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.

The Wait is a Mistake.

I know, lot's of awesomeness from Blizzcon today.

     Blizzard and Activision starting their own film and Television company.  They are starting with a Skylanders T.V. show, and mention was made of a Call of Duty treatment.  This is perfect as anyone who has seen Blizzard's cinematics has seen the awesome talent that Blizzard has hired on.  I'm excited to see where they take this.

      The Warcraft movie cinematic was released as well.  I enjoyed it and I look forward to that movie more than I do Star Wars.   I don't feel the trailer gave a ton away other than the idea of the main conflict.  The few shots of Garona made me wish she looked a little more orc like, but really I had no complaints.

      The opening Cinematic for Legion was released as well.  I felt it was VERY Alliance heavy, and that is coming from someone who mainly plays Alliance.  I thought the tone was interesting and I am wondering if they are foreshadowing Varian's doom, or if they are trying to fool us on the direction the expansion will go.  The moment between Sylvanas and Varian before the fight breaks out was something I never thought I would see in a Warcraft game... and anything else I say will be way too spoiler filled for those who haven't watched it.

      And here is where I get a little negative.  They announced, last night actually, that Legion will be released on or before September 21, 2016.

      Really Blizzard? You are focusing on getting content out quicker and it's likely to be well over a year of Hellfire Citadel?  This is going to be a mistake on their part, and I would be surprised if there aren't folks at Blizzard working to make sure they beat that September deadline by a bit.  If they wait that long, I am betting the subscribers who plan on returning will be less than if they dropped it in June, or so.

      The honest part is that the date says BY.  That means there is a chance that the expansion could drop well before September if things work out right.   But with Blizzards standards of perfection and track record, if they do get the game out before September, I wouldn't bet on it being a lot sooner.  They could prove me wrong here however.

      Once again however, this wait could have been alleviated by one or two things.

      Blizzard could have slowed down how quickly they released content by a little.  I'm not saying a lot, but if each of the major patches had been delayed by an extra month or month and a half that could have bought Blizzard 3-5 less months of waiting for the next expansion.  Yes, in reality we would have been waiting just as long, but it would feel as long since the last bit of content was much closer.

      A third raid tier.  I won't lie that I felt it was a mistake for Blizzard to up the price on expansions at the same time they released a two tier expansion.  We had taken it for granted that the previous expansions from Wrath to Pandaria all had three raid tiers.  Yes I know they were saying that the third raid tier was sacrificed for Garrisons, but had they done something, anything, to at least give us a midway raid that would have bought them more time as well.  Instead if feels like we paid more for less content.  That feeling is never good for a player.  It probably won't cost Blizzard my subscription, but I'll be severely dissapointed if Legion only had two raid tiers.  It's just not a direction I think Blizzard should go.

      I'm sure there are other things I could think of.  They could release a patch of just extended quests, make some timewalking raids available, etc... There are things they can, and may do to alleviate this time.  However, remember. Anything Blizzard does at this time is essentially development time they are taking away from Legion, so it becomes a double edged sword if they throw a lot of resources our way to help get past this down time.

    I'm honestly surprised they didn't offer another annual pass deal, because while I don't think this is by any means the death of wow, I thinks it's a major loss of revenue they could have had if things had been planned better.  I honestly hope next time around they do figure this out.  The less people playing World of Warcraft does effect the gaming experience, and I have a right to worry about the future of the game I love.  But enough about that.

What has been your favorite bit of information dropped from Blizzcon so far?

The Last Week Before.....

Blizzcon is coming.  That means the news drought is almost over.

      Had some Firelands fun this weekend.   Nothing big, just a clear for some transmog.

      I've been slow on mentioning it, but the drought got some relief a couple of weeks ago on the PTR.

    We are getting new time walking dungeons from Cataclysm, which to be fair is probably the last expansion that I ran dungeons in after I got past the point where I didn't have to.  They are also expanding the dungeons we are running from Wrath and Burning Crusade as well.  Pretty cool stuff.

