It's Live!

The expansion went live and hordes of Alliance poured into Northrend.

Wowhead have implemented a blog on their website. I've added it to the sidebar.

When I got home, I logged my level 52 warrior to do a little questing towards gaining a higher level. I did a /who 71 and saw four people at that level after just an hour and a half past the official launch time. Incidentally, they were all in Borean Tundra -- my preferred zone of the two starting Northrend zones.

I gained a level on my warrior and then went out for dinner. Upon return, I already had plans to watch a movie with my friend, but decided to log my mage quickly to see what was going on. Some of my friends were in Utgarde Keep, which kind of made me feel like I was missing out on all the action.

But I'm really not worried. I look forward to experiencing everything that the Lich King expansion has to offer; and I intend to go at a slower pace than in the previous expansion, immersing myself in the lore a lot more and just absorbing everything around me as I move through each zone and fight my way through each instance.

I was finally able to get the Lich King client to download. It finished installing and updated to the latest patch. As soon as my brother gives me the product key from the copy that I had him pre-order for me, I will be able to upgrade my account.

Northrend stoically awaits Gaiwyn. Gaiwyn patiently awaits his expansion upgrade.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Pre-Install

In order to save the hassle of receiving the game and waiting for it to install before venturing into Northrend, consider downloading the client ahead of time, then just entering your product key when you receive the box.

This could prove to be especially helpful for people like me who would otherwise have to wait a few extra days before activating the upgrade and joining everyone else in their expanded play.

Try either here or here for the client. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

It's Almost Here!

Lich King is but hours from going live. Account upgrades are now available for both US and European realms. You will need to upgrade your account to access Northrend content.

A lot of people have been QQing because of today's extended maintenance. All I can say -- and this coming from a sympathetic viewpoint of someone who can't log in anyway due to being at work -- is: cry more, nubs. Give Blizzard a break. They have a huge responsibility this week -- but they have a daunting task overall.

I am glad that a problem such as this mailbox bug has occurred today rather than in two days' time when every server will be flooded with people attempting to head to Northrend / Ebon Hold to immerse themselves in the new content.

Personally, I will not be receiving my Lich King DVD for a few more days yet. I actually feel really good about this. I am in no hurry to level my Mage to 80. Not only is this because I currently don't have a guild -- therefore there is no pressure on me to get to 80 and snag as much heroic gear in as little time as possible -- but I really want to absorb everything: read every quest description, take my time figuring out quest circuits, level my professions at a leisurely pace, breathe in the surroundings...

I barely did anything in beta. I felt that it was better to wait for the actual release of the real thing to sow my time into something that counted, personally. I also want to experience the content in a fresh way. Having walked the streets of Dalaran prepared me for the confusion of entering a city for the first time; but having not flown over all of the zones means that it will be fresh and new for me when I do enter each new place and experience everything that those places have to offer.

With these last few days that I have I intend to continue levelling my Warrior as if the servers are not aflush with hundreds of level 70s striving to gain experience over in Northrend, or brand new Death Knights pushing their way into Outland, and beyond.

If all goes well, I may end up overlapping with hordes of Death Knights as they merge with the rest of the population and pour into Outland. Perhaps seeing a warrior in Outland will be a unique experience for people who have been staring death in the face for the last four levels. ;)

Suffice to say, I am excited about what is to come over the next few weeks, if not months. It has been almost two years since my Mage was in mismatched armour, and epics were being replaced with greens and blues. To experience it again will be very nostalgic. To experience things for the first time will be incredibly exhilirating and uplifting.

In this positive time, I can only imagine the adventure that awaits. Server issues, quest item squabbling, instance wipes -- all of these are elements that are far outweighed by the breadth and scope of everything else that will reach into my soul and fulfil that part of me that desires accomplishment, advancement and experiencing the immersion of fantasy and lore that the World of Warcraft brings.

Come to life, new adventure -- and face the death that is the Lich King.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Making Progress

It has been a few days now since 3.0.2 went live. Yesterday, I ran two heroics on my mage to secure four more achievements. I still have to run just about every single Outland instance on heroic to gain the Achievements for completion. I've done every instance on heroic at least once with my mage; but I really don't mind running them again, so long as I can find decent groups to do them with. ;)

I also completed a few more Achievements after doing a few dailies and a few quests in a few zones: To Hellfire and Back; Mysteries of the Marsh; Terror of Terokkar; 5 Daily Quests Complete.

