Raid Instance Comparisons

A comment by Guest yesterday got me really thinking about the Raid Instances that we've had in World of Warcraft. So, I thought I'd start with a little table and then draw some conclusions from there.

Vanilla	TBC	Wrath
UBRS	Karazhan	Naxxramas (2)
	Gruul's Lair (1)	Obsidian Sanctum (1)
Zul'Gurub	Magtheridon's Lair (1)	Eye of Eternity (1)
Onyxia's Lair (1)	Zul'Aman	Vault of Archavon (1)
Molten Core	Serpentshrine Cavern	Ulduar
Blackwing Lair	TK: The Eye	Trial of the Crusader
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj	Mount Hyjal	Onyxia's Lair (1)(2)
Temple of Ahn'Qirj	Black Temple
Naxxramas	Sunwell Plateau	Icecrown Citadel

(1) Single Boss Encounter Instance
(2) Recycled Instance

As for my footnotes, I am very well aware that Gruul's Lair had 2 boss encounters and technically EoE has 4. Furthermore, I'm also aware that VoA will soon have 3 bosses. But I believe it is fair to lump them into one category and compare them because they're much shorter instances. If you want to talk about environment, you could even consider Trial of the Crusader as a Single Room Encounter, which meant a heck of a lot less work for the graphic designers. lol.

Further clarifications: I put a space between UBRS and Zul'Gurub since UBRS was still 10-man (down from 15 at a certain point) and Zul'Gurub being a 20-man instance seemed that it needed more coordination and "raid" tactics.

All of that said, Blizzard did a lot in the first few years of Wow. They created 9 classes (8 playable by each faction). They created 2 continents, 24 5-man instances, and 8 raids. Not too shabby. Granted this was all work done from alpha to beta to about 2 years and 2 months until the next expansion came: The Burning Crusade. They then gave us another continent, flying mounts, 16 5-man instances, and 9 raids. Then about a year and 10 months later, Wrath of the Lich King came. So far, we know that they have given us a new continent, 13 5-man instances, and 6 raids with 2 more (Onyxia's Lair and Icecrown Citadel) on the way.

Recycled
Of the 8 raids in Wrath, 2 of them will be completely recycled from Original Wow. Honestly, I'm completely okay with that. I don't think a lot of people (as a percent of the whole) got a chance to run Naxx or, to a lesser extent, Ony before TBC came out. So, it's good that people now get to go back and see these fights. Especially with Blizzard's redirection that everybody should be able to see raids, it just makes sense.

Albeit, I recognize that there's been less development time, but if you factor in that these 2 instances got recycled from before, the true number is really down to about 6 new instances. And 3 of those are Single Boss Encounters (4 if you count Trial of the Crusader).

Now, I'm not saying that any of the Single Encounters are bad instances. I'm simply saying that they seem like they'd take a heck of a lot less work. And yes, Blizzard has given us these hard mode options to them to make them last a little longer... it's not like it takes them the same amount of time as a brand new instance. If you've been around Wow for a bit of time, you know the excitement that comes with heading in to a recently released instance or raid (bugs and all).

Brand New With Quality
On the other hand, I have to really hand it to Blizzard for Ulduar. It's a fun instance. It really shows that Blizzard has learned what people like and don't like. People like to be able to mount in these huge zones, even if it's just in the first area. Being able to teleport around in Ulduar is also great. Graveyard run times are also greatly reduced. There's a repair person in the instance... at the beginning... and you don't even need to defeat a boss before you repair. It also uses the technology that they've been working so hard on (vehicles) and gives you credit for your awesome gear by making your vehicle stronger.

And from what I hear about Icecrown Citadel, it's going to be more of the same quality. I know it was only a joke, but Ghostcrawler joked that it would have 31 bosses. Even if it only has half that, it's still more than Ulduar has, so I really expect the same level of polish and newness to Icecrown.

But... wasn't that level of polish there in the Vanilla Wow? You know... in the first 8 raids that existed? Or will the trend simply continue and mean that in the next expansion, we'll all be farming Sunwell Plateau as soon as we hit 80?

