tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55668128568188161722024-03-14T03:19:55.395+01:00The *urnaksAdventures and misadventures of Kurnak and his alt family & friends in AzerothKurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-49152180955427129632011-10-22T12:43:00.002+02:002011-10-22T13:06:15.049+02:00WoW goes Kung-Fu Panda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ph2CHnrP1TI/TqKeIcJS1dI/AAAAAAAAANE/mo2zzf_ZqVA/s1600/pandaren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ph2CHnrP1TI/TqKeIcJS1dI/AAAAAAAAANE/mo2zzf_ZqVA/s400/pandaren.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>By now I suppose all WoW fans have read the news about the new expansion, so no need to paste here details. I feel Blizzard is hammering the nails on WoW's coffin, at least in the western market. Pandarens were always a little joke in WoW universe, and now become a playable race and theme for a expansion. Very, very disappointing.<br />
You've been running around Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, then Outland and Northrend, thwarting the plans of the big baddies, following a good chained history and then... everything goes to a halt and something new is introduced, disrupting totally the chain. By that time Deathwing will be just a dead husk, but what about of the threats still looming around? Old Gods, Burning Legion... they aren't going to kick back and relax while we're in Pandaria learning kung-fu!<br />
WoW subscribers have been going down since Cata was released. Almost everyone felt the expansion didn't bring anything really new that was worth to keep playing the game and went away looking for greener pastures. In this case it seems Blizzard considers american and european markets dry and looks to attract a raising market like the asian and specially the chinese, focusing the entire expansion on chinese lore. Will it work there? Probably. Previous expansions, specially Wrath of the Lich King were hard to be introduced there. Chinese specially find undead and skeletons very disgusting, a taboo. So an entire expansion based on creatures they dislike wasn't going to work (Blizzard had to change several mob models for the chinese version). So they're now fully betting on the chinese market with something they like. I wouldn't be surprised if after Mists of Pandaria we get Sands of Arabia or Snows of Caucasus as the new expansion.<br />
But at least, one good new (and also a good hook to keep playing): if you commit to one year of WoW gameplay you get Diablo III for free. A good marketing trick to secure player base.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-16577550280112529782011-08-17T17:18:00.000+02:002011-08-17T17:18:34.472+02:00Facing the end of Cataclysm?Things start to catch speed. In two days we've had some news that will impact the game heavily.<br />
Yesterday was turning threat into a non-issue for tanks. Hit hard from the begining and don't fear to lose aggro as the fight goes on. On one hand it's a good idea: dps usually outgear tanks quickly, or if not, the dps ramps up faster than threat. That makes a lesser geared tank struggle to keep mobs on him and end loathing the tanking role (as it happened with my warrior duign WotLK). While this means tanking will be easier (and hope more people decides to queue as tanks) we still have to see what Blizzard intends to do. They want tanks to be more active without having to worry about losing aggro, or "more fun" as they say. Right now as tank you have to take care of: aggro, moving mobs, interrupts (or at least be in the interrupt rotation), catching adds or perform special actions (like intercepting some beam, activate any machinery, etc). Even decursing yourself is in your to-do list. Taking aggro management out of the list already leaves tanks with several thigs to perform or take care of. Adding more things may end backfiring and make tanks life more miserable.<br />
The second thing has been announced not long ago: <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/17/patch-4-3-deathwing-cosmetic-armor-skins-and-armor-storage/">next expansion will bring the Deathwing raid</a>. The aquatic raid of the Abyssal Maw has been discarded because they say wasn't convincing enough and story wasn't fitting. There are two big implications here: first is this will leave a big unfinished story: after all the struggle in Vashj'ir and the Throne of the Tides we won't know how things will end for Neptulon and Ozumat. Again Blizz will be the king of unfinished plots. The second and most important is this can mark the end of the Cataclysm expansion. By october/november this patch will be most likely out in the streets, so the Cataclysm expansion will be done in just one year instead of the typical two years lifespan. Of course some extra patches can be released after (like Ruby Sanctuary on WotLK) but the expansion plot will be finished. Now there are two ways: either we'll be one year grinding old content/extra patches with no determining content or Cataclysm will be the shortest lived expnsion with just one year + the time it takes to get next expansion finished. There's a third way also, let me get my tin foil hat: Cataclysm is finishes after a year and then we get the expansion 4B: Mists of Pandaria. After the storm that created the announcement of the trademarking of the name within the videogame category and all the speculation wether this would be the next expansion or just a stand-alone videogame, today's announcement of the Deathwing raid could mean we get done with Cataclysm and then we move to Pandaria until the next "official" expansion (I think next one was the Emerald Dream one) is relased next year. This would also address the only 5 new levels that Cata brought, so we can set foot on the Emerald Dream (or whatever is next) as level 90.<br />
Anyway, ditching out the Abyssal Maw so fast and with that vague explanation and announcing the final showdown with Deathwing is worrying. Another sign of the end was <a href="http://priestwithacause.blogspot.com/2011/08/dailies-what-are-they-good-for.html">hinted by Shintar</a> some days ago when she wrote about how disappointing were the Molten Front story-wise. I felt the same, after that long and boring grind you expect some epic ending and you just get a letter with a mount. Maybe they ditched the grand finale due to the same reasons they did with Abyssal Maw: Cataclysm is facing its end and they have no time to add other content.<br />
WoW is showing his age and Blizzard acknowledged also that <a href="http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/118/1186203p1.html">they've lost almost one million subscribers in the last 6 months</a>. Adding more content is not enough anymore to retain people, specially when you've been playing since first days. No matter how many dungeons, raids or dailies you add. It's all the same. Bigger weapons, shinier armours, different colour cloaks, but it's the same. If WoW really wants to keep being MMO #1 needs to add something entirely new.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-35737324921463252372011-07-07T17:58:00.000+02:002011-07-07T17:58:12.051+02:00Little bits of awesomenessUsually when you talk about some epics moments in WoW people expects to be about downing some complicated raid boss. But even in lesser grade runs some people may shine very brightly. Allow me then brag a bit about my druid, <a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/hellscream/lorathiel/simple">Lorathiel</a>, who proved to be the star on yesterday's Throne of the Tides heroic PUG run.<br />
Since Cata the druid hasn't been one of my most played chars, even I really like druids due to their versatility. After doing the Hyjal/Molten Front quests I went to Deepholm to get exalted with Therazane, only to find out I was 100 rep points short, so I decided to join a PUG as dps, as usually.<br />
The run was ok but there where two times where we faced a sure wipe if it hadn't been by my awesome druid (boldly bragging here).<br />
First and most important was the Erunak fight. It's been a long time since I saw a PUG go for this boss without anyone asking for it (and usually people demanded a fast run and avoided him). I don't know what went wrong but suddenly the tank (a dk) died. And I don't know what happened to me but I hit automatically bear form and took on the boss, who was still controlled by the Evil One. Let me say you something first: I've never played bear tank, aside in solo quests where I needed it, and my feral spec doesn't include the needed tank skills. And on top of that the abilities buttons somewhat confuse me. I can't tell the difference of Bash from Swipe, or the taunt from the demoralizing roar (I also play with tooltips disabled during combat), so I just went bear and aggroed the boss, pressing whatever was available (ok, I know the Lacerate and Mangle buttons, and that one that autoheals you based on your rage). The thing is I was doing ok and until the octopus didn't detach from Erunak I didn't remember a key ability in druids: battle ress. So when I remembered I could ress the tank and the situation was safe enough I get him up and the healer (who did a superb job keeping me alive) put him in shape to continue the tanking, although boss was almost dead. I really felt proud of my actuation.<br />
The second time wasn't so spectacular. On the mini-gauntlet to Neptulon, towards the end when the door was already open everybody starting blowing up and died except me. Even the hunter who ran in with me died in the end due to the tiny elementals who were still alive. And thinking they were already dead I was in caster form ready to ress people, when they came after me. Luckily they were finished quickly and could start ressing the party.<br />
Things like that make me love the game again when I think all it's back to the boring daily grind of dailies/pug runs.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-56552438475406013872011-06-30T20:22:00.000+02:002011-06-30T20:22:14.684+02:00The counterattack!So Rage of the Firelands is here (for those who're not aware it's the official name of the patch 4.2), but I don't want to comment about the goodies and nerfs of the patch. Since the release day (for us europeans was yesterday wednesday) I've seen this upon opening the Curse client to update my addons:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--fmv0bkQQNw/Tgy6wSGuWyI/AAAAAAAAAKI/z-kvgZD248k/s1600/curserift.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--fmv0bkQQNw/Tgy6wSGuWyI/AAAAAAAAAKI/z-kvgZD248k/s320/curserift.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
You may say... what's wrong with it? We've seen Rift anounces on Curse client before. The thing is since yesterday the Curse client only plays the Rift ad, at least for me. No matter when I launch the client, looking for more updates (still missing some important ones), the ad is always the same. And never before I've seen this with the embedded ads. I'm tired of seeing these tables/stools for laptops, that wave/current generator... but when launching the client several times at different times the ad usually changed. Not now.<br />
So... what's the fuzz about, you may ask. Right, there're no laws against it and I'm pretty sure Rift creators have spent a huge and obscene quantity of money to place this ad during the days when Curse client is most launched, the patch days, specially if it brings new content. Expect to still see that ad in the coming days. But I'd like to ask your (and hence the reason of the post)... do you think it's a clever strategy to place your product during the days where tons of people are going to use the competence's product? Of course it's an opportunity to reach a bigger audience, but I'd say anyone "pro" enough to use addons (and specially an addon manager) has heard before about Rift or any other MMO that tries to get its piece of the cake.<br />
Doers it really pay back? The people who launches the Curse client today wants to play WoW and dedicate enough time and efforts to taste the Firelands as deep as possible, They won't dedicate that time to test another MMO... and I'd dare to add, one that's so simmilar to WoW.<br />
In our days, commercials (in all kind of media) must stand out in order for people to pay enough attention to them. And that attention doesn't fully translate into success (read they sell more than before). I'm pretty sure you all remember tv commercials of any product that were really innovative, different, funny or beautiful enough (otherwise you wouldn't remember them) but that didn't compel you to buy the product announced.<br />
And the last point... insistence usually ends in backslash. I don't know you, but I'm tired of seeing always the same animation. And this is working heavily against testing Rift or become a regular player. If at least they offered different animations everytime I launch the Curse client...Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-26181864633073447532011-05-17T11:47:00.000+02:002011-05-17T11:47:43.319+02:00Fresh bloodOur guild has always been small. Since the start people prefered a small guild where everybody knew each other and could playing in good company. Keeping a friendly and nice atmosphere was the key.<br />
