Merry Christmas Wowcrafters

Merry Christmas fellow Wowcrafters !

Netcownt my behated warlock is now 85 and is halfway through Uldum and Twilight Highlands questing. I positively loved Uldum and the Egypt like stuff. Being an Egyptology freak, It just couldn't get any better, I can now be an archeologist nearly as famous as.. Harrison Jones !


On this topic, I also leveled the new secondary profession up to 100 and with it was able to go from level 84.5 to 85 (30K XP per fragment = yay!).



The rest of my chars are building up rest time for faster leveling in 2011.



Ok, have fun, and nothing like a little snow from a Swedish pal to cheer things up !

Slowly but surely

This week in Cataclysm has been peaceful. Netcownt's guild is/was full of horny 3-4 day 85 people, specially warlocks, so that immediately made me slow down, since I knew I would have no spot in any raids for the near future. Therefore I went at my own pace with the warlock and the other tanking/healing toons.

It has been very profitable to watch videos and learn the strategies, but for sure things never go perfect in the first tanking attempt for a new dungeon. Again, it became clear how much easier it is too keep aggro and generally dps with a DK than with a warrior tanking.
I tanked Throne of the Tides, Blackrock caverns and the Stonecore. The first two are easy, the last one is a bit more difficult, if you have dumb people that do not interrupt and if you do not select the best target first. After learning it, though, it became easy.
I miss healing an instance to check up on how are things in the holy side of life, but again, I've been having fun.

Guildwise, my beloved Arcadia guild, although a little more "vivificated", still misses some major characters coming back. Let's hope they will, sooner or later.
Today my Day-Time raiding guild that I hoped would be a replacement for Arcadia if things did not clear, went down the drain, so I'm now rather lonely on a level 4 guild ! I think i'll stay around and use the +5% reputation bonus for now.
Meanwhile, on Chromaggus, i'm back to my $home at Savory Deviate Delight.

First impressions of Cataclysm

Long story short, one week into Cataclysm, and it is looking great.

For sure, some effort was put in areas where high level players don't really go, except en passant. Such is the case of Darkshore and alike, which were heavily revamped due to the cataclysmic tsunami caused by Darkwing waking up. Flying in Azeroth is a long time wish, and specially Orgrimmar seems to have been 100% recreated, while Stormwind changed a bit in some areas, but essentially remained the same city.


What really looks great for me is Vash'jir. I did all the quests in this area with Netcownt and I'm now also doing them slowly with my other 6 chars (Mage, Rogue and Hunter are being left behind, the rest are trailing Netcownt, 4 of them dualboxing).

I still had no time to check up on the Goblin and Worgen starting areas, although in both cases, for me at least, a story link is missing that shows to level 80 players that killed Arthas, why are we going to interact more heavily with Goblins and Worgens now.


I'm now half way into Hyjal. The story background in Hyjal goes back to my beloved Warcraft adventures in the XXth century. Now it just develops a bit further.

Graphically, it couldnt be better. I'm still doing 50-60 fps, more detail, underwater movement, textures, etc, are stunning.

Questwise, it is also an improvement. We have much less optional quests, there is now a sense of duty, of chain questing that actually tries to achieve something. There are still those "kill 10 mobs", "grab 8 flowers", but there are also many quests where the player (this one is copied from LOTRO, by the way) impersonates the enemy (nagas), and some funny gnome adventures. Intermediate cinematics are also a good idea.

In terms of playability, I think it's too easy. Seeing hundreds of lvl 85 players after 1-2 days of the expansion being released is just ridiculous. I'm sure some of them farmed the same mobs over and over, and most quested without bothering to read one line, and are now gearing up in heroics. Ofc, each player is paying to play, and is free do to with his time whatever he pleases, and if he feels good by having 320+ gear level after 1 week of play, then be it.
Anyway, it is TOO easy. In LOTRO, in AION, in vanilla WoW, if you had more than one mobs on you, it was tough. If you had three, it was immensely challenging. In Cata, I go into Demo mode as a iLvl264 warlock and I can dispatch 5-8 mobs in 10-15 secs. I have more problems gathering them than killing them, although in some areas, respawn rates are so high you can simply stay on one spot for hours. It's probably that way that the first lvl 85 showed up, I'm sure.

