MoP: War: is it really? Or is it fake?

[chaos5061]

Q: Why when someone makes a personal agreement via in game chat with a player about an item can't blizzard honor that agreement?
A: We actually try to honor player agreements, but it depends on the transaction type. For example, there are a lot of transaction we don't support (such as cross realm trading, open loans, etc). In each of those, we will make sure scammers are brought to justice, but don't necessarily want folks to rely on Customer Service to aid these transaction. Others, such as crafting, the game doesn't really have the functionality to ensure you transact safely, so we get involved and go off the agreements we see.

Q: Unrelated to questions but i have to say the item restoration feature works beautifully. I lost my honorary brewmaster keg to careless vendoring and had it back in 10minutes. A+ would restore again
A: Glad to hear one of our automated systems took care of that lost item for you! For those not in the know, you can find more info on this feature right here:https://us.battle.net/support/en/art...em-restoration

Q: Are there any plans to update/change the in-game ticketing system for World of Warcraft so that the wait times for tickets can be reduced?
A: We're constantly evaluating how we receive CS requests from players. Right-Click-to-Report and self-service options (such as Item Restoration) are both examples of this building in this efficiency. Updating the in-game interface to prompt players for exactly the information we need to service their requests is definitely something we want to do.

Q: How do you repair bugs? how do you know the report of a bug is truthful or not?
A: As a rule, Customer Support doesn't really handle bug reports. The in-game feature to report a bug is actually sent to the development teams who have a chance to read, compile, and obviously fix any bugs you may run into. The truthfulness of a bug report? Our Quality Assurance team will test it extensively and try to see if they can figure out what's wrong.

Q: How large is the Support team for WoW? About how many new tickets do you receive on an average day?
A: Blizzard Customer support consists of hundreds of employees, and we take thousands of calls and tickets every day. Our support volume can fluctuate based on things like recent game launches and major patches, so we adjust our daily schedules and priorities (and our support channels) to account for that.

Q: I would like to know exactly how the Report feature works. When used, it seems to put the offending player on an ignore period of about 24 hours, yet nothing seems to happen to the individual offenders. Personally I have reported one individual on my server multiple times for multiple violations, only to see that person back at it within a day or two's time. It simply seems the feature is merely a placebo effect meant only to give players the feeling that they are actively particpating in policing their realms. So in short, please expand on this feature, how it works, and secondly, how do the GM staff feel about ToS violations and how seriously do they take the issue?
A: The Right-Click-Reporting features are *crucial* to us. There is a temporary "squelch" that it does to try and prevent in-game situations from escalating further, but it also does more than that. It provides us with all of the information we need to investigate these reports.

One of the reasons you might see someone continue to ...be less than great chat-wise... is that some of our initial suspension times are pretty short. This is something that we're in the process of changing, as we certainly want the focus to be on game-play, rather than dealing with another player's language.

We don't like ToS violations, and take them very seriously, which is why we're working on improving our penalty system. Please, if you see language that is ruining your fun, let us know. We don't want those folks to continue to ruin your experience.

Q: Hi CS people. When you respond to tickets via in-game chat are you chatting one-to-one, or handling multiple cases at once?
A: It depends largely on how complex the issue is, and how interactive the conversation needs to be. For example, if you're in the middle of a boss fight, a GM may elect to take on another conversation while waiting for you to return.

If the situation isn't a familiar one, they're probably going to be focused entirely on you for that conversation.

[chaos5061]

Q: Do you plan on bring any new features to us like the item restoration feature?
A: We're always looking for new opportunities to create self-service features. They're win-win for both of us. You get to take care of your issue, and we get to worry about other tickets that require more human-level-thought.

Q: How do you prioritize tickets? And do you try and catch people online? I find that to be the best method of contacting CS and getting the best service.
A: For the most part, we'll answer tickets in the order they're received. If we have a large pool of tickets about a single widespread issue (such as a bug), we'll send a response to all of the affected players at once. Contrary to rumor, putting certain words into a ticket isn't going to get it ahead in line.