This also was the guild's weakest point. Replacing people who stopped playing or moved to other more active guilds was always hard. And when we thought we had some good people they either got tired of the game or worse: once they got enough epics hopped to other guilds, where they wouldn't be accepted unless they had that gear. So tired of being a trampoline for guild-hoppers we decided to shut down recruiting.<br />
Also allying ourselves with other guilds didn't went well. Our alliance with <a href="http://www.go-spf.at/">Sempher Fi</a> was good, but once they did a very active recruit campaign no longer needed our help (and also most of the active raiders moved there too. Even I was wondering to move at least one char there at the begining of Wrath). We tried with other guilds during TBC and things were horrible. First runs were great, then suddenly started sending unprepared people, alts lacking gear... so relation was cut.<br />
All of this made us shun the idea of recruiting openly, but the guild was really dying. When you don't even have enough people online to make a full-guild dungeon run, you're in trouble. Action was needed, action that required to take risks and face again possible guild-hoppers or getting troublesome members. With the implantation of the Looking For Guild tool we decided to give it a shoot and test our luck.<br />
I wasn't expecting much from this. First because our reputation as a solid raiding guild was gone and I didn't know if the reputation of a nice guild to stay was still up, since old players in Hellscream are longer gone or already settled in their guilds. We had a decent guild level (15 when we started the LFG experience, 16 right now and soon 17) so this was a good point for us, but I also thought it could bring more bad experiences than good ones, since all unguilded people would be looking for the highest level guild possible just for the perks. So I was expecting to get a lot of low level chars petitions, just for the perks.<br />
So far I'm surprised the exprience has been very positive. Yes, most of the people requesting an invitation are low-mid level. But we've had several requests from 70+ and 80+ players. And the best thing is that people invited is behaving well (so far!). A good portion of them are either alts of experienced players, who are trying a new class or old time players that have returned to WoW and felt lost in a world that has changed completely, not only physically, but also the char specs, the guilds they knew... everything. While most of them are very silent (usually they say hi when logging in and few words more), others have started being very active, talking to old guild members, bringing other alts, running battlegrounds and dungeons. <a href="http://the-guild-hs.wowstead.com/">The Guild</a> breathes again, with new blood pumping through its veins, and it's very refreshing to log in and see more than the 3 or 4 habitual players you could find before. It's very nice to see now more than 10 people online at the same time, even if only 3 or 4 are 85s. It's just a matter of time to get enough people ready for high-end instances... and who knows, even raids again.<br />
So thumbs up for the LFG tool. But it still needs several improvements imho. Some of them may be achieved right now by using a plugin called <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/recruitmentenhancement.aspx">Recruitment Enhancement</a>, but they should be implemented by Blizz:<br />
- Show if the petitioner is online or not. This is very important. I'm tired of going through the list of requesters, clicking the Invite button just to get the message "char not found".<br />
- Add checkboxes to perform mass invitations. Select the desired players and click Invite. Voilà!<br />
- Add a button to send a mail to the character. The Send a Message only sends a whisper, and if the player isn't online (something you don't know unless you check it previously) it's useless.<br />
- Add filters to recruitment, like minimum level, specific achievements, minimum gear level, specific spec (i.e: you need a disco healer, a blood dk, a survival hunter, etc), minimum resilience or honor points, etc. This will help hardcore guilds who look for specfic and experienced players.<br />
I'm sure we'll see some improvements like these soon.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-72182939669033958642011-04-20T11:25:00.000+02:002011-04-20T11:25:30.406+02:00Improving heroic PUG qualityI know I'm probably late to the discussion, but since the Call to Arms was announced (and I think everybody agrees this won't solve anything) I've been thinking on how to improve the quality of PUGs in heroic mode without reverting to the Wrath style (AoE whacking). It's not easy since the problem is not located in the instance per se, but the players running it. Most people still steps into dungeons (even in normal mode) with the Wrath mentality: tank should grab half the instance and dps burn them down with AoE.<br />
Let's face it: it's very easy for a frehsly dinged 85 to reach the 329 gear level required for the heroic modes. Using quest blues (ilevel 325 and 333), rep gear (333 and 346) and crafted gear (339, it's pvp gear) you can reach the magic number. I'm betting most of annoying players haven't set up foot in a normal dungeon before going for the heroics "for phat lewt". So here're some ideas that would help getting more prepared players:<br />
- You can't run an heroic unless you've completed it in normal mode. This will teach you at least the basics of the instance: pulls, cc, strats... you can even further strengthen this requeriment: if you're healer you need to complete the normal one as healer, if you're tank you must complete it first as tank. This will avoid dps people signing up as tanks to speed up queues. And you can even restrict it more, by demanding running it a certain amount of times in normal mode so you really catch it. Lesser instances (like BRC or TotT) would require to be completed 3 times while higher ones (like GB) 5 times. This will also benefit players in the way of more chances for getting loot, more reputation and more justice points to spend.<br />
- More craftable gear. This was proposed by <a href="http://tobolds.blogspot.com/">Tobold</a>. And I think it's only viable if you apply the previous rule, otherwise you'll have the same problem as now: clueless people in heroics. Also more gear means tanks would require less runs to gear up and queues would grow even more. So the idea is to provide key gear at certain ilevel without "trampling" the gear you can get in normal runs (that ranges from ilevel 308 to 333 iirc). Craftable gear should sit at ilevel 325 and be PVE gear, not the ilevel 339 PVP gear we can craft right now. While this helps PVP players not to die in a battleground when an opposing player sneezes, it causes a lot of trouble in PVE, since it helps people reach the 329 gear level easily and then you get players with a lot of stamina but lacking other key stats. While reforging can help a bit, you can't reforge resilience to turn it into something useful for your class.<br />
- Change gear level requeriment and make it progressive. Why ask for 329 to run any heroic when a place like Grim Batol is harder than Black Rock Caverns? Start with 329 or even a bit more for the easiest ones and require 340 for the harder ones.<br />
- Improve the LFD algorhythm so you get some dps class with proper cc. <a href="http://theurnaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/sometimes-wowlife-is-good.html">Running an heroic with limited cc may be doable</a>, but not good for the healer's mental health.<br />
These ideas wouldn't only help improve the quality of players in heroics. It would reduce queue times too since all the unprepared people queueing for heroics would be gone, forced to queue for normals. Yet still we need a way to motivate tanks into running PUGs, specially normal , otherwise we could have a tank shortage in normal queues only, as they progress into heroics. And tanking isn't that hard, as pointed out by several of you. The problem is leading, as <a href="http://pewpewlazerz.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/sometimes-there-is-fire/">Calli nailed it</a>. And again, leading isn't difficult, but very frustrating if the people is not willing to follow you.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-83260163269696683602011-04-18T09:16:00.000+02:002011-04-18T09:16:45.058+02:00Holy $#&@!!!After seeing this video, you take a look at the current PUG issues and you can only cry in a corner and think about leaving WoW and dedicate your free time to a simpler game.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zp1TAbOFQCQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
Hats off to <a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/zuluhed/raegwyn/simple">Raegwyn</a>.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-1294562806191581692011-04-15T14:35:00.000+02:002011-04-15T14:35:04.326+02:00Warlock pets with sex: really necessary?I've been trying to write for some days something about the current Call to Arms discussion, but so far I haven't got any valid proposal to increase the number of tanks specially in PUG runs, when I saw <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/169628/wtb-incubus-no-not-the-terrible-band">this announce</a>.<br />
While it says it's something set in the long run, is it really worth dedicating resources to a cosmetic issue when there's a big nasty problem right now in WoW and the proposed solution is clearly not fixing anything?<br />
Well, with a company the size of Blizzard it's doable without hurting other more important developments, but why not dedicate efforts to other cosmetic issues (after all, the gender of a demon pet it's only a cosmetic issue) that would affect all classes and not only warlocks? Several come to my mind:<br />
- Update graphic motor to a newer one, allowing better performance or more details. The new water and sunshafts look great, but WoW appearance feels still the same as 6 years before<br />
- Update old character models (read neither worgen nor goblins) to higher polygon count, making them more detailed<br />
- Update textures to higher definition ones (as an example, check how <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=55061">Elementium Girdle of Pain</a> looks on your character selection screen. It's really a pain of big square pixels)<br />
- Allow models for some height and weight customization, so not every race looks the same<br />
- Allow crafter gear to use different colours (I'm tired of the old <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=3840">Green Iron Shoulders</a>, I want a red or a black version)<br />
- Add the frequently asked Appearance Outfit, so you can have any look (ie, the T3 armour set) while wearing your current gear<br />
<br />
Things like that would benefit all players, not just a part. But I must say I'm intrigued how a female voidwalker will look like (a blue blob with boobs? or maybe same model as current but pink coloured?), or a female Infernal (something like Therazane?).<br />
The only things I ever wanted to change in warlock pets are the Felhound (these extra upper arms/tentacles look horrible) and the Felguard (they should equip different weapons and not always the same boring <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=12784">Arcanite Reaper</a> plus also get different colour versions of the demon, they're already ingame).Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-45067518260591477572011-03-31T16:26:00.000+02:002011-03-31T16:26:18.263+02:00And I tankedIt's been a while since my last entry. Not much to comment, most of the important WoW news happened outside my game. I've been mainly raising the alts and leveling reputation (got 8 85s at the moment, missing only warlock at 83 and rogue at 81), which is kind of boring, but given the actual PUG status, even going as dps has been a pain and I've shunned pugging heroics. The worst of all is the guild status, with very few people active at the moment and they're also raising alts. A vicious circle, but sometimes we get the chance to break it. Like yesterday.<br />
Finally we got some 85s and decided to try doing an heroic guild run. Our best tank had been AFK for a long time and decided to tank if the run was an all-guildies party. First because I don't have experience tanking heroics (I think I've tanked only BRC normal) so I needed to learn who to cc and the boss strats, so having puggeers whinning and kicking me out. And second because the healer also felt it lacked enough power to keep us alive, so same history. I got my prot pally, the druid went resto and we got an elemental shaman and two hunters ( no idea about the spec :D).<br />
Lady RNG flipped the bird at us with Lost City of the Tol'vir, a place I've done maybe 3 times, one as normal and two as heroic, always as dps. Things started chaotically as we zoned in I informed I got a phone call and one of the hunters pulled the first pack, so as I returned to my chair I got into panic mode directly. Luckily I managed to grab all the mobs. After this start things went pretty smooth and we downed <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=44577">General Husam</a> on first try without much problems.<br />
