Anyways, we discussed pay-to-win, farming charms, and more. As people probably don’t go back to check comments, I just wanted to post to let people know that they might want to check the comments here. It’s a good read.
(Plus, I’ve been busy due to San Diego Comic-Con and don’t have anything else ready to post!)
Bashiok recently posted confirming that an in game store coming. This makes me really nervous about the future of WoW. An in game store that sells the same things that are currently for sale on the Web is fine. These things are all cosmetic. However, an experience buff begins to cross the line, and Lesser Charms greatly crosses the line.
I know other people might feel differently, but to me, the experience buff isn’t much of a problem. I wouldn’t purchase it. You normally hit the level cap long before you finish all the zones of the expansion, and I like to quest through them. There’s no reason for me to pay for it. However, I hate having to grind for Lesser Charms. If I could purchase Lesser Charms for real money, I could bypass a part of the game I don’t enjoy. I’d also be paying a monthly subscription to be able to grind for them (among other things, of course) as well as a second fee to skip that part for which I already paid. This encourages Blizzard to design the game in such a way that gameplay is boring and unenjoyable. That’s crazy!
All of these types of in-app purchases are similarly strange. Consider a normal price-model for an offline game. The game is fun and enjoyable, and you want to play it. To play it, you must purchase it. This makes sense. Consider a game that uses a DLC model for everything. The game is free, but each additional level (or levels) has a fee attached. Again, the game is fun, you want to play more levels, so you purchase them. This makes sense. In those two scenarios, you’re paying more money to play the game more because you enjoy it. Now consider the Lesser Charms. If you purchase Lesser Charms, you’re paying money to skip a part of the game. Instead of creating something enjoyable that people want and charging them for it, they’ve created something that people don’t want and then are charging to skip it. Despicable.
The thing that will rope people into this is that they’re not simply paying to skip the part they don’t like. They’re paying to skip to the part they do like. Raiders who don’t want to grind could look at this as a way for getting to the content they do like easier. (I know, they can raid without Lesser Charms. But I’ll consider the “content they do like” as “raiding with as many charms as possible.”)
I enjoy seeing dailies, but I don’t enjoy grinding them endlessly. No, I don’t want to get rid of them, but sure, they seem like a grind, and I’d be happy to avoid some of it. If I pay for Lesser Charms, however, I’m encouraging Blizzard to continue with this idiotic and immoral game design. Yes, it’d be tempting to occasionally offset my dailies by purchasing Lesser Charms, but then Blizzard would be content to continue. If, contrary to purchasing Lesser Charms, no one purchased any and people stopped grinding dailies, I’m sure Blizzard would change their design. People might pull away from dailies, but it feels like too much of an obligation for many raiders, so I don’t expect that to happen.
Bashiok said that they’ll “be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items [they’re] looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback…” Maybe they’ll see that player feedback is negative and no go forward with this. Some people are saying that this will only be for Asian regions. That would calm me a little because it wouldn’t be hurting the game I play, but I still think it’s a terrible game design choice. Regardless, all we can do now is wait and see (and give negative feedback).
To anyone reading this, I highly recommend you avoid purchasing such buffs or enhancements in World of Warcraft or any other game!
When I saw a transmog contest being advertised in trade chat, I decided I had to go check it out. It was free to enter, and there weren’t any particular rules, so I figured I had nothing to lose by competing as well.
We all lined up in front of Orgrimmar. There were some people who crowded around just wondering what was happening or deliberately trying to interfere with us, but honestly, there weren’t many.
Gorehouse, whoops, I meant… Thrall… kept demanding respect as the former Warchief. He kept at it and was pretty entertaining.
The winner was Psykick! I’ve opened an inspection window on him in this screenshot. It was fun to do an different type of activity that evening in WoW.
What were the mogu doing for all the years since their fall? Why were we told they could no longer use magic? How was Lei Shen the son of a mogu if they couldn’t reproduce?
This weekend I hit exalted with The August Celestials! That’s also the last reputation that needed farming, so there’s another thing I won’t need to do. I still need to gain reputation with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, however.
The August Celestials also marked the 40th reputation with which I reached exalted! Hooray!
We’ve had some good raid weeks the past two weeks! On Tuesday we cleared to Megaera and put in some good attempts. On Wednesday, we managed to kill Megaera for the first time!
Okay, yes, we had 22 wipes before we killed her on our 23rd attempt, but we still did it! It had been 15 days since our last kill; I think two weeks is fine!
Luckily for us, the progression didn’t end there. We killed Ji-Kun on our second attempt! Here you can see almost all of us. Justin took the portal by accident.
Here’s all of us, I think. It’s hard to get everyone in the shot when we’re flying. Three-dimensions are too hard for my feeble mind.
And here’s our kill video! I can’t believe it was only two attempts. It was a good week!
I got to use the Orb of Control tonight! I don’t understand why I made Horridon bash the gate though. He’s so cute. I would have made him come hang out with me. We’d be good buddies.
