DSDistorted

Cheers, didn't know this was a game client limitation. Good to know.

Suggestion to raise the AH limit beyond 50 postings. It seems absurdly low. The AH is dry right now and this could help alleviate it. I know I can't post all the things I want to. Also inb4 'post it cheaper so it sells faster hur hur', not the point of the post.

Currently .bgann setting doesn't save over server resets. Any way we can make it? It's annoying to have to set it to off every day.

What happened to AV that got it nerfed or whatever? I'm not super familiar with the changes in the BG over patches. Either way, I'm all for pre-nerfed stuff. +1 from me.

Welcome oh great Azzinoth. I'll do what I can to help you in your quest.

Hey buddy. If you roll alliance drop me a message in game sometime, we love taking on new arrivals to the community. Name ingame: Artosis

We just have a difference of opinion then. I just envision a server where everyone progresses against more difficult content similar to how it was in retail. That includes people outside my bubble. I see it easier to tune the encounters to be harder, you see it easier to tune the bubble to account for the easy stats.

Honestly the best thing you can do as a player to increase population is keep an eye on world chat for new players. No matter what you do, some veterans leave a game every day. A lot of player retention is involved in keeping new players informed and making their experience as smooth as possible. Chat them up, let them know what the server is like, suggest some communities for them to get involved in, maybe send them an extra 8 slotter you have rotting in your bank or a gold piece to help them on their way. It can really mean the difference between someone thinking the server is just another WoW private server, or thinking that the community really has a place for them.

Sure, you can go there with less gear and less people, but that's not really a solution to the problem being addressed. Telling the player base to handicap themselves and try really hard to pretend it's all the same isn't exactly honest development practice, especially in a non-singleplayer game. On top of which, finding a community to do that would be difficult enough as it is with a population much larger than that of a single private servers'. You say change the game for yourself but not the whole playerbase, but if the problem affects the entire playerbase, shouldn't they all be subject to the same conditions? This isn't about laziness. This isn't about 'the admins need to do everything for us'. It's a specific tuning problem that exists because of the unique problem of a patch not mixing well with a release schedule. Shouldn't we not discuss some simple ways to tune it back to a blizzardlike feel? Isn't that the whole point of this? Telling people they need to fix it themselves seems to me to be the lazy solution. Fortunately I'm not one for burying my head in the sand.

Server's down for extended maintenance due to a hiccup with the honor system they're diagnosing. They decided to upgrade to the new server hardware at the same time since they would have had to do that today anyways. Should be up early afternoon GMT.

This looks really nice. Thanks for you development work. I'll use it once the servers are back up.

This is really nice. Thanks for developing!

Fellow Canadian! Did you get settled with anyone yet?

It's an issue of design and intent. What is the server's priority? Is it to emulate a blizzard server as close as possible, or provide the design intent that blizzard had as close as possible? The best metric for this is what in game design is called the average test case. What's an average raid going to be able to accomplish in average gear with average skill? Are they going to be able to faceroll molten core in modest dungeon gear? If so, I'd argue you have a problem on your hands, since the challenge is removed. You've separated yourself from what the game is under the banner of appealing to a blizzlike stat spread, and in my opinion that's a mistake. We're playing a game, and the game was not released with 1.12 talents/gear, so you can't just ignore the effects it has down the line. Some have pointed out that this is because 1.12 talents/gear were itemized in order to cater to Naxxrammas, and that's fine. You have the talents/gear you got. But it needs to be taken into consideration. So what're the solutions? I'm going to pull the famous quote that says "novices discuss tactics, experts discuss logistics." You have to consider that even if this were to be fixed (I can only hope it does get fixed if in fact there is a balance issue) the logistics of applying a fix. You can revert talents. Logistically extremely difficult, since the old values have to be datamined, all characters need to retroactively work with them, and they need to all be tested and approved before deployment. Not to mention a lot of people will be upset that their builds have changed entirely. This also effects solution 2, which is... Revert the gear. Some players have pointed out why this is a problem, since gear was upgraded in tandem with talents, and one has to come with the other. Again, retroactive problems, and is logistically in my opinion not an option. That leaves... Option 3, which is the soundest and logistically easiest in my opinion: Mess with the encounters a little. Buff some HP here, a bit of damage there. If it's too hard, scale it back a bit. The amount of work needed to modify these values is so much simpler (and probably more elegant in the long run) than attempting to balance in the other direction. For all intents and purposes, I'd say assume you're sticking with 1.12 gear and talents. So what can we do to make the raids feel like a challenge again? EDIT: I'd also like to point out that buffing encounters to be difficult and then scaling them back is not un-blizzlike. If you recall, they've done this plenty in the past, notably with things like ICC and then slowly make the encounters easier by providing a buff. Really this is them just masking the fact that they're not sure if things are too hard for the average raid, while also letting the less geared groups progress a little more over time.

You can also use puu.sh which is a simple screen capture/upload tool. You basically hit a hotkey, drag a box, and it uploads what was selected in the box to an image online and puts the link in your clipboard. Super handy.