From the Abbey to Outlands

Hey all, I wanted to here that tomorrow evening, March 18th, I will be live as for sure a guest, perhaps even a co host for the Pixelated Live WoW special show. I am amongst WoW luminaries like Erin from ErinGames.com, Matticus from WorldofMatticus, and Darren from MyGameMug.com. The show is live at 7:30 PST, and is a video show, so do be ready to see the full Medros(ok, not full, but a head shot for sure) right there on cam.

iSeven, a long time watcher of the All Things Azeroth live show and fan of the show will be giving away a copy of WoW(for a spouse maybe? Don't forget to refer a friend first, though!), a couple of game cards, and a massive standup of Arthas! I know if I wasn't going to be on the show, I would be begging to win any of those. So be there, tune in, and watch live for a WoW Extravaganza!

I have found a way to solve the class balance problems that have plagued us, dear WoW players, for over four years. I have devised a scheme wherein players will be able to maximize their skills in such a way as to not need complicated math equations or complex algorithms to track if now is a good time to sit down to eat, or if one should wait, never mind which spell or ability is the better option. Let me explain my new system, I'll call it the K.I.S.S. system I think.

All players who have offensive spells will do one damage per attack. It doesn't matter if this attack is magical or physical, ranged or melee, it will do one damage. All bosses will do two damage, cause they are at least twice as good as an average player. A healer will, per cast, heal their target for one point of health, but occasionally will get two points. We'll call that the new crit. There will be no way to improve the chance of a crit. No players or bosses will crit, only healers.

Now for health. Bosses will have one hundred health, with a ten health bonus for each person in the offending party over the healer and DPS. Players will have ten health. Healers can heal themselves, but have no offensive capabilities. DPS cannot heal themselves. Hunters, Death Knights, and Warlocks will no longer have pets. All enchants will be removed from the game. All spells and abilities will be merely for effect, and will not differ from one another. Bosses and players will all be within range of all attacks. AoE will be removed. In fact, let's just remove armor stats and classes from the game completely. There will simply be Bob, who is short and likes his frilly dress, and Joan who likes the shiny metal she wears. Neither will live longer than the other barring healer failure.

This new system will in fact solve many different problems. Gear arguments will simply be a matter of what each player thinks is prettier, class balance will be a thing of the past, and all fights will be completely generic. There will be no hard modes, no challenges, no loot, and no need for damage meters or healing meters. In fact, I would imagine over healing would likewise be lost to the annals of history. So there you have it, the Keep It Simplistic Stupid system of MMO class balance. What do you think?

So I had a chance the other night to go in and try out some more of the PTR content when the servers weren't being hammered like a cement block in summertime, and I did a few of the quests and stuff around the tournament grounds. The dailies are interesting for sure, and one is not given the impression that the battle with the Lich King is somehow ceasing. Instead we are sent to collect materials, kill scourge, and practice our skills. As the quests from the Argent Tournament Grounds in Icecrown continue to be implemented, it is becoming clear that we will be sent to all corners of the continent, from Dragonblight to Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord to the Terrace of the Makers in Storm Peaks.

When I first began exploring the Argent Tournament I must say I had to rely pretty heavily on the comments on WoW Head to get some objectives completed, but in the latest PTR build Blizzard brought in another quest that has you go talk to three masters of ring, one for ranged, one for charging, and one for melee attack while on your faction respective mount, either a horse or a hawkstrider. With this addition they also changed a couple aspects of the original daily, so that I actually had to go talk to these guys in order to figure out how it's done now. No problem, though, I just talked, read, and learned, just like you're supposed to do.

When the latest build, 9637, hit the PTRs, I thought they had brought yet another 'get this weapon' daily in, but now that I have been hitting them a few days in a row, I now know that it's a random weapon quest each day. I have seen a few of them so far, though there could be many more to come. I have found one in Grizzly Hills, one in Dragonblight, and one in Howling Fjord. I would expect there to be a few more, sending us to other parts of the continent. So far I have found 2 phases of the tournament, the Aspirant stage, where you only have practice dummies and the few daily quests, which takes about 3 days to get through. Then there is the Valiant stage, which I suspect will take about 5 or so days to get through.

I had talked a bit about the Argent Hippogryph on the most recent podcast, 103 with Matticus and Stompalina, but as of the latest build we are seeing the mob have a new name, Silver Covenant Hippogryph, which is now accompanied by a Sunreaver Dragonhawk at the flight master. Either these will be purchasable mounts, or they are simple the respective faction's mode of flight from the tournament grounds. While the tournament does allow you to earn rep with the Sunreavers and the Silver Covenant, I have still not seen any sign of a quartermaster for either faction. Still, it is nice to be able to finally rep up with these folks, and I am sure I am not the only one looking forward to getting exalted with the Northrend master rep for their faction.

