I promised myself I wouldn't go on a huge, passionate rant about the subject. Instead, I offer you two links...
- http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1961-Free-Speech
- http://videogamevoters.org/pages/learn
...and a small rant-ette on the subject.
The future of gaming as a medium is pretty much in the hands of people who don't care about gaming and are uneducated about gaming.
At least, the future of gaming as a medium for artistic expression. It's hard to argue that Bioshock isn't pretty, in the sense that it's an enormous underwater city that's falling apart with a fascinating background (and the graphics aren't bad either).
But, the Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association court case, currently pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, could crush games like Bioshock.
Because the whole 'banning the sale of violent video games to minors' thing isn't the real issue. And by violent video games, they mean anything with blood and/or bullets in it.
No, the actual issue here is this law could totally crush the game industry, primarily in two ways:
#1. Essentially, the government is telling what game devs can make and what publishers can, well, publish. This means less innovation and less edgy games that push the envelope, meaning out 'Call of Duty's, 'Bioshock's, 'Half Life's and others will be a thing of the past. But, perhaps more importantly-
#2. If this does pass, retailers will be far more hesitant to put these kinds of games up on the shelves. But worse than that, all the states that did have these kind of laws that lost will resurrect them, and you can bet they'll vary from state to state, making it impossible to create a game that you can sell all over America without making a 'family' or 'kiddie' game.
I don't like to really admit it, but if game publishers can't sell their games in America, they won't sell them anywhere else. They couldn't get enough sales to cover their costs, and just give up.
So, without any of these kinds of video games being sold, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 will have lost most of the games it relied on. Think "Xbox 360 minus Halo and Gears of War (just to name a couple), and the PS3 minus God of War and Metal Gear Solid (just to name a couple)". What use are those consoles anymore?
Oh sure, the Kinect and Move will come rolling in, but they'll just be the Wii all over again with minor variations and nothing to really drive them forward apart from 'cool' technology, and technology won't cut it.
If only the people who are in control of the future of gaming actually gave a damn about it. But they don't. And they don't give a damn about the people who love gaming either.
Somebody made the point to me just before I started writing this post that this law won't kill gaming outright. I absolutely agree. We'll still have out Wii! ...Probably. And you and all your mates can sit around the TV, bowling and playing tennis! Or hey, maybe you could, I dunno, fork out half your life savings to pet a virtual tiger.
As I said, this law won't kill gaming. But it will change it so dramatically I don't think anybody will want to go back to it.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
It's hard to type - I'm still loaded with adrenaline from escaping the Storage.
Amnesia had two modes - walking around terrified, and running for dear life. Most of the time, you're walking around terrified.
It's the sound that gets you - it's the sounds of a living castle locked in a nightmare. You hold onto your lantern just to keep yourself from descending into madness - literally, in the case of your character.
As I mentioned, I just escaped from the Storage room, carrying the two rods. I reckon it was the explosion that set the two zombie- actually, no. Those... things aren't zombies. Zombies are slow moving, groaning mindless undead that you can easily dispatch. I don't even want to think about whatever the hell those things are, but they are certainly not zombies.
So, I decided to sit down and write about one of the only times (so far) the second mode Amnesia shines through. I'll describe my thoughts as they happened in that 45 second long sprint for survival. [Anything in quotation marks are things I've said, anything in asterisks are sounds from the game, and anything in square brackets are comments.]
Ok, got the two rods-*GOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAGH*
Oh great. Monster time. You know what? Let's check the walkthrough.
[blah blah blah]
Ok then - keep stealthy, monster unpredictable. Fine.
[I sing to myself to calm myself down during this game. Sometimes it makes things worse. What? Don't look at me like that.
This is almost what was sung, I might have messed a word or two up.]
"Dooown the hall-way I go,
trying to forget about the noise,
oh god, there he is, thank god he hasn't seen me,
now I sneak, sneak, sneak down the staaaaair-case."
Great, he's dissapeared into the darkness. Now I can-*sound of my boot stepping on something loud*
Awwwwww.
*zombie grunts and turns around* Oh no.
*SSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSSS* [Imagine the sound of sharp, rusty nails down a chalkboard. Now amplify that sound and it's roughly what you hear. You fear this sound. It's the 'you're probably going to die' sound].
SHIT it saw me! Aaaaaaah runrunrunrunrunRUN!
DAMN IT! It's behind me! I can hear it! NO! Can't look behind me, can't look behind me...
