Petless Pet Classes

I can’t remember where I read it, but I seemed to recall that the warlock talent tree was bringing back Sacrifice Demon. Those of us that have been around long enough remember a time in BC when there was a spell with such a name that would grant the warlock a power buff in lieu of having a demon. I remember using this on my warlock (Kittykat) during raids since it seemed the pets would die far too often. It was a nice change of pace. I could play my spell caster without the worry of pet positioning and management. It was nice.

If in Mists of Pandaria this ability is brought back and I can go without a demon pet, I’m guessing that there will be a spec that I pick up that allows me to do so. Demonology for when I want a pet and affliction or destruction for when I don’t. This adds a new element to game play for those warlocks that never want a pet.

Naturally this train of thought led me to the petless hunter concept…basically an archer. I’ll be the first to say that pets are great for having during leveling and running around in Azeroth, but when it comes to dungeons, I’d just as soon sacrifice my pet and play the role of the archer pew pewing from the back. Allowing survival and marksman hunters to drop the pet for a buff doesn’t seem game breaking if you’re going to do it for warlocks.

Now there will be the argument that the pet is what makes the hunter class. But this would introduce a new flavor to the hunter that isn’t available without making a Ranger or Archer class. Also it wouldn’t have to be a “Sacrifice Pet” like the warlock, but perhaps an Aspect of the Pet. Make it an aspect where your souls bind and you gain characteristics from your chosen pet. This would allow you to turn it on quickly like when a warlock sacrifices, but would also allow you to turn it back on by changing aspects and calling your pet again. Since the hunters have the system of aspects in place, it would be a nice way to weave this into the game. It could even be a buff simply by pet type not pet family; like a cunning, ferocity, and tenacity buff rather than a bear, wolf, or kitty buff. That way they don’t have to balance out so many buffs.

I know this is not going to happen in MoP, but given how we see Warlocks work without pets, I’d like to see them expand this to hunters too. I love some of my pets, but when it comes to a dungeon, I still feel pretty forced to certain pet families for buffs instead of the pets that I want (I heard this will be different in MoP too) but if I could just Aspect of the Pet with my ferocity pet and not worry about using the pet I should rather than the pet I want or for taking crap for using the pet I want rather than the pet I should, it would greatly improve the quality of my huntering.

The Color Purple

There are some of us that have been around long enough to remember when the color of the text of your loot meant something.  But at max level, pretty much everything you get after the first patch of the expansion is a purple.  They don’t introduce a new level of greens or blues.  So the idea of something being purple being special is…lost.

The color of the text stemmed such popular use of the phrase EPIC, but when everything is epic, can anything really be epic?  Before patch 3.2, when item level became visible on gear, there were add-ons that would calculate this mystery number called “gear score” that would tell you, but mostly other people, how good you were.  It was based off some formulas that weighed the values of your items and came up with an arbitrary number, so that people could judge you and decide if you were geared enough to take to ToC.  

Now however, since item levels are available, the game calculates your average iLevel and the game itself uses this average to determine if you are geared enough to be tackling certain content.  The idea that players could out perform those of higher gear level by using skill and knowledge of the game all but disappeared.  People can get awesome gear scores and still be terrible.  We all know this, we’ve seen it. 

So this gets me back to my original thought, the value of that purple text, the “epic” status of the item.  Since everything has an iLevel, there really is no value in the text color.  It used to be a visual indication of item rarity when iLevels were not available through the game, but now you can just look at the iLevel and determine which epic piece is best—this is what most players do.  Higher iLevel must be better and it’s pretty much true. 

So why when there are new patches in an Xpac, aren’t there new iLevel greens and blues?  Why aren’t there new blue items that drop from DS that have the same iLevel as say…something from T11?  Or even so, why do ANY of the items even have special colored font anymore since it doesn’t matter because usually a higher iLevel is better.  At end game level 85 requirement items are pretty much all purple.  So I basically ask then…is there a need for green, blue, and purple anymore??  Does the purple color still excite you on a boss or is it just expected?  It’s a purely visible and cosmetic thing…I’m not sure I’d notice if they ever decided to remove item text colors.

Fate of Theramore

I am slow getting the news sometimes.  I don’t read the big WoW news sites like I used to, they are blocked at work and at home, I’d rather spend that time playing the game.

