Category Archives: World of Warcraft

Raid Lockouts

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This seems to be a never-ending argument and it’s something I’ve touched upon before. Every few months the debate is kickstarted by something, in this case by lockouts being separated on Korean realms, and 25 man getting better loot than 10 man. People are wondering whether this is a trial run before it’s brought back to NA/EU servers. After all that was the system in place in Wrath of the Lich King.

What people forget is that their opinion is biased, and I’m no exception to that. Even people who’ve raided both formats equally will like one or the other better, and that will bias their opinion. It’s a complex subject because due to personal experience everyone is convinced that they are right. The problem with that is that everyone’s personal experience is different.

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Enraged: A tale of too much rage

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My warrior was the first alt I rolled, it quickly got shelved in favour of the paladin alt I rolled soon after. It made it to around level 30 before Cataclysm hit. I liked the melee nature of it, but I didn’t like how it played. I’d specced prot as I thought that my warrior would be my tank alt. It was so unbelievably boring, I spent every fight just hitting Devastate, I didn’t have enough rage to do anything else. I’d made it my gatherer so I had to level it, I did it mostly through gathering so I wound up with lots of herbs at least. Once about level 74 I tried Arms as it was taking so long to kill everything. My survivability promptly disappeared and after a dozen corpse runs, over the same pack of mobs, I went back to Protection.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I liked the warrior changes on beta. With the announcement of no flying, I had to try my warrior out, to see if it would be viable for gathering. I copied it over, Outland gear and all, and checked it out. It was more than viable, I didn’t break a sweat as Protection even with packs of 6 mobs at a time. Plus it was more than just hitting Devastate, there were more buttons, I actually had rage. However, killing things in a tank spec is so slow so I decided to see if I could live as Arms. I made Arms my levelling spec and began the trek to 90.

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The ever present storage problem

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In real life I live in a very small house, so I’m very familiar with having trouble finding space for all my stuff. In game it was never an issue until last expansion when transmogrification was announced. Void storage might have come along with it but it was nowhere near enough. For the whole of 4.3 I ran around with about 20 free bag spaces, my bank was completely full so I had to carry a lot around with me.

Through vendoring off spec gear and being ruthless I made more space to start in Mists. However, it’s only been two weeks and I’m back to 20 free slots again. With all the new vanity items, plus the changes to cooking, space is at a premium. That’s why I believe that Warcraft is overdue an overhaul of the inventory system. Here’s what I’d like to see them do with it.

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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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The Fall of Theramore

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I meant to write this yesterday but was too caught up with The Avengers. I really do seriously love that movie. Anyway, I’ve only done the scenario once from the Alliance perspective. I really should do it again but my pugging aversion has grown. So I’m using the excuse that it’ll still be available at 90 to avoid queuing for it.

This scenario is the first of it’s kind, the first example of a new feature to be released. It’s also doubling as the in game launch event for Mists of Pandaria, so a lot is riding on one little instance.

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Breaking down my UI

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It might even be a year now since I decided that the standard ui just wasn’t cutting it for me. It’s been a while anyway and when 5.0.4 came out, and I had to reinstall my addons, I decided to roll out my custom ui to all my characters. When I’d set it up I’d done so on my main, my paladin, and hadn’t prepared to roll it out any further. So when I did try and put it on my priest, it messed a few things up with some differing placements, as it was pulling from the same variable sheet.

Anyway, I thought I’d post what my ui looks like, and what addons I use for it. That way if anyone is interested then it might help someone.

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Breaking the fourth wall

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I decided I needed to check up on my blogroll today so I went for a read through posts that I’d missed. Confessions of an Altoholic had one updated entry that I found really interesting. It talked a bit about impressions of 5.0.4 and then wondered about fourth specs for classes. In 5.0.4 druids got a fourth spec, they are the only class in the game with one. In practical terms they’ve always had one but bear and kitty shared the feral tree.

Now I’ve read blue posts on the forums, where people have suggested potential fourth specs for classes, that say that they aren’t interested in implementing them. I think one blue post, quite correctly, pointed out that it would be like introducing lots of new classes. It’s hard enough to balance one new class, let alone a lot of them. However, let’s play let’s pretend and think about what these fourth specs could be.

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