Thoughts on Wow - Part 4b - Ch-ch-changes! Turn and Face the Strange!
Blizzard also introduced the LFG queue. This meant that you could queue for a Heroic, go about your business, and when enough players had been found from across the realms, you got popped into a Heroic. If you did this often, you got a pet. If you did it a lot you got a title. The longest time I ever spent waiting was about twenty minutes for DPS. I did my dailies while questing.
And speaking of daily quests… I missed Isle of Quel’Danas. There all of the dailies were in the same spot. With Wrath, they were all over the bloody place. I missed my pretty zone.
Heroics were relatively easy. There was no need to crowd-control. They were quick.
There were other changes but I can’t think of anything that stands out.
When Icecrown Citadel was released, I had a total of four level 80s. I had my shaman, mage, warlock, and hunter. I was also leveling a druid. I was raiding two nights a week with my mage’s guild, Ashes to Ashes. I was with them from the beginning. I wiped with them. I won with them. I was there spending three hours just to try to get Lady Deathwhisper down. I put in my dues.
Achievements were added into the game, Achievement Unlocked. If you did something
Titles were added. I have Crusader Deminara, Ambassador Melinara, Xinelle the Lovefool, Ianta the Patient and I think that’s it. I’d like to think that the titles on those characters reflect their personalities. Deminara, my shaman, respects the Argent Crusade because they’ve crossed faction lines. It totally has nothing to do with thinking that Tirion Fordring is a silver fox. Melinara, my mage, is the more scholarly and intellectual type. Okay, okay. Ambassador and Crusader, you pretty much get at the same time and I wanted them each to have something different. Ianta is an Affliction warlock. Curses are her thing so of course she’s patient. My druid, Nirmayi, also has the patient title. I think I’ll probably change it to Nirmayi of Darnassus. I have no excuse about Xinelle the Lovefool. It doesn’t fit anything except that I was bound and determined to have something different. The only title that I was every really jealous of anyone having was Starcaller. It’s just pretty and it sounds epic, Charly the Starcaller. See!? It just sounds nice.
And I just went back and looked at my characters. I lied about my mage. It’s Melinara, Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Hmm, you know, I don’t think that I like that. I may change it. I don’t know.
Again, going back to gear… Blizzard decided that they wanted to streamline the gear. Hunters and Shaman, with the exception of the stat Expertise, could use the same gear. Spirit, a stat used to regain mana to cast spells with, was changed so that all three caster classes could use it. Don’t ask me about the changes to the plate armor and the other leather armor. I don’t know. I don’t play those classes so I couldn’t really tell you. I am a caster, I shoot arrows or I play Super Action Whack-A-Mole. That’s it.
Actually, that change might be from Burning Crusade. I don’t remember. I do remember that there was a lot of whining, or QQing, about the change. “That means other people can roll on my gear!” Items used to have +Healing Spellpower. They stopped doing that.
Heirlooms! Heirlooms were added, that’s another change.
Heirlooms are pieces of gear that do not bind to a character when they are used. Instead they bind to the player’s account and as you increase in levels, the stats increase. Two of the pieces also provide a ten percent bonus to exp, so that’s an additional twenty percent that you are getting when you turn in a quest or kill a monster. It saves out on replacing gear every few levels and you get pieces, like trinkets, that are normally found at higher levels. They’re kind of awesome and I wish that you could transfer them across servers but they are still awesome.
People complained about these two. Sometimes it seems that if anything is made easier, questing or getting mounts, people bitch that the casuals are being catered too.
Bitch, please.
Casuals, those people who can only devote a few hours each week or they’re just busy. Those people who may only play once or twice a week. Those people who have other things to do, other hobbies, or whatever. I’m a casual player, what of it? You could only buy them if you had a level eighty already. You could buy them with badges and later with, shit, a certain kind of badge that you got doing a certain kind of daily quests. So you had to go through the grind to get them. It just made it easier for those of us to get to level eighty, that’s all.
