A small weekend

I went away on the weekend, kept my nose away from the news, and enjoyed being unplugged. We went to a beach, a few wineries, and a charity dinner.

When I got back I discovered that the inmates are running the asylum, and we’re to get Warcraft – Mists of Pandas as the next expansion.

Now I asked for Monks in a few blog posts over the years, so I can say I’m pleased about that. And yup, they are Tank, Dps, heal modes just like I thought as it was kind of a no-brainer to guess. But the rest of it I’m not sure about, to the point of thinking of stopping wow until after its live so I can avoid the long drawn out release and change in modes. Pandas? Seriously? No. Not as Player characters.

Lore wise … a big ocean battle discovers an island race of monks who wished to remain hidden. Now that they are discovered they don’t hide, or just open a slow trade, or ask to be left alone – they join both sides of an expanding war. WTF. That is like the Dali Lama using an assault rifle.

The mini-pet-combat seems a distraction that is not worth it to me, and it stinks to think they a re-vamp to the gear award system is half-hitched, but we’ll see mini-pet combat. That is misguided. And I can’t think that the new talent system will actually feel ok, but then they’ve got more experience doing this.

Overall – I’ll wait and see what this expansion planning looks like in March or June next year. For now, I’m more scared than excited.

Blog Azeroth has a shared topic for this too, some interesting thoughts.

Patch 4.4 in Expansion Prep

A note in an mmo champion post indicates that patch 4.4 will a prep patch for the next expansion. It has some confirmations from the rumours of the patch 4.3 Deathwing events, including the next 5 mans – but really the idea that 4.4 is a prep for the next expansion is the bigger news.

Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion. The next expansion should be released with a “meaningful difference” in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.

Now if it takes ages to appear then its kind of a moot point, however I think this indicates that Blizzard are far closer to the next expansion that they would normally be.

I expect them to compete in some way with Star Was because of the number of folks who have declared that they will be leaving or have already left. Makes me ponder though – perhaps they would be better waiting 1-2 months after the SWToR release, so that the people know that the new expansion is coming, and those who are not happy with SWToR will return.

Silence is Golden and Restive

It has been quiet of late in the Eye of the Storm.

My primary reason for this is because I’ve been very busy in real life will all sorts of distractions, and both blog time and game time have been greatly reduced. But that is not the full story.

The deeper truth is that nothing in the recent month or so has been worth commenting on in detail. Frankly it’s been better to play far more casually when I can easily fit it in and just wait for stability and consistency in the game, than get in and try to adapt to or work around all the changes and updates. A recent patch tweaks some of the classes, but the pre-level 81 wait is entertaining but not critical.

All the balance issues, strange affects, bugs, and outright rip-off prices of items will change in time, so there is no real point stressing about it now. Stepping back for a time now was a darn good call, and I am looking forward to the new game.

In a few days we’ll have rounds of patches, mod updates, and all sorts of malarky (my new favourite word), so I plan to relax and laugh through it.

So in brief:

Cata planning

• Choice of main: I’ve all but deciuded that my Death Knight will go forward first as into the Cataclysm expansion. It was a hard choice, but the class is still the most entertaining of my current 5 level 80 characters.
• The system requirements for Cata are not altogether restrictive, and I’m darn pleased that my current system will run the game. I suspect that if you’re playing v4.0 now then Cata will run the same. Huzzah!
• I’m doing a bank clean-up now, keeping the odd stuff and quest items that might be handy later, but otherwise.
• The dragon trailer is excellent, good stuff. I liked it, glad it was created, and look forward to the game even more because of it.

Blizzcon

• Not being there I can only reflect on the information that has been posted since; and it was underwhelming. Now I’m not surprised that it was a very dull Blizzcon in terms of revelations and changes, because frankly we’ve had a huge amount of information released already, and it is so close to the release of Cataclysm.
• I think it is also OK that the event was not a Warcraft event, and that it has a focus across all the Blizzard games, rather than just their golden goose.

