Diablo III Remote Play on PS Vita, More Details on Adventure Mode, Few More Details on Expansion Features
Blue Post Round-up, Blue Tweets, Hearthstone Beta Key Giveaway
Blizzcon Dev Interview Recap
Gamebreaker had the chance to talk to Ghostcrawler before Blizzcon, so this entire interview looks back at Mists of Pandaria.
PvE
Raid Finder is finally in a decent place, but there is always room for improvement.
Flex hasn't had a huge impact on the number of people using Raid Finder.
The drop in the number of tanks in Raid Finder is partially due to how they are treated. (If you want faster queues, be nice to your tanks!)
Proving Grounds
Proving Grounds worked out well, the devs will upgrade it and keep working on it in the future. They could break it up into a melee or ranged DPS version, provide more feedback when you make errors, or maybe even bring it to lower levels.
The team is still thinking about letting you enter LFR with a lower than normal item level if you have the gold proving grounds achievement, especially with alts.
Proving Grounds aren't perfectly evenly balanced for every class and spec, so they shouldn't be used to compare the different classes and specs.
Misc
The Live Raid bosses were picked because they are visually interesting and would fit in the timespan allotted.
The big unannounced feature was really two features. One was cancelled and one was delayed until WoD. Ghostcrawler will let us know when it is added though!
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Connected Realms and Faction Balance
Unfortunately it's not possible to solve faction balance completely. I expect many of you have heard us say this before, but there are way more Horde overall on European PvP realms than Alliance. On EU PvE realms it's the other way around, Alliance outnumber Horde. Short of forcing people to faction change (which is not a realistic option), there will always be faction imbalance to a certain degree.
However, when choosing which realms to connect, we picked ones that improved the situation wherever possible. And in Warlords of Draenor, the PvP zone will make use of cross-realm technology to ensure there will be a good faction balance there to help with the PvP objectives.
First of all, other than paid faction changes (20 euros or so lol) there are no incentives from your side to improve the situation at all. In fact, doing nothing only generated more revenue for you guys due to paid faction changes, where the outnumbered faction simply joined the winning team.
Actually we have a great incentive to improve the situation: player happiness. If that isn't taken into account, we actually lose revenue. This is why we offer free character migrations for people on realms with queues, and if the realm is heavily imbalanced in favour of a particular faction, we tailor the FCM to ease that imbalance.
So what could be done to somewhat solve the problem or flatten such an inbalance? Well, you could offer free faction changes. Other games have done that, you could do it. You have the tech to switch races in the blink of an eye. So there's no excuse not to offer it. While of course, for some realms where you have distributions like 1 : 10 you might want to offer a bit more than just a free faction change. Because, who would want to switch to the helplessly outnumbered faction anyway? But maybe a mount, or a pet (you are good a creating that stuff and selling it for 5-20 bucks anyway) or maybe some recruit a friend benefits. There are possibilities. There are things Blizzard could do.
We've experimented with this before, and found that people are reluctant to move without their friends, guilds, etc. Plus, as it was mentioned above, no one wants to be the first one to move because they don't want to run the risk of ending up on the minority side. I personally don't think any kind of incentive like you mentioned would be enough to persuade a significant number of players to change faction, be disconnected from at least some of their network of friends, and potentially put them in a weaker position than before from a PvP standpoint.
Having said that, we developed Connected Realms technology to help with low population realms, and we'll continue to look into ways to help with faction imbalance. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Trial of the Gladiator
From what I've seen and read, Blizzard are alternating days for more people to participate in arena and RBGS, so there will be more ques for both during them days, when it is not arena day, there will be skirmishes which i believe the community has been asking for, for a while now. I personally like this idea, as it means i can level up alts for pvp and just leave them in their competitive pvp gear whilst i get the chance to Gear my main. Personally i found it boring and tedious gearing up 3-8 alts and this change means i can be competitive on all of them. I see this change working positivity as it will stop win trading and make pvp competitive and fun once again.
From what we know right now I believe alternate days is indeed the current plan.
Everyone, please continue giving your thoughts on this feature but remember that the system is still in the works as we take on board your feedback, so try to keep it constructive
EU blue does not deny Arena ladders canceled (atleast he did not say thing about it), but US blue says that thay have no plans to cancel it.
I'm sorry if my post was confusing. As Lore said, we have no plans to remove the current Arena ladder. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
PvP players feel like 2nd class citizens this xpac and well PvP lvls vs PvE, caps, tccy buff, much wrong after patch thoughts?
We made a ton of changes to support PvP this xpack. You can disagree with the changes but I don't buy the 2nd class argument. (Source)
Example 1 "I don't agree with the PvP ilevel change. The costs were worth than the problems it created for world PvP." (Source)
Example 2 "Blizzard changed PvP ilevel because PvP players are second class citizens." See the difference? (Source)
My concern w this mindset is the message new players see: "What you're doing now doesn't matter. Just level."
I think the message is that it is almost played as two games, and most players are playing the max level one. (Source)
is it time to give spells a different function/dmg in pve and pvp? Make balancing easier. Balancing for pvp and pve is awful
We give spells different functions in PvP all the time when we think that is the right solution. It's not a universal panacea. (Source)
So you'd rather people get burnt out on gearing, than actually participate because it's fun?
In fact the opposite can also be true: if we're not careful, players will engage in unfun things just for the power rewards. (Source)
So, do you play to address the joke that Blood DK's are in 2's?
Sigh. Tanks in Arena are rarely fun for anyone but the tank. (Source)
Have you ever thought about adding a spectating system for arena matches?
We would love to, but technically it is not a trivial thing to build. (Not impossible, just not trivial.) (Source)
And ironically you maintain a very deterministic system in pvp. I guess pvp players aren't deserving of the joy of rng loot?
We'd actually like to make PvP rewards less deterministic. We'd just have to be careful about how we did that. (Source)
PVP is too deterministic. I would like drops from battlegrounds.. also at low levels.
We don't like PvP rewards being so deterministic, but have yet to come up with a good design for an alternative. (Source)
Ghost , it pains me to see that you guys would sacrifice world pvp when you have pvp servers .
I think flying mounts and server transfers had much bigger effects on wpvp than ilevels. (Source)
Reputation / Questing
last time at blizzcon you said,you want offer many ways to get vp/gear/rep. Fact was that daily quests were the only way (c)
There were many ways to earn valor and gear. There was only one way to earn rep, but even that we changed later on. (Source)
Post-BlizzCon Online Store Sale Nov. 15 – Nov. 17
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)
Another BlizzCon’s come and gone, but there’s still a chance to snag some cool commemorative Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo merchandise from the show. From now through November 17, anyone can purchase select items from the BlizzCon 2013 Store directly through the Online Blizzard Store—no need to have a BlizzCon ticket or Virtual Ticket in order to participate. Here’s a sampling of the legendary loot you’ll find:
You’ll find lots of other stuff too, including select items from past BlizzCon events, though keep in mind supplies are limited. Head to the online Blizzard Store’s BlizzCon storefront to begin browsing, or click More Products > BlizzCon from the Blizzard Store home page.
Check out the Post-BlizzCon Sale now!
Shipping Note: Orders will be shipped from the United States, so international shipping rates may apply.
OpenRaid Event - Glory of the Thundering Turkey
OpenRaid is hosting and encouraging players to host raids to complete the Glory of the Thundering Raider achievement and earn the Armored Skyscreamer mount. Only 0.5% of players have this achievement!
Fan Art Update
The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with two new pieces of fan artwork.