What You Did There; I See It.

This just in! According to neowin.net, Nvidia will be unveiling it’s fastest gaming technology yet at PAX East 2010. This event just gets cooler and cooler. Who’s going? I know Averna and I are going, as are about a dozen of our guildies. Straight-up Ascended meetup! Woot! Also, given that I will be hosting a ton of guildies, I will not be registering for the BYOC option, but if you’re interested, I recommend registering ASAP – spots are very limited.

I will be updating more on this as the event gets closer, and of course, I’ll be doing what I can to update what I can about the event itself (though since we’ll be hosting a slew of guildmates, don’t expect minute-by-minute updates).

In other news, I’ve almost completed A Feast of Souls, my current quest in my Shadowmourne questline. After that, next up – a hard-ass kill of Putricide! Seeing as we’ll be banging our heads against Putricide again tonight hoping for our first kill of him on 25-man, I’d say it’s a bit away before we can do it so well we can have me in there messing around with being the Abom to get the debuff for the quest, but I’ll update as we get closer. Wish us luck!

So as I mentioned the other day, Blizzard has released the patch notes for 3.3.3 (though GhostCrawler has stated that they are not 100% complete) and there’s some big changes coming. I’m not even going to touch the massive pvp/battleground changes, ’cause hey, pvp is fun, but it’s not my big thing. I’m on a PvP server because I like the violent nature of it; I like the unsuspecting attacks, I like the “look over your shoulder” feel it gives, but at the end of the day, PvE is where my heart is; I live for the raid, for the group kill, for the exultation of a hard fight well executed. Leave the PvP change reviews to someone who lives and breathes for the PK.

First – some random stuff.

Ok, so we’ve got some simple fixes here that make life a little easier. I’m all for ‘em. Bring ‘em on. Insert more times that I say “‘em”. Onward. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I care a lot about my Unholy DK (and am at this point just amused by the fact that it’s impossible for a patch to come without a serious change to the spec), so I’ll hit on those changes.

Whoa whoa wait a second there – is that a buff, a nerf, or somewhere in the middle? Well, it sorta depends on what you do. With the physical damage increase, you’re looking at a buff on non-diseased targets. That is to say, if you use Scourge Strike against something right off the bat, it’s going to do more damage post-patch than it does now. This change should not, however, affect much for PvEers, as even though it looks like a nerf at first glance on the shadow damage, don’t forget the shadow damage is directly proportional to the physical damage, so it’s relatively the same thing (an ever-so-slight buff, actually). Both still double dip in the same ratios, and in the end, if there’s a change, you’re probably not going to notice it. If anything, you’ll notice that ArmPen is worth a tiny bit more. Don’t worry about it. In the end, this will most likely be about a 50 dps buff for you. From this post:

There are a ton of Auction House changes, which I’ll go over (read: look at) at some point in the future, but for now let’s just skip ahead to what made me omg wtf nerdrage pissed:

Yup, totally wtf pissed.

Here’s the thing – I’m in the camp of people that hates Occulus. Now, before you get all hatin’, raging at me for not knowing how to play, saying it’s easy, saying I can get all those extra badges and the mount, hear me out. I like vehicles. Which is to say, I like 2d vehicles, land vehicles. I think that the Flame Leviathan fight is super cool and fun, I think that while Wintergrasp is poorly implemented and the server architecture can’t handle it, it’s fun in concept and I like the style. 3D drake vehicle combat, however, is another thing entirely. I hated Malygos Phase 3 with a seething passion, and would have opted out of running it at all if I weren’t, y’know, the guild leader (it would have set a bad precedent, not to mention the hit on morale). The display engine just doesn’t cope well with 3-dimensional space, figuring placement not just 360º around you, but also above and below. It’s poorly designed and plays in a way that I do not find enjoyable in any way, shape, or form.

Is it easy? Totally. Can I do it? Of course. Should I have to? NO. I play this game to have fun, and Occulus is not fun, at all. I’d rather not play WoW than run Occulus. I don’t care about Triumph badges, I don’t care about mounts. I have no reason to run it, at all, and it saddens me that because Blizzard decided to make the random daily include Emblems of Frost, I’m basically forced to run one random a day in order to be a dedicated raider.

