Project Lore

The Dusty Lands Of Tanaris It's been a long time since I went traversing Azeroth, and the Outlands.  Normally we players are just trying to get from point A to point B in the fastest way possible.  We could be in a rush for a heroic run, trying to clean up our dailies, farming or even heading to a raid.  Outside pissing off the party or raid group, a few extra seconds don't matter.  Yet I, and probably we, race to each destination with reckless abandon, and a pair of blinders on.  A secondary effect of the just completed Midsummer Fire Festival was the removal of those blinders, and a re-discovered appreciation of the world I spend so much time in. In my continued obsession with non-combat pets I spent the better part of last week flying around Kalimdor, Northrend and Outland (and a little Eastern Kingdoms) in search of flames to urinate on and praise.  In doing so I was reintroduced to the scope of the Old World, something that was lost upon me after flying around Outland, and later Northrend.  If there's anything that can impress upon you the vastness of the old continents it is the inability to fly on your own.  If you thought flying around Northrend for the Argent Tournament dailies was bad, image a five, seven, even eleven minute flights.  Flights that you can't abandon when your mini map shows a precious mining/herbalism node.  Oh the pain. A Midsummer's Desecration I'm not hear to talk about the pain though, it's just hard to forget.  What we are here to talk about is the lush locales, the cohesive zones and traversing landscapes.  Traveling through all four continents back-to-back is something I have never done, and likely wouldn't have if it wasn't for the Midsummer Fire Festival's second pet (that little bugger is the only reason I collected Burning Blossoms, and I am glad I did).  The trip down memory lane wasn't all bright spots though, it reminded me just how much I hated The Burning Crusade's zones.  The zones are so self-contained, so drastically different from those adjacent to themselves as to make one wonder how they could ever come together.  Then it hit me, the realization that my dislike for the Orc's homeland is misplaced. I don't see how I didn't come to this realization before, but the disjointed menagerie makes perfect sense.  After all, the Outland is a collection of fragments of Draenor's former glory.  It isn't a continent in the normal sense, it is what's left of a ruined world.  A stew of lands if you will.  I could be rationalizing, but it's a perfect explanation and something I should have seen long ago. After being steamrolled by blatantly overlooking a key piece of lore I headed to the lands of Northrend for additional easy blossoms.  Unlike Outland, Northrend reminded me a lot of the original continents and is likely why I was so drawn to the territories.  Blizzard did a wonderful job creating a barren wasteland for many of the zones, but the artists blended those expected areas with some diverse starting territories.  Only after getting used to the chill were we thrown into the cold, wind-shaped lands of Dragonblight and Icecrown. Swamp of Emo After collecting nearly enough flowers from the two expansions Solidsamm ported to Darnassus and began his trek through the Old World.  The little gnome trotted the streets of Astranaar, a former favorite raiding area of the Horde, clambered through the snow of Winterspring and sweat his body weight in Gadgetzan.  He even climbed aboard a boat to Feathermoon Stronghold in the lush oasis of Feralas.   Although the goal was getting to the fires, taking in the sites and sounds of the lands, all of them, were a nice flashback.  Even if it was a lot of wasted time.  Hopefully the upcoming expansion can pick up were the old world left off, vast, flowing, yet diverse, lands full of unassuming and aggressive beings. I never did get my drop off Ahune, but with my Captured Flame in the pet bag, and some nostalgia in my mind, I consider this year's Midsummer Fire Festival a small victory.  How many got the title and continue on your way to your Proto Drake?  Did anyone have their streak broken?  Enjoy the flights?

Click to read more ...

