World of Warcraft

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.

(Disclaimer: Today’s post is not about Warcraft, so you can skip over this post if you like )

I’m not sure what it is about Wizard101 that is appealing to me. It’s an interesting MMO, designed primarily for family-oriented entertainment. Maybe it’s the well filtered chat system so I don’t have to listen to Chuck Norris jokes while sitting inside a city. Perhaps it’s the intricate card system that helps lend to a fun, laid back MMO game that lacks the “hardcore” raiding and other lengthy instances.

Whatever the reason I’ve heard a lot of good things from young folks like my brother’s son as well as older friends and family. Heck a lot of people in my family are not gamers at all and still found the game fun and interesting. It certainly lacks the depth of Warcraft as well as the complexity of lore and combat options, but it’s still worth plunking a few hours on. Here’s a brief description from the site:

“Wizard101’s collaborative play style supports an environment where players benefit from working together in adventure quests. A tiered chat system and pre-defined character name generator create a safe community for younger players while an Arena provides a spot for more traditional gamers to show off their player versus player spell-casting skills. As they adventure, players can upgrade their costume and magical accessories, adopt bizarre pets, solve puzzles and play mini-games. At launch, Wizard101 will be free to play, with advanced play content available by subscription.”

I’m a little late to the party, but if you’re one of those people that’s been traveling for the past few weeks like I have, you may want to check out the Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic Trailer!

I’ve always been a big fan of Blizzard’s game cinematics, but this is one of my favorites. The irony of Arthas’s fathers words to him (especially if you’re familiar with the back story through Warcraft 3) really makes the old trailers of cut-up combat scenes between the two factions seem rather shallow.

I’ve been excited for both the expansion and I’ve also been on the look out to play Warhammer Online as well, but this renewed my enthusiasm for the game. There’s a lot I have to look forward to in the expansion (10-man raids are my personal favorite), but most of all I look forward to continuing the story line in to North Rend. I just hope that it’s not too bogged down in faction grind and key quests to stay interesting. How do Blizzard CM’s feel about the intro to the expansion? Here’s an excerpt from a recent post on the forums from Neth:

“It was incomplete. You’re right. Where players come in is facing that army and moving the story forward. For me the most beautiful thing about the cinematic is the heartbreaking dichotomy between Arthas’ fathers hopes and dreams for Arthas and what Arthas inevitably becomes.

The cinematic sets the stage, it (hopefully) catches people up a bit on just how tragic the situation is, how deeply ingrained the power of the Lich King is, and how it has spread out like icy tendrils to corrupt everything it touches.

This is the stage, this is Arthas, and ultimately, this is the Lich King in all his power set out before you.

For me, I think it is the cinematic I have been most waiting for and most love.”

What do you think about it?

While I won’t have the luxury of attending myself, Blizzcon has always sounded like a fun filled event for enthusiastic MMO gamers, and I’d love to have the chance to go one of these days. Blizzcon may be sold out, but you’ll still have the opportunity to win tickets to go! Blizzard is running a contest for all current account owners, with a few catches for eligibility:

“To be eligible for the BlizzCon ticket drawing, you must (1) have an active Blizzard Account that was created on or before 9:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, August 12, 2008, when we first announced BlizzCon 2008 tickets had sold out; (2) be an adult in your country of residence; (3) have not previously purchased BlizzCon 2008 tickets; and (4) live in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, or South Korea.”

I can’t imagine someone creating an account for the sole purpose of trying to win tickets, but I suppose stranger things have happened. Be sure to follow all of the instructions on the main contest page here. If you don’t win the contest or you’re still unable to go, not to worry, another option is available to you. DirectTV will actually be hosting the invest on PayperView live, with hours of commentary and panel discussion from the event. Catching in the tube won’t exactly come cheap though, it’ll cost you $39.95 to view the event from the comfort of your living room. I suppose its not all that expensive considering its 16 hours of high definition footage, but its a little rich for my blood. Perhaps I’ll catch the recaps out there instead.
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Imagine stomping through the Deadmines at level 80, defeating Van Cleef in a challenging and interesting fight, nothing like the time you breezed through the place at level 20. Heroic versions of old dungeons are something the playerbase has been looking for a long time, and expansion development has renewed hopes that maybe we’d see them in Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately that possibility has once again been struck down by a recent post by a Blizzard CM, Bornakk:

” We have stated in the past that while this is a fun idea, we don’t currently have any plans to do this. As much as going back and seeing good ol’ Scholomance sounds like a expedition, it is still a dungeon that a lot of people have already run a lot of times. We are focused on bringing brand new dungeons to players that are also more epic and exciting than what we have done in the past.”