     We are getting Valor points back.  Instead of capping how many you can have, they are capping how many you can earn.  Meaning, you will run out of stuff to do to get some Valor love because you simply won't get them from EVERYTHING.  We will be able to use these valor to upgrade item levels again, and they are also making it possible for all your Tanaan Jungle gear to level up to 716 I believe it was... Anyway.  This will give folks a boost to finish the raids they are working on, and maybe even step up a level higher.

     Speaking of raiding, so much rage over a moose.  I mean, Ghost Crawler promised us a moose right?

     Well, he lied.  In order to get this moose you must finish Hellfire Citadel on Heroic or Mythic before the next expansion drops.  With it being shoved into the game at this point, without warning and later in this raid cycle this has folks blowing their tops.  Partially because a lot of people don't think they can finish Hellfire Citadel on Heroic+, but because the time is limited on this mount so you won't be able to go back and get it if you don't finish Hellfire while it's current.  People feel entitled to a chance at anything added into the game.  To be honest, everyone has that chance for this if they can put in the time and effort.  I don't expect to get it, but I'm not putting much effort myself towards this at the moment since my focus is elsewhere right now.  I won't lie, If I get a chance to make a run for it I will, but I'm not sure when I'd find that chance right now.

      But I'm not upset or bitter.  Sometimes there are cool mounts that you don't have time or focus to earn.  I don't begrudge Blizzard this new carrot on a stick.  The mount does look freaking cool though....

     If you are curious you can look up the latest PTR build.  Many things coming.

     Now I will ask, what do you think will drop at Blizzcon this year that might surprise us?

     There is the big push in eSports, but other then that we know most of what is happening.  Legion has been announced, Starcrafts new expansion is dropping already, Diablo has been a little quiet but it might be a little early for another expansion there (I could be wrong) so what do we think will be the big surprise announcement?

     I personally would love to see another annual pass.  My suspicion is that we won't however.  I wonder if they found that the folks who signed up for that where those who would have just played Wow without cancelling subscription anyway.  Or if there was enough negative press that it made Blizzard decide it wasn't work trying again.  Either way that seems like a one time deal at this point.

     But man, if they announced that those who signed up for one would get Overwatch for free and a themed in game mount... I would be on that train.  But I of course probably won't unsubscribe during this time either.

Anyway, that's my rambling for this week.
Lag

We Have Time on our sides.

So here we are, It feels to me like everyone is over Warlords, and pining for Legion already...

     This week was fairly O.K.  On Saturday we went in and downed the first three bosses in Hellfire Citadel again.  I am still back and forth on saving progress here, because I know there is a couple pieces of gear folks could get from the first few bosses... but I want to move forward more quickly.

     Sunday we picked up on Council, and even with odds against us we started working on the Council fight again.  We only had 3-4 pulls when the tank we pulled from the nether dropped and left us stranded with 45 minutes left to go.  Rather than pull someone in for half an hour by the time we found them, we called it there.  Of course... we made some nice progress on council!  We might have downed them too if we hadn't lost the guest tank.  He dropped without a word.  Next week I'm pretty sure we will have that fight down.

      Now, with Legion on the way, and despite my tone here it is on the way, we still have some time to wait.  Beta hadn't dropped yet, and with Blizzard the betas for World of Warcraft tend to last a long while.  Several months in most cases.  So, supposing that the Beta for Legion starts right after Blizzcon, in November, we are still probably looking at a March release if they move quickly.  That is guessing at a 3 month long beta and that Blizzard might be very far along in their process.  Most likely the Beta will be longer and we will be looking at June for the time the next expansion drops.  I could be wrong, feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but I feel it's unlikely if we don't see the Beta by Blizzcon that we won't see the next expansion sooner.

     So what to do in the mean time?  I know I plan on sticking to raiding schedule.  Other then that Denarin and Scorpiack are working on openly recruiting to our guild "Fear Itself" on Zangarmarsh.  My hope is to get some of these folks that get abandoned as guilds start to go elsewhere and unsubscribe.  I'm looking at this time of "dulldrums" to do some building.  I haven't had a lot of time myself lately, but I'm managing to log in for an hour here and there.

     Other things that you can do right now? Level your characters.  Build up the character you want to play next expansion.  If  that's your main, you can always get an alt ready.  If you want to try something new, now is the time to get working on it.  Unless it's a demon hunter, demon hunters will have to wait.

