Cataclysm

So because I have been away from the game for a while (or living under a rock, which ever you prefer), I missed the announcement of Cataclysm. If you are even more sheltered than I am, its going to be the next big WoW release from Blizzard.

Go ahead and check out the launch page here. I'll wait.

There are a bunch of stuff that excite me here, but stuff I wonder about. It is yet again increasingly obvious Blizz wants us to run end game. Most things cool for this expansion is for the 80s and their alts.

So lets go through the big features.

New races - Goblins and Worgen.

The Worgen

I suppose I will have to read up on the lore (I admit, I am lacking in this) but I am confused as to why the Worgen are an alliance race. The elves help them, fine, but to what end? Because they are tree-hugging-peace-love-a-dove-freaks? They wouldn't be at war with the horde then, would they? Apparently they started with Arugal, which last time I checked, was an enemy to both horde and alliance.

So they have a civil war within the worgen because... they don't want to be "evil" any more? They don't want to be worgen? Isn't this the same fight as the Foresaken?

It seems to me the Horde has always adopted the woe-begone. I am not drawing lines here between the "good" Alliance and the "evil" Horde because there is no reason to go there. It just does not seem to fit that the Worgen ally themselves with the Alliance. If anyone would reach out, it seems to me that would have to be Sylvannas, especially since the events in Undercity from Lich King. She needs as many friends as possible.

The Gobins

Apparently the Horde needed little people.

And that's all I have. I see no reason why these capitalists would allign themselves with anyone.

And so...

You know I am going to be creating at least one of each. Both races will be cool to run and it will be a nice change. I wonder if we start off with fairly high Steemweedle Cartel rep if we roll a goblin...

Level Cap increased to 85

And cue end game content. Here it is... everything you could ever want to do without actually winning the game. In T10.

Which brings us to:

New high level zones and raid content.

Well, duh.

The one thing I am VERY excited about here is the heroic modes for SFK and Deadmines. The classic instances have always been lots of fun, and I can't wait to see them on heroic mode. Now they just need up Wailing Caverns.

Classic Zones Remade

I must admit, this is one of the things that excites me the most. It is no secret I enjoy levelling and questing - I find it is a core part of the game (or it should be, Blizz, if you are reading this. /snort). I do hope that they incorprate the phasing terrain technology they started with in Lich King to do this - there is a lot of great stuff in Vanilla, I hope we still get the chance to do this.

Flying Mounts in Azeroth

About time. We have been able to fly in the harshed climates but not what we grew up in? Puleeze.

Guild Advancement

I think this is FANTASTIC. We have all been guilded with people who are in it for the loot, do nothing for the guild, expect free stuff because they are guild mates, etc. This is an excellent push for what a guild should be - a group working as a team to acheive the same goal. Guilds used to be about progression. They rapidly became about bank space and tabbards. This is an excellent move by Blizz and I thank them for it.

The down side to this is guilds are going to be elitist again. The best of the best of the best are all going to be guilded together, which means the rest of us better find a good core guild to stick with now. And that means running with people you like and get your game.

Final thoughts

Overall I am looking forward to this expac. Keeping up current trends we may have to start saving now for its release, when ever that may be. In the mean time, I will be sure to keep my info up to date with Blizz and hope for that eagerly awaited Beta invite. ;p

Ah well it has been a while, non? We took a bit of a break from WoW over the summer, as real life forced its way in. C'est la vie.

But the important thing is we are back. And the game has been nerfed, again.

Let me tell you - it is a good thing I wasn't around for the last patch, as this blog would have been written months ago.

I expect in the next patch, we will be granted 60 free levels and a mount just for logging in the first time.

Don't get me wrong - leveling has never been easier. And when you are that last 3 bars away from your chosen goal, 5 minutes really can make a difference. I guess my issue is that its too easy.

Recently we gifted a family member with a WoW account. We grabbed the "recruit-a-friend" promotion and started gaming. We created two characters (alliance, sadly) and finished the Dwarf starting map in no time - and finished at level 15. Remember when we were barely level 9 and we had to kill boars to level just so we could go collect some shimmerweed? Yeah those were the days.

No longer will it take 15 days of game play to ding 80. Heck - start a death knight and you have skipped 10 of those days!

If it sounds like I have a problem with power leveling, I don't. Really, for those that just want to play the end game content, have at 'er. What I do have a problem with is playing the end game content with noobs who don't know their class. And if you have only been playing your toon for 3 days? Guess what folks, you don't know your class.

The end of an era

A couple weeks ago, my Hunter idol, Big Red Kitty, decided to take a break from WoW and spend more time with his family. Kudos, sir.

Now that 3.1 is out and I am looking at the changes to hunters, I wonder if he had an ulterior motive. Beast Mastery is no longer the spec it once was, my friends.

A moment, if you will.

Barbaracue has finally dinged 80, and I ran my first heroic that night. My new Nesingwary 4000 in hand, I ran into the Nexus, full of gusto. And produced a whopping 800 dps.

Yep, 800.

My 72 priest is hitting 800 dps.

Where is this uber damage? I realize a lot has to come from my rotation, and I am not geared yet. But I should be hitting better than a priest 8 levels lower, should I not?

And so with the new patch I am thinking of perhaps going *gasp* survival. I know, so awful. I might have to stable Sauce out of the horror. Or I may learn to save my gold and dual spec so I can swap out as necessary. Either way, BM just isn't cutting it any more.

/flex

Again, haven't been posting much, just playing. Recently Schokti has been grinding instances to get the gear I need for the end game runs. I am getting there. In running Utgard Pinnacle last night, I got this:



Huzzah!

Tim Buckley does it again

If you are in the complete dark, please head over to Ctrl+Alt+Del. Now. You can thank me later.