Currently, this isn’t much of an issue: if it pops, I leave, wait 15 minutes, and try again. But the above change tells me the following. First, Blizzard recognized that they had an epidemic of people leaving Occulus when it popped, so they added some extra rewards for completing it – a few extra Triumph badges and the chance at a mount. Apparently, that didn’t do enough, so now they’re taking the other route – punishment. Blizz is acting like a bad parent, first offering sweets as a reward for finishing a dry meatloaf dinner, and when that doesn’t work, threaten punishment. If you don’t run Occulus when it pops, you don’t get to run anything for half an hour. Ok, I’ll log out and go play Rock Band for half an hour. No skin off my back. At least that’s FUN.

Could I suck it up and run it? Sure, I could. I mean, it’s quick and easy, right? As I told a guildie last night, so’s your mom, but that doesn’t mean I should jump her bones. Not. The. Point. I play this game to have fun. I play this game because it IS fun. I like the grind, I like the options, I like the playstyle; hell, I’m working on Loremaster for my freakin’ Death Knight, and even though it’s tedious as all hell, I’m enjoying it a lot. Occulus does nothing for me, and I resent being extorted into running that 15-minute facepalm just because Blizzard can’t admit/accept that it’s terrible. They did as much already when they added the extra rewards for it; I’m sorry that wasn’t enough. You know what would be enough? Give us a one-minute pre-combat “grace period” upon entering an instance to leave it. Yes, you’d see people leaving groups because their teammates aren’t in T10 – I consider that an acceptable rarity, or at least an acceptable option vs punishing people who refuse to waste their time because Blizzard can’t accept that they made something that sucks.

I’m not saying it should be abolished; I’m not saying it should be removed. Shit, some people like it. You may enjoy it, and if so, kudos – I’m fine with that. Everyone is different (no two people are not on fire). But now Blizz wants to see if people will log out for half an hour when their RNG gives them that joke of a run?

You bet your ass I will. I’m just going to do so while being even more pissed that in order to be a progressive raider, I have to run content that I beat over a year ago *every day* and subject myself to the chance of that abortion of an instance or a half hour penalty? The damn things never should have given Emblems of Frost in the first place. I don’t see them changing that anytime soon, though, so I die the little death inside.

Now, again I recognize – some people really like it. I also know that a lot of devs put a lot of time and effort into it, and I respect that. The existence of the instance doesn’t bother me; the fact that I’m going to be penalized for half an hour for not wanting to run it does. I could just not do the daily random, but again – then I’m losing 14 Emblems of Frost a week, and for a serious raider (especially an Unholy DK, that needs all five pieces plus the cloak – 455 Emblems total, unless I get lucky in VoA), that’s a lot.

So that’s why I hate this change. Weak, Blizzard, really weak.

So what are your thoughts on the change? Like it? Hate it? If you’re civil, I’m down for a discussion. Whatcha got?

Holy smokes, it finally shipped!

I love GameFly, I really do. I even had a clever plan with them – keep my queue insanely small, and they’ll be forced to send me the games I want. It worked up until now. This time, Bioshock 2 was the only game in my queue for two weeks. Looks like they will not, in fact, just buy another copy to fill the demand. All is good now, though, for they have finally shipped me a copy, and I should have it by Monday. I look forward to revisiting Rapture next week.

If you’re in Cambridge tonight, you have the chance to see me in rare form, which is to say out and about on the town instead of sequestered away in my office, working on Loremaster on my Death Knight. I will instead be at TT the Bear’s, greatly enjoying the music of The Luxury. Freakin’ awesome Brit-pop-rock band from Boston, winners of the 31st annual Rock and Roll Rumble, totally awesome ninja robots that breath lava while they play and more badass than Chuck Norris after he beheaded the Highlander. No, really. Check it out.

Some new Kill Shots/Achievements up – check em out.

