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. Continue reading

DK DPS on WoW Patch 5.4 … again

I shouldn’t look at DPS Rankings, as they are skewed in ways that mean they are one source of input for performance and are nothing like a perfect. That said, the recent updates from SimCraft are giving me deja vu.

I wrote about the 5.3 Dps rankings in August this year, and this post could use many of the same words. Meaning the upward geared DKs will be fighting harder to get the same dps as some other classes. Ref: http://www.noxxic.com/wow/dps-rankings/realistic#553. 

This is the Ranking for ilevel 553-ish gear, and I’m uninspired by how the ilevels scale.

5-4-dps-rank-553-gearWhat do we have here for Patch 5.4? Continue reading

A few more thoughts on WoW p5.4

Now that I’ve seen more and read more about how people are using the new content and features in patch 5.4 for WoW; I’m impressed.

The standout items are the raid encounters and the proving grounds. Both I’ve not really stepped into much of either yet but both have created such an effective response from the players that they seem to be the aspects that will be remembered the most. The new raid benefits from the way the lore of the Destruction of the Vale cannot be ignored in the game. A straight up clever and direct call to players.

vale2 Continue reading

Those who must be left behind, on purpose.

A long time ago in my guild there was a player who needed to be removed. The story around why was typical in an online game, an ego was out of check and was disruptive to many of the other guild members.

He wasn’t special, wasn’t an officer, and was certainly one of the rudest people I’d had the displeasure of talking to closely. What made is worrisome was how many months later the same person was still out in /Tradechat bad mouthing the guild, the characters involved, and still sending rude whispers. A truly enlightened bastard who appeared to get his enjoyment from the game by bothering others.

Recently in the guild we also had to tell a few people tone it back. They did, and everything seems to be ticking along without issues now. When the Officers and I were talking through the situation with the recent guys the enlightened bastard’s character name came up as a point of reference. The recent guys were not even close to the E.B in the long past, but EB is still out there playing.

It got me thinking… about not wanting to ever see the EB again. Not under any circumstances.

Now my ignore list solves that problem for me, but I also have a responsibility to my guild. I think MMO games like World of Warcraft could do with a Guild based parma-ban feature.

When set the PLAYER’s account is stopped from being a member of that guild. This stops somebody from alt switching, it makes removing somebody who is really vitriolic easy, and means the other guild members who might have invite ability will not and cannot be pressured into letting the person rejoin.

Block them permanently. Anyway, just a thought.

TyphoonAndrew

Yuriv's_Tombstone

Just pruned the front page blog links

Aside

I’ve pruned dead, gone, missing, or content changed links and blogs from the my warcraft & pc gaming blog’s homepage (ya, this one you’re reading); and thought it might also serve as an invite to readers and subscribers to tell me about things that should be there. So many of the resources from 2007 through 2011 are gone.

So allowing that it is WoW or gaming related – what do you visit that’s worth linking, or should I link to you?

Maintenance is fun. TyphoonAndrew

a wow portal to scarlet mon

drool … Armored Bloodwing mount

What a nice evil looking Bat! The new store purchasable mount is god damned evil looking, and a pleasure to behold. Blizzard store link for those who can’t wait and have $25 they can spend without regard for charity or child support.

armored bloodwing from MMO Champion screenshot

I want this mount.

Ref from MMO Champion: Armored Bloodwing – Items – World of Warcraft. Video after the break. Continue reading

wow Loot Specialization Menu

Aside

MMO Champ reports a fine new feature for Patch 5.3 in WoW:

The new Loot Specialization menu is in, allowing you to choose what spec you want loot for when getting bonus rolls, Raid Finder gear, and Pandarian quest rewards

Yehaw. Darn good feature. Its very welcome. A good step toward getting a friendly loot system. It might be seen as a change which makes World of Warcraft more friendly to casuals, which is true and not a bad thing but it is also something that makes the loot system more friendly for hardcore players and those player who love Alts.

I cannot see a drawback which is not related to a whine about “back in my day…”

WarcraftCata-ConceptArt

Playing wow for gold? Nope

Aside

There is a spot-on post by Tobold which questions those players who play to acquire in-game currency (Optional Economies). It’s not that playing to get large amounts of gold is not a valid goal – it is; but some players do not care at all for the economies. It resounds for me as I am one of those players. Gold is just another token to get to the other end-goal.