There are a LOT of Achievements that I will be working towards over the next few weeks as we continue to await the release of the expansion. Some of these will no doubt draw me into oldschool raid instances and re-exploration of the old world of Azeroth. It's a long journey ahead.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Achievements! The Patch is Live

With the patch live, it sounds like a lot of people have had login problems, and other in-game issues. When I get home from work I will be sorting through my addons one at a time and then logging each of my toons to fill in their new skill trees. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

This new patch brought everything I listed last night, and more. There are a lot of achievements that will be easily attainable if enough time is put in. I look forward to the next few weeks until the expansion is released, as we have plenty of opportunity to fill out a number of our achievements before the arduous journey through the frozen wastes of Northrend, striving for that end-goal of level 80 and the end-game content that it will allow access to.

So much awaits. And it is indeed close!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Exciting Pre-Expansion Changes

Patch 3.0.2 goes live tonight. The servers have been down for a while already and will continue to be down until everything is completed tomorrow. I'm going to be restless all day as I wait to finish work. I'm excited about these pre-expansion changes!

Here's a summary of what is being changed and added:

• You can no longer get bear mounts from ZA


• Hand of A'dal and Champion of the Naaru titles are no longer obtainable


• The Onyxia attunement and Atiesh questlines have been removed


• Naxxramas has been shifted to Northrend and will not be accessible until the expansion goes live


• Barber shops are available in major faction cities


• Graphics have been updated, including the new shadow engine


• Stormwind Harbor is available but ships don't yet go to Northrend


• Mounts and vanity pets are now trainable and will go into your Pet tab when learned


• The entrance to Caverns of Time: Stratholme has been added, though you cannot zone into the instance


• Badges of Justice, Marks of Honor, etc are now Tokens


• The in-game events calendar has been added


• Achievements should be live -- check Wowhead for a complete list


• Healing and Spell Damage stats have been combined into the new Spellpower stat -- this includes school specific damage (nature, fire, frost etc)


• A lot of armour and items have been changed to reflect the new game mechanics


• Buffs, debuffs and auras are all now raid-wide


• TBC raid monsters have had a 30% health reduction


• New talent trees for all classes


• Introduction of the Inscription profession: scrolls, vellum and class glyphs


• Two new arenas: Dalaran Arena and The Ring of Valor


• Honor-purchased gems are no longer BoP or unique-equipped, so can be sold on the AH

Go ahead and check everything out if you haven't already. This is a huge patch with many playstyle-affecting changes. Everyone's toons will have to be re-treed tomorrow; and there will be a lot to take in.

I was going to wait to roll my Death Knight before picking up Inscription, but people are likely to charge exorbitant prices for everything. At least we have another month to hoard our gold in preparation for levelling to 80.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Build 9038

The classes continue to be tweaked as we draw ever closer to the release of the expansion. And the dilemma of getting my hands on a copy still plagues me. It will be disappointing if I can't pre-order locally and have to get a copy sent over from NZ.

Anyway, the latest release sees a handful of changes to skills and glyphs across the board. Head over to MMO-Champion for a summary of what this patch entails.

Recently, I have not played my warrior much. However, my druid reached exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive and I have been doing dailies with my rogue.

When 3.0 is released, I intend to do some oldschool content on my mage to aim towards some of the achievements before being able to level past 70. I am currently grinding Wintersaber Trainer rep.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Testing, Testing

I've been testing a level 80 mage recently. My initial impression of fire was a bit off for some reason. Maybe because I didn't stack up Scorch on the target dummy...

Anyway, you can read about my tests and conclusions over at the MMO-Champion forums. I am still weighing up Frost vs. Fire. I will do a little more testing of the two tonight, under real circumstances if possible (ie. a heroic instance).

Also, I came across a funny blog, which I am adding to the side bar. It's called Angry Raid Leader and it is something that I can totally relate to, to a certain extent, having been a raid leader myself in the past. He needs to extend his bandwidth limit though, having advertised to various sites and pulled in a reasonable following!

Finally, check out the cool WotLK mounts. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Champion, Forge Thy Runeblade

I rolled a Death Knight.

You are prepared

Oh, the Lich King wants to greet me

Forge your blade and then...

...choose a rune

Activate the eye

Explore New Avalon, south-east of Tyr's Hand

Hey, it's Mograine and the Baron!

Kel'Thuzad's brother?

Time to leave Ebon Hold

A scourge gryphon ride down

This looks important

Mount acquired!

Gothik the Harvester gives me a quest. Cool.

I am a mine car

Did someone order gravel?

I am very very sneaky

Escaping the ship

Ding

Essentially, the starting quests for the Death Knight class are amazingly done. It is all very smooth and very cool. It is also very easy to level from 55 to 56, as you begin with rested XP and the quests give you a decent amount. You also receive talent points from particular quests along the way, to ease you into your role as a DK.

