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...

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!"

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