Breaking News...

What is it about big patchest that inevitably and invariably breaks the servers? Tuesday the 13th, the long-awaited "Echoes of Doom" patch has finally been released. Despite having played a bit in beta, despite plans to capture a keep in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, definitely despite my better judgment, I finished the patch yesterday and waited for extended downtime to finish so I could log on.


And then I waited.


And waited.


And went and played warhammer.

And then waited.

And finally around 10pm the servers came up and I actually got to log in......

..... to find that nothing, and I mean NOTHING worked. If you had to click it (or hit a key) to use it... it was broken. There were no NPC's. There were no portals. You were trapped in whatever zone you logged out in Monday night (unless you hoofed it). There was absolutely no travel between Azeroth and Outlands.

Soooo... I logged off again and went squig-hunting.

About 2am, just before bed, I finally decided I'd give it one more shot and logged back into World of Warcraft. Everything worked again. Hurrah!

So I quickly emptied out my bags of pets and mounts, and made a visit to the barber shop. Finally rid of that disastrous hair I chose 3 years ago! And then ranted and railed about the dropped-ball on promises Blizzard had made to the balance-druid community and failed to provide on. But what else is new? With luck that'll go through eventually.

However, I am guardedly hopeful again for Wrath of the Lich King. I miss raiding, and I miss the friends I made in World of Warcraft. Granted, many of 'em joined me in Warhammer, but it's not quite the same.

I just wish Blizzard spent more time making sure all these fun new patched goodies didn't break the server every time they added 'em...! Heh!

Travel, good...

In addition to the new boats which have been added, there are many very fun modes of travel that have been embedded in quests.

Travel, bad...

My first few days in the Beta were scarred by travel woes. Over a two day period, I spent seven hours waiting for the boat to Northrend, riding the boat, getting dumped in the ocean, suspended in the ether, screaming, crying...finally stepping on the shore, only to have the server go down, and find myself back in Stormwind or Menethil.

Shamefaced

OK, I admit it, instead of blogging, I have been running around Northrend. Now, nothing counts in the Beta, but it would be nice if I saw some content beyond the two 'entry' zones. Not yet. Why? Because, I have a slew of alts running around there. I am running three hunters and a druid.

You see, I love farming, gathering, thus all three of my hunters must be played, the skinner, the miner and the herbalist. I also love...just gawking at great scenery. Have I mentioned the fabulous scenery? Hellfire Peninsula is just hideous, so when I started BC, all I wanted to do was get the heck out of there as fast as possible!!

Anyway...I will try to figure out how to add more than one screenshot per post and get a few of my thoughts written up by tomorrow...

Case of the Humdrums

I find myself feeling.. listless.. when it comes to the gaming world, lately.

I have access to WotLK Beta and actually have my own toons there to play with now. As I said last time... the Death Knight area was so creative and fun that I found myself saying "wow!" a lot of the time. Blue mentioned that everything seems to come so easy...

I almost agree, and yet... at the same time it doesn't bother me. We are given the 5-minute cooldown blue Medallion of the Alliance/Horde within our first few quests. We also did, in fact, hit 56 within less than an hour's worth of questing. However, one thing to keep in mind is that Blizzard originally lowered the requirements for leveling from 20-60 by nearly 30%!

And they seem to have done it again slightly, with the advent of Wrath. From 60-70 the experience needed per level will be lessened again, and the experience gained per quest and mob-kill will be increased. This is to make it easier for people who are picking up the game from scratch with Wrath to get to 80 in a world where finding questing partners is next to impossible (re: Azeroth).

But anyway... as I said. Listless. I'm having a hard time drumming up the interest and ability to log into either Live WoW, WotLK Beta, or even Warhammer Beta. I'm not quite sure why. No, I know why.

It's the general antipathy that comes over players when an expansion draws near. We saw it with release of The Burning Crusade a year and a half ago - guilds fell apart, friends server-transferred, and people stopped logging into the game because they felt everything they worked toward on their character would swiftly become useless.

And.. it will.

I think that's my biggest beef with the MMO expansion industry today. The fact that most 'expansions' aren't really expansions at all! It's an entire reset of the game. Every hour we spent pressing keys to down Illidan, and every drop of sweat poured out downing Kil'Jaeden will be absolutely useless in about 2 months.

Well... maybe not entirely useless. Those players who did progress past Black Temple and into Sunwell are likely to see their epics last until the first forays into Naxxramas, much as their tier 3 Naxx gear lasted them to Karazhan in TBC. (Nice kind of symmetry there, don't you think?)

But those players who got through SSC or TK... were making their first tentative steps into Black Temple and Mount Hyjal will likely replace every piece of their hard-won tier 5 set in the first level or two. Or at least they assume they will. And so... people don't want to try anymore.

I can't really blame them. Can you?

Bums me out a bit, though. On the bright side, however...

That comic still makes me giggle every time I see it!

Entering the Beta

Thursday afternoon, Syri and I made a couple of death knights and played them for the first several quests. As many others have said, the quests are fun, teach you about the class, and have great rewards. In fact, my one complaint is that you get SO much for so little work, including XP. We leveled 56 in less than an hour. I know, this is a starting zone, but still!!

Anyway, then I went on to Northrend with Blue. The first thing she did was tame a rhino. Of all the pets I have seen BRK running around with, rhinos looked the most awesome. I was not disappointed! Not only is the stomping very cool, and the knockback fun as hell, but they just look cuddly to me.

It took me an hour to figure out where the pet talents are. Of course, they are on the same window as my talents. /sigh Sometimes I can be a noob. Another thing I did noobishly was to use the knockback in congested areas, thus bringing more mobs aggroing on to us. We survived quite nicely, even before I had found the pet talents!!

Blue and Rhino ran around both the entry-to-Northrend zones, opening them up, finding all the flightpoints and quests, and killing skinnable stuff. And that brings me to another complaint. When I went to the skinning and leatherworking trainers, I found NO mail patterns, just leather. That made me a sad hunter. I hope there are mail patterns soon!

Next post...second day in Northrend!

Beta!

I got in!!!

I is the excited. Client is 40% downloaded, I should be playing tomorrow afternoon, there will be screenies!

I considered calling in sick tomorrow, but I maintain a tiny shred of sanity which says "No!"

One beta, two beta, three beta, more!

Well... I have been given access to the Wrath of the Lich King beta... but at this time, I'm afraid I can't bring myself to use it much.

There's not much detail I can go into at this point, other than that the brief hour or so I did play yesterday still has me somewhat in 'awe' of the whole deathknight area. It brought back the "wow-factor" of the game for me. The art is improved. The quest lines are obviously well thought-out and creative. It's just plain FUN. The area is incredible, the gear looks fantastic, and the dk's themselves seem to function really, really well. I had a lot of fun playing last night.


I am also currently playing in the Warhammer Online open beta, as you all know. That is going fantastically, and I now have 4 toons created. A bright wizard, a swordmaster, a white lion, and a shaman. All of them are a blast, though thus far my favorite remains the Bright Wizard. Next I will be tackling both a shadow warrior and an engineer.

As of yet, I have not managed to create a guild for the open beta. Unfortunately, it's a little tougher than in World of Warcraft... I actually have to convince 6 (instead of 10) people to come WITH me to the guild registrar in the main city, instead of being able to come to them to sign a charter.

So I've (of yet) still been unable to convince 5 others to come with me. I am going to keep trying, however! After I've tested out a few more classes, I will be working up a few more posts on how the separate career paths work etc. Should be an interresting time to be had!

Waaagh!

The future of multi-boxing

I moved my priest to my new account! She is my enchanter, and this means that when my main gets a new piece of BOP gear, I don't have to bug someone for the enchant. Well, once I get my new computer that is. Hrih is 65 now, and she stands to benefit greatly from the whole multi-boxing thing. I leveled her to sixty as a holy priest, but that was when I was regularly grouping and instancing. I just don't have much incentive to play Hrih anymore. So, my plan is to have Hrih follow my druid, or one of my hunters around as they quest and farm, thus she will painlessly level. Because she HAS to level, so that she can keep up with her enchanting and tailoring! And, who knows, someday I may start healing instances again!

I am also planning to move one of my hunters to the new account. OMG, I will be able to play two hunters together!!!! With the new pet love coming out in Wrath, imagine one hunter with a tankin' pet, and my raiding hunter (who of course has the best gear) with a dps pet. What bloody fun!! Of course most folks get this thrill grouping with a friend, but...

The person I do group with the most is my son. We tried having our hunters group together a couple of times, and got into fights about proper hunter etiquette. /sigh We are both pretty pig-headed, and as happily as we usually run around together, there are some fights we don't dare approach again. That one was a killer, we did not group for months.

So, this lets me group with myself; no fear of disagreement. Woot!! I am starting to get pretty darn excited about this multi-boxing stuff!

Blue

Meet the hunters: Sugarmaple

Sugar was my first 60, and my first engineer. She was my second main, after I realized that huntering was even more fun than druiding. Sugar trained a Winter Wolf as her first pet, and still has him. Since this was the era before pet families were standardized, I released the original Sarge and tamed a Ghostpaw Alpha, for the fast run speed and 1.3 attack speed, at level 27. The change took less than two minutes, therefore I feel I can still claim him as my 'first' pet. Sarge was named after my beloved dog that had died several months before I started huntering, so he is very dear to me.

As my first hunter, I admit to incredible amounts of noobishness in Sugar's leveling and first attempts at instancing. I do not think I had EVER dropped a trap, before I was 50. In my first instances, I sent my pet off after mobs in random directions more times than I like to admit. Only the fact that our GM's first main was a hunter kept my pets from getting banned entirely, I am sure.

In fact, Galthran (the GM) was amazingly kind to me, and over the course of several weeks after Sugar hit 60, he took me on runs to several instances where there were good hunter blue drops. Galthran gave me much good advice. "Feign, feign, FEIGN!!!" "Dismiss your pet before we jump!", and, most forbearing, when I was trying out an owl, he did not mention the flapping or 'whistling' (he is a warrior), but simply said, "Nice debuff."

I still mostly soloed though, and found every mining node in vanilla WoW, with Sarge and later also with Teddy, a Plagued Swine.

Blue

An Introduction to WAR

So, last weekend I got to try out Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.


To sum it all up as quickly as possible.... I was fuggin' impressed.

And now to the longer version....! I've played several games over the last 10 years from Myst and Zork to Diablo, Maplestory, EVE, WoW and more. And last weekend was the first time I was reduced to giddy bouncing and bright-eyed wonder at a game since I first picked up World of Warcraft three years ago.

I've decided to write a bit about the game as I have seen it thus far; first I will cover a few of the surface things I noticed, as well as a surface-breakdown of the playable characters... so, here goes!

The game itself plays very similarly to World of Warcraft; enough to the point that anyone who's played the one will recognize bits of MMO glory from the other. They do have a few noticable differences however.

Whereas WoW has a 1.5 global cooldown, WAR has 1.4 so the combat timing is nearly identical. However, to my eyes the biggest difference combat-wise is that WAR provides Collision Detection during RvR combat. Basically what this means is, you cannot run through your opponant... OR your allies! You must actively move around them as opposed to through them as you would on a real battlefield.

This lends a realism to the game that immersive players like myself will enjoy. It also adds to the skill level required, because unlike other MMO's you can't simply step through your opponant to complete attacks that require you to be behind or to the side.

Another basic difference I have noticed is that the way you obtain gear in WAR is much less important than in WoW. If you complete PvE objectives, participate in public quests, or recieve gear off of looted corpses, that gear will serve you in all aspects of the game, not just the PvE areas. And of course, the reverse is true - the gear sets are comparative, allowing you to use the same set for pve AND pvp.

