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

   



   

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

Clashing Personalities.

We all have suffered through LFR, so this might be familiar.

      Right now with LFR being rough in places, you think people would use some common sense and patience.  This isn't was happened to me the other day.  We had a person in the run whom I will call Johnny DeathKnight, now Johnny from his broken typing may have not understood English very well.  Johnny also could have been a fifth grader.  Most likely Johnny was a high school drop out who was in his mid twenties now playing in mommies basement, and using the broken understanding of the language he had bothered to pick up.  Yes, from the get go I am tearing into Johnny Deathknight.

     You see, I zoned in on my priest into the Dark Shaman fight.  As you healers may know, this fight sucks to heal with all the movement involved, normally with people running away from you as quickly as their little sprinting characters can move.  This means your heals are constantly being broken by line of sight issues, or you having to move or be nuked by the death being dropped at your feet.  So, from the get go, I buckled in and got ready for some horribleness.

      This is where Johnny comes in.  The tanks called the pull and he was immediately floor tanking.  He spent the first half of the fight asking for a Brezz, and then swearing at people for not Brezzing him.  Now, I'm not sure if you have ever played a class that can Brezz a person in the middle of a fight, but the last person  you Brezz is the douche sitting there swearing at you because apparently the fight completely rests on their shoulders.  I groaned inwardly at this but healed on while his swearing and berating tirade moved on in raid chat.  Of course, as soon as people started dropping and it was apparent we were going to wipe little Johnny DeathKnight started asking which tank was supposed to grab Skull?

      At that point Johnny's tirade was against a tank who apparently couldn't hold aggro, because he had been on skull and had aggro immediately.  Now, anyone who had been watching life bars during the fight, and at the pull could have told you that Johnny had grabbed the target before the tank had established aggro.  As a matter of fact, Johnny had grabbed the add, and gone down before the tanks lifebar had moved period.   Meaning of course, Johnny had fallen to that old saying of you break it, you tank it.  He had pulled the mob before the tank.  I said as much in Raid chat.. and of course Johnny couldn't hear reason.  He just tiraded on about how the tank sucked.  The tank to his credit dropped, making us have to wait for a new one.  I should have followed.

      The very moment a new tank dropped, but what should happen?  Johnny DeathKnight pulled the boss.  Once again, he was mad that he was floor tanking immediately, and when things fell apart withing seconds he started commenting on how people shouldn't worry, we were getting another 5% buff.  At this point, several people started explaining to him the meaning of a "douche move."   Somehow, Johnny DK still believed he had done nothing wrong.  And strangely he was kicked as soon as everyone was rezzed.  Even more strange, then next pull the bosses went down without  a hitch.  Johnny may have been right about that 5% (eye roll).

      The truth is that in a game like World of Warcraft, it's easy to shoot your mouth off at a bunch of strangers your never going to see again.  I try not to, but I can't say I've never made a snarky comment in a LFR to taunt someone, or to comment on a player's fail.  I am not perfect.  However, I work hard not to create a situation such as the one I mentioned above.  It does no one any good to build frustration into a group.  You never know either.  I have run LFR's only to realize at the end that there were a few people I recognized from Zangarmarsh in the raid with me.  While your reputation in LFR is fleeting, your reputation on your realm can effect yourself or your guild negatively.

      This includes actions within game.  If you stock a player, even slightly, it can look bad for yourself or the people who play with you.  I know I have been approached before by people who had run a random with a guild member, and had a negative experience, and I'm not even the guild leader.  I have also had people whom dwell on Zangarmarsh comment when one of our members has harassed them in any way, and I take that harassment seriously.  

Long story short, everyone should work to not be a Johhny Deathknight.  You can be the best player in Wow, but if your a jerk, your going to have a lot less options if your looking for people to play with.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

No News in the World of Warcraft... Why?

Well, there is a simple answer to that question.  BLIZZCON 2013 baby!!!!  This is my 50th post, which I feel is a milestone, and not much is going on.

        This is normal.  It seems every time we have had Blizzcon in my memory at least, the news shuts down from Blizzard for about a month before the event.  Oh we will get patch notes, updates on the systems etc... but no actual news about what is coming up soon in our World of Warcraft.

