Looking back over my personal gaming career change has always been the catalyst that drives my gaming style. Back on console games I would change games several times per day, constantly wanting something new, regardless as to how I was doing in my current game, a level of Mario, wait, lets play some Tetris. A level of Zelda, oooo, Battle Toads! I was a bit ADD, even if just in my gaming style. Onto the larger world of MMO’s. I started my online gaming career back in Star Wars Galaxies. I had tried Everquest a few years prior, but hated it. I just wasn’t ready for the MMO landscape. Galaxies was a blast. I played from about six months into the game through the NGE, aka New Game Enhancements.  This was through two combat upgrades and finally the death of SWG for me, NGE. SO, as you can see, I’m use to combat systems changing. When I left SWG, I migrated to WoW. I’ve loved wow for five years now. It’s been a great game, I’ve made some great friends, and learned alot about some friends I drug (or drugged?) into wow.

Now we sit at a junction. 4.0.1 is one of those game altering changes. Not much about playing wow is as it was just over a week ago. Yes, you still have dps classes, tanks, healers, etc, but how they are played is different. Talents that were once must haves are gone, talents we didn’t know we wanted have magically appeared. Tree’s are simplified, or as in the case of Nimrock’s Druid Fang, only come out every once and a while now! With the coming of 4.0.1 and the huge wealth of information out about it’s imminent arrival I had alot of reading to do. At first I thought to myself, Crap. This is Star Wars Galaxies New Game Enhancements all over again. I was worried that this would alter the game to the point that it was no fun. The game would never be the same for me. I would have to wait six months to play another MMO that looks good to me(TOR). I was wrong for me. Others, this has been the case.

One thing I know about the oncoming Cataclysm is that there is going to be alot more change. Now might be a good time for some of us to “reroll” our characters and let go of what we cherished about wow pre-4.0.1. For some of us, it’s time to rekindle a love for older mains, reuse the characters in our wow-verse that were once very valuable to our playtime. This is where I stand. I’m back with my stabby toon, the rogue, and have almost abandoned my hunter. My DK tank is in the garage for the moment, and to be honest, might not come out again. That’s the brilliance about this game. He can sit there as long as I want, and one day, I may come back to him. For now, times are changing, and I need to roll with it, find something I do like, and nurture that.

For some of my wow friends, I know you have chosen other things. This game isn’t what you remembered, or enjoyed. That’s the choice you have to make. If you ever decide to come back to Wow, know we’ll be here with open arms, and just because you choose not to play this crazy game anymore, doesn’t mean you didn’t mean anything to those of us that still do. You will be missed in game. Keep in touch. Also, I CAN HAZ GOLDZ?

Sensitive and Insensitive at the same time,
~Sy

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit dramatic. As many of you have experienced first hand, yesterday Tuesday October 12, 2010 Patch 4.0.1 dropped. This is the big precursor patch for Cataclysm that makes sure everything is ready for the big release. all of the class changes, talent changes, user interface changes, and general newness has entered the world of warcraft. Yes, it is VERY different. It is a bit scary, even for a five-year vet like myself, but with a bit of reading, some time messing around with target dummies or in the field, and I’m sure all of us will be back on our feet dispatching homies with prejudice. ( I think I heard that in a rap song)

I’ve been a bit bored of Wow in recent months. I was even considering that I might have grown up a bit and needed to move on permanently from wow. I took most of the summer off, not even logging in the entire month of June, and finally letting my account lapse in July. Around mid september I picked the game back up, very casually. I play only in the late evening after my daughter is in bed, and only if all of my work is done and the wife doesn’t want to watch some tv. (we’ve gotten hooked on netflix and television seasons.)

So, my first impressions of wow 4.0 are as such:
The first thing that struck me was how fun the new talent trees look. Take my rogue for instance. The tree descriptions AMAZE me. Fancy words like Assassin, Swashbuckler, and Executioner… SERIOUSLY. My rogue has been 80 for over a year, and has sat there, content in junk gear not being played. Rogue was a huge love for me in wow for a long time, but it was lack luster at 80 for me. Now I’m totally wanting to play her.