While waiting for our 10th raider, we had some time to kill. Nate challenged me to a pet battle. I’d done some pet battling, but I’d never dueled another player. I was high level, so it was unfair but still fun. Here Musterbear (named after the stuffed Mr. Bear) defeated Nate’s Sunreaver Micro-Sentry.
In fact, Musterbear defeated Nate’s entire team. Yay, Musterbear!
Next up, Mushkin and Zetzu battled. That’s Zetzu’s Cinder Kitten, Nova! He kicked butt, but only because Mushkin didn’t use his A-team. I’m glad he likes his Cinder Kitten; Moogle got it for him for our Secret Santa last year.
We asked Fiirnok to fill in for Meto because Meto’s Internet was having problems. I hadn’t raided with Fiirnok since Wrath because he only recently rejoined. Fiirnok loves cats, and Moogle had the idea for everyone to bring out cats. She also had the idea of feeding them pet biscuits. I have a bunch as well, so after asking everyone to summon their cats, we enlarged them! You can see Fiirnok on the left in this picture near the water. I hope he liked the first ever Fiirnok Cat Party!
The official site has been updating, including lore on the current and last patch. I love that they divide the story into chapters with short summaries, and it’s great to see Blizzard keeping it up to date.
My friend Shaun is moving to another country soon. I’ve talked about him before, and there’s a reddit thread about him here. He acquired every achievement shortly before Mists of Pandaria’s launch. I’ve known him since middle school, and like I said, he’s moving to another country next month. To prepare for this, he’s been giving away practically everything he owns. I took some of his weights and a pull-up bar, but that’s not really applicable to this blog. He had Collector’s Editions of all the World of Warcraft expansions, and I accepted The Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition because it was the only one I didn’t have!
Of course, the key’s been used, but that’s not really why I took it. It’s also missing the WoW CCG cards. However, it has the mousepad, art book, and behind-the-scenes DVD. I’m looking forward to preusing them more. In fact, I don’t think I finished looking at the Mists of Pandaria art book! (I like to be surprised in game.)
Thank you for the gift, Shaun / Scyber / Scybear / Yuber. Enjoy your new country!
On Wednesday Carpe Flux Capacitor killed Tortos for the first time! It was only our second time reaching him, and it took us 28 attempts across those two nights. It was a hectic fight at time (as they all on first kills) but definitely fun. Hopefully next week we get him down faster!
If you have the fastest clear time for a Challenge Mode, you’ll be given a title specific to that Challenge Mode. As soon as you lose the fastest time, you’ll lose the title.
When Rohan at Blessing of Kings posted about variable group sizes in WoW, I thought it was a great idea that would likely never be implemented. I was wrong.
Blizzard just announced Flexible Raids. Flexible Raids is a new raid difficulty for 10-25 players. Loot works like LFR, and you can participate cross-realm, but there is no matchmaking service. The difficulty scales with the number of people in the group, and item level of gear will be between LFR and normal mode. In addition, Flexible Raids are on their own lockout.
What does this mean?
You’re no longer obligated to run either 10-man or 25-man raids. Guilds now have the flexibility to run with however many people they want.
Except that’s not quite true.
Let’s say a 25-man guild doesn’t have enough people to raid on a particular raid night. Yes, they could run a Flexible Raid. However, would it be better to run the flex as a whole group or send 10 people into normal mode where they’ll get better gear? Maybe it has to do with how many people are available. If there’s between 20 and 25, maybe they should try to run two normal modes. I don’t know; I’m not in a 25-man guild.
What about 10-man guilds? There are two scenarios to consider. First, what if there aren’t enough people to raid? Well, if we’re under 10 people, the Flexible Raid isn’t going to help. If we have more than 10 people, why would we want to get worse gear? Wouldn’t we rather the 10 more regular raiders have a chance at better gear in normal mode?
I think this is going to become another obligation. Blizzard says I’m not obligated to run LFR, but I still need a lot of gear from it even though I’m in a 10-man guild. While I don’t always do LFR, I try to run it every week. If the flex raid is going to drop better gear, shouldn’t I be doing it too? I suppose this could bond a different set of people. If 10 core guild raiders were online and wanted to raid, we could raid normal. If I wanted to do LFR, I could just queue. The flex raid would give me a reason to make friends with a wider community. Right now, I don’t interact with WoW players outside of my guild very often. There have been guilds in the past that PUG’d me regularly, but currently I’m not in touch with anyone. With flex raids feeling required but lacking a matchmaking service, I could see reaching out to other bloggers, for example, to add Battletag friends. But I have to be honest. Most weeks I don’t valor cap or complete LFR. What makes me think I have time to schedule a flex raid?
This seems really odd to me. I’d be ecstatic if they had followed Rohan’s idea of 7 to 13 people. Blizzard’s implementation won’t really help my guild and will likely feel like a burden I can’t fulfill. It’s an interesting first iteration of the scaling feature regardless. Even if I don’t have time to schedule anything, maybe a guildie will occasionally ask me to join a flex raid, but I don’t see it happening lately. It’s hard to judge a feature without experiencing it, but it seems to me that Blizzard took an interesting idea and executed it poorly.
