Having read War Crimes, I shouldn’t have been surprised that the Vision of Time quests would be anticlimactic. I suppose it was mildly interesting to see things about which I had read, but I was hoping for a little more. On the plus side, at least I won’t have to go killing on the Timeless Isle for Epoch Stones now. Farming while watching Netflix was getting tedious.
Five new heroes to play this week (because one of the six was Raynor, who is always free).
First I played Tychus, an assassin. As someone who doesn’t play Starcraft, I’m pretty sure Tychus is just Raynor II. Okay, he doesn’t really play the same in Heroes of the Storm, but he certainly looks the same. He has to rev up his gun, making him a fairly slow hero. I wasn’t too fond of him.
The Elite Tauren Chieftain, the warrior, is an awesome hero. Just look at him. I’m pretty glad Blizzard chose to include him, because it’s definitely a fun idea. As for playing him, I wasn’t great at first. He has some good crowd control abilities, but he also appears to be tankier than he really is. I was pretty bad at him when I selected him, but I got better at him through Abathur (more on that later).
I was excited to play Tyrael, a warrior. He’s good at protecting other heroes, which I suppose makes sense given his role in the Diablo franchise. One of his abilities has him throw his sword, dealing damage where it lands. Tyrael can then teleport to the store. He wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I liked him nonetheless.
I liked Uther, a support hero, much more than I expected. Once again I find myself playing the healer. It’s really my role, isn’t it? He heals allies, has an ability that damages enemies and heals allies, stuns, and more. He might be a hero I need to purchase in the future.
Abathur, a specialist, is the strangest hero I’ve played. He can send Locust down lanes and place Toxic Nests that explode when enemies contact them and help reveal the map. However, what makes him interesting is that he can place a symbiote in other heroes. Once this is done, the camera follows that hero, and you’re given new abilities. From the hero with the symbiote, you can stab a target with a spike, shoot spikes out around the hero, or shield the hero. Most interestingly of all, Abathur is able to create a duplicate of an allied hero temporarily and controls it. Of course, that means that to be good at Abathur, you have to be good at every hero, but it’s really quite fun. I did really well with him (despite not being great at every hero), and I plan on practicing with him more.
I came across this quest on my warlock, Voidgazer. It presents a great question. “How can [the Dark Iron] sleep without pillows?” Not very well, which is why I was tasked with stealing their pillows. I was already in love with this quest just by reading this.
I found their dormitory and went about stealing their pillows. They weren’t too happy with me, but I wouldn’t be happy with someone stealing my pillows either.
Twenty or so minutes later, I was deeper in their territory working towards another goal when Chambermaid Pillaclencher yelled, “Thieves! Scallywags! Rapscallions! Come face me gigantic pillas!” What kind of man would I be if I didn’t face a woman’s gigantic pillas?
I saw her standing in the dormitory holding two, well, gigantic pillas… er, pillows. I don’t know how comfy they’d be given the fact that they don’t look very firm.
She went crazy with her pillows, defending her right to nap peacefully with pillows.
I defeated her, and where she fell, she dropped a huge, very comfortable looking pillow. I wanted to take a nap on it right then!
I knew after retrieving it that Evonice Sootsmoker would probably like to see it, so I set off to return to her.
Of course, she wanted it to herself. I don’t know what came over me. I should have kept it, because what could I want more than a gigantic pillow, big enough on which to fit my entire body?
She gave me Evonice’s Landin’ Pilla, a trinket that reduces fall speed. Nice, but not a huge, comfortable pilla. That’s too bad, because with Chambermaid Pillaclencher’s Pillow, I could have been the King of Naps!
Previously I discussed leveling in Redridge Mountains on Sleepypaw and meeting Bravo Company. These are NPCs that quest with you throughout the zone. They’re pretty hilarious because they act like player classes and even talk in a way that seems to fit the story while still sounding like people with whom you might group. I mentioned in my last post on the subject that a paladin talks how the light suddenly felt weaker, as if he was nerfed.
I found a fantastic comment on Bravo Company on Wowhead that I just had to share. Here’s a few choice sections as well as a link to the full comment.
This new cross-realm stuff Blizz added is great! I’m just doing my quests in Redridge, no big deal. After a few quests, I noticed I have these lowbies following me around…
… As soon as he starts following the mage and I, he complains that he feels weaker this week.
“I know that feel, man. You guys are getting buffed in MoP though.” I assumed he knew and we kept questing. A warlock, mage, and a paladin. The paladin wasn’t healing though, he was ret specced. It was kind of hard having my voidwalker do all the tanking, so I politely asked if he could change specs, since we already had two dps…
– No2mad2, comment on Darkblaze, Brood of the Worldbreaker – Quest, Wowhead, 7/9/2012.
Having never played a MOBA, ARTS, hero brawler, or whatever you want to call the genre, I knew that with the release of Heroes of the Storm, my time to enter the genre had come. I heard they had a steep learning curve, but by the time I really had the itch to try, I knew about Blizzard’s entry and just decided to wait. I wanted to play as these Blizzard heroes!
As someone without experience in genre but with a lot of love for Warcraft and Diablo, I’m having a lot of fun with the game. There are lots of characters progression choices I might not have tried yet, but it’s not difficult to get a general understanding of the game. Every Tuesday, Blizzard changes what heroes are available to play for free. You can purchase heroes to unlock them permanently. By the end of the week last week, I had a good understanding of what heroes I could play well and what heroes I played terribly. We’ll see about this week.
Haunted Mines is my favorite battleground so far. Periodically two mines open leading to an underground cavern infested with undead. As the undead are killed, they drop skulls that can be picked up by heroes. When all the undead are vanquished, golems are summoned on the surface, one for each side. Their strength is proportional to the number of skulls acquired be heroes on their side.
From what I can tell, these battleground-specific mechanics are incredibly important. It’s rather disappointing when people forget about them.
Another battleground, Blackheart’s Bay, is pretty fun. Chests spawn periodically that drop gold doubloons when attacked. In addition, certain enemies can be killed for doubloons. The doubloons can be given to Blackheart, a pirate, to purchase his services in blasting the enemy team with cannon fire.
The third battleground, Cursed Hollow, doesn’t really excite me. Tributes to the Raven Lords spawn periodically, and when three are collected by a single side, the other side is cursed, causing their minions to have less health and their towers to stop firing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but I don’t enjoy it as much as the previous two.
The final battleground is Dragon Shire, and I don’t care for it. There’s an obelisk at the top of the map and one at the bottom. When both are held by the same side, a player on that side can interact with the Dragon Altar in the center of the map to turn into the Dragon Knight, a powerful unit. Maybe I just need to try turning into the Dragon Knight a few more times for the battleground to grow on me, but right now, I always hope I don’t get this battleground.
At the time of writing this, I’d played seven heroes. I certainly have opinions on them, but I’ll admit that because I was quickly learning the game and getting better, maybe I’d enjoy some heroes more if I tried them again.
I was terrible with Illidan, a melee assassin hero. I guess I’m not good at the whole get in and get out thing.
Similar to his brother, Malfurion, a ranged support hero, let me down. Or maybe he was just boring. I’m more inclined to try Illidan more than Malfurion.
Valla the demon hunter, a ranged assassin, was fun, but I still seemed to die a lot. I probably need more practice.