The next thing I noticed was my hunter. Yes, yes, the tree’s are pretty much the same, BUT I have a new game mechanic, focus. I also have HUGE stables!!! I can keep up to five pets ON ME, and TWENTY in the stables!!!!! I must set up a good BM spec and go out and round-up EVERY PET I’VE EVER DREAMED OF USING!!!!  I’ve been a hunter through and through, now I see myself playing Gozz, and at least 2-3 other hunters as well! (I have a 56 troll hunter with a full set of Gladiator waiting for him at 60, a worgen, and an undead hunter with my internet namesake waiting on Cata!)

Thirdly( is this even a word?Grammar Hammer ruling needed please.) the graphical overhaul. The new water/lava effects are very well done, and just like other graphical changes was much-needed. I had to bump my rig back down a bit, but my computer could handle the graphics, but not at the frame rates I like to see. Either I’m stuck getting a smaller monitor(BOO) or finally updating my rig… (How can I get this one approved by the committee…aka wife…)

Fourthly, This has my interest peaked again. That’s the end all at the moment. If this game can keep me happy, keep me around, keep my friends playing, then I will be here…. Well, at least until the spring of 2011… Then the inner nerd inside of me that lives in a galaxy far far away just may take over… I’m just saying… Wow Vs. SW…. No contest. Especially a Bioware MMO. KOTOR I&II were AMAZING. But for now, Blizzard is doing a good job of bringing me back in. Good on ya Blizz, good on ya.

Also, if this didn’t interest you, Here’s a Pony.

Rambling on since 1980,
~Uncle Sy

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -
LEROY JENKINS is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -
world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock,
speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for
hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population,
common group, but it’ll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its
own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the
reverent in the right – right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o’clock – TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear – cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…fine…

(It’s time I had some time alone)

My HU-MAN rogue may appear to be of the alliance… but my mind doesn’t work that way… I’m an “RP” guy. My alliance rogue is human… but not working for the alliance. He dispises King Varian Wrynn. His father was banished from Kalimdor and was never seen again. Turas has vowed to find him and has left the safety of Stormwind to venture forth, making allies where he needs, despite their factional alliances. Anyway, look for more from my “Not -so-alliance” friend. Also, it was great to see you Fik, Duke, and Kev. All win my friends. All win.

From the Blue,
~Sy

So one of the great things about this wonderful world (of warcraft) is that over time, it changes. Now, it’s obviously not as dynamic as it could be, given enough development time and personnel, but each new patch and new expansion changes the world.

Cataclysm is no exception to this, and in many ways, it takes that concept to the next level. Not only is there new zones that haven’t been in the game before, five new character levels, new dungeons and raids, etc., but the majority of the classic world is getting reworked to some degree to reflect. The passage of time and the changing situations, politics, factions and the like.

But, even that isn’t the extent of it. Game mechanics are being reworked drastically as well, from talent points to resource systems. The most drastic changes in mechanics are probably to the Hunter, whose resource system has irrecovably changed the way the class plays and shoots. Death Knights’ talent trees have had their design philosophy altered to fall in line with all the other classes in terms of a dedicated tree for tanking, and the others for damage. Warlocks and paladins are getting an additional resource system added to their existing use of mana in the form of soul shards and holy power, respectively. Warriors and bear druids are getting rage normalization and the resulting changes that come with it. And these are the only ones I can think of, off the top of my head.

All told, this game is going to be a very different one after the introduction of version 4 of the game. There will be even more diversification of race/class combos as well as two brand new races. Cataclysm is probably the most sweeping of changes the game has ever seen, and it’s coming upon us soon(tm).

Stay Hordecore,

– Fikkle

So today I thought I’d drop another quick list.  This was cobbled together a few weeks ago, but its made up of things that I learned as I played through wow.  Gear is like Cocaine. For some people, cocaine is a helluva drug, to quote the Chappelle show, and gear can be the same way. Some people do it for fun, but more often than not, gear, as cocaine, turns people into whores.

Us versus them. People who’ve only played one side of the game tend to buy into the idea that the factions are actually different. There are two views on this, though. The first is that the other faction is dirty and evil and filled with arse-chapeaus, which is generally spouted by those who’ve had bad experiences in pvp, where the other faction has acted like jerks a bit. The other group is those that have just had enough with the jerks on their own faction and feel their faction is filled with idiots while the other faction can work together and is superior and therefore must be better. Once you’ve played both sides, you’ll realize that the idiots are like the curse of flesh, their everywhere and affect everyone. That being said, both sides has its diamond’s in the rough.

