Well, I think I reported it late last year, but it looks like Blizz finally pushed through the Armory changes. Along with a new layout, better javascript, faster load-times, they also added a model viewer. I kind of like it, but I also think it would be nice to be able to save a setting to turn it off... it kinda bugs me from time to time.

Also, Zarhym (a relatively unknown blue) suggested that Resilience may be getting a much-needed-love-tap in the direction of damage reduction for season eight. I'm in the middle of an on-going battle to try and get a differential system implemented to better incentivise players to use PvP gear in PvP... it's an uphill battle since many mages simply refuse to acknowledge that PvP gear in PvP is the design intent. Feel free and weigh in on the issue here. Additionally, he posted the following concerning the state of PvP and why it still feels "bursty":

We think everything is a little too intense right now, almost like playing the game on fast forward ... On the flip side, we could tone down damage and healing, but that has huge PvE ramifications and we're not ready to re-balance the entire game -- though this is the intent for Cataclysm. What we'll likely do for the next expansion is ramp damage up a little as players advance, but have health pools increase greatly and healing increase by marginal amounts. The same change would have benefits for PvE too because mana then becomes a consideration for healers -- they must make a more determined choice between an efficient strategy and a spamming strategy -- and tanks won't constantly face dying by two unfortunate strikes. In PvP, you'll ideally see more players in a wounded state, and they can eventually be worn down rather than blown up in a couple of global cooldowns. (source)

So, the idea for the next expansion is to up health pools by a lot, damage by a medium amount, and healing by a little... the idea is that health will slowly drain out of a trained-n-healed target, rather than sitting in one spot, or bouncing from empty-to-full. Essentially, the idea for PvP at 85 is that everything will be "smoother" by design... less "bursty" feeling and less healing throughput, so players won't get ghosted from 100% anymore.

This is something I can get behind... given that Feral has to ramp up for damage (by design). Essentially, Rip is the single best dps button in the game... in terms of resources per damage, Rip is better than almost any 2 abilities combined by any other class... Rip is borderline-OP, as I have stated before. What does this mean? Well, for one, it means that sustained play will be more favored in the Xpac... it also means that burst will be less useful since it won't guarantee a kill.

Unfortunately, it ALSO means that, unless something changes, an MS effect is going to be 100% necessary in meaningful PvP. The problem with this is that MOST classes with an MS-effect are also of the "bursty" variety. That is, Rogues and Hunters are currently rather bursty and all about cooldowns... once they have run out of buttons, their dps wanes slightly and their survivability falls off the planet.

THEREFORE, I am calling it now... one prediction for Cataclysm is that healing reduction effects will EITHER 1) be spread around to more classes or 2) they will be done away with entirely. Only time will tell, however...

Which brings me nicely to my next paragraph. Blizzard has announced that they will likely be moving Cataclysm into the Alpha stage, soon. What does this mean for you and me? Not a damned thing... except that we MAY start seeing trickling factoids and abilities seeping from the word-work. HOPEFULLY, I can get into Beta sooner than I did last time around, but it's hard to tell by what criteria Blizzard uses to determine if you get into Beta or not. My friend at work, has a buddy who got him into the Friends and Family Alpha last year, which meant he got into Beta as well (from the start... I'm jealous), but he's stopped playing WoW all together. I have asked him to tell his friend (who works as a developer for Blizzard on the WoW expansion team) to try and get him into the FAF-Alpha again, but to just pass ME the invite since he will not want to play it. I'll keep my fingers crossed, I guess.

In the next couple of posts, I'm going to discuss Cataclysm-specific changes that have been confirmed, and start rolling ideas around about what that could possibly mean for PvP, Ferals, and WoW in general. Stay tuned!

Blizzard announced late Monday that the 2v2 bracket would not award ANY titles, not just every title but Gladiator... it only took them the ENTIRE SEASON to come up with this announcement even though every day somewhere around 15 threads were started with nothing except the question "Can I get Duelist from the 2v2 bracket?" Way to drop the ball there Blizz. Sigh... going to end up 2200 in the 3v3 bracket and be a Rival... I won't lie, it's going to bug me.

