>Holy hell what a week..

>Sorry guys, it’s been a LONG week (or 11 days) which has kept me from posting. I appreciate your patience with me.

So, first thing’s first. I continue to manage to not piss off the owner of hordereview.com… in fact he thinks i’m making some killer posts there for beginning hunters. If you feel like checking it out, go to hordereview.com, lol. Secondly, if you ever listen to the All Things Azeroth podcast, and you managed to listen to the newest episode (Which was recorded yesterday, so I dont think it’s live yet) then you may have heard a rare treat… I recorded an intro for a contest they’re running, and it was played live yesterday. The contest is, in essence, for a guest hosting spot on their 200th episode (which is in 3 more weeks). SO.. There’s a possibility that yours truly will be a guest host with Medros and Shade on ATA’s illustrious 200th episode.

Alright, now that i’m done tooting my own horn, let me tell you a bit about my week in WoW.. I’ve kind of set my pally on the shelf for a bit. I think she’s 45 right now, but i’ve been playing my druid who is now level 78. I recently respecced my druid’s off-spec to feral, and used a metric S— TON of leather to make him the Eviscerator’s set (Which, incidently, is great for tanking because it’s a lot of stam, and a lot of attack power…) I’ve picked up a couple rings and a necklace that are good for tanking, but tanking on him is a little more tough than you might think. Why is that? Because i’m still adjusting to the rage mechanic. Battling rage starvation is kind of a pain in the ass, but i’m working on it. My first random tanking gig took place in Halls of Stone, and I think I did a pretty good job. No one died, and everyone said I did alright, so yay for that. I was battling for aggro with the ret pally a few times, but he was really good dps for a pre-80…. and he also didn’t seem to want to wait long for me to build threat.. No problem, he was well geared and any beating he took didn’t hurt him too much. I was thrilled at this group having gone so well for me never having tanked on a druid before. Woo!

Outside of WoW, but still related, i’ve been playing Warcraft 3 a lot lately. Man, i’d forgotten how FUN that game is, and also how damn FRUSTRATING it can be. Right now i’m in the undead campaign (not in The Frozen Throne, just original WC3). One of the (unanimously decided) most DIFFICULT missions in the game… I’m going to quote how I worded it on twitter last night. “Protect Kel’thuzad for 30 minutes while we throw a whole fucking map at you, so he can summon Archimonde to go hump the World Tree”. If you don’t get the reference about Archi and the world tree then you NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO.

Alright, that’s enough babbling for me today. Thanks for bearing with me through my lack of posting.

>Spoil the surprise?

>I’m going to try to not be like everyone else. Cataclysm is coming. Any fool knows that. Beta is on it’s way. If you haven’t opted in for it, and you want in on the beta, be sure to do it now. I’m going to bring up a less-discussed topic. How do you fight these “end of expansion blues”? Some people roll alts. Some people take breaks from the game. Some people satisfy their time by devouring every single tidbit of information about Cataclysm that they can. Here’s the question though, and it’s something that was brought up in portion by Brigwyn on his first podcast earlier this evening.
The question is, should we obsess over every piece of Cataclysm we can get our greedy little claws on? Is it right for us to play the beta into an endless oblivions so we know all the content backwards and forwards before the live release? Or, when we do these things, do we cheat ourselves from the surprise? Do we deny ourselves the wonder of seeing the finely polished product as Blizzard intends it to be seen, when we see the beta “warts and all”? It’s honestly something I hadn’t thought about previously, but it really is something to consider.
Now, I’ve only been playing for a couple years, towards the end of Burning Crusade, and I was never involved with the beta for Wrath of the Lich King. I will never forget the first time I took my mage, Achloryn, aboard the boat from Stormwind and stepped on the shores of the Borean Tundra. Hell, even playing through the scourge invasion events prior to the launch really gave you a feel for what was coming. Read through the text of the first few quests when you arrive in Northrend. Blizzard does a magnificent job of giving you the sense that the first soliders really breathe a collective sigh of relief that you are there. YOU. The generals and commanders of the spearhead are glad to see you there.
I’m getting off topic more than I intended, but I think you get the point. Are we doing ourselves a disservice by spoiling all the surprises? Well, there’s no real right or wrong answer to that, of course, because it’s all in personal preferences. I’m as guilty as the next man, and probably everyone else, when it comes to reading up on the spoilers and all the other goodies. Now, however, after a lot of thought, I think i’m going to hold myself back a little bit. I want to be able to experience the new quests with my hunter on the day of the launch and experience it as amazingly as I felt when I first stepped onto Northrend.
Now, if i’m given a beta key, you better believe i’ll be there…. let’s not get crazy.