Around this corner, yes! Main roo-OH FUCK THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" RUUUUUUUUUUUN
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
THE DOOR! CLICK THE DOOOOR!
[click door, transitions into the 'back hall' area. Saftey - no monsters here.].
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSsssssssssisssssssshisss...*
At that point, I'm shaking too much to even hold down the W key. I hit escape and lean forward, my elbows planted on the table and I thought I heard a quite "yessssss" sound coming from between my teeth.
I lean back up in the chair and hold out my arm - it's damn near vibrating. So, I stand up, walk around a little bit, then decide to sit down and write about it.
I'm not yet ready to give a review for Amnesia: The Dark Descent; I want to finish it first. But if you like the sort of games that really screw with your head and terrify you as a psychological level way before they terrify you with anything on the screen, Frictional Games is your developer, and Amnesia is your game.
Amnesia had two modes - walking around terrified, and running for dear life. Most of the time, you're walking around terrified.
It's the sound that gets you - it's the sounds of a living castle locked in a nightmare. You hold onto your lantern just to keep yourself from descending into madness - literally, in the case of your character.
As I mentioned, I just escaped from the Storage room, carrying the two rods. I reckon it was the explosion that set the two zombie- actually, no. Those... things aren't zombies. Zombies are slow moving, groaning mindless undead that you can easily dispatch. I don't even want to think about whatever the hell those things are, but they are certainly not zombies.
So, I decided to sit down and write about one of the only times (so far) the second mode Amnesia shines through. I'll describe my thoughts as they happened in that 45 second long sprint for survival. [Anything in quotation marks are things I've said, anything in asterisks are sounds from the game, and anything in square brackets are comments.]
Ok, got the two rods-*GOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAGH*
Oh great. Monster time. You know what? Let's check the walkthrough.
[blah blah blah]
Ok then - keep stealthy, monster unpredictable. Fine.
[I sing to myself to calm myself down during this game. Sometimes it makes things worse. What? Don't look at me like that.
This is almost what was sung, I might have messed a word or two up.]
"Dooown the hall-way I go,
trying to forget about the noise,
oh god, there he is, thank god he hasn't seen me,
now I sneak, sneak, sneak down the staaaaair-case."
Great, he's dissapeared into the darkness. Now I can-*sound of my boot stepping on something loud*
Awwwwww.
*zombie grunts and turns around* Oh no.
*SSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSSS* [Imagine the sound of sharp, rusty nails down a chalkboard. Now amplify that sound and it's roughly what you hear. You fear this sound. It's the 'you're probably going to die' sound].
SHIT it saw me! Aaaaaaah runrunrunrunrunRUN!
DAMN IT! It's behind me! I can hear it! NO! Can't look behind me, can't look behind me...
Around this corner, yes! Main roo-OH FUCK THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" RUUUUUUUUUUUN
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
THE DOOR! CLICK THE DOOOOR!
[click door, transitions into the 'back hall' area. Saftey - no monsters here.].
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSsssssssssisssssssshisss...*
At that point, I'm shaking too much to even hold down the W key. I hit escape and lean forward, my elbows planted on the table and I thought I heard a quite "yessssss" sound coming from between my teeth.
I lean back up in the chair and hold out my arm - it's damn near vibrating. So, I stand up, walk around a little bit, then decide to sit down and write about it.
I'm not yet ready to give a review for Amnesia: The Dark Descent; I want to finish it first. But if you like the sort of games that really screw with your head and terrify you as a psychological level way before they terrify you with anything on the screen, Frictional Games is your developer, and Amnesia is your game.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers (Part 2)
You know how they could have improved it?
They could have made it a whole lot better if they just made a Doom mod.
I'm serious. All they'd need is a working copy of Doom II (which you can get on Steam), an art guy, a story guy, a level guy (with the Doom II level editor), and you're away laughing.
The AI would be there and the weapons are already done, so I imagine very little programming would be necessary. The environment is the big thing that needs to change, which can be easily accomplished with the level editor (that thing is ridiculously easy to use) and gratuitously replace the textures for everything.
They could have made it quite interesting, but they went the way they went, and I hate them for it.
They could have made it a whole lot better if they just made a Doom mod.
I'm serious. All they'd need is a working copy of Doom II (which you can get on Steam), an art guy, a story guy, a level guy (with the Doom II level editor), and you're away laughing.