Tanking In Wrath: The Next Generation

In case you haven't heard, there's a lot of Aoe type pulls in the instances in Wrath of the Lich King Attack of the Melee. Every tanking class has been given tools to be able to Aoe tank. From a druid's Swipe to a Warrior's Thunder Clap to a Pally's Consecration, and finally to Death and Decay (and others) from a Death Knight.

And your job in Wow is to take hits. You're supposed to get all the mobs to hate you the most (assuming you're the only tank) so that they don't kill your healer or dps'ers. I just highlighted 4 spells that will do that for each tanking class.

But a pug run I went on last night became entertaining when I tanked most of the mobs.

Before we started the run, the DK (only tank class in the group) kept asking who was going to tank, even after he had already confirmed that he was going to. I wasn't even the one Aoe'ing to have mobs go all over the place. It was the healer... throwing heals. (The nerve, huh?) The tank would sometimes tank all the mobs, but more often then not, he just plain forgot.

So, equipped with Ice Barrier and Power Word: Shield (from the healer), I tanked a good portion of the mobs. It actually made the instance go faster, hence why I did it.

So, I submit to you that there should be a class review, and mages should now be able to tank. Arcane's the new Pvp Spec. Fire (with some frost and using Frostfire) is the new Pve spec. So, Frost should be the new tanking spec for mages. Get rid of spell pushback, and we "shouldn't" have an issue with aggro. Arcane Explosion could be our Aoe tanking spell. (We might need a glyph to increase threat there.) And with all our magic abilities there's got to be a way that we can create some type of armor (Ice Armor on steroids?) to make it as if we were wearing plate. Maybe Ice Armor scales with Intelect or Spellpower or something.

Heck, don't even make us stellar tanks. Make us Off-tanks that could pick up a mob in a pinch after we popped our Improved Ice Armor. And I'm sure we have the intellect to think up some spell that will make people attack us and only us.

I know, I know... I can hear it already. "Yeah, but that would make them impossible to kill in Pvp." Right... because there aren't any other high dps classes that wear plate. Sure...

So, there you have it. Straight from my creation to this blog (to your eyes)... Mages will be the next tanks. Now... who's gonna heal us? Warlocks!!!

Attack of the Melee

I think I'm going to unofficially rename the latest expansion. Henceforth (or at least until the end of this post), it shall now be known as Attack of the Melee. Let's look at the facts (or at least the QQ's from the forums).

Ret Paladins became gods with the 3.0 patch. Forget about the Hybrid vs. Pure class argument. Paladins just starting kicking everyone's butts. Oh, and did I mention that they're wearing plate as well? Yes, they got normalized, but they're still quite strong.

Death Knights obviously have a draw since they're the new class on the block. Some of the numbers that I've seen them put up in DPS mode is just amazing. And did anyone notice that they're wearing plate?

DPS Warriors have been strong for awhile, in my opinion. They've just continued to keep that strong spot. Again... they're wearing plate.

Enhancement Shammies... I'd really like to be able to comment on these guys. But since we don't have a single raiding Shammy anymore, I really couldn't tell you at all. I can tell you that my level 70 Enhancement Shammy killed a level 70 mob... all by himself. Yep, no lie.

Melee Hunters are SO overpowered that it's not even funny. Nerf Melee Hunters. Nerf them to the ground!!! (See? I told you it was QQ's from the forums. lol.)

Rogues have maintained their high, consistent DPS. Good for them.

Then on the other side of the fence... besides hunters that are getting the Nerf in 3.0.8, has there been anything exceptional or strong about any of the ranged classes/specs? Hmm.. maybe I should go pick up my dagger and start meleeing as well. So... welcome to Attack of the Melee, enjoy your ride.

Fun and Frustration with Phasing

Today's post is actually partly a response to Kulat's comment yesterday on my blog. For those of you with short term memory loss, I was commenting on the very cool aspect of phasing out in Icecrown. It's really neat how Blizzard has worked this technology into the game, and it makes for a lot of possibilities of how they can progress story lines. Excellent for the solo player.

For the groups, however, it may or may not be the coolest thing. As Kulat was saying, he was asked to help with a group quest and he couldn't see the mob; his whole party got knocked off the cliff, but he didn't see the assailant.

