Monday Random Thoughts

- With all the thinking about MoP the most important question seems to have slipped my mind.

- Will we be able to skin the pandas?

- They are animals after all right.

- I want my hunters T14 to be the Panda Slayer set.

- I can wear a panda on my head like in the movie tropic thunder.

- They made me wear a murloc, they should allow me to wear a panda.

- I think a panda helm would be way cooler than a murloc helm.

- I doubt we will be able to skin the pandas just like we can't skin worgens any more.

- I remember leveling my rogue back in the day and spending hours in duskwood skinning worgens.

- They had a great respawn rate.

- Now my rogue is a worgen.

- I wonder if his pixelated mind is suffering with some self hate issues after killing so many of his own people just for their skins.

- Someone told me they just leveled through there and they can no longer skin them.

- Quite sad, what is the world coming to when you can't even skin things with fur.

- Speaking of that, I remember the first arctic fur I ever got.  It was from a dragon.

- I didn't even know dragons had fur.

- I guess if we can't get leather from skinning cows (and tauren) then we can get fur from skinning dragons.

- This is a fantasy game damn it, stop trying to think logically.

- With the pandas being able to choose sides could this mean opening the door to other races being able to choose sides?

- If they ever do that I hope they make it so you do not need to level a new character to be allowed to change.

- That would be a hell of a lot of new tauren and trolls I need to level just to make them alliance.

- It isn't so much that I would rather be alliance, it is the fact that I see no reason for the tauren or trolls to continue to side with the horde.

- Their debt is paid, well paid, if you are even considering that angle.

- Not to mention, the leadership is not the leadership they agreed to help.

- Sides can change.  People to not remain allies forever.

- The days of tauren and trolls in the horde should be long gone.

- Even more so after the wholesale slaughter of the druids in ashenvale.

- Tauren and trolls are druids too, are you telling me that did not bother them?

- I can't see them staying horde, or at the least staying in line with the current leadership, much longer.

- Time for a change.  Orcs need to become the second class citizens in the horde empire and let the trolls take the lead.

- Their war machine would be a hell of a lot more effective under troll leadership and their diplomatic endeavors would be much more welcome coming from taurens.

- You have to wonder, with all the advances the horde are making the last few expansions, when will the alliance leaders stop being pansies and start fighting back.

- I am guessing never, the alliance is primed for destruction, they do not have the heart to fight back at the same level the orcs are taking it to.

- Horde are just forgetting their biggest enemy if you ask me.

- It is not the alliance.

- It is the forsaken.

- I still say when you start a forsaken you should be able to choose the race of the forsaken you want to be.

- Or is life after death reserved for only humans and the occasional night elf?

- I would make a panda forsaken.

- Even the panda haters have to see how fun that would be.

- A panda forsaken monk doing the barrel roll and leaving a leg behind.

- Time out!  I need to get my leg, sorry.

- As some might be saying now, the only good panda is a dead panda.

- So that means forsaken pandas are good right?

- That would also mean the hunter T14 Panda Slayer set would be good too.

- In the immortal words of Captain Picard, make it so.

- Have a great day all.

- Beware of undead pandas.

Now... The Other Side

I posted a list of many of the things that popped up that I am looking forward to with the next expansion, now to post a list of the things I am not to thrilled with.

Pandas -
I don't have anything against them because they are a cute type race.  We have probably thousands of pigtailed female gnomes running around that people made just for the purpose that they are considered cute.  Cute had a place even in a RPG. 

What I have against them is the fact of what they might turn out representing.  A change in the game toward an audience that isn't me.  Lets face it, no one wants the game they love being turned into something else.  I hope it is not a step in the direction of making WoW into a kiddie game and bringing in droves of people that are not fantasy RPG players into what is supposed to be an standard fantasy RPG game.

Some people might also call them silly and have that against them.  I have nothing against silly either and I am pretty sure most of the panda haters have nothing against silly, they just do not want to admit it.  I've leveled at least a dozen goblins through the starting area just because it is silly and it was fun.  The thing for me is will they always be silly?  I worry about that.  The goblin starting area is silly, but it is just a small area that is silly, not their entire life.  I worry about them making pandas silly from beginning to end.  We have silly beginning to end already, we have gnomes, we do not need more silly.

Mists of Pandaria Title -
It just does not seem to fit the pattern of the game.  Again, like I said about pandas, it feels like it might be trying to change the audience of the game.  I feel a little slighted by that.  I am the audience, or at least I thought I was. As far as I am concerned they could have called it Kung Fu Panda Adventure Island and I would have the same feeling about it as I do with them calling it MoP.  It is a horrible title.

All the other expansions where named after a focus.  Is the focus really going to be about one island only?  Doesn't seem like much if you ask me.  Would wrath have been as cool if it was called the Snows of Northrend?  Nope, it was the fact it was a long quest to kill Arthas that made it exciting.  If all we did was run around and fight bad guys that exist for no reason other then to kill them then killing them does not feel like is as important.