     You can work on old achievement and content.   I know on my pally I can solo anything form original wow to dragon soul fairly easily and quickly.  If you ever wanted a rare mount drop off one of those raids, go start farming it.  There are several sweet mounts that are hard to find.  Go get 'em.

     Level something new from scratch.  1-100 still takes a little while.  Go experience the story from the beginning again.  Or start a character on the opposite factions side.  If you haven't played all the starting areas since Cataclysm you are missing out on some great stories.  I recommend the Forsaken starting zone.  It's the reason I have some a desire to see Blizzard do something big with Lillian Voss....

     If you can't find anything to keep you interested, then unsubscribe and wait.  The game will be here when you get back.  I'm a die hard and probably won't unsubscribe unless I literally have no more time to play.  As long as I can at least do raids I'm here for the duration.  My honest guess is that with Wow down to 5+million subscriptions right now, that before Legion drops we will be down to 3.5-4 million.  Once again I don't think this is a death knell in any way for Wow, because when Legion comes back the players will too.  And I think we will have a resurgence that quiets the naysayers until the next subscription drop.  But that is my guess as well.  Since this is all speculation and opinion, I could very well be wrong.

Lag.

I am not discussing Gul'dan spoilers.... I'm not!

But I am oh, so happy about them.

     Tuesday we went into Highmaul again with a heavily alted group.  We only managed to get three bosses down, but I am holding the save and we will keep going in until the whole raid is done, then it will be Blackrock, all raid every raid.

     Wednesday we ventured back into Blackrock Foundry.  Gruul went down quickly and we moved on to Hans and Franz, whom we finally took down this week!

    Really though, if you don't mind spoilers (and I'm wondering how long this is considered a spoiler) You should watch the cinimatic for the end of Blackforge.  It is amazing and has sprung up a lot of good questions.  And the fact that as always Khadgar is right.  That dude is always right.  Assuming it's really Khadgar. (If you have read any of Matt Rossi or Anne Stickney's Tinfoil hat Lore columns, you should.  They discuss this a little bit at blizzardwatch.com)

      The other thing that just hit me was that Blizzcon was announced and somewhere between juggling work, school activities and Girl Scout cookies I missed when they released this information.  It will be November 6th and 7th this year.  Assuming that they are going to try and stick to the timeline Blizzard is aiming for, if they announce the next expansion at Blizzcon, they would be only giving us a few months heads up before it drops.  That is unless they decide to do a third raid tier in Warlords.  That would put us at about six month notice.  Unless they go thirteen months again between expansions.   Then most of us will be crying.

     The raid team continues to evolve.  We have some new blood coming in which makes me ponder our direction.  I want to finish Highmaul and move on to Blackrock full time, but with the new folks coming in I debate that course.  I want a chance to get folks some gear, though if they are running their LFRs every week, the Gear should be coming.  Not everyone is pulling great dps yet, but I'm seeing improvement weekly on those hitting lower numbers.  I think we are on our way, but I'm not sure how quick we will get there.  I don't want to stagnate and stay in place, but I want to make sure we have every opportunity to make folks ready for Blackrock full time.

Little hair metal for you today.

Scattered in my thoughts to day I am.

See you all in raid this week.

Lag/Lazyeye

     

   

Blizzcon 2014. It's on.

Really not much Wow to talk about.

      Are you surprised? Well you shouldn't be.  With a week left before the next Xpack launches I doubt that blizzard had much to say.  I mean there were a couple of live blogs, I read through them.  Not much revealed there we haven't seen before.  As far as Blizzcon's go this one was kind of Wow light and for once I am glad I am not in a position to go.  As much as I love Blizzard, I would want to go to a Blizzcon where my favorite game was the focus.

      Not that there wasn't some focus.  There was a Warcraft movie panel with some cool art.  Depending on what you want to do, you can got to fightforthehorde.com or fightforthealliance.com and get signed up for news on the upcoming movie.  So far they sent some artwork for tablets, facebook, and/or computers.  I imagine as things move on they will have more stuff to promote what they are doing.

     The question then comes, what does this mean for the announcement of the next Wow expansion.  Traditionally this happens during Blizzcon, and Blizzcon, if it happens wont' be until another year from now.  Traditionally.  Does this mean we will be looking at two years of Warlords of Draenor?
Or the expansion being dropped within a couple months of being announced?

     The second is a thought I don't like.  Since I normally have to budget in two expansions, one for me and one for my wife, I like having some time to figure when to buy in.   I would rather have two years of Draenor, and have them spread the content out a little more efficiently.  If they had waited an extra month, month and a half for each major patch of Mists we wouldn't feel like we were in the middle of a downtime at this point.  (Not that I can say much since we only killed Garrosh a couple weeks ago.)  Dragon Soul was nicer to us as we had Deathwing on Farm for a couple months before Mists dropped.

      In my opinion if we are going to see the next expansion in a year Blizzard will have to make the announcement in July or August. at the latest.  The timing on this would have to be critical since if they make it too early, we are pushing through this expansion looking at what comes next and that doesn't feel good.  Too late and people are scrambling to get the resources to buy the new expansion if you have to budget like most of us.

     The other danger, and I can't remember where I read it, is the thought that if Blizzard cuts down the expansions to two raid tiers instead of the traditional three, topped with the price increase, people will start to complain they are getting less for paying more money.  I think after ten years of no price increase on the monthly subscription for us Americans, that ten dollars is not much to complain about.  I do think, looking at the fact that the price has increased elsewhere that eventually we will see our monthly subscriptions go up.  Not by much, but enough to drive some people off of the game.  Let's be honest.  If they raised the monthly subscription by one cent, people would yell foul and jump ship.
   
     There were some awesome things though, Overwatch looks cool.  I think this won't be the last IP we see Blizzard introduce in the next couple of years.  The best way for them to grow their business at this point I think is sideways into other area's they normally haven't touched.  And they are doing it.  Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone was only the beginning.  Overwatch won't be the last.  I expect to see a lot of cool new things coming from Blizzard.

That's it for now, see you in game.
Lag/Lazyeye

Heroic and Blizzcon.

Alright, here we go...

     It's been a busy couple of weeks....  And I admit to not having written this last week, partially in frustraition.

     Last week between Tuesday and Wednesday we managed to get to both Thok on regular and Heroic on Thok.  Sunday we snuck back in only to find that our Heroic save had been corrupted so that we had to start at the beginning, so we worked Garry on Regular.  And we died.  Sadly.

    Tuesday this week we went in knowing we would be working on regular as the same issue was still presenting with heroic.  We downed Garrosh for the second time on regular and then thanks to a guildy who had a heroic save on an alt we were able to fight Garry on Heroic.  We got him close but didn't quite kill him off.

    Wednesday we went in to try him again.  This time (after a rant from yours truly) we managed to down him in about an hour and called raid early.  Gratzy to all who were there.  We can say we downed Heroic Garrosh and now have shiny titles and better BOA's to level with.

   Of course the other big news is Blizzcon launching tomorrow.  I think the next expansion to Starcraft, and Hearthstone will be shown.  I would also not be surprised to see them show off something up and coming for Diablo III.  I am guessing we may get introduced to a new Blizzard project or two, and maybe Beta release plans for Heroes of the Storm.  What of World of Warcraft you ask?

     I have heard people wonder if they are going to announce the next expansion.  This would fit into their goal to release more content faster and keep pushing us along.  I honestly feel the opposite.  I hope they don't tell us the next expansion because it would feel strange to walk into Warlords knowing what was going to happen after from the get go.  I believe that would be a mistake that might make Warlords feel like something in between and not it's own expansion.  I am one of the few though that thinks that having an expansion about every other year is better then every year.  Truly part of it is budgeting with me.

     So, next week the question is what next? Do I just push an alt run through regular Siege to get more toons some heirlooms? Or do we try and work Heroic again?  Maybe we should go back and try to finish Throne of Thunder?  I haven't fully decided.  Honestly, part of me wants to start my short break from raiding early so I'm fresh and ready to start leveling on the 13th.