There are two types of inexperienced players: newbs and noobs. While both words technically mean the same thing, there is a slight distinction. Newbs are players that are legitimately new to the game and just don’t have the years of experience that everyone else does. In time they will get that experience and stop being newbs. The second group, noobs, are the idiots and arse-chapeaus and morons. They are the players that either know better, should know better or just don’t care. They grief and cause grief to those people they are playing with. They may know how to play their class, but don’t bother to learn fights, or they may know fights but don’t bother to learn their class. These kind are everywhere.

Ignore and Report Spam are your friends. The ignore function is that friend that you’ve had around since grade school who you’ve fought with from time to time but always came back to in the end. The Report Spam button is your best friend in the whole world, the one that you’d do anything for all the time no matter what, except for maybe out and out betrayal, but you get the idea. Your ignore list is only so big. I reserve it for the repeat offenders. If I know there are a few uber-idiots that are always in trade chat, they make this list and almost never get taken off. In my experience there is always one or two on every server I’ve played on, and I can still remember the names of most of them. The report spam function is really for reporting spam, but it also has the function of ignoring the individual as well. I’m pretty sure it’s only a temporary ignore, but I’m not sure. The great thing about this is, if you want to overuse it, as I do, you can and it keeps idiots from annoying you, whether it’s with offensive language, rude behavior, or actual spamming.

Guildies can be fleeting but friendships are forever. I’ve been in several guilds since I joined wow and have made several friends that I consider best friends. We don’t always talk every day, but we stay in touch and enjoy playing the game with each other. When I’ve left the game, they’ve always been the reason I’ve come back. When I’ve left the guilds they are in and gone out in search of raiding or other nonsense, I’ve always gone back to whatever guild they are in, because they are who I want to spend my gaming time with.

Internet Dragons are cool. Because real dragons don’t exist, and dragons are cool, thus internet dragons are cool.

Class wars. Each class has a widely accepted nemesis, or at least each player who pvp’s with a class, generally finds there is at least one other class that can just get under their skin. It’s just the nature of trying to provide balance to the game in the only way they can: A beats B, who beats C, who beats D, who beats C, who beats A, who beats F, who beats B… etc. I’m sure someone somewhere has done a class comparison chart like this somewhere, although I’ve never seen one. Either way, these rivalries can be good for the game and you tend to find this out the more you play each class. For example, mages and warlocks have this eternal hatred of each other. Personally, I’ve found that there is a private rivalry between me (as a warrior) and every alliance hunter in existence. I’m not sure if I posted about this back in the day when I was levelling through BGs, but hunters always tried to kite me, and I always tried to catch them. The really good hunters tended to win more against me than I did them, while I tended to win more against the really bad hunters. The more hunters tried to kite me, the more I tried to prove that I could get in close and kill them. The more I tried to get in close and kill them, the more they tried to kite me. I love vicious circles, they’re so much better than tame ones.

Everyone has been fooled, no one was prepared and the billions upon billions of deaths were merely a setback; I for one welcome our future swine overlords. Everyone knows that Boars are the biggest, baddest and most dangerous threat that there is, or ever has been in the World (of Warcraft). Consider this: Everywhere you go, the boars are there. All the quest givers everywhere pay you to kill them, but no matter how many you kill they always come back in equal or greater numbers. It is only a matter of time before they revolt against this oppression. It is only a matter of time before they all rise up at once, overwhelming everyone, everywhere. In the end, we will all be rolling in the mud bowing to our new swine overlords.

Bloggers make the world go round. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, what I do mean to say is that there are several influential bloggers out there that have been consistently correct, funny, up to date and verbose in this wonderful community and if it wasn’t for their inspiration, many of us wouldn’t stay as interested as we do, or we may have suffered severe withdrawal pains from not having wow stuff to read while at work. A special thanks to some of those who’ve been inspirations to me, thank you all for the inspiration and entertainment.

