WoW - 9 months later

My look back at the last 9 months of WoW is up at Gamergod.com (now defunct). It is a look back at what has been introduced to WoW since its launch nine fateful months ago. PvP honor, battlegrounds, and PvE content are covered.

WoW has changed for the better and has a good future ahead of it. Blizzard hopefully can fix battlegrounds to make them more enjoyable as well as keep pushing out content to further plant WoW as #1.

Stay tuned for more.

Update: 3 Aug, 2010 - Removed bad link to Gamergod.com (now defunct)

Required reading - 29 Aug 05

From my good ole' buddy Grimwell over at Gamergod.com. Wanted to focus on one quote I found very insightful and promising for MMOs.

Grimwell: What range of levels will the content cover in this expansion? Will it focus only on the high level characters, or will there be something for everyone at every level?

Shawn: While the full range of levels is covered, it won't be equal; the support will be proportional to the population of the game, so it will tip to the high end of the game (as most veteran players will be of high level). Any new quest arcs will fit into existing areas and arcs. Since WoW takes players on a deliberate path through the levels in specific areas, any new quests need to take advantage of these areas and pair up with existing content instead of making new areas for the same level range and moving or splitting up the player population.

Well first off... woohoo expansion! The good news is that it seems they are going to get it right for once. Not adding just more landmass, but using the expansion as a means to fill in the current world. This allows new areas to mainly be built for level 60 content. I feel this is the way to go... no more EQ syndrome expansions that result in 50% more land to explore.

While I love exploring in WoW, I love the current world and don't feel more land would fit without destroying what we have. Sending us on quests through the same areas on new story arcs is better.

What do you guys think?

Update: 11 May, 2009 - Edited post, applied label, and removed broken links.

Gamergod.com - F.E.A.R. preview

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post originally linked to a Gamergod.com article about F.E.A.R., but Gamergod.com is now defunct.

Alterac Valley needs to be rebuilt

Take a look at this thread over on WoW's official Azgalor realm forums. (link removed) Now do a search and you will find hundreds of other posts stating the exact same thing.

Charging in and dieing is preferred to balanced group play because you can resurrect at full mana and health a lot faster than you could actually get healed or regenerate. How much more evident can it get that Blizzard wants AV to focus 100% on graveyard to graveyard zerging?

Every AV match starts out with the two sides trying to zerg rush the graveyard closest to the enemy general, Iceblood or Stonehearth. Every single time! If you go in organized; chances are your zerg will get to the graveyard first allowing for quite an easy victory. Once the graveyard is captured it turns into an instant resurrection spot every 30 seconds making it nearly impossible to be captured spelling the end of the match.

Every side objective in AV is a joke and results in no positive gain for your team. The fight will remain between two graveyards almost the entire time. Anyone else wishing to venture off most likely will get killed off by NPC guards and then return to the zerg fight.

Here is what is needed to fix AV.

• 30 second resurrection timer increased to 2 minutes.
  
• No honor given out for player kills. Honor only earned through completion of goals, side objectives, and winning the BG.
  
• Max of 100 resurrections per graveyard, but can be increased through the gathering of resources. The "home" graveyards would be unlimited.
  
• All towers and forts must be captured first before the enemy general will spawn.
  
• Resource gathering required as the initial stage. Require players to split up and capture as many resources as quickly as possible. Resources directly affect strength of forts and towers.
  
• Every resource would have a limited supply. Once the supplies are cleaned out the source is shutdown.
  
• Players would be required to carry the resources.
  
• Put doors on forts and towers that must be destroyed first.
  
• General can not be pulled out of their main room and goes into "evade" mode anytime they are being hit and can not hit the attacker back.
  
• More AOE attacks for the generals.
  
• Limit # of the players allowed to join. If there is only 20 on one side and 40 on the other side waiting to get in... only let 20 in. As more join the lower side allow more from the other side in.

Some of these are far fetched... and some are not. Team size, resurrection timer, and graveyard rushing need to be changed!

Update: 3 Aug, 2010 - Edited post to remove bad link to WoW forums.

I love the smell of Dire Maul in the morning

Another tribute run. Another fun adventure.

First we started with finding out our warrior spoke NO English. Then we found out our rogue had never been to DM before and thought he was suppose to pull right away. We survived, but I instantly turned on babysitter mode.

No matter how hard we tried we could not convince the warrior to stop attacking the named guards. No English comprehension = bad. So we just let him die every time. Then came the end boss... and the pull right before getting there. You can choose to pull the three on the left or the two on the right... and last time I check two was less than three.

Sadly our rogue forgot what left and right was... pulled the wrong side and found out that the hyenas can see him in stealth. Wipe. Now this is normal for any pick up group I am in... but most of the time we manage to finish DM anyways. I won't be giving up now!

BAM! OWNED! SMOKED! Blizzard /slaps you with a trout.

I died, disconnected, and popped up at the Alterac Valley portal. This is the point where I would normally hurt my cat... but... anyways.

30 minutes later I was back at DM. We killed the end boss no problems... and of course the loot stunk. That is my WoW life. Thanks for reading.

My first Gamergod.com article has been posted

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post was originally linking to my first article posted at Gamergod.com which was an interview with WarcraftRealms.com founder, Rollie. Gamergod.com is now defunct, but the interview can be found here.