So as you can see, Blizzard has decided to develop new content as opposed to focusing on rehashing old dungeons. One could make the argument that development time for rehashed dungeons are likely a fraction of the time and effort required to build a new one from scratch, but its likely falling on deaf ears. Maybe by next expansion we’ll be able to stomp through Gnomeregan and liberate the place from our fallen brethren once and for all. Or not, which seems to be the more likely scenario. Personally I’d love the opportunity to adventure through old hunting grounds once again, but its on the back burner for now!

If you haven’t noticed the brand new splash on Blizzard’s site, they’ve introduced an aggressive recruiting policy that targets new players and there’s some substantial in-game rewards if you can find friends to bring in. Here’s a list of rewards you can expect:

1. Characters on both accounts can summon each other once per hour.
2. While adventuring with your linked friend/family member, you will each gain triple experience.
3. For every two levels the new player earns, the new player can grant one free level-up to a lower-level character played by the veteran player.
4. A special Zhevra mount!

Needless to say that while a lot of new players will be happy to know the leveling process will be much easier, its left many veteran players out in the cold. After all, where are the rewards for players who are slugging it out to 70 with their 5th or 6th character? Don’t they deserve a leveling boost, even if its temporary, as well? I’ve read quite a number of unhappy responses over at the forums, and that’s not entirely surprising given the current set of circumstances.

In my own opinion, I think Blizzard should reward players on both sides of the fence. Yes, bringing in new players to the game should be rewarded and an easier leveling process for newbies makes the game more enjoyable and less of a grind. But toss a bone to use old heads too, like one triple XP alt to 60 every year or something like that. This wouldn’t upset the balance or effort of the game, but would reward players for being loyal customers as well.

With high powered handhelds becoming commonplace among consumers, I’ve always been curious as to how feasible (and likely) a convert to consoles would be. Console gamers are typically fickle when it comes to MMO games on their box, and really most people who want to play MMOs already have a PC (who doesn’t?) beefy enough to run Warcraft, considering the system requirements are so low. A recent post over at WoWinsider considered the possibility as well:

Mike’s post yesterday about playing WoW with an XBox controller got me thinking. Now, I honestly prefer playing certain kinds of games on the PC, MMOs topping that list. But if Blizzard up and decided tomorrow to change their minds about a console (which they aren’t) version of World of Warcraft, I wonder what it would be like. Exactly how much would the game change once it was ported? And which console would WoW be most at home on?

Honestly a portable version of WoW would be the most fun to me, perhaps on the iphone or psp, (maybe we’d see it over at psp spot), though I’m sure many handheld devices would have trouble running the game..for now anyway.

Blizzard has repeatedly stated that a port to the xbox is out of the question, but as time goes on I believe the possibility is much more likely. Looking at Wrath of the Lich King it doesn’t appear that there’s been any major graphical overhaul, while consoles and handheld systems are constantly gaining processing power. I believe that we’ll see a console version of the game at some point before wow’s shelf life ends.

While I’ve come across plenty of complaints about Alterac Valley and how the glory days used to be awesome are plentiful, but it doesn’t appear that Blizzard agrees, as a recent Blizzard CM stated that they are generally satisfied with AV in its current form:

This is partially true. Alterac Valley was originally going to be its own zone. We do feel Alterac Valley is fairly well tuned at the moment, though we would like to give players a different type of experience that will include large-scale PvP battles, destructible buildings, siege weapons, and more. These are some of the things planned for the new PvP zone Lake Wintergrasp.

There will be a lot of tuning and balancing of the zone done in the coming months. One thing we are looking to do though to help with population imbalances is impose certain benefits for the side with less players in the zone. For instance, since supplies will be necessary to unlock certain vehicles, the side with the population handicap may see a decrease in requirements. We may also offer increasingly more supply benefits for a faction if they are suffering from consecutive losses in Lake Wintergrasp. The goal is to even the playing field regardless of faction population balances across all realms.