You know those discussions you have with friends or guildmates about PvP.  The conversations were you tell a story about how you, and possibly some buddies, took on X amount of the opposing faction with only Y amount of help?  You know the stories I am talking about.  It's the speech type, the ones you stop listening to instantly just so you can gather your thoughts to tell your own awesome story.  Everyone has them, heck, everyone has dozens of them.  They are the experiences in video games that we won't forget until they are replaced by something that much cooler.  That's what today is.  Just be kind enough to read my version of the battle before you jump into yours.  Thanks. Solidsagart has seen most of my playtime recently thanks to a little predicament.  Even though I have slowly been leveling her since my rogue hit level 80, the amount of time spent on her is limited to minutes at a time.  Therefore, I have never truly got the hang of, well, pretty much anything.  With rookie Shadow spec skills activated I began to light up Coldarra's army of quest mobs.  Thanks largely to my inexperience I pulled a couple of mobs in a row.  Not to worry, with Power Word: Shield, Inner Fire and the occasion healing spell, I was able to handle the one or two guys who came at me like I dissed their mother.  Then another pair pathed in my direction unseen to me.  Now I was just minding my own business, collecting XP with four guys wailing on me. It became obvious that the replacement rate of Vampiric Embrace's healing was less than the incoming damage.  In my further ineptitude I decided to Fear the mobs after a round of DOTs so I could heal in peace.  Any knowledgeable priest knows how bad an idea that can be in crowded areas.  I was left in solitude with only a pair of mobs hoping to spread my brains across the snowy landscape.  Upon his (one mob died from the DOTs) return he brought a few buddies along with them.  Five fresh mobs to be exact. Gulp. It took five and a half incoming mobs before I knew I had botched it.  I would be popping into Spirit Form and need a repair any second now.  But I wasn't going down without a fight.  I fired off my Shadowfiend, drank a pot, clinched my belt, through out another round of DOTs and feared once again.  After a few volleys of Mind Blast, Mind Flay, shield refreshes and yet another personal heal I had it down to three guys.  Then two.  And finally only one lowly Mage Slayer remained to have its face melted and skin later flayed. The great battle of casters, eight died without Sagart leaving combat, was one of those rare occurrences in WoW where you actually fear for your life outside of an instance.  Rarely do we feel that our demise is immediately at hand when PvEing for quests, or just grinding for loot, but I certainly thought I was going to bite the dust during the excursion.  Sure, it would have been easier to accomplish with some familiarity to my second spec, but I thoroughly enjoyed the heart racing, fear-filled, learning experience and wish that it would occur more often.  Only next time I hope it is not due to my own ineptitude, but as part of the punishing world we take part in. Ok, now that I have recanted my none cyclical battle story, no 2-3-4-5-6-7-wand this time, and you politely sat through it, cheering me on of course, you can hit me with yours.  What was your greatest moment of survival in the environment?  How about some unbalancedPvP destruction on the level of OrangeMarmalade? The sad fact, I would have Vanished on my rogue so fast as to make your head spin.

Click to read more ...

World of Warcraft may not be a difficult game by any means, but that doesn't mean the MMORPG is easy.  Yes, I know that gear is collected as time is spent, money is acquired by repetitive quests, and some classes can be setup in a fashion to allow good ole button mashing victories, but that is the not difficult part.  The difficult part is managing the 'massive' feature of the game.  I of course mean the very element that's supposed to make MMORPGs so grand, the people.  Lots of them. There is a reason that managers get paid so much in the fleshy world.  People are difficult to control.  We all have brains (mmm) and each of us works best under different conditions, at different times and with varying degrees of dedication.  Take just those few details, mix in the anonymity of the Internet, and you have yourself one difficult situation to handle.  The re-grouped Warriors of Faith were handling it, and well, well until it happened, the GM got married! Before his wife reads this over his shoulder and wrings my neck through the tubes let me clarify.  The troubles had nothing to do with him getting married, just the simple fact that he was gone for two weeks.  His absence, and another main raid leader, lead to nothing for fourteen days.  Simply nothing happened, no raids, no heroic Wednesdays (those have been dead for awhile), nothing of interest.  Even in a casual guild that will lead to complaints and gquits .  And so it did.  In the week following their return, one that was marred by sloppy raiding, where it was had at all, we lost core members to transfers,unsubscribing and basic gquits. I wholeheartedly blame Canada Summer, but my GM is far to dedicated to brush off the guild's struggles on Mother Nature and human impulses.  With himself and others reaching the point of burnout he took the time to lay out the issues, and then put out a call to the members for creative solutions to our problems.  Here's what I have suggested to the leaders and other members:

• With over 200 members, let whoever wants to leave go.
• Although we are casual, trim the roster down to at least active players who login.  Personally, I believe it looks bad to have that many members, even if they are alts, and not be able to fill a 10-man.
• Get rid of members the higher-ups dislike.  Sorry, but if you dislike them, their very presence will add to burnout.
• Have members fill in the open spots in the roster with friends, alts, or other players that they know well.  Even if other players aren't willing to join the guild, drop them a line so they know that WoF is in need of some PUGs.
• Re-roll your main.  I am hard at work on leveling my priest so I can fill in the healing hole left by two members.  Although I love and enjoy my rogue, I enjoy raiding much more than not raiding.
• Go back to 10-man raiding, two nights a week.  Cutting back to 10-man should ensure that the raid is filled.  Slashing to two nights a week, say one night progression, one night farming, will give members a concrete schedule and reduce burnout.  If they want to do more, see point one.

