There is no server in all of WarCraft quite like Cho'Gall.
Each server has its own personality, of course. Moon Guard is the massively RP (and notriously ERP) server, Illidan is the economic heaven that crashes periodically, Proudmoore has a large amount of diverse lifestyles. Cho'Gall is famous for being host to the greatest faction imbalance in all of WoW.
Last I checked, there were 20 Horde for every 1 Alliance player. It's a truly amazing place to play, on the Alliance side especially. When you do Wintergrasp you never have fewer than 8 stacks of tenacity (and more often, 16-20). People are so few and far between that everyone pretty much knows everyone else, and you can't escape your own reputation so there's an inclination to be forgiving.
And when it comes right down to it, everyone needs each other because the auction house is a disaster. If you can't do it yourself, you need to use trade chat to find someone with the skill to do it for you. It's the cooperation out of necessity that has drawn me back to Cho'Gall after a hiatus. I'll probably go play my rogue or druid when cataclysm hits, but playing the paladin on Cho'Gall is great fun right now. It's like playing wow minus all the idiots.
And I've always said that the only thing wrong with WoW is the people who play it - Cho'Gall fixes that equation for you.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
World of Lazycraft
Laziness. Is it even appropriate to talk about being lazy in a game? I mean, it's a game. Isn't that the purpose? To relax and have fun?
I have two level 80 characters on my primary server/faction right now, and I don't really feel like playing them to improve them. I like the idea of logging in and playing them for fun, but their gear is to the point that I don't really care how much better they get. They're geared well enough to handle the content that I'm willing to entertain, so that pretty much means they're finished.
My rogue has a 5k gear score and my priest is hovering around 4500. That means that I'm very well geared for heroics dungeons, and can do some raids if I wanted. Unfortunately, raids have probably spoiled me. When raiding I tend to hunker down and get clinical and don't relax very much, because if I mess up a whole bunch of people die, food buffs are wasted, etc. I don't think I can relax while raiding anymore.
When I'm tanking I feel a responsibility to make things go smooth, and keep up the pace. When healing I have to pay attention and heal people through damage. When I'm DPS, I worry about doing enough damage to justify my spot. All those things get amplified in a raid setting, and detract from just having fun with the game.
So more and more lately when I'm done with my daily chores (quests, heroics) I log on to my baby hunter alt and pew pew arrows at stuff. No responsibility, no challenge, lots of relaxing fun. Call me lazy for not farming badges until I get a nosebleed, but I prefer to play the fun parts of the game.
I have two level 80 characters on my primary server/faction right now, and I don't really feel like playing them to improve them. I like the idea of logging in and playing them for fun, but their gear is to the point that I don't really care how much better they get. They're geared well enough to handle the content that I'm willing to entertain, so that pretty much means they're finished.
My rogue has a 5k gear score and my priest is hovering around 4500. That means that I'm very well geared for heroics dungeons, and can do some raids if I wanted. Unfortunately, raids have probably spoiled me. When raiding I tend to hunker down and get clinical and don't relax very much, because if I mess up a whole bunch of people die, food buffs are wasted, etc. I don't think I can relax while raiding anymore.
When I'm tanking I feel a responsibility to make things go smooth, and keep up the pace. When healing I have to pay attention and heal people through damage. When I'm DPS, I worry about doing enough damage to justify my spot. All those things get amplified in a raid setting, and detract from just having fun with the game.
So more and more lately when I'm done with my daily chores (quests, heroics) I log on to my baby hunter alt and pew pew arrows at stuff. No responsibility, no challenge, lots of relaxing fun. Call me lazy for not farming badges until I get a nosebleed, but I prefer to play the fun parts of the game.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
In Need of a Rainy Day
We're having a pretty dry spring here in western Wisconsin, and it's wreaking havoc on my gaming enthusiasm. Normally when I get home from work it's so miserable outside after a miserable day at the office that I'm ready to have a cup of evening coffee and settle into a mind-numbing session of warcraft to ease the soul.
Unfortunately, it has been so nice outside that I'm not deriving all of my relaxation and pleasure from gaming, and I find relief out in the garden playing with my plants. I'm sure you think this is very natural and healthy, but while I'm distracted with these flowery garden things the orcs and trolls are undoubtedly running amok in Azeroth in my absence.
