World of Warcraft

Let’s face it, getting a flying mount took a lot of time and dedication. Whether it was easy or not will depend entirely upon who you ask. Some brands of players can and do grind endlessly for hours on end, as is demonstrated by the incredible amount of gold that some guilds possess and many auction house merchants that spend the day bidding up prices on controllable products. Either way, it took a lot of time and effort for me to get my epic flying mount. When I first heard that the mounts will have a less important role in Wrath of the Lich King, I was somewhat delighted and a little dismayed. Let me explain:

I was happy to see that flying mounts would take a back seat simply because in my opinion they really dealt a blow to an already suffering world pvp situation. Being on the ground meant that someone could swoop in from above, kill you, and then just fly off, never to be seen again. It really made fighting in the open world irritating and frustrating. On the other hand I was saddened to see a previously important accomplishment quickly tossed to the wayside by progression in Wrath. That said, Bornakk, a Blizzard CM, did recently point out that flying mounts will still have their place, and we’ll have the option to get more of them:

Q u o t e:
Is there any point trying to make the money to get an epic flyer at this stage?

That depends on if you want to continue using the 60% flying speed mount in Northrend or not. I guess it just comes down to how you want to travel in the expansion.

Q u o t e:
Are there any plans for new flying mounts in the expansion, and when can we start using them?

There are lots of new flying mounts that will be available. Some through the achievements system, some dropped from bosses, and some purchasable. I believe all of the new flying mounts require Artisan Riding Skill to use as they are all fast.

Flying mounts can be used in Northrend once Cold Weather Flying is purchased which becomes available at level 77.

The next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is just around the corner and do in to be released on November 15 of this year. As such players have posed a variety of questions to community monitors over at the official Warcraft forums. Let’s take a look shall we?

One of the first questions I noticed marked with Blue was that whether Blizzard would be wiping low-level characters upon expansion release. That didn’t really make any sense to me, given the number of characters people use for guild storage or their own personal pack mule. Needless to say this was taken care of by Eyonix pretty quickly:

/rumor

We’re not going to be deleting any characters.

Another player recently raised concern as to how much content the expansion will actually provide. Certainly upon first glance Northrend does look smaller than Outland, and one has to wonder how many new areas, quests, instances, etc. could possibly be fitted into such a small amount of land. Neth, however, was quick to point out that the continent will be more than meets the eye:

Looks are a bit deceiving. Northrend is a large region with many places to explore, provided you can survive the denizens within it.

Other news buzzing on the forums is that the new battlegrounds pvp gear will now require arena points as well as honor to attain. I’m not entirely sure why this change was put into place, but it has been confirmed by Blizzard. Many players are unhappy that they’re being forced into a pvp type they don’t approve of, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets reversed sometime before the expansion launches.

I’ll be honest, one of my favorite aspects of any MMO are the in game events that help to change and shape the world. In WoW there have been a few notable ones. Obviously with most holidays there are a variety of in game events with quests and vanity rewards or brewfest mounts and what have you.

Other events though, are designed to usher in a game changing addition, such as a new raid instance or even an expansion. When AQ was first introduced, there was a server wide effort to unlock the gates and a huge epic battle was fought upon completion. I was there to watch it, and it was a total blast. Unfortunately the servers didn’t think so, and the whole place was completely lagged, night on unplayable. Despite this glaring problem that Blizzard has intelligently not repeated, I really enjoyed myself.

The scourge event was another such occurrence that I enjoyed. Necropolis appeared all over the world, allowing players to fight off the scourge invasion of their cities or elsewhere on Azeroth. One player had a gripe with the event, however:

Well, I just checked the Events Calendar, and like many other things over the years that we’ve been told would or would not happen (that the opposite is true), the vendors never came back, nor is the invasion coming back…it’s listed as a one-time event.

Thankfully a Blizzard CM was happy to give us a hint that we should expect the scourge to re-appear at some point before or after the expansion:

Still have your Necrotic Runes?

No?

Pity….

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Blizzard has come up with a number of big announcements in the wake of the recently launched Warhammer Online (servers open up on Thursday). For one, I “believe” that 3.0 will be released today, which means the introduction of the new expansion talents and such. Also you can find the announcement below regarding Wrath of the Lich King’s release date:

In the frozen wastes of the north, the Lich King Arthas Menethil rallies his undead army and schemes to bring an end to all life on Azeroth — and in a couple of months, you’ll begin your epic journey into Northrend to confront the Lich King and his minions yourself. Blizzard Entertainment’s second expansion to World of Warcraft — Wrath of the Lich King — will be in stores on November 13 in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia, and on November 14 in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. The expansion will be available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18, and the launch timing for China will be announced at a later date. For more information, read the press release or visit the Wrath of the Lich King website.

Some players are skeptical as to the likelyhood of Blizzard successfully launching by that time. I’m sure they’re eager to get the new content to players, and I’m actually a little shocked that they managed to get the expansion out the door as fast as they are. I’m excited for the new changes myself.

Well, it appears that the human racial is once again changing! It’s no longer called the fall of humanity, but “every man for himself.” If you’re looking for details, here’s what game developer Kalgan had to say about it:

Don’t get too used to it though, this is beta! The next build will feature three significant changes to racials.

“The Fall of Humanity”: removed

We’ll be trying out a new Human racial in its place…

“Every Man for Himself”: Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.

also, a significant change to Shadowmeld…

“Shadowmeld: Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.”

Yes, it can be used in combat. Yes, the effect is very similar to what was previously “The Fall of Humanity”. The cooldown is 3 min.

