WoW activities, recent and planned

Unlike many players, I do not intend to get Cataclysm for World of Warcraft until some time this weekend. I'm currently leveling a gnome mage, so it's unlikely that any of the new content would affect me much. Listed below are what I've been up and my near term plans in WoW, in no particular order.

I have a shiny new gnome mage that I started a little over a week ago up to 32. I was really impressed by the new gnome starter area. I also like the fact that zones and quests lead right into each other. Previously you would run out of quests somewhere in the Wetlands and be forced to go to the area of Stormwind to continue leveling. So far I'm about halfway through the the Hinterlands and have never come close to running out of content. To me completely separate leveling tracks is a good thing, because it means replayability. I still have the entire Westfall -> Redrock -> ect. quest chain series in front of me untouched whenever I decide to roll my next alt.


I also leveled a tailor to 20 to support my mage. She will now be able to make gear that is relevant for him into the low 40s at least, and has sent around silk bags to all of my characters that needed them. I could make some very nice blue boots, save that spider's silk is going for berserk prices on the auction house. I refuse to spend 40+ gold to make one pair of boots for a level 30ish character.


Said tailor is also my first Drainei to hit 20. While the zones are very pretty, and the capstone quest in the 10-20 area feels utterly epic, I can't say I enjoyed leveling through there nearly as much as the dwarf/ gnome areas. There is too much running back and forth to the same spots from a central hub, and the whole "kindly space demons stranded in Azeroth" storyline has never really clicked with me.

The Drainei zones are quite pretty.

However...

Said Drainei is also my first priest to hit 20. The fact that I was able to immediately see a DPS boost from going Shadow spec at ten really helped me out a lot. Before my priests always stalled out in the low teens when I got tired of wanding things to death (easily the best low level DPS for the old priest). The class is still a bit painful to solo with (at least compared to my mage, which can take down most foes in the time it takes to cast Pryoblast and Fireball), but much improved from what I remember.

I also decided to bite the bullet and join a PuG flagged as a healer. It was actually a heck of a lot of fun, everyone was really nice. I was able to keep everyone maxed out for most of the instance, even the mage who had a tendency to over-pull. I did however cause a wipe by not paying enough attention to my health bar. Surprisingly no-one gave me any grief about it. The reaction was "No worries" and on we went.

Future plans include getting my mage up to 40 so he can buy his rocket chicken, and maybe doing a few instances to improve his gear. Green gear from quests is starting to catch up to my blue gear, a sure sign I need to hit the dungeon finder.

Rocket chicken, how I covet thee!

I'll also be installing Cataclysm some time in the next week. I'm debating whether to start a Goblin, start a Worgen, or simply to keep leveling my Gnome. I'm curious to see whether BC content is more fun now that you can get a flying mount at 60, which of course has nothing to do with Cataclysm. The main content I'm looking forward to in Cataclysm is actually the new Archaeology system.

Bullet dodged, dongle ordered

When I was finally able to get back in to my WoW account, I discovered to my amazement that none of my gear or gold was missing. Apparently, someone hacked my account so that they could use it to send spam tells on a random server. The only change to the account was a new level one character with a name like "Dskjsdka" on a server I don't play on (quickly deleted). Many password changes later (g-mail, banking, ect.), everything seems fine. I haven't had any trouble with the account for the past two days, keeping my fingers crossed. In any case, I broke down and ordered a dongle yesterday.

My WoW carreer begins and ends in the blink of an eye

I've been playing WoW for about four days, and my account has already been hacked. I did full system checks with Spybott and Avast, and changed my password to something horrific that I have no hope of remembering (I had to write it down) filled with numbers, letters, and shift key symbols. Even after all that, my password got changed while I was out with some friends at dinner tonight. My billing is now canceled. I may be able to get in for my last few weeks on December 1st. However, any time investment in WoW is starting to seem foolish unless I spring for a dongle. When I calm down more, I'll decide whether to dongle up.

