Thoughts on the Blizzard Dev Q&A (with Gnomes!)

Unless you've been stuck without internet and the first WoW blog you
decided to read was mine, you already know about the WoW Developer
Q&A over on Twitter. Here are my thoughts about a few of the
responses.

Q: Will Path of the Titans be as time consuming as
obtaining Sons of Hodir reputation?

A: Sons of Hodir was easy, we're thinking more along the lines of
Argent Dawn rep actually. JK! As a matter of fact, we don't want the
paths of the titans to feel grindy at all so we're trying to make sure
that each step along the way feels more like a great quest, or a key
achievement (like killing all the bosses in a new raid zone). So, it
should be more oriented around accomplishing something that feels
important rather than grinding.

This is something I'm really looking forward to about Cataclysm that
for some reason I keep forgetting about. I think--or I'm hoping--that
it will elicit character development. I forsee the possibility of
interesting RP fodder resulting from this, and not just because Modan Co is filled with archeologists.

Q: Will Alliance ever get an ingame band like the Hordes
L80ETC?

A: Sure, if somebody knows of an awesome Alliance band...

Something with Gnomes:

• The Mekkatorquettes


• Sprynklez and the Sprocket Launchers


• The All-Star Tinker Fun Band


• The Boltbreakers*


• Whizze* and the Leper Gnomes


• 4 Non Pink Pigtails


• Geared Pink (via @psynister)


• GNOMES N' ROSES (via @Xanedris)

Q: With Cataclysm revisiting the old world, any plan to make
the old reputations worthwhile again?

A: With each expansion, we introduce new reputations with new rewards.
Sometimes we introduce reputations that are obviously related, such as
Argent Dawn/Argent Crusade and Cenarion Circle/Cenarion Expedition. We
don't update the rewards for existing reps, as we don't want to put
new characters at such a significant disadvantage.

Suggestion: If the old reputations are still going to exist post
Cataclysm, make them more valuable without causing a disadvantage by
having more vanity items (such as pets and mounts or RP gear)
available with revered or exalted status.

Q: Will there be anymore epic storylines with cinematics like
the wrathgate questline?

A: We have big plans for additional in game cinematics! We are happy
with how the Wrathgate questline worked out, and want to do more lines
like this.

Yay!

Q: Can locks have a summonable flying mount now please?

A: Now? As in right this second? No.

At least this hasn't been ruled out entirely, but I also want to know:
When are we getting our green fire!

While the Q&A may not have provided a ton of information, I was
happy to see a few questions answered, such as the current Goblin
establisments not turning Hordeside. It also made me even more excited
about Cataclysm. Forget Arthas! I want to make my Goblin already!

*Awesome Modan Co member!

The Stabbing Warlock and Other Noob Moments

I log into World of Warcraft for the first time. I listen to the introduction about the Humans, and walk my newly minted Warlock to the quest giver before me. My task is to kill a few Kobolds. Having never played an MMO before, I find myself standing in front of one of those candle-hoarding creatures stabbing at it with my dagger. I have a couple spells on my bar, but not only do I not know how to use them, but I don’t even know that they exist. Moments later the Kobold kills me, and I can see the laughter of a couple onlookers.

If I hadn’t paid so much for the game and spent weeks researching what class to play, I may have given up right there. I didn’t figure out my spells until visiting the class trainer and learning new ones. Unfortunately, this was not the beginning of my noob moments.

It was several levels before I dared use the Auction House. I used to just sell everything to a vendor. The crowds of people standing before the auctioneers in Stormwind scared me, about as much as the first time I ever spotted a Horde character.

My biggest noob moment was when I received a quest to visit Ironforge and had no idea that the tram existed. I spent an entire day attempting to walk there, going through the Burning Steppes at level 14. I found no way through, and eventually ended up swimming from Westfall to the Wetlands and running over from there. I didn’t ride the tram until after I’d obtained my first mount.

Realize that this is before I learned how to autorun. Yes, I’d been continually pressing the up button on my keyboard. I didn’t learn about it until my then-boyfriend started playing. Of course he figured it out right away.

What were your biggest noob moments?

Coming Soon: I’m really excited about this week’s links! Check back Friday.

Why I'm a Warlock - Part 2

Yesterday I gave an overview of why I decided to play a warlock. Today I’m moving into why I’ve stuck with it. I’ve been surprised by the players I’ve read about in blogs and listened to in podcasts whose main is not their first character. Perhaps it was because of my research that I still love my warlock best, or maybe it’s just because warlocks are, obviously, the best class in the game:

1. We have minions. As Everwrath so cleverly pointed out, minions are not pets. Minions don’t need to be fed. They don’t even need to breathe. They don’t need to be placed in stables. They can be called on whenever the warlock needs one, and they look as scary as, well, Hell.