I look forward to playing some more. Just don't expect a whole lot more screenshots than this. I kinda got carried away as I quested.

Also, of note, is the announcement that the release date for the expansion is the 13th of November, so mark that down in your calendar, book three days off work or school, and be prepared to launch into Northrend in just two months time!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Still No Beta

Every time I want to play WotLK, I either run out of time or have to download a patch. Yet another evening went by and it has now got too late to play. I did, however, finally create a banner header for the blog.

My brother wanted me to PvP with him this evening. At least my rogue is closer to getting her sword. :)

More updates and such at MMO-Champion, regarding the instances and loot therein.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Account: Activated -- Transfer: OK

I activated my WotLK beta account. I set up a premade gnome mage transfer (not much choice, really). It would have been nice to have been able to level my own mage from the start of the beta, but real life circumstances obviously prevented me from being able to play until three days ago.

I may yet transfer my mage (or maybe my priest) just to check out the new zones and quests. Either way, I will be playing the beta throughout this week. Who knows, I may even take some screenshots. :)

Edit: I transferred my mage and my priest to the PvE beta realm and my rogue to the PvP one. I'll check out Northrend tomorrow. I already saw a little bit of it in the alpha, but I'll be sure to play and see quite a bit more than back then.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Raid Stacking

If you haven't heard about it already, here is the blue post that explains the intended changes to raid buffing. Basically, they will allow buffs to extend to the entire raid, whether it be 25- or 10-man. This gives more flexibility and allows you to choose from any and every class-type for raid make-up. It also means that you don't have to juggle groups around depending on the fight, but can leave them intact throughout the instance.

There have been a lot of gear updates over the weekend for WotLK instances. As more people hit level 80, more loot in the end-game instances will be uncovered.

Wowhead hasn't been updated with a lot of these items, but check back over the course of this week to see what has been added:

The Nexus
The Nexus
The Oculus
The Eye of Eternity

Ulduar
Halls of Lightning

Utgarde Keep
Utgarde Pinnacle

Caverns of Time
Stratholme Past

Unfortunately, Naxxramas has yet to be updated. However, check out this placeholder weapon. :o

I get ever closer to getting back into the game.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

A Lich in Leipzig

Here is a link to the GameSpy interview transcript.

To summarise:

Changes to raiding

---

Tom Chilton: The feedback we've been getting has been overwhelmingly positive, as far as people really liking the fact that we're supporting 10- and 25-person raids.

---

Status of the beta

---

Tom Chilton: Finishing and polishing is really where we're at. The level cap will be bumped up to 80 pretty soon... We'll have Naxxramas in the hands of the players very soon. Wintergrasp will be fully playable for the players very soon.

---

Changes to class dynamics and new skills being added

---

Tom Chilton: For the Warlock, there's the demon form which is totally exciting... Knockback mechanics on various classes are exciting, like Thunder on the Shaman. The Mage's Deep Freeze should be a pretty interesting mechanic. We're trying to flesh out Arcane so that it becomes a very viable tree on its own as well...

---

PvP and competitiveness

---

Tom Chilton: Obviously we're trying something new with Wintergrasp... We're not changing the philosophy of the game itself. PvE is a huge, huge part of the game, if not the biggest part of the game.

---

Vehicle combat and what allowing vehicles has opened up in terms of PvP and PvE

---

J. Allen Brack: The team has just gone berserk with using the vehicle tech in all kinds of crazy ways. There's one quest where you drive a shredder around a field of scourge that's mobilizing. You take out guys twenty at a time, and just emulsify them...

---

Continuation of humour

---

Tom Chilton: ...we can't suppress our own sense of humor.

---

Death Knights -- dark and gritty

---

J. Allen Brack: In the case of the Death Knight, you actually start out as an agent of the Lich King. You're an evil person, you're a bad guy... you're going to complete quests that might make you a little queasy.

---

Further development of Warcraft lore

---

Tom Chilton: It feels like there's more depth to the lore in Lich King... aided by the fact that the storyline is one that's been forming since Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne... it's very rooted in traditional fantasy.

---

Recruit-a-friend and zerging through old content to prepare for WotLK

---

Tom Chilton: With Wrath of the Lich King, we're speeding up 60-70... we feel like our quest content from 70-80 is a lot stronger. Even outside the experience standpoint, we'd rather get you to the better content more quickly.

---

Revising old content

---

Tom Chilton: We did something like that [revising old content] with Duskwallow Marsh, adding new content there. We plan to do more of that.

J. Allen Brack: Heroic Scarlet Monastery and Heroic Molten Core are two of our biggest requests. Heroic Deadmines would be good too.

