December 2010

Guild Instance Runs vs. Pugs #WoW

stargrace December 16, 2010 2Comments

In true nomadic gamer style I have been playing a handful of games but the majority of my friends seem to have divided themselves between EverQuest 2, and World of Warcraft. Of course being – well, me, I decided that we needed a guild in WoW so I created Dragons Flight on the horde side of Argent Dawn – and then I promptly also made Dragon Flight on the alliance side. We’re a tiny but friendly guild and so far most of the people who have joined are gamers that I’ve been playing with a long time now. Last night the majority of us were level 15 or a few levels higher, so we set out to do our first instances as a guild.That’s on the alliance side at least. On the horde side there is an 85 (hugs!) as well as my 82 priest, and another 81 priest as well as a handful of alts. We’re playing alliance for a change and because not everyone owns the Cataclysm expansion yet.

As a guild we’re pretty lucky. I play a healer and we have a paladin (or two) who are able to tank. That means instant queues right there. Two other members play a hunter and a rogue, so there’s some DPS. My healer was level 21 while everyone was 15 so I decided to try an instance or two on my warlock just so that the others could gain some levels. Well. In true PUG form we had incredibly bad luck with our healers.

The first one left after the first named. Why? No idea. They never said anything to group. The second one joined our instance right as we were fighting a named, and then never moved and promptly went offline. I pulled out my warlock tank pet, and the entire group wiped except me. One of my prouder moments, to be sure. Our third healer was a druid and I couldn’t understand why they seemed to be having an incredibly hard time healing after we died three or four times. Then I checked their playerscore. See, you can dislike this addon all you want but it DOES have its uses. Selecting the player and typing /gs provided me with information about their character and upon further inspection I found out that they were a BALANCE druid which means caster dps. NOT restoration. Now, at level 15 as a balance druid you’re missing one of your biggest heals. Restoration druids gain the ability to turn one of their heal over times into a direct heal. The skill has a fairly quick recast timer and even at 21 it’s my second largest heal. Since the majority of the group was not sporting heirloom even this one little thing was causing huge issues for us.

I asked the druid if he knew that he was balance spec’d even though he had queued up as a healer and he replied that he didn’t mean to join as a healer. O.. K.

Anyhow, it was our first dungeon and it was Deadmines and we were almost done after numerous wipes so we just kept trucking. After the zone was completed I relogged to my healer and we did Ragefire without any issues. I like the changes to Deadmines, particularly the boss fights, and especially the one that smashes the target up against a wall and then sticks to the heads of random players. The final fight with Cookie is also awesome where you have to click on healthy food and avoid the rotten stuff.

When the dust had settled everyone had obtained a few new upgrades and a few levels. My paladin is sitting at 24 and I’m looking forward to doing some more guild tanking of my own. We’re in the midst of raising cash for a guild bank and a few tabs since we’re completely new to not only the alliance faction but the server itself. In the mean time, hopefully everyone is having as much fun as I am.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Exploring Archeology #WoW

stargrace December 9, 2010 2Comments

After reaching levle 81 yesterday and picking up my new skill (and training my new talent point) I decided to slow things down a bit and explore archeology which is a new secondary profession that came out with cataclysm. By secondary profession I mean it doesn’t count towards your maximum of two – it runs on the same lines as cooking, fishing, and first aid.

My trainer was in Orgrimmar so that’s where I headed. Training the skill gives you a survey command, as well as the archeology button that you can click to see your collections. How it works is quite simple. At any one time on all four continents there are dig sites. You can locate these by right clicking your map and viewing in continent mode. You’ll see little shovels marked on the map. The next step is to fly to these locations. When you get close, you’ll see that the map has a red area marked off. This is your dig site area. Landing, you’ll use your survey skill and a little machine pops up that scans the area. It will point a telescope in a direction, and a coloured light shows up. The light indicates how far away you are from your extraction site (red, green, or yellow), and the lens of the telescope points the direction you should head.

