The hardest part of it (besides Wintergrasp *snort*) is rolling the dice. I mean seriously.

Stop whining! Don't like it? Go away.

---

Q u o t e:


Be honest was there anything I said from this thread that helped that final decision?

---

I'm sure one way or another some of what we did discuss earlier in the thread was viewed constructively, but I imagine the decision was made mostly because it would:

A.) Solve the problem inherent with what he's saying about it being allowed to stay too long.

B.) Remove the need to make the solution excessively complex. That is to say, changing the CD on the hearth is inherently easier to modify than an NPC in an instance at a given time.

I'm a bit concern that some of the outcries now about this over-conveniencing thnigs might be true to an extent that people will see a desire to over-simplify future and/or other currently existing features or that it may in turn semi-trivialize mage Portals, but I can't ascertain that right now without seeing everything come into play to give my feedback accordingly.

Edit: Said the same thing twice. Getting bad about that, also, I doubt the CM's will inherently reply to a "fish for compliments", even if it's not intended as such, Zake, my friend. Roll Alliance on Atuik(Nesingwary), btw, I like the way you think. You're a very level headed person.

---

Q u o t e:


The "QQ", which I even pointed out didn't impact this decision at all. My job is to present feedback made by players to the design team, and I've become fairly adept at ignoring the noise - and tend to focus only on constructive core points. I gathered the fundemental and most legitimate concerns players had with the changes, and ultimately the decision was made simply because we had allowed the "ghetto hearthing" method of travel to persist long enough that not being able to do so, would feel somewhat punitive to players -- the hearthstone cooldown change compensates for this change.

---

Frankly, I don't see how a fix to an obvious exploit of the game mechanics involving travel and a means to get around the hearthstone cooldown is by any means "punitive" to players who abused it.

---

Q u o t e:


FAIL

Accessibility is the bane of a good game. Blizzard literally hands you free loot, free mounts, free armor, extremely cheap portals, easy instances, and you complain because they remove a badly abused mechanic?

You pansies need to play Hello Kitty Island Adventure. No really. You're existence is ruining this game.
Back in "Vanilla WoW", we had to hike it on foot basically everywhere until level 40. *GASP* FOURTY? DIDN'T YOU HAVE A MOUNT BY THEN???? No. Does anyone remembers back in the day, when the stairs in ZF took some co-ordination, and in ST, when you had to kill everyone mob in the friggin instance, or else you would wipe on the last boss? If you do, then you know that Blizzard has made content retardedly easy. (Yush, retardedly. New word.)

What about Karazhan? That was a tough raid. SSC? TK? Those were HARD. If old Naxx makes Kara look like pie, then Kara makes new Naxx look like cotton candy.

Blizzard caters to you whiners. And see what happens? Vault of Archimonde is free loot. The hardest part of it (besides Wintergrasp *snort*) is rolling the dice. I mean seriously.

Stop whining! Don't like it? Go away.

---

Unlinked FP's.

Both ways. In 6 feet of snow.

---

Q u o t e:


Frankly, I don't see how a fix to an obvious exploit of the game mechanics involving travel and a means to get around the hearthstone cooldown is by any means "punitive" to players who abused it.

---

In simpler terms, the exploit of game mechanics went on unpunished, and un-fixed for a long enough period of time that it could be decided it would be more beneficial to give a quicker means of efficient, self-travel. Basically meaning, by allowing the speedy travel to exist for so long on an infinite basis unhindered, this was their method of giving some ability to retain that for those that became accustomed to it.

---

Q u o t e:
You know, there was a time before "ghetto hearthing" was possible and you had to rely on your hearthstone cooldown, or a mage port. I know it's crazy to even try and imagine such harsh living conditions.

I will tell you what, guys. I'll bring this up with the designers. Though the hearthstone is reasonable, since many of you have become used to "ghetto hearth" style travel, it may be deemed an appropriate change.

I can make no promises.

Update: Alright, all -- we're going to make the cooldown on hearthstones 30 minutes when 3.1.0 releases. Enjoy your sweet victory.

Thanks to those who provided feedback constructively.

---

seriously? 30min cd on hearthstone? Wow sweet. Thanks.

---

Q u o t e:


In simpler terms, the exploit of game mechanics went on unpunished, and un-fixed for a long enough period of time that it could be decided it would be more beneficial to give a quicker means of efficient, self-travel. Basically meaning, by allowing the speedy travel to exist for so long on an infinite basis unhindered, this was their method of giving some ability to retain that for those that became accustomed to it.

---

So in other words, if a cheater cheats long enough, then taking their means to cheat away from them is too harsh, thus the need to reward them.

Gotcha.

Guess I'm one of the few that thinks the hearthstone mechanic should be removed (possibly given back as a spell to priests to cast on others and leave the spell available to shaman as self only). As well as getting rid of the ports to major cities in Shat and Dal.

Would make those 150 and 300 skill mounts much more valuable.

The Astral Recall cooldown will be getting cut in half as well, right? I even have the glyph, and quite frankly 7.5 minutes is far too long to wait to get around. I demand a 7.5 cooldown base and 3.25 with glyph or you can kiss my subscription goodbye.

I look forward to your response, Blizzard. Do the right thing.

---

Q u o t e:


In simpler terms, the exploit of game mechanics went on unpunished, and un-fixed for a long enough period of time that it could be decided it would be more beneficial to give a quicker means of efficient, self-travel. Basically meaning, by allowing the speedy travel to exist for so long on an infinite basis unhindered, this was their method of giving some ability to retain that for those that became accustomed to it.

---

So if we exploit something long enough in game they will cave in and make it part of the regular game mechanics? Nice, lets exploit getting into Old Ironforge enough that they open it up to us all.

To everyone saying how they are tougher because they played in vanilla wow... You aren't. You basically just played a different game. I remember outrolling 4 other druids for my first piece of t1... That wasn't skill. Getting 40 people to actually show up to MC was more of a pain than the instance. Making gold sucked before dailies came out. If you were a tank (which means only warriors), repair bills were enough to make you hate your class. If you didn't have PVE gear, you were pretty much screwed in PVP. The talent trees made no sense... Improved Pounce anyone? When they started fixing talent trees alot of problems were dealt with, but the game was still pretty crazy.

The only truly awesome part of vanilla wow in my opinion was only fighting people from your server in bgs. Even though occaisonally it was hard to get enough people to form a battleground.

So does this mean the 15 min cooldown on my shaman's astral recall is being halved as well? :D

/Runs away before poo poo starts flying.

---

Q u o t e:


So in other words, if a cheater cheats long enough, then taking their means to cheat away from them is too harsh, thus the need to reward them.

Gotcha.

---

It was left in long enough(unpunished) that if Blizzard approached it like a cheat at this point, it would be met with nothing short of outrage in all liklihood. A "cheat" not punished is a bypass. Changing the terms around to make it seem criminal-like in behavior does not change how it is viewed when no counter-measure is taken for so long.

SOMEONE SUGGESTED A CHANGE IN GENERAL AND IT WAS DONE REALLY QUICKLY.

I'M TAKING A SCREENSHOT TO SHOW MY FUTURE GRANDCHILDREN.

No one can really call this a game nerf, as everyone has, at some point or another, sought out a ghetto hearth in the form of instances or BG queue or summon or mage port.

This also increases paladin survivability greatly.

BLUE ICING

---

Q u o t e:


No, it's really not.

---

Your right... It's more like you take away the ability to go through the walls and instead put in an elivator that can only be used once an hour.