Aeman (one of my guild‘s two raid leaders – trust me, they make it work well) has been working on an off-official-raidtimes 10-man Glory of the Icecrown Raider run for a few weeks now, and we’ve been making some steady progress. I’m quite excited about what’s to come. So far, the fights haven’t been too tricky; I’d say just enough for a 10-man run, enough to make you work for it. Averna and I were talking about the ease of 10m vs. 25m last night, and I’m of the mind that it’s not so much that the 10m runs are easier, per se, but rather that there’s less to carry, less confusion, and each and every member is important. On the one hand, that puts a lot more pressure on each raid member, but on the other, that’s a lot less chances to mess up; it narrows the margin of error by 15 players, and that’s a lot of confusion removed. Someone died? It’s pretty easy to notice, and probably pretty easy to get a battle rez up (it’s not like you have five druids in the raid – well, you probably don’t).

Thing is, with 25 people, someone’s more likely to mess up, someone’s more likely to need to be carried, and in some 25-man encounters, people can’t be carried. Everyone has a job, and they need to perform it flawlessly or everyone dies. That’s just how it goes sometimes, and I think that just becomes more apparent when there are more chances/people to mess up. 10 man runs aren’t inherently easier, they’re just easier to manage. I guess my point is, no hatin’ on those who push out 10-man runs/kills/achievements – they’re working just as hard as you are at them. They just might be working harder than the weakest link in your 25-man, and that can be the difference between a kill and a wipe.

This just in! Patch notes for 3.3.3 just hit, and boy am I pissed about some of it (just some, though – some is sweet!). Next post will cover what I think; stay tuned and see you soon!

I really don’t visit my father enough. This isn’t an intentional thing; he’s a rad dude and he’s funny as hell. Shit, he’s even got a pool table in his finished basement. Timing can just be a bitch sometimes, as can be the fact that, well, his cat can seriously mess me up (I have a potentially fatal allergy – no, really, I’ve been hospitalized from cats before).

Anyhoo, Allison and I decided it’d be a good time to go visit, so we did. In case you were wondering, yes, the MBTA still sucks, even after all these years.

I had all these fantastic intentions of taking tons of photos and all that jazz, but yeah, once we got off the boring train and into the custody of my old man, I pretty much completely forgot about the camera. Sorry about that. It happens. I do have a handy-dandy link to the photoset of the train ride down, but yeah, no clever down-the-green shots of the pooltable, no close-up of the hole I put in the wall from the dart (yeah, I’m smooth), no yawning cat, no shot of the like nine wild turkeys in the backyard (no, really). Sorry, I’ve let you all down.

Let’s just say we ate a delicious roast, got schooled in 8-ball, and had a really good time. I even managed to escape the cat with minor sinus after-effects. I call this a win.

Oh – and down the street from my house is, quite possibly, the best billboard I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Check this shit out -

I’m almost astounded at the existence of such a billboard. Now, don’t get me wrong – I think it’s awesome and frankly, I agree with it. I’m just astounded at how in-your-face ballsy it is; I didn’t really expect to see something so un-PC in Cambridge, MA. Color me impressed.

Speaking of impressed, I’ve recently fallen in love with this song – Trifonic – Parks on Fire. The rest of the album is decent (a few too many vocal tracks for my liking, but I think they’re going for that “band” thing), but this track is just sublime. Some of the cooler electronic music I’ve heard in a while. I purchased the digital download off their site for like $9, and it’s totally worth it, if you’re into that sort of thing.

So some new PTR notes are up. Let’s check out some stuff on it.

Right off the bat, I noticed a few different changes in regards to early toons, from no more dazing of level 1-5 toons, to more standardization/simplification of starting weapons, to increased regeneration rates for very low level toons. Sure, it’s not like leveling your fifth alt was difficult in the first place, but hey, thanks for thinking of us. Now if only they’d make levels 41-54 less painful. No, really this time.

Awesome General Changes:

• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.

I like increased pet survivability – one less thing to worry about.