We plan to give Lake Wintergrasp a definitive play time where the event may last somewhere around 45 minutes. The event would not start again for a set amount of time after the battle is won. We will tune these times as testing further develops. The plan, additionally, is to provide certain incentives for visiting this zone between battles.

We’ll be sure to provide more information about Lake Wintergrasp as well as the new Battleground as we get closer to releasing them for Beta testing.

Personally yes, I did genuinely enjoy the old epic Alterac battles that took days on old to complete, but there were some serious flaws with the system at that time. First, it took 2 hours just to get in, because players tended to never leave after they finally got to enter (at 2 hours a shot, no kidding). With the recent bout of afking, you’d likely see a huge increase in AV queue times, and your team could be half afkers as active players left only to be replaced by a botter looking to get days worth of honor for free. I like AV as it stands, even though it could definitely use some tweaking (let us summon lords and cavalry, I mean come on!). Additionally I think Lake Wintergrasp is really intended to be what AV used to be, and if that’s the case I think its perfectly fine to leave AV for the honor grubbers and people who actually want an epic fight can go to the lake and get it!

Since the release of the Burning Crusade, engineering has gone through some serious changes. You won’t see any engineers pulling out dragonlings, a battle chicken, or a deathray/shrink ray. Instead you’ll likely see….goggles. Maybe a mote extractor too. As a whole, much of what made the professions quirky and fun (and got people mad at you.. “who the hell just shrunk our group?!…YOU!”) was the trinkets and various gadgets that engineers had at their disposal. Unfortunately much of the craft was homogenized and dumbed down. Old gadgets no longer worked (reflector trinkets), but new ones were not added in to continue the fun. Instead trinket pets were relegated to jewelcrafting, and patch after patch yielded few new engineering changes other than a new mount and a new goggle recipe that, frankly, most players will never get or hope to get.

With this in mind, many players have turned their hopes toward the expansion. After all what’s a better time to re-vamp a profession than a HUGE content patch like Wrath of the Lich King? I’ve heard rumors of a motorcycle mount, but beyond that it doesn’t seem anything substantial has been added yet. One of Blizzard’s CMs, Bornak, did recently respond to concerns about the engineering profession in the expansion:

We have heard and noted some complaints from engineers in the past. Please be patient and more details will be available soon on all the professions and new things they will have in Wrath of the Lich King.

Hmm, well its not exactly a guarantee, but at the very least the engineers’ concerns have been heard. If this is the case, then expect to see some more fun when the expansion hits! Or goggles…one or the other.

Well it appears that Blizzard has no shortage of merchandise to peddle onto its playerbase. From t-shirts to character models to the trading card game, they most recently announced the addition of a board game version of Warcraft. That said, I’ve played similar games in the genre (A Lord of the Rings board game was a ton of fun, for example), and they can be a total blast! Here’s a brief description from the site:

World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game is a fast-paced game of danger, conflict, and heroes. 2-4 players engage in a struggle for glory and valor as they travel the East Kingdoms of Azeroth battling monsters, completing quests, and vanquishing each other in their bid for supremacy!

* Fast paced immersive action with four unique heroes
* Battle monsters as well as your fellow players
* Innovative game design with multi-tier encounters and quest

You’ll have to compete with up to 4 opponents for glory and treasure as you stomp across Azeroth. You have the option of playing a dwarf hunter, human warlock, undead mage, or orc warrior. Given the fact that each has their own unique abilities, I wonder if there will be some arguments as to who gets to play the “overpowered” class (oh right, you WOULD pick the warlock!).

Essentially, your turn will go like this. You’ll flip over some cards to see how far you can move, and you’ll have the option of playing cards to mess with your opponents or move a bit farther as you go along. Then you’ll get to fight a monster through an encounter, depending on your level, you can fight mobs of various difficulties. If you win, you get your very own treasure or some other reward. Quests will also be available to you, and completing them will award you “valor points.” The first person to 8 valor points wins the game.

If you happen to have a bunch of buddies who are into this sort of thing, then you might want to take a look. If any of you guys do pick it up, feel free to let me know how the game plays and whether it has a good amount of replayability. I’ll post any interesting feedback I receive on the game!

