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Breakfast Topic: Transmog Mania
Patch 6.0.2 has seen me not really focusing so much on the new content as the older content. Even with recent hotfixes to how much damage we do to creatures in older content haven't made me stop, because there's xmog gear locked up in those delicious instances. But now I discover that I can buy pretty much every single piece of Cataclysm tier gear (well, tiers 11 and 12, anyway) from the vendors in Stormwind, and so now I'm broke and running old content in order to get the heroic versions of those items. Le sigh. It's a hard knock life for my poor nelf alt. So what about you? Spending any time and/or money on transmog this patch? Or is it just me? It's just me, isn't it? >hr>
Breakfast Topic: UBRS, yay or nay?
So far I've had a really frustrating time with the update to UBRS. It's not that it's a bad dungeon in and of itself, but so far nothing has dropped for me, and I spent a lot of time with uneaven groups - one group everyone's in raid gear and blows the place up, next group can barely queue for it and yet insists on pulling like we brought the Avengers in with us, and we all die a lot. The three fights are engaging enough - I really like the callback to the old Rend fight, for example. I wish the Zaela fight had made it to level 90, but I guess you gotta leave something for the future. So now I ask you, gentle readers - what do you think of UBRS? Is it everything you dreamed, or not quite what you wanted?
Breakfast Topic: This huge patch drops and all I do with it is...
Okay, so I also ran around soloing old raids like a fiend, did some of the new UBRS, and did the Blasted Lands quests on my alt. But in 100% sincerity this was the first thing I thought to do with the patch. It's little things like finding out they let staves and polearms mog over swords, axes and maces that just tickle me - well, that, and seeing people all desperately trying to relearn how to play their characters at the same time, just like I was. So, what was your first move? (Or will be, for our EU friends just now getting the patch.) Barber shop to fix up your face? Blasted Lands? UBRS? Transmog fun? Something I'm completely forgetting? Let us all know - it's what the comments are for.
Breakfast Topic: Good Morning Patch 6.0.2
This is how Khadgar and I looked when we went asleep and it was still patch 5.4 out. As you can, I woke up with a bit of a crick in my neck and Khadgar... well, patch 6.0.2 has had some significant changes on our boy Khadgar, hasn't it? (I should confess, this is actually a picture from the PTR, as I write this the patch hasn't been deployed yet.) Did you do anything special as you bid Mists of Pandaria farewell? Did you go PvP at the Dark Portal? (A lot of my friends were doing so as I logged.) Did you head to any particular location? Or was it just business as usual for you and your characters?
Breakfast Topic: In Chaos and Riots
Sometimes it really blows my mind how much destruction we've seen. Even if we don't consider it our fault, exactly, the ravaging of the Jade Forest and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms were pretty impressive on just the level of woah, that blew up hard. But we've seen whole worlds that were effectively destroyed. Once you've been to Outland and seen the ravaged remains of the red world of Draenor, once you've been to Northrend and seen the Scourge rampage through Zul'Drak, seen almost innumerable hosts of undead in Icecrown Glacier, fought against the armies of Ragnaros and Deathwing and seen the madness of the Destroyer, you have to start wondering just how jaded you would have to be to keep doing what we do. Do we just yawn in the face of yet another threat? Can anything shock us anymore? Tell me, is there a menace that can possibly get past your air of 'been there, done that, got the epics' in World of Warcraft?
Breakfast Topic: Will you miss Pandaria?
We are days away from the beginning of the end of Pandaria -- the end of the expansion, not the continent, although we managed to do a pretty good job wrecking the place while we were there. Every time an expansion gets to the point where it's drawing to an inevitable close, I start to get a little nostalgic and think about the things I'm going to miss. Of course, one of the bigger things I was going to miss -- good old Dog from my farm -- is actually heading to Draenor with me, or at least will show up in my garrison at some point. Good Dog. But there are other things I'll miss, too -- the incredibly catchy music in the inns, the rolling hills in the Valley of the Four Winds, the golden trees in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Of course I can go back and play any of this stuff whenever I'd like, on whatever alt I'd like, but it's not exactly the same. On the list of continents and worlds we have been to over the years, Pandaria ranks up there as one of my solid favorites -- the design and detail that went into the environment this expansion was some of the best I've seen. Yes, I'm excited for Draenor, but I'm going to miss Pandaria anyway. What about you guys? Are you looking forward to starting out someplace brand-new? Are you relieved to be leaving Pandaria behind? How did you like the feel of the place, where does it rate on your list of Azeroth destinations? Putting aside the content and quests and just looking at the map, the scenery, and your character in it, are you going to miss Pandaria at all when we leave?
