http://feeds.feedburner.com/Abbey From the Abbey to Outlands http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/ en-us Copyright 2008 Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:02:47 -0600 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Preordered! Starcraft 2. Not Diablo 3 either, though both would be very worthy of pre order if they were able to be. No, in this I refer to Wrath of the Lich King. I was planning, originally, to wait until the CE was announced, but I decided, since I was near EB and had $5, I would pop in and get my name in for the next expansion. I also talked game with a fellow WoW fan, a woman no less, and we exchanged theories on the expansion, Blizzcon, and more.

While I was there I also clarified the process and speed I would need to use to get my name in for a CE of the Wrath of the Lich King when it is announced, though I will be checking every couple of weeks for any updates. I didn't catch the name of the attractive young lady behind the counter, but I think we could have possibly come up with what might be the utter pinnacle of WoW content progression.

First, they need to get a beta out. Soon. No, not Soon™ as per the forums. Second, they need to sell tickets soon for Blizzcon. At the same time, they would announce that Wrath went gold, somewhere in the time frame of late August. They would then announce that the release date for Wrath would be October 10, 2008. Yes, the first day of Blizzcon, or even the 11th, so it could be a perfect midnight launch. Then, either at the opening ceremony, or at the closing, Mike Morhaim would announce the next expansion. Well, what do ya think?
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/preordered.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/preordered.php Events Opinion Wrath of the Lich King Blizzcon WoW 4.0 Wrath of the Lich King Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:02:47 -0600 Foolish sense of security The thread, though, was dominated by one clear message which I found both foolhardy and completely misinformed. Add to that a healthy dose of 'WTF' factor, and you begin to see a really disturbing picture of the WoW community.

The first bit that really annoyed me was from Celada of Lothar. 
Its a false sense of security... Nothing beat knowledge and a litle bit of common sense. You can about 100% protect yourself with

Firefox
-addons
--FlashBlock
--Adblock Plus
--Noscript
Celeda, you talk about a false sense of security? Tell me the FCC and many other government agencies from around the world have a false sense of security in this form of multi layer authentication. You have a false sense of security if you think that such measures have any form of security to them. With new bugs and holes being found all the time, all it takes is a single day of being unpatched for your computer to be infected with a keylogger. How many mod sites have found trojans in their code? Almost all of them, and everyone has them as trusted.

Next up we have Celeda's response to my points about a true false sense of security coming from Firefox:

Ive been playing this game since beta never once been keylogged
Cause im not stupid enough to click any links i dont know

Blizz can sell false sense of security all day, that cant sell common sense and they cannot cure stupid
Just because you have not, does not mean you will not. Past actions do not dictate future results, especially with the rising value of WoW account info ont he black market.

Now to this gem from Kybeorie of Baelgun

Clue:

Someone has a trojan on your computer.
You have the authenticator.
They can't login to your wow account, but they are STILL LOGGING YOUR KEYS. The difference is that now you don't know it, because your wow account is ok. So you go merrily about your business, while your mother is now sending some money "you need to borrow", because you said so in an email, to some address far away
All due respect, Kybeorie, if you are using those Firefox addons as your only protection from trojans and keyloggers, you deserve to be scammed. Also, if your mother can't pick up a phone and check with you to make sure a sudden 'I need money' email is real, well, then your mom needs some lessons in common sense, cause I know my mom is smart enough to actually talk to me when I ask to borrow money.

In the end, this is not the be all and end all of protection, but it is not a false sense of security. This is a very secure additional form of security for your WoW account. If you feel your Firefox plus addons method of security is fine, great. It just means that when Blizzard does start shipping these to Canada, I won't have to wait in line behind you to get mine. I, though, will be very comfortable paying a lowly $7 USD for this increased measure of security.
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/foolish-sense-of-security.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/foolish-sense-of-security.php General Security Authenticator firefox security Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:24:10 -0600 Authenticator sold out, still no word on Canadian security isheepthings blog, the Blizzard Authenticator, after about two and a half days on sale, is listed on the Blizzard store as sold out. This all happened with no Canadian being able to order one themselves unless they had a US shipping address. There are those who advise that Canadians go and order from the European store, but to my knowledge the Authenticator was never available from there, only showing Sold Out for the entire duration.