Unfortunately not many people will go to these extreme measures.  In my humble opinion, that is all Blizzard's fault.  Unless you are already friends, there is simply no reason to stay in a guild these days, and there was little to begin with.  Blizzard desperately needs to add some sort of guild progression - larger bank, expanded tabard creation options, guild summoning, discounts with vendors for repairs and consumables.  Something. Any other suggestions?  Has summer ruined your raiding or guild yet?  Here's to hoping that Call of the Crusade gets WoF back in action.  Either way, I am in it for the long haul. These issues, headaches and ulcers are the exact reasons I would never want to be a GM again.  For the GMs out there, you never get enough praise for all the hardwork, time and effort that you do.  Allow me to just say "Thank you" to all those dedicated GMs out there.

Click to read more ...

Last week, iTZKooPA touched on the information overload we're seeing with patch 3.2, which now is live on the Public Test Realm. One area that I thought it'd be fun to expand a bit on is the new experience changes related to battlegrounds. Patch notes for the PTR informed us that players now will gain experience for actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds. Pretty neat idea. But here's the kicker: players who don't want to gain XP now will be able to turn it off - both for within battlegrounds and for any other means available in the game. This is a huge change for anyone who enjoys the practice of twinking. In some ways, the practice will become much easier to do. You won't have to rely on your higher level character to provide you with all the best gear available at level 19 (or your preferred twink level) - you also will be able to seek out rare drops and quest rewards without worrying about the XP gains. You'll essentially be able to get all the best gear possible and never level up and out of your battleground bracket. Blizzard comically makes light of this - the NPCs who you pay 10 gold to in order to turn on or off XP gains are named Behsten and Slahtz (Best-in-slots). But it's a give-and-take situation. Players who choose to turn off their XP gains and compete in battlegrounds will only face off against other players who also have turned off their XP. Now, some people will be happy for this change - twinks facing off against other twinks would probably make for a more interesting fight. And non-twinks will no longer be battling against twinked out toons with double the stats. I'm certain there also are those twinks out there who are ticked off that they'll never get to beat down on the other unsuspecting battleground fighters. Perhaps those players will move on to world-wide PvP gankage. A lot of people would argue this change effectively nerfs twinks. And it also might drive up the prices for twink gear. I wonder how many players will exploit the changes by turning off XP just barely into their preferred twink level, then getting all the best gear and turning on the XP again for a limited number of glorious battles against weaklings. Meanwhile, a lot of non-twinks out there are rejoicing. The prospect of entering a battleground may be a lot less intimidating if you are more confident that you'll face off against others in similar gear. Then again, I cringe to think of what this change might do to already-long battleground queues. Another unrelated way in which turning off XP may change the game: Classic raiding and role-playing. Blizzard blue poster Nethaera pointed out that many players may have a purpose for turning off XP entirely separate from twinking. If you cap at level 60 or 70, you can raid to your heart's content in that Vanilla WoW or BC content you love. Or, you could turn off XP until a friend you'd like to play with reaches your level. Or, you may just wish to role-play a character at a particular level. Oh, the possibilities. What does everyone else think that these changes will mean for the twink population? Will you keep your twinks after 3.2? Anyone think you're more likely to create a twink? If I had to guess, I'd predict that the twink population may decrease a bit after these changes. But like many things in life, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Click to read more ...

