WoW Insider Breakfast Topic

Farewell, WoW Insider

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 30, 2015
Posted in: Blog, World of Warcraft, WoW Insider Breakfast Topic, WoW Insider Community Blog Topic. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

wow insider

Alex Ziebart on WoW Insider confirmed today that WoW Insider will cease operations this Tuesday, February 3. This is definitely a sad day. This follows Alexander Sliwinski reporting on a rumor that Joystiq was shutting down on Joystiq itself three days ago. With them goes Massively as well.

WoW Insider was my favorite source of World of Warcraft news. There’s a void now, and I’m not sure how I’ll fill it. There are many other WoW blogs I follow but none like WoW Insider. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any!

Many talented persons have written for the site, including some of my favorites like Dawn Moore, Anne Stickney, Fox Van Allen, and Olivia Grace (even if the last two weren’t writing for it recently). I wish I was better at using Twitter. I feel like things I might want to read get lost in the never-ending stream, but I’ll follow all the writers regardless.

I’ve written three pieces for WoW Insider too. In my Breakfast Topics, I posed the questions, how do you relationships in game affect relationships in real life, are you a closet reoleplayer, and has your perspective of Azeroth changed over time? I’ve also responded to Breakfast Topics here on Kor’kron 501st. In fact, you can tell how much influence WoW Insider has on me by checking the WoW Insider tag on my blog.

How will I know my lore without Know Your Lore articles? Most importantly, what about the Queue? The Queue is the daily column in which various WoW Insider writers answer questions from the community. It was by far my favorite column. Every morning I check for the Queue, and when it’s not yet posted, I keep checking until it is. It’ll be weird for it be gone.

Farewell, WoW Insider, and thanks for everything.

Breakfast Topic: Does the Call to Arms bag affect how you queue?

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 17, 2012
Posted in: World of Warcraft, WoW Insider Breakfast Topic. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Everyday WoW Insider offers a Breakfast Topic for discussion. Here’s today’s topic by Matthew Rossi

Have I been trained by the Call to Arms rewards? Am I a Pavlovian tank, demanding my bribe bag before I sign up to do my job? Have any of you tanks or healers felt yourself acting this way, refusing to queue unless fabulous prizes await?

In short, yes, of course.

Things were different when the Valor Points were my primary goal. At that time, I’d try to queue when there was a Call to Arms for healers active, but if I was short on time and needed my VP, I’d queue anyways. Now Valor Points are worthless. Very rarely do I do any actual endgame. If I do play WoW, I’m doing battlegrounds or working on loremaster. If I happen to see the Call to Arms, I might do a heroic – perhaps one every three weeks. I definitely wouldn’t waste my time on a heroic if there wasn’t a bag offered.

On the other hand, I’ve never received anything of value from a bag either.

On a similar note, I’ve run LFR just for fun a couple times since the guild stopped raiding. Sometimes I give Madness one try, but often I drop group when we get there. I’m doing it for fun. Madness is no fun with people who can’t succeed. Dropping group solves that problem.

Breakfast Topic: What parts of gameplay do you consider a chore?

Posted by Peter (Devee) on February 5, 2012
Posted in: Game Mechanics, WoW Insider Breakfast Topic. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

What do you consider a chore in WoW? What are the not-that-fun-but-necessary parts of the game? What are things that you just won’t do because they’re too tiresome?

via Breakfast Topic: What parts of gameplay do you consider a chore?.

Saturday’s Breakfast Topic on WoW Insider was on parts of WoW that are chores or grinds. I don’t think the chores are separate than the parts I enjoy. That isn’t to say that I enjoy the chores. It’s just that WoW requires players to do the same things again and again until fun things become terrible.

I was going to write about this anyways, but it fits in well here:

LFR was fun. LFR is a chore.

Grinding normal mode has a reason. Usually, unless you’re heroically geared from the previous tier, you don’t clear normal mode right away. You work at it, and as you do, you get better gear. Eventually the gear (along with skill) allows you progress further in normal mode.

LFR allows any group to immediately succeed and finish. Why bother gearing then? I suppose for normal mode, but it’s just so, so, so boring at this point. I still do it because I want to get better gear. And luckily, I’m almost done. There’s a ring from LFR that’s an upgrade, and then I’ll be done with both Valor Points and LFR drops. However, it’s been boring for a while now.

How do we fix this chore?

I suppose we get rid of LFR loot. Valor Point I understand and like. Yeah, the three 5-mans seem like chores now too, but at least I get some choices. I can raid the current tier, I can do random heroics, I can do LFR, and I can do Baradin Hold. All of these things give Valor Points. However, if you need LFR loot, you have to do LFR. This should be fixed!

But what’s next? No more drops from raids at all? Stupid!

That’s not exactly what I mean. In normal or heroic raids, at least you’re making progress (in theory). It’s never ridiculously easy. If it was, you’d plow through until you got to the boss on which you were working.

LFR doesn’t help in LFR, because you’re able to plow right through LFR. I don’t think you should have to grind the same boring thing over and over for a single piece of loot. I’m happy to have normal and heroic raid bosses drop real loot, but things that are purely for grinding should award Valor Points, allowing people to choose from a variety of things to grind.

Here’s my solution: Leave tier tokens in LFR. Have more VP gear. Done!

As an aside, how about giving Valor Points for completing specific heroics, but not as much as a random? Just a thought.

Favorite Cataclysm NPCs

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 25, 2012
Posted in: WoW Insider Breakfast Topic. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Today’s Breakfast Topic from WoW Insider was on memorable NPCs from Cataclysm. Anne Stickney begins her discussion with Mylune, the dryad from Hyjal. She ends with two questions; “Do you have a favorite NPC that was introduced with Cataclysm? Who stands out in your mind?” Well, I skipped a lot of quests from Vanilla and BC (and a couple zones from Wrath), so I’ll pretend that NPCs I didn’t know about previously count.

First, I completely agree with the choice of Mylune. She’s so cute. Devee would totally love to hook up with her. Read the quest text from these two quests. Don’t you want to cuddle her?

Speaking of things I want to cuddle (and Hyjal), I love the bear cubs you save. Do they count as NPCs? No?! Well… um… then I also love Tortolla, the giant turtle that you get to hang out with in Hyjal.

I also like Erunak Stonespeaker. I’ll admit, it’s not really because of him. What I love is the way he progresses with you as you play through Vashj’ir. Very cool. It made the zone feel much more alive.

There’s one final NPC that I have to mention, and he’s also from Vashj’ir. Thrall’s balls is he a good one! Of course, I’m talking about Legionnaire Nazgrim. Hey! Technically Legionnaire Nazgrim was introduced in Cataclysm.