        I have noticed this expansion that after almost every patch, we have started hearing news about the next patch immediately.  Mists dropped, they started talking features for patch 5.1 that were upcoming etc...  And because every other patch has been a true content patch it hasn't been as noticeable because we were not discussing the next raid right after a raid patch dropped.  However... when you talk about the next feature they are working on, it keeps some excitement in the air about "What is Blizzard up to next?

        Now a few folks have commented that they think we may see a Hearthstone release before Blizzcon.  I am not sure if I agree with this, as Blizzard is working hard right now getting things ready for the big even, and with it being a month away, that is a real short time for an announcement of a release date.  Of course since Hearthstone is going to be free to play, there is nothing stopping them from just saying, "it's ready!" and dropping it on us.

        I am hoping we see a few more connected realm before then as well.  They have one set hooked up, and I imagine they plan on watching it for a while before connecting others to make sure any bugs are worked out of the system.  I imagine once they feel that the live release is working perfectly as intended we will start seeing connected realms pop up left and right.  Since this is something that will completely be effecting everyone on those realms they have every right to be careful about the way they implement this.  I am looking forward to seeing how it effects us here on Zangarmarsh, if at all.

Yes, it's country, so sue me.

       Anyway, slow news week, I'm fairly certain that is how things will be for a bit.  So, have fun in game and I will see folks soon.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Xenophobic. I admit to having this issue. (Raid update 09/26/2013)

      So, let's start with the raid update for the week.

      Tuesday we were short on people so we just hopped into the first LFR that was open for Siege of Ogrimmar and managed to get through the whole thing.  This was nice as every attempt I have tried prior to this has stalled out and not gone well.  Some of us even got Loot! (not me).  I healed this on my priest Dizzty and even though we didn't do an actual raid, those who ran enjoyed themselves.

      Wednesday we were short people again as well.  This was the night I had planned for Flex raid or regular Siege of Ogrimmar.  I went ahead and called it while we were two or three people short, so people dispersed and went about our ways.  Several people headed off to the timeless isle and others logged, went there own way, or PVPed.  It was indicated to me, that maybe I should have pugged the last few spots.

      I can't argue that point.  I could have pugged the last few spots.  'Specially going into the new flex raid where difficulty is a little tuned down.  I could have pulled people in and with new content if there was wiping and frustration it wouldn't be unexpected.  I would have allowed people to actually get to run a bit that night, and we could worked on some sort of progression.

      However I admit to being Xenophobic to a degree.  I don't like pulling in people I don't know, or who don't have an attachment to someone in the run.  I will pull in someone who has been in Fear Itself for less then a week, no issues, but if they don't have the guild tag or a friendship with someone in the group I am hesitant to bring them in at all.

     Why? I'm not sure.  Maybe it's a strange side of my psychology.   I know if I let someone in and they make the run miserable for everyone, if they have that guild tag I can take some kind of action if needed.  However if I pull in a stranger, who knows what I'll get.  This goes strangely against my view of the world where I believe most everyone is intrinsically good, and not out to make everyone else or miserable.  The funny thing is I used to pug all the time.  In the ICC days I used to pug at least one 25 man a week.  I would do all three roles as well.  I would tank, heal, or dps depending on need.  I don't know when I got to the point where I decided I was anti pug.

     Anyway, I will work on overcoming this issue.  I admit to it being a fault of mine, and if it does have an effect on the raid I need to address it.   Despite personal reservations, I will try and pug next time we are so close.

     Hopefully next week with the likely return of a couple people, I won't have to.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

     

Flexibally funibly, (Raid update 09/12/2013)

Alright... feeling a little better after this week.

      First of all, after Tuesday, I can say that you can feel the nerfs in Throne of Thunder.  That 20% makes a big difference.  We are now on Tortoise again after downing the first three encounters.  Once again we where a little ramshackle of a group, but we made it further and I will save progress from here as we push through Throne until it is defeated, then walk out dusting out hands to never do it again.

      Wednesday we tried Flex-raiding.  Gotta tell you, it was pretty fun, we went in with 12 or 13 people and it seemed to work out all right.  We downed the first boss, and that was with a few people who were a little under geared.  The second fight chewed us up a little more at first, but we made progress each time.