So here's hoping that we get a good set of strong thunderstorms or a few days of rain. Yes, the plants need the rain too, but the Horde needs my assistance. Just not so much lightning that you knock out the power please.
Thank you, gaming gods.
Unfortunately, it has been so nice outside that I'm not deriving all of my relaxation and pleasure from gaming, and I find relief out in the garden playing with my plants. I'm sure you think this is very natural and healthy, but while I'm distracted with these flowery garden things the orcs and trolls are undoubtedly running amok in Azeroth in my absence.
So here's hoping that we get a good set of strong thunderstorms or a few days of rain. Yes, the plants need the rain too, but the Horde needs my assistance. Just not so much lightning that you knock out the power please.
Thank you, gaming gods.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Hunter's Paradise
Warsong Gulch is the first of the warcraft battlegrounds, and the easiest to understand. Each team has 10 players and a base with a flag inside. The goal is to grab your opponent's flag and return it to your flagpost while your own flag is still there. The first team to 3 points wins.
It's the perfect battleground to introduce new players to, because it introduces the issue of class imbalance to them at an early level and emphasizes it. If you can endure that, you'll be fine with anything in the game.
Warsong Gulch favors some classes heavily over others. Rogues and warriors, for example are easy to overgear at a low level and they can deliver some comically awful mismatches against normal cloth wearers. It's not unusual to see a geared-out level 19 rogue one-shot a clothie with ambush, or a warrior charge a group and kill everyone with bleed effects. Mages have lots of chilling effects that help them escape, and paladins already have their stun. Priests, shamans, warlocks, and druids are pretty much the perpetual victims, although shamans and druids can at least run away from most things.
But nothing dominates in this bracket like the hunter. The hunter can plunk people at 40 yards (truly fearing only warlock dots and other hunters), and mark rogues as soon as they rez in the graveyard to prevent their stealth attacks. I have always complained about this imbalance, but it was even more emphasized for me last night.
Playing a level 15 hunter - middle level for the bracket - I carelessly ran around shooting everything and escorting flag runners and ended up with almost 20 kills and only 5 deaths. I easily led everyone in the battleground in total damage done by about 40% over the next highest person, and I still have four more levels in the bracket. I can kill low level enemies with just my pet. My traps do as much damage as a warlock DoT, and I can put stings on multiple targets at range and daze an opponent before they get close to me and kite them forever. It's my happy hunting ground.
Hunters have always been the 'cheap and easy' leveling class but I'd forgotten just how easy they really were. Now with heirlooms (I'm using the Charmed Ancient Bone Bow, among others) it's ridiculously fast. I can farm mobs much faster than with any other class I can remember, even faster than a feral druid back in BC. It's a non-stop killing spree with my pet acting as maitre'd, serving up one after another.
I'm leveling up too fast. It's too much fun, I keep obliterating people in Warsong Gulch and getting XP for it, I'm outpacing my skinning and leatherworking. I can't believe how easy everything is... such a change from just leveling the priest. Something tells me this character will make it to 80 just because it's fun.
It's the perfect battleground to introduce new players to, because it introduces the issue of class imbalance to them at an early level and emphasizes it. If you can endure that, you'll be fine with anything in the game.
Warsong Gulch favors some classes heavily over others. Rogues and warriors, for example are easy to overgear at a low level and they can deliver some comically awful mismatches against normal cloth wearers. It's not unusual to see a geared-out level 19 rogue one-shot a clothie with ambush, or a warrior charge a group and kill everyone with bleed effects. Mages have lots of chilling effects that help them escape, and paladins already have their stun. Priests, shamans, warlocks, and druids are pretty much the perpetual victims, although shamans and druids can at least run away from most things.
But nothing dominates in this bracket like the hunter. The hunter can plunk people at 40 yards (truly fearing only warlock dots and other hunters), and mark rogues as soon as they rez in the graveyard to prevent their stealth attacks. I have always complained about this imbalance, but it was even more emphasized for me last night.
Playing a level 15 hunter - middle level for the bracket - I carelessly ran around shooting everything and escorting flag runners and ended up with almost 20 kills and only 5 deaths. I easily led everyone in the battleground in total damage done by about 40% over the next highest person, and I still have four more levels in the bracket. I can kill low level enemies with just my pet. My traps do as much damage as a warlock DoT, and I can put stings on multiple targets at range and daze an opponent before they get close to me and kite them forever. It's my happy hunting ground.
Hunters have always been the 'cheap and easy' leveling class but I'd forgotten just how easy they really were. Now with heirlooms (I'm using the Charmed Ancient Bone Bow, among others) it's ridiculously fast. I can farm mobs much faster than with any other class I can remember, even faster than a feral druid back in BC. It's a non-stop killing spree with my pet acting as maitre'd, serving up one after another.
I'm leveling up too fast. It's too much fun, I keep obliterating people in Warsong Gulch and getting XP for it, I'm outpacing my skinning and leatherworking. I can't believe how easy everything is... such a change from just leveling the priest. Something tells me this character will make it to 80 just because it's fun.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
April Fools
This was an April Fools joke by Comics Alliance – but a really awesome one.
Top Shelf Announces 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1988''
This morning, Top Shelf announced the long-awaited next installment of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga, shocking fans and retailers alike with the news that not only would O'Neill not be drawing it, but that after last year's "Century: 1910," Moore's scripts were jumping ahead almost 80 years for "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: America 1988!"
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - America: 1988
When war-hero-turned-handyman Kesuke Miyagi is found drained of blood, it becomes clear that the occult gang known as the Lost Boys are targeting the only individuals that can stop them from complete domination of America. It's the perfect case for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--except that their government contact, Oscar Goldman, disbanded the team in 1979 after they defeated Mr. Han's army of the living dead.
Now, disgraced scientist Emmet Brown has to put together a new team to combat the growing threat of the Lost Boys and their leader, a newly resurrected vampire kingpin Tony Montana: Transportation specialist Jack Burton, ex-commando B.A. Baracus, tech wizard Angus MacGyver and the mysteriously powerful femme fatale known only as "Lisa." But will Brown be able to stop the Lost Boys before time runs out?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mercy Rule
I don't like the thought that getting to 80 should entitle you to shortcuts. Each trip should be something individual, valuable, and unique. I should be forced to go through the same labor to get myself to 80 the eighth time as the first.. but dear lord, it should at least be as original and entertaining as the first.
I see the questlines in Sholazar Basin, and my eyes begin to tear. The thought of heading to Storm Peaks makes me queazy, and opening up the zones in Icecrown has me wishing I had chores to do somewhere. I've ended up spending a lot of time in AV and LFD because I despise grinding the same Northrend content over and over. It's just not fun, and the distance between rewards - levels, not cheezy quest greens and some gold - gets longer and longer as you get closer to the end. The last couple levels are the worst, but it wouldn't be so bad if we could take a different path to 80 once in a while.
So, in short: Don't give us shortcuts to 80, give us variety.
I see the questlines in Sholazar Basin, and my eyes begin to tear. The thought of heading to Storm Peaks makes me queazy, and opening up the zones in Icecrown has me wishing I had chores to do somewhere. I've ended up spending a lot of time in AV and LFD because I despise grinding the same Northrend content over and over. It's just not fun, and the distance between rewards - levels, not cheezy quest greens and some gold - gets longer and longer as you get closer to the end. The last couple levels are the worst, but it wouldn't be so bad if we could take a different path to 80 once in a while.
So, in short: Don't give us shortcuts to 80, give us variety.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Bubble, Boil and Trouble
So I'm leveling up my priest's alchemy profession, and it occurs to me, back in Burning Crusade we had the ability to specialize our alchemy with either potion mastery, elixir mastery, or transmute mastery.
What was involved was doing a special (expensive) quest for an alchemy master, and then you would have a chance every time you used your alchemy for that area of mastery to create additional product without requiring any additional ingredients. Depending on the mastery, it usually mean 15-25% extra stuff produced using the same ingredients.
So at level 74 I ventured back through the portal to Outland and before hunting down the master of my choice, stopped at wowwiki to do a little reading on the quests. I'm glad I did, because not only do these quest requirements still exist, they're still a hurdle.
Transmute Mastery. This one is probably the easiest to solo (which I'm glad to hear, since it's the one I chose) and it requires talking to a questgiver in Netherstorm. All he wants you to do is provide 4 Primal Mights and bam, you're a master. No one uses primal might anymore, so if you head to Shattrath the arrakoa alchemist guy will probably have the recipe waiting for you, and then you just need to farm all the primals to make the mights, transmute them to primal might, and turn it in. For primal mana, I suggest doing the old L70 daily quest in the consortium area of blade's edge that makes all the mana wyrms visible - you can farm them until you get all the primals you want, and then turn in the quest too.
Potion Mastery. Somewhere between L70 and L80 you will get powerful enough to head into the Botanica in netherstorm and kill High Botanist Freywinn by yourself. Until then, good luck finding a group, and you'll need to kill him and return his book - along with a bunch of potions - to become a potion master.
Elixir Master. And the reason I chose Transmute Master is because I knew it would be almost impossible to get a group for Black Morass these days. To master in elixirs you need to travel to black morass in the caverns of time and get 10 drops off the rift lords and rift keepers in there. Some classes will be able to solo this at 80, some will not. Adding to the difficulty, you still can't even enter the black morass until you've done the durnholde keep instance and turned in that quest. Also, you'll need to bring 15 elixirs with you when you turn in the mastery quest. Ugh.
There is one small saving throw however. If you absolutely need to be an elixir master and can't possibly get a group together to jump through the hoops, you can do one of the other mastery quests and then switch, for a fee of 150 gold.
(That's it? 150g?)
Yeah, 150g isn't worth what it used to be, eh? Apparently if you complete a mastery quest in one area you can drop it and learn another by just paying gold and switching, which is pretty awesome. So if you're headed in one of these directions, probably the time-saving one is to go transmute, then visit the other trainer and just pay to switch.
If you live on a high-pop server this could possibly be done very quickly too, since they removed the cooldown for transmuting primal might in patch 3.0.2. You might be able to find all the primals (and maybe even the primal might recipe) in the auction house, learn it, craft them up, and turn it all in, then pay and switch, and be done immediately.
That's just a little bit too lazy for me. I'm at least going to farm for my own primals.
What was involved was doing a special (expensive) quest for an alchemy master, and then you would have a chance every time you used your alchemy for that area of mastery to create additional product without requiring any additional ingredients. Depending on the mastery, it usually mean 15-25% extra stuff produced using the same ingredients.
So at level 74 I ventured back through the portal to Outland and before hunting down the master of my choice, stopped at wowwiki to do a little reading on the quests. I'm glad I did, because not only do these quest requirements still exist, they're still a hurdle.
Transmute Mastery. This one is probably the easiest to solo (which I'm glad to hear, since it's the one I chose) and it requires talking to a questgiver in Netherstorm. All he wants you to do is provide 4 Primal Mights and bam, you're a master. No one uses primal might anymore, so if you head to Shattrath the arrakoa alchemist guy will probably have the recipe waiting for you, and then you just need to farm all the primals to make the mights, transmute them to primal might, and turn it in. For primal mana, I suggest doing the old L70 daily quest in the consortium area of blade's edge that makes all the mana wyrms visible - you can farm them until you get all the primals you want, and then turn in the quest too.
Potion Mastery. Somewhere between L70 and L80 you will get powerful enough to head into the Botanica in netherstorm and kill High Botanist Freywinn by yourself. Until then, good luck finding a group, and you'll need to kill him and return his book - along with a bunch of potions - to become a potion master.
Elixir Master. And the reason I chose Transmute Master is because I knew it would be almost impossible to get a group for Black Morass these days. To master in elixirs you need to travel to black morass in the caverns of time and get 10 drops off the rift lords and rift keepers in there. Some classes will be able to solo this at 80, some will not. Adding to the difficulty, you still can't even enter the black morass until you've done the durnholde keep instance and turned in that quest. Also, you'll need to bring 15 elixirs with you when you turn in the mastery quest. Ugh.
There is one small saving throw however. If you absolutely need to be an elixir master and can't possibly get a group together to jump through the hoops, you can do one of the other mastery quests and then switch, for a fee of 150 gold.
(That's it? 150g?)
Yeah, 150g isn't worth what it used to be, eh? Apparently if you complete a mastery quest in one area you can drop it and learn another by just paying gold and switching, which is pretty awesome. So if you're headed in one of these directions, probably the time-saving one is to go transmute, then visit the other trainer and just pay to switch.
If you live on a high-pop server this could possibly be done very quickly too, since they removed the cooldown for transmuting primal might in patch 3.0.2. You might be able to find all the primals (and maybe even the primal might recipe) in the auction house, learn it, craft them up, and turn it all in, then pay and switch, and be done immediately.
That's just a little bit too lazy for me. I'm at least going to farm for my own primals.
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