How would BC have fared if it where called, The Mystery of Outland and all we did was run around exploring a new area and meeting new people and new races but having nothing to aim for?  While a title is not everything, it makes you wonder sometimes.  The other titles seemed to have a purpose, this title seems to be blah, at best.

Antagonist -
The lack of having someone we need to defeat as our main goal scares me.  Why does it scare me?  Because of the grind.  We all grind for things we like, we all grind for things we are aiming for, we all grind for something, for some reason.  The grind is fun because we are aiming for something.  Once we lose our focus on what we are aiming for or once what we are aiming for no longer seems important to us, the grind becomes annoying and no longer looks like a means to an end.

Why keep grinding gear when there is no one we really want to beat on?  Sure, we will do it because we have been trained to do it.  Just like the elephants in the circus.  They chain them down with heavy chains and they try to get away every day, sooner or later they stop trying to get away, their brains where trained that they can not.  After that point you can tie them down with sewing thread and they will never try to get away.  We are trained the same way from the game into doing the gear grind.  There is one huge difference here however, I mean besides the fact we are not elephants, at least I don't think any of my readers are, we can move on.  If we are not inspired to do the grind somehow, we will stop sooner or later.

If there is no one to beat, or no one interesting to beat, where is the driving force to keep grinding?  I lost complete interest in deathwing and killing him so while I do make an effort to keep up, within reason, I do not go crazy like I did when I wanted to kill Arthas.  If something new came out BoE that was best in slot, or close to it, I would make sure I got it ASAP in wrath.  Now, who cares, I can do well enough without it, not worth getting.  That is with someone to kill and I still lost interest because that someone, deathwing, was a boring antagonist.  With no one to kill, will this expansion be able to keep me wanting to grind?

Raids -
This is one of the biggest problems with Cataclysm and they seemed to not even remotely touched on it for the next expansion.  Maybe being we have no big baddie to go after there is no need for them to address the raid problems.  I am not talking about the difficulty here.  The difficulty in Cataclysm is pretty close to perfect.  Some bosses seems to almost require a certain class to make them easier, but outside of that, raiding seems good over all.

The problems with raids are much more straight forward.  Lock outs.  We want 10 and 25 lock out back.  Check that, we need 10 and 25 lock outs back.  With the advent of the harder raiding the ability to pug has been compromised so badly that having two lock out is almost imperative.

That is where pugging failed this expansion more then the difficulty.  The ability for guild to run 10s during the week and pug 25s on the weekend.  Without that, less people get experience, less people get gear, less people know the fights to help the progression as a guild.  Also, without that, it creates stress for guilds.  Say your guild is not making the progression you personally want, or you showed up late for a raid, you might want to go grab a pug.  With two lock outs you can jump into a pug and still be available for your guild, should they need you.  Now you can not do that.

Two lock outs are needed again, maybe people have said it, blizzard has not listened.  I am not sure why something so simple is taking so long for them too fix.  Unless there is some reason they don't want to and if there is, I would love to hear it.

Pugging -
They are introducing a few things in an effort to help pugging but all of them are short sighted and not well thought out.  Raid finder would be a winner, if it where 10 man as well but they are making it 25 man only.  When tanking a 5 man trying to get 3 DPS to follow a kill order or CC or interrupt is nearly impossible, how exactly are you supposed to get that many people to do what you can rarely get 3 people to do?  A 10 man version would really help.  You could most likely fill all DPS spots from your guild so there is no need to worry about bad DPS.

Speaking of bad DPS, it seems their way to fix this is to take away their ability to choose their skills.  No matter who you are, you will now have the perfect spec for what you choose to do.  No longer will people choose the wrong abilities.  Blizzard seems to forget that bad players are bad for a reason, because they are... not good. 

Giving them the perfect spec is not going to make them play their class right.  You will still have 2K DPS boomkins, 5K DPS ret paladins, and hunters that think just shooting steady shot is a solid rotation.  If they where good players they would have had the right spec to begin with.  Giving them the right spec is not going to magically turn them into good players. 

I think they made this change to help out in 5 man pugs more then raid however, to assure you had tanks with the right tank spec, healers with the right healer spec and DPS with the right DPS spec.  It is a noble undertaking, don't get me wrong, I like that people will all have the right spec but forgive me if I don't believe this will help the bad players.

Stat Changing -
I am not really sure how to feel about this.  They changed the way we have stats in cataclysm and  it seemed okay.  Not horrible, not great, but usable for sure.  Their biggest error with changing the stats was not the change, so to speak, it was the fact they did not fix everything before it to go along with the change.
Now they are going to try to do that again and I am sure we will have even more discombobulated stats all over the place on gear that is not current gear.

I think this was needed, while numbers are just numbers and we can keep just making them bigger having them smaller makes them easier to balance and control.  So bringing them back down to earth is a good idea.

I have no problem with trying to get "in order" but if you are not going to fix previous items you are not fixing the problem as a whole, you are only addressing the current and creating a big mess for everything that came before it.

