So while I am running around outland with my warlock trying to round up some loremaster things I run into this:
WotlK cleared
Well not physically in-game of course but I have a tendency to read some random things while making use of the various flightmasters.
Be that as it may it looks like it took the combined and obviously quite rushed forces of nihilum and SK gaming less than 3 days to wrap up whatever is available of Northrend before the 3.1 content patch.
I'd applaud their effort were it not for the fact that they literally ran out of content and get to sit around and wait / level up alts / QQ before new content comes out... which they will undoubtedly be able to deal with even quicker. So in reality this seems little more than a company sponsored outting to wrap up what little there is to see in WotLK instances before anyone else.
It's amazing what people will do for money isn't it? (make no mistake, those guys are getting paid for this)
Still, all this leads to the question if things all of a sudden didn't get a little too easy. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely to be making fast progress and being able to blast through instances without too much hassle.
But content needs to be proportionate to time invested. If people consume a game's content too quickly they will become bored and leave for other games, as a result it's in blizzard's best interest to scale difficulty according to when their content patches are released.
Of course you can't calculate in a bunch of 'hired goons' completing your content in less than 3 days but looking at the average player you need to at least be able to provide them with enough challenge/content to bridge the gap between now and the next expansion/ content patch.
If I really wanted to see it all and have it all 'NOW' I would download a wow emulator and have it all when I want it... but we all know that having everything in a game only leads to boredome and not to some glorified legendary position amongst our peers.
So despite the positive 'casual' atmosphere of the expansion the question begs to be asked if things didn't get a little 'too' easy.
Showing posts with label WotlK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WotlK. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
I can haz tabard?
With WotlK now less than a month away people are literally strapped to the edge of their seats waiting for the launch. AH market prices are all over the place and within an instant you can make or lose a fortune. Instance running in general is on the collapse and there's a massive amount of pre-wotlk guilds popping up.
A day doesn't go by that I don't see a handful of new guild names flying by in trade (apparantly they need to put signs up for people to find the guild recruitment channel) and each and every one of them is advertising with:
1. We have a guild bank
and
2. We have a tabard
Say what now? Tell me of this mystical invention called 'tabard' and what is this 'guild bank' you speak of?
No I mean really, why on earth would you advertise with that? Tell me something about your guild, give me a website, show me your goals or for medivh's sake at least have a funny recruitment blurb.
Are there any guilds out there that do _not_ have a guild bank / tabard? Why sure there are... let me rephrase: Are there any guilds out there where having a guild bank / tabard actually matters toward's the guild's goals? And if they do then why would you not advertise that goal instead of having a guild bank / tabard?
The guild bank and the tabard are nice perks but they do not a guild make. Everyone with 9 signatures and a small pouch of gold can have a guild bank and a tabard and yet neither one of those will tell me what kind of guild is recruiting (although a pink tabard with a blue bunny may be a bit of a give away).
Do people really join guilds because they have a cool tabard? And skipping a step ahead: would you really recruit someone if their reason to join is your guild's tabard? (I'd be scared, very very scared).
Maybe I am just ranting (I am pretty sure I am actually) but I don't see how spamming trade with: guild x is recruiting we have a tabard and gbank /w for invite
is a sound or even remotely effective recruiting strategy.
Do people really use this as a serious recruitment blurb?
A day doesn't go by that I don't see a handful of new guild names flying by in trade (apparantly they need to put signs up for people to find the guild recruitment channel) and each and every one of them is advertising with:
1. We have a guild bank
and
2. We have a tabard
Say what now? Tell me of this mystical invention called 'tabard' and what is this 'guild bank' you speak of?
No I mean really, why on earth would you advertise with that? Tell me something about your guild, give me a website, show me your goals or for medivh's sake at least have a funny recruitment blurb.
Are there any guilds out there that do _not_ have a guild bank / tabard? Why sure there are... let me rephrase: Are there any guilds out there where having a guild bank / tabard actually matters toward's the guild's goals? And if they do then why would you not advertise that goal instead of having a guild bank / tabard?
The guild bank and the tabard are nice perks but they do not a guild make. Everyone with 9 signatures and a small pouch of gold can have a guild bank and a tabard and yet neither one of those will tell me what kind of guild is recruiting (although a pink tabard with a blue bunny may be a bit of a give away).
Do people really join guilds because they have a cool tabard? And skipping a step ahead: would you really recruit someone if their reason to join is your guild's tabard? (I'd be scared, very very scared).
