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Patch 3.0.2 - The Wrath Pre-Patch

So, patch 3.0.2 has gone into testing on the Public Test Realm (PTR). Patch 3.0.2 is what has become known as the Wrath Pre-Patch. It’s intended to bring those with WoW original and Burning Crusade up to the baseline of Wrath content.

Basically, any changes that affect everyone, regardless of if they own Wrath of the Lich King or not, are included.
Pretty much the only things not included are the Wrath zones and quests and levels 71-80 (and corresponding skills).

The biggest changes are the various class talent trees and skills, for most classes the trees have been rearranged and rejigged quite substantially. Some classes also get new skills, such as the druid with their much sought after regular ressurection skill, Revive.

A big change for casters is the removal of +damage and +healing, combining them into a single Spell Power stat. This change also changes a lot of gear, and potentially provides some gear overlap and choice where previously there was none.

Most of the old world map changes have taken effect too, Dalaran is no longer under it’s protective bubble in Alterac Mountains, only a HUGE crater remains now it has “flown” to Northrend. Naxxramas has vacated it’s Plaguelands home, Stormwind Harbour has appeared along with the new zeppelin towers for Horde.

Barbershops have appeared in various capital cities and you can now learn Inscription (the new “Wrath” profession) and take it to 375 skill.

A lot of the miscellaneous changes have also taken effect. The Achievements, Token and new Vanity Pet/Mount systems are in. The latter two are designed to save bag and bank space, the Token pane eliminates carrying PvP marks/Raid Badges and similar, simply showing how many you have and giving you that bag space back. The new Vanity Pet/Mount system has you learn how to summon pets and mounts when you use the old item. Meaning you can throw the item away once learnt. You simply click the relevant pet/mount from a new tab on your character sheet.

As well as these Quality of Life changes, we also have a new dynamic shadow system implemented, this looks fantastic, especially when you’ve been used to nothing more than blob shadows. It makes the world much more alive, but equally ups the power required to display it. Luckily you can disable them if your PC can’t take the strain.

It’s perhaps the biggest patch WoW has ever had due to a lot of the fundamental class changes and system alterations. Because of this it will perhaps also bring with it a lot of question from folks not understanding where things have moved to, where their marks have gone etc.

It’s also to my mind, the most exciting patch since I’ve been playing WoW, as it signifies that Wrath of the Lich King isn’t all that far away. It will be interesting to experience the new expansion from day one, rather than after the buzz has died down.

Also, to me, Northrend is much more interesting than Outland. I can’t wait!

The Continuing Saga…

… of Simon and MMOs.

I’m actually in a strange place right now as I haven’t really been playing anything all that much over these last few days, bitting and bobbing with Guild Wars, Maple Story and even popping into WoW now and then.

During my last foray into WoW I left the guild I was in (long story, suffice it to say I no longer feel stressed when logging in), formed a new one called “The Chosen Few” (which sounds like a really poor western) and then with Joanne’s help levelled Twigleaf to 24. I still can’t quite get “into” WoW at the minute though, although I think my sabbatical is over.

I originally wanted two level 70 characters for when Wrath of the Lich King hits, I doubt I’ll manage that now with this uber-apathy I currently have but it’d be nice to get close.

I’m still enjoying forays into Guild Wars, I recorded this brief troll farming vid about a week ago mostly for me testing various video compression settings. I thought I may as well dump it up on youtube.

So, in short, I’m back in WoW (Yay), still enjoying GW (Yay) and quite strongly apathetic at the moment (Boo).

Sabbaticals and Me…

I’m still on my WoW sabbatical, peering in now and then solely to help boost Joanne, I can’t see myself going back to WoW regularly until Wrath of the Lich King releases now.

Instead of the MMO behemoth that is WoW, I’ve been playing Guild Wars and, rather bizarrely, Maple Story.

Maple Story is an odd game, it’s a cutesy free-to-play 2D MMO that’s based entirely around grinding. It’s oddly compelling and I don’t know why!

It is essentially a regular 2D platform game where you kill things… a lot. There is something strangely relaxing and addictive about it which I can’t quite put my finger on but it’s very enjoyable at the moment. The thing is, I hate, hate, hate grinding. Constant repetition of killing enemies with no point just to level up drives me nuts in World of Warcraft so how come I can tolerate it and even enjoy doing it in Maple Story?

