Wrath of the Lich King Descends

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It’s here.

The long-anticipated expansion has finally hit stores and I, like most WoW addicts, am gearing up for questing my way through another ten levels.  I’m not so sure I’m looking forward to saying goodbye to my beautiful purple epic gear or being placed back on the unequal footing of battling higher levels and being subjected to a repetitive gank fest.  But I am excited about having new terrain to explore, raiding new instances, and finding some wicked looking gear for my little pink pigtailed gnome warrior chick after she reaches level 80.

I think with WotLK, players are going to experience both enthusiasm and stress.  There are new goals to be set, more fun to be had, and for those of us who were hitting a ceiling with our geared-out 70s, we will now have room to advance and grow again.  Unlike the Burning Crusade, which felt more like a mere extension of the original game, I think WotLK is truly bringing a new, epic quality to gameplay and world adventure for gamers.  I mean, how cool is it going to be to see a Death Knight in frosted armor stalking around?

In the same token, for those of us who got too comfortable strutting around on our 70s and three-shotting players a couple levels below us, I expect there will be a feverish rush to level to 80 – players are afraid that the slower they are with the leveling process, the more they are going to get their butts kicked by others that are leveling quicker than them…especially considering experience points are now given even for PVP kills. 

I’ve noticed a lot of my guild members have been concerned about saving up hordes of gold for the expansion as well, assuming that they will be able to level faster if they have a bunch of gold in reserves.  The impatience to get to 80 and find better gear is being felt by most players.  But where many players had topped-out on gear previously – making it easier for those newer to raiding to deck themselves out in purples – I foresee the competitive spirit for getting new armor making it twice as difficult for players to get geared after the expansion.

Yet in the end, I don’t doubt WotLK will be a success.  Blizzard has millions of subscribers for a reason.  The expansions keep the game fresh, new, and exciting.  Despite the stress and struggle of dealing with the unfamiliar content and updates made to the game, I’ll admit…I can’t wait to download my copy of WotLK and get started.

Wrath, 2 Days Away…Exciting or Excruciating?

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We are now 2 days away from the second World of Warcraft Expansion and I personally couldn’t be more excited. Hey everyone, before I get started I just wanted to introduce myself briefly. I have been playing World Of Warcraft for about four years and I play a hunter as my main. I have killed every boss there is to kill and have PVPed my way to a 2300 rating in season 2. I have a Protadin and a Resto Shaman as well, but my passion lies with my hunter.

My guild was stuck on M’uru when 3.0.2 hit, and that night we cleared the whole zone without a wipe. Some say that we didn’t deserve the kill because of the content nerf, but I don’t care. I finished B.C. (Burning Crusade) and totally feel I deserve it. I struggled through every boss as it was cutting edge and didn’t get carried through it. I paid my dues and my repair bills with the rest of them.

Now as we approach Wrath, just as my colleague below mentions, we are all trying to sure up some cash, achievements, and our specs before the zerg fest that will be the first few days.

This is where I get to my point…

Will it be exciting, fun and amazing? Or will it be laggy, annoying and excruciating?

For me, the opening days of B.C. were the most fun I have ever had in game. I play on a PVP server and it was glorious. Ganking was happening for sure, but camping/griefing wasn’t. I am for world PVP as much as the next guy, no matter how annoying it may be, but nothing gets my blood boiled (punintended) more than the repetitive killing of a helpless player.

I’m talking about when the group of five hangs out on the Isle of Quel’danas and repeatedly kill the poor solo player just trying to get his mana remnants. When the previous expansion hit, this didn’t happen. People were too excited about leveling. There were some epic world encounters don’t get me wrong, but that’s where they ended.

In addition, the game servers for the most part were very smooth. I didn’t experience any server lockups or shutdowns as well as a very limited number of hiccups. No one thought that it would run as smoothly as it did, and B.C. went out without a hitch.

The question is, will Wrath be as smooth? Will there be enough mobs for everyone? Will there be too much griefing on PVP servers? Will there be server shutdowns? No one will know until November 13th, but I personally have faith that we will have some fun times in Northrend this weekend, and I can’t wait.

This is an exciting time for most WOW players, but to some it will be nothing but headaches.

Wrath of the Lich King Anticipation

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It has been a little over a week since my last entry regarding World of Warcraft.  I have been very busy!  No, no, not with real life.  I’ve found myself sucked into WoW trying to clear through all of those nice achievements that Blizzard conveniently put in a month before Wotlk comes out.

I have a level 70 druid that I respec between balance and feral every other day.   I’ve found that it was super easy to get all my balance badge gear since the instances were nerfed a month ago, so I’ve run Kara and ZA weekly with pugs.  I’ve cleared through Serpent Shrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and Black Temple.  Getting pugs for Hyjal and Sunwell has been much harder, though I did go on a guild run through Sunwell last week (go Dirt Dogs!).  I’ve cleared through every classic instance except AQ40 and am only missing one heroic.  The twin emps gave our guild’s 15 man group a little trouble when they glitched out at 5% health.  Also, everyone seems to hate heroic Shadow Labs.  Can’t anyone give a druid some love?

I ran through Eye of the Storm about 70 times to pick up 2 pieces of feral pvp gear this past weekend.  I am now sporting almost a complete set up S2 and hope to pick up the final piece, the chest, this week before Thursday morning’s pick up of my new expansion.  Oh, and yes, I picked up almost all of the Eye’s achievements (still missing the blasted ‘Perfect Storm’).  I’ve picked up 46 of the 50 pets required to get a skunk carrier.  Robot Chicken

The robot chicken quests were probably the most annoying of any that I’ve gathered, but totally worth it in the end.  The whelplings still evade me, but I think it has something to do with the other pet farmers in the area with me stealing my kills.  I have farmed close to 1000g running dailies, which allowed me to clear the “A Simple Request” along with a few fishing achievements.   This money will be perfect to use with (que trumpets) my Death Knight.  What?  Why am I doing all these achievements for my druid if I am changing toons in less than a week?  The answer is simple: Blizzard’s achievement system is brilliant.  It makes me want to play my druid even knowing that he will remain level 70 for months at least.

I am not even upset that I have to do all these achievements a second time because I have had so much fun running through them on my druid.  However, Wrath comes out in less than 4 days.  What is everyone else doing during their last 4 days?  I will be spending most of Wednesday afternoon sleeping in preparation for my long night.  Wednesday I will get to sleep, Midnight release, installation and starting my death knight.  I can’t wait!

Raid Progression Adventure!

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The last few weeks of the Burning Crusade are upon us and many guilds are trying to plow through all of the raid content they haven’t yet seen.  In the last week, I have seen PUGs (pick up groups) for everything from Karazhan to Sunwell.  These PUGs do seem to only take geared individuals, but the fact that these once impossible 25-man dungeons can be penetrated and destroyed by PUGs allows everyone playing WoW to really see all of the raid dungeons and progress just before the entry of WotLK.

I guess the real question: why Blizzard didn’t make this change sooner?   I’ve played Warcraft since Dire Maul was introduced into the game.  I remember that when BC came out, guilds were struggling to go through BWL and AQ40, let alone get into Naxx to see that content before the expansion.   In fact, there are quite a few people playing WoW who still never went back into Naxx at 70 and probably won’t know anything about the spider wing until level 80.  With WotLK upon us, the raid bosses saw a huge nerf due to a change in game mechanics.  Does that mean that Blizzard never intended for all paying clients to see all of the content in the game?

MMOs have been popular for sometime with the success of games like Everquest and Final Fantasy XI. Blizzard is an innovative company that really stepped outside of the MMO box to make a completely new and fascinating game.  However, some of the culture of older MMOs did sneak into WoW.  I really do not believe that Blizzard intended for every paying customer to see every raid dungeon.  The elite hardcore raiders were meant to see Naxx.  The elite raiders were meant to complete Sunwell.  And now, every raider is finally intended to see the new content of the developed game.

What made Blizzard change their tune on raids?  Blizzard spends a lot of time creating dungeons and content.  Why wouldn’t they want to show off all of their hard work? WotLK introduces 10-man raids that allow for progression.  You can keep going with your steady guild 10-man group or you may be able to pick up a random 9 other players standing in Dalaran with you.  

Pre-BC, everyone loved 40 man raids.  When BC was introduced with 10 and 25 man raids, the community of players complained because people would be left out of the raids.  Post-BC, we are seeing the introduction of 10-man progression and 25-man progression separate.  Maybe the PUGs that we are seeing form in Shattrath today will continue to be a part of the World of Warcraft and perhaps everyone will get a chance to see all of the new content Blizzard throws our way.

Patch 3.02 Excitement?

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Like many of my fellow adventurers, I was very excited to enter the World of Warcraft last week to try all of the great and new things added to the game before the release of Wrath of the Lich King.  However, just like everyone else, my excitement crashed as quickly as the servers night after night.

Let me pre-empt my disappointment a little by saying that I was one of the few people that forgot to turn on their background downloader and ended up having to download the entire 1.2 gigs of patch in one night.  After 3 long hours, I log into WoW to find many wonderful things:  achievements, new talents, easy raid mobs, oh my!  Obviously, there are many new features that make WoW seem like a whole new game. 

Halloween Pumpkin World of WarcraftI found myself fishing for the first time in 3 years to unlock achievements for my guild and the entire world around me to see!  I have fished up Old Ironjaw for the disbelievers that think he just doesn’t exist (and yes, it took me 4 hours and 370 fish).  But, despite all of the great new fishing achievements, the server restarts and shut downs over the past week have really put a damper on what could have been the most exciting WoW patch yet.

Here we are, 1 week since the patch release and instances are still shutting down sporadically and server lag is still a problem.  It is hard to enjoy my classic raid of BWL if the server crashes while we fight Chromaggus because I know the pug will not be able to start back up that same night to finish the achievement.  It is hard to get a group together for the Headless Horseman when the Scarlet Monastery’s server has gone offline.  It is hard to get excited about Wrath when the state of the game is so spotty due to this patch.

I have played the Wrath beta.  I know that there are a lot of great things coming.  Despite Wrath’s possible greatness (and it is great from what I’ve played), the game won’t be any fun if we can’t see all the cool new parts of the game.  The stability of the servers after patches needs a major boost if Blizzard expects people to stick with WoW going into the next expansion.   Arthas invading our servers is great…so long as the game still works.