>The death of raiding…?

>So, a couple days ago I posted about the upcoming raid changes in the newest WoW expansion, Cataclysm. There have been a couple announcements made since that point that really get more in depth on the subject (found here) but I haven’t posted on the updates yet.. Why? I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the changes. A lot of people on the mmo-champion forums apparently are crying out that these changes are the absolute death of 25 man raiding, but I think the opposite is true. If anything gets killed by these changes, it’s going to be the 10 man raids.

“Why?”, you ask? Well, I was hoping you would.

In condensed form, the changes are this:

10 man raids are sharing a lockout period with 25 man raids.

The bosses will be roughly the same difficulty (both offering heroic modes, of course)

10 man and 25 man raids will be dropping the same item levels of loot. (IMO, this is why the major fuss over the death of 25 mans, but my next point swings the pendelum the other way)

25 man raids will drop more loot, more hero points (the new version of the badge system in place currently), and possibly even more gold.

Now then… If 25 mans are going to drop more loot for the same boss kill, but will share a lockout with 10 man raids, wouldn’t you think people would try to spend that extra 20 minutes or so finding 15 more people? Perhaps, perhaps not. Here’s the rub though. Blizzard has set this up in an attempt to equalize the progression field between guilds who raid 10 man content (almost) exclusively, and guilds who raid 25 man content (almost) exclusively. Some guilds are only large enough to have a solid 10 man group, and they shouldn’t be held back from progression simply because they’re a smaller guild.

That is a point I whole heartedly agree with. Not every progression guild has to have 300 members on at any given point in time to be able to.. well.. progress. The backdraft of this, however, falls in the fact that 25 mans, while dropping the same -level- of gear will still drop more gear. “Why exactly is this a problem,” you ask? “Surely it would make sense to have 25 mans drop more gear, as there’s more players and likely a broader set of classes within the raid.”.. Well of course, that’s absolutely true, on both points. But again, if they’re trying to equalize how quickly a guild groups up, then there’s more likelihood that a 25 man group will gear up faster simply because.. well.. more loot drops, and more valor points. More points per kill means you can buy your tiered items faster, letting you get to the next progression path quicker… Right?

So, while I am still reserving final judgement, I am waiting to see what it is that Blizzard does to equalize this problem a bit more. Already, they have stated that there will be a cap on the number of points you can earn from raiding/heroics/whatever in a week. If the cap isn’t obscenely high, then this problem might not be as bad as I was expecting… However, if it’s too low then people will complain (you KNOW they will) that they can’t get their gear fast enough, and can’t progress fast enough.

But then… I suppose, for some people, nothing will ever stop the … Thanks for reading.

>Raiding changes…

>
So, the big news today is the changes that Blizzard announced for Cataclysm. Here is the full story as officially posted. Initially, I had several pros and cons to list, but I got sidetracked by one thing or another, and Blizz has since added a list of clarifications after the initial posting. This seems to be a recurring theme with major upcoming changes, and it’s really a smart idea for the powers that be to quash some of the loudest complaints as soon as possible. Thumbs up for their clarifications.

My kneejerk response is to say that their decision makes sense to some extent. 10 and 25 man raids dropping the same loot? Sounds great to me! WotLK has far too many different sets of gear. “Current” tiers are basically ToC 10, ToC 10 heroic, ToC 25, ToC 25 heroic, ToC 10 Tribute, ToC 25 Tribute, ICC 10, ICC 25, ICC 10 heroic, ICC 25 heroic (and I think that’s all of them). Now, here the tricky part. ToC 10 heroic is better than ToC 25, and ToC 25 tribute i better than ICC 10. I’m not entirely sure how this makes much sense, but maybe that’s just me.

Blizzard’s attempt with Cataclysm, as far as I can tell, is to cut down on the different “sets” of gear you have to pick up from raiding. Does having 10 and 25 mans drop the same loot accomplish this? Of course. Does this also allow smaller guilds to progress in the same way that larger guild can? Absolutely. Will this work out exactly the way Blizzard thinks it will? I don’t think so, and here’s why. ” 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you’re able to gather the people.”… If 25 mans are going to drop more badges than 10 mans, then people are going to feel it’s necessary to put together 25 man groups for that reason. Especially as each new set of content comes out.

