State of Things 10/27/09

I didn't really had any particular post in mind, though I could think of a few or the many on the save to finish list in the blog. But its maintenance day and usually a good day to write something having the day off from work as well. Current state of my gaming in WoW at the moment is totally casual and at the moment. I'm just pretty much playing alts and still on vacation from raiding as a focus. So I guess that can pretty much sums things up.

Well aware of all the content added to the game over the last few months. At this point much of that content seems like old content at this point to many players. I simply haven't done any of it. So even though most the end game content is like old news to most players its still content I have yet to try to see or participate in. And much of the reason is that as stated before that at the moment its just not my focus at the moment to focus on the latest raid content and all that entails.

For the moment my state of play is casually focused on getting other things done as a goal. I'll get back to raiding eventually. For the moment I'm enjoying the down time, as well I usually sleep much better these past months vs sleeping and dreaming I'm still actually raiding. So that's a plus more restful sleep, especially when I'm more tired these days as well from real life work. So I can play or log off whenever I feel like or get tired without having to worry about raiding or the commitment to it at the moment.

State of Altism

My Paladin

When you played one character so long with focus you do need a break to see the world through the eyes of another character. Thus I haven't really raided with my Paladin since around early May 2009. That's almost 6 months now. When I last raided I was in Ulduar 10. My raid progression at that time stopped at killing Freya. Since that time their has been lots of new content and patch changes to the game since. But that's the last time that I really played my Paladin for real endgame content. As well I'm enjoying the break as well. I've run a heroic or two lately just to help out a guildie but that's about it.

I just haven't been inclined to Tank anything else much or answer any of the numerous Pugs on my realm LFM Onyxia, Ulduar, ToC that I see daily. Its been almost 6 months and in that time my current tanking gear on my Paladin seem so outdated. Hell its so out dated that new lvl 80 Paladin Tanks have more HP than me after a week it seems at lvl 80. I'm just not inclined to do anything about it until after patch 3.3 for the effort to try and upgrade any of it especially with Emblems getting changed again in Patch 3.3. No point in wasting the effort right now either.

Shaman

Though my Paladin remain my main character, my Shaman gives him a good run at being that main character. As I do enjoy playing my Shaman allot. Shamans and Totems are fun! I haven't done any raids on my Shaman. Mostly just done heroics with friends and helping a few guildies run heroics mostly. But he has fairly decent gear as a Enhancement Shaman and can do over 3K dps in heroics. Not sure how much that would be in a 10 man raid. But I'm sure its decent. My Shaman has Dual Spec so Elemental as off spec since I prefer it over playing healer plus it gives me a range caster class to play around with or can play as a option.

He has some decent gear for off spec as elemental as well though not as good as my Enhancement Shaman. Overall I enjoy playing my Shaman. At the moment I don't really run Heroics all that much anymore since can't really upgrade all that much else with Emblems at the moment either. But our small guild has a decent Shaman for dps.

My Unholy Death Knight

Playing the DK is fun in some ways as I enjoy a melee class. I also enjoy being most anti-paladin as well so being Unholy Spec suits my taste. He's got decent gear for Heroics and usually always top the dps meters in most my Heroics runs. I can play him at a respectable skill level and much better if I'm playing him daily to tune my skills. Since I don't play him all that much I see no point in giving him Dual Spec either as another spec for me to learn to play when I don't play him all that much currently.

Since I got him to lvl 80 and did a few Heroics to get him some heroics gear I haven't really played him all that much since, probably not much at all really. And since Emblems are getting changed in patch 3.3 I see no reason to expend the effort at the moment to change things till after helping other new guildies at 80 gear up in the process or getting other things done. Though fun to play I don't play him that much. Just a run here and there so my skill at playing him don't totally diminish. I have yet to make him a BlackSmith as well and level up the skill.

My BM Hunter

My Hunter is the newest of my 80's and my 4th. Ive run him in few heroics so far and even though still gearing up in gear and needing a bit of gear I can be 1st or 2nd on the dps meter in heroics with pet and his gear is not all that great which totally shocked me in the few heroics I did. But I did take the effort right after getting him to lvl 80 to get him out of green gear and into some decent quest blues or starter gear and a few crafted epic gear and the rep grind a bit to get him some enchants. Even got him some Ulduar pattern crafted Boots. So, much a process in getting him geared up a bit though not as a priority by any means either.

I find him fun to play but not over my Paladin or my Shaman but still easy fun to do other things. Will just work on him slowly whenever I can. May pick up a dual spec on him and just make his dual spec a solo tanking pet spec just to solo hard stuff with the pet alone for fun and kicks. Currently he does Skinning/Leatherworking. I have yet to have the time to level him up in leatherworking since he had to drop max mining to pick it up.

Shadow Priest

In the last of my Project goals for WotLK and before Cataclysm, I have started to level up my Shadow Priest. Not to play a healer of course since I don't play full time Healer. But just to play a Shadow Priest!

On the road to Cataclysm most of my leveling Projects in WotLK for Alts is almost done.

Really, Surprised It Wasn't a WoW Player!

