I'm Awesome

Here we are again, a day late thanks to some technical issues, but here regardless, to discuss, bash, praise and poop all over some stuff happening in the MMO world.  Two come to the forefront this week.  As you’ll recall from the past week, we’ve been dealing with Blizzard and their lack of follow-through on their Warcraft Twitter contest.  There has been some updates and potential closure on that issue as well as some other things happening in Azeroth.  Warhammer has fallen on tough times, it seems.  I stated previously that I was going to hop into the game, and see what was what with the new patch and if it fixed the glaring issues destroying the core of the game.  Read on after the break!

As we’ve been delving into Blizzard’s failure of their management of their @Warcraft Twitter account’s #Battlecry contest, some rather disturbing news had unfolded.  It seems my case was far from an isolated event, that people from all over Twitter who participated in and won the contest were left out in the cold, waiting without word about what would happen to their winnings.  Well, it seems some applied pressure in a few of the right places and some help by the big dogs at WoW.com themselves has broken this case wide open!  A few days after my article and only hours after WoW.com’s coverage of the issue, I received the following mail in my inbox, as did apparently dozen of other contest winners.

We win!

Thank you to the folks at Blizzard, if it is a bit late.  All we wanted was this, some confirmation that the contest was not in fact some sort of MMO Marathon induced fever dream.  This issue has been closed for the time being, but I will be sure to keep all of our readers updated on exactly what we receive as prizes!

Now, Warhammer.  Poor, dying Warhammer.  Let’s face it folks, the game is done.  This week, it was announced and now confirmed that 80 layoffs have hit the Mythic staff.  Yes, 80.  That is roughly 40% of their entire team.  With Mythic working on Star Wars: The Old Republic alongside Bioware, as well as maintaining two older MMORPGs still… Well, I cannot help but think my prediction of Warhammer’s demise might come true sooner rather than later.  But wait, you say!  They introduced patch 1.3.2, all of the game play issues are fixed!

Not true.  Mythic has, once again and as usual, steered their Failboat of a company into the rocky waters of false promises and half truths.  I re-upped my Warhammer account and logged in, so hopeful that the game would be playable and all of the glaring combat mechanics fixed.  FAIL.  Tier 1 is highly populated right now due to the introduction of their “Endless Trial” (Another admission of MMO Death, in my opinion) so I had no problem getting into fights and testing mechanics.  Still broken, although not as broken as before admittedly.   Melee lag is still present, as is casting animation lag, spell progress bar lag and a host of other issues that make playing with any sort of precision impossible.  But hey, in a game that encourages 40 people to collectively slam their head into 40 other people, I guess precision is a fantasy.  Its Warhammer, not Warscalpel, dammit!

Now for your Weekly Worgen!  Rumors and conjecture about the new Cataclysm race have been flying faster than the fur, but here is a confirmed fact!  It appears Sarah Palin, famous for being a massive asshat and naming her children after NASCAR and other stupid things, will be a quest giving NPC in the Worgen starting area.

LOL IM A REPUBLILYCAN

WoW, the 1989 edition!

This week’s post is going to be short and sweet, because I am none too pleased with Blizzard this week.  Yes, me, who usually tows the Blizzard line even if the decisions are questionable.  But these two gaffes are just too much for me to be quiet about.  The first, people know about.  The second is something they seem to be doing to a select few of us.

First off, I’m sure everyone has seen or heard of the new mini-pet microtransactions offered at the “Blizzard Pet Store”.  All arguments aside, this has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen any company do since, well, Age of Failnan was released.  I know they have microtransactions in the game already via character changes, but the difference couldn’t be more vast.  Paying $25 to put one’s self in a better playing situation, be it faction, server or race change is NOT a failure.  It is $25 going to making your MANY gaming hours much better for the future.  But $10 for a MINI-PET?  Get real.  At $2 or $3, this announcement would have raised, I speculate, no negative publicity at all.  But $10?  Let’s not mince words here… Anyone who buys one of these pets is a jackass.

