Big News Of The Week
Mastery Means More Mojo
In our last episode, we brought up the new, forthcoming statistic called “mastery”, and called for more details on it. Lo and behold, Blizzard provided us with a mountain of new details on mastery this week! It came in the form of a post from Eyonix, who wrote:
With this system, we want to accomplish three things: give players more freedom in how they allocate talent points, simplify some of the “kitchen sinky” talents that try to do too much at once, and add a new stat to high-level gear that makes you better at your chosen role.
Rumors And Scuttlebutt
Magazine Makes March Mayhem
The new issue of the UK edition of PC Gamer hit the shoppes and carts of London’s gamer community this week with a surprise that no one saw coming – a number of speculative changes to the political structure within World Of Warcraft that have not yet been confirmed by Blizzard. The PC Gamer guys know what they’re doing, and wouldn’t just guess this stuff in print, but since it is not yet confirmed information, it presents us with a challenge.
Town Cryer
Alistair N. writes: Hi Scott & Randy, just wondering, am i going to get my collection of battleground points swapped for honor points when they get rid of them in the next patch?
Anonymous writes:My guild has a little problem. We have a really super nice elderly member who is always on time for raids, is eager to help out anyone, and is an all-around nice guy. He has several level 80s ranging from warriors to warlocks. However, as nice as he is, his DPS is really in the toilet, on every single alt he plays. We’ve helped him get gear on every one of his level 80s, hoping that one combination will jive with him, and all of the level 80s have gear scores in the high 5000s. But even his mage can barely pull 2.5k dps. I really like the guy, but every time we run with him, especially in ICC or Halls of Reflection, his low DPS is a contributing factor to wiping. I know everyone secretly hates running with him for that reason, but because he is such a consistent player, we find it hard to tell him anything. We’ve tried giving him tips, helping him with his rotation and enchants and gems and EVERYTHING, and he is always eager to learn and appreciative for the help…but nothing helps. What would you do if this person was a member of your raid team?
Drop Of The Week
A Penny Saved Is A Penny Pwned
Do you visit FigurePrints to create your own unique character statue, or Printwarcraft to exercise your artistic talents and make your own character poster, or SwagDog to grab some personalized Horde and Alliance apparel? Well they’ve got a deal for you! FigurePrints, Printwarcraft.com, and SwagDog are currently offering a 10% discount on select custom World of Warcraft products until April 30. All you need to do is enter the promotion code Blizzard at checkout and you’ll instantly receive 10% off of your purchase of select merchandise.
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.
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first woo!
haven’t listed yet. really curious about this mastery thing. Also they better watch the stat, since they are trying to simplify stats..LOL
The 4th Option
This is the 4th option that we could have suggested to the listener that emailed in about the mature player with the low dps. This 4th option is HONEST, IMPARTIAL, and EFFECTIVE. Simply have your guild officers determine and make know the minimum DPS requirements for each and every instances. So, if the guild officers think that 2k dps is too low to be viable in ICC, then ½ the problem solved. The other ½ is getting the mature players DPS up and helping him enjoy the game more, which might never happen, but at least the rest of the Raid group won’t suffer. AND other guildies can take him into ICC at their own discretion and on their own time.
CORRECTION!! So the 4th option I posted is acually a way to implement Randy’s 3rd option….sorry.
i’ve listened now
RANDY–5 specs is not roleplaying sir!
when the respec feature was introduced it was so people would not have to reroll entirely like in diablo 2. By the end of TBC this feature was being abused daily by certain people who did not feel they could raid and solo in the same spec. 50 gold was not the same hurdle it had been in classic. The addition of dual spec was a game-mechanic compromise for them and also for people to be able to fill missing roles in an ongoing dungeon (i.e. so people would not have to leave to respec)
It really bums me out that so few people see the value of making choices.
I am one of those older players. And what I’ve done is NOT let anyone know that. Once others find your as old as their Dad, they look at you differently. They may look at you closer than the younger players. I have been a healer since WoW went live. I admit I’ve lost some twitch reflex. But I know every trick to keep these whipper snappers alive. It’s ok Son, just tank there and soak up my heals.
Heh, the call about gold inflation in WoW sounded like it came from some kid who is still halfway through his freshman macro class and thinks that makes him an economist, because he can repeat the definition he read from his textbook.
Gotta disagree with Randy on the inflation argument. Inflation generally refers to a decrease in the buying power of a particular power currency; e.g., a bolt of mageweave used to cost 5 silver and now it costs 1 gold. It is the prices across the board that define inflation regardless of the rate at which players can earn gold, the currency in question is not time but in-game gold.
