Category Archives: World of Warcraft

Ooops it’s been nearly six months

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I’ve had a funny relationship with time lately, in that it seems to be disappearing far more rapidly than ever before. I have no clue how it got to be September 2018. I swear it was 2016 last time I checked.

Anyway, the new expansion Battle for Azeroth has been out getting on for a month now (4 weeks at 11pm UK time tonight). What do I think? Well … I’m still not max level.

There is so much story and I’m playing Horde and Alliance at the same time. My main, my beloved Alliance paladin is currently 116 and just started the second zone in Kul Tiras. My Horde Demon Hunter is 114 I think? and just started the second zone in Zuldazar. That makes two zones completed, Drustvar and Nazmir. I also did the end dungeons for both of them.

I haven’t started the war campaign. I have the quest to choose the foothold but I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to be max level or not. I’m guessing not because I got the quest at level 110 but I’d rather focus on one part of the story at a time anyway. I’m also going after all the rares and treasure boxes that pop up. My theory is that we’ll be max level for a couple of years, so there’s no rush to get there.

I’ve been doing other stuff in game too. I finally got my Bone White Raptor and Spectral Porpette from the Isle of Giants. I also took my level 90 Horde Paladin to the Argent Tournament to get the Horde pets. My Void Elf Priest is level 75 and when I’m online, there’s an invasion, and I feel like it, I’m taking my Death Knight to level 110.

Like I said we’ll be level 120 for a couple of years. However, it’s more than that. The content will only be new and shiny once, so I’d quite like to savour it and make it last. One of the last things I liked when I resubbed … wow a year ago now, is that there was a lot of variety to the game again. I’d like to keep it that way.

Given that I’ve barely scratched the surface and haven’t hit 120 it’s hard to render a verdict. However, I know that world quests are still a thing (yay!) and the fact that I’m still levelling says a lot about the depth of the game. I really do love all the voice acting and sometimes I’m blown away by the visuals. The zones are pretty and the animations of the mobs are top notch.

Also I haven’t yet encountered any problems related to the squish and my paladin, demon hunter and shadow priest still feel the same (phew!). I don’t know about my kitty druid or outlaw rogue yet as I haven’t touched them. One thing at a time.

So thumbs up for now!

Rate the Expansions

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In the queue yesterday on BlizzardWatch somebody asked about how people would rank the expansions. I didn’t really go through and read any responses because I’m sure it got a bit vicious with the Cata and Warlords hate among other anti-comments. Anyway despite all the discourse I do think it’s a fascinating question. The answer is going to be different for everyone depending on when they started playing the game, and what it is about the game that they enjoy.

Personally for me I didn’t rank Vanilla-Wrath because I started playing at the tail-end of Wrath and I didn’t think I could really evaluate what I hadn’t experienced. My list went:

  1. Legion
  2. Cataclysm
  3. Mists of Pandaria
  4. Warlords of Draenor

Which would probably be odd for most people because it’s quite common that the expansion you went “all out on” e.g. when you raided, when you were in a guild, was when the game was at it’s peak for you etc. Yet that was Mists for me and I ranked it 3/4 and I’m going to blather on and say why now 🙂

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Farming Old Content to Access New

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This was a debate topic on BlizzardWatch fairly recently and my friend Waya (oops I still think of you like that) – Joakim – mentioned it in the comments where we’ve been chatting. It was thought-provoking because he agreed with the person I’d been debating with on BW and I have an alternate point of view. I figured that would make it a good topic for a post.

My argument is as follows:
– Races are cosmetic
– The game isn’t just the latest expansion
– Having to work towards things/not having immediate access is ok
– Because it’s just cosmetic

See it kinda goes full circle. If it was gear or something progression related being gated then I’d understand the contention. It would hold people back from playing but something cosmetic? Plus it’s not like there aren’t these gates already in the game and for classes which aren’t cosmetic! Death Knights require another class to be levelled to 55, and I think Demon Hunters require a level 98. There is precedence for having to play something else in order to unlock what you want.

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I resubbed to Warcraft

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Two and a half years ago, or thereabouts, I wrote a post called “Why I unsubbed to Warcraft?” In it I was reasonably certain that I would never play again. Indeed while I thought about the game a few times in the intervening years, I didn’t feel much of a pull to play. However, last month I got nostalgic. I don’t know why I had a sudden surge but I did and I guess it caught me at a weak moment. I decided to resub for a month and see how it went. I didn’t immediately buy the new expansion because I wasn’t putting more money than I had to into the game unless I was enjoying it.

