World of Warcraft Archives - Page 20 of 109

Catch Up Mechanics

June 1, 2017 by Belghast

Last week I talked about it feeling like it was the end of the expansion in World of Warcraft, and in part that was due to the way that I am playing the game and focusing on alts. However there is apparently another key way things are starting to feel like the end of the expansion, and that is catch up mechanics. Now yesterday I posted about pushing through and dinging 110 the Legion expansion level cap on my Orc Deathknight. I managed to find a couple of lucky grabs on the auction house including 3 cheap pieces of demonsteel at 835 item level and a cloak at 870 item level. Other than those items however I managed to scrape together what is a reasonable item level to start going and doing stuff… in a single nights time between a combination of world quests, legion invasions, and opening the broken shore. When I first saw the Dauntless items I found them a little underwelming… but that was on my already 890 main character. The fact that you can start picking up 850+ items for 400 nethershards… when I walked into the Broken Shore with roughly 4000 of them… allowed me to really flesh out those missing gear slots. The only negative there is that the rings and trinkets are both “Unique Equipped” which were sadly the two slots I needed the most. Thankfully during the invasion event last night I managed to pick up a second ring at 840, taking my item level to the point where I could apparently start queuing for Looking for Raid.

Now I am not sure what the item level breaks are for the various LFR segments… but I was honestly shocked to find out that I could queue for Nighthold without having done anything in Emerald Nightmare or Trials of Valor. Before heading to bed I did the first part of Nighthold and picked up an 860 necklace and an 860 artifact. So other than a few strategic grabs from the auction house… I managed to pick up everything else I needed to gear a character in a single night. I am now sitting at 846 item level… and will probably finish doing the rest of LFR tonight hoping to pick up a few more pieces. I also need to start running dungeons so that I can complete the Death Knight Order Hall sequence… and during the day today the final missions that I need to run should be finished. I guess while sitting on a higher level character I didn’t notice just how quick the item level ramps up, but while out roaming the world on a brand new character it is extremely noticeable. It definitely seems the end of expansion catch up mechanics are in full effect, as the game attempts to usher you closer and closer to that 900ish item level. I still have yet to get a Legendary, but in truth I have only been trying to two nights now. I also need to research how exactly to get the alternate artifact appearances, because while I am not expecting to go crazy and start farming for them like I did on my Warrior and Paladin… I do however don’t want to miss easy opportunities when they come up.

The other interesting thing I am noticing… is that playing Horde on a server cluster where the Alliance greatly out numbers you… leads to some interesting interactions with other players of the same faction. The two items I got from LFR I was functionally handed by other players who were offering them to me. Also while out in the world on Broken Shore especially… the horde seems to do the same sort of thing that I do in open world zones on my warrior. That is help random players. There are a lot of cases where I was straight getting wrecked and another player ran up and started attacking the same mobs to help me push through them faster. Up to this point I really haven’t had much in the way of communication, so maybe I am just reading intent into their actions where it really isn’t there. Just saying so far it has not been a horrible experience, and at least the public channels are not clogged with madness the way they are Alliance side. I still have a significant problem with the Horde in general… not from a factional standpoint but from the standpoint that “bestial humanoid” is not really the sort of thing that I flock to in games. However Orc seems to be a happy medium for me, and I’ve come to this realization pretty much any time I play one. Every other Horde race and I have significant issues. The Tauren are just too big and feel lumbering and slow. The undead and trolls… I cannot get past the hunched posture… or the tusks… or the missing bits of armor. Bloodelves have the problem of being the most elvish elves ever… and if you have been around my blog for long you know my distaste for all things elf. The goblins in theory are an option…. but they sorta end up being played for comic relief much in the same way that gnomes do that that annoys me. The Horde really missed their opportunity to make a lifetime member of me when they failed to somehow recruit the Dark Iron Dwarves. For the moment however I am largely okay with being a blue green guy with a Mowhawk and Mutton Chops.