Maybe I am just ranting (I am pretty sure I am actually) but I don't see how spamming trade with: guild x is recruiting we have a tabard and gbank /w for invite
is a sound or even remotely effective recruiting strategy.
Do people really use this as a serious recruitment blurb?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Preparing for WotLK
With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion only 2 months away from release I am lifting my self-imposed NDA on WotLK information. The talents are solidifying, 3.0.2 is on the PTR and the pre-wotlk content patch can't be far away either. So now is the time to take up that wayward shared topic from BlogAzeroth and see what we need to do to prepare for Wrath.
... but what to take? What to stockpile? What is still worth anything come wrath?
A few quick checks on various sites and item databases and we can already see this:
1. Inscription will be available. A new profession pretty much reliant on herbalism meaning that the prices of plants of any shape and form will rise and stay on the rise for quite a while.
2. WotLK will reset the Arena points as soon as you level past 70 meaning farming arena is purely for the purpose of getting levelling gear atm.
3. Honor/Marks will not reset and could be farmed.
4. According to various WotLK crafting recipes primals are still alive and kicking but all the other tradeskills will get a new tier of resources (i.e new cloths, leathers, plants, etc.). Primal prices will be somewhat unpredictable for a while.
5. Speed enhancing items such as the carrot on the stick will no longer work and you won't be able to pick up flight again until lvl 77 with cold weather flying. Speed enhancers from talents stay the same (i.e. still functional).
6. Talents have changed massively, stat distribution on items likewise. Spirit and strength are becoming more interesting stats for casters / melee respectively and a lot of stats have been rolled into one (+healing +spell damage go to spellpower etc.).
7. Death Knights will be introduced and start at lvl 55. This means there will be a greater demand for various tradeskill materials (DK's powerlevelling professions) and an unhealthy demand for level 55+ quality items.
So what does all this mean?
Looking at the various crafting skills we see that very little will change. Demand for resources with the notable exception of herbs will stay more or less steady but there will be a slight decline of available Outland resources as people level past outland (followed by a bit of a price hike). The only reasonable thing to stockpile here is herbs and maybe maintaining a small stockpile of other materials for people that are powerlevelling their Death Knights.
Current enchanting materials as well as high end products such as shadowcloth, mooncloth etc. should probably be ditched as quickly as possible as they will incur a heavy price drop. In the off-chance that things like the new cloths will take older cloths you can always go back and farm the materials a lot easier at lvl 80 than it was at lvl 70. Standard material prices with the exception of enchanting materials (cloths, ores, leathers) will stay in steady demand as is now with the market probably fluctuating for a while on the outland mats.
Recipes with the possible exception of engineering recipes (which are always quite popular) should also be sold soon, odds are they all will be replaced by the time you hit lvl 77. The recipes won't be considered rare until well into the expansion after which they may become worth something again. In the meantime expect at least a 50% price drop.
Gear-wise it's probably wise to hold on to a levelling set and whatever vanity items you may have. The rest will unfortunately become rather worthless, hold on to them to see if they become good in wotlk but be prepared to vendor or DE them.
Stockpiling gold is pointless, while it's worth having a chunk of it around when wotlk hits it is more than reasonable to assume that questing at level 80 will produce significantly more gold than you could do now via dailies.
Last but not least it will probably be handy to keep a small supply of what are currently crucial materials for specific enchants. WotLK will have new enchants yes but it will also take a little bit before these enchants become publicly available.
All in all there could be some motivation to farm some honor but there seems to be no specific need to stockpile anything other than herbs, patience and low expectations.
I for one will clear-cut my bank, make space for the future and focus on levelling alts so I can have something to do other than a death knight.
... but what to take? What to stockpile? What is still worth anything come wrath?
A few quick checks on various sites and item databases and we can already see this:
1. Inscription will be available. A new profession pretty much reliant on herbalism meaning that the prices of plants of any shape and form will rise and stay on the rise for quite a while.
2. WotLK will reset the Arena points as soon as you level past 70 meaning farming arena is purely for the purpose of getting levelling gear atm.
3. Honor/Marks will not reset and could be farmed.
4. According to various WotLK crafting recipes primals are still alive and kicking but all the other tradeskills will get a new tier of resources (i.e new cloths, leathers, plants, etc.). Primal prices will be somewhat unpredictable for a while.
