How much gold do I need for Cataclysm?

OK, this is yet another blog post with a title ending in a question mark (I'm so sorry Krizzlybear!) but I have a valid excuse for this: I don't know and I would really appreciate a bit of advice on this from someone who is a better fortune-teller than I am.

How much do you think we can expect the training costs to raise? How much should I set apart to be sure that I'm covered for the first expensive enchants and gems that I will need to be raid ready for the first instance?

I suppose it will go up, but I'm not sure myself about how steep the increasing curve was between vanilla wow, Outlands and Northrend and where we can expect it to end up if we pull the line further in the same direction in Cataclysm.

So if there's any goblin who is generous enough to give out advice for free, I'd love to hear your opinion.

Not playing the gold game
The gold game has never been a favorite of mine; it's something I just do if I have to, to cover my expenses. A pure support function and not a part of the theme park and enjoyment. I know there are others who love it and there's nothing about that. To each one his own. But personally I don't play WoW to hang around in AH or by a mail box.

Thankfully enough, making gold isn't hard these days. Mostly by selling off the saronites I get from frost emblems, I've managed to pile up about 30 000 gold. Of course the prices on sarnonite are falling for every week that passes, and as we start hardmodes the flood of frost emblems will decrease.

The question is if the little fortune I've made until this day will be enough to let me focus on leveling and exploring during the first months of Cataclysm primarily on my main and possibly also on a tempting alt of one of the new races - as opposed to spending time at AH doing business. I certainly hope so, but I'm not entirely sure, hence my question. Should I try to invest it wisely and try to bring it up a bit further to be on the safe side?

Experiences > gold
Funny enough Bigjimm at one of the how-to-make-gold profiled blogs, Phase 3: profit, wrote a post touching on this question yesterday. And he advocated exactly the opposite. According to him right here and now is when you should spend your gold, since inflation will eat it up if you hold to it anyway. And you should spend it wisely: on experiences, a philosophy he shares with Mike Schramm (although it was slightly taken out of context since Mike actually has been talking about his willingness to pay real money for experiences as opposed to sparkling horse pixels.)

I'm the first one to agree on those ideals in real life. My children have grown up in a rather simple home compared to their neighbors and friends. Not a lot of status things around in this rented flat. On the other hand they've been on memories-for-life vacations to Africa and America, and probably will go for another one to India later this year. In my world experiences > items and gold. Always.

And that's how I look on it in game as well. The only purpose of collecting gold is to spend them on doing things that are fun. However - I don't have any need to buy myself a spot in an LK run, since I'm already in a guild that does those sorts of things. (Yeah, I'm lucky).

Maybe I have a better reason than Bigjimm to be careful about my gold though. After all, as a goblin blogger, he has the knowledge, the tools and the interest to catch up again and making another fortune if he finds himself running low. To me it would be a little bit more of a hassle, even though I certainly could do it; there's plenty of good how-to-make-gold advice floating around in the blogosphere

Stocking up on mats
Some players won't stock up on either gold or experiences. They'll speculate on different sorts of materials to keep in stock and sell expensively as people are eager to level their professions in Cataclysm. That's really not my piece of cake. I would be happier if I could be disciplined enough to have a sell-out form my bank before the expansion, leaving me with plenty of bag space, which always is handy as you're leveling.

But back to my question: how much gold should I strive for to have as Cataclysm hits to be comfortable? How much are you planning to put aside? Please share your view with me!

Why People Leak and Other Musings Over the Alpha Mess-up

This post is inspired by Tim Howgego's post of yesterday about the Alpha leakage and how Blizzard has handled it.

If you haven't read it I suggest that you take your time and do it. It's really long, as all of his articles are, but it's worth it. This is an in-depth analysis with a lot of good points and interesting angles about Blizzard's relationship to the fansite, their acting in NDA matters and the consequences of it, and it's by tar the best I've seen on this topic in the blogosphere until now.