The AI would be there and the weapons are already done, so I imagine very little programming would be necessary. The environment is the big thing that needs to change, which can be easily accomplished with the level editor (that thing is ridiculously easy to use) and gratuitously replace the textures for everything.
They could have made it quite interesting, but they went the way they went, and I hate them for it.
[Game Review] Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers
I hate you, Chet. Whoever the hell you are, I loathe you.
I will find you, Chet. One day.
Sleep with your eyes open.
*ahem*
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers is not fun. It's the most mind-numbingly boring "game" (and I use that word loosely) I've ever played.
It's an insult, that's what it is. No thought went into this... this thing (I'm sure as hell not calling it a game).
The story is you are a dog/goat/muscle-y armed thing with equipped with a pistol and a minigun. Your goal is...
Is...
Well, it never really tells you. The actual goal of the game is to reach 666 kills. After that, you win. I'll get to that later.
You're on a street. Most of your enemies come from behind you, off screen, where they run in front of you into your field of killing. Other enemies include a two man team of pig cops (oh ho, very clever) and, at some point, a swat team of dogs armed with Riot Shields.
Those guys are your only real problem (there's about 8 of them, and if they get you in melee range you're screwed).
I never saw them again. I killed all of them with the minigun (using the pistol is a good way to lose the g-, sorry, time-sink very quickly), and then went back to shooting excrementally stupid dog civilians and equally stupid pig cops.
The pistol has about 8 bullets, doesn't do much damage and it takes about a second or two to reload. The minigun has a ton of bullets, way more damage and an instant reload, and not to mention you have infinite ammo, so the game has already been broken before you even start.
So, you walk down the street, mowing down these dogs and pigs. Then, I said "Screw it! I'm just going to walk and hold down the mouse button".
I ran into some cops who I managed not to kill. They very slowly pulled out their guns and shot at me.
Damn! I lost some health. Maybe I'll be somehow penalized later on.
But I looked back up to the top left side of the screen and found that my health had regenerated.
This... thing is unbeleivable. There's very easy, there's games made for your mum, than there's Satan's Retrievers. So long as you don't let the cops finish pulling their guns out painstakingly slowly, you'll be fine.
The only "boss fight" is at the very beginning of the game, where you get hit by a swarm of SWAT dogs and a few backup pig cops. And even then all you need is the minigun to mow them all down, then it's onto the rest of SR - hold D, stop, hold left mouse button, repeat.
So after you've wasted your time... "playing" this, you finally get six hundred and sixty six kills.
Then the game says (and this is the biggest insult of all) "That was just a trial version! To play the full game, please give us $50 in American currency."
My thoughts, in chronological order. (Note: I didn't immediately register the "buy full game plz" thing in front of me.)
- That's it? No boss fight? Nothing?
- That was a huge waste of my time.
- Hang on, new thing.
- ...How much?
It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't even mentioned the full game, but they did. They had to say this was "only a taste" of what the full game is.
I barely remember, but I think the gameplay is largly the same. The screenshot looked identical to whatever just sucked away time I could have spent doing something, anything, else.
That pissed me the hell off. How dare these guys charge $49.95 American when Penumbra: Overture (an actual game) is almost half that?* (*Over Steam, that is.)
They have the audacity to even call their... thing a "game", and whats worse they're going to make people pay for it.
In my honest opinion, somebody needs to make space for this game in a New Mexico landfill, right next to E.T.
Where it belongs.
(Go here for Part 2 [How they could have made it better])
I will find you, Chet. One day.
Sleep with your eyes open.
*ahem*
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers is not fun. It's the most mind-numbingly boring "game" (and I use that word loosely) I've ever played.
It's an insult, that's what it is. No thought went into this... this thing (I'm sure as hell not calling it a game).
The story is you are a dog/goat/muscle-y armed thing with equipped with a pistol and a minigun. Your goal is...
Is...
Well, it never really tells you. The actual goal of the game is to reach 666 kills. After that, you win. I'll get to that later.
You're on a street. Most of your enemies come from behind you, off screen, where they run in front of you into your field of killing. Other enemies include a two man team of pig cops (oh ho, very clever) and, at some point, a swat team of dogs armed with Riot Shields.
Those guys are your only real problem (there's about 8 of them, and if they get you in melee range you're screwed).
I never saw them again. I killed all of them with the minigun (using the pistol is a good way to lose the g-, sorry, time-sink very quickly), and then went back to shooting excrementally stupid dog civilians and equally stupid pig cops.