[Update: Blizzard has now posted both about the sell out and the lack of availability to Canadians. Thank you Blizzard for answering the questions I and others had.]
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/authenticator-sold-out-still-n.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/07/authenticator-sold-out-still-n.php General Security Authenticator european security sold out Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:02:01 -0600 Incoming! Security for the few Incoming is a regular part of From the Abbey to Outlands where the author will rant at length about a topic that is frustrating or aggravating in the World of Warcraft. Keep reading for more, we have a Rant Incoming!

You may have heard that the new Blizzard Authenticator is now available for purchase from the Blizzard Store. It's a great little device which will increase account security an enormous amount, and could potentially be the catalyst to the elimination of the account hacking going on by Gold Sellers. That is, of course, if everyone can get it, which they can't. "This product can only be shipped to the United States." is what you will see if you go to the Authenticator item page I linked to before. Now, however, there is an item page on the European Blizzard Store, which does not limit where it can be shipped, though the item is not yet actively for sale.

The following is an email I sent to Blizzard's billing department after getting off the phone with a rep who pretty much had no clue why it wasn't for sale to Canadians, and was guessing distribution issues.

I would like to express my frustration that Blizzard is not shipping the new Authenticator to Canada. This device is a great idea, and should increase the security of accounts substantially, but it cannot do that if we cannot buy it. I fail to see why the USA and Europe are the only are the only areas who are allowed to maintain the highest level of security on their accounts, while other countries must sit back and simply hope their accounts don't get hacked. I guess one has to question if, in addition to contests, Blizzard has a complete lack of respect that extends to not caring about our security. I am sad to see this come to pass.
I look forward to a response from Blizzard, even if it only comes in the form of a change in that policy so that we here in Canada can enjoy the same level of security as others in the US and EU.

[Update: Blizzard has now posted both about the sell out and the lack of availability to Canadians. Thank you Blizzard for answering the questions I and others had.]
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/incoming-security-for-the-few.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/incoming-security-for-the-few.php Incoming! Security Authenticator canada gold sellers hacking security store Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:35:28 -0600 Incoming! Some People will never be happy Incoming is a regular part of From the Abbey to Outlands where the author will rant at length about a topic that is frustrating or aggravating in the World of Warcraft. Keep reading for more, we have a Rant Incoming!

You can't win for losing. For months, since the big account hacking started in World of Warcraft, people have been complaining and whining and raising the ire of their fellow players that Blizzard couldn't, or wouldn't do more for their and their friend's accounts. They felt that Blizzard had to have something it could do in order to prevent people from losing all the stuff they spent ages working to get.

Earlier this week, Blizzard announced they are making available the Blizzard Authenticator. The device, available soon for a measly $7 USD from the Blizzard store, is connected to your account once you register the serial number. Once the device is connected to your account, you will need to use it on every login. To use it, you press the button on it, and then type the generated 6 digit code along with your username and password into the WoW client.

Called two-factor authentication and branded SecurID by RSA, this format is a truly innovative and extremely difficult to break method of authentication, only vulnerable to spoofed authentication attacks. As those are fairly complex and time based attacks, I doubt more than one or two attempts will be made to spoof these. I have to hope and assume Blizzard has had the forethought to program the authentication system around the hole.

As you might have guessed, I support this measure by Blizzard a great deal. While this is a long time in coming, I am sure that any decent techie will tell you that such systems take a lot of time to program just right. For a feature like this, I would happily give Blizzard as much time as they need to get it just right. I am really hoping that these key fobs will be a huge hit and bought by millions of people and take a major chunk out of the profitability of attempted account theft and the Trojan attacks that accompany them.

