BlizzCon: World Of Warcraft Open QA Recap

3:30

gameinformer: General Q&A panel beginning.

3:33

gameinformer: Reiteration that dungeon finder probably won't be brought over to raids. Blizzard is even afraid of it being less useful for five-mans because they want five-mans to be more challenging.

3:34

gameinformer: Guy wants to know if blizzard will add in the ability to merge two guilds together. They said that's not currently planned.

3:34

gameinformer: Hoping that Guild Achievement system will make guilds want to stay together more.

3:37

gameinformer: Girl asked about druids, then guy asked about fury warriors. I KNEW IT! More class questions/complaints!

3:39

gameinformer: If I heard right, this guy basically asked them if they're going to keep tweaking and balancing the talent trees. Shocker: they answered "yes."

3:41

gameinformer: Guy wondering about Blizzard's current philosophy on crowd control going into the expansion. It sounds like they want more crowd control in PvE, so there will be a lot less mobs immune to it.

3:42

gameinformer: This guy just sai

3:42

gameinformer: *said "Mages are the best class by far." He's correct.

3:42

gameinformer: Despite this proclamation, he's unhappy with how mages perform in arenas.

3:44

gameinformer: These French guys who are sitting next to me are very loud.

3:44

gameinformer: Next guy is wondering if Death Knights might ever get any Lich King abilities like Defile or Infest.

3:44

gameinformer: Blizzard basically ignored him. Rad.

3:46

gameinformer: Guy who's dressed up and asking a question in character. :|

3:46

gameinformer: He asks if there's plans for a legendary dagger for melee DPS classes.

3:47

gameinformer: Blizzard says when they think up legendaries, they make them to be used by multiple classes. This makes it difficult to do daggers.

3:48

gameinformer: French dudes, you are sitting right next to each other. You don't need to scream!

3:49

gameinformer: A question about protection pallies. Feels like I'm still in the last Q&A.

3:52

gameinformer: Guys asks about balancing arenas versus battlegrounds.

3:52

gameinformer: Blizzard says they want arenas to remain viable. Battlegrounds are easier to balance, but they don't want to forget about arenas.

3:53

gameinformer: Guy wondering if Blizzard will add more abilities to a frost mage's water elemental now that it's a permanent pet.

3:53

gameinformer: Bliz says they need to wait and see how permanent water elementals end up working first.

3:55

gameinformer: Guy is happy that subtlety rogues are a good DPS spec again but isn't happy with the shadow dance ability.

3:57

gameinformer: This guy asked something about Stephen Colbert and Canada. I don't really get it.

3:57

gameinformer: They're talking about a moose mount and how they want it in the game. "Their special ability would be standing in the middle of the road, and then the goblin car mount comes and runs it over."

3:57

gameinformer: "I'm thinking sparkle moose myself."

3:58

gameinformer: New guy who says he plays three of the four healing classes but is confued about what stat to focus on as a holy paladin.

3:59

gameinformer: Girl with a crazy octopus hat is asking a question now.

4:00

gameinformer: She's an Achievement fiend. Asks if Blizzard will let people "use" their Achievement points. This was asked earlier, and the answer is no.

4:00

gameinformer: Blizzard says they want Achievement points to be like a "score," not a form of currency that's used to make things more powerful or anything.

4:01

gameinformer: Girl asking about m

4:01

gameinformer: *what new multi-person mounts are coming out, specifically crafting mounts. She wants engineers to be able to make a mini-van.

4:01

gameinformer: One of the French dudes is leaving, but two more have taken his place. WHAT IS THIS?

4:02

gameinformer: Blizzard says legendary items will probably be available in both 10- and 25-man raids moving forward.

4:03

gameinformer: This guy says there's no uniqueness in specs any more -- everyone's going to be exactly the same. I...think that's always been the case, let's be honest.

4:04

gameinformer: Blizzard says they looked into stats on the older, more complicated talent trees and (surprise!) players largely stuck to a small number of builds.

4:04

gameinformer: This guy is saying how some mages went into frostfire and some went into straight fire. Blizzard killed the frostfire spec a long time ago.

4:05

gameinformer: Blizzard says they're essentially just removing ways for characters to gimp themselves.

4:06

gameinformer: Person wondering if stuff other than heirlooms will be account-bound, such as some mounts

4:06

gameinformer: Blizzard: "Things that aren't character-power-oriented have a higher chance of that.

4:07

gameinformer: Many of the archaeology items will be ac

4:07

gameinformer: *account-bound, as will the new guild mount.

4:07

gameinformer: Person says they want a closet - someplace to put all the festival clothing items you can get. Crowd cheers.

4:07

gameinformer: Blizzard says they have a solution for this that they hoped to get into Cataclysm. Still being worked on.

