It’s one of those days were I put on my jogging shoes and I can’t get my mind from a topic. I thought long and hard if I really wanted to do this, but I believe I’m doing the right thing here. The significance of what I’m about to tell you is too huge for the game to keep it on the down low. Every single player that is competing in some way in World of Warcraft will be affected by this be it PvE or PvP players and I believe it is your right to know. Let’s start from the beginning:

I’m the first to admit that WoW Arena has its flaws but one thing we couldn’t accuse the game of:

Having real cheats.

Some will say that guilds have exploited bugs and therefore cheated but that’s not what I’m talking about.

You could go ahead and say that wintrading is cheating which I agree with but not to the degree I am going to tell you about.It has nothing to do with the game but everything with the player interaction.

Maybe a Chinese teleport hacker has grabbed a Frost Lotus from you and you cried for hours, but did it really ever have an impact on WoW Arena or the PvE competition? Hardly ever.

Again I thought long and hard if I wanted to contaminate the last moral high ground that we WoW players could take over other games in which Map hack and Aimbots are well known. With the latest wave of evidence however I think to save this season from a total disgrace, I have to expose the first real cheat that ever disrupted WoW as a whole.

For this we have to go back, before the Arena Pass Realm was even announced. Bladey and Draintrain were playing an extremely successful WLD together with an amazing win percentage and everyone started to believe in the strength of the comp again as similar movements were going on in the US. Draintrain, being the competitive nature that he is, decided to ask his team to participate in the big tournaments or just to try to make a name for themselves in order to find a sponsor and step into the spotlight.

Bladey seemed to didn’t really want to step it up, claiming that his mother wouldn’t let him. Draintrain went as far as to convince Bladey’s mother on VoIP to let him attend tournaments. Even with his mother’s blessing, Bladey still refused and left Draintrain high and dry which fortunately found Barburas as we know now. Fast forward about half a year, we now know why  Bladey refused to potentially travel the world to play a videogame.

Bladey is one of the first cheaters who manipulated game files to have an unfair advantage over his opponent.

Due to an apparently undetectable change in an MPQ-file, players are able to effectively lower their GCD to 1 second without any haste whatsoever.

The advantage for every other class than Rogues is apparent.

Bladey was known for his ability to dish out tons of pressure which barely any Warrior ever compared to. Today we know he’s little more than a miserable cheater.

Supposedly he was informed about the cheat by none other than Deadly Gladiator Wintrader Icematikx. He himself had been playing ATC with Braindeadly and Kbus on TR and shied away from queuing on the last night albeit having a real chance to qualify sitting at the 10th spot at that time because “he had to raid Ulduar”. An achievement run, mind you. We at the time considered this to be an excuse in order to not show up at Regionals in shame of the things he had been doing in the past as surely some people would’ve tried to get back to him. Today we know there was more to it.

(Keeping in dubio pro reo in mind, take this with a grain of salt.) Apparently Braindeadly was also somewhat briefed by Icematikx, but I can’t say this for sure as we don’t have any hard evidence on this case at this point in time. It seems somewhat fishy though that a team that was hovering at 2,4k for a while is now competing on Cyclone for Wrathful Gladiator, with a ridiculous win percentage in their latest matches. (For example a win streak of 55 games from 2.8k to ~2925). Trustworthy informants also claim that they have confronted him and his team and he admitted to have used it “for fun” in PvE before and that it’s actually not that big of an advantage. May I remind you that this is coming from a Hunter, a class with basically no resources playing a comp in which no class really is limited by anything else than the GCD, ATC.

In closing I must say, that it isn’t easy for me to write this in a time where so many of you are disappointed with the game and he direction it took in WoTLK and also the recent happenings in the pro player community, be it because of a council, wintrading, or simply the borefest that is Wizardcleave. I assure you that as soon as I got word of this I contacted everyone in my power that could be remotely affected by this asap including the Loaded manager while MLG was going on etc. I also submitted it through the hopefully right channels to Blizzard. Since the hack seems to be untraceable, I decided to open Pandora’s box to raise awareness and allow you to report those cheaters.

We know that some of them almost made it to Regionals. The dignity of the entire community is on the line here.

Evidence is in Hydra’s blog below and I recommend to keep an eye out. Don’t be too paranoid though, some people are just that good and I’d argue that Barburas is probably an even better Warrior without the hack.

Yiska out.

Especially in times before an expansion we see a lot of changes, not just in terms of game balance but everything within the game and even the game’s surroundings.  As WoW gets its third expansion, most people understand that the game needs to move forward. Every so often we read blue posts nowadays which can get us pretty excited for Cataclysm, or they really frustrate as precious things are being taken away. Things like our favorite hybrid spec, our privacy or the elitism of our Arena & 25 man hardmode raids. And we moan about those, oh do we moan… sometimes even rightfully so as we learned with the recent discussion about Real ID. Threads on WoW fan-sites and of course the official forums are being created constantly if not to say spammed. As the community addict and blue tracker stalker that I am, I read many of those and what most of them have in common is that they are honestly very ignorant. I’m not talking about the manners that many of those threads lack but the chain of thought is severely flawed as the majority of those topics aren’t questioning the intention of these changes but they demand their precious thing to remain untouched without asking what the intent behind the change was.

This article tries to raise awareness of what a German big boned arm chair sometimes want to be developer thinks what Blizzard’s current design direction is. It will lack very important points which will sound somewhat hypocritical to the message it wants to deliver and the writer invites you to have a tamed discussion in the comment section or in the hydramist forums as he nibbles on a cupcake. (Damn you Heretica…)

Let’s start off by stating the obvious, a product needs selling points in order to persuade the customer to buy it. While it’s a slightly different story for WoW than for non-subscription based games as they need to convince the gamer that it’s worthwhile to continue playing every month, the rule still applies. For many the beginning of a new expansion is also probably going to be the start of many weeks of inner turmoil, as players decide whether to continue playing the game or take a break from it, and the advent of new content /expansions have generally been the best time for this. Many guilds will undoubtedly reform – the thought of maybe leaving friends behind for new challenges shouldn’t be as much of an issue. Also lore-wise, the story after Wrath of the Lich King (without having heard anything of Cataclysm) feels fairly finished to most. It’s a tough time for the entire company to get their audience as excited as possible for everything new in the game. If you’d ask me what the selling points for the last expansions were, I’d say that Burning Crusade had an entire new continent, two new races and of course our beloved Arena while Wrath of the Lich King had vehicle combat, the continuation of the epic tale that is the Warcraft Universe of course including the death of Arthas and a new Class. With all these improvements (everything sans DK, heh) finding new exciting things to look forward to are naturally much harder to come up with than in the first expansion.

“Come with us old chaps!”

Probably the biggest customer base that Blizzard needs to address are the current / past users who were bored with the game and those who are inevitably going to continue being so without new content. As I’d consider myself a member of this group there are three big additions who stand out for me personally:

- Seeing & experiencing how the saga continues

As mentioned above, I felt that the big boss has been slain and I think Blizzard really realized that this could be a concern of many subscribers. In order to really make me understand that there is still evil to be fought, drastic changes need to occur which make me feel like that there is a world after Arthas. The powerful tool Blizzard decided to go with was to literally change the World of Warcraft as we know it by significantly redesigning every zone. Riding through the fields that once were the desert of Desolace or flying over the lava which is destroying Stone talon mountains will clue us in: This new guy Deathwing is a bit of a badass and the rest of the world is a tad crazy too. (Goblin Golf course, what the fudge?). I feel sorry for those who will miss the old world but Blizzard has even more good reasons to take this step. More on this later.

A real badass:”I have a smelly breath!”

- New abilities & talents and the possibility for better balance

My first impression when I read about those new abilities such as Spirit Walker’s Grace or Life Grip was: “Seniorita Ay-Ay-Ay, these abilities look really fun and the opportunities are huge!”. OK MAYBE NOT… exactly that… as it was probably something with “Schnitzel” or “Steuererklärungsformularablage” but that sounds significantly less awesome. I digress. The fact that Blizzard now forces every player to invest 31 points into a talent tree  is controversial but it achieves one goal: It will be much easier to balance classes on this basis. Given the introduction of new competitive playing fields where it will be even harder to achieve balance, this was a much needed change. There are other reasons why it was necessary which I will touch on later but one thing I saw coming from a mile away: You can’t make every talent exciting with that many points in a tree without either changing how every class is played entirely or creating talents for stuff you already had as baselines at the moment. Neither of those feel very satisfying for us oldschoolers.

- Rated BGs

Not really a surprise here as I was a Rank 11 Human Mage on a server that had a felt 8:1 Alliance/Horde ratio who had a queue popping every two hours and still loved every second of it. The amount of people playing BGs for fun is multiple times bigger than the Arena crowd, and while I will still love doing a Russel Crowe on some noob’s face (and if that fails watching Hydra do his thing), it made sense to address this crowd. A big concern of many serious BG players was that they would have to cope with those who were only in there to see some high crits and not really play to win. With the introduction of rated BGs both groups can do their thing now and I think there is no argument against it. What some people do criticize is that you will only be able to queue for Rated BGs as a premade. Blizzard’s reasoning is that they want to give the group a chance to punish unwilling (and in some cases unable) players so it doesn’t feel like a gamble who you end up in a BG with. The developers are also aware of the difficulty of setting up a recurring group and are therefore currently not going with the Arena system of inviting people into a team with a set amount of players. Things like Guild perks will also encourage you to join & stay in a guild with people of the same field of interest. Blizzard ultimately wants us to be this dedicated to the game and involved in a social environment not only in order to bind you to the game but also to show you the games full potential.

“Come on noobs, it’s not like it seems. I can explain!”

In order to grow or even maintain playerbase, you need to appeal to new players, simple. I think Blizzard pinpointed a couple of big problems for people who are skeptical before playing or even after the first couple of levels:

- Reworking the old zones including quests

Most people will agree, the leveling experience in Wrath of the Lich King was a lot more fun that those in earlier levels simply because it was created years if not a decade ago, and in comparison most of the old world content feels outdated. While this is not an ideal situation for us veteran players, think about those who have just reached level 8 after killing 20 of these guys and 15 of those and 7 more of these gluttons which accidentally look like Yiska as German belly is a rare good. For the majority of people, games are an exploration and what you get to see on this level without any background knowledge about the game is not what made WoW so successful,  indeed the old world content is currently barely on par with contending games. By reworking the zones with the experience, knowledge & dedication of WotLK the game suddenly gets much more appealing to those new players. To those who create these hate threads how Blizzard dared to waste development time on the remaking of the zones, you have to be aware that they have to cater to this crowd in order to pay for your game as maintaining the servers while developing end game content only for those 5-10% “hardcores” surely won’t pay the bills. Let me state this clearly as it should generally be the first thing you have in mind when creating a thread about a (to you anyway) “obvious” issue:

“You don’t know about the restrictions, guidelines & difficulties of game development, especially not in the Blizzard office. No matter how obviously flawed the logic of a change may be to you, you probably know less than 30% of what led to this decision. One can’t grasp the complexity of things unless he’s part of the office as he has no data, no pressure, no experience and you shouldn’t try to. Blizzard developers, just like everyone else can be at fault but the chances of them being wrong for reasons you believe in are slim. Your post should therefore be a suggestion, not a demand, nor a “/facepalm, are you stupid?”.”

Changing the image – Pushing into the mainstream

“WoW players are basement dwelling nerds, of course they are.”

“If you play WoW, it has inevitably devoured you.”

Everyone playing WoW probably has experienced this awkward perception that the general public and even other gaming communities have on us. We’re being made fun of in South Park while famous Halo players are being printed onto millions of Dr.Pepper cans. While this of course had a lot to do with the fact that WoW is a fantasy game and also one of the most popular ones at that therefore drawing a lot of attention and naturally critics, the game is partially to blame for that as well. For a game created for the western market, it was and to some extend still is a pretty grindy game. Gamers have goals and for many of us “beating the game” or just having some success in it is what we look and breath for. It is tempting to invest too much time as we all know how quickly hours can fly by when playing a good game. The media picked it up pretty quickly and the damage was done. To be in this position as a company or just as a developer naturally isn’t the best to be in, not in terms of marketing but also neither as a part of society. Blizzard noticed this trend a while ago and has been working in order to maybe one day push into the mainstream.

- Casualizing content

WoW is known for its appealing PvE content and arguably no other MMORPG can compete with the experience that WoW-raiding provides. Again a very limited amount of players had access to it and if they had they were forced to occasionally invest a very unhealthy amount of time. Organizing a 40 man raid with everyone having the best consumables, while also knowing the tactics and showing up at a specific time to down a relatively hard boss (in comparison to the average players skill) killed hundreds of hours while half of it felt more like a second job than an actual game. Don’t get me wrong, there should always be a reward to do something extraordinary but if you feel like this old model was superior, you are kind of admitting that you prefer getting where you are by throwing hours at it rather than bothering to become better as a player. You should play for the “[Epic win]“, a victory that you never thought was possible and for the sake of being together with friends while on the side-line also being rewarded for it. A true competitive person would want as many people to compete on equal grounds as possible. Blizzard tries to achieve this by decreasing the amount of raid lockouts. Personally I think the change will give me the opportunity to once again raid with ambition while following real life responsibilities and it will still have me come back for more as the content isn’t overplayed too soon, but I’m also the type of  person who can barely watch even amazing movies more than once. For those who aren’t satisfied with this, Blizzard offers the simple solution of creating an Alt which you can now level in the new-old world too.

- Real ID and another reason for real names on forums

Real ID has been causing a lot of fuss lately and I entirely understand why. It is important to understand why Blizzard tried to force some of these changes upon us. Social networking is the marketing tool for the demographics WoW is addressing on some levels, so it only made sense to introduce it on some level. The ability to optionally connect Facebook with your Real ID makes sense but I question how many people will truly use it. That is the entire point though. Blizzard’s goal is to create a game and a community of which you shouldn’t be ashamed to be a part of. Eliminating the trolls on the forums was only a part of the reasoning behind posting with your real name. The goal is noble but I believe this change was presented too early and isn’t entirely off the table. The sad truth is, beside the valid point that you could potentially be harassed, even though the chances are slim, for me the real reason as to why posting with your real name was unacceptable for many was because of the possibility of potential future employers instantly putting you off as you are a lazy addicted WoW player. I believe once WoW is as socially accepted as playing Fifa or Halo on a console, we will see this Real name suggestion pop up again.

- The WoW Movie

Let’s be honest, the WoW commercials made you feel pretty badass when it tells you that you are playing the same game as Mr.T or Captain Krik/Denny Crane but why not go further. Playing the game of the miracle that was the first well done game to movie transition would do loads and also open up the story of WoW to a main stream audience.

I hope this wasn’t too long and I really invite you to share your ideas for Blizzard’s intentions on certain changes or introductions. Because only when we understand that there is more to it than we believe, can we gain the perspective to be able to make suggestions and create an even better game. I really hope I can get my hands on a beta key and actively contribute with balance suggestions and playstyle impressions to help make an even better game even though I’m merely an interested player. WoW isn’t perfect, there is a lot to improve.

Yiska out.