When I first heard about phasing, and started playing the beta, I mistakedly thought that phasing only occurred when you had that "fog" around the edges of your screen, such as occurs in Borean Tundra in Riplash Strand. Heck, you can't even see the mobs there until you go into the fog. And it's also an easy way to run away from them, if you just run out of the fog since they disappear.

Fast forwarding a few months, I knew that Icecrown was phased like this, and when I went there in beta, there was none of the fog. But I still thought it was only to certain instances or areas.

Phasing struck again last night in Dragonblight. I have the achievement for quests for Dragonblight, so I'm mostly done (just 3 group quests left there, I think). All of the phasing that will take place probably has already. Although, I didn't realize there was any taking place. That's probably the seamless manner that Blizzard wants the world to appear to you. (Oh! Except up where the movie took place. I really wish there was a way to silence those people. I hate that when I fly by there.) At any rate, we were at Wintergarde Keep where my wife was going to do a few quests before we headed over to Grizzly Hills.

"Go ahead and set your hearthstone here," I said.

"Ok. Where's the inn keeper?"

"Right in front of us. She just walked by you. She's the one pacing."

"Nope, I don't see him," she responds.

So, I lean over to look at her screen, and sure enough... no inn keeper there. Nothing. Is it a loading issue? Lag? Nope, all the other NPC's are there and I can see my own toon on her screen. So, without realizing it, at some point, I quested the inn keeper back to Wintergarde Keep where I can now set me hearthstone if I so desire. My wife, on the other hand, apparently has a quest or two to do.

Expansion Cheapness

Is it just me, or have people seemed to become really cheap in the expansion? I understand that a good portion of money is being used up to train new spells, new professions, and to buy new mounts, but come on people... even crappy quests of "go talk to the person next to me" seem to reward 5g at a minimum.

One of the many reasons I started noticing this and I bring it up now is due to mage portals.

Let me stop here so I don't lose a bunch of you cheapskates. Yes, the reagent cost is 20 silver. And yes, I only need to press 1 button to cast it. But whether you agree with it or not, the cost of a portal is NOT 20 silver.

While the cost is subjective, it should be more for "higher" cities. We can first learn to open a portal to cities at level 40. (most old world cities) Let's say that's 1g. (Assuming you're at max level, that's being pretty cheap for a high level toon and you probably should give more, but I'll start there for sake of discussion.) We learn portals to Darnassus and Thundering Bluff at 50. There should probably be a higher cost, but with demand so low for those ghost towns, I doubt anyone charges more. At 65, we can open a portal to Shattrath. The time we've spent levelin, plus the opportunity cost easily justify a nice, round 5g for a port to Shat. Just before launch, I was having people offer me 10g all the time.

And finally, our last portal comes at 74. It's to a city that you cannot get to without help unless you're level 74. It's not like the Dark Portal that you can run through at 68 to get to Shat. No, it's 4 levels after you've entered Northrend that you can get to Dalaran alone. Now with the help of a mage, they can send you there. (There's also the ghetto port I talked about before, but you get that messy deserter debuff.)

Now, I'm not setting a price for your port to Dalaran. If Shat was 5, then it makes sense that, especially if you're below 74, you give at least 10g, maybe more. I don't know. But the cheapness comes in when I see people offering 2g for a mage to open a portal to Dalaran for them. When I openely express that that's too little, I basically start a zone-wide arguement on the price of reagents and why it should only be a small stipends. It's not like I'm asking for your first-born or anything. Geez, people. Do a couple quests and pay up for services to others.

On a total side note: I logged in with my Shaman (who hadn't even seen Northrend on Live) last night, and I thought there was an error because he had 365 JC'ing. I swore he wasn't that high. But after a big of research of what I was skiling up on, I realized he was. Dang there's a lot of things to learn as a JC'er.

Wrath Tailoring Quests

I've pointed out before that there's not really any patterns that drop from current raid/dungeon experiences. Most of the stuff in Wrath is learned from the trainer with some quests or research that you can do every once in awhile. They basically made it so that anyone can get every recipe in Wrath.

I don't really agree with philosophy. If you're in a guild running the deepest, hardest dungeons, you should get the patterns for the best stuff. Heck, the materials should come from those same dungeons as well. Some random guy that played the AH well should be able to have the best gear in the game. (I'm exaggerating here, folks.)