I hate seeing the fact brought up of “Oh, well it’s going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation!”.  No, it isn’t.  Stop being a fanboy.  HALF of ONE of the pets is going to Make-A-Wish.  And only until December 31st.  So if some jackass buys $20 of pets, $5 goes to Make-A-Wish.  That’s a great use of $5, but don’t be an even bigger jackass and say you did it to make the donation.  If that were the case, I can provide a handy link where you can straight donate all of the $20 to Make-A-Wish.  Because only an asshat would justify their mini-pet purchase that way.  Also, to Blizzard?  Shame on you.  I expect more from you guys… Either let 100% of the pet sales until December 31st go to Make-A-Wish OR let the $5 be donated forever, without a time limit.  This just reeks of “We want a quick way to make a ton of cash, and here is our cover for doing so(For now!)”.

The other gaffe is on a more personal level.  Some of you may remember, the @Warcraft Blizzard account on Twitter was doing a #Battlecry contest around Blizzcon time.  It involved tweeting your #battlecry for the Horde or Alliance whenever called for, and customized however you thought best.  Neat little contest.  Too bad nobody ever wins those things.

Turns out I won.  Yup, little ole’ me won the #battlecry contest.  What did I win?  No fucking idea.  As per the screenshot, I was told I won, submitted the required info and have even sent follow-up emails to Blizzard.  Two months later, still not a damn word from them.  I don’t care if it was a freaking “Battlecrier Tzeriel” title in-game.  Something that minor.  Just follow up on shit like that, dammit.

No, I’m not canceling my account.  I’ve put too much time into the damned game to just up and abandon it.  This does put a decent dent in my image of Blizzard, though, which has remained untarnished since the WarCraft: Orcs vs Humans days.

Despite all this, I’ve managed to get my hands on a screenshot of a Worgen in some Tier 12.5 Warrior battlegear.

HEY NED A TNAK???

Wanna bet that is a toilet, as well?

Arthas approaches… Well, more like we approach him, I guess.  With a goodly portion of the Icecrown bosses either having already been tested or about to be tested on the PTR, it is fairly safe to say patch 3.3 is not too far off in the distance.

Couldn’t come too soon, in my opinion, after the disaster that is 3.2, a patch so egregiously bad that it nearly made me, a steadfast Blizzard supporter and raider of four years stop raiding completely.  Lazy?  That comes to mind.  Five uninspired encounters, in an arena half the size of Ulduar’s preparation room?  Lazy on the encounters, lazy on the environment design and perhaps worst of all, lazy on the tiered armor design, something we have all come to expect great things from Blizzard on. I can find good in most things Blizzard does, or at least come up with a good reason why, but I truly feel that anyone who would defend patch 3.2 is nothing but a flaming fanboy.

But, my hatred for patch 3.2 is another article all to itself, so I digress.  Patch 3.3 looks to be a massive cornucopia of delicious awesome.  Much needed class changes, new 5-Mans, new raids, new items, new quests, new factions… You name it, 3.3 has it.  Now, I could, by my lonesome self, spend a few days trying to compile all of the changes and what they mean, or I could give you one catch-all link.  This is via WoW.com and it is so very well done and updated continuously as new information is released and new bosses are tested.  So again, than you to WoW.com for providing us all with this fantastic resource.  Click Here.

As always, I’ll leave you with some foresight into the new Cataclysm expansion.  Behold!  I have found a screenshot of a Worgen newbie with a piece of their starting gear ready to be equipped.

LOL WAT SLOT DIS GO IN???

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is reality!

DeathWing is happy to be back, if you couldn't tell.

Well, not yet.  But it will be.  It seems we have finally pissed off and pissed on enough of the Old Gods that they’ve seen fit to unleash DeathWing into our world, forever shattering it’s geography, playing experience and allowing for a whole slew of jokes about DeathWing’s chin being a Jay Leno pop culture reference.  But seriously, I couldn’t have a bigger bag of mixed feelings about this.  Not mixed in the sense of what it will mean to gameplay and the WoW experience.  Oh, no.  Those will remain as polished and intense as we’re all used to, perhaps more-so.