So the same day I post about my support of this move by Blizzard, you can imagine my surprise when I go to the General Forums and see a thread slamming Blizzard for charging people to secure their(Blizzard's) property, since our characters are Blizzard's property. Let me see if I get these arguments straight. Blizzard needs to do something to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in, but it's not worth $7 to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in?

Folks, I have some sad, disturbing, or possibly even shocking news for you. If you are going to play this game without the Authenticator device, unless of course you are a Canadian like me who cannot get it(*shakes fist angrily*), you deserve to be the new juicy target of the hackers eager to get as many of the last remaining insecure accounts out there. I am even considering finding a way to import these things to Canada if Blizzard gives us no way to get one delivered up here, or at least make them available from gamer stores in the country.

Blizzard has done their part to put the focus on account security, now will you? What is your /played and gear and efforts in World of Warcraft worth to you?  ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/incoming-some-people-will-neve.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/incoming-some-people-will-neve.php Incoming! Authenticator complaints forums security whining Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:49:16 -0600 Panel Roundup
Developers Panel - Mostly a class based presentation with questions
Death Knight
 -They don't want the Death Knight's to be pigeon-hole like other classes have been
 -runes have a 10 second cooldown currently
 -The spell Armies of Undead are meant to call masses of undead, like how Arthas can as king
Hunter
 -Steady will not clip Auto
 -Pets will get their own talent trees, losing the point system they have now
 -Cornered - Your pet does an additional 20% damage when they are at 20% health
Mage
 -Frostfire Bolt will make elementalists more viable
 -they will compensate for the loss of CC exclusivity by ramping up Mage damage output
Priest
 -Divine Hymn - cast on party members, if anyone strikes a person with this spell on, they enter a trance
 -Dispersion - Reduces damage 90%, regens 6% of mana per second, 51 point shadow for turtling.
 -Guardian Spirit - castable pet that will follow the target and absorb the next killing blow the target would have died to.
Druid
 -indoor roots confirmed, druid was left out of too many instances for lack of CC, but...
 -no removal of Cyclone diminishing returns due cast length and duration
 -HoT dependent buff call Flourish
Shaman
 -have too many totems
 -totems will become raid effect, not just party
 -Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be combined
 -new spell Hex, short duration emergency cc. half second cast, 8-10 second duration
Rogue
 -Fan of Knives, a WC3 retro ability, will be a short AoE damage burst
 -Sap will be usable on "Pretty much anything with a skull and brain inside of it."
 -Sap can be used on Humanoids, beasts, dragonkin, demons.
Paladin
 -Hand of Purity - reactive healing spell, a PoM style 'healbomb'
 -more blessings like Freedom and Protection
Warrior
 -want to make it more like WC3
 -added Bladestorm Shockwave which will help prot with damage
 -Titan's Grip confirmed, duel wielding of 2h weapons
Warlock
 -Demonic Circle - mark a spot on the ground to teleport back to
 -51 point demonology is an Illidan like Demon Form with AoE shadow bolts
General Q&A
 -We have to work on the specs that haven't worked well enough
 -windfury is no longer going to be WEAPON and going to be BUFF for your PC. Windfury is a buff, not a weapon enchant. It works with forms and poisons and weapon buffs
 -Totems and Unleashed Rage from Shaman, and Battle Shout for Warriors will br raid wide


