Patch 6.2 My Precious

And it is here.  Today.
 

      Saturday was a LFR running day.  I wasn't available as I had to work, and not enough folks showed so we ended up running LFR together.  Wasn't there, but I assume Magilla was stoic, people shot and stabbed things, and fun was had.  If fun wasn't had, then I blame Gul'dan.  Dude ruins everything.

     Sunday was O.k.  We went in and one shot Hanz and Franz, (we decided to skip Gruul) and then went and took some swings at Beastlord no one remembers my other name.  Last week we one shot him.  This week we had some trouble, and weren't able to down him.  Part of it is still getting a consistent group.  I'm hoping Hellfire's excitement will help with that.

     Today 6.2 drops and all of Warcraft quivers in excitement.  New content is always ready to be devoured after a lull, and this lull has felt long despite the fact that it probably was a lot shorter then we used to wait between raids and content.  Mists however has built us up for quicker content and now I don't think Blizzard has the option of easing up on the gas.  I still think at times that the content is too fast, but in this case it's time.

      First of all you can start making sure you are getting ready for the return of flying.  Getting the Draenor Pathfinder achievement will earn you wings for your main character, and any other character you have in Draenor over level 90.  This may actually get me to start leveling characters against.  Be aware there is a bit to getting the Pathfinder achievement.  However, Wowhead.com has a great feature where you plug in your character and it will tell you what you have left to do to earn flying.  You can find it at http://www.wowhead.com/flying.  Be aware that the last 100 treasures achievement is a little misleading here.  It tells me incomplete because Lag hasn't gotten 200 treasures, but he does have over the required 100.  Otherwise plug yourself in and see what you have left.  Securing Draenor achievement quests can be bought in your Garrison if you haven't done them.  You can buy maps of the different treasure locations in Ashran.  Loremaster you will have as long as you finished the main questlines, and exploring is just riding around and seeing stuff.  If you start now when flying drops you will have it available to you soon.  Be sure to work up your three Tanaan Jungle reps because you will need those at revered as well.

      Timewalking is coming.  During the weekends here and there you can hop into special events where you can run past dungeons with your characters being nerfed down so the content will be at level for Heroic.  The gear dropping here will be dropping to an ilevel rewarding to your character.  The reason you can only run these on weekends is so you might want to run some Mythic dungeons....

      And yes Dungeons are getting a Mythic level.  It is recommended you have at least some Highmaul/Blackrock gear before attempting these.  ilevel 680 gear will be dropping here with the chance at a ilevel 700 piece from the last boss.  These Mythic dungeons will be on a weekly lockout like LFR so don't expect to run them non-stop to get geared.

     Naval missions are coming as well.  I hope you have around 6,000 garrison resources saved up because that's what it is going to cost you to get your naval yard built and rocking.  Blizzard has said unlike garrison missions these won't be so time consuming and the rewards will be good.  So, plan on setting your missions every couple of days or every week.  This will also be how you create an inroads into Tanaan Jungle.

     Yes we now go back to the area where this all started.  Back to Tanaan to explore and fight the Fel Iron Horde?  Anyway.  New quests, new factions, new goodies.  Oh, and new mats for Professions so you will have to leave your garrison.  MWha ha ha

     Other features include a new Quest journal that gives suggestions on how to best develop your character.  And several folks having to relearn their classes.  Oh, and did I mention Hellfire Citadel.  Yeah, new big green fiery raid.  Bring it baby!  I am hoping this isn't the last big content patch for the expansion and that Blizzard has something else up their sleeves.  I mean, Gul'dan is not even a boss in the Hellfire Citadel....

Anyway, what is everyone looking forward to the most when the servers come up and they can log in today?

Lag

   

Will Garrisons be in the next Expansion?

I'm not that sure.

      Saturday was interesting.  We were short a couple people so we went and stomped down Heroic Mogu’shan Vaults and Heart of Fear to get our guild achievement for the mount.  It was nice laid back fun and if we are short again I am hoping to stomp throne of Thunder in the same way next.  But hopefully next week we won’t be going to back to do old content.

