Saturday, October 30, 2010

Cataclysm Digital Download

One of the things I was pleased to hear from Blizzcon 2010 is that the Cataclysm will be available via digital download from day 1.  I had some initial concerns that the direct download might be delayed until the morning of the day of the release similar to Starcraft 2.  You had to wait until 10 am for that one.  Fortunately everyone can get cataclysm at the same time, 12:00 AM PST (or for me 3:00 AM EST).  That's a bit late for us east coasters but I guess you can't please everyone.  I wonder how bad the servers will be since so many players will be able to do a midnight release without having to find a store that does it.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

New Patch and Violet is my Favorite Color

Today Blizzard sent out a mini patch to all WoW servers.  No content here, but it fixes a lot of annoying bugs that have plagued everyone since they released 4.0.1.  Now everyone should be able to do the headless horseman daily boss without fear of being disconnected!

Some Random thoughts from Blizzcon:

  • Diablo 3 stole the show in my opinion, really it was the only game which had anything new to talk about.
  • The opening ceremony was lack luster.  What was the point of the whole geek thing?  I didn't get it.  I kept thinking that it was going to go somewhere but it never did.  Some nice splashes with Diablo 3 but nothing earth shattering.
  • It was nice to hear the Starcraft 2 team talk about how the ranking system actually works.  I feel at least a little better now.
  • Metzen is hilarious, he should have been on every panel.  Watching him answer questions was worth it alone.
  • It's cool that they're giving out 1000 Diablo 3 beta keys for show goers but why stop at 1000?
  • I can't believe how much content they had, I'm still trying to watch some of it.

Yesterday was also a great day for Cuttingedge personally.  After a long hard journey he finally got the achievement [What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been]

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Another Roaring Dragon

Here's what the new login screen for cataclysm will look like:

Image per MMO-Champion

It looks like we will be constantly roared at again by Deathwing this time instead of Sindragosa.  What's up with Blizzard and roaring dragons?  It's definitely a cool login screen, don't get me wrong.  I just don't know why they feel the need to have it be so annoying.  For example I might be in WoW and away from my computer for a bit.  Then the game logs me off and eventually kicks me back to the login screen.  Then the freaking dragon roars until I close the window.  Deathwing is fine, but less roaring please!

Insane in the Membrane

I spent the last 2 days watching most of the Blizzcon coverage via the webcast and boy is there a lot of content from that show.  Now that blizzard has 3 relevant titles there is love spread around everywhere.  Overall I was mostly pleased with the show.  There weren't any earth shattering announcements but there didn't have to be to have a lot of good content.  I'll have more of my reactions to some of the information in the coming days but I have to start off on the topic that annoys me the most from Blizzcon.

Blizzard basically said that the [Insane in the Membrane] achievement in WoW will no longer really exist in cataclysm.  This is contrary to what they had said a year earlier where they claimed that there was nothing to worry about and it would still be in the game.  It sounds like this is untrue and myself and I'm sure many other people are very disappointed.  I started chipping away at this feat of strength myself and I have no chance to get it done before the whole world changes.  If I had known it wasn't going to exist I wouldn't have even bothered with it.  Normally I think Blizzard does a good job of warning players about changes but I think they really dropped the ball on this one.

Friday, October 22, 2010

10 Things I want to see from Blizzcon 2010

Here's a slight deviation from all things WoW with a few thoughts on Blizzard's upcoming show.  Blizzcon starts in just over an hour and here are 10 things that I hope to see:

  1. More details about Blizzard's mysterious new MMO.  I have a feeling we might only get a little glimpse if anything, but something is better than nothing.
  2. Diablo 3's 5th class.  Possibly some sort of bow wielding character?
  3. A Diablo 3 release date.  A guy can dream...
  4. Patch 4.0.3 for WoW date.  I'm sure blizzard knows when they want this to land.
  5. New starcraft 2 expansion details.  Give me anything!
  6. WoW Patch 4.1 sneak peak.
  7. Starcraft 2 next patch sneak peak.
  8. A lot more diablo 3 gameplay details and videos.
  9. Something I would have never thought I'd see.
  10. Crazy costumes!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

310%

One of the features of Cataclysm is that it is bringing all mounts to the same speed.  That is, how fast your mount goes is dependent upon how high your riding skill is.  So if you have trained up to the 280% riding skill all your flying mounts will go at 280% speed.  Previously  each mount had a particular speed assigned to it.  Mounts which were 310% speed used to be very rare, and that was the only way you could fly that fast.  Blizzard changed that by introducing [Master Riding] which could be bought for 5000 gold.  Anyone with a 310% mount already would get the riding skill for free, otherwise you have to pay.  I would say this change is an overall good thing but had one very bad effect.

Many people work at a whole year's worth of holiday achievements in hopes of getting the violet proto-drake which can fly at 310% speed.  This isn't something you can speed up with more work, you literally have to wait all year long for the holidays to happen.  Also, some of the holiday achievements are 100% luck based, so a couple of bad drops and guess what...you're out of luck.

I was one of these unlucky few.  The Hallow's End holiday is particularly luck based.  All I needed was a darn sinister squashling to drop last year and I would have had the violet protodrake many months ago.  Then here comes 4.0.1 patch a week before the holiday and of course I thought I was going to have to pony up all that gold and my hard work would be for nothing.  Thankfully blizzard implemented a hotfix on Tuesday which allows anyone who can get this holiday meta-achievement in the future to get 310% riding for free.  Thank you blizzard for listening to the people on that one!

6TRQMN8F2HXT

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Attack of the Turkeys

Attack of the Turkeys!
The other day I was perusing through my achievements and found one I had yet to do:  [Friend or Fowl]

Much to my surprise, upon completing this achievement a giant swarm of turkeys appeared and started attacking me!  It's an excellent homage to Zelda games where you could attack chickens and then they swarm you in a giant wave.  It's so hilarious!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A Brief History: Part 2

After a hiatus of about 9 months or so, I got a WoW itch which just needed to be scratched again.  That's the one thing about this game which I can't say about any other.  I always keep coming back for more.  I came back to find that the guild I created had fallen on some rough times, but was still chugging along.  All the old faces which I knew before were gone, replaced with people whom I had never met.  I took this opportunity to make some new friends though, some which I still keep in touch with to this day.

The Burning Crusade came along and myself and others began to realize that we wanted more out of this upcoming expansion.  The new friends I made in my old guild and I began to tire of how casual the guild and the leadership had become.  We decided to break off and form a new guild, dedicated to see all the end game content and to play at a high level.  And so I left the very guild that I had created and together we formed a new guild appropriately named...Unbound.

These were the golden years of my WoW career.  We suffered some growing pains at first, but morphed into a highly successful raiding guild.  Eventually making it to well into Sunwell before it was nerfed.  We prospered throughout the expansion but at the end I grew weary once again decided I had to take a break a few months before Wrath of the Lich King came out.

Fast forward to WotLK.  Unbound didn't make it to the expansion.  Shortly after I took my second hiatus things fell apart.  I came back to a mere shell of a guild.  I played for a few weeks in the start of the expansion and then realized I had nothing to do.  Naxxramas was incredibly easy...a joke of an instance.  I thrive on challenging content, and there was none for me.  So I took a break again until Ulduar was released.  Around this time I decided to try to latch on to another hardcore raiding guild.  This was short lived however, I just couldn't keep up with a 5 day raiding schedule along with a full time job and other real life commitments.

It was at this point I decided it was time for a drastic change in my WoW career.  I am a huge fan of the instance so I decided to fork over the money and change from alliance to horde and transfer CuttingEdge over to the Mega-guild which is Alea Iacta Est (a community composed of fans of the instance).  It was difficult to sever ties from my old server and the few friends I had left on there, but I felt that I needed a slightly more casual place for me to play since my schedule was so hectic.

That brings me roughly to where I am now.  Still with AIE and trying to get back into the cutting edge of raiding.  Certainly not 5 days a week, but I want to be able to raid at a very high level.

Monday, October 18, 2010

A Brief History: Part 1

I've been playing video games since I was old enough to walk.  Video games have been such a large part of my life and without them I would be lost.  World of Warcraft represents the pinnacle in gaming for me, it's easily the most enjoyable game I've played. 

I started playing WoW shortly before release, sometime during the beta.  In fact, I even decided to start forming a guild long before the game came out (if you can guess the name of the guild, you get a cookie!).  I toiled away gathering random people for this guild which I was leading.  Unfortunately, most of these people I gathered would turn out to not last long, or not even join my WoW guild at all.  Those months of planning were really a failed effort and I was very naive for thinking it would work.

I knew from before I ever set foot in the game that I wanted to become a healer.  The healing mantra just fit me perfectly.  I like to have a job to do which is important and where a slight miscue can result in disaster.  I also don't like to be leading the charge for anything, so that took me out of the tanking role.  DPS just didn't seem as fun so I was dead set on healing.  Then from there I eventually settled on the priest class since that seemed to be the most healing focused of all the healing classes.

I got the game day one when I was in college, it happened to be the day right before thanksgiving break so I couldn't jump into the game until late the night of release.  I created my Night Elf priest (Cuttingedge!) on my server and away I went.  My first task in the game was to create this guild which I had been forming over the previous few months.  I of course did this in one of the noobish ways possible.  I ran up to random people and asked them if they would sign my guild charter!  Thus my guild was born.

The original goal of that guild was to be a friendly environment but to also see all the content in the game.  Unfortunately, that never really came to pass.  In vanilla WoW organization and skill were key.  It was hard enough to get 40 people together in one spot for a raid on molten core, let alone having them not suck!  So while my guild was made with all the best intentions, the better player eventually moved on to the more hardcore guilds, and the guild never made it to the end game content it was designed for.  After a few months of this I grew weary and decided that I had had enough of WoW for now.  I called it quits and canceled my account 9 months after the day WoW went live.

But that was only the beginning...

A Tiny Murloc in a Giant Whirlpool

First off, let me say hello to anyone who is reading this blog!  How you found it at this point I don't know, but this is the very beginning of what I anticipate will be a regular entry on all things related to the game World of Warcraft.

My creation of this blog is driven by my love of WoW along with the the joy I take from writing about this interesting topic.  My goal is to keep you on the cutting edge of WoW news and also to follow the activities of my main character in WoW, Cuttingedge (get it?).  I hope to have most entries have content of a bit of both topics in them.  I'll touch on the WoW news of the day and my opinions of it followed by what I'm up to in the game along with random thoughts, tips, and even strategies.  My next entry in the blog will focus purely on the background of myself and my character but after that the format should stabilize over time.

Let the blogging begin!