Q: Is there a list of bugs they they are working on? So we don't spam the development team?
A: We keep a list of known bugs for each current patch on the bug forum for each game. It’s a good place to start for information regarding bugs that we are aware of.

Bug Forums for each game:

StarCraft II - http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/13440/
WoW - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1012660/
Diablo III - http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/5386229/

Q: How is the current botting issues in WoW being addressed? As we all know they are more than rampant and annoying..
A: We address botting or exploitation in a number of ways. We actively investigate reports that are generated by the right click report feature used by players in game. That information helps us take action individually as well as improve our detection systems. These investigations take a great deal of time as our goal is to maximize the benefits with them.

Recently, the /afk report feature for the Battleground system has been revamped and should help address much of what has been seen in BG’s of late.

Q: How happy is Blizzard with the queue times right now? Are there plans to make getting support even faster?
A: I can't say I'm thrilled about them, but they're better than they've been recently. My job is largely centered around trying to ensure we're enacting support strategies that will bring those queue times down. I'm working on it!

Q: Whats the craziest things you have had to deal with in office?
A: Well, we HAVE had folks showing up outside the office protesting Hardcore Diablo character deaths.

Q: Why do users not have the option to delete their own account completely? It could be implemented with a built in safety feature, which puts a 32 days delay before it is finally deleted...
A: Hey Flow (can I call you Flow?)! We do have the ability to delete one's account by emailing privacy@blizzard.com. We don't have a self-service method for this, largely to protect people from making rash decisions. Of the requests we receive to that address, you wouldn't believe how many people regret their decision days/months/years later.

Q: What is the policy about selling an account in WoW for cash IRL?
A: It's against the Terms of Use to sell accounts in this fashion; players who sell their accounts risk permanent closure. Buyers who purchase accounts through these illegitimate sales risk losing not only the accounts, but their payment as well (to unscrupulous sellers and scammers).

Q: Is there a pajama day at Blizz HQ? If there isn't, WHY HASN'T IT BEEN PUT IN PLACE?
A: In Customer Support, we have PJ days at the end of new hire training, usually accompanied by a Potluck for all the noms!

Q: Do you guys enjoy listening to your customers and do you share a laugh every now and then while reading the weird things people say and request on the forums?
A: Hey Trevor! Absolutely we do. Some of my best days are those when I get to laugh with a customer. Also...people do say some pretty weird things sometimes.

Q: There should be a way to appeal a name change when someone reports your name. most of the time they do it because there getting owned. Ive had to change names that weren't even offensive
A: You can absolutely appeal a name change. Go to the support site (http://battle.net/support), login, open a support ticket, and explain the situation and it will get a second look. That being said, if the name really IS bad, it will remain unavailable.

Q: Working in customer support for another gaming company, I know we have strict policies I wish we had more control of. What policies or procedures do you wish you had more control of?
A: I'm more in the position of helping to create policies, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer this question. However, we do allow for some leeway depending on the situation. If we creating policies that were too binary, then...why have humans do the customer service? It takes a human to really evaluate odd situations.

[chaos5061]

Q: How often do you guys get stumped and have to ask for help or look something up?
A: The game is fairly vast and while most of us are active players, we aren’t necessarily versed in all aspects of the game. Since we are all gamers ourselves, if one person doesn't know another might. We also have a lot of resources that our In-Game Support staff has access to.

Q: Sometimes, I receive a response for a ticket without ever speaking to someone. How do you decide which issues need to be handled personally, and which ones can be given a quick response?
A: We love talking to players online, and know that you guys generally prefer it that way. We've got a lot of tickets to reach, however, so we tend to reserve live chat for those cases when it's essential to resolving the issue, and when we catch the player online. Otherwise, we write back to the player with the answer/instructions that we believe will best help them.

Q: Do all of your GMs work at Blizzard HQ or do you let folks work from home or satellite CS centers?
A: All our support staff works in our various global locations, not just the HQ, but nobody works from home. Well, I do sometimes, but that's just because I can't keep myself from checking my email a hundred times a day when not in the office.

