Screenshot of the Day, Blue posts, MMO Report
Cataclysm Screenshot of the Day
The Screenshot of the Day Gallery has been updated with a new screenshot of the Speed Barge in the Shimmering Flats (Thousand Needles)
Concept Arts
The official Concept Art Gallery has been updated with two new pieces of artwork.
Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Numbers scaling up over time
They are just numbers. Automobiles used to cost hundreds of dollars a few generations ago and now they cost tens of thousands of dollars. But most everything else economic related has scaled up as well.
There isn't any inherent scaling problem with WoW's numbers getting absurdly large. The only real issue is comprehension when you're looking at a rogue doing 240,000 dps to a boss a billion health. But consider that we aren't that far away from character levels themselves being in the triple digits.
To fix the issue, we would have to go back and have level 1 characters do less than 1 point of damage, which would be pretty weird. Or we could use some kind of metric system where the last few zeros just get lopped off after a certain point. We joke about breastplates with megastamina and megadamage and megadps. http://www.mmo-champion.com/Smileys/classic/smiley.gif (Source)
Haste / Attack Speed Bonus
Yeah, it went from "melee haste" (which needed a modifier to distinguish it from spell haste) to just "melee attack speed." At this point it's probably safe to just call it "attack speed" since that sounds like weapons (melee and ranged) and not spells. (Source)
"Unique" Item Procs
The main problem they bring is how to balance them. You mention several items that were definitely cool back in the day, but some of they also had to be nurfed into oblivion due to the problems they caused. Then on the other side is that a proc sounds cool but to keep it balanced the proc chance is super low or something like that which makes a stat-stick item more consistent and more useful.
That said, the unique item procs idea made a bit of a comeback in Icecrown Citadel and is something we like doing. We have learned a lot of the years on how to balance these types of items while also trying to prevent it from interfering with something like arena PvP. We would like to keep doing procs and we'll see how things go in Cataclysm.
[...] When examples are used that doesn't mean they are the be-all-end-all reasoning for things. We have also run into problems with procs that are so awesome the item is used way beyond the expected range for it. (Hi Thunderfury, how are you today? Have you been chatting with your buddy Stormherald lately?)
We want the procs to be cool, fun, but not overpowered. The overpowered aspect applies to both PvP and PvE. While we would love to make procs that just ignore the min/max factor of gear, we can't really do that as it will either make the item overpowered (see above) or possibly so bad that even the previous tier is ahead. Also, while we stayed away from them for awhile, we did make a bunch in ICC and they were pretty successful so will see how things go in the future. (Source)
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../iwarlocks.gif Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Warlocks in Cataclysm
We like Shadow Bolt being the nuke for both Demonology and Affliction. That isn't likely to change. Talents don't have to be in "your tree" for them to be good talents for your build. We generally consider 0 / 0 / 71 builds to be a failure.
Fel Flame's role is for situations where you have to move a lot, or possibly in situations where you don't have time to get multiple dots up. We don't anticipate it becoming a rotational ability for any warlock.
None of this is to say that talent trees and possibly even rotations won't be changing. I'm pretty excited with the current state of the Cataclysm warlock talent trees. We've fixed up some awkward parts and come up with some cool mechanics. Hopefully we can share them soon. (Source)
The MMO Report
Yes. I was kidding. And I love you so much Casey.
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