I think that even without a fully built stadium, the Argent Tournament will be a lot of fun, a cool way to build up to a goal like we had on the Isle of Quel'Danas, and more importantly a good way to make decent gold. 13g per daily, at 5 dailies or so each day will I think make the Tournament Grounds a must do for any gold starved level 80. Now, back to trying to get my Silver Covenant rep up on the PTR and to see wha tthe next rank after Valiant is...

Monday night, shortly after the All Things Azeroth live recording of episode 102 finished up, the Public Test Realms for patch 3.1.0 launched, and we got our first official glimpses of the first content patch of the Wrath era of WoW. As we have known since Blizzcon 2008, this patch contains the Ulduar raid instance, but now that at least part of it is on the PTRs, we know now that there will be a lot more. Dual specs, swimming mounts, the Argent Tournament, and much more will be coming with 3.1.

I have spent a bit of time on the PTRs, and I stress a little due to a bug that is crash looping my client, and while I have a lot of stuff to bring up, I do want to stress that this is all stuff from the PTRs and virtually anything from the PTRs can change from one day to the next at the drop of a moonkin /dance. That said, let's start with the big things on the PTR right now: Dual Spec and Gear Manager.

Dual Spec
The dual spec system will allow players, at least mildly wealthy ones, to maintain two different specs. The costs as of this writing is 1,000 gold, and requires at least level 40. It also currently does not require any reagent, nor does it have a cooldown. I personally suspect the price might drop a bit, but I am pretty sure the level, reagent, and cooldown will change once the feature is done testing for major bugs. The pre PTR Q&A that was done had stated that there would be a 'confirm talents' type feature similar to those available in mods like Talent Planner, but this also has not shown up on the PTR as yet. I think this is an awesome feature, with great potential and a lot of room to improve the game if it is done right.

Gear Manager
Much like the mods Outfitter, Item Rack, and others, the gear manager allows you to create sets of gear or armor which can be changed easily. You put the gear on, make the set, and then every time you choose to you can simply equip the items just like you set it up the first time. I wasn't able to test this very thoroughly, but I am pretty sure you will be able to changte and edit a set, movign gear in and out as you get replacements, and I will be sure to report more when the PTR realm I am on, Broxigar, is usable. So far, though, I am very impressed with the 3.1 PTR, and I look foward to further testing as the testing continues.

You know, it is really, really hard sometimes being right. Less than two months from the release date of Wrath of the Lich King, and what do I see while perusing the forums? My first seen thread about... Tada! 'Whaa, whaa, there's nothing to do'. Of course the person is posting on a level 5 anony-troll(who is literally a troll, nice touch), but it has still happened. Of course this is likely just a troll being, well, a troll, and this may not speak to the thoughts of the entire raiding community, but this is not the first time I have heard the points Iys makes.

1) Raiding is too easy - from the ready at 80 Naxx 10 man, to the Sanctum and even Malygos himself, all of which was done by Ensidia within days of Wrath's release, the raiding community is calling it simplified and crying to the heavens that Blizzard made it all so easy that the lowliest of folks in casual guilds can no become battle hardened raiders. Well, folks, guess what? Your 5% of 11 million do not a player base make, at least not a player base of this here game. Sure, you might make the headlines, but you don't make the game. The first time 90% of the folks who got into Sunwell saw it was after the 3.0.2 patch when the raid bosses were nerfed and we were all super powerful. No, I have no math on this, only the observation of the many bloggers and podcasters I follow.

2) This is the end of it, The game is done - We know there are at least 2, and more likely 3 additional 10/25 person raid dungeons left in the works. Blizzard has already said Ulduar and the 3.1 patch has been done since Wrath, if not since before Blizzcon. We know Icecrown is coming in 3.3, and we heard rumor that 3.2 will also bring us a new raid dungeon, though we could just as likely see a new Magister's Terrace level of 5 man along the way too. The content is not 'done' and will not be done. You might be done gobbling it up and feeling a bit of the indigestion from pushing yourself to hit 80 and get those kills, but there's a bunch of us back here that are still waiting in the wings for that content to be at our level.