I enjoyed Raynor, another ranged assassin, but he also seemed very bland. That’s probably why he was chosen for the tutorial as well. I doubt I’ll be playing him much in the future.
Sonya the barbarian, a melee warrior, is pretty fun, but that’s probably because I can be a little more reckless. I felt like I got stuck a lot with previous heroes and couldn’t get away. At least Sonya can take a few hits!
Sgt. Hammer, a ranged specialist, is a Siege Tank operator. She’s a really cool hero. There are definitely some different ways to play her, but she was best at taking out enemy buildings.
Lastly there’s Li Li, a ranged support hero and the last hero I tried. I wasn’t expecting to like her, but I enjoyed her quite a bit. Oh, man. My favorite so far has been a healer. I guess I know that it really is my true calling.
I’m a little nervous about playing too much. By the time Hearthstone was officially released, I was bored of it. On my current account, I haven’t even unlocked all the heroes. It felt like playing the same content again. Am I going to play Heroes of the Storm a lot now during the technical alpha and not feel like playing more it releases? We’ll see. Even if I do, I bet they can pull me back into the game. I’m sure Hearthstone will get me playing again when Curse of Naxxramas releases!
Sleepypaw, my Tushui pandaren monk, joined my friends’ guild, Olio de Oliva. Friday we ran some dungeons, and I had a lot of fun. This is the same group with whom I sometimes play World of Tanks (and blog about at Polygons and Pixels) and Dungeons & Dragons (and blog about at WebPageless). They’re a much more casual guild than Carpe Flux Capacitor, so it was fun to experience the game a bit differently and more like I did when I first started playing.
On my main, I ran each dungeon in Mists of Pandaria once for the story. At max level, I ran them for gear, and the goal was to get through them as fast as possible. With Olio de Oliva, we were just having fun running dungeons. It was nice to enjoy things at a slower pace. I do hope I wasn’t annoying though. I couldn’t help but chime in with additional information or instruction. Some of the players have been playing for a while, but some were quite new.
We ran Scarlet Halls, Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Kraul, and Maraudon (my least favorite dungeon – ugh). Because we had more than five people online, we rotated. That was also really nice. Don’t get me wrong – I love raiding – but being bale to take a 20-30 minute break in the middle of group play is pretty nice. As we tried to make the groups work for different player rotations, we realized it’d be easier if I could tank as well. I tanked a little as a blood DK back in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, but it had definitely been a while. Sleepypaw was 30, so he just gained the ability to dual spec, so I picked up brewmaster. I spent a few minutes reading tooltips and arranging abilities, and then we bounded into a dungeon – Scarlet Monastery. It was confusing, and I was really unsure of myself. I kept asking if I was doing alright, but I seemed to be holding aggro. I had trouble with a couple abilities too. I kept not being at minimum range or not having enough chi. Eventually I think I understood when to use my different abilities.
Doing dungeons with a group of friends made me feel really nostalgic. It was an aspect of the game that I had been missing for a while. It was also pretty exciting tanking. Brewmaster seems like a fun spec. I’m also still enjoying seeing the Alliance side of the game!
I always grind Epoch Stones off the Jademist Dancers on the coast of the Timeless Isle. Today, on my 228th kill, one dropped the Jademist Dancer pet! I wasn’t grinding for that purpose, but I’m excited that I got the little guy!
A group of my friends have started playing WoW together casually on Friday nights. They invited me to join. It’s been years since I’d done anything group content like that – dungeons and the like. It’s a different feeling to play as a group while leveling compared to endgame where the goal is to plow through content for valor points. They had already started, so I decided to catch up. They play Alliance, and I’ve never spent much time on that side of the game. I was looking forward to seeing the Alliance story.
I decided to roll a pandaren monk. His name is Sleepypaw. You can see him sleeping with his bear cub watching him.
The starting experience on the Wandering Isle was pretty fun, but nothing too amazing really. I enjoyed it, but the worgen starting experience was so much better. I did like getting the chance to talk to Shen-zin Su, the turtle known as the Wandering Isle. I also particularly liked Ji Firepaw, a Huojin follower, Aysa Cloudsinger, a Tushui follower, and their relationship. It was interesting to see them get close and then see that relationship strained. Of course, I chose to follow Aysa into the Alliance.
After fighting Varian at his request, I became a full member of the Alliance! Stormwind itself is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed running around it. While Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff have natural beauty, and I do particularly like the view of Orgrimmar from above mostly because I think of it as my city, Stormwind and Ironforge have a really heroic and powerful feel. I spent a couple hours one evening just running around Stormwind. I ignored the map so I could try to learn the city, looking around and using Stormwind Keep as a point of reference.
After questing through Elwynn Forest, I headed into Westfall, which had a really interesting story. It did a good job of showing me how different the Alliance is. First, I helped a detective who was looking for clues to solve a murder. He even had little alarmbots circling the crime scene. I can’t imagine the Horde taking such a modern approach to murder. Yet on the other hand, I can’t fathom the idea of homeless members of the Horde – orcs unable to afford to live in Orgrimmar, starving and begging for food. That’s what we see in Westfall though. Well, homeless humans, not orcs. We learn that while the Alliance spent time and money winning the war in Northrend, they neglected things at home. Guards are posted to keep them out of cities, with signs warning transients to stay out of the area.
This is probably one of my favorite screenshots now. It wasn’t a rare angle or anything like that, but it was a powerful moment in the story.
After Westfall, I moved into the Redridge Mountains, where I joined Bravo Company and defended Lakeshire against Blackrock orcs. The most important thing that happened was meeting this girl who loves rabbits. I love rabbits too!
The zone was quite idyllic when there wasn’t killing or war. Here’s a nice screenshot. I suppose the skeleton undermines my position on the zone though.
The Bravo Company storyline was fun mostly because they tag along with you and say funny things. There’s a paladin who complains about the Light, saying that one day he feels like all his abilities are weaker.
Also, yes, Rambo references.
I’ve now made it to Duskwood and am level 30. I have full heirlooms for all three spec, so if my friends need me to tank or heal, I’ll have the gear for it (even if I don’t know how to play those specs). They might be a little higher than 30 now, but I think I’ve matched them approximately! I’ve had a lot of fun experiencing the Alliance side of things and am looking forward to more.
MMO-Champion user Mojo Risin posted a pretty neat idea that I had to mention here. He proposes a Mount 2.0 system with three things:
I’m sure you can guess what mount names are. Mount traits are special abilities that each mount has such as providing a temporary crit bonus when the player dismounts or healing the player while riding. Each mount has one specific major trait and two empty minor trait slots. Once you have a mount, you’ve unlocked that trait. You can use unlocked traits in a lesser form in minor trait slots. In other words, you can’t change a mount’s major trait, but you can equip a mount with two minor traits, which are lesser forms of other traits you’ve unlocked. It’s an interesting idea, but there’d be balance issues. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but it would be a decent chunk of work.
How about new riding skills? His proposed Mount 2.0 system would allow you to train a new riding skill that increases land mount bonus speed to 125% as well as giving your mounts an additional 25% movement speed bonus when riding on roads and 10% on paths. I think these are fantastic ideas!
The system offers a number of interesting improvements. The traits sound fun, but there could be ramifications. The road and path system, however, should be implemented immediately!