Content patches often bring class changes of the raw number variety, but rarely do we see mechanics almost completely reinvented. Shamans' lives are about to get a whole lot easier, as Blizzard intends to give them their very own hotbar for totems! The new bar will hang just over the left side of your core action buttons, just like a Warrior's stances or a Paladin's auras, and feature four slots where you can drop totems, one of each element. As there are currently twenty-three totems available to the class, this should help cut down on clutter (assuming you're like me,  and keeping all of them readily available just in case you might find the rare use for most of them). This Shaman might still be alive if he was using the new hotbar! Several other buttons will be available on the hotbar just as soon as you achieve the level needed to learn them. Call of Earth, for example, will replace Totemic Call, while a whole new spell, Call of Fire, will drop all four totems at once. Those Shamans who currently rely on macros to do this will be pleased to know that Call of Fire operates using only one global cooldown, making it even more efficient. Likewise, there are Call of Air and Call of Water spells, which essentially function the same as Call of Fire, but allow you to drop two more (different) sets of totems, so you can queue them up as the situation calls for it. Each of these can be hotkeyed for easy access. A total of eight new buttons on your screen might seem like a lot, but it's certainly better, and more organized, than the alternative. Ultimately, this should eliminate several problems for the class, including resetting your totems after they've been destroyed in PvP combat or quickly moving them to avoid adds while questing or running an instance. I, for one, am happy with these changes. My primary alt is a Shaman, and setting down totems before any given encounter gets to be a pain, to the point of not even bothering for most trash pulls. It should also make tasks like dropping an emergency Cleansing or Tremor Totem more convenient. Overall, it looks like 3.2 may be shaping up to be a bigger release that originally anticipated. What do you guys and gals think? Does this sound like something that would appeal to you, or are you just going to continue sticking with macros? Gives us your feedback below!

Click to read more ...

Lilyterrain's final adventures in Azeroth went out with a whimper, or perhaps a fart.  Barely hours into her career as a hunter, sans pet taming abilities, and the character was left for dead, never to be seen again.  I chalked up the loss of a subscriber to Blizzard's inability to grab Lesley with a compelling story in the early going.  Sure there were quests for her to tackle, but few of them were more than a collection or kill quest, let alone interesting enough to grasp her brain stem and demand its undivided attention. Due to the very nature of the early levels, how fast you get out of them, it makes sense that Blizzard didn't spend an obscene amount of time creating memorable stories.  Why invest money into something that players will complete in a few hours?  To leave a good impression on new characters of course!  Leave it to a commentator to prove myself, and various other readers, wrong, at least partially.  {swc}Ebek.Frostblade (known in the future as Ebek) was the first to point out that there is a sense of cohesion in the opening territories of the game. Paraphrasing from the comment:

• Humans:  Initially the race is worried about a Kobold threat, only to realize that VanCleef and the Defias Brotherhood, a disenfranchised group of blue-collar workers that rebuilt Stormwind, are far more troublesome.  Arguably the earliest, least subtle and best starting chain in the game.  WoW.com & WoWWiki have fantastic wrap-ups of the whole ordeal, one that stretched into vanilla WoW's endgame.
• Dwarves:  Players will continue the civil war with the Dark Iron clan while battling pockets of Trolls in their lands.
• Gnomes:  No longer secretly battling the Troggs that managed to take over Gnomeregan.  Even though the race is playable there is not much known about Gnomish culture outside their affinity for invention.  Chalk it up to the destruction of their capital city, which caused the pint-sized race to be scattered across the lands.  Starting alongside the Dwarves, you'll likely encounter a mess of trolls and dark iron mobs.
• Night Elves:  Young Night Elves battle with demons attempting to taint nature, an aspect the Night Elves hold dear.  Sound familiar?
• Draenei:  The spacegoats attempt to make contact with the rest of the Alliance while they recover their own people from the crash and clean-up the ecosystem that their ship, Exodar, tainted with foreign energies.  The story actually makes the MMO staple kill and gather quests quite logical.
• Orcs:  Orcs continue to fight for survival in Azeroth, which to many of the clans means defeating the Shadow Council that have tainted and controlled the noble creatures.
• Trolls:  The most diverse, and least played, race remains close to the Orcs who rescued them.  Thus, you pretty much go through the same things as the green skins.
• Tauren:  The Horde's nature lovers will tackle the wild bristlebacks before moving on to two factions they believe are defiling the world, the Venture Company and Bael'Dun.  Tauren players enjoy the most impressive early experiences for the Horde thanks to quest pacing, introduction to reoccurring factions and the art design of the opening lands.
• Undead:  In a twisted variation of the Draenei's starting quest (although this obviously came first), the Undead are also trying to find their place in the world.  Severely isolated from their un-trusting allies of the Horde, the Undead are left alone to fight pockets of the Alliance sooner than any other race.  As if that weren't bad enough, members of The Forsaken remain in constant struggle against their former master, the Lich King, and his Scourge.
• Blood Elves:  Although destroyed by Arthas during his initial campaign across Azeroth, the area around Silvermoon City is strikingly gorgeous.  The rapid rebuilding of the once decimated land is thanks to the race's heavy use of magic.   However, players will quickly come across numerous abominations of the magical kind in the fabled woods.