2. We can survive! Five mobs on our back? No problem! We have our minion take aggro, and with Seed of Corruption (this blog’s namesake) everything is dead in no time. And in the unlikely event that we do actually bite the dust? We can just pop back up with our Soul Stone! Gloria Gaynor would be proud.

3. We have Fear. ‘Nuff said.

4. We’re evil…but not really. We use fel magic and summon demons, but we mainly use it to fight the evil creatures of Azeroth and beyond. We’re the epitome of giving someone a taste of their own medicine.

5. We get our own mounts. Not just any mounts, but flaming horses. Don’t you wish you had a flaming horse mount? You do. I know you do.

6. We have the best mana regeneration. I’m not talking about Mp5, I’m talking about Life Tap and for Affliction warlocks, Dark Pact. I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to play a mana using alt and started panicking and wondering what I did with my Life Tap button.

7. We can make summoning stones and soulwells and soulstones. Beneath our evil exterior, people love us.

8. We make the best lovers.

9. We can turn into a demon! Who wants to be a tree when you can be a demon?

10. We have a big bag of souls tricks up our sleeve. We can make flaming meteors fall from the sky, or teleport across a room. We can make our adversaries speak another language and even make a group of foes run away from us in fear. And because of our plethora of DoTs, we warlocks always get the last laugh.

[Image Credit: www.warcraftmounts.com]

Politeness Goes A Long Way: The Valiance Expedition Rep Grind

Here’s the thing: I don’t have very much gold. I’m level 77 and I’d like to be able to take an epic flyer around Northrend. The reputation discount for Artisan flying in 3.2 really excited me. Right now, I’m Revered with Valiance Expedition so I could get the skill for 4250 gold. But since I’m nowhere near that, I’m pushing for Exalted, by doing four PVP daily quests in Grizzly Hills and one PVE daily quest in Howling Fjord.

The Howling Fjord quest is called Breaking the Blockade and involves riding around on a stolen Zeppelin and bombing pirate ships. The best part of the quest is the imprisoned Goblin that yells when the zeppelin arrives and leaves. The first time I did it, it took me about five tries and quite a bit of time.  I can now do it in one run. Stand as far towards the very front of the zeppelin as you can (think “I’m King of the World” in Titanic) and then tilt your camera at the boats. When the boat is behind the zeppelin you can tilt your camera around and get a few shots in. Be sure and hotkey the bombs as well.

The PVP quests are fairly straightforward.  The only issue I’ve had with them is being ganked by Horde players. I don’t PVP. When a Horde player attacks me, and he’s not say 5 levels below me, I’ll just run away. With level 80s this sometimes doesn’t work. Yesterday, I had to hop Hordeside to ask a Belf Priest to stop ganking me. She apologized and said she was having a bad day and went to play on another toon. Later, another level 80 decide to start killing me, until I /plead–ed him to stop. He /sorry–ed and left me alone, so I /thank-ed him and he left me alone. Politeness goes a long way even in skirmishes between factions!

Thoughts on Patch 3.08 - No Love for Locks

I thought I'd cover the changes coming to Warlocks in the upcoming patch 3.08. Oh, look, there's only three! While Bliz has promised to "fix" my beloved class soon, this obviously doesn't cut it. Come on, Bliz, now's good, but before would have been better!

Drain Mana: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.

Drain mana is pretty worthless for actually obtaining mana. Whenever I try to drain mana from something I hardly get a drop before the mob bites the dust. I'm not sure if this change will help any.

Emberstorm: Now works with Conflagrate.

Emberstorm is a tier 6 Destruction spell and therefor it wont matter to me. Perhaps this will answer the debate of what does more DPS on Destruction locks: shadow bolts or immolate + conflagrate.

Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

This is awesome. Saturday night I was with a group of 40 trying to kill the Horde leaders (we got Silvermoon and Thunder Bluff and then the raid leader had to go). I was the only warlock, and people kept asking for summons. I eventually had to tell people to suck it up and fly over. With a reusable stone I would have been able to keep many of my shards.

Since that's all we got this time, here are some other patch changes of note:

Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.

This is great for warlocks! I can't count how many times I've had mobs stolen out from under my nose.

The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at 75% speed.

This will make dying suck slightly less.

Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You’re not seeing things.

So this will make it easier for people to obtain 50 mounts. One of the guild leaders has a human they really want to put on a mechanostrider. The question is, will cloth prices go up as people attempt to gain reputation in other faction cities?