Adam Holisky at WoW.com did another effort a couple of days ago to make something on these lines, but for all the good intentions, he missed the point a bit, suggesting that concerned Blizzard staff leaked inaccurate information because they were misinformed. Sorry but you lost me there. (There is some good stuff in this post too though, so by all means, read it as a complement to Tim's post).

Tim on the other hand seems to be well informed and likely to have some good inside sources at Blizzard, or at least a solid knowledge about their way of thinking. He apparently is a bit concerned that he in writing this post is speaking too freely for his own wellbeing. With his position on "the edge", not being an official fansite, but at the same time with a lot of visitors and a great deal of respect within the community, Tim is "stupid enough" to write about how things are, as he puts it. I guess it might cost him the +1 font size link from WoW's official site to El's Extreme Anglin' at the worst, but I'm glad he's taking the risk.

Friend and family, heh?
So with this lengthy introduction I'm finally getting to my own thoughts. And they are currently mostly preoccupied with those so called friends and family. I keep asking myself: who are those people? How do the Blizzard staff know them? Are they spouses, brothers, neighbors or someone they met in a bar?

Because: what kind of friend are you if

1. someone puts their trust into you, sharing their innermost secrets,
2. you assure them that you won't tell a soul about it and
3. within a couple of hours you nevertheless share the secret with someone who shouldn't know it, well aware of that it immediately will spread all over the Internet?
   

I certainly wouldn't expect it from the persons I call friends and family. And yet it happened. Blizzard really need to be a bit pickier in their acquaintances.

I suspect that it's yet another evidence of my coming to age that I react against it. After all we're living in an era when nothing, absolutely nothing is too private to expose, either it's your sex life, your lack of appreciation for your boss or pictures from your latest booze party escapades. The boundaries were dissolved years ago ago, apart from in the minds of fossils like me, and a non-disclosure agreement is a futility that no one expects anyone to take seriously. Apparently.

Reasons for leaking
Yet it bugs me a bit. And you may wonder: what's in it for them? Why do people leak this information that they agreed not to leak in the first place?

There are two possible explanations. The nice one is that they're suffering from innocence or even stupidity.

In my job as a media manager I tell people over and over again that in reality there isn't such a thing as "off record" and that you can count on that anything you tell a media person can become official. Any interview starts at the first moment you talk to a journalist and doesn't end until you're saying goodbye. Don't get lured into believing anything else.

But can those friends and family be THAT stupid, that they accidently share something they shouldn't share in a moment of "oops!"? I don't think so. I think it's rather about persons who have very small egos and lead rotten, insignificant lives want to feel - or pretend - that they're somewhat important. They probably don't get any money from leaking. But they get a kick, and that can be just as good as an incentive.

I've seen a few commenters suggesting that Blizzard themselves are behind the massive leakage, as a part of their marketing plan. Sure, in some situations you might want to give out a piece of news exclusively to a selected media in order to get as much attention as possible, or even pretend that you have accidently leaked out a secret, when you in fact did it on purpose.

But to be honest, I doubt this is the case here. It doesn't seem well timed enough and even if there's a lot of buzz going on now, I think they could have gotten a better impact if they had been able to retain control over what and when to release, portioning it out bit by bit to get maximal exposure to it.

Blizzard's doubtful damage control
However, the damage is done and there really isn't much Blizzard could do to put back the rabbit into the hat. So now they're apparently in a phase of some sort of damage control. To be honest it looks a little bit silly and futile, or even harmful, as pointed out by Tim Howgego.

For some reason Blizzard hasn't yet taken action against MMO Champion, in spite of their official declaration that the NDA still is valid.

On May 4, Boubouille writes:

"The Alpha is protected by a Non-disclosure agreement, which basically means that anything I could post could get me sued. I'm not saying it will happen, Blizzard has been fairly forgiving with everything posted on the site in this past but I think you will understand that I cannot just post everything I find without checking a few things first."

He confirms that the picture of the dragon published elsewhere is real, but doesn't want to publish it himself. About 24 hours later the floodgates open and there are screens and leaked information all over the place. I don't know if we'll ever know exactly what happened there, but Tim Howgego suggests that Blizzard is letting it pass because the owner of MMO Champion can help to promote WoW as an e-sport. A conspiracy theory! Yummie! Actually it sounds quite credible to me.

Why it might be harmful
While letting MMO Champion get away with it, Blizzard has made sure to take action to prevent any premature publishing at the official fansites. They have received letters threatening them that they'll lose their status if they publish or even link to the leaked content.

So far they keep their mouths shut, but under protest, such as in this editorial from World of Raids. The editors also point out that the benefits of being an official fansite in reality are very small. You don't get any VIP pass, you don't get any alpha invites, in the past they've at the best had two or three beta keys. The perks are "minimal at best, if any". No wonder they're pissed!

And the effect of this might be quite harmful as Tim Howgego points out. While MMO Champion has an editor with a certain ethic standard and probably wouldn't promote gold selling, hacking, account trading and such, there are way more shady unofficial fansites who do those things and now get an opportunity to get more visitors, with leaked unofficial information as a lure.

If official fansites don't publish anything but the blue approved Cataclysm material, the audience will find their way to the sites that have that information, according to Tim Howgego, and he has a point. The mainstream players may end up as clueless tourists at darkside sites with low moral standards which they wouldn't have visited in the first place if it wasn't for the NDA politics of Blizzard. And that's bad.

Punish the good guys and let the bad guys get away with it. Does that really make sense?

And who's the bad guy in the first place? In my world the "friends and families" deserve some spanking. Not just the sites that might want to spread the news.

Not a spoiler free zone
Finally, maybe you'd like to know what you can expect from the Pink Pigtail Inn when it comes to Alpha information.

Well, I can't say that PPI is a declared Cataclysm spoiler free zone, such as Too Many Annas. I write about any stuff that is on my mind, and I might talk a little bit about suggested changes that are up for discussion, as when I rant about the changes to 10/25 man raiding or the perils of underwater zones. Mind you though - both of those topics were based on official information, not on leaks. But if you're very strict and don't want to hear a single word about Cataclysm before you have it installed on your computer, you'd better stay away from my inn to be safe.

On the other hand I too like the sense of discovery and mystery, unfolding a new expansion, and I don't want to destroy my own enjoyment of Cataclysm by looking into all details in advance. So I definitely won't opt in for a beta key. Apart from this I'm still preoccupied playing and writing about Wrath, and I basically don't write any informative posts on anything ever, so if you want solid spoilers and previews, this isn't the place for you.

Wrap-up
This was all I had to say for the time being, but I'm likely to come back to similar topics. Blizzard's way of dealing with PR challenges never ceases to catch my interest.

I May Look Small But I Have a Big Title

So it happened. It never ceases to amaze me - the pendulum movement in WoW. One raid is so bad that you wish it never took place. And the next one is so good that you want to linger in it and remember it forever.

Thursday night I switched my Merrymaker title for the Kingslayer one, referring to the 25 man version of ICC.

And considering the struggles we've had with this encounter for the last few weeks it felt so gooood. It's not easy to capture it in words, but if I tell you that I even got tears in my eyes as I suddenly was tossed into the win-cinematics, I think you can figure.

After 100+ wipes up there on the frozen platform, this kill felt very much well deserved. Suddenly we just pulled it together; the things that were so impossible last raid suddenly were if not easy, at least very much doable. And of course it helped quite a bit that we didn't have a couple of disconnects every pull. Actually it only took us 1,5 hours to get it done.

So now what? I've killed LK and in one way I've stretched out my hand and hit the wall in the back of the wardrobe, reaching the very end of this expansion. I'm really looking forward to start working on the hardmodes after next reset, but even if it will be fun and challenging, it won't be quite the same. This said I think we'll do just fine in there. With LK behind us we'll probably be a little bit more relaxed than we've been the last week. In a good sense.