My mixed feelings come in as more of a nerdy sadness.  This is our world, WoWers! Am I the only one who remembers looking at screenshots of this beautiful environment since 2001?  Of logging in for the first time in beta (Or release if you weren’t as lucky as me!) and just being stunned at the world we’d been given to take as our own?  I’m sort of sad to see it all blown to bits, or in some cases, being given life where there was none before.  I’ve spent a large chunk of my time most nights for the past 4+ years in this iteration of Azeroth.  The concept of it being shattered is only slightly less shocking than if I woke up to a river of lava destroying the corner store that has provided me with way too many Mt.Dew and Ruffles over the years – Sorry, I don’t do Cheetos.

I suppose, though, that I’m more excited than anything.  Because unlike a *real* river of lava outside my dwelling, the ones in WoW will prove to be fertile grounds for adventure, misadventure and aerial ganking! I can’t wait to explore all my previous environs, now shattered and destroyed.  I can’t wait to see these new areas I’ve been waiting to loregasm over for years now.  And most importantly, I cannot wait to see all the emo bastards leave the Horde, and go play their lycan… I mean, Worgen on the Alliance.

But how will I even worry about all these things with the sweeping changes to actual gameplay going on!  So much is changing, so much of it for the better.  A quick rundown… And I mean as quick as possible, because the new information could go on for pages and pages.

• Level cap raised to 85
• Two new races: Goblin for Horde, Worgen for Alliance
• Lots of new race/class combos.  Gnome Priest… Tauren Paladin! Join the Argent Mooooosade today, kids!
• Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor utterly changed forever
• ^ Flying Mounts in these new areas.  Woot. ^
• Mastery System put in place to remove bloat and un-fun from talent trees
• Removal of bloat stats on items, further streamlining boss loot tables.  Defense, Spellpower and Attack Power all being removed as “Straight” stats and will all be derived from base stats now
• Hunters no longer use mana, but instead get an improved version of their pet’s Focus mechanic. (Think Rogue Energy)
• Rated Battlegrounds for Arena points.  I bid a personal farewell to the Arena, one of the only features ever put into this game that I abhor.
• Tol Barad.  WinterGrasp 2.0
• Guild Advancement.  Take that, WarHammer Online!  We stole your only fun feature
• Path of the Titans.  Further character advancement at level 85
• New Secondary Profession: Archaeology
• Heroic Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep
• 100% brand new leveling experience from 1 – 60
• Countless other new Raids, 5 Mans and profession material, too much to list

Phew.  Did I miss anything?  I probably missed some things, but that’s bound to happen with the sheer amount of stuff included therein.  This seems like more of a game overhaul than an expansion.  I mean hell, in EQ, when they broke THEIR world it became EQ2: Terribad Adventures in MMORPG Making.  In the coming weeks, I will without a doubt review a lot of this more in depth.  Probably from a Lore and Raider perspective, mostly.  That’s just how I roll.  Perhaps I should have introduced myself at the beginning of the post.  Meh.

Tzeriel, level 80 T8.5 Blood Elf Mage on the Earthen Ring server. Few 80 alts.  WoW player since the dawn of the game.  I’ve been a Warcraft fanatic since I was 12 years old and received Orcs vs Humans as a gift.  Love Diablo and StarCraft as well, but not even close to the level of my Warcraft love.

TLDR: I cannot freaking wait for Cataclysm.  World shattering events?  Check.  Radical gameplay overhaul? Check.  Emo kids switching from their Blood Elves to their Lycans – I mean Worgen? Check, I hope.  Watch this space for continued expansion updates, rants, raves, thoughts, hot dogs, murloc noises and other WoW related junk.

I can already see the Worgen newbie area now…

LOL LYCANZZZZZZ

~Tzeriel