The final immediate difference I noticed was the difference in focus. WoW has always seemed to me to be more of a Player vs Environment type of game. Until recently (with the advent of arenas), World of Warcraft was more about the end-game dungeons and boss encounters than fighting other players. In Warhammer Online, the opposite holds true. The end-game desire is in fact PvP contact; your entire goal is to take over the opposite faction's city! I was able to participate in RvR/PvP at the ripe-old level of 2. I had access to scenarios and RvR areas from nearly the moment I stepped into the game. And for me, that was one of the best parts.

Anyway... on to the breakdown I promised!

WAR has 2 realms and 6 factions, and each faction has it's own career paths. There are a total of 20 careere paths in the game, with each career containing three separate trees in which to build your career, as well as what are called Morale skills and Tactical bonuses. I will go into more about both of those in a later post.

Here are is the most basic breakdown of realm, faction, and career.



Order

• Dwarf

Ironbreaker (Tank)
Engineer (Ranged DPS)
Runepriest (Healer)

• Empire

Warrior-Priest (Melee Healer)
Witch Hunter (Ranged DPS)
Bright Wizard (Fire Caster DPS)

• High Elf

Swordmaster (Tank)
White Lion (Melee DPS)
Shadow Warrior (Ranged DPS)
Archmage (Healer)

Destruction

• Greenskin

Black Orc (Melee DPS)
Squig Herder (Ranged DPS)
Shaman (Healer)

• Chaos

Chosen (Tank)
Marauder (Melee DPS)
Magus (Arcane Caster DPS)
Zealot (Healer)

• Dark Elf

Witch Elf (Melee DPS)
Sorceress (Frost Caster DPS)
Disciple of Khaine (Melee Healer)

So. 2 realms, 6 factions, and 20 careers. As you can see, this is a massive amount of variety. If I tried to go into it all in one post, my ass would fall asleep. So I think I'll cut it off here. Next post I will go into a bit more detail about the careers. Until then!

Need more content!

I have to admit that I have not been logging on much lately; I am hoping for an invite to Beta. I am not currently raiding at all. I recently got a new account and started a few alts, got several of them up to ten, and eventually mean to level them with the lowbies I have on my original account...but that is contigent on getting another computer, and the wait for that will be at least two months.

It is not as if I have nothing I could do. I have a sixty-five priest who needs to level to seventy before Wrath drops. I have several seventies who need to get their professions maxed, and/or need their epic flyer, certainly there are faction farming and material farming that could be done. It just does not interest me. Like so many others, I am trapped in pre-expansion malaise.

So, what am I doing? I am haunting sites that have Wrath Beta stuff to read, such as BRK and Wowinsider, hanging out on the WotLK forum, and refreshing my email every few minutes. Just wasting my time. Luckily, I am a news junkie, and between the election season and hurricanes, there is plenty to watch on TV, still...seriously, I want Wrath Beta, or at least the public test realms with the new content (pets!!!) to go up. Need more content!!!!!

Bluespruce

Dwarf Hunters

My first toon was a druid, and since the guild my daughter was in was Alliance, she was by necessity a Night Elf. This is my first MMO, and in the beginning I was so noobish and terrified, I had no thought of doing anything without being close to real life acquaintances.

Although I enjoyed the druid playstyle, and still do, I seriously did not like the looks of my toon. I hated her dance. I hated being flirted with. Even more shocking was when folks assumed I was a guy.

When 'Achi' was 45ish, I had to go for several months to care for my mother. My Mom only had dial-up, so I could not play. While I was away, I read massively about WoW, and haunted my guild forums and even, *shock* the Blizzard forums. I decided I wanted to be a hunter. I love animals in Real Life, and have virtually never been without at least one dog, and usually a zoo of other critters. So I planned my hunter career, deciding which pets she would have, and as she could only have two pets, I quickly realized I needed more than one hunter, so I planned three.

When I returned to WoW, I immediately made three lady Dwarf hunters. Why Dwarf ladies? I play Dwarf ladies for several reasons. I love the way they talk and dance. I am mostly Scottish in real life and the accent and step-dancing is fabulous. Also, and even more compelling, female Dwarfs do NOT look like Barbie dolls. The only people who flirt with me are Dwarf males, and this is comfortable RPing, not an invitation to cyber. When I meet another female dwarf (very rare, but it happens) we are both 95% certain that the other person is truly a female.