       Sunday was awesome.  Pure, 100% awesome.  Lag put his tank pants back on due to the sudden departure of our off tank.  Despite having to kick the rust off my tank skills we ran pretty smooth.  Once we were up and running we downed Gruul, Hanz and Franz, and Beastlord with only one wipe between the fights.  I found the groove I needed and we moved through well.

      Now, while I would love to rant on having folks leave during a transition time.  For example, like when we are swapping to weekends and things might be rough getting schedules in place. I really want to discuss garrisons and how I think this system will work in the next expansion.  (See, I’m being good and moving on.)

      Garrisons have been the big feature of this expansion.  There is no way advancing in Draenor without building/maintaining one and without getting to level 3 you won’t be able to experience then next big bout of content.  They have allowed us to make stuff from any profession that we might need.  They have made it so gathering (other than leatherworking) can largely be done without going anywhere.  The garrison had felt like your specific place on Draenor, and it has pretty much destroyed the desire for most folks to go out into the world.

      I don’t believe we will see garrisons like this again.  I think the ideas taken to the next expansion might include building your own little quest hub, but won’t be as comprehensive.  Allowing folks to make stuff from any profession, gather, play the Auction House, and do pretty much everything in one space has been detrimental.  There is a reason a lot of people are referring to this game as “World of Garrisons” now.

     There is no need to go to a main city unless you are actually PVPing in Ashran.  Other then maybe a weekly visit to get your tokens for raiding.  Every time I go I’m lucky to see more than a handful of other players who are trying to get in and out as quickly as possible.  Gone are the days of players hanging around showing off mounts, or just staying together in a central location.  For all the rage that happened when Blizzard announced it would be moving the Capital Cities for the factions before expansion launch it seems it didn’t matter what they did.  We have abandoned the idea of a faction hub where everyone hangs out.

      I normally have an alt with every profession leveled.  Garrisons have destroyed my need for that.  Not only am I not leveling several alts like I have in previous expansions, I haven’t felt the need too.  I have no use for professions I can access if I can just make items in garrison.  On top of that, I just don’t have it in me to level a bunch of alts if that means I have to keep up with garrisons on them as well.  With three level 100 characters it feels like a big time sink right now.  There is no way I could keep up on garrisons on ten or twelve characters.  It just feels impossible to do more with a limited amount of time.

     So, my guess is that for the next expansion we will see things pulled back to somewhere between the garrisons we have now, and the farm we had in Mists of Pandaria.  I think we will still have something that we can work with and build up, without it taking all desire to do other things in the game away.  The other thing I could see happening is they could just do away with garrison/player housing completely as Blizzard does have a tendency to overcorrect when something doesn’t work.  This would be a shame as I do like the feeling my character has a little bit of something invested in the current world.

     So what we need is an area where we can enhance our professions, without replacing them.  Supplement our resources without replacing the need to grind.  Build and have something that feels permanent without being tied down to the point where you feel like not visiting several times a day puts you behind.  I am not sure how they can pull this off, but I like the idea of them doing some sort of guild housing, or maybe a keep that is phased in a way that you see other players, but certain buildings look different or change when you enter them.

    How do you think they can change garrisons for the next expansion, if they include them at all?

Lag/Lazyeye

     

       

   

The Return of Flying in Draenor.

The community has spoken.

     Saturday raid didn't happen.  I forgot I had promised to be elsewhere that night, and Magilla had prior plans as well.  Not a great way for one of our first Saturday raids, but I think one of the downsides of the weekend raiding is that things are going to come up for people more often.  I ask that people are patient as we work out schedules and the kinks.  Things may be rough for a while.

    Sunday night we didn't have enough folks so we went back and stomped a couple of Pandaria raids.  If we are short again this weekend we are going to stomp them on heroic and get the guild the mount from the first raid tier of Pandaria.  It wasn't current, but it was fun.  Spirits where high and we all had fun.  Was a good way to spend a night.

