World of Warcraft: The possibility of changing your character's race was indicated at BlizzCon 2009, during one of the panels. But then the news about it really got hot when Faction changes were officially announced, because eagle-eyed players noticed the following damning question in the new program's FAQs: Can I use this service to change race on my existing faction? The answer was confirmation enough for most folks: No. We will be releasing a Race change service in the near future for this purpose.
But, this wouldn't be the first time a bit of miscommunication or other confusion has occurred. The final confirmation of upcoming race changes came today, confirmed by Neth again in an official forum thread. All she was actually doing there was referencing the original thread about Faction changes, which had already said Race changes were coming. The announcement even showed up on the official Warcraft Twitter account. So this isn't exactly a brand new thing. Still, it's nice to have it confirmed all over again.
WoW Race changes, of course, subtly differ from Faction changes because you'll still stay Alliance if you're Alliance, or Horde if you're Horde. Race changes might be performed for aesthetic reasons -- you might just prefer the look of a sexy little gnome. Still, I bet most Race changes will be to get access to "better" racials. Especially if racials do get revamped in Cataclysm, a lot of players will see the grass a little greener on the other side. Every Man For Himself, anyone?
Sep 5, 2009
WOW Race changes confirmed
Sep 3, 2009
Cataclysm: No plans to extend current heirlooms to 85
There's been quite a burst of blue posts on the official forums post-BlizzCon; some by World Event Designer Kisirani talking about lore and the post-Cataclysm world, some by Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler talking about new game systems coming with 4.0, and some by the Community Managers, providing slightly less meaty morsels of information. It's not all chaff from the CMs, though -- there's some wheat in there.
Bornakk, for example, stopped by a thread asking about how heirloom items will work post-80 in Cataclysm. He said that there are no plans to extend the experience bonus they give past level 80, though there may eventually be new heirlooms available to help bridge that gap. That's not surprising, really -- if they were extended, heirlooms would essentially be mandatory for the people racing to get to 85 first, and that's a situation Blizzard would like to avoid.
Interestingly, he also noted that it's "unlikely" that heirlooms won't work on Worgen or Goblin characters, which is admittedly a relief, seeing how I just bought a set of them for my Worgen Warrior. Battle Howl, anyone?
Patch 3.2.2: 5-man Coliseum jousting woes to be addressed
I'm sure a lot of us have had this experience: You finish up jousting down the three champions in the first encounter of the 5-man Trial of the Champions, then all hell breaks loose. Your tank goes to lock down the Warrior, but in the meantime, the Rogue, who fell on the other side of the coliseum, makes a beeline to your healer, who was the person who dismounted him. Then the Mage, who's on yet a third side of the arena, starts blasting down your Mage who never seems to get any stamina on his gear. Your tank tries to rein everybody in, but since the bosses still have the aggro they built up from the jousting stage, they're near impossible to peel. Everyone dies.
Essentially, scenarios such as outlined above can be avoided if all three jousters are dismounted and kept trampled in a very small area and the tank dismounts a bit early as starts building aggro immediately, but in most cases, people have just decided its easier to run out and reset the fight. It's inelegant and feels a bit like cheating, but it works. Due to the lack of an aggro reset and the tendency of the champions to be scattered all across the arena floor, it just becomes much simpler to run out of the instance.
It seems the dev team has noticed these difficulties. Lead World Designer Valnoth posted on the official forums to say that you should no longer feel obligated to zone out to reset the first boss battle after the jousting stage. He doesn't state exactly how this will happen. Just wiping aggro on the jousters might be enough, but it would be nice to see them form up and charge together, giving the tank ample opportunity to grab all three and start building aggro easily.
Now, hopefully they've also fixed that bug where one of the champions randomly reappears with effective unlimited health during the 2nd or 3rd boss fight and starts wailing away on the party, but if not, hey... at least we can still run out.
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: Confirmed TCG loot for Scourgewar
With news of all these pets leaking out onto the interweb and the patch 3.2.2 PTR build being updated, I figured it was high time to nip to Booty Bay to visit Landro Longshot. He's usually a great source for finding out what we can expect in the Trading Card Game. Sure enough, he was updated with info on Scourgewar, which will be released on November 21st. Landro tells me that there's some great loot coming, in the form of mini mounts (the Little White Stallion and the Little Ivory Raptor), the Tuskarr Kite and the ever so adorable Spectral Tiger Cub.
We're not quite sure how the mini mounts are going to work or whether they will be faction-orientated. But it's the Little White Stallion is likely to raise a smile for all of Ghostcrawler's fans. Yes, we (and by that we mean the people who get the loot cards) will finally getting that long-promised pony! The mounts are likely to cost a couple of hundred gold each and they're not yet purchasable on the PTR. The normal codes (1111, 2222 and 3333) aren't active yet but as soon as they are, we'll be sure to bring you pictures.