Patch 4.0, 4.0.3a, then patch 4.0.0.0.0.b…etc

• The Cog Wheel of Death, which freezes the pc is just plainly unacceptable. I don’t like it, and it makes the game harder to play. A bad bug which was made far worse by the Headless Horseman which was released at basically the same time. Glad they fixed it, but that was trash.
• Gear reset, was good in the end and a blip in terms of the classes I play regularly. Reforging is an excellent addition to the game, and something that I think will be copied into almost every other MMO in the future. Its game changing in a balanced and good way.
• Class reset, I guess Paladins got a good work over, and that always happens in each expansion, and Hunters have been majorly adjusted to be less like casters which feel right to me. Stay tuned for more class tuning.

Guild planning

• My guild is asking all the tough questions about what we do for Cata raiding and teams. An expansion is the perfect time to throw all the previous structures and plans to the wind and re-build. Even when the process is painful, I like that it is happening.
• If your guild is not doing this, then you might want to either ask if it needs to, or consider another guild – I say this because I think the overall affect on guilds is huge in Cataclysm.
• We’re also seeing some drama through this, but nothing that won’t be resolved soon, and a storm in a teacup in a month or so.

I’ll be posting and raving at a normal pace soon, when we have all sorts of new leveling junk to ponder.

Happy killing, have a great silly season, and I hope Deathwing kills you in glorious fire.

Cata as a Gift

The Cataclysm release date has been confirmed as Tuesday 7th December. Now the interesting and totally self serving thing about this is that it is also my birthday, so I’m really pleased. Thank you Blizzard for the thought, such a wonderful gift.  I’d hate to think of how the scale of this gift could be topped, – kidding.

But I have a issue: How am I meant to be playing the expansion (or downloading the last patch and waiting) on my birthday when my partner and family probably expect me to be talking to them that day?

Well the reality is that we will all be patching that day, and that Tuesday will probably mean more like Wednesday or Thursday. So as long as (a) it all goes smoothly, (b) I can get online, and (c) I can create a reasonable build; it will be a great birthday week.

“Cataclysm includes the best content we’ve ever created for World of Warcraft. It’s not just an expansion, but a re-creation of much of the original Azeroth, complete with epic new high-level adventures for current players and a redesigned leveling experience for those just starting out,” – Mike Morhaime

It is safe to say that I am very excited, even if you ignore the hype and flashy improvements there is still a lot of new and strange things to explore. I expect we will see a return of some players to the game due to this in the short term.

Happy hunting.

Tanking as Blood mandatory in expansion

There will be blood.

Looks like the writing is on the wall for Death Knights who are not using a Blood spec to tank. Blood will be the Tank tree in Cataclysm expansion.

In Cataclysm, death knights will have a dedicated tanking tree, much like the other three tank classes. That tree will be Blood.

This is something that I did not think they’d do, but is easy to understand why. The differences between the tank classes were enough that giving them a semblance of parity was hard; and having DKs witk 3 talent trees just makes that harder still.

In Cataclysm, Blood will be the death knight version of a Protection tree. It will have passive talent tree bonuses that reflect tanking. It will have tools, such as a Demo Shout equivalent, necessary for tanking. Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood. We will be able to revise (or even remove) clunky mechanics like Rune Strike and focus on letting DKs generate threat with their normal Blood tanking rotation.

Which is why I can accept that something had to be done – but sheesh, it is a big call. Huge call, I expect to see some Death Knights who step away from the class due to this. Could be worth getting as much value from your non-blood tanking now.

So DKs will probably have a tank, pve, and pvp tree. I can see Unholy being the PvE and Frost as the PvP talent trees.

This is a tad too much of a change from the cool almost-any-tree which they have now; but then it would not be the first time a class has been totally re-worked during an expansion.

Does make me think that with Frost talents having dual wield, will we also see dual-wield as only viable in one spec, or will it be retained as a concept for both Tank and DPS, or even pvp and pve?

We’re just not sure yet on DW Blood tanking or 2H Frost dps. Certainly our main focus will be to make sure 2H Blood tanking and DW Frost dps work, but we’re not likely to crack down on alternate uses of those specs. We’re not sure that a Blood DW style could work without talents that allow for strikes with both weapons, but we’ll see. It should be a fun beta.

