Kor'kron 501st

Every Thursday I post a handful of links to articles written within the past week that are worth reading.

True Love Between Gamers: I do take this rotting corpse as my husband, Lisa Poisso, WoW Insider, 6/21/12.

Lisa recounts some stories of love blooming over World of Warcraft.

Cross-realm play and the rise of the funsucker, Robin Torres, WoW Insider, 6/24/12.

Robin considers the fact that there will now be no accountability out in the world while leveling once zones go cross-realm.

Know Your Lore: What exactly is up with women in Warcraft lore?, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 6/24/12.

Last week, Blessing of Kings discussed what message developers are sending by objectifying women in their games. This week, Anne at WoW Insider looks at women characters in Warcraft.

Idea: Release Mists with No Raids?, Matticus, World of Matticus, 6/25/12.

Matticus explores the idea of opening up raids after week 2 of Pandaria’s release. He believes this would level the playing field a bit between people who rush and people who don’t. It’s an interesting idea that I really like. On a personal note, two weeks would definitely not do it for me. WoW is one interest among many. Some days I spend my free time doing things other than playing video games, and when I do play video games, WoW is just one of them.

WoW Moviewatch: Orc vs. Wild: Interactive Adventure, Michael Gray, WoW Insider, 6/14/12.

Michael shares this great choose-your-own-adventure YouTube video.

Mists of Pandaria: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻, Dawn Moore, WoW Insider, 6/21/12.

(Dawn, you’re my favorite WoW Insider writer, but that title was annoying!) New to the beta is a flippable table! yes!

Mists of Pandaria: Gold sink mounts will be account-wide, Robin Torres, WoW Insider, 6/25/12.

Blizzard has gone back on their previous decision. Gold sink mounts will now be account-wide.

Mooglegem and the cute paladin

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 27, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Holidays, Journal, Mooglegem, World of Warcraft. Tagged: frost lord ahune, midsummer fire festival, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Recently, gem and I queued for the Frost Lord Ahune. As usual, it’s nice and easy. While we were looting, gem got a good look at Punishor, our tank.

Mooglegem pets Punishor.
Mooglegem says: you’re so cute
Mooglegem pets Punishor.

And while she said this, she ran in circles around him.

This kind of behavior is normal when I play with her!

Polygons and Pixels

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 25, 2012

Posted in: Blog. Tagged: polygons and pixels, webpageless. Leave a comment

Before I created Kor’kron 501st, I had a blog, WebPageless, at which I posted on any subject. I’ve found that I really enjoy having a dedicated site here for WoW and other online RPGs. The increased focus is much better. As such, I’ve created another site to cover gaming in general. I might spend a lot of time in WoW with brief journeys into TOR and D3, but I still play a ton of other games too. If you care to read my thoughts on other games or gaming in general, check out Polygons and Pixels.

Blog Azeroth: Renaming World of Warcraft

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 25, 2012

Posted in: Blog Azeroth Shared Topics, Lore, World of Warcraft. Tagged: azeroth, blog azeroth, burning legion, frinka, shared topic, the rise of azeroth, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. 6 Comments

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. Here’s this week’s topic, proposed by frinka.

Knowing what you know now about the game, what name other than World of Warcraft would you give it? Why?

To think of an alternative name, I started by paraphrasing the name World of Warcraft. What is the world of Warcraft? Azeroth. At first, I was thinking Azeroth would make a good alternative name. Then I started thinking about what role Azeroth plays. The series is about defeating the Burning Legion. It’s the Titans, the Light, the Naaru, Azeroth versus the Burning Legion. It’s about Azeroth being an anomaly among the planets in the Universe. Azeroth is different. Azeroth has withstood multiple invasions. Azeroth has struck back.

The series is about The Rise of Azeroth.

Cataclysm Bucket List

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 22, 2012

Posted in: Achievements, Mists of Pandaria, PVP, World of Warcraft. Tagged: bucket list, cataclysm, loremaster, PvP, Tol Barad, warcraft, wintergrasp, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

There have been other bloggers talking about their Cataclysm bucket lists lately, and I didn’t think I had anything I really needed to get done before Pandaria hits. However, I recently realized I was wrong.

I’ve always thought of Wintergrasp and Tol Barad basically as battlegrounds. I do them for PVP. However, the fact that Wintergrasp is so dead shows that most people are likely doing them for the gear you can get. That means Tol Barad will likely die when Pandaria releases. Embarrassingly, I don’t have Tol Barad Veteran yet. I’m actually only 13/25. I need to step it up!

To a lesser extent, I need to work on Loremaster. I don’t expect to finish it, but it’ll be easier now than later. When Blizzard’s new-fangled realm merging in under-populated zones, I suspect I’ll have people around me now in the low level zones. On the one hand, I like the idea the world feeling more alive. On the other hand, I don’t want to have compete for quest objectives.

Most likely, I’ll finish TB off and forget to work on Loremaster at all.

Blog Azeroth: What I want but can’t have.

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 20, 2012

Posted in: Blog Azeroth Shared Topics, World of Warcraft. Tagged: blog azeroth, dragonray, of the horde, shared topic, spectral tiger, tabard of the lightbringer, the bloodthirsty, val'anyr, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. Here’s this week’s topic, proposed by dragonray:

What is in game that you want, but you can’t have? Is there an animal you want to tame, a critter you want to collect, a tabard that has the perfect design for a transmog set etc etc.

What is it you want, but know you can’t get your hands on and have to stare at longingly whenever you log in?

The one item that I want the most and doubt I’ll ever get it the Tabard of the Lightbringer. You can see how awesome it looks in the video embedded above, uploaded by YouTube user danofspam. I suppose I could get this through two different ways. First, I could start playing the AH a ton in order to make enough gold to buy it. However, prices will likely only increase for a while. Second, I could try to obtain Shadowmourne later in the game when it’s possible to go back and do heroic ICC 25 with a small group. I doubt I’ll ever obtain it.

As for runner ups, there are a couple other things I’d like. The title “of the Horde” is something I really want, but at over 90,000 honorable kills already, I’m confident I’ll earn it. I suppose it’s the 250,000 HK title “the Bloodthirsty” that I’d like but probably will never get. Honestly though, “of the Horde” is the one I really want.

There’s also a little mount called a spectral tiger. Heard of it? I want one.

How about Val’anyr? I’d love one of those and doubt I’ll bet getting one any time soon.

The only thing that I really want and know there’s no way of getting is the initial feeling of wonderment at the world (of Warcraft). At one time, the world seemed huge and sprawling. Now I know that it’s pretty linear. Even if they bring back zones in Pandaria that aren’t linear, you still do one zone after another. The game is formulaic. There was a time in which it was a big trek to get from the zones in Kalimdor in which I was leveling to Ironforge. I remember debating setting by hearthstone there. Now the world feels quite small. I don’t think I’ll ever fully regain that feeling.

Proudmoore Pride LGBTQ Event

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 18, 2012

Posted in: Role-Playing, World of Warcraft. Tagged: proudmoore pride, role-playing, the spreading taint, the stonewall family, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

Saturday was the 8th annual Proudmoore Pride celebration on the Proudmoore-US World of Warcraft server. Proudmoore Pride is an LGBTQ pride celebration hosted by The Spreading Taint (Horde) and The Stonewall Family (Alliance). I heard about it on Fox Van Allen’s WoW Insider article, 8th annual LGBT Proudmore Pride celebration to be held this weekend, and decided to check it out. I recorded the event and posted the highlights as a video on YouTube that you can see above.

According to the official site, there was a parade followed by a dance party in Booty Bay. There were bits and pieces about some other things, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I rolled a new troll priest on the server, and Mooglegem created a new troll mage. Then we headed to the parade start location.

Here we’re organizing at the Mor’Shan Ramparts on the Ashenvale border of the Northern Barrens for the start of the parade. Apparently they always organize characters by the color of their gear. My skin was blue, and my starter robe was greenish. I just took off the robe and went in the blue group because Moogle was definitely blue. In the screenshot, you can see us in the center with the purple group behind us, the green in front of us, and the red further up and to the left.

Here you can see Moogle and me marching in the blue group. I’m the troll in the center with the white hair, and Moogle is the troll to the left of my character (on my character’s right) with the red hair.

When we reached Ratchet, we merged with the Alliance parade that was marching from Honor’s Stand in the Southern Barrens.

It was a crowded boat! This was pretty cool honestly. Sadly, I didn’t get a screenshot when the rainbow was up! There were so many people that by the time Moogle’s computer loaded, she was back in Ratchet. She completely missed Booty Bay on the first trip.

Finally, the dance party in Booty Bay! It was odd thinking of Booty Bay as a safe place. I’m definitely not used to PVE servers. Most of the party was on the water itself. Unfortunately, a level one character can’t join a raid group to get a Death Knight’s Path of Frost and is too low level to have Water Walking. I was stuck up here on the dry land.

The Spreading Taint has a bunch of guilds and created a temporary guild for the event called Taint for a Day. They use a mod called GreenWall to merge the guild chats. I’ve heard of this before but never used it. It works really well.

Taint had drawings for prizes that included pets and other items. They also had a second drawing for a chance to attend their heroic Madness of Deathwing kill for the title, Savior of Azeroth, and mount, Life-Binder’s Handmaiden. I didn’t enter because my main wasn’t on that server. Maybe I should have entered the second drawing and then server-transferred if I won.

