So I watched this documentary on Hulu Sunday night after a RL friend and fellow WoW-player recommended it to me. I was putting off writing about it, and now it seems I've been scooped here and here, as apparently the filmmakers are sending copies out to MMO blogs (not mine).
Tonight is the last night it will be available for free on Hulu. If you have a free 90 minutes tonight, give it a watch before it's gone.
I'll write about it tomorrow after you've had a chance to watch it, since I believe it is much more interesting if you go in without knowing what to expect.
I'm not endorsing anything that's said in it; I just found it very, very interesting.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Interesting Quote
From a preview of the WoW beta (the original game, not the xpacs) still on this internet from the ancient era of two-thousand and four:
Though we expect more nowadays, and should always strive to improve, maybe the combat system wasn't so bad for its time.
"For all the improvements, it's remarkable now little actual change there has been in gameplay. Even the simplest of battles are involved affairs that require player interaction, it's not just a matter of setting the warrior to auto-swing and occasionally delivering a kick. The various rage/mana/etc. managements that each class has keep things interesting. Battles do often play out similarly - charge, rend, wait for 2 attacks, yell, wait an attack, smash - but the ability to participate does make a difference. A warrior has to be particularly quick with his Overpower shortcut which will permit him to score a hit despite a 'Dodge'."
Though we expect more nowadays, and should always strive to improve, maybe the combat system wasn't so bad for its time.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Goblins & Worgen: Classes?
SPOILER ALERT
Well, it would seem I was right about this. That's one for two! Now I just have to make one more correct prediction, then I can title a post "two out of three ain't bad" and check that one off my bucket list.
The xpac will be Cataclysmic, Worgen will join the Alliance, and Goblins, the Horde.
Being a giant geek, I immediately began to wonder what classes those races might include. Death Knights are a foregone conclusion, and I doubt we'll see a new hero class this xpac. If I were Blizzard, I'd also be favoring healing classes and trying to avoid plate dps classes where possible. It would also be nice to give alliance another shaman race and horde another paladin race.
But then, we have to consider the lore. I know, "lorelol". And that's a problem. We can speculate all we want about the lore, but in the end Blizzard can always pull some crazy retcon like they did with Draenei, or with BE Paladins, and just say "well this is a previously undiscovered branch of the Goblins that really loves the earth and can be a Shaman, despite decades of Goblin deforestation and stripmining" or whatever. Nonetheless, I think they'd prefer to stick to lore where they can, and only deviate when they would consider it a necessity for gameplay and balance. With that assumption, I went and did some research on the two races.
First, we've got the Goblins. We know a lot more about them, being an established race and all. The ability to have neutral goblin towns is so useful to the developers that I think it's safe to say that we won't see the entirety of the Goblin race joining the Horde. Most likely it will be one of the trade princes deciding to break off from the rest (Goblin society is capitalism-focused, and ruled by a Coalition of trade princes. We've only really met goblins from two of these cartels; the others haven't really appeared in Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms). Steamwheedle Cartel and the Venture Company, for instance, will likely stay neutral or hostile to both factions. This opens up a nice opportunity to revamp the character models for player Goblins as well, just as playable Darkspear trolls look different from NPC forest trolls.
According to wowwiki: "Officially, five trade princes exist, though one or two may be lurking about in the shadows." The leader in charge of the Venture Company is not technically a trade prince, but a lesser, independent "Mogul", so it's possible that the splinter of goblins that become playable are under one of them instead of a prince. On the other hand, thee Steamwheedle Cartel was the group that originally sided with the Horde, so it's possible they will again, or that this is a splinter group that separates from the cartel.
