25 man raiding – how long can we defy the law of gravity?

Back in April I asked if anyone will bother to do run 25 man raids in Cataclysm, considering the announced changes with shared lockouts and loot in 10 mans becoming the same as the 25 man loot.

As someone who loves 25 man raiding, I was concerned, even though I also could understand why the 10 man raiding guilds welcomed the changes and thought it was about time. The gain of someone is the loss of someone else.

Here we are now, one month - soon to be two, into Cataclysm. How did it go? Has the world changed or were my worries unfounded? Is it business as usual?

Hitting hard
Well, I suppose that it’s still a little bit too early in Cataclysm to make the definite call. People have only been at max level for a month. Players who aren’t on the bleeding edge, but still plan to raid in Cataclysm, are still in the process of gearing up in heroics. And the post-Cataclysmic guild landscape on each server isn’t set in stone yet; it’s a process in progress. We’re only seeing the first tier of several and each one might have an impact on the social structure and how people choose to raid.

So there are a lot of reservations and maybes in this post, in the usual Larísa manner.

However, if I’m putting up my finger in the air to feel where the wind is going, I would say that Cataclysm has hit the 25 man raiding pretty hard.

I can only speak about what I see on my server, but where there used to be at least 15-20 guilds on the alliance side that did 25 man raids back in the days, there are just a handful who do them in Cataclysm, so far.

If you look at the recruitment ads on the forums, there are plenty of guilds who claim that they’ve got plans on 25 man raids. However, when you look a little closer at their raid progression, it turns out that most of their kills, if not all, are from 10 man raids.

Not everyone will agree with me. I read a post by Gavendo at Rapid Fire, who argued that the hardcore guilds such as Paragon still are rocking it in the 25 mans. He also talks about why 10 mans are harder than 25 mans, since there among other things is less room for individual mistakes. So according to Gav we were wrong to worry about the future of 25 man raiding.

And sure, I’m certain that the top class guilds of the world are doing just fine. But the world I live in is different. What we currently experience is a distinct lack of people who want to do 25 man raiding. Recruiting is harder than ever been before. For all the efforts we’ve made, we don’t get many applications, and I find it hard to believe that it would be because it’s not as if we’re not an attractive guild. We’re one of the oldest, most reliable and well organized guilds on the server if I’d dare say so, with an infrastructure that works and a solid record of progression in the past. If we can’t recruit, it’s not just because we’re not good enough. It’s something else going on.

Was it only about the loot?
Last spring we had quite an intense debate going on in the blogosphere about 10 vs 25 man raiding. There was a lot of talk about the loot aspect, where 25 mans always had been at advantage and things now would be more or less equal (although with a little more points awarded to 25 man raids.) Many argued that if loot was all that kept people doing 25 mans and that players really didn’t enjoy it for its own sake, then it was just as good if it disappeared.

And I’m sad to say it, but it seems as if this is what we see happening now. With the promise of better loot to show off in the cities gone, the gravitation towards smaller, easier-to-handle, more tightly knit raiding formats is turning out to be strong, maybe too strong.

Our guild is still determined to defy this gravitation. Loot or not, we think that 25 man raiding has a certain “something” that 10 man raiding lacks. Not that there’s anything bad about 10 man raiding. I enjoy the smaller format immensely too, with the intimacy and cosiness that a tighter team brings. However, it’s a different creature and it can’t really replace the experience of having a 25 man team climb a learning curve, click and pull it together.

But unfortunately, people like me seem to be a dying breed and the question is for how long we can keep doing this. And how much worries and stress can our officers put up with before it’s wearing them down?

History repeating itself?
The other night our officers set a date. If we can’t fill our vacancies before March 1, so we’re sure that we can pull off every raid and progress as planned, we will no more be a 25 man guild, but a 10 man guild spotting only one team, and the roster will be cut down accordingly.

No one wants it to happen and everyone’s prepared to do whatever they can to help out recruiting. Hopefully Adrenaline won’t become one of the victims of the 25 man raiding death of Cataclysm. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed.

If you forget about Paragon and their buddies, I think it’s a tough time for many 25 man guilds in Cataclysm. I was never around for the 40 man raiding in vanilla, but I’ve understood that the transformation for TBC, when they were removed from the game, was painful to say the least. While we still have 25 man raids in the game, I can’t help wondering if what we see now is the beginning of a repetition of the past.

And the next question that comes to mind is of course: how could Blizzard possibly motivate keeping making content for 25 man raids in the next expansion, if it’s just a small minority of the players who bother to do it? It sure carries a symbolic value, but it also pulls development resources, and the question is how much they can allow it to cost.

Again: it probably is too early to judge out the 25 mans completely. This is not my “The End is Near” post. Not quite yet.

But the situation is indeed worrying for all of us who love to raid in 25 mans, but wouldn’t qualify to do it in Paragon.

The honeymoon is over for the bitter veterans

I probably shouldn’t write about this post since doing it puts me in a slightly bad mood. However, there are some thoughts and views that have been swirling aruond in my backhead for a few days now, following a debate in the blogosphere. And I can't help myself; I need to let out this steam so I can enter the weekend with peace in my mind.

The firestarter is no one but Wolfshead, who is done with his month of evaluating Cataclysm and now has come to the conclusion that it’s the worst expansion in the entire MMO history.

The blogger who more than anyone else (possibly with exception for Syncaine) loves to hate WoW, the guy who has appointed Blizzard the Evil Destroyer of the MMO concept, has once again played WoW for a few days – how many hours is unclear – and come to the conclusion that it still sucks. I would have been way more surprised if he had changed his mind.

“WoW is dying” over again.
As long as I’ve been playing, since 2007, there have been people whining on the forums about how “WoW is dying”, how the game has been ruined by equally bad and evil developers, spiced up with some well chosen general insults to the entire community, meaning: all other players except for me are idiots.

We saw those ex-players return for Cataclysm and for a month they’ve been occupied playing the game. Now the honeymoon is over and this week a wave of negative posts popped up in the blogosphere, Wolfshead the most extreme example. Apparently those who basically don’t like WoW because they’re burned out or just haven't come over EQ are done with their thing and about to leave us.

And to be truthful: the quicker they go, the better it is. I’ve had enough of their presence. Their constant flow of bitter and poisonous throw-ups in blogs and forum posts is sickening and doesn’t’ give me any insight or knowledge whatsoever. All it gives is an annoying debuff on my mood.

It’s hard to take doom and gloom prophecies seriously. Is Cataclysm doing well or not? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see what the annual reports for Blizzard Activision say. But one think is clear: I don’t think that Wolfshead’s conclusions or a bunch of whiny forum posts can be hold as evidence that Cataclysm is a bad expansion, that it’s badly received, that Blizzard has failed and that players now are leaving for greener pastures.

We’ve seen exactly this happening in every expansion of WoW. Players fled after Vanilla, after TBC, after Wrath and now after Cataclysm. Just like in any other hobby activity, people come and go for various reasons.

But when it comes to WoW it’s a little bit different. For some reason, those who are unhappy can’t just cancel their subscription and play another game that suites them better, which seems to be the logical thing to do. Oh no, they have to make a hell of a noise as they’re leaving, slamming the door to make sure we’re really noticing their departure, yelling in red: “We’re all doomed, WoW is dying!”

A kick from bashing WoW
Isn’t this behavior a little bit odd, thinking about it?

I mean, it isn’t as if WoW was the only game on the market, just as little as there is only one sort of food available in the store. I for instance don’t like the taste of egg. As a matter of fact I hate it in its pure form, such as a boiled egg or an omelet. Does this mean that I’m at war with people who like egg, who make those dishes and eat them with pleasure? Do I call them tasteless, childish and lacking any kind of thinking ability because their taste is different to mine? Do I think that egg-producers are doing the wrong thing, destroying the market for good and tasty food? Nope. The thought is rather absurd.

However, some ex-players feed on and get a kick out of bashing WoW. I’m not sure why. Could it possibly be that it’s a case of an unhappy divorce, an unfinished relationship? WoW is their ex lover and they’ve parted from it on the paper but not in their heart and mind and now they’re trying to convince themselves to let go of it. When they demonize it, it’s their last, desperate effort to try to get away from it.

Lack of nuances
I guess Wolfshead wanted to provoke a discussion, but how do you argue with someone who so completely lacks nuances and perspective, claiming that “It’s almost as if someone has kidnapped the game designers at Irvine and replaced them with childcare workers.”?

How do you talk to someone who sweepingly says: “Like some deranged madman bent on suicide, Blizzard has destroyed everything that was good and noble about MMOs and seemingly wants to take the entire genre with it into existential oblivion”? Can you take this seriously?

Wolfshead claims that Blizzard has created “the worst community in MMO history”.

On what grounds does he say so? I’m a part of the community. So is my guild. So are the bloggers I read and love. Are we all just childish, entitled scum in the world of Wolfshead?

And he goes on:

“You’d almost think that Blizzard feels that socialization and camaraderie are liabilities that should be removed from MMOs altogether.”

I suppose Wolfshead hasn’t noticed the new guild leveling and guild perk system or the changes to raiding that means a huge buff to small, tightly knit 10 man raiding guilds? Likewise he doesn’t see how beautiful Azeroth has become. Has he ever set his foot in Vashj’ir?

All he does is raging about how thee world has been ruined: “Familiar and sentimental zones like Loch Modan, have been destroyed and replaced with desolate ugliness.” Would he prefer if Azeroth had frozen and looked exactly as it did in vanilla? A museum rather than a living, breathing and always changing world.

I could go on and on about Wolfshead’s post, but I think I’ve ranted enough. I just can’t help thinking that it’s a little sad that the guy doesn’t use his writing skill, influence in the community and knowledge about MMOs to make something more interesting. He could have initiated a good discussion; instead he comes out like a reckless forum troll, just repeating it self. Such a waste of talent.

The Cataclysm disease
Wolfshead isn’t the only blogger who has been writing rather negative posts about Cataclysm this week. There have been quite a few others. On that stood out as better an more interesting than many others was the one by Lonomonkey, who tried to put his finger on what he calls “The Cataclysm Disease.”

As opposed to Wolfshead, Lonomonkey doesn’t fall into the pit hole of troll rhetoric. He’s reasonable and I think he’s on to something when he talks about the backside of the streamlined player experience – a lack of free choice and control. I’ve noticed it myself, especially as I was leveling in Uldum and felt as if I was on a moving walkway, unable to decide for myself.

For my own part I haven’t seen enough of the game to make a verdict on how Cataclysm panned out at this stage. I’ve leveled a character to max level, I’ve seen most of the five man dungeons and I’ve started out raiding, but I haven’t quested through the revamped zones with an alt. I have yet to try out PvPing, I have yet to pay the worgen and goblin areas, I have yet to see the new Azeroth from a RP perspective. And above all – I haven’t seen what impact the changes to the game have had on the community from a long term perspective. It’s way too early to make the call. You can’t base such a judgment solely on what people post on the forums.

The good and the bad
If you push me for an answer, asking for my gut feeling, I’m a little bit worried about the lack of player choice, just like Lonomonkey, and I also have the feeling that 25 man raiding has taken quite a hit, judging from what I see on our own server. I miss the group quests while leveling, thinking it was a good preparation for five-mans and a way to get to know other people on the server. Overall I think that leveling is too much of a pure solo experience, considering it’s supposed to be an MMO.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of stuff that probably makes Cataclysm the best WoW expansion ever. The quests are more fun and varied, many zones are incredibly beautiful and imaginative, they’ve made the five man dungeons interesting and challenging again and they’ve given players more incentives to join guilds and play with friends, at least on end-game level. Epics feel like epics again, a reward for effort and overcoming of challenge. There’s a lot to be happy about.

However as I said: my picture is incomplete. We have all time in the world to discuss this. This expansion has only begun and if I’m allowed to speculate I doubt we’ll see the next one until the end of 2012.

I’m looking forward to have some serious and balanced debates about what lessons we can learn from Cataclysm and what future we see for WoW as well as the next generation of MMOs. But let the WoW haters leave the scene first. Then we start talking.

And now I think we all need something to raise our spirits after the hit they took by the post-honeymoon backlash. It’s time for the weekly toast. I hope you’ll get an enjoyable weekend! Oh, and let’s make next week into a happier one, shall we? I for one am still having a blast exploring Cataclysm.

Cheers!

My take on the puzzling dungeon nerf

Rohan of Blessing of Kings welcomes the incoming nerf to the heroic 5 man dungeons.

Well, I don’t.

While I could see it happen in the course of time, possibly in a few months, I can’t see the reasons for doing just over a month into the new expansion.

For God’s sake, we just dinged 85 a couple of weeks a go! Could you please give us a chance to try out the new content for ourselves before you decide that we’re probably not good enough for the challenge? Just askin'.

As if the rush to catch up with gear to get raid ready after the holidays wasn’t enough, I also have to rush now to see the instances before they’ll take the edge out of them. I hear about three hour long wipe feasts in heroic Deadmines. Well, I tell you: I would have loved to experience one of them, but unfortunately I have yet to see it. The question is if I’ll be able to get in there before 4.06 hits.

I’m disappointed and above anything: confused. Ghostcrawler only recently wrote a brilliant post where he explained the reasons for why they’ve put the instances at the current difficulty level. For instance:

“The bottom line is that we want Heroics and raids to be challenging, and that is particularly true now while the content is new and characters are still collecting gear. They’re only going to get easier from here on out. We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. And by extension, we want you to celebrate when you win instead of it being a foregone conclusion.”

Did you notice the sentence: “They’re only going to get easier from here”? Exactly. And do you know why? It’s because it happens naturally as we gear up. Blizzard doesn’t need to lift a finger for it to happen. The gearing up is a nerf in itself, even if it seems to slip their minds sometimes.

The timing of Ghostcrawler’s post and the announcement about the nerfs (yes, I know a few bosses were buffed as well, but the total of it was a nerf) is unfortunate.

It’s never a good idea to try to convey two ideas at the same time.

I wish they had stuck to their guns.

Edit: After posting this I read Tam's take on this topic at Righteous Orbs and I have to admit that he has some good points. It's possible that my negative reaction to the changes is somewhat hasty and knee-jerkish. However, I still can't help feeling cheated for never getting the chance to do DM when it was at its hardest. It's not about that I want other players to have an equally hard experience as I had. It's about my own challenge.

And I still think that the timing between this and GC's post was bad. He could easily have avoided the double messages by mentioning some of the changes in his post, as examples of how they want to tweak things.

A view from the bottom of the learning curve

Two weeks away from WoW was all it took for me to tumble down all the way down the learning curve back to the sewer level, where I started four years ago.

This was obvious as I logged in last weekend after my holiday absence.

I stared in disbelief at the screen, getting more and more nauseous as the camera nervously flipped up and down. You were supposed to control this thing with your mouse, weren’t you?
Was something broken or was this how it worked? How was I supposed to move my toon? Had I ever even played this game at all?

So this was my character, Larísa. A mage apparently. Level 85, it said, whatever that could mean.

Catching up
Slowly I recalled what this was about. Oh yes. There had been this expansion coming right before my holidays. In the middle of packing and other preparations I had managed to press her up to end game level, but not much more than that.

And now I was back and within 72 hours our first 25 man raid was scheduled, and I needed not only to remember how to play WoW, but also to make Larísa raid ready. It wasn’t anyone else who had required me to be prepared to go in such a short time, but I wanted to. This would be the first 25 man raid since June last year, and you all know what it’s like to get back to school after the summer vacation. There’s something special in the air in the first raid of the season. I just didn’t want to miss it.

But where to start, what to do? I was lost, so lost. And also increasingly ill, not just because of the view of the screen, but because all those germs we escaped in India seem to have been assembling in Sweden to have a sneaky assault on me as soon as I came home.

It was a challenging task, but somehow I did it. Don’t ask me how though, because those first few days are a bit hazy in my memory, an equal mix of chain running heroics and chain running to the bathroom.

Enough to say: when Adrenaline stood at the top of Bastion of Twilight Tuesday night, ready to enter for the first time, I was there.

I was dressed up in mostly heroic gear and even a couple of epics thanks to a very wealthy and equally generous guildie. I had the reputation enchants I needed and I had even managed to level first aid to max, which was a bit of a pain, especially since I levelled my tailoring profession at the same time. (A tip to anyone in the same predicament – if the cloth is dirty expensive at your server, take a treasure finding potion that gives you extra loot and find a spot for aoe-farming. Even with a price of 200 g a pot, it pays off and it saved my day.)

Climbing the learning curve
Gearing up is one thing though, learning how to play is something completely different. You can be as raid ready as you like gear wise, but this doesn’t help much if you’ve lost the feeling for how to play WoW.

This has made me think of learning curves. I’m admittedly not the quickest of climbers, and I tend to start out horribly low as we’re learning new encounters. Eventually I will always “get it”, but not quite as fast as the quickest learners in our guild.

But if I think about this first week back in WoW, I don’t feel as if I’m just at the bottom of a learning curve I need to climb. It’s more as if I’ve fallen down into a dark pit hole, losing skills I believed I already mastered.

When you think of learning how to ride a bicycle, it’s a one-time-only. Once you’ve learned how to do it, it’s there. You won’t forget how you do it, either you practice or not. You can mount a bicycle 10 years later and you’ll still not fall.

Playing WoW is different. Apparently you can de-climb the curve and de-learn things you knew, leaving you with no choice but to start over again.

A headless chicken
Partly I figure it’s the result of the class changes. Mages have gotten a couple of new spells that need to be squeezed, not only into my action bars, but also into my mindset, habits and muscle memory. It’s not done overnight.

Another reason for my struggles is probably that the difficulty level has stepped up considerably since Wrath. Some of the heroic bosses feel more like raid bosses than anything else. This is basically something I welcome; it means that also non-raiders can get access to interesting and challenging content. So it’s not as if I’m asking for nerfs, not at all.

But the fact remains, more than once have I felt like a headless chicken – in heroics as well as in raids - and I can’t help feeling a bit let down by myself.

Why I can’t pull my gameplay together and climb the learning curves as quick and easily as my fellow guildies? What am I doing here, still crawling around in the sewer?

However, this isn’t going to be a post that ends in misery, despair and self-bashing. I refuse to give up! I’ve climbed hills like this before and damned me if I won’t be able to climb it again!
As a reminder I’ve changed my title from Merrymaker to The Patient. Even if I geared up in two days I can’t expect myself to re-learn my class with all the changes there have been to it in the same amount of time. All I can do is to keep going, spend some times at the dummies, read up, ask fellow mages for advice and then and practice, practice, practice, Eventually I’ll get it.

The juggling experience
If I have any doubts about it, I’ll just think back at what I did in India. I spent most of my days lazily drifting in the ocean or reading novels on the beach. But I had brought one project with me: a set of juggling balls. I had decided to once for all learn how to juggle, which was quite ambitious for someone who lacks any sense for ball handling whatsoever.

The balls came with a leaflet, where you were told you could learn three-ball juggling in seven steps. “Anyone can learn this within one hour”, assured the writer. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. For me it took one and a half week of daily practice before I got it. But that’s not the point.

The point is that I didn’t give up. And I didn’t care about the quizzing glares I got from other beach visitors as I publicly displayed my shortcomings in tossing as little as one or two balls.

I just kept going. Not for long periods, just ten minutes per hour, day after day. Sometimes I fell back on the learning curve, starting to fail at step five, which I previously had mastered. In those moments I went back a few steps and practiced more until I had them working properly, before taking it back to where I was.

I didn’t bash on myself, I didn’t ask why it took me hours and hours of juggle training when the leaflet said it would take just 60 minutes. I just did it anyway, my way, enjoying the learning process as such, not attempting to take shortcuts as I climbed the curve in my own pace.

I left India with a moment forever burned into my memory: the feeling of successfully doing three-ball juggling as the sun dived into the ocean at the peaceful beach in Goa. Twenty times in a row I cast the balls without dropping them once. I don’t think anyone noticed. But I’ll never forget how I felt inside.

And whenever I’ll find the view in the sewers at the bottom of the learning curve just too depressing, whenever I’ll start doubting that I can be a true asset to our raid team rather than a burden, I will think about my juggling experience.

If I could learn how to juggle, I can learn how to do anything.

Even how to play my mage properly in Cataclysm.

Cheers!

I dinged 85 and went straight to Naxx

So, I reached 85 the other night. The first thing I did was to train my new mage toy, the godsend Time Warp. Of course. But do you know what I did next?

I went straight to Naxxramas. Yes, the same old pyramid that has been hanging over Northrend the last two years. It hasn’t’ been tweaked or upgraded, there isn’t any new surprise boss in there. And yet, there I found myself at a date with Patchwerk.

How come? Well, it turned out that it was the weekly raid quest. And you might not be aware of it, but that quest gives a decent 138 justice points for just a couple of minutes of effort. Not bad for a point- and gear-thirsty freshly dinged 85. It felt weird to say the least, and in a couple of weeks I don’t think it would be worth it. But as it is now, it’s not bad. After all a normal LFD dungeon only gives you half of it.

Talking about patchwork, with an “o”, that is what this post will be: some random observations about Cataclysm that I wanted to share before I take a break from Azeroth for a couple of weeks.

Item level – the new Gearscore?
There have been a couple of things that have been bubbling around in my mind. One is the issue of Item level. I’ve never been obsessing over Gearscore before, but I find myself way more interested in the average item level number that Blizzard provides you with in game. I learned that I needed to reach 329 to be let into a heroic instance and suddenly that became a goal per se. I looked for whatever upgrade I could get – through justice points or at AH and then I equipped it and waited eagerly to see if my average level had raised enough to reach the magical number. “Oh, noes, only 328, bugger! I need something more”

I wouldn’t go as far as to equip a completely irrelevant, useless item just because it has a higher level number, in order to play tricks on the system. But can certainly see the temptation.

I wonder if this development is for the good. We’ve discussed the pros and cons of Gearscore to death, and I’ve heard several commenters saying that you certainly need a simple evaluation tool, but that Gearscore is too dumb to make the work properly. In its place they recommend more advanced addons such as Elitist group. However, with the arrival and emphasis on item level, Blizzard might take us in a different direction. It’s way dumber for sorting purposes than Gearscore, since it doesn’t say anything about the usefulness of the gear or whether you’ve done anything about it, using enchants or gems. However, I’ve already seen it in practice as someone was announcing in /2, looking for a group to make some dungeon achievements. The requirement to join the group was to have an average gear level of 340 or more. It remains to see if this was a unique event or a beginning of an unfortunate trend.

A Very Manly Staff
While we’re talking about gear I have to mention the Very Manly Staff that I got from the new ring of blood-quest in Twilight Highlands. I’ve had a lot of weapons over the years, and I don’t remember anything about most of them. They all look the same to me; there are only so many ways you can design a gnome dagger. But this weapon will no doubt become one of those that stick in my memory. It can’t be missed.

For one thing, it’s huge. Especially on a gnome. I’ve always thought that my mage has some kind of back problem, since she’s sort of crouching as she runs. Now I know why. I would have that too if I was supposed to carry around such a burden. Oversized? Yep, you bet.

The second feature is that it moves. It’s got some kind of mechanism with spikes that randomly are folded in and out for no apparent reason.

And then there’s this name. Very Manly Staff. I don’t know exactly what it is in it that makes it so manly, but I suspect that the devs just wanted to bring the e-peen measuring to a new level with a wry smile. So far I haven’t noticed any beard growth or other changes to Larísa. Well, apart from that bad back then.

Just looking at the staff makes me a little giddy. There’s something irresistible about a pink pigtailed gnome running around with a Very Manly Staff, as if she was showing the finger to players who think that only a Big Bad Guy can kill a Big Bad Monster. Or carry a Very Manly Staff.

Painful quest
If you think about getting it for yourself, I recommend you strongly to not try it at anywhere near peak time on your server. I’m on a PvE server myself, but the competition around the quest giver, buried under a mountain of mounted players, was so fierce that it felt more like PvP. Some players amused themselves (or was stupid enough to not know better) by snatching the target from other groups who just had started the event. This resulted in repeatedly failed quests and prolonged waiting times – for everyone. If people would just have queued up nicely and taken the quests in order, it would have gone ten times quicker. But WoW players just don’t do that, unless they’re technically forced into a queue like when they’re logging in.

So to put it shortly: this quest is currently a pain in the ass unless you do it at 6 am in the morning. And I think Blizzard should think it over, if they couldn’t put it up somehow differently, through phasing, instancing or some other solution.

Raiding 5-mans
And a final note: I’ve dipped my toe into my first heroic dungeon. It felt like a raid. A raid where I’m constantly active – sheeping, throwing orbs, putting up rings of frost, counterspelling, decursing, you name it.

It was long time since it was as fun to play a mage. I lost count on how many corpse runs I did. But I did them with a smile.

Edit: Tarnop pointed out in a comment that the Manly staff probably is named after a player in Elitist Jerks called - yes, you guessed it - Manly! If you check out his armory he's currently wearing it, even though I don't doubt that it soon will be upgraded. Thanks for the heads-up!

The moving walkway

First of all: I’m having a blast as I’m questing my way through the new zones of Cataclysm. There’s so much to love – so much beauty, so much imagination, so many new and thrilling quests, especially in my current zone Uldum, which has blown me away on several occasions.

So don’t get me wrong. What I’ve seen of Cataclysm so far has lived up – or even exceeded – the somewhat crazy expectations that have been built up ever since the announcement at Blizzcon 2009. But I have a little thought of doubt: hasn’t the questing in WoW become just a little bit too streamlined?

Following the pathways
Everywhere I go, I see players following the pathway that Blizzard has put out for us. Strictly speaking I reckon I could deviate from it. It’s not like when you’re hiking in one of those heavily populated nature reserves where you’re more or less forced to follow the assigned trail to preserve the surrounding grounds. But in practice this won’t happen. The quests are supposed to be done in a certain order; one thing leads to another, moving between phases. Woe the player who dares to break the quest chain! No more quests for you, ungrateful scum! Leave the trail and you’ll be condemned to trash grinding your way to 85 killing nothing but murlocs.

Every now and then, without previous notice, the screen goes black and I’m suddenly thrown into a mini cinematic of some sort. And this adds to the feeling of linearity. It’s even more linear than the experience of reading a book or seeing a movie. When you’re consuming something in those media, you can always go back. You can replay the scene you came to think about on your dvd or you can go back and look at the previous chapter if you get lost in the novel. WoW is much less forgiving. If you get distracted in some way, you’ve missed it.

A moving walkway
Over and over again an image pops up in my head: the image of the moving walkway in the room where they keep the royal jewels at The Tower of London. The only way you can see them is by standing on that walkway, and it passes those jewels at set, nonnegotiable pace.

You blinked as you passed? Your toddler came by as the quest cinematic was running? You got a phone call and didn’t see that scene where Harrison swings around in his rope on the giant statues? Too bad for you, but the conveyor band has moved passed the jewels and the exit is there. You’ve completed the quest, here's your reward! (Which on a side note feels rather bizarr - why are we rewarded for doing nothing but staring at our screen, drinking coffee?) What are you waiting for? Hurry up, step into the next rollercoaster ride! Want to see it again? Sorry, mate. Roll an alt or check YouTube. You're in a different phase now and the ride only goes in one direction.

Who’s driving?
Tam asked: “Who’s driving this story?” and my answer is simple: it certainly isn’t me. I feel like a marionette doll, secured in the threads under the rule of the designers, in a way that I’ve never ever felt before.

I remember how I back in the days sometimes used Jame’s levelling guides, with mixed feelings. It was efficient levelling on one hand, but it took away a bit of the “a virtual world to explore” feeling from the game. It quickly became a threadmill, with a tunnel vision focus on the XP/hour rate, rather than on the thrill of adventure and uncertainty.

The last few years Blizzard has taken WoW in a direction where the guides and quest addons aren’t needed anymore. It’s all built into the UI, showing where to go and what to do next, and into the pipeline quest design. The tendency started in Wrath, but Cataclysm takes it up to the next level.

I reckon it’s my lack of experience from other games that makes me react against it. Maybe this is the way that stories normally are told in games?

I’ve become used to – and fond of - Blizzard’s open-world-design. I know that some old school players sneer at it, thinking it’s more of a theme park for players that lack any kind of imagination of their own, than a sandbox where you can make anything happen.

The same meal
Until now I’ve always thought that the theme park accusations were unfair and that there were more player freedom and options than you’d think of at first sight. You could tweak your WoW experience into something different from everyone else’s. I didn’t have such a strong feeling that we’re all having the same standard hamburger meal as I get in Cataclysm.

It’s an awesome hamburger, the best one they’ve ever made. Shiny. Entertaining, full of surprises. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as curious, excited and involved as I’ve been exploring Uldum for instance. I’ve even started to read the quest texts for some reason, and this fact surely must be a sign of a huge improvement. Quest design taken at a new level!

Perhaps I just have to take the bad with the good. Maybe there isn’t any other way to make the design than by forcefully leading us through certain pipes?

Another thing to remember is that I haven’t yet dipped my toes into Archaeology. From what I’ve heard it might offer a counterweight to the streamline questing, giving the sense of freedom, exploration and individuality that rollercoaster rides somehow lack.

It’s too early to make the call what impact the changes to questing will have on us, too early to say if we’ll enjoy all those cinematics as much next time we bump into them, or if they’re just an annoyance, “been there, done that”.

But I can’t quite get the image of the walkway at The Tower of London out of my head. The thought is a little disturbing.

Perhaps it's there because it tells us something about our real lives. Am I living my life as if I was in a sandbox, a world of freedom and possibilities, where I'm in charge of myself? Or am I just idly standing there on the conveyor belt, waiting for the trip to end when Life is done with me?

The thought crosses my mind and I pick it up and look at it briefly, before I carefully put it back in my backhead again where it came from. Some things are too scary to give a full examination.

Deathwing knows how to dance – my first impressions of Cataclysm

I haven’t been fortunate enough to be fried by Deathwing as he’s been roaming about in the neighbourhood the last couple of weeks. I figure a pink pigtailed gnome is just a too frightening sight even for a big bad dragon. He’s a coward, I tell you.

However I got a very close look at him last night as hundreds of thousands EU players tried to log into the game at the same time.

Dancing with Deathwing
Deathwing and I spent almost an hour inspecting each other, and after a while his appearance switched. He started to look somewhat friendly. Dragon staring has that effect on you.

By the way, in case you’re wondering what kept us hanging for so long, I can reveal the truth.

It had nothing to do with the assumed lack of login capacity. Corporate lies! Excuses! This was a cunning arrangement to make the players listen through the entire login screen music, all the 12 minutes it lasts, rather than the 30 seconds it takes to log in. At least once we should hear it. Russell Brower must be happy now.

After enjoying the piece a couple of times it started to grow a bit old. It was time to switch to something different to make sure that I kept up my happy, festive, time-for-Cataclysm mood. The good old Sweet hit Poppa Joe turned out to be exactly what I needed: a little silly, upbeat and unquestionable optimistic. It worked as intended! Both of us lit up and I could swear that I saw Deathwing dancing. He does those little motions every now and then, perfectly in sync with the music.

Then, all of a sudden, Deathwing decided that he’d had enough of this gnome and the screen switched. For a fragment of a second I hesitated. Anyone with the slightest sense and a regular working schedule the next day shouldn’t be up playing World of Warcraft at this hour. At all. But on the other hand – one night of bad sleep wouldn’t kill me. And I wanted to enjoy a bit of the launch night geeky craziness. It only happens once.

And so I entered Cataclysm, blind as mouse since I never looked closely at the beta information, and enthusiastic as a child on Christmas Day, eager to try out all the new toys at once.

It took me a while to realize that you can fly in Stormwind these days. High, high, up in the air I went, staring in fascination at all sorts of dragons, carpets and other vehicles cruising above the city like a flock if seagulls. It was as if this was the first time I really saw Stormwind, realizing what a stunning beauty it is.

I could easily have remained there, hovering over Stormwind and the surrounding areas for the rest of the night, but eventually the sirens called for me to go to Hyjal to get a taste sample of the cataclysmic questing.

Questgiver camping

My impressions so far? Well, it's too early to say anything definitive about the questing, apart from that it seems promising from what I've seen so far. I expect a pleasant and interesting ride to 85.

The starting area was pretty cramped, for obvious reasons. Since the spawn rate of mobs seemed to be connected to the player density, it was still playable, even though it no doubt would have been more enjoyable with slightly fewer players around. If there ever was a potential for immersion in WoW, it goes down in the drain as the masses enter.

What quickly turned into a bit of an annoyance was the access to the questgivers. Whenever you wanted to pick up or deliver a quest, you’d better prepare for some patient waiting.

What is it with people that they think that they have to literally stand on the quest giver to be able to talk to him? And if they want to have this close-up, how about dismounting? Grr.

Word of advice to anyone planning to go questing in the new areas: bring some stacks of baby spice, even if you’re travelling light. You’ll need it.

As I logged out I was almost halfway to 81, which felt like a decent rate. And our guild had advanced to level 2, giving us an experience boost. Sweet! Next up will be the speed travelling boost and after that the quicker reputation gain. The guild perks are way more than just cosmetic nice-to-have features. I wonder how many solo minded players that will remain guildless as they realize what they’ll miss out.

TLDR version: Cataclysm launch night. I had a close look at Deathwing. Poppa Joe saved us from dispair. Stormwind from the air is beyond anything I had imagined. Bring baby spice in your bags. It rocks to be guilded.

Preparing for Cataclysm? Nope!

It's Friday night and as this post goes live we're 79 hours from the Cataclysm release in Europe. And I swear: I'm not prepared. Not a bit.

Week after week bloggers have urged us to make ourselves ready, offering us lists on things to do, items to get and information to be updated on so that our journey from 80 to 85 will be as quick and smooth as possible.

Notorious procrastinator
It's all very kind and considerate of you, but I'm afraid I've developed immunity against his kind of advice, notorious procrastinator as I am.

I'm no different in real life. In exactly two weeks I'm about to take off for a trip to if not the other side of Earth, at least very far away. I have flight tickets and a hotel reservation, I've got a passport with an entrance permission and I've looked over my vaccinations, but that's about all I've planned for this trip. For instance I have no idea of what I'll pack in my bags and I know I'll probably wait until the last night before I'm off before even starting thinking about it, since planning my packing is utterly boring and something I refuse to think about until I really, really have to.

Considering how limited the time I will have for gaming during the month between the release and the estimated starting date for our raids, I probably should be more on the ball, trying to squeeze out as much xp as I could from my online time.

What to pack
The most ambitious preparation guide I've seen so far was the one at Manaflask, which among other things provided a list of items to pack in your bags for the Cataclysm levelling experience, consisting of:

- 30 Flasks (15 with alchemy)
- 80 x Buff food
- 40 x Scroll of Stamina (Except priests)
- 80 x Scroll of Intellect/Strength/Agility VIII (Inscriber or drop)
- 1 x Drums of forgotten Kings (Leatherworking)
- A hell of a lot of potions (including Swim Speed Potions to save some seconds)
- Food & drinks en masse

And as if this wasn't enough, classes without self healing capabilities are advised to equip themselves with 100+ Heavy Frostweave Bandages.

I suppose those items could come handy. And probably save me a minute here or there.
But I just... can't. I know it's up to me, it's my own choice, but the timing of the Shattering certainly hasn't made it any easier to approach the expansion in a serious and disciplined manner. There's so much new and fun content to do, either you prefer to explore it on your main or fill your barn with newborn alt babies. How could you possibly refrain from this and spend the nights packing your bags? The temptation to go out and have FUN is just too big to me.

Xeppe's ten point list
Xeppe at An Absolutely Ordinary Priest has made a ten-point final countdown list on what-to-do to be prepared. It's a great list and I won't belittle anyone following it, not at all. It was just that it became clear to me how little I have done. Out of 10 possible points of preparation, I failed at 8. Bad, bad Larísa. I suppose Kurn gets really annoyed with me as she reads this.

• I haven't capped even my main for 4 k Justice points. I think Larísa is at 3k, which was rather random and nothing I had planned on. But I would rather listen to Vogon poetry than make yet another overgeared pug run in Hall of Stones just to grab a few more points.
• I have not done the fishing or daily cookies in Stormwind every day. I did one of them, once, and noticed that the quest giver didn't keep his promise to give me one more fishing skill point (since I'm capped at 450 and you currently can't go beyond this). And with so little reward I couldn't see any reason to stress about doing it.
• I have not made sure I have a slot spared for my upcoming Worgen (or Goblin). On the other hand I have a couple of alts I could let go of without much regrets, so it really isn't that much of a problem.
• I have not checked out gold making blogs for last-minutes advice to make extra cash. I don't follow their advice normally either, so why would I? I'm not the richest player on the server, but as long as I've got enough to cover my repair bills and other expenses I can't see gold making as something urgent.
• I have not "watched and read everything I can find on Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides", the first two five-mans according to Xeppe. If it wasn't for her post, I wouldn't know of their existence. That's how far away I've stayed from the Beta information. I assume Blackrock Caverns is situated somewhere where BRD used to be, but I can't be sure. This doesn't mean that I won't come prepared
• I have so not completed 25 dailies ready to hand in. I preferred to level my gnome priest to 14, and I tell you - I had such a blast doing so that I won't shred a single tear on the xp I missed out.
• I have not reviewed every spec on every level 80 toon I have. I switched to something that seemed reasonable on my mage and I'll see if it works while I start questing. If I die more often than the mobs I guess I'll go looking for something else. Big deal?
• I have not made a Cata entry-level raid gear list. Of course I plan to check out the loot and make a basic plan before my first raid, but it's still quite far away and I bet there will be great guides and lists out by then that I can benefit from. Sneaky as I am.

Like Xeppe, I have pre-downloaded Cataclysm. Or at least I that's what I want to believe. I bought the online version and my computer started to take down something, which I assume more likely is Cataclysm than some other Blizzard game.

Xeppe's last preparation for Cataclysm is to breath. In and Out, In and Out, looking for the Zen and flow to endure the queues and the general mess that comes with the expansion release hysteria. That sounds like something I could do.

Cataclysm is waiting. And a beach in India. And I know I'll get there, somehow. Prepared or not - as long as I'm breathing I'll be fine.

In and Out.

Zen.

And Flow.

And when I come back I'll go through the remaining levels and of course I'll come to my first raid prepared, gemmed, enchanted and updated on what to expect from the encounters. Because that's what you do when you're in a team and that's the kind of player I am. Levelling though is a different creature. As I'm doing that I'm not responsible to anyone but myself, damn it.

A Friday night toast
I'm pretty sure we have players of both kinds here at the pub. Some of you are prepared to the very last pixel, ready to head out for a gaming marathon, immersing yourself into Azeroth day and night next week. Others are fellow procrastinators who have decided to take the day as it comes, hoping that we'll be fine, since we expect Blizzard to design the levelling in order to be fairly logical, efficient and fluent even without a ton of planning.

Regardless of which group you belong to, I'm glad you chose to come here to have a couple of drinks and some time for afterthought and relaxation among friends before the craziness breaks out next week.

This toast is for all the good memories we have of Wrath and for the hopes we have for Cataclysm.

Cheers!

Shattered thoughts on the Shattering

Dwism did a brief post, linking to a Calvin & Hobbs cartoon, which also nails my current feelings for WoW.

It's as if I've woken up one morning and now I'm looking out at the world with an unbroken coat of recently fallen snow. (Actually I am in real life as well; winter came early to Sweden this year.) It's a clean start, full of possibilities.

I probably look most of all like an overenergized puppy, running around in circles, back and forward, too happy and excited to settle for a certain activity. I want it all - now, at the same time!

My reaction is actually somewhat expected. As far back as in May 2008, I did some test of gamer personalities and came to the conclusion that I was an ESAK, 73,33 percent Explorer, an average Socializer and Achiever but only 13.33 percent Killer. No wonder I've felt a bit imprisoned after spending one year in Icecrown citadel, alternated with jumping in and out of various portals in Dalaran.

It's such a freaking good feeling to let out the explorer in me!

The sheer joy I feel is only shaded by the fact that it's "this time of the year" when my game time is about as abundant as my wallet will be after Christmas. The timing for this patch and expansion is simply horrible, but I talk to myself with my wisest, most parental voice, saying that the game isn't going anywhere and that there will be plenty of time for me to explore every corner of the new old world.

A changed world
I can't quite settle for what's best about Azeroth post Shattering.

Take all those brand new quests for instance. I've never been that much into questing and I've got some big parts of Northrend only half done. But just bringing up a gnome priest a few levels in the new starting area raised my appetite and I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up making an army of alts for the first time ever, just for the fun of it.

I also love all those details, the changes to the world - small as big. It was a bit of a pain not to be in the beta; especially since everyone else seemed to be there. But I resisted the impulse to watch TB:s videos, regardless of their quality And now it's harvest time for me! I'm having a blast as I'm riding around, picking up new flight paths and just taking in everything I see.

Sometimes the changes are subtle and I'm not entirely sure of what it is. "Hm... something's different about this inn. The fireplace, isn't it? And the music isn't exactly the same?" It's like one of those "find five errors games" where you compare two pictures and are supposed to find what's been changed from one to the other. Other times it's pretty obvious what has changed, like that huge chasm suddenly appearing in Westfall, cyclones roaming about.

But what I think I love most is the general freshness of the world. It's the same feeling as after a summer rain, the ground and the air cleaned from dust. Suddenly the colors are vibrant, the grass is emerald green, the pavement in Stormwind is shining, the trees have come alive and there's a depth and intensity to the world that wasn't there before. I can almost sense the after-rain smell in my nostrils.

LFM ICC
My jaws dropped a little the first night after the shattering as I noticed the announcements in the trade chat. "LFM ICC, link ach for first 4 bosses or no invite".

"Are you serious?" I thought. We've been stuck in that freaking castle for a year and now there's a shiny new world and thousands of quests and this is what you want to do?

But on second thought, why should I blame them and what do I know? They might have been in the Beta for months and just don't care? Or maybe they've returned after a long hiatus and want to catch up on some bosses before it's too late and literally no one will care about ICC?
Or maybe they just don't give a damn about the world at any time, because they're only in the game for the raids, period. They surely have their reasons, and they're just as entitled to their way of playing the game as anyone else - even if it looks a bit mind boggling through the eyes of an enthusiastic explorer like me.

Returning players
In the spirit of the season I suggest that we also show some tolerance and acceptance all those bitter ex-WoW players who reluctantly are returning to the game. I find them slightly amusing as they stress that they're only here temporarily for a month or two at the most and that they no doubt will be bored out of their mind after that, since WoW sucks so badly. They have NOT changed their mind about WoW, but it's just expected that they want to have a look at the revamped world, right?

I'm not sure what it reminds me most of. Is it a "no, I'm not a real smoker; I just do it at parties?" Or is it the teenager who makes very clear that she's too old to see THAT childish TV-series, but yet somehow hangs around to see it "since you're forcing me"? Or is it the guy who buys Playboy, "just because of this article you see, I don't read that kind of crappy magazines"?

Anyway - regardless of their motives - be nice to them! If anything they deserve our pity, forever locked out from the wonderland as they are.

And this will end the Friday night post for this week. For being a shattered world Azeroth looks pretty awesome right now. The first half of the expansion has been released and here's to the hope that the second half of it will be just as good.

Cheers!

Mist's Edge revisited

There was never any doubt about where I would take my farewell of this expansion. Mist's Edge, by the deserted coast of Darkshore, the same place where I spent the last night before Wrath arrived. Not once had I visited this beech since that moment. It's not a place where you go to seek out adventures or company. It's a place for solitude and contemplation.

I always knew where to go for this ceremony, but I wasn't certain on how to schedule it.

For the longest I imagined that I'd go there the night before the launch of Cataclysm, on December 6. This was until the blogosphere exploded with posts where bloggers took a fond farewell of the old world, soon to be washed away by the tides of time, and I realized that my timing was wrong. If I wanted to come back to the same spot where TBC ended to me and Wrath took off, I had better do it at this point, before the Shattering had shaken up the world forever. Who knew if this piece of coast will even exist tomorrow? Maybe it had been replaced by a murloc heaven or a new quest hub?

I for sure didn't have a clue, since I miraculously not only had stayed out of the beta, but also managed to stay fairly oblivious about the incoming changes. I had been told that Thousand Needles would be flooded and I thought that I might have caught a glimpse of some new holiday resort looking place, probably operated by goblins. Considering the cinematic trailer I assumed that Stormwind would change. But I certainly had no idea about the whereabouts of Darkshore.

One thing was clear: If I wanted to take a proper goodbye of Wrath at Mist's Edge, I'd better hurry up.

Steady progression
There is a saying that once is a trend and twice makes a tradition, and since rituals is something to hold onto in times of change, I kept it. First I lit a campfire. Then I used it to cook a Delicious Chocolate Cake with the ingredients I had brought, including some small eggs I just had farmed from the crazy owls in the camp nearby.

Two years! How quickly hadn't they passed? It felt like yesterday I was here, thinking back on my journey which had brought me from Zul Farrak to Black Temple. It had been quite a career, with a lot of bumps and jumps on the way, including server change and guild changes a couple of times.

Wrath had been different and way more stable. Adrenaline had steadily progressed through the tiers, week after week, boss after boss until we got our Lich King 25 man kill this spring. Sure, we had had some raiders joining us in Northrend and others leaving us on the way. But we were basically a well oiled raiding machine. While many guilds on our server succumbed, split up, stopped, departed, disbanded, we kept going on. We were never in the very top of the progression chart, but always right below it. Our raiding team for Cataclysm was already set, and it was pretty much the same team as had participated in the last official 25 man raids in June. A few of us have switched classes, but the people are the same.

The good stuff
But what about the game play? I asked myself if I had enjoyed Wrath. Was it a good expansion? Yes, definitely. There was so much good stuff when I thought about it. The landscape. I really had learned to love that continent at the other side of the sea. Outland had some nice places, especially Zangarmarsh, but in comparison to Northrend it didn't stand a chance. I loved the snow theme, the wilderness, the mountains and the Scandinavian influences. It all held nicely together and it felt appropriate for a fantasy themed game where you fight with swords and spells rather than lasers.

And then there was the questing - far superior to anything we had seen before in WoW. Phasing, vehicles, nicely put together questlines, even cinematics, you name it. Gone were the days of kill-ten-pigs! And they assembled them together so nicely in quest hubs and a logical order, which made levelling guides unnecessary.

Then I thought about the raiding. It hadn't gone free from criticism in the community. According to some it had been way too easy. A faceroll. And what about the hardmodes, did they really offer variety and options for the players, or was it just lazy design, giving Blizzard an excuse not to provide more content?

For my own part I actually thought the raiding in Wrath was pretty good. I can understand if Naxx had been a disappointment for those who had done it in the original, but for me those encounters were new and fun, even if they could have been slightly more challenging. They certainly didn't feel like a step up from Black Temple.

Ulduar on the other hand was brilliant, probably on par with Karazhan in quality, and with the teleport devices which made it a much more enjoyable experience than most of the 25 man instances in TBC. ToC... well what to say of ToC? The bosses weren't that bad, but it showed clearly that for all our complaints and grumbles about trash, it fills a purpose. To only fight boss after boss in the one and same room doesn't make a good raid experience.

Finally ICC. It was a good instance and I think the LK fight beats most other encounters in the game, but one year is way too long time to spend in the same place. We were burned out on it and yet we kept going, since there was no alternative.

If anything should be criticized about Wrath it was the fact that we only did one instance at a time until the next tier was released and we finally could move on. We never had much of a choice, if you don't count the single-bosses such as Malygos and Sartharion. The menu was too short to satisfy our appetite. But I think Blizzard has listened and learned their lesson, and Cataclysm will fix it. Amen.

Goodbye and hello
I took a bite of my chocolate cake and saw the fireworks light up the sky. I smiled to myself in anticipation.

Goodbye old world! Hello new world!

I can’t wait to see what awaits us on the other side of the reset.

Who do you want to be today?

Imagine that you could turn your appearance temporarily into any living creature in WoW - a beast, an NPC or a player. Who would you like to be?

I came to think about it as I threw a glance at MMO-Champion's overview of the changes to the alchemy profession in Cataclysm. Apparently we're going to get not only a beautiful mount (more or less a flight form available for non-druids, as far as I can see it). We'll also get a for-fun brew called "Potion of Illusion".

According to the description this potion can "transform the imbiber to look like someone else". This made my imagination go wild.

What if I did a retro raid in Black Temple? Could I put on an Illidan disguise, take a quick teleport to Stormwind and then roam about in the green pastures of Elwynn for a while, scaring the children and paying a visit to the lady with the cats? (I think he secretly admires her.)

Or what about Millhouse Manastorm? Such a handsome gnome, the world would be merrier if there were more of him in the streets!

But then on the other side, why not aim bigger when I'm given the option? Way bigger. Like Onyxia?

Restrictions
I got pretty much carried away by my imagination until I search a little for some further information. As far as I can see from the forum comments of Beta testers, you can only look like players and player pets that you have targeted. Not mobs or other NPCs. Damn.

Still - even with this restriction you can probably get yourself some entertainment drinking this potion. Totalbiscuit made a rather amusing video, where a player was turned into a dinosaur. It appears as if the spell was bugged at the moment this was recorded; the guy didn't just change shape; he grew into a crazy big size, looking more like Godzilla than anything else. Deathwing wouldn't be any match to him.

I can imagine that there are some situations where a bit of impersonating of other players can give you a laugh. The entire 25 man raid gives their raid leader a surprise as they all decide to impersonate him at a given signal. You confuse your enemies in the battleground, pretending to be a different class. Or why not flirt a bit with someone you like under influence of this potion? (Just don't pull it too far; it might be perceived as stalking.)

It's easy to dismiss this sort of fluff details. What's the point? They won't improve your performance, that's for sure. In worst case you'll cause damage if you confuse your healers by changing appearance and you'll screw up your raid.

For my own part though, I must admit that I've got a weak spot for things such as trinkets and offhands that summon adds or put a disguise on you as you use it. And actually the illusion potion is better than those items, since you don't have to swap out your real gear for it.

The critter bites
Nevertheless, it smells to me a little bit like the case of the critter bites, if you remember those. You don't? To be honest, I'm not all that surprised. I'll remind you. The critter bites is a form of buff food that allows you to temporarily tame a critter, in order to use it as your companion pet. But there's one drawback, a rather big one: the effect will only last a couple of minutes. This made those snacks fairly expensive to make, since one of the ingredients was northern spices, which you only can get from doing the daily cooking quest. Even for someone who likes fluff, it was too exclusive to use on a daily basis.

We don't know yet what cost will be for the ingredients to the illusion potion. Probably we can expect them to be very expensive at start, just like the rest of the mats you need to level your professions. (I remember frostweave cloth selling at 50 g a stack at my server, which effectively prevented me from levelling first aid for a long time. Those were the days and believe me - we'll see it again.)

But once they'll get within my reach, I'll try out some potions of illusion for myself.

Even if they sadly enough won't let me turn into Onyxia.

So my worgen will be a guy after all

My resto druid Arasil is probably going to get through a major surgery in Cataclysm. She has no idea about it now, but I bet it will be a bit of a shock to her as she wakes up from her digital coma once I've put the order to Blizzard.

She’ll go to bed as a pretty night elf woman, with bluish skin and bouncing breasts. And as she looks into the mirror, she’ll find that she hasn’t only switched race. She’ll be turned into a furry beast. A male worgen.

First time male
If I go through with my decision (I might actually bail out and stay night elf in the end), this will my debut. Believe it or not, but over my 3.5 years in WoW, I’ve never ever come around to play a male character.

I’m not sure what’s been holding me back, but somehow I reckon I’m putting a bit of myself into the toons I play. Maybe I’m just not enough of a roleplayer to break the boundaries. For whatever reason there is, I’ve always felt uncomfortable at the thought of rolling a guy with a neck that is thicker than his head.

It was the recent pictures of the female worgen dance that settled it to me. There just isn’t any way that I can make those moves go together with the image I have of what a worgen should be like. I’m not going to analyze why, or argue whether the dance is too much of a sex show or not. The point is that it doesn't click, because it looks like a senseless and unnatural thing for a worgen to do. Too artificial to fit.

No reason for dancing
“Big deal”, someone might say. “If you don’t like the dance, well, then, don’t dance! Dancing is a pointless activity for socials and it doesn’t affect your performance. As a matter of fact it’s more of a distraction than anything else, so there really isn’t any logical reason to ever do it!”

However I’m not a robot. It happens that I feel like dancing in the game, in the same way as I jump when there’s no reason to jump apart from getting a moral boost, or hug someone nearby that looks as if he needs one, or lit a camp fire because it’s cosy or put up a vanity pet because it amuses me. It’s not the main focus of my game play, but it adds a little something to it that I don’t want to be without.

I want to dance sometimes, but the female worgen dance doesn’t make it for me, so as it stands now, I can't see myself playing one. The male worgen dance isn’t splendid either, but at least it I don’t get embarrassed every time I see it.

The thought of playing a male character feels a bit weird, but hey, it might be an interesting experience. It’s really about time I try it.

By the way, did you notice that the female worgen dances in her bikini in the video from the beta, while the male worgen is fully dressed? You may wonder why.

Do female characters come from underwear catalogues? Musings over Blizzcon

I think we can agree on that there wasn't much at Blizzcon 2010 that stuck out. Here's my quick summary out of my memory:

• Arthas has been killed 489 000 times. Is the content accessible for everyone these days? I'd dare say so. And I'm not miffed. The fact that I see Kingslayer titles everywhere doesn't take away the fact that it was a fun fight and that I was insanely happy as we beat it the first time back in the spring.
• Cataclysm will be available for downloading on beforehand for those who buy the digital online version. Count me in! Sweden at midnight in the beginning of December is freaking cold.
• Chances are that I've gotten lost in Sunken Temple for the last time. They're not only finally offering maps for the old instances, but also rebuilding the ones who suck most badly. Yay!
• They're adding information about the abilities of the bosses to the maps, giving us less reasons to tab out and look at out-of-game resources for hints. I've got mixed feelings about this. A little voice inside me reminds me of how fun we had during our blind raids when we refrained from looking at the strategy videos in advance. Once again they're taking away a bit of the mystery and challenge in the game, assuming that players don't want to find out things for themselves. But then the more pragmatic part of me says: so what, don't lie to yourself - everyone checks out the resources anyway. Thy're just making us a good service as they integrate it into the game.
• The new login screen is pretty. Some players apparently don't like the sound of Deathwing, following the debate at MMO-Champion. I bother more about his underbite.
• Mike Morhaime isn't as charismatic as we'd like him to be.
• Another pet that looks like a miniature druid will be on sale soon. There's something compelling about having a miniture version of your own character. WTB mini gnome! With pink pigtails!
• Some poor guy managed to break his own leg as he was participating in the dance competition. That's what I'd call dedication! I hope he got a special prize.
• And talking about dances, they're still working on that dance studio. At least they claim they do. But no promises about when we'll see it. I don't think they'll make that mistake twice. I wonder though how outdated the dances will be once they're launched. They're often based on some popular music video. Will anyone remember the original?

Bringing in the trolls
I might come back those topics and a few other tidbits from Blizzcon in the following weeks, but the fact remains that the overall competition for our attention is underwhelming. This means that even the slightest slip of the tongue from someone could render a mentioning in a Blizzcon commentary blog post. There's so little else to talk about. Bare this in mind as I'm approaching the next part of this post of this post. I'm going to ponder a bit over a very small thing, and I know already as I'm writing this that it might annoy a couple of readers.

This is as good as to ask for trolls. Any post that touches the slightest on the gender topic will lure them out from their caves. Actually I could as well give the word to them right away, they'll speak up eventually anyway. I think I'll go for a lovely piece of work that turned up on another recent post:

"You rage because you don't like how pixels of a female model look in a computer game?? You're either intolerant/discriminatory or it's just subconscious envy, which is even worse. You make smart women, naturally born with big boobs, feel bad. Then, I guess you're one of those persons who wear tight turtle-necks in RL don't take this literally). May I suggest that you go outside, walk in the park or talk to real people more? Blogs written out of rage are always failures. Always."

It's good, isn't it? No, don't thank me. All credits to "Derrek" for this one!

Q&A
So now, that we've established that I've probably got a turtle neck and carry a subconscious envy of big breasted girls and need a walk, I'd like to talk about a statement from Blizzard that rubbed me a little the wrong way. I'm thinking about how they chose to answer one of the questions that came up in the open Q&A panel:

Question:
"I love what you guys have done with WoW, I love that there's a lot of strong female chars, though I wonder if we can have some that didnt look like they came out of a Victoria's Secrets catalogue? "

Answer:
"Which catalogue would you like them step out of then? We feel ya, we want to vary our female chars more in the future. So yeah we'll pick different catalogues. "

So. What kind of an answer is this? I'm not sure what they're trying to do here. I suppose it's intended to be somehow funny, but I don't think it is. Actually I don't think it would have been that hard to give a proper answer. There's no reason for Blizzard to fall flat on the floor, unconditionally apologizing for the stereotyped female bodies. Even if we bash them sometimes for their shortcomings in this area, they're actually far better in this aspect than many other games I've seen.

What they could have said
Rather than answering in a snotty, dismissing manner, they could have discussed the question properly. Let's say I would have been a Blizzard employee, sitting in that panel, how would I have replied?

I think I first would have talked enthusiastically about how important the strong presence of women is in the game, maybe mentioning that a large part of the player base is female, and what a great change this is to how it used to be back in time. I would have said something about how Blizzard takes those questions seriously and how they listen carefully to the input they get from players - women as well as men. Then I would probably have questioned the claim that all female characters look as if they came from an underwear catalogue. Some do it, no doubt, but far from all. I would have highlighted the huge variety there is, and said that there are many options that are pretty far from the traditional photo model.

You can make your female warrior into a mighty tauren, you can create a badass dwarf chick who looks like most women do, with broader hips than they have in any catalogue, or you can make an wrinkled gnome lady with a face that is grim rather than cute. Unfortunately very few players do. For some reason the "pretty" female models are way more popular. Regardless of this, I would have said, Blizzard will keep creating a variety of looks, keeping them available. But in the end it's up to the player to choose.

But they didn't say any of this. Instead they said that they'll add some more catalogues apart from Victoria's Secret. I don't think it was even remotely funny. It's possible that it was honest, but most of all it was lazy. I would have expected Blizzard employees to be a little bit more polished and PR minded. They're big business now, not a basement company and they should have the resources to get some proper training.

It's not as if I'm raging. I'm not overly upset and it's not the end of the world; it's just a minor detail that popped up in the Blizzcon flood of pseudo news. But after all those years in the spotlight, Blizzard should know how to answer a standard question such as this one in a proper manner.

Cataclysm cinematic: I’m not as floored as I’d like to be

Blizzard took me a little by surprise, releasing the Cataclysm cinematic one week before Blizzcon. Considering how thin the program looks on the WoW side, you would have expected them to keep whatever suspension they could find. But since they’ve decided to run a TV commercial this week during a football game I suppose they came to the conclusion that they could release the entire cinematic as well.

Excitement
So what do I think about it? Well, to begin with I think it’s not entirely easy to make a fair and “objective” evaluation of this little piece of art. Most commenters at WoW-Insider and MMO Champion are super excited, and I can’t help wondering if this excitement isn’t as much about the movie as such, as it is about the fact that the expansion finally is approaching. After spending over a year in the chains of ICC we’re about to break free from the frozen throne and see something else. The very thought of it is cataclysmic.

We WANT this expansion to be everything we dream of so badly, that I think it might affect our judgment a little bit. And you know… there’s no spice in the world that can be compared to hunger. Even something as plain and unsophisticated as a hot dog will taste like heaven when you’re walking home from the movies at 11 pm in the evening.

I’m no different to anyone else in this aspect. A part of me just wants to join the choir of enthusiasm, singing the praise of the new badass dragon and the world that is falling apart. I can’t wait to see the new Stormwind, I can’t wait to see what terror Deathwing will bring over the world. This is a fantastic teaser and I want more!

Not floored
But if I try to beyond this and look at the cinematic as a piece of movie, I’m not quite as floored as I’d like to be. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think it’s bad, on the contrary. Blizzard has the muscles to maintain a standard that few other game producers – if any – can dream of. On a scale from 1 to 6, with 6 as the top grade, I’d give it a 5. So keep this in mind now that I’m about to talk about what I think they could have done better.

I appreciate the glimpses from zones that are redone, the bursting dams, the water flowing, the fall of the goblin statue. I especially like the end where the fire dragon comes cruising in over Stormwind, spreading death and destruction.

However, I don’t feel it in my stomach. I feel distanced as my mind calmly notices that this will be yet another advertising campaign with a male whiskey-dark deep-in-the-throat voice, like in 99 percent of the other commercials. I know people like to hear those voices. It sells for some reason. But doesn’t it get just a little bit old?

As I see the fire dragon flying up and down from the sky, I find my mind wandering away to the Lord of the Rings balrog at the bridge scene in Moria. I suppose there are only so many ways you can illustrate the concept of an evil fire creature? His gap was scarier though and more convincing. For some reason they’ve given Deathwing a severe form of underbite, which makes it a little bit hard to take him seriously. Maybe he should se a dentist?

Lack of people
I think the main problem with the cinematic, the reason why it fails to shake me up properly, is the lack of characters in it, apart from Deathwing. There are falling towers and exploding ships and statues blown into pieces. But where are the inhabitants of Azeroth? Even if the heroes were gone to Northrend, there sure must be some civilians around who will suffer from this terror?

They did a fantastic job creating and showing those landscapes, no doubt about that. But the question is: why would you care about them if they’re apparently empty? For all we know the dragon could roam about in a nature reserve for endangered species after everyone had evacuated the space.

Where are the victims? Where are the people who return to pick up the fight? What’s my role in this?

I want to be touched, and I’m not. I want to be scared, angry, upset, challenged, urged to bring out my dagger and my wand and join the good forces, trying to save this world once again, because there are people and creatures there who I care about.

It takes more than badass effects to make a good movie. You need to tell a story as well. And in order to do that you need some people, not just buildings and rocks.

So 5 out of 6 will be my grade for this movie.

Once again: Blizzard is great at doing this kind of things and I really appreciate the effort they’ve put into the cinematic. However, there’s always room for improvement, reasons to stretch ourselves and look for ways to become better. They’ve still got some things to work on in their storytelling, and I’m sure they will in their next cinematic and in the coming motion picture. Otherwise they wouldn’t be Blizzard.

Yet another angry post from a disappointed ex-tree

I have a confession to make. A confession that probably will insult some of you. But the truth is that I hate night elfs.

I never realized it until today, when Blizzard snatched my treeform disguise, leaving me all but naked, staring in disbelief at my bouncing boobs from the outer space.

Suddenly it dawned upon me that this is how my resto druid will look from now on. Gone is the soulful, androgynous tree with the air of old wisdom and mystery. Instead I’m looking at a freaking bimbo with pointy ears and purple hair. Yak. A night elf. That’s what I am, that’s what I’ve been beneath the surface all this time wehen I thought I was a tree.

I hate my night elf form so much that I have to rail and shout about it in this unplanned for blog post, written on the fly in a state of rage. My excuse for defying my non-posting policy is that if I didn’t post, I’d probably smash something coming in my way.

The farewell procession
Just like Shintar, I participated in our realm farewell celebrations to the tree form last night. We did a beautiful slow procession through Dalaran at walk speed, lining up around Krasus landing and filling the air with a sparkling tranquillity rain. We danced and we cried. I believe most of us were tauren, but that didn’t matter. In the tree form we’re all brothers and sisters.

Today I woke up to see the next strike against us: the new tree forms displayed at MMO-Champion – so ugly that I don’t know what to say. They look very aggressive and extremely masculine. I can vividly imagine them in some kind of treeslapping melee fight. One commenter compared them to Quasimodo, adding “I’m a druid, not a hunchback football player”. And I can’t but agree.

Tree of life will be on a cooldown from now on. Well, they wouldn’t have needed tu put that restriction on us. The new form is so depressing that you’ll only shape into it reluctantly, in a case of emergency. Maybe that's why they're doing it. So we won't miss our tree form so badly.

Zelmaru at Murloc Parliament is taking the consequences, going cat on her druid rather than tree, since she can’t stand the changes.

For my own part I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly feels as a setback and it will probably take me some time to get used to the changes.

Better in battlegrounds
The battlegrounds is a different case though. I’ve spent some time in those lately (shocking, isn’t it!), and noticed that the treeform isn’t optimal in that setting. You could as well run around yelling to everyone: “Look here! I am a healer! So you’d better take out me before anyone else! I’m even a bit bigger so you can target me more easily! Just come over and kill me!”

As a night elf I think it will be easier to find a good hidden spot to heal from without being noticed. Despite your purple hair and bouncing boobs. (By the way if you’re wondering where Blizzard found those breasts, a guildie provided me with a link to their source of inspiration. Can you blame me for thinking night elfs look stupid after seeing that?)

So for PvP purposes I can even I even welcome the changes to druids. But for anything else I mourn the day when they took away our treeform and replaced it with a temporary Quasimodo buff.

End of angry rant. Back to blogging slow mode. I promise.

Blizzard’s message to guilds: Get Bigger!

A few months ago there was a huge hullabaloo about the changes to the loot tables of 10 man raiding vs 25 man raiding.

In Cataclysm the drops are going to be the same, something that infuriated many 25 man raiders, who argued that it takes more effort to organize it, and that this should be rewarded.

At that point Blizzard made it very clear that they didn’t want better gear to be an incentive for players to go for bigger raid formats. They wanted us to go for whatever raid size we enjoy rather than what would pay off better. That’s why they made it even, with only a slightly higher drop rate in 25 man raids, in order not to kill off the bigger raids completely.

Now Blizzard is going in an entirely different direction, as they’re presenting the how the guild levelling will work and what guild achievements and perks we’ll see in Cataclysm.

If you’re a small, tight 10 man raiding guild, you can forget about a lot of the guild achievements, and your levelling speed is likely to be way slower. Blizzard will reward guilds that grow Big. Not just a little big, but Crazy Big. The bigger guild you have, the quicker will you reach the level cap and get access to all the goodies.

And I must say that I’m a little bit taken by surprise. What happened to the “we want you to not be punished for just wanting to play in a smaller group of friends” philosophy? Where did this sudden love for mega-big guilds come from?