[via Reddit]
I recently began playing DC Universe Online. I first tried it at E3 before it was released; I really enjoyed it but didn’t play it again until this past week. It’s very action-oriented, and it does a good job of making you feel like a superhero right from the start.
I chose to be a hero, and I picked Batman as my mentor. You get to choose from Batman, Superman, and Wonderwoman. I chose mental powers, which apparently means I get the control role, which is a support role. Every character gets the DPS role and a second role – either tank, healer, or controller. I haven’t reached the level to be able to do multiplayer instances yet, so I can’t really speak to how well they work.
From what I understand, four main types of instances. Most of this I learned from the DC Universe Online Wiki. There are Iconic battles, or secret bases, which are usually solo instances that take place at the end of a series of missions, culminating with fighting a villain or hero in his or her base; Alerts, which are basically four-player dungeons (as well as Hard Alerts, which are end game Alerts); Duos, which are two-person instances; and Raids, which are eight-player instances.
The backstory, summed up as much as I can, is that Brainiac killed most of the heroes and villains and stored their power data. When Earth was effectively lost, Lex Luthor went back in time with the hero data and released robots with the data, infecting much of the population and causing them to gain powers. This increases the number of heroes and villains so that we can fight against Brainiac.
New characters start in a Brainiac Harvester Ship, the first Secret Base. I escaped found myself in Gotham. My first arc was to stop the spread of fear toxins in Gotham. After fighting Scarecrow’s henchmen throughout the city, I learned that Batwoman was captured by Scarecrow in the Gotham City Sewers, the next Secret Base. I rescued Batwoman and successfully captured the Scarecrow!
A part of me keeps thinking that I should keep leveling my WoW warlock so I can see the Cataclysm zones I never did, but I really just want to play more DCUO!
Carpe Flux Capacitor, the guild of which I’m a member, defeated Garrosh on March 10. Since then, we’ve been inactive awaiting Warlords of Draenor. I realized that I might think to myself, “boy, remember all those good times I had raiding? It was always a positive experience.”
Now I have this video to remind me what it was really like. This is the last few seconds of every progression wipe we had in Siege of Orgrimmar.
We’re going to be recruiting for the next expansion, so maybe we could use this to remind new recruits what they can expect!
All kidding aside, wipes are to be expected. I just thought it was fun.
We finalled stripped the mantle of Warchief from Hellscream and liberated Orgrimmar! According to my count, it was on the guild’s 45th attempt.
I’m happy to finally complete normal mode. This might be it for the guild for a while; I know a number of people are looking forward to a break. I think the guild will take a break for a week or two and then see who wants to continue.
I won loot from my bonus roll – a tier token! I turned it in for the fifth and final normal-mode healing tier piece. I don’t think I’m going to use because my off-tier is better in that slot, but I’m glad to have the option
Normally I include a montage of our deaths before the kill video, but with 43 failures, it would take me a while to edit them and render the video, plus it would make the video pretty long. You’ll have to live with the kill video alone. Of course, I doubt anyone really cares to watch our kill videos, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately, I had WoW’s audio routed through my speakers and Mumble through my headset, and somehow FRAPS only picked up Mumble. No WoW audio in this one. Oh well.
You can read more details about the kill on the Carpe Flux Capacitor kill announcement.
I’m pretty excited to finally share this. I painted this Horde plate and Horde mug at Color Me Mine! In case you’re not familiar with the chain, allow me to briefly explain. Color Me Mine lets you choose and purchase ceramic pieces. Once you’ve chosen, you paint the piece there in the studio. They fire it while you go about your week, and a week later you can pick up your finished piece.
Because I’m more excited about the mug, I’ll talk about the plate first. I painted this on February 22 of this year. We were celebrating Mooglegem’s birthday!
If I spend too much time on details, I won’t be able to finish in a single evening and will have to return multiple times. To avoid that with this plate, I tried to keep it simple. I based the Horde symbol on the way it appears on the banners at the Shrine of Two Moons in Mists of Pandaria. It’s clearly Asian-inspired. The plate’s simple, but I’m pretty happy with it!
This mug is a much bigger deal. I’m so happy to finally have it completed. I don’t remember when I started it, but I do know that I signed and dated the bottom, and when I checked today, the year on the bottom was 2012.
I put a lot of work into this. In fact, it took me much longer than a single session. I probably went at least five times, spending hours each time. There was some other stress involved as well. Normally, you pay for the piece and you pay a studio fee to paint. If you purchase one piece or three pieces, the studio fee remains the same. If you don’t finish and bring a piece back, you don’t need to purchase the piece again, but you’d need to pay the studio fee again.
This side’s pretty boring. My intent with the colors here was to get that metal look with which Garrosh infused the Horde. Those circles were supposed to be metal rivets. I don’t know how well that came across.
I spent so much time on the mug that the Color Me Mine at which I purchased the piece closed. However, they had assured me when I began that I could take it to any store to continue working on it. The manager at the other store, however, seemed pretty upset by it. He made a big deal about how he can’t profit if I’m not purchasing from him. I guess he didn’t think the studio fee was high enough. Regardless, he was very huffy about the whole thing but let me work there, and I eventually finished. I’m not very artsy usually, so it was a big deal to me.
As a troll, I had to include some Darkspear love of course. Too bad a crack runs through the right mask.
A week after I finished painting, I went to pick up my piece, and it wasn’t really a piece. It was a bag of pieces. It had exploded in the kiln, which happens sometimes. I asked to look at the pieces because I was curious how it turned out, so the woman working there handed me the bag. A few moments later, she told me something about how she’d throw the pieces away for me, but I told her that I still wanted to keep it. She told me that they can’t let me do that because the sharp pieces are dangerous. This seems rather dumb to me, because I could always break a piece and then cut myself on it, right? Well, I told her that I really still wanted it. I think it helped that I was still holding the bag, and I honestly wasn’t going to give it back to her. I had already paid, I didn’t consider theft, and I doubt she would have physically stopped me. Luckily, she said okay, although she did make me sign the back of the receipt after she wrote something about how they wouldn’t be held responsible if I hurt myself.
The handle has a vine wrapping around it. It took a while to do that due to the shading.
I kept the bag in my room for a long time. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. There was lots of conflicting advice on what type of glue to use and how to fix it. Rather than choosing something, I kept putting it off.
When I painted the Horde plate, Mooglegem and I chatted with the staff, and one woman mentioned being able to glue pieces together there in the store. When I picked up my plate, I brought my mug with me, and they glued it back together for me!
For those wondering, the Color Me Mine in Tustin, CA on El Camino Real is a great business, and the people who work there are terrific!
The vine reaches the top and wraps around the inside of the mug.
It’s not safe to drink from it, but I created it for artistic reasons, not utility. I’m really pleased to have them completed. Now I just need to figure out where to display them!
Oh, and I suppose that the cracks just add to the representation. The Horde are the outcasts and underdogs. Individually we might be broken, but we come together! It’s apt that I didn’t get this glued together until after the Siege of Orgrimmar as well. Even though the Horde has been shattered, we piece ourselves back together!