Achi, the druid, is seventy now, as are the Dwarf ladies, Sugarmaple, Bluespruce and Ngakma. I have my assortment of pets, and am looking forward to having five pets per toon in Wrath. But that is still only 15 pets, and there are so many great choices coming...I think it is time to get leveling a few more hunters...

Bluespruce

*Headdesk*

Sometimes, I truly do not understand the logic that runs through Blizzard HQ.

Originally, game designers had wanted to require a level 80 character to be the key to unlocking a death knight. However, this was changed because blizzard wanted to avoid having people rush to 80, missing content etc in their pell-mell headlong rocket toward level cap.


A few short days ago however, Tigole announced the introduction of Realm-First titles. What happened to wanting players not to rush to 80? What happened to wanting the players to actually experience the game as they climb to the new level cap?

.... And who else will be fighting for those titles with me? >.<;



For those of you who for some reason or another haven't yet seen the list, here you go!

Achievements Titles

• Arena Master - Complete the arena achievements
  
• Salty - Complete the fishing achievements
  
• The Diplomat - Raise your reputation level from unfriendly to exalted with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar and the Kurenai / The Mag'har.
  
• The Hallowed - Complete the Hallow's End achievements
  
• The Seeker - Complete 3000 quests.
  
  

Feats of Strength

• The Supreme - First player on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Assassin - First rogue on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Warbringer - First warrior on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Archmage - First mage on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of The Ebon Blade - First death knight on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Stalker - First hunter on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• The Malefic - First warlock on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Prophet - First priest on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Crusader - First paladin on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Arch Druid - First druid on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of the Ten Storms - First shaman on the realm to achieve level 80.
  



• Twilight Vanquisher - Participated in the realm first Sartharion the Onyx Guardian kill (25 player).
  
• The Magic Seeker - Participated in the realm first Malygos kill (25 player).
  
• Conqueror of Naxxramas - Participated in the realm first Kel'Thuzad kill (25 player).
• Of Gnomeregan - First gnome on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of Quel'thalas - First blood elf on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of Argus - First draenei on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of Khaz Modan - First dwarf on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• The Lion Hearted - First human on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Champion of Elune - First night elf on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Hero of Orgrimmar - First orc on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Plainsrunner - First tauren on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• Of the Darkspear - First troll on the realm to achieve level 80.
  
• The Forsaken - First forsaken on the realm to achieve level 80.
  



• Grand Master Blacksmith - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in blacksmithing.
  
• Grand Master Alchemist - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in alchemy.
  
• Iron Chef - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in cooking.
  
• Grand Master Enchanter - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in
  enchanting.
  
• Grand Master Engineer - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in engineering.
  
• Doctor - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in first aid.
  
• Grand Master Angler - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in fishing.
  
• Grand Master Herbalist - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in herbalism.
  
• Grand Master Scribe - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in inscription.
  
• Grand Master Jewelcrafter - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in jewelcrafting.
  
• Grand Master Leatherworker - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in leatherworking.
  
• Grand Master Miner - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in mining.
  
• Grand Master Skinner - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in skinning.
  
• Grand Master Tailor - First player on the realm to achieve 450 skill in tailoring.
  
• Hero of Northrend - First player on the realm to gain exalted reputation with the Argent Crusade, Wyrmrest Accord, Kirin Tor and Knights of the Ebon Blade.
  
  

Out with the Old, in with the New!

Right now, I'm not entirely sure whether to laugh, or to cry. I have been playing World of Warcraft as a raiding moonkin for nearly 3 years now. In this time, and especially since the release of the Burning Crusade, I've found myself in a somewhat tight, but mostly comfortable niche: support class.

I could lower the boss's chance to hit our tank by 2% with my fancy Insect Swarm... I could give my group of 5 people 5% extra crit just by standing around and dancing with, you must admit, the best dance in the game! And last but not least, with judicious 40-second reapplication, I could increase the hit of every single melee and ranged (re: hunters) dpser by 3%! Granted, my personal dps was occasionally lackluster, but the antics of my trees, and of course the dance often made up for any deficit not provided by my support buffs.