Q: Is the office decorated with alot of warcraft/Starcraft and diablo stuff? Like drinking from a wow mug?
A: Our office is decked out with the coolest swag, actually. There's plenty of Blizzard stuff like posters and figurines but in an office full of geeks, you can expect to find pretty much anything from My Little Pony over Nerf Guns to Star Wars and Lego... the list goes on.

Q: What is the purpose of GM responding in game tickest with RP personas? Do they make up their own RP introductions and farewells? Or are they pre-set?
A: I was flying overhead when I heard you had a question about RP personas! I hope you are finding yourself well this day!

This was actually something that happened kind of organically over time. When I first started in CS (back in the before times) this was something that was rare. We found that many players seemed to like it, and it let us have some fun. There is nothing mandating it, so when you see it, it's just something that GM decided they wanted to do, and they probably made it personally.

Q: Are GMs specifically assigned to a realm or do they respond to a mass list of tickets spread across all realms?
A: GMs aren't assigned to specific realms; they draw tickets from a single pool that includes all realms.

Q: There are some items that i accidentally deleted a while back but forgot about them (2 months ago) i cant restore these. What to do?
A: Two months is a long time, unfortunately. Unless they were tied to an achievement or something, it may be difficult for us to prove that you had it. I would caution folks to use caution whenever deleting an item.

Q: When dealing with a hacker complaint, how long does it take to analyze and process the complaint? I feel there is a lot of mystery surrounding this subject.
A: This really depends on a many factors. We want to make sure we investigate each case properly to make sure we are actually punishing those that deserve it and not just everyone that gets reported. It takes time to make that determination correctly and we try to work through those cases as quick as possible. We do appreciate the reports we receive from everyone, it definitely helps us try to keep our playing environment as clean of hackers as possible.

Q: I have a silly question. I've been helped by Game Masters a few times and i've always wondered, Do they get annoyed when asked for a GM joke after a solution for their problem has been found? Also, are they made up on the spot, or is there a secret binder or list that you keep for such occasions?
A: Straight off a colleague across the office: "Did you hear about the wedding of the two antennae? The wedding was lame but the reception was excellent!"

We're always happy to share a joke and laugh with you, of course! Some keep a list of great jokes at the ready, some are just really that witty.

Q: What's the most memorable (funny, weird, entertaining) ticket you've ever handled?
A: I once had to troubleshoot someone's jelly donuts for having too much jam in them. If you're out there, "Hi!".

Q: Do you choose ingame names or are they chosen for you?
A: Great question, paxbrat! You get to choose your own name during new hire training. We do make sure they don't mean anything or have some copyright on them, of course.

Q: Can you walk through the process for policy creation?
A: This is an epic question, but here's the short short version. There's a cross-team 'policy council' here that takes direction from Development leadership and input from a small group of veteran support managers. This group builds policy as content develops, and communicates those directions to the support teams as needed.

[chaos5061]

Q: What do you think makes WoW so popular?
A: Well, you, the players! It's the communities you build, the experiences you have together.

Q: What is the average response time on helping someone with lost/stolen authenticators?
A: It varies, but they are often handled fairly quick. We have a webform specifically for those who are having an issue with a lost/stolen'/broken authenticator. It allows you to attach an ID for proper verification. https://us.battle.net/account/suppor...enticator.html

Q: What experience requirements are required when applying for a Customer Support Job at Blizzard? (i.e. Computer sciences and other experiences). Do you guys hire customer support members often? Where can you apply and work as a customer support member?
A: Hey Tom! We actually have two Customer Service Representative positions posted right now, but at the moment they are specifically for people who speak Portuguese or Spanish. The requirements - apart from the specific language skills - are in line with what we look for in someone whose working language would be English though.

For more info on job postings, check our career opportunity pages at http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/

A: To get this issue out of the way once and for all with a true 'blizz answer'; If a player forms a raid and sets masterloot, says nothing at all the whole raid about any loot rules. Is that player then entitled to do as he wishes with the loot that drops? Often you see the issue of being called a ninja for example.

A: People generally assume that when they join a PUG, they're going to have a fair shot at loot. Not stating any loot rules, and just planning on doing whatever you want with it doesn't exactly feel honest, and is largely against the expectations of the raid. I mean, you're basically tricking people into running that instance.