The pistol has about 8 bullets, doesn't do much damage and it takes about a second or two to reload. The minigun has a ton of bullets, way more damage and an instant reload, and not to mention you have infinite ammo, so the game has already been broken before you even start.
So, you walk down the street, mowing down these dogs and pigs. Then, I said "Screw it! I'm just going to walk and hold down the mouse button".
I ran into some cops who I managed not to kill. They very slowly pulled out their guns and shot at me.
Damn! I lost some health. Maybe I'll be somehow penalized later on.
But I looked back up to the top left side of the screen and found that my health had regenerated.
This... thing is unbeleivable. There's very easy, there's games made for your mum, than there's Satan's Retrievers. So long as you don't let the cops finish pulling their guns out painstakingly slowly, you'll be fine.
The only "boss fight" is at the very beginning of the game, where you get hit by a swarm of SWAT dogs and a few backup pig cops. And even then all you need is the minigun to mow them all down, then it's onto the rest of SR - hold D, stop, hold left mouse button, repeat.
So after you've wasted your time... "playing" this, you finally get six hundred and sixty six kills.
Then the game says (and this is the biggest insult of all) "That was just a trial version! To play the full game, please give us $50 in American currency."
My thoughts, in chronological order. (Note: I didn't immediately register the "buy full game plz" thing in front of me.)
- That's it? No boss fight? Nothing?
- That was a huge waste of my time.
- Hang on, new thing.
- ...How much?
It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't even mentioned the full game, but they did. They had to say this was "only a taste" of what the full game is.
I barely remember, but I think the gameplay is largly the same. The screenshot looked identical to whatever just sucked away time I could have spent doing something, anything, else.
That pissed me the hell off. How dare these guys charge $49.95 American when Penumbra: Overture (an actual game) is almost half that?* (*Over Steam, that is.)
They have the audacity to even call their... thing a "game", and whats worse they're going to make people pay for it.
In my honest opinion, somebody needs to make space for this game in a New Mexico landfill, right next to E.T.
Where it belongs.
(Go here for Part 2 [How they could have made it better])
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Cataclysm's Talent Trees
I can't remember if we're still on an intermission. Frankly, that got out of hand.
But anyway.
I've yet to accomplish anything today. My mind just isn't up to anything, and as of right now I've got a headache. So I decided, hey, let's write a blog entry.
What I want to talk about today is how the new talent tree changes for World of Warcraft's new expansion, specifically the ones that are pissing me off.
I'm trying to get into the beta for the sole purpose that I can complain about this.
Well, that's a lie. But it's one of the biggest reasons, because that's the only way I'm going to get the designers at blizzard to, at the very least, skim my complaints before throwing them away, short of flying to California and forcing my way through Blizzard's heavily guarded compound, battling through waves upon waves of employees, penetrating Blizzard's inner sanctum and slaying the 'big names' (Chris Metzen, for example, presumably riding atop his winged steed of doom), before reaching it's core and starting the countdown sequence that will...
Jesus. I forgot where I was going with that.
Anyway, the talent tree changes.
First off, they're making the talent trees much, much smaller. You only get a talent point every second level though, so to the person who wanted to have a ton of points in two different specs, tough luck.
But the way some trees are constructed is stupid. Lets take Warriors.
I'm a Fury spec (I loves me some critical strikes). Naturally, I want to check out the Fury talents for Cataclysm, just to make sure my spec is largely unchanged.
I'm disappointed. I know this sort of thing isn't set in stone, but you could have worked harder.
Here's one thing I would do right off the bat - move Blood Craze over to Protection and Incite over to Fury. They just don't make any sense where they are - Blood Craze has a chance to heal you if you take damage and Incite gives your Heroic Strike an increased critical strike chance and makes your Heroic Strike critical strikes give your next Heroic Strike an increases chance to critically strike.
Say that five times fast.
I would also increase the length of Enrage. Anything but 4 seconds. 4 seconds is barely enough time to make that 10% extra damage count. 7 seconds seems a lot better - it grantees at least 2 auto-attack hits (assuming you're using a two hander), and how many special attacks you can cram into that tiny window of opportunity.
Battle Trance and Cruelty are weird, too. Why would I care about Mortal Strike or Shield Slam? Answer is I don't. All I want is Bloodthirst.
