Reinventing is Hard.

Making changes can have a cost.

     So it was a couple of blogs ago that I changed his to theornerywowplayer.blogspot.com as I felt that without me raid leading, it was misleading for me to keep posting as the ornery raid leader.  I didn't want people to click on this expecting raid updates, tips etc... I also wanted to embrace the fact I am wandering a new path in game as I am in life.  I am finding it relaxing to not have to plan and worry about getting the raid team together, doing the prep, etc...

    I still run with my family or other people here and there on the weekends.  Otherwise I am playing at my own pace, working on a few alts and trying to figure out where I fit in now.  I am actively working on my horde rogue as I had the heads up a few of the people I will be working with at my new job are on that side of the isle.  As with everything else, not planning full time raiding etc... just want the option to pop into a dungeon or something with them.  Not mention a couple people I'm working with now...

    However with this change I ran into an issue that I didn't anticipate.  This has never been an earth shattering big blog.  I have no illusions that I am in the same league as the folks at Blizzardwatch, theinstance, Tradechat, or any of the other big names.  I'm just someone spouting off a few words opinions and hoping everything is coherent when people read it.  I'm away my opinion is not always right, and sometimes is misinformed.  I try to be polite, look at issues from different angles and keep myself open minded.

    My views and rating on this blog have dropped though.  Changing the name of the website deleted every single google+ rating I had earned previous to the name change.  My views were normally about thirty on a low day, and I had hit two hundred once or twice.  Normally at least one day a week I would see a nice spike.  Once again, I know that these numbers are small.  I'm not expecting my presence to even compare to most others.

    Now a thirty view day is good.  I don't think I've broken one hundred yet since I changed.  While I don't write this to garner a lot of attention, the attention I did get made me smile.  So maybe I am a little narcissistic at the end of the day?  Who would have thought?

    So now there is nothing to do but keep trucking on.  Hopefully in reinventing all this I will find a new passion in the game and share that with all of you.  I am enjoying not being tied to the computer, or having to log in at any given time. Still plan on running things here and there with family and guild as I can, but I am not locking myself down.  It has been nice to declare a movie night with the family and not have to worry about it effecting the raid team.

     I have finally got my horde rogue to level 110 as well.  That gives me three max level characters, and one on the other side of the fence to poke at things with.  My rogue is a BE female, because you know, they have the best stealth animation in the game in my opinion.  So far running assassination, but will try the other specs shortly.

     How is everyone else adjusting at this time?  How do you recover from setbacks in game or out of game?  How should I re-invent myself?  Is there a new direction I should take anything, or should I just keep trucking on and slowly rebuild?

Lag/Ben Marble

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Blizzcon is Over. I am Underwhelmed this year.

So, I feel like a killjoy here.

     Blizzcon 2016 has come and gone and we were all excited for the big reveals and commotion that comes with this event ever time it is hosted.  We were excited for Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and other Blizzard IP news.  This is where there is a ton of cinematics, news, and upcoming features and games announced.  I honestly feel that it was cool, but not great this year.

     Obviously my first love is for World of Warcraft, this is a WoW blog and it is the only game that Blizzard has that I play on a regular basis.  I hop into Diablo III on rare occasion or Hearthstone but the other games I haven’t gotten into.  Mostly because I have limited time and I don’t want another big time sink pulling me into another direction.

     As someone who has played all three Diablo’s, I was disappointed that there isn’t an expansion or Diablo 4 coming.  I think the idea of going back to old Tristam is cool.  I love the thought of Necromancers, but I only played them a little in Diablo II and getting me to pay for a character pack is not likely to happen.  I think Diablo III needed something bigger this year.  These little tokens are not going to appease folks for long.

     Hearthstone, I will be honest.  New content is cool, but as a casual player I know I’m not going to see the majority of it.  I might hop into the first wing if it is free to see what is happening, but further than that I don’t want to grind the gold or pay the money on an expansion that might last three to four months if it lasts as long as the last expansion.  Which feels like it just barely dropped. 

     Overwatch, let’s be honest.  If you were a fan you knew Sambra was coming.  Now one was surprised at her announcement. Her Cinematic was cool, and I enjoyed it, but as far as everything else goes you would have to talk to someone else on what it means.

     Starcraft, I honestly don’t remember hearing anything.  If I missed it then I am sorry. 

     Heroes of the Storm, the Varian Wrynn/Ragnoros reveal was awesome, and it tempts me to dip my toe into that game a little.  At the same time, the rest of the game you would have to ask someone who plays a lot more.

     And that brings us home to World of Warcraft.  (Yes, I know there are other announcements etc. in other IPs, but like I said, unless I delve deeper they don’t mean a lot to me.)

     In Wow we got a little preview of things coming up.  We now know that flying will be available in 7.2.  We know that we will get a new raid at that time as well.  Oh, and the biggest announcement was that we will be going to Argus in 7.3. 

    Thank you Blizzard for not making Legion a two raid tier expansion, I would have been seriously disappointed.

     We are getting a new set of dungeons in 7.2.  Arcway and Court of stars will become Queue able. Artifact weapons will have further story line to them.  Dungeons gear and difficulty will rise with the raid level to keep them relevant.  Not sure how I feel about that last one.  Another make a wish pet for those who like to donate and get a digital cutie.  And other announcements like that.

