3.3 and Cataclysm

So here we are.  The fall of the Lich King.  I expect trumpets to sound at any moment, but that would require the server to be up! (cheap shot, i know)  It’s at this point i have to worry about cataclysm.  I haven’t seen any word that even the F&F alpha is going on, and there’s definately not a beta happening.   So how far away is cataclysm?

I understand that ICC is going to be released over time similar to ToC, but how long?  I have guildies that hold a (as i see it) misguided belief that Cataclysm is in line for XMas ‘10.  I dont know about other WoWers, but that is a long time.  Even if ICC is stretched out for 3 months before we can hit Arthas, that’s still 9 months of farming him.

The Gods know that Arthas will be down by the top guilds the week he’s released.  I mean, they’ll probably not even wipe on their path of destruction to his doorstep.   Sure the ‘common’ guilds, even the pseudo-casual like my own might not be up to him at the point he’s released.   My own people may never even reach him, i do not know.  (but more of an issue with their own effectiveness/dicipline to the craft that is war)

But i digress.  9 months is an extended period of time to have no new content of.  Unless blizzard goes back on themselves and 3.3 isnt the last content patch of this expansion.  So where do we go from here?

Is Cataclysm going to take until the holidays?  Will it go through a (everything is relative, especially in blizzard time) fast alpha/beta cycle?

I cannot honestly say i’d have very much motivation to log in if 8, 9, 10 months from now, im still zoning into the same raid portal i’ll be going into from this wednesday on.

Save me blizzard, for the only cure to my disease is rolling that Goblin.

Gold! I needs it to survive!

Is it odd that while i dont really have a use for gold in wow, I loooove profit. I like seeing large numbers on my account total.  Large is relative of course.  The most gold server-wide i’ve ever had was just over 11k.  Currently i’m sitting at about 9.

I was almost dirt poor until ToC.  But when you run Toc 10 and 25 on your main, and another 10 on your alt.  that’s 45 triumphs a week, not counting any VoAs or Onyxias.   My server is not a high ranking server, we dont have world class guilds, and the economy is horrible.   So with that, there was a decent stretch of time that people still horded all their triumphs, and didnt sell a damn thing.

Hear that? It’s my greed.  So I sold a number of Crusader orbs, and got myself up to where i stand now.

This begs the following thoughts.  Do i really care about icecrown?  I dont forsee my guild clearing it any time soon.  Maybe we never will.  Who knows.  But what i do know, is that i’m very excited over cataclysm.  What better way to start cataclysm than with a lot of gold.

Do i really need to get tier 10 right away?   How much are the new crusader orbs going to be? (primordial saronite this time around i believe).   Will the market for them go well?   I certainly hope so.  I will bleed out my emblems of frost if it means i can fatten up my wallet in preperation for….  for anything.   For whatever may be.  Cataclysm-esque mammoth?   Did our mounts get too used to the cold, so we need to train temperate flying?***

I dont know what i’ll need gold for.  But at the same time it doesnt really matter.   If theres one thing that always happens in wow, it’s a gold sink.  Mark my words.  I’ll be ready.

 

 

***:  I really, >>Really<< cant wait to see the reason blizz uses to keep up from flying right away in cataclym (if any of course.  they might not)

The wave used to be done in stadiums….

All this hype on google wave!  I wish i could actually motivate myself to devote the hour+ to watch the video.  Luckily, my fiancee has watched some of it and given me some summaries.   While it sounds flexible, and pretty crazy interesting…  its probably something i’ll just have to use myself to get a good idea over.

Just as back in the day when i was offered a gmail invite and i thought “I dont know, i already have an email address….”, wave could end up the same deal.  I dont know where i’d be without my gmail.   My original email vs. gmail is like B&W vs Color TV.  Or maybe closer to B&W to BluRay.

But, there’s not much i can do about it at the moment.  I’ve lost touch with old friends, especially ones who would have google invites.  There may be eventual hope in some other people, but nothing major.   I did make a post on ‘WoW on Wave’ thanks to #Ithato.  How that’ll end up I’m not sure.  But it’s nice to see a list of wowers on there.  Even the coveted Tekkub (/swoon).

Not much else i can write about something Iv]sfda;lfjdsghad;.

I dont like typing on this laptop >.>

Anyway… something i’ve had no personal experience.

 

All this being said.  I wonder how lightweight ChromeOS will be.  This laptop has issues running XP, so i’m wondering if it’ll be able to handle Chrome…   Issues for future times i guess.

I Remember back in the day….