To apply this to a current situation.. Imagine if Toc 10 and 25 each dropped the same gear (say Ilvl 245), but you got 3 badges per boss in 25 man but only 2 badge per boss in 10 man. That’s 10 badges for a full clear in 10 man, but 15 badges for a full clear in 25 man. Now, granted, 5 badges may not seem to be a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but why settle for 10 badges when you could get 15 with basically the same effort? I realize this is not finalized by any means, but the way things are now, Blizz still needs to tweak some things with Cataclysm’s raiding structure.

I would also like to thank Anea for writing a great Advice to new bloggers post which gave me some great ideas for my blog. Expect to see more tweaks and changes coming up to the blog over the next few days. I hope to make this blog look a lot cooler and inviting to new readers, as well as something continually enticing for any readers I might already have. Don’t be shy! Feel free to drop a comment if you have any opinions on the matter.

>Backgrounds and babbling

>So, I figured since my first two blogs were pre-written for another site (and i’m not even sure if they’ll go up there, cause it was never confirmed) that I should break the ice for this site, being my actual personal blog and give a bit of information. I’ve never really been much of a blogger, but just recently I actually felt like I have something to say… and from listening to the (i think it was) Twisted Nether podcast–if I could paraphrase them a bit–”Since I have something to say, there will be someone out there who will want to read it.”… And thus, I found blogazeroth.com, and after looking at some of the blogs on there, realizing that not every blogger is a “professional”, I created this blog.

Actually, I should back up a bit. Before finding Twisted Nether Podcast, I found Polygamerous Podcast.. Before Polygamerous I found Woweh.com, a wonderful little webcomic.. If you haven’t been there to check that comic out… DO IT NOW.. Go on, i’ll wait. Read the whole thing, I don’t mind…………………

Finished? I told you it was awesome didn’t I? Anyway.. Kelly (the writer/artist/creator of woweh and now 4th host on Polygamerous Podcast) made a call for people to write a guest blog for her comic, and I jumped at the chance. Nothing was ever set in stone to my knowledge, so whether the two blogs I wrote for her site will actually go LIVE or not on her site i’m not sure of at this point.. Thus, my reposting of them on THIS site so whoever is reading this now can see what my thoughts were at the time.

Wow.. I’ve babbled quite a bit haven’t I? Anyway, that’s how I found myself in the blogosphere. Now as far as WoW goes… I started playing almost 2 years ago, towards the end of the Burning Crusade expansion. My first character was a Draenei mage by the name of Achloryn (he’s the handsome fella you see bowing to you in my avatar), created on the Ner’zhul (US-PVP) server. I quickly fell in love with the game.. Stampeded my way to 70 and started raiding in what seemed like record time. I found sites like wowhead.com and elitistjerks.com to help improve my character as much as I possibly could, and found my way all the way to Serpentshrine Cavern before Wrath of the Lich King was launched. (The old hampster wheel of a computer I had REALLY hated that place by the way.. 25 man raids were nothing but a lagfest). I upgraded my computer a couple months after WotLK’s launch, and found myself not sucking quite so bad in raids anymore…. however with patch 3.1 and Ulduar’s release.. It wasn’t long after I found myself kind of sick of raiding. I felt like it was becoming a chore to go in there on my one night a week, clear the same 8 bosses, and then be unable to down any of the others for one reason or another, so I quit raiding and rolled a new character on Wyrmrest Accord (US-RP).

Okay.. so, I don’t want to make all of your eyes bleed with a long explanation of everything in my warcrafting history.. Maybe i’ll make a part two of this post, but for now, i’ll leave it here. Hope you continue reading.

>End of days?

>(This too was created for the webcomic woweh.com, and as such is posted exactly as I wrote it for that site)

Hey folks, it’s Achloryn here again. Hopefully if you’re reading this, then you either didn’t read last week’s blog, or you weren’t so offended as to ignore my existance. That’s a good thing! I hope you can at least appreciate what I have to say, even if you may not agree with it. That’s the beauty of the interwebs. Everyone has an opinion, and if you express it a way that doesn’t make you sound completely brain-dead, most people will react modestly well in response. (My apologies to the brain-dead out there. :3)

Well, this week I would like to share my thoughts on another hot topic. The Celestial Steed mount, recently put up for sale on the Blizzard store. Now, i’ve heard all kinds of sanctimonious slander from people about how this is the “death of WoW” and how people are “so lame for spending IRL gold on in-game items” and blah blah blah. Allow me to quote a post I saw in regards to this mount, and specifically someone who bought the bloody things.