Ebek does have a point.  There is a semblance of a story in each of these zones, but most of them are entirely unremarkable and that is the issue.  Generally speaking, the content is little more than fleeting connections to land that surrounds your "birth."  Aside from the human struggles with Van Cleef, a questline that eventually leads you to Onyxia, not a single opening story will follow you past level 10.  The homogeneous experiences also offer little incentive to start alts outside of class boredom or to fill a role in a guild. Why is it that the humans alone are guided into such an awesome questline?  The rest of us struggle with monotonous grinding, while they are off saving diplomats and putting down rebellion.  Heck, for the most part the connections between the early racial quests are far to subtle to reconize while you are doing them!  We are hit with so much information up front, especially new players, that subtlety isn't the best route. The next time Blizzard adds a playable race (Pandaren please) I want to see two changes.  Mostly, I want the player to be handed a lengthy quest chain that will follow him throughout the game till the late levels.  Rather than forcing players to bounce all over creation, phase the chain so it can be completed in numerous towns.  Roaming NPCs anyone?  As for the chain's direction, it should be used to show the history of the applicable race at the get go, before moving in the direction of the current main conflict (ie Arthas for Wrath).  Second, the opening racial cinematic should set the stage for the quest clearly.  If Blizzard had grabbed Ms. iTZKooPA's attention with the opening machinima, shown her race's importance to her from the start and strung her along with interesting plot points as she became accustomed to the game, I think she'd still be playing instead of labeling MMORPGs as a chore.

Click to read more ...

No, it isn't the name of the latest Legendary item to appear in Azeroth, although it certainly possess that kind of power.  Summer, with all of its sunshine, growth, and activities, may not be in Azeroth directly, but the season is a force to be reckoned with nonetheless.  With school over for most kids, nearly every human being is going to want to enjoy their few months of sunshine.  Me?  Well I turn in to a freckled lobster when those rays lick my skin, so I do my best to avoid the giant ball of fusion. Here's the rub, my guild isn't full of pale Irish people who's only natural UV defense is to catch a tan through a screen.  Due to this pesky little "evolutionary" trait I have found summer to be an incredibly boring period inside World of Warcraft, at best.  At worst, it's nearly caused my (two times former) guild to collapse, twice, and my former guild to all but disappear from the WoW.  Now I am fearing if my current guild will have a similar fate. Looking back, it seems like previous summers were set up to be a disappointment.  By the time kids left school the most recent content was incredibly stale.  To boot there was nothing on the immediate horizon, a dangerous pairing of inactivity and zero hype.  I would never think that Blizzard would plan such a thing on purpose, after all, letting people escape the game for too long is dangerous, but the early days of WoW were marred with inconsistent content development that caused these unfortunate coincidences. Fast forward to June 2009 and it looks like we might be safe.  First and foremost, Ulduar is still fresh to nearly the entire playerbase - especially Chinese players, a group that hasn't even received Wrath yet!  Backing up, or filling out if you prefer, the new raid content is the excitement around Patch 3.2.  We already know some basics, and major changes, have an inkling of the upcoming Battleground and have been teased with massive additions to the Argent Tournament grounds.  As guilds begin to put Ulduar on farm (I don't see this happening for at least another month) players will increasingly turn to waiting for the next big thing.  But the hype can only hold onto us for so long.  I think Blizzard timed Ulduar correctly, whether by coincidence, or on purpose, who knows, but here's to hoping Ulduar stays fresh for the summer.  If not, then let's hope that Patch v3.2 comes out in a timely fashion. Has your guild been destroyed or nearly so by a past summer?  Do any of the GMs, officers or raid leaders have any tips to keeping things running during these lax months?  The second time All That Remains almost failed we rolled the bored players into PvP groups and tore apart Magtheridon's horde for a solid month.  The mass genocide of five races held us over till the end of the summer.  Twas an interesting way to save a hardcore PvE guild to say the least. We'll see how things play out, but I am looking forward to spending a portion of my lazy summer days in Azeroth.  I just hope there will be others to play with.

Click to read more ...