---

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

WotLK Cinematic and The Hog

Maxconsole.net reported the following mail from Blizz PR regarding WotLK. It has been widely circulated but has yet to be officially confirmed:

Just wanted to let you all know that Blizzard will be unveiling the opening cinematic movie for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King at the Games Convention in Leipzig. The cinematic will be shown at 1:00 p.m., Thursday 21 August at the Blizzard Entertainment booth (D01 in Hall 5). A Q&A session featuring members of the cinematics team will immediately follow.

Blizzard’s lineup of activity will also feature hands-on gameplay with StarCraft II and Wrath of the Lich King, Q&A sessions with members from the StarCraft II and Diablo III teams, and more.

Also, The Hog has been confirmed in-game:

• A few more changes have been or are being made to classes: Druid armour; Hunters' pet growl, boar charge and kill command; Shadow priests (I'm looking forward to seeing these changes); and Shaman totem tweaks and earth shock downranking.
• The recently added /cower animation is being tweaked. Source.
• Some passwords on the beta server may have changed to new ones when refreshed from live accounts. Source.

It seems that some players are excited about the release of the expansion. Even blues. XD

And finally, there is an update to the Blizzcon ticket lottery.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Professionally Speaking

I read the transcript of three interviews yesterday with various Bliz personnel. The first interview was about music in the game, especially focusing on what is to be expected in WotLK.

The second interview was what I was most interested in. It covered professions and expected changes with the expansion. I have every profession across my toons, and so found many things in that interview to be interesting. Check out the following summary from MMO-Champion (edited):

General

• The alchemy discovery system could be added to all professions, but will be restricted to "fun" discoveries or more predictable outcomes.
• Players may be able to collect tokens from daily profession quests and use these to purchase select recipes from token vendors.
• 375 skill requirement for the best craftable gear was too high -- expect the required level for epic craftable gear to be lower than the max 450 in WotLK.
  
• Sets such as Frozen Shadoweave were "too powerful", damage stats being equated with Tier 6, but available to any tailor without too much trouble (eg. Didn't require nethers). School-specific craftable items will be reviewed.

Blacksmithing

• Blacksmiths will be able to add sockets to a weapon, Armorsmiths will be able to add a metasocket to armor.
• The plan is to try to balance Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing to make both specs viable and interesting.

Fishing

• Fishing will be more interesting and require more than half-conscious clicking.
• There will be fishing-specific food in WotLK just like what was introduced in TBC with recipes like Spicy Crawdad or Golden Fish Sticks. (Might be time to get both this and the cooking skill for my mage...).

Engineering

• Some of the engineering items nerfed in TBC like the Gnomish Mind Control Cap will probably be un-nerfed and/or upgraded in WotLK.
• Items like Rocket Boots will be changed to an "enchantment" allowing you to convert any footwear to Rocket Boots.
• WotLK now allows engineers to do "on-use enchantments" to items, and they're going to use it a lot. (Parachute Cloak enchant, or something to let you shoot webs from your gloves, etc.) -- each "enchantment" would replace any existing one on the armour, and vice versa.

Enchanting

• Enchanters will be able to sell their enchantments at the Auction House (or send them to alts) -- Scrolls of Enchantment.

Alchemy

• Discovery won't be used for "important" recipes anymore, it will be either predictable or just produce "fun" recipes.

Jewelcrafting

• Not as reliant on world drops.

Tailoring

• Tailoring-only flying mount -- the Magnificient Flying Carpet! (I can't wait!)

Inscription

• One inscription is equivalent to one or two talent points, and all the inscriptions aren't about increasing power; sometime they’re a big power increase but they’ll change something else about the spell. (eg. reducing the cast time of Pyroblast down to 3 sec but adding a 25 sec cooldown, or decreasing the effect of Last Stand from 30% to 20% of your max health, but giving it a 2 min cooldown instead of an 8 min cooldown).
• Inscriptions will affect talents, but probably won't affect passive talents very often.
• 15-20 Inscriptions will be available for each class, sometimes with more than one inscription available for a specific skill.

So these are some of the changes to look foward to with professions! The third part of the transcript covered a few questions that people had directed towards Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan. It makes for an interesting read.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

The Sage Completed

Continued from A Mage, a Priest and a Rogue Walk into an Inn...:

Unknown was just starting on Blackwing Lair when the guild leader invited me in. As is usual with joining a new guild, I was under a trial period to prove my dedication and commitment to the guild and to their progression as a raiding body. I fit right in, having found a new home, and was able to attend most raids -- more than the minimum weekly requirement.