Saw this reading some odd stuff earlier. But apparently a Indian man broke the Guinness World Record for officially playing a Video Game (GTA) for over 40 hours. And he plans to do it again sometime soon to try and break it by going for 48 hours officially.

I was thinking nuts dude. But so are allot of WoW players and especially like the ones that play continuously during WotLK launch leveling continuously from 70-80 and other WoW related stuff.

So I was a bit surprised that a WoW player didn't already have this official Guinness World Record. Yeah not healthy by any means. But I was expecting maybe a WoW player. I mean there is that much interesting stuff to do in WoW for 40 continuous hours +++ if you can stay awake that is.

Was wondering have this guy never heard of World of Warcraft. And then, how come some other WoW player don't have this official record. But then again I'm not sure Blizzard would want that kind of possibly negative publicity either of some young teen playing their game for 40+ hours straight with negative consequence for a already very addicting game. Gamers get enough negative scrutiny as it is for playing online games.

I for more than certainty have played WoW before at least 24 hrs plus on some past weekend before and that didn't seem to take all that much effort and for of all things I was fishing just for fun for the last 6 hours of it and that's even considered quite boring stuff by most WoW players. That was way back when I caught the Turtle Mount.

Just surprised it wasn't a WoW player of all people or some so called anti-social player in Azeroth.

New LFG Random System in 3.3

Been reading notes on the new soon to come revamped LFG System and Random Instance selection feature of it and reward.

So stated thinking will this system be smart enough to lock you out and not try and group/send you to a Heroic Dungeon your already saved to for that day? Does anyone knows if it locks you out of Random group selection if your already saved to a Instance?

I would have to imagine that this new system has to be able to do that somehow.

Public Service Announcement!

We all are aware of it, some your guildies just might also do it or have done it. Maybe you too have even done it.

But i'm sure most of us will ask that you don't support those of that perform those services or those that sell that shinny WoW stuff. You know, the shinny stuff. Do it at your own risk!

A word from Big Blizzard, don't support the services or those that sell the shinny stuff. Protect your community and your valuable account. Read it here and there and over there.

Pass the word, protect you and your guildies so they know better!

And with that PSA have a great WoW day.

lvl 80 Take 4

I've been busy leveling up my Alts some time now and working on my Hunter I finally got Krovon leveled up to 80 last night with my 79 croc pet Crocky. He was at lvl 70 for over a year since back in tBC, so its finally good to finish off what I started. So getting my Hunter to lvl 80 makes my 4th 80 now having leveled 3 of them my Shaman, Death Knight and Hunter up all in last few short months alone.

He leveled up really fast and with 2 pieces of mail heirloom the Shoulder and the Chest piece for the 20% XP as well having rest bonus to spare from lvl 70 all the way to 80. It was often Fun and Fast leveling up since I only leveled my Hunter while he had rest bonus. Still had 80% rest bonus hitting 80 and made it more pleasurable. Often just fun for a change of things.

Got to kill a Rare Elite in Storm Peaks (Vyragosa) on verge of hitting 80. I was totally surprise to even find this Rare Elite as I was the furthest thing from my mind to do. But was flying g up to N.Storm Peaks and spotted this odd looking Blue Dragon flying off to my left which seemed out of place and never seen before. I though to self, how odd that Dragon in this area. Curiously moused over him and said "Rare". So started chasing him down and sent Crocky after him and got the Nothern Exposure Achievement. It dropped a nice Blue 78 BoE leather helm and a Satchel of stuff with 19g for the booty. I got to skin the Dragon for Icy Dragonscale and leave no trace of its existence as well. Was a nice surprise and Achievement find.

Caught Vyragosa traveling the route from south in Western Storm Peaks up the frozen waterfall way up past Frosthold where the flying banshee looking mobs are then straight up past the cave in the area. From there it traveled north past Valkyrion and straight up north into the Snowdrift Plains going the north route as if heading straight north up to Ulduar. I was able to catch it right before it entered the narrow mountain pass on the Snowdrift Plains before it got to the Ulduar ruin area since lots of mobs were around. Think it had around 40K HP and wasn't too hard to kill.

But if you want to catch this Rare Elite for the Achievement that's a route you can travel to maybe a chance to catch it if your lucky. Always fun chasing down a Rare spawn.

Pets I have - Ferocity: 76 Drakuru Raptor, 76 Ghostpaw Alpha Wolf, 75 Dire Raven.

Pets I have - Tenacity: 80 Snowdrift Jormungar Worm, 79 Mangal Crocolisk.

Patch 3.3

Have you read the PTR patch notes for patch 3.3? Its damn awesome!

Which part? Just about all of it. What's not to love.

Buffs are plenty for almost all classes and lower cooldowns on many major spells.

BoA Helm & Shoulder enchants from faction usable at the correct lvl means the endless grinds are over. "Sons of Hodir" grind anyone? What's not to love? Well maybe less gold in your pocket from less of the grind. With my faction exalted Paladin I can buy any alt their max Helm & Shoulder Faction Enchant if need without them enduring the endless grind. However I would of grinded it anyway, this just saves lots of time.

Shadow Priests getting lots of Buffs. Mages getting permanent summoned pets. Hmm might be worth leveling my trusted banker Shadow Priest for the fun or a Mage. Who knows though.