5. Speed enhancing items such as the carrot on the stick will no longer work and you won't be able to pick up flight again until lvl 77 with cold weather flying. Speed enhancers from talents stay the same (i.e. still functional).
6. Talents have changed massively, stat distribution on items likewise. Spirit and strength are becoming more interesting stats for casters / melee respectively and a lot of stats have been rolled into one (+healing +spell damage go to spellpower etc.).
7. Death Knights will be introduced and start at lvl 55. This means there will be a greater demand for various tradeskill materials (DK's powerlevelling professions) and an unhealthy demand for level 55+ quality items.
So what does all this mean?
Looking at the various crafting skills we see that very little will change. Demand for resources with the notable exception of herbs will stay more or less steady but there will be a slight decline of available Outland resources as people level past outland (followed by a bit of a price hike). The only reasonable thing to stockpile here is herbs and maybe maintaining a small stockpile of other materials for people that are powerlevelling their Death Knights.
Current enchanting materials as well as high end products such as shadowcloth, mooncloth etc. should probably be ditched as quickly as possible as they will incur a heavy price drop. In the off-chance that things like the new cloths will take older cloths you can always go back and farm the materials a lot easier at lvl 80 than it was at lvl 70. Standard material prices with the exception of enchanting materials (cloths, ores, leathers) will stay in steady demand as is now with the market probably fluctuating for a while on the outland mats.
Recipes with the possible exception of engineering recipes (which are always quite popular) should also be sold soon, odds are they all will be replaced by the time you hit lvl 77. The recipes won't be considered rare until well into the expansion after which they may become worth something again. In the meantime expect at least a 50% price drop.
Gear-wise it's probably wise to hold on to a levelling set and whatever vanity items you may have. The rest will unfortunately become rather worthless, hold on to them to see if they become good in wotlk but be prepared to vendor or DE them.
Stockpiling gold is pointless, while it's worth having a chunk of it around when wotlk hits it is more than reasonable to assume that questing at level 80 will produce significantly more gold than you could do now via dailies.
Last but not least it will probably be handy to keep a small supply of what are currently crucial materials for specific enchants. WotLK will have new enchants yes but it will also take a little bit before these enchants become publicly available.
All in all there could be some motivation to farm some honor but there seems to be no specific need to stockpile anything other than herbs, patience and low expectations.
I for one will clear-cut my bank, make space for the future and focus on levelling alts so I can have something to do other than a death knight.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Disenchant come WotLK?
Every now and then the time comes to clean up the bankspace of the various characters. A surprisingly enjoyable activity considering it always results in a nice chunk of cash.
And after cleaning out a whole bunch of redundant cloth, selling a large portion of the easier to replace enchanting materials and getting rid of various stacks of rep items as well as some other things I am left with one thing: Gear
Tons and tons of gear.
Even on my warlock, one of the characters that you'd think would be fine with just 1 set of gear, there are gear items with +fire damage accumulating dust in the bank. Parts of set items I am hoping to complete even though I am probably never going to wear them and a whole legion of items with spell-hit in case I ever step foot into a raid again.
I am not even going to mention my paladin. Between collecting a healing, a protection and a retribution set he could easily supply half of Thrall's personal guards with some spiffy upgrades.
But the problem really is that this gear is going to be outdated and outdated fast come wotlk.
So how useful is it to hang on to that tanking set that you know you won't be using while you're levelling through wotlk? What is the point of hanging on to those set items that are never going to do you any good?
Certainly I am not going to throw away an epic set of merciless gladiator stuff (it'll have nostalgic value) nor some of the things that simply look cool and will make a nice parade outfit but what about the rest?
What about those wayward tanking items? The infinite array of trinkets that only see the light of day every blue moon, the stacks of night elf porn magazines that have long since been replaced by far better blood elf porn?
What do I do with it? Do I disenchant it now if only to turn 10+ stacks into 2-3? Do I hope that WotLK will provide me with some cheap 30 slot bags *caughyeahrightcaugh* so I can hold on to my hard earned... junk?
Realistically I'll be needing some of it to level through to 80, or at least get me started (I wager all my epics will be outdated by the time I hit lvl 75) but isn't the rest just a redundant stack of pixels waiting to be released so Blizzard can re-use the art on Tier 7 / 8 / 9 gear and call it new?
For now I will shuffle everything around, squeeze the gear into the corner and pretend I didn't just waste 30+ slots of bankspace on useless crud but that there is actually some greater purpose in hanging on to it.