Poor Gamon. After getting in many bar fights, attempting to protect the city against Death Knights, being put under martial law by Thrall during the coup of the Undercity, and helping at the Molten Front, his bad luck continues. He appears to be under arrest by the Kor’kron! The Kor’kron say a variety of things to him: “Where do you think you’ll run to? The Kor’kron control this city.” “You don’t want to force the hand of the Warchief.” I enjoy seeing the changes with the Kor’kron and some minor development of Gamon. Will Gamon be there for the Siege of Orgrimmar. I certainly hope so!
Similarly, the Valley of Spirits isn’t seeing much business. While the shopkeepers and trainers appear to be okay, they claim that doing business is too dangerous, and there are Kor’kron that seem to be guarding them. First, Garrosh puts the goblins upriver from our section, and now imprison us! That Darkspear Rebellion better kick it up a notch!
The Darkspear Rebellion was very exciting. Yes, it was pretty short, but I like that. You can see all the content in the day, but you can grind some more if you’d like. You can watch me experience it in the video below. Of course, the video and this post contain huge spoilers. I’ve also cut a lot of the repetition from the video. Below I first explain the lore and story involved before giving my opinion and feedback. Click here to jump straight to my feedback.
After witnessing events elsewhere on Azeroth with Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew, I was sent to Sen’jin Village. Vol’jin is there planning a rebellion against the Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream. With him are Thrall and Chen Stormstout. You’re tasked with collecting some supplies from the new Kor’kron camps in the Northern Barrens.
After completing this task, I returned to talk with Vol’jin, Thrall, and Chen. The Warchief, or at least his Kor’kron, figured out what was happening and led an attack on Sen’jin Village. Unfortunately for them, we were able to defeat them. As they fled, Vol’jin suggested we let them run because they’d be executed by Hellscream for doing so.
Vol’jin’s next move was to plan on attack on Razor Hill, using it as a staging ground before laying siege to Orgrimmar. Thrall parted ways with the rest of the rebellion at this point, believing that some of his previous advisers, such as Eitrigg and Saurfang, must not support Hellscream. Vol’jin told him that he’d be killed upon setting foot in Orgrimmar, but Thrall felt he had to try anyways. He told Vol’jin to watch over Aggra and his boy if he’s killed. gem watches from her direhorn, propped up cutely on the stairs.
After taking Razor Hill, the rebellion sets up camp at a watchtower just north of the city. Baine Bloodhoof arrives, happy to see Vol’jin alive. He offers to join the rebellion. I was tasked with two new objectives – to steal many more supplies from the Kor’kron and to speak with the Old Seer currently climbing Mount Neverest in the footsteps of the last emperor.
First, I went to the Northern Barrens to collect materials from the Kor’kron and to kill the Kor’kron commanders. Once that was done, I headed to Kun’Lai Summit.
I helped the Old Seer, Seer Hao Pham Roo, climb the mountain, during which he explained how when he was young he would have had trouble performing the climb. For example, he says, “My, you are strong! When I was young, I might have doubted that we could do this. But now, I have no doubts at all.” In fact, he mentions overcoming anger, violence, doubt, despair, hate, and fear.
Upon reaching the summit, he explains. “You see, when I was young… when I was young… when I was young… I was EMPEROR.” He transforms in the spirit of the last emperor, describing his remaining vice – his pride. He explains that his pride cloaked Pandaria in the mists. He thought they could solve their problems without outside help. Now he believes that old enemies must work together, and that proud races must admit that they need help. He then disappears.
Upon completing all the tasks of the Darkspear Rebellion, I became Darkspear Revolutionary Devee. (If I was a member of the Alliance, I would gained “Hordebreaker!”)
My opinion and reaction
I’m incredibly happy with the Battlefield Barrens event. The lore was fantastic, and experiencing it was a ton of fun. The only grind is collecting supplies for the weekly, but that really only took an hour or so. Of course, if I choose not to do it again, it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal. The conflict rose at a great pacing as well. First, we attacked the Kor’kron haphazardly. Next, they attacked Sen’jin Village, and we defended. Finally, we led a full assault with a marching army upon Razor Hill. Very cool!
All three leaders of the primary Western Horde were there – Vol’jin, Thrall, and Baine. They even mentioned that Lor’themar agreed with the rebellion but was still busy and that Sylvanas agreed but was too far away. It was nice to see Baine show up despite there still being tauren within Orgrimmar. The dialogue between Thrall and Vol’jin was also touching. I know I’m a sap for lore and story, but I really enjoyed it. I hope Blizzard wasn’t foreshadowing Thrall’s death, but in all honesty, I was expecting his death at the end of Cataclysm already. Many people love Thrall, and many people are sick of seeing him. Killing him could be a fitting solution. The people who are sick of him won’t need to see him anymore. The people who love him will have him go out at a high point in his life and can remember him as a great hero.