     Still not sure if I'm leveling Lag or Lazyeye though.... I'm not convinced we have a steady 2nd tank at this point.  We have had people step in, but no one who has been consistant on being there every time yet.  I don't want to level my hunter just to find that I have to power level Lag to raid....

That's it for this week.  See you on the 13th.

Lag/Lazyeye.

Fly you fools! Well, wait until 6.1 anyway.....

The wonders of how some things blow up.....

      On "The Instance," one of my favorite pod casts recently there was an interview with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, (Whom apparently stopped monitoring Magilla's vent so he can wipe us when we are cocky for Blizzcon) and in the interview Ghostcrawler was asked about flying in the next expansion.

       Ghostcrawler mentioned it had been DISCUSSED that they hold back flying until the first patch (6.1 respectfully) because they want to make sure everyone takes the time to explore the new content in the upcoming expansion.  By forcing players to walk instead of flying, it makes them interact with the world more, and they don't skip areas or content while leveling, or after. 

      Of course, people blew up at this.  Trolls came out in force on the forums threatening to quit the game, and even making passive aggressive comments like, "Well if Blizzard doesn't like flying mounts they should just take them out of the game" (Paraphrasing.) People started firing off their mouths (fingers?) in disgust, anger, and I think just for the fun of trolling because this apparently is a big deal.

       Blizzard has since then come out and confirmed that flying is not likely to be available until that first patch, and of course that hasn't eased the anger at all.  If you take the time to go through the forums right now, you can find enough righteous anger to feed power to an army of Paladins.  I do suggest taking some heavy medication though before going into the forums.  That place is scary.

     How do I feel about this?  Let me tell you!

      I'm not a fan of this, but I'll get over it.  I enjoy flying, I use it to work on my professions a lot once I get to max level.  It sure is convenient when you want to get around and not get sucked into the mess of fighting bunch of mobs just to get your mining node ninja's by a hordie.  I don't think I am among the people that they are choosing to do this for.  I like to finish all the zones in an expansion at least once, so I can get all the story.  Even after flying is in, I will go back, run through quests, and see what is going on in each area.  I still haven't done this for the horde side in Pandaria, but as my need for LFR is lessening, and NaNoWriMo is over in a month or so, my rogue may get some play time to do the horde half of Krasarang Wilds and any other areas I've missed.

      Will this break the game for me? No.  Do I understand why they are doing it? Yes.  Do I think they should? Not really.  I think they have stressed "play the game the way you want to play it" enough that limiting people like this is not a smart thing to do.  I don't think the people that skip through quests and ignore story lines are going to be any more invested because they are forced to run around for a month or two after the expansion drops.  I know what Blizzard wants to accomplish, I don't think they will get anything but headache over it.

     This brings me to a dilemma on my part.  I normally think when Blizzard makes a decision they need to stick to their guns and see how it plays out.  However, they have listened and changed things when the community rails against them before.  I think if Blizzard has made this decision they do need to see how it has and effect on game play, because I could be completely wrong and this could get people tied even more deeply into the world.  However, I predict that Blizzard will 180 on this if the shouting gets two loud and give us flying right when we hit 100, and the other part of me thinks they should do that instead.  So, in my head I am split on this issue.

      What do other people think about this?  I would love to hear the feedback from other people who are more sane the forum trolls on how they feel about a delay on flying when they hit 100.

     If you want to hear Ghostcrawler's interview it's on "The Instance" Show number 347.  Also, on the most recent show 348 they discuss this a bit more and give you their take on the flying thing.  I recommend you listen to this podcast anyway just because Scott Johnson, Willy "Dills" Gregory, and Mark "The Turpster" Turpin are just fun to listen to.

Lay/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Blizzcon 2013 in review.

The dust has settled and Blizzcon is now over.  If you were fortunate to have the time and money to go gratzy!  If you were like me and just sat back and watched the news feed.... here is a review of things that pertain to Wow that jumped out at me.