So though it’s been in the news for some time now, I just found out that in MoP the Alliance city of Theramore will be captured by the Horde which will fuel the Horde vs. Alliance war again.  Apparently, the appearance of Deathwing was too much of a distraction for the Alliance leaders to be aware that they lost Southshore to the Horde in that expansion.

The loss of Theramore however, seems far more detrimental to me.  The only Alliance city you can portal to that isn’t on an island in Northern Kalimdor, Theramore was a nice waypoint for the Alliance to get to and from Kalimdor easily, the boat there was nice too.  This was good for those that aren’t level 85 and can’t port to Mt. Hyjal or Uldum.  Blizzard’s decision to have the Horde capture Theramore is a bold move.  My gut reaction is…”What is the Alliance going to capture?”  I was kinda pissed that though there’s supposed to be this war that will be triggered, where are my toons?  Why isn’t Elgar running off to help save Theramore??

Then the idea hit me… instead of just Blizzard deciding the fate of Theramore, it would be awesome if the players could decide the fate.  After patch 5.0 rolls out, Theramore should be a daily quest hub, that month before MoP is released should be the time of final decision of the fate of Theramore.  Make it a daily quest hub for Alliance and Horde players where the Horde are on the assault and the Alliance on the defense…make PvP quests as well.  Basically, make it feel like the setting of the war and make the outcome variable.

If through the number of daily quests completed the Horde and Alliance could shift the battle, right up to release date, that would really give a feel of war.  Which ever faction completed the most daily quests (or some other point system) by the time the release for MoP would happen they would gain or keep Theramore in the expansion.  This would be a per server outcome.  Either way, the war would escalate feelings leaving into MoP and the difference per server would be if Theramore belonged to Horde or Alliance.

I know people will say well if the population leans heavy one way or the other that will be the outcome, well, so be it.  There will be some that easily keep or gain Theramore and there will be servers where it is very close.  This type of event helps build server community as well.  There could even be a special event boss to kill a commander on the other side, they would drop loot that would be big upgrades easy in the last month (think of the elemental invasions).  This would really give the server a feel of battle.  In the end, Blizzard ends up with two different maps for Dustwallow Marsh that are implemented on a per server basis, but it would give a really awesome feeling when you went there, knowing you earned to keep/gain that city!

This also helps with one of the issues that WoW struggles, and that is a dynamic world that you feel part of.  There haven’t really been world events like this that seemed to change the world.  Even when we didn’t defeat the elementals in say IF during the elemental invasion, there really wasn’t much of a consequence.  Something like this changes the game, but not on such a large-scale that it disrupts too much game play.

I know Blizzard doesn’t have a plan for such an event, but to me, it would feel far more real if I at least had a chance to try to defend Theramore before it’s just lost overnight to the Horde.

Blizz Loves Paladins

As usual, I’m up to any shenanigans that are basically not end game content.  Things like leveling more alts, trying to get pretty gear to transmogrify and collecting patterns or materials to make weird useless gear.  I love it.

What I don’t love is paladins, as if Blizzard already didn’t make them crazy machines of healing and whatever, and making gear exclusively for one of their specs–it’s just madness.  But no, as if we all weren’t feeling bad enough about paladins, then when we go to SSC to get some T5 stuff with a couple of priests, a warlock, warrior, and druid, we down Vashj and she drops 3, yes 3 paladin head tokens (well paladin, shaman, rogue–but still!!).  The other bosses dropped 2 for paladins, it was like we couldn’t get a damned piece to drop for the classes we had with us!  Then we went to Gruuls and it was more of the same, paladin crap.  It’s like Blizz loves them more than anyone else!! 

I do take into account that it could have been because Elgar was there for some of it.  Is this just more of the same “sorry, no Mr. Pinchy or Sea Pony for you” bullshit?  A slap in the face to Elgar, subtly letting him know he should have been a paladin instead of a priest?  No, I won’t believe it.  Because no paladin set looks as hot as priest T5.  NO SET. 

So Blizzard, if it’s just Elgar you hate, fine.  Just please, enough with the paladins already.  I don’t know how much more I can take. 

/cry

Love/Hate

I love and I hate Darkmoon Faire.

Reasons I love it:
1)  Fun games!
2)  Mounts and mini-pets!
3)  Skill ups for professions!
4)  Cool redesign!
5)  Achievements!
6)  Ponies!
7)  Shipwrecked debris for fishing! 

Reasons I hate it:
1)  My friend that plays on my second account on his level 36 hunter with fishing skill of 29 when he started caught the Sea Pony.  Elgar did not. 

