So, I've been pretty busy with not only playing wow's patch 4.3 as well as SWTOR early access and now through the launch, but of course with non-gaming related holiday things as well.
I've been pretty happy with patch 4.3 in spite of the raid finder and how I feel about it - I still feel obligated to participate in it as there are upgrades to be had, and alts to be geared. However, I've been scheming about what to do once I've gotten the gear I need; when I'm just going for the badges or whatever. I'm thinking I should use my rolls as tool for good - because I'm sick of seeing loot going to lazy/bad players. So, here's my plan: when I no longer need loot but am given the choice of rolling need, I shall henceforth roll need on said items and distribute anything I win based on who I think deserves the loot. It's like vigilante loot justice. It doesn't have to go to anyone I know, but I want to reward people who actually put forth effort in raid finder groups. Maybe they'll be encouraged to do likewise and together we can improve the system.
As for "real" raiding, my guild is 1 of 8 heroic, and although we've made a few heroic pulls on the next few bosses, progression doesn't look promising. I know it's not the popular thing to say and I'll probably take a lot of shit from my guildies for sayin it, but I just think the shit is too hard. I'm not sayin it should be easier, I understand why it is the way it is, who it's really made for, the prestige that comes with gated content, etc., but I can't help but wish for a difficulty somewhere between normal and heroic.... like say, nerfed heroics?
Let me throw this metaphor at you: In terms of difficulty, raid finder is like driving down-hill on a straight road; you can just coast and as long as you don't do anything incredibly stupid, you'll be fine. Normal mode is like driving along a flat straight road with a few curves at the end. You'll need to keep your foot on the gas and pay attention to the road, but once you've made the trip once or twice, you get used to it. Finally, heroic mode is like trying to drive through a series of walls of increasing thickness. We went through one wall, and it felt great. I won't deny that, but that's basically where we're at. We've driven into the next 3 walls and found they're not really cracking for us yet, and all we can hope for now is that maybe getting more gear (and tuning up the car so to speak) will make the difference. And if it doesn't? We're just going to have to wait for the nerfs (which i guess would be like somebody drilling a series of holes in all the walls to weaken them) but we have no idea when those will come. It could be a few weeks, a few months, or not at all.
Lots of people I know bitch about post-nerf heroic content. Because the walls they've been throwing themselves against will have been weakened and can now be cracked in a few hours of attempts. They feel robbed of the REAL heroic difficulty. However, to me, that's the ideal situation. So what if everything has 10% less health and deals 10% less damage. It means you don't need the best healers or DPS in the world, but the mechanics generally don't change and as long as there's new fight mechanics to learn, it's not like it will be some kind of raid-finder handout. I mean, it's still more difficult than normal, and that's all I'm really looking for.
Blazing Drake
For those of you who don't know already, I am a huge mount-whore. I do pretty much anything I can to get as many mounts as possible. My newest mount is a rare drop from the Madness of Deathwing (final raid boss in the Dragon Soul). A guildie of mine, Gettokiwi, actually won the roll and gave it to me. And I can't stress this enough, but that's the most generous thing I've ever seen since I've been playing this game. I am very very thankful to him.
This is my 169th mount! And since I know there will be doubters, here's the proof.
This is my 169th mount! And since I know there will be doubters, here's the proof.
The Dragon Soul and Raid Finder
Well, I've been really busy trying to get the most out of Patch 4.3 - with the Dragon Soul and the Darkmoon Faire taking up a bit more time than I'd anticipated. Today I just want to touch on the Raid Finder and Dragon Soul raid dungeon in general.
Having now cleared the Dragon Soul raid on normal, and done some of it on the new Raid Finder difficulty, I feel comfortable is saying it seemed a bit under-tuned. The Raid Finder, in particular, is a joke, and I don't think it's introduction is really a good thing for the game. Just following the blue-tracker (a tool that highlights Blizzard's post on their forums) on mmo-champion, I've seen a few posts with players absolutely gushing about how much they love the Raid Finder and how they'll never go back to normal. I think these people are deluded. The Raid Finder isn't difficult in the slightest, but it's working as intended. It's tuned to be so easy as to allow a group of random players succeed. Blizzard is basically tearing down a wall that seperated players who put forth a minimal effort - in terms of gameplay, teamwork, gear, and use of consumables - from those that aren't willing to do so. Going in to a Raid Finder raid and being successful is the equivalent of giving every child on the peewee football team a trophy at the end of the season. Players are rewarded just for showing up - just for participating. The loot is a step down from the quality dropped in normal raids, but it's still too generous. I'm not saying a Raid Finder type system is inherently flawed, but I would rather have seen a system that stayed true to the raid experience in terms of the effort required. Lazy players who queue up and under-perform or can't follow a simple strategy shouldn't be rewarded with success. Their take-away should be "I really need to improve if I want to clear this content" instead of "Now I can finally get all the gear and see all the content I'm entitled to."