Q&A Panel
-no gnome paladins
-gnomes are too short to have been in cinematic
-Sunwell confirmed as final pre Wrath content patch
-Inscription is intended for melee or casters and there will be major and minor inscriptions. Herbalism will be the primary gathering skill.
-the new class will change the format of a 25 man raid, but they want to make it in a good way
-DKs should be the best at tanking against casters. Shouldn't be far behind on other encounters.
-flying mounts will have an attunement, hints at defrosting, and possible level 80 mount with passengers.
-Ret Paladins will share itemization with DPS warriors and DK
-new dire bear model, and dire cat coming
-Stormwind Harbor will connect to Northwind
-DK will have a newly cleared area of north PL for their starter
-LOS in PvP in wrath will be more dynamic, with moving and shifting objects
-no plans to nerf Sunwell KJ fight, as he is the Naxx of TBC and hard to beat.
-character order and display settings is interesting, but not implemented yet
-dagger spec for rogues will be very powerful in wrath
-no epic ground form for druids
-clown look to amour may return in wrath, but slightly improved looks
-We are working on a plan to give players access to two Talent specs.
-soul shard farming is not expected to go away, but may get a little easier
-Kara animal boss was meant as an easy sub 10 man group method to get rep


Quotable
-Even though there will be a new tank class, all tank classes tank differently. ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/panel-roundup.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/panel-roundup.php General Wrath of the Lich King Developer Invitational Wrath of the Lich King Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:51:09 -0600 Invitational Dissappointments small gathering of gamers, 8,000 or so in number, in Paris, France this morning. There has been speculation and coverage leading up to this Invitational for days now, so much so that any reasonable player would be sick of hearing about it by now. Of course, I am not reasonable, sane, or anything of the sort, because I was one of many who were up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM central time to tune into the stream.

Diablo 3? Wrath Beta? Release dates for either Wrath or Starcraft 2? Both maybe? The splash screen on the Blizzard.com web site has been hinting at something, and even before the opening ceremonies began the word had leaked about the biggest announcement of the event, but as I said earlier, I really did not feel that one big announcement would be all we would get from the ceremony. If Apple can do several products in one keynote, Mike Morhaim can!

The Big News
As I was downing Coke Zero by the can to wake up enough to actually report on what we heard, what we were all excited about, when BA chat saw a pointer to MMO Champion, who had a leak from the big screen at the Invitational that showed the new title would be Diablo 3. Being that this was not overly surprising news, I hunkered down and waited for the announcements to start. Once the high res stream began working, missing little of importance, the stream stuttered and buffered it's way to the end.

Mike Morhaim proudly announced Diablo 3, an amazing teaser for the upcoming title showing a totally awesome cinematic with voice over. While I only caught part of it, I am sure that Blizzard's web site will have a copy of that video later today. Mike then introduced the Diablo 3 Lead Developer, who went into a couple of the classes, showed some of the improvements since Diablo 2, and showed a few fights.

Expecting that Mike would come back and begin the process of announcing the Wrath stuff, I was cursing when my stream kept stopping for minutes at a time. isheepthings, who was in BA chat at the time, was kind enough to give a description of the stuff, since apparently the stream wasn't crappy for all of the users, just most. I was saddened, though, to hear they went back to thanking folks in the audience and then moved onto some fire dancers to close out the opening ceremony.

While we will undoubtedly see a nice amount of information out of the unlabeled discussion panels, at least some of which will have WoW content as wrath draws near, it is not the level of information I was hoping for. Discussion panels will not have release dates, cinematic, or other Wrath information that many of us want so bad. I will report again when we have more information on whatever they decide to tell us about the Wrath expansion and current game.  ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/invitational-dissappointments.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/invitational-dissappointments.php Events General Opinion Wrath of the Lich King Diablo 3 Invitational Wrath of the Lich King Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:30:32 -0600 WWI News Updates Blog and the Podcast site between twitters as the Invitational news rolls in.

4:45 AM CST - Event begins
5:06 AM CST - Mike Morhaim takes the stage as the High Res audio and video begins working
5:20 AM CST - Diablo 3 is revealed as the next title from Blizzard Entertainment
5:45 AM CST - Dancers closing out ceremonies

Ok, so no Starcraft 2 news. No Wrath of the Lich King News. But we have Barbarians! And Witch Doctors! *yawn* What a waste of an hour's sleep.
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/wwi-news-updates.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/wwi-news-updates.php Events General Breaking News Worldwide Invitational Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:43:39 -0600 My Worldwide Invitational predictions
A few of the more thoughtful and educated predictions I have read made me think back. The 'Jobs' section of the Blizzard web site has had a lot of interesting entries over the last few years. The employment section of the Blizzard site has long been the fuel to launch rumors, and I think that what we hear from Mike Morhaim and company on Saturday will have at least something to do with those numerous and widely varying job postings.

