Upcoming Dev Chat.

[Derax]

In case you missed it, Here is the info on it.

This Thursday, October 27, we’ll be hosting a one-hour live online developer Q&A with Lead Content Designer Cory “Mumper” Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, beginning at 5:00 p.m. PDT. I’ll be moderating the discussion to help facilitate a smooth and productive conversation. Given all the information revealed last weekend at BlizzCon 2011, we feel it’s fitting for this chat to be focused on the next expansion, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

While we’ve held some developer “chats” in the past, we’re going to be using CoverItLive for this event. We welcome anyone to join us for the chat, but in order to participate you’ll want to visit the official CoverItLive website beforehand to create an account -- it only takes a few moments. The Q&A itself, however, will take place on the front page of our website with the CoverItLive platform embedded in a blog.

Once the chat goes live, all you have to do is log into the CoverItLive client embedded on our front page, ask any question relating to Mists of Pandaria, and read along as the developers field as many questions as they can. This will be a moderated chat, meaning your questions will only initially be seen by the developers. If selected, your question will be published for all to see, and an answer will be provided. We ask that you keep the questions as concise as possible and understand that we won’t be able to get to all of them. We’ll be choosing questions based on the information we can reasonably provide, and what kinds of answers we feel will be the most compelling for the entire audience. Questions can no longer be submitted once the chat ends, but you’ll still be able to review a transcript of the questions and answers that were posted.

We’ll be taking note of what works and what doesn’t during this Thursday’s chat, as we hope to make CoverItLive our standard tool for facilitating live developer Q&A sessions going forward. Join us this Thursday at 5:00 p.m. and let’s all work to make this a successful discussion between players and developers!

I am gonna try and do my heroic raiding and have the chat up at the same time so I can ask questions so if you can't make it and want to ask a question feel free to post and I will toss it up if possible. If you are going to be there maybe we can get a good question asked a couple times so its more likely to be answered.

Question: Will hunters be getting any new tamable pet classes or new pet looks (Hydras or others)?
Question: Any plans on making archaeology vanity items or all usable vanity items have a UI like the mounts/companions (Usable through their UI) so we don't have to carry them in our bags?
Question: Pandaren hunters, What pet are they going to start with?
Question: How do you plan to make the Pandarens a 'serious' race that fits in with the other races and not a comedy like race due to Kung Fu Panda?
Question: Is the Guild level cap going to increase? If so, any idea on what new perks we may get?

[Miacoda]

I hope my class isn't during this... I always get the time zones jumbled up.

Also, the second to last question idea was pretty much addressed at Blizzcon during the lore panel. ^^; the others are great though!

[Derax]

Thanks I skipped that panel :p ... Guess I should youtube it and find the answer.

[Andine]

Is the story behind heroic Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery ready yet? If so, I hope we're not going to kill the Scarlet leadership again - lorewise, they were killed at least twice over already.

How does Blizzard decide what creatures should be tameable and which shouldn't be? (inspired by the discussion in another thread)

How is Blizzard going to assure the pet battle system is not a complete rip-off of Pokemon? What unique features are to be implemented there?

Given Vaneras's comment on EU message boards, I want to know what in Blizzard's opinion is "vital" in raising an artificial communication barrier between players. The harassment argument is invalid (as you can easily just create a level 1 alt of the other faction and use it to harass people), so is the war - because not all characters realistically subscribe to that war, like Argent Crusaders, or Pandaren - who have no bad blood with their otherwise aligned comrades.

We were told on BlizzCon the war will be a very important part of the plot in Mists of Pandaria, however we have seen none of this war, lore-wise, unlike the big threats of the previous expansions which did get their spotlight on their own first BlizzCons. Can we get some at least small snippet of what's happening?

(Just dumping some ideas I have for questions worth asking)

[Worba]

Here are my bets on how some of these will be answered or at least some of the thinking behind the scenes:

How does Blizzard decide what creatures should be tameable and which shouldn't be? (inspired by the discussion in another thread)

I think they start with a general intention of "just beasts", but if someone uses a beast's underlying model to create a cool looking undead, demon or etc, then it's got a fair shot at being added sooner or later.

How is Blizzard going to assure the pet battle system is not a complete rip-off of Pokemon? What unique features are to be implemented there?

They may well rip off Pokemon heavily, but typically meta-games like this get a certain amount of leeway (for example in EQ they have (or used to anyway) a tetris ripoff that you could play while waiting for mana to come back up, iirc)...

Given Vaneras's comment on EU message boards, I want to know what in Blizzard's opinion is "vital" in raising an artificial communication barrier between players. The harassment argument is invalid (as you can easily just create a level 1 alt of the other faction and use it to harass people), so is the war - because not all characters realistically subscribe to that war, like Argent Crusaders, or Pandaren - who have no bad blood with their otherwise aligned comrades.

Being less than 100% effective does not invalidate a barrier. It's not about absolutes - you don't even have to go to the trouble of creating an alt, you can just space out your letters and it comes through. What they rely on is that most people who might otherwise be inclined to be jerks, are either too lazy to bother with the alt route, or else by the time they get one created, they've cooled off enough to see how silly it is. And thus cross faction chat harassers are the exception not the rule - and that's the goal.

The "language barrier" is just a figleaf cover for this - as you pointed out, there are plenty of neutral factions who speak all languages, and there are even NPCs from the horde/alliance who speak both. But going beyond the figleaf and actually bolting down NPC languages would compromise the game as a whole; I mean you don't just want to be questing exclusively for Grom right? So it's a necessary figleaf, at least from Blizzard's perspective. Plus if they did otherwise, you might as well call every other aspect of the game into question, and that wouldn't work - at some point reality/physics and entertainment have to call "truce".

[Andine]

Being less than 100% effective does not invalidate a barrier. It's not about absolutes - you don't even have to go to the trouble of creating an alt, you can just space out your letters and it comes through. What they rely on is that most people who might otherwise be inclined to be jerks, are either too lazy to bother with the alt route, or else by the time they get one created, they've cooled off enough to see how silly it is. And thus cross faction chat harassers are the exception not the rule - and that's the goal.

I have played enough to see that if someone intends to harass you, he will do it anyway. The worst that could happen from this is the same worst that happens in a pug - and you don't limit inter-faction communication because of bad pugs. If someone is really angry enough to harass you extensively through say and yell, he's angry enough to create and use that level 1 alt. That's my personal experience talking.

But alas, I'm interested in Blizzard's response what's so "vital" (Vaneras's word) in this barrier.

[Worba]

We all have personal experience with harassers, and not all are stalkers. It's just that when you set up artificial reasons for two factions to fight eachother, it follows that harassment is more likely in that scenario (cross faction relations) than in pugs, where you are encouraged to do the opposite. And ofc, if they dropped the language barrier and permitted the resulting upsurge in harassment, many players would rightly call Blizzard to task for aiding and abetting said downturn.

This question has been asked from the beginning, but yes by all means put it to them - however asking it here perforce invites commentary.

I would agree though, that allowing pandaren on both sides does push the envelope on the language barrier subject... eh. Maybe just really pissed off relatives refusing to speak to one another?

[Syleye]

I personally like the no cross faction chat...it helps lend some air of us against them to the game ...which is what its about to some point. I realize our comments are not desired but...well there it is.

[Kalliope]

Question: Pandaren hunters, What pet are they going to start with?

Can remove this one; it's turtles.

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic ... 39&t=15759



(Eeee turtles!)

[Miacoda]

Thanks I skipped that panel :p ... Guess I should youtube it and find the answer.

Chris Metzen went on a total soap box. It was epic. I cheered at my computer. xD