The quest with the Old Seer was simply amazing. I didn’t even realize he was talking about defeating the sha as we climbed until I went back to watch my own video. And when he transformed into the Emperor, I was at a loss of words. I know that sounds silly, but I have a low tolerance for “awesome,” and this was super awesome. A lot of people were expecting a final Sha of Pride, but it’s nice to see it confirmed. And it’s definitely true that Garrosh has been acting more prideful and much less honorable than previously. When did the mists part, anyways? Could the Sha of Pride have left Pandaria, parting the mists, near the end of Cataclysm – right around the time Garrosh Hellscream began planning the destruction of Theramore? It could explain his change of behavior!
This post is more a “journal” type entry, but I found it very interesting to hear about the effect severe latency and bandwidth limitations has on playing MMOs.
Patch 5.3 Escalation brought four new scenarios with it, two of which are required to progress into the Darkspear Rebellion quests. None of them involves the actual player characters; they’re stories told about others on Azeroth through Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew. This is a very cool way of telling stories about other characters while still allowing all players to see them.
Please note that this post will contain spoilers!
The first scenario, Blood in the Snow, is about the Alliance. The Zandalari have instigated the Frostmane trolls in Dun Morogh to lead an attack on Ironforge. When Varian asks the dwarves to send troops to help him fight off the trolls, the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer both refuse. The two clans are scared to turn their backs on the Dark Iron. Meanwhile Moira Thaurissan, Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron clan, shows that she’s willing to contribute to the Alliance and defend Ironforge by leading her troops into battle alongside Varian Wrynn. (Why does Varian have to lead the effort? Why aren’t the dwarves taking the initiative to defend their own city?)
Mechanically there was nothing special about Blood in the Snow. However, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think it might have been my favorite scenario. Now, do consider that I only played each scenario once. It’s fairly likely that I won’t play any of them again for a long time. While some of the other scenarios had awesome things happen, it’s not every day that I get to see character progression of Alliance faction leaders. Moira’s a cool character, and it’s exciting to see her step up. I hope they three clans don’t unite any time soon. I’d like to see Moira turn into the more honorable one while the other two bicker.
The Dark Heart of Pandaria puts you in the shoes of goblin engineers excavating the Vale of Eternal Blossoms under orders of Garrosh Hellscream who hopes to find an ancient power. The goblins find a large chest, but when they open it, Norushen, a Titan construct of a Mogu yells, “Containment failure. Active defense matrix enabled.” A goblin is transformed by sha energy into the Echo of Y’Shaarj, and the other goblins defeat him.
Grizzle Gearslip, Malkorok, and Kor’kron enter the room, claiming this is exactly what they wanted to find. Malkorok pays Grizzle Gearslip, but Grizzle Gearslip replies that it wasn’t the full amount. Malkorok says that Grizzle Gearslip is only paid for the workers present, not the ones who died. He grabs him by the neck and proceeds with a racist tirade about the weakness of the lesser races before leaving.
This is another very fascinating scenario. Of course, we get some nice progression about the Old God Y’Shaarj. Not only did we discover this presence, but we find that Garrosh not only knew of it but also wanted it. I think everyone on Azeroth who isn’t part of Garrosh’s ideal Horde thinks harnessing the power of an Old God is a bad idea. Lastly, this scenario seems to act as a tipping point for the goblins. It’s obvious what the orcs think of the goblins as well.
I actually ran through Battle on the High Seas last, but as it was my least favorite scenario of the four, I didn’t want to end this post with it. Horde and Alliance ships meet in the ocean en route to Pandaria and open fire on each other. You’re tasked with boarding the other ships both by swinging over with ropes and by shooting yourself with a cannon. Besides killing enemy sailors, you also place explosives to destroy the ships.
I thought this scenario was rather boring although it did have its moments. Swinging from the ropes and using the cannons was fun, but the instructions weren’t always clear. The third person in my group at one point jumped overboard and swam to the other ship, not realizing we needed to do something on the previous ship before being able to swing to the next. We also got caught on an enemy ship when the explosives went off, killing us. It told us to get off the ship, but we weren’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do.
The biggest problem with the scenario is that it doesn’t progress the story. Yes, yes, I realize the Horde and Alliance are at war. I guess they just wanted some scenario, any scenario, to show that conflict. What we get here is some random sailors dying. Was there anyone important on either side? No. Did we learn anything new (like we do in all three of the other scenarios)? No! I’m sure Blizzard could have reinforced the Horde-Alliance conflict while actually using some characters that mattered.
Lastly we have the Secrets of Ragefire. Citizens in Durotar have been disappearing, and the Gob Squad believes it has something to do with Ragefire Chasm. You’re placed in the roles of the Gob Squad, who previously had adventures in Azshara and the Twilight Highlands, to learn what’s happening. The Gob Squad works to create a bomb to blow open a door. The Dark Shaman Xorenth tries to stop them, but the Gob Squad defeats them. They find a large number of proto-drake eggs as well as Kor’kron supply crates, making them think Garrosh plans an invasion, including orcs mounted on proto-drakes. They also find discarded Pandaria artifacts. These are likely discarded because they’re not the source of power of Y’shaarj for which Garrosh was searching. The Gob Squad creates another bomb to blow open the next door.