The job postings I recall at the time of this writing are for a mobile game developer and a next gen MMO developer/designer. While it is possible that the next gen MMO spot(s) were for Wrath or the following expansion, I think they have at least some small thing to do with the bigger announcement we will see in the Worldwide Invitational, the one hinted by Rob Pardo, though by far not the only big announcement.

The mobile developer, I think, will be the mentioned-as-possible Mobile version of WoW, allowing us to chat, check mail, and other low resource functions. What platforms and devices this will work on, I do not know, but I would say that WoW Mobile for the iPhone is an obvious choice with the App Store coming to iTunes. I sadly do not know the other devices and platforms well enough to actually speak to what else might be possible, though feel free to comment your opinions and possible devices.

The second position could be a fit for the more common predictions. These seem to take one of two lies of thought. Thought number one is 'no brainer, it's Diablo 3'. This is the only major property of Blizzards without something in the production or release phase right now, so this is a decent guess. I do not recall much ice in the Diablo universe, but I am told Diablo 2 had an ice zone. This means that it could be Diablo or a Diablo universe title in the splash screen, which is now progressed to the point of five runes and a pair of glowing eyes.

Add onto this theory that the 8th anniversary of Diablo 2 is on the Sunday of the Invitational and it gets to be an interesting theory, gaining a bit more credibility. At least one of the runes in the ice is also said to be from the earlier Diablo games, though there is also a theory that compares other runes to the 2 other known Blizzard titles.

The other line of thought is the 'D3 would be too obvious!'. These people have a few reasons, such as the one I mention above about Diablo 3 being the only franchise not in the works or released at this point. With Rob Pardo pretty much telling the press that there will be a game announced, it is only a logical conclusion that Diablo would be the title, which is a conclusion Blizzard could expect and prey upon.

Blizzard knows their customers and their fans quite well, so it is not hard for them to lead them down the path of thinking that they want them to. This could be an entirely new title, or as one person put it, the eyes could just by the Lich King Arthas, perhaps heralding the much anticipated teaser or even the cinematic being released at the invitational. What do you think is coming? What juicy Wrath news, smoking Starcraft 2 tidbits, and Diablo 3 revelations will we see?

Stay tuned to my twitter and this blog for the news from the Invitational, which I will be paying great attention to for you all. 

[Note: As this was being written, it was revealed that a secure authentication tool will be made available. A pseudo random code generator, the authenticator will be associated with your account and the code it generates will be connected to the account once registered. Priced at roughly $7, it is a small pittance to pay to prevent the loss of years of work. I know I will be finding some way to buy one of these. Good though this is, it is unlikely to be the big news of the Invitational.] ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/tis-the-season-for-predictions.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/tis-the-season-for-predictions.php Events Opinion Wrath of the Lich King Diablo Invitational prediction rumor Starcraft Wrath of the Lich King Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:53:13 -0600 Blizzard releases new account security measure announced today that they will begin selling a security ID keyfob to increase the security of accounts exponentially. The key chain sized device will, when triggered, generate a 6 digit code that can be entered into the game client once the device is connected to your account.

The good thing about these types of devices, similar ones are in use by such groups as the FCC, the aforementioned PayPal, and many businesses and governments departments with sensitive data accessed remotely, is that a keylogger only does half the job. The hacker or trojan can get a hold of my username and password all they want, but once my account has been associated with this, the game will deny access unless the 6 digit code output by the device is present as well.

What does this mean to you? This means that your character, be it a level 19 twink, a level 60 non upgraded, or a 70 in full tier 6 and Sunwell, can be safe from the many looming threats on the internet. The even better thing? One device can be used for multiple accounts, so multi boxers only need 1 device for all of their many accounts. I feel that this is a long overdue addition to our gaming world and very good thing for account security in the World of Warcraft.