Outside of boss fights, PvE encounters are rarely challenging. That is, unless you really want them to be. If you've been following my Mage's progress, you'd already know that I'd been traipsing around Stranglethorn Vale for the past few levels. I was 38 then, I'm 41 now. And... still stuck in that balmy, tropical death pit. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm raring to cross the finish! My last round of quests involves the final in the line that Hemet Nesingwary Jr. tasks you with, Big Game Hunter. While all previous missions have requested that you simply go out and depopulate the local fauna, the fanged white tiger Bangalash proves to be a more devious foe. I'd tackled him before on other characters, so I knew that when the wily feline had lost about half of his health, he'd summon a pair of panthers to assist in the beatdown. On top of that, Bangalash is an Elite, which means he packs more of a punch than usual. A clothie like me could be toppled by the mere tickle of his whiskers! I wanted to get this over and done with before I left Stranglethorn, though, and was determined to use the most of my elite wizardry to take him down. The rewards, primarily for Huntards, meant nothing to me (but there was a sweet Achievement -- The Green Hills of Stranglethorn -- to be had upon victory). Setting off from Grom'gol on my Emerald Raptor, I traveled south-east towards the mound that the devilish terror calls home. I often had trouble remembering precisely where it was on other characters (and Nesingwary is of little help), but this time I found it in short order. Just off the road, roughly west of the Ziata'Jal Ruins, if you were curious. As Bangalash stalked the crest of the hill, I went about picking off the mobs, one by one. In the frantic battle to come, I couldn't afford to deal with anymore critters than the ones I knew he'd call to his side. Eventually, it was just me and the cat, mano a gato. I conjured a Mana Gem and refreshed my Ice Armor and Arcane Intellect just to be sure, before sitting down to replenish the mana I'd just spent. After my energizing snack, I backed off as far as I could. Mages are at their best when distant from the enemy, and this fight was no cause for exception. In fact, I was depending on it. The objective, of course, would be to minimize the number of times Bangalash could get close enough to swipe me. It took me far too long to get this shot. We circled eachother like two members of Fight Club ready to bleed. When I hit max range, I let the first Frostbolt fly. His attention immediately turned towards me, a menacing gaze in his eyes even as my chill effect slowed him down. He narrowed the distance, but three casts later (one a crit), and he was at least a thousand health the lesser. A quick Frost Nova was enough to stop him in his tracks. I took this opportunity to toss up a Mana Shield (a decision which I actually would come to regret) and continued my icy assault. By this point, Bangalash had yet to touch me, but he was about to pull his Ace. Two protectors appeared by his side and immediately went in for the kill. With three mobs on my butt, normal spell-casting was an impossible venture. With my Nova on cooldown, I decided to reverse, Blink, and kite them all to the other side of the mound. Another Mana Shield kept me from dying before I could fire off my second Frost Nova. Bam! All three frozen in place, I felt that it this would be good a time to release a Blizzard. The regular crits reduced them all to low health, with Bangalash only several hundred points from death. But suddenly my mana was gone! I clicked on my Mana Agate and a Minor Mana Potion that I still had in my inventory from so long ago. Though a bit was restored, and Lifebloom provided some reprieve, the attacks from all sides were proving too much. I called on the few instant spells I had to clobber the ferocious felines. I was close to death, but so were they! Having used up even my reserve energy, I switched to my wand. Bangalash's health went from around 70 to 29 and then.... a miss! My last ditch effort had failed, and there was no longer any option for preventing the incoming damage. The panthers' final swipes did me in, my troll gurgled with death, and then I found myself in a nearby graveyard. It was time for Round 2! As I ran back to my corpse, I wondered what could possibly have killed my mana so quickly? Despite belly-aching about energy problems in my last post, things had vastly improved since then!  My thoughts quickly ceded as I was face-to-face with Bangalash again. I can't say that my strategy changed a whole lot this time, but I did correct a few of my missteps. First of all, the Mana Agate I had in my inventory was from a lesser rank of the spell and, therefore, restored less MP. Had I only a few more on the first attempt, victory could have been mine. Likewise, I was going to save my Frost Nova for when the adds popped, instead of blowing it right away on the single mob, even if it meant eating a few hits. Thankfully, that didn't prove to be a problem. I managed to completely freeze my foe twice before he even reached me, allowing for several critical Frostbolts to break him down. The panthers, as expected, came out much faster this time and the Nova + Blizzard combo proved equally as effective. They did manage to catch up to me after that, but once again Mana Shield saved my kiester. That is where I noticed my problem. I had overused Mana Shield on my first attempt, and it had completely killed my pool! How could I have been so naive?! I was aware of the spell's effects, but didn't think that they would be so drastic. Nonetheless, I was getting lucky this time, and with my second Frost Nova and a couple of instant spells, Bangalash's corpse lay motionless before me. I was low on health and mana, but not critical. I looted the head and trotted merrily back to Hemet Nesingwary Jr. to complete the quest. The promised Achievement popped up on my screen, and I can report that my victory tasted, very much, of happy. When your average Mage fight consists of Frostbolt spam, it was immensely satisfying for me to use a wider range of my skills on a battle like this. Sure, I could've skipped Bangalash and come back to it many levels later just like I had on other characters, or I could've scouted for partners over chat, but that wouldn't have been any fun! As I push forward into the wilds of the Hinterlands next, I certainly hope that there are opportunities for another good workout. Got to keep those finger muscles nice and loose, after all! How about you folks, though? Ever encountered a non-instance fight that truly taxed your abilities? Was it for fun or did you haphazardly wander into a situation and end up fighting for your life? Let me know whether or not you successfully bested your enemies or met your untimely end!