So, here's a fun little story. Guntir and I have been saying all season that we think the best partner for a Feral+Disc team is Hunter. The reason for this is that the options are fairly limited to begin with; the partner needs an MS and the ability to not get gibbed or locked down. Warriors can work when they have Hand of Freedom, but without that they are pretty lackluster. Rogues have good damage output, but if they ever get targeted, they get exploded... plus their survivability is directly related to their cooldowns. Hunters have the ability to kite all day and night, they are ranged so they can stay out of the mix in pressure situations, and they bring a couple CC effects on different diminishing returns than Priest and Druid... and MS...

Anyway, we put up a listing on ArenaJunkies, mainly to see if there are any good Hunters on our server looking for a 3s team. Nothing happens for a while, but one day some level one alt whispers Guntir out of the blue explaining how he has a hunter on some other server with full relentless and he's looking for a new server to PvP on. Guntir's starts explaining how we have a rogue currently, but next season wouldn't be too hard to swing. The Hunter says "brb", logs off, and logs back on in ~10 minutes, then tells Guntir the following:

"Okay, my hunter should be xfer'd here in ~1 hour."

So, we played with him for the first time yesterday... I love hunters. He brings a lot to the team that I have simply never thought of but which makes a lot of sense in retrospect. For instance, we went against RDruid+Warrior+Ret and we usually just train the Warrior and try to CC-off the Druid while we apply pressure, but he made a good point in that he has a dispelable CC in Freezing Trap, so we should be using our CC on the Ret since he would simply dispel it off the Druid or Warrior. Anyway, we went something like 10-4 or something, nothing amazing but it definitely felt stronger than any other teammate we've tried, so I'm looking forward to playing that comp again.

So here we go again. Another few short months, another arena season coming to a close. That's right folks, in case you haven't heard yet, the seventh arena season in WoW history comes to a close as soon as January 19, 2010.

Guntir and I are back where we started, looking for a teammate who has what it takes to reach high ratings. We keep finding players who are more than capable of playing well... they know their class, they know their opponents' class... hell, a couple of our teammates even knew our classes and how to play with them as a teammate. What we cannot seem to find is a player who knows all these things and how to speak.

That's right, in case no one has mentioned it before, the key to success in the arena is being able to verbalize what you need to your partners. When we play with someone... Guntir would REALLY like to hear that someone needs a dispel or an abolish disease. If you get rooted by a frost mage... don't just sit there and assume that the priest knows you got rooted and need a dispel, you have to say something.

Bah...

Some months ago (at the beginning of this season, specifically), we picked up a Blood DK (remember my tirade about ArP being ridiculous? It still is, just not for Ferals in PvP). This DK's name was Dreadplate, and he was exceptional. Unfortunately, Feral+Disc+ does not work well past 2k if that last dps does not have an MS-effect... which DKs obviously do not. HOWEVER, Dread is a skilled player and has taken many classes above 2k, a few above 2.2k... so we were sad to replace him. Dread has now gotten his Hunter to 80, however... so I'm trying to see if we cannot get him to rejoin our ranks for a 2.2k push next season.

Switching directions:

So, the last post was made with a longing for my younger days, when FF9 was still new to me and the world seemed a larger place. I remember now why I picked up WoW in the first place - it wasn't for PvP, it wasn't for PvE... it was because it was labeled as a Role-Playing Game. Personally, I don't think that it could be further from the truth; sure, in WoW everyone assumes the role of some character, but that is not all the genre is made up of (by this definition, Call of Duty: World at War is an RPG). I have a very distinct understanding of what I believe an RPG to be, and what makes an RPG great.

About a year ago (maybe two), my brother, Guntir, was in his senior year in college (we're both computer scientists) and working hard on his senior project. He was building an RPG framework which could be used to design role-playing games for the masses. I liked his idea, but ultimately the school's bureaucracy got in the way - simply making a game frakework wasn't enough, he had to use a new technology to do it (an unfamiliar technology, that is), and he had to also spit out a game to prove it worked. Well, mix in "build the best" with "you've never used before" and "oh and do this other unrelated thing as well" and you have got a recipe for disaster.

What is my point... after all this rambling it is still reasonably unclear, I am sure.

I started writing my own RPG framework in a language which I have mastered (Java), and have no deadline that need be matched. Already, this is starting out under better circumstances than Guntir's experience. The idea is to create something that is generic enough to make any type of RPG, regardless of the look and feel.

(My boss just had me do some work here that really pissed me off, so I'm going to cut it short)

No promises yet, but I'm working on this framework for building RPGs, I'll keep posting updates until I have something worthy of screenshots.