Like most posts this raises more questions for me than answers; and I can’t wait to see more. Can I get a beta key maybe? probably not, but one can wish.

• Where will two weapon be used? I have 2x one hander ilevel 232 tank weapons that I’d like to take for a spin.
• What happens to Frost presence as the Tanking presence?
• Couldn’t the mastery bonus be based upon the presence that the DK uses, rather than the talent tree if they wished to keep 3 viable Tank trees?

Sourced from mmo-champion

What is Mastery?

Mastery is a hot topic all over the wow blogs and websites at the moment. After reading a series of threads, and a lot of player conjecture – here is my quick definition:

Mastery: will be a passive increase to your current form/stance/spec’s role. Do not expect it to define the specs, expect it to enhance it. It will be present on level 81+ gear, will change when your role does, and is still very much being worked out.

TL;DR = It’s a passive buff, subject to change; so worry about it 1-2 weeks after Cataclysm expansion is released, when the Theory-crafters have sussed it.

Threads:

• http://thefluiddruid.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/ferals-and-mastery-cataclysm/
• http://www.wow.com/2010/03/09/updates-and-clarifications-on-the-mastery-system/
• http://shyatwow.blogspot.com/2010/03/blizzard-at-loss-about-what-to-do-with.html

The wow.com one contains back links to all their class and spec related posts, and all sorts of goodies which are also moot at the moment.

Looking back to the beginning of Wrath

“What are your fondest memories from the beginning of this expansion?“

1. I thought I’d only play the Death Knight as a distraction, and it became my new toon. I came very quickly to love melee dps, and the DK combined all wonderful things of the Paladin Tank with the Druid-Cat dps. Leveling through 68-80 was time consuming because we were playing catch-up to the guys who started at 70 – that said, I didn’t mind.
2. I wanted to see Naxx in the flesh, and was not disappointed. Naxx is a wonderful instance.
3. I thought Ulduar would be game changing and was let down. It was fantastic, but also so large and time consuming that it was very difficult for me to see most of it. General Vez is as far as I’ve seen and I doubt I’ll see further.
4. The storyline was very enticing and exciting, and I think this has been maintained well over the course of the game.
5. I was stoked about new gear, but think the gear has also been too spread apart, which now means we are seeing iLevels beyond what I thought was possible. For example an early epic to be around iL 200, and we can now get 265 gear! Makes you wonder what level the L81 Blue items will be.

… a shared topic on the Blog Azeroth Forum

Monks in Warcraft, I’d roll one.

After the Deathknight is old news, and the next expansion has rumbled into familiarity; what will be the next hero class?

Arch-Druid has been mentioned, Barbarian might help some synergy with Diablo 3, and Warcraft 3 had some neat classes. Regrettably most of them are too specalised to be applied to both Horde and Alliance.

I suggest the Monk, and here is why…

Wrath hype has me hyped

All the new news about Wrath of the Lich King has worked; I’m hyped. I feel like I’m a teenager again looking forward to the new Bard’s Tale game, or hearing that Terminator 2 will be released soon (a bit fanboy, but that’s what its like).

Go a Googling if you want to read all about the Deathknight, so many sites have the content now that I’m expecting to read it on a t-shirt any day now.

The new Northrend zone map looks great. WoW Insider has a post with the opening music (updated link), which has a true Blizzard feel. Not to mention that the start of this feels so close to the Conan-movie-ish music that Blizard has used since day one, that the makers of Conan must have some interesting music to differentiate themselves.

Gameriot also has some patch notes, which smell official and offer some pretty sweet abilities for out classes. If they are fake they are a good job, and either way it makes me smile to think about.

I’ll get back to running in circles, giggling like a school girl. Yay!

Best thing in WoW patch 2.3

The best thing in the patch is the Engineering mounts – this adds game flavour, and thats one thing that WoW has that keeps it interesting.

See youTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTp9uYnyGLA

And a short summary on WoW insider: http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/10/12/patch-2-3-on-the-ptr-engineering-flying-machine-reagents/