And They're Off!

Ding!

I dunno what to say. Cataclysm is here and everybody I know is much to busy hitting the slopes of Mt. Hyjal to do anything like raid or whatever. Which is just as well.

First thoughts going into the real thing from Beta.

I've got a gut feeling that the dungeons got nerfed at the last moment. It was way incomplete at the time, but Throne of Tides was much harder to heal in beta than it was last night. And I was 82 at the time I did it in beta. It was my first go into Blackrock Caverns today, and I dps'd (woo-hoo! Fun!), but apart from some malarky with boss mechanics, it was not overwhelming. Our tank even made some bad pulls, yanking in some trash on the second boss and that didn't stop anybody. I am feeling a tad disappointed, but reserve judgment for now.

Where the hell do Cocoa Beans come from? If you follow that link back, you'll see that Wowhead has no idea. Allakhazam doesn't know either. Nor does Crafter's Tome. Wowpedia? No. Wowwiki? No. Google only brings back forum posts demanding the same question, that has no answer. It's the biggest mystery in WoW today. To hell with DW and his machinations, I just want some beans so I can make some Starfire Espresso for that sweet, sweet, mana-rich taste. If anybody knows, post a comment please!

For my unofficial WoW Soundtrack of the Cataclysm, I've adopted Zoe Keating's song "Escape Artist" as the theme song. This song just stirs ideas of epic things afoot, journeys to be made and hits of tragedies to come.  Keating is using her "one cello" technique. That whole video is being played live with no back track or anything. That computer next to her takes samples of her playing and then loops them, and then she uses foot pedals to switch between loops while building on top of them as she continues playing.  Awesome.

So, You Think You Can Dance? (part 2)

Back in this post over here, I tried to suggest that raiding is a lot like dancing. Please feel free to go check it out if you didn't have the opportunity before!  I'm very proud of that one.

But in order to get this piece rolling, I need sum that one up a little: You have got to mind the choreography of the raid to be able to accomplish anything, and thinking about it as a dance helps me a lot.

I want to take that analogy a little deeper though.  In addition to keeping up with the choreography, you need to be on top of you own rhythm.

So, You Think You Can Dance?

C'mon, Daddy-o! It's the Jets Raiding the Sharks!

How to Raid is such a loaded topic and I don't mean to bring it up as a way of yelling at nubs or chastising the people who make a PuG Eye of Eternity impossible to accomplish. So often, though when you get to a new fight with a group you don't usually run with, a large part of the raid is going, "This is easy! Why can't you people do what you are told?"

There is often some ego in statements like that, but sometimes I think the problem is experienced raiders being unable to communicate what it is they do to players with less experience or skill.

I do not want to hold myself out as a skillful, experienced raider telling everyone how it is done. I just want to offer a new way to look at a raid fight that might help.

Raiding is like a large movie musical dance production.

Raiding requires a sense of rhythm: doing certain actions at a certain point in time often in tandem with the other dancers/raiders in your group. In a fight against a WoW boss, or in a stage production of West Side Story, unless everybody sticks to the same basic choreography, the whole thing is going to end up with some broken bodies lying on the floor. 

It's the Little Things... (part 2)

Ooh! It's a red launcher!

Blizzard has unveiled a new system for delivering patches and updates. The launcher now tracks what kind of data is being updated into your WoW client and Blizz categorizes it as essential, secondary, and "less-important."  The trick is that once the "essential" files are downloaded and in place, you can turn the game on again and the secondary and "less important" files will fill in as time ticks by.  Inside the game, there is a new indicator near the mini-map that shows file traffic coming in.

It's the round red thing at the bottom.

General reports are that if you do start the game while the patch is still incoming, you can expect a wide range of um... experiences.  WoW might be playable, or you might be sorta stuck in a place like Dalaran that hasn't loaded in yet and so you're just going to lurk there in the sky until the scenery comes back. 

• I have realized that despite everything, Sylvanas cannot really be an evil mastermind. A real evil mastermind, when giving her lickspittle an assignment that goes horribly wrong, is supposed to torture said lickspittle horribly and then say "You have ONE MORE CHANCE to redeem yourself!"  In reality (as much as WoW is reality) Sylvanas just blames herself and then gives the lickspittle a pair of magical britches.

Exodar Disco

Yah, this isn't anything about beta, but this is my WoW blog and the Prophet Velen urging everybody to bust a move makes me laugh. Plus, EmberIsolte is in this and she is hawt.