From there it’s just a matter of narrowing down your search field. Eventually you’ll scan an area and an item will spawn near by that you can interact with. You extract the item and discover something, fragments, tablets, those sorts of things. So far I have discovered 12 fossils (common) and 17 night elf fragments. These work almost like EQ2 collection quests, where you need a particular number of fragments before you can solve the puzzle. They (the fragments) represent pieces of lore and history within the game, and if you’re looking for something fun and different to do (since WoW lacks housing) I really suggest you give it a try. I need 31 pieces to solve the fossil puzzle, and 30 to solve the night elf one. The rewards are fluff items (as far as I’ve been told) but can include mounts and vanity pets. You also gain experience for extracting fragments just like you would for harvesting (mining, and herbalism).

Like most crafting in WoW, it is level restricted. The dig sites will be in any zone area that is equal to your level or lower. That means if you’re level 30 trying to search for dig sites in Outlands or Northrend you won’t find any. I’m pretty excited to solve my first fragment collection and see what sort of lore / story is revealed. Sure, it’s mindless busywork, but I really don’t mind it at all. There are so many people in a rush to get to end game I’d much rather just take my time and enjoy the sights and sounds.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Leveling a Goblin and other Impressions #WoW

stargrace December 8, 2010 3Comments

Last night I decided to create a goblin mage (I’ve never played a mage before) and my intentions were to simply mail myself some heirloom gear and then call it a night. However. I very quickly got caught up in the goblin town and quests and before I knew it two hours had passed. It was that good. In fact it was so good I don’t remember the last time I had THAT much fun creating and leveling up a new character in any game. I literally laughed out loud at all of the quests, the hidden jokes and humour that were found within the starting area. I don’t want to give anything away but needless to say if you have not attempted to play a goblin yet, I HIGHLY suggest it. Take your time, enjoy the laughs.

Sitting at a comfortable level 8 it’s true that the beginner experience is quite simple but I don’t even notice how simple it is because I’m having too much fun. If every starter could balance simplicity with humour I think a lot less people would notice the shortcomings of these zones.

Aside from creating my new goblin, I have barely touched cataclysm. My priest (main) is still level 80 (half way through) and I did a few quests in the new underwater zone. Enough to earn me my seahorse mount (LOVE IT) and get some exploring done. Last night I decided to head to Dire Maul to finish off a dungeon achievement rather than battle the mobs of people in any of the new zones. I was incredibly pleased to discover that you still gain guild experience for completing quests you have out leveled, and I was in fact earning faction with my tabard of choice (happens to be Bilgewater Cartel at the moment) for defeating grey encounters. I absolutely love the method Blizzard has taken for guilds to level up, earning experience and faction through numerous methods like – killing a mob. Completing a quest. Battlegrounds. Guild achievements (guild raids, guild groups). These are ideas I wish were implemented in EQ2 where the only way you can level a guild is by grinding writs (crafting or combat), defeating bosses in group instances (or raids), and turning in status items. You don’t have to like WoW at all to be able to appreciate some of the features that they’ve implemented in their game.

I’ve been very pleased with the launch of everything so far. Servers had no down time for Cataclysm. I restarted and it was there. I imagine they will have to be taken down sooner rather than later to fix any other bugs that may have been encountered along the way, but as far as expansion releases go, this one was flawless.

One side point. I am incredibly impressed with how blizzard has seamless instancing. While questing in the newer zones 90% of the time I am actually in a particular instance that represents a point in time and as I progress my quests I move through layers of instances, and am barely EVER aware of it. An example of this: My goblin eventually gets to a point where she must click on a “town in a box” it’s (you guessed it) a box in the middle of the jungle. No one is around. Clicking on it throws her up into the air, through a cloud, and when she lands PRESTO there is an entire town below her feet, including NPC and players. There’s no zoning, no instance screen, nothing to indicate that you are actually passing through to another zone at all, but you must, because that stuff sure wasn’t under your feet a moment before.

It’s an incredibly fantastic way to feel time passing by, the world changing. There are other examples of this seamless zoning in Wrath zones (Icecrown in specific) and every time I encounter it I’m just struck by what an amazing idea it is.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!