Boomkins everywhere will likely rejoice at the shadowmeld changes! Or anyone prone to generating copious amounts of threat. Me? I’m wondering why humans get a better racial than my poor gnomes do. I mean it’s a trinket that you don’t have to equip! Then again escape artist isn’t on the same cooldown as the pvp trinket, so perhaps it balanced out in the end eh? Regardless I think it’s a welcome change and “fall of humanity” was a bit dramatic, not to mention a terrible pun, so I’m all for that change.

I’ve never really been a huge proponent one way or the other when it comes to racial abilities. I think on the whole some classes get great things and others get meh. I never really thought perception was all that and a bag of chips, but then I never played a human rogue either. I hated will of the foresaken as much as the next guy, having played classes that rely primarily on fear to get that undead with a mace of sodomy out of my face.

That said for better or for worse there are some changes to the racials that you may be interested to hear about. First off Will of the Foresaken is going to be toned down a smidge. Rather than grant immunity, it’s just going to break fear and that’s it. I don’t really think this is a particularly unfair change, especially to all the gnomes out there who have escape artist, which kind of brings the two on par with each other. Given the combination of will of the foresaken and the pvp trinket, most undead players will still be close to fear immune anyway after diminishing returns sets in.

As for perception, that’s on the change block as well. Actually it’s on the cutting block, because it’s been scrapped and replaced with something completely different! It’s being replaced at the moment with “Fall of Humanity” which, as I’m told, pretty much allows the player to feign death once every 5 minutes. Some people think it’s overpowered and others think the cooldown is too long, but I know I’d be happy with anything that broke target in pvp. Just a thought.

With the release of Warhammer Online just around the corner, many players are making wild speculations about the potential ramifications, if any, for Warcraft and the industry as a whole. Some players believe that the increased competition will be the death of Warcraft. Others think it’ll pull away all the idiots. Still others believe that it will put Blizzard on it’s toes and force it to find new and innovative game play. Whatever the case, I do have some news for you.

Warhammer will not “kill” Warcraft.

Like many MMOs, there’s a certain base of players that love the game and would not be willing to leave it until the last server is shut down. Given the fact that Warcraft has such a large playerbase, they have a much more loyal fan base. Also Warcraft has made a significant impact on the industry, pulling in many players who honestly never even considered gaming before. All of this is good from a macro point of view and causes the MMO niche to thrive, but it also means that taking away players in significant amounts will be increasingly difficult.

Think about it. If you play video games with any sort of consistency, you’ve probably figured out how most of them generally work. You can sit down to almost any game type and have the controls figured out in about 10 minutes. Players who are not used to this sort of thing though, take more time and energy to learn the game’s mechanics and nuances. They’ll be even less likely to want to leave the game for a new one.

I’ll be playing Warhammer because I’m a PvP advocate and Warcraft’s pvp, for me, is getting a little stale. I’ll likely still be keeping my Warcraft subscription around for awhile afterwards. I have some good friends who play and the game is still enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to something new. I think if Warhammer does prove to be a true competitor to Warcraft, it’ll be good for both games in the end.

I’ve always had a soft spot for vanity pets. I think it helps flesh out and develop the personality of your character and also helps to spark conversations with your fellow players. While I may have a soft spot, I don’t have a death wish. Grinding endlessly for a dragon whelp or oozeling pet (see above) never really struck me as worth while, so I decided to go with a few that were relatively easily attainable but still unusual. Here are my top 3:

Spore Bat Not so difficult to obtain (exalted with Sporregar) but still typically rare probably due to the fact that not many people want to get exalted with the Sporregar for any reason. I happen to be revered at the time the pet was added, so I went for it. I was not disappointed. He’s my top pick for favorite pet.

Lifelike Mechanical Toad: If there’s one thing I love more than pets, it’s engineering. The unpredictable, quirky nature of the profession was always fun for me (less so in Burning Crusade…thanks Blizzard!) and so I’m always happy to show off my engineered pets. From dragonlings (combat) to Mechanical squirrels, my toad is the favorite of all of them.

Speedy As a hunter I had always wanted a turtle as my pet, simply because turtles are one of my favorite animals, but their skills and damage were sub-par, so I was forced to grab the next best thing. Enter speedy, the cute baby turtle obtained from the children’s week line of quests. Not very rare, but still a lot of fun.

I’m sure there’s a terrible innuendo in this post title somewhere, but let’s ignore that for the moment. MMOs have had a rather notorious reputation since their creation for being a bit of a virtual treadmill. You create a character, learn what he/she can do, and then repeat what he/she is supposed to do ad nauseum to gain experience, skills, levels, and of course, gear. Part of the journey in creating and furthering your characters advancement is the grind, or doing a number of “collect X” quests in exchange for experience.

But at what point is the grind just too much? Final Fantasy and Lineage 2’s MMOs were largely shunned by American players because the time required doing the exact same thing repeatedly was so bad that it took all enjoyment out of the game. Much of Warcraft’s success has been based on the fact that leveling your character was easier, faster, and didn’t carry negative consequences like losing an hour’s worth of leveling if you died (looking at you Everquest). Yet the grind still exists in Warcraft, and one of the worst I’ve seen is getting exalted with the Timbermaw.

If you’re not familiar, you can hit up the wikipedia link here, but let me put it to you like this: you have to kill about 4287205607 enemy furbolgs for a rather nifty trinket (now nigh on useless but still appealing to me). It reminds me of an era of MMO grind long since past it’s prime, and I was rather surprised to here a statement of support from a Blizzard CM about it:

” Trying to think of doing it all at once is pretty overwhelming. If you just work at it bit-by-bit it’s easier to accomplish I think. Besides, think of the cute ghost furbolg you’d get as a friend (every 10 minutes) and all the runecloth you’d be able to sell.”

Yes the cute ghost is nice, but the price you pay in hours and tedium is not.