Cake really pisses Pie off.  If you’re talking to Pie, don’t mention cake.

So that’s what I’ve learned, everything else is just fluff, so keep on keeping on and,

Stay Hordecore.

– Fikkle

First off, this post is going to be biased to the Horde side of questing, as the lion’s share of my questing has been done there. So I apologize if you’re favorite Alliance-only quest doesn’t get mentioned, but I’m not familiar enough with them to talk intelligently or unintelligently about them. Feel free to drop your own opinions in the comments section if you’d like.

Another very quick disclaimer, I tried to focus completely on quests vice instances or quests in instances, as dungeons tend to be a completely different subject.

10. O Noes, the Tadpoles

First off, a great name. More than that though, Murlocs have become a part of most people’s experience while playing wow, as well the subject of many a joke. This quest has us saving the babies and experience one of the coolest sounding creatures in the game, the baby Murloc.

9. The Ogre-King quest chain

This is the chain in the Blade’s Edge Mountains in Outlands that is once again a very long chain. The really cool part of this chain in my opinion is that sheer epicness of going up against the Gronn and giving them whatfor on behalf of the Ogres, only to have all the Ogres in the zone gather at your feet and proclaim you their King (or Queen?) when you’re finished. The icing on the cake of course is that after completing this, all the Ogres in the zone that were hostile towards you are now non-hostile, indifferent, easy going… Whatever they are, they won’t attack you on sight, but you can still attack them, and if you do, they spout of things like ‘why King no like me anymore’ or something else. Fun, fun.

8. Linken Quest chain

This is a chain that starts in Un’goro crater and has you traveling all over the old world to complete it, and it rewards you with items that are references to the Legend of Zelda. The whole quest itself is a reference, so its great for that and as a grass roots fan of the Zelda franchise from way back upon the release of the first Zelda game, it’s always had a special place in my heart.

7. Lost in Battle

This is a simple run here, look at this, run back quest from the Barrens that begins with Mankrik (or Man-kirk to many of us) and has you search for his lost wife. Spoiler: You find his wife, dead, having been killed by the Quillboars. Of course, Mankrik begins to plan his revenge (I’m betting) and I’ve heard whispers about up and comings for the next expansion. This quest has become so legendary among Horde players that it’s a phenomenon now. For that reason alone, and the coolness of Mankrik, it gets in at number seven.

6. Mystery of the Infinite / Mysteries of the Infinite Redux
This is a quest given by the ever lovable Chromie; a Bronze dragon often found masquerading in her humanoid-form of a Gnome. She sends you to the Bronze dragonshrine in Dragonblight and you’re supposed to help defend an item against the Infinite flight. The first awesome thing about this quest is that a future version of yourself shows up and aids you in the defense of the item, whispering you about your gear and other goofy stuff. After you’re level 80 and you’ve completed the quest, you can go pick up the follow up, the Redux version that has you go back there and help your past self defend the item, thus coming full circle. I think the cleverness of the questline was awesome and really enjoyed it the first time I did it. The only thing I wish is that Blizz had made some caveat so that it remembered what gear your past self was wearing and had it show up in that, instead of mirroring whatever gear you happen to have on. Still, a definite winner though.

5. Into the Fold / All Hail Roanauk!

This pair of quests tells the story of how the Taunka get brought into the Horde and go through an initiation of sorts, as well as having the Taunka NPCs going through the pledge to the Horde and the Warchief. The first quest is getting Taunka refugees to don the armor of the Horde, swear a pledge and report to Agmar’s Hammer for duty. The second quest comes after a short chain where you save the life of the Taunka chieftain, and he pledges himself and all his people to the Horde. As a proud member of the Horde, this quest was one of my top five of all time. Lok’tar Ogar, For the Horde!

