Posted by Spooner | 4 Comments

WoW Patch 3.3.3 – Don’t be a Jerk in LFG

You’re being watched, and it’s about time. These were mined up at MMOC and it seems Blizzard has little doodads in the game now to watch how LFG works in regards to assholes bailing on the group or when the asshole in question gets booted from every group he taints.

• Kicked in LFG (follower) (hidden) – Number of times the player kicked someone in LFG, voting, but not initiating
• Kicked in LFG (target) (hidden) – Number of times the player has been kicked by someone in LFG
• Kicked in LFG (initiator) (hidden) – Number of times the player kicked someone in LFG, initiating the kick
• Abandoned LFG (hidden) – Number of times the player abandoned an LFG dungeon
• Completed LFG (hidden) – Number of times the player completed an LFG dungeon

I’m hoping that this is just an elaborate system in place to flag certain players for GMs to then watch closely at their behavior. I’m talking about the pieces of shit in Trade chat and those in raids that are abusing the system and other players.

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Posted by Spooner | 3 Comments

“What’s melee range?” a Tribute to LFG

It has been just long enough and I’ve used the new LFG tool as a tank and as a DPS role (never a healer) and I’ve achieved the title but not yet the mutt; it’s about time to give a sober account. The title of this thread was a real quote said to me by a caster wearing gear up to par with Ulduar and above. I was in greens.

The Good

First off we have our ultimate conclusion – this is a great tool and a positive change to the game overall as it helps out low pop servers and takes the hardest part of 5-man Heroics out of the equation. I’ve come across incredible tanks, smart healers, a DPS mage that admitted within seconds of pulling adds and wiping the group and then apologizing. I’ve played with people that actually seem to have souls and who’s balls have dropped. Most groups are decent people just looking to blaze through the already trivialized and dated content for some easy badges, coin, and enchanting materials.

The Bad

As to be expected the wait time varies as a DPS where I end up waiting 5-15 minutes for a group to form and even then its not guaranteed to be a winner. It’s less than before trying to find only players on your own server but its still kind of a hassle when you run the 15+ minute wait and then people bail on the group. That’s another thing, people will sometimes just up and leave, or some spoiled little bitch will complain about the tank not having 42k health and say we can’t handle the run. Really? You fucking pussies can’t do heroic Utgarde Keep unless you’re in epics and pushing 3k DPS with a tank that never dips below 75%? I swear it’s like an epidemic of cry babies that don’t even want to put in the modicum of effort required currently for T9 quality loot.

The Ugly

Why the fucking hell are the randomly chosen dungeons not random? I’ve done Nexus about 5 times, Occulus roughly the same. I have a time share in the Old Kingdom and this one time I actually got Heroic Trial of the Champion. There’s also been a dash of the two Howling Fjord dungeons and one Culling of Stratholme. Why in the hell can’t I get into the new 5mans? I mean is it really that much to ask to get tossed into some newish content once in a while instead of the same tired heroics over and over and over? Then there are the window licking retards that you might get lumped in with. A resto druid healing, didn’t have wild growth or refused to use it in a 5 man group, and misplaced his abolish poison spell in Ahn’Kahet. He also refused to heal anybody but the tank and I had to bandage up myself and the warlock because the shadow priest thought it was a waste of DPS to switch out of shadow form between pulls.

The Verdict

It’s a good tool and makes getting gold and emblems easier than it used to be. It’s not as brainless or faceroll easy as most extremists and elitists want you to think, but that’s their nature to belittle everything new because change is scary. You’ll run into good players and wholesom people about as much as you run into loot whores and jerkoffs that are carried by bigger jerkoffs on their own servers. It’s also the best place to train on becoming better at your class with little to no risk involved. A target dummy is just a target dummy and you’ll never ever be that stand alone in anything worth being judged – healers, tanks, and DPS should practice in a group setting with enough randomness in the players to allow proper education for situational awareness. The new LFG tool gave us that.

Also as a public service, melee range is up close point blank and can stretch as far as 5 yards from the target for you ranged types but the hitbox of the target can affect your judgement.

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Posted by Spooner | 19 Comments

How does Loot work in the LFG system?

Son, I am confuse. People can’t seem to understand this new dang-fangled loot system with the Need Before greed option. There are some exceptions and errors with it when it comes to certain weaponry or trinkets and the likes, but as far as armor goes in general you are essentially only allowed to roll need on pieces within your armor class. So that means a Warrior cannot roll need for a pair of leather shoulders no matter what (as an example).

Personally, this is a fucking amazing idea and I feel a little bummed that Blizzard didn’t think of this sooner. Now they have a lot of work ahead of them to refine the system so there aren’t any issues with legit upgrades and such especially in the accessory/trinket/weapon field – but this is a start.

There has been some confusion regarding looting items when using the new Dungeon Finder system so we would like to take a moment and provide an explanation for some of these new features.

Anytime players are matched up with other players using the Dungeon Finder system, the looting option is automatically set to “Need Before Greed” which is designed to be a fair system that rewards items to the classes they are designed for. While there can be some finer details on how this works, here is an overview on this system:

• The “need” option is only available for both armor and weapons that are designed for your class. Caster classes and hybrid caster classes can roll “need” on items with intellect and/or spell power while melee classes cannot. Melee classes and hybrid melee classes can roll “need” on the items without intellect and/or spell power. There is an additional restriction that only allows characters to roll for armor items if it’s the armor type that is designed for their class. So since cloth armor is designed for mages, priests, and warlocks only they can roll “need” on these armor types. Then leather armor is for druids and rogues, mail armor for hunters and shaman, and plate for death knights, paladins, and warriors. Keep in mind that these restrictions only apply to items above a certain item level since the breakdown of stats is very different in the early leveling area of the game.

• We also introduced a “disenchant” option that is open to all classes on all items whenever a player with the sufficient level of skill in enchanting is in the group to disenchant the item that just dropped. If the winner of the item has selected this option the item will automatically be disenchanted and the resulting material(s) placed in the character’s bags instead of the item. Just like it was before the patch, disenchanting any item is not reversible and the item is permanently removed so you should only select this option if you have no plans to use the item or trade it to another player.

• The “greed” option is open to all classes and all item types but the players who roll greed will also roll against those who select disenchant. The reason for this is that if an item is not a high priority and/or eligible to be rolled “need” on, then other players running the dungeon have an equal chance to get a reward for defeating the encounter.

As far as how the whole Dungeon Finder system works, it matches up characters with others in their entire Battlegroup instead of just their individual realm. Once a dungeon is completed players go back to their respective realms where they cannot communicate or trade with players on other realms, so any items you gained in the dungeon can no longer be traded to another character in the group. If you are considering giving an item to another player, you must do so before either character leaves the dungeon.

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Posted by Spooner | 3 Comments

LFG Tool: First Impressions

This is single handedly the greatest thing to ever happen to the World of Warcraft and I sincerely hope that other MMO games can borrow from it’s amazing inception.

The random dungeon finder has replaced daily 5-man dungeon quests. Using the tool for the first time a day grants 2 emblems of frost and almost 30g. Every subsequent random heroic grants 2 triumph badges in addition to whatever badges drop in the instance. Doing the random normal difficulty dungeon grants triumph badges the first time as well. That’s an awesome way to rack up gear for a fresh 80, and alt, or even an off-spec and be immune to DKP rules or other stipulations. It basically means that you have no excuse to lack the gear to play in Icecrown while skill and a good group are now bigger issues.

When you enter the queue you pick your role, in my case tank, and then during prime time after about 12 seconds you can enter the dungeon! I love it, no mucking about with daily quests or who has what and can you share. No more waiting for everybody to stop being lazy and get to the instance as you are all directly teleported inside. If you lack healers on your realm, no worries they’ll find one for you elsewhere. The groups are always made of 1 tank 1 healer 3 DPS and the groups lately have been remarkable. Doing a full heroic Drak’tharon Keep in 12 minutes without a single death or even dropping below 50% health is incredible.

You get a buff inside that boosts health/dps/healing by 5% and the new need before greed won’t let people roll need on any armor outside of their class level (hunters can’t need on leather only mail armor, and so forth) which to me is actually pretty awesome because it stops a lot of the loot drama. What with Cataclsym on the horizon there really isn’t any reason for plate to be using leather anyway. You can still roll greed and win so if it ever becomes an issue then you can work it out in chat, also remember loot can be traded for 2 hours after it’s picked up to those eligible for the drop.

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Posted by Spooner | 2 Comments

New WoW LFG Tool Explained

I caught this video over at WoWRaid and I tip my hate to Teza for putting it up. The new system looks really solid and seems to be the perfect solution for cutting away more of the time sink wastes and getting groups up and running faster. Sure there isn’t a filter for bad players or ninja-looters and the likes; but those are issues that a computer program can’t do a thing about. The new voting system in groups might be the solution where you can vote to have a player removed and replaced and then instantly teleported into the dungeon right there with you.

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