Holiday's are here....

I 've been busy in game trying to sort out the reputations I `need'. It seems to me that no reputation is actually needed and its more of a novelty reward when you reach exalted with any of them. Nonetheless Argent Crusade and Vanguard are my first choices for the Argend Crusader title and the Hog schematics. At the same time I am doing the dailies for Sons of Hodir for the shoulder enchants. I am close to being exalted with all three of them. Next will be the Kirin Tor and the Wyrmcrest for those nice head enchants. Overall, it seems much easier to do heroics and 10/25-mans for the loot.

I have managed to get 4 tier7 pieces and the odd badge reward and I am happy for the time being with my stats. Next projects along with the reputations is crafting the Hog, obtaining a descent pair of trinkets and rings and ofc seeing the end of the last encounter left for my guild. Malygos.

In between I hope to maintain a descent amount of gold and sort out an efficient dailies and farming trip. Also get to finish the quests in Icecrown and Borean Tundra that are left.

A first look on heroic performance

Its been quite a few days since I posted as I was up to my neck with work and my spare time went in game.
Lance is now lvl 80, Holy spec-ed and I am starting to adjust to the new talents, rotations and the new game play.

I have not visited any normal instances yet as Holy but I did visit Culling and Dark'Tharon in heroic modes. My observations are...

Healing is much more interactive now. The cost of spells is bigger, you can not rely on passive mana management and you need to keep an eye on your bar and cool downs. Divine plea is a massive addition if used timely, often and whenever possible. It will extent uptime, it will compensate for emergencies and it will keep you going longer. The numbers are not of my concern for the time being as I have not gotten the feel of it in many instances.

Holy shock is marvellous filler for emergencies and once we get the hand of it we will couple it with fast follow-up heals with Infusion. Tricky but quite doable and as far as I see it fun.

Holy Light is now quite different as down-ranking is a no-no. So its a pure nuke heal. Crit, Mana per 5 and heal need to be adjusted for longevity and net effect. How this will develop... its quite early for me to say.

Sacred Shield has a nice graphic but I have not yet fully appreciated its use.

Longevity in my current tier6 gear is a question though. I see my mana bar dropping sometimes a bit more than I am used to. But hey, its a start.

Overall, healing with the Paladin seems fun to me. If only our solo dps was a tad more exciting, I would be pleased

Northrend...

Its been a few days since I posted, simply because I have dived in to the quest pool and looking around in awe. Blizzard has done a very good job on the environments, most of the quests and the story is more involving than ever. I am halfway to 76, trying to keep a balance with speed and enjoyment of the quests. Leveling as retribution is solid, almost no uptime and I also did UK, NxS and AN with guildies. Completed the quests on Howling, Dragonblight, went straing for the Argent Crusade tabard (did a few quests there for the rep), then went to start normal questing in Grizzly. The latter is by far the most immersive area I have seen in wow. Probably the trees, the colours, the shadows the...ah crap, bears!!!

No upgrades yet though apart from some trinkets, a ring and gems! Oh the gems are nifty. As far as professions are concerned I am not doing anything in particular than mining everything I encounter and then try to level engineering in steps. I was also fortunate enough to get the Heavy Frostwave book (or whatever its called) quite soon in Zul'Drak and do the odd cooking here and there. Fishing...well, I am stuck at 320 so I'll leave that for when my GF goes to outlands.

Overall, the game looks and feels a million time better than previous instalments. Lots of things to do, lots of scenery and lots of lore. Meeting up with the likes of Krasus, Rhonin (I am a wow book fan :p), Alexstrasza, Arthas and ofc Tirion in his pala armour truly gets you into the conflict.

My only concern is the slightly more demanding minimum requirements that may affect my GFs laptop and seem to have caused some issues on my rig. Do not be afraid to tweak the settings and do not assume that going all maxed out in the graphics tab yields the best performance. You need to look what wokrs and what not for your setup, going lower or disabling something may look better actualy.

Good luck, may the Light guilde your path and see you in Icecrown...

The script evolves...

As I said a few days ago Blizzard ought to bring the story to a point that there would be leverage for the Alliance and the Horde to attack Northrend (which up to a few days seemed not to be the plan).

Now undead forces attack the two iconic cities of Stormwind and Ogrimmar. I personaly expect Sindragosa to come on top of the current attacks. The spring is loaded and about to throw us to the noerthern continent. Arthas taunts us and we will take up on the chalenge...

A few hours left till the Wotlk launch, a few more hours till the servers get hammered from old, current and returning players. A few hours before Lance grabs his two-hander after quite some time and venture to the icy continent...

Meet you all there...

The Final Countdown

The clock is ticking... The final countdown has started...

This is the last weekend before the release of the Wrath of the Lich King and I expect some events to trigger. From a `screenplay' point of view the alliance and the horde currently have no incentive to attack the Lich King, apart from the old crimes. Which more or less - and bearing in mind that nobody does anything about them - seem `ignored'. I feel that in order to justify the attack in Northrend something big needs to happen.

Ofc that would mean that the time point of entry to the new continent will have to be placed a few months from now to justify the new structures and the Alliance and Horde expeditions establishment/preparations.

If nothing happens then the script will seem a bit flaky to me. If the entry point in Northrend is the next day form the end of tBC then there will be missing references on what takes place currently in Northrend (it would have to be now, in order for us to go and find everything set up the next day).

So, in other words I expect (and hope) that Hell breaks loose this week.

Still, the amount of information we received the past months makes me eager to see the new content, do some fine -lore related - quests and drool over some fine new items.

I just feel that wrapping everything with a good script will set up the ground perfectly for the new expansion which Blizz claims to be much more lore related and involving for all of us.

I left my paladin in the Stormwind Harbour looking towards the Horizon. He expects the Lich King's taunt, in the form of a dragon...

The Achievement of my gametime

It has been quite a few days since I posted something in this blog. I am up to my neck with work and all my spare time goes to my GF and Wow.

Nonetheless, most of my current time spend in wow involves doing some achievements. I missed a large time-window of the game when I was serving in the army for a year and now I am trying to see those places once again. MC and BWL, which I raided much less than my guildies and never got the chance for some well-sought gear due to low attendance. Revisit old quests or indeed some pinnacle events (Eranicus for example). Raid those Horde leaders while listening to the new AC/DC album with the appropriate teen-age naivety...

A few days are left till Wotlk launches and I must admit this has been a quite fun period, much more than the pre-tbc pvp months. But the greatest achievement was something else...

While in my old server I never thought I would get the chance to see the content I have now, visit the places I have or get the gear I was lucky to obtain. Unfortunately, the old server was never a good PvE realm (much much worse than Silvermoon EU by miles) and dragged all half-descent players with it. Couple that with a generally `casual' approach... Stuck in TK and SSC. The only thing that kept me was my friends, met in game and now very dear friends in RL. A couple of weddings, lots of going out for coffee or drinks, one child-birth, one christening, lots of videos, lots of phone calls. Meeting such fine people through an online game is somewhat marvelous.

When I chose to leave the server back, little I knew what was to follow. I took quite some time from my GM duties to try to find a guild and server that would suit my play style in terms of time, frequency, efficiency and level. I easily identified Escape as the guild that possessed all those traits I was looking for. I was fortunate enough to join them while they were 4/9 in BT and 4/5 in MH. Oh, I am telling ya, it was stressful and full of mistakes. But I held on to me hammah', try to do my best.

At some point, probably because I talked so enthusiastically for all the things I had seen to my mates over coffee, one by one they followed...Applied, accepted, did their best.

And now most, but a very few, of those players I appreciated most are with me. Coupled with some like-minded players I found here, the guild has a very healthy approach to PvE, with some PvP urges lurking about. Archimonde one-shoted in a raid that seemed flaky, with new people, RoS, BB, Shahraz, Council... Illidan followed. Even Kalec and Brut...

A few months ago my guildmates were tired, I was dressed in tier5 and some pvp gear, I had not seen Kael's face and was beggin' for some light. We all had thought of quiting. Nowadays, I am among old and new friends, revisiting forgotten places, decked in the gear I always wanted, staring at the horizon from the brand new SW harbor...

Yes, the greatest achievement was our Escape from misery...

On a less romantic note...

My GF is also levelling a rogue, currently at 45. She was caught up in the whole achievement buzz and she is shouting exciting every time she gets one completed. Surprisingly, she has more PVP achievements than PVE. She is turning to be quite the butcher :p. I think I will remove all the knives from the kitchen one of those days...

I must admit I find the achievement system quite fun. The reason is simply because I can go back to places I had no reason to, explore the odd area that I never visited or do some low level quests which now have a meaning but are also very relaxing.
The way the achievements are implemented allows the player to do something in game while staying within to the time constrains of real life. You got lots of time but your guild is not raiding today? You can do a long chain, kill a faction boss (if there are enough likeminded people in your server), solo an instance that you miss or do some quests for the lore master title. You got only 15 min before dinner is ready? Go fish in IF :-p

However I got a few things to point out:

1. Achievements are the PvErs arena points. The first in-game PvE rating system (including ofc pvp objectives as well) along with the now-feats-of-strength titles. Quite nicely coupled with the competitive nature of most wow players.

2. They won’t last forever. Unless new are added as we go along. The first remark means that over the course of time what is now available will be completed. If not new ones are added (which probably will) it will be like a game-over type of thing.

3. Even the PvP Boss objectives got a PvE flavour. I consider going and killing Sylvanas (which we did yesterday) a nice chance to taunt the opposite faction. I must admit that being a lore fan I always thought these PvP encounters were part of PvE in the broader sense. I mean, at the end of the day that tauren is part of the environment and he is standing on my way... right? :p

4. Some achievements are humorous and fun. Others are tough and rewarding. Others are simply to back up your /played. All are to boast.

Overall I consider achievements a fun addition. Most importantly, an excuse for me to cover for the missed in-game opportunities due to my compulsory army service :p

Sylvanas went down yesterday. A nice raid, made from Club, Alter Ego, Genesis and a couple of Escape members went and killed the Forsaken leader (cool avatar nowadays!) while a raid made from one of the top guilds came late, stood and looked. Rumours that they logged their Horde toons to stall us are being investigated... Sorry guys :p

Patch incoming

Patch 3.0 is incoming and its time to plan ahead. I will be sticking to Holy until Wotlk hits for sure to continue on my current role. I think its a nice time to catch up with the new mechanics, appreciate the healing that can be delivered and tweak my spec out.

Presumably I will try for 51 points in Holy to try BoL. Not sure on Infusion though. The real star though will be the glyphs, most probably going for the Holy Light glyph and a choice between +10% on jusdgement (to cover somewhat the nerf on judgements) and the wisdom one (-5% less mana cost). But a nice chance to try things out :)

This is my first trip to the world of blogs. Although I have been into the computer industry for quite sometime I never attempted to make a blog and... well, thought I'd start :)

This blog's theme revolves around the World of Warcraft MMO game which I am currently playing and to events related to my current guild, Escape, in the realm of Silvermoon.

Instead of boring my guildmates with my random rumblings in our forum, I thought I use this `stage' to express myself during those boring moments at work...

So welcome and have fun!

/Lance