4. Hero of the Mag’har

This is a very long quest chain involving many quests in Nagrand. There are only a few pre-reqs, but I don’t really know what they are so I do all the Nagrand quests (and one or two in Shadowmoon that are required). This chain covers a lot of different lore NPCs and ends with Thrall and Varok Saurfang’s visit to Garadar to see Greatmother Geyah and Garrosh Hellscream. It is quite the event and I recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

3. Angra’thar the Wrathgate / Battle for the Undercity

This is probably the most famous quest event / chain of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Filled with the struggles and lead up to the battle for both factions in Dragonblight, followed by the confrontation with the Scourge and the Lich King himself, an epic cutscene, and betrayal by a few crazies. After the apparent death of two major war leaders, one from each faction, the players return to their home city, witness a discussion between Thrall and Jaina and then travel to the Undercity to take part in retaking it from treasonous elements of the Forsaken. The lead up quests and the Battle for the Undercity are unique to their faction and if you haven’t seen both sides of this story, I recommend you do, it’s just that damn good.

2. Lazy Peons

This is a quest that anyone who’s ever played an orc or troll will recognize, or for that matter, anybody who’s ever quested in their starter area, the Valley of Trials. It’s a simple quest, completed before level 5, and it is one of my favorite quests in the game, possibly the one I’ve found to be the most fun in game. All you have to do is go play whackamole with the peons when they fall asleep, clubbing them with the Foreman’s blackjack. Of course, the peons have some of the funniest lines in all of warcraft, one of which inspired our Alliance guild name >Not That Kind of Orc<. Despite it’s simplicity, I always find it fun and I hope it makes the cut for cata.

1. Darrowshire

This is the chain that begins with finding little Pamela’s ghost in the ruins of Darrowshire. She’s looking for her doll, which you can find for her in nearby houses, and then you go to find the rest of her family, discovering the fate of her relatives in this very tragic story. This isn’t something I did during Vanilla wow, however, it is something that I have done and it’s a truly moving story, probably the one that wrenched my heart more than any other in the game. And before some silly Kansas says that Canadians don’t have hearts, let me tell you, friend, that we indeed might have them. So there.

So there’s my list. Feel free to make a list of your own, or give your opinions on my choices, but until next time,

Stay Hordecore,

– Fikkle

I’ve been tanking for most of the Wrath expansion in one form or another. I started out as a Protection Paladin tanking Sarth and Naxx back before Ulduar. I was in a mix of blues and epics, which were sufficient to do raids at the time, provided the blues were from heroics not Borean Tundra quest rewards.

Of course nowadays with the Dungeon Finder, T9 gear on vendors and the general ease of gearing up to that level, no one is acceptable anymore until they have i245 gear or better. Sorry, that was a side rant, short but sweet, right?

Anyways, after my warrior hit 80, I created a prot spec for him with his dual-spec and spent a week that I had off from work gearing him up. It was a lot of heroics, but it was worth it. Since then, he’s managed to tank at the ICC level, VoA level, and he even got his ‘of the Nightfall’ title for doing Sarth 3D a few months back. I have successfully tanked every Dungeon and Heroic in the expansion; I’ve cleared ToC-10 and done parts of Ulduar. Now, I’m not saying I’m uber or imba or anything, as I didn’t do all of the progression raiding when it was hard or relevant, but I’ve seen a lot of these fights and haven’t had any problems with them from a tanking mechanics perspective.

All of that being said, I like to think that I know what I’m doing, and I think I’ve gotten fairly good at warrior tanking. Now, a warrior tank is a bit of work to do, especially when AoE tanking is involved, but it’s not impossible and I think I can safely say I’ve gotten good at it. Despite what Jong may think, I don’t think it’s a snoozefest, although he’s right that the priority of abilities becomes second nature.

However, even I run characters as dps through dungeons, dealing with other people tanking. A while back, while I was running as my mage through Nexus, I had quite the experience. What follows is based on actual events…

So we get into the instance and the tank up and left after getting everyone’s buffs. Thanks, arse. Have fun failing at life, it seems like you have a head start. So we re-q and we all know we’re in for a wait since tanks while levelling are even more rare than tanks at endgame. We did, however, have a DK with us, so we had him throw up Frost presence and go to town. The resto shaman did a great jorb keeping him up and my leet level 76 frost skillz were brought to bear, despite no druids being present. Just after we killed the mob, another DK joined the group, and said hello. Wow, off to a decent start. We have a warm body for a tank and he said hello when he joined the group, demonstrating some form of manners, which can be rare.

While we were waiting for the tank to get caught up, we ran up to the next tunnel, where the mage hunter and two demon dogs pat and we sat and waited.

