The other day, I ran Temple of Ahn'Qiraj with a few people, mostly from one of our server's high-end guilds. It was good because it pushed my Nozdormu rep from Unfriendly to halfway through Honored. If only Hydraxian rep went up that fast. XD
What's unfortunate is that my rep gain could be better. I never won the roll for Head of the Broodlord Lashlayer, even though some -- nay, most -- people who won it when we raided BWL weren't even up to that part of the questline, nor pursued it any further or put it to good use. I was a dedicated Silithian, and yet I never received the head; thus, I cannot gain Brood of Nozdormu rep through Silithid Carapace Fragment turn-ins. AQ40 it is.
And what this teaches us is that 40-man raiding had its negative points. Trying to win a roll against 39 other people is like beating your head against a brick wall in the hopes that you will find its weak point. Oftentimes it is futile. The ironic thing is, I won Head of Nefarian on our maiden kill. o.O
Yesterday, I had the day off. I took the opportunity to play my little warrior instead of my mage. I made five levels and at 38 am ready to do a complete clear of Scarlet Monastery -- having done the prerequisites for the main quest: In the Name of the Light. I guess I will need to spec my brother's warrior to take her through. ;)
What's fun is that every ten levels or so I have been upgrading my warrior's blue weapons. I am sticking with axes, as they tend to have a higher top-end damage. And besides, Draenei don't benefit from any particular weapon, and since axes look so cool, I might as well go with a convention, right?
Currently, she is wielding Sickle Axe and Steelclaw Reaver -- both enchanted with Crusader. It looks friggin' mean -- and when they both proc at the same time: raaaape. ;)
I will enchant my next upgrades with either Strength or Potency, depending on the current cost of Essences of Earth -- seeing as I currently have a huge supply of Large Brilliant Shards, Greater Eternal Essence and Illusion Dust, from having run Stratholme a few times.
Enchanting BoP items is going to be incredibly welcome, now that Inscription has introduced Armor and Weapon Vellum III. XD
I have run into a wee bit of a gold issue right now. I can't really get motivated to do dailies even though I'm running low on cash. I really want to go into the expansion with enough money to purchase my Tailoring and Enchanting upgrades. Still, it's not a huge issue. Having a lot of gold is nice; but it's a luxury, not a necessity. ;)
I guess I need to stop impulsively buying stuff. Yesterday, while searching the AH for Iron Ore for levelling my warrior's Blacksmithing, I noticed that there was a whole lot of cheap Dark Iron Ore. So I logged my mage and bought a heap of stacks to take into Blackrock Depths to increase my reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood. I also found that there were some cheap Lava Cores, so I also got ten of those. :)
The funny thing is, Iron Ore was way overpriced, so I didn't end up increasing Blacksmithing at all. But I did get a nice chunk of Thorium Brotherhood rep. :o A few more MC runs for more cores and I will be working towards two reps at once. ;)
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
Showing posts with label blackrock depths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blackrock depths. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Racials and Naxxramas
I took my shaman to BRD and learned to smelt dark iron, as well as attempting Jail Break!, which I failed because my laptop froze in the middle of combat. :/
Not much else happening in the game for me atm. I respecced my priest back to PvE Holy. She has +1866 heals. Hopefully I will do something interesting this week, like some heroics with my priest and mage.
Racials are being changed. Source.
Kel'Thuzad has been defeated. Looks like the Achievements for server first boss kills work fine! Some nice loot from Naxxramas, too.
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
Not much else happening in the game for me atm. I respecced my priest back to PvE Holy. She has +1866 heals. Hopefully I will do something interesting this week, like some heroics with my priest and mage.
Racials are being changed. Source.
Kel'Thuzad has been defeated. Looks like the Achievements for server first boss kills work fine! Some nice loot from Naxxramas, too.
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
Saturday, September 6, 2008
I'm Baaack!
Last night, I did SSO dailies with my druid. I also started the Onyxia attunement quest chain with my shaman. BRD is a tricky place to solo -- the dwarves have a shield bash ability that locks you out of your school for eight seconds.
This morning, I picked up fishing and cooking with my mage. They will both be a real mission to level. :/
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
This morning, I picked up fishing and cooking with my mage. They will both be a real mission to level. :/
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
Thursday, August 21, 2008
An Interview and Some Lore
On Lore. The OP was asking about NPCs / structures and their movement around the place according to Warcraft lore. The blue post addresses the movement of Naxxramas and Dalaran, as well as how Alliance get more Ashbringer / Arthas type lore than Horde. He also mentions the Warcraft fiction, such as comic books and such that have been written with reference to the worlds and their lore.
Quote
"By the way, regarding Naxxramas, I just wanted to confirm that this would only be moved to Northrend and the level 60 version will not be available anymore. It's likely there won't be any achievements relating to the old Naxxramas, except there might be something related to Atiesh."
Tom Chilton (aka Kalgan, Lead Game Designer) and J. Allen Brack (Production Director) were interviewed at gamona.de:
Quote
How is the beta going ? Is everything alright?
