Archive for July, 2010

Well this is interesting. Blizzard held a Twitter chat yesterday, and it produced some major upsets and surprises. Here’s what I’ve gleaned.

• Paladins are getting a seriously major overhaul, so much so that at first I thought it was a joke. Apparently, from what I’ve read, we pallys will be using – in addition to mana – a new resource called Holy Power. Now, it’s not exactly clear how that will work, but from reading some of Blizzard’s responses on Paladin play, it seems to either work like a spoof on Death Knight runes (but in reverse, in that you accumulate runes in combat) or a rogue’s combo points. These will increase damage done on some attacks (like the intriguing but yet-to-be-revealed ret pally ability Templar’s Verdict), increase Holy Shield’s duration, and activatie an instant, mana-free heal called Word of Glory. Sounds like fun, but it also sounds complicated.
• Blizz seems to be going for a ‘harm to gain mana’  (my term) strategy for healers, meaning they intend for healers to gain mana from doing damage, forcing them to contribute to the combat at times. This is odd to me, but we’ll see how it works out. It mostly seems to be about getting healers out of their heal-spell-spam habits that are so prevalent in heroic pick-up groups these days.
• Still no player/guild residences. I feel this is a good decision, because unless they can incorporate them into the game world and not have to instance them off, they’ll splinter a realm’s community. How would they incorporate them organically and still accommodate the slew of players? I have no idea, and evidently Blizz doesn’t either.
• Blizzard wants all specs to be valid for leveling. I think adding a clearer definition, say just listing ‘great for leveling,’ or ‘slow leveling’  on the talent trees before you select one would help allot.  They could even expand those notes into how the trees effect other facets of gameplay, but that’s a rant for another time.

That’s all for now. Cataclysm is looking very intriguing right now. Stick around for more information.

For a more complete listing of updates, please visit WoW.com. They have compiled a great list of the all of questions and their answers, so I obviously have to defer to them. They’ve done a great job on this (as they always do).

I’m back at last with a non-Cataclysm-related post. I wanted to catch folks up on where my characters are.

Lug and Pig are now level 29. I’m almost to my current goal, level 30! Lug still has those heirloom shoulders so leveling hasn’t been real bad. He’s been in the Hillsbrad Foothills allot lately, taking a break from Thousand Needles. That place is not allot of fun to me.

Gav was in Wintergrasp again today. I did ok, dying twice – once one-on-one to an Orc rogue, which never should have happened except that I was 90% asleep at the time. I had him dead to rights and couldn’t finish him off. Dammit. While running back after that death, WoW froze and crashed. When I logged back in, the battle was down to 45 seconds and everyone was just chilling in the courtyard. WTF happened to the Horde? No one was fighting, and I had been standing in one of the side areas of the fortress when my game froze and came back to find myself alive. Weird.

With the honor I earned in WG, I went to Stormwind and bought a mount I’ve wanted for a long, long time – a Black Battlestrider. I wanted one the first time I saw one but they used to cost Battleground tokens. No more! A mere 50k honor and it’s mine. Gav’s happy now.

Blizzard recently released an update on a new zone for Cataclysm, the Twilight Highlands. Located in the Eastern Kingdoms, it plays home to Dragonmaw Orcs and Wildhammer Dwarves. It seems to have a dark, twisted appearance (which likely led to it’s name). From what I’ve read it’s in the near the Wetlands, likely east of it where the dragons and such used to gather in that little circle path around the mountain. Yes, I know that’s a poor job of giving directions. Close to the Grim Batol, basically.

Other then some history on the land, there’s not allot released that I can go on. I’ll post more as I get it.

Blizzard has hit Cataclysm with a major change to it’s talent system. For one, they’re cutting the number of talents about in half and doling points out every other level instead of every single level. Another change is that you pick your spec before using your first talent point, and doing so unlocks your tree’s signature ability. You can then only spend points in that tree for the first 31 points. By my math that’s 62 levels. Lastly, the new Mastery feature will no longer scale. It will be a single, solid stat/figure set as soon you choose your spec.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I like their efforts to solidify the different specs, and to make them feel more unique, but I worry for the free-form feel that WoW has always had. In the end, I think it will be better for the game since I’m all for making the different specs stand out, so I look forward to seeing/hearing of it in action.

I’ve included the full Blue post after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gav was back in action tonight and had another memorable experience. I queued for a dungeon and 23 minutes later, I reached the Trial of the Champion. I died in the jousting phase when I was knocked from my horse and trampled. I quickly re-zoned into the instance and we blew through the champions and the mobs around Paletress. but she was tough. She summoned a shadow Cyanigosa who promptly beat us down. We finally killed her but it took forever. Paletress herself was a pushover. Finally, the Black Knight arrived.  We shot right through his first phase and were doing ok on the second phase until the ghouls he summoned got loose. The spread among us and killed two of us – a DPS and our healer. Another DPS died shortly after the third phase began. That left a bear druid and myself to two-man his last phase. Y’know what?

We did it.

Yeah, we kicked his last form’s ass, but it was touch and go obviously. When it was over the bear was under 40 HP, and I was down there, too. It took my Bubble, a runic healing potion, a handful of Flash of Lights and a lot of luck to keep me alive. We did it though. Yay! We then rezzed everyone and passed out the loot.

It was a good run for all, with no poor attitudes or arguments. That’s how a run should go.

Except… maybe with a little less stress at the end.

Well, I’ve been playing on-and-off again, and gotten Gleave to level 70. Here is in the Temple City of En’Kilah. Or whatever that icy dead-filled fortress is in north east Borean Tundra. He’s on his way to 71 now, and is doing pretty well so far. Gav’s on ice at the moment. I just don’t have the drive to keep running dailies and whatnot with him all of the time.