Tell you what - find a way to migrate the Shield Slam and Mortal Strike bonus to their respective trees, and give us bonus that we Fury warriors actually care about - Heroic Strike, Slam, and/or Execute in addition to Bloodthirst.
And what's the point of giving me Die by the Sword? That has no place in Fury. Give it to Protection.
Seriously! Why is that even there?
And what the hell is with Booming Voice now? "Reduces the cooldown of your Battle Shout and Commanding Shout by 0.05 seconds".
ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE SECONDS? And the next level reduces by 0.1 seconds! What the hell is the point? Can't you increase it's effectiveness instead of decreasing it's cooldown by a fraction of a fraction of a second?
Titan's Grip and Single-Minded Fury will no doubt cause a LOT of debate. No longer is there a no-brainer choice when it comes to Fury warriors - now we have to really think about what one is better.
I assume Titan's Grip does more all out damage, but Single-Minded Fury is faster? Perhaps Single-Minded Fury does actually do more damage, and Titan's Grip is just for the "I want to wield 2 two handers at the same time" crowd. Maybe some rethinking in that department would be useful, or perhaps giving us a little more information by writing a TG vs. SMF article.
Maybe they're trying to make it so that either choice has very little differences so it's easy to choose, or they're trying to weed out Titan's Grip altogether, to which I ask; WHY!? Why not have the two talents good for different things?
How about this - TG automatically grants heavier hits, increases damage for, perhaps, Cleave (by hitting with both weapons). SMF is faster, and increases damage for, I don't know, Slam maybe (by hitting with both weapons), and both talents grant a small, passive bonus to critically hit with their respective abilities.
(Cataclysm's Warrior Talent Tree here.)
Let's look at another talent tree.
Hmm... Resto shamans look pretty good... wait, hang on.
Spark of Life confuses me. Shouldn't you give more priority to healing done than healing received? After all, shamans shouldn't tank, and they don;t have any real need to get extra healing. Now, if it were a tank, yes. But a DPS/Healer class? No.
Change the 6% to healing received and the 15% to healing done and it should be sweet. Telluric Currents doesn't make any sense - after all, it's a maximum of 40% of the damage dealt, surely that would be less than the mana cost. I could be wrong, but it seems like a stupid way to gain mana when you have Water Shield and Mana Tide Totem.
Lesee, lesee... Assassination Rogues look pretty good, Druids... oh dear.
Restoration Druids.
At least, they used to be.
I remember a time when the Restoration talent tree used to be about healing, not a filler tree for the other two trees to put points into when they filled up their own.
No. Blizzard, the Restoration tree for Druids is just criminal.
Blessing of the Grove is pretty pathetic, even for the other trees, and for a Restoration Druid, Forur is useless (as it doesn't contain any bonuses for Tree of Life form). So, the only talent of any real use is Master Shapeshifter, and even then it's only to get the 2% bonus healing for Tree of Life form, something you get only at a veeery high level, so It's completely useless from the start anyway.
In fact, the real talent that actually does something for you is in teir 2, which increases your Swiftmend and Rejuvenation healing by 15%. So, I have to spend 19 levels with largely useless talents before I get a proper one.
Either make Blessing of the Grove more friendly to healers (increasing the effect of Healing Touch and making my rejuve better than just 4%?) or start redesigning the talent tree.
Migrate things like Moonglow and Genesis over to Restoration. Give Perseverance to Feral, they need it more. I would have thought you guys over there actually thought about this, but apparently none of you have a Resto Druid, or if you do he or she is so utterly timid he/she is too scared to voice a complaint.
(Cataclysm's Druid Talent Tree here.)
Hunters look good, but please call their 'resource' something other than focus. Pets have focus, and apparently so do Hunters, which makes it confusing to tell whether or not Termination affects you or your pet.
Don't play a Paladin or Priest... yet. Fire mage looks pretty good, and I haven't played my Warlock enough to formulate an opinion about them.
So that leaves Death Knights.
Death Knights are being screwed with in Cataclysm. Gone are the days where all three trees were good at either tanking and/or DPS. Now, Blood is the major tanker, and Frost and Unholy get to squabble with each other about who does the better DPS.
As of this moment, Blood has all sorts of things that make it attractive to tanks - increased healing, Improved Death Strike, Bloodworms, ect. Frost has a lot of damage reduction abilities in it, and Unholy has the thing where it's got... look, I don't know. I don't play a Death Knight anymore (not since I embraced healing and my Shaman) and I never really got Unholy. Sure, you got a cool zombie pet, but Blood just seemed so, so much better.