     So, a bit of news on World of Warcraft side, but nothing that blew me away.  I feel that it was all very standard information that wasn’t a big surprise.  There was no wow factor for Wow this time around.  Even Argus I was guessing from the information given at the beginning of the expansion and the book Illidan.  Honestly given his history and goals, it would be strange to get Illidan back and not go to Argus.  That is his main goal at this point.  Go to demon home world; destroy demons in a place where they can’t come back.  My guess is that we won’t Armageddon it, and simply throw a bomb into Argus to blow up the planet. 

     Am I off base here though? Was there anything amazing at Blizzcon this year I am overlooking or undervaluing? What is everyone else thoughts on this?

Lag.

     As always, if you want to support my shark surfing exhibitions consider purchasing one of my short stories at Amazon.com for your kindle or e-reading device.

7.1 and Gearing Concerns.

So, I am questioning the gear this time around.

      But first, let's glory in the fact we already have 7.1 up and running.  What you say? Too soon? Too gated?  Yeah, those opinions have been loud and clear.  People are frustrated that there is an attunement quest line before Karazhan.  I honestly haven't started it myself yet, so I'm not going to give an open opinion on it being hard or too long or anything like that.  I don't know.  I just know people hopped on exited to revisit their old favorite raid, and were not able to right away.  I have seen some groups getting together to run it since, so maybe it's not too bad.

      Halls of Valor is out as well, needing to be attuned for as well.  Once again, I think it's a little early for opinions other than, well you have to attune for it.

      This expansion has been rife with ways to get geared up.  Daily quests, dungeons, raids, class hall quests, etc…  There has been no shortage of methods to get gear.  If you are willing to put in the time and effort that is.  My question is, with all the levels of gear, between world quests dungeons (normal, heroic, mythic to mythic+ 10) Raids (LFR, normal, Heroic, Mythic) and World Quests, (I have seen gear up to 840+ on these, but they might go higher I haven’t looked deeply into it.) and PVP

      My question is this, is this too big a spread of gear to be healthy for the game?  When we had a gear squish just an expansion ago, to be pushing numbers like they are now.  If the numbers jump like this, from 800-895 for legendary, per raid tier How out of hand might the gear get by the end of the expansion.  Let's be honest, we haven't even released the end of the first tier, which is coming after the beginning of the year by all accounts.

     I have already seen Mythic dungeon groups asking for gear levels of 860+ which is a little crazy unless you are running Mythic + some crazy number.  If we are looking at a span of almost 100 ilevels a tier, and we go three raid tiers this expansion, that could see us up to ilevel 1000ish.  That is a little wild and out of control.

     Now, on counterpoint, last expansion from my memory, jumped about 50 ilevels a tier, per 2 tiers, which ended up with high end folks being a bit above ilevel 700 at the end of expansion.  Even at 50 ilevels a tier, with thee that would put us at about ilevel 900 at the end of this expansion after this first gear boom.  Honestly it’s hard to say because we have not seen this spread of options before.  Either way, that is a lot of ilevels we are tossing into this expansion.

     And what will come next? Are we going to have another item squish before too long?  If the numbers keep clicking up as high as they are can that be maintained for the rest of the expansion?  What is the long term benefit or damage to the game with all this gear?  How should we keep it better in line if we need to keep the numbers smaller?  Would it be better if they evened things out. so, LFR=reg dungeon, normal raid = Heroic dungeon,  Heroic raid= Mythic dungeon and then have Mythic raid = Mythic plus dungeon somewhere along the line?  (I don't have PVP on this list, because I'm not sure how the gear system works there off the top of my head.)  it would also make dungeons feel more relevant and make 5 man content as rewarding as raids.  

     Of course, there is the hold our part of me that says that 5 man contents should not be as rewarding as raids.  I mean, raids take more work to get together.  They are intrinsically more difficult and are a larger investment of time.  If I am not going to be doing raiding why should I get the rewards of regular raiders?  My answer to that, give them some different rewards.

    Even out gear, and give raiders some cool mounts, unique armor sets, and other such things that set them apart.  I mean, that is what raiders want. To be able to say, look at me!  I have accomplished this.  If you give them other side rewards, I'm not sure they would cry as loud at evening out the gear.  But, there will be some folks crying.  There are always some folks crying.

     The other option, I'm still a fan of doing a level squish.  I don't think it's crazy hard to level a character from 1 to 110, it is a bit of a time investment, but a manageable one.  However, walking in new the the game and seeing there is 110 levels is kind of daunting.  It doesn't manage if you can do it in a quicker time than you used to or not.  People just see that 110.  I say squish the levels down so 0-60 is now 0-30, and make each expansion 5 levels or so.  Put in the scaling technology, so it doesn't feel weird to level through, but make the content stop at the top level so folks can still go back and just destroy stuff if needed.  (i.e. 0-30 content stops at 30)  You could do a gear level squish with this as well.  This would ensure some more longevity in the game and make things feel more attainable to those coming in.  That would be a new level cap of 60 again at the end of this expansion, if that was when they squished it, giving a nice lower number. 

     Once again, I can hear your screams at this idea, but take a breath and think about it.  Do you really want to be leveling characters from 1-140 three expansions from now.  If we take steps like this now, that makes life easier later.  For starting players as well as folks who are leveling things up.

      But what do you think?  Is the gear kind of out of control, or is this just par for the course?  When do you think the next item squish will be, because we know it will happen eventually.  How about a level squish?  How would you feel about it?  Not initially, because no one wants to feel like they have lost years of work, but in the long run?

What points did I miss?

Lag.

If you want to support Ben Marble (Lag) in his dancing the night away, consider to buying one of his short stories on Amazon.com .