The Stonewall Family apparently had a parade float judging, but I don’t know anything about that. They also held a drag king / drag queen contest for guild members in Booty Bay. I wanted to at least see it, but I didn’t see much happening so I logged out. There was also a transmog contest later that day at the cathedral in Stormwind for Alliance characters, but I didn’t attend.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I decided to attend, but I had a lot of fun. I’ll definitely check it out again next year. These types of events are fun. Hopefully I can check out more in the future. There was once a homecoming parade for veterans of the War in Northrend on an RP server, but sadly, it was on a European server. This might be a different kind of parade, but it was fun all the same!

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: breakfast topic, call to arms, Dragon Soul, heroics, LFR, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow, wow insider. 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.

Blog Azeroth: What would Devee do as an NPC?

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 16, 2012

Posted in: Blog Azeroth Shared Topics, Lore, Priest, Role-Playing, World of Warcraft. Tagged: ancestors, blog azeroth, cymre, holy light, light, loa, priest, robin torres, shared topic, spirits, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow, wow insider. 1 Comment

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. After the recent post on WoW Insider by Robin Torres about a Shared Topic, I decided to join Blog Azeroth as well. Here’s this week’s topic, proposed by Cymre:

If Blizzard added your main as an NPC in WoW, where would they be located and what would be their function? Give us a shot illustrating the fact.

I play a troll discipline priest named Devee. If Blizzard added me as an NPC, I’d hopefully be in the Valley of Spirits in Orgrimmar. As weird as it sounds, I’d like to offer quests only to troll priests. I know that’s limiting, so sure, we can open it to all Horde priests if you really insist. It would make sense to place me in the hut to the right in the background of the one pictures in my screenshot because that’s where the caster trainers are; however, I find it ugly. It either needs some more trees, or I’m planting my NPC right here! However, I definitely want to be in Orgimmar and not on the Echo Isles. Despite my disagreement with the politics of Garrosh, Orgrimmar is the center of the Horde.

Priests of different playable races use varying lore for their class mechanics. Some use the Holy Light. The Forsaken have twisted the Light into their new religion, the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow. The Darkspear use loa and spirits. I’d like my NPC to reconcile the traditional troll views with the Holy Light.

It could begin with a quest to put to rest the spirits of trolls who died during the Liberation of the Echo Isles from Zalazane. Unlike quests that usually urge players to kill undead spirits, the quest would task you with healing aggressive spirits, putting them at ease and finally letting them rest. The spirits would be hostile but immune to damage. Only healing can stop them. Bwonsamdi, the loa representing the spirits of the dead, could walk slowly through the area during the quest.

The next quest would send the troll priests to Stranglethorn Vale. This was the ancestral home of the Darkspear tribe. The quest would have players seek knowledge about the loa and honor their ancestors. Rather than being about combat, it would send players to locations in the zone, causing the spirits of ancestors and loa to appear and talk to them. Players will discover that the strength of benevolent loa spirits as well as the love, honor, and respect of and for the spirits of their ancestors empower troll priests.

The final quest would send players to Shattrath to talk to A’dal and Grand Anchorite Almonen. Currently in the game, Almonen gives a speech that includes the following:

It has been made known to me that inside each of us, the Light resides… that it is a gift, given freely to all naturally born beings. It manifests itself as a feeling, small at first and easily ignored, that confirms truths and subtly prods one to do good. Simple kindnesses, charitable deeds, service to those in need. These are all fruits of the Light. It rewards those who heed its promptings with blessings, both seen and unseen. Personal reservoirs of hope and faith are strengthened, and one’s capacity for greater light increases. Over the course of time, through obedience to the Light’s guidance, one becomes more sensitive to its voice, and its power. Great is the healing and blessing power of the Light’s most diligent followers.

I’d like Almonen to expand on this to the players on the quest. He’ll note that the Light doesn’t require worship, and that the Light doesn’t necessarily refuse people who gain power from other means.

The lore implications would be that the teachings regarding the Light don’t conflict with Darkspear teachings. Troll priests will end the questline knowing that there’s great power in the Light, but that they can continue their racial traditions as well. It’ll be implied that through interactions with the spirits and even the discipline flavor of overpowering minds, they could still be following the Light.

1.6.0 – Assault on Blackwing Lair Trailer

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 15, 2012

Posted in: Raiding, Videos, World Events, World of Warcraft. Tagged: 1.6.0, assault on blackwing lair, black dragonflight, blackrock mountain, bwl, endgame, raid, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

It took until patch 1.6.0 for Blizzard to release another raid. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this isn’t because Blizzard wasn’t releasing content. They were just more lenient about what constituted a full patch number. In the last post, I talked about the 1.5.0 – Battlegrounds trailer. It was bad.

If you watched the Assault on Blackwing Lair trailer, you’ll see that this is bad as well. I’m positive that Blizzard knew how to make good trailers at this time. They did it for previous games, and they did it for the launch of World of Warcraft. Why does this one look like amateur machinima? Why is there a jerky camera? Everything’s in-game; there’s not even any voice work. It’s probably worth noting that this patch also introduced the Darkmoon Faire, although the trailer doesn’t address it at all.

Of course, maybe it’s redeemed by the character jumping around randomly around 0:15 to 0:17 on the left! Blizzard also uses this raid to reinforce the importance of the Black Dragonflight. In fact, having multiple Black Dragonflight raids so close together probably contributed to them seeming more important than they were, because they did take a backseat for a while afterwards. It was also interesting that the first three raids (and a few dungeons) were all within Blackrock Mountain. That was an incredibly important place for a long time. Besides PVP, it was the location of endgame World of Warcraft.

Patches up to 1.5 – Battlegrounds.

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 13, 2012

Posted in: PVP, Raiding, Videos, World of Warcraft. Tagged: 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, alterac valley, battlegrounds, children's week, dire maul, gurubashi arena, maraudon, mysteries of maraudon, ruins of the dire maul, the call to war, warcraft, warsong gulch, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

In Vanilla, Blizzard wasn’t matching patches to story progression yet. Some progressed the story, but many did not. Patch 1.2, Mysteries of Maraudon, brought holidays and the Maraudon dungeon. I was low level at the time, so I don’t know what it was like when it was first released. Next came patch 1.3, Ruins of the Dire Maul, which brought the dungeon and player caps on dungeons. It seems odd now to think that there was a time when there weren’t player limits. The more mind-boggling aspect is that at one point Maraudon and Dire Maul were new and, presumably, people were excited about them. Those dungeons are terrible. Is that just me, or do other people agree?

Patch 1.4, The Call of War, brought the PvP honor system, Children’s Week, the Gurubashi arena, and the elemental invasion. These are all good parts of the game I think (or at least on the right track). However, I still can’t imagine being too excited about this patch. It’s not real, full-fledged content yet.

Patch 1.5, Battlegrounds, brought Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley. Here’s some actual content finally. However, it’s still only PVP content. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fine with that, but I think the vast majority of players are PVE-oriented. I couldn’t imagine the game without battlegrounds. Yeah, I enjoy some other aspects of the game, but battlegrounds are my favorite. Without them, I never would have reached endgame. I’m sure of it.

The trailer itself is terrible. It seems odd that Blizzard could make such a great trailer for the game itself and then release this. It’s bad. It’s really bad, actually. I would say it looks like a fan made it, except I’ve seen excellent fan videos. This is clearly recorded in-game withsome zoomed to first-person perspective. The camera work is shaky, and most disappointingly, there’s no voice-acting at all. At this stage of the game, Blizzard seems to be promoting mechanics more than the world itself. There’s no sense of getting into character and really making the universe come alive. Maybe it wasn’t needed back then because World of Warcraft already had the most undeniably “alive” world of any game.

Next we’ll see Blizzard gets any better with the Assault on Blackwing Lair.

World of Warcraft Cinematic Trailer

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 12, 2012

Posted in: Videos. Tagged: patch, trailer, video, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

I’ve been wanting to view and comment on the trailers for a while now. This is the original cinematic trailer for classic World of Warcraft and is still one of the best. In vanilla, there was no central bad guy. There was no world-threatening problem. What this patch introduced was the world itself and the peoples that inhabit it. It does an excellent job. Rather than showing off locations, spells, or story, it highlights the differences between the races and the hostilities between them. This was the first Warcraft RPG. Before then, you were controlling armies. Now, you were controlling a hero. It makes sense that the trailer would detail individuals, because the goal was to hype people about becoming one of these heroes.

Note the iconic way each race behaves in the video. We see the dwarf as a toughened hunter. The night elf is a druid and connected to nature. The forsaken spreads undeath just with his existence. The tauren is shown as thoughtful and, like the night elf, connected to nature. The human wields magic. And of course, there’s a lack of trolls and gnomes. Apparently, they’re unimportant.

WoW Insider on PVP keybinding

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 11, 2012

Posted in: PVP, World of Warcraft. Tagged: clique, grid, healing, keybinding, keybinds, movement, PvP, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow, wow insider. Leave a comment

On May 22, Olivia Grace wrote a piece called “Keys to PvP: Keybinding, movement and clicking” for WoW Insider. It was a good article and discussed what you’d expect – using the mouse for movement, using keybinds rather than clicking on skills, and setting up keybinds.

