Category Archives: Mists of Pandaria

Mists Post Mortem

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The Grumpy Elf just posted his ‘to do’ list before Warlords is released in November. That made me think, I don’t have a bucket list this time as I’m not playing the game. I unsubbed in March, for the majority of this year I won’t have played Warcraft. However, I did play Mists of Pandaria through from start to finish, I just didn’t stick around for the long content drought.

When Cata was heading into the twilight months I made a number of posts. I looked back at the expansion as a whole, I looked back at what had changed for me in game over that time and I looked at the raid bosses. Now I’m going to write several different posts, instead I’m just going to include all of that in this one. Time to look back at Mists.

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The Blizzard Blues

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I remember when I first started playing Warcraft. I looked at the subscription options and I wanted to take the 6 months one, or whatever the longest option was, as it was the best deal. My friend told me not to, he said that there may come a day when I want to unsubscribe for a while. If you’ve just paid for the next six months, then you can’t do that. I told my friend that I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to quit, but I took his advice anyway as the difference wasn’t huge.

Well now I can’t just imagine wanting to quit, I’m actively considering it. I won’t because I’m not ready to say goodbye. I like my guild, I like the in game friends I’ve made, I even like raiding just not as often as I currently have to. I’m not ready to quit the game but I’m really wishing that I could vote with my wallet. Complaining about blizz’s decisions and continuing to pay them money, after all gives them no incentive to change.

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A Timeless Siege

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I started writing this post soon after I came home at the end of September but it didn’t really go anywhere. I know I owe a post about my vacation and I want to do that, but I have 1500 pictures to sort through as well as film to edit so it might be a while. 5.4 dropped while I was away and the first 4 bosses were killed by my guild. When I came home that Saturday I was unprepared to raid on Sunday due to the router being broken. I managed to get a substitute in time for the raid but I didn’t have the prep time I would have liked, and my feeling of being behind only persisted.

5.4 brought a few new things to Warcraft. There’s Timeless Isle, the new raid and the new raid difficulty – flex. I’ve been able to experience all of the above and there’s some good and bad. I had high hopes for 5.4 I admit and so far it’s not quite lived up to everything, but I suspect the problem isn’t the patch – it’s me.

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Busy, Busy, Busy

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Since the last post 5.2 has dropped and I’ve been busy with that, I’ve also been busy with a hell of a lot of raiding. I can now add to my T14 retrospective the seven fights that I hadn’t seen back then. We’ve also started on Throne and have got the first two bosses down, making progress on the third and it’s exciting, and really awesome, to be part of a proper progression team. I’ve also got into PvP a bit, my new raid leader likes to PvP and agreed to run some arenas with me for fun. I’ve never really done this before and it’s really nice to see another aspect of the game, it’s hard and we’re losing as much as we’re winning, but it takes practice.

The one downside, in fact the only downside that I can see, in Mists is that it’s such a time sink. I had been gearing my Brewmaster Monk up, and had got 5/6 MSV with it, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do all I want on my main and keep alts, or even one alt, well geared. My friends can do it, I know more than one person who has at least 3 alts 485+ ilevel and probably more. However, most of what they do in game is the gear treadmill. I find that quite repetitive and boring. I’ve never liked gear for itself, more for what it allows me to do, therefore the acquisition of it is a necessary evil rather than enjoyable in itself. Hence why I’ve decided to drop my alts. Oh I’ll still level them all to 90, and I’ll still play them (and therefore gear them slightly as a side effect) but I won’t play them to gear, I’ll play them just to have fun.

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The Missing Month

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I didn’t write a post at all in February, oh I attempted too, but I didn’t really have anything to say. Actually that’s not true, I had a lot to say but nothing I wanted to post. The guild I’d started just before Mists launched was in trouble, I desperately wanted to stay playing with my friends, but 5 people didn’t make a raid team, and trying and failing to recruit, and pug, and make progress, was killing me. We were going nowhere fast and I didn’t see a solution. I just wanted to play with my friends and for all of us to be happy, but it was looking like a pipedream. This was what was consuming me, when it came to the game this was all I could think about. I stopped doing pretty much everything else, but trying to raid, and worrying about the roster. My anxieties about it might have made words flow, but they didn’t make readable posts. Thankfully this problem is now in the past.