Official WoW Cataclysm forum Opens
The official WoW forums got another section today, one dedicated to the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm. There's nothing useful in the at the moment, like a roundup of everything Blizzard has posted about the third expansion, or short bullet pointed lists of major features (although we have such information in our Guide to Cataclysm).
These forums are open to the general WoW population, and are NOT the alpha / beta forums. The alpha has NOT begun yet. But things are at least moving in the direction of more Cataclysm presence in WoW's official community.
With WoW Cataclysm expected to be released in 2010 (remember, according to Mike Morhaime, not us), we should start seeing greater details about what was announced at BlizzCon in the next couple months. Lots of good stuff to know, and hopefully this forum will be a conduit for Blizzard's old top hats like Ghostcrawler to begin some more detailed information dissemination.
Sep 2, 2009
WoW: Shadow Priest Leveling Guide
This article will discuss the leveling of a priest for maximum speed (therefore optimal fun). The best way to level a priest is shadow. They deal the most damage under the least amount of time and take the least amount of damage. If you're going to level your toon solo for the most of the time like mostly everyone in the game, shadow is the way to go. If it is your plan to level up running instances constantly with friends, discipline (for the damage and healing capabilities) or even holy is for you (if you're the designated healer of the group). I will break down the leveling process into section of 10 levels:
Level 10-20
You get access to talent points at level 10, and you should put your first points into Spirit Tap (And improved Spirit Tap) to begin your path down the shadow tree. This allows for mana regeneration after an experience delivering kill (or Mana Blast/Shadow Word: Death crit). Then place your next points into Improved Shadow Word: Pain and only three points into Darkness.
Level 20-30
Get Mind Flay immediately. This move slows down your opponent and makes grinding much easier. It is then a no brainer to keep investing the points into Improved Mind Blast so that you can blast your opponents away faster and stop relying on non-shadow moves. The main focus here is to get to Shadowform as fast as possible. Once you reach level 16, it is wise to get Shadow Weaving. Shadow Weaving makes your more powerful as your attack mobs. As you grind your way towards 20, I recommend you go back and fill in your points in Darkness as well because of the increased dependency on Shadow affiliated moves.
Level 30-40
Vampiric Embrace and Improved Vampiric Embrace. Heal yourself through DPS and regenerate mana through DPS, almost a grinding dream. Now you have a choice between Focused Mind and Shadow Focus. If you're having trouble hitting mobs, put your next points in the latter, otherwise the saved mana could help out in the long run. The next three points should be placed into Improved Devouring Plague for that extra periodic boost in health production while taking on a lot of mobs. Vampiric Embrace will stack with this attack.
Level 40-50
Shadowform saves lives, literally. Grab this and watch your shadow power explode while minimizing damage. You should only be using shadow spells at this point anyway. Place your next five points to increase your critting abilities. Now you're beginning to feel like a caster. Improve your Shadowform for less disruption while casting as well as two points in Misery to help hit your opponents as well as increasing spell power during battles.
Level 50-60
Snag Vampiric Embrace for that extra mana producing dot that will increase your damage and the duration in which you can do that damage. After this, place the maximum points into Pain and Suffering to save some mana while you're burning a mob, but not in time for your Shadow Word: Pain to expire. This way Shadow Word: Pain continues to refresh and do damage as you Blast and Flay away. After this is maxed out, go back and finish your points in Misery to unlock the next tier of points. The point of a leveling/grinding spec is to maximize damage for as long as possible. At this point in the game, it may be time to put some points in Crowd Control, as the major damage increasing talents have been used up. I would personally recommend points be placed in Psychic Horror. An extra fear where the mob does not run away from you agroing other mobs is a priceless life saving talent. Mind Melt will help you more and more as you level and gear you find is more tailored towards a caster, or Priest specifically. Putting points in that and Improved Psychic Scream will maximize damage the most efficiently while giving you that extra play room with fear if you're in trouble. If you're like me and you want to pick that Elite from behind some regular mobs without aggroing them, it may be overdue to invest in Shadow Reach. This gives you the distance to pinpoint and pick out the mobs you need to complete certain quests. Most of the fighting you are doing as a solo leveling is one on one, with some random beating you over the head with his club or staff. This talent is not critical to leveling although it is a luxury.
