She can really put out the ranged DPS. Mages are awesome nukes. I’ve always been on the receiving end of their abilities (and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mage in a heroic before) but they can put the smack down hard. Which has left me in something of a quandry. After 10 levels of barely suriving caster form, I (like all level 10 druids) switched to bear form. Fresh bear druids can always be found dancing in Auberine or Darnassus, I think because they realise they aren’t so squishy anymore, and because the bear dance is so cute! If only we could wear little hats while we danced…

Quickly, though, I realised that even given the mage’s DPS and my survivability we would have to break and rest/eat/drink after every couple of fights. In Wetlands (why did we quest there? I have nfi – I hate the place) if we got ganked by more than 2-3 mobs at once, we would be cactus. Getting tricky didn’t seem to help, because if I switched forms to heal, I still had aggro, and the easiest plan was for me to tank and die, while the mage ran like hell.

Not an ideal situation. Then I tried using cat form. Life is SO much better now. Sure the mage gets smacked around a little more than before. But with Mage Armor she is fairly well protected (at least as protected as me in leather) and who cares, when I can switch forms to heal us, then switch back. Once I pick up Furor in the Resoration talent tree (much later) switching forms will be more ‘worthwhile’ and downtime will be non-existant. So a warning to those out there. DON’T LEVEL BEAR PAST 20. Simple. Even if you’re with a clothy and you like taking threat. Everything dies much quicker as cat. Nonetheless it’s all good practice for when I’ll inevitably have to tank some instance along the way…

What will the new hero class be? World of Matticus has a good series of guest posts about it. As Lodir pointed out, the starting zone for DKs was awesome. Sure – not everyone’s cup of tea (especially when you get your hands on the monstrous power that is a new DK all you want to do is go smash some face in, instead of mucking about with a storyline). But that took a whole lot of effort. The scripting, the instancing, the questlines and quest-writing are all quite high quality, and it was quite a rude shock to go from that to tooling around the EPL/WPL doing the old school quests.

What I liked:

• The way that talent points were ‘earnt’. Sure – it wasn’t overly difficult, but it was more fun that just going ‘Bam! Here’s 46 talent points. Go nuts!’
• The storyline. Love it or hate it, where else do you get such a lengthy quest-chain that has a good dash of lore and actually decent writing in it? At least not in the Old World. And it was blessedly free from the random interlocutory quests that would send you off to go skin gorillas or something. Can’t you see I’m trying to save the world here? Go skin them yerself!
• Having a separate ‘homebase’. It always felt a bit empty (and I cursed its lack of a mailbox) but it was cute having us all tucked away in our own flying fortress.
• Getting a mount 5 levels before everyone else (and for free)!!! Wheeee!!!

What I didn’t like:

• Having a separate ‘homebase’ that was miles from civilisation if my hearthstone was on CD. Dumb I know, but I have ported to the Ebon Hold, and then realised that I didn’t have enough cash for training more times than I care to remember.
• Starting at level 55. I know you need a toon at level 55 on your account first, but I think DKs would be better if you had to get to 80 before you could roll one. I know – people who can’t play their class at 55, probably won’t be able to play it at 80, but it would stop the attrition that you so commonly see (at least in levelling guilds) or people hitting 55 then ‘disappearing’ to roll DKs. Dinging 80 is an achievement whether you got all 80 levels on one toon, or 55 on one, and 15 on another, but I would prefer it this way. Maybe by 80 you’ve grown to love your class just that little bit more, and might not be so swift to abandon them for a DK. I also think that after seeing the DKs covering Dalaran like a rash, and the repeated cries on Trade channel proclaiming this raid/guild/group to be “full of DKs” you might think twice before re-rolling.

That about sums it up – that last point is the clincher for me. Frankly I would love it if i needed a level 90 toon in the next expansion to get the new hero class. It will force me to play through all the quests, and learn the new raids and dungeons from the perspective of my current class(es) before I can roll up some heroic class and lay waste Azeroth. This isn’t a punishment (like making a hero class start at level 1 – that is stupid) it’s just a way to see the game through to the level cap on one character, with one class’s strengths and weaknesses before starting an alt.