All five of us have joined another guild, this guild has sort of consumed my guild and another one, so three become one and hopefully that one will be all the stronger for it. I know people from both, have raided with these guys in the past, they are extremely nice and I’m really positive about the potential for the future. We get to stay together and we get to raid, and this is all in time for 5.2.

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Reputation Dailies: Good or Bad?

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I have never seen as much QQ probably because I avoid the forums, as I can’t stand the QQ. People are saying the game is doomed, that subs will half, that they’ll quit, all because reputation is got by dailies now and not in dungeons. Is this a good or bad change? Well that rather depends on your point of view.

I have a certain opinion on this obviously and so it’s hard not to be biased towards my opinion. So this is going to be a bit of an exercise in creative thinking for me. Can I see it from the other perspective? Well I’m going to try.

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Why Matt Rossi is my hero today

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I was going to entitle this post something boring like “My journey to level 90” but then I read today’s title for The Queue. All I ever hear and read is The Burning Crusade was the best, and Ulduar was epic, with everything ever since being derided as substandard to the awesomeness of the past. Everyone is different of course. I was talking with my old old guildmates yesterday and they said that they were very meh about the whole thing, that they were hoping once they got into raids they’d like it more.

Well I love Mists and Matt Rossi is my hero today for saying the same. I’m sure he’ll get flack for it. There is literally nothing I dislike about the expansion. There’s one or two slightly irritating parts, but that’s more because of my laziness, than because they are bad things. Like it would be more helpful if my gatherer had flying and levelling does take a while to get to 90. If I could buy the ability to fly account wide, once I’d done it once on the ground that would be nice, but I fully understand why they don’t want that. Questing is very different when you can fly, it’s more like checking items off a to do list rather than an adventure.

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My Mists Launch

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Well Mists went live on servers last night. As a follow up to the post I made yesterday, some of which was a very detailed plan of action, I thought I’d post what actually happened. This was my experience, so it’s highly personal, everyone’s experience was different I’m sure.

My Mists launch started with the digital launch event, so we’ll start there.

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Mists Madness

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I’ve always been rubbish at waiting for things. I’m impatient and I want it now not later. So waiting for the clock to strike midnight on the server is getting increasingly difficult. However, there is nothing to do but wait, and plot future actions, and then wait some more. Waiting is insanity inducing as you get crazy, or at least I do. The closer it gets to the deadline the harder it is to concentrate on anything, and then the crazier you get as doing nothing makes the time pass even slower.

Between waiting for The Avengers last Monday and Mists this Monday I’m getting familiar with this type of craziness.

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Happy Patch Day

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This post could just as easily have been entitled “Surviving the pandamonium” or “A taste of things to come”. The first referencing surviving the patch to start Mists of PANDAria (see it was a deliberate spelling mistake), the second because of all the blog topics I now have in mind.

I remember when the world changed for Cata. I was excited to see the changes and annoyed at the bugged exploring achievements (which were never fixed). However, the patch was just an exciting event and I wasn’t really affected by it. I just logged on and played like I always did. This time it was very different, and several hours later I’m still not at the stage I was when I logged off Tuesday night.

The talent system has changed, abilities have been changed/removed/added, glyphs are all different, rotations are different. I’ve not even got this set up right yet on my protection paladin, I haven’t even done my ret offspec yet. I have an alt of every class so some might not get set up until Mists at this rate.

I also run a fair few addons now. I decided to wipe the slate clean with Mists and deleted all the addons, and the wtf folder (after backing it up of course), to clean it up. I’d had a custom ui on my paladin and so I decided to rebuild that and then roll it out to all my characters. Addons, even updated ones, and patches don’t tend to mix so I’ve still not got this properly sorted on one character, let alone all of them.

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