I finished Silverpine Forest with my warlock this weekend. The story was quite good. I particularly enjoyed listening to Sylvanas early in the zone as she recounts the history of the Forsaken. There was nothing I didn’t already know, but it was an incredibly powerful speech that really gives a great idea of who the Forsaken are. Here’s a great video of the quest I found.
Simply amazing storytelling.
I know that a lot of people seem to think the end of the zone contains the great story moment, and yes, that was cool too. (I won’t say what happens.) But it didn’t compare to this speech.
We awakened the Paragons of the Klaxxi, so it’s only fitting that we put them down too. Tuesday we fought the Paragons for the first time. On our eighth attempt we managed to kill them.
No loot for me, but as usual, I prefer progression over loot. We’ll be seeing Garrosh on Thursday hopefully. I might go shadow for the fight, which could be fun.
Our guild’s kill announcement can be found here.
After a terrible LFR run last night, I wanted to do something new. Having never tried Proving Grounds, that sounded like an interesting thing to try. The bronze and silver healing challenges were very easy, but I couldn’t quite get gold. I felt a little better later when I read that it scaled gear. At first I thought I was failing even though I was so over-geared. I’ll have to take a look at how the scaling works later. If everything scales equally, then I definitely want more spirit. In my normal gear I cap my spirit pretty low compared to what I could have. We’ll see.
I also tried the DPS Proving Grounds as disc. Bronze was ridiculously easy, but I was about a second or two short on silver. I’m pretty confident I can do it though! Of course, I could switch to shadow too, but I want the achievement for doing it in the wrong spec.
Alright! We downed Siegecrafter Blackfuse on Tuesday. Yes, maybe it took 21 attempts, but we killed him regardless. No loot for me, but I’m happy to be continuing forward. The Paragons of the Klaxxi seem complex yet, if LFR and flex’s trend applies in normal, easy. Will we get to see Garrosh Thursday? I’ll find out soon I suppose.
Our guild’s kill announcement is here.
We ran the fourth wing of flex on Saturday night, and I ended up having a blast. I grabbed a few PUGs at the beginning, but most of them left. We ended up with fourteen of us – all friends except for a single PUG. It was a lot more fun than joining a flex group of people I don’t know. Of course, it has its drawback; if you want to play with friends, you have to coordinate a time. I suppose that’s a big trade-off in WoW all the time. One of our hunters got the heirloom from Garrosh, and our undergeared players all got some loot from the wing. I wouldn’t mind doing this more in the future.
Last night we defeated the Spoils of Pandaria on our fourth attempt. Not bad! It felt like more honestly. The fight went pretty smoothly. I’m glad we’re making rapid progress.
No loot for me, but that’s okay.
We also managed to kill Thok the Bloodthirsty on our eighth attempt. This was a much rougher fight than the Spoils of Pandaria. I think we were healing too long and keeping Thok in that interrupt phase too long. At first we were getting him to around 66% health before transitioning, but maybe that was allowing him to hit the tanks too hard. Honestly, we didn’t have a problem keeping the tanks up in that phase, but a tank would almost always get one-shot in the second interrupt phase. We were probably using too many CDs on the first one. Anyways, once we went with much shorter phases, things went better.
I won gloves that I’m not going to use right now I don’t think but could be useful later depending on how tier works. I also won the tier helm! That’s great, because it would give me four-piece if I choose to use it with the LFR tier legs that I didn’t use yet. Unfortunately, AskMrRobot shows that I’ll take a significant loss if I used the four-piece because I’d be changing from Warforged normal legs to LFR legs. It’s better to use the higher ilvl gear without four-piece for now. I’m hopeful that I’ll get another piece though. If not from normal, even a flex one would probably be great. I have normal chest, hands, and head tier, and LFR legs. My non-tier shoulders and legs are Warforged normal, so we’ll see.
You can check the guild kill announcement here or our log at World of Logs.
I’ve been running a lot of old raids recently in an effort to collect old tier gear. While i Was in Molten Core, I got this Core of Hardened Ash, which teaches the Ashstone Core. Pretty cool. Not done with this tier yet though.
I also obtained the Jewel of Maddening Whispers from AQ. It teaches a Mini Mindslayer. I particularly dislike gathering gear from the AQ raids. I don’t like having to deal with idols and scarabs. Ugh.
While I was in there, I did manage to hit exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu though. Yay! I’m almost done collecting gear from the AQ raids.
By this point, my bags were super full. I had to figure out a way to free up some bag space. One thing I did was spend my Spirits of Harmony on archaeology. I earned the What was Briefly Yours is Now Mine achievement for finding enough rares, but more importantly, I got this cute little Pterrordax Hatchling!
That was a nice raid night! We managed to one-shot General Nazgrim. No loot for me, but I’ll take progression over loot anyways!
We cut it pretty close at the end, which is always exciting.
Malkorok was a little harder. It took us five tries to down him. No loot for me this time either.
Next week we start at the Spoils of Pandaria. I think it’ll go smoothly, but we’ll see.
Additional information was posted in our guild’s kill announcement.
I’ve been playing a lock recently, which is only a big deal because I don’t usually play alts. My primary motivation is to see the quests from the 1-60 Cataclysm content. After finishing Tirisfal Glades, I made it to Silverpine Forest. I felt excited just walking into the zone. Wasn’t Silverpine Forest really boring before the Shattering? It was exciting now, but the fact that I like Forsaken architecture and design probably helped. And the scene in which Garrosh arrives to talk to Sylvanas at the beginning? Excellent.
We killed the Kor’kon Dark Shaman as a guild for the first time yesterday! We extended last week’s lockout so we could start right on progression. I even managed to get a warforged mace off my bonus roll – Kardris’ Scepter.
See my post on the Carpe site for more details.
I decided to run Blackwing Lair tonight for an attempt at transmog gear. When I defeated Razorgore the Untamed, I got an Unscathed Egg containing this Untamed Hatchling. I’m guessing the drop rate is pretty decent, but I’m happy.
I’ve earned a few other random achievements lately. I did some achievements in Obsidian Sanctum, Onyxia’s Lair, and Naxxramas recently. This weekend I earned To All The Squirrels I’ve Loved Before, To All The Squirrels Who Shared My Life, To All the Squirrels Who Cared for Me, and To All the Squirrels I Once Caressed? That was a lot a critter /love’ing. Yesterday I also earned Thirty Tabards and, while flying over the Jade Forest, accidently earned Explore Jade Forest and Explore Pandaria. Pretty nice!
I forgot how much I enjoyed this dungeon until I ran it the other day. It’s fairly straight forward but has amazing atmosphere. Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls, is an awesome boss, but even more awesome is his music.
Okay, his sounds are pretty entertaining too.
I ran it last week just for the achievements – Soul Power and Three Faced. I feel like I spend most of my time in WoW running things for progression, but I think I want to go do this again, and I just ran it a few days ago. It’s just too good.
I’ve been branching out in WoW a bit lately, finishing some things besides just doing my LFR or flex. First, I finished the dungeon achievements for the ICC heroic dungeons. Next, I got the mount from a OS 3D 25-man run, the Twilight Drake! I know it’s old content, but I do like the mount.