     I am very excited about this feature.  We pulled a few people in, had some fun, and even though we only downed on boss, it was fun and exciting to be fighting new things again.  I loved Emersius.  I thought the mechanics were interesting, and the visuals were pretty cool.  One of the Blizzard interviews I heard had one of the people talking about how they wanted the fight to feel like Morrowgar had in ICC.  When you enter the hall, and you see the big boss waiting at the end.  It is a cool feeling and I think they pulled it off well.  All in all, I am happy this week.

Don't watch if you don't like Spoilers, ending cinematic for Siege of Ogrimmar

     Remember that next week there will be no raiding post, as we will not be raiding.   This weekend should be post-less as well.  I will be in Yellowstone and I'm not sure I will touch the internet while I am down there.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

The Weekend before 5.4....

     So here is some bad mocked up poetry to suffer through as you get ready for patch 5.4....

The Night Before Patch Day
-Horribly done by Ben Marble

It's the night before patch day
And all through the land
The player's are raiding
With sword's firm in hand

Their mods have been loaded and updated with care
In hopes the 5.4 quite soon would be there
And me with my Pally, Aeryn with her priest
Had just settled down, for 5.4 release

When out in Stormwind arose a clatter
I quickly hearthed to find out the matter
To the AH I flew on my mount in a huff
To find out what was the cause of this stuff

The noobs where all crying in fear and in fright
For in trade district there was such a sight.
For in all his glory so grim and so drear
It seemed that Ghostcrawler had suddenly appeared

With his nerfbat so hard and mighty and thick
Everyone trembled at that evil big stick
Then I heard him call in a big booming voice
The people that had helped him by choice

Come Zarhym, come Lore, come Crithto, come Bashiok,
Come Brower, come Hazzikostas, come Nethaera, come Bornakk,
To the Eastern plague lands, to Northrend's great wall!
Now nerf away, nerf away, nerf away all!

And just like the winds in the Maelstrom do fly
They all mounted up and took to the sky
Through the land of Azeroth they flew
Out for the Alliance, and the horde side too!

And then with a shudder I turned to see
Ghostcrawler drooling with maniacal glee
I stepped back and was turning around
When through Stormwind Greg Street did bound

He was translucently cover in a crab shell
His claws where sharpened to give out all hell
His nerfbat he held firm to attack
When all the player's he started to smack

His eye stalks they glistened
His shells dimples how frightening
His nerfbat made noises like
Big strikes of lightening!
His crab mouth was firmly shut with a snap
As dpsers Greg Street started to cap

The Nerfbat swung and gave no relief
As players corpses lay about like a wreath,
His crab legs went clickety clack
That skittered madly as toons he did  wack

He was giant and cruel, a mighty old crab
And I shuddered to see him, and hid in my bag
Then he lifted his nerfbat made up of lead
And gave me a whack on top of my head

He left me they lying all dazed
As he nerfed all players wildly crazed
Sudden as he appeared, he suddenly stopped
And yelled, patch 5.4 can now be dropped!

He flew up into the air his crab legs all twitchin'
Because he had finally finished his mission
But we heard him scream as he vanished out of sight
"Good luck with cross realms! Good bye and good night!"

-Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

I promised myself I wouldn't cry. But I might anyway. (raid update 09/04/2013)

     So, I would rather not speak about this week.  But I am obligated to.  That is what I said I would do when I started this blog, and I have to make sure I post something for my 1's of readers.

That falling sensation...

     Tuesday was rough.  Partially because I'm adjusting to tanking the content we are working on, partially because we just keep switching people up a bit.  Scorpiack was nice enough to go heals instead of DPS so we could run, so thank you Scorpy.  Jin'rokh however took 4 attempts to get down.

     This marks the first time in a couple months that we didn't two shot him, when we didn't one shot him.

      Then it was on to Horridon.  There were a couple troubles there.  We just couldn't seem to burn adds down quickly enough between doors.  I was having issues tanking it since it was my second time, and Adds seemed all over the place on my turns picking them up.  Of course I was picking up all the adds I could, it just felt a bit out of control.  Long story short, Horridon did not go down for us Tuesday.

       Last night we gathered to go again, but found ourselves short one heal/tank (I could have swapped and done either.)  As it had taken us 15 minutes to get together and ready, and a few more to ask through guild and check friends who might come, we decided not to pug someone in for just a little over an hour and ran an LFR.

