Meanwhile, in the pre-patch....

I don't think I'm holding back spoilers on this one... so really
SPOILERS are here
Don't read this post if you don't like SPOILERS.

    So we are two days into the pre-patch event.  I have already rolled my first Demon Hunter, and played through the Alliance and Horde side quests.  It is a lot of fun, and a lot to take in right now.  So let us start with the Demon Hunter experience.

    Rhumor is my new demon hunter, and while I had played through the starting quests a couple of times in the Alpha and Beta, it still feels good to visit that starting zone.  The last time I played through he cut scenes we have been given with, Illidan, Maeve and Gul'dan did not exist.  It was pretty much play through and enjoy.  With the cut scenes it adds a great bit more importance and atmosphere to the game play.  I loved it the first time I played through, and I love it even more now.  If you don't plan on playing a Demon Hunter, I still suggest just playing on through the starting zone.  It is pretty awesome.

     The Class itself is fun to play.  It is very movement based, and you can't help but jump around, charge, and vault away from your enemies as needed.  They do have a bit of glass canon syndrome going on where if you start to take hits you drop quickly.  Well, at least in Havoc, I haven't tried the tanking spec yet, that is on my list for this week.

    Now we get to the quests.  Here is where we get spoilery.  So, once again, if you don't like spoilers don't read on.  I won't stop you, I'm not your mother.  But don't get mad at me later because you kept going despite my warnings.

    Both the Horde and Alliance Quests start out pretty much the same.  You get sent on a mission to stop the invasion.  You storm a beach, meet up with the forces (led by Vol'jin and Varian Wrynn) that had gone on before.  You then start to push the demons backs.

    The Horde and Alliance are on separate sides of the island but meet up when they go to rescue Tirion Fordring.  You know, the dude who stood in a block of ice while you killed the Lich King and then broke out in time to make sure he got some loot as well.  Anyway, we get there, but it's too late.  We get to witness the death of a major lore character.

     Of course there is then a bit of banter from Gul'dan, and the Alliance decides to take him and the Legion head on while the Horde climbs a cliff to watch the flank.  Seems like a good plan, right?

     Well, the story splits off here again.  I will just say, the Alliance is fighting and sees the Horde leave them to the Legion.  Without the support, the Alliance is overrun and has to retreat.  King Varian Wrynn, sacrifices himself to allow the Alliance to escape, and then charges into the demon's and goes out like the Bad A he is.  No we don't recover a body, but play the quest.  He's gone.

     What the Alliance doesn't see is the Horde is being over run and is forced to retreat.  Vol'jin is severely wounded and Thrall is knocked out of the fight.  Despite the cries of hold this position no matter what, the Horde is forced to retreat.  They too get to see Varian Wrynn die as they make their escape.

     So on Alliance side, King Wrynn is dead and Anduin is now the king of Stormwind.  I am curious where this will go, because Wrynn has always been the war leader for the Alliance, and his son is not a warrior.  We of course get a bit of angry Jaina and Angry Genn Graymane, and half the alliance leadership is calling out for vengeance against the Horde for abandoning them.  They blame the Horde for Varian's death

    The Horde calls you in time to see Vol'jin's last moments.  Yes, the troll whom I love the most is no more.  In his last moments he tells Sylvanas what he thinks of her, and then makes her Warchief.  He then is taken to troll heaven, or to be one with the loa, or whatever their afterlife is.

    So now, we get to see two factions who have lost their main leaders have to interact.  Sylvanas has always been what one might consider evil and very aggressive.  I am curious how leading the Horde is going to effect this part of her now that she has to watch out for all the Horde races, and not just the undead.  This may be the redemption story we have been waiting for.  I mean, we have seen so many leaders killed and corrupted, it would be a nice change of pace.

   The one bone of contention I have with this pre-patch is a small one. When the Demon Hunters emerge, they meet up with Khadgar, who introduces himself as the leader of the Kirin Tor.  This is all well and good, but this takes place before some throne room shenanigans in which Jaina is labeled and calls herself the leader of the Kirin Tor.  Either Blizzard dropped the ball here somewhere, or Khadgar and Jaina may be causing a rift in the biggest mage society on Azeroth.  Because we need more leaders arguing and causing civil war.

    Either way, I am enjoying the crap out of this content.  Play it for yourselves, it's great.  The armor you can get for transmog and upgrades from the invasions looks good.  Well, except for the cloth helm.  And Azeroth feels populated again.  Hop in and see what I mean.

Lag.

Prepatch feelings.

So, by now most of you have jumped on to try out your characters.

     I have taken a couple weeks to post this, because I've been mulling over what to say.  I want to give some bright insights you haven't heard anywhere else along with infusing you with the fervor and excite which comes when we are looking a new expansion in the face.   I want to thrill you with words and make you want to log in this very moment to see what everyone else is experiencing.

     In my heart I can't.

     The state of the game is fine, don't get me wrong.  I have been moving from character to character trying out some of the specs.  Some like my Ret Paladin just doesn't feel right to me.  Which if funny because I would argue my Retadin got changed very little.  Survival hunter feels more fun that I would have though, my elemental shaman just feels under-powered to me.  And on and on it goes.

     I guess I was expecting more early on.  We got built up to this pre-patch event etc, and I got a little bit of bone with bits of meat on it.  The main coarse is still waiting.  The only opinion I can give right now is that things are not where they need to be yet. They have given us a taste of what is up and coming, but I am not comfortable giving any type of judgement yet.

     I was honestly hoping they would start the pre-patch shenanigans today, a week before we get demon hunters.  Alas as far as I know nothing happened.  I haven't seen any news of it in my feeds or on Blizzardwatch, and the DDoS attacks are keeping me from being able to log in to see for myself.  I guess I thought it would be nice if everyone could focus on the pre-patch event, and then on Demon Hunters rather than balancing time between the two.

     The other thing I can speak to is I am in the Facebook streaming beta from Blizzard.  I can stream any of the games I choose to play in Blizzard's list.  Be it Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, or World of Warcraft.  So far I'm underwhelmed with this product, but as it is, it is the beta.

     The problems I have seen is freezing while recording (to be honest that is more my computers fault then Blizzards) When you are no longer live on Facebook the recording seem clipped and short. Normally it stops after about five minutes, and half of that is video that is fast forwarded/sped up.   I also would love a way to link the recordings here at the bottom of my blog post, because that would be cool.  I would honestly love to record my blog live, verbally while playing so people could choose to click and listen while I am using this technology.  It has a long way to go.

     I still don't think the intention is to take on Twitch.  I just don't see the earning potential or the focus that would be needed towards a particular group of individuals.  I am not seeing anything in the interface that is comparable and I feel that if such things are implemented, they may not fit into Blizzard's vision of this product. Once again, it's Beta so we don't know what is going to happen down the line.

     So, am I being a wet blanket?  Is there something amazing that has come out that I have missed?  Or am I spot on, and are you gritting at the teeth for some real new content to play?  What is your opinion so far?

Lag

   

Any Given Tuesday.

It's getting close to that time.

    The patch could drop any week now.  I know we say that every time about now, but every week we are one step closer.  I fully expect we will have at least a month to play with the pre-patch event, as that seems to have been a trend with the expansions that had a pre-patch event (I'm glaring at you Pandaria)

    That means, if you want your Moose from Hellfire Citadel, you have a very limited amount of time to do so.  Once the patch drops, that mount is gone.  If you wanted to level X character up to 100 before the shenanigans begin, you need to get it done quickly.

    The Legion is coming.

     If your like me you are frothing at the mouth to see what Blizzard does with this.  I'm expecting a lot of changes and updates to lore.  I as always, am hoping this new expansion will resonate with players as much as Wrath of the Lich King did.  I think Blizzard needs another expansion that just nails it like wrath did.  There is a reason it was most every bodies (whom I talk to anyway) favorite expansion.  It does have the promise.

     Icon character driving the story forward (Illidan, check) A real threat to our Azeroth (Check again) and a feeling that our actions will have an effect on our world going forward (Sorry Warlords, Check).  An enemy that is both familiar, but has some new aspects to it. (Check it baby).

     Now all we need to do is hope the story and game play lives up to the hype.  I have no illusions that we are ever going to see twelve million players in this game again like we did in Wrath.  It would be nice, but the possibilities are just not there at the moment.  I won't say it's impossible either.  No one expected the player base to jump back up to ten million at the beginning of Warlords, but we all know that didn't last very long.  What does that mean though?

    It means that the fans are there.  It means there are enough players hoping for an experience that can pull them back into the game again like it used to.  I myself would love something that made me feel like I had to log in every day, for at least a few minutes, to see what was going on.  On the other hand I don't really have that time at the moment either.  That pull though, I would love to feel it again.

     So, ten million, twelve million players, not probable, yes.  Impossible?  I don't believe anything is impossible if done right.  I don't see it happening, but I would love to be proved wrong.  I'm pretty sure Blizzard doesn't expect those numbers again, but they would be happily surprised if they happened.

    Grab your swords and staffs, Legion is coming.  It is less than two months away and will be upon us before we know it.  Lets kill some Legion.

Lag.

Two More Months Left Until Legion.

It just dawned on my how close we are to the next expansion.

    We are less than two months away people. That's right let me say it again.

    Less than two months.

    That means within the month we will probably get to experience the launch of the pre-expansion content.  They have said this time around there will be a pre-expansion event, and I for one am looking forward to it.  I love pre-expansion events.  The Wrath one was my favorite.

    It would be yours two if you remembered all the QQing and the zombie plague, (which I loved btw.)

    What will we get this time?  Will it be a set of quests to stop an invasion like the last one?  Or will it be a set of different events that change the landscape of our home cities like the elemental invasion before cataclysm?  The other question here, I wonder ever so humbly.

    They said pre-purchased legion copies will get the Demon Hunter early... will we get it with the launch of the pre-expansion content.  I would be lying if I didn't say I was insanely excited at the moment about all this.  Bring it on baby, I am ready for Legion.  

    In two months we will see if the raid team is back.  Honestly, I would love to try to do a couple of raids before the new content drops if enough folks are around.  I could see bringing our characters with the Legion changes into Hellfire Citadel a couple times to see how they feel.  I'm not sure people will be up or around for it, but it would be nice to see how things feel.

    Like always, I will start posting raid a couple weeks to a month after the Xpack drops depending on how the guild is looking.  If people are hitting 110 quickly, I will be scheduling things quickly. If people drag their feet it might be a little longer.  If the raid team does not get back together, as it has been on hiatus for months I will address that when it happens.  If nothing else I will try and find another raid team we can work our way into.  I really have no desire to rebuild at this point, but with cross-realm invites etc... I may be able to find something we all can still do. I want to keep the team together as much as possible, and I may eat my "I don't want to rebuild words."  Emotionally though I don't think I can do another expansion of people not showing up, and fighting to get a team to raid.  I don't want to quit this game, I still enjoy it.  I love the people like Magilla, and Scorpiack who have been running with us forever.  But, I just have too much spinning on my plate right now to go back and do all that extra work.  We will figure it out though, as we always do.

Lag.