Some might think that this kind of technology for a measly game is a waste of the technology. I would say that since the technology has become cost efficient enough and small enough for this purpose means a great deal for the future of security in our offline and online lives. That, however, is a story for another blog, and another blogger. For us, for now, it just means that for less than the cost of a month of play, we can afford to protect our multi year investment in our characters.  ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/blizzard-releases-new-account.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/blizzard-releases-new-account.php Security announcement blizzard hacking Invitational keylog official security Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:04:35 -0600 Will patch 3.0 follow 2.4.3? this WoW Insider piece talking about 2.4.3 being the author's savior, as it gives them something fun to do while they wait, currently bored, for the expansion to hit. Zach Yonzon suggests that it is quite possible this will not be the last patch of this kind, and this got me thinking. Is it realistic to think we can go for the oft predicted 5-6 months with no change to the 'no 2.5' stance that Blizzard is still sticking to?

I think that, like the author, we just might see some filler patches if the next expansion does take longer than my current prediction of late September. As I had previously explained my now horribly wrong summer prediction for Wrath, let me take a moment or twenty to explain my current thinking behind that guess, cause I tell ya, it's a doozy!

Fist point: Blizzcon in early October. Second point: No Blizzcon has been held without the announcement of an expansion for the game. Third: There is no bigger sign that your next expansion will be a flop than announcing it's predecessor before it even hits store shelves. I had a fourth point until recently, the Brewfest/Hallow's End factor, but both now seem somehow less pertinent now that 2.4.3 has much of that content from the alpha test.

If we look at the lead up to Burning Crusade, we never really had the precursor stuff to that expansion that we are seeing beginning in 2.4.3, which has at least the Stormwind Harbor under construction. While it is entirely possible this could be the only lead up bit, I somehow doubt it since no construction project goes from blasting supplies to a fully completed section overnight.

In the end, what we will see likely depends a great deal on how long the expansion takes to be completed in Alpha and possibly Beta. I don't think it will last more than another 3 months, but I may be wrong. We might see a Blizzcon without a new expansion announcement. We might see WoW 4.0 announced. Such an announcement may also include a release date for Wrath, which would take some of the surprise out of the occasion. We also should see some new info that could hint as to what we might expect from the expansion at the Worldwide Invitational in a few days.

As I have said before, I think we just might have a clearer picture of what we can expect in Wrath and it's release at the worldwide invitational. I think that with around 10 million players in the game, it would be surprising to not see something about the expansion mentioned at the Invitational in Paris. I suspect the amount of content that is playable at the Invitational will also be a telling note for how far into the development they are.

As for my thoughts on the prospect of truly progressive content, I would simply say "YES!!!!!!!". As a long time leveler in Westfall and other human lands, I would love to see something like the Westfall inn repaired fully, the bridge in Lakeshire rebuilt, and all of the 'work in progress' in the game actually get finished. Now, I am told this has changed, but I am fully against the way content progression worked in LOTRO when I beta tested it, cause once you completed an instance you could not return, and the entire world, including who you could talk to and play alongside, had changed. Progressive, not exclusionary content, rocks! ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/will-patch-30-follow-243.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/will-patch-30-follow-243.php Opinion Patches Wrath of the Lich King 2.4.3 content patch Wrath of the Lich King Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:53:51 -0600 What's YOUR End Game?
Player Killer - Living for the thrill of the next elite player he can take down, and occasionally lowering himself to camping lower level players for varying reasons, the Player Killer lives off his honor kills and Arena ranking. Happy to use anything he can to get more kills, the PK spends his time at the generals, does each PvP daily on first login, and had a mailbox full of Battle Ground marks. Exemplified by the screaming all caps 'leader' of a Battle Ground, the PK can easily break under the slightest hint of failure in Battlegrounds.