Anyway, Blizzard finally set the record straight and, in my mind, fixed the talent trees. Blood is now the definite tanking class (most of the talents reflect tanking and it has Bone Shield now), Frost improves things like Icy Touch and Obliterate as well as being able to dual wield, and Unholy has diseases, zombies and spells.
Getting back to the point, looks good for Death Knights as a whole. The three talent trees are a lot better now, in my opinion.
So, that concludes our adventure into Cataclysm's talent trees. Hopefully, Blizzard will read this blog post and discover what visionary of design I am and offer me a job immediately.
Actually, nobody reads this blog, so the likelihood of that happening is slim to none. But still, it's possible that somebody will find this, and that somebody will know somebody who knows ect until it gets to Chris Metzen's golden throne polisher who will in turn direct Mr. Metzen to my blog.
That's probably never going to happen. But I will remain optimistic.
Also, I've entered the Cataclysm Beta Key Contest that Wowhead is hosting, and I've signed up as a Beta tester with Battle.net, so there's always I chance I could get in.
But anyway.
I've yet to accomplish anything today. My mind just isn't up to anything, and as of right now I've got a headache. So I decided, hey, let's write a blog entry.
What I want to talk about today is how the new talent tree changes for World of Warcraft's new expansion, specifically the ones that are pissing me off.
I'm trying to get into the beta for the sole purpose that I can complain about this.
Well, that's a lie. But it's one of the biggest reasons, because that's the only way I'm going to get the designers at blizzard to, at the very least, skim my complaints before throwing them away, short of flying to California and forcing my way through Blizzard's heavily guarded compound, battling through waves upon waves of employees, penetrating Blizzard's inner sanctum and slaying the 'big names' (Chris Metzen, for example, presumably riding atop his winged steed of doom), before reaching it's core and starting the countdown sequence that will...
Jesus. I forgot where I was going with that.
Anyway, the talent tree changes.
First off, they're making the talent trees much, much smaller. You only get a talent point every second level though, so to the person who wanted to have a ton of points in two different specs, tough luck.
But the way some trees are constructed is stupid. Lets take Warriors.
I'm a Fury spec (I loves me some critical strikes). Naturally, I want to check out the Fury talents for Cataclysm, just to make sure my spec is largely unchanged.
I'm disappointed. I know this sort of thing isn't set in stone, but you could have worked harder.
Here's one thing I would do right off the bat - move Blood Craze over to Protection and Incite over to Fury. They just don't make any sense where they are - Blood Craze has a chance to heal you if you take damage and Incite gives your Heroic Strike an increased critical strike chance and makes your Heroic Strike critical strikes give your next Heroic Strike an increases chance to critically strike.
Say that five times fast.
I would also increase the length of Enrage. Anything but 4 seconds. 4 seconds is barely enough time to make that 10% extra damage count. 7 seconds seems a lot better - it grantees at least 2 auto-attack hits (assuming you're using a two hander), and how many special attacks you can cram into that tiny window of opportunity.
Battle Trance and Cruelty are weird, too. Why would I care about Mortal Strike or Shield Slam? Answer is I don't. All I want is Bloodthirst.
Tell you what - find a way to migrate the Shield Slam and Mortal Strike bonus to their respective trees, and give us bonus that we Fury warriors actually care about - Heroic Strike, Slam, and/or Execute in addition to Bloodthirst.
And what's the point of giving me Die by the Sword? That has no place in Fury. Give it to Protection.
Seriously! Why is that even there?
And what the hell is with Booming Voice now? "Reduces the cooldown of your Battle Shout and Commanding Shout by 0.05 seconds".
ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE SECONDS? And the next level reduces by 0.1 seconds! What the hell is the point? Can't you increase it's effectiveness instead of decreasing it's cooldown by a fraction of a fraction of a second?
Titan's Grip and Single-Minded Fury will no doubt cause a LOT of debate. No longer is there a no-brainer choice when it comes to Fury warriors - now we have to really think about what one is better.
I assume Titan's Grip does more all out damage, but Single-Minded Fury is faster? Perhaps Single-Minded Fury does actually do more damage, and Titan's Grip is just for the "I want to wield 2 two handers at the same time" crowd. Maybe some rethinking in that department would be useful, or perhaps giving us a little more information by writing a TG vs. SMF article.