I use both the keyboard and the mouse for movement depending on the situation. I don’t click any of my skills. In fact, I don’t display my skill bars. I have bars that onto which I throw random items, and I have a non-clickable bar onto which I put certain long-CD skills just to use to track when they’re ready. They can’t be clicked. My healing skills are all performed the Clique on Grid. For those who don’t know, that means that various clicks I perform on my raid frames perform different heals. Right-click on someone to cast Penance on them for example. For this reason, I’ll use the keyboard to move if I’m using the mouse with Grid. I posted the following comment on the article:

As a healer, I find that I do movement with WASD and the mouse, depending on the situation. I’m healing on unit frames. Is that clicking? I actually have no buttons on screen at all, but all healing spells are bound to mouse buttons for Clique.

I expected that to be the end of it. On June 7th, Olivia Grace wrote a follow up piece called “Keys to PvP: How to heal with keybinds, clicking and movement.” When I saw in Google Reader, I was decided to read it because it seemed applicable to me. I was surprised to find this in the third paragraph:

But the main topic I’m here to address is healing. CaylynnRunner, berna.bleeker, adyuaa, andPeterAnagirou all talked about the trials of PvP healing as users of Healbot, VuhDo, Clique and the like, and that’s what I plan to talk about today.

I wasn’t expecting that! I didn’t really write this article to discuss keybinds or movement. I was actually just excited about being mentioned on the site! (Of course, I’ve also been published on WoW Insider, so you’d think I wouldn’t be that excited.) I’m just impressed that she took the time to answer.

I will say, however, that I wasn’t exactly disagreeing there. I was just mentioning why I used the keyboard for movement sometimes. In her follow-up, Grace discussed ways to heal without using the mouse. First, she discussed targeting players with keys, say party members 1-5 with the numbers 1-5, and then simply pressing the button bound to your heal. Another interesting method she discussed, about which I had never though, was using different modifiers to select target. Say the ‘1’ button casts Penance. Control+1 might Penance party member 1, alt+1 would Penance party member 2, shift+1 would cast on the next, etc. It’s a fantastic idea! However, both these ideas would only work in arena. I don’t really enjoy arena.

What about battlegrounds? She heals on her raid frames when she’s being left alone just like I do. There’s one catch; when she heals someone by clicking on her raid frames, it selects them. Her healing spells are also bound to keyboard shortcuts. When she’s under attack, she can move with the mouse and use keybindings to continue healing the person she last had selected. That’s a pretty nice idea. The only problem I still see is that I do a lot of offensive casting in battlegrounds as well. I like to keep an enemy selected so I can cast offensive spells on them while casting healing spells using Grid.

While I’m used to my way, I may have to try her way though if I have the time to try learning it! Again, I just want to repeat what really excited me. Grace was directly responding to previous comments in her new post. Fantastic :)

Why I play World of Warcraft

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 8, 2012

Posted in: Blog, Lore, PVP, Raiding, Role-Playing, The Old Republic, World of Warcraft. Tagged: anduin wrynn, attachment, baine bloodhoof, cairne bloodhoof, emotional attachment, investment, jaina proudmoore, thrall, tirion fordring, varian wrynn, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

This wasn’t the original topic I was planning on discussing today, but then I noticed something. I had 99 published articles on Kor’kron 501st. I think the 100th post should be a little more reflective.

World of Warcraft is a great game, and I love it and the universe in which it takes place. Of course, it’s not without its flaws, but I keep coming back to it. I’m also a Star Wars fan. I’ve played a lot of the games, I’ve read a lot of the novels, and The Old Republic seems fantastic; but TOR just doesn’t suck me in like WoW does.

It might the idea of becoming a powerful, heroic character. I want to overcome great evil, wield the legendary weapon such-and-such (I suppose it would be Val’anyr.) When I first started, I wanted to imagine myself jumping into a group of enemies, swinging my two blades. Now, I want to imagine myself a guiding light, helping my friends and faction overcome adversary.

I love the number of interesting characters. I love Thrall, and I love that they removed him from his position as War Chief when he became too loved. I love Garorsh Hellscream’s rise to power and am excited to see his story unfold in Mists of Pandaria. I might not love noble Cairne’s tragic death, but it does give me an emotional investment in the story seeing his death and Baine’s rise as the young High Chieftain of the Tauren. The interaction between him and Anduin Wrynn is a happy bit of piece in a story of turmoil. Anduin (as well as Jaina) also make excellent juxtapositions to Varian.

The world feels large and alive, at least at first. Over time one learns that the world isn’t really quite so large (especially with the more linear zones introduced in Cataclysm), but I still love the overwhelming feeling I had when I first began to play. When I first saw Ironforge on my Alliance character, my jaw dropped. When my Horde character first left Durotar for the Barrens, it felt like I was actually helping the Horde army. (I had no idea how bad life was going to get once I had to play through the Barrens.) How about the Wrathgate cinematic and the Battle for the Undercity? It felt so epic, and I watched that video over and over the few days after first reaching it (and I still do sometimes).

This doesn’t even discuss the major gameplay aspects. Seeing dungeons for the first time is always an amazing feeling for me, which is why I avoid doing it in a rush. I loved first exploring the Frozen Halls dungeons introduced in 3.3 with Icecrown Citadel. The feeling of improving and overcoming new raid bosses in a team feels wonderful. Clean kills? Those are boring. The first kills during which I feel like I did everything in my power and skill set to succeed, the ones in which only a handful of raid members are left standing, are the good ones. Likewise, battlegrounds can be so much fun. Nothing in gaming (uh, besides Portal) can compete with Moogle and me surviving and winning an outnumbered fight in a battleground! Of course, raiding (and sometimes battlegrounds) add another part – socializing. I’ve met a lot of really amazing people in WoW.

I suppose it all comes down to investment. There’s time and money, but mostly it’s the emotional investment. I’ve learned so much about the universe. I love many of the characters and factions in Warcraft. I’m excited by the dramatic tension between individuals and groups, even if one I like comes out worse. I understand how my character thinks. He’s an extension of myself. Most of all, I just love exploring and experiencing this wonderful universe with Mooglegem. It would take a lot to break the emotional attachment. In fact, I doubt it could break. Sometimes I begin to play less. Yes, I’m sure I’ll quit someday. But even when I step back, I still care about what’s happening. Just like how I’ve always had a soft spot for Mario and Sonic, I don’t think my attachment to Warcraft will ever fully go away. And hopefully my investment continues to pay off for a long time.

Just Quit, Matticus, World of Matticus, 6/6/12.

Matticus suggests that raiders who don’t want to give it their all should quit.

Infographic shows the numbers behind Diablo III’s opening day, Jef Reahard, Massively, 6/6/12.

An interesting infographic showing how impressive Diablo 3’s first day of sales was. The amount of money from sales of the game on the first day would be equivalent to $42,000 per Blizzard employee.

You cannot get hacked by playing public games in Diablo 3, Michael Sacco, WoW Insider, 6/1/12.

Sacco agrees with Zarhym’s response that hacked D3 accounts were hacked using conventional methods (by obtaining passwords).

Big Pineapple problems, Mathew McCurley, WoW Insider, 6/1/12.

Diablo 3 can’t be sold in China right now, but “Big Pineapple” can be sold. Big Pineapple translated is “dà boluó.” Say that out loud.

Many WoW-like improvements discussed for Diablo 3, Robin Torres, WoW Insider, 6/4/12.

Bashiok responds to a forum post in the D3 forums by user Matthest in which he makes 35 suggestions for Diablo 3.

Mists of Pandaria Beta: New Jaina Proudmoore Theramore event voices, Michael Sacco, WoW Insider, 5/31/12.

I’m staying away from this one! I’ll just be surprised.

Know Your Lore: 3 developmental changes needed for storytelling in Mists, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 6/3/12.

Anne believes storytelling can be much better in Mists than in previous expansions due to the use of cinematics, keeping story developments secret, and making lore accessible. Of note, she points out that BC’s boss, Illidan, was never seen by non-raiders. To make sure non-raiders got to see Arthas, he showed up all the time in Wrath. In Cataclysm, the story was such that Deathwing showed up randomly, not for story purposes, to burn the countryside, giving non-raiders a way to see him. Mists is different. The raid finder will be present for the entire expansion, allowing Blizzard to keep certain things a secret knowing that any max level character should be able to see the raids.

Play Diablo 1 with World of Warcraft models in StarCraft 2, Alex Ziebart, WoW Insider, 6/5/12.

A fun new mod in SC2 lets you play something similar to D1 using WoW models and the original Diablo’s sound effects.

Mists of Pandaria Beta: Nomi, the cook’s apprentice, Mathew McCurley, WoW Insider, 6/6/12.

This article briefly discusses the various “Ways” (like specializations) of cooking in Pandaria before talking about Nomi! Nomi is the cook’s apprentice you get after you max your cooking. You gain friendship with her as you train her to be a master chef! Cute!

Improving the Darkmoon Faire: More games, high scores, and Darkmoon VIP Cards

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 6, 2012

Posted in: Game Mechanics, World Events, World of Warcraft. Tagged: dailies, daily, darkmoon faire, darkmoon vip card, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. 2 Comments

The Darkmoon Faire was only recently revamped, and it’s much more fun and impressive now. I was very excited for the first few months, but its attraction is already wearing thin. I’ll most likely stop caring about the dailies once I purchase all the mounts and pets. Luckily, there are a few things that Blizzard could do to improve the Darkmoon Faire even further.