Progress Seeker - The player aimed at progresion is likely the one who had their Karazhan key quest as soon as they could after level 69, and was LFG Shadow Labrynth minutes after their digned 70. They usually have a clear line set for their progression from ding to the 25 man raids, frequently doing the best quests for the gear they want for the end game spec, which they have outlined and planned weeks or months in advance. This player does dailies and other money making things purely to make the gold needed for reagents and respeccing as needed.

Badge Collector - Another thing that Burning Crusade brought to us was the Heroic mode of dungeons. Only affecting the Outlands 5 man dungeons, Heroic mode is one of the best ways to get rep with various factions, and with the dungeon dailies, also get extra cash and extra badges as well. Those are one of the biggest reason to do Heroic dungeons, though, is Badge of Justice. Badges can be used to purchase varying levels of gear, from Tier 6 equivalent to lower Tier 4 equivalent gear.

This is one of the more niche play styles in end game, but with the availability of Primal Nether and the epic quality gems through badge turn ins, it is an increasingly popular way to spend your time at level 70, at least in so far as the heroic daily goes at the least. Finding heroics beyond the daily can be a bit of a hassle, but like Arenas and Raiding, a good solid team can be invaluable to making the work a lot easier. Also, pugging heroics can be very, very painful.

Master Crafter - Also known as the Recipe Completist, the Master Crafter spends their time and money at 70, gained from dailies and quests at max level, working diligently on their professions. They run dungeons and work reputation to maximize their professions and abilities. The golden ticker for the crafter is finding that once in a lifetime item they can make that few if any have and everyone wants. The Master Crafter things nothing of killing thousands of a type of mob in order to get their desired recipe.

Mass Murderer - The Mass Murderer is someone who just goes out and kills everything in his or her path, not caring how long it takes. This could be best described as a Grinder, who only starts out with the barest reagents and food required, and just kills and loots mindlessly. This person has no specific goals other than to kill, kill, and kill some more. There is no rep or item they seek, just to see the trail of bodies behind them.

Multiple Personality - Suffering from a varying degree of Altitis, this player can occasionally get through the quests at max level before relegating the character to farm status or maybe filler raiding, but they then move onto a new alt or leveling one they already have in the works. This type of end gamer finds the shear idea of a cap of 10 characters per realm to be ludicrous, and often plot out which character will get the big old DELETE next to make room for another.


So, now the we know a few of the main types of end gamers, I ask you my readers, What is your end game? A mix of a few? A pure version of one of the above possibilities? Or are you one of the niche options apart from above? For me, I am a mix of a bunch. I do light raiding when needed and time allows, I have many alts, 5 played characters at this point, but I also farm and am a hardcore recipe completist. My end game is so varied that it easily keeps me interested. Is this why so many raiders are giving up and moving to other games? How about your end game? Is it keeping you happy and your attention in the game? ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/whats-your-end-game.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/whats-your-end-game.php General Badge Collector crafting end game Mass Murderer Master Crafter Multiple Personality Player Killer Progress Seeker PvP raiding Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:26:56 -0600 Ding!
As I mentioned a few hours ago, a great deal of level 68 was spent on the holiday fires, so I cannot take full credit for my plan working completely, but I am fairly confident I would have still dinged in Blade's Edge Mountain, though it may have been a last remnant of the quests, not in the middle of them like I did. I wanted to thank the many guild mates who helped me out along the way to this level. I can't name you all, but my thanks go out to you none the less. I began my 4 days off hoping to hit 70 by the end of them, and my guildies made it possible to hit it halfway through. Now, to the Isle!
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/ding.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/ding.php Events Seasonal Telaan 70 Blade's Edge Mountain Blood Furnace Ding Hellfire Nagrand Outlands Ramparts Slave Pens Terrokar Underbog Zangar Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:05:09 -0600 Midsummer Fire Festival a Boon for Levellers
As I was riding back to Telaar from around the space ship that Durn pats around, I decided to stop and take care of the fire stuff just outside. I had already dinged, which brought me in line with my 2 levels a zone plan, so I wasn't concerned with spoiling it. 6,000 experience later, I was running over to WoW Insider to see if they had a list of how many of these xp rich fires there were to hit up for a good solid chunk of XP.