Breakfast Topic: Which side to play?
I'm having that end-of-expansion quandary, and it's never been quite as keenly felt as it is with Warlords of Draenor. On the one hand, I'd like to level my main character immediately at the outset of the expansion, just because I love playing a rogue and Frostfire Ridge is incredibly fun and suitably, well ... savage. On the other, I absolutely love everything there is to see and do in Shadowmoon Valley to the point where I'm thinking maybe I want to level my draenei character first. In expansions past, it's always been the rogue, simply for the purposes of getting raid-ready as soon as possible with the rest of my raiding guild. But I'm taking a different route with Draenor, one that I haven't traveled since Burning Crusade -- I've decided to retire from heavier raiding, and instead take my time, work on what I can, and just enjoy the content at a leisurely pace. I may pick up raiding at some point later in the expansion, but I'm not really in a place where I want to dedicate the hours to full-time raiding any more. So here I am, for the first time well and truly torn between the two factions in a way that I'd never expected. It's not that one zone is better than the other, it's that each starting zone is its own wholly unique and beautiful experience. I know I want to play through them both, because they're both totally worth playing for completely different reasons. On the one hand, this is a good thing, because it means Blizzard has managed to hit the ball out of the park when it comes to leveling zones -- on the other, it means I have to make some kind of choice. What about you guys? Which side are you going to play when Warlords begins? Do you plan on playing through both Alliance and Horde content at some point?
Breakfast Topic: Some Good News
If you like soloing older content for transmog gear, well, patch 6.0.2 is going to be the most fun you have ever had. You will literally stride like a god through the raids of the past - despite the item squish, older content is now something you can destroy with contemptuous ease. I just walked into the Firelands on the PTR, and in less than half an hour everything was dead. Trash mobs disintegrated. Bosses didn't do much better. Ragnaros died so far he didn't even get to drop his hammer enough times. It was a parade of annihilation at my hands. So let this be the last word for those of us who fret that soloing won't be possible in patc 6.0.2 - it absolutely will be. It will be easy.
Breakfast Topic: While It Lasts
It's Thursday morning as I write this and I just realized that I have five days before I have to learn the fury spec I'll be using for a month, the level 90 Warlords of Draenor spec. It'll have a row of level 100 talents I won't have access to, it'll shift my talents around and change my abilities. Many of them will be gone. As much as I'm not weeping over the loss of Heroic Strike and Colossus Smash for fury, their loss leaves a hole in the rotation, and one you can't really fill at level 90 - I doubt warriors will be the only ones feeling strange to their players over that month before we all start leveling. So I took my former main (I guess it's fair to call him that, since I haven't played him very much lately, since I don't have the ability to really raid anymore) out for a spin, blew up some dungeons, did awful things to an LFR tank's confidence. When the gear squish comes in and our characters are wholly different in less than a week, we'll all have to relearn and readjust, so I figured I'd get in a few more chanced to feel ridiculous while I could. Sometimes, I look forward to the changes, and sometimes I dread them. How about you?
Breakfast Topic: What 6.0 means
I suspect it's different for everyone. For me, the last month of any expansion is always kind of melancholy. My wife and I were discussing saudade last night, a concept I wasn't familiar with, and while it's not that intense I do always feel that small pang for what's lost when an expansion rolls around. Sure, I'm excited for new content, new levels, new dungeons and raids and zones. But at the same time, Pandaria had been my home for two years now. I've explored it, seen the magnificent vistas, done battle with a host of foes and monsters. And now, it all comes to an end. That last month, we don't really even see the content anymore - in our minds we're long past it already, exploring Draenor. So for me, patch 6.0 is bitter with the sweet - it's full of an awareness of its own mortality, of the world growing autumnal. Yes, we're still there in Pandaria, still running the same raids and dungeons, doing the same daily quests, exploring the same Timeless Isle - but we're already gone, and the world grows colder and prepares to be abandoned. I feel that longing for when it was all new, that now vanished world we first stepped into years ago. But its time is done. And here we are, in its waning weeks, finally aware of how transient it always was. So enjoy patch 6.0, by all means, and prepare for Draenor. But give Pandaria its last month, and enjoy it for what it was, and will never be again.
Breakfast Topic: What will you be playing in Warlords?
An expansion launch in World of Warcraft is a good time to re-evaluate your gaming priorities. With expansions come change, and change means that you may find your class, your game role, or the game in general more -- or less -- appealing. It's the perfect time to make a class switch if you've been thinking about it -- or just don't like what the latest class changes have left your current main with -- because with the entire player-base leveling up, you won't be any further behind the curve than anyone else. So with change well on its way with the upcoming Warlords of Draenor launch, now's the time to weigh your options and consider just what you'll be playing come launch day. Will you stick with your main or are you switching classes? Are you leaving the game or coming back to it? Will you be finding a new guild or revisiting an old one? Tell us, readers: just what are you going to be playing when Warlords launches?
Breakfast Topic: If you were in charge
Let's face it -- our characters have done more over the course of WoW's 10 year history than any NPC in the game, pretty much. Maybe we didn't defeat all those villains single-handed, but we've stopped their evil plans several times over. We've deftly, unflinchingly addressed situations that were literally going to bring our world to an end, on multiple occasions, and yet we still find time in our busy world-saving schedules to help a farmer with a vermin problem or, you know, pick up some poop because apparently this is also just part of a day's work for a hero of Azeroth. No need to thank us, unless you're handing over gold or armor or some other slightly entertaining item, heck half the time we're just pleased to be getting some experience for it. Yet when it comes down to it, despite all our heroics, we're the last people anyone would consider for a leadership role. When push comes to shove, the NPCs of Warcraft would rather promote a military leader with a thirst for violence. Or a council of three people who hate each other. Or that tall blue guy with the mohawk and the pointy ears who's just conveniently standing in the room over there. We're always the bridesmaid, never the bride -- although given what we're willing to do to get our hands on some loot, maybe that's for the best. But what if you were in charge? What if, when push came to shove and everyone's backs were against the wall, everyone turned to you and said "OK, now what?" What would you do if you had absolute power? Would you immediately launch a war, regardless of whether or not other people really wanted to be in one? Would you start peace talks or diplomatic negotiations? Are you the type that would chuck a mana bomb at a city, or arrange a summit to hash out our differences? Who would you lock up? Who would you set free? Would World of Warcraft become World of Chaos under your careful guidance, or would you try to make a happily-ever-after for everyone? If you were in charge, what would you do?
Breakfast Topic: How are you planning to level in Warlords?
Everybody's got a different way to level through content the first time through. Some people take their time, others try to push through as quickly as possible, with the intent of setting a more leisurely pace for alts. Still others chain dungeons to gather XP, bypassing all actual questing in favor of simply running the same thing over and over. The last couple expansions for me have been a blur of fast-paced and frantic leveling in the first 48 hours or so of the expansion's launch, partially because I wanted to be at max level for my raid guild as quickly as possible, partially because I really, really wanted that realm first achievement for leveling. I came in a close second both times I tried. Disappointing? Maybe a little. But I was kind of relieved to hear that realm first leveling achievements wouldn't be coming into play with Warlords, because that temptation to speed through the leveling experience is gone now. I'm no longer actively raiding, either, so there is absolutely no reason for me to bulldoze my way through leveling. I'm actually far more excited about the prospect of simply taking my own sweet time then I ever was about the marathon get-to-max-level-racing sessions, although my guild was usually on vent and our babble, particularly after the 24 hour mark when we were all just a little too sleep deprived for our own good, was highly entertaining. But I'm looking forward to leveling for the sake of leveling, and just taking my time soaking in the story and what's going on in the world around me. Everyone's got their own way to level, and this time around, mine is going to be at my own pace while soaking up the story, which suits me just fine. What about you guys? Are you going to rush through Draenor's content, achievement or no? Do you like doing quests out in the open world and seeing what's out there, or do you prefer stacking up your XP in dungeons? How are you planning on leveling in Warlords -- is it going to be a race to the finish line, or a more leisurely stroll through content?
Breakfast Topic: My LFR phobia
I have many alts. Many of them are warriors, because, well, come on it's me you can't pretend you're surprised at this point it's been seven years. Anyway, I've been playing one of these alts quite a bit lately, gotten his gear up from a 470 to a 528 through playing the AH, using the Timeless Isle and an heirloom 2h axe from Garrosh. The problem is, there's one easy way to get better gear than I currently have - run LFR. Even just running Throne of Thunder on LFR would help because it would get me rep I could use to get a new necklace. There's just one problem - I absolutely can't bring myself to do it. At all. Not even a little bit. I managed to force myself to run the first wing of SoO this week, got the last two bosses, and after about six wipes apiece (filled with racial epithets, trash talk, constant ragequitting, and other behavior) I just can't bring myself to do it again for the first two. It's a shame, because I miss raiding - a lot - but I can't commit to a regular raid schedule at this point. LFR, with its bite sized, raid when you havethe time approach is tailor made for the kind of schedule I have nowadays. But the behavior is so toxic that I just can't make myself try it again. So I'm asking, because I have no idea - what could we possibly do to improve LFR as an experience?
Breakfast Topic: Down To The Wire
With the announcement of the upcoming end of Season 15, we're likely looking at the date for Patch 6.0 and thus, the last month of Mists of Pandaria, which means if there's anything you've been procrastinating on, it's time to get a move on. For me, it means running through Blackrock Mountain on several of my alts to make sure I have the Blackhand Doomsaw on anyone who wants it. (It's the same model as Lantresor's Warblade, but it sheaths differently.) For friends of mine, it's the Brawler's Guild, or getting their PvP rating up, or finishing a Legendary Cloak. So what're you working on? Anything you need to get done before 6.0, or are you already ready?
Breakfast Topic: A kodo at last
Sometimes I don't have anything particularly deep or interesting to say. Sometimes, I just have a story. A story about a kodo that I didn't get. Several years back, when Coren Direbrew worked differently (he dropped mounts, you didn't get them in a keg after you killed him) a group of friends got together to run Direbrew over and over again to maximize people's chances to pick up the mount. With people rotating in alts, we managed a grand total of sixteen Direbrew kills. On the last kill of the night, I offered to rotate in my Death Knight - he was a new character, just recently arrived at level 80 and not particularly geared. But I really wanted the kodo, even if it would be on an alt and not my main. (This was before mounts were account bound.) I switched to said DK, we did the fight, and sure enough the kodo dropped. And then I realized my wife was in the group. She didn't have the kodo. She wanted the kodo. And she was a mount collector. So I did the only thing I could and passed - after all, I was on my alt, not my main. As soon as they made mounts account wide a tiny piece of my soul withered and died. I've watched friends get the mount over the years, but I never did. It just seemed to be out of my reach. Until tonight, when after years, after Wrath and Cataclysm and two years of Mists of Pandaria the bloody thing finally dropped. For my alt. So yes, my wife's finally off the hook. My draenei can finally ride around on a kodo, the one thing I desperately missed from playing Horde. Life is good. Now you tell your stories of long-awaited victory, I suppose. Or don't. I'll be busy tooling around on my kodo.
Breakfast Topic: Do you have a pre-expansion to-do list?
I'm pretty obsessive about achievements. I don't go out of my way to complete them, but if I'm in an area questing or farming and there's an achievement to be had, I'll grab it while I'm there. But what I normally find myself doing at the end of an expansion, when the days are waning and there's little to do, is going out and finding all of the achievements I missed. I don't get them all -- after all, there are only so many hours I have available to play -- but having a tangible list of stuff to do keeps the end-of-expansion doldrums mostly at bay. The latest round of things to do involved the Brawler's Guild, which I began when it first arrived, and then abandoned in a flurry of raiding and dailies and things that were nowhere near Orgrimmar or Stormwind. I think that's why I'd all but forgotten about the feature until recently. Most of my days were spend in either the Alliance or Horde shrines, and I never really traveled to either capital city if I could help it. But upon the announcement that the Brawler's Guild was being revamped for level 100, I figured I should go knock out as many of the bosses as I could. It was slightly easier than I'd expected, but that was in large part due to all that raiding I'd been doing and the gear I'd acquired. Still, there were a few bosses that proved to be a challenge, and no amount of gear could get me around the mechanics and tricks required. But I'm rank 10 now, and working my way through the various challenge cards. I don't know if I'll finish them all before 6.0.2, but it's become a fun and somewhat relaxing diversion. What about you guys? Do you have a to-do list of things to complete before the expansion is over? Do you go after particular achievements? Do you go back and finish zone quests you might not have seen in your rush to level 90? Or are you just taking a break and relaxing while you wait?
Breakfast Topic: Do you want more Lords of War?
Yesterday was the fifth and final installment of the short series Lords of War, which avoided featuring another orc warlord and instead gave us a glimpse of Vindicator Maraad's past. As a finale, it was just the right emotional gut punch to push us forward into the next expansion -- although I found myself wondering about the other orcs who were not featured. Certainly we'll be seeing them in other lore material introduced as the expansion is released and moved on, but it's not quite the same, is it? I pretty much fell in love with the moving illustration style of lore presentation we've been getting since it was introduced with the Burdens of Shaohao. Let's face it, this is a really cool, evocative way to present some of the back story and lore that we don't see in game. But I find myself, particular with the latest series, wanting just a little more. I'd love to see tales of the draenei from the Draenor we're traveling to in Warlords -- Akama, Nobundo, Velen, Yrel -- or even just more back story on Garrosh and his interaction with the orcs of the world. Or Ner'zhul. A whole series dedicated to Ner'zhul and the Shadowmoon would be pretty sweet. What did you guys think of the series? Do you want more? Are there characters whose stories you wish had been told? Are there tales you still really want to see? Do you want more Lords of War -- or is there another series of tales you'd like to see come to life?
Breakfast Topic: How big should dungeons be?
This is one of those topics I've written about before, but I love the oldest, classic dungeons of World of Warcraft. WoW has had a lot of great dungeons over the years, I'm not saying it hasn't, but for me personally I've never liked any of the more recent dungeons as much as the classic ones - I especially loved Dire Maul, Blackrock Depths (as Scott Andrews put it here, it was pretty much WoW's ultimate dungeon) and the combined Upper/Lower Blackrock Spire. What was always really amazing about the spire was how it all connected - you could kill General Drakkisath, and then realize you were essentially standing over a dizzying plummet that would see you land at the base of the spire. You could even physically fall out of the dungeon. There's down sides to big, big dungeons like these, of course. A complete clear of BRD was as much of a chore as any raid, and could take as long if not longer - back in the day a BRD run was basically it, you were committed, it was what you were going to do all afternoon. So I guess what I'm asking is, do we miss sprawling dungeon complexes like these, or are they artifacts of the past we're better off without?
Breakfast Topic: Will you reroll for Warlords?
To answer the question posed by the headline, I'm not going to reroll for this coming expansion. But every expansion I've seen since The Burning Crusade I've seen people reroll. People reroll for lots of different reasons - they feel their class is weaker now, they're bored, there's a new class introduced (so not this time for this reason), they want to switch roles and their current class doesn't tank or heal or isn't a pure DPS class, or they feel like the class they are currently playing isn't as good at what they're doing than another class. The start of an expansion is often seen as the best time to make this kind of switch, because everyone's leveling up anyway and we're all on an even footing for a while. There's also the old fashioned way to switch servers or factions - back before you could pay to move a character, I often rolled a new one just to play with friends on a different server or faction, and it's still the cheapest way to do that. My tauren warrior wouldn't exist without it. With all the systems changes and item stat squishes it seems like now might be the best possible time to get on with a reroll. Are you planning to make a change?