It also means that these goblins can be a little different from the ones we have encountered so far. I brought up the 'ole wowwiki to get some background on the race, and learned a lot. For instance, the goblins claim that "if not for their frail physical forms, goblins would rule the world", given their high intelligence and technology. This gently points away from warriors, but we might be meeting a cartel that bred 'em a little sturdier, or might easily find that goblins, like gnomes, can make fine warriors. Druids and shaman are pretty much a no go with goblins, and would take a massively insulting slight-of-hand to pull off given their history of complete contempt for mother nature when it stands in the way of profits. Traditionally, they also tend to focus on material pursuits and find magic and religion frivolous, meaning that they don't tend to be priests, paladins, mages, or warlocks naturally ("Goblins place their faith in themselves and in gold. They raise eyebrows at insubstantial concepts such as shamanism and the Holy Light, preferring gods they can see, weigh, and spend"). I think this is a much easier hole to plug: just say this particular cartel specialized in the trade of magical artifacts, and over time some particularly gifted members learned to be mages or warlocks. That would fly just fine. Or maybe this happens to be the only cartel with religious beliefs, and maybe make that the reason only this one cartel decided to break off and join the horde. Then you could at least have priests.
Goblins, with their interest in gold and firearms, will almost certainly be able to play rogues and hunters (this will be awesome, with pets they could almost ride!).
Meanwhile, we know a whole lot less about the Worgen. I think it's clear that the Worgen faction that joins the alliance will not be the same worgen we have encountered in Duskwood or while dealing with Arugal. Those feral worgen were summoned from another dimension (much like Outlands) where they battle a relentless enemy known as the Emerald Flame, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say is the Burning Legion (since that dovetails nicely into the idea that the Naaru are using Azeroth to gather races from many different planets to take a final stand against the Legion). Arugal summoned them with magic, while a Night Elf summoned and commanded them via an artifact known as the Scythe of Elune. Supposedly, the Scythe appeared in response to a prayer to Elune for help, but quickly spiraled out of control, summoning Worgen all on its own. It is believed the Scythe was lost in Duskwood (and is the source of the darkness there), but may have been found by someone (perhaps the LotR ripoff "Black Riders" that were searching for it). So one viable avenue to bring them into the world is to have them flee to Azeroth to escape the Legion, and pull something like they did with Draenei where the Worgen we play are a more intelligent, "higher" version of the race. Perhaps the ones we pulled through previously were warped by the summoning, or were some lesser slave race akin to apes. If Blizzard goes this route, it opens up almost infinite class possibilities, since we know almost nothing about their society.
On the other hand, and far more likely, the Worgen we play have already been right here on Azeroth all along. If you've ever played an Undead character past level 10, you've probably been to Silverpine forest, just southwest of Undercity. In the southern end of that zone lies Arugal's Shadowfang Keep, and the small town of people he magicked into werewolves. If you continue south, you'll find an impassable wall: the Greymane wall.
Beyond that wall lies the human nation of Gilneas, sealed off completely from the rest of the world since before the Third War. No one has heard from them since. Their king, Gen Greymane, was isolationist and basically considered the problems of the Alliance to not be his problems. The position of this city on the seaboard, its proximity to SFK, and its previous association with the alliance and lore importance, and the fact that it is an already-existing capital city for the developers to use, all point to the possibility that playable worgen will in fact be Gilneans, somehow transformed into Worgen-like creatures during their isolation. This would explain why the Worgen look and think differently from the ones we have encountered so far, perhaps being more like human/animal hybrids. So much about this one fits that I find it to be highly likely. This would create a ready-made capital city on that continent, while the goblins could easily settle a trade city in the open lands of Kalimdor. The goblin race is based in Kezan, a large island in the South Seas, of which wowwiki says "Several cities exist on Kezan, including the nefarious Undermine," which will likely be the neutral city (the "Dalaran") of the next xpac, making it an unlikely, but potential, capital city for the playable goblins. One of the other "several" cities might be the starting area, with the early leveling zones being the surface of Kezan and the passage Undermine blocked off until a certain level.
Another nice supporting tidbit from wowwiki: "After Patch 3.1.0, the loading screen/ship route from Menethil to Theramore no longer crosses Gilneas." I think we have a winner!