Level 60-70
To continue blowing away mobs without a break, Dispersion would be good for your toon. As well as that "Oh, Shit" button you can slam when there are just too many mobs to handle. Dispersion looks like a pvp talent, but it has its uses in soloing as well. Now its time to start heading down the Discipline tree to help you stay alive while managing your mana a little more efficiently. Put 5 points into Twin Disciplines to give your instant casts a little boost as well as make way for the next two more important talents: Inner Fire and Improved Power Word: Fortitude. These two talents give out a little bit more spell power and health for staying alive while bashing some monsters.
Level 70-80
To finish off your massive grind on the way to 80, it is worth investing in Meditation for increased mana production while casting (stacks with Mana Tap). Inner Focus is a neat talent and acts like a power boost. I would recommend macroing this ability to Mind Blast for a very powerful Blast every once in a while (3 minute cooldown), as this ability does not trigger the global cooldown and can be used in congruence with other spells. That is as far as I would go into the disc tree, and the rest is up to you. Mind Melt and Twisted Faith are more damage boosting abilities to help boost your DPS.
I hope you enjoyed my Shadow Priest Talent Guide. I am sure there are other viewpoints out there, but experience tells me that Shadow is definitely the way to go if speed is your desire.
Aug 31, 2009
WoW Cataclysm might mean for Death Knights
We've now had about a week and a half to digest all the new information from BlizzCon about the Cataclysm, and while it's not a complete picture of what we can expect from the expansion, there's enough information now that we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the direction of the game and the new theorycraft of being a Death Knight. Let's take a look at we can learn from the latest information.
New Races
The new races definitely have some pretty awesome racials. The Worgen's plus damage racial will make them a very solid choice for a DPS Death Knight, and the sprint will be excellent for closing distance in PvP, especially when paired with Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude to avoid CC. Even the skinning racial will be nice for a leveling Death Knight who decides to take some time out to level the money making gathering tradeskills.
Goblins are definitely going to be a nice little convenient race, with low buy and sell prices and a free bit of banking. Combat-wise, the Rocket Boots should be nice for closing distances or running away.
As far as whether these races will end up being the "best" races for Death Knights, I don't think I can say. Part of this is because I think the idea of a "best race" is, to at least some degree, rather subjective, but also, the devs strongly hinted they'll take a look at everyone's racial abilities as they move into Cataclysm, so its certainly possible that other races will get some new or upgraded racials that will keep pace with the awesomeness that are the new races' racials.
Stat Changes and New Systems
We'll be seeing quite a few stats either disappear off gear or vastly change in their mechanics come the expansion. While some of the stats changes, like loss of Spell Power, won't really affect us, others promise to bring up new questions and answers for our gearing and combat conundrums. Let's look at those one by one.
Armor Penetration
As you likely know if you've been following the column, my favorite DPS spec is Unholy. Unholy DPS has been having some troubles lately, specifically with Armor Penetration. Armor Penetration is now so ubiquitous on gear that our signature strike, Scourge Strike, can easily be outpaced by Obliterate with a minimum of Armor Penetration gear at level 80. Luckily, it looks like this will be a thing of the past in Cataclysm, as Armor Penetration will be gone from gear.
With this change, it seems likely they'll simply provide Armor Penetration to Blood through the new Mastery system (and possibly to Frost as well, if only for the Obliterate heavy rotations), while hopefully Unholy will get things slightly more useful to us. If they balance it out right, we should definitely be able to pick up Scourge Strike again full time in Cataclysm.
Of course this does bring up the question of Patch 3.3. Will we see Scourge Strike back on the scene before then? The devs have posted that they want Scourge Strike to be the king of Unholy DPS rotations again, but they don't yet have an elegant way to make that happen. It could be they'll hold off until Cataclysm, and we'll be obliterating our way through the raids and 5 man dungeons of Icecrown Citadel, but frankly, I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.
Regardless, this whole discussion underlines one fact: The devs definitely made the right choice in taking Armor Penetration off gear, where it can no longer trip up those classes and specs who do not need it.
Attack Power
Strength has pretty much always been superior for us for both DPS and Tanks, so the fact that we won't have to settle for attack power is definitely welcome. There's not much of a downside to this one, as long as there's enough good plate DPS gear and strength jewelry to go around.
Haste
In Cataclysm, Haste will, in addition to its current uses, cause resources to regenerate or generate faster. In our case, it will be runes. Faster regenerating runes, in theory, equals quicker damage, although it will have to be quick enough to keep up with the global cooldown, of course. If it is, a faster rotation is only a good thing. If not, we just have runes that regenerate faster then sit there as we wait for cooldowns. This is probably a case where we need to see exact values before we can judge how good it is for the class overall, but it certainly has potential, possibly paired with a switch to Unholy Presence.
