Wow.com is reporting tonight that in the beta, the portals in Dalaran and Shattrath have been removed and replaced by class trainers. While it will be nice to have a trainer readily available, this puts the focus back on the old world and may encourage you to actually set your hearthstone somewhere outside of Dalaran. While the portal system is much more convenient, I think I like this change as it will force new players to gain flightpaths instead of get a portal to Dalaran and have the world as their oyster. Plus it makes warlock summoning and mage portals relevant again outside of holidays.
Make no mistake about it, there will be plenty of gnashing of teeth over this change. But it is for the better, if you want the world to feel more like a world and not just a portal jump. I'm not asking for Eve-sized travel here, just more realistic travel. And yes, there will still be some portals to the blasted lands for Outland and to caverns of time from dalaran, which will enable crafty players to learn new portal jumping tricks of the trade.
Ariel has hit 75 this week and continues to grind some battlegrounds and some instances for the xp. It is fun to heal your way through the levels, although it can be a bit repetitive at certain levels. I forgot that Coren is level 78 and up only, which sucks when you are level 75 and have all the other brewfest achievements done! Ahh well.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Great Emblem and Badge Trade-Up
The huge announcement last week from Blizzard regarding cataclysm was that the currency tab will be cleaned up significantly in Patch 4.0. All of your badges from TBC and emblems from WOTLK, as wel as Stone Keepers Shards and battleground marks will be converted over to the new points system. Basically Emblems of Triumph and Frost will be converted at respcective ratios to the lower level of dungeon points, while all the PvP currency will be converted to the lower level of PvP gear points. Everything lower level will be converted to some amount of gold. While the payoff may not be significant in the long run, the change will finally remove all those confusing levels of emblems and useless badges and so on.
This move fits in with cataclysm's overall reboot theme where things are simplified and streamlined. We already knew that all points in the "lower tier" would already just be marked up to the new lower tier whenever a new raid instance or PvP patch comes out. No longer will you be forced to trade down points or emblems or badges from level to level just to make them useful. For instance, if you have all the triumph gear you can buy, then you have to trade down every emblem 3 times to get to heroism emblems, which can buy heirlooms and epic gems. That will no longer be the case, and thank goodness.
Two things interest me in this scenario. First, will the mounts from WOTLK that were buyable with emblems stay in the game at an oldschool vendor who sells things that now get converted to a point value? The 200 emblem mammoth is not worth the effort to some, but perhaps there will still be an opportunity to buy it later when you have used up all your point purchases and have extra left over.
Second, is it worth it to stock up on your emblems now to buy some heroic-level gear to start cataclysm off with (once you hit level 85)? I wonder if the point conversion rate will be so minimal that even the biggest stockpilers can only get 2-3 pieces of gear at the end of the day. While this means very little market value for people like me that are not bothering to start stockpiling emblems, I kind of hope this is the case. I do not think you should be able to sandbag resources such as emblems and frozen orbs and get unexpected benefits in a later expansion. Frozen Orb vendor was a nice change because it was within the same expansion. I doubt that I feel the same way about grinding your way to cataclysm gear now in WOTLK.
My apologies for not updating more regularly, but it is football season and you know I'm over on Southern College Sports doing my best. So I'm enjoying the doldrums and waitign eagerly for Cataclysm, just like you.
This move fits in with cataclysm's overall reboot theme where things are simplified and streamlined. We already knew that all points in the "lower tier" would already just be marked up to the new lower tier whenever a new raid instance or PvP patch comes out. No longer will you be forced to trade down points or emblems or badges from level to level just to make them useful. For instance, if you have all the triumph gear you can buy, then you have to trade down every emblem 3 times to get to heroism emblems, which can buy heirlooms and epic gems. That will no longer be the case, and thank goodness.
Two things interest me in this scenario. First, will the mounts from WOTLK that were buyable with emblems stay in the game at an oldschool vendor who sells things that now get converted to a point value? The 200 emblem mammoth is not worth the effort to some, but perhaps there will still be an opportunity to buy it later when you have used up all your point purchases and have extra left over.
Second, is it worth it to stock up on your emblems now to buy some heroic-level gear to start cataclysm off with (once you hit level 85)? I wonder if the point conversion rate will be so minimal that even the biggest stockpilers can only get 2-3 pieces of gear at the end of the day. While this means very little market value for people like me that are not bothering to start stockpiling emblems, I kind of hope this is the case. I do not think you should be able to sandbag resources such as emblems and frozen orbs and get unexpected benefits in a later expansion. Frozen Orb vendor was a nice change because it was within the same expansion. I doubt that I feel the same way about grinding your way to cataclysm gear now in WOTLK.