      First thing first.  Next expansion is "Warlords of Draenor" which if you living in a hold you may have not heard by now.  This refers to the orc Chieftains/Warleaders that lead the orcs into Azeroth when the black portal opened.  Garrosh has apparently escaped the Pandaran (Bunch of ninja pandas can't keep him locked up) found a mysterious friend, and been whisked away to Daenor 30 years earlier before it was blown up and turned into Outlands (Burning Crusade!) Garrosh has changed the time by keeping the orcs from being corrupted by the burning legion, and now plans on shaping them into the iron horde, which he will lead back into Azeroth to defeat us all.  In doing this he has created a separate time line which he has now linked to ours via the black portal.  So, not time travel, more hopping into a time puddle, or alternate dimension.  So, timey whimey wibbley wobbley stuff.  Long story short, we can kill anyone there and it won't effect our timeline.

      Stats are changing.  I about stood up and cheered when they announced hit and expertise are gone! Tanks will be losing parry and Dodge as well. They are being replaced by a movement speed and cleave stats.  Movement is pretty self explanatory, and cleave will randomly make you hit extra baddies when you attack.  Which I see as nice, but very situational on when it will be a needed stat.  Along with this, reforging is going away, there are going to be less gem slots, and less items will be enchantable. They did say these gem/enchants will be more powerful and have a lot more choice to them

    Gearing is changing as well.  Instead of having to carry two, sometimes three sets of gear for your character, it now should be fairly universal.  Tier gear will switch stats to match the spec you are in.  So if a Pally goes from ret to holy, the gear will change with him.  No more intellect plate either, holy paladins will convert strength to intellect when the put on armor.  This doesn't mean that some pieces might not be better for some specs then others, but it will mean lugging around a lot less armor.

     Bag space is going to be better.  Tabards, BOA leveling gear, quest items, and toys will no longer take up space in your bags.  Using the new interface/drop down menus for these means your BOA gear will truly be account bound now.  Any of your characters on any realm will be able to access it. This is an awesome change in my opinion.

     When you buy the new expansion there are many features you would expect (new levels (10), new monsters, new land to explore) one of the big ones is you get a free level 90 when you buy the expansion.  This means I will have a higher level monk/druid when the expansion comes out to join my stable of high level characters.  For now this is a one time thing, but as there is a loophole where someone might buy another copy of wow, including the expansions make a 90 then pay to transfer it over to their main account, Blizzard is considering making this a paid feature.  They want to wait and see how people react to the idea first.

     Instead of player housing, you get a garrison.  You can place your garrison in any of the new zones on Draenor.  After you start this you can upgrade and build your garrison to give you access to professions you character doesn't, you can send minions you earn as you level to forage for mats, or even run dungeons and raids for you earning you random loot.  You can earn trophies for display with achievements and can even invite friends to come into your garrison.  They said they are not doing guild halls at this point, but with this advancing, I wonder if that is just a matter of time.

     Raid changes.  The new raids will have 4 different raid difficulties.  LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic.  The first three will all have the Flex ability so you can take anywhere from 10-25 people.  Mystic will have a 20 person requirement.  Loot on the last three will adjust itself to the amount of people in the raid, and the loot master will hand stuff out once again.

    There is a lot more changes/stuff to cover, but these are the things that popped out at me the most.  What are you all looking forward to the most in the next Xpack? Or what do you not like that they are changing?

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

   



   

Sometimes no visible progress is still progress. (Raiding update 11/7/2013)

So, there is good and bad to this week.

     Let's start with the good.  The raid team managed to down the first wing of Flex in one night.  We started a bit late, and finished just after 10:30.  This means that if we had started on time, we would have had 45 minutes to work on the second section of Flex this week.  Right now I'm being pretty lenient on gear and DPS since we have been low on raiders, but that is likely to change in the future if things keep rolling the way they are.  We have had people signing up again for raid, and it gives me hope that we will soon be working a 10 man team.  At least for the rest of this expansion... but I will get there in a moment.

     Wednesday night we worked the whole time on Galakras.  We did not manage to down the boss this night, but we came close.  The add management is getting to where it needs to be.  I don't think we will get through another week without seeing him go down.  There were internal issues in the raid that were stopping us.  They will hopefully be gone by next week.  If not then I will have to deal with it in a fashion that is a little more direct and confrontational then I normally would as the insanely laid back person I am.

