It seems a lot of people are waiting for Cataclysm and are playing other games at the moment. At most I see 2 or 3 people in guild chat, if any ! On the rare occasion I log on, that is. Even Dalaran isn’t as busy as it used to be.

Blizzard Q & A

WowWiki

Xmas 2009 Morphhoof and Borkun

The better geared 4k dps people sometimes have quite the attitude though (NOOBS GO GO GO FFS). The vote to kick option usually works fine though, I hope they enjoy the 15mins debuff ! I wonder about some of these people though. Yesterday a guy linked recount stats after two groups of trashmobs, NOOBS WE DONT HAVE 3k DPS ! And leaves… Apparently you need 3k dps to do heroics now . If he just would have gone along with the group he would have finished earlier than joining the queue again.

One flaw in the LFG system is people that go offline or are AFK in the first 15mins where you cannot kick someone. These people should automatically be removed from group after a minute or so. It can really slow things down, especially if they’re the healer or tank.

The three new instances are nice. Halls of Reflection is certainly a notch up in difficulty. I hate it when it’s the random dungeon, I have only finished it so far, when I queue up for HOR specifically. After the first wipe most people leave, or they cannot find the entrance to the dungeon. I really enjoyed Pit of Saron. The Krick and Ick fight is very funny (I’ll go for this one instead !) and I love the run through the tunnel. But I went into that place quite a few times to get my 2h Mace for my deathknight, so I’ve seen enough of it for now. My hunter will need it for the nice crossbow though. So is now running around with the gun that drops on normal mode from the end boss.

As Randy stated on one of the latest Instance shows, 3.3 has breathed new life into Wow. People seem to log on more, dive into dungeons, get some emblems and better gear. Everything seems to work out quite well. I kinda miss the guild runs though, but I am sure that will come back soon enough.

[Show as slideshow]

I am very much looking forward to the new instances and the new LFG tool. It should be easier to find groups and extra members for your instance party with cross server PUGs.

The Wow.com Patch 3.3 guide

Patchnotes on blizzard site

My other L80s have been doing the argent tournament dailies in order to get some needed gold for the alts mentioned above and some gear upgrades and gems. I also got some heirloom items for future alts, I have a priest and a mage all ready to go now.

We have also been running TOC a few times, on normal mode. Some nice gear dropped and it’s a fun instance to do. Even though it has jousting .

All in all I am again very much enjoying WoW again. Looking forward to 3.3 that will bring the start of the end of Nortrend !

First of all, I am very happy it’s not just another 10 levels and a new continent. Ofcourse that would have sold well, would have probably been not too hard to make, and would have kept most people happy. I would have bought that one, probably enjoyed it as well, but what is coming now, is nothing like that. I agree with Randy of The Instance podcast, that this is as close to WoW 2.0 as we’re going to get. The whole old world will be redone ! We’ll be able to fly all over the old world as well. This must have been a tremendous amount of work.

The new leveling experience will be nice as well. The old stuff has been around now, since 2004 (or early 2005 for us Europeans), and it’s getting a bit old in the tooth. Especially taking into account, that Blizzard now has gotten much better at creating quests, areas, etc. Look at the Bloodelf or Death Knight starter areas and you know what I mean. For some reason a Goblin Hunter sounds very appealing to me. I already got a hunter, but wouldn’t mind leveling another one in the new content. They’re such a fun class to level. A troll druid sounds like fun as well though. Apparently they’ll get their own bear and cat graphics.

The new addition to the Horde !

I don’t play alliance and the new werewolf class doesn’t sound very appealing to me. Maybe i’ll check out their starter area sometime, and see what the fuzz is all about. Not really looking forward to seeing dozens of DK Worgens on the field though…

All of the other new stuff sounds great as well, guild leveling (hopefully also interesting for small guilds), Path of the Titans (sort of an extension of the talent system, from what I understand), new battleground etc etc.

So isn’t there anything you dislike about this expansion pack ?
Well, I am not too fond of Tauren Priests and especially Paladins, which seems very out of character for a tauren. But I doubt we’ll see a lot of them…

Check out wow-insider for all the news at http://www.wow.com/cataclysm/.
Also you might want to listen to the Instance’s Blizzcon coverage at http://www.myextralife.com/wow/.

World of Warcraft first popped into public view in September, 2001. Blizzard executive Bill Roper had flown into London to make an announcement at the ECTS trade show. Anticipation was high. The already legendary studio had revealed its (as yet unreleased) strategy game Warcraft III at ECTS two years previously, and the announcement of a new Blizzard game was a big deal. Even then, the studio was known for doing few games, very slowly – and very, very well. The smart money was on a sequel to its other strategy hit, StarCraft.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-making-of-world-of-warcraft-article

Anyway, there is an interesting Hunter Q&A on the official site, well worth a read if you have a hunter:

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/hunter-qa.html.

From wowinsider :

The highlights are as follows:

• Regular land mounts trainable at level 20 (was 30)
• Epic land mounts trainable at level 40 (was 60)
• Regular flying mounts trainable at level 60 (was 70)
• Regular flying mounts speed increased to a 150% gain (was 60%)

The costs for all the training and mount purchases has been decreased outright, with the exception of the artisan riding skill (epic flying mounts). For all mount costs, faction discounts now apply.

As you can see, Blizzard is trying to make it even more easier to level up yet another alt .

Nice analysis on Player vs. Developer. Which is an excellent blog by the way. Just found out about it, by listening to Shut Up We’re Talking.