Either way, the question of what the hero class will be remins up in the air? Healer? DPS? Tank? The first seems to be a popular cry from raid and guild leaders at least, who scramble to fill healing spots with decent players. Of course, if the hero healing class was too OP (yes, like DK tanking) then it would be the only healer a raider would want to bring. Another DPS seems extremely unlikely (certainly not melee DPS) and a tanking class would also be less likely, given how recently DKs came out. It all seems to point to either ranged DPS or healing (or a comination of the two).

Yet DKs also have a very different style for using abilities, runes + runic power. One accumulates like rage when abilities are used, the others are like combo points are and used up by certain abilities with a short CD before becoming available again. How could you remove a healing class from the interplay of health and mana? They tried (a bit) with warlocks, but honestly, healing = mana. It will be truly interesting (if Blizzard release a new hero class) how the mechanics of it will work.

Only time will tell.

Secondly, just a little shout out to myself. Last night I joined in a guild run with some good friends of mine and we took out Sartharion. I know Obsidian Sanctum is a little raid, but still it felt good to *finally* get my DK out and about, and see him contribute to a tough fight. I thought it would never happen.

Initially we tried to pull Sartharian+1 (Tenebron) but the adds were just too difficult. Four wipes and we take them down separately. Nothing too crash hot drops, but my pal scores a 22-slot bag. But I didn’t care a bit. The thrill! The excitement! The exhilaration! I was putting out around 3-3.5k DPS on Sartharion, and that was with occasional ‘run away from the walls of lava’ moments. Forgot to take screenshots in all that excitement, but I’m sure we’ll all be back again there sooner or later. I’ve read that Tenebron is the easiest +1 to start off with, but the tricky part will be to keep on off-tank on him and the adds he spawns so that DPS can burn him down. Next time, eh?

Big shout out to the folks at <Celestial Being> on Saurfang who took me along!

When the Significant Other and I rolled DK’s we had some sweet moments: riding the hell outta some mob-infested hole after killing the elite for the quest, /training and aggroing every mob possible, then one of us would get dismounted. Woops. Pop some CDs, spin through the DPS rotation, maybe slap a Rune Tap down – no worries. Even on our pallies, we have bitten off more than we could chew, but managed to bubble/heal/spam our way out of it. But oh my god if my Blue Volkswagon pulls over an extra mob or two, who then decide to wander over and starting beating the living crap out of me, I’m pretty option-less as a Warlock. Sure, I can Life Tap once (or twice, if I’m feeling risque) to grab some mana, but mobs can be kind of unforgiving if you want to break and have a drink in the middle of something.

Leveling with a Priest has its bonuses at least. The Significant Other can spam some Renew, and keep buffs up on me, but I’m just burning through her mana to fuel my Fel-crazed addiction to the blue bar. It has been oft noted that we are unique in that we are the only class that can wipe out its own health bar in a matter of seconds, in an empty room devoid of any threats whatsoever. Just don’t blame the Imp.

Leveling as Affliction seemed like a good idea from what I had read. I just missed the little bit about how it only shines for solo play. And it does. When the Significant Other would be asleep/eating/working me and Voidy would man-up and take on Azeroth on our own. Good times. Afflication has some fairly good opening talents, like Improved Life Tap and Improved Drain Soul. I basically just followed the guide: send in the VW, DoTs, Life Tap, Drain Life, Drain Soul and repeat. With those talents I could basically walk away from a corpse with almost full health, and an almost full mana bar, as long as I got the most out of the channeled drain spells. Plus I had Soul Shards coming out of my ears. Which prompted me to use a nifty addon called Necrosis LdC. You can set the limit for how many shards you want to keep, and it will destroy any extras automatically. It also has some funky on-screen buttons things which freed up some action bar space, and simplified the creation of soulstones, summons etc. It also tracks DoTs on the target, and has some audio reminders for when Nightfall or Backlash procs, or when your soulstone expires. Just remember to turn off the party chat spam if you ever want to be respected. Ever.