But all that aside, let's talk about the feats of strength you have to perform in order to get the "cool kid" tailoring patterns.

Wispcloak
This cloak you can make once you've successfully run all of the instances in Northrend and gotten the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement. Okay, not that big of a deal. You put in a little effort, hit every dungeon, and you get this pattern. I'm on board with this one. Makes sense.

Deathchill Cloak
This one, however, seems a bit more extreme. You have to get the Loremaster of Northrend achievement. That means that you have to complete 875 quests in order to be able to craft this bad boy. So, maybe the "hardcore" people in Wrath aren't the raiders, but the questers and completetists.

And that's it. As far as I'm aware, there are exactly 2 patterns that you have to work for for Wrath crafting. The Wispcloak will be a gimmie for me, but the Deathchill's gonna take some time. But I think I'm about 1/4th the way there. :)

Ghetto Port - Dalaran

One of my biggest pushes in the expansion was to hit 71 as soon as possible so that I could get to Dalaran. There's a simple quest that mages can do at 71, and then you learn how to teleport to Dalaran. I was also under the impression that the portal to Dalaran could be learned at the same time (which didn't make sense, but I believed it, and I think it was that way in beta). The reason for this was simply so I could port all my guildies to Dalaran way before they hit 74.

Well... the portal can't be learned until 74. So, we pulled off what we call the Ghetto Portal. (Figured it out with the help of a certain priest in our guild.) I teleported to Dalaran, queued my party for a battleground, and then once entered, they went afk and were transported back to Dalaran. There's a small issue as far as the level range goes. Everyone that was 71 or higher, was no issue. I did it once with some 70's though, and they didn't get queued in everything I did. I queued in both WSG and Strands of the Ancients (Sota?). They got 1 and not the other. (Don't recall which one atm.

So, there you have it. And now anyone that's set their hearthstone there can do the same trick. Oh, and once you're there, you can also do the attunement quest that starts up in Dalaran (by the floating triangle thing) and get attuned yourself. So, level 74? Bah. That's so not even right. heh.

Revenge of the Queue

Before The Burning Crusades came out, and before Blizzard did a whole bunch of upgrades to their hardware for said expansion, Bronzebeard had queues. For somebody logging on about 8 o'clock, it was just a fact of life. Queues would generally be in the 800-900 range. And now? They're back. Logging in last night, I was exactly number 900. So, I figured I'd sit down and share some tips of how you can log in to Wow these days.

1. As soon as you get home from work/school, first launch the game and get in the queue. This is an important step. Do it.
2. Go fix yourself a nice meal. Health is important; you need to take care of yourself. Nothing too fancy, a 5-course meal should do it.
3. While it's in the oven, go exercise. Again, you want to take care of that flab. :)
4. Take a shower and get into comfy clothes.
5. Eat said dinner.
6. Build yourself a second (, third, fourth, or fifth) computer. If you don't "need it", build a web site so that you can start selling them to other people.
7. Take care of your yard. Water the grass. You may even have to mow the lawn (might want to do this before you shower). Take some time to watch the grass grow.
8. Watch the stars and sky, and observe the patterns in order to determine future weather cycles.
9. Determine next steps in obtaining World Peace. Create appropriate memos to world leaders to set this plan in to place.
10. By this time, you should probably be in about the top 10 for the queue. Go ahead and wait, and then log in to play.

There. See? It really wasn't that bad. And look at how productive we've all become. Maybe I should have made the top 10 things you can do while waiting for the queue. lol. But with a little bit of planning, it's really not all that bad. I think it took about an hour. I'm sure they'll die down eventually. So, what other servers had some pretty hefty queues?

On another note: I did some of the beginning quests with my wife on her toon, and there wasn't any lag, and the huge population/race/ninja issue I expected for the quests really wasn't that bad. So, all in all... good job, Blizzard.

Wrath Has Landed

Well, in case you were in a coma, you know now that Wrath of the Lich King went live on the realms last night. Here's the play-by-play of my evening.

• I went to bed shortly after I put the kids to bed at 7. (Yep, my kids get their sleep... at least for a little while longer.)
• Woke up at 11:30 to head over to Gamestop.
• The line was kind of a mess, and I had to wait in two lines because I didn't have my "final" receipt, even though my wife had already prepaid for both copies in full.
• Left Gamestop at about 12:30.
• Was home, upgraded and installed by about 1.
• Logged off of Wow at 4:45 to shower and get ready for work.