I know that was a little off track, but the fallout is that we'll either have a situation where (a) the devs are free to make the worgen anything they want, or (b) the worgen are an offshoot of humanity, and share their culture and general learnings. Since it's useless to speculate about (a), let's consider (b).
It would make warriors, rogues, mages, and warlocks obvious choices. Druids would be right out, since a furry turning into a furry isn't that exciting, and the race has no connection with the elves anyway. Hunters also seem likely, since the peninsula of Gilneas is much larger than the city itself, and being isolated probably drove them to hunt to survive (plus keen animal sense help with the hunt). However, I would be able to buy the idea that the worgen develop a special kinship with, and begin to learn Shamanism from, the draenei, being the other "freaks" of the Alliance (and perhaps the animal transformation lends these humans a closer relationship with nature). Unfortunately, it's a stretch.
So let's combine the game design parameters with the lore and see if we can come up with educated guesses about what classes each race might have.
Looking at the population numbers, you'll find that currently paladins are tied with death knights as the most popular class. As a dev, I'd avoid giving either race paladins. I doubt they would bar those new races from being death knights, though it is possible. I'd want to favor healing classes and disfavor plate dps classes without losing all tank options. Druids don't really work for these races, and I'm avoiding paladins, so DKs and warriors for both seem obvious to give them tanks. Without druids or paladins, I'd try to do whatever I could to give both races priests and shaman. However, shaman don't work for goblins without insane lore twisting. Hunters are popular, so we should only use that class if we need to fill in some space, and also consider that right now we've got 3 alliance hunter races and 4 horde hunter races. Rogues fit perfectly for both classes, and along with warlocks and shaman are the least-played class in the game. So fit in rogue, warlock, and shaman where I can.
Where does that leave us?
Goblin:
Death Knight
Mage (maybe)
Priest
Rogue
Warlock (maybe)
(Hunter or Warrior)
So we avoid the nature-lovers and focus on the intelligence of the goblins. If Blizzard wishes to avoid the arcane, we may see both hunters and warriors, but not mages (though the goblinish affinity for fire and explosions are in favor of it).
Worgen
Death Knight
Priest
Rogue
Warlock
Warrior
(Hunter or Shaman)
EDIT: I neglected the 6-class limit in my original post, listing both hunter and shaman. I've changed it to an either/or situation.
Here we mimic the human classes and add shaman if at all possible. The biggest leap I take here is dropping mages. This is partly because the Worgen already have too many options that fit better, and partly because mages are quite popular. I also find it likely that the combination of no ties to the Kirin Tor along with the worgen transformation probably make arcane practitioners quite rare in Gilneas, a nation known more for its burliness than its cleverness.
---------------------
So there are my predictions for which classes will be offered as options for the new races. There are far too many variables for me to be exactly right, but if I at least had the right idea I'll probably count it as 2 out of 3. :)
UPDATE 8/31/09: Well, though my reasoning turned out to be mostly sound, my conclusions were off-base here, mostly due to information that I couldn't have had or guessed, such as the expanded class selection for the other races. I'm much happier with what they chose to do compared to what I speculated, so I consider myself lucky to be wrong on this one. Now excuse me while I beat up the guy who sold me this crystal ball.
Well, it would seem I was right about this. That's one for two! Now I just have to make one more correct prediction, then I can title a post "two out of three ain't bad" and check that one off my bucket list.
The xpac will be Cataclysmic, Worgen will join the Alliance, and Goblins, the Horde.
Being a giant geek, I immediately began to wonder what classes those races might include. Death Knights are a foregone conclusion, and I doubt we'll see a new hero class this xpac. If I were Blizzard, I'd also be favoring healing classes and trying to avoid plate dps classes where possible. It would also be nice to give alliance another shaman race and horde another paladin race.
