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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?

Hi there! I am Medros! You might remember me from such events as the National Blog Post Month and National Podcast Post Month. I am very sorry for not posting for several days now, but after the monumental effort it took to do those two events, I needed a bit of breaking time. I am back, though, and wanted to give you some posts. I hope to give you 4-6 posts a week for the foreseeable future, content depending. Therefore I present to you the Top 5 Things I Learned from the Tundra and the Fjord:

1. The Forsaken Plaguebringers around Halgrind are very bad to fight at range. Unless you have a 1-2 shot spell to kill them, use melee. Their shoot plague attack hurts.
2. Remember all those poop quests that disgusted you in Burning Crusade? I have some bad news for you..
3. Breaking News! All Murlocs are not evil. More Breaking News! All Gorlocs are not evil either. Damn you Blizzard! First Murky, now this?!?
4. When a quest tells you to go fight giants, and it says to take friends, you should listen.
   
5. Photo ops with the Lich King more often than not kill the subject. The photographer is usually not far behind.
   

I know, not the best, but those are my top 5 observations from the first two zones of Northrend. I will note Medros is now 74, still not done in Howling Fjord, and only done a single run through Nexus. While I am sure the 300k XP I got on the first day helped, I am not at all sure how I have gotten so much from the first two zones. With Telaan almost halfway through 71 and having barely touched Borean Tundra, I am sure he will likewise get excellent leveling from the first two zones, especially as he has Cooking and Jewelcrafting dailies in Dalaran to do.

This post, and the Podcast I released a few minutes ago, mark the completion of the Post Months. For All Things Azeroth we did the National Podcast Post Month, also known as NaPodPoMo, where we released a podcast episode everyday during the month of November. On this here blog I am, with this post, completing the National Blog Post Month, putting out a blog entry every day for the month of November. I could have gone with NaBloPoMo on the podcast site too, since the publishing process includes a blog post, but I felt that would be unfair.

I wanted to take a few minutes to give my thoughts and my thanks. First and foremost I want to thank my podcast co host Graece for her awesome efforts in getting the month completed. Not only has she stepped up on the editing side, she also did some awesome 30+ minute shows at the beginning of the month, and some great dungeon walkthroughs at the end. I want to thank those on my Twitter list, because you all will never know how much of my content, ideas, and thoughts for blogs and pods this month came from you all. You folks saved my bacon on more than one occasion, and I know a lot of you listened and gave your feedback.

Lastly, the readers and fans. I know that daily content, when you are not used ot it, can become a pain, but so many of you all stayed around that it made doing blog posts that were ranging from insightful to humorous, helpful to ranting, that much easier. It was a great fun blogging and podcasting for you all over the last 30 days. I hope you will all stick around and give me your thoughts on the future shows and blogs just as much, or more, than you have this month. I will try to keep bringing you good, and useful commentary, tips, and thoughts on the game as long as you all keep coming back. Thanks, Take care, Happy Hunting, and See you in Outlands, and Northrend.

I was at work tonight, and a co worker came up to me. She handed me a list of games she had played. She wanted to know which one was most like World of Warcraft, so she would know what game she could compare it to and thus know what to expect. I told her my first recommendation would be to try at least Warcraft 3, cause that is big these days, but I didn't see any games on her list that were MMOs. In the end, though, I came to a conclusion that it is very hard to even try to compare WoW to any other game, even other MMOs.

World of Warcraft is so clearly in a league all it's own that there is no easy way to say 'it's just like...' in any way that is not a horrible injustice. Is it like Warhammer? Age of Conan? Dark Ages of Camelot? I don't think, in my admittedly biased way, that there is anything that can fit the 'just like' moniker. The art and game design style is too unique, too original to compare it. Also, when you consider all the inspirations they have had, the little bits they took from other games and the community itself, the list of where they got the most popular parts of the UI would be so long as to be laughable. After 4 years, WoW is a game in a class all it's own, I think. What do you all think? Let me know how you would answer that question, "WoW is like...?" in the comments

I want to first preface this with the fact I do not know if this is possible or even viable. I was sitting here at lunch and a thought struck me. What if the limited time summoning use by the RAF program was able to be used in capitals or dungeons to kill leaders or bypass content? Let me explain the premise in the first case. Rogue with a player on RAF stealths into a city, say Orgrimmar, and finds a safe, unguarded place near the leader. Uses the one hour cooldown summon to summon player B. Player B summons a warlock also on RAF, and using shards or the new summoning stone coming soon, the group begins summoning dozens of their allies. Since they are already well past the majority of guards, the gather an epic raid and wait for their time to strike.

Now think about dungeons. Say a Rogue or even a Druid stealths to the end boss, or maybe a little trash before him, and again, like my first example, begins the RAF summoning followed by a warlock mass summing the entire 25 man raid to this point. I can admit I do not know if there are many, or any bosses that call on mobs not killed in the instance, thought I think the Obsidian Sanctum raid does bring in the mini bosses left alive to the final fight, improving the loot that drops. This is one of those things I feel Blizzard would be incredibly concerned with. City leaders are not a huge concern, but raid and dungeon content being easily bypassed? Blizzard despises when that happens! Do any of you know of if these possibilities are real? Or has Blizzard already made sure to guard against these potential exploits?