The only thing I can think of is it’s cuteness, it has a strange appealing feel to it that somehow makes mass-slaughter of literally thousands of snails/mushrooms/slimes more tolerable.

Regardless, I’m finding it fun at the moment, and it, along with capturing elite skills in Guild Wars is taking up the majority of my time.

I’ll definitely be returning to the World of Warcraft when the Lich King demands my attention, which as of right now appears as if it might be in October.

Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic Trailer

Well, I wasn’t expecting this until Blizzcon but Blizzard have released the Wrath trailer at the Games Convention in Leipzig.

You can view it in HD at the Wrath site HERE or watch the embedded YouTube vid below.

Overall, I think it’s a great teaser, introducing Arthas to a perhaps unfamiliar audience is going to be hard but having his Dad (the now dead, by Arthas’ hand, King Terenas Menethil - incidentally the best cinematic in Warcraft 3.) lovingly talk about his son was a nice touch.

Seeing Arthas with Frostmourne summoning his Frost Wyrm and controlling a vast army was great, although previous teasers (for WoW and BC) featured factions battling each other and were more “action-packed”. This cements the notion that the expansion is all about Arthas.

Anything with “evil” Arthas in is cool to start with though, it’ll be good to see where they take the story.

New Arrival and a Separation

“World of Warcraft Programming” arrived today and based upon a short flick through it looks very comprehensive.

At 1022 pages including index it goes into some pretty good detail, which should hopefully mean I can get a good grasp on writing add-ons before Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

As you’ve probably guessed from the title, myself and Joanne have decided to take a break from WoW for awhile, there are a few reasons I think that contributed to this decision.

The first being that our characters are geared pretty much as well as can be (except for badge gear) for where the guild is and is likely to get before WotLK comes out, because of this there often feels like there is little point playing our main characters through lack of perceived progression.

The other main one is just general guild issues. As nice as everyone in the guild is (and for the most part they are, there are a few idiots but you’ll always get them) the guild as a whole is very cliquey. This isn’t necessarily the fault of anyone but it ultimately really gets annoying when someone not in the “exclusive group” asks to do something and no-one is interested yet magically when someone “cool” says it they all fall over themselves.

There are other little annoyances too but those are the main two I think.

I’m still massively looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King, it brings a LOT to WoW, so hopefully we’ll be back in Azeroth in a few months armed with Addons aplenty.

Wrath Approaches…

So, Wrath of the Lich King is being iterated over VERY quickly with new builds going up every few days it seems. So it seems likely Blizzard are on target for a mid-October-ish launch.

With that in mind I’ve been pondering what Alt to focus on to level to 70 before WotLK hits. I’ve had a 70 Hunter and got a Mage to 67 before so not really sure I want to do another as I’ve already played them. Although the Hunter pet changes are giving me pause for thought. They look incredible.

I currently have a Shammy, Pally and a Priest in the mid to late teens, but I’m not really sure who to nominate as my next 70. My very first WoW character was a priest, he made it to the late 40s (48 I think). Both Shammies and Paladins are getting a big shake-up come Wrath, with Retribution Paladins finally doing decent damage, and Shammies getting a tad more versatility.

A Shadow Priest appeals to me, mostly because I like caster classes and the SPs have good synergy with most other classes.

Shammies appeal because Joanne had one specced Enhancement and it kicked ass, and some of the changes to Enhancement look great.

Paladins appeal because I love the whole ideal of a Paladin, the Holy Warrior, even if in WoW it doesn’t totally fit that mould. There will be a LOT of undead in Wrath so…

Time is running out so I better decide soon…

The Lich King… Getting Ready To Go!

And so the Wrath of the Lich King beta is ready to go with Blizzard officially lifting the NDA. All the usual candidates are revealing a lot of new information so I thought I’d take the time to talk about my thoughts on Wrath, based on what I’ve seen so far anyway.

First off, I’m VERY excited about Wrath of the Lich King. I came to WoW pretty late and it will be exciting to explore the new expansion when everyone else does.

There are a LOT of class changes coming, Hunters and Paladins are getting shuffled around a lot, with every class getting altered in some way.

Stats are being shaken up as well with +Healing and +Damage being replaced by Spellpower and adjusted via talents, there seems to be a move to remove the emphasis on Hit Rating as well.