I'm going slower, reading each quest, some times checking up on lore to see if it matches the RPG story outside of the computer game, and previous Warcraft games.

On Chromaggus, the PVP is..a nightmare. Alliance is outnumbered may be 5:1 or more, and horde are killing on sight with no remorse. Dualboxing plates should help, I thought, keeping them away. It doesn't. I cannot even get revenge, as when I try to, 5 of them fall on me in less than one breath. A nightmare indeed :) and it slows leveling a lot ! Oh well, it's fun too, yelling "filho da puta!" in my office :)

Crazy Cata

Alienation.

Millions of subscribers waiting for the moment when Cataclysm will start.

I'm too old for this :)

ICC 10 HC Sindragosa is no more

Today I joined my new guild, and a bunch of other warlocks, to kill Sindra HC.
We wiped a few times, courtesy of dc's, a few innocent mistakes, and rng.


But then, it all came together, and down she went, Sindra 10 in Heroic Mode.

That's all folks !

A couple of hours today in BG's and in instances, and the deed is done, my last two toons are now 80.

That makes it 10, one of each class, slowly leveled up to 80, during WOTLK, and having fun doing it.

I hope I will have more fun (and less hours wiping) in Cataclysm.

Shattering: The plus and the minus

A happy day and a sad day, today.

It's a happy day because I think.. I think I may have found a guild for me in Cata, to raid during the day. We raided today in a half guild half pug-mode, and we did Ruby Sanctum 10 (another reason to be happy) and Lich King 10. That's already a plus, because as I wrote before, I was stuck without RS10 as Arcadia downed it the week I was on holidays and we didn't go back in again. There's another countryman in the guild, which is a bonus. We'll have to see how it goes the next few weeks.

It's a happy day because there will be new graphic contents to see. New places to visit.

It's a sad day because the old World of Warcraft as we know it, will die tonight. Zul'Gurub, the most beautiful instance and the first one most raiders played, me included, 5 years ago, will die with it. Also with it, will die my hope of getting the Thekal tiger. Tomorrow we will have things like some weird tracks in Azshara, a fissure in the Barrens, and a new threat to deal with. I hope it's not too childish, /train style, I'm fed up with crap like that.

It's a sad day because the AQ40 chain quest will be partly disabled or changed.

It's a sad day because most decent persons I met during my ride have scattered through different servers, different guilds, and again and again I have to build a reputation with a new team, as I explore a scattered world.

In the last days I've been leveling up cooking to 350 for all my 10 chars. It's 100x easier this week with the Pilgrim cooking. The only annoying part is that cities are under attack all the time so the portals are intermitent. But tomorrow we won't have portals whatsoever, so I might as well finish it tonight !

Today, the 4xboss portals of the pre-Cata event were open, so I farmed a bit with my tanks for some free lvl 251 gear that may help me start tanking in Cata.



Entering in ICC again today reminded me how I am vomiting this place. I'm not sure I will enter it again. That was nearly 9 months, 3-5 times per week, 3.5 hours each time = over 500 hours inside ICC. That was *WAY* too much, now that I think of it. I remember Ripit leaving and /qguitting in the middle of a Sindra25... and I now understand how he felt. He couldn't simply be one more second inside that place. It was not polite what he did, but that's human behaviour.

My last two toons, Lonegrim and Patalogica are 77/78, and tomorrow we will have a reduction in the required XP, so I'll use it to my benefit and go up to 80 the next few days, and achieve what I did for TBC, ie, to level all 10 classes up to cap level.

So let's wait for the Shattering, and long live Deathwing !