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!

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