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Breakfast Topic: What are your plans for Love Is In the Air?
The yearly holiday Love Is In the Air went live today, and with it a host of new features -- a new boss in Shadowfang Keep, several revamped achievements, and overall a lot of spit-and-polish on a holiday that had been extremely frustrating to many players in 2009. Last year, your ability to get the meta Fool For Love done was entirely dependent on dumb luck over a 5-day period. Blizzard's looking to blunt the impact of RNG this time around by extending the holiday and introducing a much less painful means of getting the achievements. So what are your plans for Love Is In the Air? Does your main already have the meta from last year, or were you among the unlucky souls doomed to keep getting the same candy drops? Are you planning on hitting the new boss in Shadowfang Keep? And are you, like me, just ecstatic that you don't have to spend days hoping for a Peddlefeet pet to drop? Note: A few of us were around as soon as the holiday went live, and our FAQ on Love Is In the Air and OverAchiever on the holiday's achievements have now been updated to reflect the 2010 event. They'll be expanded later today with more information on the holiday questline and the new Shadowfang Keep encounter.
Breakfast Topic: Should we have to level every character?
I hate leveling. I despise it with a burning wrath. I enjoyed it well enough the first time, but I never, ever want to have to do it again. I only have one max level character because I cannot bring myself to level another through all the pain and blood and hog organs. Without question Blizzard is continually making leveling easier, increasing XP, decreasing the amount of XP you need to level, and offering a myriad of XP-boosting heirloom items. I appreciate that Blizzard is trying to ease my pain, but why do have to level from scratch at all? Why can't I just reroll at level 55 if I already have a max level character? Or better yet, why can't I assign an alt as my "apprentice" and he gets 10% of any XP my main would have gotten. Set it up so he levels around half the rate someone actually playing at leveling, but he can eventually get up to 80 without forcing me back into a glorified Fed Ex driver again, sorting through buzzard gizzards and reading wanted posters. Leveling is a radically different game from the endgame. I appreciate that some people enjoy and prefer that game. But many of us prefer the other game, and we don't want to play the leveling game again. We've done it. We won. What do you think? If you already have a level 80, should you have to level your next character from scratch? Do you think that leveling really teaches you how to play a class?
Breakfast Topic: Presenting the ever-accessible auction house!
So a few days ago, word was released that Blizzard is working on a new feature for the ever-changing armory...they're going to add auction house access without being in-game! Now, I don't know about you, but I find that all kinds of awesome. I love playing the auction house (it's oddly satisfying...don't ask), and have many times in the past simply logged on to check my auctions to see how they were doing. Personally, I find this to be an amazingly convenient ability for the armory. Unfortunately, the dreaded 'p-word' has reared its ugly head: Premium. Most of us know that 'premium features' will usually equal 'if you want it, let's see some green.' I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with the idea of paying for yet another feature, but in today's world of micro-transactions and the like, would you pay extra money for that kind of convenience? Take the iPhone app, for example. Say the 'freemium' version is, well, free, and the premium armory--complete with auction house tracking--is...an extra five dollars. As far as micro-transactions go, that's not too shabby. Honestly? I'd pay it. So what do you guys think? Are you excited about the auction house tracking in the WoW Armory? Do you think it's the worst idea ever? If you like it, would you pay for it? Yes/no/banana? Discuss!
Breakfast Topic: When the model doesn't match the text
I love gear. Heck, I'm a warrior. I'm required to love gear. And even more than gear itself I love gear with something cool extra, something like Ash'kandi. Not only is Ash'kandi pretty freaking awesome, not only does it have one of the best models ever (even this far into WoW's life cycle few 2h weapons have even come close to rivaling Ash'kandi's model) but it has neat flavor text that helps establish the weapon's role in the game world. This is Anduin Lothar's sword. This is the sword of the Lion of freaking Azeroth! Possibly the greatest warrior ever to walk the land and here is his sword! One of the things I love about the new ICC wing opening, in fact, is discovering that flavor text like that is back. Unfortunately, I also discover that sometimes, model and text do not match up so well. We're going to talk about Lich King loot behind the cut, so if you don't want to know don't go any further.
Breakfast topic: How far is your guild in Icecrown Citadel?
This is it. The final gates of Icecrown have been opened up. If you need help, we have overviews and other resources to the encounters right here. While I'd guess that the majority of us aren't exactly competing for world firsts or even server firsts, progression is still progression. I know starting out that I had my own internal expectations of where our guild would be at and we've met them. We haven't cleared out all the new bosses yet but I know with time, we will be able to. Along the way, we managed to score a few unexpected achievements. I for one didn't recall going after The Orb Whisperer. Anyway, some guilds take their progression seriously. In fact, I think there are a few out there who purposely used a lockout from the previous week just to have the extra time advantage to work on Valithria and Sindragosa. What about your raid groups? Are you happy with how you're progressing so far? Did they surpass your wildest dreams or are you discontent and think you should be further ahead?
Breakfast Topic: Hi ho Silver, away!
No matter what your race, faction, or preference, there is a mount for you. Especially with achievements like the Mountain o' Mounts, you can have a different mount every day for six months if you wanted to. Certain...ah...'weight restrictions' have been lifted some time ago, so now no matter your in-game girth, you can ride on whatever you want. Level restrictions have been changed as well, so you can now explore Azeroth on your discounted mount at a mere level 20! Try and think back to those days...the days of a fresh-faced you, on your main (or whatever), grabbing your first mount. While there are much more impressive creatures to ride nowadays, is there one that you hold close to your heart? Maybe you slogged through battleground after battleground, or ran the same instance/raid any number of times to get that special mount? My first epic mount will always hold a special place in my heart, although I usually ride my White War Talbuk. One day, I'm aiming to get Anzu the Raven Lord, as I'm sure it'll be totally sweet. So what about you, dear readers? For whatever purpose--roleplaying, vanity, sentiment--what is your favourite mount, whether you own it or not?
Breakfast Topic: Getaway guilds
I discovered that many of the regular players in It came from the Blog, WoW.com's event guild, are using it as a getaway guild. Some of them lead or are regular raiders in progression guilds on other servers, but come to Zangarmarsh to get away from it all. In a getaway guild, you can level a character without having to deal with your home guild's drama, responsibilities and requests. Sure, you want to be there for your guild and you don't mind helping out your friends, but sometimes it's nice to just play the game without all of the extra baggage that comes along with an ambitious guild. Of course, you can solo incognito or on another realm, but in a getaway guild, you have the social interaction without the expectations. Do you belong to a getaway guild? Or is all your WoW playtime in one guild and you just stay out of Azeroth when you need a break? Note: If you like the idea of a getaway guild, but aren't in one, you are welcome to join It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh, U.S. Please see our FAQ for any questions.
Breakfast Topic: Fun with jerks
I admit it: I'm a contentious person. Sometimes I deliberately say or do something just because it will irritate people. Usually, I try and use this power for good and I'm hardly pretending to be the most effective person at it even out of people I know, but the other night it worked out rather beautifully. I decided to go DPS a random because I was bored and wanted to play around with DPS ideas I had. Namely, if it was worth dropping some hit and expertise to hit 80% passive ArP which I could just barely do and I wanted to test it in a setting where the hit and exp caps were lower than in a raid where bosses are effectively level 83 since in heroics the highest level you'll face is an 82 boss. So I hit the queue, waited the 35 minutes (it was fairly late and close to server reset) and got a FoS pop. As soon as we get in the tank says he's never done it before and do we think he should drop the group. We all try to be reassuring, since everyone's had to start somewhere and his gear was certainly good enough for a heroic. Then the first pull began and we quickly learned that he wasn't kidding about having never done it before and that the answer he was actually hoping for was that someone else would tank, because he clearly had no idea what he was doing, period. Furthermore, he was ridiculously hyper-critical of the healer (who didn't seem to be having any significant issues healing the group) and would go on long tirades blaming the healer for not having healed him at all when the healer was clearly dropping heals on everyone in the group including him. Drop to 90% on a trash pull because you ran up the ramp out of LoS? Yell at the healer. Take damage from one of the ghostly skulls and not get healed to full before pulling the giant skeletons? Rant at the healer. Frankly, I have no idea why the guy took it. Finally, after the last pull before Devourer of Souls, where he deliberately went and chain pulled three of the Spectral Warders despite the healer having said OOM and then blamed the healer for letting him die when he had a 75% healing reduction debuff and the healer was out of mana, I'd basically had enough.
Breakfast Topic: Did Arthas do the right thing in Stratholme?
As we've discussed before, the Culling of Stratholme did slow the spread of the plague. But it's heartbreaking to watch Arthas slaughter innocent townspeople when they are looking to him for help. Wouldn't it have been better if he had waited for them to turn into scourge before killing them? Or was there a better way? Should they have tried quarantining them until a cure could be found, perhaps? (Even though there isn't one.) It's a bit like a recent Fringe episode. Was it evil to consider killing all of the people infected with an extremely intelligent, contagious and fast-spreading disease? How do you deal with deciding between compassion for a few versus the survival of a race? Could the ruthlessness that Arthas showed there be a symptom of weak morals that perhaps led to his demise as a human? Or was his swift, decisive action an example of his excellent leadership qualities and why he makes such a successful Lich King? Perhaps doing the right thing in Stratholme weakened his soul, making him more susceptible to corruption. How should Arthas have behaved in Stratholme? Did his actions help corrupt him or show him to be already corrupted? What would you have done in the same situation?
Breakfast Topic: Fun with time travel
I was inspired by the time travel talk from last Friday's The Queue. If you were able to kill Arthas while doing the Culling of Stratholme; you would prevent him from becoming The Lich King, but would cause a much faster spread of the plague. It reminded me of this great piece of short fiction, where going back in time to kill Hitler prevents time travel from becoming possible and is therefore strictly forbidden. I'd like to go back in time and help Mankrik's Wife escape her violent and lonely death. Do we really need another reason to slaughter those nasty boar humanoids? Besides, I bet she had some really great quests that we missed out on. If you could go back in WoW time and change something, what would it be? What do you think the ramifications of your change would be?
Breakfast Topic: Artsy-fartsy
In the last year, I have noticed that Blizzard has been making more of an effort to reach out to its community. When I say community, I mean the artists, the writers, the singers, bloggers, theorycrafters, and everything in between. From having the three major franchises join Twitter, to the Battlecry Mosaic, to contests galore -- tell me, what does this mean to you? Have you participated in any of these contests or events? I myself actually entered the Fan Art Calendar contest just last night, and while I'm hardly expecting to win, it was not only a fun project to work on but it made me realize that Blizzard has at least a genuine-looking interest in its artistic fanbase. Are you guys enjoying the contests? Or do you believe it's all a big corporate sham to make Blizzard seem all moonbeams and kittens? Discuss amongst yourselves!
Breakfast Topic: What really happens during maintenance?
Last week, there was a thread on the European forums about what really happened during the weekly downtime. Sure, some people said the boring answers of various things having to do with software and hardware. Others were more of the fanciful variety involving the hamsters that run the servers being fed. However, I like the more RP approach to the situation. Goblins and gnomes are using refitted shredders to sweep the streets and repaint the buildings. Mankrik's wife has stopped playing dead for a little while and is grabbing a bite to eat with her husband. The stormforged dwarves are hard at work forging more drops for the raids that have reset. The streets of Orgrimmar are empty with tumbleweeds blowing down the streets and an old orc in a rocking chair is playing the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on an old harmonica (the music was in the tumbleweed's contract). What do you think the World of Warcraft does while we're temporarily forced offline?
Breakfast Topic: What intangible qualities do you bring to a raid?
When team Canada's Olympic roster for the men's hockey team was announced, I was extremely excited to check out who had made the cut and who didn't. For the most part, I agreed with all the choices. I'll admit a few of the selections had me wondering why. I had to ask myself why a player like Brenden Morrow (captain of the Dallas Stars) was selected over other players. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't always about the goals or the points. There were people that brought in certain intangible qualities that just could not be measured. I started thinking about raiders and my guildies for a moment. Who was valuable and what did they contribute? Sure they didn't exactly bring dominating numbers into the game, but they were able to hold their own in a race. For example: Theorycrafter: That guy in the guild who happens to hold a degree in math or physics? Yeah, he will theorycraft the heck out of you and anyone else who asks him for advice. Not only will he tell you what gems and enchants to get, he'll even write up a multi-page theorem indicating the balance of stats required for optimum performance. Veteran raider: She's been around since Molten Core and remembers what its like to wipe for weeks and even months on end for one boss. Still believes that the new content isn't as bad as it was back then. Instills a sense of calm in the raid during the most turbulent of raid nights when things don't seem to be executing. Also happens to be your grandma who makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies. Diagnostician: This is the player who can accurately recall every wipe and the series of events that led up to it. Just give him a few seconds to double check his information on some death logs and review his videos. Yes, not only can he give you a good explanation as to why and how a wipe happened, but he has it on tape in case anyone tries to dispute it. So now allow me to ask, what intangible qualities do you bring to a raid? Are there other people in your guild that offer something unique as well?
Breakfast Topic: Your predictions for arena season eight
In season seven, we saw beast cleave (beast mastery hunter + enhancement shaman + holy paladin) win the majority of high-profile tournaments and become quite popular. Very few saw it coming. Beast cleave, of course, got handed several nerfs (only one of which was serious) which many considered a death knell, but the composition is still very strong. Towards the end of season seven, protection warriors (and to a lesser extent, protection paladins) were the new flavor-of-the-month craze. Again, almost no one saw it coming. The new season is slated to be quite different from previous arena seasons in WotLK. Resilience is getting a huge boost in effectiveness, increasing the benefit of wearing PvP gear in arenas. Some people (even on arena junkies) are stating that PvE gear will be even better in PvP because of the change. The idea is that arena players can get away with donning more loot from dragons because the added resilience benefit will make up for the forfeited survivability. While I might be wrong here, that sounds like terrible logic. One gladiator is predicting the shift to more survivability will benefit warlocks, warriors, and druids. The same poster believes mages and rogues will be harmed, while everyone else will keep status quo. So, I ask you, breakfast readers: What are your predictions for arena season eight?
Breakfast Topic: In-Jokes
I once told a story in my guild's vent about about a warm spring day where, upon walking home from the local store, I was unfortunate enough to be accosted by a bee. Said bee flew into my beard and tried to sting me but, since I had then not shaved my beard in quite some time, the bee actually found himself trapped in my facial hair. Since I could not see him, I did not think about him again until I got home and looked in the mirror. There he was, flailing about, entangled in the roots of my facial hair. Unfortunately, I chose to tell this story while tanking Jaraxxus who was, at the time, serious business. Several of the DPS found the tale of my apicidal beard so amusing that they ended up not running to the portal in time and we had two annoying sisters instead of just one. Since then, the tale of my beard has grown in guild to the point that people ask me the block value of said beard, or insist I get my beard enchanted with Armsman. So I turn to you in an attempt to distract from my own constant humiliation (you wouldn't believe the amount of 'furry warrior' jokes I hear in a raid week) to ask what your WoW in-jokes are.
Breakfast Topic: What roles do you play?
An interesting thread popped up on the forums a few days ago that I wanted to ask our readers about here at WoW.com -- what roles have you tried in the game, and has experimentation with other roles changed how you play overall? Right now my main spends her time tanking and healing at an even 50/50 split. Healing's made me a more observant tank; I have a better appreciation of what a heal team goes through to keep my furry rump alive. Tanking hasn't exactly made me a better healer -- the two roles are so different that I even wind up redoing a portion of my UI while jumping between them -- but it's made me more forgiving of tank mistakes, and also left me in a better position to gauge whether a problem is the result of the tank or another group member. Damage-wise? Oddly enough, playing as a tank/healer for so long has made me into a hesitant DPS at best. I hate losing aggro to anyone as a tank, and hate healing oblivious DPS who pull it, and that's made me incredibly paranoid about my threat as a DPS. I watch Omen way more than I worry about my rotation. So what role do you normally play in the game? If you change roles at all, do you notice experience from one role having an effect on how you play others?
Breakfast Topic: That little bit extra
Sometimes a boss just seems to get lucky. You know what I'm talking about: you just see 1% wipe after 1% wipe and you don't know what else you can do to get over the edge. Do you need more DPS? Are the tanks dying? Are the healers going OOM, or people standing in stuff that's killing them? What's the important thing you're doing or not doing to get that last little bit of performance out and kill that big loot sack on legs in front of you? You tweak strats, and then tweak them back, you play with raid comp, you change positioning... sometimes you get that little click and it all falls into place and some times you don't, nothing seems to work. Whether it's a PuG wiping on Garfrost or a raid working on the Blood Queen, things don't always go our way. So what do you do? Are you the 'stomach it out' type who won't leave until it's dead or someone else pulls the plug? Are you a tinkerer always coming up with new strats and new approaches? Are you the "this is what I read on Wowhead" guy? How do you move past failure to success?
Breakfast Topic: Caught between a rock
For a while I wasn't sure if I'd continue playing World of Warcraft into the next expansion. I was by no means planning on giving up my gaming habit, but I really felt like I was ready for something new: either another MMO or one of the latest generation consoles. Many pros and cons were weighed, and I have decided to stick with WoW for at least one more expansion. It was a difficult decision for me but in the end it was the rocks that won me over. Yes, the rocks.
Breakfast Topic: The Personal Aesthetic
Recently, a commenter on a post mentioned that I use a similar screenshot for a lot of my The Care and Feeding of Warriors posts. I looked over it, and he was right: since I race changed to draenei, in fact, quite a few of the screenshots have been silhouetted, facing downwards shots that I often take just because I am playing my character and suddenlt stop and say "wow, that's cool" - I'm not a terribly sophisticated visual thinker (for that, I go to my wife, who has a landscape artist's eyes and a remarkable grasp of light and nuance) but I know what I like. One of the reasons I like playing draenei and tauren are connected to the classes I like to play: shamans, warriors and DK's are the only classes I've consistently gotten to max rank, and in all of those cases I tend to play large characters. When race change became available I agonized over it (silly as that is) even though I'd always said I'd go draenei because I'd grown so accustomed to the way my human character moved, and watching old avi files of Burning Crusade fights I'd tanked really brought it home to me. In changing my character's race, I've changed his silhouette, I've changed the way he swings a weapon, I've changed the way he looks in every aspect of the game. I don't do that spinning one handed smash when I tank anymore, it's much more of an arching, down-angled slash. My Shield Slam is different. Granted, I'm okay with that. But it got me thinking about why I choose the races I do and the classes I do.
Breakfast topic: What will you set your armory pose as?
I am having way too much fun with the new armory features. My favorite part? Getting to set the pose my character takes when players start looking me up. There are so many to choose from. There are the dance poses, the wave, the bow, the salute and so forth. I figure the top left one demonstrates my athletic ability. We dwarves are known for our jumping prowess after all! I suppose I could just moon the viewer with the top right one. That wouldn't be appropriate though, would it? Ah ha! What about the thoughtful dwarf in the bottom left? He's stroking his beard while thinking about a potentially life changing decision such as chocolate chip or oatmeal. I suppose the classic option would be to go for the traditional wave in the bottom right. Yeah, I suppose that will do. What about you? What are you setting your armory pose as?