More Games

First and foremost, the faire needs more games. If the size of the island and “under construction” tents are any indication, Blizzard plans this as well. However, players will eventually tire of these games as well. Right now, the Darkmoon Faire is exciting because of its limited availability. It can only be accessed one week per month, making it more shiny and new when it’s around. This should be taken a step further. Every month when the Darkmoon Faire is available for a week, it could feature five random games of the pool of 10 to 15. The five wouldn’t change over the course of the week, but next month they could be different. Because it’s different, it’s unlikely that on the second month it would be a brand new five. This would definitely keep the Darkmoon Faire fresh. As the number of total games grew, the amount offered per week could also increase. If there were 30 games total, maybe the faire would feature 10 every week, allowing you to do 10 dailies each day.

High Scores

Next, the games need to be actual games and not just quests. They seemed like games at first, but there’s no way to know if you’re doing better than last time. The game should track your high score. It’s Hammer Time; He Shoots, He Scores!; and Tonk Commander could each track how long it takes you to finish the game. Target: Turtle could track how many tosses it takes you to get three to land on the turtle. The Humanoid Cannonball could, I suppose, the number of shots out of the cannon you use. If this system was introduced, it would give players a fun reason to continue trying these games – to beat their previous high score.

The Darkmoon VIP Card

Lastly, I think the daily system should be changed. Really this is something I’d like to see everywhere, but I’ll take it as a change to the Darkmoon Faire. Each day you should be allowed to complete each daily once for free. Each week (that the Darkmoon Faire is open) you should be able to complete each daily seven times. After you’ve used your free play, you could use a “Darkmoon VIP Card” to play the game again. This would still count toward your weekly limit.

We’ll examine how that would work. Let’s say I can play every day that the faire is open. I would simply play each game on each day, and it would be exactly like it is currently. Now let’s say I can play only on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Tuesday and Thursday I can only play for a short period of time, but I can play all day on Wednesday. In this scenario, let’s say I play It’s Hammer Time once on Tuesday. That would use one free chance at that daily for that day and bring my weekly total for that daily to 1/7. (To be clear, the totals would be per daily. The other games have their own total and daily freebie.) On Wednesday, I have a lot of time to play. I play it once to use my free chance. That makes me weekly total 2/7. Then I play it another four times, using four Darkmoon VIP Cards. Now my total for the week is 6/7. Why didn’t I play it a seventh time? Because I can still play for a bit on Thursday, so I might as well do it without using a Darkmoon VIP Card. On Thursday I go ahead and play the game, using my free chance. Now the total is finally at 7/7. Even if I suddenly find myself with free time on Saturday, I wouldn’t be able to play that game again.

Obviously I’m inspired by the “daily” heroic, which is now simply a bonus for the first seven of the week. However, I’ve made a change. Blizzard wants people coming back to play repeatedly. My Darkmoon VIP Card system encourages players to play daily to avoid using Darkmoon VIP Cards, while still allowing people who don’t have time to play daily the opportunity to get their total amount of tries into a limited game time. There’s still the question of how Darkmoon VIP Cards are earned. They could be awarded randomly on completion of the games, awarded absolutely each time a certain score is beat in certain games, or sold for gold. They could even be purchased with prize tickets, although I’m not sure how I’d feel about that.

Conclusion

I love the Darkmoon Faire. I love the feeling fun and mystery. And I don’t want that feeling to go away. I want to like and enjoy the Darkmoon Faire. The Darkmoon VIP Card would be a large change to the system. More games would take more development time. However, surely the high score system couldn’t be that much work. Add the high scores into our characters’ statistics page! The timed games would be easy!

Hardcore, Level 10

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 5, 2012

Posted in: Achievements, Diablo III, Journal. Tagged: barbarian, butcher, d3, demon hunter, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, hardcore, leoric. Leave a comment

gem and I have been playing a bit of hardcore mode after finishing our first playthrough of normal. It’s a little dangerous to be doing that with four roommates who may begin to download at any time, but I try to keep an eye on my latency. We reached level 10 recently, which honestly surprised me a bit. Don’t get me wrong; I’m relieved. I just figured our Internet would have dropped or something by now.

We’ve killed Leoric twice now I think. After defeating him, we reloaded at the previous quest to allow us to farm a little before proceeding. Better safe than sorry. I think we might play up to the Butcher and then restart before actually fighting him. I’m also anxious to try out other characters and to push into nightmare on my demon hunter, so who knows what we’ll end up doing.

AOEing Ragefire Chasm

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 4, 2012

Posted in: Transmog, World of Warcraft. Tagged: ragefire chasm, rfc, transmog, transmogrification, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

My hunt for transmog gear continues. Due to knockbacks, I have to admit that gathering all of RFC at once is probably not the best way to do it. However, I just couldn’t resist. You see the before picture above and the after picture below.

Didn’t get the piece I wanted.

Farming Blackrock Spire

Posted by Peter (Devee) on June 1, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Journal, World of Warcraft. Tagged: dragonspawn, farm, lbrs, murkablo, solakar flamewreath, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

I spent a while farming BRS last weekend. Solakar Flamewreath is a jerk who wouldn’t drop what I wanted for transmog. The annoying part of it was that there are quite a few timed delays getting there. When everything dies so quickly, having to wait 10 seconds for something to happen can be really annoying. Here I’m channeling on a little altar to allow some enemies to be fightable. When I used it, it looked like I was lighting it on fire. Lucky for me that my little Murkablo decided to help!

I also like how this one dude died. I guess rigor mortis must have set in quickly. He looks like a dragonspawn-kabob.

IAMA former Blizzard customer service representative for WoW aka Gamemaster. AMAA, Panigg, reddit, 5/27/12 via Titan Focus

The Titan Focus post pulls out anything in the Ask Me Anything related to Titan. However, the actual AMA is a treasure trove of interesting, inside-Blizzard information. I don’t really see anything that’s Earth-shattering, but Blizzard fans should find it fascinating.

Project Tyria, Alucardalina Claire, via Massively, 5/21/12

Project Tyria compares the worlds of Guild Wars 2 and the original Guild Wars, which take place 250 years apart, through screenshots.

[Diablo 3] Elective Mode is a Mistake, Rohan, Blessing of Kings, 5/24/12

A discussion of Blizzard’s mistake of including the elective mode in Diablo 3.

On the Tyranny of Classes, Cynwise, Cynwise’s Warcraft Manual, 5/28/12

A comparison of characters in MMORPGs and characters in traditional RPGs, especially the fact that while a character’s class can change in many other RPGs, it’s the one unchanging aspect in most MMORPGs.

The Reality of Vanilla WoW, Matticus, World of Matticus, 5/29/12

Matticus takes off the rose-tinted glasses to look at vanilla WoW.

Now approaching two years of Real ID — did it work?, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 5/28/12

With Blizzard’s Real ID turning two, Stickney considers whether Real ID is a success and expresses her displeasure at the feature.

Dear Blizzard: A Modest Healing UI Request, Matticus, World of Matticus, 5/21/12

Matticus examines the default healing UI in WoW and suggests ways of incorporating absorbs.

Mists of Pandaria: Head enchants… gone! Shoulder enchants…, Adam Holisky, WoW Insider, 5/30/12 via a Ghostcrawler forum post

Head enchants are gone in Mists of Pandaria and shoulder enchants come from scribes. No more long reputation grinds for enchants!

Just a moment… Almost… Yes!

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 30, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III. Tagged: d3, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, kulle, reborn, resurrect, resurrection, revive, sex, sexual, Zoltun Kulle. 2 Comments

Okay, cool cutscene so far. Everything’s fine.

Hehe, well, I’m immature. I should keep my mind out of the gutter. I mean, Zoltun Kulle just wants the spell to work. Blizzard would never make a sexual joke.

Okay, maybe I’m not immature. Maybe that’s exactly what Blizzard meant. Now that he’s… finished… how does he feel?

While not as obvious as the previous screens, this could be considered a description of one’s feelings after sex.

It sure seems to me that there is a lot of sexual imagery in this scene. From a biological standpoint, sex is used to procreate, to create life. It allows a new life to be born. In this part of Diablo III, the ritual is used to resurrect, to revive life. It allows an old life to be reborn. How fitting.

Also, I wasn’t the only one laughing. Moogle was definitely giggling as well.

The Burning Axe of Sankis

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 29, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III, Journal. Tagged: d3, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, legendary, the burning axe of sankis. Leave a comment

I found a legendary this weekend. I’m not sure how common they are at this point, but I thought I’d share. I found the Burning Axe of Sankis, and it does have a cool model. I’m not going to be using it on my Demon Hunter, but I equipped it so the model could be seen.

The model is important because legendaries have unique models in D3. As the name stated, it’s a fiery axe, and the axe looks pretty cool in motion.

There seems to be some concern over the quality of legendaries. There have been complaints that they’re not as good as rares; Blizzard’s response has been that people have been comparing rares of higher level than the legendaries. I’m not really sure what to think. All items have random attributes in Diablo 3, so maybe the problem is a combination of the rarity of legendaries and the chance of getting good stats on them when they’re found.

Here are the stats on the one I found:

35.1 DPS
19-35 Damage
1.30 Attacks per Second
+4-9 Fire Damage
Adds 3% to Fire Damage
+21 Intelligence
+13 Fire Resistance
Each Hit Adds +16 Life
An obsidian axe wielded by the mad Sankis as he turned on his own men inside their fortress. Even as he burned to death himself, he would not stop his attacks on those he had once ruled.