First up, this is not a rumor or even stated as possible by Blizzard. I do want to suggest this, though. The Collector's Edition of the game and expansions have not been cheap, ranging from $80 to $150 dependent on where and when you ordered it and the willingness of the vendor to gouge their customers. While you do get a fair bit, without a doubt, there is more Blizzard could do to reward players for their continuing loyalty, and their patronage in the face of the often high prices of the boxes. Some of the things Blizz could offer for loyal CE buyers are clips from Blizzcon, exclusive wallpaper, or ongoing flavor items in game. I will be talking more about this on today's AzPodMo, so do watch out for that episode!

I was reading on Twitter the other day, about several well know WoW Bloggers who have shifts some attention over to other games. These happened not in the months of Wrath beta, but in the week and a half since the expansion launched! One of the reasons given was that the luster had worn off. Another was that the expansion was just not... enough. Yet another said that they were leveling again, and they hated leveling. This last one made me think, and think hard. I have heard a few times the suggestion that blizzard release an expansion that is not 10 more levels, in fact one with no additional levels at all.

That is correct, no new levels to work through, but, somehow, there would be new lands, new dungeons, improved gear, and one would imagine a desire to have progressively better abilities. I am curious if anyone out there has any successful, or even possible ideas for such an expansion. How would new lands work, how would we gauge our progress through them, without additional levels? Gear? Tokens? Quests? What would stop someone from going right to the end game instead of going through all of the content?

I think that is the biggest barrier I see right now to a level free expansion. How do you stop people from bypassing all but the best? So, my readers, fellow bloggers, listeners, and just random folks, I ask you: Educate the unknowing. Explain how this idea would work? Tell me how you would do an expansion without as level grind, and I will be happy to blog your responses. Comment away!

This game... this community, has seen a lot of changes in the 4 years of live and another 6 months of beta before that. I have seen it progress from the Stress Test leveling contest that was extended due to a Hurricane, to an open beta where thousands beat down the virtual door of File Planet to get access. When the game launched, it did so with a fanfare to rival blockbuster films like Lord of the Rings, and books like Harry Potter. Within days the game had broken the records for MMO sales, and subscribers, the 500,000 peak of the past mere dust in the trail of World of Warcraft to the top. I was live on WoW Radio that day, 4 years ago, when the station owner Athalus interviewed the CM Caydiem live on the air via cell phone, since she was at the Fry's opening in Fountain View.

We have seen patches, nerfs, buffs, and complete game revamps many time since then, with all classes and specs getting their own share of love and hate. All through this, from Northshire Abbey on my first Paladin, Medros of course, on the Mannoroth PvP realm, to Medros, the 71 Paladin on Argent Dawn, who runs alongside 3 other high level characters and in a guilg that I do not think has a rival in the game, there has been a lot of names of the past. Dedric, who I played that stress test with, who played on Bronzebeard least I heard. Arcaron who was at WoW Radio, but loved to another server in the free transfers that came in those early days.

Even with the Shadow Walkers, I have seen a significant number of changes, from officers coming and going, to changes in the top 2 ranks of the guild. The game, my gametime, and how I play has changed a lot over the last four years, and so has the method of my interaction with the community. I went from fledgling show host with a few thousand tunes on WoW Radio to a Podcaster with hundreds of regular downloads with All Things Azeroth and a co host who not only knows her stuff, but has a desire to see the show grow, and improve. How can life, my memories, my game get any better? A polar bear cub pet, of course!

There has always been the saying 'if you do what you love for a living, you'll never work a day in your life'. While this is true, there is a limit. I know a lot of people who have tried to do what they love, computers, music, photography, in order to make a living, and have grown to hate their passion with a deep loathing. I guess this is why I have always been cautious to not take this hobby, this passion, too seriously. Yes, I have almost 300 days played, but a lot of that was relaxing, chatting in the channels, and RPing.

This is a far stretch from those players that Blizzard calls 'pro'. These players play for money! Every gamer's dream is to get paid to play their games, be it as a tester, or just a pro level gamer. There are sponsorships, companies, and even agents, just like atheletes and actors have, that represent these gamers. With the second big name gamer league going out of business, though, one has to wonder if these funds are misplaced. It's great that these players can make a living off their gaming, but if the leagues they make their names in can't make it more than a few years, is there really any point?

For me, gaming will always be fun times, or I will move on. If I ever take money, or seriously consider it, I will just stop. Gaming isn't a profession, an art, or a sport. You pay to play, not get paid. Now I am not saying that those people who do get paid are somehow lesser than me, because I fully admit they have skills the level of which I cannot even compare. However I will not allow those people to define my gaming for me. They are not my superiors in the world of gaming, they are just other players in the game, but they happen to take a bounty to hit Play, and I do it for the love of the game.