Yes, that’s the bomb in the upper-left of that picture. Why yes, that is a pool pony, and no, we don’t know why it’s needed. The bomb detonates early, hurting some members of the Gob Squad. Soon after, Overseer Elaglo enters, claiming “The true horde, the pure horde, cannot be stopped!” While Grit sets up a teleporter, the other goblins defend him and defeat the racist Overseer Elaglo before escaping through the teleporter.
This is another great scenario. It’s a ton of fun to explore an area that Horde players explored for the first time so long ago. In true goblin fashion, the Gob Squad is a bit silly but still manage to kick butt! The scenario shows the pride and arrogance of Garrosh Hellscream’s Horde. I love the line about the true Horde. I also like the usage of Dark Shaman. An expansion ago, I hadn’t heard of the idea of Dark Shaman. I believe the first I heard of them was in Tides of War. With the release of Mists of Pandaria, Ragefire Chasm was updated. Gone was the concept of warlocks; in its place were the Dark Shaman, and the Secrets of Ragefire brings the problem to a head. It’s time we do something about the Old God harnessing, shamanic arts-abusing, “true Horde” led by Garrosh Hellscream! Maybe it’s time for a rebellion, and maybe I’ll be posting about the Darkspear Rebellion next time!
After collecting my Secrets of the Empire and trillium bars, I finally got to proceed with the legendary quests. I headed to the Thunderforge for my solo scenario, which was actually a bit more challenging than usual. As a healer, I got through it, but Mooglegem struggled a bit as DPS. Afterward, Wrathion was nice enough to give us our legendary meta gems! The Courageous Primal Diamond is sure sweet; I hope I actually get to use it soon! I don’t want to put it in my helm when I’m likely to upgrade it soon.
There are two more quests in the 5.2 chain before completing chapter three. Why put the legendary reward in the middle of the chain? That seems very odd to me, but I guess it didn’t really matter because people will continue into chapter four regardless.
During the interaction to receive the reward, Anduin Wrynn sits on the wall. Mooglegem decided to sit with him and have a nice chat. He’s a great character. I wonder if the Alliance get to see much more of him than we Horde do.
If you haven’t done the scenario and are curious, you can see it here!
Rohan thinks we should bring back talent trees with talents every level for leveling purposes. However, he proposes that at max level, you have every talent, but the talents give the abilities that a class gets while leveling currently. This would make it simply a way of choosing what you get first while leveling. It’s a great idea!
Anne posits that the Ancients and Celestials are Azeroth’s natural response and balance to chaos and the Old Gods. This is a great article, so please read it!
Patch 5.3 hits today. Every time there’s a patch, I ask myself if I’m ready for it. So far this expansion, every patch has come a bit early in my opinion. Yes, I do feel a bit burnt out lately, but that’s because there’s too much to do, not because it’s boring.
How am I doing in patch 5.2? I’ve finished LFR of course and am 3/12 in Throne of Thunder. I’ve done all the activities on the Isle of Thunder although didn’t get all the achievements, I’ve killed the two world bosses, and I’ve explored the Isle of Giants. I’m exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught and revered with the Shado-Pan Assault. I’ve finished collecting Secrets of the Empire and Trillium Bars for Wrathion and am working on his quests.
I suppose now is as good a time as any. There’s still more to do, but this isn’t a raid patch. Because I’m no longer doing much besides raiding, it seems like the perfect time for a non-raid patch. I just wish I was caught up with Wrathion! Patch 5.3, Escalation, should be exciting. I have no idea what’s going on with PVP, and I wish I did, so I can’t say much about the new BG. Scenarios have been pretty boring so far, so I’m not very excited for that either. However, I love where they’re going with the story and look forward to helping Vol’jin’s rebellion!
What’s this? A giant exclamation mark in the raid? Oh, a quest! Seriously, how did I not know there were raid quests in the Throne of Thunder. Admittedly we’re not very far in the raid. We’re only 3/12, so I suppose the randomly quest has always been further in the raid. Still it seems surprising to me that I wouldn’t have heard about this.
It was a nice change to have something a little different to do between the first two bosses. Maybe we wiped once, sure, but things always go wrong on trash. It wasn’t the only time we wiped on trash that night either.
Of course, all I received for completing it was 26 gold. Even so, I enjoyed the change of pace and look forward to running into more of these in the future.
The other day I hadn’t really intended on playing WoW much. I got online to do something really quick, and my friend and guildmate Zetzu announced that Oondasta was up, and that people were about to engage him. Within minutes, Devee and Mooglegem were standing on the beach of the Isle of Giants.
No one was attacking him. Minutes passed, and people were still arguing and trying to group up. I got distracted and ended up downstairs talking to my roommate. About twenty minutes later, I walked into my room. On Mooglegem’s screen, I see that Oondasta is almost dead. Mooglegem casts one spell, and the spell hits just before Oondasta dies. I didn’t even get to enter combat with Devee.