I also finished the last two achievements I needed for Glory of the Hero. First, there was Dehydration. This is for killing Ichoron in Violet Hold without allowing any of the globules to merge. It was fairly simple. My final one was Respect Your Elders. It’s funny, because I remember that requiring strategy. You have to defeat Elder Nadox in the Old Kingdom without killing his adds. The adds make him immune to damage when they’re near him, so you’d have to tank the adds away from him. Back in Wrath, I suppose that would mean two people need to be able to survive a lot of damage. Now it means you just start DPSing the boss, and a second later he dies. And then you get a Red Proto-Drake if it’s your last Glory of the Hero achievement!
On the same night I earned that, I did some achievements in the Lost City of the Tol’vir with the same friend who was helping me do these other things. She earned Headed South on Siamat, which gave her Glory of the Cataclysm Hero and the Volcanic Stone Drake! We’re on our new mounts in the above screenshot.
It’s funny how little I know about a lot of these instances. I have a couple alts (no alts are max), but I don’t really play them. I only saw most dungeons as I did them for gear while leveling and then never touched them again. I feel so lost in some instances and barely remember them. I must have coasted through Cataclysm on auto-pilot. I remember Wrath fairly well, but that was the expansion during which I first hit a level cap. In addition, I was out of school and didn’t have a job, so I spent a lot of time in game. Doing Wrath of the Lich King dungeons felt very nostalgic. Thanks for being a good expansion, Wrath.
I’ve been complaining a bit because I couldn’t manage to down Garrosh in flex. In fact, most groups couldn’t get past the first boss of Downfall. On Friday I listed myself for Downfall and got invited to a group just for Garrosh. It was super simple, and everything went extremely smoothly. It was a lot easier than most LFR groups even! Anyways, I’m happy to have completed flex.
It might not be guild progression, but I had some personal progression. Pepper asked me to join a PUG for Siege of Orgrimmar, so I decided to give it a go. It seemed like it was at least half of a guild run. We started at Galakras and made it through the Dark Shaman. It was my first time downing them!
It was actually a rather unpleasant experience. They were very rude to non-guildies. I stayed simply because I thought I had a chance at progression. Is that bad of me? Whatever.
I suppose I might as well share mine too!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I spent another three to four hours doing flex the other night. I’m attempting to get a Garrosh kill. On this particular night, I was never able to kill the first boss of flex 4. People wouldn’t know what to do, and that would cause other people to quit. We’d wipe and wipe and then fall apart. After four groups, I gave up for the evening.
It was very frustrating. I dislike LFR because it’s boring, but I dislike flex because if other people are bad, you’re just wasting your time completely. If I could just kill him once in flex, I’d leave him be!
Wednesday we had our one and only attempt on Iron Juggernaut, defeating him! It seemed like a strangely uneventful boss. I’d heard it was easy, but after a boss that had a group leaving to do their own thing in the towers on Galakras with comparatively complex mechanics, I don’t understand why Iron Juggernaut was even there! That said, he’s pretty cool looking, so I guess I get it.
You can watch our kill too. I forgot to start the video right at the beginning, but I remembered pretty early. Now that I’ve become the official kill poster on the Carpe Flux Capacitor guild website, I might as well link to our official kill announcement too.
WoW: Fiction Has a Horde Bias, Talarian, Gamer By Design, 11/18/13.
Talarian gives an interesting look at the favoritism in storytelling.
Wowhead adds zone music, character quest tracking, Adam Koebel, WoW Insider, 11/27/13.
Some pretty cool, new features were added to Wowhead!
Blizzard: Gearing in Warlords of Draenor, Sarah Pine, WoW Insider, 11/26/13.
Gearing will be a bit different in WoD, and this post explains the current mechanics.
Know Your Lore TFH: Sailing to Oshu’gun, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 11/20/13.
Rossi provides some very interesting speculation about the draenei and their dimension ship.
What’s going on with Karazhan?, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/22/13.
It looks like Karazhan is getting restored. What could it mean?
Ghostcrawler to leave Blizzard, Olivia Grace, WoW Insider, 11/27/13.
Bye, Ghostcrawler!
Last week we finally killed Galakras! We were missing our main tanks and actually had to PUG a DPS as well. It was the first time we had raided in about a month due to attendance issues.
This was our 20th attempt when we finally defeated Galakras. I’m surprised it took so long, but I’m glad to see him die. Off to Iron Juggernaut this week I hope!
I’ve never played a MOBA (or Action RTS or whatever). I’ve been mildly interested, but with Blizzard’s game, in its many names, being on the horizon, I always felt like waiting. Why try to learn League of Legends or one of the many others when I’d rather play as my favorite Blizzard characters? The hardcore players might decide one of the others is more balanced than Heroes of the Storm once it releases, but I don’t think that’ll matter for me. I want to be Thrall, Arthas, and Tyrael!
Blizzard showed this cinematic trailer this year at BlizzCon. It’s funny how effective it is. It doesn’t say much about the game, but it looks awesome! I don’t know how much I’ll like it, but I’ll definitely check it out.
Conan plays WoW, talks to the devs at BlizzCon, Adam Koebel, WoW Insider, 11/21/13.
This is hysterical! You should definitely watch it.
Exclusive first look at Christie Golden’s new novel, War Crimes, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/18/13.
Christie Golden writes fantastic Warcraft novels. I can’t wait for this one.
Diablo III transmogrification coming to WoW, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/14/13.
Yes, please!
Doodlegnome answers all of your Warlords of Draenor questions, Scott Helfand, WoW Insider, 11/17/13.
Here’s everything you really need to know about WoD answered in cute doodle form.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Timelines, timeways, and Karazhan, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/17/13.
Another article on time travel. It basically explains, yet again, that Garrosh will be creating an alternate timeline that interacts with ours and not changing our past.
Flying Can Take A Hike, Rongar, BlizzPro, 11/14/13.
Rongar doesn’t mind waiting for flying.
Outlandish Memories, JD Kenada, Amateur Azerothian, 11/14/13.
JD Kenada looks back at the good and bad in Outland.
It took me a long time, but I finally got my 100,000th kill! You can now call me Devee of the Horde. It seems crazy how much I slowed down. I PVP’d a lot while leveling, spending much more time in battlegrounds that actually trying to level. After I hit 80, my first level cap, I began running heroics and old raids. When I applied to Carpe Flux Capacitor in December 2009, I had 37,787 honorable kills.
In February 2010, two months after joining Carpe Flux Capacitor, I had 50,000 HKs. After that, it took me close to four years to reach 100,000. Whoops. It always felt like there was something I needed to do to improve my gear for raids. I let myself down!
My 100,000th Honorable Kill was Elvion of Thorium Brotherhood. I’ve been playing a lot of Temple of Kotmogu recently. The small arena really lends itself to killing. I guess it’s as close to a 10v10 arena match as we’ll see. Now, do I set my sights on the 250,000 HK achievement? I’ll keep PVPing, but I’m definitely happy to have the “of the Horde” title!
The Hearthstone panel at BlizzCon really reinvigorated my interest in the game. I really enjoyed it when I first got into the beta, but I hadn’t even played it since the reset. Without having friends playing it, and with all the PVE content finished, I just lost interest. After seeing all the thought that went into the design and hearing about some new features coming, I started playing it again almost immediately. I can’t wait for some of that content, too!
BlizzCon attendees and virtual ticket holders get a Golden Elite Tauren Chieftain card. The coolest part of the card is what it looks like when you play it. Of course, it plays some cool music too! It looks like a fun card. In addition, it wasn’t the only card shown that made a big entrance.
