Thursday, April 5, 2012

Stop ... Beta Time!

Whoa-oooh! Whoa-oooh! Whoa-oooh!
Argh. Like sand in an hourglass, so go the days of our lives ...

I can't begin to sum up how much I'm not playing WoW these days. Instead, I'm writing my thesis and working my butt off at school. In my spare time, I like to sleep.

The ugly truth is that I really don't have time for WoW anymore, and yet I don't feel like I'm really done with Azeroth. So, I lurk out and read blogs far more than I the game.

I keep writing blog articles as well, but rarely post. Honestly, I think I'm stuck in a negative mindset about WoW right now. Honestly, Cataclysm is not the best work Blizzard has done. And since I can't play the way I'd like in Azeroth either. I sometimes write a blog entry that I go to revise and it sounds like an icky screed of QQ and Blizzard-hating. There's enough icky screeding and Blizzard-hating on the interwebs already, and I'm trying not to recklessly add to it.

A bunch of the officers in my guild got it in their heads that we needed to transfer servers to get better raiders. When the rest of the officers said, "That might be a good idea, let's hear a plan for that." the ones who wanted to transfer just left. Apparently, they have problem constructing simple sentences in support of an idea. The second graders I teach have that problem too. What a disappointment. But that has left my guild crippled and it hurts because I have felt so strongly about my guild and there are good people still there and I'm so totally not in a position to do anything with the situation.

But, Warcraft continues onward. The MoP Press Tour came and went. The beta started cooking. They revealed the final raid of the expansion and let me just point out what I wrote on June 14, 2011 about that.
Death to Garry
There is speculation about what will bring Garrosh into such disfavor that he will need to be disposed of (what? Besides that cheery disposition he always shows?) and the leading speculation is that Garry will start messing around with demon's blood again. A revamp of Ragefire Chasm, which is the longtime lair of surviving Shadow Council members and frequent forum slips by the blues saying stuff like "What is Garrosh up to under Orgrimmar?" would pretty well confirm this.

Honestly, I hope they can find some way for him to screw everything up that's not just a repeat of what the original Horde did. Orcs playing 'round with demon blood has been done at least twice before. Snore. And I would imagine that Garry chatting with demons would be a strong signal of a resurgent Burning Legion. There are worse things we could hope for in Azeroth I suppose, but that sort of action feels like a big neon sign pointing at the immediate future beyond the Mists.

Pandawans
I'm still not very excited about Kung Fu Pandas. The press event included a bunch of protesting from people like Chris Metzen that the Pandarians are totally serious and not a joke. And I don't believe them.

It seemed to me that there was not a lot of new information offered about the monk class, which is only odd in that they must have had it fairly well developed before they ever brought it out at Blizzcon last year.  I was expecting a bunch of concept differences and retractions to initial expectations. And except for the reinstatement of auto-attacks, I don't think I heard one major change to the monk concept. That seems kinda cool to me though... like a decisive and well-planned new class. I wish though, I could remember exactly what state the Death Knight was in during a comparable time in its development. They spent most of the next two years after the DK was introduced trying to get that class right.

My Beta Goals
Well, like it as well as not, my MoP beta invite did arrive last night, Conveniently here during Spring Break when I have a little bonus time to look into things that interest me. (and only about 6 weeks from the end of the school year, when again, I'll have some time to mess about). What do I really want to see the most in Beta this time around?

Panda starting zone - This shall be Blizzard's chance to convince me this was a good idea. It's highly unlikely I'll start a new panda in the real game anyway. But, I always enjoy seeing the fancy new starting zones, so I'm looking forward to this. If I make a monk character, she'll be a draenei. Because if your primary attack is to go kicking the bejibbles out of mobs, you gotta do that with hooves.

See how my beloved Shaman is doing - There's all the new talent trees and stuff like that to explore. My satisfaction with WoW is still largely dependent on how heroic Merinna can be. I was reading a round of class changes that rolled out. Lots of spell-cost inflation. A few decreases in cast times. And a whole lotta changes to what totems can do. That's going to take some playing around, no doubt.

Check in on Janelo the Warlock - Not sure if I've said much about her this year, but my warlock Janelo became a werewolf and mostly fighting affliction-style, has been a fun go-to character for kicks.  Warlocks reportedly have the largest number of changes afoot at this time and some of them sound pretty neat.

These need to stay moderate for the time being. I must be realistic in how much I think I'll really be able to do in beta this time around.











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