Why I am still playing, and loving it

Written first for the WoW Hammer website, re-posting here some time later. Please forgive the fact it has not been reedited for the past weeks. It’s been busy.

 

I’ve also not been playing much since then, but always endeavour to do so. I might need a “am I still playing” post soon. Grumble.

The content in the recent patch is excellent, and it will very likely hold the player base in thrall until Blizzcon where my guess is we will see another announcement to keep the WoWers wowed.

Blog status like the Drowned God

“What is dead my never die”

It has been another fast and tiring few weeks around the TyphoonAndrew household, with far too much non-gaming malarkey. That does not mean that nothing news worth happened, but gosh darn it – I can’t give my usual degree of rant on the topics.

Here is a rapid fire round-up of some things that I thought to blog in detail about, but won’t get time to.

Should characters be scaled?

At best, make it an option. No way I want this as a forced change.

If you want it to be forced and no choice to stay high level then I can agree to disagree with you, and then also decide that you really must be a tad selfish. Games can be about fun options, and it should not totally destroy an existing fun to crate a new fun.

Blizzcon News and Gossip

Frankly I’m beyond caring about Blizzcon, particularly where getting the information asap from the showroom floor is concerned. Australians are far too far from the noise and splendorous hype for me to worry about being current.

The general buzz is about the DOTA style game they are ramping up, but I really hope we do get an expansion announcement and then details about it.

Without one it feels like the end of Mists just sort of ends with a whimper.

Blackthorne can be downloaded.

I have no idea what it is (was) or it if it is worth downloading.The screenies I fond make it look like a side scrolling action game. Cool for some casual kicks.

Have we lost Titan? End of days…

I both loathe and desire the Blizzard fan-base, as they make threads like this – where Titan is announced as delayed…(snarky-warning)

“only reason i got bizzcon tickets was to see titan info. guess its time to double the price and ebay em, really a shame”

You paid a huge amount of cash to attend the hopeful launch of a game which we know almost nothing about.

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.

Thoughts on Instance 190 to 192

A range of thoughts from The Instance shows 190 to 192. Kind of a catch-up bucket post, as I’m listening to them as a batch. I’ll say up front that I really like these guys; and the personal edge and plain language version of the game the present is really valuable. If you don’t listen regularly show #192 is a good one.

Toon Models

From show #192 the Randy and Scott chatted about an improved model creator for Warcraft. The idea being to introduce a toon adjustment option similar to other games where we can customise more of the appearance of our characters. I think most players would like the option to alter more of their appearance; especially over time as they realise what they like.

Damn guys, I would love this  but I can see why it is difficult. C models, with R variations, wearing A gear, with P options adjustable via the barber; well than gets you: CRAP! = a lot of variations to load in real time in Dalaran (Lag-a-ran).

Perhaps the game code could be altered in a future version to only adjust the subtle display of toon models during low traffic areas, or it could be a UI preference – giving the tollerance level for models to be adjustable. eg. In town I don’t care, but in Instances with my mates it would be nice.

Perhaps only useful in the DeepRun Tram?