       What does this mean?  It marks several weeks in a row where we have gone backwards in progression.  We have literally fallen backwards as we have kept bringing in new people, and fighting to keep this team going and rebuild.

       This means I will probably start looking outside of guild for a new Tank or Healer.  I will probably work on a permanent roster for the raid team again.  This means that the people that have been pinch hitting for us may be back up raiders for now.  I have been asking and looking in guild for two or three weeks now and no one has come forth to fill this healing/tanking spot.  I am tired of waiting for things to come together and asking nicely.  We need to fix this.

    I can't keep banging my head against a wall.  I need to feel like the team is working and right now it feels like a f*ing mess when we have to retrain and re-adjust to people every week.  It is draining my patience and making me feel like taking a break from raiding myself.  I can't do that though, because the team members that have held through this crap deserve a rebuilt working team.

     So tomorrow, I will probably post on the Convert to Raid, and maybe the Wow Zangarmarsh Forums.  I will start looking for new blood outside the guild.  I would love to build it from inside, but all the interest I am seeing in raiding does not give me a Tank or Healer.  I'm sure we could even work on building one from in the guild if they were interested, but that seems unlikely.

      Anyway, that is the update for the week.  Next week, patch 5.4 drops and the Siege of Ogrimmar opens, hopefully that will breath life into things a bit more.  Cross Realms might brings us some more options too, we will see what happens.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

It's The (Somewhat) Final Countdown!!!

     Alright, we have one week and a couple days to go until 5.4 drops.  This means, time for a quick review of what is coming up and what to expect.  Most of what I cover I will have mentioned before, so if you feel like popping off that's fine.  If not let's look at some, not all, of the things coming up.

     The most obvious thing is the new raid.  This means we get to watch as the best teams in the work work on their world firsts, new content and bosses for us to fight, and a lot of changed game content around this new raid.  I won't say more because if you haven't watched the patch notes, the trailer for 5.4, or anything else, it's not worth spoiling for you.  I am in the camp that hopes that Garrosh is defeated but not dead.  I think it would be interesting to see what a summarily defeated and deposed Garrosh would do.

     New class changes coming.  Fortunately in Mists we haven't had complete class overhauls every single patch like some past expansions (looking at you Wrath) So in most cases you class isn't going to have any significant changes.  Unless your me, all three class/specs I play are getting nerfed.  Disc Priest=nerfed, Prot Pally=nerfed, and as Solarflair of Convert to raid announced, hunters may have a new mount for patch 5.4... it's called the bench.  (Keep in mind that we still are in beta testing so stuff could still change.  It could, really /crosses fingers)

       Cross realms/virtual realms/whatever they are calling them this week are coming as well.  This means that in 5.4 you might find you realm combined with other realm to fix lower population realms etc...  I have gone through this at length already.  Be aware these are not happening the day of 5.4 but they plan on rolling out the realm combinations in the weeks following.  If you don't see it on the first day, that doesn't mean your realm won't be effected.  I am looking forward to being able to break that 11 toon limit to build up my horde side a little more using this personally.

     Timeless Isle.  Listen up people who still need to be geared.  You can take your lowbies here and start grinding out i496 gear.  While this isn't quiet as good as ToT raid finder, it can build you up to the new LFR that last I heard had a 495 ilevel to enter.  I might be wrong on that, but not by much.  There will also be new battle pets, mounts, etc.. on this island so explore away!!!

     Legendaries, if you have been keeping up on your legendary quests then blizzard has said it will be possible to get your legendary cloak on your first day.  It will be some grinding, but they seem to want you to be able to have your cloak from the get go here.  The new world boss, you won't be able to fight until you have one.

     Flex raids... I am tempted to start this tier doing ToT one day, and Flex raids the other.  We have enough interest in raiding I would love to be able to include more people.  I really can't say yet, the raid team is still in flux, and until I know what is happening I don't know where we will land.  Oh, and lets not forget to mention here whilst talking raids, Throne of Thunder will be nerfed by 20% all around.

      And more!!!  I know I am missing stuff here, and feel free to leave you opinion on any of these things, or anything I have missed.  What are you looking forward to in 5.4?  You have 9 days to think about it!

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

What is Guild Loyalty?

