Big News Of The Week
There’s Nothing Sexier Than A Good Statistic
This week, Blizzard gave us a complete essay on numbers changes coming to the game with Cataclysm. There are apparently going to be big numbers, and little numbers, and if Blizzard has their way, they’re going to make a bit more sense than they currently do. Eyonix started the big post on their forums with the following quote:
Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations.
The goal is that classes will want to wear the gear intended for them.
Rumors And Scuttlebutt
Five Creepy Ways Video Game Designers Are Trying To Get You Addicted
That’s the crazy title of an article by David Wong on Cracked.com today, and it’s a doozy. The psychological impact of playing video games has been studied for decades, but only recently has the audience began to catch on to the complexities of what encourages them to buy a game, or play a game into the wee hours of the night, or pre-order the next game.
Town Cryer
Jim writes: I was wondering what the economy was like on your server? I blame Gold Sellers and Gold buyers for the inflation of level 264 gear going for 15K plus and the damn “Battered Hilt” scaling the top of the charts at 30K a pop! Do you know if Blizzard is planning on addressing the issue?
Tymonger P. writes: What is the best website to get information about being the best healer?
Drop Of The Week
They Finished The Mosaic
We’ve mentioned it a few times over the many years and years that Blizzard has been working on their Battlecry mosaic, and we will now talk about it for the very last time. The Mosaic is complete!
Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.
Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, FigurePrints!, TypeFrag and SquareSpace for sponsoring this episode.
- The RSS Feed
The MP3 File
- The iTunes Subscription
The Zune Feed
I can’t find the show notes… I am a complete newb here. What was the song played at the end of the episode? I loved it!
i to am interested in the song played at the end of this episode
never mind, i did a little googleing and found it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLC8ndUbMKI&feature=related
weapon skills fill a role purpose–partially, it keeps casters from trying to melee.
I loved Randy’s suggestion of a boat mount for the game.
I’ve long said that in order to make fishing more popular they need to create some sort of a Bass Boat. Imagine being able to get one (perhaps another super high Engineering mount???) and bring 2-3 of your buddies (and perhaps a keg) onto the boat and do a little fishing around Azeroth.
If it gave something like a +50 fishing bonus and could handle a few friends I think that would just be awesome. I’d definitely renew fishing again if I could do something like that.
Anyway, keep up the great show.
thanks furryewok
So talking about statistics and how video games and wow has hooked us. I wonder where the other end of that survey is. What is the point, when we haven’t won or even seen a desired drop, that we give up. The green drake for instance. Yes, I know others have gotten it. Meanwhile I get tickbird after tickbird. Early on I was gun-ho on making sure I opened and bought my eggs. Now couldn’t really care when I pick up another egg because its not gonna be a Proto drake anyway. Its worse in raids! Not only do you have to hold out hope that your piece of Armor drops, but then you have to pray that you win the roll. How many times do you not see your drop, lose the roll, before you get disheartend. …And the battered Hilt!!! GAWD, I really felt that the battered hilt would change my game for the better. OH, to bad the drop rate is horrible, and any that do fall sell on the AH for 10k or more.
The fan submissions at the end (following Darrel and Buxley) are usually worth skipping. One regular submission is so bad it really deserves calling out: the dude “Eldrick the Bear Tank” has a 5 second loop of music playing during his *entire* submission. The repeating loop sounds like a skipping record and it gets so annoying after 30 seconds I just have to skip past his whole submission. Why do people feel compelled to put background music on their submissions? Scott and Randy don’t have a soundtrack playing for their podcast – just a quick intro tune and even that’s completely unnecessary.
/rant
Was that really Al Gore?? It sounded just like him. I wouldn’t be asking, but he called Schilling a “drunk ass bastard” which didn’t sound all Al Gore-like to me, haha. Anyways, great show as always, lads.
I loved it!
Whoo hoo!
BOOO me)
Getting ready to listen to the show (since I couldn’t stay awake for the live
The last couple weeks I haven’t paid attention to the mosaic. And I love hearing (from you) that it’s finished!
I submitted a pic (Eiseria)
Be well!
Yes I agree, (MMO)RPG games are real time thief.
The psychological impact of playing video games has been studied for decades, but only recently has the audience began to catch on to the complexities of what encourages them to buy a game, or play a game into the wee hours of the night, or pre-order the next game.
About “psychological impact of playing video games”, I must say from my own experience, that playing especially RPG games made me quite addicted. I remember
playing Baldur’s Gate for hours (man this game is still awsome), I couldn’t get away from my PC. But, thank God, I learned to control this obsessive feeling “that I have to play”!!!. But today, I would say, with all these mmorpg games, especially WoW, it doesn’t get any easier for people.
Thanks and play wisely
Tim Sewel
Author of Zygor Guide