Healers of WoW PuGs, I salute you

Last night I started mixing in the Dungeon Finder with normal questing on my new mage. The fact that it takes me so long to get a group as a DPS is actually pretty cool, because it lets me mainly work on quests and get whisked off to a group every 30 minutes or so. My job in a group is also easy as hell: hit stuff in the face with fire until it dies, and don't get aggro off of the main tank. It's been really rewarding, Grizlith now is running with several pieces of blue gear that make his quest rewards and/ or anything my pocket tailor can craft look stupid. On my first run, I was the only cloth wearer and got three items.

In my second run, I wasn't paying enough attention and got aggro off of a boss from the main tank by opening up with big spells when he was still winding up. Our priest did his best, when he shouldn't even have to be paying attention to my health, but couldn't keep me up. Once the boss was down, as the priest was rezzing me, someone called a vote to kick him from our party. It was quickly rejected, but holy cow...wtf? I spazzed out and got myself killed, and one of the other DPSs immediately blames the healer. If that is the kind of treatment healers normally get in WoW PuGs, my hat goes off to anyone that has the patience to stick with it.

Obligatory WoW shattering post

After some internal debating, I decided to sub up to WoW for a month and see what the post shattering game is like. STO certainly has me intrigued, and I plan to buy the full game soon. However, the only way for me to try out the "new improved" WoW was to sub up.

I started a gnome mage named Grizlith. My first ever MMO character was a wizard in Everquest named Grizlith (a name I made up). Since then, I've recreated Grizlith in a variety of games. He was actually my first main in WoW. I got him up to the ripe old age of 62, and then decided I wanted a redo and deleted him. Soon after that I switched to horde on a different server, got a warlock up to 70 Burning Crusade era, and kind of forgot about him.

With the cataclysm revamp of WoW, I had a good excuse to re-roll him on my old alliance server. Poking around, it turned out I had all the alts needed to twink him to the gills. This chick is a maxed out tailor for her level:



And this guy is a maxed out leather worker for his level:


Because of armor kits, I was able to get Grizlith into cloth armor that has almost as much AC as plate mail would at his level. [As an aside, I defy anyone to get together a cooler looking set of level 20 leather than what Yarik (above) is wearing.] Grizlith also got lucky with drops, he ended up with a beer mug that went perfectly (low level stats wise) with a dagger that he got from a quest:


As to revamped WoW itself, all I can say is that I am stunned so far. The leveling game that I have seen up to 12 is substantially streamlined and improved compared to what I last played. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that Blizzard has achieved a level of polish that will be next to impossible for competing MMO developers to emulate. Almost every single quest in the old WoW has been replaced with something better. So far the storylines are more engaging and clearer than anything I remember.

The mechanics of quests have also been improved. Where before you would hit a hub with ten random quests, you now hit a hub with fewer quests but each quest directly contributes to the storyline you are playing through. Kill and gathering quests remain, but there are also now a large number of quests where you are doing interesting stuff like flying around in a plane and bombing foes or leading a robot around to clean up toxic sludge (two random examples).

Finally, class designs have been given a huge overhaul. I haven't messed around with all the classes, but the ones I have tried had (mostly) pleasant surprises. Like Anjin, I was really pleased with the redesign of Mages. Many spells have been updated or improved. For example, Arcane Missiles now can't be used unless it procs off of another offensive spell. Each spell you cast has a 40% chance to activate it. When it does become active, it cannot be interrupted...so you can use it in melee range. On even cons it's good for roughly half a health bar. In old WoW I barely used arcane missiles on my mages. Unless facing a foe resistant to frost and fire it rarely was worth casting. Now, it's one of my favorite spells.

I am not by any means claiming that "the new WoW" is a perfect MMO. It's still a shallow linear MMO lacking certain basics like housing and appearance slots. However, within the limited scope Blizzard has chosen to focus their game, post Cataclysm WoW sets a bar that I doubt any directly competing MMOs are going to be able to reach. This is some of the smoothest and most entertaining questing I've ever experienced. A five year old MMO that I was so burned out on I thought I'd never be able to play it again now seems fresh, engaging, and relevant to the modern market.