But the one big thing for me in WotLK is the addition of achievements, now achievements aren’t new, WoW isn’t even really the first Online game to include them. Guild Wars had an achievement-lite scheme to unlock titles and Lord of the Rings Online has the Deeds system.

Looking at WoW’s implementation is interesting because they’ve retro-fitted both Classic WoW and The Burning Crusade content into it. Which is both the right and a GREAT thing to do!

As WoW grows with each expansion, the old zones will slowly empty as there is less reason to be there. While having achievements that involve those old zones isn’t the solution, it’s a great start to getting folk to go back to places they’ve levelled out of.

Some of the achievements involve killing bosses in Classic, The Burning Crusade and Wrath dungeons and raids, while others involve levelling professions and exploring the continents. Based on the screenshots at WorldofRaids, there is a really varied assortment of achievements.

The REALLY interesting part for me though is what will these achievement points be spent on? The Blizzard Achievement page hints at tabards, non-combat pets and titles, but will there be other stuff, perhaps non-combat gear and other novelty items.

I’m sure we’ll find out as the beta progresses…

Arena Triumph and Patch 2.4.3

WOOHOO!!! Myself and Joanne just finished our weekly 10 arena matches and won 4, lost 6. That’s a much better performance than last week where we won 1, lost 9. Although the 1 win last week was due to the opposition having connection drama.

Our gear has improved slightly on last week so probably had a bit to do with our performance although I felt like we actually worked better as a team this week. So bravo us!

Also when I get up in the morning the Blizzard patch fairies will have performed surgery and installed patch 2.4.3 which adds a few UI improvements, notably a new clock with built in alarm and stopwatch functions.

One of the main alterations is lowering the first mount requirements to level 30 and reducing the cost to 35g. This is a big change which should help folk level quicker as getting around is one of the biggest time sinks in the old world.

There is also the addition of construction works in Stormwind as work gets under way to rebuild the Harbour that the Alliance will be using to travel to Northrend in a few months or so. (Which I think is an awesome addition and I’d like to see Blizzard doing more of this kind of thing.)

All in all it’s an interesting patch with quite a lot of skill changes and bug fixes. I’ll comment on the new “clock” functionality later on tomorrow.

Angelikuh = Level 70 and Diablo 3

Yesterday I dinged 70 on my Tauren druid Angelikuh, after just under 10 days of /played time over 3 weeks exactly of real time. I now face the task of levelling her professions and getting geared up.

I’m going to be taking Alchemy as a primary profession although I’m still not certain what else to take. It’s a toss-up between Jewelcrafting and Engineering at the moment.

Other than that I’m planning on getting her Cooking/First Aid and Fishing skills to 375 as well as start doing PvP for marks and honour.

In other news, Blizzard’s World Wide Invitational weekend started today with the not-quite-a-surprise announcement of Diablo 3 which honestly looks fantastic, Diablo 2 in 3D with awesome physics. The first Dev panel spoke a bit about class balance and changes coming to WoW in Wrath of the Lich King.

The thing that most interested me was the revamping of the hunter pet system, ditching the current points based skills and replacing them with dedicated utility, tank and dps talent trees.

That has the potential to be REALLY great. I’m interested in seeing what Blizzard plans with those.

Other minor but interesting changes mentioned were Sap now working on pretty much anything except elementals, Entangled Roots now working indoors along with a few interesting new spells and talents like the warrior talent, Titan Grip which allows the warrior to dual wield 2-handed weapons.

Hopefully as the day progresses we’ll get more insight into plans for WotLK, but I imagine the bulk of that will come in tomorrow’s raid and PvP panels.

No more Ghost Wolf for Hunters shock! (or, you want to be different?)

If you browse any WoW blogs or news sites you’ll have no doubt seen that Blizzard have applied a hotfix that prevents hunters from taming the Grimtotem Spirit Guide.

Here is an excerpt of Drysc’s post explaining why they hotfixed it:

The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game.
The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.

And here is what Issuntril said originally way back at the end of November:

While this feature of the Grimtotem Spirit Guide wasn’t exactly intended, it was agreed by the development team that this is a fun use of in-game mechanics, and we therefore have no plans to address this issue - it will still be possible in future for everyone who wishes to tame this NPC to do so.

So, what do I think? Well let me first give a recap of what you actually had to do to tame the Grimtotem Spirit Guide along with how much it would cost.

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