The first wipe came on the pygmies near the corridor to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=43614">Lockmaw</a>/<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=49045">Augh</a>, when suddenly a flamebreather appeared of seemingly nowhere and torched the healer. And I was pulling them carefully because I knew it was easy to get extra mobs in that place, but to no avail. At least it was soemthing easily fixable and next time we dealt with the pygmies easily.<br />
Then came the big problem. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=43614">Lockmaw</a> proved to be very hard for our group. First it was the healer not confident in his role (he compalined about his gear, but I didn't feel he was underpowered), second the low dps, specially from one of the hunters who was pulling very low numbers for an heroic. And the third problem was the crockolisks munching the rest of the party, despite me using all taunts and bubbles to keep them alive and grab the crocs. I felt like a healer watching the party bars, finding who was being attacked and using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31789">Righteous Defense</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=62124">Hand of Reckoning</a>, whatever... even using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=85673">Word of Glory</a> on who was low on hps.<br />
So we wiped and wiped and wiped, with Lockmaw at 18 or 15%. Finally the shaman decided to go resto and the druid went cat and after a pair more of wipes we managed to kill that damned beast. Unluckily it got late so we didn't have much time left. We reached <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=43612">High Prophet Barim</a>, probably the boss I hate more in this instance and only had a try, that ended after reaching phase two when the healer died.<br />
So even what it seems a poor performance (and by today' standards probably is) at least it gave us some fun (until the repetitive wipes on Lockmaw) and a great dose of experience, at least for me in the tanking business. Even the low dps hunter got a new <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56382">shiny polearm</a> to help him improve.<br />
Now I hope we get more guild runs so we can keep improving and not having to depend on pugs, even if the first runs are a wipefest.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-85024637423947693592011-01-31T16:28:00.001+01:002011-01-31T23:06:34.298+01:00Sometimes WoWlife is goodSince my last entry I was thinking about a new post showing more discontent with the actual expansion. Several things weren't feeling quite right. Maybe we were too used to Wrath and its various loot-farms, the possibility to carry an undergeared char into heroics so he could get some decent gear, the possibility to get decent gear crafted thanks to Frozen Orbs... I hadn't feel this way before, even during Bruning Crusade. But I couldn't find a solid point to blame at all. Everytime I thought "oh, but X sucks" I saw that maybe that wasn't right and there was another thing that made me feel that X was sucking but that wasn't really true. And that other thing wasn't sucking too per-se. So everything looked like a vicious circle while I was feeling more tired of the game every day that passed. Maybe I was reaching the endlife of WoW, I've been playing almost since it was released and during this time I've seen a ton of people leaving because the game wasn't fun anymore for them.<br />
Since Cata was released I've been busy mainly leveling my chars. Right now I've seven chars at 85, so the leveling process is boring as hell. Been there, done that... seven times before, and will do at least three times more. Not what I'd call exciting.<br />
Dungeons were mainly a problem. In normal mode I've done all of them except Grim Batol at least once, mostly as dps except one BRC tanking and one VP healing. At level 85 the gear you may get there is mostly useless compared to your quest and crafted blues, and after experiencing how stressing healing can be I refused to pug as healer or even tank. I could go as dps at least, but having to wait 20 minutes for it? No way. So I did some dailies with two or three chars and dedicated some time to leveling or completing quests in Twilight Highlands and Baradin Peninsula with these main characters (warrior, paladin, mage). Heroics were totally out of scope. I only tried one, was a semipug and we couldn't get the second boss down and it took a long time to get there. And reading the horror stories in posts and comments (nab tanks not using cc, gogogoers, dps standing in fire, 3 hours to complete an heroic...) well, that didn't help much to cheer me up. To make things worse our guild has returned to the usual few people logged in, maybe even less than normal, so getting a guild run was as difficult as winning the Euromillions. Things weren't looking good...<br />
But sometimes you get pleasant surprises and life performs a 180º turn, making you love the game again.<br />
It started in Twilight Highlands while I was doing the dailies with my warrior. A retri paladin asked me to join forces to down Warlord Halthar (whom I can down easily with the warrior and paladin alone) and asked me why I wasn't wearing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63787">the Crucible of Carnage sword</a>, better that the weapons I was using (the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=61398">Axe of Earthly Sundering</a> and the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=55052">Obsidium Executioner</a>). I told him that I didn't like pugging right now and prefered to get some guildies to do it. As we finished the dailies someone was asking for people for CoC and he encouraged me to join them. Oh well... I could try...<br />
I asked and got the invite, they told me they needed just a random, so I thought I'd stay as fury. In fact I ended being the tank after some role-changing before starting. Warrior tank.. something I hadn't played for quite a long time (I think last time was an ICC rep run) and a role I never found comfortable with, due to weak aoe-aggro generation. But we weren't in Wrath anymore and this was a Ring of Blood style fight, so it should be ok. I only had seen some fights from afar, so I was mostly clueless, but mobs weren't that complicated. Mostly tank and spank. Kite the cadaver like Grobbulus, grab the adds on the worgen boss and be careful with fire on the ground on the last boss. My aggro generation was a bit short sometimes, but nothing a good old taunt couldn't fix. We finished the bosses and I got a shiny new sword and two achievements.<br />
Then a pally guildie logged in and asked for some heroics. Since he was tanking (and he's good at it and has good gear) I joined as dps, ready to cope with any wipe-fest. It was now or never.<br />
We good a group pretty fast (having a tank on your side ensures an instant run) and Lady RNG assigned us Blackrock Caverns. One frost dk, one balance druid and a healer priest... suspiciously in shadowform. Before we couldn't finish greeting eachother the priest dropped the group. Surely a smartass trying to get a free ride as dps. Bon voyage. We got a replacement immediately, a resto druid. Looking at the group I was fearing the worst since our cc was limited. Druids could use entangling roots, but we didn't have anything to put a caster out of play. That meant we had to deal with them first and quickly before the melee freed from the roots. The dark shadow of wipefest was looming upon us...<br />
How wrong I was. The group ended being awesome. The best pug in a very long time, even on Wrath times where you could thrash an heroic in 10 minutes or less. Not even we finished the random dungeon and the next one (Halls of Origination) but we managed to score several achievements. I think we wiped only 3 times, one of them at the hands of BRC last boss and was a mutual kill. Not even we had to do things a bit Wrath-style due to the limited cc but we also managed to get some impressive performance in dire situations. At <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=39698">Karsh Steelbender</a> my colleague pulled the boss while pulling the first fire elemental. A wipe was called but the group pressed the pedal on and decided to kill the add while the boss was being tanked too. During the fight I died and was battleressed. First elemental was downed and we pulled the second one while the healer did wonders to keep everybody alive, specially the tank. We dispatched the second elemental and then proceeded to kill the boss and also get the achievement for having more than 15 stacks of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=75846">Superheated Quicksilver Armor</a>. On the last boss, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=39705">Ascendant Lord Obsidius</a>, we also decided to complicate our lives to get the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5284">Ascendant Descending</a> achievement. The balance druid kited the adds while the frost dk and me made all we could to slow them down and dps the boss. I never thought we'd made it but we managed to kill the boss (and he killed us too at the same time) and get the achievement.<br />
Excited by the triumphs earned in BRC we queued again and got Halls of Origination, where we also got some achievements despite our non-ideal composition. But as someone in the group said, "brains > gear". Couldn't agree more. If getting the runs done in a reasonable time was already a great goal for me, pulling all these achievements: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5283">Too Hot to Handle</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5284">Ascendant Descending</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5293">I HateThat Song</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5294">Straw That Broke the Camel's Back</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5295">Sun of a....</a> was totally awesome. Knowing your class and how can interact with others was the key (aside some good gear worn by the healer and the tank :) ), and I was happy again and enjoying my main character. The only downside was the loot. A lot of leather and caster gear dropped, making the balance and the resto druid very happy (and they truly deserved it!). I ended with a shield for my offspec and a Chaos Orb, but the joy was better than any loot.<br />
If all heroic runs were half the good these were, I'd be more than happy.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-16713108777333533652011-01-14T16:32:00.000+01:002011-01-14T16:32:44.166+01:00Vashj'ir? No, thanks!After bringing my 6th character to 85 one thing I can say for sure: Vashj'ir contains several flaws that affect people who are leveling and decided to choose that area as starting zone. And it's not because it's an underwater area with a full 3D environment (the so-called Oculus-effect). Let's get to the points!<br />
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1. Excesive long intrduction/arrival quest. If you want to start in Hyjal you just speak to a Hyjal Guardian who teleports you to Moonglade and there you take a short flight to the starting point, witnessing the return of Ragnaros meanwhile. To go to Vashj'ir you talk to a shaman that tells you te get on a boat. And here starts the problem. The boat is located in the same dock as the Northrend boat, so the instroduction is phased. But instead of arriving at the dock and finding the boat waiting for you, you have to wait for it to arrive. And it's a long time until the phased action begins (with the soldiers gathering up and talking) and then the whole boat trip, which is not that long, but after all the time listening to the soldiers while waiting for the boat you are already fed up with all that inactivity.<br />
Didn't Trial of the Crusader teach anything to Blizzard? Longs introductions containing lore are ok the first time. But when you're leveling your second or third alt you wish you could skip it. By the fourth you're totally fed up with it. Could we avoid at least the soldiers gabbing and just find the boat once we head to the dock?<br />
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2. Huge area. I get the sensation Vashj'ir was the first designed starting area and looks it got a little out of their hands. Instead of just a single area it consists of 3 areas, not as big as a the rest of Cataclysm areas but still there's a lot of space out there! And much of it it's empty! At least the seahorse has a good speed so moving down there is not a pain in the ass (anyone remembers the Thorim questchain when normal flying was 60%? How I loathed Thorim's tall mountain!).<br />
Also while the rest of Cataclysm areas get it's own diferenciated subzones (even Deepholm!), all Vashj'ir looks the same, except for Scalding Chasm and the Throne of the Tides vortex.<br />
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3. Reputation. Right now this is the most painful point for me. If you do all the quests in the area you'll end Friendly with Earthen Ring, while other areas leave you at Revered with its faction. I can't understand why Blizzard puts the Earthen Ring quartermaster in Silver Tide Hollow when most of the Earthen Ring reputation is won in Deephom. Well, the only answer I can find is to avoid having two queartermasters (ER and Therazane) in the same area, but the result is very lame. And it's even worse when you want to get some ER rewards and you started in Mount Hyjal. You must endure all the starting introduction plus several quests until you get the seahorse and can move around (getting only Sea Legs may be good for druids but for the rest is too slow due to Vashj'ir size) and locate the quartermaster. Big design fail, Blizzard!<br />