Seriously, if Blizzard has a thing out for Elgar, I wish they would just publicly announce it.  Is there a reason he can’t find all the Dalaran books?  And after nearly 3 expansions of trying to fish for Mr. Pinchy and STILL no luck—but my dumb mage gets him in like 20 casts?  And now this Sea Pony incident?  Outrageous!! 

Anyways, aside from that I really like Darkmoon Faire.  The 5 skill points from profession quests is really nice for those alts that are up above 510 or so but are struggling to get the last few skill points, that will be VERY handy.  Also, there are great opportunities to catch chests from the shipwrecked debris and I have been lucky with those—though the competition is high as there are many others usually looking for them.   

It was also a good time with my friend last night, after spending lots of time fishing and then doing a dungeon, we also worked on professions, namely his mining and my herbing, both had been neglected while we were first leveling as to focus more on the game rather than the professions.  He still struggles a bit with things like shot rotation and would rather just mash buttons.  I probably wasn’t much better at that point. 

Oh!  One other thing, since I was out herbing anyways, I came across a dig site on my worgen.  He has archaeology skill 12.  I dig up a troll artifact and collect 8 pieces.  8.  WTF?  I saw they were updating the amount you could get, but really?  8?  Wow!  At skill 12 before you could only get 3!  I am going to have to see what Elgar can dig up and spend some time on archaeology again, also with my dwarves since they find things too!  That was a HUGE bonus to the profession and much needed.  I could almost finish one item in one dig site getting 8, 7, and 7.  Very nice Blizz!

Anyways, I really love 4.3 so far!!

Screenshot Wednesday…on Friday!

I had fully intended to post these screenshots of random things on Wednesday, but it wouldn’t let me upload the pics for some reason.  So here they are…on Friday…but still called Wednesday.  I did manage to finish Pilgrim on Wednesday night with Elgar.  I also was able to take advantage of some cooking skills and got the warrior, rogue, and second account hunter up in cooking skills.  I helped out some hordes with rogues.  And once the little rogue gnome I made was around Dalaran, it was like they came flooding to Dalaran and shot me with feathers.  I then took my dwarf rogue there and witnessed a half-dozen horde or so getting the Pilgrim achievement.  It was worth it.  I also helped some alliance including myself using the second account to make both a troll and an orc rogue.  Good times.

Anyways, here are some screenshots.

Elgar's Transmogrification Set

This is the priest T5 set that Elgar will wear once 4.3 hits.  I think it looks awesome.  Though I need to get him a staff so I can transmogrify that one!  I also need the belt from Gruul’s Lair.  I gave it up last time without even thinking.  Foolish.

Doing a random dungeon on Sousa, I ran into an alternate universe Kerick...who also was a paladin!!

This experience was like something out of the twilight zone.  And last but not least, I leave you with one of those, in the right place at the right time scenarios.  I was just passing through Stormwind when there was one of those random dance parties going on… our guildmate Kisara (Sorak) logged on.  I’ll let the screenshot of the text box say the rest.  Note, we had no idea who these people were.

We have no idea who this is!

Head of the Class

I few weeks back I noticed something when I was doing some low level dungeons.  I was playing this mid 20s level hunter that a friend created to break up the monotony of the level 85s.  I did several dungeons with all different class make-ups.  I was consistently topping the damage meters but didn’t think much of it because people are different levels and things aren’t terribly balanced at low levels. 

But I think we were in Blackfathom Depths when I noticed something different.  I don’t remember the classes of the others in there, but I remember there was another hunter.  I didn’t check what spec he was, but I quickly turned on the damage meters and watched as we played.  I soon found myself paying pretty close attention to the damage meters, which I have sworn to hate so many times before, to make sure that I was doing more damage than the other hunter.  I was, by a lot.  But on every fight, trash or not, I wanted to make sure that, if I beat no one else, I beat that hunter. 

I didn’t have this sense of competition with other DPS, just other hunters.  There was something inside me that wanted to prove my value.  So I tried harder when there were other hunters around.  After thinking about it for a bit, I recalled feeling the same for healing.  When I would heal more raids (back in BC, sometimes LK) I would push myself to do more effective healing than the other healers.  This validated me and my ability to heal.  The challenge was against me…can I push myself further for the group and for me?  I remember being told I couldn’t tank heal because I wasn’t good enough geared for Mag’s Lair.  I was determined to prove them wrong!!  I popped potions, watched 5 second rule, I played my little heart out and healed like there was no tomorrow.  In the end, the tank healer went down and I stepped up and outlasted other priests better geared than me who had since started tanking the floor.  That was a great moment for me because even without bragging about it to the raid, I knew that it was my playing that helped us succeed, the raid leads probably didn’t notice, but I knew I had made a significant difference and probably because I was out to prove them wrong.   