     But let's get to the topic at hand.  Ian Hazzikostas had made an announcement that flying wouldn't be happening in Draenor or future expansions.  To put it mildly the community did not take this announcement well.  There are several forum posts of rants and raging over this decision.  The few that were defending this choice seemed the vast minority.  I fell on the side of wanting flying back, in a calm rational way.  However as I stated this would not be a game ender for me.  I wasn't going to rage quit and stomp off to other pastures.

     The community was heard however, in the largest rage fit since Blizzard announced they were going to make people post their real names on the forums.  (Did you remember that little gem?)  Here is the article they posted on the matter. Dev Watercooler-Flying in Draenor  Now lets discuss.

      For those who don't want to read the whole thing, let me put it in a nutshell.  Flying will now be introduced into Draenor sometime after 6.2 (not during the patch launch.)  In order to get flying you will have to finish Loremaster in Warlords along with a couple of other achievements.  At that point you will get a shiny new mounts, and all your toons will be able to learn flying after level 90.

      This I think is an elegant solution.  It let's Blizzard get us into the game on the ground while leveling and achieves their goals.  At the same time it will allow people to earn the right to fly, and help them level alts later on rather then having to hoof it through the content on every single toon you level.  I think this is a model they should look at for future expansions as well.  I don't mind them gating flying behind achievements or level requirements.  I don't think it breaks the content to let people fly around after they have done it once.  I am not sure this will get people out of their garrisons, but that's another discussion.

       There is a sacrifice that is being made here that folks aren't looking at.  Dairies on Convert to Raid podcast mentioned that time spent on making content work for flying could be time spent on other content, and he's not wrong.  Think about it.  If Blizzard didn't have to make the world pretty for those who buzz above and fly they could put that time elsewhere.  More raid content? Dungeons? Questlines?  Things that could help fill these times of lull between major patches and give us more stuff to do in game.  I am not saying that this trumps the joy of flying and the ability to re-explore the world from above, but it should be taken into consideration.  As with all things, you have to ponder what you are sacrificing in order to gain.

      How do you feel about this? Is Blizzard on the right track with this plan?  Do you think this means that they won't try to take flying out of newer expansions, or stick to a model like this?  What are your thoughts.

Lag/Lazyeye.

Sharpening Swords for Hellfire Citadel.

The switch has come.

      Tuesday we went in and fiddled around in Blackrock without making much progress.  We worked on Hanz and Franz when we finally got moving, but to no avail.  At the end of the night we went home without an love.

      Wednesday was a little better.  We went in, had to pull one healer from group finder, but managed to down Hanz and Franz.  We then went to Beastmaster, and with a newer healer and his friend managed to get our first Beastmaster kill!  Apple Beer for everyone is what I say to that!

      We are now to about the midpoint of the expansion.  I am sure I've mentioned that before but it bears repeating.  The first tier of raiding is wrapping up, and the second part of the first tier actually felt like a mid-expansion raid.  Which is always the one our guild struggles the most with.  Due to attendance etc.. it seems that's the raid we never quite finish.  I am pretty sure at this point we won't be finishing before Hellfire Citadel is released, but I would love to be proved wrong.

      When Hellfire Citadel is released in a month or two.  (My money is on Mid-June) I am hoping we will move on.  If we can we will circle back and finish later, but we will see how Hellfire Citadel treats us.

      The other big thing is that we have officially moved raid times to Saturday/Sunday 10 server time.  The time I may look at moving to a little earlier (not much) but otherwise we are going to see how this works out.  I also have kindly asked Magilla to be the co-raid leader.  He was crying and wailing, but said yes, so on the days I can't be there it will fall onto his mighty shoulders to run things.

     This change should allow me to go to school without stepping down.  While I am a bit disillusioned with Wow right now, I still enjoy it for the most part.  I have no intention of quitting, but won't be able to be on much other then raiding and a few minutes here and there in the future.  How long this will last? Who knows.  School should take me about a year and a half to two years If I work at their pace.  Once I get out we will see what happens.

    That's my update for the week.  What is new with ya'll?

Lag/Lazyeye