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4. Dungeon. Same as before, getting to the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/zone=5004">Throne of the Tides</a> is not trivial, like locating <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/zone=4926">Blackrock Caverns</a> and you must do a big amount of quests until you get the quest to go there. Even worse, once there and you start heading to the center of the vortex you'll see the Fatigue bar appearing on screen. First time I saw it I thought I shouldn't go there and maybe the entrance was located elsewhere, so I moved back and let the quest gather dust in the Quest Book.<br />
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5. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52985">Azshara's veil</a>. This plant only grows in the area. While other "low level" plants like Cinderbloom and Stormvine can be found (specially Cinderbloom) in other areas, alchemists must go to Vashj'ir yes or yes. Even if it's an underwater plant there're places with water out there (Mount Hyjal pool where Tortolla's eggs are located, Twilight Highlands coast...) I have no problem with exclusive area herbs as long as they're not starting herbs. And if you add the grinding madness things are even worse. While the initial madness has rushed off, now comes the daily grind ninjaing. Same as for ore, but at least you can get obsidium ore in several places. So if you really need Azshara Veil to level up your skill or to produce specific pots you're screwed. Go back to point number 2.<br />
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6. Poor lore. While in Mount Hyjal you get tons of info about the Ancients, Vashj'ir only offers some bits of naga lore and how they teamed up with the Old Gods minions. The battlemaiden quests are good, but until you get them you must do a ton of quests before.<br />
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Basically these are the points why I don't recommend leveling your char in Vashj'ir. But don't get me wrong, I think the area is beautiful (I'm scuba-diver, so I enjoy it specially) although a bit repetitive, the quests are good (the Jaws hunt quest is a laugh, Nespirah and its twin creature have good quests too, etc), offers good leveling loot (as Mount Hyjal), but these design problems are a ballast preventing you from getting a pleasant experience. Solving the long introduction would be a big step, also adding more Earthen Ring rep (it would be ok to reduce it on Deepholm as a counter) would make wonders.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-1628649076472775422011-01-03T13:13:00.001+01:002011-01-04T08:46:52.997+01:00Panic!The *urnaks family continues leveling up, with 4 chars already at top level (warrior, paladin, priest, mage) and another that will hit it this week (hunter). Professions are also over 500, with Blacksmithing and Alchemy at 525 (plus others like Mining, Herbalism and Cooking). I've also started doing some instances (on normal mode to learn them), mainly as dps (tanked BRC with the paladin and wasn't that bad). But yesterday decided to try healing.<br />
I think next time I'll try shooting myself in the foot. I think it will be less painful.<br />
Other great bloggers have already mentioned healing in instances, like <a href="http://www.righteousorbs.com/">Tam</a> or <a href="http://priestwithacause.blogspot.com/">Shintar</a> and yes, it's that bad. At least right now. The most appropiate word I can find to describe healing dungeons is panic. It won't matter if your level is above the required, or your gear. Or the tank's. You're going to panic from the very first moment. And you'll continue panicking all along the whole run. Welcome to Panic Heals Word. Please don't forget to take your stress pills.<br />
It was supposed to be a <a href="http://www.wowpedia.org/Vortex_Pinnacle">Vortex Pinnacle</a> guild run and I decided to switch from dps to healer, but ended being a semi-pug (so no guild rep). Still I decided it was about time to try healing. I brought my disco priest since healing with a disco priest was always kinda relaxed. You shield the tank and you have time to prepare for the worst if tank is starting to get bitch-slapped. That was how it worked. But that's over, baby...<br />
You shield the tank, PoM it, even add a Renew just in case and the tank is prepared to pull. Tank pulls first trash pack, shield lasts 1 second, he gets a magical debuff and his life bar goes from full to 20% in a blink after that first second where the shield lasted. Then comes the Panic and your mind starts to block. If you start casting fast heals you'll run oom and the amount of healing won't bring the tank over 25%. If you cast a powerful and slow heal the tank surely won't survive at that hitpoints level. Panic flows in even greater quantities. In your mind Deathwing's laughs while he tells you with his deep voice "you're f*cked!". Using the right heal at the right time, Blizzard's motto for Cataclysm healing. My hairy balls in a leopard skin thong, I say.<br />
Of course we wipe... on first thrash pull on normal dungeon. Great man, great job! Pugs ask wtf happened. I wish I knew, because I was unleashing all my arsenal and couldn't save the tank (Save the Tank, Save the PUG). I wonder if I could ask a refund for my dualspec and just leave the priest as Shadow...<br />
Take two. Tank pulls again, his life bar plunders but this time I manage to keep him alive... but only for some time, after downing one or two mobs (I couldn't check since I was focused on the tank's damn green bar) he dies again. Panic just bursts out of my ears, flooding my room. Now the dps are also taking damage in big quantities but I manage to keep them up (don't ask me how) and the tank runs back and takes all mobs off the dpsers, saving this pull.<br />
The rest of the run was strangely smooth. Looks like first pull in instances (other people in guild also said the same) are tougher than the rest as a kind of sieve, because it's not normal that first pull just makes you fail as a healer while healing bosses (remember, it's normal dungeon) is almost a laugh, specially the last boss, <a href="http://www.wowpedia.org/Asaad">Asaad</a>.<br />
If finding a tank was hard in Wrath I foresee finding a healer will be even harder in Cataclysm. Or at least find a healer that hasn't gone insane chanting "panic, panic, panic..."Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-74201315302060551522010-12-21T17:57:00.000+01:002010-12-21T17:57:32.977+01:00CatathoughtsTwo weeks have passed since the launch of Cata. The *urnaks family has been busy leveling both character and professions, mainly via questing. So far I've only done Blackrock Caverns twice, first as dps and then as tank. And only because they were guildruns with just one pug. I'm not going to go pug-happy, specially with tank and healers until I get the grasp of all the bosses mechanics.<br />
So how have been these two weeks for me? Busy, very busy exploring all the areas and doing all the quests possible (I haven't completed Twilight Highlands quests yet, I tend to reach 85 before finishing all questlines in Uldum). The first days were a nightmare, but that's nothing new. All the world rushing to the same spots, trying to get any ore, herb or quest mob over the rest of people swarming the area. Blizz tweaked some quests so other players could finish the quest even if they didn't kill the mob (Lord Incendius' chest comes to mind), but I think these fixes came late. Right now the amount of zerging has decreased enough to be able to play without much problems. Still some quests are a pain when you're not the one who hits the mob first (Resonating Crystal, a perfect example), but with some patience they're doable.<br />
I have confronted feelings on the new quests. Some are fun and you get enough variety of them not to get bored after 30 minutes of playing. But as a lot of people has pointed out, new areas' quests are too lineal. There's no choice on which questhub you want to do because they're linked. You get only two choices, two questlines that tend to end mixing at the end (Earthen Ring and Therazane lines in Deepholm, Ramkahen and Harrison Jones in Uldum...) so you lose the sensation of an open world and you feel like being back in an old adventure game where you couldn't progress in the game until you solve present puzzle. I don't want to repeat myself, so you can read more about this on a comment I left on this <a href="http://www.righteousorbs.com/?p=2808">Righteous Orbs post</a>. Blizzard has gone from "this is the world, do as you wish as long as you have the proper level" to "potatoes or salad as first course and you don't get the second until you finish it". Then second course comes and it's only "meat or fish" again.<br />
Speaking about quests, I want to highlight two as the funniest and worst ones:<br />
- <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=27779/gnomebliteration">Gnomebliteration</a>. Who wouldn't like riding a big ball of fire trampling leper gnomes? Even the amount of gnomes to be killed is a bit high (1000 gnomes!) and takes some time when there're other players doing the same quest, it's just a laugh. And not only that, the preceeding quest has a nice geek reference: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=27778">Hacking the Wibson</a> refers to the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/">Hackers</a> where a bunch of computer hackers try to break into a mainframe called Gibson that controls oil carriers. The film is totally forgetable and anyone who knows a bit about computers would point out the amount of mistakes when talking about computers. Any serious hacker just gets mad at it. The only good thing I'd point out is a very young and sexy Angelina Jolie in one of her first films.<br />
- The flapping quests in the second Fire Gate in Hyjal Mount. Just f*cking horrible. Why make a flying control system this way instead of using the everyday flying mechanics. It's ok if they want to make things more interesting by adding inertia to the flight, but controlling the hippogryph can be a real nightmare and hitting the vulture riders very frustrating. Also just makes hitting the only action availble kind of retarded. Flap flap flap... miss! flap flap flap... oh shit! I got into a lava stream falling from one of the floating rocks. And after all you get to choose between two pets who have the same model and just colour schema is different.<br />
A remarkable mention to the final Fire Gate quest in Hyjal, where you get to face old Raggy again, although it's a "weakened" version and not the real final instance boss. Even original Ragnaros is harder than this soloable quest. But hey, it's the Firelord! And I love engaging this quest with my Lil'Ragnaros pet out and saying "look! it's daddy!". Old "MC friends" are also there in Hyjal, with Baron Geddon as part of one of the initial quests and Charr as a rare spawn 5man boss. Will we ever see a resurrected version of Majordomo Executus?<br />
Well, I think I'll go back to the game to get the rest of *urnaks into shape (so far 2 85s, 1 82, 3 81s), so probably won't be posting much.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-55355275718590839072010-11-30T16:40:00.000+01:002010-11-30T16:40:07.242+01:00A brave new worldWith the release of the Shattering patch the world we used to know has changed forever. Some areas have been almost 100% revamped (Hillsbrad Hills, Loch Modan come to mind) while others are pretty much the same with just some tweaks (Elwynn Forest, Redridge Mountains). Some seem to remain as before everything went tits up. Yet in these almost-unchanged areas you can feel as it's a new place to discover. I warn you there will be some spoilers.<br />
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We have now a TON of new quests, all of them grouped in quest hubs. Some of them are just the same quests as before (<a href="http://priestwithacause.blogspot.com/2010/11/did-we-or-didnt-we-do-these-things.html">Shintar already wrote about this</a>) and it feels weird to do them again. In some special cases you get an explanation about this repetition. So far I've found this in <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25815">The Third Fleet</a> quest (Wetlands), where after completing the quest chain you're told the cursed Eye of Paleth was removed time ago and First mate Fitzsimmons died time ago too, so you've been talking to his ghost without knowing his condition. And when you exit the inn you see he's really gone.<br />
Some of the new quests are continuations of old questchains but others just revamp the whole questchain, like the Stalvan Mistmantle serie. And it feels weird. You already killed Stalvan before, so when his brother asks you for aid (first quest) you expect to be a continuation and you just need to prove him his brother was a true evil beign. Instead of this you get to fight him again, but this time you get a nice surprise from his brother. Did you know the Stalvan family came from Gilneas? :)<br />
Another change related to quests is the addition of questgivers inside instances. The first time I did the "CSI" questchain in Westfall I didn't complete all the outside quests, since there's a point where the chain seems to stop. So when I went inside Deadmines I missed the animation where you get a flashback of Edwin's VanCleef death. If you keep questing in Westfall (hint: do the Westfall Stwe questchain) you'll finally get to see what happened after Edwin was killed by a party of adventurers and who's the shadowy figure that appears in some quests.<br />
The addition of several flightpoints is something I don't know how to rank it. In one hand will make lowbie players life much easy. Almost every quest hub has his flight point. The problem I see is there're too many. Some of them are the best thing since sliced bread: the one in Raven Hill (Duskwood) and Eastvale Logging Camp (Elwynn Forest) were as needed as rain in a desertic landscape. Back then you didn't get to ride a horse until level 40, so you had to run back and forth all the time from east to west in Duskwood to deliver quests, get the continuation and then complete them again and repeat the operation. Doing these quests at level 40 was meaningless. You didn't even got hardly any reputation (yes, back then reputation gain was tied to the level difference between your character and the quest) and even with a 60% horse it took enough time to grow bored of the place. Right now once you get one of these strategic flightpoints life has a new meaning.<br />
On the other hand some flightpoints seem meaningless and just clutter the map. Are you sure Goldshire needed a flightpoint? Stormwind is just there! Same for Wetlands, where Alliance gained several flightpoints, when formerly there was just one (and it was also booooring to run from Menethil to Welgar's Excavation Site or the Dragonmaw Encampment) now whe have several scattered through all the map. What before was a pain it's now so trivial it loses almost all its value.<br />
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I've just visited a small part of the revamped Azeroth so far. Western Plaguelands should change its name and recover the Lordaeron designation. Only one Plague Cauldron remains and the rest of the land has recovered. Uther's Tomb is one of the most beautiful places, with so much green around. Stormwind is full of quiet and bautiful corners where you can relax or develop your RP skills, alone or with your mates. And if you're Alliance like me you'll rage and fume when you see how Southshore and most of the Hillsbrad Hills ended. Now I'm just starting to explore Kalimdor. Darkshore is one of the saddest places with the destruction of Auberdine.<br />
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My recommendation is: go out there, explore the old-new lands. Check out the quests, <a href="http://dwism.blogspot.com/2010/11/allright-children-step-aside-time-for.html">even if you're an old grumpy 80</a>, check out the old-new lore you'll get from them. In a week most of us will be busy leveling our chars to 85, so there won't be much time to rejoice in this old-new world (specially when you're out of slots!).<br />
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Post soundtrack:<br />
<a href="http://www.goear.com/listen/7ac1b53/brave-new-world-iron-maiden">Brave New World</a> - Iron Maiden (Brave New World, 2000)Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-80590813070281423422010-11-24T09:51:00.000+01:002010-11-24T09:51:08.260+01:00The misty frontierSo the day has arrived! Deathwing decided to take a tour and create the biggest barbequeue ever seen in Azeroth, ripping the world apart in the process. The foretold End of the World (copyright The Twilight Hammer) is here...the Cataclysm has arrived!<br />
But wait! How come we are in Cata when the Cata expansion hasn't launched yet? It's not december the 7th yet! Well, for the first time Blizzard has changed the way th new expansions are delivered. When Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were launched we had to wait to get our hands on a copy of the game and install it. You were in vanilla WoW, installed BC and voilà! You can now go through the Dark Portal and visit that strange continent made of different lands stitched together. Same for Wrath... you install the game and then you can take a ship or zeppelin to the frigid lands of the north. But not this time.<br />
Blizzard has taken a progressive approach to the Cataclysm launch. Instead of waiting for release day to deliver all in one shot they've decided to do some major releases before launch date. First we had the new talent trees and abilities in 4.0.1 (note the change in the number version, no longer 3.x.x), then 4.0.3 brought the elemental invasion. Now we have 4.0.3a where the world has gone tits up. But while we're using v4 of the game (the Cataclysm version), we still don't have the Cataclysm game in our hands. We'are not in Wrath anymore, yet we're not fully in Cata. We're in a difuse border between the two expansions, although our foot in Cata land is placed more firmly and the foot in Wrath land is begining to raise and move to join its companion.<br />
In one hand I'm a bit disappointed by this, because I get the feeling it strips a lot of content out of the release. Changing the world entirely is no piece of cake and I think it should have been reserved for that special date. On the other hand I'm happy to see this already without having to wait for december the 7th (even is not that far). The way we get our updates on the world of Azeroth is more dynamic, no more waiting for that milestone that's release day. If things keep going this way we could get patches (specially bugfixes or talents finetuning) on almost everyday, in a smooth way that wouldn't disrupt gameplay (breaking addons, avoiding respeccing, etc), leaving big stuff for special release days, like adding a new dungeon or raid zone. Technically is challenging, but a big software company like Blizzard should be able to cope with it.<br />
I look back to the Burning Crusade release time. A lot of people gathered at the Dark Portal, waiting for midnight. Everybody held his breath when the hands of the clock came together. And then nothing happened. Not even a simple activation effect on the portal. Thinhs have changed a lot nowadays. The elemental invasion has been a good prelude to the Cataclysm launch, amking the content transition smoother.<br />
Come Deathwing! My sword thirsts for your corrupt blood!Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-16425594668890784232010-10-29T12:45:00.000+02:002010-10-29T12:45:07.738+02:00So far... so good?Several days have passed since the release of the 4.0.1 patch and still I haven't finished tuning all my chars. While specs and glyphs are in place I still lack some gem change here and there and only a few chars have their gear reforged. Also the amount of bugs that have plagued this release made playing too painful sometimes, specially when getting random disconnections for no reason (no /cast or cogwheel icon used) and then taking ages to log back in.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqlhmnPNEI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/Wai3UU_7xao/s1600/durguard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqlhmnPNEI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/Wai3UU_7xao/s200/durguard.jpg" width="134" /></a>Only one of my main chars have switched specs. <a href="http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hellscream&n=Durnak">Durnak</a> is now Unholy dps/blood tank when formerly was blood dps/frost tank, When deciding which of the two dps specs to use I thought unholy would be funnier thanks to the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=63560">Dark Transformation</a> talent. I've been doing mainly Headless Horseman runs and so far I haven't been impressed by the numbers or the playstyle, but at least it gives you something to watch (the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49572">Shadow Infusion</a> charges). On the other hand I have a humble level 66 deathknight that formerly was unholy and I changed it to frost and it's chugging out 5k obliterates on <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51128">Killing Machine</a> procs, oneshotting whatever gets in his way. It just needs some hit rating to avoid missing blows, but for a level 66 it's pretty crazy. The downside of the spec is that's just "boring". Hit with whatever is available until <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51128">Killing Machine</a> procs and unleash a powerful <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49020">Obliterate</a>.<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjK1TBZPI/AAAAAAAAAJs/p-bypstRZKs/s1600/murcast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjK1TBZPI/AAAAAAAAAJs/p-bypstRZKs/s200/murcast.jpg" width="176" /></a>Priests are a class with new mechanics in all specs. While I haven't rolled any holy spec priests, both discipline healing and shadow dps are cool specs to play. Disc allows plenty of "free time" (while your party is shielded) to stack <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81662">Evangelism</a> charges using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=585">Smite</a> so you can then activate <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87151">Archangel</a> and get some wings and boost your healing. Just like drinking Red Bull. Shadow (which I haven't played much since healers are scarce) just changes the way you aoe. Instead of using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48045">Mind Sear</a>, a spell that does now pretty weak damage, the new way of dealing with groups is to debuff each target with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=589">Shadow Word: Pain</a> and start moving around so you increase the probabilities of creating a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78203">Shadowy Apparition</a>. It's really fun to see copies of you walking towards their targets and autoimmolate (just lacks a good shadow explosion animation when they hit their goal). While mana isn't an issue in disc spec, shadow consumes a lot of it, so the new replenishment mechanic using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=88995">Masochism</a> has to be introduced in the rotation while being careful not to kill yourself, aside from using the shadow beast minion on cooldown, both for recovery and for dps boost.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjfC0bf8I/AAAAAAAAAJ0/fHeK7LzM3L4/s1600/vertank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjfC0bf8I/AAAAAAAAAJ0/fHeK7LzM3L4/s200/vertank.jpg" width="200" /></a>Another heavily changed class are paladins, thanks to the introduction of the Holy Power combo points. Pre-patch tanking with a paladin was just a faceroll: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31935">Avenger's Shield</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=26573">Consecration</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53595">Hammer of the Righteous</a> and you got a huge aoe threat that kept everybody on you without problems. Right now, after doing some Horseman and Heroics runs I see it hasn't changed much except for some details: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=26573">Consecration</a> can't be cast now and then since it's larger cooldown (no matter it's also more mana expensive, I haven't find any mana issues yet) and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53600">Shield of the Righteous</a> has changed, so you now need to stack 3 points of Holy Power and then slam your current target to get a big threat boost. Healing as holy is also influenced by the amount of Holy Power you have and also the spells used have changed. Previously it was mainly <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=2061">Flash Heal</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=635">Holy Light</a> spam, with the occasional <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=20473">Holy Shock</a> for emergencies. Now <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=20473">Holy Shock</a> is your bread and butter since the cooldown has been reduced and also awards Holy Power points. Also you can do a bit of dps, since <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=71549">Crusader Strike</a> is now a base ability for all pladins and rewards Holy Power. This brings the paladin class closer to the typical image of a warrior monk who stays in the line of scrimmage instead of sitting at the back healing. Again I haven't found mana issues so far, even with the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=54428">Divine Plea</a> nerf, but nowadays people is overgeared and healing isn't as critical as it used to be. As for Retribution spec I haven't had a lot of chances to try it, but seems more fluid now that you have more buttons to push instead of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=71549">Crusader Strike</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=66006">Divine Storm</a> and waiting for <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=879">Exorcism</a> to come out of cooldown so you can use it again on <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87138">Art of War</a> proc.