Daily Thoughts: Predictions Pt.1 – Deathwing

I first got the idea for this article while I was standing outside Gamestop on Cataclysm release night with a friend of mine, waiting to pick up my copy and for my significant other to return with some ‘tex-mex’ coney’s from sonic. Freakin’ delicious, let me tell you. I can’t quite recall the lead in to the conversation, but I decided to make some predictions on the deathwing boss fight come patch 4.3 or 4.4.

The Sure Bets: I’d actually consider putting money on some of the following, but this is easy stuff. First, there’ll naturally be multiple phases to the fight. There will be a tail to worry about and a cleave/breath mechanic to not stand in front of. There will be adds and fire on the ground or things falling from the air (probably all of the above). I think most of us can agree on this basics of a big dragon fight. Follow me after the break for how I think the phase breakdown will be and the long-shots I’m calling for this fight.

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Daily Thoughts: Blind Faith

Have you ever wondered why exactly you need to collect 8 random flowers or kill 10 gnolls/troggs/wolves/etc? Do you know why you killed Malygos? Or the guardians of ulduar? Or all those orcs in Hellfire Ramparts over and over again? Sometimes I wonder about these things. For Lich King content, since that is when I really started raiding and doing instances, I’m pretty aware why I’m killing most of the bosses I’ve been sent to dispatch. On the other hand, while leveling or questing, I pretty much take the quest and read just enough to glean what I’m supposed to be doing and start doing it. I have almost no idea why I’m in most of the pre-70 instances. Most players probably don’t care the reason they are questing, the ones who might care that they are out doing “good” assume that the quest givers, being friendly NPCs, are good and want the best for the world. This isn’t the case everytime. Sometimes, the results of the meddling of we adventurers can cause pretty disastrous things.

I really enjoy the faction pairs that let us choose which side we’re killing and which side we’re helping. In Sholazar Basin, we get to choose between the Frenzyheart Tribe and the Oracles. At first you do quests back and forth between the two and are eventually faced with choosing. Although some may like to get exalted with both (and I hear there is some way of doing that, not sure how), I like that we at least get a choice. Elsewhere in Northrend we get pitted by the Kalu-ak against local wolvar. As far as I know, there isn’t an option. You either help slay wolvar and generally mess up their business (including stealing their pups) or skip the quest area. Who says those Kalu’ak are the ones deserving our  considerable services? You might have sided with a tribe of wolvar in sholazar and would like to be able to do the same here? No such luck my friends.

As I mentioned before, some of our deeds done through our relentless questing for knowledge, glory, and topping the meters can have dire consequences. There’s a series of low-level quests involving morrowgrain. *Minor spoils incoming*.  I can’t recall if it is revealed in-game what these quests do, but through reading about the Stormrage novel, I learned these herbs we were gathering we being used to poison Malfurion (the leader of the Night Elf Druids, general bad-ass, and savior of the world). Yet we blindly chose to gather and turn in. What else might our actions have cost us? One theory is that it may have cost us…the entire world (of warcraft). *Sort of spoilers incoming*. The titans that shaped Azeroth into a world of life an order battled the Old Gods and although beat them, knew they were too integrated into the world to be removed without harming or destroying it. Cosmic beings of immense power knew better than to kill an Old God, but what did we do? We killed Yogg Saron in Ulduar. Yes it was a Monster that has spread is influence and corrupted people, creatures, and even the ground itself possibly all over Azeroth, but maybe it was also part of the fabric of that world. Maybe killing Yogg Saron destabilized Azeroth. Are all these events going on in-game now with elementals invading caused by Deathwing just preparing to come out. Or is Deathwing taking the opportunity caused by the after effects of our meddling?

So be it kidnapping Wolvar pups, gathering deadly herbs, or killing beings integral to Azeroths survival, us players, adventures, continue to press on with blind faith that we’re fighting the good fight. Or maybe it doesn’t matter cause, hey, at least we got the lootz.

A Few More Random Thoughts About 4.0.1

This actually was going to be used for something else a week or so ago, but it didn’t end up going that way and I wanted the article to be read.

On the whole, it feels like Deathwing has already brought a personal cataclysm and world-changing chaos to each of my characters. I don’t mean to say that this change is all bad. Like the revamping that will hit each zone of Azeroth come Cataclysm; many talents, abilities, interfaces and more have been added, improved or plain removed from the game.

The Good:

  • 310% flying is now in reach of everyone with 5,000 gold (4,000 rep discount). A lot of people, myself included, haven’t been lucky in getting a group to finish hard mode runs to get their 310 drake before patch.
  • 100 Gold for dual spec. Been wanting to try healing but haven’t wanted to cough up 1,000 gold or lose that DPS main spec? At 100 gold, dual spec is now available to most players who want to diversify their characters.
  • No more spell ranks! Finally we have reached a point where that one alt with an off spec will no longer get spammed with RankWatch every time it joins a group. Once you learn a spell or ability it will scale as you level so you don’t have to remember to make sure the most recent version is sitting on your bars.

The Bad:

  • Shorter talent trees just feel a little bit empty. Not getting a point every level is a bit disappointing while leveling. Also, due to the shorter trees, characters under level 69 cannot get their “31” point talent. This leaves several classes and spec’s somewhat gimped of spells they used to have while leveling. My 64 warlock greatly misses haunt. As of 4.0.1 and before cataclysm, as level 80’s we’re unable to reach very helpful talents in other trees.
  • The time for healers getting dungeon queues is higher than before. The time it takes to replace a tank is also delayed as tanks are hesitant to join instances with threat being somewhat inconsistent still and a general unfamiliarity with new abilities. Although not as bad as the 40+ minute que times to get into a battle ground the first couple weeks of the patch, most times I’m trying it’s still 25-50% longer than it was before. Maybe people are just unconcerned about PVP until rated bgs?
  • Bugs, glitches and lag. All this is normal with large or content patches, but a couple of weeks or so after patch and I’m still experiencing random bugs. My warrior’s +5% crit buff has not displayed since patch and the inability to load dungeons at random, for examples.

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