Defense and Stamina
Defense is completely gone from gear, meaning that every tank class or tree will be getting a talent similar to the Druid's Survival of the Fittest to gain immunity to critical strikes. This isn't so bad a deal now that you can dual spec DPS and Tanking, and therefore offtanks can still be effective tanks and effective DPSers both as needed, but there's still some questions to clear up. Matthew Rossi covered quite a few of those questions in an article on the future of tanking, but I have a few more things to discuss from a Death Knight point of view.
Traditionally, we are able to tank in all 3 trees given that we choose the right talents. However, if we need to grab talented defense, how does that work? Unless they simply add it to the first level tanking talent of all three trees, we may find ourselves incredibly limited in our tank specs as we are forced to work down that specific tree. Of course, they could add it to Masteries, but that means that Death Knight PvE DPS may pick up a relatively useless mastery for them as they work down the tree.
In fact, that brings up a whole different point altogether: How will Death Knight Masteries work? Traditionally, we're meant to be able to tank or DPS in all 3 trees. If Masteries in one tree are tank focused, everyone will flock there for tanking and flock away from it for DPS. That said, it may be that what will happen is that we'll see more tank focused talents instead, which, when taken, will unlock tank focused masteries.
Still, let's assume they have a decent idea for how they'll implement tanking vs. DPS masteries and crit immunity that will work well enough to give us the same tank spec flexibility we have now. That still leaves us with the question of itemization.
It sounds like the developers mean to finish what they started with Burning Crusade and essentially make Stamina so ubiquitous that pretty much every character has tank-level HP. If so, at least that clears up one itemization issue. We'll, in theory, have the Stamina to tank regardless. However, high stamina alone does not a complete tank make.
Bear Druids can attest to it. Sharing your itemization with DPS classes is not fun. You're scrounging for hit and expertise, trying to find gear that still has a decent amount of stamina on it. And good luck finding dodge rating on pieces. They don't exist. That's my biggest fear: Will we run short on defensive stats as everything is itemized to be modular? It's possible this could be sidestepped if Reforging allows conversions to dodge and parry rating, but it'd be way too easy to make reforging far too restrictive for that be effective. Masteries could possibly pick up some of the slack here, but again: With the way masteries are set up, how do we assure adequate tank masteries without rewiring Death Knights so that only one tree is the tank tree?
I'm not ready to completely condemn the idea, but I get the feeling itemization is going to be a sticky subject as Cataclysm begins. Here's hoping the dev team can figure it out, but part of me thinks there may be a limit to how far you can take the "one size fits all specs" gear philosophy.
Then again, I'm still all for getting rid of some stats and firming up others. It really shouldn't take a spreadsheet and a custom made calculator to figure out if an individual piece of gear is really an upgrade for you or not, to be honest.
And the Rest
Of course, this column is hardly going to be the final word on Death Knights in the Cataclysm. We'll be discussing the Path of the Titans and which paths seem best for Death Knights, and talents are probably going to change so drastically as to completely alter how we look at certain talent builds and rotations.
The misgivings outlined above aside, I can say with confidence that I am incredibly pumped for the expansion, and very interested to see what direction the Death Knight class takes with all the redesigns and rebuilds of so many key systems in the expansion. Stay tuned to Lichborne and Wow.com. We'll let you know how this keeps shaking down.
WoW: new character experience in Cataclysm
As you know, the Cataclysm is going to bring major changes to the whole world of Azeroth. There will only be 5 new zones for leveling above 80 and one new zone for each new race -- the rest of the work they're doing involves changing the old zones, bringing them up to the standards of zones in The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, adding new quests that are more appropriate to the current timeline, and completely rebuilding the areas that just didn't work so well.
You are also probably aware that this is a much-needed improvement. The 1 - 60 leveling process (except for the draenei or blood elf starting areas) has long been fraught with serious flaws. Going through it the first time wasn't so bad, since exploring everything felt so new, but doing it the third and fourth times meant sheer boredom. I remember many times going to a zone, completing many or all of the quests there, and leaving without ever feeling as though I had really "been" there. Except for a few real gems, quests mostly involved spending a lot of time running long distances in order to kill more nameless bad guys -- they felt more like pest control than adventure. Just being there seemed to remove me from the story of Azeroth, and dump me in some other world where there was nothing important happening. Vast stretches of land on the Azeroth map meant absolutely nothing to me as a roleplayer: no character, no story, no meaning.
Gaining experience
Getting to Outland, however, opened a new chapter, even if you had done the quests there before and new there was nothing new to see, they still felt like an actual "experience" of some kind. They flowed more in the manner of an actual story, and by the time you finished a zone, Hellfire Peninsula for example, you felt as though you had "been to Hellfire" and done what people do there. You didn't just deliver messages, kill a few monsters that happened to be lurking in and around nearby caves, and pick up random objects from the ground lying near yet another set of nondescript ruins -- you could exorcise a possessed comrade, make first contact with a lost orcish clan, or uncover the horrifying story behind the Path of Glory. Most of the quests involved you in the area so much that it began to feel like a real environment where things actually happened.