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqkk8mLuRI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/BAmOjKzJg1o/s1600/kurwait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqkk8mLuRI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/BAmOjKzJg1o/s200/kurwait.jpg" width="200" /></a>The rest of the classes haven't changed much in mechanics, even with changes like focus for hunters, rage normalisation for warriors (and the enrage procs in fury). Melee classes have lost a ton of dps (due to armor penetration going away) while spell classes look like they're on steroids (specially arcane mages. <a href="http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hellscream&n=Vurnak">Vurnak</a> has turned into a fearful terminator), but this looks like it's going to be addressed in a future patch (so enjoy it while you can before the nerf bat slams you). The game has changed, but it looks like it hasn't been as dramatic as people expected. And it's a good thing, since re-learning how to play a class from the beggining is not easy nor fun. Old habits still pop up but at least these mistakes aren't fatal.<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjXe07EzI/AAAAAAAAAJw/lHxS82rWTEc/s1600/turstrike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TMqjXe07EzI/AAAAAAAAAJw/lHxS82rWTEc/s200/turstrike.jpg" width="200" /></a>The last thing i want to comment is regarding gearing up. Thanks to the Frost and Triumph emblems conversion into Justice Points it's been easier to get T10 gear (in most cases I had several Triumph emblems I didn't need, while I was short on Frost). And another big change is the removal of the Arena Rating requeriment on pvp gear, so you just need Honor Points. While I try to stay away from pvp as much as possible some pvp gear is worth getting, specially if you aren't into raids. Ilevel 270 shields are dirty cheap, requiring only 70 HPs. Other itmes like off-hand librams, wands or necklaces are very cheap too. I also managed to get the healing mace (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=51453">Wrathful Galdiator's Gavel</a>) for my priest, paladin and druid. Finally I found some use for these Honor Points I had collecting dust in the Currency tab.<br />
<br />
Now if Blizzard fixes all the bugs it will be great. This wednesday we have a mini-patch that solves some issues, like the cogwheel disconnection that's been plaguing the Headless Horseman fight (thanks to the author of <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/cogfix.aspx">CogFix</a>, that allowed me to click the pumpkin without problems) but still there are several issues pending that cause a lot of unhappiness, like the slow ghost gryphon or the lagged sound and they haven't been included in this mini-patch.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-76619618855298862302010-10-14T11:01:00.000+02:002010-10-14T11:01:30.887+02:00It's going to be hardSo finally patch 4.0.1 hit the streets. This time we don't only have to sort headaches caused by non-working addons, but all chars need to respecc, check the gems and glyphs, sort out icons on action bars... this week is going to be very interesting.<br />
If you think fixing a char is a pain, multiply that by 26 (ok, I don't play these 26 always, only 12 or 13 regularly). <a href="http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hellscream&n=Grimbol">Grimbol</a>, my inscriber, is threatening to go on strike. And <a href="http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hellscream&n=Turnak">Turnak</a> the jewelcrafter is supporting him.<br />
Ok, so after finally downloading the last 1,2 Gb patch file (that didn't show in the background downloader!) I started fixing things. Only some chars have been specced so far (warrior, paladin, druid, priest, hunter) but still they lack some correct glyphs and gems (specially for the relics, now they have sockets). To spec them I used my own designs but I also used <a href="http://www.wowpopular.com/">WoWPopular</a> to confirm if some talents were mandatory or good enough to invest points on them (btw I find crazy <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#bcGsrRsbfRMo">the most voted disco priest build</a> is not investing a single point in Improved Power Word: Shield when this is the cornerstone of the class!, so take the info with a pinch of salt until things settle down a bit).<br />
Addons aren't causing much ruckus at the moment, either they're up to date or old versions aren't giving much problems. As usual, after some days most of them will be up to date or I'll be used to the errors they yield.<br />
The real test will begin once I start doing some heroics. I don't want to take a char to a PUG run unless it's completely fixed, specially if it's a tank or a healer, so my first impressions of some classes come only from dummy tests.<br />
Paladins look like a new class introduced in this patch with the Holy Power combo point and the new talent trees. I've always found frustrating that they changed holy and prot because ret was "broken". Damn it! Pally tanking might be ultra-boring, but was damn comfortable, like your favourite old pair of shoes. And holy wasn't bad, just lacking some AoE healing. Well, it wil take some time to get used to this, specially for tanking.<br />
Shadow priests seem to run out of mana pretty fast. After unleashing the full debuff pack, some mind flays and mind blasts will deplete your mana bar very quick. Maybe something is wrong with my <a href="http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Hellscream&n=Murnak">spec</a> or maybe it's a matter of handling rotations/procs correctly. Or could be that I need to use <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=32379">Shadow Word: Death</a> more to trigger the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=88995">Masochism</a> mana regain. On the other hand, disco priests seem pretty solid and mana doesn't seem to be a problem. In this spec I have the new <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81662">Evangelism</a> / <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87151">Archangel</a> combo and looks nice, although you need to use <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=585">Smite</a> to trigger it. I see mandatory some kind of tracking system for the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81662">Evangelism</a> charges, either as combo points or placing the number in the icon on the action bar, since having to check the buff icon may be distracting. Same for the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77487">Shadow Orbs</a> you get as shadow priest.<br />
Not much to say yet about the other classes I specced, since I didn't try them much. Only the resto druid, that seems it works correctly as before, unleashing the full pack of HoTs and then using Nourish (instead of the crappy Heal) when needed.<br />
When I logged in it was 21:00 or so. When I went to bed it was 3:00 in the morning and I still think I didn't do much. Today I'm falling asleep at the office, but I know tonight will be the same again and friday will be harder. But thanks goodness it will be friday :)Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-77508565520494234872010-09-20T12:38:00.003+02:002010-09-20T12:51:30.949+02:00Braaaaains... I'm coming!In the TBC days we got a Simon game set into the game. You may remember the apexis crystals near Ogri'la, where you had to reproduce the sequence of colours played by the crystals. If you liked the idea of placing mini-games into WoW then you'll love the addition of Peaceblooms vs. Ghouls that will be added in Cataclysm.<br />
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<b>Uh... what versus who?</b><br />
Well, if you haven't heard of the game called <a href="http://www.popcap.com/games/pvz">Plants vs. Zombies</a> then you probably have been locked in some dark cellroom for the last year. The idea is quite simple: there's a zombie invasion in your neighbourhood and you're locked in your home. You must fend off the zombies that think you're their next lunch. But this time you don't have any conventional weapons to get them down. No shotguns, no chainsaws... you just have some plant seeds.<br />
While it sounds weird (yes, it is!) the game is just a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_defense">tower defense</a> type where your weapons are a wide array of plants: plants that shoot peas, bushes that act as shields, plants that generate extra solar power (you need solar power to sow more plants and get power-ups), so they never reach your home. Zombies in turn have also different abilities: from the standard brain-eater to the armoured zombie (using a bucket as helmet), a pole jumper that avoids shields... The action turns frantic and the cute graphics and great sounds make it an excellent game. And you can play a big bunch of levels for free. <a href="http://www.popcap.com/games/pvz">Just give it a try</a>, it will hook you.<br />
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<b>Need more peacebloms!</b><br />
So yes, we're having the game ported to Azeroth as a mini game, renamed to Peaceblooms vs. Ghouls. If you're tired of grinding or the wait time in LFD is too big you can always plant some seeds to get some fun. <a href="http://www.cynicalbrit.com/">Totalbiscuit</a> from Blue Plz! has released a video of the game so you can see how it looks like:<br />
<object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/aWI5XTmGrmo?fs=1&hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/aWI5XTmGrmo?fs=1&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="329"></embed></object><br />
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<b>I want moar!</b><br />
Yes, there're some plugins that let you play games while still playing WoW, but this and the previous Simon games are different because they're part of WoW. I wonder why other simple games haven't been added yet, like a Dynablaster/Bomberman game (easy to make since we already have the needed items), a Tetris (this may require extra coding like P vs. G, a PacMan or even another classic like Space Invaders (evil draenei?). Which game would you love to see included in the game?<br />
<br />
Post soundtrack:<br />
<a href="http://goear.com/listen/46554a0/endgame-megadeth">Endgame - Megadeth (Endgame, 2009)</a>Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-70928224591621038342010-09-10T12:14:00.002+02:002010-09-10T12:40:30.960+02:00Gnomes, trolls and flying aroundWhile this entry was going to be dedicated to the operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall events, a blue post this morning about flying in Azeroth has stirred me up and I'll be ranting again about crappy design decissions.<br />
First of all, if you haven't done Operation: Gnomeregan and/or Zalazane's Fall you might want to skip this part, since it will contain spoilers. Just head to the last part where I'll be talking about flying in Cataclysm. You've been warned.<br />
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<b>Comparing the events</b><br />
I won't describe deeply the events. <a href="http://priestwithacause.blogspot.com/2010/09/zalazanes-fall-vs-operation-gnomeregan.html">Shintar already did it today</a> and probably better than me. I want to focus on comparing the last part of the event (the only you can only do if you're level 75+) that will reward you a feature of strength and <strike>a cool overcloak</strike> a shitty cloak (<a href="http://theurnaks.blogspot.com/2010/09/everybody-looks-same.html">more about this in my previous entry</a>).<br />
In the gnome version there's a bigger sense of epicness. During the battle you're given targets to take down: rocket launchers first, then wait for bombers to destroy the shields on tanks, then enter Gnomeregan properly, battling a giant trogg to the climax where the place is blown up with an atomic bomb. All very martial, with a "Scotty, beam me up!" scene before the bomb fires off. Bravo!<br />
On the other hand the troll version seems less epic because you're not given any specific objectives and the finals is somewhat... disappointing. You start by asking the spirit of Bwonsamdi for help (hint: that name is inspired by the voodoo Loa of the Dead, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi">Baron Samedi</a>), you battle him to prove you're worthy and then you're off to kill Zalazane, taking down whatever gets in your way (you even battle a miniboss, but not as remarkable as the giant trogg). In the end, Zalazane's blown to pieces by Bwonsamdi and everybody's happy. The owrk is done, but I feel it lacks the epic finale you see in the gnome version. By the way, during Operation: Gnomeregan you never face Thermaplugg. He communicates through a brag-bot from the depths of the instace. I suppose they did it so they could keep the instance unchanged, since the bomb explodes in the train station (the upper level, out of the instance) while Thermaplugg is in the depths of th instance and protected by at least two heavy doors, so the blast or radiation won't reach him.<br />