With so much concentration on efficient gold farming and selling around, its good to see a blogger outlining that non-gold approaches are not silly. Playing for gold to me seems silly; I’d be better off working another job if I wanted to acquire extra money in my spare time. I don’t – I want to relax.

Insidious wants you (recruitment post)

join Insidious Nagrand - the Panda wants you

The mighty and awesome guild Insidious on Nagrand-US (of which I happen to be an officer) are looking for a few warm bodies with computers and wow accounts attached for progression raiding 3x nights a week.

The guild is 15/16 in the current content (it was 11/16, then 13/16 – BOOYA!), and typically aspires to get well into hard modes for each content release. With wow patch 5.2 now in the works, we’re darn keen to clean-up the Empress and get through Terrace in a hasty fashion.

What can we offer:

  • Some of the most sane and kind hearted players in Oceanic realms,
  • who love progression kills, achievements, titles, and are not afraid to keep at it until we seen the great stuff drop.
  • a darn fair loot system (EPGP) which is supported by most of our players arguing for who else should get the gear instead of themselves. Rare stuff!
  • A social collective of players who indulge overly in all aspects of the game.
  • Players who are in the game for the long haul.

What we need:

  • Great players who know their class/roles;
  • Particularly a Mage, Hunter, or Elemental Shaman is highly desired, with a Holy Paladin or Rogue also being bloody useful.

You’ll need to be:

  • An adult who wishes to enjoy your time online, and have a thick-ish skin and appreciation for off-colour Aussie humour,
  • be happy with progression raiding, and all the corpse running that usually involves,
  • able to raid (vent, addons, etc) 3x nights a week from 8:30 to 11:30 server time,
  • be willing and able to bring your own mats,
  • and generally a good sane person.

For those who are interested message Genowen, Mortigen, Kalsor, or Rhamiel in game, or visit the Insidious on Nagrand-US website for details. Apps through the website. Or ask me questions here too.

So come join us for some happy killing.

WoW players raise $2.3 mil for Sandy Relief

Aside

Warcraft players raised $2.3 Million for Sandy relief through puchased of entirely option in-game widgets and toys. At last a feelgood aspect of MMO games, instead of a typical angry rant. 2.3m for any charity effort is bloody nice work, and not bad considering we’re a bunch of no-life basement dwellers; with violent tendencies.

Kind of makes you feel good. See we do have souls. Kek.

World of Warcraft Players Raise $2.3 Million for Sandy | Geekosystem.

A Few Silly Things

As wow game time flies by, the odd silly thoughts appear…

  • What is a Lightwell? – click to adjust the light in the area briefly for the perfect screenshot. Strange that it is a Priest power, but then they are of the light.
  • As a Melee dps I think my role in the last two encounters of the Mogu’shan Vaults will be spear-carrier and pop-pop-waver. Encounters designed to make range dps easy and melee dps difficult is something well beyond a meme by now. The designers of those fights can get stuffed. I bet they play warlocks.
  • After each patch spam a Pally for buffs stating that they have changed. Chances are that either (a) they have, or (b) the pally won’t know that they have not – given how much Paladins change each update. You can also still snigger when somebody asks for “Wisdom”.
  • I don’t troll /Trade as a rule, but someday I’d like to ask, “since patch which spec is better for aoe grinding guardian or sentinel?”.
  • Or offer a gold seller a great deal on a Spirit of Harmony, say 530g per, but only if they can supply 25 of them. Hopefully/maybe they don’t understand the BoP nature and go off farming.

Wired thinks WoW isn’t cool anymore. I think Geeks never cared

Wired has an article about wow’s decline in subscribers and the change from WoW being a hobbie that all geeks were playing, to now being something that is no longer chic or cool. Its like reading a hipster’s impression of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire; misguided and not really facing the reality of the geek community or the WoW community.

It was mainstream cool when the celebrities caught up, and now it’s on its way down.

Fundementally geeks tend not to care what others think, as the geeking out on a topic or activity is so much part of our mindset that at worst we might hide the hobby, but generally are always happy to talk about it. Wow or any other game’s “cool status” or its appeal as a “social activity benchmark” misses the point that most of the players are true geeks about it. And if not about World of Warcraft specifically, then it might be computer games in general.

The point made about wow being “Golf for Geeks” might be true for a smattering of people thinking it might make a difference to a job or a social niche, but any golf player can detect a newbie or a pretender, and so can a gamer. Did anyone actually stop or start playing computer games just because a celebrity did? Pretty shallow.