Changed philosophy
When the guild levelling system first was introduced, they said that only the XP provided by the top contributors every day would be counted. This would mean that a small guild with very active players would stand a fair chance to level almost as quickly as a guild with several hundreds accounts. Well, probably not entirely since a big guild could organize multiple raids, getting more boss kills and more XP that way. But at least it would smoothen out the advancement pace a little. So not anymore.

In a recent blue post, Mumper stated:

“There is no concept of "Top 20 contributors" anymore. We changed that functionality many months ago.”

Totalbiscuit ranted a bit about this in his last show, and I’m just as surprised as he is. Just when did they change this? And why haven’t they said anything about it until now?

The impression that they’re looking for big numbers is reinforced when you look at the recently announced guild achievements. Many, many of them are about quantity rather than quality. And I’m talking about insane quantities.

Take for instance the achievement “That’s a lot of bite”, which requires you to catch 10 000 fish. Quite a different task to a 15 man guild than it is to a 500 man guild, right?

Some of those achievements don’t seem to give much of reward, except for adding to the guild XP (which in itself actually is a pretty big award. Some of the perks you get at max level are really good.)

But there are achievements that give stuff that probably is pretty handy. We don’t know for sure yet what the recipe “Big Cauldron of Battle” does, but I could imagine it’s some flask equivalence to fish fiests that will bring down the consumable costs for your guild. To get it you need to make 25 000 flasks. What small or average sized guild can do that easily?

Alea Iacta Est
Blizzard has always had a good eye at the legendary guild Alea Iacta Est – so good that they even made an anniversary interview with them. I wonder if it’s guilds like them they’ve had in mind designing this?

Now don’t read me wrong; I like them too and I’m a frequent listener to AIE's podcast The Instance. Randy and Scott are nice to listen to and provides a lot of positive energy to not only their own guild but the entire community. But even if I’m fascinated by their epic size, spotting thousands of accounts, I can’t say that I long to belong to such a big guild myself. I like to be in a guild where I recognize every toon and there aren’t more of us than that I can remember which alt belongs to who.

Adrenaline is definitely not the most social guild you’ve ever seen – we’re fairly focused on our raiding endeavours and outside of it, we’re not an extremely talkative bunch of people. But as I log in I feel that I’m the member of a team and not just an unknown name in a 3 000 headed crowd. Our guild chat is small and intimate. We don’t run our own podcast. But we have other qualities.

Looking at the latest news about the guild achievements and the guild levelling, I’m however asking myself if Blizzard really sees the qualities of the small guilds, or if they’d rather want to see more AIE type of guilds on every server.

Randy and Scott brought up this issue themselves in their last show, admitting that many of the achievements will be a piece of cake to their mega-guild, something they get without even paying attention to it. Within weeks of the launch of Cataclysm they’ll have their guild chat spammed with it thanks to their very size.

Take the Critter Kill Squad, where you’re supposed to kill 50 0000 critters. Any small guild that hasn’t lost their mind will stay away from that achievement. Even the cutest Armadillo pup can’t motivate you to go through the hassle. But for AIE? It’s nothing.

Actually the hosts of The Instance didn’t sound too enthusiastic about their incoming achievements, and I don’t blame them. The enjoyment you get from making an achievement usually corresponds very well to the effort you have to make into getting it. It must feel like a rather hollow, non-deserved victory to get all those treats.

What’s the idea?
For my own part I keep asking: Why? What is Blizzard trying to achieve?

Because surely they have an idea in mind? They don’t give away carrots randomly; they normally have a purpose, trying to make players to play the game in a certain way.

They handed out badges to make us play more five-mans than ever before, and extra badges to make us do it with random strangers. They’ve made us revisit old raid content through the weekly raid quests in a futile effort to revive raid instances we’d left behind.

If they now mainly reward quantity-related guild achievements, they apparently want to give incentives for guilds to grow bigger. If they wanted small, tight communities they could have made up achievements that rewarded the smaller scale. I’m not sure how you’d make up such an achievement, maybe it would be something like: “X percent of the guild members must have killed raid boss NN”.

But as it is now it’s all about the Big Numbers.

The question is: will it work? Will guilds be so desperate to get access to those perks and achievements that they’ll try to merge into server-wide superguilds that gain achievements as by default?

For the good of the game I hope not. In a time when we tend to spend more and more of our online time in quiet solitude, playing with stranger you’ve met in LFD and never likely will meet again, I think the game needs the smaller guilds, where you’re not just a number in the big cooperation, but rather a member of a tight team.

I hope that the playerbase will ignore the message from Blizzard and stick up for the smaller format. Regardless of the incentives to go Big.

Diggin’ the digging?

Are you planning to become an Archaeologist in Cataclysm? Apparently it’s not a “must-have” profession for min-maxers, but rather a little “something to do if you enjoy it”. Will you spend time on it anyway?

Not a Loremaster
I think I might, even if I at a first glance assumed that Archaeology wasn’t meant for me.

After all, the entire purpose of this profession is to dig up the past in order to enjoy pieces of lore and history, getting to know the story better. And that’s something I’ve never ever managed to become enthusiastic about before.

My lack of achievements in this area speaks loud and clear. While I’m a dedicated reader in real life, I haven’t read a single book of the ones that are on the list for “Well read”.

I’m not a Loremaster and I’ll never become one. Not just in the achievement sense - I’m thousands of quests away from title and I just can’t be bothered to care about completing all those versions of kill-ten-rats. But also in the sense that I find it hard to become engaged into the lore. God knows I’ve tried, even reading some really crappy WoW novels. But it just didn’t stuck with me. I suppose that I’m a bit like Ixobelle in this manner, that WoW is more like crack than like a book to me.

But after reading Ghostcrawler’s recently published beginner's guide of this profession, I must admit that I feel a little bit attracted to it.

A reason to explore
One reason to like archaeology is that it provides us with an incentive to get out from the city hubs and instance portals, to see the world and smell the flowers. The fact that there isn’t any competition for the spawned artefacts appeared a little strange when I first heard of it. If there isn’t any risk involved at all, won’t it become a tad boring? But thinking closer about it I imagine that it actually can feel like a blessing if you’re in a mood when all you want to is to relax.. A little bit like when you’re taking your fishing rod and heading for some distant water in Grizzly hills, just listening to the music and small talking with the bears. Sometimes you don’t want to push things, but rather slack a little bit and yet feel that you “do” something. And that’s what I think archaeology is for.

I’m not in the Beta myself, so my views on this are of course pure speculation and built on second-hand testimonies. From what I’ve seen, those who have tried it have mixed opinions about it – as always.

Player views
Here are two examples of player views in the forums. First from Branwynn, who is disappointed and doesn’t like it at all:

“3 items then the dig site despawns is just so annoying that I can't express howannoying it is. It seems like you spend a few minutes in one place, then it's off on a flight path to another place on the map where you spend less time doing the "fun" minigame than you took getting there.

It feels like annoying cross between Fishing and Mining. At least with fishing I can do it anywhere there is water (assuming I am skilled enough), with Archeology I get to wander around a site for a few moments then I have to fly far away.

So, It doesn't fill time while I am waiting for people (fishing) because I can't stay in one spot and do it. Also, I can't do it while questing as the dig sites are only in a few spots and unlikely to be in a spot where I am questing.

I really wish it was more like mining or the other gathering professions where there are items scattered around the map and I can use tracking to find the spawn. Then at least I can do it while questing and not have to do special archaeology grind runs.”

And now the point of view from Synandria, who enjoyed it so much that he or she couldn’t stop digging:

“Is it at all sad that I found Archaeology so interesting that I actually did not want to raid today on live?

I really enjoy this. I really do. I don't even care that everything I've made up to this point has been gray, something about it is just really interesting. I'm working on a Fossilized Hatchling and I'm stupidly excited for it.

It's a secondary profession, but it isn't like cooking or fishing or first aid - no, archaeology is actually fun and a great way to waste time, in my opinion.

[…] It's so simple, and so far has not rewarded me with anything of any value whatsoever, and yet, here I am at 3:30 in the morning, digging in Un'goro Crater so I can put together a vanity pet. I don't know why I find this as entertaining as I do. I just know that I really like it.

I am totally okay with criss-crossing the world and back digging up these artifacts since, hey, flying around, checking out the new world is a lot more productive than sitting in Org. I like that they're not spawned like mining or herbalism nodes, so nobody else can 'steal' your artifacts. I enjoy not having to compete with other people in the same area.. that was always one of the most frustrating parts of mining.

People who don't enjoy exploring probably won't enjoy this profession, but as it's a secondary profession that doesn't really offer any gamebreaking rewards, nobody's forcing them to do it. People who don't mind it, and people who are interested in lore and such, might enjoy it. I know I do. “

Items with a story
Well, optimist as I am (most of the time), I choose to go with the enthusiast. I’m definitely going to take up this profession and try it out for myself. The loot table presented at MMO champion with a few examples of what kind of treasures we can expect, made me drool a little bit. Even if I have trouble to care about the WoW lore as wholeness, I’ve always been suck a sucker for items that come with a story.

Just look at that mummified monkey paw, reminding me of some of the horror short stories I used to read, such as The Flayed Hand by Guy de Maupassant. It’s awesome!
Working on long-term projects to get this kind of items will definitely add a little bit of flavour to the game, and might even have a positive effect on my overall interest for the storyline, who knows?

They certainly seem to have great plans for this profession, designing it to be “easily expandable with much more content in the future patches. This sounds promising. Already as it is, archaeology appears to be way more complex and interesting than the other gathering professions. And it will only get better.

So my answer for now is: Yes! I think I’m going to dig the digging.

And now all that remains is to end this post with a traditional Friday night toast.

Cheers all! May you have a great weekend, either you spend it inside or outside Azeroth!