At about 3:45 or so, I asked in guild chat if I should take another nap, or just keep playing. The response was kind of like "duh!" So, I kept playing.

The funny part is, that I've almost done as much on live as I did in Beta with Leiandra. Even ran the the first instance (which is something I always planned to get around to, but never did). She's about 1/2-way through 70.

When I logged off, we had one person that had hit 71; he was the 13th person (by my count) on our server. There were even a couple 72's on our server. Armory isn't exactly accurate... that's too bad. When I click on the person that's 71, it shows him as 71. But in the guild roster, it still shows him as 70. So, not sure when that will update. And who knows.. maybe we have more 71's. :)

At any rate... If you don't have it, go buy Wrath. If you have it... well... what are you doing ready my blog when you can be playing? Your excuse better be like mine: I'm stuck at work.

Tailoring Decisions in Wrath

With the launch of The Burning Crusade about a year and a half ago, Tailors from all walks of life (classes) were gently guided into choosing a specialization for Tailoring. Healing Priests were enticed to Primal Mooncloth for the Primal Mooncloth set, such as the robes, that used to be BoP and were strictly a + healing item. Shadow Priests, non-Destro Warlocks, and Frost Mages (were there any true PvE Frost Mages in TBC?) were drawn to Shadowcloth and Frozen Shadoweave Set. Most of the mages and Destro Warlocks wanted the + fire and + arcane that came from the Spellfire Set. But I'm a little confused about what to choose as a mage in Wrath.

Let's take a look at the 3 specializations and what they can craft. Things so far are very similiar to their level 70 counterparts. You need imbued cloth along with some level 80 Primals to make the special cloth. Each special cloth makes some really good armor, a bag, and this time some thread for your back and a flying carpet. As far as I can tell, the flying carpets are purely aesthetics, so I will not discuss them in each group. Also, the bags need multiple cloths, but there is a predominate cloth for each. None of these patterns are BoP, so that makes things even more questionable.

Spellweave Specialization
At first glance, I thought this was the one that I do. It worked for me as a fire mage in TBC, why wouldn't the level 80 equivalent be the same, right? Well... not exactly. The Spellweave Robe and Spellweave Gloves have nice haste on them, but no stamina (I like to be able to survive something), and chaulked full of Spirit. Seems almost more like a healing piece.

Spellweave is the predominate cloth for the 32-slot enchanting bag, also requring 2 Moonshroud, but not really being class-specific there.

The thread for the back piece from Spellweave is actually for a melee class: Swordguard Embroidery. Not really sure where Blizzard is going on this one. Only tailors can do embroidery on their own cloaks, and last I checked, melee wearers don't wear cloth. So, this belongs to... umm???

Moonshroud Specialization
Again, from the level 70 version of, I thought this was more for a healing Priest. Let's take a look at the armor you can make: Moonshroud Robe and Moonshroud Gloves. Well.. there's good all around stats there. This could really go for any of the three clothies, I suppose. No + crit or hit or haste, but has a good amount of all the major stats.

Glacial Bags are made with 4 parts Moonshroud and 4 parts Ebonweave. So.. umm... have two tailors so you can make lots of bags? I don't know here, but big bags are cool.

But the Lightweave Embroidery is really one of the best things for DPS casters. I still don't think there's any armor that is + holy resist, so there's almost no chance it will get resisted. (Okay, might be a small exageration.) At any rate, extra damage every once in awhile is a good thing, okay?

Ebonweave Specialization
Ah, the Warlock Specialization. Finally something I know. Wait. Or is it? You can make the Ebonweave Robe and Gloves with this cloth. The + hit is beneficial to all DPS casters, arguably more needed for a warlock, but Mages and, to a lesser extent, Shadow Priests need some too. So, again... could be for pretty much any DPS caster.

The Abbysal Bag has Warlock written all over it. But since you'll only buy one, this factor alone shouldn't dictate which route you go. As mentioned before, this is also the other 1/2 of the 22-slot bags.

And finally the Darkglow Embroidery is for mana regen. That would mean it's for... healers and arcane mages? /shrug.