    I am writing this because I was listening to Tauren Think Tank (a Wonderful Podcast) a week or so ago, and they addressed the subject of why people are loyal to their guilds was discussed.  This came as someone had written in asking why with real ID, Cross realm grouping, and other such features people are loyal to their guilds anymore.  He had written up and clarified that he was meaning Loyal to a guild after a guild mistreats you, or doesn't value you as it should, he wasn't just saying you should go guild less.

      We have run out guild for almost 6 years now.  We haven't always been a big guild, or a guild that focused on more then raiding etc...  As a matter of fact, I remember it was at the end of Burning Crusade when we decided to open up to people outside our family, and my mage started porting to the starting areas for all the alliance races and spamming macros to get people to join.  At this point, we were discussing starting to raid, and looking in that direction.  This was interesting to me, because at the time my raiding character, my hunter Lazyeye, was in another guild named Midnight.

     Midnight had made me and my wife officers.  I had already discussed with the guild leader the fact I was also recruiting for Fear Itself, and he knew that I was working on building both guilds in my own way and being careful about not dividing loyalties.  I managed to maintain this without creating any issues and all seemed fine.

     Then me and my wife disagreed with a move the guild leader and co-guild leader (his wife) made.  They had given a character probation, then kicked him the next day before the probation had even truly started (Which didn't match their guild policies btw).  My wife took this personally because she had been the person who would work with this character on fixing the issues people where having with him.  We voiced our opinion to the guild leaders, and the next day, when both where logged out our characters where kicked from that guild.

   This turned out to be for the better.  I was able to fully focus on building Fear Itself, and Midnight imploded shortly afterwards. (The only reason I am using the actual guild name is the fact it hasn't existed on Zangarmarsh since the beginning of Wrath) Several of our friends followed us from Midnight after it fell and joined, and more then a couple are still friends in one fashion or another in game today.

     I mention this, because before we where kicked from the guild... me and my wife where discontent there.  We had discussed leaving already and the kick out the door wasn't ideal but I was more upset with how it was handled, then the fact it happened.  So I look back now, and I wonder why I hadn't left before things reached the point where it ended.  What kept me from leaving before that happened.

    I will tell you.  Attachments to my friends.  Desire to not let their raid team down, when they planned on me being there.  The feeling that I had made enough difference in that guild, that I felt obligated to keep it going.  This all kept me in that guild, splitting my time two ways etc... and those things can keep you locked into a guild today still.

    The question comes back too, does that matter when you can real ID folks from a guild you leave, so you can continue to help them here and there?  What expectations should a guild have on keeping someone?
What should a person expect from their guild?  If you put time and effort into the guilds raid team, do you owe it to them to stick it out or should they thank you for the time you contributed and not worry about you moving on?

     I really don't have the answers here, because I believe that are unique to the individual playing.  There are times I have wanted to work on alts, or considered finding another guild to run with on occasion, but I am always stopped because any effort I put there now, is time I am not putting into this guild that we have built.  I would love to find a night to consistently run older content, but right now it isn't plausible as I have kids and work that comes first.  So if I get that time, it will be folded back into Fear Itself, and not elsewhere.

     I am tied to the guild completely at this point.  I sometimes hide on an alt or two if I want to go level or play quietly, but at the end of the day, my commitments all tie to Fear Itself.  I am not sure what would have to happen to break those ties either.  I have put years of effort into raiding there.  Worked hard to build and maintain the guild.  This thing is my baby.  Short of an all out war with the guild leader (which is never happening) I don't believe I would vacate my home, and at the point I did, I am not sure how long I would play after losing all that I have gained.

What do you think?

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty

   

In game Auction House.... coming in a Blizzard near you!

     If your in Asia, a new feature is coming in 5.4.  An in game auction house where you can buy various things, like a potion for 100% Xp increase, is being implemented.  Another item they are talking about selling is those "Coins of Fortune" that you trade in for your bonus rolls every week.  This of course brings up a lot of forum rage and discussion.

     First of all, it needs to be mentioned that the Asian market for World of Warcraft is very different.  Instead of paying monthly, players have to go to a cyber cafe and pay for time played as they go.  In some countries (Like China) not only are they limited by that constraint, but the government adds other constraints on how long people can play.  So, unlike us, they don't pay a monthly fee and call it good.  They pay for every moment they are online.  Which means, while we spend time when we are bored running circles around Stormwind/Ogrimmar, they have to maximize their game play and be productive every moment if they are going to raid, or participate in any type of content.

