WoW Classic Character Clone Unlocks will now be $15

I guess people were furious or rioting or something, because it isn’t often that you get to see Blizzard change course in front of a live studio audience.  They aren’t SOE/Daybreak after all. (Though there is the Holly Longdale connection, so maybe a link?  The Norrath team was prone to making changes based on community feedback.)

Through the Dark Portal

Earlier this week I was on about how the price of a character clone unlock as part of the WoW Classic / Burning Crusade Classic seemed kind of pricey at $35.  It felt, to me at least, like an item that would have price elasticity, meaning a lower price might actually sell enough more that it would end up in greater profit overall for Blizz.

Blizzard seems to have taken to that idea, or responded to customer complaints, or something, because earlier today they announced a reduction in the price in the forums:

Salutations, WoW Classic players! We’d like to inform you about a course correction we’re making.

When you log in to WoW Classic after the patch next week, each of your Classic characters will choose between staying in Classic Era (version 1.13) and progressing to Burning Crusade Classic (version 2.5). For those who want to play a character in both versions, we’re offering a service to purchase a character clone in the other version of the game.

This service – providing a player with a second copy of a character in a different game – is new for us. Our original concept of the value of this service was largely based on how we price other optional items and services. We want players who choose Classic Era realms to feel as though their choice comes with the possibility that they’ll be able to build relationships and guilds with other players they can count on.

However, over the last week or so, we’ve gotten a very large amount of feedback from the community, and we’ve decided to lower the price. A lower price will likely still accomplish our goals with the new service, while allowing many more players to explore the option of playing characters on both Classic Era and Burning Crusade Classic realms.

After careful consideration, we’ve decided to lower the price of a cloned character in WoW Classic to $15.00 USD ($20.00 CAD, $20.00 AUD, $24.00 NZD). You’ll see the lower price in-game when the service becomes available next week.

As always, we deeply appreciate the passion and thoughtfulness of the WoW community. We play WoW alongside you, and we can’t wait to join you next week on Classic Era realms, in the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch, and as we step through the Dark Portal with you in June.

Thank you very much,

– The World of Warcraft Development Team

A course correction indeed!

That still doesn’t mean I will use the service.  I plan to move forward into The Burning Crusade and there are only so many hours in the day.  But it is now far much more likely that I could, as the price isn’t quite the barrier it once was.  I thought the $10-20 range was a better plan, and they landed right in the middle of that range.

CCP Changes to Nullification and Warp Core Stabilizers hit the Test Server

CCP has finally announced their plans for interdiction nullification and warp core stabilizers.  Long under discussion, the proposed changes, slated to be launched with the Great Escape update, are now available on Singularity, the EVE Online test server.

In Testing

PvP focused players have long complained about missing kills due to various defensive mechanics.  Previously CCP nerfed ECM into uselessness for individual pilots.  Now the nerfbat is being brought to interdiction and warp core stabilizers.

With the upcoming change, interdiction nullification, which gives certain hulls immunity from warp disruption bubbles, will be removed as a default attribute from fleet interceptors, luxury yachts, and strategic cruiser propulsion subsystems.  Instead, nullification will be available via a new low slot module.  On the upside, the new module will be available for more hulls, with the list currently being:

• Interceptors
• Blockade Runners
• Covert Ops
• Deep Space Transports
• Luxury Yachts
• Strategic Cruisers
• Tech I and Faction Frigates
• Stealth Bombers

Stealth bombers (which were added to the list after it was posted initially) strike me as a ship class not really needing another buff, especially when the primary defense against them is dictor bubbles, but I suspect that this is the “more ships dying is better” thread that tends to influence CCP.  We’ll see if they make it to the final patch.

Meanwhile, frigates in general (also added later) are really opening up a door.  I can imagine anybody flying a battleship with implants will now have a getaway frigate in their escape bay.  But with bombers nullfied and hull prices now sky high, it is possible nobody will be flying battleships anyway.

On the downside, the new module is active and has a short cycle, staying active for 10 to 15 seconds depending which version you choose (Tech I, compact, restrained, or Tech II) with a 150 second reactivation timer.  In addition, the new modules will come with 50% targeting range and scan resolution penalties when fitted.

Hulls that previously had nullification by default will receive a role bonus that reduces the targeting range penalty by 50% and boosts the activation cycle by 100%.

Finally, shuttles will get nullification interdiction, something that has long been asked for.  If they could also get an align time under two seconds they might even get used.  The current 2.2 second align makes them quite catchable.

Then there are war core stabilizers which, like the new interdiction nullification modules, will need to be activated to provide their bonus, running with a 20 second activation cycle and a 150 second cool down.  As with the other modules the penalties, 50% reduction to targeting range, scan resolution, and drone bandwidth, will be in effect when the Tech I module is fitted, with reductions in those penalties with higher meta modules.

Both of the module sets will also be limited to one per ship, so you won’t be able to pile on multiples for extended effects.  But the warp core stabilizers, at least on the test server, all have a strength of 3 when activated, which is enough to get you away from any solo frigate tackler most days.

Warp core stabs go to 3 now

CCP has added that they are looking to add the ability to activate these modules when a ship is still under its “gate cloak” so that there isn’t the awkward time delay that could get you caught simply because the attacker lives in London and you live further afield, proximity to the game’s data center being a long proven game advantage.

As I complained a couple years back, the discussion about these mechanics still come with the assumption that warp distruptors, war scramblers, and warp interdiction bubbles are fine as absolute mechanics, it is only when defenses become absolute… or in the case of ECM, simply too effective…  that people complain.  That continues.

Anyway, I suspect these changes will go through as announced with only minor tweaks.  The warp core stabilizer change likely won’t have an impact on me personally, as I cannot remember the last time I fit one on anything besides an industrial.  Having nullification interdiction on a blockade runner could be handy however, though I have gotten by with the MWD cloaking trick for ages now.  Scouting and moving without nullification though… or with a long wait on an activation timer when you have to move through bubbles on both sides of every gate… is going to become tiresome quickly.  But the game changes and we either adapt or move on.

Hints of a Diablo II Remaster

So are we finally getting a remake of Diablo II?

The only Diablo II screen shot I had handy…

It is coming up on five years since Blizzard first gave us a hint that they were planning to remaster some of their older titles.  And they have managed to deliver, though not always with unambiguous success.

The StarCraft remaster seemed to go okay.

About damn time indeed

The price was right, so I bought a copy.  It was really a strict remastering of assets rather than an expansion of the game in any way, but they didn’t promise us anything else.  And they did add in the option for some customization, so we got the StarCraft Cartooned pack out of it.

The Warcraft III remaster however… Blizzard botched that out of the gate.

The promise unfulfilled

My pet theory is that somebody felt they had to kick it out the door when they did as it had been over a year since they had told people it was coming.  So we got something that was less of a game than the original.  The feature list seemed quite pared down.

And if that wasn’t enough, Blizz seemed really sensitive to the idea that somebody might make another DOTA from the scenario editor, so claimed ownership of all work anybody did there in the way that tone deaf corporate lawyers tend to do, which always manages to alienate fans.

I had pre-ordered it but asked for my money back once the situation became clear, though I will give Blizzard credit for being easy to get a refund from.

Which leads us to Diablo II.  Long rumored, some of the team from Blizzard North, which created the game, have derided the idea, pointing out that they, through their own incompetence, lost some of the source code to the game and had to recreate it from local builds on dev machines and compiled binaries.

That sounds bad, though for me that message is tainted by the fact the same few former members of the Blizzard North team seem bitter at how things turned out and have been up front and ready to crap all over everything Diablo related that Blizzard has done since they left.

Still, that was definitely cold water on the embers of Diablo II nostalgia.

Then earlier this week some news appeared on a French gaming site about the possibility of a remaster titled Diablo II Resurrected, which seems on point given the asset loss story.  This was quickly picked up by English language sites and the word spread.

Apparently the Activision studio Vicarious Visions is working with Blizzard on the remaster and the news has raised hopes that maybe the long awaited return of the game may come as soon as late 2020.

And, of course, I am torn on this.

I would very much like a remastered version of Diablo II that played at modern screen resolutions without looking like something from 1977.  I will no doubt buy it if it becomes available.

But after the Warcraft III debacle a lot of people will be giving Blizzard a hard look rather than trusting what they (over)promise, myself included.  The French site says that Blizzard may have learned its lesson on that front, but everybody says that after a mistake and many go on to make the same mistakes over and over.

And this all might be very premature.  Speculation about getting a remaster this year could be blue sky estimates.  We shall see.

But I will be keeping my eye open for news on that front.  I want it to happen, and I want it to be… I’d settle for adequate.   I was good with the Diablo remake Blizzard did in conjunction with GoG.com.  If they could just manage that maybe?  We shall see if I get what I want this time.

It would at least keep a few people satisfied until Diablo IV comes along in… did I guess 2022 back when they announced it?  That sounds about right.

Other coverage:

• Blizzard Watch – covers a lot of the details/concerns
• WoW Head
• Screen Rant

Post NDA CSM Tales

The past week of tales of bots and invasion plans and what not got me peeking in /r/eve on Reddit, something I tend to steer clear of.  As with many open forums the signal to noise ratio is too high and I prefer to follow somebody on Twitter or elsewhere who will pull out the choice tidbits worth reading rather than chase them down myself.

But today my curiosity with what was going on in EVE Online paid off, as Jester of the now silent Jester’s Trek blog, known in-game as Ripard Teg, had an AMA going Reddit earlier today.

The only time I can recall seeing him in space

Jester was on CSM8 and his five year NDA expired recently, so he decided to, if not tell all, then at least provide insight on his time on the CSM and his dealings with CCP.

You can find the Reddit post here.  He has tried to reply to serious questions and has recounted a few tales he had previously promised to tell, including the reaction of CCP executive staff to the Dominion trailer.

There is certainly some new information to be gleaned from his responses.  The tale of his posting about Erotica 1 and the bonus room controversy certainly sheds new light on the affair, and not in a way flattering to CCP.

Probably the biggest surprise for me were kind words said about the former CCP Pokethulu, David Reid, who is now running MetaArcade.  My somewhat sour outlook about him involves his hyperbole around Rift and the infamous Tabula Rasa is Triple-A and Here to Stay story over at Massively when he was president of the newly created NCsoft West, shortly before they announced they were shutting the game down, something that ground Editor-in-Chief Michael Zenke’s gears quite severely.

It can be hard to discern from the outside what sort of impact any one person has on a company, but Jester seems to think he was doing a good job given the resources he had.

Aside: While digging up the Tabula Rasa story on the Wayback Machine I ran across what may be the first post fretting about titan proliferation in New Eden.  Band of Brother’s 13 titans were viewed as frightening.

Where Will War Land in New Eden Next Week?

The Mittani was promising us a war last week, asking us to tune into the weekly fireside chat to get an update.  There were more than 600 people in the channel for that on Saturday before a ping went out to get people logged in.

A past visual from The Scope of The Mittani speaking

However, the news for us was rather sparse once the fireside got going.  We were assured that was was coming, that the next fireside would be replaced by a Station of the Goonion meeting (which differs mostly from a fireside in name, though it tends to be shorter and more on point) which would announce the target of our war, after which move ops would commence immediately while those already forward deployed would begin hitting targets.

It was also stated that this would not be a war of conquest… Delve is already making us rich, so we don’t want more space… but a war of destruction to lay waste to the infrastructure and disrupt the economic output of a region.

The question, left deliberately unanswered was which region?  Where will we be heading?

We’ll know come Saturday.  Until then there are some likely guesses.

First, given that SIGs and squads were told to carry on with what they have been up to it seems likely that we will be moving into the northeast of New Eden to operate from low sec in Caldari space.  Lonetrek or The Forge are where those groups are now, so it seems likely that a big move op on Saturday will use the Eye of Terror and cyno chain to move up through Fountain and then east into Caldari space.

Where we will likely deploy

Where exactly we will base depends on the actual target. (Base map from DOTLAN.)

The leak from Headliner on Reddit indicates that we will be assaulting Northern Coalition and Pandemic Legion in their home region of Tribute.  That would mean basing in Lonetrek, likely in Hakonen again, though maybe Taisy right on their doorstep.  We’ve been in Hakonen before, back during the summer of 2017, which led to a series of battles (example) that went against the Imperium.

That deployment had not super or titan support, so the locals were able to drop those on us with impunity.  This time we will be bringing all of the big toys so clashes may not be so one sided against us.

In favor of this target is the fact that it hits an an old enemy, NCDot, which harbors the remains of Band of Brothers, as well as Pandemic Legion.  In addition, there is already a war going on with Guardians of the Galaxy, who live in our old space in the north, and who would no doubt be keen to join in on the fun after having to pay us for peace last summer.

The path to Tribute

A war here would also draw support away from other locations in the north allow SIGs based in The Forge to continue a merry harassment campaign in the backfield, forcing Pandemic Horde to choose between defending its timers or helping its allies.

An alternative to the above would have us move a bit further along, into The Forge, from which we could attack into either PL/NCDot and their holdings in Vale of the Silent.

Into Vale and Geminate

This gets us stuck right into Pandemic Horde if we go into Geminate, pitting strength against strength, while The Vale of the Silent is a big region with a lot of targets.  Geminate, like Tribute, means a head-on assault and supers being thrown around.  Vale means the locals have to reinforce from Tribute and Geminate, but can stay based mostly at home.  It still lets GotG harass from the north end and SIGs at the south end, though both local forces would be able to respond to either more readily.

Finally, there is a possible focus on the rental income of the locals.

Where the rental money comes from

The Kalevala Expanse, Malpais, and The Spire represent prime null sec rental space from which the locals derive income.  Again, The Forge puts us about as close as we can get those regions without getting into NPC null sec space.  But those regions do not have handy NPC space for us to land in. (Otherwise there would probably already be a SIG in there.)

Going after those regions would give us a nice “going after bots” narrative, though the recently revived Greater Western Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Imperium rental alliance that operates in Period Basis, featured in the latest round of bot bans, so one might be tempted to ask when we’ll be opening a front there. (Or against Fraternity.)

The problem is that, while those are tempting targets, you cannot get a super fleet in there without multiple gates and jumps.

So I suspect that the first option I mentioned, an attack on Tribute, will be the actual destination announced this coming Saturday.  It has the advantage of being close to low sec staging as well as close to Jita for re-supply. (Now would be a good time to build up stocks if you’re a seller.)  The leak posted on Reddit was based on something said in the Imperium leadership channel according to The Mittani.  That gives it some weight, even when Mittens wondered aloud whether or not it was a ruse.

Northeast Null Sec Influence Map – May 12, 2019

(Map from Null Sec Influence maps)

My guess is that Hakonen or Taisy will be our destination on Saturday and, once the capital fleets arrive, a Keepstar will be dropped in one of those systems to kick off the conflict.  Supers will cover the initial deployment and the enemy will have to either come attack it when the 24 hour cycle finishes and the initial repair timer goes live.  They will have to either face our fleet then or allow us to setup a a difficult to assail base right on their front step.

Meanwhile, SIGs and squads will use the distraction of the main front in Tribute to harass and set times in rental space.

That seems to me to be the most likely war scenario.  However, I have no inside information whatsoever… hostile groups with spies know more than a line member like me… so your mileage may vary.

We will see in about a week.