Diablo 3 Beat

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 28, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III, Journal, Videos. Tagged: boss, d3, demon hunter, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, final boss, monk, video. Leave a comment

After about 28 hours of play time, gem and I completed Diablo 3 normal mode. I played a demon hunter, and she played a monk. Demon hunter was very enjoyable throughout the game even as the skills changed. For my next go, I think I’ll try the monk, although trying something else might be nice because I saw gem play the monk. A barbarian might also be fun, but I’m under the impression that it’s a very simple class. Perhaps I’m just stereotyping, but I don’t want to play something that’s not complex enough to be fun. There must be some complexity to them though, right?

Here’s our fight against Diablo. It’s low quality; I wasn’t really showing anything in particular and wasn’t planning on posting it when I recorded it.

Make This a Meme: Show Us Your D3 Rainbow

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 25, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III. Tagged: clearcasting, d3, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, meme, rainbow. 1 Comment

Great Minds « clearcasting.

Well, because you asked so nicely, Arioch.

Act I Complete

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 24, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III, Journal. Tagged: act 1, act 2, act i, act ii, butcher, d3, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, tyrael. Leave a comment

Note that this post may contain some spoilers for Act I.

I died for the first time tonight. Damn you, Butcher. Blizzard brought the Butcher back as a boss in Act I. The fight itself was good I think, but I still don’t think he really needed revisiting. If they had simply named him something different such as The Furnace Master or something, it would have been much better. He could have been a boss created in homage to the Butcher. Yes, they talked about butchers are actually a type of demon, and this is much better than saying the Butcher was revived. Regardless, I’m making it sound like I had a large problem with it. It was fine; I just think it could have been better.

Soon after I died, gem died as well. We went for a second go at it, and this time gem died first. Luckily, I managed to get her back up, and we killed him.

Tyrael is freakin’ great. I won’t say why for now. Seriously, I’ve been a huge Diablo fan, so I’ve liked Tyrael, but now I love him so much more. What a cool cutscene!

And now it’s time to explore the dessert in Act II.

Good Achievements, Bad Achievements

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 23, 2012

Posted in: Achievements, Achievements, Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, World of Warcraft. Tagged: achievements, battle.net, blizzard, d3, diablo 3, diablo iii, profile, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Achievements offer the chance to look at content in different ways and track progress. Sometimes they’re boring, but often they’re quite fun. Boring achievements might track progress or simply track something that you were going to do anyways. However, fun achievements task you with going about something in a different way than you might have previously or acknowledge that you did something difficult.

World of Warcraft has some boring achievements – Level 10, Explore Durotar, Northern Barrens Quests, An Honorable Kill, etc. These are achievements that really don’t warrant a “grats” in guild chat. There are also some good achievements. Explore Kalimdor, Disgracin’ The Basin, and More Skills to Pay the Bills are a couple examples. There are also achievements that mean you did something very difficult like The Loremaster, 100000 Honorable Kills, Battlemaster, and The Light of Dawn. These are achievements that pretty much require a quick “grats.” Unexpected ones like Going Down? can be fun as can the Glory of the Hero and Glory of the Raider achievements that task you with doing special things during boss fights. Then, of course, there are Feats of Strength, which are not available to all players.

There needs to be a balance between these types of achievements. There should be far less of the boring achievements because they just clutter up the system. It’s nice to be able to check how progressed in the game someone is, and for people who aren’t at endgame, checking their level via achievements could work. However, many of these boring achievements are hardly achievements. They shouldn’t be taken out of the game, but they should be the minority. Achievements should track the cool things you did. They’re things to show off. Feats of Strength are a great aspect to the achievement system in Blizzard’s games. They’re something special even if they’re not particularly hard.

Right now, I see a lot of the boring achievements in Diablo III. This is likely because I’m just beginning. However, it just seems strange to see achievements pop up when I’ve yet to even complete Act I. Let’s be honest here; I haven’t really achieved much. Also, I don’t care when a friend gets an achievement that’s hardly an achievement. Maybe a single progression achievement for each difficulty would be better? That might be going too far. However, boss-by-boss seems a bit much.

I think a better system is to push the profile we see in Diablo III and on the Web for World of Warcraft. There only needs to be an achievement for everything if the achievements are the only way you show off your accomplishments. If they were just one part, along a raid progression graphic like the one above, some of the boring achievements don’t need to exist.

Another thing I’d love to see are custom achievements. The logistics are difficult, but what if they weren’t worth any points and were in their own section? Basically, a little notepad area that’s part of your profile. These could be used to track personal memories you’ve made in the game.

No Longer Languishing in Ulduar

Convinced Lang to go back to Ulduar since I never saw it!

Where’s the Flag?

Played in a Warsong Gulch match over 12 hours after the flag disappeared and never respawned!

Those would be two of mine!

My first week with Diablo III | Blog | Game Boyz

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 22, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III. Tagged: blog, d3, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, game boyz. Leave a comment

My first week with Diablo III | Blog | Game Boyz.

I posted a blog entry over on Game Boyz about Diablo III in general. While I usually only post at most once per day here, I’m not going to count this announcement. In fact, there’s a nice post about achievements in WoW and D3 scheduled to be posted at 8:00 tomorrow morning! Feel free to check out the blog at Game Boyz!

BattleTags Do NOT Solve Real ID Issues

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 22, 2012

Posted in: Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III, World of Warcraft. Tagged: battle.net, battletag, blizzard, diablo 3, diablo iii, real id, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

BattleTags are a great idea. Basically, using the BattleTag system is just like the Real ID system except it doesn’t use your account login. In other words, I can give someone my BattleTag, and we’ll have all the benefits of Real ID friends without me having to give out compromising information. Again, BattleTag friends will have all the benefits of Real ID friends. That includes being able to see each other’s online status across all Battle.net games. And that’s the part I still dislike.

I don’t always want to be connected. I know that’s strange in a world dominated by social media. (My profession is heavily dependent on social media even.) I like being connected, but I want a choice. I’d like to be able to sometimes go offline from the social system. I’m not asking to be invisible necessarily; I’m okay with temporarily losing the ability to see others as well.

Blizzard had a solution for this in World of Warcraft, and it’s been there since the beginning of WoW – character-level friends. I can be friends with someone on my character without being friends with them everywhere. While this wouldn’t solve when I want to be offline on a known character, it solves it partially. Unfortunately, Blizzard has decided not to include this functionality in Diablo III. If you want to play with someone easily or keep in touch with them in Diablo III, you have to give them the ability to see what you’re doing across all Battle.net games at all times.

I’ll repeat that: by adding a friend in Diablo III, you are inherently giving them the ability to see your online presence across all Battle.net games at all times without ever having the option to temporarily go offline.

What’s a World of Warcraft friend or StarCraft II friend?

A World of Warcraft or StarCraft II friend is any player you add to your friends list by their character name rather than through Real ID (or their BattleTag, in the future). If you add a character name to your friends list and are not Real ID or BattleTag friends with the player, you will not see the player’s real name in the game, nor will they see yours. Character-level friends such as these are specific to each game (i.e. World of Warcraft character friends cannot see each other in StarCraft II or Diablo III, nor can they communicate cross-game) and can see online and offline status information only, not rich presence details or Broadcast messages. Other characters that the player creates will not automatically be added to your friends list. Diablo III does not support character-level friendship, only BattleTag- or Real ID-based friendship.

via Real ID – Battle.net Support.

Yet another reason to continue to keep my distance from this system.

Initial Weekend with Diablo III

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 21, 2012

Posted in: Achievements, Blizzard and Battle.net, Diablo III. Tagged: achievements, d3, demon hunter, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, king leoric, Mists of Pandaria, monk, runes, skills, sonic, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

On Saturday, gem and I started playing Diablo III. She was going to create a witch doctor but ended up rolling a monk. I played a demon hunter in the beta, planned on playing a demon hunter, and, well, did play a demon hunter. So far we’re really enjoying the game. The story is much more intricate, and the skill system is different than both Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft. Currently we’re maybe halfway (or so?) through Act I. For those of you playing, we’ve fought the spider queen boss. The screenshot above was taken right after killing King Leoric.

I think the most important thing to consider is whether or not the game is fun, and it has been. I enjoy the visual style, which has a hand-painted look to it. Although different, it reminds me of the background of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Giving Town Portal as a spell that can be cast as often as needed is very cool change. Being able to identify items at will without using a scroll of identification (or something similar) is a cool change, but it makes me wonder why some items need to be identified at all. Is it because unidentified items can be sold (providing a sort of gamble)? I have no idea.

The skill system is odd. As you level, you unlock new skills and runes, which modify skills. Basically, talents and glyphs from World of Warcraft. However, you don’t really make permanent choices. You can make changes at any time with a short cooldown to prevent, I’m guessing, changing choices during combat. You have a maximum of six skills in use at a time once all slots are unlocked. I have some mixed feelings on the skill system, which I’ll talk about in another post.

There were some big improvements to the general social system. Achievements are a cool addition to the Diablo series. While a lot of them are boring, there are some fun ones. I haven’t actually counted or anything, but I hope there are a decent number of ones that are actually achievements. I like achievements that task you with performing a task a certain way as opposed to ones like “Reach Level 10.” Having achievements be account-based rather than character-based seems to work well. I’m sure it’ll be similar in Mists of Pandaria, so I’m glad to find that I’m happy with them. I do kind of wish that we’ll eventually be able to see achievements across games though. I’ve been meaning to post about achievements in general, which, who knows, maybe I’ll get around to doing. Battle Tags are an improvement over the Real ID system but are still fundamentally flawed. I actually have a post on this already written, and it’ll get posted soon. I like that in addition to large toasts acknowledging earned achievements for a player, there are now smaller toasts above the chat window for achievements earned by party members. Achievements are also broadcast to your friends now I believe, which is a cool addition.

