WoW

You Don’t Have to be a Fan to Realize this is Gutsy #WoW

stargrace November 24, 2010 6Comments

I know that over the next little while there will be a slew of WoW posts on various sites as players live through the shattering taking place. Pictured above is the newly designed Brill, and Orgrimmar has had a drastic face lift among other places in old world Azeroth. A lot people I know simply don’t like World of Warcraft – and that’s ok. There’s lots of things not to like which can be said for pretty much every single game out there. That’s why choices are good.

Even if you don’t like the game what so ever – it’s hard to deny the fact that Blizzard is doing something pretty gutsy with their game. They are revamping (basically) the entire world (which is huge). They’re raising the level cap, and adding more dungeons and raids which is something every game seems to do during an expansion. They are adding two new races, and they’re doing it all at once.They’ve had some incredible live events leading up to the expansion that players can take part in. It’s one thing to have a cataclysm take place before your character arrives on a world, and completely different to physically LIVE through one.

Last night when I logged in there was a cinematic explaining the shattering. It was probably the most incredible thing I watched all day, and it made me want to purchase Cataclysm on the spot. THAT is how you release an expansion. What blizzard is doing is enticing old and new players to try out their expansion. When was such a ruckus made  over a 6 year old game? When were we THIS excited? Normally this sort of chatter is reserved for new games that we’re all attempting to get into the beta for. Even if you don’t play WoW and dislike it with every inch of your being, I bet you’ve heard about what’s going on, and maybe, in the deepest, darkest corner of your mind you’re wondering what it would be like to play again. Not that you’d ever admit it.

Just like I hate admitting that Blizzard is doing something right. As one of the very few subscription-without-cash-store games left, they are proving to people that they’ve still got it.

Am I excited? Well. I haven’t played in a month and I decided to subscribe (for a month so far) so that I could check out the changes. I stick by my thoughts that WoW simply doesn’t offer enough to me to make it my main game of choice, and the community is absolutely horrid, but I’m willing to put up with that at least for this massive event.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Waiting it Out #WoW

stargrace October 28, 2010 2Comments

As many people have already posted, I too am feeling the quiet before Cataclysm comes out. I find myself being restless, unsure of what I want to do. I currently have two level 80 characters who are geared well enough to do anything I would like in game (this excludes raids, as they’re not really something I’m interested in) with 5.3k gs. I COULD work on random achievements, but they just don’t interest me.

I do have alts, but again for some reason I’m simply not seeing the pull of the game. It all seems so pointless when everything is about to get destroyed and revamped in the next little while.

If anything I thought this would spur me on to complete things, but I guess I was wrong.

I’ve been trying to finish off the Halloween achievements, but those are incredibly slow going, especially since I’m not spending that much time in game.

How has everyone else been spending their time in Azeroth?

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Stinky – No. Not me. The Pet! #WoW

stargrace October 26, 2010 2Comments

I have to apologize for the upcoming lack of posts, today Fable 3 comes out and I’ll be playing that for a little before NaNoWriMo starts for the month of November. No doubt I’ll still be around, but just not as much as usual. I’m really excited about both events, needless to say.

Last night I logged into WoW wondering what to do. With Cataclysm not too far off I don’t really feel like starting (yet another) character. I haven’t felt like questing, and I’m done grinding for justice.

My time in game last night was spent collecting companions (the little pets that don’t actually do anything) to earn the achievement “Shop smart. Shop Pet smart” for collecting 50 of them. I need more for the final achievement, but for now I’m happy with this little bit of progress.

I also noticed something a little interesting. I’m not sure when it changed, but my 69 death knight was gaining 3124 experience for harvesting herbs via herbalism in Northrend. I was only getting 2k or so experience for defeating the mobs right beside the nodes, and I found this amusing. While I was there a 71 rogue attempted to squash me, but we both died at the exact same time and they left me alone to my harvesting after that. My mining character is 80 but I noticed that the level 16 I was grouped with was gaining experience when I mined nodes in Wailing Caverns. Interesting.

Anyone else looking forward to Fable 3 releasing today? I sort of wish it were releasing for the PC today, but I’m quite happy with the XBox version, as I played Fable 2 for XBox extensively. In fact, it’s probably the only console game that I’ve ever really played to any extent, even though I own a wii, XBox, and PS3. Go figure.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

I Feel Like a Wom– Warlock!

stargrace October 15, 2010 0Comment

I’m still (slowly) going through each of my characters and adjusting them from 4.0.1 – yesterday I decided that instead of being a protection paladin, I’d go dps. Tanks of all shapes and sizes (minus Death Knights currently) have been up in arms over the changes because aggro is now a huge issue. I don’t blame them. Forums are now livid. The most amusing comment I heard was from a paladin who was upset that healbot no longer worked. Healing is one thing I don’t need a mod to do at least.

Yesterday it was the warlocks turn, I teamed up with Detch (priest) and Toargo (warrior) and we decided to trio some of the non-heroic Wrath dungeons. It gave me some time to play around with my talents and figure out what was what. The first thing I did was go down my ‘usual’ warlock line, which (before 4.0.1) was destruction. I found that my casting was sluggish and dps suffered. I was doing ok but not great, 3k in most situations.

We decided to do the zone a second time, and this time I switched out for demonology which was a spec I had actually never used because the dps never compared (in PvE) to the other two chains.

Since 4.0.1 this is no longer the case – my dps went up by a HUGE amount. In my 5k gs outfit I was easily hitting 5-7k on most fights, 12k+ on large groups. FINALLY my warlock FELT like a warlock, instead of a mage class with a pet. My damage comes from my demon, and not so much from me spamming spells. I haven’t even added glyphs yet, so I’m eager to get that situated.

I’m still cranky that most of my stats were removed from the caster weapons I sport. I have Seethe but have been attempting to get the off hand from Halls of Reflection (heroic) for quite some time. Another attempt yesterday resulted in another day of it not dropping. It was probably the fastest run of HoR I have ever done, with the druid easily parsing 10k and the Lich King well behind us the entire way.

I still feel quite bad for tanks and their lack of aggro management with the changes. Toargo mentioned that soloing is quite fun with the boosted dps and heals, but since everyone else in game had their dps boosted by a large amount it was making things difficult for him and that he was reluctant to tank, even with his 5.5k gs. Hopefully something comes to fix that before too long.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!