But then, we have to consider the lore. I know, "lorelol". And that's a problem. We can speculate all we want about the lore, but in the end Blizzard can always pull some crazy retcon like they did with Draenei, or with BE Paladins, and just say "well this is a previously undiscovered branch of the Goblins that really loves the earth and can be a Shaman, despite decades of Goblin deforestation and stripmining" or whatever. Nonetheless, I think they'd prefer to stick to lore where they can, and only deviate when they would consider it a necessity for gameplay and balance. With that assumption, I went and did some research on the two races.
First, we've got the Goblins. We know a lot more about them, being an established race and all. The ability to have neutral goblin towns is so useful to the developers that I think it's safe to say that we won't see the entirety of the Goblin race joining the Horde. Most likely it will be one of the trade princes deciding to break off from the rest (Goblin society is capitalism-focused, and ruled by a Coalition of trade princes. We've only really met goblins from two of these cartels; the others haven't really appeared in Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms). Steamwheedle Cartel and the Venture Company, for instance, will likely stay neutral or hostile to both factions. This opens up a nice opportunity to revamp the character models for player Goblins as well, just as playable Darkspear trolls look different from NPC forest trolls.
According to wowwiki: "Officially, five trade princes exist, though one or two may be lurking about in the shadows." The leader in charge of the Venture Company is not technically a trade prince, but a lesser, independent "Mogul", so it's possible that the splinter of goblins that become playable are under one of them instead of a prince. On the other hand, thee Steamwheedle Cartel was the group that originally sided with the Horde, so it's possible they will again, or that this is a splinter group that separates from the cartel.It also means that these goblins can be a little different from the ones we have encountered so far. I brought up the 'ole wowwiki to get some background on the race, and learned a lot. For instance, the goblins claim that "if not for their frail physical forms, goblins would rule the world", given their high intelligence and technology. This gently points away from warriors, but we might be meeting a cartel that bred 'em a little sturdier, or might easily find that goblins, like gnomes, can make fine warriors. Druids and shaman are pretty much a no go with goblins, and would take a massively insulting slight-of-hand to pull off given their history of complete contempt for mother nature when it stands in the way of profits. Traditionally, they also tend to focus on material pursuits and find magic and religion frivolous, meaning that they don't tend to be priests, paladins, mages, or warlocks naturally ("Goblins place their faith in themselves and in gold. They raise eyebrows at insubstantial concepts such as shamanism and the Holy Light, preferring gods they can see, weigh, and spend"). I think this is a much easier hole to plug: just say this particular cartel specialized in the trade of magical artifacts, and over time some particularly gifted members learned to be mages or warlocks. That would fly just fine. Or maybe this happens to be the only cartel with religious beliefs, and maybe make that the reason only this one cartel decided to break off and join the horde. Then you could at least have priests.
Goblins, with their interest in gold and firearms, will almost certainly be able to play rogues and hunters (this will be awesome, with pets they could almost ride!).
Meanwhile, we know a whole lot less about the Worgen. I think it's clear that the Worgen faction that joins the alliance will not be the same worgen we have encountered in Duskwood or while dealing with Arugal. Those feral worgen were summoned from another dimension (much like Outlands) where they battle a relentless enemy known as the Emerald Flame, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say is the Burning Legion (since that dovetails nicely into the idea that the Naaru are using Azeroth to gather races from many different planets to take a final stand against the Legion). Arugal summoned them with magic, while a Night Elf summoned and commanded them via an artifact known as the Scythe of Elune. Supposedly, the Scythe appeared in response to a prayer to Elune for help, but quickly spiraled out of control, summoning Worgen all on its own. It is believed the Scythe was lost in Duskwood (and is the source of the darkness there), but may have been found by someone (perhaps the LotR ripoff "Black Riders" that were searching for it). So one viable avenue to bring them into the world is to have them flee to Azeroth to escape the Legion, and pull something like they did with Draenei where the Worgen we play are a more intelligent, "higher" version of the race. Perhaps the ones we pulled through previously were warped by the summoning, or were some lesser slave race akin to apes. If Blizzard goes this route, it opens up almost infinite class possibilities, since we know almost nothing about their society.