Another change, there was no more brightly-colored gear. No. Everything in Wrath of the Lich King, except for Shaman Level 9 armor, was ugly as sin. Everything was the color of dirt and I do mean everything. I like the shiny. I don't like dull and brown.
And speaking of daily quests… I missed Isle of Quel’Danas. There all of the dailies were in the same spot. With Wrath, they were all over the bloody place. I missed my pretty zone.
Heroics were relatively easy. There was no need to crowd-control. They were quick.
There were other changes but I can’t think of anything that stands out.
When Icecrown Citadel was released, I had a total of four level 80s. I had my shaman, mage, warlock, and hunter. I was also leveling a druid. I was raiding two nights a week with my mage’s guild, Ashes to Ashes. I was with them from the beginning. I wiped with them. I won with them. I was there spending three hours just to try to get Lady Deathwhisper down. I put in my dues.
Achievements were added into the game, Achievement Unlocked. If you did something
Titles were added. I have Crusader Deminara, Ambassador Melinara, Xinelle the Lovefool, Ianta the Patient and I think that’s it. I’d like to think that the titles on those characters reflect their personalities. Deminara, my shaman, respects the Argent Crusade because they’ve crossed faction lines. It totally has nothing to do with thinking that Tirion Fordring is a silver fox. Melinara, my mage, is the more scholarly and intellectual type. Okay, okay. Ambassador and Crusader, you pretty much get at the same time and I wanted them each to have something different. Ianta is an Affliction warlock. Curses are her thing so of course she’s patient. My druid, Nirmayi, also has the patient title. I think I’ll probably change it to Nirmayi of Darnassus. I have no excuse about Xinelle the Lovefool. It doesn’t fit anything except that I was bound and determined to have something different. The only title that I was every really jealous of anyone having was Starcaller. It’s just pretty and it sounds epic, Charly the Starcaller. See!? It just sounds nice.
And I just went back and looked at my characters. I lied about my mage. It’s Melinara, Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Hmm, you know, I don’t think that I like that. I may change it. I don’t know.
Again, going back to gear… Blizzard decided that they wanted to streamline the gear. Hunters and Shaman, with the exception of the stat Expertise, could use the same gear. Spirit, a stat used to regain mana to cast spells with, was changed so that all three caster classes could use it. Don’t ask me about the changes to the plate armor and the other leather armor. I don’t know. I don’t play those classes so I couldn’t really tell you. I am a caster, I shoot arrows or I play Super Action Whack-A-Mole. That’s it.
Actually, that change might be from Burning Crusade. I don’t remember. I do remember that there was a lot of whining, or QQing, about the change. “That means other people can roll on my gear!” Items used to have +Healing Spellpower. They stopped doing that.
Heirlooms! Heirlooms were added, that’s another change.
Heirlooms are pieces of gear that do not bind to a character when they are used. Instead they bind to the player’s account and as you increase in levels, the stats increase. Two of the pieces also provide a ten percent bonus to exp, so that’s an additional twenty percent that you are getting when you turn in a quest or kill a monster. It saves out on replacing gear every few levels and you get pieces, like trinkets, that are normally found at higher levels. They’re kind of awesome and I wish that you could transfer them across servers but they are still awesome.
People complained about these two. Sometimes it seems that if anything is made easier, questing or getting mounts, people bitch that the casuals are being catered too.
Bitch, please.
Casuals, those people who can only devote a few hours each week or they’re just busy. Those people who may only play once or twice a week. Those people who have other things to do, other hobbies, or whatever. I’m a casual player, what of it? You could only buy them if you had a level eighty already. You could buy them with badges and later with, shit, a certain kind of badge that you got doing a certain kind of daily quests. So you had to go through the grind to get them. It just made it easier for those of us to get to level eighty, that’s all.
Another change, there was no more brightly-colored gear. No. Everything in Wrath of the Lich King, except for Shaman Level 9 armor, was ugly as sin. Everything was the color of dirt and I do mean everything. I like the shiny. I don't like dull and brown.