And of course, ever since Wrath was released, players keep coming back to the death knight starting area over and over again, partly because the phasing and storytelling were so nice, but also because it was structured so nicely -- every advancement in the quest line was a natural part of an overarching experience that had a beginning, middle and end, and nothing left you feeling as though you were doing a whole lot of running around for no real purpose. Even if you now the story by heart, you know you're progressing through something that defines your character, not just running errands.
And that is exactly what we have always hoped the rest of the world could be like. If the Cataclysm expansion lives up to our expectations, then perhaps all of Azeroth will be as engaging as Outland and Northrend have been.
Return of the Alt
Of course the whole point of making the old Azeroth new again is so that we can create new characters to enjoy it with. Many roleplayers are already altoholics -- not all of them of course, but lots of them have way too many character ideas. Often we don't like sitting in one skin for too long, and we may even have a whole troupe of characters with all manner of interconnections who interact with our guild members and friends in different ways. Often each of our guildmates has such characters too, and... well, it all gets very complicated.
I, too, started down this path some time ago, but I have since restrained myself to just a few of my favorite characters, usually spread out on multiple servers so that I can have more diverse experiences with each one of them. Until news broke of the Cataclysm, I had completely given up leveling any new character from scratch, no matter how much I wanted to roleplay them. I tried restricting my new characters to death knights, since they can skip most of the old world, but that has also limited my creativity somewhat.
But now that is about to change. Not only will I be eager to try out new goblin and worgen characters, but I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up trying some other combination as well. Undoubtedly that is one of Blizzard's main motivations behind the new races, the new class combinations, and the revamp of Azeroth as a whole -- they want the process of going from 1 to the level cap to be one we can enjoy many times over.
Alt epidemic threat level: Orange
However, some might argue that roleplayers generally have too many characters already, and adding more is only going to make the roleplaying environment worse. The main problem with having lots of alts is that it can be so hard to keep track of them all. It's easy to get confused about which alt belongs to which of your friends unless you are in a dedicated RP guild and keep current with all the latest stories going on in your group. If, like me, you've been forced to take breaks for a while, it can be very disorienting to come back to your old guild and not recognize many of the new names there, because old friends have gone and made new characters while you were away. With all the new characters people will be making when Cataclysm comes around, roleplayers will have to pay close attention to avoid getting confused.
Another downside to having so many characters is that it's hard to find time to give them all the time they may deserve. I know from experience how starting even just one new character makes it easy to neglect the old ones, and for roleplayers that can mean neglecting all the relationships those characters have developed as well. Once a character is gone for too long, it's not easy to bring him or her back into the roleplayers' milieu once again -- you get a feeling that everyone around you has moved on, while this character has remained stagnant. You may try to think of reasons to explain their long absence, but often these feel rather flat, more like excuses than actual stories.
On the other hand, maybe this tendency to drift from character to character rather than try to maintain many alts is a good one; in fiction, after all, character's stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Perhaps the characters we roleplay should go through these stages as well, so that we keep things fresh for ourselves.
Whatever we do, the question of new characters, whether they are alts or new mains, is one that will affect roleplayers now more than ever. Cataclysm will surely shake up the roleplaying world as much as it does everything else. We must choose which new characters to conjure up, which ones to kill off in a blaze of glory, and which ones to simply ignore as they fade away from memory, lost to the clouds of time.
WoW: What Cataclysm will mean to Mages
When I was growing up, way back at the dawn of time, in the late eighties, I didn't have access to a lot of games. It wasn't like it is now, where I have an unplayed backlog of quality electronic entertainment so deep my house reeks of shrinkwrap and unfulfilled potential. No, back then, I remember saving my pennies for an entire summer with an eye on getting a new game, then going to the game store and having a choice between Lufia and 7th Saga . I chose 7th Saga (mostly because you could be a robot in that one), and even though time hasn't been particularly kind to that game, it still holds a special place in my heart. You know why? Because I played it. I played the crap out of it, and when I finished it, I started over and played it again . And the next time I saved up enough money for another game, or tricked a relative into buying one for me, I snagged Lufia, and repeated the process.
With the really great games--the Chrono Triggers, the Secrets of Mana, the Shining Forces--I played them so many times I came to the point where my fondest wish was that I could discover a way to excise them from my brain...to selectively forget I'd ever played them so I could plug them back in and experience their unique joys afresh. Yes, back in the late eighties and early nineties, we were pretty starved for games. But the ones we had, we loved .
What does this have to do with anything? Nothing really, just thought I'd share. Ok fine. Read on, I promise I'll find a flimsy way to tie it in to the actual subject of this week's column.
Here goes:
In many ways, this is precisely what Cataclysm seems poised to do with World of Warcraft . It has the potential to hit that reset button in our brains--the one that manages the part of our minds devoted to WoW --and allow those of us who wish to do so the opportunity to experience it from the beginning, anew. Many of us have already spent so much time with this game that we know it inside and out. Barring new content in a patch or an expansion, almost nothing seems new, and the game has very nearly run out of surprises for us. Cataclysm offers us the chance to time travel a bit, to start up a level one character and see mostly fresh, new things as we level (well, at least until Outland. Sigh.). It'll be just like it was with our very first character...you know, except for the part where we have a billion gold and heirloom items and can get mounts at level 2 and whatnot. Still.
Last week we talked about how disgustingly excited I am about all the new race options for Mages, and how awesome Worgen and Goblins are going to look wearing robes and pointy hats. This week we'll look at some of the other ways this new expansion will alter the landscape of Mageland.
Five more levels
This is about five less levels than I think most of us would have expected, but I don't feel slighted in the least. Five levels is plenty of new content for our already well-traveled Mages to blast through on their way to a new end-game that already promises to be more robust than any we've yet encountered. We've already been told that those five levels won't be extending our talent trees at all, but will give us five new talent points, and will provide new spells for us to learn. And those spells will be actual new spells, as spell ranks are going to be done away with. Once we learn Frostbolt , it will simply scale with level, meaning that the various Mage trainers around Azeroth owe me a lot of money.
The main advantage to only getting five new levels, of course, is that I will have five fewer levels through which to drag the approximately fourty-seven new alts I plan on making. This is a wise design decision on Blizzard's part. The more incentive we have to create new characters, the more time (and thus money) we will invest. As a professed altoholic, I wholeheartedly back this idea.
Path of the Titans/Archaeology
Of course, that sense of continued progress has to come from somewhere, and this new system looks to be the solution to that particular problem. Amanda Miller's got a great writeup of everything we know so far about how this will work, so if you're still sketchy on the details, go check her post out and then come back.
I don't know about you, but the idea of an archaeologist Mage, traversing the broken world in search of ancient artifacts, Blinking across booby-trapped floors, conjuring a mana pie to replace the weight of said ancient artifact on its trapped pedestal, then turning the boulder that tries to crush us into a sheep ...I'm stoked, guys.
The way it sounds to me, the idea Blizzard's going for with this new system, and the changes to the talent system that we'll get to in just a moment, is something I've wanted for a very long time: true character customization. Sure, the game allows us the illusion of character customization as it currently exists, but that illusion is shattered the moment you try something unorthodox, like taking a Frost Mage into high-level raiding content. It doesn't matter how much you love playing a Frost Mage or how skilled you are; there is only one truly optimal spec out there at any given point in the game's lifespan, and you simply didn't pick it. Now summon us a table, buff everybody, and get out.
If Blizzard accomplishes what they've set out to do here...if they can truly make passive, DPS increasing progression available to every Mage spec, I will applaud them until my arms fall, still clapping, from their sockets. The possibilities here are mind-boggling.
Mastery system/revamped talent trees
Which brings us to this next bit of craziness. The idea behind the Mastery system seems to be to eliminate the need for an ideal spec, instead providing the passive bonuses--the one we're all currently forced to take a specific path through the talent trees to obtain--something you get simply by moving deeper in the tree, however you choose to do it. The actual talents you'll be selecting on the way there are supposedly becoming entirely optional. You can choose the ones that suit your playstyle instead of the ones that up your crit damage.
I really can't wait to see how Blizzard implements this. It will require a full and total reworking of the talent system. Few, if any, of the talents we have now will make it through intact. Of all of the announced changes, I have to admit that this is the one about which I am the most skeptical. Call me small-minded, but I simply cannot envision a talent system that the hardcore theorycrafters won't be able to spend five minutes with and come up with a so-called "optimal" path. In a game where your worth as a Mage is determined by how much damage you can put out per second of a fight, is true customization even possible? I'm interested to see Blizzard try.
If it works, though, at least none of us will be able to complain about the bloated Arcane tree anymore. Post-expansion, it won't be "bloated" anymore; it'll just have more "options" than the other two trees.
Stat simplification
Perhaps the most mind-blowing change announced at BlizzCon, at least for me, was this one. Here's what we know at this point:
- Spellpower will be gone.
- No more Mp5 (at all), and no more spirit (on DPS gear).
- Haste is going to be very confusing.
- Crit is being left alone.
So as it stands now, come expansion time, Mages will want the following stats: intellect, haste, and crit. No more fighting off healers for our gear. Their stuff will have spirit on it.
I'm all in favor of this whole stat-consolidation thing. I hated the redundant stats, and I hated the fact that sometimes a robe would drop called something like "Healer Dress of Holy Healerificness," and it would be an upgrade for my Mage.
Now...I have a million questions. Here are just a few:
- No mention of hit rating. Please...can it go away?
- Ditto for spell penetration. Kill it, please?
- How exactly are DPS casters going to no longer need mana regen? This sounds like a lot of running out of mana all the time to me.
- Is crit going to be left alone?
- Can I wear plate in the expansion? Also...I want a pony.
Aug 30, 2009
5 reasons why Aion can take on World of Warcraft
Every time a new Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) is released, the proclamation that it will topple the king of all MMORPG’s, World of Warcraft, is inevitable.
First there was Age of Conan, then there was Vanguard, then Tabula Rasa and Warhammer Online. Despite each of these titles’ aspiration to take down Blizzard’s MMORPG, none have come close to reaching World of Warcraft’s estimated 11 million subscribers.
And then there’s Aion, NCSoft’s latest online role playing game which is set to launch in the United States on September 22nd. Described as an amalgamation of the best aspects and features of modern MMORPG’s, Aion is striving to become one of World of Warcraft’s largest competitors.
However, even though Aion has an already large subscriber base in Asia and is being helmed by the team behind successful MMO’s like Guild Wars and Lineage, does it have what it takes to make a substantial dent in World of Warcraft’s notoriously large subscriber base?
Here’s some reasons why Aion could just be the next MMORPG you’ll become addicted to starting late September.
5. Aion has been around since 2008
One of the main reasons why new MMORPG’s fizzle out and eventually fade into obscurity is because their subscription base isn’t stable. Initially, there’s a huge surge of first-time subscribers who are curious to check what all the fuss is about, but eventually, a staggeringly large amount of gamers end up returning to more established and populated options like World of Warcraft
It takes time and money for a game to flesh out its end-game content and iron out the kinks and glitches, but unfortunately, most gamers aren’t willing to stick around long enough for that to happen. It’s a Catch-22, really, and it’s this unfortunate dilemma that has doomed games with tons of potential like Age of Conan.
Aion, however, already has a stable, established subscriber base It was launched in Korea in November of 2008, and has since accrued an estimated 4 million subscribers in Asia alone. Additionally, the developers have had almost a full year of feedback from gamers actively playing Aion on live servers to ensure a successful and smooth launch in the United States.
There still is tons of room to grow and improve, sure, but if the numbers coming out of Asia are indicative of anything, Aion is a MMORPG that has the longevity, quality and popularity to stay around for quite a while.
4. Better graphics and customizable character appearance
As artistically creative and beautiful as World of Warcraft’s is, there’s really no denying that it’s aging graphics engines is one of the game’s weakest aspects. Aion’s graphics, however, look absolutely stunning for a MMORPG, thanks in no small part to Crytek’s heavily modified CryEngine that the game is built on. Not only did Aion take GameAmp’s 2006 E3 MMORPG “Best Graphics” Award, but it also offers a wealth of character customization options that World of Warcraft can’t even dream of competing against.
When you first create your character, you can modify virtually every aspect of your character. Gender, race, height, size of individual body parts, skin tone, hair styles--everything from your character’s voice to their facial features are customizable, allowing you almost limitless creative freedom in the creation process.
But that’s not all. You can even modify the appearance of your in-game weapons and armors through merchants and other non-playable characters in Aion. If you want to change the color of your armor, just purchase a dye. If you don’t like the way your sword looks, merely swap it out with the model of another sword without effecting its actual stats.
3. Hybrid of PvP/PvE Content
In World of Warcraft, there’s a pretty defined boundary between the world of Player versus Player (PvP) and Player versus Environment (PvE) content. With the exception of the rare city raids, random ganking and Wintergrasp battles, you’re usually either raiding PvE dungeons or participating in PvP battlegrounds and arenas. The two worlds seldom overlap.
Aion, on the other hand, is promoting a new type of gameplay appropriately named PvPvE. In PvPvE, you’ll find yourself fighting alongside other members of your faction to control strategic locations where vendors who sell exclusive items can be found.
However, while you’re busy waging war against enemy gamers, a third faction of NPC’s, the Balaur, will periodically intervene and radically alter the course of battle. Sometimes the Balaur will ally with you, sometimes they’ll fight against you, and sometimes they’ll attack both sides to make each battle exciting and unpredictable.
2. You have freaking wings
Seriously. How awesome is that? You obtain your wings early on in Aion and they grant you the ability to take flight for short periods of time. Later, you get the option to purchase upgraded wings which allow you to fly for extended periods of time.
While World of Warcraft does have some sweet flying mounts, you can’t really do anything on them besides travel. However, the celestial wings in Aion are not a silly gimmick or a mere form of transportation. Rather, flying is an integral part of the game play and adds a brand new dimension to both PvP and PvE combat.
For instance, picture a fight between two gladiators. They run around, strafe, looking for openings and lunge in when the time is right. Now imagine both gladiators are still trying to stab one another, only this time they’re strapped in fighter jets and are doing some super sick barrel rolls in mid-air miles above the ground, inverted plunges, nose dives and all sorts of other jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics.
Awesome, right? That’s the typical PvP experience in Aion. Only minus the fighter jets, of course.
1. Does anyone still want to play World of Warcraft?
I love World of Warcraft. I really do. But after five years of playing, it’s gotten old. There’s only so many times you can raid Naxxaramas, Ulduar or the Argent Tournament stuff before you begin to feel that the game’s once exhilarating and intense gameplay has become a repetitive and tedious chase for shinier, newer gear.
Blizzard has done a fantastic job of adding new content to keep things fresh and exciting, but even the most hardcore World of Warcraft fan will probably admit its time for something different. At least until Icecrown raids and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm draws nearer anyway.
Will Aion kill World of Warcraft? Not a chance. World of Warcraft has been around for almost five years now, and part of the reason why it’s so popular is because it is a genuinely good MMORPG. However, I do think Aion has a very good chance of stealing a nice chunk of subscribers from the MMORPG behemoth.
If Aion is everything its hyped up to be, then it could very well be the first game in a long while to give World of Warcraft a decent challenge and make gamers excited about MMORPG’s once again.
Enclosed is the official CG trailer for Aion, which is set to be released on September 22nd.
Blizzard unveils new WoW expansion: Cataclysm
Blizzard unveils new WoW expansion: Cataclysm
There will be another expansion pack for World of Warcraft, and it will be Cataclysm-ic! This was the announcement made by Blizzard last Friday at the BlizzCon, promising to shake up WoW as you know it.
Said Chris Metze, Blizzard's vice president of development, "I'm confident it will be nothing less than earth-shattering. It will literally change the world of Azeroth as you know it."
The newest expansion, which first surfaced as news upon the discovery of its filed trademark, is said to include two new races: Goblins for the Horde faction and Worgen for the Alliance faction. There will also be new flying mounts as well as a raise of level cap from 80 to 85.
Other new features are:
1.new race-class combinations, monsters, dungeons, raids, achievements
2.new secondary skill of Archaeology
3.heroic settings added to the classic dungeons Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep
4.new guild leveling system
5.Path of the Titans character progression
6.return of classic end-boss, Deathwing
We'll keep you posted as soon as more info comes out for the new Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft. In the meantime, check out this trailer: here.
WoW Shadowmoon Valley Guide
Many people have been asking for me to write a WoW leveling guide for that zone, and they've been waiting for nearly two years. Well now their wish has been granted!
Krowa , a wow-pro user and fan of my leveling guides, decided to take it upon herself and to write it. It looks amazing, it's just as if I wrote the guide myself, you won't tell the difference.
So props to Krowa, and also to her husband who worked on the maps. It's really a huge undertaking and you can see at first glance that they put a huge amount of effort into this guide.
So here is the guide, please test it and leave feedback:
Shadowmoon Valley Questing Guide click here.
PS: It's Horde only. Hopefully we'll see an Alliance version in the near future.
Music from the MPQs
Want to listen to the music of World of Warcraft without actually playing the game? It's possible -- anyee has posted a quick how-to over on the WoW Livejournal. The music is sitting on your computer in MPQ files, which are a proprietary Blizzard archiving format for their games. But there are a number of MPQ extractors and editors out there (the two recommended are MPQ Extractor for the Mac and MPQ Editor for Windows), so download one of those, use it to break open the MPQ you're looking for, and then find the music you want in that folder. Extract it out, and voila, you've got Warcraft music to listen to whenever you want.
I know what you're saying -- this might be against the Terms of Service. But actually, it's not -- the ToS only mentions "modifying" game files, and since you're simply extracting them from their archives, you're not actually modifying them. Plus, Blizzard actually authorizes the extraction of this music for use in noncommercial machinima, so as long as you use this music and any other assets for personal, noncommercial use, Blizzard has no problem with it. Of course, you'll be stuck listening to the music in bits and pieces designed for looping rather than a snazzy CD set. But if all you want to do is taking a listen to some of the tunes out of game, there you go.