While we’ve only played a rather small chunk of the game, I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s interesting to see Blizzard’s knowledge from World of Warcraft added to the mix and bits and pieces of things to expect in Mists of Pandaria. I’m anxious to try hardcore mode, and I can’t wait to try PVP when they release it!

Clearing the Bags

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 18, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Journal, World of Warcraft. Tagged: bags, bank, gear, mementos, quest log, questing, transmog, void storage, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Earlier this week, I talked about clearing my quest log. Along the same thinking, I cleared some bad space as well. Previously, my void storage and bank were completely full, and I had about 10 or so empty spots in my bag. I decided to get rid of some transmog gear that easily obtainable and some mementos that were just taking up space. I’ve managed to reach 38 empty bag slots and 12 empty bank slots as well!

Diablo III Collector’s Edition

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 16, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III, Videos. Tagged: aesthetic artifacts, art book, blizzard, collector's edition, diablo, diablo 3, diablo iii, dvd, fetish shaman, pet, portraits, skull, soulstone, soundtrack, starcraft ii, unboxing, usb stick. Leave a comment

Despite getting the standard edition of Diablo III for free with the WoW annual pass, Moogle and I picked up the Collector’s Editions. How could we not with all the cool things offered? You can see everything you get in the unboxing video above. In addition to the game itself, you get the following bonuses:

Diablo III aesthetic artifacts (in-game)
World of Warcraft Fetish Shaman pet (in-game)
StarCraft II portraits (in-game)
Diablo III soundtrack
Diablo III behind-the-scenes DVD
Diablo III art book (gorgeous)
Diablo skull USB stick case with soulstone 4 GB USB stick (that comes with D2 and D2: LoD)

Once again, Blizzard provides a fantastic collector’s edition (except I want a mousepad!).

At first, Moogle wanted to play Diablo 2 before we jumped into D3, but she gave up on that idea. She plans on playing a Witch Doctor, and I’m going to play a Demon Hunter. Hopefully we can get going this weekend!

Clearing the Quest Log

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 14, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Journal, World of Warcraft. Tagged: don carlos, quest, questing, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

I worked on cleaning out my quest log a bit this weekend. I got rid of an Outland dungeon quest I’ve been holding for a while, and here you see me with Don Carlos. I finally went back in time to fight him! Now when I go to do dailies somewhere I can actually grab all the quests at the hub all at once! It’s a nice change of pace.

Diablo

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 11, 2012

Posted in: Diablo III. Tagged: diablo, diablo 2, diablo 3, diablo iii, release. Leave a comment

Do you know what I’m going to be doing Monday night?!

Sleeping, of course.

And Tuesday?!

Working. And then probably having dinner, doing various errands and chores, and sleeping. Maybe a small amount of video game playing.

In all seriousness, I’m excited that Diablo III is finally releasing. I wish it was closer to the beta so more of the hype would have carried over, but I guess I’m just complaining that I got into the beta so early. Also, I doubt Blizzard intended to delay D3 so long.

Regardless, gem never beat D1 or D2. We’ve decided that D1 doesn’t hold up well enough any longer, but I think we’re going to play through Diablo 2 before its sequel. Because the D3 collector’s edition includes a copy of D2, we’ll wait until D3 releases to start playing D2. Should be fun!

The Flamebreaker

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 8, 2012

Posted in: Achievements, Devee, Journal, World Events, World of Warcraft. Tagged: have... have we met?, mankrik, molten front, mount hyjal, the flamebreaker, veteran of the molten front. Leave a comment

Look who Mooglegem and I finally ran into in Mount Hyjal – Mankrik! He was the last person at whom we needed to /wave!

We finished the rest of the Molten Front a long time ago, but Mankrik always eluded us. A few days ago gem had the idea to just keep the quest in our quest logs and to visit every day. She pointed out that it would be faster than actually doing the quest every day. I know that should seem obvious, but I didn’t realize our guardians would still change. Yeserday we logged out while in the quest area, and today when we logged into the game, she had Mankrik with her!

“MY WIFE DIED, YOU MONSTERS!”

Children’s Week

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 30, 2012

Posted in: Holidays, World of Warcraft. Tagged: children's week, drakonids, magical pet biscuits, salandria, school of hard knocks, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Here’s a holiday I really like! On your first time through, most of the achievements are fine. Nothing really requires grinding, and the only annoying achievement is School of Hard Knocks, requiring you to PVP with your orphan. It’s hard to PVP during Children’s Week because a lot of people are there only for the achievement.

On a character that already has all the achievements, the holiday is simply three quest lines. Do I need to do them? Not really. I got some Magical Pet Biscuits, but I wasn’t even expecting them. I did the quests because I enjoy seeing these moments. I especially look forward to the Bronze drakonids attempting to attack Salandria. Best of all, the quests can all be completed in less than an hour.

Impatient and Bad Beta Testers

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 27, 2012

Posted in: Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft. Tagged: beta, Mists of Pandaria, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

I’ve noticed a lot of people on blogs and forums complaining about the Mists of Pandaria beta. They don’t like the fact that it crashes a lot and that they can’t get stuff done. In fact, I’ve noticed similar complaints from beta testers for other products (even internally at the company at which I work).

First, if you’re complaining that you can’t actually test anything because the client crashes, you’re missing the point. That’s part of the test. Yes, it works for most people, but it doesn’t work for all. That’s important data.

Second, someone posted saying that his client crashes every minute. Someone else replied saying that the original poster was lucky. The new poster couldn’t play for more than 10 seconds without it crashing, and he’s tried repeatedly. Here’s a tip. Stop trying until the next build.

Get your addictions in check. If you’re on a diet, it’s okay to sometimes indulge. But either have that snack (and make sure it’s okay to do so) or don’t have it. Please don’t stare at the snack drooling and panting like a dog in heat.

You can always play when it releases.

World Events

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 25, 2012

Posted in: Game Mechanics, Holidays, World Events, World of Warcraft. Tagged: argent tournament, battle for undercity, Brewfest, darkmoon faire, elemental unrest, hallow's end, holidays, ideas, improvements, molten front, operation: gnomeregan, world events, world of warcraft, wow, zalazane's fall. Leave a comment

I really enjoy events such as holidays, the Argent Tournament, the Darkmoon Faire, and the Molten Front. At the same time, I have some issues with them. Blizzard wants people logging into the game daily and these events (through the use of daily quests) force players to do them daily. I like participating in world-changing events and rare holidays, but I don’t always have the time to play daily. What can be done about this?

We can breakdown events into three types: there are events that happen once, events that are always accessible, and events that re-occur monthly or yearly. I don’t have a problem with events that happen once. In fact, these are the most exciting. Admittedly, I’m sad I missed so many, but that’s what makes them so awesome. I wasn’t max level until Wrath of the Lich King, so the first in which I participated were Zalazane’s Fall, Operation: Gnomeregan, Elemental Unrest, and even, I suppose, the Battle for the Undercity. These are very exciting in and of themselves, but the fact that they’re time-sensitive makes them seem more important. These are now events the occurred in history, and I was part of them. A great part was that I simply had to experience them. I didn’t have to experience them, and experience them, and experience them, and experience them.

By contrast, holiday events and events that are always accessible have dailies that require you to perform the same tasks repeatedly. I think events like the Molten Front and the Argent Tournament work better than holidays. Some of this is due to the fact that they’re not time-sensitive. There’s no reason to force me to do either of them daily. If I do, I progress faster. That’s great! But if I don’t, that’s okay. I get to go at my own pace. I think Blizzard also did an excellent job designing both of these. I liked progressing through the tournament. It was also a way of making things feel less tedious. In actuality, I was just doing another jousting daily, but the story allowed me to feel like I was moving through the ranks of the tournament. The Molten Front took this further with the phasing world. It was excellent.

Holiday events are terrible. I feel that I must participate daily. Let’s take, for example, the Headless Horseman. I need to fight him daily because I want his mount. The same goes for many other holidays as well (such as with Coren Direbrew during Brewfest). Then there are vendor rewards that require a huge amount of some sort of token. These are the worst in my opinion because I have to do a bunch of dailies everyday. I either have to to do some math to determine just how many I can miss or, more likely in my case, I do everything I can until I hit that magic number.

I have some proposals for improvements. One option is to allow the tokens to be obtained some infinitely-repeatable but very slow way. Doing the dailies would be best, but you don’t need to feel bad about missing some, because you can always get more tokens. Of course, then you’d have people that would do it non-stop on the first day. To combat this, you could have a second token that you can only get once per day. What if the holiday mount’s price tag was three daily tokens and a bunch of the other? It would be easiest to just play daily the entire week, but if you’re going to miss a bunch of days for some reason, you could grind the rest as a long as you actually played on three days.

This still seems flawed. Another thing that would be helpful would be for each day of the event to give you another opportunity to do a daily (or holiday boss or whatever). This opportunity would not expire at the end of the day. A week long event would give you seven chances to do the boss. You could do it once per day. You could do it seven times on the last day. You couldn’t do it seven times on the first day because you hadn’t earned the opportunities. This is the method I like best.