As for the normal mode content, and the design on the raid in general, it seemed rather bland up until the Spine of Deathwing encounter. Most of the dungeon feels recycled because it takes place in places we've already seen. The first boss takes places south of the Wrymrest Temple in the Dragonblight. The second and third bosses take place inside the old-god inspired sarlac-pit type areas we first saw in the Twilight Highlands. The third boss encounter takes place in the Eye of Eternity (where we dispatched Malygos). The fourth takes place on top of Wyrmrest Temple, and the Fifth is on-board the same gun-ship (loot-ship) from Icecrown Citadel. It's painfully obvious that all of the environmental artists are hard at work on Mists of Pandaria content at this point. That being said, the Spine of Deathwing encounter was great, and the Madness of Deathwing encounter was decently challenging and left a lot of room for using different strategies.
I said I feel the Dragon Soul was under-tuned, even on normal, primarily due to the high number of guilds that cleared it on normal within the first two weeks.(On my realm, it's something like 20 guilds). Next week my guild will begin working on hard-mode progression, and I'm torn about what to expect. Part of me thinks this is where we'll face some real challenges, but on the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of incredibly difficult, R.N.G.-dependent, 50+ wipes-to-down ecounters. And as of yet, I've only seen reports of the first 5 or 6 encounters being cleared in Heroic mode by the best guilds in the world, and those guys usually cruise through anything that isn't damn-near-impossible. I realize that this is the last major raid tier of this expansion and so the content needs to last at least 6-8 months ... perhaps even a year before Mists of Pandaria will give us all something new to do; However, I've also been raiding long enough to know that being stuck on one boss or another for weeks at a time will inevitably stress people out and make for some truly unpleasant raid nights.
Having now cleared the Dragon Soul raid on normal, and done some of it on the new Raid Finder difficulty, I feel comfortable is saying it seemed a bit under-tuned. The Raid Finder, in particular, is a joke, and I don't think it's introduction is really a good thing for the game. Just following the blue-tracker (a tool that highlights Blizzard's post on their forums) on mmo-champion, I've seen a few posts with players absolutely gushing about how much they love the Raid Finder and how they'll never go back to normal. I think these people are deluded. The Raid Finder isn't difficult in the slightest, but it's working as intended. It's tuned to be so easy as to allow a group of random players succeed. Blizzard is basically tearing down a wall that seperated players who put forth a minimal effort - in terms of gameplay, teamwork, gear, and use of consumables - from those that aren't willing to do so. Going in to a Raid Finder raid and being successful is the equivalent of giving every child on the peewee football team a trophy at the end of the season. Players are rewarded just for showing up - just for participating. The loot is a step down from the quality dropped in normal raids, but it's still too generous. I'm not saying a Raid Finder type system is inherently flawed, but I would rather have seen a system that stayed true to the raid experience in terms of the effort required. Lazy players who queue up and under-perform or can't follow a simple strategy shouldn't be rewarded with success. Their take-away should be "I really need to improve if I want to clear this content" instead of "Now I can finally get all the gear and see all the content I'm entitled to."
As for the normal mode content, and the design on the raid in general, it seemed rather bland up until the Spine of Deathwing encounter. Most of the dungeon feels recycled because it takes place in places we've already seen. The first boss takes places south of the Wrymrest Temple in the Dragonblight. The second and third bosses take place inside the old-god inspired sarlac-pit type areas we first saw in the Twilight Highlands. The third boss encounter takes place in the Eye of Eternity (where we dispatched Malygos). The fourth takes place on top of Wyrmrest Temple, and the Fifth is on-board the same gun-ship (loot-ship) from Icecrown Citadel. It's painfully obvious that all of the environmental artists are hard at work on Mists of Pandaria content at this point. That being said, the Spine of Deathwing encounter was great, and the Madness of Deathwing encounter was decently challenging and left a lot of room for using different strategies.
I said I feel the Dragon Soul was under-tuned, even on normal, primarily due to the high number of guilds that cleared it on normal within the first two weeks.(On my realm, it's something like 20 guilds). Next week my guild will begin working on hard-mode progression, and I'm torn about what to expect. Part of me thinks this is where we'll face some real challenges, but on the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of incredibly difficult, R.N.G.-dependent, 50+ wipes-to-down ecounters. And as of yet, I've only seen reports of the first 5 or 6 encounters being cleared in Heroic mode by the best guilds in the world, and those guys usually cruise through anything that isn't damn-near-impossible. I realize that this is the last major raid tier of this expansion and so the content needs to last at least 6-8 months ... perhaps even a year before Mists of Pandaria will give us all something new to do; However, I've also been raiding long enough to know that being stuck on one boss or another for weeks at a time will inevitably stress people out and make for some truly unpleasant raid nights.
SWTOR is coming...
So, it's been difficult to decide what kind of post this is going to be, but I did get to play the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta last weekend, and lots of people have been asking what I thought about it, so I'll do the best I can.
I think what most people want to know is whether or not it is a complete rip-off of World of Warcraft? Well, the not particularly satisfying answer is "sort of." First off, if you can make your way around World of Warcraft, SWTOR is a game you can really jump right into as most of the key-bindings are the same. However, combat is a different beast since there are no auto-attacks - unless you've played a caster in WoW in which case it's a lot like that. You've got mission (quest) hubs, taxis (flight points), class trainers, crew skill (profession) trainers, durability/repairs, and a fast-travel (hearthstone) ability. Major differences come in the form of what seems to be a more advanced item-modification system, space combat, and graphics that will make you shit rainbows.
So what's different. Well, the biggest thing is the voice dialog. It's everywhere. Every time you pick up or turn in a mission, you'll have to listen to a good minute or two of back and forth between your character and the NPC. Is it really cool? Yes. Does it suck you into the story like WoW quest text never could? Yes. Does it eat up a large portion of your play-time? Yes. Can you skip over it? Sort of. You can skip much of it, and only see the last line of dialog as text. You're going to want to read that text because otherwise you'll be blindly picking your responses - which can be detrimental to your light/dark standing as well as your reputation with your companion. It's a key part of the game, but it's hard to imagine that after some point in the game, or after leveling multiple characters, I won't just wish for a way to skip the interactions entirely. On the subject of missions, one thing WoW players might not fully appreciate is how far Blizzard has come in quest-hub/design/flow. They've mastered the concept of packing as many things to do into an area as possible with a flow that prevents the player from being frustrated by redundant trips to the same area. I wouldn't say SWTOR is brutal in this regard, but to the extent to which the difference is noticable, I feel WoW has spoiled me.
The item modification system is implemented a lot like gems/sockets in WoW, but in SWTOR there's many different kinds of sockets for gear, weapons, even the players own space ship. In addition, it appears most modifications can be removed from items, un-socketed if you will, and returned to the players inventory for a price.The crafting-based crew skills of which you are allowed one, typically allow players to craft certain type of items- say weapons - as well as certain types of modifications applicable to the type items crafted. Of course, there are crew-skills based on gathering, and still others which I did not read up on entirely. One of the main things that sets crew-skills apart from professions in WoW, is that they serve was a way to keep your companion character busy while you're free to do whatever you'd like. Crafting items takes considerably more time in SWTOR than in WoW, and learning to make new things will require you send your companion to complete their own missions. You start off with craft-ables taking 1-2 mins per, and missions requiring 3-6 mins, however, I've heard that at higher levels, crafting missions can take as long as 24 hrs - and I sure hope that clock ticks when you're offline.
I only went as far as level 17 (max level is 50) but one of the highlights for me was at level 15 when I got my own ship and was able to try out the space combat. There's nothing like this in WoW. You might say it's like Halaa bombing run, but I'd have to punch you in the face for being stupid. To be honest, it kinda reminded me of Starfox - in a good way. Then there's the little things that set SWTOR apart - not every mob drops loot, but when they do, they don't sparkle. Instead, they emit a colored beam of light skyward. This colored beam of light indicates what kind of items are available to be looted. The standard light blue means the creature has just grey items/credits. A green beam means there's an uncommon quality item, with a darker blue and purple indicating the rare and epic items respectively. In addition, an area-loot option exists which allows you to quickly loot everything in a small area at once. This is a nice touch when, due to high respawn rates, you've dispatched 20-something mobs in a small room and you're more insterested in vacating the area before they respawn (again) than sifting through corpses for loot.
Did I mention the game is fucking beautiful? I was constantly suprised at how good this game looks. Some of the areas I just walk into and my jaw drops. And it's not that WoW looks bad, but seven years is seven years. Right from the start, with character creation, there's tons of options and variation within each race - with variable body shapes, head shapes, etc. With the gear, it's nice to see that an upgraded chest piece, for example, actually changes the character-model's shape - unlike in wow where there's a handful of glove/boot/belt models, unique shoulder/head armor, and everything else is just a texture. So many times I see Blizzard posters comment about how many resources it takes to change/modify 3d models, but in SWTOR they seem to be delivering on the impossible with all this armor with unique models and art and those close-up dialog interactions show it all off nicely.
So is it a WoW killer? Is doab going to abandon Azeroth? Well, No. I'm still going to play WoW, at least for now. As nice as SWTOR seems right now, there's plenty of room for Bioware to fail. They're going to need to prove they can do more than develop a pretty WoW mirror. I'm going to have to see the end-game content and get a feel for the class-balance. Frankly, there's any number of issues that can arise that could sink this titanic of a game if not handled properly. When the game is released, you can expect that I will spend most of my free time playing it - until raid time. Then I'll be back in Azeroth putting baddies like Deathwing in his place.
Finally, allow me to leave you with a few screencaps from SWTOR, and as always, I welcome you to comment!
I think what most people want to know is whether or not it is a complete rip-off of World of Warcraft? Well, the not particularly satisfying answer is "sort of." First off, if you can make your way around World of Warcraft, SWTOR is a game you can really jump right into as most of the key-bindings are the same. However, combat is a different beast since there are no auto-attacks - unless you've played a caster in WoW in which case it's a lot like that. You've got mission (quest) hubs, taxis (flight points), class trainers, crew skill (profession) trainers, durability/repairs, and a fast-travel (hearthstone) ability. Major differences come in the form of what seems to be a more advanced item-modification system, space combat, and graphics that will make you shit rainbows.
So what's different. Well, the biggest thing is the voice dialog. It's everywhere. Every time you pick up or turn in a mission, you'll have to listen to a good minute or two of back and forth between your character and the NPC. Is it really cool? Yes. Does it suck you into the story like WoW quest text never could? Yes. Does it eat up a large portion of your play-time? Yes. Can you skip over it? Sort of. You can skip much of it, and only see the last line of dialog as text. You're going to want to read that text because otherwise you'll be blindly picking your responses - which can be detrimental to your light/dark standing as well as your reputation with your companion. It's a key part of the game, but it's hard to imagine that after some point in the game, or after leveling multiple characters, I won't just wish for a way to skip the interactions entirely. On the subject of missions, one thing WoW players might not fully appreciate is how far Blizzard has come in quest-hub/design/flow. They've mastered the concept of packing as many things to do into an area as possible with a flow that prevents the player from being frustrated by redundant trips to the same area. I wouldn't say SWTOR is brutal in this regard, but to the extent to which the difference is noticable, I feel WoW has spoiled me.
The item modification system is implemented a lot like gems/sockets in WoW, but in SWTOR there's many different kinds of sockets for gear, weapons, even the players own space ship. In addition, it appears most modifications can be removed from items, un-socketed if you will, and returned to the players inventory for a price.The crafting-based crew skills of which you are allowed one, typically allow players to craft certain type of items- say weapons - as well as certain types of modifications applicable to the type items crafted. Of course, there are crew-skills based on gathering, and still others which I did not read up on entirely. One of the main things that sets crew-skills apart from professions in WoW, is that they serve was a way to keep your companion character busy while you're free to do whatever you'd like. Crafting items takes considerably more time in SWTOR than in WoW, and learning to make new things will require you send your companion to complete their own missions. You start off with craft-ables taking 1-2 mins per, and missions requiring 3-6 mins, however, I've heard that at higher levels, crafting missions can take as long as 24 hrs - and I sure hope that clock ticks when you're offline.
I only went as far as level 17 (max level is 50) but one of the highlights for me was at level 15 when I got my own ship and was able to try out the space combat. There's nothing like this in WoW. You might say it's like Halaa bombing run, but I'd have to punch you in the face for being stupid. To be honest, it kinda reminded me of Starfox - in a good way. Then there's the little things that set SWTOR apart - not every mob drops loot, but when they do, they don't sparkle. Instead, they emit a colored beam of light skyward. This colored beam of light indicates what kind of items are available to be looted. The standard light blue means the creature has just grey items/credits. A green beam means there's an uncommon quality item, with a darker blue and purple indicating the rare and epic items respectively. In addition, an area-loot option exists which allows you to quickly loot everything in a small area at once. This is a nice touch when, due to high respawn rates, you've dispatched 20-something mobs in a small room and you're more insterested in vacating the area before they respawn (again) than sifting through corpses for loot.
Did I mention the game is fucking beautiful? I was constantly suprised at how good this game looks. Some of the areas I just walk into and my jaw drops. And it's not that WoW looks bad, but seven years is seven years. Right from the start, with character creation, there's tons of options and variation within each race - with variable body shapes, head shapes, etc. With the gear, it's nice to see that an upgraded chest piece, for example, actually changes the character-model's shape - unlike in wow where there's a handful of glove/boot/belt models, unique shoulder/head armor, and everything else is just a texture. So many times I see Blizzard posters comment about how many resources it takes to change/modify 3d models, but in SWTOR they seem to be delivering on the impossible with all this armor with unique models and art and those close-up dialog interactions show it all off nicely.
So is it a WoW killer? Is doab going to abandon Azeroth? Well, No. I'm still going to play WoW, at least for now. As nice as SWTOR seems right now, there's plenty of room for Bioware to fail. They're going to need to prove they can do more than develop a pretty WoW mirror. I'm going to have to see the end-game content and get a feel for the class-balance. Frankly, there's any number of issues that can arise that could sink this titanic of a game if not handled properly. When the game is released, you can expect that I will spend most of my free time playing it - until raid time. Then I'll be back in Azeroth putting baddies like Deathwing in his place.
Finally, allow me to leave you with a few screencaps from SWTOR, and as always, I welcome you to comment!
Words with Noobs
Today's post is targeted at noobs. If you know what a noob is, then you might want to excuse yourself from this lesson in gaming terminology. In this post, I'm going to be talking about the language of World of Warcraft, however some terms will be applicaable to MMORPGs in general. The definitions supplied are authored by me, and while not everyone will agree on exact wording, it should give the reader a sufficient understanding of the terms. These will be in no particular order...
This game is talented.
Last week, Blizzard revealed a new talent calculator to preview the revamped talent structure we'll be seeing in Mists of Pandaria. There's no denying it represents an unprecedented change in the talent system. Today, I've decided to take you all on a stroll down memory lane and go over the basic design of the talent system past and present.
Originally, all classes had 3 talent trees that went 31 pts. deep, and by level 60, players had 51 points to spend. Your first talent point was earned at level 10, and every level thereafter. This meant that players typically spent roughly 31pts. in a primary talent tree and then either spent 20 in another tree, or split those remaining points between the two remaining trees. One of the most basic properties of the talent trees were that the talents consisted of mostly passive buffs, with active abilities at 21 and 31 points, respectively. This meant that one of the meaningful options for a player was to invest 30 points into their primary talent tree, and 21 points into another if they preferred that 21-pt. active ability over their primary tree's 31-pt ability. However, the option also existed to make hybrid talent builds where a player could invest points more equally - although such builds were arguably never truly viable for anything. The only way to change your talents was to visit a class trainer and pay a sizeable fee. Click here for a talent calculator from patch 1.9
Then came The Burning Crusade, and 10 more levels meant 10 more talent points. Many talents were shifted around, some talents became base-line abilities, and new, arguably less-interesting talents were introduced as fillers. but in the end, all talent trees were extended by 10 points to make them 41 pts. deep with very desirable talents right at the bottom. This worked out fairly well, in my opinion. The trade-offs remained largely the same although the trade-offs between 41-pt talents and 21-pt talents were skewed more in favor of the 41-pt talent in most cases. You still needed to visit a trainer to change your talents, but the cost remained the same, and due to inflation, it was considerably cheaper. Click here for a patch 2.01 (TBC) talent calculator.
The next major update came with Wrath of the Lich King, and represents the pinnacle of talent bloat. By this time, players had 71 talent points to spend at max level. To keep players firmly rooted in a single tree, most very desirable talents were moved DEEP into the 51-pt talent trees, and most of the points at the top of the trees were under-whelming fluff. For max-level players, it worked fine, but at low levels, players didn't really feel like they were getting much out of their chosen talent trees until much further into the game. In patch 3.1, a dual specialization feature was introduced for players who had reached a certain level. For a one-time fee, players could set up a second specialization and were allowed to switch between the two any time they are out of combat. This was a welcome change for hybrid classes, as well as anyone who liked having different specs for things like PvE vs PvP content. While I can't verify exactly which patch it's from, there appears to be a pretty decent WoTLK talent calculator here.
With the launch of Cataclysm, the talent trees were pruned significantly to address the problem of talent bloat. Gone were the hit talents, range talents, any pretty much any talent that stated simply, "increases damage done with x ability by n%". Talents no one wanted were either cut, or combined with a more desirable talent. However, trimming talent trees back meant players wouldn't get as many points to spend. In fact, at level 85, players currently have fewer talent points to spend than ever: 41. Meanwhile, the introduction of the talent system to players reaching level 10 was vastly improved as well. Previously, a player reaching level 10 would earn a single talent point to spend in the talent tree of their choice, but that choice was just not very meaningful. In cataclysm, players are presented with the three talent trees and offered passive bonuses and one signature active-ability for each specialization. For example, a level 10 destruction warlock would learn Conflagrate, which means they are able to melt faces much earlier than ever before. One down-side of the current system is that players are now locked in to their talent tree of choice until they've spent 31 pts. (This kills the hybrid builds.) However, dual specialization still exists, and players can always visit a trainer to unlearn their talents. The current Cataclysm talent calculator can be found here.
Now, if you're like me, you might have thought the pruning that took place in Cataclysm was a signal that going forward the talent trees would be allowed to grow once again as leveling players would gain more talent points to spend. And if you did, you would be wrong. At Blizzcon 2011, developers announced and previewed a new talent system that is nothing like anything the game has ever seen. For starters, the talent trees are gone. In Mists of Pandaria, the choice players make at level 10 will largely determine the set of abilities, both active and passive, your character will learn as you level. This results in a couple of different effects. First, you'll be learning abilites that you may have traditionally skipped as talents. Second, your spellbook won't be cluttered with off-spec abilties you just don't need. Does an affliction warlock need to learn Incinerate if he'll never cast it? Blizzard's answer is "No."
But wait! That's not all. The talent system itself has been transformed into a series of SIX choices a player will make starting at level 15 based on their class. Every 15 levels, you will be presented with 3 talents to choose from which share a common theme. The level 15 choice may be about survivability, while at level 30 you may be choosing from 3 different forms of crowd control. It's important to note that most talents won't increase through-put, but rather are focused on utility and adapting to different types of content. In fact, developers have stated that they intend for the new talent system to be much more dynamic than the old talent trees - in that players would commonly go weeks or months without changing their talents for a given spec. Developers point to the way in which players currently swap glyphs as a model for the new talents. I personally suspect we'll see players swapping talents when moving from PvE to PvP content, and in raids I wouldn't be surprised to see many players swapping talents on an encounter by encounter basis. That's what I call compelling game-play. You can check out Blizzard's preview of the Mists of Pandaria talent system here.
Be mindful that the MoP talents and skills are still in development. In fact, they are pre-alpha. This doesn't mean they might change or they might not be finished. It means they WILL change and are NOT finished. Having looked over the ones for classes I play, I can tell they've still got quite a ways to go, but overall I'm pretty happy with the direction.
Share your thoughts about the WoW talent system - past, present, or future in the comments below!
Then came The Burning Crusade, and 10 more levels meant 10 more talent points. Many talents were shifted around, some talents became base-line abilities, and new, arguably less-interesting talents were introduced as fillers. but in the end, all talent trees were extended by 10 points to make them 41 pts. deep with very desirable talents right at the bottom. This worked out fairly well, in my opinion. The trade-offs remained largely the same although the trade-offs between 41-pt talents and 21-pt talents were skewed more in favor of the 41-pt talent in most cases. You still needed to visit a trainer to change your talents, but the cost remained the same, and due to inflation, it was considerably cheaper. Click here for a patch 2.01 (TBC) talent calculator. 
The next major update came with Wrath of the Lich King, and represents the pinnacle of talent bloat. By this time, players had 71 talent points to spend at max level. To keep players firmly rooted in a single tree, most very desirable talents were moved DEEP into the 51-pt talent trees, and most of the points at the top of the trees were under-whelming fluff. For max-level players, it worked fine, but at low levels, players didn't really feel like they were getting much out of their chosen talent trees until much further into the game. In patch 3.1, a dual specialization feature was introduced for players who had reached a certain level. For a one-time fee, players could set up a second specialization and were allowed to switch between the two any time they are out of combat. This was a welcome change for hybrid classes, as well as anyone who liked having different specs for things like PvE vs PvP content. While I can't verify exactly which patch it's from, there appears to be a pretty decent WoTLK talent calculator here.
Be mindful that the MoP talents and skills are still in development. In fact, they are pre-alpha. This doesn't mean they might change or they might not be finished. It means they WILL change and are NOT finished. Having looked over the ones for classes I play, I can tell they've still got quite a ways to go, but overall I'm pretty happy with the direction.
Share your thoughts about the WoW talent system - past, present, or future in the comments below!
Adventures of a future Pandaren.
The recent Blizzcon announcement of Pandaren as the new playable race in the next expansion really made me look forward to playing one, and I decided almost immediately that I would need to come up with a great Panda-inspired name and level a new character some time before the launch of Mists of Pandaria. (followed by the obligatory race change, of course.)
This is how Pandaid was born. Over the last few weeks, I've leveled a priest for the first time. This is also the first character I've leveled through the 1-60 zones since they were revamped. I was impressed. The old zones really do feel like new, cataclysm content. I thought the Looking-For-Dungeon system worked great, with quest givers in all the instances, and useful blue-quality loot from the Satchel of Helpful Goods you get at the end of each run. The Hero's Call boards are another perk I hadn't fully appreciated. Every time I finished questing in a zone, I could not only follow whatever bread-crumb quests I had picked up in that zone, but I could check the boards in the major cities for quests that would send me to other zones suitable for my level. This meant I could quest for five or ten levels and then run dungeons for five or ten levels, and no matter what level I was, the Hero's Call board would put me back on track.
So off I went, fully equipped with lots more spare time than someone by age should have and every experience-boosting heirloom I could get my hands on. I passed 60 within a week. Then I started queuing for Outland dungeons, and that's where I discovered the weaknesses of the LFD system. Sure, they still gave the Satchel of Helpful Goods, but there wasn't a single quest giver in any of the burning crusade dungeons. At one point, I was level 64 and had only completed Hellfire Peninsula. The only bread-crumb quest I had was for Zangarmarsh, and I knew that wasn't level-appropriate. I flew all around Shattrath looking for the Hero's Call board, but it seems there isn't one. No problem, I thought, I'll go back to Stormwind! No quests on that board, either. Indeed, I was on my own, as if I had actually gone back in time to an era where such amenities simply didn't exist.
So, as I write this, Pandaid is level 84, and I seem to have survived the TBC and WoTLK content, but I sure was happy to see that Hero's Call board light up again when I reached level 80. The thing is, I just can't shake the feeling that Blizzard really dropped the ball by not carrying those features across those 20 levels. I realize they're not make-or-break features; Clearly I made it to 80 on several toons before they even existed. However, if the absence of those features for those 20 levels made such an impression on me, a veteran wow player, I can't help but wonder what kind of impression is left on players who play through those levels for the first time.
One other small complaint I had with leveling is what I consider poorly thought out ability progression; Early on, and primarily only in dungeons, I had issues with running out of mana and having no way to regenerate it in combat. Also, I had no AoE ability at all until 62 (lol @ Holy Nova) and no meaningful AoE until I learned Mind Sear at 74! Obviously, every class (or spec even) will be different, so your mileage may vary.
Share your own panda-inspired names and/or your experiences with leveling post-cataclysm in the comments below!
This is how Pandaid was born. Over the last few weeks, I've leveled a priest for the first time. This is also the first character I've leveled through the 1-60 zones since they were revamped. I was impressed. The old zones really do feel like new, cataclysm content. I thought the Looking-For-Dungeon system worked great, with quest givers in all the instances, and useful blue-quality loot from the Satchel of Helpful Goods you get at the end of each run. The Hero's Call boards are another perk I hadn't fully appreciated. Every time I finished questing in a zone, I could not only follow whatever bread-crumb quests I had picked up in that zone, but I could check the boards in the major cities for quests that would send me to other zones suitable for my level. This meant I could quest for five or ten levels and then run dungeons for five or ten levels, and no matter what level I was, the Hero's Call board would put me back on track.