I really enjoyed hearing about the evolution of some of the aspects of the game. For example, they discussed how standard drafting became the arena mode that’s currently in the game. My summary here misses a few intermediate versions, but here’s the idea. At first, they had normal drafting. You take one card from a pack of how ever many cards. (Let’s say eight.) You pass the remaining seven to the next player and get seven from another. You keep doing that until you’re down to just one card, and then you keep it. This works in physical games, but it would mean possibly waiting for a long time in a computer game.
They came up with an asynchronous way of doing something similar. You get seven cards and choose one to keep. You swap your six cards with the cards in the envelope with the “6” label. You keep doing this until you have just one card, and you keep it. After trying this, they realized that it was still most fun when you had a few cards from which to choose that were all applicable to your deck. However, sometimes you’d have only a couple choices and none would be right. They eventually decided that three choices was the most fun. They gave players three cards that were all applicable to that player’s deck, and that’s the version that made it into Hearthstone.
Because it was so different from the idea of a draft, they renamed it “Arena.” They felt it was no longer recognizable as drafting. Honestly, when I first tried that mode, I immediately saw it as a type of draft. Yes, the way you did it was different, but it very clearly accomplished the goals of drafting. I really like it.
I particularly liked the ideas of adventures. These are single-player, PVE matches. They could be a single boss or a series of bosses, and they’ll unlock cards as you play through them. It seems like a similar idea as raid decks from the World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game possibly (although single-player). I suppose the current tutorial series of matches is basically an adventure. I wish they would have teased some ideas for the adventures will be, but it might be too early for that. Regardless, I’m excited.
There were two people on the Hearthstone panel – Lead Designer Eric Dodds and Technical Designer Ben Brode. As soon as Ben Brodes began presenting, it was immediately apparent that he was excited for the game and truly loved it. He had so much enthusiasm and energy and was a great presenter. I decided to talk to him on Twitter.
@bdbrode I loved your energy and excitement at BlizzCon. What a great presenter! Got me more pumped to play the game.
— Peter Anargirou (@TheUser) November 11, 2013
@TheUser thanks!! Glad to hear it :)
— Ben Brode (@bdbrode) November 11, 2013
And then I realized something about his name and the fact that I currently live in Irvine, I went to school in Irvine, and Blizzard is in Irvine.
@bdbrode Also, are you related to Will who went to UCI a few years ago? (Not sure how common your last name is, heh.)
— Peter Anargirou (@TheUser) November 11, 2013
@TheUser haha yes he’s my brother!!
— Ben Brode (@bdbrode) November 11, 2013
It’s a small world.
Warlords of Draenor: The Story So Far, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 11/10/13.
If you missed what the expansion is all about, this will tell you!
Warlords of Draenor Systems Panel: What We Learned, Booka, BlizzPro, 11/9/13.
Booka provides a quick overview of the features and changes coming in Warlords.
Warlords of Draenor Open Q&A: What We Learned, Booka, BlizzPro, 11/9/13.
More quick bulletpoints.
Know Your Lore, TFH: The Aspects of the Titans, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 11/6/13.
Rossi has some very interesting theories about the Titans and time. He speculates that they’re from the future, and that they want to preserve the “true” timeline to ensure their own creation.
Know Your Lore TFH: The Big Lie, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 11/13/13.
Just how do the timelines work, and what has Nozdormu been up to? Rossi speculates.
Know Your Lore: The warlords of Draenor, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/9/13.
Who are the Warlords of Draenor?
Know Your Lore: The History of Draenor, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/8/13.
A look at Draenor’s current history.
Bashiok on flying mount delay in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, Sarah Pine, WoW Insider, 11/14/13.
No flying until 6.1? In my opinion, it’s a great idea.
The cosplay of BlizzCon2013, Elizabeth Harper, WoW Insider, 11/9/13.
There’s some very cool cosplay in the gallery!
How does a 25 player guild handle Mythic raiding?, Matticus, World of Matticus, 11/13/13.
The leader of a 25-player heroic guild talks about what’s going to happen come Warlords of Draenor.
BlizzCon 2013: Updates on the level 90-100 questing experience, Adam Koebel, WoW Insider, 11/9/13.
Take a look at what’s changing.
Know Your Lore, TFH Edition: What are the Old Gods?, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 11/3/13.
What if the Old Gods aren’t what we think?
What We’ll Miss About Mists… And What We Won’t, Booka, BlizzPro, 11/7/13.
The best and worst aspects of Mists of Pandaria.
Warlords of Draenor sounds very cool and seems to be bringing a lot of great things. I don’t intend for this post to rehash all the news released at BlizzCon, but I still want to talk about my reaction.
The story
I love the direction of the story; Garrosh escapes and, with the help of the Timewalker Kairoz, travels back in time to Draenor. He stops the orcs from becoming corrupted by the Burning Legion and forms the Iron Horde. He then builds his own Dark Portal connecting that Draenor to our Azeroth. I know that anything relating to time travel can be confusing to people, but I kind of like that Blizzard basically told us not to worry about it and that there wouldn’t be any time paradoxes or consequences. I like it. It’s just an excuse for us to visit Draenor and interact with all the old orcs. Of course, this gives us a lot of potential. Seeing ruthless, old-fashioned orcs should be fun, and of course, experiencing Draenor will be great.
It could also be a vehicle for some interesting character development. What if Garrosh finds his father’s not what he expected? What if Grom thinks Garrosh is a failure? It’ll be fascinating. I also think Blizzard has a chance to do something great with Thrall. Thrall never had the chance to know his parents. We know Durotan is going to side with our Horde, but what if he’s different than Thrall imagined? Even if he’s a good guy, what if he’s still ruthless? What if he thinks the Horde is too soft? In addition, some characters could stick around after the end of the expansion. For example, Durotan could come through the Dark Portal to live on Azeroth.
I’m also fascinated by the idea of circumstance shaping a person, and I hope Warlords of Draenor examines this. I’d like to see some characters act very differently than they did in the original timeline due to the changed events in their lives.
Stats and itemization
Hit was always a boring stat to me. There was no strategy or choice. You just had to get hit-capped. I’m glad to see it and its fellow not-fun stats removed. Movement speed could be a fun stat on gear as well. Plus, being able to move quickly and get back to DPSing or healing means a DPS/HPS boost.
Having gear change to match the wearer’s current spec is very interesting. It means you can use more gear but that there’s more competition. Ultimately, I think it’ll make the game much more offspec-friendly.
Reforging seemed more needless than useful. On the other hand, it is nice to be able to change from a haste build to a crit build without changing gear. I almost feel like it would work better like changing specs. When you’re out of combat, you can could change builds. Oh well. We’ll have to see what it’s like for gems and enchants to be less common as well.
Garrisons
Garrisons are effectively the Sunsong Ranch farm crossed with the companion mission system of TOR (or other games) with a dash of Warcraft RTS. Sounds intriguing. I liked the farm even though it felt like a grind at times, so I’m optimistic about this. Honestly, it’s more of an evolution of the idea of keeps and followers from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It could be pretty fun.