Both events are fun (until you do them by the third time), but I enjoyed the gnome version more. After all, Thermaplugg is an instance end-boss and Zalazane justa low level mob, not even rare or elite :) But while we know Tehrmaplugg will be still alive (so instance remains unchanged)... can we afirm Zalazane's dead for sure? We're told the low level mob was just a brain-washed troll infussed with Zaazane's powers, so are we sure we've killed the right one now? *grin* I expect a comeback... even if the real one's really dead, resurrected like Arugal.<br />
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<b>Flying in old Azeroth</b><br />
Ok, rant time now... again! The detonator now is <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/26725725456/new-flight-skill/">this blue post</a>:<br />
<div style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>We’ve added a new flying skill called Azerothian Navigation. When World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is released, players who purchase the expansion will see this skill available from flight trainers once they reach level 60. This new skill is required for flying around all Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms zones, including the new level 80-85 zones. </i></div><div style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>The cost for this is 250 gold. The name has also changed. I've updated my original post with the new information. :)</i></div>So... after paying 250g for normal flying in Outlands (anyone can confirm if formerly was more expensive? I have the sensation it costed more), most probably having paid for the epic flight (between 4000 and 5000g depending on your reputation), another 1000g for flying in Northrend... they want us to pay more just to fly in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms? What's this, we're purchasing a GPS device or subscription to be able to fly over the lands we've ran across hundreads of times before, walking or riding? Not to mention if you want the 310% flying speed: more gold to the sink (5000g).<br />
But the second part of the message just made my eyes roll. 250g is nothing nowadays, not even for a level 60 toon. Heck, I have a level 32 tauren druid that has over 300g, thanks to auctioning stuff from my level 80 main. What's Blizzard's goal? To keep chars under 60 flying around instead of walking/riding? This is already done. You need to be level 60 and head to Outlands to train the flying skill already. A skill that formerly was only available at level 70! So why this double payment for the flying skill? Are they planning to eliminate the Outlands flying skill or allow you to fly there after purchasing this one? If so then all makes sense, but I haven't seen any post about this. Also the skill only refers to Azeroth and Outlands isn't Azeroth. You'll hit 60 and you'll pay twice. If we already can fly in Northrend and we know the lands of Kalimdor and Eastern kingdoms since we've been playing here since the early vanilla days it makes no sense: you know how to fly, you know the place and you even can fly in harsh condtions like in Northrend. So again... what's behind this decission? Can I get a total discount since I've already the Outlands and Northrend's flying licenses?<br />
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Post soundtrack:<br />
<a href="http://goear.com/listen/7f08a12/revolution-calling-queensryche">Revolution Calling - Queensrÿche (Operation: Mindcrime, 1988)</a>Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-54480316457619814632010-09-09T09:51:00.001+02:002010-09-09T10:00:29.138+02:00Everybody looks the sameSo finally we have the much announced Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall events on live servers. They're fun to play (until you repeat it for the 3rd time in a row), using the same phasing technology as the Wrathgate event and the Battle for Undercity. So far is almost the same as Battle for the Undercity (at least Operation: Gnomeregan, I still haven't played Zalazane's fall with my belf but I expect a simmilar event): after some minor quests you participate in a massive battle with huge buffs so you hit hard and you never die (unless you stray far away from Mekkatorque and lose the healingbuff). There's a lot of pew pew and everything blows up in the end. You get the feature of strength and everybody's happy.<br />
Everybody? Sure? Well, not me, at least completely happy. If you check your bags you'll see a blue object that transforms you into a Gnomeregan Infantry soldier (that you get from a previous quest, this object is available to everybody from level 5 up)... and a white cloak. Yes, a cloak, not an overcloak as it was announced and present in the test servers.<br />
<b>Dude, where's my overcloak?</b><br />
No trace of it, just a white quality cape with the Gnomeregan crest (if you're Horde you'll get the Darkspear Troll version). What's going on here? We have the answer in this <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/26726064848/overcloaks-from-event/">blue post</a>:<br />
<div style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>It is true that the cloak rewards had overcloak functionality when these events were up on the public test realms some months back. In the end we decided that implementing the cloaks in such a way that players could aesthetically change the cloak they're wearing could set a bad precedent. We like customization and flavor items, but we don't want to start implementing aesthetic items in the game which allow players to look however they want while keeping all the stats they want. We felt the overcloaks were breaking that barrier a little too much. </i></div>Excuse me?In a game like WoW, the way you look sometimes is as important as the stats on your gear, even more if you're in an RP server. Not only that, when it came out, it promised you to customize the way you look beyond the typical hari color and facial hair. Even when reforging was announced I expected you could also alter the colours aside the stats. So again people asked why in the same thread and this was the answer:<br />
<div style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>We've been tossing around some other ideas with regard to gear customization, but we still want to make sure there are appropriate limitations on a system like this. The limited buff timer on the overcloak just wasn't enough considering it would mask any cloak of any level. We'll continue to explore ideas for fun aesthetic gear customization, but we didn't feel this was the proper introduction of this kind of system. </i></div>Two words in one: bullshit. What's the problem with masking the cloak you're wearing in a game where you can hide it and where everybody (even opposite faction) can inspect you? It's like you're trying to hide that blue cloak to enter an ICC raid?. Simply you can't, you're going to be inspected or worse: passed through GearScore. And what's wrong with displaying an altered version of the cloak you're wearing? I understand there can be some minor technical issues since not all cloaks have the same length or even use the same rectangular model, but that shouldn't be hard to fix.<br />
Something I've commented before in this blog: it would be great you could at least decide colours in the gear you craft. Remember the green iron gear? Why green? Why don't allow people to buy whatever dye they like and use it to craft pink iron bracers or black iron helm? Technical limitations? Not really, we have the same item model in quite an array of colours already. Just an example: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=3836">Green Iron Helm</a>. Now click in the "Same model as" tab. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=3836#same-model-as">Forty-five items</a>. Forty-five frickin' items from green to epic quality, all in different colours: yellow, red, black, blue... Even items from an expansion with a particular model have made comebacks in next expansion with a different texture/colour pattern. So why don't allow people dress as they like? One of the best things games like Quake have is that you can use any model for your character. As long as the opposite players had the same model stored in their harddisk they would see you as you decided (otherwise the default player model is shown). This wouldn't be a problem with WoW since everybody has the same item models in their harddisk.<br />
<b>Now what?</b><br />
Blizz says they're exploring ideas for customization, but to me that sounds they will develop this if they can get some cash like they did with the pets and pony. If people is willing to pay for a mount and they already pay for a racial change (that lets you customize your character's image from start), adding the "<i>Azeroth Paint Shop: We Pimp Ya Epicz Up</i>" looks like the next step. And we can thank the barber only costs in-game gold.<br />
This may seem a rant too big for such a minor issue and probably you're right, but what really ticked me off was the poor excuses given and this sensation that they don't want us to stray out of a line everybody must follow so we all look the same. If you're an old player just compare how people looked at level 60 and how people looks now at level 80.<br />
Also if they didn't want to implement overcloaks a better reward would be a tabard (like they did with the Dark Portal opening event, even if they used the same existing Argent Dawn tabard, but they added that holy nova-like effect) than just a shitty white cloak nobody's going to wear.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-62064762533722948522010-08-18T11:40:00.000+02:002010-08-18T11:40:14.583+02:00New trees aren't that newGood neeeews everyone! I've finally killed Professor Putricide. Since our guild raiding stopped time ago I haven't been in a raid group for a long time, and not being very keen to raid pugs I hadn't put a foot on Icecrown Citadel for long. But last saturday I was asked to join two pugs by fellow guildies. The first one was a complete fail. We got to Marrowgar, wiped and pug disintegrated. Typical. But in the evening I was asked to bring my shammy healer. The raid had already 6 bosses down, so we went to down the Professor, the last boss of the Plagueworks wing I was missing. It was hard, we wiped a lot of times, but we finally made it (including a desperate failed attempt where we brought him to 3% and the whole room was covered in green goo). We then went to kill the Vampire Council, but after several wipes (we got to 10%) the raid began to crumble since it was a bit late and people decided to try Halion, another started raid with only the big dragon alive, but we couldn't down him after several attempts where people (specially the shadow realm tank) started dying on p3. A pity, since the group was very competent. Oh well, I didn't get any loot but it was refreshing to raid again.<br />
Now, on the subject of the post, the upcoming talent trees are mostly set. They are still not complete and we see changes from week to week, but the core and major part of them is in place. And my rant is: one of the explanations Blizzard gave for this change, aside of removing passive buff talents, was to allow people to have more choices when speccing, so we could see more diverse specs than the cookie-cutter or the highly specialized raid tree (where you avoid some must-have talents because that buff/advantage is brought by another player). After playing with all the classes for the specs I am playing or I've played (which are all but holy priest, survival hunter, elemental shaman and sublety rogue) I don't see that diversity Blizzard claimed. Sure you make some choices inside a same tree to advance to the next tier (should I pick a talent that reduces pushback when damaged or that one that reduces certain spell cast time), but almost all of them are very situational, like only helpful while leveling or in certain situations, or when doing pvp, but the few points you get to put in the secondary trees (between 10 and 7 points depending on your class) don't offer really a choice. If you're a resto druid you'll put these in the balance tree in talents that buff your healing, a fury warrior will invest in the arms tree to bost damage and a shadow priest won't put a single point in the holy tree. So in the end we all going to have very simmilar trees,s pecially when people hits 85 and gets into raiding again. the only change I see it's a negative one: hybrid specs are gone. They might not be viable for raiding mostly, but a lot of people found them enjoyable to play.<br />
Picking the right talents wasn't an easy task in the old days. There weren't theorycrafting sites offering information about the most effective trees and you usually picked a talent if you liked it. Right now choices (the right choice) is more obvious, but there's not enough room for experimentation. And once talent trees are finished, I expect even less. If mana is going to matter again, optional talents that allowed mana regeneration will become mandatory, so we'll have less points to expend in other trees or skills that might be useful in certain situations (to reduce stuns, silences and so).Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-35121345066203672682010-07-24T14:57:00.000+02:002010-07-24T14:57:04.472+02:00Moar design fails: cloaksWhile a big part of the WoW bloggers seem trapped in the healing addons discussion I want to write about cloaks. Yes, this started with <a href="http://www.pinkpigtailinn.com/2010/07/wtb-good-looking-cloak.html">Larísa's post about cloaks</a>. And as I commented int hat post, they usually are too anodine or plainly ugly. Few cloaks are really good looking in game, and taking into consideration is the part of our toon we see most of the time (if you have it enabled) it's strange Blizzard hasn't put more effort into making some good designs.<br />