3) In BC Blizz did better, they are slipping - No, not slipping, realizing. They are becoming consumer aware. Casual Day is approaching. The humans are taking over. They will wipe out the (raiding) machines. Bad parody of Terminator aside(I shouldn't have just watched 4 episodes straight of SCC), Blizzard is realizing their customer base isn't the people bashed their head against the Mu'ru wall, but the players who rejoiced when they finally got Kara cleared in one hard fought night, who were ecstatic when the Burning Crusade attunements were dropped, who pushed to clear Zul'Aman once for a Bear mount, and who happily passed a Warglaive to the next guildie cause it was better for them.

So Blizzard, the raiders, or at least some of them, have spoken. They have rung the bell, they have challenged you to pistols at dawn. Will you sacrifice the 95% and toughen up your game so that only the truly elite can see the end game, or will you be kind to your majority who say nothing because the end game is just right for them, and who will just go do something else and give up the Tier Gear dream if you make it all unobtainable? We await your answer...

Now that we are almost all traveling through Northrend, and we are well into our new year, I thought it night be a good time to look back on the war that was TBC. There were many fronts I that war, from the Naaru versus the Legion, to Scryers versus Aldor, even spreading to Alliance versus Horde. So who 'won' the war? Did the Naaru succeed in defeating the Burning Legion? Sure they had some victories, but as I flew through Hellfire the other day, I still saw plenty of demons, however Shattrath City also still stands, so the
Legion was not victorious in anything more notable than staying alive either.

The Scryers and Aldor began Burning Crusade as bitter hated enemies. Venturing into an opposition area was grounds to get booted from the city at best, get quickly killed at worst. While the forces came to work together over time, eventually joining forces under the banner of the Shattered Sun Offensive, venturing to Scyers Tier as an Aldor still gets the adventurer an unpleasant result. I am not sure what I would put this battle as, since it is neither won nor lost.

Now for the old standards, Alliance v. Horde. The two factions had more battle fronts in TBC than ever before. Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar, Nagrand. More than half the zones of Outlands had a Horde v. Alliance fight, and while my realm most often had Alliance controlling the majority of those zones, Other realms cannot say the same. Again, we cannot declare a winner or loser in this particular battle.

So Aldor, Scryers, Naaru, Legion, SSO, Horde and Alliance. None of these groups 'won' the second expansion's content. I guess we need to look elsewhere for a winner. Firstly I think the players won the expansion. We got a lot of awesome content, some great new skills, and two years of amazing game play. We learned to fly, met the Draenei and Blood Elves, and found the end of the epic Sunwell storyline. Second, of course Blizzard won in TBC. From the first 24 hours of TBC, Blizz had a winner, setting records and learning from many design mistakes. What do you think? Who do you think won in the Burning Crusade era of WoW?

Below you will find a gallery of a few of the more spectacular sights I saw in the month or so between the launch of Wrath and when my paladin Medros dinged 80. Enjoy.

I will beg your forgiveness in this, but this will be a post meant for both listeners of All Things Azeroth, my podcast, and From the Abbey to Outlands, my blog. I want to wish you, one and all, a great holiday. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzea, or if your greatest celebration this holiday season is the Feast of Winter Veil, I hope you have a truly amazing, friend and loved ones filled holiday season.

While Greatfather Winter has brought presents for us all, and the Achievement spam is at an all time high, we might begin to lose patience at the constant crashing of rocket cars, but remember, that this is a time of love and peace, and we should all take a few times before we gank our neighbor, to remember this is when we should spare that killing blow, and let our enemies bow in safety and go on their way. Take care of yourselves, /love your neighbor, and spread /cheer throughout the world(of warcraft)!

Those of you who are Alchemists and who have been for awhile now will recall the Burning Crusade days when a lot of what you did, in fact one of the most profitable parts, was transmutation. There were a few recipes on the trainers, some on faction quartermasters, and the majority were learned via discovery. There were a lot of Elixirs and Potions that were discovered as well, but by and large it was Transmutes that made the cash.

In beta the form of learning new transmutes and recipes seemed like it was going to change a bit with the appearance of research.  Sadly, I was wrong. Not only does all but one transmute require discovery, but the one you can train has pretty harsh mats, is on a 4 day cooldown, only has a chance of discovery, and is the only transmute you can discover from. I am not sure what you can learn from research, but as it requires over or nearly 40 herbs of different kinds, it too will be hard to perform.

While discovering items was hit or miss in Burning Crusade, in Wrath it feels somewhat more assured, but a lot more expensive. When you add in the fact that the discovery transmute, which requires mined resources, makes some that can be mined and smelted with no cooldown. All of this together means that transmuting in Wrath is incredibly frustrating and aggravating in the long run. We can only hope that Bliizzard will realize how hard they have made the transmutation aspect of the Alchemy profession.