It could be a huge plus to the game, it could be a huge mistake.  That remains to be seen.  Changing how everything works every expansion however, is not a good idea.  Which brings us to change...

Change -
I'll admit it.  I am a geek that will immediately look to the experts for advice.  I will find out what stats are best for me, what my caps are for my classes, what my optimum rotation is, all that fun stuff.  As a geek I do that and I like doing it. 

The problem is, I am probably part of 25-30% of the WoW population.  The rest of the people are really just part time players, something to pass the time players, call them the true casuals if you will.  They never looked at a forum, they never studied a rotation, and even if they might care enough about their class to try as hard as they can to do reasonably well they might still think that you need to put a blue gem in a blue slot.  They don't read so they do not know any better.

It is that population of WoW that these constant changes hurt.  People like me will keep up, it is what we do, but everyone else will start feeling slighted because every time they start to feel comfortable the game changes everything on them.

Lore -
I don't know a great deal about panda lore but I do know that what I know is probably most of it because I read often.  There is just not a lot out there about them which means they need to do a hell of a lot of building on lore this expansion.

Why is this under my don't like list if I like lore one might ask?  Pandas as a whole just do not interest me to begin with.  I'll give it a go of course because I like most of the changes coming for this expansion, but I can't find myself getting hyped up for their lore.

The reason I feel their lore will be pretty much a loser of a proposition is because there is no lore connecting them to the rest of the world as we know it.  One of the greatest things about lore, good lore that is, is how everything is connected.  They are not connected with the outside world and the little bit they have been we already know about.

Are we going to need to withhold our disbelief while they try to tie everything that ever happened in Azeroth into panda lore?  I am not sure I can do that.  I will know it is bullshit, and I will know it is a stretch.  Which leads me back to, I am just not that interested in the panda lore to begin with.

Most everything else seems to be on the right path for the most part.  I read someone say a line on the forums I really agree with.

"Now I get it, they named it MoP because they are mopping up the mess they caused with cataclysm."

Sure feels that way, to me at least.

I called cataclysm a patch, not an expansion.  It felt that way.  It felt as if it were just something thrown together while they tried to figure out something they could give us that was a good story.  I will call MoP a patch as well.  It is a patch to fix all the problems they created for themselves with cataclysm.

I am still waiting for the follow up to wrath.  As far as I am concerned wrath was the last expansion.  Cataclysm and MoP are just going to be two huge patches they are charging us for.

In the end however, I do think I will like the 5.0 patch a lot more then I liked the 4.0 patch.  I just hope we get the next expansion soon, the last one was in 2008.  In game terms, that is a lifetime ago.

I'm Starting To Like The Pandas

So far the only two things I don't like about the next expansion are pandas as a playable race and the name.  The name is just a name, so no big deal and the pandas are just another race, no big deal.

I don't like them but neither one of them is enough to make a big deal about.  So they decided on a stupid name and a cutie race.

While I can't really see playing a panda I most likely will, just to have one.  I have one of everything else so why not?

I am starting to really like pandas however even if I do not want to play them.  Each time I see someone complain about them it just makes me like them more and more.

If you are going to complain then complain about something that matters.  Take it from someone that is a master complainer.  I complain about things I don't like, I complain about things I do like, I complain about things no matter what.  But there is always a reason behind it.

There is no reason to complain about a race.  Don't like it?  Don't play one.

The trade chat on my server is like the panda hate society.  Each panda remark is more rude then the next.  People saying blizzard has gone full on retard and are catering to 6 year olds.  Each one of these comments make me like pandas more and more.

Step up your game people.  Complain about balance.  Complain about difficulty.  Complain about content.  Complain about quests.  Complain about horde favoritism.  Complain about alliance favoritism.  Complain about something that impacts the game in some way.

There are people out there that hate gnomes, or trolls, or what have you, but you do not hear them saying that they are going to quit because they are in the game.  You know how those people protest the races they dislike?  They don't play them.

While the fact remains that I am in no way a fan of the pandas and I might see it as a step in a direction of making the game aimed at a different type of player than myself, I can just not play one if I do not want to.  There is so much in the game to love and hate.  To focus all your hate on a race because they are cute seems a bit sad if you ask me.

Are they secretly afraid that having a cute race around might cause their epeen to shrink?

From looking at trade it would seem the only thing people hate so far about MoP in any large numbers are pandas.  If that is the only thing there is to hate in an expansion then I think we are in great shape.

If the people in trade keep this up, I might just become a panda lover by the time the game comes out.

Talent Review: Not As Advertised.

The run down before I babble:

Talents 2.0

• Major change to class talent trees, and this is a new phase of development for the talent system.
• The goal is to have you sit to another next to another combat rogue, and this combat rogue will actually have different talents than you do!
• Character customization was the original point of talents in the first place but overtime cookie cutter builds dominated the scene.

New Model

• Class Abilities are available to all specs in the class. All warriors learn heroic strike for example.
• Spec Abilities are available to certain specs. Only Arms warriors learn Slam. Retribution and Protection paladin get Hammer of the Righteous, etc ...
• Talents are optional skills/bonuses available to all specs. Any warrior can choose Throwdown, and you will have to pick between 3 different crowd control abilities on this level of talent.
• Level 15 - You pick your first talent. For example, warriors have to pick between Juggernaut / Double Time / Warbringer and players will have to pick which mobility ability they want to pick depending on their playstyle.

Talent Philosophy

• Access to stuff you never could before. If you were a subtlety rogue you knew you weren't going to get something like Killing Spree. And because talents are going to be all in the same tree, you're going to be able to combine them in a way that you never could before. For example, any rogue can have Shadowstep!
• Several new, overpowered (feeling) talents will be added to the game.
• If you don't see a beloved talent in your new talents list, don't worry, it's probably something we gave your spec as a baseline. For example all Holy priests now have Circle of Healing.
• No mandatory talents anymore.
• Every choice should be hard but fun!

Once again they are redesigning the talent tree in an effort to fix things.  They have said on more then one occasion that they want to make a break from the cookie cutter design and even touch on it again with it's statement that you can stand next to someone that is the same spec as you and be different from them.

Forgive me for being rational here but sometimes I feel it is my job to point out the obvious.

You will choose your spec.  Everyone that chooses that spec will have the exact same abilities.  You will not even be given the choice of having different abilities because once you choose that spec you get all the abilities that spec offers.

Sounds about as cookie cutter as you can get to me so far.  So cookie cutter in fact that you do not even have a choice, everything is handed to you, like it or not.  They are not giving you the materials to make the cookies and then letting you figure out the proportions you want to use, they are giving you the cookie itself, the finished product.

This surely has its place.  I have seen some horrible specs in my day.  I've had a few horrible specs in my day too before I started reading up on what is best.  This is basically cutting out the middle man when it comes to deciding on what abilities to choose.

In the past you would go to a site, Elitist Jerks for example, and look up the best marksman spec for a hunter and copy it.  Easy enough right?  Well, if the number of horrible hunters with even worse specs out there shows anything, most people have not figured out how to use the internet yet to search.  Blizzard decided to make it so they did not need to search any more.  Want the best marksman spec now?  Just choose marksmen.  You have it. There are no options.

Sounds cookie cutter so far right?

To defeat the concept of cookie cutter they added new talent points.  One every 15 levels.  You get an option of three abilities and can choose one of them.  Simple enough.  All three of the abilities have their place somewhere in the game, all it really is doing is letting you choose the flavor of the cookie you are getting.  Chocolate Chip, Butter Crunch or Oatmeal Raisin.  It is still a cookie made with the same cutter, it just has a different taste.

Having only 6 talent points to spend means less chance for error, less chance to choose bad options.  Even someone that knows nothing can not mess up choosing 6 things too badly and like I said, all of the three options have their place.  Looking over most of the them for all classes I have found very few that I looked at and said, that would be a horrible choice.  Some might not be optimal, some might not be great, but none are going to keep you from doing your job one way or the other.  You will still have all your markman abilities, like it or not.

Lets take the first tier of hunter choices for an example of how truly cookie cutter this is, even more then it has ever been.  Two hunters, both marksmen, both have all the exact same abilities.  Both are given 1 point to spend on one of three things.

Frozen Arrows - Your arrows and ammunition are chilled with frost, causing your Auto Shot to have a 30% chance to reduce the target’s movement speed by 30% for 10 sec.
Arcane Arrows - Your arrows and ammunition are infused with arcane magic, causing your Auto Shot to have a 50% chance to restore 5 focus when it deals damage.
Venom Tipped Arrows - Your arrows and ammunition are mixed with serpent venom, causing a stacking poison damage over time effect on the target dealing nature damage. Stacks up to 5 times.

All three of these options have some appeal for sure.  One gets thrown out immediately however when you are talking about PvE.  Frozen Arrows is a PvP talent even if on rare occasion it might have a PvE use.  All marksman that are doing PvP will have that one most likely.  Cookie cutter right?  Now the choice is between the other two for the PvE hunter.  Both seem good, one hunter will take Arcane while the other chooses the Venom option.   There we go, now the two specs are different but are they really?

I am sure they are going to do their best to not make one so much better than the other so the difference between the two hunters and their respective DPS should be so minimal it would not be noticed at all, assuming the same gear, skill and connection of course for example purposes.

There are no really wrong choices here because of that fact.  It becomes a choice of what sounds cooler to you.  Perhaps as a marksman Arcane might be a better option, to restore focus, and as survival Venom might be a better option if the mastery effects the nature damage.  But again, I am sure the difference would not be huge.

As some point sites, like Elitist Jerks, will decide that in marksman that Arcane works out to have a 35 DPS advantage over venom and all the hunters that read often will choose arcane just for that extra 35 DPS.

The hunters that do not choose arcane might lose 35 DPS but who would ever really notice that?  Unless you are raiding hard modes and going for a world first you do not need to min/max anything to the point where 35 DPS really matters.

So it would still be cookie cutter because even if you choose different things it will not be enough of a difference for anyone to notice.  The only "wrong" option would be to take the PvP talent in a PvE spec and in truth there are times where said PvP talent might have a place in certain PvE fights as well.

Now lets add to the fact that they said changing talents (all 6 points of it) will be as easy a changing glyphs.  So even those choices that might be harder, like silencing shot or wyvern sting or intimidation (which are the level 30 hunter choices) will mean nothing.

I am sure the raid leader would tell their hunters if they need CC and need wyvern or if they need interrupts and need silence and even if they don't all hunters have other forms of CC to use and all melee classes have a better silence than a hunters so even the choice of support abilities means nothing.  It can be changed on the fly and it is only support, something other people could do anyway, and probably do better.

What this all adds up to is the fact that everything will be more cookie cutter.  You will have the same base spec and your six points will all be placed in support abilities that are not make or break to begin with.

The only huge thing I see here comes with PvP.  No longer do I need to completely respec if I want to do some PvP.  I just change my 6 talent points, as easy as changing glyphs, to the PvP option that is best and now my PvE hunter is a PvP hunter in less then 10 seconds.

Most of the options, for all classes, have an obvious PvP option as one of their three choices which means that for the PvE player it is almost always the choice of  two things, not three.

Basically what Blizzard is doing here is not trying to break away from the cookie cutter design, they are trying to reenforce it. They are making it so people that do not read sites will get the optimum abilities and have as little chance to make bad choices as possible.

Even if we figure a right choice and a wrong choice making as much as a 100 DPS difference we are still talking a total of 600 DPS difference if they choose everything wrong.  In the end who cares if someone does 24200 DPS or 24800 DPS.  Like I said, unless you are doing hard modes or going for world firsts that small difference is not going to make a difference and lets face it, the people doing hard modes and going for world firsts are usually the ones that wrote what is the best option, so it is not like they don't know to begin with.

In the end the new talent system is more cookie cutter then ever before.  By not giving options at all, they are taking away one of the biggest parts of this type of game, the ability to make your character what you want.

What they started in cataclysm by destroying the options in spec making forcing you into one tree for 31 points they have finished off here.  Spec design has officially died.  We will all be the same, even if they try to tell us otherwise, because we have no choices what so ever in our specs.

I think the reason for this is to help the clueless players in the game and cataclysm really helped point out who those people are.  I have no problem with helping them out but I do have one concern.  If they where so clueless that they did not have a good spec that means they where so clueless as to the point of not knowing how to play said spec even if it is given to them.  This will not help them.  It will only hurt the people that want a choice.  A bad player will remain a bad player, even if you force the correct spec on them by taking away their choices.

This is not a break from the cookie cutter, this does not allow for any character customization, this is the exact opposite of what they say it is, it is not as advertised.

Okay, They Listen Sometimes.

Hunter minimum range is gone!

 Very nice indeed.

Hunter melee weapon is gone!

 You better REALLY up the stats on the ranged weapons then.

Developers would like to do PvE battlegrounds, where you will have to slay 50 alliance/horde soldiers, destroy 6 towers and the barracks, and then defeat the enemy General.

Okay, we have proof they read my blog.  You think?  I have been on and on about this for a while now. and that is basically my description of one of my scenarios.  Hope they do gates of hell, please, please please do gates of hell. (check last post for a link to it if you never read my PvE battlegrounds idea)

You will be able to collect, level, and battle with companion pets.

This feels a little bit silly, okay check that, a lot of bit silly, but then why do I love the idea?

Players got grumpy

Really?  Who would ever be so grumpy?

You don't need the typical tank/heal/dps setup, you will just be able to enter and play your role no matter what it is.

Excellent.  Something in the game that lets everyone play instantly, how ingenious.

Resilience will become a base stat, and will increase a little every time you level.

No more PvP gear, thank god, no more need to complain about people that take the easy route just for a gear score and not for effective gear.

Allow achievements to be shared among all characters on the same Battle.net account, things such as the raid achievements and the ones which are difficult to get.

There are so many achievements I have on other characters I do not have on my main, I was waiting for this for a long time coming.   Now all my characters will have 310% speed without ever having to buy it.

Allows to include new achievements such as "get all the professions to the maximum level"

Ah, some love for the alt-a-holics out there.  Thank you for noticing they are people too blizzard.

Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery (Wings 1 and 2) will be back in Heroic Mode

Lets hope they do it like Rades over at orchish army knife laid it out and we will have a real winner here.

Increased focus on max level content, it will reward you with Valor Points.

Valor points for doing quests?  Count me in.  If I get bored of dungeons and my guild is only downing 3 bosses a week I now have other options.  Huge thumbs up for this one.

For example finishing a quest might give you a buff for the day, and maybe that buff will let you roll on a loot that only appears to people with that buff.

Okay, you really got my interest with this one now.

More quest choices, and a lot less linear

I love you blizzard, I think I am going to cry.  It is okay for a grown elf to cry?  Even more important, is it okay for a grumpy elf to cry?  Down with linear.  Please do not make that mistake again.

Monk new class.

Isn't that what a disc priest was supposed to be?  I just have one question.  I have 10 alliance on one server, one of each class.  I have 10 horde on another server, one of each class.  Are you going to give me at least the ability to add one more character for the new class on each server?  If not... well, I try not to post the types of things I would say there in my blog but you get the idea.

No flying until max level

I'm all for that, excellent idea, but watch the QQ to come pouring in because of that one for sure.

Diablo III Free with Annual Pass

Awesome, a free game for paying for a game I am paying for anyway?  And a mount too?  Okay, who am I to turn away free stuff.  I'll take one for the team and bear the burden of free gifts.

Challenge Mode Dungeons

And you can't over gear them too.  I love it.

There is still a lot more to come I am sure but for an expansion based on Kung Fu Panda and as silly as the whole concept sounds, outside of the name and the new race being pandas, everything else sounds sort of good so far.

I am not sure how I like the idea of not having a villain for an entire expansion.  I like having a goal, killing Arthas was a driving force, killing deathwing just bores me, killing nothing?  Not sure how I feel about that yet but it can't be worse then deathwing. I'd say I have a higher desire to kill nothing then I do to kill deathwing.

So far it seems like this is looking good.  Just wish it had a better name, might as well just named it Kung Fu Panda Adventure Island with a name like they did.

I am sure I will have more detailed comments but so far I am finding little to be grumpy about.  I am not sure if I am happy with that or upset that I have nothing to complain about.

Day Dreaming

We all have things we are looking forward too.  Even me, no matter how grumpy I am with the game, have things I would like to see.

My ideas however will surely never make it into the game.  So we will call them dreams.

I will list some of my dreams that I know will never be announced in the announcements today.

1) Two lock outs again.  10s and 25s.
2) Better "minimum" design for dungeons to weed out some of the bad players.
3) PvE Battlegrounds.
4) More desirable single player content.
5) Intelligent loot drops.
6) Real world bosses that takes days to beat by everyone on the server combined.
7) Better gearing design.
8) Dynamic faction rewards. (359 items would be 378 versions now and 397 items in 4.3)
9) An intellect plate wearing hero class with no DPS spec.
10) Reasons to go out in the world.

I have more things I would like to see but a top 10 seemed like the best idea to keep it smaller.  I can see #1 being done, maybe, most of the other stuff I don't see happening ever. 

Having faction bonuses being dynamic (#8) would mean that it would be worth grinding rep on alts, while this might give us as the players more reason to grind rep on alts because the rewards would be worth it again, I don't see them doing that.  I think it would be a plus for the game however.

Same goes for the no DPS hero class (#9).  You would hear too many babies crying about how they can not quest like that and blizzard would fall like a house of cards in a wind tunnel, like they always do.  I leveled my bear as a bear, I leveled my warrior as prot, I leveled my priest as disc, all without the dungeon finder which makes leveling healers and tanks even easier.  If I can do it, you can do it, you do not need a DPS spec to level.

I can see them having the intention of making more desirable content (#4), I mean, come on, even the bad content was intended to be good, it just missed.  They always try.  Succeeding is a different story. 

I can see them doing a little bit to check on peoples requirements for dungeons (#2) as well and I am surprised they have not done it already.  On the website it shows equipped item level, why can't it do that in game?  So maybe that has some prayer of making it into the next expansion.

I don't see intelligent loot drops (#5) ever being added to the game.  You will still see every boss drop something for a holy paladin if there is no holy paladin in the raid and every boss will surely drop elemental mail if there is no shaman in the group.  It is just the way it is, we can make fun of it every day forever, they will never do anything about it.

I also think that real world bosses (#6) that run around for days and need 100s if not 1000s of people to down them are a pipe dream.  On small servers it would mean they live forever, on big servers that can down them in a more timely manner there would be arguments about if it is worth the time and effort because surely you can not give everyone that helped over a three day period of constant fighting an option to roll on loot and if 1000s of people helped, even if the mob dropped 10K gold, it would not be worth the gold you get?  It would be the type of thing every one would do once, to say they did it, and then never do again so the world bosses would eventually take over the game because no one would be killing them.  There is to much involved for them to figure out.  Not saying it can not be done, just saying that unless it is going to be a huge part of a coming expansion there is no reason for them to develop something like that.

I am sure they are always wondering how to get people out in the world (#10), it is a big problem and it is mostly from their own design.  If you can queue up for a battleground or dungeon from home, why not?  If only one person needs to go to the raid to "have group" everyone there, why travel there yourself?  They have went through so much effort to make sure we do not have to leave our home city it would mean a complete redesign to try and get us to go out there again.  It could be done, but it would be a huge task that they have no intention of ever undertaking.

So those are some of my dreams for what would be nice to see, what are yours?

Just Not Feeling It

In less then a days time we will know all about the next expansion for WoW.  The name, the areas, the new class or race if there is one, the new spells and abilities, the new big baddie, the new everything.

Personally, I am just not feeling it.

Around this same time frame two years ago I was hyped up for Cataclysm.  I was excited for it coming and was looking forward to it.  I knew everything there was to know due to the glut of leaks that let everything out but I still soaked up everything as it was confirmed with excitement as if it were my first time I was hearing about it.

This time around I don't seem to care.  Whatever they add it will most likely not be for me.  Whatever they change it will most likely not revitalize my class.  Whatever they introduce it will most likely will not make me gasp with excitement.  Whatever baddie they come up with it will most likely not make a difference.  It is just another chapter in a story that should have ended two years ago.

What changed in my outlook is the game itself and how it is played.  I was enjoying the game the last time talk of an expansion was coming around.  Being I was enjoying it I was excited to see what was coming that was new for me, more for me to enjoy.  This time around I am not enjoying the game so anything they have to offer feels as if it will be more of the same, more things to not enjoy.

I had such high hopes for Cataclysm.  I loved many of the ideas they had and of course disliked a few as well but over all it seemed like it would be an awesome expansion.  I was wrong, about as wrong as one elf could be.  Perhaps if I keep my hopes low for the next expansion then there is no where to go but up for me.  If I expect it to suck then even if it does, it will still be better then I expected.

If I look back based on the time, just before blizzcom, and compare it to two years ago and look to where I am now to see what is different in the way I play it could really be telling in where the failings of Cataclysm fall.

Two years ago, I was leveling three new characters seriously at the time.  One was in outlands and the other two where fresh starters.  I actively looked forward to leveling them and even had my leveling process planned for them.  I am a total geek that way, I love to plan so far in advance.  Do a little from here, a little from there and then move to that place.  Yeap, I got it all set up.  I loved leveling so much, even on new servers with no heirloom gear, hell, even more on those servers.

Now, I have a few low levels that I have no intention of leveling up even if I want to level them so I have a few more 85s on different servers. I just can not bring myself to do the linear questing any more.  Going through it once on each side was nice.  Going through the first 20 levels from each race was enough.  It is just not like it was, leveling is no longer fun for me.  While it might be true that some day I might level these characters, I have no active intention to.  I hate the redesigned old world and I hate leveling now, pre BC content that is.  Still love BC and wrath leveling, but they are screwing that up more now too.

Two years ago, I was still trying to bang out as many achievements as I could in Ulduar when I could get groups up for it.  I would gladly tank, heal or DPS a run any time of the day, I love that place, still would go on any pug for it and I am 85 now.  I would go with anyone, anywhere, any time.  I loved to play and would do anything, just to play.

Now, I can't get even find a pug and when I do it usually comes down to two things, you either end up with a whole slew of jerks that have done things 1000 times and think if you have not downed heroic rag on at least 5 characters you are a noob or it is a group that will break up on the trash before the first boss of T11 content.  Is the the games fault or the players fault?  A little bit of both if you ask me.  Now when people ask me to join them I can't come up with excuses fast enough to say no.

Two years ago, I could get a new character to 80 on a new server and with no profession, no connections, just some hard work grinding dungeons I could be raid ready in one day and if I was lucky enough to get an invite into a pug or a try out with a guild I would show I knew what I was doing by my actions and all would be well.

Now, see above for the comment on pugs.  It might still be easy to gear up (in theory) but it is less then it was before and even if you do you can't find a pug to get into.  If you do get into one or get a try out, you might impress them but why take someone doing 15K DPS when there is someone with better gear doing 20K.  DPS is just too important now that the gearing up process can really hold you back.

Two years ago, I would pop on a rarely played 80 just for fun, do some gathering to pass the time and join in a dungeon or two.  They would go by with generally no incidents even if there was the occasional rare wipe here and there but even with bad players it was never a problem.  The DK doing 900 DPS was no big deal if everyone else could easily pull 3K or 4K even if they sucked.  The dungeons only needed everyone to do about 1200 to make it easy anyway, so we were over powering it as is.  Not to mention, there were no instant wipe mechanics if you ended up with an idiot.  Dungeon runs where fun, they where a way to pass the time, they were quick and they where the #1 reason gearing up was nice and easy.  They where a low stress source of enjoyment.

Now, I do not do dungeons even on the characters that need it.  I would not do another Zul if you paid me.  Zuls in effect where the driving point to me all but quitting the game.  I hate the dungeons taking a year and a day even with a good group sometimes.  I hate that even when I am having a bad day I am still doing 50% of the DPS at times.  I hate that you get people that pull 5K and think it is fine when it is not, you can no longer carry a bad DPS.  It used to be I could solo DPS the wrath dungeons doing 7K-9K so having a few 900 DPS people made no difference.  Now to solo a cata dungeon I would effectively have to do 45K and sorry, but I am not that good and some bosses you need more people.  Second boss in BRC anyone?  How many times have you had an idiot wipe you over and over again?  Instant kill mechanics have no place in heroics.  Why to much stress in something that is supposed to be just for fun in my opinion.

Two years ago, I was working the auction house making money.  I was prospecting, I was herbing, I was skinning, I was crafting, I was making money here and there and every where.  I was like a goblin, everything can be turned into gold if you know how.  I had nothing to spend it on, sure, but it was sure as hell fun making it.

Now, I started off doing the same thing but for some reason it lost its luster.  Perhaps it is the fact that making gold before meant you where a smart player and now it just means you are a player.  I know people that have 200K gold and don't even have professions and don't play the auction house.  Yes, it is that easy to make money now.  So easy that it is not even worth trying.  One small plus to that is starting a new character on a new server.  I have a level 13 hunter on one server with 400 gold already.  I've only played it for about 6 hours.  Good for a new player on a new server but not so good when it doesn't feel like you earned it.  At least not for me.  One of my new server money tricks was always watch trade looking for people that need charters to be signed, it would get you 1g, sometimes 5g if the person was generous.  Now I get 50g or 100g to do it.

Two years ago, I would fly around stalking the time lost proto drake for hours on end (never got it) picking herbs and talking in guild or on vent to pass the time.  Sure it was wasted time but it felt like it was worth it.

Now, I want the underwater mount, never stalked it even once.  Never even looked for it.  Just doesn't feel worth the time.  What is different from that and time lost?  Don't know but I just have no desire to go get the hard to get things this expansion but I made damn sure to try and get the hard to find things last expansion no matter the time investment required.

Two years ago, I would get a new character to 80 and I would do all the argent quests to open it up completely.  All characters had to have that open.  I also always opened all the other areas to get the flight paths.  Not sure why, they just did, it was like a right of passage.

Now, One 85, my main, finished all the molten front quests and maxed out the TB faction.  A few have done the MF quests a day here and a day there but none have even opened as much as both the druids and the wardens.  Only one of my other many 85s has even done at much as one TB related quest.  Doesn't seem worth the effort.  Even if they both have things like patterns I need or upgrades the characters could use.

Two years ago, You could easily take one or two sub par players along with you for a raid and do well.  It was great for teaching new players, helping them gear up, and just having some fun.  Often we would go into raids with one or two people doing subpar DPS and do just fine.  Back when 3K or 4K was max DPS having someone do half that would not kill a raid, it would be just fine.  You could even survive with two people doing half that in a 10 man.  It didn't even feel like you where carrying them.

Now, The requirements needed for raiding seem to be more strict, even after the nerfs.  Try downing a boss like Balroc with two sub par DPS doing 10K or less, it is not happening unless everyone else is really ripping the crap out of him on the DPS charts and it might still be close.  The thing is, sub par before and sub par now are a huge difference.  One sub par DPS then was maybe a 1K or 2K difference.  One sub par DPS now could be a 12K or 15K difference.  You can't just roll in raids with someone along for fun.  It actively feels like you are carrying them.

Two years ago, I would look forward to logging in.  I was actually think who I wanted to play today.  There was always something to do, always something that needed to be done and if there wasn't anything I was preset on doing I could easily find something. 

Now, I log on for raid nights.  That is about it.  I only do it because I am the raid leader.  I think the only reason I have not quit the game is because I feel as if I have some responsibility to the guild as the raid leader.  There is nothing I want to do in game, not even the cooking dailies or JC dailies.  Nothing seems worth it any more.  Even if I try, I can't find anything that interests me enough to do it.

Two years ago, I log in to have fun.

Now, I log in and hope that feeling comes back magically one day.

See, that is why I am just not feeling it.

Two years ago the game was enjoyable, I wanted more.  I wanted an expansion.  Now, the game is not fun anymore, so I do not want an expansion.  It would not bother me if they announced that after the next patch they where closing down WoW and not making any more updates.  I might actually let out a sigh of relief if I heard that because then it would not be me quitting on my guild, it would be the game quitting on me.

There is one little thing I am holding out for however.  In the back of my mind I remember something I said to someone about Star Trek once.

Before Deep Space Nine came out I said, It is on a space station, how exciting can that be, it will suck.  And it was fantastic.

Before Voyager came out I said, They are going back to their old roots, this will be great.  And it sucked.

Sometimes you hype yourself up so much expecting something to be good that there is nothing for you but to be let down.  I hyped myself up for cataclysm, I expected so much from it.  Just like I did with Voyager, so maybe it does not suck as much as I think it does, it just sucks compared to what I expected from it.  Maybe the next expansion will work like DS9 did for me.  I expect nothing from it, so maybe I will love it.

Expectations can really change your opinion on something.

I have no expectations for the next expansion, except for what I think it will be and even at that, I am just not feeling it.

I would like to have that "I can't wait" feeling about the game again.  I miss it.