Click to read more ...

Can I Be The Right Baby? I've brought up my humble little guild a few times in the past.  We've had our fair share of issues, but most of them have pertained to getting a raid going, let alone completing it.  After some hardwork from the leaders, a few weeks of gear farming for new members and a fresh batch of core raiders, the guild is back on track and finally in Ulduar.  We've come a long way from scrapping together 10-man Naxxramas raids earlier in the year, but we are still a very much a casual guild, at least by my standards.  Casual or not, all guilds have their share of drama, and lately it has been surrounding the object of endless bickering, purpalz. If there is anything that can instill a sense of hatred among guildmates, for no other reason than favor from the RNG, it is loot.  Interesting and new encounters get players into raiding, but it is the off chance at a new piece of shiny armor, or a pointy new piece of metal, that keeps many of us coming back week after week.  Insert some unskilled, unknown or otherwise "undeserving" players into the mix and you have all the ingredients for Drama Soup.  Add a healthy dose of PUG to the recipe and you have yourself the chunkiest Drama Stew since the creation of The Real Housewives franchise.  This is exactly what has been happening in Warriors of Faith lately. I haven't raided in almost two weeks, but previous to my E3 sabbatical we had a few nights that our heroic Naxxramas outings were filled in with PUGs.  Some of the pick-ups were old friends or friends of guildies, so they were known to the group.  Others were entire strangers, unfamiliar with our flavor of raiding, discussion and joking.  All of which tend to be various forms of toilet humor and other unprintable topics.  Don't get me wrong, PUGs and everyone in the raid deserves a shot at the gear they helped create, but it irks me when some stranger picks up a piece of loot I have been after since our first clear.  To make matters worse there is currently no restriction in my guild of how much loot any single player can take in a run, assuming the rules of the last raid I attended still stand.  That is what really cooks my goose. My last heroic Naxxramas clear saw a pair of PUGs pick up not one, not two, but five pieces of gear!  As I said, I am all for giving our saviors (this is what they were since the raid would have been delayed, possibly even canceled, without them) their just dessert, but is it too much to ask for a limit?  Sure, they saved our bacon, but the raid was still a guild run (20 or more guildies), not a PUG group. I never PUG full raids so I am not sure what the norm is.  Would imposing a limit of two class-based items or a single multi-class item be too far?  How about a lower max roll for PUGs?  If there is no restrictions to what an unfamiliar face can obtain, thus making everyone's chance exactly the same, then why should members even bother with a guild run when they could run a raid at their leisure with the same chance at loot?  Think about it.  In my opinion gearing up members is what a guild run is for.  PUGers are enticed by these oppurtunites for the fast clear, easy emblems and, naturally, a shot at some - often unwanted - loot. What do the PUGers out there think about limits?  How about other guilds who fill their ranks with the helpful populace?  Does anyone place restrictions on what a PUG can roll on?  Do you force them to roll lower (such as /random 75), fight over the scraps (unwanted loot), or pay them off with gold if they win a roll?  Or are they simply privileged to be a part of such an amazing guild, even if it is just temporary? A limited loot solution surely isn't perfect, would cause loot and scoot syndrome, and a lower chance at winning would upset people from the start, but keeping guild members happy should be job #1 for the guild.

Click to read more ...