Looking at the top of the Arena Pass realm right now, one has to think that Europe is tripping balls. The top 5 is completely dominated by four LSD of which two teams, namely GONNA GIB SOME SCRUBS & Hannah montana fan boys, are played by the same team around star Druid Enigmz. Especially their 2nd team with a jaw dropping 122-7 at 95% begs the question if there in fact will be a party in the USA come Blizzcon. With a marginally less impressive winratio, Inflame didn’t give up after the upset that was Plasma TV’s comeback and is striving to raise the bar with four consecutive Blizzcon participations in a row. Sitting at the top of the ladder with a 90% win ratio with Lopaay, things are looking good for the badboy4life.

Did I say the entire top 5 was dominated by LSD? Well that isn’t entirely true. On his various vacations on french Bgs, Lord Hydra learned to be the exception.

One small village of indomitable RMPs still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the raving Wizards who garrison the fortified camps of  Ironforge, Orgrimmar, Stormwind & Undercity.

Currently holding the 5th spot with the glorious name “DNAW”, Team Dignitas WoW is going keen with a 73% winratio. To stay competitive pretty much like TSG in the US who recently switched to prot warrior, the team had to switch specs and Kalimist was playing Shadow dance for the vast majority of those games. Also Flyn after some speculations on the forums and some back and forth is now back on the team and judging from the amount of games they have been playing lately one can no longer label him “inactive”.

A comp that naturally causes quite some headache for RMP is currently rising in popularity among the top teams on our TR, as Stay small, Human wins the game & hehe xo are all playing African Turtle Cleave with very different win percentages. I talked to hehe xo’s Demun about their situation sitting at the first non qualifying spot and he said that it will most likely come down to the final day. As I expect most teams to camp rating, the only other teams in contention are COME AT ME BRO and Draintrain’s RNG Party which made a comeback after parting ways with Demun and they have now picked up SK Sansibar’s Fraki who told his teammates that he will keep trying to qualify with them but will have RNG Party as a back up plan for Regionals and as it looks it was a smart choice. Also currently qualified is rocknrolla running Beast Cleave. So without talking to our guys I’m sure they are aware that if the ladder were to freeze now, regionals would be far from a cake walk as almost every match-up would be an uphill battle. As we saw at MLG though, an RMP that is able to spec accordingly to their opponent is a lot stronger than in ladder play. Buying a Team Dignitas shirt might still be a worthwhile investment for those kids who don’t want to be laughed at on the school yard.

An interesting argument has spawned from our meta game vs the American one and most top players in the US don’t seem to be convinced that LSD is a top notch comp. They argue that the EleShaman is a viable target while European’s point to Thunderstorm, Astral Shift, offheals and of course the Earthbind root. Moreover many US pros consider WLD to be a top to even tier 1 comp while Draintrain and Paperkat would surely disagree. I personally would love to see a Nerdstompers vs LightZ CaMerA ActioN show-down. Would godthug Inflame once again proclaim a “free win“?

Hydramist Q&A Sunday June 20th 19 CET / 13 CST

Most definitely the best time sink between the 2nd and the 3rd football match of the day will take play this Sunday. We’re sitting down with our guys once again to answer your question, talking about the game and probably also showing some games. Kalimst, Hydra and Flyn will be open to your questions supported by Tzimisce, Syeren, Oli and yours truly.

In order to make sure that we recognize your quality questions we greated a thread on our forums which you can find here.

The Hydramist would be delighted to see you on the stream. It shall not be your harm (not like you have anything else to do, old chap.)

ArenaCast – MLG Aftermath, TR talk, BGs & MOAR

World Champion Zilea, professional face melter Talbadar, dubstep prince Trance, the Slim-King Kintt and big boned German Yiska sat down to talk some Arena and there was definitely some tension in the air between Talbadar and Zilea who had been complaining about the “triple healer comp” the Shadowpriest is playing. Moreover we discussed a lot of “when”s and “if”s with the players regarding MLG as well as the current TR which Zilea happened to climb while everyone was out of town playing in an offline event. BGs and the implementation of War games was scratched as well.

You can find the cast here.

That’s it for today and I will see you Sunday. Germany 3, Serbia 0 by the way. Yiska out.