What do you think? Are you going to disenchant come WotLK and what do you expect to terminate first of all those items that you may have spent days if not weeks / months collecting?
And after cleaning out a whole bunch of redundant cloth, selling a large portion of the easier to replace enchanting materials and getting rid of various stacks of rep items as well as some other things I am left with one thing: Gear
Tons and tons of gear.
Even on my warlock, one of the characters that you'd think would be fine with just 1 set of gear, there are gear items with +fire damage accumulating dust in the bank. Parts of set items I am hoping to complete even though I am probably never going to wear them and a whole legion of items with spell-hit in case I ever step foot into a raid again.
I am not even going to mention my paladin. Between collecting a healing, a protection and a retribution set he could easily supply half of Thrall's personal guards with some spiffy upgrades.
But the problem really is that this gear is going to be outdated and outdated fast come wotlk.
So how useful is it to hang on to that tanking set that you know you won't be using while you're levelling through wotlk? What is the point of hanging on to those set items that are never going to do you any good?
Certainly I am not going to throw away an epic set of merciless gladiator stuff (it'll have nostalgic value) nor some of the things that simply look cool and will make a nice parade outfit but what about the rest?
What about those wayward tanking items? The infinite array of trinkets that only see the light of day every blue moon, the stacks of night elf porn magazines that have long since been replaced by far better blood elf porn?
What do I do with it? Do I disenchant it now if only to turn 10+ stacks into 2-3? Do I hope that WotLK will provide me with some cheap 30 slot bags *caughyeahrightcaugh* so I can hold on to my hard earned... junk?
Realistically I'll be needing some of it to level through to 80, or at least get me started (I wager all my epics will be outdated by the time I hit lvl 75) but isn't the rest just a redundant stack of pixels waiting to be released so Blizzard can re-use the art on Tier 7 / 8 / 9 gear and call it new?
For now I will shuffle everything around, squeeze the gear into the corner and pretend I didn't just waste 30+ slots of bankspace on useless crud but that there is actually some greater purpose in hanging on to it.
What do you think? Are you going to disenchant come WotLK and what do you expect to terminate first of all those items that you may have spent days if not weeks / months collecting?
Friday, July 18, 2008
Randomness
I had been toying with signing up for blog azeroth which is turning out to be quite the community of wow bloggers.
Thankfull their latest shared topic set me straight and reminded me of the fact that I had better blog about what I feel like rather than dealing with that strange feeling of having to come up with material for a blog post to a topic that I didn't come up with. Or at least feeling like I have to compe up with something...
It's not that I mind borrowing inspiration from other blogs (I have in the past and I will in the future) but how creative can you possibly get with a shared topic called: "Why do I WoW?" Should I actually feel obligated to fill out the shared topic every time someone comes up with a new one? Do other bloggers?
How much fun is it for the reader to see hundreds of blog posts popping up like mushrooms with exactly the same topic? Are we sure people enjoy these shared topics?
It almost feels like Blog azeroth has either run out of creative ideas or they're using the rolodex of standard topics applicable to any MMORPG.
Nothing against blog azeroth of course, the initiative is quite good and it's nice to have new sources of inspiration and I am glad people have a good place to come together to see whose who but I can practically see the next shared topic being: "What is your favorite non-combat pet and why?".
But before I wander off into the land of mindless ranting a little heads up that the beta patch info is available for Wrath right here
As usual the friendly reminder to not take anything in there too serious since things have a tendency to change drastically from an initial Beta to the actual go-live.
I am sure there's plenty of speculation going on already all over the WoW community if you're looking to join the bandwagon of commentators but I have a feeling we'll have plenty of time to blog about every aspect of it before wrath hits the shelves.
I for one will delay commenting on any kind of class changes listed in the beta notes until I have the expansion installed on my PC and have to physically deal with the changes.
Thankfull their latest shared topic set me straight and reminded me of the fact that I had better blog about what I feel like rather than dealing with that strange feeling of having to come up with material for a blog post to a topic that I didn't come up with. Or at least feeling like I have to compe up with something...
It's not that I mind borrowing inspiration from other blogs (I have in the past and I will in the future) but how creative can you possibly get with a shared topic called: "Why do I WoW?" Should I actually feel obligated to fill out the shared topic every time someone comes up with a new one? Do other bloggers?
How much fun is it for the reader to see hundreds of blog posts popping up like mushrooms with exactly the same topic? Are we sure people enjoy these shared topics?