Technically it's the easiest object to apply a texture mapping. Most of the cloaks are rectangular or trapezoidal, with some bending here and there, but the core object remains a low-polygon rectangle type. Since the form is so simple applying a texture is quite easy and doesn't need much preproduction work so when it's applied to the object it looks correct (you need to stretch the texture to adapt it to the form of the object. Rounder objects like heads need more work so when the skin texture is applied it doesn't look kinky).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TErYLuzeXHI/AAAAAAAAAJM/JIl6k-Gui8I/s1600/cloak01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TErYLuzeXHI/AAAAAAAAAJM/JIl6k-Gui8I/s320/cloak01.jpg" /></a></div>So we start playing our level one character, cloakless. By killing the first mobs we'll get some grey-quality items to equip and one of them will be a "cloak". Sorry but that barely can be called a cloak. Maybe a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neckerchief">neckerchief</a> or napkin tied on your back.<br />
As your character progresses you'll start getting longer cloaks, capes or mantles. First ones, white-quality and still without any stat are still too short to be called cloaks. Again it seems you have a handtowel tied on your back. The first greens you'll get will also be still short and simple in design.<br />
As time passes your character will get longer cloaks but unfortunately not better in design. Vanilla WoW have simple designs, almost patternless. Some cases are really painful, like getting a blue quality cloak named <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=13108">Tigerstrike Mantle</a>... that even doesn't has tiger stripes on it so you can't avoid feeling deceived when you get it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TErb0E0GapI/AAAAAAAAAJU/CmrSxQa9-X4/s1600/cloak02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TErb0E0GapI/AAAAAAAAAJU/CmrSxQa9-X4/s320/cloak02.jpg" /></a></div>During TBC things didn't get much better and only in endgame we can see some elaborated patterns like the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=32524">Shroud of the Highborne</a>, but the design, as the major part of TBC gear is somewhat... too colorful. I wonder sometimes if TBC designers were thinking on the Acid House times. The only cloaks orth mention are the blue rewards from the Death Knight's questline. And even these don't make cloaks look like they're made of cloth.<br />
And then we reach the Wrath of the Lich King expansion were things haven't improved much. First endgame cloaks from Naxxramas are hideous. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40250">Aged Winter Cloak</a>? Horrible colour combination. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=39225">Cloak of Armed Strife</a>? Come on! Not only has again a more than arguably colour choice but that "skull" motiff on it like Superman's cloak it's just a big design fail. And after all the patches few cloaks are worth mentioning, like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=47551">Aetha's Intensity</a>. That's a cool looking cloak! Maybe too ellaborate, but at least is worth displaying it in your character.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TEridXvMkmI/AAAAAAAAAJc/FTT3ggyDcCg/s1600/cloak03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N_iinBBGneQ/TEridXvMkmI/AAAAAAAAAJc/FTT3ggyDcCg/s320/cloak03.jpg" /></a>So we have two expansions and several content patches but still the major part of cloaks look poor. Then you see cloaks from other games like LOTRO, just like <a href="http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/cosmetic-gear-the-best-rewards-of-all/">these ones</a> and then you can't help but start wishing the designers get banged in the head with a mallet. Because seeing <a href="http://theurnaks.blogspot.com/2009/09/sword-designs-big-fail.html">what happened with swords</a> and <a href="http://theurnaks.blogspot.com/2009/12/answering-machine-post.html">other gear</a> I don't expect things to improve. Even with the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/697375-Cataclysm-Prologue-Gnomeregan-and-the-Echo-Isles/">overcloaks</a>: it's like adding an old short cloak over the current one, applying the motiff to the upper part of your current cloak. So if you're not really into tabards (aside from the reputation gain) overcloaks won't be your game too.<br />
So here's my calls to Blizzard designers: please improve cloak designs. Forms are ok (you can add more complexity like how it bends and moves), but patterns need more work. And you don't really need to add complex designs like the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50468">Drape of the Violet Tower</a>. Check animal hides and create a good tigerskin cloak, not that <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=13108">Tigerstrike Mantle</a>.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-48928146020789967372010-07-14T16:11:00.000+02:002010-07-14T16:11:50.378+02:00New trees previewAfter announcing a <a href="http://theurnaks.blogspot.com/2010/07/trimming-trees.html">big change in the talents trees</a>, we finally get to <a href="http://www.wowtal.com/#">test them</a>. While they're just a beta version I don't find Blizzard has accomplished what he's been announcing.<br />
- Eliminating "boring" talents that just buff existing spells or skills. There're still plenty of them in all classes: Incite for warriors, Improved Shadow Word. Pain for priests... they're still here<br />
- Adding more "flavours". Not true at the moment. After picking a specific tree and putting the mandatory 31 talent points in the core talents you're not left with much choices for a given class. I've tried several classes and if you want to improve let's say Fury, your best choice is to spend points in Arms tree, not Protection. Some classes even need more than 31 points in the main tree (33 or even 35) to get full advantage, so that leaves very few "free" points to place on abilities that will give you some "fun" skill. Placing 31 points in your main tree doesn't mean you have still 10 points to place freely. You'll need to invest between 5 and 10 (that's all of them) in a secondary (or in the third too) tree to get talents you'll need for your spec, like it happens now. I think in the best cases I managed to get 3 talent points I could really plae wherever I want to get one talent or another that wouldn't really cripple my main output (be it dpsing, tanking or healing) so I could choose between getting an extra talent that's not really mandatory for my spec but may help in some situations or enhance other stats like mana return/regen, increase healing effects on me, etc<br />
- Very few new talents added. Since the big pruning there's not many points left so you can spend them on new talents. Some of them look very nice, like Blood and Thunder (protection warrior), but others are just "more of the same boring talents", like Even the Odds (fury warrior), that just increases damage on certain abilities<br />
So as I said in my previous post the idea is good, but we still have too many "boring" talents around that are also still mandatory for your class, leaving little or no option to get other talents that differentiate your from any other player of the same class and spec. Let's wait for more tuning and hope next version has trees that allow more customisation and possibilities.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-47592966409324066222010-07-09T19:59:00.000+02:002010-07-09T19:59:29.064+02:00Bye bye real names!It couldn't end in any other way. After the HUGE shitstorm unleashed over the internet, <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25968987278/regarding-real-names-in-forums/">Blizzard is dropping the use of real names in forum posts</a>. Even all players did a great noise on forums, social media and anywhere you can think of, I'm pretty sure it was the legal implications rather than our complains. Anyway, it worked.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5566812856818816172.post-9252199612182179132010-07-08T12:35:00.001+02:002010-07-08T13:10:16.011+02:00Trimming the treesNo, I'm not talking about pruning session or suggesting that resto druids are too fat and need to get fit. I'm talking about the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1853-Cataclysm-Class-Mastery-Systems-Update">last Blizzard announce about talent trees</a>. While the fires started by the real name appearing on forums are still raging all over the internet Blizzard has made a new announce that will impact gameplay (and I hope this time it's for good)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The fun stuff</span> <br />
For some time Blizzard has been stating they want to get rid of "boring" talents that just pump up your dps/healing/avoidance/etc and just keep what's "fun" in a spec. The problem I saw was what they consider "fun", because most "fun" talents in fact are dps/healing/etc boosters, the only difference is they have a limited time span and add some animation (like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31589">Slow</a> for arcane mages). Then they're on cooldown for some minutes until you can use them again. Knowing when to use these skills/spells is the key here, but I don't see how this makes somethign "fun", specially hen you face a given fight for the second or third time. Once you know a boss fight (I'm leaving out leveling and questing on purpouse) using that special talent just turns into something automatic for most of the times,s o I don't see much "fun" in that.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The big pruning</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">But Blizzard</span> surprised everyone with the announce: taking a lot of talents from every tree, leaving only the core ones and these that add some extra spice to the class, reducing from typical 51 point talent trees to 31, locking the other two trees until you spend 31 points in the main tree and giving a lvel 10 character that just spent the first point in the talent that will become his spec a signature skill/spell (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=12294">Mortal Strike</a> for arms warriors, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53385">Divine Storm</a> for retribution paladins, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=72">Shield Bash</a> for protection warriors, etc). While I was skeptic of the "leaving only the <i>funzors</i>" I really like this change. Getting a good spec has turned harder and harder as new levels, talents and skill/spells have been added. Also minimal changes in a talent could mean having to respec so you could have the optimal talent tree for your class, specially if you're a raider. Spotting the core talents you really need for your class must be easier now with this change.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On with the chainsaw!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">But I'm wondering... why stop here? If all prot warriors are going to have the same core talents, why bother us in having to spend points on them? I suggest Blizzard reduces trees even more and take out the core talents, making them into learnable skills/spells you'll be able to train as you level up, leaving the trees with side skills that will affect the way you play but not your role effectivity</span>. Of course tat would mean trees aren't anymore a sign of class specialization but as specific class diversity. This way you could have prot warriors that prefer to invest in shield skills while others may prefer other talents that will help them in the tanking job, like shouts, ways of dodging/parrying a blow, mocking the target... so not all prot warriors play the same way, the same way a prot warrior and a prot paladin have different playstyles. Both do the tanking, but paladins excel at aoe aggro and dealing good damage, while warriors generate better single target aggro and have more survivality tricks. Now imagine a warrior that relies more on using the shield while another prefers different defensive stances (kung-fu style) so he can dodge or parry more, while a third warrior prefers to invest in toughness and resilience so the blows he receives do less damage.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The forest</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, the new changes look good if well executed or if they aren't dropped like the Path of the Titans. We'll end having lots of different spec trees instead of what we have nowadays: either a specific tree 98% of the players use or a cookie-cutter</span> where you have like 5 or 7 points to spend where you want, so there's hardly any difference between players. Maybe it will be harder for us to choose which secondary skills suit best our gameplay or are funnier, but at least we'll have different flavours for a given spec on a given class.Kurnakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04474173104387646680noreply@blogger.com0