WAR NDA officially lifted. Post pics and info!

[Harkon]

Going to reroll engy to see changes then maybe some destro classes.

[Sabyn]

Originally Posted by Fog

- Mods that let you see information which you can't see or which is very difficult to see: mostly bad. (range finders, boss ability pre-alerts)

Maybe I am confused, but pre-alerts only work if one of two things exist: there is a combat log entry indicating it, or the ability is on a timer. Both things are readily available, a mod just allows you to not stare at the combat log / a stopwatch.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Sabyn

Maybe I am confused, but pre-alerts only work if one of two things exist: there is a combat log entry indicating it, or the ability is on a timer. Both things are readily available, a mod just allows you to not stare at the combat log / a stopwatch.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Suppose you come into a new boss fight with a CTRaid-like mod that gives appropriate warnings about the boss's various abilities. That mod has a great deal of information that you don't know. Prior to using the mod you don't know what abilities the boss has, what pattern he might use them in, or how much time you have between casts. The mod tells you all that and saves you a great deal of cleverness, trial-and-error, and perhaps manual timing (if it's really necessary.)

It's true that if all the members of your raid have memorized the strategy and patterns for the boss, then the mod isn't really spoiling anything; but I think that's false more often than true. Most people tend to use the mod as a crutch for quite a long time.

If the boss gives a combat log entry or has a special animation or something like that, however, it's a clear sign that the designers want you to take note of that ability, and I think it's perfectly fine to use a mod to tell you about it in a different way if you prefer. Preprogrammed patterns are different.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Fog

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Suppose you come into a new boss fight with a CTRaid-like mod that gives appropriate warnings about the boss's various abilities. That mod has a great deal of information that you don't know. Prior to using the mod you don't know what abilities the boss has, what pattern he might use them in, or how much time you have between casts. The mod tells you all that and saves you a great deal of cleverness, trial-and-error, and perhaps manual timing (if it's really necessary.)

It's true that if all the members of your raid have memorized the strategy and patterns for the boss, then the mod isn't really spoiling anything; but I think that's false more often than true. Most people tend to use the mod as a crutch for quite a long time.

If the boss gives a combat log entry or has a special animation or something like that, however, it's a clear sign that the designers want you to take note of that ability, and I think it's perfectly fine to use a mod to tell you about it in a different way if you prefer. Preprogrammed patterns are different.

Well those mods are designed by people who did the encounter before you and found the timers and stuff. You can decide to avoid using them, and wipe for 1 night until you find them, but what's the point really. Some people do it however.

In that regard, websites posting strategies are much more of a crutch than addons giving you timers. Timers are nice and all, but they're worthless if you have no idea what you're going to do in a fight. And if you learn the strat by yourself, you then know the timers anyway, so having the addon doesn't make the fight any easier in either case.

If you wanna bitch about wow's raiding being ruined by addons, think again, it's more the strats being widely spread by everyone as soon as the boss is killed that arguably "ruins" raiding. Then again, reading a strat and actually experiencing the fight, and adapting the strat to your own guild still made raiding fun enough for me.

Bitching about Wow's UI making PvP stuff easier can be backed up, addons like Clique, the focus and ToT frames and ingame macros allowing instant targetchanges multiple times, along with addons keeping track of other players cooldowns(for fake casting kicks/pummels, or cloak of shadow cd etc). A lot of it is actually just from the base game though, so it's not like it makes it any easier for only some people, everyone uses the same macro system, and the rest has limited usage at best. In arenas tournaments, addons are forbidden too, so for the few people who actually care about pvp, it's better not to rely too much on addons(even the most shitty ones like the one showing a frame for your fucking focus target)

Thing is, whatever UI addon you're using, what it does is only display information in an accessible way. You still have to make decisions and press buttons for shit to happen. Here's an example to think about: Know those music games, DDR and Guitar Hero and shit. It's quite clear what you have to do. Doesn't mean everyone gets perfect because you have large color circles lighting up when you have to press them. Doesn't make it less fun than other games either(I mean, in a general way, I don't like those games, but still).

[Adamar Hammerfell]

/shill

For all you theory-crafters out there, I just pushed a major update to WARDB, which includes a new career builder with tactic and morale ability support. Check it out: Chosen Career Builder - Warhammer Online

In this build is also a new item stats module, which you can see in action on an item set page: Warlord's Accursed Defender Kit - Item Sets - Warhammer Online

If you have ideas for new site features, let me know!

[Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Cinge

This is shocking, i'm surprised with 3 days to go(1 business day) they haven't put up account page to actually make accounts and put codes into. Imagine all the people that are going to get "code is in use" or " code is invalid" and by the time it's sorted out(if ever) its too late.