Summary
After looking at all the different options, I have no idea what I'm going to specialize in. If I wanted to make a profit, I guess I'd go for Ebonweave or Moonshroud, since that has the potential to make a lot of bags for people. Other than that... well.. Wrath is still technically in Beta, so there could always be changes.

Friends and Family Alpha

I recently moved a bit further away from Anaheim. I could still get there in probably an hour and a half without traffic, but traffic is they key here in Southern California. So, for last weekend, I hung out with my best friend, Elinor, at his brother's house. Thursday night, after we got in from waiting in line to pick up our tickets for BlizzCon, we jumped on his brother's computers to play around in the beta a bit.

Elinor launched the first WoW icon he saw, and the "typical" EULA or whatever popped up. (He hadn't patched the beta for a bit, so this wasn't surprising, and we had him do it for our arrival. Out of the 7 Wow players in the house that night, 5 of us have beta keys.) But then the title of the EULA caught my eye: "Friends and Family". WHAT??!!?? You were in Alpha? Elinor's brother wasn't in the room, so I didn't fly off the handle or anything. But I asked Elinor if he knew that. Nope. And I certainly didn't know.

When he did come in and I asked him. It was kind of a casual, oh yeah... we were in alpha. He eventually explained who he knew and how they knew him, etc. But yeah... kind of a shocker. Was he ever going to tell us? I warned him that he was going in my blog. So, yes... some people in Alpha do actually abide by the non-disclosure agreement. And I now understand why his wife (also in Alpha) was so upset when I got BlizzCon tickets and she didn't. (By the way, she had pushed to get us in Alpha too, but it obviously never happened.)

What Do You Accomplish Before...

This past weekend, I got my alt druid to level 60. For some strange reason, I decided to level all the way to 60 in the Azeroth before heading to Outlands. I think part of me wanted to make the quests/mobs just a little bit easier, even though the xp bonus would out weigh the risk. Furthermore, since you pretty much have to have 300 mining before heading to Outlands, I needed to finish up some mining rounds as well.

So, here in a couple of short weeks, we'll have 2 expansions out. People may be eventually be telling the same levling stories of, "Yeah, I hit Northrend at 68 for the incresaed xp and gold," and skipping Shadowmoon Valley and the like.

But here's the curiosity: What do you do before you head to Outlands on an alt? And what will you do if you're leveling another toon to 80 that isn't 70 when Wrath hits? (DK maybe?)

I think the void from 58-60 is actually much better spend going to Outlands. Blizzard finally started "getting it" with quests in the first expansion. We don't want to have to run for 15 minutes to complete this quest. We don't want to have to kill 2000 gophers. We want a sense of accomplishment much sooner than that. Oh, and some of us would like a good story to go along with it as well.

From 68-70, it's not quite as bad, but some of the quests in Northrend are a lot of fun. (It could be partly because they're new.) And it's not quite the jump in rewards that Outlands was from Azeroth. So, I'm guessing that I'll probably stay in Outlands until 70, and then move along to the frozen North.

As for other things I do. In the case of my toons that have gathering professions, I make sure they have those to at least 300 (in the case of skinning, I probably could have been to about 375 before I even left Azeroth). And I empty my quest log of the unwanted/old/not completed quests. Other than that, I don't look back.

A Storm's Coming

I need to give credit to Spicy Tuna for pointing this out, but the "new" Blizzard in Beta is amazing. I have all of Leiandra's 61 points invested into Frost. She rides around Northrend on her little horsey to round them all up.

Frost Nova and Jump...

Then Blizzard.

Most of the mobs don't even make it out of the first Blizzard. Those that do are still pretty far off, and I haven't had any melee make it through my second cast of Blizzard. In short: AoE farming will be a lot of fun with Frost.

Raid Motivation Before Wrath

Just before the release of The Burning Crusades, I had a lot of fun with guildies trying out new content for us. I wasn't in a raiding guild back then. And we were excited to press on and see new content and kills even though we knew we'd be replacing the gear soon enough once the Dark Portal was open. And once the new talents came out, we found an additional boost in our ability to do new kills in Zul Gurub.