That resolve lasted for about a week *cough* because well power talks. I knew if my main was max level it would make grinding in Warlords a lot easier. I admit it, I’m lazy, and I saw some 110 players one-shotting things in Tanaan and was jealous. Anyway, I just got my notification that the sub has been paid for the next month and it hit me that I’d been playing again for a month.

When I started I wasn’t sure if I was just visiting, or if I would continue to play. Out of interest I went and found my last blog post on the game “Why I unsubbed to Warcraft” posted April 2015 to see what I’d put and that sparked some thoughts, and I figured I’d write a blog post. After all I’m still playing after a month so something must have gone right.

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Why I unsubbed to Warcraft

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I was talking with a friend the other day, a friend who started playing Warcraft not long after it launched. He unsubbed partway through Mists, was persuaded to try Warlords but didn’t even make it to level cap. He’s done with the game. He said that was the nature of MMO’s, they change, and the game Warcraft is now, isn’t the game he loved and played.

That made me think. I’ve said repeatedly, here and elsewhere, that I didn’t know what to do with Warcraft. I’d invested so much time, effort and money into the game, that just turning round to leave and never going back was hard to contemplate.

However, games are supposed to be fun. Rather than spend time in a game I no longer like, let alone love, wouldn’t it be better to leave? Let the memories of the good times remain, and accept that the game has changed and it’s no longer the game I loved and played.

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Using my Level 90 Boost: A 12th Class

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This post isn’t complete, and I never will finish it now. However, in the previous Warcraft post I mentioned this and I figured I would get it out of my draft folder.

There are eleven classes in Warcraft right now. Three are complete hybrids which can tank, heal and dps (paladin, druid and monk), four are partial hybrids which can either tank and dps (death knight and warrior) or heal and dps (priest and shaman), then there are the four pure classes which can only dps (warlock, hunter, mage and rogue).

The game started with nine classes, eight of which were available to each side (paladins for Alliance, shamans for Horde) and two more have been added since release (death knight and monk) in Wrath of the Lich King and Mists of Pandaria respectively.

There is no hard and fast rule as to what blizz adds in each expansion box. TBC brought two new races and unlocked the ninth class for each faction, Wrath brought the death knight class, Cata brought two new races (goblin and worgen) and unlocked more class/race combinations. Mists had a new race (pandaren) which was available to both factions and a new class (monk) and Warlords brought nothing but new character models.

So what’s the class I have in mind?

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Number Six – The Next Expansion

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Warlords isn’t even half over and I’m already looking ahead. Part of that is because I’m not happy with Warlords direction, each expansion brings a shake-up and I’m hoping the next one will be good. Another part is because blizz have said there’s going to be two raid tiers this expansion, not three, which makes Hellfire Citadel the last raid of the expansion. That was announced last night, so the beginning of the end is upon us.

This post is going to be in two parts. I’m going to try and theorize what blizz might actually do, but then I have to allow myself some wishful thinking in what I hope they might do. November, in seven months, will be Blizzcon when they’ll announce expansion number six. Given that patch 6.2 has already hit the PTR, even though I don’t raid anymore, I hope very much that beta will hit soon after Blizzcon, and therefore the expansion release is early-mid 2016 to coincide with the release of the film.

Blizz managed to weather 14 months of the same patch remarkably well, and I have promised not to rant about it anymore, but I really hope to never see that again. In a subscription game it is really beyond a joke.

Right so expansion number six …

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General Update and Patch 6.2

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This blog disappeared for a month. I took it down for a number of valid reasons but I regretted doing so, I missed being able to ramble about games and TV. The decision never felt right, putting it back up doesn’t feel right either but I have to still be me, fun can still be permitted.

With that in mind when I deleted it a month ago, I didn’t save my theme settings which is annoying. Time permitting I will likely fiddle with the look of the site. However, looks are always secondary to content. I have imported all the old posts and pages.

I debated about that, as it’s been three years since I started and I have said some very stupid contradictory things over the years. In the end I decided to leave it, as no-one really reads this and it’s what I thought at the time. The fact that I was wrong means at least I’ve learned something. I’ll probably shuffle and rewrite the pages but that’s about it, the posts and any idiocy contained will stay for now.

Right onto the point of this post – Warcraft and patch 6.2 which hit the PTR last night.

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Minipost – Why is different bad?

