Return to Azaroth

[pixelcurious]

After having not played World of Warcraft for several months, I was recently offered seven free days of gametime (an incentive to get players to return before the expansion that's coming out very soon). Instead of picking up my old characters where I left them, I rolled a couple of new ones. I made a blood elf mage, Tiphareth, and got her up to

Comments

[furryjackal]

I wish I could convince the crowd of cast-outs to look into WoW as an alternative to CoH when it closes but there's so much prejudism towards it from all of them

[pixelcurious]

Stags are the new travel form, replacing the leopard form, and now the icon for it (which is shaped like a cloven hoof) finally makes sense! Night elf stags are paler and their antlers aren't as craggy looking. I think they have little jewels hanging from their antlers too.

Stag form looks really great, and I read somewhere that there's a way to have other players mount up, though I don't know how...

Bear form is definitely still there! And it has it's own spec now too, Guardian. Druids have FOUR specs instead of the usual three. Kitty spec is still called Feral, and then there's Resto and Balance. Guardian is a awesome name for bear spec, imo.

As far as Guild Wars goes, I wonder how long they'll even keep it around now that they have GW2. :/

[furryjackal]

Druids sound like they've gotten even more complex! I'm intrigued, now. *eyes her 7 day thing, again* C_C

[pixelcurious]

Worgen can be druids, but not Draenei. The idea is that the Night Elves taught them druid knowledge. Worgen don't seem like a very good fit for druids, to me, being all vicious and shit... but I guess it makes as much sense as troll druids! Which I just cannot do, though not for lore reasons. While I like the crazy troll druid bears and cats, with their bright colors and mohawk manes and all, their bat flight form just looks retarded.

I don't think druids are more complex now, if anything they're simplified. Dividing out bears helps both kitty and bear specs make more sense. Also, talents have been greatly simplified. Oh, and you no longer have to go to the trainer for your new spells, you just get them when you level. And AOE looting! AOE looting is the best thing ever.

NCSoft is suffering? I'm not up on the state of them as a company, I didn't realize that. I thought they were doing really well with Aion and GW2.

[furryjackal]

Yeah when I played last they had done away with the need for training, at that point. That was such a godsend! AOE looting? O.O that almost sounds like something DC Universe does. You hit Ctrl. and EVERYTHING comes to you! IT's glorious!
I'm almost tempted to take up my 7 days but I know I won't devote enough time to it and that'd be a waste of the freebie. Still, I enjoy my occasional jaunts through Azeroth. Especially at the holidays! So much fun celebrating Winter Vale :)

Asfor NCsoft, they're not doing... great. Most of their revenue is their Asian markets but they're still not humongous powerhouses of money. CoH didn't do anything in THEIR market but it was doing well here, but they felt it wasn't worth the bother. Aion does better there, fails here, too.
Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 and Lineage 1 are their primary money makers but still... it's apparently not a huge profit, last I had read.