Most importantly, can’t Blizzard just make events that are more fun and varied? What if the Darkmoon Faire had 30 games but only 5 were randomly available each day? This would give a better reason to play than grinding for pets, mounts, or gear. Or how about high scores for certain quests/minigames. Most of the Darkmoon Faire games could have high scores saved. How about There and Back Again, the Brewfest keg delivery quest, or This One Time, When I Was Drunk…, the quest to defend against the Dark Irons?

Uno

Posted by earthwormgem on April 23, 2012

Posted in: World of Warcraft. Tagged: boss, dream, dungeon, mechanics, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

I had this crazy dream that a new WoW expansion (not pandaland) came out, and there a was cool new mount from a dungeon! Devee and I usually like doing new content together, but this time, we wanted to do it separately because we only got one attempt per day. Let’s ignore the fact that the content should have been super challenging and impossible to solo. The dungeon was supposed to be in some catacombs, but it looked more like the outdoor catacombs in Guild Wars.

Andy and I were doing the dungeon at the same time, so I ran there with him. He was playing on his DK, but then when we got to the entrance, the tunnel was too small for us to get in! Then he just turned into a bear and went inside, and I had to find another entrance.

I guess I should mention the gameplay a little. Even though it was a dream about WoW, it wasn’t from the perspective of playing at a computer. I was there, in first person-real life doing arcane explosion to get through the trash. Sometimes my perspective would switch to where I’d see buttons on my screen, but it was still kind of first person.

Anyway, I got inside and cleared through to the middle where there was a cafeteria rest area! There were a ton of people! I was all confused by these people in my instance, but I remembered to tell Devee about this cool little hub. Also, I was trying to stay away from French fries. Also, now were were inside a catacomb-cave (catacave).

While I was checking out the hotdog stand, I ran into someone from work. It turns out that the mount boss could be one of the random “teachers” from real life. He walked with me down to the boss room since I was headed there.

When we got there, another team was waiting to go, so I watched them fight my co-worker. My random boss showed up… and it was my 10th grade math teacher, Mrs. Ikegami! She asked for my daily boss/mount voucher, so I fumbled around looking for it. The voucher was actually a joker card in a pack of UNO. I had no idea why the WoW devs thought this was an OK thing to do.

Anyway, we started the fight! I was frustrated because I couldn’t cast spells because the pushback was too crazy! So I punched and punched and punched and punched! But I wasn’t good enough! I blacked out for a bit, and when I came to, I was at half health. I don’t know what happened.

There were more people that came to solo the boss, but I told them that it was pretty tough, and that we should party! One of them was hesitant because he wasn’t going for the mount but some funny parchment that always drops. I said he could “haz.”

When Mrs. Ikegami came back, she told me that I couldn’t fight because I lost my last attempt. I argued that it was an attempt, so I should get to try again!

I got to cast spells! I looked at my bars and saw that I was in Fire, but the display was like Tor. I only had one bar!! AMG!!! But we won so it was OK.

When we rolled, I got a 99, and I was all like “YAY! I won the mount!!” But the rolling system was weird! The first roll was to determine the order for the actual roll… if that makes sense. We were rolling to determine in what order we would roll. On the second round, I rolled a 38. Boo. But one of the other guys gave me the mount anyway, so I was super happy!!

Day 4 – My Best WoW Memory

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 20, 2012

Posted in: 20 Day WoW Blogging Challenge, Devee, Journal, PVP, Raiding, World of Warcraft. Tagged: battleground, ICC, icecrown citadel, lich king, meme, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

The Death of Arthas

I think I’ll need to revisit my favorite WoW memories in the future. My favorite memory is most likely all the fun I had PVPing in general with gem as we leveled. However, my favorite memory of a single, defined moment was our final kill in Icecrown Citadel.

It took a long time for us to kill the Lich King. We struggled for what felt like an eternity. I was worried about the guild getting a kill before we fell apart for the rest of the expansion. I remember eventually having no problem with Necrotic Plague duty. I remember battling Infest. Most of all, I remember the thrill of mastering Defile. One day, it finally happened. We slew the Lich King.

I had an idea of what happened. I’m going to spoil the ending here, but I assume everyone already knows. I knew that the fight ended at 10%, but I didn’t know what happened. The discovery that Arthas had planned for us to reach him made sense yet was exciting. It was so thrilling seeing Tirion burst from his ice tomb and strike at Arthas. King Terenas was a surprise, and his mass resurrection was very cool. And then that cutscene. I accidentally found out about Bolvar, yet the cutscene was still so great. Do you know how hard it is to avoid watching a major lore cutscene ahead of time?

After the kill, I started to tear up. Luckily, Andy knocked on my door so I stopped myself.

To add to the greatness of the fight, I won Halion, Staff of Forgotten Love.

That was the best fight!

Day 3 – My First Day Out in the World… of Warcraft

Posted by earthwormgem on April 18, 2012

Posted in: 20 Day WoW Blogging Challenge, In Character, Role-Playing, World of Warcraft. Tagged: journal, meme, role-playing, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

This might come as a surprise, but… I grew up kind of sheltered. My parents sent me off to study the arcane arts as soon as I was able to grip a wand, and all the other kids of Lady Lissenthria’s Academy of the Arcane (LLAA) decided that I was as pleasant as a grumpy dwarf-man in a tutu.

When my combat magic professor told me that although my arcane barrage was a shimmery spectacle, I was absolutely useless – probably first dead – on the battlefield, I had to get the hell out of there. I went to Kalimdor for the first time and really fell in love with the people. Especially the Taurens! They’re so big and huggable! They give the BEST hugs.

I remember the first time that I reported to Thrall – he was so welcoming and willing to listen. My task at the time felt so small compared to the rest of the Warchief’s concerns, but he listened and took action.

I don’t remember what I was doing in this picture, but it certainly brings back memories. My hair hasn’t been black for five years! OMG!

Noblegarden has passed!

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 16, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Holidays, Journal, World of Warcraft. Tagged: Brewfest, dark irons, noblegarden, swift springstrider, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Noblegarden is over, and gem and I did manage to obtain our Swift Springstrider. I think it might just be the ugliest mount in the game.

I have mixed feelings about the holiday. The only real part I like was egg hunting, but I still feel like it isn’t rewarded correctly. The only thing to get is that terribly ugly mount. Then again, I guess it motivated me enough to do it. If there were no rewards I don’t think I’d do it, but I do actually enjoy hunting for eggs.

Mooglegem wonders why the bunnies are trying to climb the landscaping.

“Wait, get back here!”

I don’t know how to fix it. Hunting for eggs, running kegs back and forth, and fighting the Dark Iron are all holiday “mini-games” that I enjoy. At the same time, they feel like chores. Maybe there should be a way to track “high scores,” although I don’t even know what you would score with some of them

Anyways, we enjoyed Noblegarden!

The Black Talon, Dromund Kaas, and Huttball

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 9, 2012

Posted in: The Old Republic. Tagged: dromund kaas, huttball, the black talon, the old republic, tor. Leave a comment

gem and I did our first flashpoint (think dungeon in WoW) a few weeks ago, but I never mentioned it. It was the Black Talon, and it was pretty fun.

The Black Talon is an Imperial ship that was scheduled to travel to Dromund Kaas from the Vaiken Spacedock in the Imperial Fleet. After boarding the ship, we learn from a Grand Moff that there’s an Imperial defector on the Republic ship Brentaal Star, and he wants him retrieved. Over the course of the flashpoint, we repel Republic troops, board the Brentaal Star ourselves, kill a Jedi Padawan, and retrieve the defector. Following the same concepts from quests, flashpoints seem to be use story and dialogue heavily and have branching story points. It’s also very cool that two people, using companions, can do it alone (or four people could without companions). The Black Talon was very fun.

Dromund Kaas, the Imperial capital, is a lot of fun so far. The map is only about half explored, so I’m sure we have a lot left to do. I spend a lot of time fiddling with crew skills, so I’m questing slower. Starting players on Hutta was a huge mistake in my opinion. Hutta is just so ugly. This is the same mistake Blizzard made with orcs and trolls in World of Warcraft. Don’t start players in an ugly location! Dromund Kaas is cool looking; hook us there! Anyways, it’s cool to see the capital nice and early.

I’ve also been playing Huttball! Huttball is a warzone, which is like a battleground. Oh man, this is fun. I haven’t been this excited about PVP in a long time! Cataclysm’s PVP involved two rehashes (Battle for Gilneas and Twin Peaks) that I didn’t enjoy as much as the original and a world PVP zone that seemed more up to chance than anything else. Huttball is like capture the flag with a single flag in the middle if the flag could be thrown. Comparing it World of Warcraft again, it’s like Warsong Gulch if there was only a single flag right in the middle.

The system for PVP gear is strange. To summarize, you keep spending commendations on more expensive types of commendations. At least, that’s the basic idea. I don’t have a firm grasp on it yet, but I don’t believe I need to understand at it at such a low level.

The game puts people of all different levels together and does some sort of scaling to allow them to play together. I’m not sure how it works. It seems to me that low level players would still be terrible because they don’t have their skills or abilities yet, but I seem to be doing okay. Medals are awarded during the warzone for performing certain tasks like doing a certain amount of damage or healing. They’re like achievements that can be repeated once per battle. The more medals you earn, the more reward you get at the end.

tl;dr? Huttball is awesome.

Hagara…?

