Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 724 - The Evolution of Creative Content?

Recorded Sunday, October 3, 2021 2000 Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 724 - The Evolution of Creative Content? Aprillian, Constraxx, Grand Nagus and guest hosts discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's greatest MMORPG. The show features audio segments and email submissions from our lovely listeners. Guild Round up from Constraxx. If you want to join the conversations on the show, we have a live chatroom with in-game giveaways moderated by chatroom-guru Constraxx. We record Live on our Twitch.tv page twitch.tv/ctrlaltwowpodcast We also have an ongoing contest. Send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altoholic or dealing with it in your family life to be placed in a drawing for a WoW Pet or an Authenticator. This week in WoW: MICROHOLIDAYS: Sat. Oct. 9th: The Great Gnomeregan Race ONGOING: Darkmoon Faire ENDING Tuesday (reset) : Battleground Bonus Event PvP Brawl: Classic Ashran ENDING on the Oct. 6th (Wednesday): Brewfest BEGINS Tuesday (reset): Torgast: Unbridled Darkness Shadowlands Dungeon Event PvP Brawl: Packed House NEWS: Fresh Classic servers (the reason for the special Classic PTR servers): Are they Blizzard’s answer to the numbers that some content creators have talked about, believing that, in this case Belular, WoW only has between 1,5 and 2 million active players left? WoW Classic Seasons of Mastery #SlightlyMoreChanges What’s different in WoW Classic Season of Mastery? As with the first release of WoW Classic, we’re planning six content release phases. In WoW Classic Season of Mastery, however, phase unlocks will happen faster. We’re planning for a 12-month cadence, with phases unlocking roughly every couple months. Here’s the current outline for the six phases. Raid Boss Updates The original release of WoW Classic was made to re-create the difficulty and challenge of patch 1.12 from the original World of Warcraft release. While we strived to bring a faithful re-creation of that release, many raid encounters turned out to be easier than the first time around—players simply were more experienced and prepared, and patch updates greatly increased player power. With that in mind, we’re planning a few changes to make those early raid bosses pack a bit more of a punch, and attempt to recapture the original challenge they presented. These changes currently include (but are not limited to): World buffs (like Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer and others) disabled in Raid instances Restoring mechanics that were removed early on to some Raid bosses No boss debuff limit (up from 16 debuffs in WoW Classic) Increased health on bosses, to offset player buffs and the removed debuff limit Our intent with these changes is for this experience to feel somewhat more challenging than WoW Classic did in 2019. Due to Season of Mastery’s faster content release cadence, we’re also planning several improvements and changes. These include: Faster Leveling We’re planning on increasing experience gains from what they were in the first iteration of WoW Classic. Our current plan is to set them close to what the 1-60 XP rates are in Burning Crusade Classic™ with a bigger focus on quest XP increases. Quality of Life Updates In addition, we’re planning on introducing certain improvements that weren’t in the original WoW Classic release, but that we think can help create a better experience, such as: Meeting Stones converted to Summoning Stones Increased Mining and Herbalism nodes Realms tend to be more densely populated in WoW Classic compared to the original 2005 design. Increasing gathering node spawns should provide a more consistent economy this time around. WoW Classic Season of Mastery will have an Open Beta beginning on October 5. We look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes and many others as we continue to iterate on them. Keep an eye on the forums and https://worldofwarcraft.com/news for the latest developments. The Evolution of Creative Content in World of Warcraft Over the last few weeks, artists and writers across the WoW team have updated a small number of old quests, art assets, names, and dialogue that we identified as outdated and inconsistent with our values as a team. These updates are a relatively small part of a comprehensive, company-wide effort to improve the WoW team and Blizzard as a whole, but they’re important to us as developers. In early August, we set up internal channels where the WoW team could share feedback on content that doesn't represent who we are as a team today. During this time, we also gathered a great deal of feedback from players on practically every aspect of the game. The player feedback influenced many gameplay improvements we’re working on for patch 9.1.5, and our internal feedback identified some in-game content that is inconsistent with our goal of building an inclusive and welcoming game world. In a game that has thousands of art elements and a word count in the millions, we recognize that these updates will amount to very few total changes overall. Nonetheless, we believe these changes are worthwhile. World of Warcraft is meant to evolve over time, and every day, new players from every walk of life and every corner of the world experience our in-game content for the very first time. As a team, we want the world they see to stand as an expression of our talents and principles. Goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be. Still, we want to remain mindful of whether certain elements of that world are welcoming to all players. In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not punch down. Occasionally, when determining whether to adjust content, there can be circumstances that further complicate our decision-making. For example, some of the art that populates our world is often re-used throughout the game. To be certain that we don’t have any instances in which this art appears in a way that is not respectful, in some cases, we might opt to replace specific elements entirely. It’s important to us that we ensure Azeroth is the best place it can be for everyone, and we will continue to improve our processes when it comes to this kind of decision-making. We also want players to be able to express themselves through their characters, so we don’t intend to change existing player looks or cosmetics. Instead, we want to ensure that we're offering a wide range of options for players to represent themselves. This work is ongoing alongside our development of new content and features. You’re going to see more of it soon in 9.1.5, and in updates to come—and where applicable, in WoW Classic as well. An example of a post-9.1.5 improvement is the creation of an incubus demon, which we can add to places where succubus models currently appear. We're also planning to make the incubus a glyphable option for Warlocks when they summon that classification of demon. As WoW continues to evolve and grow, we’ll keep discussing, reviewing, and acting on this kind of feedback. As always, we’re immeasurably grateful for your input, and we hope you keep it coming. -- The World of Warcraft Team Why now? Why in early August? Why not before? Who “ordered” the setting up of the internal channels? What reason was behind it all? Tell us? Those are the questions we would like answered. It’s good to see you get started dealing with issues you clearly have as the WoW Team. I bet the issues were brought up before, at least some of them. Why only deal with them NOW? The answer: “It’s the LAWSUIT stupid!!” Also happening in the ABK lawsuit world: The US Securities and Exchange Commission – better known as the SEC – is the latest government agency to launch an investiagtion into Activision Blizzard, as The Wall Street Journal reports. The agency has subpoenaed the publisher and its CEO, Bobby Kotick, for records related to employment, separation agreements, and communications between senior executives. - VG247 article from Sept. 21st. by Dom Pepplatt. Given that ABK’s HR department has (allegedly) shredded documents to avoid consequences in the California lawsuit, it might be likely that they will face consequences for those acts by the SEC too, if that’s possible. What We've Been Doing: Aprillian Constraxx Grand Nagus I must say that it is becoming less and less likely that I'll return to WoW again any time soon. I just can’t do it. Every half way moral fiber in my being revolts against logging into the game. Like I said before, the ONLY reason I can somewhat justify playing D2(R) is that it’s a game that really wasn’t developed and made by Blizzard. I’ve worked on unlocking more jobs this past week, the latest is the Machinist, a ranged job with a gun, so basically a hunter without a pet, kinda. I have upgraded my Thaumaturge class to the Black Mage job and the Arcanist class has become the Summoner DPS AND the Scholar Healer jobs. They share levels so when I gain exp on playing one job, I gain exp on the other one too, right? A quick reminder: The current A Nocturne for Heroes (FFXIV × FFXV) FINAL FANTASY XIV collaboration event that is ongoing will end on Oct. 18th at 14:59 GMT/15:59 BST, so if you still want to grind those MGP for the rewards you can only get at the event or do the quest chain to get the cosmetic gear from the event, you have about 2 weeks left to do it. Each week GrandNagus takes a closer look at some of the most useful World of Warcraft addons out there. You can find GrandNagus on Twitter @GrandNagus1, or by email at towerofcommerce@gmail.com Guild Updates: XXX-XXX 10 80 20 85 30 90 40 100 50 Roshuun Restlys 110 60 120 Last week’s 120’s: Time Flies When You’re Having Fun: Guild Chat App - Discord Trying a 24/7 chat app for guildies to join and just keep in contact and have chats with during IRL :) Also has a voice channel just like vent/mumble! And very easy to use! :) The App is Discord - https://discord.gg/0gr8ON8GpXJQrJHy And we have a CtrlAltWoW Server - so check out the link above for invite. Shout Outs & Thank You