During Beta:

Frost Presence is +60% armor, -5% magic damage taken.

WoW 3.0.8:

Frost Presence is +80% armor, -15% magic damage taken

WoW 3.1.0:

Frost Presence is +80% armor, -5% overall damage taken

WoW 3.1.3:

Frost Presence is +60% armor, -5% overall damage taken

Conclusion:

The change from -5% magic damage to overall damage was sufficient from beta to now. The major reason for the original changes came from a few other things:

- Launch DK needed a lot more defense to be uncrittable. In the intervening time, DK gained Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle and Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight, and no longer need massive defense socketing. This allows them to skew itemization towards massive stamina pools, which get multiplied significantly.

- Launch DK needed either the 20% bonus armor or the 5% damage mitigation. In addition, Blade Barrier changed from 10% parry to 5% all damage reduced. This combines to effectively form 'defensive stance' for DKs (like the other tanks have), but they also had the extra bonus armor that provides more armor than any shield.

--Rawr

So... in today's installment, I am revisiting the old "Why do bad games get made?" riff, and taking aim at a very specific subset of games that tend to be bad: Movie tie-ins. Now... on the outside, it would look extremely promising to have a good game that ties in with a movie. After all, if the movie is good, you've got a huge customer base that's probably hungry for more of what the movie was about, and a game is a perfect way to get them to spend their money to get more. It's got built in marketing, it's got a lot of buzz, and people will buy them. It has a solid story to build on,

( So then why do movie games tend to suck? )

Moving along in the FAQ series, one of the questions I get pretty regularly are variants of this:

"Why do publishers keep making sequels?"

Alongside this:

"Why don't they come up with new games, instead of keep rehashing stuff?"

Also, recently this has come up:

"Will publishers keep taking risks on triple-a games like Mirror's Edge after seeing them flop?"

These are all facets of the same issue that crops up from time to time, and it is quite true. Part of this stems from what makes a game a game, and part of it comes from customer confidence. Let's discuss this further, shall we?

( yes, let's )

One of the biggest effects of the advent of online console gaming has been Downloadable Content (DLC). Once limited to PCs only, DLC is now available to console gaming. Furthermore, console gaming is a lot *bigger* than PC gaming, so it's starting to make quite a buzz. There are two major things about DLC that I get questions about a lot, so I'll try to outline the first today, and the second at a later date.

( Money and Content. They really aren't much different... )

So I've been told that there will be a lifetap nerf in the next wow patch, and a lot of people are up in arms about it. There's really not that much to get up in arms about; it's an extremely silly thing to lose sleep over.

It's actually pretty damn simple, and I can break it down into 4 succinct categories of effects it will have.

( The nerf bat didn't really hit that hard. )

So, it looks like the news broke today from the nebulous news community that Activision wants to get paid for allowing Harmonix/MTV to use their guitar controllers. Activision wants to be paid for Harmonix to allow their controllers to be officially compatible with Rock Band.

( I fought the law and the law won... )

One thing I noticed while I was at Blizzcon was Tigole mentioning that Karazhan is the most popular instance in World of Warcraft right now. He then used it as justification in saying "This means that people really like 10-man content, so we want to do more of it." While I do agree that Karazhan is probably the most popular instance in wow, I don't believe it is because it is a 10-man. I believe it is because the alternatives to it pretty much suck.

( Suck as a factor of opportunity )

So I was thinking about this the other day, as I often do. I know I've been talking about MMOs a lot lately, but that's fairly typical of me. I promise someday soon I'll switch gears and start talking about other game genres. Still, that day is not yet upon us. I wanted to talk today about MMOs again... but this time the mathematics of MMOs.

( Math explains everything. )

What does it mean if something is accessible?

Dictionary.com lists it as:

ac·ces·si·ble Audio pronunciation of "accessible" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k-ss-bl)
adj.

1. Easily approached or entered.
2. Easily obtained: accessible money.
3. Easy to talk to or get along with: an accessible manager.
4. Easily swayed or influenced: accessible to flattery.

The big question that many game developers must pose to themselves is one of how accessible the game content is. Let's take the example of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

( Yes, let's. )

So... I was considering lately. A friend of mine asked me "do you think games are getting more or less fun than in "the old days"? I was just thinking since everyone keeps on getting the ATIVidia Bohemoth Mega Asskicker Gfx Card 345000000 GFX MEGA RAGE EXTREME EDITION. Is it worth it?"

I thought about it. A lot of gamers today cry about the quality of games today, compared to the quality of the games from 20 years ago (isn't *THAT* a scary thought?). We all look back on titles like Super Mario Brothers, the Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog and we remember them with fondness. So is it true? Are games today getting worse than they used to be?

I'd actually say... no, they aren't.

( Aren't they? )