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Apologies for the long absence, there was Christmas and moving house. Even though I had the time to write a blog post, I didn’t have the concentration or the focus on a topic. I also haven’t quite decided what to do with this place. When I created this blog it was because I wanted to talk about games, TV, movies etc. without being constrained to 140 characters. I still want to do that but whether that’s compatible with my ambitions to indie publish fiction I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.

Anyway, today’s topic is courtesy of a reply I got to a comment I made on The Grumpy Elf’s blog. I basically said that I missed the way things had worked in Mists. I’d understood the stats, the process, professions, the gear grind etc. back then and I didn’t really understand why they had changed it all. In other words I didn’t like the changes that had been made and thought them unnecessary.

The reply from another commenter was that the problem wasn’t the new system – that it was me. I’m not raiding anymore, therefore I’m not putting in the same level of effort, that it wasn’t the system confusing me, it was that I clearly missed raiding and that’s why I was so lost. What is a tank without a raid?

My instinctive thought was to agree with him, as it’s true I don’t put in the same level of effort that I used to. However, I then thought about it some more and realised how wrong that was. The system shouldn’t be so complicated or confusing that it requires a lot of research, that it can’t just be figured out. What about the average player? Surely the game should be friendly to them as well, not just the raiders?

My complaint with Warcraft since Mists was released has been how it’s become very “raid or die”. In Mists that meant that I couldn’t play my alts, now in Warlords it makes any progression difficult and confusing. At least in Mists there wasn’t the element of randomness that Warlords has embraced with bells on. That I think is probably my biggest complaint about Warlords, that there’s too much randomness. The crafted gear is all random stat, you get random upgrades, it’s random if there’s a gem slot etc. I hate random, I really do, it makes it so hard to see the target and aim for it.

I know Cataclysm gets a lot of flack and I agree there was a lot that wasn’t great about it. However, in terms of casual play it was my favourite time in Warcraft. I loved being able to queue for dungeons, get a drop if I was lucky, collect points to buy gear otherwise. It made sense, it had targets I could aim at, the progress was slow but incremental and consistent, it was fun and meant that I could dip in and out of alts whenever I pleased with ease. I’ve always played my alts the way I imagined people who played casually (who didn’t raid), played their mains. Now I’m not raiding I’ve been proven right in regards to myself at least. The only problem is what game is there now for me to play?

The game for me in Warlords content is doing the weekly garrison mission, doing the daily apexis quest if I can be bothered, running through the mine and the herb garden and sending followers out on missions. The rest of my playtime is running through the list of old raids I have on farm, hunting for the pet or mount drop. I am making no new progress in what I can solo, as my gear progression is completely stuck.

The system I understood is gone, the gems, enchants and reforging process is gone. The stats have all been changed and even worse new ones have been added. Now I used to understand the game. What about the average player that never understood it or just understood it a little? Clearly this hasn’t hurt the games popularity as it’s enjoying a massive sub increase. Perhaps I’m just being very selfish in wishing things could be how I liked them, probably no perhaps about it. However, even if it is selfish I’m still entitled to how I feel. The blues said that the old system required people to go outside the game to find out what to do. How is this new one any better?

The point I’m trying to make is that a game like Warcraft should really support more than one playstyle. Someone shouldn’t have to raid in order to be able to progress and understand the game. There should be a more casual method that still allows people to feel like they accomplished something. I said in my comment that the game had removed any control I felt I had, I stand by that. The randomness, the lack of points gear and the complete change of profession and stat system, it’s not a good mix.

I guess I should go put in some research and try and figure it all out. There has to be some way I can play without having to raid.

The sad truth about Warlords

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Warlords of Draenor had a rocky launch but part of the reason why it was so bad, was because it was a huge success. Blizz is back over 10 million subscribers according to the press release – that’s huge. It was something people didn’t think would happen.

Now obviously more players, and a huge success seems like a good thing and it is – to a point. You see given the huge success blizz have no reason to change anything. Why would they? They did what they wanted, and they didn’t just get away with it, they just got a great big huge thumbs up. They just got rewarded and so they think they did it right, but I don’t think they did.

Be fair warned this might sound like a rant. It isn’t really, just frustration because as The Grumpy Elf says, if he didn’t care then he wouldn’t complain. I like the game and there’s nothing wrong with wanting it to be better. I know the rider on that is better for whom? As obviously what I like and what others like are different things. For the purposes of this post I’ll just be talking about my perspective. However, I am well aware that it is just my perspective and one that a lot of people won’t share.

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