Awesome Class Changes:

• Death Knights: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
• Druids: Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Hunters: Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
• Shamans: Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes.
• Warlocks: Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

With the general raid gameplan heading more and more into fast encounters (or at least less trash), I see all of these changes as streamlining the raid wipe/recovery process more and more, and I for one support them all. Faster recovery/less cooldown waiting means more time actually spent making valid attempts against bosses, rather than going “well, we don’t have any battle rezzes/heroism/soulstones this time, so let’s just halfheartedly throw ourselves at it and hope we learn something” and more of an “every attempt is 100%” approach. These changes certainly make sense with the way raids appear to be going, but that doesn’t mean that I’m any less surprised when Blizzard makes a good call.

Bad Class Changes:

• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Unholy Blight: This talent now deals only 10% of Death Coil damage as a damage-over-time effect on the target.
• Death Knight Tier-9 4-Piece Bonus: This set bonus no longer grants Frost Fever a chance to be a critical strike. It still grants that possibility to Blood Plague.

I may be premature in calling the AoE change bad, as I haven’t even done napkin math on it yet, let alone real math, but yeah, it feels like a nerf, so I’m gonna run with it. BAD!

The DK changes are nerfs across the board. We all knew that a tier nerf was coming, though I still expected them to remove Ebon from it rather than Frost Fever. I guess the reasoning was to bring one-disease dual-wield frost dps back into line, ’cause their damage is out of control, but still – the plague strike nerf really hurts, especially in pvp, where it no longer has a cut through armor from being magic. Ouch.

I’m sure there are other class nerfs, but I’ll let someone more knowledgeable in those classes talk about them elsewhere.

Awesome User Interface Changes:

• The range at which players can see unit nameplates has been increased by 40 yards.
• Any party member may mark targets (this does not apply to raid groups)
• Users will be warned when their talents are reset due to a new patch.
• Instant quest text is on by default.
• Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
• Interface element added next to the mini-map to show what dungeon you are in (ex: 10- and 25-player Heroic dungeons marked with a skull).
• Experience earned for a quest will display in the Quest Rewards section.
• You can now query for a list of completed quests with “QueryQuestsCompleted()” then wait for the “QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE” event, and call “etQuestsCompleted()”.

A whole slew of no-brainer changes that for some unknown reason took months to years to add. Glad to see Bliz getting around to them.

Also, QueryQuestsCompleted()? AWESOME. Hello, easy-to-use Loremaster AddOn!

Awesome Quest/Reputation Changes:

• Weekly raid quests are now available from Archmage Lan’dalock in Dalaran. Every Tuesday at 3 AM the Council of Six will choose a different strategic target that must die from either: The Obsidian Sanctum, Naxxramas, The Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel.
• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
  * Argent Crusade
  * Alliance Vanguard
  * Horde Expedition
  * Kirin Tor
  * Knights of the Ebon Blade
  * Sons of Hodir
  * Wyrmrest Accord
• Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
• Reputation commendations can now be purchased for 1 Emblem of Triumph each.

Ok, now I dunno about you, but I think the raid quests are *awesome*. Not only does it give me a reason to run older raid instances, it gives me a chance to run them on my level 80 alts with my guild instead of a pug. I really can’t wait.

The rep changes are something we all saw coming (or at least hoped was coming, especially with Sons of Hodir). There’s currently a thread going on my guild’s forums discussing whether or not this is just a standard end-of-expansion closing of the gap, giving the slower ones a chance to see the end content while it’s still relevant before the next xpac makes it all pointless, or whether this is instead an admission by Blizzard of doing the whole rep thing incorrectly. Honestly, I can see good points on both sides, but I definitely hope it’s the latter. What do you think?

All told, I think we’re looking at some seriously good changes, even with some of the standardization that people have confused lately with the falling of the sky. A lot of people are quite busy trashing Blizzard for this simplification or that easy mode, but hey – ToC25 hardmode is challenging as shit, and I expect Icecrown to be awesome, not even factoring the crazy lore stuff I’ve heard coming from the test realm. (If I had more time, I’d totally get onto the PTR and get you all some serious undercover work, but yeah, I already don’t have enough time to do the things I want to do – sorry).

Call me a fanboy if you want; I think Blizzard is still doing a great job, and I’m looking forward to the next patch as well as the next expansion. Keep up the good work, Bliz!

Side note: in an effort to be more welcoming, I’ve lifted comment moderation. Abuse it and I’ll ban you and post about how much you suck.