So, generally, we will evaluate those situations carefully, and take action accordingly. We typically will not re-distribute any removed loot though, since we do feel there are other looting options that could be used to avoid the situation.

It's a tough problem to meet everyone's expectations on, and another reason why we employ humans to make judgement calls.

[chaos5061]

Old Maps and Map Addons
http://web.archive.org/web/200802211...info/flashmap/
Yeah! That map was cool. I don't think it got much traffic though. Having an updated map is one of those wishlist items, but the info is already out there on fansites and such, and even a lot of that info is in-game now compared to back then, not to mention quest flow and getting around is far more intuitive, so it's not a particularly high priority.

Would it be possible to put thinks like a repair vendor icon or innkeeper icon in the in-game map?
I believe there are some addons that do that. If it were something a lot of people found useful I'm sure we'd considering adding it. We're fine with some options and additions being made available through addons and not as a core feature of the game.

World PvP and Level Differences
why not add a stacking "dishonorable Kill" debuff that is applied whenever you kill someone drastically below your level. It could increase the amount of honor gained for killing the ganker. Something like a bounty system to add an incentive to hunting down those who prey on the weak.
That's an interesting idea, and we don't mind the idea of providing incentives (beyond faction pride) for high level players to get into PvP to protect their lower level compatriots.

The issue I see with systems like this is that they could be relatively easily gamed or exploited.

LFR Feedback
I just dont have time for all the damn LFRs + new dailys + the actual raiding.
This may sound crazy, but maybe drop some of it? If you're raiding then you probably don't need dailies unless you want to chase the vanity items. And those aren't going away in the future.

Also, as it's been said on this thread, but I'll put it in blue once more: Kicking someone from a LFR raid has no effect on the chance of anyone else getting a drop from the boss. All loot is personal now on the Raid Finder, so by kicking someone you're not increasing the chance you'll get a drop.

[chaos5061]

Winter Veil 2012
The Feast of Winter Veil is here and brings new gifts this year! When you unwrap your present this year, you will find a Foot Ball or The Pigskin inside. You will need them for They're Both Footballs? Don't forget to grab the Battle Pets as well.

This year also adds an updated version of the old Miniature Winter Veil Tree! Not many people have opened this year's Stolen Present yet, but it likely has a similar droprate (~1%) to the old one.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.1 Hotfixes - December 13

Classes
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Frost Bomb will now detonate after 4 seconds (was 6 seconds), and the damage it deals to other players has been reduced by 20%.

Quests
Players that leave the area during the ending sequence of "Heart of the Alliance" will no longer be placed into the wrong phase.

Pet Battles
Players that have earned the Achievement "Taming the World" should now receive a Safari Hat in the mail.
Lower level pets involved in Pet Battles with higher level team mates will now receive full experience from victorious battles.
Darkmoon Hatchlings, Red Crickets, and Singing Crickets that were previously of lower quality should now be Rare quality.

Items
The Sun-Lute of the Phoenix King can now be upgraded using the Item Upgrade system.

Dungeons, Raids & Scenarios
Heart of Fear
Grand Empress Shek'zeer
The Empress now always drops three tier-set tokens and three non-set items in the 25 player Heroic mode version of this encounter.

Bug Fixes
The Guild Perk, Ride Like the Wind, should now properly increase flight path speeds by 25% in Pandaria.
Classes
Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Various weapon procs will no longer sometimes prematurely break the Stealth provided by the Subterfuge talent.

[chaos5061]

Pet Battles Updates

We’ve been receiving a few inquiries over Twitter and through email regarding Farmer Nishi, so we thought we’d share our thoughts on Pet Battle experience gains with you.

We will soon be applying a hotfix that causes level-25 pets to no longer “steal” experience from your lower-level pets. Previously, if you had a level-3 and level-25 pet grouped together for a battle, the XP earned would be shared between the two at the end. This resulted in some players doing what they could to kill off their level-25 pet so the level-3 pet would get all of the experience. You no longer need to worry about this as the level-3 pet will now receive 100% of the XP that’s earned, so long as it has participated in at least one round of combat.