Deathlord Rises

May 30, 2017 by Belghast

For those not in the United States… apologies for taking yesterday off from the blog. I had an insanely busy weekend, and it was about half way through yesterday that I finally realized that it was in fact a Monday… and not a Sunday. Extended holiday weekends always feel a little odd, because it just seemed like I had two different Saturdays. One of the Saturdays we went to Oklahoma City in a whirlwind trip to hit the three Half Priced Books they have… in an attempt to get there and back before the tornadic storms hit that evening. Thankfully for the most part all we got was some rain… and not the grapefruit sized hail that they had been warning us about. Then Saturday number two… aka Sunday… we spent the day deep cleaning the house and working in the backyard. I once again have flower babies, that are going to need to be watered in a few minutes whenever I finish this post. I am going to give them some time to acclimatize to the back yard before taking any photos. Additionally right now our pool is a lovely shade of green because we are fighting an algae bloom… so hoping that clears up as well before I snap some photos. Then of course yesterday was me hanging out and doing nearly two weeks worth of laundry… because we were lazy as hell last weekend. I wound up going to sleep around 9:30 last night instead of the usual midnight… because maybe the crazy weekend was catching up with me.

In gaming news… I played a silly amount of World of Warcraft. Like I am not really certain what is going on but much like Grace I find myself in a mini renaissance with the game. It is funny how when I didn’t have flight I didn’t think I really missed it. I have always been one of those people who espouse the philosophy that not having flying during the early days of an expansion is a better thing. It forces us to get down in the weeds and not to skip quite as much content. That said… it is funny just how much more enjoyable the game has been since I could zip around wherever I wanted to go. I had zero desire to play alts prior to getting the Legion Pathfinder achievement and flight… and suddenly afterwards its like the skies have opened to a whole new day. I had mentioned before that I am now working on my first 100+ hordie and choosing to do it on this low population server that Grace has the majority of her horde characters on. That in itself has been an interesting experience. The challenges have been that there simply are not that many people out in the world so when you encounter something you cannot solo… it might be a bit before another player happens to wander along. The benefit however is that there are always plenty of ore nodes to mine and I figure when I start Broken Shore I will have zero issue finding treasure chests. I figure if I am going to stick around for long… I will have to at least level my tanking weapon so I can solo things a bit easier.

For the moment however I am loving being an Unholy Death Knight. Last night I managed to get about halfway to 109, which I hope means that I can push across the finish line to 110 tonight and begin properly gearing my character. I am completely caught up in the Order Hall quest line, and to the point where I have to be 110 to get the next step. I am sorta fast tracking my way through Stormheim at the moment, and if need be I will do the same in High Mountain. Years ago I compiled a list of the order in which you should do SWTOR planets and bonus series in order to get the most bang for your buck… and if I am going to do more alts I feel like I need to come up with the same sort of thing for classes and the order hall campaign. Grace has a good idea in that she waits to do the order hall dungeon steps until she has opened up that zones quest as well. Had I done this… that would have meant starting Highmountain First and not Azsuna like I usually do. As I have a mountain of alts still to level it would be nice to have some sort of a guide to go off of… and most of this information is available through a series of other sites… but not really written out as plainly as I would have liked. So that might be a little bit of homework going forward. I know that when Stormblood hits I am going to lose a lot of my gusto in World of Warcraft, so I guess in a way I am trying to get the most out of this moment.

Side Note: You should totally check out our AggroChat where we talk about the May game of the month Wolfenstein New Order

Not Squishy At All

May 24, 2017 by Belghast

I am having one of those mornings where I am struggling to find anything I feel is worth actually talking about. The last few days I have been sick and as a result I have been living in this weird little bubble world. I mean prior to this I had already been in a pretty deep turtle phase where I largely kept to myself, but when you add illness to the mix its like I forget the world exists. As a result I have been deep into comfort gaming territory, which in this case means World of Warcraft and doing all sorts of random PVE stuff that no one is actually doing. I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in old raids attempting to get set piece drops. Similarly I have been roaming all over Draenor which is almost completely empty these days, and picking off rare mobs left and right for achievements. I spent a good deal of time yesterday for example in Tanaan Jungle killing the big named mobs for mount chances and farming up Apexis crystals for that moment eventually when I get 150,000 and can purchase the spiffy fel themed mount. All of which are not super important activities but give me just enough focus to take my mind off the fact that I can’t actually breathe.

