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Patch 7.2 - Hunter Spell Animations
Hunters are getting some new spell animations in Patch 7.2.
Patch 7.2 - Fishing Bobbers
Patch 7.2 adds new fishing bobber toys! If you missed the Patch 7.1 release recap, new fishing bobbers were also added there.
Level Type Name
1Other
Carved Wooden Helm1Other
Enchanted Bobber1Other
Face of the Forest1Other
Floating Totem1Other
Replica Gondola1Other
Demon NogginBlue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Not sure who to ask but: Confirm? Feathermane pet group BM-spec only, or just BM maxed weapon to unlock?
just requires the weapon have all traits unlocked (only 1 lvl in concordance), non-exotic, BoA tome (Muffinus)
Art
Will the store helmets such as Crown of Eternal Winter be updated at some point? Since 6.1 the helmets don't fit properly
hmm, what race/gender are you seeing the issue on? (WarcraftDevs)
Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
What were some of the most important things you learned from WoW that help you become a better designer on LoL?
I tried to just come up with a few off the top of my head:
1) I got better at constructing my written communication to try to get players to understand that we really do understand their point of view and care. It’s really easy in this position to come across as too academic or out of touch.
2) It’s easy as a designer to get in the habit of pushing for elegance at the cost of other things. Sometimes a design just isn’t going to be really elegant if it needs to meet certain goals or solve certain problems. I liken this to a programmer who ends up authoring code that they personally find ugly, but that solves the exact problem they need to solve.
3) Likewise, it’s easy to get in the habit of making a change because it’s the right change for the game without keeping in mind the impact it’s going to have on players. For example, if you’ve had one rule that you’ve been using for years, and eventually come up with a better rule, that doesn’t mean you should immediately implement that rule. Maybe it would be hard for players to adapt to the new rule. Maybe the new rule is better design in a strictly objective sense, but it isn’t as fun as the older design.
In WoW, as a player I always enjoyed dungeons and raids the most out of any content in the game. What I really enjoyed was the problem-solving aspect. “We don’t have a mage for Polymorph, so how can we make that 5 pull?” That sort of thing.
As a player, I didn’t enjoy the late Wrath dungeons where we just AE’d everything down and the tank was running ahead into the next room. Why should my healer have single-target heals and group heals if I only ever used the group heal? Why should I have crowd control abilities if I never used them? What interesting decisions was I making if I approached 2 pulls, 5 pulls and the boss with the same tool set.
So I advocated (and largely got) Cataclysm dungeons that required using the full tool set. You had to strategize and not just run through the dungeon.
4) As a player and a designer, I am pretty tolerant of RNG as a mechanic. I have come to appreciate that many players are less tolerant of it than I expect, so I can’t always trust my own judgment there without some level of introspection and using other developers as sounding boards. It’s kind of like knowing you have bad eyesight so asking someone else what that word is that you can’t make out.
5) You have to pick your battles. There are probably 60 things that you want to improve in your game, but you can’t get to them all and still do a good job on those improvements. It’s better to target a mix of low-hanging fruit (meaning easy-to-fix things that players will still feel) and a few big ticket items (meaning hard-to-fix things that players will definitely feel). Hard-to-implement and limited impact is the kiss of death for a feature, as it should be.
6) Try and avoid even in the hint of favoritism. I still get blamed for buffing Frost mages (which is a class I never played) and nerfing Ret paladins (which was a forum joke that somehow became accepted as reality). I just don’t answer questions about which champions I play the most in LoL.
7) As a lead and a manager, I got a lot better at resolving when I need to stand back and let someone try out a crazy idea. The chance of failure may be high, but they’ll learn something from the experience, assuming there isn’t a very high cost for players. (For example, trying something out before a change goes live with plenty of time to revert can still be “expensive” in terms of wasted developer time but may not impact players much except for the wasted dev time.) On the other hand, there are some times you need to jump in and catch what could be a horrible mistake. I follow the general rule of not catching someone who is about to skin their knee, but definitely catching them if they’re about to break their neck. (Source)
Blizzard announced a new hero coming to Heroes of the Storm, Probius!
MMO-Champion Forums Moderator Recruitment
Good news everyone! We're recruiting moderators for the forums again! Please be sure to read the entire post before applying!
Dark Legacy Comics #574 - The View
DLC #574 has been released!
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