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 6, 2012

Posted in: Devee, Journal, Raiding, World of Warcraft. Tagged: hagara, LFR, malygos, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

After we finished the third boss of the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple, I alt-tabbed out for a second. When I came back, I started to run to the portal when I received a summon to the Eye of Eternity to kill Hagara. I took the summon, and then I looked at the TV. And when I looked back, there was a dragon. Was there always a dragon as part of the pre-Hagara trash? …named Malygos?

Oh, crap.

It was actually much more fun than doing any Dragon Soul boss. It had been a while since I had fought Malygos. There were only eight of us in the 25-man, but it was still easy.

As it turns out, I had never fought Malygos in 25-man! I earned The Spellweaver’s Downfall (25 player) and A Poke in the Eye (25 player). Fun day!

TOR Crew Skills and Reverse Engineering

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 4, 2012

Posted in: The Old Republic. Tagged: armormech, crew skills, cybertech, mako, reverse engineering, slicing, the old republic, tor, underworld trading. Leave a comment

I think I’m more excited about crew skills and reverse engineering than I am about questing in TOR right now. I just love this system. You can have three crew skills (think professions in WoW), one of which can be crafting.

I picked Armormech, Slicing, and Underworld Trading. Armormech allows armor to be crafted. What’s interesting is that instead of performing the crafting yourself, you send your companion to do it, and each task takes a specified amount of time. Similarly, I can send my companion, Mako, on slicing missions to earn credit or underworld trading missions to earn crafting metals for my armor crafting.

The real time aspect makes this especially fun. I’ve found myself reading or watching Netflix while checking on TOR every few minutes to send Mako back out. I hope the time required increases later. I’d like some long duration missions so that she can be busy while I’m sleeping or at work.

The other interesting aspect is reverse engineering. You learn base recipes. After something is crafted, it can be reverse engineered (think disenchanted) into a portion of its materials. These can then be used toward crafting again. When something is RE’d, there’s a chance it’ll teach you a better version of the recipe. This second tier version is the same as the first except it has an additional stat on it. For each recipe, there are three second tier versions. Similarly, there are five third tier versions for each second tier, giving a total of 15 (although only 14 are currently available). In addition to this, you have a chance on crafting something to critically craft it, leaving it with an additional socket.

This means there’s a lot of crafting to do.

Oddly, only base equipment works like this. gem’s character has the Cybertech crew skill, which creates mods and armoring. These don’t follow the branching path; upon RE’ing an item, it simply gives a chance of learning a better version of those stats. There’s also no crits with that skill.

Too bad. gem’s missing out on a lot of fun (although some stress and planning as well)!

I wish I could be crafting while at work.

For more information about reverse engineering (or for my own reference), Slaign on the official TOR forums made an excellent guide!

[Guide] Reverse Engineering

Day 3 – My first day playing WoW

Posted by Peter (Devee) on April 2, 2012

Posted in: 20 Day WoW Blogging Challenge, Blog. Tagged: meme, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

My first day playing WoW was when the game launched. I was living in the dorm. My roommate, Antonio, and suite-mate, Will, also picked it up. I had played the three RTS games, but didn’t finish any of them. I had an idea of some of the story but not a lot, so I spent a while trying to figure out what to play. Antonio decided to play a night elf rogue, so I rolled a night elf as well.

I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger, and my preferred class was fighter. In an attempt to capture the same idea, I rolled a warrior. I soon discovered that there wasn’t a good spec that dual-wielded, and that was the image I had in my mind.

Anyways, the game was pretty amazing. Everything looked awesome. I suppose it’s a good thing that I started in such a beautiful zone. If I had started in Mulgore, maybe I would have thought the game was ugly. You can’t think that starting in Teldrassil!

If you’ll allow me to talk about the first few weeks of playing rather than just the first day, I remember being overwhelmed by the scale of the Teldrassil once I left it. Southshore was eerie and cool. Eventually I made the long, daunting trek to the Eastern Kingdoms to visit Ironforge, my favorite city to this day. It took a long time to get there, and it was hard to decide whether to set my heart there or set it where I was questing. However, I stayed in Kalimdor, questing through Ashenvale. It was particularly odd seeing it again later from the Horde perspective.

Eventually I rolled a Horde hunter on the same server, later switched to a Horde hunter on a PVP server, tried a tauren shaman, and settled on my troll priest.

Pandaria Introduction

Posted by Peter (Devee) on March 30, 2012

Posted in: Lore, Mists of Pandaria, Videos, World of Warcraft. Tagged: cutscene, garrosh, Mists of Pandaria, world of warcraft, wow. Leave a comment

Mists of Pandaria Beta: Watch the Horde intro to Pandaria from WoW Insider.

User Medievaldragon on Youtube updated the in-game cutscene featuring the introduction to Pandaria for the Horde.

Not only do we see Garrosh physically abusing his men (because they lost some sort of precious cargo), but we see him beginning to crack down on the debt of the other races of the Horde. This is pretty interesting. The Alliance was always, well, an alliance of multiple nations. They weren’t as unified as the Horde. The Horde was not just an alliance of nations. They were a single, unified nation led by the Warchief. However, he says “The realms will carry their weight or crumble beneath mine!” Obviously he’s been divisive, but this is much worse. Since when are Thunderbluff, Undercity, and Silvermoon different realms? They are as much members of the Horde as Orgrimmar… or at least they were.

The cutscene is very informative and interesting.

Then there’s the Alliance introduction. It’s a lot less interesting until after the cutscene, when we find out more about the Alliance’s missing cargo, The White Pawn – Prince Anduin Wrynn. I’d love to see more of him, because he’s a fantastic character. Anduin is the hero the Alliance needs because I can’t see how Horde players could dislike him!

Coffee with the Devs — Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained – World of Warcraft

Posted by Peter (Devee) on March 28, 2012

Posted in: Game Mechanics, Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft. Tagged: charms of good fortune, LFR, loot rules, mechanics, Mists of Pandaria, raid finder, valor points, world of warcraft, wow, wow insider. Leave a comment

Coffee with the Devs — Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained – World of Warcraft via WoW Insider.

I’m excited about the new loot updates! Some of this was announced before, but some more details were given.

Players no longer compete with other players for loot from world bosses or the raid finder.
You can purchase bonus loot chances
AOE looting
Valor can upgrade equipment but not purchase equipment

Loot Rule Changes

The loot changes for the raid finder are huge. Currently you have to roll need on everything because everyone else will too. Then at the end, there’s an additional boss – convince someone to trade with you.

In the new system, after a boss dies you have a chance to get loot. This chance has nothing to do with other players. If the game determines that you win loot, you get a random piece of loot from the loot table that the game considers appropriate for your class and spec.

This will make the raid finder much, much better. The only real problem is that you can’t use it to get gear that’s not appropriate. If I want DPS gear, I’ll have to run as shitty DPS rather than good healer. (Although this seems to be a much deeper design flaw in the game.) They mentioned the possibility of a toggle allowing you to designate that you’re willing to accept any usable equipment. While not being able to receive non-spec appropriate gear could be seen as a negative, I really like this new system.

Bonus Roll

There will be Charms of Good Fortune that are purchasable with tokens from dailies that can be used for an additional chance at loot in the new loot system. If you use it, you’ll always get something – some gold, a flask, or possibly loot. My guess is that it’ll use the same probability as a normal roll except you’ll get gold or a flask in place of nothing.

I don’t know how often I’ll use these. I believe they only work in the Raid Finder, so they don’t really matter that much. I don’t think they hurt the game any though, so they should be fine.

AOE Looting

Finally. “Some recent games have incorporated a similar feature.” Yes, we noticed.

Valor Points

Blizzard has gone back and forth on this, and it seems that you’ll need to raid for the top quality gear. No gear will be available for Valor Points. Instead, VP can be used to upgrade your gear by roughly eight points. Raid Finder gear can be made better but not as good as normal mode gear, normal mode gear can be made better but not as good as heroic mode gear, and heroic mode gear can be made better but not as good as the next tier’s gear.

I’m optimistically excited about this change. The best gear should come from raiding, because that makes the gear seem more important than gear that’s sitting around the city. When the gear’s in the city, it brings up the question that I always have in RPGs: if I’m trying to save the world, can’t you just give me some gear, jerk? However, isn’t the system we already have? Valor Points can be used to fill some holes, but it’s very good. There are some pieces are in Raid Finder BiS for me, but come on, I’m using Raid Finder best-in-slot! The actual aspect of using VP to improve gear is very exciting. It’ll add an additional choice to the game – should I improve my gear or wait for the next drop I want?

I’m looking forward to the changes.

Day 2 – How I came to the conclusion that blogging was a good idea

Posted by earthwormgem on March 26, 2012

Posted in: 20 Day WoW Blogging Challenge, Blog, In Character, Role-Playing. Tagged: meme, world of warcraft, wow. 1 Comment

Blog. B-lawg. Buhlau-gh. This is such a weird word! It’s kind of clumsy with the the “Bl” in the beginning and the “og” at the end. I imagine that if a blog were to move around, it would move around by plopping. The letter ‘g’ doesn’t occur in Thalassian very often… so I think it might be considered an ugly word, but that’s why I like it!

Devee asked me to put down my thoughts in this console-thing to share with other people. The idea seemed kind of weird, but he was so gung-ho about it that I couldn’t say no. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about all kinds of things! I especially like the people who blog about food. Mmm!!

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