Updated character models
Honestly, I don’t really care about this. I don’t understand it. My character is a pretty portion of my screen. When I play D&D, my representation is, at most, a small metal figure that isn’t even using an accurate weapon half the time. However, a lot of people do care, so I’m glad Blizzard’s doing it.
Boost to 90
I completely understand how some people are bothered by this, but I’m not at all. I’ve never had two characters at the level cap. With the character boost, I’m more likely to get a second to level 100. It’d be nice to check out some other styles of play, because I’ve only ever had my priest at endgame. In addition, being able to boost to 90 combined with updated character models mean that people who haven’t played WoW before can immediately begin playing what is effectively a new, modern game. That’s great.
Collections and quest items
These might be my favorite changes. Currently, mounts and pets are in collections rather than items. In Warlords of Draenor, toys, heirlooms, and possibly tabards will be in collections as well. That’s so much bag space I’ll be regaining. In addition, quest items won’t take up bag space. Finally. I’m pretty excited. The only downside is that I lost all those toys I earned previously. Maybe Blizzard could check that I did those quests and award me the toys. Please, Blizzard?
Raid changes
LFR is still LFR. Flex will be called Normal. Normal will be called Heroic. Heroic will be called Mythic. LFR, Normal, and Heroic will all be flexible (1o to 25 people) and cross-realm. Mythic will not be cross-realm and will be 20 people. As a normal-mode raider currently (so a heroic-mode raider next expansion) in a guild that struggles with attendance, this is great news. We recruit so we have 15-20 people, and then we take everyone every week. Awesome! I do feel bad for current 10-man heroic guilds, but it won’t be my problem at least.
Dailies and dynamic events
Dailies will not be widely used. Great. Dynamic events like those from the Timeless Isle will exist in the world. Also great if not overdone. In addition, they talked about wanting to combine the ideas behind the Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle. I think Blizzard is on to something, and I like to see them iterating on the way content is delivered. A combination of these two is exactly what I want.
Story quests
The map will tell you where the next story quest is, and it also indicates how many story chapters you’ve completed. This is awesome news. In Mists of Pandaria, I finished all the zones before I started raiding, and I only did a dungeon once I got to it in the story. It made for a nice, cohesive experience, but it also meant I took longer to get raid-ready. In Warlords of Draenor, I’ll skip all the non-story quests and come back to them. This should speed up the process significantly.
PVP interface updates
I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with being able to see capping progress on the map and on the flags themselves. This is a welcome change.
Warlords of Draenor
I’m pretty excited about all the aspects of the expansion. I’ll admit, things could go wrong. The quests could be boring, or the new content delivery mechanisms could be boring. I won’t know until I see the content. But I’m feeling hyped to experience it. Of course, I’d like to defeat Garrosh in normal-mode first!
BlizzCon was this weekend, and I found the announcements pretty exciting. Despite living just twenty to thirty minutes from the convention center, I didn’t go. I think it feels less special as a convention because it’s so close, but I do watch the stream. I’ll be posting about some of the announcements and my feelings about them later. I have something more important to mention first!
What would World of Warcraft be without people with whom to play? Some of my guildies came down, and got to hang out this weekend. I’m second from the right, in the red shirt. I stole the pic from my guild leader, so hopefully she doesn’t mind. I went to dinner with three out-of-towners and Mooglegem on Friday night, and Saturday night the group of us above went to dinner. That includes four people I met (in person) this weekend, which was great.
In the photo, you might notice a cookie jar between a glass of water and a beer. Moogle baked cookies and brought them with her in that jar. While we in line at a restaurant, she handed them out to us. A girl behind us got excited, asking where we got the cookies. Moogle explained that she baked them and brought them with her. She seemed sad, and Moogle offered her a cookie. She got really excited, accepted, tried it, and then told Moogle how good it was! Later, when we were seated, Moogle offered cookies to our waiter and waitress. The waiter took one fairly early and thought it was great. It was later in the meal when the waitress accepted, and she also told Moogle how good she thought it was. A few minutes later, a different waitress came over to us, telling us that she didn’t know who baked the cookies but that her coworker shared a piece with her and she thought they were amazing. Moogle gave one to her too. Everyone loves cookies!
As for the content from BlizzCon itself, I was pretty impressed. I think Warlords of Draenor sounds very exciting and the changes are, generally, good ones. I’m also pleased with what I saw of Reaper of Souls. I’ve never played a MOBA, but I’m optimistic about Heroes of the Storm (and the trailer was fantastic). I’d actually not played Hearthstone in a while, but the convention made me excited to play once more. Adventures sound particularly cool! And I guess StarCraft was there. I don’t play it. I’ll post more in-depth about the announcements in the future!
We’re almost two months into the patch, so I thought I’d talk about some of the content. When the Timeless Isle was released, I was pretty excited. It was largely free-form content. In many ways, it mirrored the feeling of World of Warcraft when it was first released. I didn’t have particular expectations. There were no grinds of dailies. I was just able to explore and find things to do. I talked to Wrathion and his friends, got sent around the island, and met the Emperor. I killed some random monsters and did some platforming to find some treasure chests. I even bested the Celestials in battle, earned by legendary cloak, and fought Ordos. I was excited and incredibly happy with the Timeless Isle. I loved platforming to reach chests, and I particularly enjoyed getting carried by a bird to the top of a mountain.
Soon I began working on it a bit more. I wanted to complete the weekly so I could see the vision. I wanted to kill Yaungol so I could earn reputation with Emperor Shaohao. I wanted to get more armor from the island so I could use Burdens of Eternity on them, even if they’d only provide a small upgrade.
Soon I realized that there wasn’t an abundance of fun to reach chests. Platforming was very limited. The second week on the Timeless Isle, I didn’t quite finish gathering enough Epoch Stones to complete my quest and earn a vision. The next week I still hadn’t finished it. Fast-forward until today, and I’ve still only turned in the quest once and currently have 27/50 Epoch Stones.
Looking at my quest log, I see that I’m supposed to kill Yaungol for Emperor Shaohao, kill Elite creatures for Emperor Shaohao, kill Rare or Rare Elite creatures for Kairoz, and kill everything for Epoch Stones for Kairoz. These don’t scream fun to me. In fact, they seem pretty terrible. At least the Isle of Giant was even looser. This just feels fake. I have a few different quests, but really I’m just so run around killing things haphazardly. I primarily play to experience the content, see the story, and challenge myself. Challenge doesn’t really apply to this type of content, so let’s disregard that. I’ve already experienced the content. The Timeless Isle is now asking me to experience the same content again and again. I’m missing some story, but I feel like I’d be better off watching the visions on YouTube than continuing.
I do like PVPing, and I purchased the Censer of Eternal Agony, but I’ve never even used it honestly. I don’t really want to screw with people who are trying to get things done. I’d rather go do some battlegrounds. The Burdens of Eternity could provide me with some minor upgrades, but they’re not enough to really motivate me.
It’s really too bad. I’m not trying to say that the Timeless Isle is bad. A lot of people enjoy it, and that’s great. Unfortunately, it’s just not for me I suppose. When I first explored the island, it reminded me of the way exploring World of Warcraft felt for the first time. In many ways, it mirrored the experience of the game. That exploration is much more limited than implied. I understand what it wants and requires, and it offers a lot less than I originally thought. Perspective changes.