We spent the next few months learning the boss encounters and progressing through BWL, while also continuing to clear Molten Core on a weekly basis -- more of us still required gear (I started out with just blues and I think I eventually acquired my full Arcanist set). At the same time, I kept up my PvP as much as I could, achieving rank 7, Knight-Captain. It turned out to be my limit, because I was too dedicated to the PvE elements of the game.

I rolled a warrior at some point and levelled him to 60 throughout that year. I eventually brought him along to alternate runs of Molten Core and Onyxia and got him some Might pieces and his T2 Helm.

Unlike my time as a hunter with BoV, I was present for all boss kills but Chromaggus. My most memorable game moment would have to be when we first killed Nefarian, the final boss for Blackwing Lair, on 10 October 2006. Teamspeak -- our choice of voice communication -- erupted, as everyone cheered and whooped for a couple of mins. It was both exhilirating and relieving and I will never forget that moment. My mage won the roll for the Head of Nefarian, which I handed in for my Master Dragonslayer's Orb.

A week following our first Nefarian kill, I was promoted from regular member to Mage Officer. We had started on the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj -- I could go on about the opening of the gates, our experiences in the 20-man, my grind to exalted with Cenarion Circle to acquire the Blade of Vaulted Secrets, and everything surrounding this time. But I won't. If you want to read a lot more indepth about my 2006 year and my experiences in the game, read my old blog's 2006 entires, as they detail a lot of what happened during the peak of my oldschool gameplay. Warning: plenty of images and detailed World of Warcraft play experience!

Suffice to say, we only managed to get Skeram down, and no other bosses. And when it came to Naxxramas, it was just too close to Christmas and the holiday period before the release of the expansion, so we didn't get even one boss down in that instance. I am immensely looking forward to the Northrend Naxxramas experience!

I did, however, level a rogue to 60, faster than any previous character. It was seven days total playtime, as compared to nine for my warrior. Levelling my fourth 60 before the expansion was an indication that I enjoyed the act of levelling toons. Something about hitting that next level and unlocking skills just appeals to me.

Come the release of The Burning Crusade, I levelled my mage to 70 in eight days. I had run instances with some friends from Ruined and another guildy who was levelling at my own breakneck pace. He beat me to 70 because on the night before I hit that final level, the servers went down. I was two bubbles from levelling and waited for about two hours, but it got too late, so I simply went to bed. When I logged in, guess who had hit 70 overnight. Oh well, I was the first guild member to get my epic flying mount!

What came after the expansion is somewhat tragic. Some of us got impatient and decided to venture off on our own to begin raiding the new content. Infusion was born and we launched into Karazhan in February 2007. We recruited and advanced and made ok progression. We eventually got the numbers to raid Gruul's Lair, but soon after that, interest waned, often not enough members were present to even fill two Karazhan groups, and Infusion dwindled and died.

What I regret the most is our hastiness in going back to raiding. We destroyed Unknown for no good reason but selfishness and impatience. Who knows what might have happened had we waited for enough people to level to 70 and taken things easy for a while. After the fall of Infusion, my PvE raiding went on a downhill slide. My mage went from guild to guild, but everywhere I went, we eventually came up against that brick wall where not enough people would log in for raids. What is it with undedicated people and not wanting to wipe to new content in order to learn and proceed?

I guess this all changed my mindset. As 2008 rolled around, I had levelled six characters to 70. Earlier this year, I gave my 70 warrior to my brother so he could PvP with him. As you can see from my Character List, I enjoy levelling toons almost as much as I used to enjoy raiding. That's not to say that I no longer enjoy raiding -- I love PvE content; it is what drives me in this game. I wish that I was under playable circumstances, but my subscription expired almost two months ago.

When I am able to, I will play again. I will finish levelling my paladin, get my shaman's epic flying mount, try and acquire exalted status with a few more factions on my mage, and possibly even level another toon. I've done the PvP thing a bit, but I will be the first to admit that I'm not the best arena or battlegrounds player. It's fun and challenging as both healer and dps in PvP, but I am wired for PvE content.

I look forward to levelling in Wrath of the Lich King and enjoying these last few months before the expansion is released. I hope that I will be able to raid at level 80 and that circumstances will not prevent me from enjoying regular gaming and monster slaying in the lands of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend.

My World is Warcraft.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

The Beta Rolls On

There were a lot of beta changes over the weekend. More blacksmith craftable weapons and armours have been released; Lake Wintergrasp (PvP zone) was made available; Mages, Warriors, Rogues, Shaman, Druids, and Warlocks all had their talents updated; Naxxramas tokens can be used to purchase a healer shield and a tank shield; many new class glyphs for the inscription profession have been released.

I still yearn for a laptop to hook myself back into playing, grarghhh. :o

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore