This is a continuation of the previous post looking at the remaining five classes. I’ll cover the Monk class in a separate post. Anyway, now this overview is done, and I’ve got a feel for how the classes are in Mists, I’ll look at specific classes in more detail.
Author Archives: Sam
Warcraft and difficulty
This is an endless debate and the problem is no-one is wrong and no-one is right. It’s about how you feel and no-one can, or should, tell you that what you feel is wrong. If you think the game is too hard then it’s true, if you think it’s too easy then that’s also true. Whatever, someone thinks is their own personal truth. It also doesn’t matter why they think that, after all people’s views are usually shaped by circumstance and experience. The problem is some people are very vocal and this is a debate that the community as a whole is quite passionate about. It’s easy to feel ‘got at’ if you don’t agree with the game is so easy people, it’s easy to feel disgruntled and like no-one cares if you do think it’s easy. Everybody is right and everybody is wrong and that’s the true problem.
Cata to Mists Beta – Initial Class Impressions (Part One)
I mentioned in the previous post “What are you playing in Mists?” about the changes in classes between expansions. I have one of every class on live, not all at max level, but I have a feeling for how most of them play. I haven’t played all specs of course therefore not all of these will mention differences. If I’ve not played it on live I won’t know what the differences are. However, some classes have changed a lot so even though I loathe them on live they look like they could be a firm favourite in Mists.
It’s all about how they feel and I say how they feel because I’m not one of the super smart theory crafters. I don’t know whether changes are good or bad in terms of the numbers, I just know how the class feels to play. So this is about how I think the classes feel. Might be light on details, this is not a class guide for Mists, this is just a what I like and what I don’t I guess. I’m not including the healing specs as unless you level by dungeons they don’t come into play until the end game. Even if you do level using dungeons most people quest a little which requires an offensive spec, that’s what I’m covering here.
Why I quit swtor
It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote a post explaining why I was still subscribed to swtor even though I wasn’t playing that much. I meant every word that I wrote and the only thing that has changed has been time. I realised that I couldn’t justify paying a subscription to something that I wasn’t playing at all.
Swtor was a ton of fun, it really was, however it was an mmorpg. The mechanics and everything were just too similar to warcraft. When I was burned out of warcraft I didn’t want to play swtor either, when I wasn’t I was back to playing warcraft. Part of what kept me playing warcraft was my friends, playing swtor was a lonely business. Another part of it was concrete goals. I’ve been playing warcraft for nearly two and a half years now and I have a list of what I’d like to accomplish, I actually posted about that the other week. It also just feels like there’s more to do in warcraft. I know that the comparison isn’t fair as warcraft’s been out eight years and has had three expansion packs. If it’s any consolation swtor’s graphics are better. With swtor I was levelling from the beginning and there’s only so much questing I can do before the novelty of the voice acting wears off.
Anyway, I cancelled my subscription today and made the modifications to this blog turning it just into a warcraft blog. I will, of course, blog about other games occasionally, but the main focus is no longer split. I had high hopes for swtor but at the end of the day it just couldn’t hold my attention. There wasn’t enough hours in the day to play them both and without the social connection swtor was always going to lose.
What are you playing in Mists?
It’s funny how things change over time. When I first started playing (January 30th 2010) I rolled a mage, as the friend who introduced me to the game played one and if he played it then it must be the best. I didn’t do much with them in wrath but I did eventually roll a couple of alts: Vladamir a warrior who I decided would be my tank, Alverez a paladin who would be my healer and Zoya a rogue who I’d play if I wanted to pvp. Now two and a half years later things are very different. All three of them have different names, I’ve levelled but loathe the warrior and rogue, and my paladin spends more time as a tank than a healer. If that can happen over the course of one expansion, what will happen in the next?
Franchise Games and Laziness
I’m a big fan of certain TV shows – even my wardrobe reflects this. I’m currently writing this wearing a t-shirt with NCIS stamped across it, the sweater I was wearing earlier read “he’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” which is a quote from the same show. I love NCIS, and CSI and quite a few more TV programs. I’m highlighting these two in particular as they have been made into computer games. Now, obviously as this is a gaming blog I quite like playing games. Therefore combining two of my favourite things together is always going to be a winner unless the games are awful which unfortunately they are.
Looking back at cata raids
I seem to be pulling my inspiration from WoWInsider lately. They had a post that looked back at what were, in the writers opinion the best raid encounters in Cataclysm. As Cataclysm was the first expansion I saw from beginning to end, and properly began raiding in, it’s the first one that I can look back at from a raiding perspective. There are two ways to look at it, from an encounter perspective or from a sentimental perspective. Encounters that are awesome in their own right, might not necessarily have the personal memories, that make an encounter truly special.
Cataclysm Bucket List
I’ve mentioned off hand in a few posts that there’s things that I want to accomplish before Mists hits. However, the germination of this list began not long after I started playing warcraft. I’m not sure whether cata had even been announced (this was February 2010). I plotted in my head a lot of this list and when I told my friend he laughed at me, told me to concentrate on getting one character up to max level first.
Those early days of the game was heady with the possibilities. It was exciting as there was so much new, unexplored areas. My friend had been playing since classic so he knew so much more than me, he had experienced so much more, had completed so much more and was capable of so much more. I wanted to catch up, I wanted to be able to play at something resembling his level as I wanted to play with my friend without him resenting it, I wanted to pull my weight. In essence I wanted the impossible, I wanted those years that I’d not known the game existed. This list was the substitute.
The current endgame
Recently at WoWInsider there was a post talking about the new endgame in Mists which got me thinking. What do I log into game to do? Sure there’s raiding which is where most roads lead to at the endgame but there has to be more than that. Mists is introducing a whole host of new activities and new ways of looking at some old ones. What is there right now?
A playing revelation
We’ve all heard about casual vs hardcore playstyles but I, like many I’d imagine, think that’s too simplistic. I’ve always said that I’m a casual player but I’ve recently had a bit of a revelation about that, which has prompted this post. It’s a bit of a personal post I suppose but I think it does have relevance enough to others, if only to make them think about their own playing preferences.