I ran over to the one at Garadar, and hit up for a grintastic 12.000 experience. It was hovering around 7 or 8 PM, and I decided to see how many I could hit. By the time I logged off at 5 AM, I had hit all of the old world fires, including the well camped ones in the major horder cities to get the Crown of the Fire Festival(45,000 xp from those turned in) and I dragged myself tiredly to bed.

I cleaned up the ones in Outlands except the 2 I am saving for when I ding(Netherstorm and Shadowmoon) and now sit a mere 2 bubbles(or 80,000 xp) from leveling and I have yet to turn in any quests in Blade's Edge Mountains. A couple in my guild dinged twice of the fires bringing their warlocks both up to 58, without doing any other quests for their levels. They got about 1 and a half levels from the Fire Festival. Have you used the new format of the Fire Festival to push a lower level character significantly higher in their leveling? Do you like when they bring such experience heavy quests intot he game? Let me know in the comments!
]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/midsummer-fire-festival-a-boon.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/midsummer-fire-festival-a-boon.php General Quests Seasonal Telaan Experience Leveling Midsummer Fire Festival Nagrand Oshu'gun Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:53:53 -0600 WotLK Upcoming: What will you do first? As we are beginning to see the news and blog posts of people making preparations for the upcoming expansion, I felt it time to begin working on this planned series of articles. When you look down the path and see change coming, it is natural for us to look back on what has been, and to look forward to what will come. That is the plan for this series of articles of indeterminate length.

Let me take you back, friends, to January 15th, 2007. About 10 pm server time on Argent Dawn people started congregating around the dark portal which was now clear of the demons that flooded from the portal in the weeks leading up to the opening of the big black wormhole to the heroes of Azeroth. If you recall the events, you will know that Kazzak, a troublesome relic of the Burning Legion on Azeroth, found an artifact that allowed him to open the portal again, flooding Azeroth with demons. You may also recall his reward was a promotion to Doom Lord Kazzak, and he was made larger and more powerful. his worldly possesions also gained a few levels.

As the heroes of Azeroth began to collect by the portal, we eagerly waited and talked about what we would do first. I had to wait until the following morning to pass through the Dark Portal, but the first thing I did was look around and admire the sheer awesomeness of the zone in front of me, and even more so when I looked at the world map and found I had only discovered a small fragment of the entirety of Outlands, and there was more to do and alts to do it on as well as my main, Medros.

Some of the things people talked about was that they were going to check out the new Battle ground, some were going to start Draenei or Blood Elves, just to admire these new playable races and admire the look of them. Others just spent the first few weeks of the expansion leveling lower level alts, knowing that the opening zones of Outlands would be swamped with players. There were also the few, the insane, who were looking to race to be their realms first 70, first Horde Paladin/Alliance Shaman to 70, and so on. Then there were the ironic ones, who just wanted to go back to Ironforge and enjoy the lack of lag in the city.

We have a lot of stuff we can do first thing after upgrading to the Wrath of the Lich King. We could hurry to the opening zones of Northrend, Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. We can rush to the barbershop and get our first haircut in up to 4 years. We could create our very own Death Knight. We could go learn some new dances. Or we could just enjoy the pleasure of not having to compete for mobs, for gathering, or anything else that annoys. What will you do first when Wrath of the Lich King hits?  ]]> http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/wotlk-upcoming-what-will-you-d.php http://www.allthingsazeroth.com/Medros/archive/2008/06/wotlk-upcoming-what-will-you-d.php Burning Crusade Events General Opinion Wrath of the Lich King Borean Tundra Burning Crusade Death Knight Howling Fjord Wrath of the Lich King Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:49:32 -0600