With max-level master trainer dailies available for Northrend, Cataclysm, Pandaria, and the new line of Spirit Trainers, you have quite a few endgame battles in Pandaria which you can use to level up new pets. Be sure to wear your Safari Hat to get the most out of your battles! The over-arching goal is to provide a variety of content with which you can level up your pets each day.

LFR Feedback.
Reason 1: People can get an item twice, thrice, even 4-5-6-7 times. Why is this bad? If we had normal looting, they would simply pass on the item, and let someone without one get it. Basically, loot that someone COULD use is being vendored, because this faulty loot system keeps giving certain other people an item they already have.
If we were still using a looting system with finite loot drops, I think this would be more of an issue. Each fight, everyone has the same chance to get loot. It could be that many people are getting loot on a single fight, though that's very uncommon.

Because the loot pool isn't finite as it used to be, this kind of duplication isn't as much of an issue in terms of total loot awarded, though I acknowledge that it probably doesn't necessarily feel great. The psychology gets weird: "I got this item, but it could have been *that* item, so this is frustrating."

The loot is meant to be random though, which means the possibility of getting duplicates - but even that isn't necessarily all bad. Sometimes it's worthwhile to gem or enchant duplicate items in a different way for a different application. Enchanters can also benefit.

-Reason 2: The chances of getting loot are spread unevenly. Some people are lucky, others are not. This is a part of how the game has always worked, but I do not think the gap should be so large.
This has, alas, always been the case. On the up-side, this also eliminates Master Looter scams, and organized groups of players rolling on items for each other, wildly swinging the odds of getting loot in their own favor.

Reason 3: People are switching specs for fights so that the auto-loot-generator will give them spec-specific loot. I cannot remember exactly, but in DS LFR, didn't the rolls there base off what you queued as? I could be wrong.
This is a valid concern. We're looking into the possibilities of implementing an elegant method of letting players decide what spec they would like the Raid Finder loot system to use when providing rewards.

-Reason 4: No Off-spec gear. Bonus rolls were a great thing, but I feel as though the above has already covered this. Simply editing this section to reflect that.
The above solution could help with this. In the meantime, off-spec gearing has always been tricky, and has been the source of significant ire in the community. Nobody likes losing a main-spec roll to someone else's off-spec.

-Reason 5: The excitement factor. Seeing loot drop was always fun, but so is simply getting an item directly after the boss dies. Getting gold bags from ALL the raid bosses in a week severely diminishes a lot of the excitement.
We're actually looking at ways to make getting loot in the Raid Finder more exciting. Both in terms of visual feedback as well as making the Satchels of Exotic Mysteries more interesting.

Any chance we can get other people's loot visible to raid? Its fine if I have no shot at getting it, just feels nice to see the boss drop loot instead of just a bag.
We're not sure. Would that really feel good?

I don't believe we're too keen on allowing players in the Raid Finder to trade loot, so it could feel not so great if someone else gets an item that they don't want, that you've been after, and they can't trade it to you.

That's surely already happening, but currently there's not quite the same cat-and-a-window-pane effect.

[chaos5061]

Low Level Instance Difficulty
The problem with lower level dungeons is that they are used by many players as an alternative to questing for levelling up.
So they need to be somewhat similar in terms of xp/time, otherwise players would probably skip dungeons altogether and simply quest, only a very small minority would probably be joining dungeons for the sake of curiosity, and some loot.

There’s also the trick about making dungeons easy enough for the less experienced players (new players levelling up for the first time). This becomes particularly important and we need to pay more attention to it whenever we release a new expansion since we usually tend to reduce the amount of xp needed to level up on lower levels or we usually adapt it in a way so that levelling becomes faster on previous expansions’ content.
This has the inconvenient of making players less prepared since they have less time to get to know their characters and their new abilities that constantly unlock while levelling up.

Still, I agree, some do seem a bit too easy, but I don’t know if I would feel exactly the same way if I had just started playing WoW and ran dungeons while levelling up my very first character.