For now, I’ll fly out to the Isle once per week to spam smite at Ordos and to tag a Celestial right before the kill.
Why Have Gear?, Balkoth, Balkoth’s Word, 10/18/13.
In this piece, Balkoth, one of my favorite WoW bloggers, discusses the importance of the role of gear in WoW. He also heavily quotes and responds to Rowan of I Have Touched the Sky. It’s a great read.
Potential new WoW feature caught on video, Olivia Grace, WoW Insider, 10/23/13.
Is this a bug, or is this the dungeon scaling technology?
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Twists in time, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 10/20/13.
What’s up with time right now? err, back then? in the future?
The Daily Grind: Is crowd control in MMOs dead?, Brianna Royce, Massively, 10/18/13.
I hadn’t even realized it was so important before WoW.
A Counter-Intuitive Idea For Tanks in LFR, Rohan, Blessing of Kings, 10/16/13.
Rohan notes that there’s room for bad healers or DPS in LFR but not tanks. He speculates that increasing the number of tanks (while keeping encounters tuned for two) would make tanking more forgiving and possibly yield more people queuing as tanks. It’s a great idea.
An Alternate Explanation for Gender Bias in Healing and Tanking, Rohan, Blessing of Kings, 10/8/13.
Here’s another fantastic piece by Rohan. He provides an alternate explanation on gender bias in which he speculates that women prefer to stay at range while men prefer melee. It’s interesting.
Crowd Control & Diminishing Returns, Lore, World of Warcraft Forums, 10/11/13.
If you’ve wondered what CC shared diminishing returns, this great thread has you covered.
Know Your Lore: A brief summary of the Pandaria campaign, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 10/9/13.
This is a fantastic summary of what’s happened in Pandaria.
Reputation in review: Pandaria, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 10/14/13.
A consideration of the different reputation experiments in Mists of Pandaria.
Know Your Lore: The fate of Garrosh Hellscream, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 10/13/13.
Nothing new, but interesting look at why things happened the way they did.
Spec and Talent design likely to remain unchanged in 6.0, Olivia Grace, WoW Insider, 10/15/13.
If you read the article title, you don’t really need to read the article.
WoW Archivist: Spells we’ve lost, Scott Andrews, WoW Insider, 10/11/13.
An examination of spells that have been removed. I’m ready to lose more.
Mooglegem: I like frost magering!
Mooglegem: It comes with a Squishy! I think I might have the only frost elemental in Azeroth with low self esteem.
Devee: Why does he have low self esteem?!
Mooglegem: I used to have a glyph that made him big! But then I took it away, and now he’s a little squishy.
Devee: Put it back then!
Gemma: Nope! I’m trying to show him that bigger is not always better!
Gemma: … He also has “performance” issues.
Behind the Blogging Scenes Interview: Rohan, Matticus, World of Matticus, 10/5/13.
Matticus interviewed Rohan, one of my favorite bloggers.
I Think I’m in Love With 5.4, Balkoth, Balkoth’s Word, 10/3/13.
Wondering what’s so special about 5.4? Balkoth can explain.
Inventory fixes being worked on, Olivia Grace, WoW Insider, 10/5/13.
Yes yes yes.
Warcraft as a whole: story balance between RTS and MMO, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 10/7/13.
A consideration of the different ways the MMO and RTS games have interacted with story.
WTB generic glyphs, Sarah Pine, WoW Insider, 10/9/13.
Some interesting ideas for generic glyphs.
The Mists of Pandaria that never was, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 10/4/13.
Things could have been a bit different.
New Refer-A-Friend system revealed, Olivia Grace, WoW Insider, 10/7/13.
The new system sounds good, but are there really people who are coming to play WoW for the first time still?
Breakfast Topic: Today, the Sky Golems invade Azeroth, Adam Koebel, WoW Insider, 10/9/13.
This is a pretty sweet mount.
I like that LFR is included, and I think it’s a great feature. That said, the experience is usually infuriating. People are usually under-geared, which is to be expected, but they also don’t know what to do and don’t listen to instructions. Honestly, LFR is open to everyone, and many people have never raided outside of LFR. I understand that it can be daunting. What gets to me, however, is when we wipe so many times and fall apart so much that it takes 2 or 3 hours to complete a wing. This happens pretty frequently, and it’s especially bad now that we’re in a new tier. Everyone’s yelling at each other, we have four stacks of determination, half the group drops, and I just want to finish.
Tuesday night after our raid, I decided to do the Vale of Eternal Sorrows in LFR. I was great on Immerseus, and we completed it in one attempt with no problems. The Fallen Protectors also went very smoothly, but I was beginning to get tired. We had no problems on Norushen either, but I was incredibly sloppy. I didn’t switch to adds, and I didn’t do anything but spam Smite and occasionally cast Penance or Holy Fire on the boss. By the time we got to the Sha of Pride, I was falling asleep. Sometimes I cast Smite on the Sha. Most of the time I did nothing. Yes, I was stacked at the correct spot, but I didn’t move. I didn’t fight the add. I didn’t use my healing CDs. Pretty much, I just slept.
Whoops. I was the bad that got carried last night.
Tuesday we cancelled our raid due to low attendance. We tried recruiting and taking trial members, but the couple that was planning on running with us restarted their computers and never returned. However, on Wednesday we breezed through Immerseus and the Fallen Protectors and finally completed the Norushen encounter! I got a belt, too. I think it was only on our second attempt of the night, although we wiped a total of 24 times.
Then we moved on to the Sha of Pride. If flex was any indicator, I expected this to be easier than the Norushen encounter, and I was right. We did wipe four times, but we defeated the Sha of Pride on the fifth attempt. Take that Sha of Pride! Who’s the best now? Us! Wait…
Hopefully next week we’ll be able to push into Orgrimmar itself!
The bag space problem, Adam Koebel, WoW Insider, 10/2/13.
An examination of the problem with bag space with possible solutions.
A lack of triumph, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 10/1/13.
The Siege of Orgrimmar lacks a triumphant feeling, and maybe that’s okay.
WoW’s Singing Sunflower sweetens the Lament of the Highborne, Lisa Poisso, WoW Insider, 7/29/13.
Whoops, I missed this one. Laura Shigihara, the voice of the Singing Sunflower pet (and the song from Plants vs. Zombies), sings Lament of the Highborne.
Brewfast has always been one of my two favorite holidays – the other being Hallow’s End. (It’s too bad they’re so close together.) The year before last, I obtained my Brewfest Ram. I still needed by kodo, so I continued to run Direbrew daily.
This year, I got my Brewfest Kodo! It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I do like it a lot actually. The next day, I realized it was a bittersweet victory. Now what do I do with Brewfest? I have every token reward except for on the drinking hat, and I actually had that previously and destroyed it. I have my Wolpertinger, which I do love. Now I had both mounts. Was this is for the holiday? There wasn’t even a stein this year! I think I’ll do the ram riding, calling through Orgrimmar, Dark Iron fight, and Pink Elekks on Parade quest once each just for the experience. I really wish Blizzard had continued to update the stein yearly though!
About a week ago, Mooglegem earned her legendary cloak, Xing-Ho, Breath of Yu’lon! I was looking forward to seeing her increased DPS, but we called raids off this past week. Hopefully next time we raid she’ll get to put her new legendary cloak to good use!
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Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 