One problem. This sucked when we were playing together. I couldn’t finish my rotation, my DoTs were being wasted, my mana wasn’t being replenished by the Improved Drain Soul proc, and we kept pulling aggro off the Blueberry. At that point, the talent tree looked a little like this. Next point would go to Siphon Life for some extra healing, and then 5 points in Shadow Mastery for some decent DPS gains, then Dark Pact to reduce down time. By this point, a Warlock should only be Life Tapping to make sure than a Drain Life isn’t wasted damage.

Instead I respecced into Destruction, for more burst damage. It’s going ok at the moment. The spec looks like this. The lineup is much the same, although Destro spells are few and far between. I have to wait to level 64 to get Incinerate. Sigh. I switched to the Imp because as a Destro ‘Lock you have 2 chances at not pulling aggro: Buckley’s and none. So with the Imp cackling and firebolting, mobs seem to go down pretty hard and fast. The Destro tree doesn’t have much in the way of burst or instant cast spells just yet. I usually wait for the proc before firing off an instant Shadow Bolt. Mana goes down fairly quickly, and since every one is beating up on me, my health is often worse for wear, limiting the usefulness of Life Tapping for mana, and any chanelled or cast spells. I’m holding out for Soul Leech and its improved version. This should help with the health and mana woes, but little beats the solo Afflication ‘Lock version of the Perpetual Motion Machine. Take that second law of thermodynamics!

A caster without mana is basically a pinata for everything hostile in Azeroth, and a caster that has all but committed suicide to regain that mana is basically asking for it. Leveling Destro is more useful in a group situation, but honest-to-goodness, Affliction is the way to go. You become a veritable powerhouse of unstoppable energy, and if you’re careful, you shouldn’t have a problem with the ole VW tanking. There’s a really finely-balanced feel about the Affliction tree, with the DoTs buffing the damage and health from your Drain spells, and there’s something undeniably ‘Warlock’ about it all.

Writing this makes me want to spec back. QQ. I’ll keep you posted.

Arguments For:

• allows alts to be geared up faster;
• acts as a ‘soft reset’ for gear in the lead up (presumably) to the final raids of WotLK, such as Arthas/Icecrown;
• can be used to speed up progression through the later raids; and
• will make it easier to find groups willing to run heroic 5mans.

Arguments Against:

• raiders spent a great deal of time getting this high tier gear, and now it’s being superseded/handed out like candy;
• it has no point, as players running heroics don’t need better gear until they move past Naxx 10man;
• it’s unfair to force players used to bleeding-edge content to return to heroics they have played through millions of time.

Neither of these lists are complete. For fuller explorations of both sides, visit respective bloggers. You know who you are. Let me just say this much. I am for it.

Why?

The emblems/gear are not going to be handed out like candy. We are not going to wake up post-3.2 with a full set of Tier 8.5 gear in all our mailboxes. If a player is going to collect enough emblems to collect the 2 pieces of set gear from the vendor, they will spend a great deal of time doing so.

If people spend that much time, they might as well just go raid properly? Some people may play an awful lot, but not to a particular (or someone else’s imposed) schedule. If I decided to go out to dinner, or go watch a movie tonight, I don’t want to leave 24 other people in the lurch. So if you’re not going to raid why do you need Tier 8.5 gear? I don’t need it. But have you honestly tried to get into a raiding guild/PuG these days? You need to have completed Naxx 25man, have the Epic gear achievement and be kitted out in Tier 9 stuff it seems. I’m fine in my iLevel 200 stuff, but apparently that isn’t good enough for Naxx 10man these days. Your hypocrisy tastes bitter.

On that note, we have all noticed (at some points) that WoW is a game. I play it to enjoy myself. It isn’t Real Life. I don’t need to work at the same firm for 30 years, backstab any potential threats and asskiss my way to senior partner. I get to do that 9-5, Monday to Friday. I’m not asking for ‘gear-welfare’ here, but to deny shiny purples to me ‘because I don’t need it’ is a ridiculous argument. IRL I don’t need a bigger house, or a car, or an overseas holiday to Europe. I might want them dearly, but that doesn’t change their inaccessibility. In this game if I can put effort in, in my own time in my own way, why can’t I be rewarded? It is the rather curious mindset of the ‘haves’ hate of the ‘havenots’ – is this where the American Dream has landed us?

When you ‘finished’ TBC and downed Kil’jaeden he dropped loot didn’t he? All the shiny iLevel 164 stuff right? What did you do with it? Scorn it as loot you didn’t need, since you could take him with what you already had, why did you need better gear now? I doubt it. Shame on you all. When they next expansion happens (if? when?) all this gear will be put to shame by the quest scrubs they hand out to every fresh 78.

Shame.

We stood by the pond that winter day,

And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,

And a few leaves law on the starving sod,

- They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Why isn’t there a place in WoW that evokes this imagery, and elicits this response? Initially, I figured that pixel jumping around a screen can hardly compare to the gray Wessex pond visited and decried by Hardy. But to my toons there should be something somewhere in Azeroth that equates. Without them having any memories or feelings, one has to wonder about the 18 or so years that precipitated till their majority, and someone in Northshire Abbey decided it would be ok to hand them a pointy stick and set them off to poke things with it. Without drifting into the realms of make-believe or RP one can still be left wondering what they would make of the world they find themselves in. How would you react?

The first ‘real’ game I ever played was Jurassic Park on the Sega Mega Drive II. I got it for my birthday in 1994, and I was pretty excited. I finished it on both campaigns, as you could play as either Dr Grant (the protagonist from the film and novel) or as the wily raptor, which was an interesting spin on the whole storyline. The game picks up after a short cut-scene, when Dr Grant has been thrown from a car by a T-Rex, and has nothing but his wits and some paltry dart gun to survive. I had watched the film repeatedly on VHS after it had come out in 1993, and had even struggled through the seemingly biblical 400-page novel by Michael Crichton. I was a spoilt child, so I had also accumulated quite a few of the Jurassic Park novelty toys by this point. As any young biy I was going through that phase of loving anything dinosaurical, and I still don’t think I’m over it: I still check to ensure my house is raptor proof.

The novel came first. It was the ‘true’ story of Jurassic Park. Spielberg had to cram that into an action packed 100 minutes, without making it feel piecemeal. So he took a bit there, and a bit here, cut that scene and this minor character. No brainer. But it made the film tell a different story to the novel, Spielberg’s story. When I played with my toys in my bedroom, I used my floor as the setting, the edges of the rug as the boundaries of the dinosaurs’ island, my desk and chair as the ‘human base’ and ‘pterodactyl eyrie’ respectively. I used the toys, my imagination, and what pre-knowledge of Jurassic Park I had, to create my own stories. When I played the video-game, I was viewing another Jurassic Park story, Sega’s story.

This is just an example – you could repeat it with almost any video-game. Games are just another way of telling someone a story. Of course they can be a lot more: they can be more visually rich than a novel, more interactive than a film, and longer than a TV series.

But where is the story in Tetris? Or Pac-Man? When does ‘objective’ not equal ‘story’? In WoW there is a huge front-load of story. The opening zones are full of quests, characters, and story-arcs that flesh out you race’s plights, the world situation, and your faction’s plights. Being gently led to exterminate the Defias Brotherhood in Westfall after seeing first-hand the way they have ravaged the landscape, following that with the final push to kill Van Cleef, only to be told of a much larger conspiracy against the king’s life, and deep-rooted treason in the palace.

On the other hand, you fire up QuestHelper, follow the arrows and press some buttons, ding, get some loot, rinse and repeat. This isn’t to say that most players miss the story in WoW, it’s that the story never grabs you by the collar and says ‘Lookit me!’ In GTA4, you are forced to push the storyline along to the next chapter – you have to pay attention, or otherwise why complete the objectives designated to your character? You can’t deny WoW is a giant 1-80 stat grind treadmill. It’s fun and I enjoy it. But that’s what I care about. Not the hopes and dreams of my ingame character. Not the immersive storyline that I’m swept up in. If I want plot I’ll watch a film, not play WoW.

How does this relate to other games? Think of a console game, and the console controller. You get to mash A, B, X, Y and some bumper buttons to do things, and a D-pad to move around. Kind of a limiting way to interact with the game world. Imagine a day-in-the-life-of if you could only interact using 4 basic commands, with a couple of simple combos thrown in (unlocked after you defeat the 3rd boss of course). Is this where game writers fall down? Pushed and pulled between the Scylla and Charybdis of cut-scenes vs sandbox/open-ended have they charted a middle way?

Not yet, I feel. I think story-telling in games has stagnated in the last decade. People have been too taken with the shinies of better graphics, to notice the poor attempt and plot that strings the flashbangs together. Pummeling your way from one cut-scene to the next FFX style is not the answer. Being thrown into a massive world with no direct imperative or incentive to pursue storyline is not the answer either (think Oblvion or Mass Effect). Fable II seemed to be heading there, and Fallout 3 certainly was more on-the-ball than Oblivion. But just adding in another stat called ‘Karma’ or ‘Light/Dark Side Points’ doesn’t make a brnaching storyline any better than flicking through an old Goosbumps ‘pick your own adventure’ by R.L. Stein.

[1] For those of you who don’t know about it, Good Game is probably the best home-grown games review in Australia. Aunty plays them at around midnight, but thankfully I just eat their podcast off their server.

Of course this is not news to anyone. But let me explain…

Having started a warrior and druid with the Refer-a-Friend bonus (300% exp) the Significant Other and I managed to power through to level 58 fairly quickly, at which point we promtply purchased the expansion packs, and re-rolled DKs. Fairly standard attitude for new players I imagine! Having since worked on those DKs for the last couple of months, our R-a-F bonus has expired (only lasts 90 days). Unfortunately it expired right in the midst of our pally grind – at least we got them to 21 before it ran out. We had completed the Draenei starting zones, and (for sentimentality reasons) I suggested Duskwood as the next target for leveling. It was either that or Ashenvale, and while Ashenvale is a fun place, I really enjoyed the story arcs and quests chains in Duskwood the first time around.

However, as anyone who’s levelled a human knows, Duskwood quests involve a lot of running to and fro from Darkshire to the Raven Hill Cemetary and back again. And again. And again…

Since we had stopped getting 300% experience, we had to trudge through each and every quest, fingers numb, eyes bleary. I was determined to get my Pally Pony and refused to sleep until I hit 30. Success arrived at about 2am, and all I could think was “Thank God I will be able to get a mount before Duskwood next time around!”

After that epic session, we decided to obtain another account, character transfer one of the pallies and continue with our R-a-F bonus. It was smooth sailing all the way to 48: Duskwood > Menethi l> Theramore > Dustwallow > Mudsprocket > Tanaris

And then we hit Un’Goro Crater. We both enjoyed this the first time round – a lush setting, hints of Jurassic Park, some classic pop culture references (Link’s sword, Chasing Amy). Plus basically every mob in the Crater needs to be killed for some quest. However, the RNG and drop rate for these quests is particularly brutal. Quest design in Old World is not particularly refined (compared to Outland/Northrend) but at least it is usually a good mix of:

1. Kill X mobs
2. Kill mobs until you retrieve X items
3. Kill a named mob
4. FedEx quests (talk to this NPC, give item to that NPC, breadcrumb quests, etc)

Of course, this is a gross generalisation, but it does hold true. Certain quest chains involve more #4 than the others (e.g. the Missing Diplomat quest chain) but generally in a zone you will get handed a good mix of all four of them. In Un’Goro Crater, though, the writers seem to have gotten lazy: the majority of the quests involve #2, and have a viciously low drop rate. Another con to #2 quests is that when partied, you’ll need to retrieve twice as many items as when playing solo.