Many years ago we interviewed a Dev and she said WoW was one of her hobbies, and while we joked in the interview about her being Horde scum, it made no difference to the outcome.

Some celebrity or mid-weight personality playing WoW has no influence on my wow one way or the other. I guess the article might generate some hits for Wired though, as I geek out about a quasi-anti-wow story. Wink.

The Instance Interview with Cory Stockton

Logo of Blizzard Entertainment

The Instance had the opportunity to interview Cory Stockton (episode 292), one of the key World of Warcraft “Lead Content Designer” at Blizzard. It adds an element of personality to the names that we read about on forums and blogs.

cute long view image of Pandaria hillside and small buildings

Overall listening to this helped me along the hype cycle, to look forward to Mists and also raise my expectations on the lore and content being offered in Mists to characters leveling through 85-90. End game options in particular get a good thrashing as a topic throughout the interview. Some notes:

  • What characters Cory plays…loving the Monk class, and appears he’s a bit of an alt-a-holic. I respect that.
  • Timed runs, and Scenarios – What were the challenges in getting the balance right? Goal: Competitive PvE and Leaderboards.
  • A key challenge was explaining what Pandaria is, and why the factions are going there, and for what goals. A quick mention of Garrosh’s motivations and how they think about new lore.
  • Corey stated that scenarios should have the players understanding the goal up front. The snarky part of my play experience thinks that he’ll want to review the Fall of Theramore then. That said, he has confidence that the other scenarios are interesting and engaging. He mentions a “siege of the Undercity” style scenario with Varian Wrynn as a 3 player mode. Interesting.
  • Apparently folks do not read quest text! Wow, that makes for a challenge in terms of keeping context for a mission new without over simplification.
  • Less cinematics in questing, which is probably good given some of the feedback from Uldum.

Its definitely worth a listen.

Cosmetic Glyphs are a great idea, more please.

Aside

Short comment today to note – I love the fact that we have cosmetic glyphs in the game. Ideally I would have said that we could have kept major & minor glyphs and trivial levels, but its a call that Blizzard made and its not worth crying about.

What I would like to suggest is that the options get expanded for all classes. Paladins for example have a number of cosmetic effects, while DKs have a few that affect out pets. I’m sure Shadow Priests have some (something about being less shadowy) just as examples. More please, perhaps even non-class specific effects too.

A side effect of adding so many new glyphs might be a massive effect on the market, but I think adding very rare glyphs from some other sources or drops is a good thing. In fact I’d like to see some of the rare or lost weapon and armour patterns added to the Blacksmith profession as well.

How about these glyphs:

  • (all characters) Burning red flames, blue and white arcane glows and wisps, smoldering smoke, leaves dropping from them, and shadows writhing on the character – as aura effects. These would be translucent effects which surround the character in a subtle way when out of combat.
  • (all) The Footsteps of Illidan card where you leave burning footprints effect as a permanent effect.
  • (all) Ioun Stones (from dnd, similar to the Shaman watershield), Floating Orbs, etc as special rare find glyphs for Inscription only characters. ie. They get a rare pattern which creates a BoP Glyph. The pattern might be tradable (allowing a market effect) but the glyph is not.
  • (all) switch your casting, special weapon swing, standard weapon swing to an alternate animation. Meaning that this will give a fixed alternative for each race, and adding the glyph might make that the default, or even let the toon choose randomly from the set of options.
  • (all) Change of default voice, to a different sub-set.
  • (all) different Death animation, as many raiders spend a lot of time on the floor. Perhaps the character even twitches a little.
  • (all) race specific powers have a chosen colour tint. ie. Let the Draeneo healing effect be a purple aura on my DK, rather than normal.
  • (Death Knights) Path of Frost animation whenever a Frost run is used.
  • (Druids) As forms are a key part of the class, perhaps allow a greater degree of switching and swapping? Allow a horde model to be used by Alliance. Swim form as a shark, nessy, or Crocolisk.
  • (Racial, e.g. Worgen) Make your Worgen form look like the very cool Northrend Worgen instead of your normal model. Likewise for the Dark Iron Dwarves for Dwarves, etc. The roleplaying potential is huge, mechanical effect nill.
  • (Engineers) A transporter mistake offers a much wider range of changes, or always one, depending on the glyph used.

What else folks? What is your dream animation, change, or effect?

Initial thoughts on WoW patch 5

Here are a few thoughts from the first hours of playing Wow in post-patch-5 times.

