It doesn't impact your friendslist in anyway except for a few cosmetic changes. I'm not using RealID myself, but from what I've read you need to basically plug their battle.net account email address into where you'd normally add a friend's name.
WoW - Musings & Discussion
- Thread starter Rii
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It works like a seemless add on to your friends list.
There's a new drop-down option to "Add RealID". You enter the person's battle.net user name and hit OK, and it's done. The person shows up on your friend's list under his character's name as normal, but his real name is underneath it and there is an icon to the right of it of whatever Blizzard game he's logged into at the moment. So it doesn't matter what character they're logged in to, or whether than specific character is on your friends list, they'll still show up online. Also, anyone on your RealID list will have a small pop-up window appear on your screen when they log in or out.
I think a lot of people will never use it at all, and most that do will probably only have a few names on their list. I have two. It is aimed at people who are more than casual friends in-game, and thus far I've heard no horror-stories about GLs requiring members to give up their IDs or any such thing.
The new chat features in the last patch are actually pretty great for people who want to stay in touch with gaming friends in different guilds, etc.
There's a new drop-down option to "Add RealID". You enter the person's battle.net user name and hit OK, and it's done. The person shows up on your friend's list under his character's name as normal, but his real name is underneath it and there is an icon to the right of it of whatever Blizzard game he's logged into at the moment. So it doesn't matter what character they're logged in to, or whether than specific character is on your friends list, they'll still show up online. Also, anyone on your RealID list will have a small pop-up window appear on your screen when they log in or out.
I think a lot of people will never use it at all, and most that do will probably only have a few names on their list. I have two. It is aimed at people who are more than casual friends in-game, and thus far I've heard no horror-stories about GLs requiring members to give up their IDs or any such thing.
The new chat features in the last patch are actually pretty great for people who want to stay in touch with gaming friends in different guilds, etc.
I have exactly ONE person friended through RealID, and that's my wife.
What the hell is the point of this?
I have a boomkin, and they way he's spec'd is incredibly helpful. But, forcing us to spec in one tree? Might as well just let us train in everything. This pretty much makes talent trees pointless.
Even if they did, it'd still be pointless. The benefit would be learning it for free as opposed to paying the trainer.
Frankly, I'd rather pay the trainer and get what I want than this BS.
My boomchicken pulls 5.5k dps right now in part because of how I have my talents dispersed among the talent trees. When they rip this from us, it's going to nerf so many of us so badly.
I'm really disgusted right now...
i am curious as to how this will all play out. i am not about to comment on a system change that hasnt been seen by anyone and is subject to change before it ships.
though i do suspect many players use the same cookie-cutter builds based on whatever they've read off elitist jerks... at least that is what i've done.
though i do suspect many players use the same cookie-cutter builds based on whatever they've read off elitist jerks... at least that is what i've done.
Rii
Rear Admiral
I like the changes to the talent system. As soon as Blizzard said they wanted to cut back on the chaff in the talent system, I thought - and said as much to Ghostcrawler - that they couldn't possibly do it without simultaneously reducing the size of the trees. And when the previews first arrived, well, the devs evidently did their best but my concerns were very much borne out. I never liked the increase in tree size from BC to WOTLK in the first place; so it's cool that they're cutting back on it. As for being forced initially to invest points in a single tree: so what? How many specs actually invest in multiple trees whilst levelling? Weigh that against being able to access defining abilities like Mortal Strike relatively early in the piece. And how many endgame specs are there without 31pts in one tree or another? Yeah, none.
Rii
Rear Admiral
It just seems arbitrarily restrictive on the face of it, is all.
If there's no choice within your tree of choice then I'd agree; but from the sounds of it I don't think that's going to be the case. You'll still have choices to make and ways to differentiate your character. And at higher levels you will be able to invest in hybrid builds to a similar extent as you're able to now. I don't see the problem.
Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who think that the dual specialisation system was one of the worst developments in the history of WoW. If there's anything that stripped the function of the talent system in contributing to the identity of your character, it was that. And most people loved it. Blech.