In Primogeniture, lately we haven't had as many people signing on for raids. We discussed it a little in guild chat last night. It appears that some people want to get their alts to 70. Some people don't understand that the T5/T6 gear we would be getting wouldn't be replaced until level 76 or so. Some people realize they can get upgrades, but know it's not the same gear they'll be raiding in at 80, so why bother?

Unfortunately, there's not enough of a core (or so it seems) that are interested in the kill for the opportunity or satisfaction of a job complete. We'd easily have enough time to kill Vash and Kael if we had people signing on, but alas... we don't have the consistent numbers. A shame really... I was hoping to get that title. I'm not saying we have stopped raiding, but with cancelling raids due to lack of attendance, it's kind of frustrating.

But I can't believe that I'm alone in the current situation I find myself in; or rather, that Primogeniture is the only guild having this issue. We have a lot of core friends in the guild, so we can continue to do stuff... it just might not be the 25-man content we had been planning for. Maybe we'll see how few people we can take to bring down Mag. (Hey... then I'd at least get one title. lol.)

Drastic Change In Wrath

I am truly shocked that I haven't seen any reports on this. Blizzard has changed a basic game mechanic so drastically that it will forever change the way we play World of Warcraft. This should have made the patch notes. This should have been the top story on every major blog. And as to this point, it has remained hidden as far as I know.

What is this dramatic difference? How will it effect you? Will this completely destroy end-game raiding? It's a good thing I'm here to fill you in. Thank goodness you read Zanderfin's Wow "Casual" Raiding.

I've still been playing around with specs quite a bit on my mage, Leiandra. In Beta, she's now been Fire, Frost, Arcane, Elemental, Arcane/Fire, Arcane/Frost, and a lack-luster build of equal points in each. So, I continued to quest a bit as I was trying out my latest build of Frost. There is an underwater quest which was quite fun. Going underwater was easy since it appears we now have increased lung capacity (about 3 minutes). And Blizzard was nice enough to give a quest item that allows you to breathe underwater as well. When I was done with the quest, and needed to resurface was when I noticed the change.

As I always do when I want a quick ascent out of water, I swam up and began jumping. Only this time, I didn't jump. I simply continued to rise at a steady pace. I thought my space bar might be broken, so I tried some more. Still absent: my jumping. As much as I tried, I could not jump while submerged in water. It was like... it was as if... I thought I was flying. "That's it!" I thought. It's the same mechanic that flying mounts use.

So there you have it folks. You heard it here first. This will completely change the way we... well... come up out of water. I'm simply appaled that I'm the first one to report on such a game-breaking change. Now... if I can just figure out how it will break the game, I'm sure I have grounds for a law suit or something.

(Clarification: Yes, I'm joking about it being game-breaking or of any major consequence in the game. And no, I will not be filing a law suit. More than anything I thought, "Hmm... that makes sense. Glad they finally changed that."

Also of note: you can still jump out of water, just can't jump while still submerged.)

Interesting Side Effect

I'm not exactly sure when I first purchased the second account for my wife to play World of Warcraft. But I do know that she didn't hit 60 until well after The Burning Crusades was out. And since she generally only quests with me, I'm usually the one to show her where to go since I've done most of the quests already. She did have a paladin that she solo'ed through the Dranei area until about level 20, but that's about it for her solo career.

A lot of times when I have somebody else showing me around, I tend to remember the area/instance less. As much as I pay attention, things don't come together for me until I've (A) seen it a few times, or (B) had to do the research like looking it up on a map. I think (or at least hope) that a lot of people are like me and they almost go brain dead if somebody's leading them around, and especially if they think that's the only time they'll be doing that quest.

My wife's the same way. It's taken her awhile to remember where things are, mostly because she has me as a crutch so she can ask me about stuff whenever she wants. She can go make her Shadowcloth by herself, and she usually remembers where the bank is in Shatt. But with the less time /played she has, and using me as a crutch, she certainly doesn't remember as much.

Last night, we played the Beta for a bit. (We both got keys.) All of a sudden it dawned on her, "You don't know where you're going, do you? You've never done these quests before?" And when I answered in the negative, she was excited about that. We'd get to work together exploring new quests and areas. Not just me telling her where to go. She liked that. It was neat to hear the excitement in her voice. And come to think of it, it sounds like it will be fun.

The only question is: how do I get her to forsake all other hobbies so that we can level to 80 together uninterupted? Wow... I really need to get another hobby. lol.

WoW 3.0 = Death to my Laptop

I've known I need to replace my laptop for quite some time now. I think it's about 4 years old now. A month or so back when the green line appeared, I really started thinking about it. (The "warranty" for the green line is 3 years. I've had mine for at least that long.) I started to lean towards raiding on the desktop when we started Karazhan, and I gave up raiding on the laptop completely back when we started raiding 25-man content. On on occasion or two, I did ZA on it (due to technical difficulties with the other one), but at 2 fps, I figured I wasn't doing my best.

Now that I've been in Beta, a couple more things happened. I was playing on my desktop and I first noticed that Northrend looked very foggy, but very, very smooth (about 60 fps). At some point, something clicked and I turned up all the effects and distance. Fog was instantly pushed back to reveal some stunning backgrounds. I was awed when the Burning Crusade came out; Wrath of the Lich King will awe me again. My frame rates dropped a little bit, but things were still smooth. (I think it was about 40 fps.)

Heading on over to the laptop to relax on the couch, and there was that same fog feeling. Although this time, not quite as smooth. (I forgot to look at my fps, but probably about 25.) Wanting to experiment a bit, I put the settings all the way up. About 2 fps... not really what I would consider playable. So, I pushed them back down and explored a bit.

Not trying to give away any spoilers here, but in the new PVP zone (which was quite fun), you can mount gun turrets and vehicles. The distance you can shoot is fairly far. With the terrain distance at it's lowest, you can't see where you're shooting. I moved that slider only up, and the 10 fps was better, but still not ideal for PvP. I can only guess how bad it will be for raid encounters with 9 or 24 other people.

So... yeah. I guess the issue is now prioritizing spending. Backyard, inside painting (decorative), or new computer? Anyone want to guess my vote?

Wrath Beta Toons

I got a couple of my toons transferred over to the Beta Realms. If anyone would like to join me, please send me a whisp/mail/put me on your friends list, whatever. I'll update as more toons get moved over and as I name them successfully. Here's who's over there so far and what I have coming:

PVE Realm

• Leiandra - 70 mage
• Zedicus - 70 priest (yeah... somebody took my Graybeard name)
• Yet to be named - 70 shaman
  

Premade Realm

• Bryn - 80 mage
• Beth - DK (/cheer, I have a 80 tank)
  
• Buba- Shaman (I'll probably go resto)
  

Got a Beta Invite, and...

...what's the first thing I do? That's right. Download the latest patch.

I actually got a call last night from one of my raid leaders, and she was all excited because she got a Beta Invite. I was genuinely excited for her as well. I figured it just wasn't meant to be. I wasn't supposed to get an invite. But then I checked my e-mail, and there was an e-mail in there from Blizzard as well. As far as I know, there's now 5 of us in Primogeniture that have gotten beta invites. Hey... at least we could do 5-man instances. heh. I think I know 3 or 4 others that have it as well. I'll post my Beta toon's name once Leiandra is transferred over so that if anyone else wants to join me... (Hey, it may be the only time all my Blogging friends will be on the same server. lol.)

So, luckily, due to my friend, I already have the beta on my computer. That means the bulk of the download has already taken place. I just had to download a small 100 or so mb file last night. Oh, and then there's the small fact that (A) it takes time to copy your toon to the beta realms, and (B) they didn't give me any premades to make. So, I started another Death Knight.

Personal Goals - Pre WOTLK version

With the recent announcement that there will be a patch in the next couple of weeks that will put us all on the Wrath client, I got to thinking what I would like to do before the expansion hits.

The biggest thing that I came up with was that I'd really like to do is clear out my quest log. Some people are good at keep them all done. I seem to get stuck with the group quests. Just never find motivation to ask people to do quests they're not even on. Keep in mind though, that I'm only planning on doing this with Leiandra. My other two 70's will just have their quest logs purged before I eventually head to Northrend with them.

Other than that, I don't really have any goals for before the expansion (as far as the individual side). I plan on downing a few bosses, but that's about it as far as outside of instances stuff.

What are you planning on doing or accomplising before the expansion comes out?