Maybe its a possibility to make heroic versions of those instances for lower lvl's who want a challenge, and get better gear from them. I understand that blizzard's mainly focus is at the lvl 90's but they could atleast do something to make it more challeging.
That’s one possible solution; it’s all a matter of priorities and the amount of resources that we have at our disposal.

Still, while we always strive to make the game appealing and have something for every kind of player to do and enjoy in-game, it seems to me that the amount of players that would actually be running such dungeons would be very small, I suspect most players, even those that would enjoy a more challenging version of the dungeons, would probably still take the easy route simply because it’s there, it’s available and it will make them level up faster. Also, the queues would probably be long and players would tend to cancel them and re-queue for the normal version.

Actually even right now, depending on the level of your character, you should be able to queue for the heroic versions of certain instances, for example, if you’re level 80 you should be able to queue for Cataclysm heroic and normal dungeons, it’s up to you if you want to queue for the heroic version, but I suspect the system only allows you to queue them at very specific levels. Some improvements have also been made regarding allowing more players into older heroics. BC heroics for example, used to require specific reputation levels to queue for the heroic versions, those restrictions have all been removed. (there are no more keys) This change actually happened during Cataclysm.

Alts in Mists of Pandaria
We recognize that MoP is probably not the most alt-friendly of all the expansions and since WoW has been running for so long with its persistent world where characters usually don’t get deleted very often, it’s normal to expect a higher average number of alts per player as time goes on.

Our development team is very aware of this and they are trying to find more solutions for alts in MoP.

[chaos5061]

Rated Battlegrounds 10v10 Series
Kollektiv and Bailamost are leading 10v10 teams in a series of Rated Battleground matches over on ArenaJunkies. The second half takes place tonight at 6PM PST / 9PM EST / 3AM CET.

[chaos5061]

Classes
There's no "lead rogue designer." They've said this a few times. It's a collaborative effort.
This. We don't want a design environment with developers campaigning for buffs for "their" class. (Source)

Ghostcrawler if you could give a class a revamp what would it be?
Don't think any class needs a revamp ATM. If it weren't for risk, would be fun to make 2 DPS specs in 1 class very different. (Source)

People don't use sims as an argument. They use raidbots analysis, which shows equally skewed DPS balance as the sims.
Raidbots can provide good data if analyzed intelligently. Disagree that it often reflects the sims. (Source)

Why is it that Restodruids and Holypaladins "naturally" have no-cost spells(clearstate,wog),but Priests and Shamans haven't.
just a class distinction. We balance mana costs and returns around it. (Source)

Would it be possible to see a class balance Q&A soon, kind of like you guys did in Cataclysm?
You mean with user questions like the Cover it Live or Reddit we did? Would be fun. (Source)

classes weren't sat for spine due to 20% gaps. It was for 50-100%+ due to cooldowns, ramp up, etc
But these are usually in cases of best guilds trying to beat content while undergeared so they need to use more tricks that most. (Source)

Do you read class forums at all? You've made Russians start quitting, that's when you know you've broken something.
Stopped reading class forums personally. Too much echo chamber and chasing out dissenting opinions. I read the role forums. (Source)

Is it better to balance on what a class can possibly do, or what the player base currently is doing with a class?
We go with the former, but we don't expect players to play at robot levels. (Source)

They don't balance around top parses. GC continually mentions sampling bias as something they're wary of.
Top parses are super tricky because they display the most skillful players but also the most lucky. (Source)

Most of firelands also favored resto druids, yet garalon (most friendly for druids) still has us ~10% lagging behind in 25's.
Many raids heal Garalon clumped which benefits shaman and monk a lot (overall, HPS is not a great way to compare healers). (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
You never did answer my tweets: You've basically screwed up blood dks mitigation and made them useless for pvp now. Why?
Blood DKs were too hard to kill in PvP with DS. Tank mitigation is balanced around bosses, which can feel unfair in pvp. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
There has been alot of confusion regarding Spectral Guise. It's not useable while cc'ed anymore since 5.1, bug or intended?
Intended. Sorry that we failed to patch note it. We will update the notes. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I can understand the silence.totem nerf for resto shammies. It hurts the other specs though. Is there another way?
If it comes to that, we'd rather give Ele and Enhance a survival cooldown to use when silenced. (Source)