It just seems arbitrarily restrictive on the face of it, is all.
If there's no choice within your tree of choice then I'd agree; but from the sounds of it I don't think that's going to be the case. You'll still have choices to make and ways to differentiate your character. And at higher levels you will be able to invest in hybrid builds to a similar extent as you're able to now. I don't see the problem.
Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who think that the dual specialisation system was one of the worst developments in the history of WoW. If there's anything that stripped the function of the talent system in contributing to the identity of your character, it was that. And most people loved it. Blech.
Right, the "identity of the character" that forced you to spend several hundred gold a week respeccing (and would now require you to repurchase glyphs as well) if you were a hybrid class that routinely performed two functions. That's a shit ton of people, by the way.
Rii
Rear Admiral
It just seems arbitrarily restrictive on the face of it, is all.
If there's no choice within your tree of choice then I'd agree; but from the sounds of it I don't think that's going to be the case. You'll still have choices to make and ways to differentiate your character. And at higher levels you will be able to invest in hybrid builds to a similar extent as you're able to now. I don't see the problem.
Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who think that the dual specialisation system was one of the worst developments in the history of WoW. If there's anything that stripped the function of the talent system in contributing to the identity of your character, it was that. And most people loved it. Blech.
Right, the "identity of the character" that forced you to spend several hundred gold a week respeccing (and would now require you to repurchase glyphs as well) if you were a hybrid class that routinely performed two functions. That's a shit ton of people, by the way.
Yeah, and the correct solution would've been to cap respecs at one per fortnight or whatever. Or remove the cap on respec cost increases such that you'd eventually be paying several thousand gold for each one. People didn't need to respec three times a week like they were doing, they were respeccing three times a week because there was no reason not to because the system was so permissive and the cost utterly inconsequential. People had to do it because people were doing it.
^Yea, no. Some classes had to respec everytime they switched from PVP, to instances, to soloing. It's they only way they could play. If you had made respecs/dual spec impossible or too expensive alot of character classes would have been SOL.
My Priest for is a good example. had to go holy for instances/raids, shadow for questing.
My Priest for is a good example. had to go holy for instances/raids, shadow for questing.
Rii
Rear Admiral
One wonders how folks like myself ever managed to play the game pre-BC and the rampant economic inflation which accompanied it.
Not true. Shadow was more efficient for soloing, but not necessary. The Holy/Disc trees in Cata show exactly how Blizzard could've addressed the problem without gutting the talent system. Same goes for every other spec deficiency in the game.
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Maybe Rogues are the exception again. My PVE spec is piled high with every super duper burst damage talent I could squeeze in to one-shot Kvaldir for the tourney dailies, while my raiding spec is into increasing longer-term damage and poisons for raid buffs. But both are still uniquely roguish. So I for one am happy with the dual-spec mechanic.
Rii
Rear Admiral
Why is there the expectation that you should be able to 'min-max' for both burst and sustained damage? Why is that not a choice that you make, akin to the choice one makes regarding one's class and race selections?
Sure, some specs perform poorly in certain environments (i.e. PVP, Soloing, etc.) but I would've preferred to have seen the performance of those specs in those areas addressed, rather than having it be made easier to spec something else.
A common argument I encounter against this is 'if I'm not 100% specced for raid DPS then my guild won't take me', but this fails to account for the fact that every player in the game would be facing the same choices. For the vast majority of the playerbase, folks would settle amongst those similarly-minded. Sure, you're probably not going to be getting world first kills with a mixed spec, but most folks aren't in that position anyway; and for those who are: again, why is it not acceptable to have an effective cost attached to pushing the very bleeding edge? In real life, someone who wants to set records usually has to give up a lot outside their chosen field to do so.
When I roll a Warlock, I do so knowing that I will never heal, that I will never tank (outside the Blueberry of course
) and that I will never have Blink or Cleanse or whatever. Why not the same with talents? Why not choices and consequences, strengths and weaknesses, of devotion to a set of ideals helping to shape your character's identity?