    Despite the fact we didn't get further, there was definite progress on both wings.  We had not gotten through the adds before on Galakras, and on the first wing we made it through with only a couple of wipes.  Things may have been avoided here and there, but as we tighten up week to week this will get better.
So, despite the fact we didn't kill any new bosses, and my applebeer remains untapped in my fridge, (I normally pop one when we kill a new boss to celebrate.) I feel we are moving forward.  Now we just need to get the last couple of links secure and in place.

     I know This is a little later, and the first day of Blizzcon was today.  All I am going to discuss here is the raiding announcements.  My take on the other things from Blizzcon I will put in a later post.

    I am excited to announce, (And to have been right about) all raid being flex next Xpack.  There will be four different difficulties.  LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic.  The first three will allow anywhere form 10-25 players.  The raids will adjust difficulty depending on how many people are present.  So if you grinding LFR and a couple of people drop, you will be able to keep moving forward.

    The exception to the flex ability will be Mystic.  Mystic raids will be set at 20 people, and will be a step ahead of heroic content.  I didn't predict all of this, but I was in the camp that predicted normal and flex would be the same thing next expansion.  Sometimes, against all odds, even I am right.

Anyway, keep watching the info flow in from Blizzcon.  I have been checking www.wowinsider.com constantly to keep up on all the announcements.  There is a lot of cools stuff.  And the new expansion....

But I will discuss that later,

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Blizzcon is coming! Blizzcon is coming!

And the countdown is almost over....

    This weekend is Blizzcon.  It is a Blizzard fan's holiday and the excitement is in the air for all we will learn this weekend.  The slow news is going to stop, and there will be a torrent of information thrown at us.  Diablo, Hearthstone, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and anything else Blizzard with be discussed, thrown before the masses, and devoured by millions of fans everywhere.  So what are the bets on what we will see? Well my predictions are as follows.

     Diablo- We will get game play and more information on the upcoming expansion "Reaper of Souls."  I don't believe there will be any big spoilers or announcements on this one as Blizzard has already given us the expansion trailer that highlighted upcoming new class, changes etc....

     Hearthstone- I imagine that there will be an announcement on when this game will go live for everyone.  As those like me who have played with it in the beta know, it feels like a finished product at this point.  It' finished enough that the announcement could even be, "November 10th, day after Blizzcon, Hearthstone goes live!"

     Starcraft II- We will get a preview and trailer from "Legacy of the Void" the upcoming Starcraft II expansion.  I don't think there is going to be a world of surprise here, but a lot of excitement as we see what the Protoss expansion of this game looks like for Starcraft II players.

     World of Warcraft- Here is where my excitement is.  I think we may see some promo footage for the World of Warcraft movie, however, I don't believe it starts filming until January so we won't see actual movie clips etc....  We will have an expansion announced.  Blizzard would be insane not to have an announcement for the next expansion at this Blizzcon, and whether you still believe the expansion is going to be "The Dark Below," (which had been fairly well debunked) or "Warlords of Draenor," which was just copyrighted by Blizzard, or something completely different, you will find out what is in store here.  Also, after the success of the program last Blizzcon, expect another deal where if you promise to keep your sub active you will get a goody for free.  Last time it was Diablo III, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are targeting the same audience if the do the same deal with the Diablo III expansion.  However, if they do that I think Diablo III will be included, otherwise the offer won't pick up anyone new.  They could also do this with Starcraft II and Heart of the Swarm, positioning more people to want to buy the new expansion when it comes out.

     I would also like to see them talk about their past product.  For those who don't know, the Blizzard game "BlackThorn" which was released for the SNES is available to download for free to your computer right now.  You just have to go to battle.net and find the right spot to download the client.

     Now, I don't expect them to talk about Titan this year, after the project was reset earlier this year it's unlikely it's in a place where they are ready to promote it.  I also don't expect them to have gnomes in the new trailer for whatever Wow expansion we are about to be faced with.

    So, if your fortunate enough to be going to Blizzcon, give an extra Cheer for Blink 182 at the ending concert for me.  If you bought the streaming package, enjoy.  I will be sitting here, sifting through news excitedly, ready to give my take on the different things we are about to learn.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye