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Scholomance? More like Solomance
I've been speculating a lot on what Blizzard is going to do with the old instances, just because I'm always ready for a challenge, and currently, at level 70, the old raids don't offer a full group much of a challenge at all. But as some of our wise commenters have said, you don't have to wait for Blizzard to change the old instances to have fun with them-- just go in solo.NSDragon on LJ asks what instances (Mara and up) can be soloed at 70. You don't have to wait until 70 to solo Mara-- I know folks who were soloing that one back at 60. Sunken Temple might have been tough at 60, but a well-geared 70 should be able to take that place down.I know for a fact that a guildie of mine has repeatedly soloed BRD all the way to Emperor for farming, and a hunter in the guild was farming Stratholme for Righteous Orbs a while back. So I'd guess that most of the 5mans can be soloed pretty easily. Has anyone tried to beat UBRS solo? That seems much harder, but a duo seems pretty easy, and I'm sure a trio of the right classes would probably take down Drakk before he even knew what hit him. Someone on the LJ thread says MC has been 5manned, and I've heard that Ony has been three manned. Anyone know about BWL? Or Naxx? It's really hard to believe that Naxx doesn't still require at least 15-20 well-geared 70s, but I guess anything's possible. ZG and AQ20 are probably easy with ten 70s, but I could definitely see those getting 5manned as well as more people head into the new endgame.When a five man group downs Kel'Thuzad, you know it'll be time for Blizzard to worry about the old instances. But until then, I guess unguilded 70s can just enjoy all the new solo content!
Breakfast Topic: Best class to solo with?
Though I can't find the link, I'm almost sure we've covered this before, but not with the changes after the expansion.Reader Will dropped a tip (thanks!) saying he has almost reached 70 with his Hunter, and really enjoyed playing his way up because Hunters are so good at soloing. I have to agree-- I haven't played anything as relaxing to solo as a Hunter, just send the pet, throw autoshot on, toss in a few arcane shots or stings for good measure, loot and repeat.His guildies say if he rolls a new alt, it should be a Rogue. Personally, I think Warlocks are a great class to be a solo artist with, but Druids certainly have been making headway lately. Will also wonders about builds-- I've had a great time soloing with my shadow Priest, but I've heard holy priests are a pain to solo (my resto Shaman has certainly been more annoying than a few other alts I've had).Because Blizzard has done so much to make almost every class viable solo, I'm sure everyone's got an opinion. Share yours and help Will out here.
Saxy jazz-playing robot
Here we have a creepo, many-fingered Japanese robot playing John Coltrane's solo from "Giant Steps." Sure, he's got the chops, but just doesn't seem to capture the emotion of the piece. After the robots dominate the human race will they torture us with such lifeless renditions of all our once-sacred tunes? The video's after the break.[Via Boing Boing]
WoW Moviewatch: Soloing Scholomance
My priest has, in the past, done the first few pulls of Scholomance alone or with a friend in order to farm bone fragments, but I never made it past that four monster pull at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. This video, however, inspires me to try harder -- It's apparently doable.
How to make friends (and influence orcs)
Ravven at MBAzeroth has a post up about being "solo by nature." She says she leveled to 60 without putting together even one PUG, and except for her guild, she doesn't really chat with anyone else, and definitely hasn't made any friends that she regularly groups with ingame.My first reaction was that WoW is a social game, and so of course I figured I must have made some friends along the way to 60. But when I think back on it, the only people I really talk to in game or know in any way are my own guildies. I did PUGs pretty often (because I love running instances), but beyond "thanks for the run" I never really had any extra relationship with those people. Even the folks I added to my friends list never seemed to come across my radar again.Ravven wonders if she's the only one so shy (is shy the word?) while playing what's really a social game, and she wonders what to do about it. I know of noone better to ask than you, dear readers, so what do you think? Do you play the game as if it's a solo RPG, or have you made real ingame friends that you've grouped with regularly? And while I (and Ravven) consider being a guild a different relationship dynamic, is it? What does it take to make friends in game, or should you even bother at all?
One man, 40 characters
A thought experiment, of sorts, over at the forums: could you control 40 characters at once, enough for endgame raids or PvP all by yourself?Inspired by this video of a mage-heavy raid downing Ragnaros, player Xzin (who currently plays five characters at once) wonders about the logistics and feasibility of upping that to 40. Given the time it would take to level 35 more characters to 60 and gear them up for MC, I can only conclude that Xzin will have to really want this challenge in order to put the money and time in. As Terra Nova debates, perhaps it's an issue of human-computer interface design and control; taking charge of 40 different characters is far more akin to a real-time strategy challenge than MMO play. Still, there are always people who want to beat the game in new and interesting directions; as he's planning to keep everything above-board, good luck to him.