      The question becomes will Blizzard implement something like that over here if it's successful.  With 8 million players, we are still a long way from being at a point where Blizzard drops the subscription model, however with the pet store being a success they would be crazy not to be looking at additional types of micro-transactions.  So far everything you buy is cosmetic, from vanity pets to the transmog helms they just teased are coming.  You can pay for shiny things but none of them give you any type of advantage for end game content.

     But what happens if they start selling stuff like the potion for 100% xp increase.  You can already kill a rare mob for a potion like this, but paying for it? Does that cross a line? What if Blizzard decided you could pay to buy a max level character? Would you consider that?   We already can get a character level boosted through recruit a friend, or scroll of resurrection.  Does it make a difference if you could plunk down say $25 dollars to pick and choose a max level character on your account?  What if they put in a requirement of already having a character at max level?  At what point do these services break the game and start giving unfair advantages to people who are willing to plunk down some extra cash?  What if Blizzard where to decide to let people buy gold?  People could use that to buy gear to get into raiding more quickly with the advantage of higher gear....

      There is a precedent too, with Diablo's Auction house they let people buy gold, sell items for money and in game gold etc...  However I think we can all agree that it was a minimal success at best and a crap storm of negative media at worse.  When Diablo 3 hits consoles here soon, it's not a surprise that the live Auction house is not going to be a big part of that.  Blizzard has hopefully learned their lessons from Diablo 3.

      Now, I think we will see more and more stuff coming to our Blizzard store.  I can't say I haven't benefited from it either.   I have my sparkle pony that was a father's day present.  (My BE's love the mount) I bought my wife the cennarian hyppogryph mini pet for her birthday, though to be fair part of the justification for that was that all the profits from blizzard where going to help out Japan after it's Tsunami.  The big part of the Blizzard store though is that NO ONE is making you pay extra money for the in game mounts, pets, etc... it is all completely optional.  I think Blizzard is smart to do this and establish the in game store now, because some day in a  far off future they are going to have to go free to play.  I don't think that day is anytime soon, but the game is 8 years old, and it is hard to imagine they are going to gain more subscribers then they lose from this point on.  If they have a well established store before then, it will help them with that transition.

     How do you feel though, do you want Blizzard to offer additional services as long as they aren't game breaking?  What if they border on game breaking and sell some beginning raiding gear, or even boss kill experiences?  I guess the big question is where would you draw the line?  I know I am good as long as they don't cross that line where people get an unfair advantage at the end game content.  I could care less about leveling boosts etc....

So let me know where you stand.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

   

The Next Expansion.

     We are now waiting on 5.4 to drop.  This means that the last major patch (to our knowledge) of the expansion will be out possibly as early as September, and probably by October or November at the latest with the speed the patches have been coming from Blizzard.

     Of course, this expansion has been, and will continue to be fun for a good while yet, I'm not calling in the doom bells on this.  From watching the trouble with Mission of Mercy, to the epic return of my friends in Bridgeburners, to all my long winded speeches about raiding in Fear Itself, you know, my guild, Mists has some great moments and memories for me.  However, we must start looking toward the next expansion, because we know that Blizzard is.

      Chances are that Blizzard will be announcing the next expansion at Blizzcon in November.  From there, if things are going the speed they are we can expect the next expansion to drop sometime in early 2014.  I would guess that if Blizzard keeps at the pace they are going that the aim would be before summer hits.   Heck, I will even make a guess, the next expansion will drop on May 13th.  Now it's in writing and we can all see how close I am.

    Of course traditionally it's been a nine months to a year after the last big patch before the next expansion has dropped.  I don't think Blizzard will stick to that this time.  I think they are too dependent on dropping another expansion quickly, and making it hit all the right notes to bring some of the players they have lost back.  They have maintained a breakneck pace of releasing content for Mists, so I am assuming they plan on keeping that momentum going.

     There are things I hope to see in the next expansion....

      New Class.  My hope for this would be the Demon Hunter.  It has long been in Wow's lore and would be awesome if implemented correctly.   They could even go pure dps on this one, with a melee spec, a ranged spec, and maybe some sort of caster spec.  I wouldn't mind them stealing a couple of things from Diablo's Demon hunter for this as well.  Plus, they could introduce one handed guns/crossbows and warglaves into the game with this...  Whatever they choose the next class will probably be a Mail armor wearer.  Other armor types have three classes.  Plate (Warrior, Pally, DK.)  Cloth (Priest, Mage, Warlock.) Leather (Monk, Rogue, Druid.) Mail (Hunter and Shaman.)