I think a lot of this happens subconsciously.  There will be some sort of challenge and my natural competitiveness takes over without even thinking about it.  And I try harder than ever.  I wonder if others feel this way?

Coming soon:  Exploring the idea of in-game goals and motivations!

Blizzcon 2011 Predictions

Okay, so Blizzcon is this weekend.  Rumors are surely flying about what sort of things will be revealed, things discussed, etc.  I haven’t been reading up much on it as I’ve had a busy schedule and Hallow’s End.  

Anyways, I’ll toss out some predictions just purely based on my own wishes/wants/knowledge.

Diablo 3:  They will announce a release date as tentative for next spring or summer.  I think beta invites are starting soon so we’ll see.  This is interesting to me as I’d like to try the game.  Otherwise I’m not expecting too much else there, maybe the beta will start this Blizzcon.

Warcraft:  Okay, this is the big one.  So my guess is they will reveal the next expansion.  They seem to be very active about developing and pushing content lately, the Firelands nerf indicated to me that they are pushing quickly from one patch to the next.  I think we’ll see the next expansion announced.  As it is, we’re all pretty much assuming it’s going to be Mists of Pandaria.  

Okay, so let’s say it is, they open some islands in the sea, perhaps the ones on the map since those are not part of anything right now.  The Pandaren tribes live there.  Yes, panda people.  Asian themed architecture, etc.  

Level cap?  I’m guessing 90.  Though I liked expansions that go 10 levels a bit better, 5 seems to be their new thing.  Probably because they don’t have plans to ever go above 100 and are trying to get in a few more Xpacs. 

New races?  I’m gonna go with no on the new races.  If they give Pandaren to one side or the other they will NEVER hear the end of it.  Though they have ties to the Night Elves and I think the dwarves too…I just don’t see it happening.  They will be neutral faction to run dailies for.

Big Bad Boss?  Deathwing will presumably be dead, LK gone, who’s left?  Well plenty of other demons.  We’ll see what happens from there.  

New classes?  Potentially.  With BC they did new races, LK new class, Cata new races…so it seems that the swing, should we continue this pattern, is new class.  Hero class?  Again, potentially.  Everyone wants to see the Brewmaster, but its role would probably be DPS and lord knows Blizz thinks there are too many already.  But maybe it would have a tank spec too.  A new class though is alarming for someone like me.  I have all 10 of my character slots filled, with one of each class.  If they add a new class, I think they will also add a new character slot, or two.  Another potential class addition for this expansion would be Monk.  Since these are the two classes most associated with Pandaren, it would make sense.  Though…if you can’t play a Pandaren then can you be a monk or brewmaster?  

Okay, so my guess is they will do a new class, it will probably be a hero class, but maybe instead of level 55…level 65?  Level 75?  Starting zone like DK would teach you your skills, part of the monk training?  Leave the monastery or the brewhall?  Both are feasible.  So that’s my official guess; they add Monks and Brewmasters as a hero class starting at 65.  

Professions?  It would seem logical that they would add a brewmaster profession as well, maybe instead of the class they add the profession, allowing you to be able to brew all sorts of things from all sorts of liquids and herbs.  Though it may be hard to really distinguish this from Alchemy or Cooking.  Another profession that has LONG been discussed is Woodworking.  Should the game add in monks, it would make sense that a woodworker could be added so that monks would have access to weapons in the way of staves.  Staves would also be useful for other classes.  Woodworkers could also provide wands and bows as well.  This would fill a craftable niche that is currently missing.  A DK for example can have every piece of armor crafted for him, from sword, to relic, to all pieces of armor including neck, rings and trinkets.  A clothie however, cannot have a staff made nor a wand.  Hunters too cannot have bows crafted, but they can have guns crafted.  Of course no need for these things to be “OMG EPICS!!”, but the other professions do make some things that can help boost your armor or such.  I wouldn’t put money on a new profession, but they have introduced a new one with each expansion, so there will probably be something…I’m just not sure what.

Okay, that’s it! 