However, with the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King, it seems I am to be pried out of my comfortable, though slightly undersized home, and flung to the far reaches of WoW hybridom thanks to the latest mechanic change that has been announced.

What I am refering to, of course, is what Zarhym has told us about the "Great Buff Normalization of 08." Or in other words, "what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations."

To put it succinctly ladies and gentlemen..... I fear I am about to become obsolete.

~Syri

The Introduction!

Well, it's time for that ever-present, unavoidable "first post" in a brand new blog. Welcome to HCG: Hardcore-Casual Gamers. My name is Syri and I'll be... well, one of your hosts, anyway! This blog is something I and another World of Warcraft player thought up over the span of about a month, as we both waited with baited breath to see if we got into the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Unfortunately, neither of us have.. at least not yet! However, it did at least lead to the creation of HCG so something good came of it, I suppose! This blog exists as our way of writing about something we care about: Gaming. We hope to bring you information, articles, and perhaps even short, funny, or interesting bits of information regarding several of the games we play. We may wander off topic now and again with posts about our lives, and don't say I didn't warn you!

Speaking of off topic, I suppose I might as well tell you a bit about myself! As I said, my name is Syri. I'm 24, living in Florida with a man and a cat, and have been gaming for something like 10 years now. Myst, Return to Zork, Diablo, EVE Online, Maplestory, and yes... Even Neopets are some of the games/sites I've frequented over the years.

For the last 3 of those, I have been an avid World of Warcraft fan, and have 2 level 70's (a boomkin and a huntard) and neumerous alts ranging from level 11 to 49. I'm an officer in a hardecore-casual raiding guild, and am an on again, off again PvPer.

When Lord of the Rings Online came out, I of course picked it up (having been fed and watered on the stories of Tolkien as a child), and I've also recently preordered and briefly played the game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, so you can expect to see me posting about any of those games, as well as whatever random shtick I happen upon.

Well, that's that I suppose, at least on my end! Now I'll go ahead and pass you over to my co-writer, Blue!

All yours, BS!


---------------------------


Thank you, Syri! I am Bluespruce, BS or Blue for short. I met Syri on a thread she created, that is now in it's fifteenth incarnation on Blizzard's "Wrath of the Lich King' forum. One day, in casual forum back and forth, we found out that we each had a yen to blog about gaming.

About me, in Real Life: I am 57, I live in Wisconsin with a dog. My two grown children and their respective SOs live within shouting distance. I've been gaming for...30+ years, starting with D&D in the mid-seventies. I brought my kids up as gamers, and our first computer game was Ultima V. They plunged into the online community in the 90s, while I puttered about with various PC games.

In November, 2004 I came to stay with my daughter and son-in-law for several months. They had just bought WoW, after having participated in the open Beta and I was immediately enthralled. I have 6 seventies, and only 3 of them are Dwarf hunters. *cough* I also have a seventy druid, a shammy and a Tauren hunter. I have hit the level cap of characters on my first account several times; altoholic does not even begin to describe it, so I recently broke down and bought a second account. On my main server I have a great guild, but still mainly solo, and hope to try to multi-box over the next few months.

I am a somewhat gimped player, since I did not grow up with computers. I also have Multiple Sclerosis, and am therefore mildly clumsy, and tend to have brain 'hiccups', brief blank patches, which make raiding harder, so I have only done a little with my main.

WoW is my only MMORPG. So far, I am not tempted by any others. So WoW is all I will be writing about in the gaming world. As Syri said, I may tell some RL tales occasionally!


---------------------------

Syri again here!

Well, that about sums up our first post on HCG! You know who we are and what we want to do! Blue and I will probably do articles at will... anywhere from multiple times daily to every couple of days, and we will probably write some together as well (much like this one).

We hope you enjoyed this entirely off-topic post, and... well, it seems so cliché to say but, "We'll see you again next time, folks!"