      New Character slot? This one I don't think will happen.  (I won't say it will never happen) With Virtual Realms opening up if you want more then 11 characters on your realm, you can just choose of the the realms connected to yours and have the same access you would if your rolled on your home realm.  The caveat to this being, that if you are on a high population realm, or one that isn't pulled into virtual realms as firmly it might limit your options a bit.

      New Race.  I am not sure we need a new race, but I am not sure they can pass on putting some more coolness into the game.  My guess on this varies, but if we go on another space adventure, like in Outlands, plan on the new race being demon/alien like.  If we go to the Emerald Dream or somewhere closer to home then it will be a local thing we have never seen, or they may roll something we have fought for years rolling into our ranks.  I.E.  If it's an underwater expansion (shudder, I love Vash'jir, but didn't make a point of going back after I left it) there might be a rogue group of Naga that join our factions. As it is, the races I'd like to see (but most probably won't) turn playable would be, Etherial, Naga, High Elf (for the alliance),, and Saurock/Jinyu.  NO MURLOCS!!!!  I am guessing if they do another race they will do them like the Panderan and they will be multi-factional.  Not only was that done well, but it cuts down on development time to only have to throw in one race.

      New Places.  This expansion we got Panderia.  Next expansion who knows?  There has been plenty of signs that we may be facing the burning legion again.  My guess is that we will avoid that direction though until Wow has about pushed it's life cycle to the end.  Eventually we will go after Sargeras, but I feel that is the big bad Blizzard will save until the end.  We may also end up facing off again Queen Azshara which would mean some under water work.  Of course with us still discovering things from the Cataclysm, we could go to Kul Tiras, see Jaina's family and find several new islands/areas that have popped up in the sea.  Tie in Zandalar, and maybe we can have a tropical expansion where we hop island to island.  I am just throwing this in, because everyone else says Space Adventure/Emerald dream.

      Level Cap.  Blizzard will add more levels.  Whether it's 5 or 10 remains to be seen, but I would put my money on 5.  I think there will be an item squish this time around and we will see all stats/ilevels bosses, npc's etc.. in the game get squished with us so we aren't tracking 1.5 mil dps by the end of next expansion.  With a squish they may go for 10 levels, but I wouldn't bet on it.

     Dance Studio.  MWha ha ha, lol, hee hee hee, ho, ho, ho, Mwha ha ha ha ha.  Needless to say at this point even if put in and done well, they would get nothing but mockery for it.

     New Talents system.  I hope not.

     Swimming mounts.  If we get our undersea expansion, I imagine we will have an array of Undersea mounts to collect.  Then again, Blizzard has said that if they could, they would go back and avoid putting flying mounts into the game.

Always nice to remember where we come from.

    And more....  What do you think the new expansion will have/be about.  What have I missed?  As a matter of fact comment on anything you think you can add to this and make it a discussion.  What do you think?

Dizzty

   

   

     

State of your Class

   Believe it or not, there are people out there who have never rolled an alt.  Weird huh?

    Then you have people like me who have about 500 more alts then I have time to play, and occasionally you go hop on one to hide from the world, or have a little me time where you won't be bothered by people.  (Have I mentioned I can't wait until the appear offline option goes in someday for real ID)  It's not that I don't love people, and my friends it's just there are times when I don't want to have to say, "Umm.. no, I don't feel like it right now," because I feel I am letting others down when I say that.

      For those who play one class, and one class only? I am wondering why?  Why do you limit yourself to that one character?  I understand some people don't like change, and desire to perfect themselves in what they play... but I know I need to swap up speeds here and there.  I can't be a one toon player.

      I always have my main, don't get me wrong (whom recently changed, and will someday likely change again.) But I always have an alt i'm working on.  My priest has all his LFRs done for the week? Well then maybe I dust off my hunter and run a couple things, or try to get that gun from Kara for my transmog, once again.  I will continue to work on that hunter in my spare time for a week or three, and then suddenly my warlock will whisper to me, and I will switch up which alt gets my extra time again.