Wow ages.  It’s about to hit 5 years old.  Some people out there are like me, and played since release day.  Some longer with the beta/alpha.  Think about this.  Did you go to high school?  You have spent more time as a wow player, than you did in High school. (arguable true, but i refer to just time being a member, not time online.  Just go with it for now )  This is a long time for any one game to last.  Despite new bosses, new expansions, this is still world of warcraft.  You’re still mashing shadowbolt, still taunting, still casting flash heal.  For the most part, the fights are different, and you have to avoid things that arent fire, but in all respects to movement, might as well be fire.   Warcraft is still just warcraft.

What can wow do to keep people into it?  Well that’s simple.  The one thing i love about wow beyond anything else.  Changes.  Nerf? Buff?  I don’t care.  I love changes.  I love new expansions for the way they complete @$%& over the normal method and change what you’re doing.  The proposed talent changes are a great start.  The renewal of the old zones (maybe i’ll actually get an alt up).  These are all things that while people may not all care for, it still changes what they’re doing.   Change is the single most powerful tool the WoW dev’s have.

 

I guess i’ll use this post to go over some of the changes with some thoughts on them.

As far as new races go, goblins are nice.  Worgen I *sort* of have a problem with.  I find it hard to see them as alliance, although their starter quest chain may shed some light on that.  Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying i see worgen as horde either.  Humans (and by extension the alliance) doesn’t have a great record in allying with ‘people’ that are different.  Worgen have in the past attacked humans and caused much grief to the alliance and the horde.  I just dont see, without any new information, how the alliance would be so quick to accept them into the fold.   The horde on the other hand, would (almost) never trust anything that is even partially human.   But i also do not see what race they would have picked beside worgen and goblins.   Goblins have existed as character models compatible with everything but helms for a long time now.  And worgen are just…. humans with different racials.   and fur.

New class combinations!  Dear god finally.  What i want to see is troll animal forms.  There’s quite a bit of debate about them going on, so i’m not going to speculate much as far as that goes.  Doesnt do me any real good anyway, i lost the motivation to level my druid 2 years ago.  He’s still logged out in Un’goro, waiting to see the light of day.

Five extra talent points with no new talent.  I’d like to believe that it would allow more freedom, and more utility talents to be taken.  But we all know that you’ll be able to reach some new uber talent in the next tree with those 5 points, that you’ll need to spend every point to get that last dps out of your spec.   So at least you get that much.

Guild advancement!  Weeee!

 

But of course.  I really have one main concern as far as cataclysm go.  This outweighs my worries on any other subject in the entire world.   of warcraft.
When i hit 85, and maybe have entry level raid gear.   Will i be able to solo The Eye?  I want to farm for the pheonix, but i dont want to risk losing to anyone >.>

 

~Gaoul
p.s.  Soul shard change? About damn time.

Technorati Tags: Wow,cataclysm,expansion,warlock

This is a test

This is a two part test.  Not only am I making this an easy win a speech recognition just for shiggles, but I’m also using windows like a writer.  The speech recognition itself as far as dictation goes isn’t perfect but I am relatively happy with it.  It doesn’t hurt that correcting mistakes within speech recognition is relatively easy.  But fortunately when I make random sounds while thinking it often tries to take them for words.  But this can be corrected through practice.  My current main issue is that I’m still getting over being sick  and it is doing its best to translate my coughs into a blog.  It’s interesting trying to dictate to a blah post instead of writing it, the whole process feels different since I am not actually constantly typing but instead talking at my computer.  Admittedly part of my difficulties with dictation comes from not knowing the actual commands and floundering a bit with them.

The second part of this is also testing windows live writer.  It easily enough integrated into my word press account of flu was not able to download the theme to display it appropriately as such during writing or in this case dictation.  I’m not sure if the areas from writer or something on word press’ side. I’ve no idea about tag providers.  When doing this manually through word press i add them by hand.  This is probably something all have to look up.

As a side note I am also 25 today and about to get myself some badass  lunch.

-Gaoul

Good information isnt easy to find.

This is true and false at the same time. Finding good information is technically easy. Accurately finding specific good information can be incredibly hard.

If you want good wow information, a lot of people will point you to elitist jerks. A veritable holy grail of information, most of it of the highest quality no less. But the threads on EJ tend to wander, and if you’re a newer reader you don’t necessarily want to sift through 50 pages of posts to find the 1 thing you’re looking for. The other issue is maintenance. Even EJ suffers from being up-to-date. Part of the problem, which is arguably a positive part of WoW, is the number of different styles of play. Even for just 1 class. Let’s say Mr. Nub wants some death knight information. That’s great! But do you want frost, unholy, or blood? Dual wield of 2hander? Tank or dps? These different styles dont even necessarily have their own threads. If you want specific dual wield unholy dps, do you look at the unholy dps thread? or the dual wield thread?