Long awaited UPDATE to Dizzarian.com WoW tips post

I started this post ages ago and have edited it many times with several updates. It is just general good info on how to be a success in WoW. It has turned more to a focus of Auction House money making, but that is where the money in WoW is.... trust me.

Take a look at it here.

Comment here or give me suggestions. Thanks!

Tried Irth Online for a Bit

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied label.

Update: 4 May, 2009 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

Originally, this post contained a link to Irth Online's website (now defunct) and gave a blurb about playing in the NDA-protected beta.

DAoC clustering... the way to fix WoW Battlegrounds

For anyone that has ever played World of Warcraft during non-peak hours you unfortunately know that the PvP battlegrounds are rarely, if ever, open during that time. Two days in a row where I've just wanted to hit the battlegrounds for an hour or two has resulted in the following... two hour waits for nothing. Both days I waited from about 7 am EST until 10 AM EST and not one Alterac Valley or Warsong Gulch opened. This is not a limited occurrence to two days either. This is a normal occurrence on Azgalor and most other servers during the weekdays.

Battlegrounds normally do not open until after 6 pm EST on Azgalor and even then you have to be one of the lucky people who were already standing in line since 4 pm to get in. The battlegrounds usually remain open well into the night and about midnight is when they start closing up.

So for gamers like me all the previews in the world can't sell me on Arathi Basin. Outside of the first couple of days I will never see this battleground. Plus with the 1.7 inclusion of battleground holidays rewarding ONLY players who get to play at prime time, there is once again no point in me trying to compete in the PvP ranks.

I make limited gains and put in 3x the amount of work to get my honor. I have to do it the good ole' fashioned way. Ride out to enemy lands and hunt them down. Three hours results in maybe 30 HK's. Three hours in a battleground for random newb #1 results in 100's of HK and 1,000's of bonus honor. This needs to be fixed.

And here is the fix, thanks to Dark Ages of Camelot. When DAoC servers started having severe population imbalances and PvP combat was becoming few and far between Mythic decided to cluster servers together, but only their PvP combat areas. Now 3-5 servers are joined together and share PvP areas.

WoW needs to do the same with battlegrounds. Combine 3-5 servers and have the battlegrounds pull people from each one. This way if there is 1-2 people waiting in line at 2 am in the morning 5 servers will combine to make 10. What a brilliant idea! The coding can not be that hard and it makes complete sense. Give everyone equal chance to compete in PvP ranks regardless of whether they are logged in at prime time or not.

Oh and remove the battleground holiday, as it insults the non-peak hour gamer.

Update: 6 Sept, 2009 - Edited post and applied labels.

WoW 1.7 patch notes... commentary

Check out the official patch notes here... finally they weren't leaked early. As always I am here to sift through and pull out the good stuff... and of course tell you what I think.

Switching weapons in combat triggers a 1 second global cooldown for all abilities for rogues and a 1.5 second global cooldown for everyone else.
-EDIT:Sprawl from VN WoW General forum has explained this better than I could....

"What this change did do was fix it so exploiters couldn't use the instant swap in order to backstab with a sword. People were using macros to pass the dagger check with backstab but swap to swords before the damage is calculated." - Sprawl

Battleground "holidays" have been added to Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin. Holidays occur during most weekends, starting on Thursday night at midnight and continuing until Tuesday morning. During a holiday, emmissaries from that Battleground will be found in the major cities, and honor/faction rewards for performing objectives in that battleground are increased.
-Another wonderful blow to those of us that play off hours and on odd days. Shouldn't bother us anyways, because the battlegrounds are rarely open outside of primetime.

Losers of Warsong Gulch are now given a "Ribbon of Sacrifice" which they may turn in to Captain Shatterspear or Sentinel Farsong for a faction reward.
-Huh? WoW... the only game where losers are rewarded!

New Spell: Hammer of Wrath (Level 44) - Hurls a hammer that strikes an enemy for Holy damage. Only usable on a wounded target.
-Now that class that never dies... gets a ranged attack. Interesting to see how powerful this is. Still doesn't give them any sort of range to pull with... which is the main complaint of Paladins.

Proficiency Bonuses have been added to the game. Some sets of equippable items have been added that will give bonus effects to the player only if they have a specific skill, such as Leatherworking.
-Good change. Funny they mention Leatherworking... one of the most useless crafting skills in game. Finally balancing things out towards engineering by buffing the other crafting skills... great move.

New "Dressing Room" Interface now available! If you control-left click on any item, item reference (vendors, quests) or item link (chat), a UI panel will appear showing your character wearing that item. You can then use the same command (control-left click) on additional items to add to the preview appearance. In addition, the Auction House now has a checkbox in the upper right-hand corner; if checked, any item you click on within the Auction House will automatically be previewed on your character.
-24/7 window shopping baby! Who says games aren't programmed without women in mind?

The Effects of Flasks will now persist through death.
-Woot! Another buff to alchemy and actual reason to justify the cost of overpriced potions.

That is all I could find worth noting -_o Seems to be a few good anti-rogue things... a definate plus. The addition of a new area and a new battleground should keep us busy for a while. See everyone when this pig goes live :)