     I feel my Disc priest is strong on heals atm.  As he is my main, this makes me happy.  My Pally is solid on tanking, but Ret just seems middle of the road on dps.  None of my other characters are developed enough for me to give an opinion on how they feel.  However, I do want to get a ranged dps leveled and somewhat geared to step in if needed, as my shadow dps leaves something to be desired right now.  I still haven't a lot of practice at it, and as much as I should work on that half of my priest... I like the alt time.

     So, comment on how you are feeling about your class right now.  Is it the bees knees, or has blizzard left you in a mode of boredom/devastation?

Dizzty

   

   

Virtually in a Realm

      So, looking at this virtual realm thing, now that I've read up on it, I feel I need to opine, much as I did when they announced Flex-raids coming up.

       Yeah, that is kinda how I felt when it was first announced.  Only, less chickness, more short fat dudish screaming... well you get it.

        Anyway, now that I've read a little more, I can tell you from the get go who is going to hate this idea with a passion.  Who is going to rail and scream and call Blizzard names.  Who is going to take up arms, troll forums, and make Blizzard's forum moderator's jobs hell for the next while.

       Everyone who hates cross zone realms (CRZs)

        Because really, this is the next step after CRZs.  This is them taking all the realms and combining them in a way where we get more population, more competition for mining nodes, more fighting people for quest objectives, and frankly all the downsides you get with CRZs.  Knowing I will have to listen to these people, is why I feel like screaming.

        Now to be fair, I have never personally had a problem with CRZs.  I have gone back leveled a couple characters since they were implemented and haven't had a ton of challenge with leveling professions as I go and keeping up.  As a matter of fact the biggest problems I had was that I stayed in zones long after quests had got green and gray because I leveled to quickly to not have to stop and grind for my professions.  That's ok, because that means I also hung in leveling areas long enough to get the whole story.  Even flying around Wrath areas like Sholazar Basin, I still had no more trouble farming ore then when I was a level 80 getting ready to fight the Lich King.  This doesn't mean I didn't have competition, I just don't think it was so bad that I felt like it took away from my gaming experience.  As a matter of fact, I enjoyed seeing other people playing in the areas I was in, and have enjoyed CRZs for the most part.

       Virtual Realms will take it a step further.  That means, my home realm Zangarmarsh will be combined with other realms.  I will still be Lag of Zangarmarsh, but if there is a Lag of (Insert realm name), we might end up playing together and our realms, or a number, will be listed like a surname for identification.  Not that it might not get confusing even with the surname type identifier.

      If you are on a virtual realm, that means you can join guilds, with any guild on your virtual realm.  You can mail between characters, you can do current raid content.  Essentially, it will behave like one giant realm where we share Auction Houses, Raids, etc...  And while this is good for low pop realms and will give people options there that don't involve paying to transfer to a more populated realm, I wonder how it will effect high population realms, or mid population realms like mine.   I think it's fair to question whether or not this is good for everybody, or if this is a band-aid fix for the low population realms, that is going to involve everyone who logs in.

     Now, I like the idea, that I may finally be able to level several horde characters that will benefit from my BOA items that are gathering dust in my bank.  As someone who has 8 out of 11 characters on my home realm at 85 or higher, most of these are going to waste, and I like leveling characters.  (Yes, I know I'm sick)
This means I might be able to build a support system horde side, like I have on my alliance side.  (The only professions I don't have leveled are leather working and skinning, and that will be fixed when/if I level my monk.)

     I also like the idea of having more accountability in the community.  One of the problems with LFR and random dungeons is that you can be a jerk and unless there is someone else in your realm thrown in with you there is no penalty for it.  However, if you end up with people in your community a lot more often then your reputation is more at stake.  There is more chance of someone you run with being able to call you out in a meaningful way.  They will be able to contact your guild officers or guild leader, possibly causing you to get kicked out of your guild.  If you keep up that behavior and get pushed out of enough guilds you will eventually lose your credibility and may even get yourself blacklisted on your realm.  Most guilds don't want people in them that get them constant mail and complaints.

     There is a lot still not set in stone on this, so if they make any more big announcements I will give my opinion.  Over all, I think this feature will be a good thing, but I think there is going to be a lot of heart ache over it.  What do you think?

Lag