Now, when I sit and wait I tend to try to do stuff to keep busy, like telling /silly or dancing with non-combat pets. Murkimus is a usual suspect for dancing, and since he has the single greatest sound effect in the game, he’s one of my favourite pets. So anyways, at this particular moment, I had swivelled my camera angle and was looking at my toon and what he looked like with the cloth heirloom gear on. (He’s a BElf, it comes with the racials). While I was standing there, admiring BElf virility in a dress, the pat found me and tried to get my mojo. Of course, magepanic means frost nova and blink, turn and burn, which is exactly what I did. Now the rogue in the group, he didn’t fare so well. See, for those of you that don’t know what happens to a mob when it gets rooted, by say the Blizzard spell or the Frost Nova spell, read on. Because mobs know that while they’re rooted they absolutely can’t reach the Badass beauty that they find irresistible, they turn to whoever is within range. It’s kinda the ‘Love the one you’re with’ mentality. So of course, after I rooted them, they ate the rogue for breakfast and burped him out before brunch.

I continued to AoE them down, looking fantastic with my hands in the air the whole time, and eventually our Forsaken DK caught up just as the other DK jumped into the mix. So from there it was business as usual. After the pull I gave the ole — hey my bad, I was busy trying to see my own reflections in the eyes of others, I didn’t realize they were the eyes of the bad guys — apology. Thinking that was the end of it, I planned to never speak of it again. Of course, that’s when it all started going sour. The DK tank assumed that because the rogue got chewed on and died, he must’ve been the one who aggro’d the pat. So he starts shouting at him, which didn’t get too out of hand, but was enough to give me that suspicion that this wasn’t going to be all sunshine and roses. Then we got into the room with the icecapades, and sure enough, the Berserker mobs did their whole knockback thing, something about needing their personal space to swing their big… ahem… Nevermind. Anyways, the rogue brought back some friends who decided to say hello. After the pull, the tank again began to berate the rogue, as we tried to explain the reason the rogue was standing behind the mobs and what ‘mechanics’ are. Of course, the tank started the whole ‘no u’ thing with all of us, and then he even had the cohones to try and kick the rogue, as if his arguing with us and saying ‘u shut ure fase’ to us had won us over to his incredibly horrible spelling and grammar.

After his vote to kick failed, he decided he was going to leave the group, so we continued with our Troll dps DK in frost presence, and it was actually easier for us to four-man it. So we cleared along and even fought all the way up to the second boss without a tank, having absolutely no issues. Then our group got filled out with a tank. So he gets in the group and says ‘hello’… I took one look at his name and one look at my recount and saw that it was the exact same tank that had left group. So, of course, the other four of us all lawl at him, but what the hell, we’re obviously not going to get rid of him and the chances of actually getting another tank are astronomically small. So we go on, and while it was once again harder to get through stuff with the crappy tank, we managed and made it all the way to Keristrasza.

We did the boss fight and a blue caster ring dropped, Band of Glitttering Permafrost, I believe. Now, this ring has on it for stats the following: 25 stamina, 33 intellect, 26 spell power and 10 mana per 5 seconds. Obviously, this is a caster ring. Not only that, but it’s a healer ring. So we all roll greed on it and the healer rolls need, an upgrade I’m sure, but who cares, it’s for the healer. And then the tank says ‘Can I have that’. Now, I’ve been typing since I was a kid and while I’m no courtroom transcript writer, I can type fast. I instantly say, ‘you’re an idiot, it’s a caster ring’. Of course he replies with ‘no, I need it for the stamina’. Of course, at this point, loot has been distributed. I saw three lawls, followed by three people leaving party. The tank is still trying to justify why he deserves this ring with Int, SP and Mp5 on it and I just told him no, and left.

I’m not usually one to be rude to other people, but this was one of the worst players I had ever seen, in more ways than one. If the person had just been new to tanking and learning the game or the playstyle, I’d have been more than happy to offer advice or support and give them the benefit of the doubt. But it wasn’t about that. He was not only bad, but he had a bad attitude, horrible spelling and grammar and was an all around douche. That was what sent my GAFF plummeting.

You know, cliché’s are clichés for a reason, and its people like this that make them so true. So I end today with a advice of sorts. It is better to allow people to think you an idiot than to open your mouth and prove them right.

Stay Hordecore,

– Fikkle

I will admit that I received an invite to the Cataclysm beta about a month ago. At the time, I was on vacation with my family and while we were out sightseeing, I was using the wi-fi at the resort to download the client. Eventually, I got into the beta and got to test things out. My first impressions?

Let me start by saying that this post is going to be spoiler free (as in, no lore or story spoilers). So if you’ve been clamouring for impressions about the next expansion without wanting to ruin anything for yourself, this post is for you. I will probably do a post where I don’t avoid spoilers in the near future so that I can talk about some specifics in more detail.

For the record, I’ve only tried the Goblin and Worgen starter zones. I completed the entire Worgen zone twice, while only completing parts of the Goblin zone and not much past level 6. In addition to that, I played the Troll starter area on a Druid up until I ran into a bugged quest. I played through the entire Dwarf starting zone. And I logged in game at the Tauren starting zone but never did any quests there. On my level 80 warrior, I respec’d with the new talent trees into Arms and went to Mount Hyjal, getting about 10 minutes of gameplay in, which allowed me to complete a handful of quests. That’s about it for now.

For my impressions, Blizzard has put the full force of their company into the development of the Goblin and Worgen starter zones. At least it feels that way. They have outdone themselves and topped everything I’ve experienced before. The two zones have different feels, but they are each great in their own way. The Worgen zone has one of the best written stories of anywhere in the game, and the atmosphere and character interactions only make it better. The Goblin zone doesn’t have the same force, so their zone has been done, re-done, over-done, over-re-done, and re-over-re-done again until it just topped everything you could possibly imagine. The Goblin zone makes up for story depth with humor, fun and wacky-crazy events. As I said above, they were both amazing.

Going from there (I did those first in the beta), I went on to the Dwarf starter zone. Now, don’t get me wrong, the Dwarf starter zone has changed to be updated with the ‘current’ events that have happened. That being said, while the zone’s quests and objectives have mostly been updated, there are still some horrendously obvious vanilla quests that weren’t changed at all, or if they were, only the reason for doing them has changed, the mechanics have all stayed the same. As a comparison, of all the quests and mechanics in both the Goblin and Worgen starter zones combined, none of them really feels like it’s a vanilla mechanic. What does that feel like to me then? There are two possibilities. Possibility the first: The zones aren’t completely done yet. This doesn’t seem very likely to me. The flow of quests, the amount of experience they give you and the overall progression of the story feels complete to me. That leaves me with the second possibility. Possibility the second: Blizz decided that the old quests were fine ‘as is’. They may have decided that based on priority. For instance, they have a priority list done of which quests still fit, lore-wise, despite old mechanics and only need to get changed ‘if’ they have extra time. They may have decided that the mechanics were still valid, acceptable or fun. This bothers me the most of all of them. If this is the case, we’ll likely see this trend continue through the old world, which means that the game won’t be ‘as’ different as Blizz claims. Something I saw in a blue post was that they lose over 90% of their players before level 10. I’m not sure of the accuracy of that, to be honest, but it suggests that in order to keep newer players, the starter zones can’t have any of the vanilla-flavoured crap on a stick shovel fed to us as just fine.

The Troll area was completely new and to be honest I only saw a few levels of it, so I can’t really speak to the overall flow, story progression or feel of it. I can say that the artwork looks amazing and the zone seems pretty cool. I’m looking forward to getting back there and seeing if that quest I need has been fixed. The same thing goes for the Tauren zone. It looks good and there is a definite update to the overall story, but I haven’t played through to see it all.

Finally, Mount Hyjal. I flew out to Mount Hyjal, which is cool and crazy. I did a little sightseeing a few days before this and things looked weird. Anyways, Hyjal is a place that just oozes lore and history, coolness and epicness, wonder and amazement, shock and awe. You get the idea. I did the first couple quests there and found that it was really, really hard to level the way I normally do on my warrior (as arms). My normal way of doing things: Charge, rend, mortal strike, overpower, execute. From there, the mob would be dead and I’d go on to the next, rinse and repeat, throwing in Victory Rush when it was available. The problem is that the mobs in the new zone hit hard. Now, I’m not talking like, you were jogging on a cold day and a car couldn’t quite stop in time and it bumped your buttocks causing a bruise hard. I’m talking, there is a snake on a mofo’ing plane that just fell out of the sky and landed on a puppy that was giving a hug to a kitten hard.

What I didn’t realize at first is that Victory Rush has become an absolute must for a levelling warrior, as it now restores 20% of your health, which allows you to keep going. The problem then becomes ‘what happens when you’re questing with others and the mobs still beat on you, but you don’t get the killing blow and so you can’t victory rush?’ Are we going to go back to a time when warriors have to sit and eat after every pull or get use to sighing on the corpse run every other pull?

As I said, I only got a few minutes of play time there, and it may get much better after more time. The thing to remember is that I’m wearing non-cataclysm gear, so there is no mastery on the gear and the stamina boost hasn’t affected me yet. Perhaps with Cataclysm gear on, the huge jump in stamina coupled with the damage bonus to mastery will mean that things die much faster, before they have a chance to do much damage. We’ll see. I will probably try out Prot and Fury soon as well. I don’t know if I have any plans to try out all the classes in the Beta itself, but so far, I’ve tried Druids and Warriors up to level 12, and they both play much better there than on live, so I’m happy with that (at least so far).

Anyways, those are my initial impressions so far. Perhaps in the future I’ll do another post where I discuss lore events that I’ve seen in game. If there are spoilers, I’ll be sure to make it clear for those who want to stay away from them. For now,

Stay Hordecore,

– Fikkle

I’ve been reading wow.com for quite some time now, and while I don’t read every article they publish, there are some columns that I follow with great interest. One of those columns is the Know Your Lore column, written by both Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney. I’m not sure when the column started, but over the last few months I’ve read every single one of them. They’ve covered lots of stuff, from the current politics of the races of both factions and the upcoming changes in the next expansion; they’ve looked at some of the Old Gods, the Titans and some of the new race/class combos coming in Cataclysm. They’ve even done a few Tin Foil Hat editions of the column where they speculate on specific lore topics and conceive massive conspiracy theories surrounding them.

The Lore of the game is one of the main draws for keeping me interested in the game. The phat loots and internet dragons are cool and all, but without the Lore behind them, they are really just ones and zeros. The Lore isn’t just the reason why of the game however, its intricate stories that can be completely unrelated to each other (aside from being part of the Warcraft universe) or they can be intricately interwoven stories. These stories bring the game world to life, make them more than just pixels. As someone who’s levelled countless alts through the game, roleplaying my characters as part of the story is what keeps it fresh and interesting to me. While that in and of itself doesn’t actually change whether or not I have to kill 10 boars, it gives meaning to the mindless grind. Some of my characters may take pleasure from causing the boars pain while they are cooking them alive or chopping them to bits, while other characters may realize that the sacrifice of these animals is necessary to feed their people and may kill no more than is absolutely required.

This type of roleplay isn’t the renfair kind, and it doesn’t even have to include other people, its just my way of weaving my own characters into the greater stories that make up the Lore. Some of my characters have spent most of their careers as soldiers on the frontlines battling the other faction, while other characters have never raised arms against them, focusing instead on ridding the world of the evils that plague it, or plotting their own supreme domination of that same world. It’s this kind of living story that keeps me so interested in the game and makes me want to roll alts so that I can approach the stories from new and unique directions.

If you’re not interested in the Lore of the game, I’m sure there is something equally as compelling that keeps you playing or coming back, but I would recommend looking a bit closer at the Lore as it can open up a completely new aspect of the game. One of my fondest memories of the game was exploring the Plaguelands shortly after having read the book about Tirion Fordring, and then finding him in game. There are so many ‘cool’ moments like that out there just waiting for you to discover them, and I’m guessing there are going to be a metric crapton more come Cataclysm.

Stay Hordecore,

Fikkle

PS. If you didn’t get the hint, go and read the Know Your Lore columns at wow.com, they’re well written, interesting and provide so much more meaning to the game.

PPS. I’ve been blogging from my iPhone lately, which is great and all, but linking is harder than from my laptop so I apologize for the lack of links.