Why Should Demo Wait?

There were a lot of comments that came out of the Q & A that people had issues with and one of the biggest was the fact they basically said, paraphrasing, Demonology was too strong and they could not fix it now so they nerfed it to the ground instead.  Add that to the "if you only have one priest in your raid and they are not disc you are doing it wrong" and more than a few people had issue with how they were handling the classes, and rightfully so.

The issue I bring out of this comment in my mind is not that demonology is stuck in last place for warlock specs but the fact that they they seem to have no intention of fixing it.  There always needs to be a spec that is last.  Even in a perfect world someone will always be last.  So I do not have an issue with them saying it was demonology's turn to be in last, my issue is with the fact they don't seem to care about fixing it.

Being last is one thing, being brutalized because they refuse to fix it is another thing entirely.  It bought to mind what I find to be a much greater problem with the game.  Not just them devaluing the use of demonology because they felt it was too strong or the allowing discipline to remain as powerful as it is.  The idea that came to mind was why does blizzard pick and choose which classes to mess with and which classes to leave alone.  Why not just fix things?

Look at the beginning of mists with hunters and their stampede.  In the opening weeks it was nerfed not once, not twice but three times because they felt it was too strong in PvP.  Lets forget for a moment that people like myself said at the get go, just have them do less damage to players and don't nerf it for PvE, which is what they ended up doing on the fifth or sixth time they attempted to fix it.

Apparently someone at blizzard did not like hunters being powerful so stampede had to get nerfed to the ground.  This time someone at blizzard did not like that people who played demonology well, really well, were capable of squeezing more out of it so they had to nerf it to the ground.  Yet some specs like mages throughout history and disc priest now can remain unbalanced with nothing happening to them what so ever.

So I use demonology warlock as the poster child for balance and ask, why should they have to wait?  Why can't they do some tuning now.  Even if not in time for 6.2, why not work on it and bring it out in a week, or two, or even three.  Why put them on the back burner and say they have to wait until next expansion to get fixed?

It just seems wrong for blizzard to be so dismissive of the players and say it is okay for one classes to do so poorly because they do not feel like balancing it.  They often use the excuse it would take a lot of work and they will do it next expansion but that is not acceptable.  Classes should be tuned and retuned multiple times during an expansion as needed.  Sure a complete over haul should wait for a new expansion, but fixes should come right away.  If they can take the time to nerf them they can take the time to fix them.

Why does a game that has millions of players and makes over a billion dollars a year not make the effort to fix problems with it?  Be it a problem with a class, a zone, a quest, what have you, if there are issues they should be addressed and not swept under the carpet to deal with later.

The bigger issue here is not what they did to demonology, but the idea that demonology needs to wait, just like any other class that has issues.  I do not think their idea that they can only fix things during major patches and they can only adjust classes with a new expansion is acceptable.  They should be constantly working, constantly adjusting, and even if need be, constantly updating with little tweaks here and there to try and keep things balanced.  It would be a much better design than nerfing something to the ground and saying, we will get to it later.

Demonology shouldn't have to wait and it is wrong for blizzard to make them do so.

Multiple Alts Shouldn't Exist to Serve Your Main Character

Watcher said that line in the Q & A over the weekend, that "multiple alts shouldn't exist to serve your main character."  It is a line that resonated with me.  It was one of those lines that I felt meant so much more within the context of how it was used.

The first thing that came to mind was that we will see a great deal of profession changes, once again, come the next expansion.  My prediction, and you can quote me on this, is that next expansion your character can learn all professions.  We will no longer be limited to only two.

Being this would have a huge impact on the market as a whole because fewer people will need to seek out others to make things for them they will also go back to the proper leveling of professions.  No more of this "craft at skill level 1" that we have in warlords.  Sure it is nice that you can make everything at level one but if they are going to do something like this the very least they need to do is make you actually level said professions instead of making it that everyone can make everything at level one.

Perhaps giving us all professions would be too much.  But mark my words there will be changes and I could see us getting at least 3, or maybe 2 plus a gathering, or maybe all people will know all gathering professions by default and we get to pick two crafting professions.  Something will happen because it seems to be the idea that alts should not exist to serve your main.

So why did I immediately drift to professions when I heard that line?  Because I remember when I created my first alt.  I created it for the purpose of making gear.  It was a rogue leather worker so I could make gear for my hunter.  I believe that if you looked into it the first alt most people made ended up being one that had some profession that helped their main.

All my original alts were made with the purpose of supporting my main.  As a hunter that kind of meant I needed every single profession to support me.  I needed alchemy to make myself flasks and potions, I need a leather worker to make myself gear, I needed an enchanter to make myself enchants, I needed a jewel crafter to make myself gems, I needed a blacksmith to make myself belt buckles, I needed an engineer to make myself scopes and arrows, I needed a tailor to make myself bags and I needed a scribe to make myself glyphs.  So needless to say when I started to get into the game a little more my alt army got pretty large pretty fast.  Not because I wanted to play other classes but because I needed every single one of those things for my main.

As the years went on I started to play those classes of course and my druid became my main tank and my priest became my main healer.  Over the years other tanks or healers became my go to guys for those roles, but the bottom line was my main was still my main.  I tanked and healed to fill in the gaps so to speak.  To gather materials, to help others with them so they could in turn help me.

But the bottom line is that my alts were created to be professions mules for me.  Nothing more originally.  And if they are going to ever try to make a concentrated effort to remove the need for alts to serve your main character, as that quote implies, than my hunter needs to be all those professions.

This is why I read between the lines with that quote and feel that in the future it is quite possible we will have all professions on any one character.  Perhaps professions will just be account wide, like pets and mounts and such are right now.  Seems like that would be the best way to do it.

The only other thing it could mean is that all classes will be able to fill all roles.  So I won't need my priest to heal for me if I wanted to heal and I won't need my druid to tank for me if I wanted to tank.  But as I do not see them giving my hunter a healing spec and a tanking spec any time soon the only thing it can mean is all professions will be capable of being done by one character come next expansion.

The question is, would this be good for the game?  And a secondary question would be, would you still play as many alts as you do if you did not need their professions?

Because it all seems like blizzard is trying to push us away from playing alts.  Not exactly sure why they would want to do that, but it sure seems like that is their intention.

Should Mobs / NPCs Act Smarter?

By asking if mobs / NPCs should be smarter I am asking a few questions all at once.  Asking for mobs to be smarter is not just one simple thing.  We could ask them to be smarter when interacting with them, passing by them, in battle with them.  There is a lot that can be done to make the mobs / NPCs around us better, in my opinion.

Vendors:

Anyone that has a storehouse this expansion has experienced this if they had not before in other places.  I remember the repair vendor in hellfire peninsula, he is the first one I can recall that really started to infuriate me with his actions.  If you do not know what I am talking about it is really simple.  I call it WMS or wandering merchant syndrome.

There is nothing more annoying then getting back to town after a long day of adventuring and gathering useless crap off the mobs you have slaughtered in the glorious name of truth, justice and the azerothian way to start vendoring off all those wonderful useless goodies and the merchant start to wander off closing the window.  "Dude, I was in the middle of doing business with you, get your butt back here."

There are a few vendors, such as the one I mentioned in hellfire, that are very energetic.  It seems he starts to move almost instantly after you click him.  Then when you scurry to the other side of the room to get to him as soon as you click on him again he moves once more.  Where is my crazy glue because I am going to glue this guy to one spot.

I must admit I get quite a giggle when I read all those people using the transmog vendor in their storehouse and as they are working on picking all the right pieces he starts to walk away and you lose all the work you had done trying to choose which pieces you want to wear.  I am not laughing at you however, I am laughing with you because I feel your pain.

Either way, I am sure that every single one of us at one point or another has been the victim of an NPC that suffers from WMS.  Sure, you can buy the transmog mount and settle your mogging and vendor issues all in one, but why should we need to.  When we are conducting business with someone that someone should stand put until our business has concluded.

Being in warcraft mobs, NPCs and players are not solid objects there would be no downfall to an NPC standing in that one place as long as someone has a window with them open.  I could understand why they would continue to move if them stopping could interfere with the game play of others but as they are not solid objects it should not matter.  Even if someone were to open a window with them and leave it open and go AFK what would it hurt anyone for the mob to stay in one place?

So I would love to see blizzard remove WMS from the game.  Make those merchants stand still or I will be forced to bust out the nail gun and do it myself and that will get really messy really fast.

Aggro:

I am sure every single one of us, more so this expansion than in recent years, has had to stop and fight some low level mob we can kill in 2 seconds because he dismounted us or slowed us, or otherwise forced us into battle when we did not want to fight and the mob was of no real threat to us.

I'd like for the games mobs to look at us as we look at them.  Any mob over 10 levels lower than us should never attack us unless we pass directly through it.  Lets face it, even a healer can most likely one shot a mob over 10 levels lower than it.  Does blizzard really this getting attacked by a level 89 on your 100 is fun?  It is just an inconvenience.  Admittedly an inconvenience that only takes one or two seconds out of our lives, but an inconvenience none the less.

It would be nice if those mobs did not aggro on us unless provoked, and at that difference in level passing directly through it should be the only way to actually provoke it.  Perhaps go even further, mobs that we are 20 levels higher than us never attack us, even if we move right through it.  They should fear us, they should not be attacking us.  A level 17 goblin should not really be picking a fight with a level 100 should he?  No, he should be cowering in fear hoping we do not attack him.

For those mobs within our 10 level wheelhouse I believe some adjustments need to be made.  A level 90 is not really all that different from a level 89, but we can not treat it as we do an 89 because it is a current level block mob.  Still, at lower levels of our current level block they should still know their place in the pecking order. 

Mobs 5 or more levels lower than us should not be capable of dismounting us.  Plain and simple.  On the ground they would follow all current aggro rules but while mounted no one likes to be dismounted to kill a useless mob and waste their time.  This is probably the number one reason people like flight.  Not to avoid mobs but to avoid the annoyance of them.

It would be nice if mobs interacted with us as they should.  The mobs that know we can kill them easily would pick and choose their fights and only when we are directly on them and the mobs we greatly out level would cower as they should.  It would be nice for them to act smarter because a level 17 attacking a level 100 is just stupid and should never happen.

Responses:

You can call this nitpicking and it probably is but that dwarf chick in my dwarven bunker that says "Nice ta meet ya" every day is starting to get on my nerves.  She has worked for me for months, I talk to her every single day, I am the commander in chief of all forces on Draenor, she is here specially for me.  Does she have short term memory loss and can not remember from day to day?  Because the next time she says "nice ta meet ya" I am going to slap her straight to next Tuesday.

I understand there are only a limited number of responses in the game and I understand the need to randomize them but there are some responses that should just never happen for certain characters.  I can see the dwarf vendor in ironforge saying "nice ta meet ya" even if I talk to her often because it is a major city and she must see millions of people and I am just another nobody to her, but the one that works for me and has worked for me for months should not talk to me as if she did not know who I was.  Who do you think signs your paycheck short stuff?

I guess it would cost blizzard money to get a few more lines said from some actors and I do not expect that to ever happen, but hearing a few more things added to the random comments NPCs make would be nice.  More importantly, fix some of the comments that just do not make sense.  I guess the blood elf saying "remember the sunwell" to me on the isle of thunder could make some sense, but for someone that works with me to be happy to meet me every single day doesn't.

Honestly, how much do you think it would cost blizzard to hire a bunch of people to record some lines and add them to the rotation?  Not much I would guess. 

How about blizzard does some sort of promotion or contest and the winner / (s) get to record some lines in the voice of their choosing that are added to the rotation.  They would not even need to pay anyone to record them, they can get them recorded for free and have some fun building a community event at the same time.

I would gladly do some lines for them to use for the generic grumpy elf that they can use and I would do it for free.  I think I have some experience with being a grumpy elf.   I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands of players out there that would offer their voices up for free and not even care if they were credited for it.

This would be a great way to add more flavor to the NPCs that speak to us, mix up what they say a great deal, and get some awesome publicity at the same time.  You know it is a great idea blizzard, admit it.

Personally I like the idea of having some smarter NPCs.  Ones that realize they are in the middle of a transaction and do not walk away from you, mobs that realize they are 90 levels below you and you can squish them like a bug and NPCs that work for you and aren't meeting you for the first time every single day.  What do you think?

Monday Random Thoughts

- Third week at 100 on my horde hunter and I finally managed to find a world boss group.

- You know the carrot at the end of the stick for world bosses really is bad when getting groups is hard.

- It is bad even on reset day, but I play mostly on weekend and finding a group is near impossible.

- Found a Drov group, see people taking damage, seems they are already fighting it with auto accept on.

- I was in flight when I looked for the group, so maybe I will get there in time.

- Death, death and more death.

- Never thought I would be so mean to say it, but I was glad they were dying because it buys me time to get there.

- More people join asking for a summon.

- People that wiped with them saying wait for more but others not listening.

- No summon, no waiting, more attacking, more wiping.

- I land then run there, see the nightmare it is, bones everywhere.

- How long have you guys been at this?

- Two hours so far one says.

- Another one laughs, I've only been here for about 30 minutes myself.

- I drop group instantly, not interested in wiping for two more hours.

- Why can't people just assemble a group, wait for it to get together, then pull?

- Is it really that hard of a concept?

- After that, and fighting my way back to the flight point being I was on a PvP server (it was kind of fun) I saw a Ruk group.

- I sign up, start flying, get a summon mind flight.

- People are standing there, waiting for everyone to get there.

- This is more like it.

- We get everyone there, we pull as a group, we die, over and over again as a group.

- Please I just want to kill even one world boss.

- I am to the point I want to scream or cry, maybe even both.

- Two minute timer on reviving from dying so much.

- It only has a few millions left, please just let it die, I never want to do this again, it is a horrible experience.

- Five people alive, the rest of us spirits waiting to try and get back to do it with less than 1M left.

- Boss dies, I get gold and gold, as you might expect.

- And now I know why I will never do world bosses on a weekend again.

- Sometimes I need to remind myself why I don't do these things.

- Remind myself why I have this set of rules to play by.

- And with unrewarding world bosses, if you can not do it on reset day... don't bother.

- Massive repair bill and no gear.

- Yeah, blizzard really nailed the pattern for "fun" with this one.

- If you are the type of person that likes slamming your head into a wall until you start bleeding and pass out, then yes, this is very fun.

- For the amount of gold I spent on repairs I should have been guaranteed the damn mount from the thing.

- Moral of the story for blizzard is make world bosses worth doing so this does not happen again.

- Or maybe I should make sure I do it on reset day only.

- But it should never be like this, I should not have a tiny window where it can be done only.

- Even tried forming my own group for it the other week.

- After 45 minutes in the listing and having 1 healer and 9 damage dealers, I left my own group.

- Ridiculous.

- Up to 80 stones now, so might be done with the stones in 2 more weeks, but the patch will be out by then.

- Lets hope they let the new raid drop the old items like this did with siege.

- Not sure why BRF does not drop the stones.

- And no, lore reasons is not a good explanation even if it is accurate.

- But at least it works for my new hunter.

- He is not high enough to get into BRF anyway yet so being forced to do HM is not that bad.

- That is all I can do anyway.

- But up to 634 now, so almost there.

- Did you hear in the Q & A they were thinking of nerfing the gold from garrison missions so people would not feel like that have to log into all their alts?

- Nothing done yet, but they are "thinking" about it.

- I want to know who exactly thinks like this so we can have their brain checked out.

- Because they surely do not take after the guy in the Iron Docks that says "I think good".

- Or maybe the do take after him, because he doesn't and they don't.

- If you lower the gold now I have MORE reason to have to log into all of them because I am getting less.

- As it stands now I rarely log into all my characters daily.

- I make so much gold with garrison missions I don't need to.

- Even logging in to all of them only two times a week at most I make between 35K-50K a week with all my alts.

- Sure I could make a lot more, a hell of a lot more, as in at least 4 or 5 times as much, but I don't really need it.

- However, I am used to making that amount, so if they add diminishing returns I would feel forced to log into all of them every day if I wanted to maintain the gold income I was used to getting with them.

- So adding diminishing returns would have the exact opposite effect as they say they want to add it for.

-They want to make it give less gold so we wouldn't feel like we have to log into all our characters to do them.

- But if it gives less gold we will feel more like we have to log into all of our characters to maintain the amount of gold income we have gotten used to.

- Like I said, they don't exactly "think good" over there.

- I say they leave it be, the expansion is almost over (hopefully) anyway.

- If they want to adjust it, I have the best way they can adjust it.

- Limit the number of gold missions a character can trigger per day.

- And here is the key.

- And don't tell people you did that.

- In the end, it is best to leave it because the damage is done already.

- I feel bad for the people that were late to the show because they will get screwed while everyone that was there early made out like a bandit.

- That is another reason to let it just stay as is, or adjust it differently without saying a word that it was done.

- Because I know I would be really upset if I started to work up this money making machine right now and then when I got it running things changed.

- Blizzard really needs to keep away from doing things that anger their player base at the moment.

- Bottom line is, they can not add diminishing returns to gold missions to decrease peoples desire to log into all their alts.

- It would actually make them want to log in more, not less.

- In theory giving less gold sounds like a good idea but in practice people will try to offset that loss by logging into more characters.

- So their possible solution is no solution at all.

- Lets hope they go back to the drawing board on this idea.

- And stop listing to the dude from the Iron Docks.

- Just because he says "I think good" doesn't mean he actually does.

- I love that "I think good" line.

- Everyone always has lines they remember form raids or dungeons, this line is my favorite from this expansion thus far.

- Another one I think I have fun with is on the Kromog fight.

- I don't think I even remember what he actually says when he slams his fist because all I hear in my mind every time is "oblivion".

- Please tell me I am not the only one?

- My favorite line of the whole game is an old one and remains the same after all these years.

- "Me not that kind of orc"

- I don't know why but I crack up every time I hear that.

- When I first created my horde garrison on the beta I went all over poking orcs to try to get one of them to say that.

- I can confirm, there are orcs that will say that.

- And I get a kick out of poking them when I am bored just to try to get one of them to say it.

- I am so easily amused sometimes.

- I tried to pug a BRF on Friday.

- I still get a kick out of some of the requirements people ask for.

- Like the one that was 680 item level and AotC achievement for a normal fresh BRF.

- I just want to ask them if they are aware they are asking for a heroic achievement to do normal.

- Seems like over reaching if you ask me.

- I understand wanting a smooth run but that is like asking someone to have won a noble prize for botany if they want to work as your gardener.

- I mean 680 and AotC for even a fresh BRF heroic is perfectly fine even if a bit on the high end, but for a normal, come now, that is insane.

- Then there are the ones that are the other way around.

- Saw one, on blackhand heroic, asking minimum 630 item level.

- Yeah, right, a group of 630s is going to be able to kill blackhand heroic.

- If they are paragon or method maybe.

- Not if they are a pug people.

- Sure, I'll be right over there to help you out on my hunter.

- Not.

- I look for reasonable.

- Heck, I would even help a group I know won't get far.

- I never mind doing that.

- Saw one that was a guild group looking for a few more.

- Said, we will wipe a few times, we are learning.

- They asked for 670, which is more than reasonable for a group starting at the first boss and learning.

- So I offered to help, but it turns out they needed a healer, not another damage dealer.

- Oh well.

- So I am not a group prude.

- I don't only want "win" groups, I am willing to wipe with people.

- I just hate trying to find decent groups to sign up for.

- I think my personal rules are too strict.

- Like I will never sign up for a group that says "no bads"

- Sad part is that is like 95% of the groups.

- Lets face it, if you use that terminology, you probably are looking to get carried or are the bad yourself.

- I like "know fights", that attracts me when I see it listed.

- "Know fights" and "no bads" mean the same thing.

- One makes you sound like a decent person looking for minimize wipes the other makes you sound like an elitist jerk.

- And from my experience groups lead by an elitist jerks are usually the worst groups.

- Not the rule they are the worst of course, but just usually.

- So I stay away, far away from "no bads" groups.

- So Friday night this is what happened.

- Logged into a few characters to do garrison stuff then on to my hunter around a quarter after five.

- My goal is any tier boss.

- Remember when I said I won all four tier pieces in normal one week a long time ago?

- Well, those are the only four tier pieces I have ever seen, normal or heroic all tier.

- Yeap, my luck is that bad.

- Thankfully I had one decent week.

- Wish it would have happened in heroic, but beggars can't be choosers so a normal tier set is better than no tier set.

- So I was looking for any boss on heroic that was a tier boss.

- I check the list looking at everything anyway, never know if something else will catch my eye.

- After about 15 minutes I figured that is a waste of time and limit it just to heroic blackrock.

- Thirty minutes later, now 6 PM, still nothing.

- Shortly after I find a group that looks good and apply.

- I have a habit, if I am applied to one group I do not sign up for another.

- I wait for the response, either accepted or rejected.

- I wait the full time for it to time out, never accepted.

- If you do not want me please click declined right away, I hate people that waste my time.

- A few minutes later I find another group and sign up.

- I am accepted and then get kicked instantly.

- Figure it was an accident, apply again, get accepted and get kicked again instantly.

- Third try is a charm I heard, so I try again.

- Get accepted once more and the raid leader, a hunter says, sorry, not sure who keeps accepting you, I am not here to compete on gear, don't apply again.

- Ah, now I get it.  Someone else had invite privileges and raid leader was a hunter and did not want to compete for gear.

- I should have told him I already downed the bosses this week, I am only doing this to roll a coin, so I could not take your gear anyway, even if I wanted to.

- But that would get me kicked too most likely because if I downed it already than the boss drops less loot.

- I've learned to lie your butt off when asked if you downed anything this week.

- Take the advice from Nike, Just say no.

- Rolling around to 7 now, signed up for a few more, either get declined or timed out.

- This is starting to get beyond frustrating.

- I am not sure what is annoying me more as the 2 hour mark is rolling up on me, the fact I can not find a group or the people of trade chat.

- Around 7:30 I give up on looking right now, at least from my garrison.

- I need to get away from trade, it is rotting my brain.

- I decide to fly out and stalk a rare that drops a pet, so at least I can put my time to better use.

- I'll keep looking from there.

- It is now a little after 8 and a guild mate logs on, he is looking for a pug as well.

- But he is a healer, so he will have better luck than I of course.

- I'd say a good 90% of the groups listed are looking for a tank or healer.

- I ask him, if you get in a group and they need a DPS please let me know.

- He says sure.

- 8:15 he finds a fresh run for his healer, they do not need any DPS.

- I continue as I have not being able to find anything.

- At around 8:30 he says they downed hanz and franz and are moving to the next boss and need two DPS.

- I ask if I can come, he asks the raid leader and the raid leader says yes.

- Awesome, finally after 3 hours and 15 minutes trying to find a group for any tier boss I get something and it is a tier boss too.

- I apply, he says the raid leader stepped away, so I travel there and wait.

- Time passes, I see one damage dealer added to the group.

- I see another added to the group.

- Raid leader comes back, says he does not need me any more and lets it time out.

- Son of a bitch.

- I stopped what I was doing, I headed all the way over there myself, I have been trying to get into a group for over three freakin hours, and you said you would invite me because someone was in the group already that suggested me.

- I can not blame him for it being over three hours of my life wasted, that is on me for being picky with the groups I sign up for and not being willing to start my own.

- But I can blame him for making me stop what I was doing to head all the way there because he said he was going to accept me and then not.

- I said screw it, logged off right in front of BRF, said good night on voice chat and called it a night.

- This seems to be happening more often then not lately.

- Where I end up logging off wondering why the hell I still even attempt to play this game.

- On a happier note, at least my friend also ended up dropping group because they did not accept me.

- Nice to know someone got your back.

- Even if it was no big deal for him, he is a healer and got another group in less than 2 minutes, still nice that he left when they did not accept me after telling me they would.

- So word to the wise if you somehow stumble across this post and are not really playing yet.

- If you actually ever want to enjoy the game... roll a healer.

- Have a great day.

Forget 6.2, When is 6.2.x Coming out?

So 6.2 is coming out on the 23rd of June, as I said it would months ago, because if they did not release it on that day it was quite possible that FF14 could have passed wow in active subscriptions.  With the addition of flying back into the game and 6.2 coming out, blizzard saved themselves from having a massive amount of egg on their face. 

As much as we might complain about things they do and question if they are doing the right thing, one this is for sure, as a business, they know what to do.  So instead of letting FF14 drop wow down to the #2 subscription MMO, they are fighting back.  Actually, it seems more like they are in panic mode, but that is another topic all together.

With that said, I am not excited for 6.2.  It adds nothing of exciting to me, nothing I would not be willing to wait longer for, nothing I really wanted now..  A bunch of reskined dungeons called timerwalkers and mythic, not exactly something I'd be rushing to do.  A new zone that was supposed to be a level 99-100 zone on launch is being added, showing how horrible they did at launch that they could not even get all their zones done in time, so I am not exactly excited for something that should have been active 7 months ago, and honestly if it were there would have been a hell of a lot fewer complaints about the lack of content.  Not sure how anyone could be excited about something being that late.  "Woohoo, we are getting content 7 months later than intended."  Sorry, but that is something no person has ever said.

Outside of that we are getting some new garrison missions.  Sure they are part of a ship yard now but make no mistake, all they are is another set of missions and making us collect new followers (ships) from the beginning again.  So this is just an addition, making things up to date, it is nothing new.  Same goes for new gearing choices, new professions patterns, new materials to gather, etc.  All things we take for granted.  Stuff that by default should be updated whenever new content comes out but not content in and of itself.

According to blizzard however 6.2 is to be one of the biggest content patches ever.  So what is this content they speak of?  A raid.  That is it, that is all 6.2 consists of.  Nothing more.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a new raid, but if you take a look at sites that track this stuff like guildox or wow progress you will see that the vast majority of players have not even completed the current raids that are out.  So while I would like a new raid it is not exactly needed for the majority of the player base just yet.

I personally would prefer to wait, to have them add some more content to 6.2, to wait until they can add flying in 6.2, before they actually release it.  Add some five mans at the very least.  I also would not mind a few story telling scenarios that we can queue up for because having some quick bite sized content that does not require an hour queue time is just what the doctor ordered for the game right about now.  Forget this mythic dungeon idea and actually get off your butts and create something new.  No one wanted to do the dungeons the first time for sub par gear, why would they want to do them a second time in a harder mode for more sub par gear?  They will be great for alts at the get go but I see two problems, can you reach the level of ability needed to do them on an alt, and if you can, wouldn't they wear out their welcome just as fast as the original heroic dungeons did?  Any dungeon would be quickly used up with valor to give us motivation to do them over and over and I know many would have preferred new ones instead of a reskin.

This is not going to happen of course, it is not going to be delayed and nothing else is going to be added, because as I mentioned for as much as we might question what blizzard does with the game there is one thing they do right, and that is being a business first.  From a business standpoint 6.2 has to come out sooner than later.  It has to fight off FF14.  There is no time for them to create more content, there is no time for them to turn flying back on (not sure why that is) and there is no time to worry about their paying customers, as long as they keep paying.

To keep them paying they dangled the bait, flying, and people have already come back in droves.

Maybe this should show them something.  People were leaving left and right.  They were dropping like flies.  The idea of 6.2 adding a new raid was not enough to keep them, but the idea that in 6.2.x was adding flying was enough to get a lot of them to come back.  Perhaps they can turn some of that great business sense into great designing sense and realize, that a patch with just a new raid is not enough.  People want more.  Even if it is something as simple as flying.

So I am not excitedly waiting for 6.2.  I couldn't care less about 6.2.  I am waiting for 6.2.x because having flying is more important to me than having another raid when most people have not even finished the last one.  Not to mention flying is something everyone can enjoy, raiding is for the select few.

Take the risk blizzard, hold back 6.2 until flying is put into it.  Hold back 6.2 until you can add more content to it.  Hold back 6.2 until it is more than just a few reskined dungeons, a zone that you were too slow to have ready for launch and a new raid.  Don't be afraid of FF14.  Be afraid that these continued bad decisions are why FF14 is becoming bigger.  Make the right decisions and maybe FF14 would become a non issue, but keep making the wrong decisions and you will be the #2 sub MMO before the end of the year.  While most sub MMOs might love that, I am pretty sure your stockholders won't.

Doing the right thing goes a long way.  Sometimes those small seemingly meaningless decisions mean more than an awesome new raid tier.  Just look at all the people that left because of flying, or came back because of it.  The small things matter to.  More than you are giving them credit for.  It is why I am more excited about 6.2.x for the small things than I am 6.2 for the big ones.

Guide to Flying in Draenor: Becoming a Pathfinder

It looks like we will be getting flying in warlords of draenor after an amazingly fast turn around from "we will not be adding fight in this or future expansions" to "here is what you need to do to get flight".

My personal opinion is that earning flight in such a way that you need to do something to get it is better than just paying some gold fee and flying.  While I might think some of the requirements are a little much, at least the option is now there for the people that want it, or soon will be.

Before I get into what you need to do to get flying I will point out that flying will not, repeat, not be coming with the release of 6.2 but in a future, yet unknown, time with 6.2.x.  We also know that when flying is added, if you have the achievement to activate it, it will be account wide.  This means you only need to go through this process on one character which is awesome.

Furthermore, once flying is activated any character on draenor at level 90 or above will be able to fly.  Yes, this even means the alts you plan on leveling later will be able to fly while they are leveling.  Not bad if you ask me and more than I wanted personally.  I would have been happy with flying at 100 only, but enough of that, lets move on to what you need to do to get flying.

[Draenor Pathfinder]:

A new achievement is being added in 6.2 titled Draenor Pathfinder which is a meta achievement.  In 6.2 it will reward, fittingly enough, a flying mount.  At a later date anyone with this achievement will be given the ability to fly on draenor on that and all other characters level 90 and up that are on draenor.

The following achievements are what will be needed to get the meta achievement to unlock flight.

Loremaster of Draenor (A) / Loremaster of Draenor (H):

While it would be a space, and time, prohibitive thing to post all of which you need to do to get the loremaster achievements I will try to give some helpful advice to those that never finished the zones while questing and now wish to go back and do so.

If you open your map (M by default) you can check easily to see your progress toward loremaster of that specific zone.  If your map does now show the quests in that zone when you open it that means one of two things.  It is full screen, which you can hit the inward arrow in the upper right hand corner of the map to shrink it, or you have the quest details window closed, which you can open by clicking the arrow in the lower right hand corner of the map.

Looking at the quest tracker details you will see at the top your progress toward loremaster of that specific zone, it might say something like 6 / 9.  This means that there are three major story lines in that zone you have yet to compete as you only have 6 of the 9 major story lines in that zone done.

If you are like me, or many others in game, that might have forgotten where you left off in a zone and have no idea where to pick up where you left off, go back to your map (M by default).  Open your map to full screen for easier viewing, but its not needed, and look for an exclamation point on the map somewhere.  You might over look at at first but any major story line in a zone will have their quest marker exclamation point on your map.  This will give you the direction you need to go to pick up the story lines you might have missed.

Now go and poke 12 saberon with a stick, collect 14 stinky socks, free 6 goblins that somehow tapped themselves in their own cages and collect the pinky finger from hubba bubba the pink ogre that has been terrorizing the area while dancing around in a tutu singing I feel pretty.  Once you are done with all said quests, or whichever other ones they send you on, and compete the three major story lines you needed, the zone achievement pop up.

Being Loremaster of draenor happens to be a meta achievement itself that asks you to complete all the major story lines in each zone, you will have to do this for every zone to get the Loremaster of Draenor achievement.

Explore Draenor:

This achievement is easy enough.  It requires nothing more of you than just spending a little time running around and uncovering all part of the map for every zone on Draenor.  It is something you could do over the course of a lazy day or while waiting in queue.  You probably discovered most of the zones just from completing the loremaster part of the meta achievement we are aiming for.

If you are missing a part of the map and do not notice any part of it that is still shaded visit a site like wowhead and check the individual achievement.  Usually there are great people there that will tell you which places to go to so you can get credit for that individual area.  For me there was one part of talador I needed to go back for as no quest ever had me pass through it.  All other parts I got through standard exploration and questing while leveling and doing loremaster.

This part of the achievement should take no time at all and little effort.  Enjoy exploring.

Grand Treasure Hunter:

The grand treasure hunter achievement might say 200 treasures needed but you only need to find 100 to get what you need to activate flying.  But while you are out and about you might as well go and get as many as possible.

While nothing you gather will be great by any means most things can be sold for a fair sum of gold considering the minimal amount of effort you have to put into collecting them.  There are also some goodies you might like and garrison resources to gather.

If you are one of those people that hate jumping puzzles, and from the looks of it there are a lot of you, no worries what so ever.  You can easily get 100 treasures without ever leaving the safety and comfort of having your own two feet, or hooves, on the ground at any given time.

For this achievement I suggest you download an addon called Handy Notes and then get the addition to it for draenor treasures.  With that installed you will have 100 treasures and not even notice you have done it.

If you pick this up and grab things while questing and while exploring, you will have the 100 with absolutely no additional effort on your part.  Being I leveled with Handy Notes active on all my characters not only did I level faster thanks to the experience of finding treasures but I was close to having 100 treasures found just while leveling.  Handy notes just makes it too easy.

But word of advice, if you really hate jumping stuff, stay out of nagrand, that place is a nightmare for getting some of these treasures if you don't already know how to get to them and could even be a nightmare if you do know how to get to them.  ~mumbles something about that damn tree he kept missing with the kite~

Securing Draenor (A) / Securing Draenor (H):

In a clear cut case of easier said than done there is the requirement of doing all the original apexis dailies once each.  There are 12 dailies in total but the problem with them is that they are on a random generated system which could mean it will take you 12 days to do it, or 48 days to do it, depending on the random number generator.

I must say I have always been against any content that is based on random so needless to say I would not mind at all if they removed this as part of the meta achievement even if I have it already.  I still feel bad for the people that don't and judging by the number of people who have that achievement posted on MMOC it seems like extremely few have done this.

I hear that currently the pit daily never shows up but when I did it at the start of the expansion it was the pit nearly every single day.  I recall it being 8 days in a row, then after two days of different ones it was 6 days in a row again.  See, this is exactly why I hate the randomly generated content.  No rhyme or reason to it.

My suggestion would be to check to see which ones you have done and look at the table in your garrison each and every day to see if one of the ones you need is there.  If it is, do it.  Do not wait, do not say I will do it tomorrow, do not put it off.  If you need it, do it, because with a random system if you don't it is possible you will not see it again for a month or longer.

Here is to hoping that blizzard does what they did with the profession vendors and fixes it so that it will cycle thought all of them so at worst it would take 12 days, but do not hold your breath for that to happen.

UPDATE: I have just been informed that the missives do work so just buy the missives at your garrison for 200 resources each and knock them all out.  This will make it insanely easy to finish.

Three 6.2 Reputations at Revered:

Order of the Awakened, The Saberstalkers, and Hand of the Prophet for alliance, Vol'jin's Headhunters for the horde are the new factions that you will need to get to revered to finish off the achievements needed to open up flight once it is added.

Being you only need to get to revered it will be a lot easier than if you had to do exalted.  A total of 21,000 reputation is needed to get to revered which is, of course, better than the 42000 needed to get to exalted.

I suggest if you want to speed this along that you have a level 3 trading post in your garrison as it increases reputation gained.  Any other boosts you can tag on, such as being a human or the darkmoon fair buff, will make this a little bit faster as well, but the level 3 trading post should be something everyone can do not limited to a race or timed event.  So make sure you have it if you want to speed this along.

How to get reputations:

Each faction tied reputation has a set of daily quests you can do that will offer you either 3 or 4 quests giving up to a total of 1250 reputation if you do them.  This can very well be used as the slow way to work toward getting all three of the factions to revered.  Also the new additions to the garrison campaign can award some reputation with these faction alined reputations so make sure to do those weekly on the character you are working the reputations on.

For the awakened there is a daily quest that awards 1500 reputation, which can be boosted by the trading post to 1800 and for the saberstalkers there is a weekly quest for 3500 which could be boosted by the trading post to 4200, there is also a chance you might get a daily as well, but it is not every day.  In addition the saberstalkers reputation can also be boosted by kills in select areas 30 for common mobs and 600 for rare elites.

There is also a new mission you can get from your harbor that rewards Medallion of the Legion, which will give you 1000 reputation with all factions on Draenor.  The beauty of this is that it is not soulbound, so if you have the gold, or enough alts, you can just buy, or collect, 21 of these and never need to grind even one single reputation.  You will be all done with these and these along.  Even if you do not do it with all of these, these will help along with your effort to get to revered with all three.

One thing of note, if you are going to use these, they do benefit from the trading post buff, meaning you get 1200 per faction instead of 1000, but you must actually be in draenor when you use it to benefit from the trading post buff as the buff only works on draenor.  It is also reported that some rares could drop these medallions.  If that is the case it is extremely possible you can grind all three factions not only to revered but to exalted in the first days of the release of 6.2.  I shall be one of these fools that intends to do just that and with all my alts and medallions coming in, I do not see this taking long at all.

Conclusion:

As you can see, it will not be hard to get flying, but you will need to earn it.  It is no longer as simple as paying a few gold and taking to the air.  I don't know about you but I kind of like that.  There is nothing hard about any of these requirements and there is nothing overly time consuming, at least if you are currently playing and not trying to catch up months from now, which I can see as being annoying later on playing catch up to everyone else that is flying.

If you are behind and need to do it, this is my suggested path.

Step 1: Do the lorematster achievement which will take no more than a few hours at most at max level even if you have only done a little or no questing previously.  Finish off the treasure gathering and exploring while doing loremaster, which means no additional time spent on those at all.

Step 2: Check the daily table in your garrison every day, do the mission if you need that one.  Or just buy the missive for it and get it done.

Step 3: When 6.2 comes out, to those that do not like to grind or just so you do not burn yourself as 6.2 is not adding flying yet, I say take your time.  Seriously, take your time.  Do the dailies when you wish to, send all the medallions you come across to your main, and let the reputations build up on their own.  With a trading post level 3, a few dailies for each faction and a few medallions along the way you will be to revered with all three and never even need to grind anything at all.

Step 4: When 6.2.x comes out.  Congratulations everyone, you are now ready to fly.  Enjoy, we earned this.

One Happy Elf

There has not been much that blizzard has done in the recent past that has brought a smile to my face in real life but reading today that flying will return and will be in warlords has done just that.  I am smiling as I write this and I am sure there are some out there that are smiling as they read this.

It looks like they went the path I and many others have suggested since they first mentioned the idea of no flight.  Just link it to loremaster.  Once you have done all that is required for loremaster you have experienced the content on the ground that they were so pushing us to do.  As such we should be allowed to take to the air, at least that is how I always saw it.

Logic seems to have won out for once and I am amazingly happy because of it.  It will be more than loremaster that is needed however, but that is not an issue really.  They want you do have done all the daily apexis quest hubs at least once for the securing draenor achievement which sounds reasonable to me.  They also want you to have the achievement for finding 100 treasures in the world, which also seems very reasonable.  Heck, even if they asked for the find 200 treasure achievement I still would have thought it was reasonable.  Another requirement they ask for also makes absolute perfect sense, that you explore all the zones in their entirety as well while still grounded, no problem there either for me.

The last part is that you need to earn revered with all three of the new factions being added in 6.2, which I intended to do anyway, so I see no problem with that either.

As it turns out the best news of this whole thing is that it will be account wide.  So once you do it on one character all your characters can fly on draenor from the moment they arrive, yes, even as a level 90.  How freaking awesome is that?  Not only did they do the right thing allowing it to be account wide, but they went further, more than anyone asked for, and said we can fly from 90 on.

Way to compromise blizzard, I can honestly say this is one very happy elf right now.

But one note for people, this will not be part of 6.2, it will be later in 6.2.x, whatever that may be.  But at least we know it is coming and that is enough to bring a smile to my face.

Thank you blizzard.  The game needed this.