However, before we can do that we'll have to find ways to keep ourselves occupied for two more raids until the reset next week. We celebrated our LK kill by going back to ToC to do some hardmodes we never came around to do before ICC was released, and we got another first kill for the guild, the champions. Admittedly we're well overgeared for it, but it was still a perfect way to end this magic night. "The best raiding night I've had in two years", as one of my guildies said to me afterwards.

As you can see if you read this post at the inn and not through a reader, I've done something unusual, throwing up a picture to accompany it. Old readers know that in-game photography never was my strongest side, and I apology for the crap quality. But as they say: screenshot or it didn't happen.

With those words I end this post, thanking all of you bar guests for your never-ending support and for all your encouraging comments as you have been following the struggles of Adrenaline.

This round is on the house, naturally!

Cheers!

Further Speculations on the Release Date of Cataclysm

The temperature in the WoW community is rising again, as we get further glimpses (or rather are flooded with pictures) from the world that is awaiting us.

Cataclysm is in alpha since a couple of days and the data miners are working night and day to keep anyone interested updated. To everyone else: close your eyes! Apparently the NDA flew out of the window, and maybe it’s a wise call from Blizzard. They need to get some buzz going, because frankly it’s felt rather dead for a while now.

This gives us a reason to speculate a bit further on when we should expect to line up for a nightly event to finally get our hands on the new release.

I don’t know why we’re so obsessed with this topic that we bring it up over and over again, but after all I think the release date affects our gameplay quite a bit. Once we know when it will happen we’ll start to plan the rest of our time in Wrath. How long should we keep raiding, when should I start to sell out the stuff I have in the bank, should I hurry up levelling an alt I want to have ready? Everything depends on the release date.

The February prediction
We did a bit of speculation once before here at the inn, in what turned out to become the most commented on post we’ve ever had: “Cataclysm release date February 1st”. It was published in October 2009, and people still love to go there to write a triumphant “fail!” in the comment section.

Mind you, it wasn’t I, Larísa, who made this prediction, but my former bartender and co-host of the blog, and frankly I never quite agreed with his prophecy even as it was published. I believe it reflected his wishful thinking, since he was a non-raider and was growing pretty bored with the game, running out if content as early as last autumn. He couldn’t bare the thought of having yet another six months without any good new content for non-raiders.

Still I suppose I can’t entirely take away my hands from it. After all I was the senior editor and approved of the publishing, so I’m somewhat responsible for it going live. But on the other hand:- as all blog readers should be aware of - bloggers aren’t always right and we don’t claim to be either. We make guesses and speculate just like anyone else. And if I could predict the future perfectly well, I’d rather take a job as a stock broker than blog about WoW.

Anyway: for all of you who like to think about and discuss what release date we could expect, I’m putting up this rather lengthy post, so you can argue in a fresh spot rather than in the failed prediction from six months back in time. So feel free to move over to this thread if you like to keep talking!

As a food for thought I’ll give you a few observations:

1. From announcement to launch
The elapsed time from the announcement of TBC (October 2005) to the release of the game (January 2007) and between the announcement of WotLK (August 2007) and the release (November 2008) was exactly 15 months, in both cases.

Cataclysm was announced in August 2009. Following the pattern, the release will be in November 2010.

2. From Alpha to launch
For TBC they needed five months from the start of the friends-and family Alpha testing in August 2006 to the release in Januari 2007. For Wrath the Alpha testing began in April and the release was in November, which meant seven moths of waiting. The Alpha testing in Cataclysm started in the beginning of May. If you take the average of the previous two expansions – six months from Alpha to release - this indicates a release date in November 2010.

3. The Content nerf
The pre-patch for TBC was released 1,5 months before the launch, including Christmans and New Year’s break. The pre-patch for Wrath was released 1 month in advance, without any major holidays interfering. The pre-patch for Wrath didn’t only include new builds and other sorts of adjustments – it also meant that they nerfed the raid content heavily – around 30 percent if I remember it correctly – thus making it possible for everyone to have a look at it before the expansion.