It almost feels like Blog azeroth has either run out of creative ideas or they're using the rolodex of standard topics applicable to any MMORPG.
Nothing against blog azeroth of course, the initiative is quite good and it's nice to have new sources of inspiration and I am glad people have a good place to come together to see whose who but I can practically see the next shared topic being: "What is your favorite non-combat pet and why?".
But before I wander off into the land of mindless ranting a little heads up that the beta patch info is available for Wrath right here
As usual the friendly reminder to not take anything in there too serious since things have a tendency to change drastically from an initial Beta to the actual go-live.
I am sure there's plenty of speculation going on already all over the WoW community if you're looking to join the bandwagon of commentators but I have a feeling we'll have plenty of time to blog about every aspect of it before wrath hits the shelves.
I for one will delay commenting on any kind of class changes listed in the beta notes until I have the expansion installed on my PC and have to physically deal with the changes.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The end of TBC is near
I am sure even the most wow-news unconcious amongst us know it. They feel it in the air. With the extensive buzz over the leaked alpha trees for Wrath of the Lich king, more and more info coming out of big blue's corner and the first trailers flooding in of what's to come it has become fairly obvious:
The end of TBC is in sight.
Leaked financial statements indicate that the whole thing will probably hit the shelves at the end of this year, possibly the beginning of the next.
The expansion will undoubtedly bring a whole new set of crafting recipes, skills, new talents, new lands and even a new class. What it will also bring is a great equalizer for gear.
With the advent of TBC the old lands were lost, the old item sets became useless and only those decked out in top of the line azerothian epics could compete with the flood of new 'ueber-greens'.
Wrath of the Lich king will be no different. Big blue has always strived to give their players and equal playing field and WotLK will be no different.
Realistically that means if you have any intention of still playing wow next year (you addict!) then gear goals should become less and less important to you.
What will be important is currency of all shapes and flavors. Honor, Arena points, Badges, trade goods like ores and similar.
With the crafting skills being extended and the continual whining over how bad they really are most crafting skills will most likely be getting a little love and levelling beyond 375 will be an expensive and resource intensive task.
Items even epics will become worthless beyond their disenchant value and the market for trade goods of higher qualities will most likely inflate like crazy.
Now is the time to ask yourself the question... what do I want to do in WotLK and is what I am doing right now in any way shape or form useful for when the expansion hits?
The end of TBC is in sight.
Leaked financial statements indicate that the whole thing will probably hit the shelves at the end of this year, possibly the beginning of the next.
The expansion will undoubtedly bring a whole new set of crafting recipes, skills, new talents, new lands and even a new class. What it will also bring is a great equalizer for gear.
With the advent of TBC the old lands were lost, the old item sets became useless and only those decked out in top of the line azerothian epics could compete with the flood of new 'ueber-greens'.
Wrath of the Lich king will be no different. Big blue has always strived to give their players and equal playing field and WotLK will be no different.
Realistically that means if you have any intention of still playing wow next year (you addict!) then gear goals should become less and less important to you.
What will be important is currency of all shapes and flavors. Honor, Arena points, Badges, trade goods like ores and similar.
With the crafting skills being extended and the continual whining over how bad they really are most crafting skills will most likely be getting a little love and levelling beyond 375 will be an expensive and resource intensive task.
Items even epics will become worthless beyond their disenchant value and the market for trade goods of higher qualities will most likely inflate like crazy.
Now is the time to ask yourself the question... what do I want to do in WotLK and is what I am doing right now in any way shape or form useful for when the expansion hits?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Alpha trees for WotLK leaked
Just a little heads up for those future concious wow-players amongst you. The alpha versions of the new talent trees for Wrath of the Lich King have been leaked and as a result have been splattered all over the place.
Check War Tools and filter on your desired class to get an indication of what's to come.
Mind you the site will be terribly slow for a while until everyone is done staring at the new talent trees.
I leave it up to you to decide whether or not you will enjoy the new talents but personally I am quite excited to see so much movement on the trees including some rather radical re-designs.
As usual I will reserve my commentary for when things are no longer alpha, beta... but fact.
Check War Tools and filter on your desired class to get an indication of what's to come.
Mind you the site will be terribly slow for a while until everyone is done staring at the new talent trees.
I leave it up to you to decide whether or not you will enjoy the new talents but personally I am quite excited to see so much movement on the trees including some rather radical re-designs.
As usual I will reserve my commentary for when things are no longer alpha, beta... but fact.
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