So off I went, fully equipped with lots more spare time than someone by age should have and every experience-boosting heirloom I could get my hands on. I passed 60 within a week. Then I started queuing for Outland dungeons, and that's where I discovered the weaknesses of the LFD system. Sure, they still gave the Satchel of Helpful Goods, but there wasn't a single quest giver in any of the burning crusade dungeons. At one point, I was level 64 and had only completed Hellfire Peninsula. The only bread-crumb quest I had was for Zangarmarsh, and I knew that wasn't level-appropriate. I flew all around Shattrath looking for the Hero's Call board, but it seems there isn't one. No problem, I thought, I'll go back to Stormwind! No quests on that board, either. Indeed, I was on my own, as if I had actually gone back in time to an era where such amenities simply didn't exist.
 |
| Pandaid cries in front of an unhelpful Hero's Call board. |
So, as I write this, Pandaid is level 84, and I seem to have survived the TBC and WoTLK content, but I sure was happy to see that Hero's Call board light up again when I reached level 80. The thing is, I just can't shake the feeling that Blizzard really dropped the ball by not carrying those features across those 20 levels. I realize they're not make-or-break features; Clearly I made it to 80 on several toons before they even existed. However, if the absence of those features for those 20 levels made such an impression on me, a veteran wow player, I can't help but wonder what kind of impression is left on players who play through those levels for the first time.
One other small complaint I had with leveling is what I consider poorly thought out ability progression; Early on, and primarily only in dungeons, I had issues with running out of mana and having no way to regenerate it in combat. Also, I had no AoE ability at all until 62 (lol @ Holy Nova) and no meaningful AoE until I learned Mind Sear at 74! Obviously, every class (or spec even) will be different, so your mileage may vary.
Share your own panda-inspired names and/or your experiences with leveling post-cataclysm in the comments below!
Just another WoW blog...
Hello, friends! ...and welcome to the new Deathonabun blog. This is now a World of Warcraft blog, so that's what my posts will be focusing on going forward, with the possibility of some Star Wars: The Old Republic commentary as well.
So, with that being said, let's go over what we can look forward to in the coming weeks in World of Warcraft. Well, primarily, I'm expecting patch 4.3 to be deployed on live servers on either November 29th, or December 6th. This will bring 3 new 5-player dungeons, a completely revamped Darkmoon Fair, and a new tier of raid content in the form of a raid called "The Dragon Soul," in which players will finally be dispatching the primary villain of the expansion, Deathwing. On the feature side, we'll be getting transmogrification, void storage, and a Looking-for-Raid system which will function much like the current Looking-for-Dungeon system but will offer a somewhat easier raiding experience than the more organized raiding you may be used to. The catch? (There's always a catch, right?) Well, the loot just won't be as powerful. Welfare epics, indeed. However, I think it may be a great way to gear your alts.
As for SW:TOR, it officially hits store shelves on December 20th, although players who have pre-orders will be invited to begin playing as early as 1 week in advance. Beta is still on-going, and yours truly will be taking a look at it this weekend. It seems this is the weekend where pretty much everyone who is interested in beta will be getting in because Bioware has shifted their focus from game-testing to stress-testing. That being said, I expect to see a game that will be virtually indistinguishable from the product they'll be shipping in a few weeks.
If there's something specific you would like to see on this blog, please let me know in the comments below. I'm open to covering anything from tips for beginners to advanced theory crafting. Just don't ask me about PvP. lol.
So, with that being said, let's go over what we can look forward to in the coming weeks in World of Warcraft. Well, primarily, I'm expecting patch 4.3 to be deployed on live servers on either November 29th, or December 6th. This will bring 3 new 5-player dungeons, a completely revamped Darkmoon Fair, and a new tier of raid content in the form of a raid called "The Dragon Soul," in which players will finally be dispatching the primary villain of the expansion, Deathwing. On the feature side, we'll be getting transmogrification, void storage, and a Looking-for-Raid system which will function much like the current Looking-for-Dungeon system but will offer a somewhat easier raiding experience than the more organized raiding you may be used to. The catch? (There's always a catch, right?) Well, the loot just won't be as powerful. Welfare epics, indeed. However, I think it may be a great way to gear your alts.
As for SW:TOR, it officially hits store shelves on December 20th, although players who have pre-orders will be invited to begin playing as early as 1 week in advance. Beta is still on-going, and yours truly will be taking a look at it this weekend. It seems this is the weekend where pretty much everyone who is interested in beta will be getting in because Bioware has shifted their focus from game-testing to stress-testing. That being said, I expect to see a game that will be virtually indistinguishable from the product they'll be shipping in a few weeks.
If there's something specific you would like to see on this blog, please let me know in the comments below. I'm open to covering anything from tips for beginners to advanced theory crafting. Just don't ask me about PvP. lol.
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