They’ve picked a slightly different approach to nerfing in Wrath with the ICC buff, increasing with 5 percent every four weeks. If they stick to this schedule ICC should be up to 30 percent – the equivalence to the 3.02 patch nerf in TBC – by the end of July. Giving the players one month to enjoy the maximum buff, this would suggest a release towards the end of August.

4. Ruby Sanctum
In February they announced the upcoming 3.3.5 patch with the “extra” raid instance Ruby Sanctum. We haven’t heard a word about it since then, it’s not on the PTR and frankly I wouldn’t be overly surprised if they’d linger on releasing it until August, as something to use as a lure to get players back to WoW after the big Summer Exodus.

5. Blizzcon timing
Then there is the timing of Blizzcon to think about. My innkeeper thought that Blizzard surely couldn’t have to nerve to announce Cataclysm at Blizzcon 2009 and then wait for over a year and let another Blizzcon pass before getting it out on the market. But actually I think they can. History shows us exactly this.

TBC was announced at Blizzcon 2005. There was no Blizzcon held in 2006 and then it was released in 2007. Wrath was announced at Blizzcon 2007. Then there was not only one but two Blizzcons arranged in 2008 – one in US and one in Europe. Neither of hem had Wrath as a major attraction. In US the Big News was about Diabolo. Blizzard could very well hold a Blizzcon in October with some other major piece of news than WoW. They have more games on their menu, remember?

However it seems highly unlikely that they would let the Cataclysm release coincide with Blizzcon. To get out as much publicity as possible of it they should do it either a few weeks before it or after it. And from a media point of view I would rather see the convention coming before the release, since it would be convenient for them to arrange media meet-ups, interviews and photo opportunities. I can’t see the point of doing that one month AFTER the release when Cataclysm is already “old news”.

6. “But Ghostcrawler promised…”
It has been pointed out many times that Blizzard has stated that they have the ambition to increase the pace, getting out one new expansion a year. But what is that kind of statement worth, really? They’re also known – and respected – to not make premature releases of half-done games, but keep working on them until they’re up to the standard they should be at. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the one-year-goal when trying to predict the launch date.

People also have made a huge issue out of a few words uttered by Ghostcrawler at Blizzcon last year, where he said that we would be “complaining about goblin rogues” in the next Blizzcon. Seriously. I don’t think you can read anything into this. And regardless of if Cataclysm is released or not at that point, he’ll be right anyway. We’re having pretty intense discussions on mechanisms in Cataclysm already, based on the information that has been handed to us. We don’t need to have the game in our hands to talk about it.

7. We're bored and will quit!
The pace in the game is really slow now and has been for a while. It’s apparent that many players are cutting down on their WoW presence heavily or even taking a break in their subscriptions to check out other games.

Some players seem to think that Blizzard should be overly worried about this and therefore feel the urge to get out Cataclysm asap in order not to lose subscribers, but personally I doubt that they’re governed by the day-by-day statistics to that extent. After all the company seems to be doing fine financially, and if they would need some extra cash they could probably just toss another sparkling mount into the store.

Just because people are taking a break in their subscriptions it doesn’t mean that they’re done with WoW. I would be highly surprised if not the majority of those who quit now will come back for Cataclysm again, regardless of at which point during the autumn it will released.

Some final thoughts
I suppose I should end this post with a prediction of my own, so you can come back and mock me and call me a fail blogger if it turns out I’m wrong. It’s more fun that way, isn’t it? Even if there are a few observations above pointing to a release early in the autumn, I’m leaning towards a November release. The Christmas Factor can’t be neglected. So let’s say something…closing my eyes, pointing randomly in my calendar… November 17!

It sounds like a long wait, and no one would be happier than me if I turned out to be wrong. However, judging from the gallery posted at MMO Champion today, (SPOILER LINK, look at your own risk) we really have a lot to look forward to!

A Hardcore Guild in its True Sense

Yesterday was One of Those Nights. I think you know what I mean.

On nights like this you’ll have to make an emergency switch to another vent server, since the original won’t work as intended. Nights like this “something” seems to be going on with half of the raid - players turning up late, disconnecting, getting unexplainable lag spikes, being unlucky or just “out of shape”, unable to bring their A-game.

It all adds up and even if you try ever so hard to keep up the focus, you will see your raid session effectively chopped into mince meat because of all the interrupts. Time passes quickly, but the flow won’t appear, and you don’t seem to get anywhere apart from possibly going backwards compared to last raid.

Yeah, it was one of those nights.

Hope and disappointment
I wrote a while ago that we had wiped 38 times on LK. By now I’ve lost track on it, but I would easily estimate that it’s the double or even more, and it has gone from the “we’re still learning the encounter” stage over to something closer to “why haven’t we killed him yet?" rage. We should be done with this by now, or at least we should flawlessly enter the final phase on every single attempt. And yet we aren’t.

Last week the ICC buff went up to 15 percent and the difference was noticeable as we more or less steamrolled through the first 11 bosses Thursday night. And I believe this adds to the disappointment after the futile efforts to down him during the Sunday and Tuesday night. We know how to do this by now and we definitely should have the necessary dps for it. But for some reason we lack a bit in the execution, playing below what we have set as our standard.

Before the raid start yesterday we were pretty optimistic about the outcome. This was it. This would be our last week of (apart from LK) rather unchallenging normal modes in ICC. How we longed to finally start working our way through the herioic modes! It was just this mean guy stopping us from it, but not for any longer. We had made the final tweaks on our strategy for phase five on the forums and victory was within our grasp. Little did we realize that this would be One of Those Nights.

The higher you aim, the harder you fall.

Revealing the true nature
When you have nights as this, your guild can easily slip into a state of apathy, particularly with the end-of-expansion-blues currently spreading in the game.

It’s in those moments that your guild will reveal its true nature. How does it look beneath the surface – are you solid when you’re put at trial? Are you a hardcore guild in its true sense – meaning that you have a core that will endure and find ways to overcome the challenges? Or are there squishies among you, players who get cranky, bitter, blaming others, not taking responsibility or just hiding away from the problems when the success doesn’t come easily?

I have every reason in the world to believe that our core is solid. We’re looking over our performances once again, we're checking if there are smaller tweaks we can make to improve our strats and we’re extending our ID next week in order not to waste any more raiding time on farmed content – it isn’t gear that we’re lacking. We’re more determined than ever to move forward into the hardmodes.

This morning as I checked out our guild forums, I didn’t just find the first reflections about our night before. I also find this little video, posted under the headline “Are you prepared?”

It’s obviously a teaser for our upcoming two-year anniversary. The one we had last year was so well done that it even was highlighted at WoW.com, so the expectations on our officers are huge.

And the fact that they’re putting this up, right after One of Those Nights is a sign of high class.

We’re a hardcore guild, in its true sense.

And LK will die too, no doubt about that.

Attunements back in Cataclysm - sure, why not?

The developers are seriously considering to bring back attunements to raids and heroic dungeons in Cataclysm. This according to WoW.com, referring to a blue post from the Spanish (!) forums.

First of all I must admit that I find it a little bit odd that they release news about Cataclysm in this form. I'll probably never quite understand what's in the minds of the Blizzard staff when they decide upon how to inform and interact with the player base. Maybe this is some sort of test balloon they're sending out to see what reactions it will cause. But why in the Spanish forum of all places? Is it a slip of tongue or do they do it on purpose?

Either way, I can't say I'm sad to hear that they're considering it. But then I never suffered particularly from the attunements in TBC.

By the time I reached SSC, TK and BT, the enforced requirements had been removed from the game. I actually did those questlines later on at my own willm getting my Hand of A'dal and Champion of the Naaru titles alright, but it never was mandatory, just a fun piece of distraction. I can vividly imagine how frustrating it must have been for a guild to have to run new recruits through old content, just in order to give them access to the current content.

However there was one attunement in TBC that I too was "forced" to get through, namely the long questline to get the key to Karazhan. And how I loved it!

Obstacles and excitement
I'll never forget how excited I was as I ventured to Deadwing Pass for the first time, sending shy looks to the crowd of players who were hanging out there. I didn't quite understand why they were there, since the whole concept of raiding was unknown territory. But I talked to the NPC to start the quest chain, just as a guildie of mine had told me to do as soon as I had dinged 70. I didn't have a clue about what was awaiting me.

And do you know what? The process of getting attuned never felt like a burden It was an adventure, a step into the unknown and the start of a new chapter in the story of my WoW life. It was a fantastic chain that brought me into a bunch of instances. And as I proceeded I didn't just gear up; I also learned the basics of group play and prepared for what was awaiting me in Karazhan. It was a shining example of my favorite kind of learning - the one you do unknowingly.

Was it free from obstacles and frustrations? Oh, absolutely not! The worst part of it was probably Black Morass. I've successfully erased most of my horror memories of humiliating failures to deal with the small adds on my own. This was something everyone expected a mage to do, but it was pretty tough if you were inexperienced and ungeared. It took me quite a few tries before I finally got through it, thanks to a kindhearted guildie who offered to be my pocket healer in every PUG I could find for it and didn't give up before I was done.

As I finally received the precious key that would grant me access to the mysterious castle, I was way prouder and happier than I have been about most so called achievements I've got later in the game, probably on par with Sarth+3d.

All in all, my attunement experience was on the positive side. I was new to the game and nothing came easy to me, but this never put me off from trying.

Why attunements might be good
I don't think it would be a horrible idea if Blizzard decided to have an attunement questline for at least the first raid instance in Cataclysm.

Of course it mustn't be grindy in any way - not in the lines of the nightmarish shard collection for legendary weapons as an example. And it shouldn't be unreasonably hard either.

But I believe that some sort of attunement is a handy way to offer proper training and introduction to all those brand new never-played-WoW-before players who are likely to turn up with the launch of Cataclysm. They need to be pushed a little; they need to get incentives to at least complete a few decently hard instances before they throw themselves into raiding. They might pick up a few gear pieces, just like I did myself back in the days. But above all they'll get a basic experience from group playing, which is far more essential for any wanna-be-raider.

And what about the veterans then? Why should we be bothered by attunements? Well, if nothing else you could see it as a bit of added content. You don't have to be a lore addict to appreciate a well written questline with crumbles leading you into a raid instance. It adds atmosphere to the game and give you a sense of purpose and direction in your adventures.

If the attunement will delay you slightly before you can start raiding in Cataclysm, so what? I'd rather see that they make the game last longer this way than that they use more artificial methods for gating, such as limited attempts.

It remains to see if this idea will make it the whole way into the game. They could stay at just making a small attunement for a bunch of five-man instances, like they did in Icecrown where you had to make them in a certain order the first time. They could also bring back an attunement chain to raiding, and that would be a way bigger deal, especially if they'll make it slightly demanding as Karazhan.

I know where I stand though. Bring it on!

Edit: I gave this blue post a second thought. It sounds highly unlikely the developers would be considering a real attunement quest line in the lines of the one for Karazhan at this point. Cataclysm should be more or less ready to ship and they've just announced that the friends and family testing is starting now. So if there will be any kind of attunement it's probably just one quest or running one instance. It was a nice thing to dream about though.

Preparing to plunge into Vashj'ir

It's Friday night at the inn and I suspect that you'd prefer to have something stronger in your glasses to sip on than water. And you'll get that soon. But first let's talk a little bit about something water related.

You see, a couple of weeks ago, Blizzard released the first pre-hand information about Vashj'ir, the new underwater zone that will come in Cataclysm, and I don't think it's been given the proper attention in the community. I don't think it's because we're not interested, it was just insanely bad timing from Blizzard, since the announcement was squeezed in between the mega-huge news about the class changes and the changes to raiding. There was more information going on at the same time than we could deal with.