T.C. - Things are definitely going very well, we've got a lot of very good feedbacks through the beta process. We've been making a lot of changes and improvements based on the feedback but overall it's coming along very well.
The beta servers have been very unstable in the last days, is there any improvement ?
J.A.B - We've got our server team who is looking into all problems, the point of our beta process is to actually figure out what problems we have and get them all fixed before we do the big release.
Is there any plan to open more beta realms ?
T.C. - We do actually have plans to start up a realm that has premade characters at level 80, the reason being that we're going to want to give players another opportunity to test some of the end game content without having to go through the leveling process. We can probably do that near the end of the beta process but it might be on a different server, this isn't decided for sure.
When do you plan to open more instances and rise the level cap to level 80 ?
T.C. - Each time we do another patch on the beta we try to open up new content for the players. [...] I don't know if we'll be able to patch this week while we're being here in Europe but that should be coming very soon.
J.A.B - For each patch we try to evaluate how much content do we have, is it time to give players the chance to open that up ? We're talking internally about when it is time to rise us up to level 80 but we're getting close.
Why didn't you separate PvE from PvP more?
T.C. - We made that decision because prior to The Burning Crusade, what we found as people increase their gear they die quicker because PvE gear is specialized gear. For DPS classes as an example it is designed to do the most damage as possible in the shortest time as possible and it does not have a lot of survivability. If that's the best gear players have available, then what happens is they take that into PvP is that they die very quickly and there's not much time for their strategies to evolve. What we've found is that in PvP we had to create gear with balanced offensive capability and survivability and because of that we had to create this separate set of gear with the new stat called resilience to make sure fights lasted long enough so that they are interesting and have depth. [...] Well, certainly something that we want to do for Litch king is better crossover so that when you're doing PvE you are actually able to accumulate some PvP gear in case you decide to try out some PvP you'll have a good starting point. The same would go in reverse, if you're doing a lot of PvP, you might have a couple of really good items that you could use into PvE and do pretty well.
What about the paladin, is there any plans to nerf the DPS Paladin's damage from what it is on beta servers now?
T.C. - We are just now beginning on going through the heavy tuning phase, we really don't do that until the end of the beta generally, where we start going through all of the classes and finding the things that are way out of balance and there's no doubt right now that the ret paladins are doing a lot more damage than what we would expect.
Are you satisfied with how the death knight is going?
T.C. - Yeah, the death knight has been coming along very well, we've been getting a lot of good feedback from it, people seem to like the class, they seem to enjoy the starting experience very much, we really kind of put our heart into the death knight class, hopefully that's going to pan out.
What talent tree do you prefer on the death knights?
T.C. - Personally, I really enjoy the frost talents, but I believe all three trees are very strong, they all definitely all have a strong role to play.
What else do you plan? Are there any more instances coming?
T.C. - Well, certainly, there are a lot more instances we plan to release, CoT: Strath instance, Ulduar, a handful that we are play testing internally that are pretty much ready for players to see, should be one of the patches that come out any time now [...] but it should be rolling out there very quickly.
All the instances were very well designed, however, I consider it unfortunate that say, Azjol-Nerub only has three bosses, its very short.
T.C. - Most players would consider that a fortunate thing, we've been getting a lot of feedback in the past that some of the instances were taking too long, so we're going for the middle ground here, we want to have some diversity between the instances too, there are a lot of players that miss the old big dungeon crawls, like BRD, etc. We want to find ways to deliver that too, but ultimately I think the core experience is that players should be able to get through an instance in less than an hour. Its something that we're trying to be very conscious about in Wrath, unlike in Burning Crusade when we had the heroic instances, those take a very long time to get through, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours depending on your quality of gear. We're trying to make sure when Litch King comes out that when you do the heroic instances, it doesn't take as much time going through it as you did before.
But, we need the epic feeling from the Blackrock Depths too.
T.C. - We're trying to capture that too as much as possible.
How do you plan to balance the 10 and 25 man raid instances? Are there any changes in boss design?
T.C. - There definitely are changes in boss design, for example, not only do we have to have changes in boss design even to get it down to 25 from the way Naxx used to work, certainly in the past at level 60, the four horseman boss took eight different tanks for instance. There definitely has been design change, but the integrity of the encounter remains the same, you still have the four horsemen, they all are still there. The mechanics of the fight are different, you will tank them in different ways, the horsemen will be tanked by different classes, even non tanking classes, kinda like what we have done in the past with warlocks tanking. We have some mechanics like that in place so that we can maintain the integrity of the encounters even though the actual mechanics will be different.
Will Naxx still be one instance?
T.C. - It is still a single instance, it still has that epic feel.
When will Wrath be released?
T.C. - When its ready. Specifically, the fifth of when it's ready.
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
Quote
"By the way, regarding Naxxramas, I just wanted to confirm that this would only be moved to Northrend and the level 60 version will not be available anymore. It's likely there won't be any achievements relating to the old Naxxramas, except there might be something related to Atiesh."