Huge bump in Northrend faction rep gain. Yeah, awesome, less faction grind! Who doesn't love less grinding. Still kinda Meh! I would be pleased with increased major city reps being available from all faction cities.

Hunters pets take less XP to level up, awesome go to love that. I know I do too with a stables full of pets on my Hunter.

Shamans get to play more with their Totems. Yeah Shamans are fun!

You get to finally kill the main man Arthas because your so bored of everything else.

Game getting so easy even a idiot can play it.

Ok, back to playing WoW....

The Emblem QQ again...

WoW never cease to have its ups and down with players and their gear, their love of purple pixels and their complain over Blizzard making it easier or too easy for new raiders to get gear up into raiding to see the various content. As well as doing so diminishes their hard earn work and accomplishment.

"It increases the pool of people that are geared enough to raid, I have no problem with that. But it does worry me that it begins to open up the potential for even more poor raiders who don't know the fundamentals of raiding and don't want to learn. That is potentially problematic and is something that is already an issue in the game, things like this increase it.

But like I said, it makes it so that more people are available to do content, which, to me, is more fun. So I'm sort of torn."

Lulia - DK, Tankspot

I'm a bit torn as well, because I also agree with the statement above as well and I'm not even a active raider at the moment. The reason I'm torn is that like some and many players I do take some pride in actually checking in and putting in the work to earn anything I wear. Whatever the work is put the effort into getting it. I used to raid so i know what effort goes into it. In the end though its damn pixels and coding and I choose not to get attached to it, even if i worked for it. Because I'm always well aware things can and will change in and over time.

I'm a fairly highly skilled player and having not raided in months by choice I haven't been on the hunt to try and down bosses with a group of friends or enjoy the content raiding it and earning gear as the reward for beating the content encounters. I guess i decided for a while some time was better spend leveling up a few alts now vs later. As several of those alts have leveled up i too have put in the time to run them through Heroics and get them geared up to a satisfactory level for later raiding.

Does getting Emblems to purchase the vendor gear diminish the the time effort put in to earn my gear? I still had to put in time and effort to get the gear to gear up. What many will say its trivial content. But still a person has to put in time. Some casuals are too lazy to do that as well. Never in my history of the game have I as a player ever been carried by anyone through any content. I never payed for a run, never been run through any dungeon in the game leveling up. I geared up while leveling up through the content. I tuned my gear at 80 to do Heroics. Then did the content performing competently and earning every Emblem for the time doing the content to acquire gear for later raiding when I return to it.

Yeah its was fairly easy as a skilled player who been through it before, but one has to put in the time still. Many people are now earning gear that way as well for their entry as well as their second and third alts into raiding. Many the same people that going to QQ about Emblems are the same ones that will use it as well to quickly level up their alts in between the contents they are on.

I'm torn a bit because I know what its worth to work to earn something. Many Raiders get upset because they had to spend lots of time on the content and wipe a bit in between to doing it to earn their gear in the process for their Hey Look at Me and My Purples. And here come along Blizzard and change things giving and opening it up to more casual players to earn higher lvl tier gear without the same effort that they themselves had to endure to get. It shouldn't be any surprise to anyone that this is how WotLK has been all along with what Blizzard has openly said before with wanting everyone in some way to see or experience the content.

As a player I'm not attached to purples, its nice gear but in the end to me its all pixels and code. What some players cant seem to take some enjoyment in is that they did the content earlier than most got to experience it, they beat the content with their friends and guildies and earned the gear. They saw and beat it way before many casuals did. Some cant seem to take pleasure in that. To some its not ok when their newer lvl guild 80's or newer raiders look just as leet as they do with the same gear. Look the same but in no way skilled the same usually. That is not ok to them. Hey you didn't do the same work as I had to do, no fair and QQ more about it. Yeah I'm torn with you at times because i understand the process. But I'm not stuck on it either.

Blizzard wants everyone to see and experience the content so its not hard to expect sooner or later that things will get reset that more casual players will be able in some way at some point to earn higher level tier gear as the content gets older over time. Players alts end up benefiting from this greatly. And much so it will going into the soon to come next expansion. For some players its just not ok for new raiders to look like them in the same gear without the same effort that they put in. Some you raiders get carried on your raids, i have no illusion about that either.

Our young 10 man guild is just gearing up to soon do Naxx 10 as a young guild. While some players put in the time already to earn them some we have though that they didnt had to put in any real effort to get some decent gear as new 80's to start raiding. They were depending on being carried by better skilled and geared players. Yeah I was torn on that too and some the players had to be told that their gear totally sucked and go work on getting better gear along with their spec. Some players will still suck even if getting emblems are easier to earn and makes lousy skilled raiders.

Emblem change mean Its good for alts being able to gear up for fast entry into raiding. That don't in any way make new unskilled 80's good raiders. That's you and your guildies job to help make the new casuals in your guilds better raiders.

I'm a bit torn that that I can gear up my alts a bit faster into tier gear, I'm really torn about it. But don't be so surprised the next time Blizzard changes things in the future Emblem wise.