My apologies for not updating more regularly, but it is football season and you know I'm over on Southern College Sports doing my best. So I'm enjoying the doldrums and waitign eagerly for Cataclysm, just like you.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Doldrums and Rampant Speculation
Well these are officially the summer doldrums of WoW. While there are still a ton of people around during weekend hours, you can tell we're in the end of an expansion with very little pugging overall and not much excitement. However, that may change as we have Harvest Festival coming up this week followed immediately by Brewfest. Not much longer and we'll be back into Hallow's End. Furthermore, the 4.0 events have begun with Operation Gnomeregan and the Saving Echo Isles world events beginning. I have not had a chance to do the Horde event but I will soon and then I will report back some thoughts. The short of it is...I hope this is not it. I want to have this story be entertaining and updated every 2-3 weeks leading up to release date.
Guild rosters have also been taking a hit, including my Alliance side guild. My real life work finally slowed down a bit but my hobbies ramp up a bit in the fall thanks to sportswriting (www.scstrek.blogspot.com and www.southerncollegesports.com if you happen to be interested). This weekend for instance I spent all day Saturday driving to and from and in South Bend for the Michigan-ND game. Then Sunday the family was out so I got a chance to play WoW for a few hours. It was a great little reload and I'm close to getting Old World Raider. The druid is at 74, the paladin at 45, and the shaman hit 30 yesterday. I'd like to say they would all still get into Northrend with the druid at 80 by cata launch, but it's likely not going to happen. Ahh well, seeing the old world revamped is not such a bad thing for players like me.
Speaking of Cataclysm release dates, the buzz in the community is huge now that the Gnomeregan and Echo Isles events went up with 4.0 on the public test realms. Everyone is speculating on whether these events mean we are a month away or a few months away. Blizzard certainly appears to be on track for the 2010 release they promised, and I can't help but imagine they will have the game out prior to Black Friday. In fact, their usual second or third week of November release seems to work well and that's when I think you will see the game. Should be some exciting times even if it comes out closer to Christmas, but I'd hate to see the families dealing with missing folks on that week!
Where's Jimmy?
Oh don't bother him, Cataclysm came out. :-)
But doesn't he want his Christmas gifts??
He said Santa ended the world and he's in heaven.
And so on. In other gaming news, our Pathfinder group finally made it into the crypt, which is really more of a tower, which is really more of a big number puzzle. I like number puzzles, but I believe the GM being a mathematician will have me outclassed on this one. Time to start begging for hints next month! It's so interesting playing an RPG after being only RP'ing in WoW for so long. And very little at that. It's too bad the game does not connote more of that feeling, but there's nothing like sitting at a table, even if it is a digital table, with a group of people and hammering out battles with imagination.
So that's what is going on in the game. AIE is growing as usual and I have to commend the guys on The Instance and the AIE Podcast, both of which have put out fantastic content during the doldrums. If you are not listening, you really should check them out. Every other WoW podcast I've ever heard pales in comparison to Scott and Randy, but maybe there are some recommendations of things I have not heard out there yet. You can never have too many podcasts!
Cataclysm - November 16, 2010.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Happy Second Anniversary to The Illuminati!
Hello again everyone. Well it's that time of year again, when both my guilds celebrate their anniversaries with big events. The AIE crew did their Summer of Love week last week with tons of great events I may get into next time. On the Illuminati side, you may recall that I came up just short in the running for the officer position to run these events, but I threw in my thoughts and my hat with the wonderful person who did get the job, Soph. I could go into details about the planning, but needless to say Soph put a ton of work into her first event and our guild leader as well as two of us who volunteered to be commanders had many comments on her drafts and hopefully guided her correctly to improve the event.
Phase one of the event was a meeting in Shattrath where we sent pairs of two members off to a new server to level to 5, catch some fish or kill some creatures, and then turn in their gold winnings to Soph to buy a pet for her, when they could move on in teams of 4 back on our server to phase 2. Here's some kickoff pictures in Shatt.
Our unflappable leader and her commander, both in wedding dresses.
About half the group, maybe more of the 35 participants.