Maybe they're trying to make it so that either choice has very little differences so it's easy to choose, or they're trying to weed out Titan's Grip altogether, to which I ask; WHY!? Why not have the two talents good for different things?
How about this - TG automatically grants heavier hits, increases damage for, perhaps, Cleave (by hitting with both weapons). SMF is faster, and increases damage for, I don't know, Slam maybe (by hitting with both weapons), and both talents grant a small, passive bonus to critically hit with their respective abilities.
(Cataclysm's Warrior Talent Tree here.)
Let's look at another talent tree.
Hmm... Resto shamans look pretty good... wait, hang on.
Spark of Life confuses me. Shouldn't you give more priority to healing done than healing received? After all, shamans shouldn't tank, and they don;t have any real need to get extra healing. Now, if it were a tank, yes. But a DPS/Healer class? No.
Change the 6% to healing received and the 15% to healing done and it should be sweet. Telluric Currents doesn't make any sense - after all, it's a maximum of 40% of the damage dealt, surely that would be less than the mana cost. I could be wrong, but it seems like a stupid way to gain mana when you have Water Shield and Mana Tide Totem.
Lesee, lesee... Assassination Rogues look pretty good, Druids... oh dear.
Restoration Druids.
At least, they used to be.
I remember a time when the Restoration talent tree used to be about healing, not a filler tree for the other two trees to put points into when they filled up their own.
No. Blizzard, the Restoration tree for Druids is just criminal.
Blessing of the Grove is pretty pathetic, even for the other trees, and for a Restoration Druid, Forur is useless (as it doesn't contain any bonuses for Tree of Life form). So, the only talent of any real use is Master Shapeshifter, and even then it's only to get the 2% bonus healing for Tree of Life form, something you get only at a veeery high level, so It's completely useless from the start anyway.
In fact, the real talent that actually does something for you is in teir 2, which increases your Swiftmend and Rejuvenation healing by 15%. So, I have to spend 19 levels with largely useless talents before I get a proper one.
Either make Blessing of the Grove more friendly to healers (increasing the effect of Healing Touch and making my rejuve better than just 4%?) or start redesigning the talent tree.
Migrate things like Moonglow and Genesis over to Restoration. Give Perseverance to Feral, they need it more. I would have thought you guys over there actually thought about this, but apparently none of you have a Resto Druid, or if you do he or she is so utterly timid he/she is too scared to voice a complaint.
(Cataclysm's Druid Talent Tree here.)
Hunters look good, but please call their 'resource' something other than focus. Pets have focus, and apparently so do Hunters, which makes it confusing to tell whether or not Termination affects you or your pet.
Don't play a Paladin or Priest... yet. Fire mage looks pretty good, and I haven't played my Warlock enough to formulate an opinion about them.
So that leaves Death Knights.
Death Knights are being screwed with in Cataclysm. Gone are the days where all three trees were good at either tanking and/or DPS. Now, Blood is the major tanker, and Frost and Unholy get to squabble with each other about who does the better DPS.
As of this moment, Blood has all sorts of things that make it attractive to tanks - increased healing, Improved Death Strike, Bloodworms, ect. Frost has a lot of damage reduction abilities in it, and Unholy has the thing where it's got... look, I don't know. I don't play a Death Knight anymore (not since I embraced healing and my Shaman) and I never really got Unholy. Sure, you got a cool zombie pet, but Blood just seemed so, so much better.
Anyway, Blizzard finally set the record straight and, in my mind, fixed the talent trees. Blood is now the definite tanking class (most of the talents reflect tanking and it has Bone Shield now), Frost improves things like Icy Touch and Obliterate as well as being able to dual wield, and Unholy has diseases, zombies and spells.
Getting back to the point, looks good for Death Knights as a whole. The three talent trees are a lot better now, in my opinion.
So, that concludes our adventure into Cataclysm's talent trees. Hopefully, Blizzard will read this blog post and discover what visionary of design I am and offer me a job immediately.
Actually, nobody reads this blog, so the likelihood of that happening is slim to none. But still, it's possible that somebody will find this, and that somebody will know somebody who knows ect until it gets to Chris Metzen's golden throne polisher who will in turn direct Mr. Metzen to my blog.
That's probably never going to happen. But I will remain optimistic.
Also, I've entered the Cataclysm Beta Key Contest that Wowhead is hosting, and I've signed up as a Beta tester with Battle.net, so there's always I chance I could get in.
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