I of course have also been keeping up with the Broken Shore content… even though it feels like I should be wrapping that in quotes. Broken Shore feels like the most “more of the same” items I have seen in awhile. Sure there are world mini bosses that are constantly spawning, and sure there is a new batch of world quests for you to do… and sure there is a weirdly futile base building mechanic… but it all sorta feels like we have done it all so many times at this point that it is just busy work. I mean it is busy work that I am doing because at least in theory it is busy work that should someday lead to the class themed mount. However I am wondering how much more I care about it at the moment, and if I don’t shift into a “only hanging out on Friday nights” mode for the raid. I have been greatly enjoying doing that and seeing the people I missed. It is even sounding like I might cycle into a primary tank role for Friday nights to let the Wednesday night tanks have the night off. In truth Fury is a fine spec, but it will probably only be something that I use for farming old world content or if someone really needs me to dps something.

I am just a prot warrior through and through. Other than the two expansions where I flirted with playing a Deathknight… I have been a Warrior for as long as I can really remember. Sure my first raid main was a hunter, but as soon as I could get into tanking raid content I did… even to the point of joining a completely different raid team to make that happen. There is just something about the player fantasy about being this unstoppable object that appeals to me. Like for example I really enjoy the fact that protection is a reasonably viable spec for player versus player content. I take great pleasure in watching enemy players decide it is a good idea to attack me. Like I am the least aggressive player while flagged, and I am generally going to leave you the hell alone pending you leave me alone while I do those PVP flagging world quest dailies. However there is always somebody that wants to poke the bear… and in doing so they get to learn the lesson of just how impossible it is to take me down in a one versus one situation. In truth there are lots of times I am easily juggling three players as they attempt to attack me. There was a moment from some time ago where it finally took five players focusing down on me to bring me down out in Stormheim.

So last night when a random Fury warrior decided it was a good idea to attack me while doing the PVP Naga daily… and never actually managed to take more than 10% health off of me… I had to chuckle. I am definitely a PVE minded player, but if you mess with me I will stun your ass and wreck you. That said I am normally more in the mode of helping out my fellow cross faction buddies and spent some time last night pulling packs of murlocs so that people could get their Squirky battle pets. This was apparently a limited time event and spawns on an island off the west coast of Azsuna. Said island is filled with a bunch of elite murloc packs that are hyper aggro just like any other murloc in the world. As a result I spent a good time just gathering stuff up and farming it down so players could fly in and get their pet… then get the hell out. I have to say it was a challenge just clearing myself of enough aggro to be able to get out of combat to fly off the island when I finally decided it was time to go. The end result is an extremely high fidelity Murloc battle pet… albeit a fairly ugly colored one. However since I love my murlocs… I will add this to all of the blizzcon themed murlocs I have hanging out in my pet storage.

Leave the Game Better

May 23, 2017 by Belghast

For real, if you wanna see more positivity in our WoW community, take steps! Take action! Be that change.

— Pandagosa 💙 (@Sammthrax) May 23, 2017

Last night as I was winding down for the evening I ended up getting pulled into a discussion about positivity and the Warcraft community. I’ve long been a proponent of doing whatever I can to try and make MMO gaming environments better for other players. I am what I would call a “world tank” meaning that I permanently run around in tanky stance while questing and often times go out of my way to “tank” things that don’t even matter to me. If I am riding through a zone and I see a squishy player fighting a boss mob… then nine times out of ten I am going to hop off my mount and charge over to help out. I don’t even care about factional boundaries here, and I am one of those players that is just as likely to help out the Horde as I am the Alliance when it comes to taking the threat onto myself and letting people kill their monsters in peace. I’ve been graced with a class that simply cannot die under most circumstances… and I sort of feel like it is my duty to help other people out whenever I can. I cannot count the number of times I have been doing a quest and had someone roll up late… and then continued to pull packs of elites just to make sure they finished their quest. They always seem sorta surprised when I send them a tell asking them “how many more” they need for the quest. Growing up I was in scouting, and even managed to get my Eagle… and there was a rule of camping that went a little something like “leave the campsite in as good of condition if not better”. I sort of have this same view towards MMOs or the world in general honestly… if I can improve the world by my presence I am going to shoot for that.

Prior to the launch of Legion, I had gotten used to some of the cultural norms in Final Fantasy XIV. Namely people talk during dungeon runs… at least enough to give a friendly introduction at the beginning and at the end. In part this is because there is a system in place over there that allows you to give a single commendation each run, to whatever player for whatever criteria you feel fit the situation. I give them out for all sorts of reasons… glorious outfits, extremely competent dps, or just someone being jovial and friendly. In part this friendly atmosphere exists… because they reward you being nice to other players, and will straight up ban you for talking about damage meters in game. It creates this weird bubble where things don’t work there the way they work in any other MMO community. Knowing this… with the launch of Legion and as we started queuing up for content… I started trying to apply the same logic the World of Warcraft and shockingly more often than not it worked. Just breaking the ice at the beginning of a run with a “Hey Folks!” seemed to go an awfully long way in improving the experience as a whole. I noticed my usual silent runs become perforated with discussion, as it was like one person saying something broke down whatever dam was there preventing conversation.

Another thing I have done this expansion cycle that seems to have helped my own attitude is that I am just not dissecting the game and tearing it apart like I used to. I am trying really hard to just take things at face value, and more often than not completely ignore the patch note cycle until I am ready for something. Sure this means I have not exactly been on top of the ball on a lot of things… like Broken Shore, and have been doing things in a grossly inefficient manner. However it also means that I am not exposing myself to a lot of external stimuli until I am actually ready to consume it. More than this however… I just haven’t shared my doubts publicly because I haven’t felt the need to. A few weeks into the Nighthold raid cycle I disappeared from the game, and faded away quietly. I just felt like I wasn’t enjoying myself nearly as much as I was when doing other things. So I simply walked away and did other things for awhile. There was a moment where I could make a clean break, and my raid had a tank to step in and take over for me. In the past I would have felt the need to explain to my readers why I did this. Instead I just left and eventually put some thoughts together in my big “regularly playing” post, but even that probably wasn’t needed other than I was catching up my sidebar… which is already completely out of date again. However because I didn’t really make a big deal about it… it was so much easier to just slide back into the game a few months later when the mood hit me again.

While it might sound odd, I think for me not writing about World of Warcraft and its failings… helped me to feel better about the game for the long term. It also kept some negative vibes out of the community. Sure I currently have a laundry list of things that bug me about the game, but I have come to a point of acceptance that World of Warcraft will never actually be the “one true game” for me. I know that I will keep venturing off to play other games because it is in my nature, and that it will still feel enjoyable to keep coming back and revisiting all of my friends in the WoW. In part this is why I am so excited that Destiny 2 is now going to be entering this same realm. For well over a decade I have cultivated a community in the Blizzard games, and it seems like it is going to be awesome to be able to take all of these people with me into another love of mine when it launches on the PC. While I would love to see Blizzard as a company make an attempt to instill a positive attitude in its players by introducing systems that reward the good apples… more than systems that punish the bad, I largely accept that it is going to be up to me and players like me to be the agent of change in the world. I know we all keep returning to the MMO space to decompress from our days out in the real world… but there is nothing keeping us from being a little nicer to one another in our adopted second home. Games tend to develop a culture of support or toxicity… and maybe I am naive but I feel like a game can change. I feel like we can slowly erase the toxic nature that has developed over the years and put back in its place one that is largely supporting of others. Now this doesn’t just apply to WoW, but is I think an admirable goal in any game you play.