Phase 2 of the competition sent teams of 3-5 back and forth from commander to commander in various locations in Azeroth (Zangarmarsh, Elwynn Forest, and Ungoro Crater) with riddles to solve to go get items from low-level instance bosses in about 5 instances. Then the finish line was in Twilight Grove in Duskwood where our fearless leader had set herself up again. I drew the best location in Azeroth, the crystal cave in Ungoro...but probably the worst RP role for me, the war general commander. Get down maggot and give me 20! Anyway,...here's my view of most of the evening, and it is very pleasant.
Pretty colors...
And your friendly commander in the back.
So here are four of the riddles, see for yourself if you can figure them out! These are fantastic nuggets and all the credit goes to Soph on these, as the rest of us had nothing to do with them as far as I know. The idea was to gear up one of your toons for a big battle to come (level up, gear up, profit!)
QUEST 1
Flower Power:
A message from Soph:
I know this might come as a shock, but there is another with my name.
To her shop many do not flock in a land of the past near Festival Lane
Get your guildfrond a lily held-in-the-off-hand.
Similar to a Darkmoon bloom, but of a different brand.
Make sure not to let Arthas talk or back through the inn you will walk.
The instance you must not activate, do not hasten the plagued citizen's fates.
----------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 2
Neck Respect:
Provide yourself with an amulet that suites your mood
Are you lonely, compassionate, hungry, or is your scent just plain rude?
Find the troll that can help you with your Tikbalang and get any item that'll set you apart from the gang.
He claims his Amulets are "Amazing", but do pay attention to his phrasing.
Should you go to the upper city I will look upon you with pity.
------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 3
Robe Probe:
There is a Fanglord out there
With such beautiful blue hair.
His robes of deer hair
I wish he would share.
He dwells in a land near the shore
Of plants and water it is poor
go to the place where few have been
and get yourself some moccasin.
Find him where the caverns wail
take a wrong turn and you might fail.
---------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 4
Obscene Machine:
Though triathlons are all brawn I find physical activity to be quite a yawn.
Here is a mini-equation with just enough information.
Hope you aced all your courses, if not feel free to use outside sources!
A= the symbol for the 16th element of the periodic table
B= the opposite roll of greed
C= the 19th letter of the alphabet
D= Oruko Saki is his real name; Splinter's enemy
A=C
(A+B)'C + (D)=
Provide yourself with something Buzzworthy from him... it?
You'll discover this being where you'd find Van Cleef
Go get 'em and give 'em some grief.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
So then once a team found their way to Duskwood they had to locate Soph, who like I said was hanging out with the world dragon spawn point in Twilight Grove. Once everyone finished the quests we all gathered for a party and prizes. Thansk to all the generous donors of the guild once again for giving very valuable gifts for everyone to share!
It's like a hot tub time machine moonwell!
More hot tub fun while we waited for the grand finale.
Prizes and fireworks! What could be better?
Then once all the prizes were handed out for good costumes, good RP commanders (not me), good RP teams, and winning racers, it was time for our semiannual knighting ceremony. While the first two of these ceremonies took place in Feralas on the Twin Spires, we had a star-wars ending type setting with everyone lined up on opposite sides of the ramp up to the portal to the emerald dream. Then the officers stood up top amongst all the flares and called up our newest knights, also known as the grump club and the veteran members of the The Illuminati. Here are some pictures from some of the knighting ceremony, although the flares do make it hard to see a bit!
Congratulations to all our newest Knights. I did not vote on you guys, but I believe the decisions were all correct and warranted. And congratulations to Soph for having such a well-received first event. Now that the big hitter is done, Ekat has a little something up her sleeve pre-Cataclysm. More on that later, but needless to say, just because I'm not an officer doesn't mean it will stop me from running some fun stuff floating about in the old noggin. Stay tuned...
Or as a proper Illuminati "Trials of the Illuminated" participant would say in Ungoro Crater, /salute and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Phase one of the event was a meeting in Shattrath where we sent pairs of two members off to a new server to level to 5, catch some fish or kill some creatures, and then turn in their gold winnings to Soph to buy a pet for her, when they could move on in teams of 4 back on our server to phase 2. Here's some kickoff pictures in Shatt.
Our unflappable leader and her commander, both in wedding dresses.
About half the group, maybe more of the 35 participants.