[caption id="attachment_3267" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Don't let those bars fool you! I only use like three or four of those buttons!"] [/caption] The Rogue is, by magnitudes, my favorite class. I've played one as my main (Amatera) for over 4 years now and enjoyed every second of it. Out of all my alts, not one has yet convinced me to give up on the master of melee combat. Or at least what should be, considering the lack of other roles for a Rogue to fill. No doubt that the class has seen its ups and downs. I was pretty excited by the new abilities and talents introduced with Wrath, but, like many others of my ilk, came away disappointed with a pretty significant (and unexpected) drop in playability caused by the new mechanics. Raid DPS went down the tubes and, on my server, level-capped Rogues were a scarce lot. Heck, I was (and still am) the only non-alt Rogue in my guild. And I'm surprised that I stuck through it, considering that towards the tail end of Burning Crusade I was regularly in the top 3 for damage and was now struggling to break 10. Things have taken a turn for the better since 3.1. I've reclaimed my position in the charts thanks to the modification of Hunger for Blood and a slight respec back into Improved Poisons. But it did something else that makes me wonder whether or not playing a Rogue is too easy -- it made my core rotation reductively simple again. Now, it takes skill and a keen reaction time to play any class well, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm tailing a boss spamming Mutilate and Envenom whilst our healers have their hands full playing whack-a-mole with raid frames. There is a certain sublimity, a zen-like state if you will, about punching only two or three keys and outputting the insane amount of damage that a Rogue can, but I think people get excited about simplicity until they start to feel the guilt of not putting in the same amount of effort as others. Or, at least I do. Maybe not all those chumps riding coattails for gear. Before 3.1, my rotation was a lot more complicated than it is now (or was when I was playing Combat in BC), but my damage clearly suffered. Having to maintain three stacks of Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice was a pain, between expensive Mutilates and the occasional Rupture where I could fit it. The thing about Energy is that, even though you may never run out, your cap is always fixed. So when your pool of the good stuff is being sucked dry by a few expensive skills, it destroys your DPS. With a duration of only 30 seconds, Hunger for Blood was the main culprit: easy to let drop, and far too expensive to get running again. Considering I needed the skill's buff to even compete on the damage meters, leaving it out was not an option. Thus, it seems, that the smaller a Rogue's rotation ultimately is, the more efficiently they can utilize their Energy, and the changes made to the class reflect that. Hunger for Blood now lasts a full minute and need only be triggered by a Bleed effect. In a raid situation, those are going to be a dime a dozen, so unless you're off tussling with some off-tanked mob, you rarely have to worry about it (and it frees you from having to queue up Rupture, as well). Slice and Dice? Well, that's refreshed by Envenom, which an Assassination-specced Rogue should be dishing out relentlessly anyway. Like a Showtime Rotisserie, all you need to do is "set it and forget it!" Sure, I've found a few ways to improve my utility, even if only by a tad. I'll throw an Expose Armor up on a mob if there are no Sunders to be had, I'll use Feint to ignore some of the crazy Area of Effect damage most of the new Ulduar bosses dish out. Heck, Cloak of Shadows is as useful as ever, especially for those pesky light and gravity bombs XT-002 is fond of afflicting players with. These skills aren't ever in my regular rotation, but I'd be more than willing to take a slight hit to my DPS if it meant giving the class more raid-enhancing utility skills. Then again, that might go against the selfish, dirty-dealing, throat-slitting, gold-stealing spirit of a Rogue! Considering these dynamics, must we be crucified for sins we did not commit? My "Damage-Dealer's Burden" aside, is there some way to stop the general populace from slinging bawdy insults our way and sermonizing about how over-powered our class is? I don't know. Blizzard has stated that they, too, are unhappy with the ease with which a Rogue can obliterate their opponents (especially in PvP). The changes made to Hunger for Blood, after all, were a bit of a hot fix. It's a fundamentally broken skill, once detrimental to the Rogue itself and  now detrimental to everyone else (at least in their eyes). Makes you wonder why it was even incorporated as a new talent in the first place if it was going to cause so much trouble. For now, we wait impatiently for an answer. We have been told that it is not the right time for a total rehaul of the class and Blue posts concerning Rogues have dwindled since the raid damage output issue was finally "addressed." But there must be other Rogues out there reading this. Let me know what's on your mind! Does "easier-to-play" equal "overpowered?" Do you feel some deep sense of personal guilt when your healers and tanks are yelling at each other as your raid falls apart in front of you, wondering if there was anything you could've done to help? Or do you go stealth and wait in a corner until the smoke has cleared? Rogue or not, what are your feelings on the ethics of rotation complexity? Do you feel as if the game is at its best when it gives you a lot of skills to manage at once, or is a simple hotbar better and more fun? Does it make certain classes more "fair" to play than others?

Click to read more ...