“But no no, you go ahead. Buy your pretty mount that some intermn made in model editor in 5 minutes for the prife of a half a game. God I hate humanity, we need a cleansing BAD.”

Now I hope that those of you reading this, whether you agree or disagree with the idea to sell this mount, think that the gentleman’s opinion above me is: absolutely ludicrous at best, and borderline criminal at worst. I realize that this is just one lunatic’s opinion, but seriously. If selling a mount can inspire this kind of idiocy to come out on a well known public forum… I don’t even know what to say about that.

Here’s the gist of it folks. Selling vanity items like pets and mounts isn’t breaking the game for anyone, and it isn’t bringing about the death of WoW. In my opinion: the people who think this is the end of the world are the ones who blindly and fervently praise the days of AQ40 as the glory days of WoW and how Blizz has done nothing but kill the game ever since vanilla content. (Funny, to me, how these people continue paying month-to-month for a game that’s dead in their eyes, isn’t it?)

For those of you wondering, no I don’t have a celestial steed. I personally don’t plan on getting one, but I see no real problem with others who want to spend their hard earned cash on an in-game mount. It has no effect on the economy, it has no effect in how that person plays their character, except for which button they press to start moving quicker. Seriously, it’s just a mount folks.

I would like to reiterate that everything is my own personal opinion. It’s not the opinion of Kelly or anyone involved with Woweh.com, and as such, any flames should not be directed towards her for giving me the opportunity to vent my spleen in such a public way. I hope that if you disagree with me so vehemently, you won’t take it out on her or her comic, as it is simply a marvelous creation.

>First timer..

>

(I’m going to note that I posted this for the webcomic woweh.com, hence why I mention it a couple times. This is verbatim how I sent it to the author)

Well hello fellow Warcraft fans. You may or may not have seen me around the Wowhead forums, or posting occasionally here on Woweh under the name Achloryn. *waves* When Kelly posted about having guest bloggers on her amazing comic, I jumped at the opportunity. I think it’s great to be able to be heard by a group of people that I have something in common with. Let me first say, I want to thank Kelly for giving me this chance to let me ramble. I also want to thank all of you for… well. Listening to me ramble. I hope I don’t bore you too much. ^_^

I want to take a little time to talk about something I see and hear a lot of buzz about… What else could it be, but the ever-looming expansion: Cataclysm. Far be it for me to talk about something that everyone else is talking about, but there’s a specific point that I would like to give my thoughts on, and I hope you’ll take the time to read what i’m saying, and think about it for a little bit the next time you read of a new development on the x-pac.

I’m sure that, by now, most of you have read all of the class previews, the blue posts, and formulated your opinions on what’s going to be great, and what’s going to suck. If you spend any time perusing mmo-champion, or wowhead, then you know that opinions run the gamut from things like “This is going to be awesome!” to “OMG WTF BLIZZ BROKE MAI CLAZZ!!1!” and “I am quitting WoW. Blizz f—ed this one up!”.. I would like to encourage everyone to take a long, slow, deep breath before finding which category you fit in.

Have you calmed down yet? Good, feel free to read on then. First off, everything that has been posted is to be taken with a bucket of salt right now. Cataclysm isn’t even in beta, yet. Did any of you play WotLK in the beta? Do you guys remember how much changed between the beta and the launch? And for that matter, do you remember how much has changed between the beta and today? The people who are crying about Blizzard breaking their class, or claiming that they’ve broken what was good about this game need to chill out. Things are going to change between beta and launch. Things will change more after the launch. We have no idea what exactly is going to happen with the mechanics they’re implementing, or the spells they’re changing and adding. Hell, Blizzard isn’t even sure what’s going to happen between beta and release. This is their “rough draft” if you will.

Now, I hope you all don’t think i’m being patronizing, because that is certainly not my intent. All I am trying to do is say, give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. They’ve created this amazing game that we all love to play. They know things will need to be adjusted, and that changes will need to be made. They will be wrong about how certain mechanics should work. If you read through the planned changes and find something that seems horribly wrong with your favorite class… Breathe.. count to 10… Re-read the preview and all of the associated blue posts. Give Blizzard a chance to make our jaws drop, and drool like we all know that they’re capable of doing.