Of course, Mooglegem gets some loot. I forget what it was now, but after looking at the loot, she used a Mogu Rune of Fate.
Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn.
Too awesome! I think she looks good on it though, don’t you?
On Wednesday we defeated the Council of Elders for the first time! It was a really fun fight in my opinion. I love seeing the various troll tribes act as individuals even while acting as a group. Just as with Horridon, the Council of Elders showcases representatives of each troll tribe (especially if you consider the Darkspear representative in opposition).
We had thirteen failed attempts before our successful kill; the video shows the last few seconds of each failure before the full success. Now it’s on to Tortos!
I think I’d look good riding on a Horridon. Sadly, the mount didn’t drop. It would pretty nice to have one day.
It only took us 13 wipes to down Horridon for the first time! That seems like a lot, but I guess it wasn’t so bad. I think it was only two nights. We put some attempts into the Council of Elders as well but didn’t get far. Maybe we’ll progress more next week!
Adam thinks gear should be removed. Most players would 100% reject this. I think it’s an interesting idea, but it wouldn’t fully work. While I don’t want to stress over pieces of gear (yet I do) and I just want to raid, obtaining gear feels satisfying.
I had very little time this week to play World of Warcraft. Of our two raid nights, one never got going, so we ran LFR instead. Someone in our guild still needed to go through LFR for the first time, so we ran the wing that he needed next before bed. The next raid night we got into Throne of Thunder, downed the first boss, and attempted the second. After spending three days from WoW, I returned Monday night with the goal of doing the final wing of Throne of Thunder for the first time.
When Mooglegem and I zoned into the raid, we had three stacks of Determination and were on Lei Shen. Might as well take advantage of the three stacks, kill him, and then re-queue, right? Well, we wiped two more times. In the others’ defense, there really are a lot of abilities, and you have to know when to run and when to stack. After we finally killed him, Mooglegem and I left and re-queued. We zoned back in to find ourselves about to pull Lei Shen. We pulled, wiped, and dropped group. Time to re-queue, and then we were back at Lei Shen again, although this time there was trash between me and the boss. People seemed to just run past the trash, hoping to reach the teleporter before dying. Fine! But this time, we decided to try dropping group.
Deserter.
Thanks, Blizzard. I wouldn’t say I’m a deserter though. I’d say I’m someone who needed to go to sleep.
We did, however, fight Nalak, The Storm Lord. I didn’t notice at first, but Darkdk was in my raid! Darkdk #1! For people not from Kil’jaeden, Darkdk is a… local celebrity? That’s what I’d call him. Some people might call him a trade troll. I suppose “Darkdk #1” is sort of his catchphrase, and according to my meters, he really was #1.
Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. I began participating late, so I’ve decided to go back and write to the old prompts. This topic was proposed by Fumbleknock.
Does WoW need another party role?
Nope. It might be interesting, but it wouldn’t be worth Blizzard’s effort when you consider the new balancing they’d have to do. Would the new role be optional? If so, how would you balance content? Dungeons would require either a tank, healer, and three DPS, or a tank, healer, two DPS, and one of the new role. How would that be done? And what about old content? Would that be rebalanced or just left as is? I would think they’d leave them, but then, how would you level as the new role? It would have to be able to do dungeons especially considering the Dungeon Finder.
Let’s overlook that and consider an idea for a new role anyways. It would need to be some sort of support class. What if there was a class that specialized in buffs. Its DPS would suck, but it would have more powerful buffs. If it was a bard, maybe it could have multiple songs with only one active at a time. One song would raise the DPS of all party/raid members a certain percent. Another could raise healing done, and a third could raise health or dodge or some other tank thing. (Can you tell that I’ve never tanked?) Perhaps it could have even stronger single-target buffs. For example, it could buff a target player’s DPS by 20% for a small amount of time at the cost of stopping the raid-wide songs. I’m not sure how it would level effectively though. I’m not sure what to do about scaling between 5-man, 10-man, and 25-man content, but I’m sure it could be done.
Alternatively, there could be a CC-specialized class. I suppose it would be like the controller role in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Many classes can already CC, but maybe a class that has many CCs but incredibly low DPS. It could CC multiple targets at a time and use a variety of knockbacks. I’m not sure how useful this would be, but it’s an idea.
To be clear, I don’t think introducing a whole new role into World of Warcraft would work. However, I do have a soft spot for bards, so I’d love to see one added. Admittedly that’s because Mooglegem loves to play bards in other games, and I’d like her to have that opportunity in WoW. I suppose there’s a chance we’ll see a bard in WoW, but I don’t think we’ll ever see a fourth role.
This is an extremely fascinating article. The idea is that opinions on how much effort gear is worth varies drastically. Balkoth found that 32.7% of responders think you’d be crazy to kill 200 mogu for a BiS heroic ring. Next, 50% think you’d be crazy not to kill 500 mogu for the ring. At 1000, 41% think you’d be crazy not to go for the ring. Lastly, 13% think 5000+ mogu is reasonable. Blizzard can’t make everyone happy.