I sadly will not be able to see any Blizzcon news until late tomorrow night, so while the rest of you are going “OMG!!”  I’ll be sitting around foaming at the mouth until I can get to a PC with such information.  It better be worth it.

Corpse Camping

It was quite an exciting weekend for me.  But not the kind of exciting that might involve killing Ragnaros, no.  A real heart-pumping excitement.  The kind of excitement you can only get from corpse camping.  By the definition on Wikipedia:

“In some MMORPGs which have PVP (Player-versus-player) elements (such as Diablo II and World of Warcraft), ‘corpse camping’ is used to refer to a practice by an enemy player character (PC) kills another PC in player versus player combat and then loiters in the area of the dead player’s corpse. The mechanics for recovering one’s body differ per game, but generally a PC must return to the area where he died to recover his body or face severe penalties. Those who corpse camp take advantage of these rules by waiting for the dead character to return to life, usually in a weakened state, and then killing him again when his defenses, mana and hit points are not at full capacity.”

However, I didn’t use any MMO like World of Warcraft to do my corpse camping.  No, that’s not nearly exciting.  I decided to do it in real life.  With real corpses.

Bear corpses.

Because you should never trust any bear, even a dead one, you should make sure it’s really dead.  You never know when they’ll get a battle rez and pop back up to gnaw your face off.  Or steal your salmon.  Which is what I assume the bear was planning on Friday night.  So just as he was ready to come at me again.  I ran him over, skinned him (aggroing all the bears), and fled the scene to avoid retaliation.  Of course, his loot was terrible and typical…ruined pelt, tuft of hair, and bear organs.  Not my idea of a good time at all.

It went a little like this:

And in a matter of a split second, my car leaped over the bear, taking its loot and away I went. 

In all honesty, I was scared shitless, in fact, I thought it a good idea to make sure I didn’t have any loot in my car seat.  As it turned out, I was able to maintain control of the vehicle despite being airborne after hitting the corpse of the bear that the other vehicle (I presume) left behind.  By the time I saw the bear, I had just enough time to think “that’s a bear!” and BAM!  It was over.  Fortunately, the vehicle has appeared to suffer very little damage–THANK YOU TOYOTA!!  And my vehicles high clearance just allowed me to jump over it. 

I am a very lucky man to have had the situation end as it did.  The bear went square under the vehicle leaving behind some of its parts, blood, and fur.  The car seems to be running okay. 

I would never intentionally hit an animal, and I hope one would never intentionally hit me, but in this sad story, our little bear friend did not make it.  If there’s a bear heaven, I hope he makes it, and I’m REALLY sorry for adding insult to injury by running you over after you were dead. 

Naked Kara

Last Tuesday, we did naked Karazhan.  The challenge is to complete Karazhan without bringing in any armor or gear, just use the things you find inside the instance.  We were all level 85 and had 9 people show up but one had to leave after Opera event.  It was awesome. 

Grey items never drew so much excitement!  And never before has everyone in the party needed on a green because it was an upgrade.  Initially I thought I would bring a healer/caster because they aren’t nearly as dependant on weapons and there would be no guarantee I’d find a gun should I have brought a hunter.  So I took Elgar.  That was my first mistake.  With the battle for gear so high, being able to need only on cloth epics was rough…because everyone who wore leather, mail, or plate was also rolling on it.  A cloth only class was a big limitation and most of us ended up with dilapidated helms and belts while the warrior was fully clothed (except pants) in mail, cloth, leather, and plate.  The second mistake is that the spell casters had almost no mana pool, we’d all go OOM so fast, blowing all our mana regen abilities on every cooldown.  But enough blabber, I’ll let the screenshots do the talking…

Here we are starting out, Dumptruk found an Eroded Axe on the first kill.

Elgar naked with wings!

Elgar got some fancy boots! And a bunch of rats... Dumptruk looks almost fully geared!

As you can see, those that could only wear cloth are still nearly or totally nude. Falahla, Plame, Bocat and Elgar...we'll never pick a cloth only class for this again!

Here's what we finally looked like! We wiped once on Prince, people forgot about enfeeble. Left to Right: Dumptruk (warrior), Sharelore (druid), Chandrilea (druid), Phlame (priest), Byeble (DK), Bocat (priest), Elgar (total hotness), and Falahla (mage).

So there you have it!  We had a complete blast doing this!  Everyone was a good sport about it and several people got the Karazhan achievement, which makes it even more awesome!