But now that we've agreed on moving on after this week of intense debating about 10vs25, time has come to think about the idea about an entire zone situated under the sea level. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Are we looking forward to it?

Mixed feelings

My own feelings are a little bit mixed. I think the glimpses we've seen from screenshots and concept art look awesome. I've been snorkeling a bit myself at coral reefs in real life, and considering how breathtakingly beautiful it can be, I think it will be a very good addition to the game - especially since they've hinted that they've found new ways to simulate water in a better way.

Bear this in mind. I am basically very positive about it and I'm looking forward to see what they've come up with. But now I'm nevertheless going to talk a little bit about the possible downsides. My doubts are entirely based on the experiences we have from under-water-playing up until now. They might have learned something from it and improved on it.

The Nagas

So let's dive into my first concern: The Nagas.

To be honest I never was a huge fan of naga fighting. They all look and behave pretty much the same, either they're camping a beach in Zangarmarsh or Ferelas. I have too many memories of annoying silences from spellcasters, and they all look about the same, either they're camping a beach in Ferelas or Zangarmarsh, and they drop annoying loot such as shiny fish scales and fish oil.

I can't really be bothered to see more of them and I sincerely hope that this zone will come up with many entirely new creature models as well, to mix up with the fish people.

The Swimming

My second concern is Swimming.

I would expect that there will be quite a bit of it and every since I did my first diving exercises in that little lake in Redridge, I've just hated any quest involving diving. It was slow, it was annoyingly hard to orient yourself in the water, your character didn't move as you're used to and before they increased the underwater breathing from 1 minute to 3, you had this horrible counter to pay attention to, getting up to the surface for air every now and then.

I have especially bad memories from that pipe in Zangarmarsh that you had to swim through to get to the Coilfang instances. I never knew what was up or down in it, so if I even managed to reach the end of it, it happened just as often that I accidently had turned back to the surface as I actually reached the instance. It was a nightmare when you had a group waiting for you to arrive.

For a long while I relied on my stack of Nagrand Cherries, a reward from a poo quest. At that point they gave you 30 minutes of underwater breathing and that was enough even for me to get through the tunnel. When I ran out of them I started to mass produce underwater breathing elixirs, which I always carried around. The humiliation to drown in the pipe running out of air after 1 minute was just too big to endure (not to talk about the running back after a whipe - when everything turned white there was absolutely no way I could tell where to go. I always put myself at follow.)

Towards the end of TBC they extended the breathing to three minutes, and that has helped a lot. Nowadays even I manage to get most underwater quests down without an elixir.

However, an entire zone under water.... I wonder what that will be like? I suppose I'll spend most of my time in the pocketed undersea caves they're talking about in the preview, where you're free from the water's grip.

The vehicles
And then there are of course also the promised vehicles that are supposed to help you. But this is also my third concern: the vehicles.

Without any doubt we can prepare ourself for vehicle fights in Vashj'ir. And we all know how much we like that, don't we? I sincerely hope that they'll find some way to make submarines easier to manage and more intuitive than the infamous dragons at Eye of Eternity and Occulus.

The name
And now over to my last concern about this zone. The very name of it.

Are they making up those tongue-wrenching names on purpose just to laugh at us? How are you supposed to get that "j" into the picture? I suppose we'll do what we always do in those cases - finding up a nickname that we can pronounce. "The Naga place". "The underwater zone". Or - most likely - just "Vash".

Oh well. I may lack swimming skills and I may not fall into trance at the thought of fighting nagas. But I suppose they'll have sorted this out the day I'm standing there at the shore, ready to take the plunge into the sea. And if not - well then I'll just start mass producing breathing elixirs again.

Now have another drink in your glass at the expense of the house - water, ale or rum, whatever you prefer. May your weekend be joyful.

Cheers!