Here’s an interesting change. You’ll now have to pick your role when queuing for a battleground. From now on, the difference between the two teams’ number of healers can be no more than one. I wonder if I can just queue as DPS and then heal.
The Isle of Thunder is now fully unlocked, and I recently defeated Shan Bu in the solo scenario, Fall of Shan Bu. It was a relatively simple scenario with a few plot development points of interest. The Horde and the Alliance almost clashed but focused on defeating the Mogu and Zandalari first. However, once Shan Bu was defeated, things escalated.
Regent-Lord Lor’themar Theron demanded that Lady Jaina Proudmoore free the Sunreavers. She responded that they were led an assault on an Alliance city from her own city. Lor’themar said that the Sunreavers didn’t know about that. What I particularly enjoyed was Aethas Sunreaver’s emote at this time. “Aethas Sunreaver shift uncomfortably.” No mention of this by the characters, and if you weren’t looking at the chat, you would have missed it.
After Taran Zhu told them to break the cycle and walk away, Lor’themar told his rangers to stand down. Soon after, Jaina told her followers to leave as well. I just want to point out that the Horde forces put their weapons down first, leaving them vulnerable. That’s because not everyone in the Horde are jerks!
The scenario ended with Nalak still waiting. We couldn’t just let her live, so Mooglegem and I hunted her down. Unfortunately, as she fell out of the sky, her open mouth landed around a terrified Mooglegem!
Last week Carpe Flux Capacitor managed to enter Throne of Thunder for the first time (besides LFR). It took us eight attempts, but we defeated Jin’rokh the Breaker before calling it. We considered pushing forward to see the next trash at least, but we got a late start and had to end early that night so decided to stop there.
For the first time, I decided to include short clips of the end of each attempt leading up to the successful attempt in the video. I thought it’d be kind of funny.
Sadly, Jin’rokh didn’t give me any loot, the jerk. It was a fun fight though. I’m looking forward to Horridon next!
In the Throne of Thunder LFR this week, I noticed something odd. My Divine Star shoots directly behind me rather than in front of me. I wasn’t the only one with problems either. Mooglegem’s Frozen Orb behaved the same way, and I saw it happen to other mages as well. I have no idea what’s causing it, but it only seems to happen in Throne of Thunder.
This sounds really fun. I wish I could have been there. Player run events are very fascinating to me. I love that we have the ability to create our own stories in the game.
The Horde has finished stage 4 and infiltrated Stormsea Landing! This was a fun scenario in which we used smoke bombs to clear sentries and then knocked out targets sneakily before attacking more directly. It went okay for me, although I didn’t understand how to knock out the enemies at first. When Mooglegem did it, her extra action button refused to display, which caused some problems.
We obtained a few Isle of Thunder achievements this weekend too. First, we earned Speed Metal for defeating Metal Lord Mono-Han with 10 stacks of Power Surge. We also earned These Mogu Have Gotta Go-gu for defeating the summoned mogu in the Court of Bones. After defeating all of the bosses summonable by ritual stones, we earned It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone.
Lastly, we earned Platform Hero. You can see me earn in the video above.
I met Versidia from Bronzebeard in a Throne of Thunder LFR run recently. I liked her transmog so grabbed a picture. She looks like she could be a high priestess of the Farraki! I complimented her transmog, and she replied that it took her five months to get the robe.
I’ve been hoping to fight Oondasta but have always missed it for some reason. This weekend I noticed he was up. [Thank you, Balkoth, for pointing out that Oondasta is a male!] I played Xbox for an hour or two with the game open, continually checking to see if there was a group forming, but there wasn’t. The next day I finally saw people getting together to fight Oondasta. Seeing her approach the edge of the hill to come to the beach to fight us was a joyous occasion!
While we were waiting to pull, someone decided to organize the raid by class. Once people noticed it was happening, others tried to rearrange it just to stop the organizer. There was a little raid frame war, which was surprisingly fun actually.
We had a few wipes, but eventually we killed her! Thank you for the Girdle of Dimorphodontics, Oondasta!
I hit exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught recently. I haven’t been dailies everyday, yet now I’m exalted multiple stages of the Isle of Thunder still ahead. Of course, many people are already exalted. It’s nice to see a reputation grind that isn’t quite so… grindy. I’ll still be doing the dailies when we unlock new stages, but I’ll probably go back to doing Shado-Pan and August Celestials dailies too. I’ve been impressed with the Isle of Thunder and patch 5.2 in general!
Allison wonders why healers aren’t queuing for raid finder. She thinks it might have to do with healing being harder in LFR than normal raids because people will assume the healers can compensate. This seems like a crazy idea. I can be half asleep spamming random button and still top the carts in LFR, and it’s not like I’m heroic raid geared or anything.
Warning: This post contains some spoilers for patch 5.3.