It's GOA, so we (players here in Europe) didn't really expect anything less than total failure and incompetence. I was dumb enough to pre-order the Europen CE and I'll stick with it for the time being, but if GOA doesn't get its shit together come launch time (fat chance), I'll order the US copy of the game and join some old EQ friends on servers in North America.

edit:

I just checked again and the authentication/login page is still down. I can't access my closed beta account or enter any codes. It'll work and get hammered the very day open beta starts, book it. Shit.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Adamar Hammerfell

/shill

For all you theory-crafters out there, I just pushed a major update to WARDB, which includes a new career builder with tactic and morale ability support. Check it out: Chosen Career Builder - Warhammer Online

In this build is also a new item stats module, which you can see in action on an item set page: Warlord's Accursed Defender Kit - Item Sets - Warhammer Online

If you have ideas for new site features, let me know!

Nice stuff, really like being able to see all 3 paths on one page.

[Rhym]

Originally Posted by Adamar Hammerfell

/shill

For all you theory-crafters out there, I just pushed a major update to WARDB, which includes a new career builder with tactic and morale ability support. Check it out: Chosen Career Builder - Warhammer Online

In this build is also a new item stats module, which you can see in action on an item set page: Warlord's Accursed Defender Kit - Item Sets - Warhammer Online

If you have ideas for new site features, let me know!

Just noticed this when I was refreshing a wardb page. Very nice.

[Qhue]

[quote=Pyros;1186316]Well those mods are designed by people who did the encounter before you and found the timers and stuff. You can decide to avoid using them, and wipe for 1 night until you find them, but what's the point really. Some people do it however.

In that regard, websites posting strategies are much more of a crutch than addons giving you timers. Timers are nice and all, but they're worthless if you have no idea what you're going to do in a fight. And if you learn the strat by yourself, you then know the timers anyway, so having the addon doesn't make the fight any easier in either case. /QUOTE]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here. Back in the olden-days (before there was such a thing as a customizeable UI for a game) you might have read up on strategies for a given critter or encounter but that was largely hearsay and even the best most detailed descriptions came out many months after the content was on farm status on most servers.

There really is a fundamental difference in the game between hearing what the list of abilities are for a mob and seeing those abilities counting down with cooldown timers, notes on where to stand and where not to stand in a pull down menu, flashing red text and gongs sounding when you need to do something special etc. Its not just a description and its not just a strategy guide its really a choreographed battleplan and virtual general all-in-one. Heck by the time people get to explore new content in WoW (that is the DAY OF RELEASE) not only is there a complete writeup of every aspect of the encounter available, but so are UI addons that describe and teach any tricky part of the encounter plus youtube videos showing the battle from any one of 5 different camera perspectives.

The UI stuff really does make a fundamental difference in the game and in the ability for people to play. If it didnt then why would people go into a fetal panic if a patch breaks all their various UI tools?

[Qhue]

Originally Posted by Pyros

Well those mods are designed by people who did the encounter before you and found the timers and stuff. You can decide to avoid using them, and wipe for 1 night until you find them, but what's the point really. Some people do it however.

In that regard, websites posting strategies are much more of a crutch than addons giving you timers. Timers are nice and all, but they're worthless if you have no idea what you're going to do in a fight. And if you learn the strat by yourself, you then know the timers anyway, so having the addon doesn't make the fight any easier in either case.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here. If the timers etc arent a huge crutch then why do people go into a fetal panic if a patch breaks them?

Its been awhile since such a thing happened mind you, but the last time we tried raiding in WoW with non functional DeadlyBossMods or whatever it was universal failure time.

[CyrusReij]

The Servers, they are operational captain.

[Trifle]

Originally Posted by Qhue

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here. Back in the olden-days (before there was such a thing as a customizeable UI for a game) you might have read up on strategies for a given critter or encounter but that was largely hearsay and even the best most detailed descriptions came out many months after the content was on farm status on most servers.

Well, isn't that his point? That its largely the paradigm shift of spoilers for boss fights coming out so quickly, and the mod is just a convenience ?

Back in eq before we had boss mods and cooldown timers and stuff, we'd just get 1 person with a stopwatch to spam a macro to raid when an important boss cooldown was going to be up. End result pretty much the same for all but 1 person in the raid. Heck, we didn't even need to wipe alot to figure it out, we'd just check the combat logs to see what spell hit us, then look it up on lucy to see what the cooldown was... clearly a lot of effort there.

Granted, in wow, there's alot more going on to keep track of, and there's extra stuff like alerts for "you are standing too close to XX" etc, but I'm pretty sure that most if not all of the current fights you could do without boss mods if you really put your mind to it. People just aren't used to having to do that.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Qhue

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here. If the timers etc arent a huge crutch then why do people go into a fetal panic if a patch breaks them?