That totem nerf was nothing but you being stubborn after an extremely poor decision. You still havent answered on it
To repeat: we thought dropping a totem was too hard to counter now that they have such great utility. Disagreement != stubborn. (Source)

[chaos5061]

PvE
Sympathetic to the argument that 16 bosses is already a big time commitment. Different world from small tiers like Firelands. (Source)

Any reason why Flask Cauldrons didn't make an appearance in MoP ?
We wanted to return some responsibility of raiding to individual members not just officers. (Source)

You dont believe the mass exodus to overcrowded realms as well as the decline in general raiding is hurting guilds?
Realm balance is a huge concern, but the solutions aren't simple or we would have done them. Not seeing a raiding decline though. (Source)

Can you tell us a bit more about how boss encounters are designed in general and specific for MoP?
Hmm. Not via Twitter. Ion is working on a water cooler or two. (Source)

would you rather people go through content too fast, or not at all? (people ignoring rep grinds)
With the latter, I suspect some players will do the content. With the former, there is too little content for everyone. (Source)
So you like 50% of people 100% happy vs 100% of people 50% happy? If you had to choose, not being snarky.
It seems harsh when you put it that way. I'd hope that the 50% of people not happy had other things that made them happy. (Source)

Feng is quite good, but T14 is excellent in general. Best tier of raiding in *years*. Ranks w/ Ulduar & Sunwell
Yay. Just wait until the next one. (Source)

why did you implement the upgrade system, now high end raiders get the advantage from PVE just like cata....
Not sure I understand. If you mean PvE, shouldn't they get best gear? If you mean PvP, upgraded Conq gear is better. (Source)

have you guys ever thought of giving LFR a 10 man option instead of forcing 25 man LFR?
We think 25 works better for LFR. Easier to carry less experienced folks. Easier to pull while backfilling. Feels epic. (Source)

PvP
Random chance at PvP rewards when winning arena matches/BGs (maybe scaled based on MMR) could be interesting.
Yeah, would just need to avoid making botting more attractive. (Source)

Burst in pvp was stupid, 5.1 added more pvp power but not extra resil. Please do us all a favor and quit your job, ty.
You guys would just beat on whoever replaced me until someone said: Things were better in the GC era. (Source)
No offense, but I'd take my chances. I think you do a bad job at PVP, because you personally don't enjoy it.
I actually do enjoy it, but I also understand that what I personally like isn't always the right call for the game (e.g. threat). (Source)

So melees can Hit for 70-150k with "instant" attacks, but casters should need to cast? Yeah thats balance!
I can turn that around: so casters can cast at range but melee need to close the gap? (Source)

Is it true your philosophy is "it's not okay for melee to shut down casters, but it's fine for casters to shut down melee"
I feel like players are complaining about casters (mage, lock) and melee (warrior, maybe Feral) right now. (Source)

What do you think about nerfing damage cds a bit and buffing consistent damage? Arena revolves too much around big cds.
There's a balance though. Burst windows are often the only thing allowing you to score a kill before they're healed back up. (Source)

What about making those 1 pvp specs the way you balance pvp and just make the other specs slightly weaker, but still playable?
There is a lot of wisdom in that approach, but I think a lot of players would be angry. Interesting discussion though. (Source)

Sorry Greg, I'm calling complete BS on this, Blizzard actively hired pro wow players to balance PVE do it for PvP
We hire great PvP players too. What I disagreed with was making every change that players ask for, even expert players.

[chaos5061]

World First Heroic Elite 25 Protectors of the Endless
黎明之翼 (Wings of Aurora) was able to kill Protector Kaolan last and defeat Elite difficulty Protectors of the Endless. It appears that it was a close fight, as not many of them were alive for looting. Their best attempt before the nerf was 6% and progress was being made towards a kill.

Killing the bosses in the encounter in this order gives them access to the item level 516 loot. Congratulations to them!

Because this was in China, the loot becomes item level 524 once it is looted, and is upgradeable two more times.