  • I’ve logged in and respec’ed my Death Knight. It was easy. Simple in fact. I feel it might actually be too simple, but do not wish to be negative about an idea which I think has huge merit. Having talents which were default selection is no choice. I’m not decided if the current style has too little impact on gameplay.This is almost the D3 model for spec trees, and I hope that we are not seeing a merge into a single game philosophy (yes, that is drawing a long bow).
  • Some of the choices for DKs are still clearly for certain activities (pvp or tank, or…) and therefore we have defaults again. One or two talents are things that I’ll never take. Time will tell us if that is because the talents are shitty, or if I’m a grumpy belligerent old bastard.
  • If you liked the multi-tree specs from wow version of yore there are still a huge amount of games using that model.
  • I’ve seen that minor glyphs have basically almost no mechanical effect, or are totally cosmetic. Major ones do less than the Primes used to, but one or two are bloody fantastic. Overall the glyphs need work – I’m a bit underwhelmed by glyphs and talents because somebody could still perform their role fine in a 5 man without picking any talents or glyphs. That seems wrong.
  • I’ve seen the new collector’s edition mount and pet, and watched people fanark around on their many mounts. Its a good change.
  • I’ve watched people login an alt and get the ding! of shared achievements. I don’t care at all for achievements, but like that almost everyone else likes them and therefore its a nice change.
  • I’ve not yet seen group looting, but am excited by that due to a propensity to farm old instances.
  • After running three instances I can say that Unholy Death Knights are essentially the same as before. Thank god. I’ll get around to testing Blood and Frost at some stage, but they look the same on paper too. Given Blood DKs already had a form of active mitigation it is the other Tank classes that have to learn what that means more than DKs.
  • Overall the complexity in the game is reduced, and it was the complexity in places where it was not feeding 90% of the player base.
  • I don’t care to train, test, or watch a pet battle. This patch just shares all my pets, and its unsurprising that I have hardly any at all. If I could unbind them and sell them I would.

What do I know about other classes and specs?

With the change in classes in the patch today we have all sorts of new stuff to learn. As a PSA I offer the following advice on the spec and classes. A sly review of the classes might be (ahem) useful.

DKst – Essentially there are two types, those you need to listen to because they are Tanking and they help the Mages and Hunters decide who dies first; and the rest. The first are called Blood spec, the second are called whatever you like. When I play my non-tank DK he names used are: “stop tunneling”, “move”, and “deathgrip it you tard!”. Most Dks do not know what DK stands for, but would guess Death correctly because its a leet word. Probably means Death Killerz.

Druids – Too many types, and way too many on the server. Lets face it – everyone has a Druid, and generally only the good ones get taken to raid; that is ex-trees and bears. Cats are misguided Rogues, and Boomkins are Mages who ate too many fish feasts. Get at least one in your raid and make them change spec every 3-4 trash pulls, they love that. Why else play a hybrid?

Hunters – There is only one type, and thankfully they will have no excuse to roll for non-missile weapons after patch 5.0. Handy at times for traps, and hated for the same reason. They perform their best at range, and I find the best range is about 10 miles from the raid team. A quick review of the armory indicates that Int and mana are still issues for some Hunters, so take one to a raid at your own risk.

Mages – Apparently the hardest class in wow to play well in Warcraft. I asked them. There are three types and many sub-types, but all you need to remember is that they can supply a buff and food, although both are rare. Arguments about specs is what keeps the Mage community flowing, and if you want to distract one then either get the Hunter to MD the boss to them before the pull and blame them, or tell them that an alt spec is superior and they need to re-work their toon. Typically awesome dps, and the class colour (blue for the cheap seats) looks wonderful in screenshots which is really all we need to know.

Monks – sorry what? I killed heaps of these things in SM over the years, and yet they keep persisting. As a class they will be uber powerful at everything they try, and will become the new DKs for MoP. This means they will stay awesome through they first two tiers of raiding until we’re meant to get serious about it, then they’ll be nurfed harder than Paladins on patch day and all the Monks will consider rolling back to their paladins. As they are new just assume that every monk can do all things, and yell when they can’t read your mind…you know, like Druids.

Paladins – Almost the definitive hybrid class, as they wear plate so they are less girly than other hybrid classes, but still somehow wear dresses. And no, it’s a dress not a kilt. They are made up of confused Priests which heal, confused Warriors who tank, and confused DKs who stand behind the boss and whine about moving out of the bad. Take one of the first two types to your raid. With the update to buffs we’ll likely see some really cool transmog sets and “roleplaying” in the Deeprun Tram, but very little real Paladins in raids.