4:08

gameinformer: Guy says there's no Alliance equivalent for the "For the Horde!" scream

4:08

gameinformer: Blizzard's suggestion: "Have mercy!"

4:09

gameinformer: In a more serious response, he says they've experimented with some Alliance battle cries, but they haven't found one that fits yet. "We'll keep try. ...that's not the battle cry."

4:09

gameinformer: Guy says that warlock and mage masteries that are a flat damage bonus don't really change up gameplay enough

4:10

gameinformer: Blizzard says it's not supposed to change gameplay necessarily, just make you better at what you do.

4:11

gameinformer: Girl wondering if Insane in the Membrane Achievement will still be, er, achievable after Cataclysm launches

4:11

gameinformer: Blizzard says that feat of strength is dead right now because of changes to the pirate faction. Crowd boos. "If there's a huge outcry for it, we'll try to put something equally brutal in the game."

4:12

gameinformer: Guy wondering if Pandarens will show up more in the game. "Not asking for playable, but maybe as a neutral race?"

4:12

gameinformer: Blizzard: "Pandarens are a super-cool race." He says it's something they'll look at in the future. Probably not this expansion from the sounds of it.

4:12

gameinformer: Bearded dude says "Engineers represent," and says he likes the mini-van idea from earlier.

4:13

gameinformer: Guy is wondering if Blizzard would open up auditions for voice acting so fans could get in the game. He says all the new characters sound like Thrall.

4:13

gameinformer: Blizzard points out that they have a process for hiring voice actors.

4:14

gameinformer: "Hi, I'm Anastasia, and I'm an altaholic." She has 10 characters that will be 80 when Cataclysm comes out, and she wants an extra character slot.

4:14

gameinformer: Blizzard: "I can offer you another 10 slots for 15 bucks a month." OUCH.

4:15

gameinformer: He says they've talked about adding character slots, but not right now.

4:17

gameinformer: Blizzard says reforging is something that started off small but is likely going to change the game.

4:17

gameinformer: Some nerd asks why anyone would do 25-man raiding if 10-man raiding has the same gear. This guy is like Andy.

4:17

gameinformer: blizzard basically just says "10-man won't be easier. We're working on it."

4:18

gameinformer: Guy wondering if Blizzard is working on something for high-levels to be able to quest with lower-level friends. Blizzard says they've talked about sidekicking systems to allow players to temporarily level down.

4:18

gameinformer: Sounds like they want to do that in the future, but it's on that long list of "not yet"

4:19

gameinformer: Guy wants to be able to trade in legendaries for an heirloom version they can use to level up alts with.

4:19

gameinformer: Blizzard says that would mess with leveling.

4:19

gameinformer: Dude wants a separate tab for tabards.

4:20

gameinformer: Tabard tabs was in the works -- was going to be a drop-down menu like with titles. Only thing they have left to solve is how to use clickable on-use tabards.

4:20

gameinformer: dude says Dranei played almost no role during Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard: "You're right. We've done a poor job of incorporating them into WoW culture. It's better in Cataclysm, but it's not 100% there yet."

4:21

gameinformer: Guys asks about imbalance between Horde and Alliance population.

4:22

gameinformer: Blizzard says they've seen PVP-focused characters gravitate toward Horde, probably because of the mythos. They're trying to build the Alliance up as an "awesome force." Don't want to implement gameplay incentives though.

4:23

gameinformer: Guys wants them to change training dummies to be more interactive, let you play with stats, etc. Blizzard says that will happen eventually.

4:23

gameinformer: Guy says he want skirmishes back in arena. Sounds like no dice.

4:23

gameinformer: Here's the TOUGH questions. Dude wants to know if Blizzard is going to implement more dance moves or a dance studio.

4:24

gameinformer: Blizzard: "We've been doing some work on that. It's just a matter of time." They want to add "a lot of new dances." Whenever animators aren't working on something required for the upcoming expansion or next patch, they go back to working on dances.

4:26

gameinformer: Guy wondering about Blizzard adding new ways to get old recipes from old dungeons/raids that no one does anymore. Blizzard doesn't want to remove the incentive to revisit those raids.

4:27

gameinformer: Guy wondering if old factions like Argent Crusade will be back. Blizzard wants them to play a bigger part in Cataclysm since it's going back to focus on the old world.

4:28

gameinformer: Guy is upset that shadow priests changed from support role to straight DPS. Calls them "a glorified mage."

4:29

gameinformer: Every class that isn't a mage wishes they were. Fact. Blizzard was just doing what should make reasonable people happy.

4:29

gameinformer: Blizz says the feedback they got was that shadow priests wanted better/more focus on DPS.

4:29

gameinformer: Alrighty! That wraps up the Q&A panel and my weekend of liveblogging.

Thanks for tuning in everyone, and watch for some news posts and interviews from BlizzCon over the next week.