Tom Chilton (aka Kalgan, Lead Game Designer) and J. Allen Brack (Production Director) were interviewed at gamona.de:
Quote
How is the beta going ? Is everything alright?
T.C. - Things are definitely going very well, we've got a lot of very good feedbacks through the beta process. We've been making a lot of changes and improvements based on the feedback but overall it's coming along very well.
The beta servers have been very unstable in the last days, is there any improvement ?
J.A.B - We've got our server team who is looking into all problems, the point of our beta process is to actually figure out what problems we have and get them all fixed before we do the big release.
Is there any plan to open more beta realms ?
T.C. - We do actually have plans to start up a realm that has premade characters at level 80, the reason being that we're going to want to give players another opportunity to test some of the end game content without having to go through the leveling process. We can probably do that near the end of the beta process but it might be on a different server, this isn't decided for sure.
When do you plan to open more instances and rise the level cap to level 80 ?
T.C. - Each time we do another patch on the beta we try to open up new content for the players. [...] I don't know if we'll be able to patch this week while we're being here in Europe but that should be coming very soon.
J.A.B - For each patch we try to evaluate how much content do we have, is it time to give players the chance to open that up ? We're talking internally about when it is time to rise us up to level 80 but we're getting close.
Why didn't you separate PvE from PvP more?
T.C. - We made that decision because prior to The Burning Crusade, what we found as people increase their gear they die quicker because PvE gear is specialized gear. For DPS classes as an example it is designed to do the most damage as possible in the shortest time as possible and it does not have a lot of survivability. If that's the best gear players have available, then what happens is they take that into PvP is that they die very quickly and there's not much time for their strategies to evolve. What we've found is that in PvP we had to create gear with balanced offensive capability and survivability and because of that we had to create this separate set of gear with the new stat called resilience to make sure fights lasted long enough so that they are interesting and have depth. [...] Well, certainly something that we want to do for Litch king is better crossover so that when you're doing PvE you are actually able to accumulate some PvP gear in case you decide to try out some PvP you'll have a good starting point. The same would go in reverse, if you're doing a lot of PvP, you might have a couple of really good items that you could use into PvE and do pretty well.
What about the paladin, is there any plans to nerf the DPS Paladin's damage from what it is on beta servers now?
T.C. - We are just now beginning on going through the heavy tuning phase, we really don't do that until the end of the beta generally, where we start going through all of the classes and finding the things that are way out of balance and there's no doubt right now that the ret paladins are doing a lot more damage than what we would expect.
Are you satisfied with how the death knight is going?
T.C. - Yeah, the death knight has been coming along very well, we've been getting a lot of good feedback from it, people seem to like the class, they seem to enjoy the starting experience very much, we really kind of put our heart into the death knight class, hopefully that's going to pan out.
What talent tree do you prefer on the death knights?
T.C. - Personally, I really enjoy the frost talents, but I believe all three trees are very strong, they all definitely all have a strong role to play.
What else do you plan? Are there any more instances coming?
T.C. - Well, certainly, there are a lot more instances we plan to release, CoT: Strath instance, Ulduar, a handful that we are play testing internally that are pretty much ready for players to see, should be one of the patches that come out any time now [...] but it should be rolling out there very quickly.
All the instances were very well designed, however, I consider it unfortunate that say, Azjol-Nerub only has three bosses, its very short.
T.C. - Most players would consider that a fortunate thing, we've been getting a lot of feedback in the past that some of the instances were taking too long, so we're going for the middle ground here, we want to have some diversity between the instances too, there are a lot of players that miss the old big dungeon crawls, like BRD, etc. We want to find ways to deliver that too, but ultimately I think the core experience is that players should be able to get through an instance in less than an hour. Its something that we're trying to be very conscious about in Wrath, unlike in Burning Crusade when we had the heroic instances, those take a very long time to get through, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours depending on your quality of gear. We're trying to make sure when Litch King comes out that when you do the heroic instances, it doesn't take as much time going through it as you did before.
But, we need the epic feeling from the Blackrock Depths too.
T.C. - We're trying to capture that too as much as possible.
How do you plan to balance the 10 and 25 man raid instances? Are there any changes in boss design?
T.C. - There definitely are changes in boss design, for example, not only do we have to have changes in boss design even to get it down to 25 from the way Naxx used to work, certainly in the past at level 60, the four horseman boss took eight different tanks for instance. There definitely has been design change, but the integrity of the encounter remains the same, you still have the four horsemen, they all are still there. The mechanics of the fight are different, you will tank them in different ways, the horsemen will be tanked by different classes, even non tanking classes, kinda like what we have done in the past with warlocks tanking. We have some mechanics like that in place so that we can maintain the integrity of the encounters even though the actual mechanics will be different.
Will Naxx still be one instance?
T.C. - It is still a single instance, it still has that epic feel.
When will Wrath be released?
T.C. - When its ready. Specifically, the fifth of when it's ready.
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
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