Historically, currency supply has been a good predictor of inflation, but more money doesn’t mean prices have to increase. Prices could remain stable if players were to save more gold, for example.
Also, to MikeS, I fail to see how attacking the caller without addressing his argument is constructive criticism.
love the show! keep it up!
Here’s a real fourth option for the caller Anonymous: look at your raid group and try to find some really effective buffs that you’re missing, that this older guy can provide on one of his toons. A boomkin, elemental shaman, or blood DK can provide thousands of raid DPS in raid buffs. Demonology warlock also comes to mind. Even if he’s only putting out 2k, if his Abomination’s Might (or whatever) increases raid DPS by 3k, he’s contributing a respectable 5k DPS to the raid.
I gots to know, where the heck did you find that mix of Wax Tailor’s song “Say Yes” at the beginning of the mash-up? I have looked everywhere and cant find it.
Regarding the listener who commented on inflation, they do not understand the basic economic concepts. Inflation is defined as too many chasing too few goods. Prices rise when more currency is in the economy for the participants to push up prices for a finite amount of goods. His argument that repairs are the only money-sink in the game is not well thought out. I would argue that for a player, the money drains are: Mounts/Training/Repairs. I just dinged 70 on a mage and the level 70 training for all skills was 150G. Flying in OL is 250G and epic flying is 5000G. You noted that the tundra mammoth is what, 18kG. Repairs are what, 2G at 75%. For a tank that would be more for sure but still – in one dungon run the coin drop pays for repairs.
WoW does not have hyper-inflation as you correctly pointed out – because the market participants still have faith in the currency and prices are not rising so fast that players don’t use the currency. What, I believe, we have is a maturing of the economy. At this point of an expansion cycle, where more and more players are at top xp, 80, earning more gold than ever, of course you’ll see inflation. Because there is more gold in the economy chasing the same goods (no new goods – same old frostweave). You can say that an increase of the price of copper ore (or whatever) over time will indicate inflationary environment. And while those who have played the game over time have probably seen increases in the price of this commodity, I don’t see them all rushing out to buy copper ore in response to a lack of faith in the WoW currency Gold.
WoW is trying to take gold out of the economy, and you correctly noted this as well in the existence of the 18kG epic mounts, etc. They have an achievement for equipping an 18kG bag from Harris Pilton. So there is an active currency reduction plan in place that impacts the high end gold holders. Repair bills, while substantial, in my opinion are more representative of a Tax than currency maintenance. It’s an activity tax on earning. You earn levels, loot, drops etc – you have to pay a tax called repairs. Earning levels, loot drops etc enables you to stimulate the economy further. No one will argue that as you level up, the rewards become greater allowing you to spend gold in the economy
The listener should not compare this economy to RL economies as this economy is much too simple. While very dynamic and part of the reason I love the game, it doesn’t have various currencies, real estate, interest rates.
Wouldn’t it be cool if the different regions/factions had their own currencies?
ChrisS, Inflation is defined as too much currency chasing too few goods. Buying power is not considered in measuring inflation. Money supply is the barometer.
The advice about the older raider is what keeps this podcast firmly at the top of my favourites list. All the down-to-earth advice that goes beyond game mechanics and into the realm of sensible human interaction is what puts this show streets ahead of the rest. We can find out about patches and game details anywhere, but we come here for that balanced common sense advice.
You guys godamn rock.
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I have an epic walker
Accountant who WoW’s, Thanks for the well-written and -structured write-up.
Not being spiteful – I meant to say “spending power ‘isnt’ the barometer”. I hope this topic could be addressed in a future podcast because being newer to the game I’d like to hear some deeper perspective.
There’s been other games that I haven’t had experience with directly that experienced what an economist would call hyper-inflation. Credit dupes or glitches that permit a player to rig the game to obtain currency create the type of hyper-inflation that the caller described. In that case, you would see players investing in copper ore as with a currency dup, you could literally double your currnecy stack overnight by selling the ore in the morning at stupid prices.
Great discussion on mastery. I think this is going to be an interesting change to the game in the upcoming expansion. I agree that it is going to simplify things from both the player’s and Blizzard’s perspective. The fewer stats and talents they have to worry about, the more balanced the classes can become.
Scott and Randy mentioned their StarCraft 2 names but it isn’t working for me. Can someone verify for me that I heard it right?
Randy.Deluxe
Gerp.Frogpants
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hah, keep up the great work. Love the Star Wars pic above showing the all-too-close call of interstellar incestry. Keep it moving!