I do not have good fixes for this. I am not a cataloger of information. The variance of information also is dependant on who has the most passion for each individual classes. Shaman information in EJ is easy to find. But once again, there’s less options with the shaman. Caster dps, dw dps, or heals. 3 threads. In a world that i could create myself, i’d entrust such things to wowhead. If they had a couple of volunteers per class work out guides to class play, i think it would be a huge boon towards site hits and popularity. (not that they need any help ) You can argue that this would be the same issue as a mod author tryign to add every feature into their mod when all they originally wanted was 1 thing. Too much bloat can be a problem. I wouldnt mind extensions of the site of course. My dream? Man, i want shaman information, i would know that all i had to do was go to shaman.wowhead.com and find everything a growing shaman would want.

Dreams ‘eh?

Finding the right information shouldnt take a long time. Soemone somewhere should have a dedicated site kept up to date (and yes, this includes PTR changes which some people dont like to do much work on due to subjectibility to change *cough*cough*) If i had the time, dedication, and team to do it i’d try. But unfortunately, i lack everything. So like many people, all i can do is sit quietly and complain on the internet.

QQ Moar.
-Gaoul

The Disgruntled Addon User

One of the best things in WoW is Custom User Interfaces.
One of the worst things in WoW is an add-on author who doesn’t update fast enough for you

Anyone who pays attention to my WoWing can tell you I love mods.  Moreso than that, I love trying new mods.  Release Quality? optional.  Beta? Fun! Alpha? IT DOESNT DO ANYTHING BUT LOOK COOL.

Ahhh….  love it.
Anyway.  Here’s a couple mod mentions that people might enjoy.

Hud
It’s beta quality, and the updates come about as frequently as…….. something that doesnt update.  But its a fresh design on a now regular concept, despite the less-than-impressive name
Not all features implimented.  Does track runes for DK’s, and combo points for rogues/cats.  Havent checked lastest version, but the previous one did not track Maelstrom Weapon.  Use at your own risk.

oGlow
A simple mod that adds a nice-yet-not-too-bright colored border around an item to indicate quality.  i.e. item icon of an epic has a purple border.  My reason for usage?  Oh hey, i’m in a pug.  /inspect.  if i see purples all the way down, i  at least know its not a completely fresh 8o.  good enough.  if there are greens and blues…. maybe i’ll boot them.

Acheron
Another relatively simple mod.  I use this mostly because i’m the GM and i assist with the raid leading.  It sorts out combat log information and gives you a list of damage/heals to individual people in the raid.  i.e.  The wipe started when both healers died… what happened?   /acheron  /look at <healer 1> and <healer 2>   oh, they were hit for 5 million damage from <mimirons uber rocket of doom> .  It can show you why people died.
ProTip: Mousing over someone in the acheron lists will bring up an at-curser tooltip of the Cause-of-Death.

Opie
…I really dont feel like getting into this mod.  It’s useful, relatively easy to use and setup.   go to the homepage for examples on it and ideas on what to use it for.  It can be done for all sorts of things.

Vuhdo
Some people use Grid+Clique, some people use Healbot.
They should use Vuhdo.
Of course, that’s a bad statement in general.  Each click-frame-to-heal-people mod/mod combo has it’s own features.  Vuhdo (to me) is simple to set up, has a feature set I enjoy,
and as far as at least healbot/grid are concerned, has a default look that i prefer.   And yes.  I’m that shallow.  Looks matter a lot.  I’ll give up a pretty good mod feature (not that Vuhdo gives up anything)
if it’ll mean my mod looks badass.

That’s it for now.  I may continue this post later, or make a new one, or conquer the world later.  But for now, there’s class to get ready for.

Ah patch day.  What are the odds of a mod not working?  What are the odds when you run about 100 of them?  I loathe patch days for this very reason.  My interface is complicated.  I have tons of mods to tweak every damn thing possible to my liking.

UI Notes (as of mmoui minion/curse updates on the night of 08.08.09)
Spamsentry: causes no chat to be seen.
Vuhdo: frames are messed up        note: only on the wowinterface versions 1.169 and 1.169_2, curse still has 1.168 which works fine.
Bartender: Latest works fine, but the anchor to the totem bar isnt aligned with the actual bar properly (only slightly off)

Test Post #2

Diagnostoc Concerns.

This space for rent

Just a space filler, becasause hello world makes me /facepalm.