If you’ve been around long enough, you probably know that before the last expansion, Burning Crusade, was released, Blizzard put the new talents into the game for players to toy around with and test. My guess is they were doing some final testing and tweaking to see how these talents fared on a large scale basis and in raid situations. Many players have wondered (and weighed in on both sides) if we’ll be seeing the new talents again in the expansion. Blizzard did come out with somewhat of an answer..if you want to call it that..from a CM post on the forums:

“We haven’t stated this as of yet, so it wasn’t me. I have said that it is a possibility much like Burning Crusade, but I can’t confirm this for you at this time. When the time comes, we’ll be letting everyone know more details about our plans.”

Blech. I don’t know about you, but I want to know for sure! There’s a surprising amount of resistance to Blizzard releasing them early, though. Some players worry that talents designed for level 80 play will seem overpowered at 70 because there hasn’t been an increase in health and other stats. Retribution paladins in particular, an apparently very powerful class in the expansion, worry that their abilities will be needlessly nerfed because they are overpowered at 70 but will balance nicely at 80. Personally I say let us have them! I’d like to take some of my mage’s new arcane talents for a spin (arcane barrage!) and see if they hold up well in comparison.

The WoW Insider show recently announced that they’ll be giving away a beta key tomorrow to one listener. Here’s the summary from the post:

“Yes, not only is the WoW Insider Show going live again tomorrow afternoon as usual, and not only will I be making a return to the airwaves (after being stuck in LAX during last week’s show), but Turpster is going to make the ultimate sacrifice and give away a beta key from the Worldwide Invitational to one lucky listener. How can you win this treasured set of letters and numbers? By listening to the show, of course — tune in tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern over on WoW Radio, and we’ll let you know how we’re giving away the key.

*Note: We’ll talk about this on the show I’m sure, but please note that we’re giving you a beta key, not access to the beta — it’s up to Blizzard to actually let you in. And we’re giving you a WWI key, which means it’s for EU players only — the key won’t let you enter the beta on US realms. Sorry US players, but all of our other contests are for you, so karma evens out.”

I don’t know about you, but as a US player myself I got all excited and then got down to the note…clever! I’ll likely be listening anyway though.

I present exhibit A.

Having a mage myself but rarely, if ever, speccing fire (I prefer arcane, if you can believe that), I hadn’t given much thought to the new fire talents other than “I guess that’s kinda sorta interesting.” The more I hear about living bomb, however, the more I feel its in need of tweaking. Let’s be honest here, that doesn’t really look like a living bomb, more like…living butane lighter. It just doesn’t do much damage, and the fact that it lights you up like a Christmas tree pretty much guarantees that even if it was useful, it’ll get dispelled in no time flat.

Improvement suggestions? I like the concept, so I’m not going to say they should scrap it and come out with a new talent, but it definitely needs to be improved. I think a knockback effect would have some use, but it needs more damage. Also, it should detonate upon being dispelled. This would keep a use and purpose in pvp other than an instant “DISPEL ME” buff. It would also make dispel classes think twice about dispelling it if its a devastating enough effect.

Obviously its still early on in the beta to make firm judgments on anything. However, if the past is any indication, unless there’s an outcry for change before the talent is locked in place (lightwell, anyone?) Blizzard tends to be slow in improving talents, especially ones that would be more difficult to balance. I do hope they find a way to make living bomb live up to its name!

While WoWhead has had a beta talent tree tool for Wrath of the Lich King up for some time now, Blizzard has finally added an official tool of their own! You can find the whole slew of available talents here. Of course these aren’t exactly official since its in beta and serious changes to talents are inevitable, but it certainly gives you an idea of what’s in store for your class when the expansion hits.

Initial impressions are varied for me. On one hand there are some great talents. For my mage, I’m definitely looking forward to arcane barrage, but deep freeze really looks night on worthless except for a select few pvp situations due to the requirement that the target be frozen. Paladins are getting a much needed AOE heal for raiding and 5-man situations, a great development for them, I believe, even if it is a heal over time. This will allow them to combat situations where the group takes consistent damage to multiple party members (such as the fight with Kael’thas in Magister’s Terrace). Typhoon for balance druids looks particularly devastating in pvp, especially small combat situations like the arena. My warlock should be getting a number of new tricks too, and haunt looks interesting to say the least. There’s a pretty large number of knockback spells in the works, and I wonder how that will affect pvp. I don’t really feel like getting tossed into oblivion every time I cross a bridge or narrow passageway, but we’ll see how it all balanced out.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the talents and any changes that come down the line, until then be sure to check them out and start putting up your talent builds once the expansion hits!