I’m super excited about what we’ll be doing in 5.3! The Darkspear will be rebelling against Garrosh Hellscream. Horde heroes will be helping the Darkspear against an assault by the Kor’kron and advancing on Orgrimmar. Meanwhile Alliance heroes will be performing espionage against Hellscream on the outskirts of Orgrimmar. We’ll also be disrupting Kor’kron supply lines in the Northern Barrens and killing Kor’kron leaders.
While I like Blizzard to take their time with patches, I’m eager to see the plot unfold. I love all the plot development we’re seeing this expansion, and I suspect the Darkspear’s rebellion will be particularly entertaining. I’m sure I have a bit of a soft spot for the Darkspear because I play a troll.
With Vol’jin declaring war against Garrosh Hellscream, does this point towards Vol’jin as future Warchief? Blizzard has stated before that it’ll be unexpected, but they’ve also said things that don’t always turn out true. While I want Vol’jin to become the Warchief, I could get behind Lor’themar Theron as well. He was an empty character to me until 5.1, but I’ve really come to enjoy his character. If the Horde was a democracy, however, I’d be voting for Vol’jin!
Because I didn’t have to work on Good Friday, I decided to spend some time in Zul’drak. This was the last Northrend zone that I hadn’t finished. It started off rather boringly, but when I was about 40% of the way through the quests, I stopped being able to find new quests. Of course, that usually means there’s a quest item I missed. I checked my inventory, and there it was. The Unliving Choker started a chain in which I was disguised as Scourge and worked for Drakuru. This was really interesting. It was a nice break from stereotypical quests. Many of the quests tasked me with getting NPCs to do things. It was a little bit like playing an RTS if you only controlled one unit.
By finishing Zul’Drak, I also finished Northrend. Now that I’ve finished Outland, Northrend, the Cataclysm zones, and Pandaria, it just leaves Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. This means, for me, the questing grind is over. I don’t plan on grinding out Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms because Mooglegem needs them too. I’m not going to bother with those zones on Devee; we’re going to do them on new characters. Whether or not we ever get around to it is still a question worth considering, but it’s nice to have Northrend done!
Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. This week’s topic was proposed by Cymre of Bubbles of Mischief.
What is your absolute favourite profession in WoW? Why do you love it above all others and what is one feature you would add to the profession if you could?
It’s been a while since I’ve responded to a current Blog Azeroth Shared Topic. This is a tough one. I have enchanting, mining, first aid, fishing, cooking, and archaeology all maxed on Devee. Previously I’ve had skinning maxed, and I’ve leveled inscription and herbalism a bit. I’ve had a blacksmith at very low levels.
I started thinking about what professions are fun, about what I enjoy. I’m glad to have enchanting. If I could only have one, it would be enchanting. That’s not about fun; it’s about utility. My other professions don’t do anything. Tailoring could fit a priest, and jewelcrafting could be useful, but why would I take those when Mooglegem already has those professions? That leaves enchanting.
The prompt didn’t mention the most useful profession, however. My favorite could be archaeology, because it gives me some neat items. Yes, that’s probably my favorite profession to currently use. But my favorite ever is fishing.
Many people find fishing boring, but I think it was really fun. There’s something I like about unrequired grinds. Required grinds are the worst aspect of the game, but unrequired grinds can be fun. Searching for pools in Terrokar Forest for Mr. Pinchy so I could obtain a Magical Crawdad was fun. Even more fun was fishing in Northrend for a Sea Turtle.
The best part of fishing was the dangerous missions into enemy territory. First, there was The Fishing Diplomat. “Fish something up in Orgrimmar and Stormwind.” As it can be anything, this is fairly simple. Old Crafty and Old Ironjaw are a lot more fun. Old Crafty tasks you with fishing up Old Crafty, a very rare fish, in Orgrimmar. Similarly, Old Ironjaw tasks you with fishing up Old Ironjaw, a very rare fish, in Ironforge. With account-wide achievements, these seem pretty stupid now. They can both be easy and safe. When I obtained Old Ironjaw, I was forced to travel to Ironforge, run left when I entered to get to the pool, run to the back of the pool, and quietly fish, hoping no one would come kill me. It was a big deal because it was a hassle to get in there. I couldn’t just do it for 10 minutes, go do some dailies, and come back to fish more. Usually, once I was there I’d stay there for a weekend fishing.
On my last fishing trip, I met Arysa and Yalaina. These two Alliance members hung out with me and fooled around. There were a lot of emotes, but they never killed me.
In this screenshot, Yalaina has used her engineering hat to mind control me so they could heal me and protect me when another person came to attack. Very nice people! If I remember correctly, this was the day I finally caught Old Ironjaw.
Scarab Lord, Champiuon of the Naaru, Hand of A’dal, Argent Defender, Celestial Defender, Champion of Ulduar, Conqueror of Ulduar, Conqueror of Naxxramas, Death’s Demise, Grand Crusader, The Immortal, The Undying, The Magic Seeker, and Obsidian Slayer. And none of me.
Heroic scenarios, loot specialization, bonus rolls with progressively better bonuses, removal of most resilience, gear scaling in PVP, and new BGs and scenarios.
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 