Phase 2 of the competition sent teams of 3-5 back and forth from commander to commander in various locations in Azeroth (Zangarmarsh, Elwynn Forest, and Ungoro Crater) with riddles to solve to go get items from low-level instance bosses in about 5 instances. Then the finish line was in Twilight Grove in Duskwood where our fearless leader had set herself up again. I drew the best location in Azeroth, the crystal cave in Ungoro...but probably the worst RP role for me, the war general commander. Get down maggot and give me 20! Anyway,...here's my view of most of the evening, and it is very pleasant.
Pretty colors...
And your friendly commander in the back.
So here are four of the riddles, see for yourself if you can figure them out! These are fantastic nuggets and all the credit goes to Soph on these, as the rest of us had nothing to do with them as far as I know. The idea was to gear up one of your toons for a big battle to come (level up, gear up, profit!)
QUEST 1
Flower Power:
A message from Soph:
I know this might come as a shock, but there is another with my name.
To her shop many do not flock in a land of the past near Festival Lane
Get your guildfrond a lily held-in-the-off-hand.
Similar to a Darkmoon bloom, but of a different brand.
Make sure not to let Arthas talk or back through the inn you will walk.
The instance you must not activate, do not hasten the plagued citizen's fates.
----------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 2
Neck Respect:
Provide yourself with an amulet that suites your mood
Are you lonely, compassionate, hungry, or is your scent just plain rude?
Find the troll that can help you with your Tikbalang and get any item that'll set you apart from the gang.
He claims his Amulets are "Amazing", but do pay attention to his phrasing.
Should you go to the upper city I will look upon you with pity.
------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 3
Robe Probe:
There is a Fanglord out there
With such beautiful blue hair.
His robes of deer hair
I wish he would share.
He dwells in a land near the shore
Of plants and water it is poor
go to the place where few have been
and get yourself some moccasin.
Find him where the caverns wail
take a wrong turn and you might fail.
---------------------------------------------------------
QUEST 4
Obscene Machine:
Though triathlons are all brawn I find physical activity to be quite a yawn.
Here is a mini-equation with just enough information.
Hope you aced all your courses, if not feel free to use outside sources!
A= the symbol for the 16th element of the periodic table
B= the opposite roll of greed
C= the 19th letter of the alphabet
D= Oruko Saki is his real name; Splinter's enemy
A=C
(A+B)'C + (D)=
Provide yourself with something Buzzworthy from him... it?
You'll discover this being where you'd find Van Cleef
Go get 'em and give 'em some grief.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
So then once a team found their way to Duskwood they had to locate Soph, who like I said was hanging out with the world dragon spawn point in Twilight Grove. Once everyone finished the quests we all gathered for a party and prizes. Thansk to all the generous donors of the guild once again for giving very valuable gifts for everyone to share!
It's like a hot tub time machine moonwell!
More hot tub fun while we waited for the grand finale.
Prizes and fireworks! What could be better?
Then once all the prizes were handed out for good costumes, good RP commanders (not me), good RP teams, and winning racers, it was time for our semiannual knighting ceremony. While the first two of these ceremonies took place in Feralas on the Twin Spires, we had a star-wars ending type setting with everyone lined up on opposite sides of the ramp up to the portal to the emerald dream. Then the officers stood up top amongst all the flares and called up our newest knights, also known as the grump club and the veteran members of the The Illuminati. Here are some pictures from some of the knighting ceremony, although the flares do make it hard to see a bit!
Congratulations to all our newest Knights. I did not vote on you guys, but I believe the decisions were all correct and warranted. And congratulations to Soph for having such a well-received first event. Now that the big hitter is done, Ekat has a little something up her sleeve pre-Cataclysm. More on that later, but needless to say, just because I'm not an officer doesn't mean it will stop me from running some fun stuff floating about in the old noggin. Stay tuned...
Or as a proper Illuminati "Trials of the Illuminated" participant would say in Ungoro Crater, /salute and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Team Update July 2010
Well it has been some time since I did a team update, and I have managed a bit of playtime recently so some movement has occurred. The main Ekaterinae has one more weekly quest to go for her tier 10 shoulders, which will fully equip her in 251 and higher gear in every slot but wand. I actually missed the weekly this week so ahh well. Navarionae has continued gem cutting epics that Ariel transmutes and he has pushed the team over 20k gold. Although a big chunk of that is soon to be eaten because...