[chaos5061]

Heroic Difficulty Boss Changes

Two Heroic mode encounters in the Heart of Fear and the Terrace of Endless Spring are changing with the Raid reset this week:

Grand Empress Shek'zeer
The damage dealt by Corrupted Dissonance, Sonic Discharge, and Cry of Terror has been reduced by approximately 10% in the Heroic mode version of this encounter.

Protectors of the Endless
The damage dealt by Touch of Sha no longer increases for each Protector that is defeated in the Heroic mode version of this encounter.

Patch 5.2 - Excess Valor Points to Justice Points

There are some changes planned for 5.2, for example, we would like to make Valor points convert to Justice as long as you’re Valor capped.

Battleground Gear Disparity
Simply tier the BGs by ilvl.
It's not simple, unfortunately. It would a) require a retooling of how Battlegrounds assemble teams and b) even under ideal conditions, it would likely slow down queue times dramatically. As Ovenmitz demonstrates, there are a lot of players who are very opposed to that.

It's not that we aren't interested in making Battlegrounds a better experience, it's that we need to make sure that whichever steps we take actually meet that goal.

World PvP Feedback
Would it not be possible to mark characters (say x levels under your own) in gray, and if a player over the limit of x tries to attack they are presented with the message "you cannot attack that target"? (Similarily, a player x lvs under gets the same message if trying to attack a target x lvs over).
It’s possible to do that, but it’s just something we decide not to. PvP realms have been here since day 1. Players know what the rules are before they join a PvP realm, the environment can be frustrating at times but it can also be a lot of fun and very challenging, that’s why players they go there.

I think the difference between PvP and PvE realms was felt much deeper in the old days of vanilla. That was when world PvP was probably at its peak, places like Tarren Mill, Southshore and Tanaris were truly a permanent battle zone. But one has to realize that the game evolves and while we enjoy world PvP, we also enjoy giving players more options.

So what happened? Well for starters, battlegrounds were introduced, so a big chunk of players that was constantly doing world PvP immediately switched to Battlegrounds, these were purposely made for PvP, it’s just natural that they become more appealing and take away some of the ganking going around in the world. Even if this wasn’t probably a complete switch, it certainly reduced the average amount of players out in the world looking for PvP. Is this a bad thing? That depends on whether you prefer world PvP or Battlegrounds.
Then we had some more game expansions and in addition to the classic Battlegrounds we got Arenas and even more Battlegrounds. We also introduced quality of life (controversial, we know!) queuing systems where we let people instantly teleport into dungeons/raids without risking their necks out there in the wilderness.

Without getting into much detail, the point is, as time went on, the amount of players out in the world got reduced, while the amount of players inside cities increased, this created 2 issues: one, it increased the likelihood of low level ganking to occur, since levelling players tend to quest and they have to be out there in the world to do so; and two, it decreased the chance of someone high level being around you to defend the members of his own faction.

So, yes, world PvP decreased significantly but we’re trying to turn that around with Mists of Pandaria.
My whole point is that, between vanilla and Mists, world PvP changed so much that making the choice between being on a PvE or PvP realm might have stopped being as hard to make as it used to be, but the fact remains that PvP realms were always meant to be about freedom, allowing factions to feel that they are truly at war, how can you feel that if you suddenly have restrictions on how/who/when you can attack?

Personally I welcome this change of direction with Mists but I look at it very carefully as this isn’t vanilla anymore and there a lot of variables that we need to pay close attention to if we want to make world PvP as entertaining as it once was. I’m talking about faction imbalance on certain realms (where possibly CRZ tech might be able to help out), flying mounts as easy ways to escape danger, and lack of the “I’ll get my revenge soon” feeling with CRZ possibly reducing the chance of the same players seeing each other again.

[chaos5061]

Icy Veins Christmas Contest
Icy Veins is holding a screenshot contest with some nice prizes, including a signed Collector's Edition of Mists of Pandaria, mounts, pets, AskMrRobot / Curse premium, and more!

All you have to do is take a nice screenshot of your character for the Feast of Winter Veil category, Best Scenery category, or Best Action Shot category. The contest runs until Dec 31st and submissions will be judged over the next few days.