Priests – the best healing class in the game with Holy, and the best animation in Shadowform. Shadow pets, shadow powers, shadow spells; see a pattern? A Shadow Priest is just emo enough to compete well with a Warlock, but not enough to re-roll DK. Way too squishy, so smack them first if you have to kill one in a team. Their most irritating feature is that their class colour is white, which makes pasting class notes from websites a two step process (one more step than they deserve). I’m sure there is a petition out there somewhere to make the class colour charcoal, so the SPr will be happy. Oh and I didn’t mention Disc spec as if you do they don’t shut the hell up. Sheesh. Put them on mute.

Rogues – Until the release of the legendary item in late Cataclysm the Rogues had gone on strike and refused to attend raids, generally being replaced by Death Knights and confused Shamans in melee. Maybe they were stealthed? If you like being sneaky and standing behind people then you will like the Rogue class and are also probably a creepy little sod. Who likes that? Makes my skin crawl. They are known for very effective stuns in pvp and for bringing nothing to the raid; ever.

Shaman – Totems are still awesome, and very confusing to non-shamans. Just assume that whatever buff, effect, or spell you need can be supplied by a Shaman and tap them on the head until you get it. Take one along, at worst they have a self res so you can wipe faster the next time. Spec wise they have more choices that is fair given they were a novelty idea in the original beta which was taken too seriously by some horde and would not shut up. Sometimes confused for Mages in screenshots and damage meters; if you see a blue bar that is doing less dps its a Shaman.

Warlocks – Incredible lore and bloody incredible emo whiners. Now I wouldn’t mean to offend, but Warlocks are just so easy to pick on that it is a shame not to. Ask a Warlock what happened post TBC to the class then walk away from the phone. In MoP they have been tweaked and buffed, primarily by updating some animations and spell effects. Very important stuff. Also voted most likely to re-roll Mage when they realise that Warlock rotations are god-awful complex, and Mages have a UI with two buttons. Oh, and they get the succubus pet which has two roles: dps and fap-fap-fap.

Warriors – A Warrior Tank is a god amongst insects in the tanking community. First and last the Warrior will stand with you through every wipe and res, until finally they crack the absolute shits and tell everyone how to play. Often they are right too, as they’ve watched the mistakes so often. A tank’s role is to stand still or walk slowly backward, and the dps try to spin in circles and roll Need on every two handed weapon in the game. They are a simple class for a simpler time, before DKs, Monks, and all the other pixel based distractions which is not old school raids. A Warrior will always be able to complete the sentence, “back in my day…”.

So yes, essentially I am unburdened by too much class knowledge. Enjoy the patch today.

WoW p5 Anxiety

WoW Insider has a reasonable article on the adjustment to v5 of the game in terms of specs, races, and the other game changes.

So don’t let yourself get overly concerned. Just log in Tuesday, and take a few minutes to explore the changes. You’ll start getting back into things very quickly once you start taking it out for a spin. At its heart, it’s still the same game you’ve been playing.

They’re right. It’s the same world with a different feel for some classes. I spent some time skimming through the Icy Veins class summary to see what classes are affected, and generally – its a set of changes not worth panicking about. In fact many classes are getting adjusted to be cooler (especially Warlocks).

Raiding and Pvp specs might be borked initially, and I’d expect a patch or two along the way as we get into September. With all the points and rewards from instances and pvp being reset, I expect the 4 weeks between this update to be a time of fucking about and not stressing. Certainly enough players will be away with the outside world or Guildwars 2, so get those last achievements and mounts in now. I had to laugh considering that players will either be struggling with logging into GW2 to getting patched and working in WoW. What a great time for an action movie special on TV, so we can just ignore these game updates for a few days, and come back when the dust has settled.

The community has been through this many times before, and the world has not (permanently) ended. I’m actually looking forward to some of the run-up events which I hope will arrive with the patch as well. There might not be a huge reveal, but at the very least I expect some in-game indication that DeathWing is no longer the big bad, and that we might have found this strange island full of hostile teady-bears.

  • Will Stormwind finally finish patching the smoldering battlements? Hopefully.
  • Will the zones still burn with Deathwing’s fire? Doubt it.
  • Will the market for animal brushes skyrocket as the Pandas try to keep blood stains out of their hard to reach places? Probably.

Pets are also going to be highly desirable to some players soon, so start pondering how to get them too. There is a market there if you feel like doing the hard work for somebody else.