The Tree is in Northrend! Oh noes! I have healed probably 7 PUG Utgarde Keep thus far and I've seen everything from groups outright rude to healers to a Kingslayer tanking for a friend. I think I cast 4 heals that mattered the whole time. And by four I mean zero. Anyway, Ariel is grinding those instances and is mostly through 70 which means epic flight is coming soon and will perhaps cause some questing to be done too. However, I really like grinding one instance a day for xp.
Biancae has also been burning through rested time and has cleared most of STV out finally. She is working in Dustwallow for a bit longer although at level 43, she is really starting to think about Tanaris. So the horde main is moving on up and wow is retribution hard to die with. She's never out of mana to heal and she does a lot of damage. It's wonderful.
Clarissae is still parked in the late 20's. No movement there.
I also got to see Ruby Sanctum for 20 minutes last night. I thought the first mini boss was a nice challenge and I want to see the rest of it even though it seems the overall reaction is blah. That just might be the summertime, which is keeping me busy. Plus another business trip next week on top of Grand Prix Columbus (my one MTG tournament this year) and I won't be online much. However, check out my sports site (linked in the blogroll) for new college football articles starting up last week. Woot!
The Tree is in Northrend! Oh noes! I have healed probably 7 PUG Utgarde Keep thus far and I've seen everything from groups outright rude to healers to a Kingslayer tanking for a friend. I think I cast 4 heals that mattered the whole time. And by four I mean zero. Anyway, Ariel is grinding those instances and is mostly through 70 which means epic flight is coming soon and will perhaps cause some questing to be done too. However, I really like grinding one instance a day for xp.
Biancae has also been burning through rested time and has cleared most of STV out finally. She is working in Dustwallow for a bit longer although at level 43, she is really starting to think about Tanaris. So the horde main is moving on up and wow is retribution hard to die with. She's never out of mana to heal and she does a lot of damage. It's wonderful.
Clarissae is still parked in the late 20's. No movement there.
I also got to see Ruby Sanctum for 20 minutes last night. I thought the first mini boss was a nice challenge and I want to see the rest of it even though it seems the overall reaction is blah. That just might be the summertime, which is keeping me busy. Plus another business trip next week on top of Grand Prix Columbus (my one MTG tournament this year) and I won't be online much. However, check out my sports site (linked in the blogroll) for new college football articles starting up last week. Woot!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Do You Believe in Precognition?
Precognition (from the Latin præ-, “prior to,” + cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”), also called future sight,[1] refers to perception that involves the acquisition of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information.
So a little non-wow entry today, although I will briefly report that Ariel has hit 69 and discovered what everyone probably goes through once. I had not discovered that when you dual spec at 40, your spells for the non-active spec DO NOT UPDATE when you train like normal. I had no clue but I always trained in Feral so instances seemed pretty hard but not out of the questions in TBC. Then my first forays into UK were failures and the second tank was nice enough to point out that my rejuv was not ticking for enough. So I check and sure enough, I'm 5 ranks behind schedule on Rejuvenation and even more/less ranks behind in every healing spell. This turned me from terrible into overpowered, so please note this when you dual spec early!
Now going back to the definition above, I'm a person who has beliefs and all but I've never really considered precognition seriously. But sometimes coincidence is so strong that you really have to wonder if sometimes you just get sent a message somehow. So last night I wake up in a cold sweat at 5 AM after a lengthy dream about losing my wallet and having my identity and my money stolen. I had trouble shaking it but I managed to get back to sleep. I even told my friends online about it this morning when I went into work.
I get a call from my wife later in the day that says her bank card was declined. This is terribly embarrassing, especially for people who have some money in the bank in savings like we do. So while we run at about $500-700 in the banking account at our low point each month, we never get so close to overdraft. But sure enough, I log onto online banking and we are overdrafted for like $250. I start to look at the transactions and starting last night around 1 AM in the morning, there were some suspicious transactions that happened with my wife's bank card. These escalated today when the account was overdrafted. So we obviously called the bank and she'll be getting a new card, I'll dispute the charges and the bank assures me we'll get the money back. However, as I find out this news I'm half-pissed and half-creeped-out because of my dream. Could that have somehow been precognition?
I indeed had absolutely no reasonable way to know the events that were happening to our bank account. Even had I logged onto online banking at that hour, I would have not realized the first transactions were bogus. I'm the kind of skeptic that would just chalk this up to random coincidence, but the dream was so strong. I have woken up in a sweat from a dream only about 4-5 times in the last decade. It's not pleasant. And it is unbelievably rare for me to remember a dream so vividly like I did this time, so perhaps there's just something in the brain synapses that makes connections and has some level of future sight. It certainly is creepy if that is true, I mean imagine the power of the human brain if we could harness that.
So while I may be in a bad mood about this banking trouble for the next few days, I will forget about this aspect of the incident far before I forget the strange coincidence that makes me wonder: Is Precognition Real?
So a little non-wow entry today, although I will briefly report that Ariel has hit 69 and discovered what everyone probably goes through once. I had not discovered that when you dual spec at 40, your spells for the non-active spec DO NOT UPDATE when you train like normal. I had no clue but I always trained in Feral so instances seemed pretty hard but not out of the questions in TBC. Then my first forays into UK were failures and the second tank was nice enough to point out that my rejuv was not ticking for enough. So I check and sure enough, I'm 5 ranks behind schedule on Rejuvenation and even more/less ranks behind in every healing spell. This turned me from terrible into overpowered, so please note this when you dual spec early!
Now going back to the definition above, I'm a person who has beliefs and all but I've never really considered precognition seriously. But sometimes coincidence is so strong that you really have to wonder if sometimes you just get sent a message somehow. So last night I wake up in a cold sweat at 5 AM after a lengthy dream about losing my wallet and having my identity and my money stolen. I had trouble shaking it but I managed to get back to sleep. I even told my friends online about it this morning when I went into work.
I get a call from my wife later in the day that says her bank card was declined. This is terribly embarrassing, especially for people who have some money in the bank in savings like we do. So while we run at about $500-700 in the banking account at our low point each month, we never get so close to overdraft. But sure enough, I log onto online banking and we are overdrafted for like $250. I start to look at the transactions and starting last night around 1 AM in the morning, there were some suspicious transactions that happened with my wife's bank card. These escalated today when the account was overdrafted. So we obviously called the bank and she'll be getting a new card, I'll dispute the charges and the bank assures me we'll get the money back. However, as I find out this news I'm half-pissed and half-creeped-out because of my dream. Could that have somehow been precognition?
I indeed had absolutely no reasonable way to know the events that were happening to our bank account. Even had I logged onto online banking at that hour, I would have not realized the first transactions were bogus. I'm the kind of skeptic that would just chalk this up to random coincidence, but the dream was so strong. I have woken up in a sweat from a dream only about 4-5 times in the last decade. It's not pleasant. And it is unbelievably rare for me to remember a dream so vividly like I did this time, so perhaps there's just something in the brain synapses that makes connections and has some level of future sight. It certainly is creepy if that is true, I mean imagine the power of the human brain if we could harness that.
So while I may be in a bad mood about this banking trouble for the next few days, I will forget about this aspect of the incident far before I forget the strange coincidence that makes me wonder: Is Precognition Real?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Good and the Bad
It seems like since the Blizzard HQ has lifted the veil on the Beta information in Cataclysm, all hell has broken loose like the stock market. Every other day there is good news and then every other day there's bad news. This week the good and bad has been notable, so I got drawn out for a midweek entry! We'll start with the bad news doc...
Blizzard decided that the next step in the Real ID revolution is to force all posters on the official forums to use their Real ID's and thus their real names! Now take a moment to think about all the forums that have been on the internet for two decades, and think about why people are so drawn to them. It's the anonymity within a community, and making a name for yourself outside your real identity. I'm sure there are some professional community forums with real name ID's, but the vast overwhelming majority is anonymous user names. And that's how it should be because discussing things on a hotbed like Blizzard official forums opens yourself up to stalkers and attackers and general douche-bags.
So it begs the question as Larisa so elonquently put it...did Blizzard forget to do a reality check before announcing this change? Despite one day of overwhelming negative reaction from the blogging community, they are still not backpedaling much in the blue posts today. And then, in the most ironic twist, Blizzard has tried to decide that the blue posters will not use their real names "because it will be detrimental to our employee's security." Oh really? Maybe you think it's not just the blue posters that have hate mail and psychos coming their way?
As Larisa and most others concluded, this is a terrible idea. When real identities are forced, the forums will slowly die if they are not truly dead already. One hopes that Blizzard's infatuation with Real ID does not taint them so much that they make moves that will definitely make people run away from the community. Although there will likely be more traffic and comments in blogs then, which is a good thing! Silver lining...
Time to turn to the good news. The talent system is being overhauled after Blizzard listened to alpha and beta players who let them know that the talent overhauls were not good enough. And truly, looking at the proposed changes, they were not. The problem was that no matter how much you try to do, with 51 point top line talents, the talent trees were unnecessarily bloated and always would be. So now the revamp has been announced. I'd link the blue post but it is way to long to quote here. The overview is that you will be locked into a talent tree at level 10 by your choice until you put 31 talent points into it, which will happen at level 70 because talents are coming every other level instead of every level. The mastery bonuses are coming in a little quicker including at level 10 since you are locked to what you want to specialize in. I agree with this change considering the new LFG system, and assuming you can still switch specs at level 40. All the crappy talents can finally go away and the system can be simplified to be much better and more streamlined.
With the overall additions over time to the game, sometimes you have to pare away to make it better. And this is a good choice here. It sounds like Mastery will be it's own separate stat on gear as well which converts to something useful to you once you have Mastery trained at level 78 or beyond. So while Blizzard has made one crazy decision, they have made one great decision. One would hope the way they listened to their customers in the talent tree paring will be the same way they eventually approach the Real ID forum issue. Making your customers safe and happy is the primary goal in any business, and that's where the focus at Blizzard needs to be right now.
PostNote - I was not selected for the officer position in my guild. While I was disappointed, I was apparently second place behind someone who is far more connected and social, and she is such a sweet person that I know the position will succeed. Additionally, the guild leader gave me full authority to join forces with her and help her make things great, so I've chosen to pitch in that way and I'll obviously report on our big fun events as they come along. The first one is August 15, but no details allowed! there might be guildies around you know.
Blizzard decided that the next step in the Real ID revolution is to force all posters on the official forums to use their Real ID's and thus their real names! Now take a moment to think about all the forums that have been on the internet for two decades, and think about why people are so drawn to them. It's the anonymity within a community, and making a name for yourself outside your real identity. I'm sure there are some professional community forums with real name ID's, but the vast overwhelming majority is anonymous user names. And that's how it should be because discussing things on a hotbed like Blizzard official forums opens yourself up to stalkers and attackers and general douche-bags.
So it begs the question as Larisa so elonquently put it...did Blizzard forget to do a reality check before announcing this change? Despite one day of overwhelming negative reaction from the blogging community, they are still not backpedaling much in the blue posts today. And then, in the most ironic twist, Blizzard has tried to decide that the blue posters will not use their real names "because it will be detrimental to our employee's security." Oh really? Maybe you think it's not just the blue posters that have hate mail and psychos coming their way?
As Larisa and most others concluded, this is a terrible idea. When real identities are forced, the forums will slowly die if they are not truly dead already. One hopes that Blizzard's infatuation with Real ID does not taint them so much that they make moves that will definitely make people run away from the community. Although there will likely be more traffic and comments in blogs then, which is a good thing! Silver lining...
Time to turn to the good news. The talent system is being overhauled after Blizzard listened to alpha and beta players who let them know that the talent overhauls were not good enough. And truly, looking at the proposed changes, they were not. The problem was that no matter how much you try to do, with 51 point top line talents, the talent trees were unnecessarily bloated and always would be. So now the revamp has been announced. I'd link the blue post but it is way to long to quote here. The overview is that you will be locked into a talent tree at level 10 by your choice until you put 31 talent points into it, which will happen at level 70 because talents are coming every other level instead of every level. The mastery bonuses are coming in a little quicker including at level 10 since you are locked to what you want to specialize in. I agree with this change considering the new LFG system, and assuming you can still switch specs at level 40. All the crappy talents can finally go away and the system can be simplified to be much better and more streamlined.
With the overall additions over time to the game, sometimes you have to pare away to make it better. And this is a good choice here. It sounds like Mastery will be it's own separate stat on gear as well which converts to something useful to you once you have Mastery trained at level 78 or beyond. So while Blizzard has made one crazy decision, they have made one great decision. One would hope the way they listened to their customers in the talent tree paring will be the same way they eventually approach the Real ID forum issue. Making your customers safe and happy is the primary goal in any business, and that's where the focus at Blizzard needs to be right now.
PostNote - I was not selected for the officer position in my guild. While I was disappointed, I was apparently second place behind someone who is far more connected and social, and she is such a sweet person that I know the position will succeed. Additionally, the guild leader gave me full authority to join forces with her and help her make things great, so I've chosen to pitch in that way and I'll obviously report on our big fun events as they come along. The first one is August 15, but no details allowed! there might be guildies around you know.
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