Its been awhile since such a thing happened mind you, but the last time we tried raiding in WoW with non functional DeadlyBossMods or whatever it was universal failure time.

That's because people are trained to watch out for DBM cues and don't pay any attention to (often missing or barely perceptible) in-game ones. It's as if someone would turn off all spell effects for you.

Similar thing goes for timers. Additionally, no one has time to pick up a stopwatch and call them out on Vent. There are some raid leaders who can't help themselves not to call every little stupid ability, but all of them stop at timing stuff. I hear they have to press buttons at least every 3 seconds, unlike in the glory days of old.

[Pyros]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Originally Posted by Qhue

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here. Back in the olden-days (before there was such a thing as a customizeable UI for a game) you might have read up on strategies for a given critter or encounter but that was largely hearsay and even the best most detailed descriptions came out many months after the content was on farm status on most servers.

There really is a fundamental difference in the game between hearing what the list of abilities are for a mob and seeing those abilities counting down with cooldown timers, notes on where to stand and where not to stand in a pull down menu, flashing red text and gongs sounding when you need to do something special etc. Its not just a description and its not just a strategy guide its really a choreographed battleplan and virtual general all-in-one. Heck by the time people get to explore new content in WoW (that is the DAY OF RELEASE) not only is there a complete writeup of every aspect of the encounter available, but so are UI addons that describe and teach any tricky part of the encounter plus youtube videos showing the battle from any one of 5 different camera perspectives.

The UI stuff really does make a fundamental difference in the game and in the ability for people to play. If it didnt then why would people go into a fetal panic if a patch breaks all their various UI tools?

Ok I somewhat question if you played wow. UIs don't do most of the stuff you're describing. Bossmods, the 2 main ones(bigwigs and deadlybossmods) mostly have 2 parts. First is a remnant from a chtun addon, which is still kinda useful, which is a close range calculator. It's for retards who can't appreciate distance by the naked eye. In most cases, it's totally useless for the fights you need it for, because those fights involve having to watch your positionning, and if you can't watch your char in the middle of your screen, you probably can't watch the list of names on the side to see who's close to you.

Second is the timer part, and this is pretty much just that, a timer addon. It displays bars, with the name of various boss abilities. In some cases, it might tell you you have to spread out, or group up. Why and how, it never explains, it's just reminders of what's going to happen. It offers an alternative to running timers yourself, like in MC days for respawns. They slowly added most convenient timers to the addon, so it keeps tracks of everything that can be timed off combat log events. Things you can do with a simple 3rd party program to countdown shit, or a stopwatch. Instead it's provided ingame, for everyone to see.

But the addons alone? They don't beat a boss. Not even close. They don't do shit, and if you have no idea what's happening, the rings and bells and warnings aren't going to help FOR SHIT. When it says spread out, it doesn't always mean, full spread out. It might just mean, do 4 stacks of 6people. Get 5+y away from everyone else. Move away from the center/boss/guy who's glowing. There's multiple ways to interpret an event in those addons.

On top of that, the addons usually don't keep track of everything. The most obvious example is fire shit. Addons MIGHT tell you you're standing in fire. That's in case, like, you didn't know that fire hurts. But moving out of it is still entirely your responsability.

If you had addons with timers and shit, but no strat, it wouldn't do shit. It'd help making up a strat, by saving you one, maybe 2 wipes, then combat log analysis. The timers are easy to figure out, you just go at a boss, and spam heals like no tomorrow to last the longest amount of time possible. Then you just check your combat log, see what killed who, how much dmg the tank has taken and how etc. Everything has timelogs, so it's easy to figure out relatively close estimations on timers, then verify them on a few more tries with a strat.

The real thing about wow raiding, is videos and strats. You can find out how to kill a boss about 2-3hours after he's been killed, most of the time. Addons?
They don't do shit.


As for patch breaking stuff, I go into a fetal position every time I'm forced to heal a group with base wow UI. It's not about aguf being easier to heal with, it's about habit. If tomorrow you didn't have electricity anymore, chances are you'd be pretty fucking pissed. Yet humans lived for thousands of years without electricity, and you'd eventually get used to candles and firecamps again. When patch break timer addons, you just man up, get an old cttimer(or the new ingame clock blizzard has added) and assign one destro lock(hi 1 key DPS class) to monitor the clock and announce timers on vent. Hell even with addons, in most guilds I played, the raid leader still announced timers on vent because people would still miss the fucking bells, warnings and bars. But at least the raid leader could still play the game, not watch little timers count down and spend the whole night announcing shit.

Anyway, that's a fucking huge derail. TLDR version: Addons don't play for you, if you think they do, fine, we disagree, I'm sure EQ's PvE was much better than WoW's, doesn't matter since this is a thread about War. When are PW servers going up?

[Lowk]

It's still early, and I'm confused, this is a WAR thread right?