This kind of grinding is mind-numbing and pointless. Often the mobs would drop nothing at all. At least if one of us skinned we could have filled countless bags with leather, but we’re not, and leather isn’t worth that much anyway, plus the only ‘settlement’ in Un’Goro lacks both an inn and a mailbox. I understand that quest variety is at a premium in a game that revolves mostly around combat and is essentially a grueling treadmill-like stat-grind from 1 to 80. But I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that with each unsuccessful kill that drops grey trash. I know the 50-58 grind is a particularly rough patch, but I think we’ll skip Un’Goro next time.

We had powered from 30 to 48 in one evening, then crawled from there to 53 in Un’Goro. As pallies the next logical zone would be EPL/WPL, but we are so sick of those zones after doing them as DKs. I think Winterspring will be tonight’s location. Fun, interesting, a pain in the ass to get to, but we’ll rep up with the neutral factions (‘time is money friend’).

So what now? I’ve been 80 for almost a month now. Done all the Heroics, got some loot, missed out on some more. Sunk a cool 5k just to fly around Northrend at speeds greater than retarded snail, then another 1k to dual-spec. Got the Bronze Drake off Heroic CoS to look a bit nicer when I fly off Dun Nifflehem for my daily cash grind. Decided I actually enjoy PvP and picked up a full set of gear costing thousands of honour, and countless days spamming Alterac Valley repeatedly. Got the [Epic] achievement, and a full complement of shiny purples. But now what?

I have stayed in my leveling guild, more because of the people there who I enjoy playing with, although they have began to drift off to raiding guilds. It’s not a particularly great guild, but there are some excellent players approaching 80 and it’s fun to have a casual run with people you’re familiar playing with, rather than take your chances with a PuG. Heroics have become a mindless farming exercise when I’m DPS, just spin the mousewheel and watch everything die – but nothing beats the thrill of seeing people experience Nexus for the first, or talking someone through Utgarde Keep. I certainly wish I’d had some of that when I’d hit the Heroics for the first time.

But that seems about as far as I’ll go. I’m a DK after all, and even after speccing Tank to make myself ‘more marketable’, everyone is full-up on DKs. It’s a bummer to see people you’ve mentored rush through a couple of Heroics, get some PvP welfare gear and jump into the same raiding guild you applied for, because they’re not a DK. I guess that’s the payoff for skipping 55 levels, although that amounts to like 2 million exp, compared to the 35 million exp you need to go from 55 to 80.

So looks like it’s time to go back to the drawing board. I don’t mind really. After beginning to tank on my DK, I realised how much I missed the adrenaline rush from that, so I’ve fired up my pre-DK main, a prot warrior. I actually enjoy leveling him as prot. The Significant Other started at the same time as me, playing as a druid before we both rerolled DKs, so she can kitty-DPS and heal, while I keep the threat. Works out well, and this way I won’t get to 80 and be like “How do I tank?”.

We’re also levelling some pallies. I have fallen in love with this class – they are simply unstoppable. And since we’re leveling a pair of them together, the synergy is particularly awesome.

Will they ever raid? Eventually, I hope so. Perhaps our DKs might even get a chance if we’re particularly lucky. But dusting off an old alt/main and starting some new journeys has been much more fulfilling than standing in Dalaran waiting for friends to come online, or PuGs to form up. I want to experience some more classes and different playstyles. The patch 3.2 changes will certainly help with that. Yesterday was the last time I will ever have to do the mindlessly repetitive quests in Duskwood (which generally involve traversing the entire zone for about 10 levels’ worth of quests) on foot! When my alts hit Outland they will be able to fly immediately, rather than 2 levels after they hit Northrend. When I finally have a ‘stable’ of 80s, they will be able to get into dungeons, and get more/better gear from them so they are better prepped for raiding. All good things to look forward to!