I might actually sub to something

For roughly the past year I've been playing FtP games (in the broad sense of any game that doesn't require you to pay a monthly sub to log on) almost exclusively. LoTRO was still technically sub based most of the year, but since I bought a lifetime sub a couple of months after launch is was effectively FtP for me. SWG never got a sub out of me, I barely made it to the end of the trial. I also dallied with Age of Conan, but again never ended up subbing. Due to a billing snafu I ended up with two free months to play it, and that was more time than I needed. Apart from those, Allod's Online, Myst URU, DDO, Wizard 101, and EQ2X have been filling my online gaming hours. I've gotten so used to bopping in and out of games whenever it pleases me that I've been really hesitant to actually sub up to anything.

That looks like it's coming to an end soon. On Monday I downloaded and played the demo for Star Trek Online. I was underwhelmed (to put it mildly) by the tutorial the first time I tried it. However, I gave it another go with tactical (DPS boosting) officer and made it all the way through the first mission you get with the demo. While it didn't exactly blow my socks off, I saw a lot of interesting mechanics I'd like to explore more. I could get the full game up and running for only $20, and I may.

And of course, there is Cataclysm. As any one reading this knows, World of Warcraft has been heavily revamped as of this week. Even without buying the expansion there is an almost entirely new 1-60 leveling game in place now. I am very much tempted to pony up $15 to check it out. However, it leaves me with kind of an odd quandry. WoW isn't installed on my current PC at all. Do I do a fresh install on my current PC using Blizzards horrifically slow down loaders (the worst I have ever experienced with any MMO company since leaving 56K behind [Edit: as it turns out Blizzard has updated their downloader, the new one is amazingly zippy...12 gigs in less than two hours]), or plug in the toaster living under my bed that has the entire game installed? Further, so great is my WoW burnout that I'm not entirely sure that even a brand spanky new 1-60 game would be enough to keep me entertained. I made it all of two levels into WotLK the last time I tried it.

In any case, too many interesting options is not a bad place to be. In either case, less than what I spend in a bar on a weekend is at stake.

LoTRO News Tidbits

A lot of little news tidbits have been piling up around Lord of the Rings Online lately. First off, the next expansion has been announced, the Rise of Isengard. Ardwulf posted a preview video on his site earlier today. Details include a level cap increase and a major revamp of monster play, including a new PvMP zone. My experiences with monster play in LoTRO have always been a lot of fun, I'm glad to see it getting some attention after all this time. I also can't wait to see Isenguard and Orthanc.

In other news that I can't believe I missed, back in September it was announced that Radiance is going to be removed from LoTRO. All I can really say about this is "thank god." The radiance system single handedly made high end crafted gear and the gear you can earn doing PvP useless for end game activities. Not because the stats on Radience gear are really all that much better than other gear that's available, simply because they have a "radiance" stat that is needed for end game instances. The entire radiance system struck me as a baldfaced attempt to stretch the limited endgame content of launch Moria. Presumably due to the addition of scaling instances, such system is no longer needed in current LoTRO. Endgame options now abound.

Finally, the upcoming Yule festival activities are generating some controversy. An entire new town is being added just for the event, which I am very much looking forward to. The contoversy has arisen because it is possible to complete the main quest chain either via normal heroic options (feed the homeless, give money to the poor, ect.) or by being a complete bastard (e.g., destroying a man's source of income and then stealing from him). Some players that have tested the content on Bullroarer feel a quest chain which rewards you for being a selfish jerk is out of place in LoTRO.

I have mixed feelings about it from what I've read. The option to act like an evil bastard certainly goes against the feel of the rest of LoTRO. However, I think that choosing to solve a problem through kindness doesn't mean as much if you don't also have the option of being a selfish jerk. Being a hero isn't nearly as heroic if it's your only choice.

Edit (Update): Blue Kae and Syp also have posts up about Rise of Isenguard, and Massively published a story with many details not mentioned in Turbine's press release. One thing that really stuck out is the mention that the Legendary Item system is also being revamped to make it less random and focus more on player choice. While I am delighted that the system is getting a revamp, I have to say that it's about freaking time they did something with it. The current LI system is more like a really grindy take on roulette than what I envisioned when legendary weapons were first announced pre-Moria.