On the other hand, and far more likely, the Worgen we play have already been right here on Azeroth all along. If you've ever played an Undead character past level 10, you've probably been to Silverpine forest, just southwest of Undercity. In the southern end of that zone lies Arugal's Shadowfang Keep, and the small town of people he magicked into werewolves. If you continue south, you'll find an impassable wall: the Greymane wall.
Beyond that wall lies the human nation of Gilneas, sealed off completely from the rest of the world since before the Third War. No one has heard from them since. Their king, Gen Greymane, was isolationist and basically considered the problems of the Alliance to not be his problems. The position of this city on the seaboard, its proximity to SFK, and its previous association with the alliance and lore importance, and the fact that it is an already-existing capital city for the developers to use, all point to the possibility that playable worgen will in fact be Gilneans, somehow transformed into Worgen-like creatures during their isolation. This would explain why the Worgen look and think differently from the ones we have encountered so far, perhaps being more like human/animal hybrids. So much about this one fits that I find it to be highly likely. This would create a ready-made capital city on that continent, while the goblins could easily settle a trade city in the open lands of Kalimdor. The goblin race is based in Kezan, a large island in the South Seas, of which wowwiki says "Several cities exist on Kezan, including the nefarious Undermine," which will likely be the neutral city (the "Dalaran") of the next xpac, making it an unlikely, but potential, capital city for the playable goblins. One of the other "several" cities might be the starting area, with the early leveling zones being the surface of Kezan and the passage Undermine blocked off until a certain level.
Another nice supporting tidbit from wowwiki: "After Patch 3.1.0, the loading screen/ship route from Menethil to Theramore no longer crosses Gilneas." I think we have a winner!
I know that was a little off track, but the fallout is that we'll either have a situation where (a) the devs are free to make the worgen anything they want, or (b) the worgen are an offshoot of humanity, and share their culture and general learnings. Since it's useless to speculate about (a), let's consider (b).
It would make warriors, rogues, mages, and warlocks obvious choices. Druids would be right out, since a furry turning into a furry isn't that exciting, and the race has no connection with the elves anyway. Hunters also seem likely, since the peninsula of Gilneas is much larger than the city itself, and being isolated probably drove them to hunt to survive (plus keen animal sense help with the hunt). However, I would be able to buy the idea that the worgen develop a special kinship with, and begin to learn Shamanism from, the draenei, being the other "freaks" of the Alliance (and perhaps the animal transformation lends these humans a closer relationship with nature). Unfortunately, it's a stretch.
So let's combine the game design parameters with the lore and see if we can come up with educated guesses about what classes each race might have.
Looking at the population numbers, you'll find that currently paladins are tied with death knights as the most popular class. As a dev, I'd avoid giving either race paladins. I doubt they would bar those new races from being death knights, though it is possible. I'd want to favor healing classes and disfavor plate dps classes without losing all tank options. Druids don't really work for these races, and I'm avoiding paladins, so DKs and warriors for both seem obvious to give them tanks. Without druids or paladins, I'd try to do whatever I could to give both races priests and shaman. However, shaman don't work for goblins without insane lore twisting. Hunters are popular, so we should only use that class if we need to fill in some space, and also consider that right now we've got 3 alliance hunter races and 4 horde hunter races. Rogues fit perfectly for both classes, and along with warlocks and shaman are the least-played class in the game. So fit in rogue, warlock, and shaman where I can.
Where does that leave us?
Goblin:
Death Knight
Mage (maybe)
Priest
Rogue
Warlock (maybe)
(Hunter or Warrior)
So we avoid the nature-lovers and focus on the intelligence of the goblins. If Blizzard wishes to avoid the arcane, we may see both hunters and warriors, but not mages (though the goblinish affinity for fire and explosions are in favor of it).
Worgen
Death Knight
Priest
Rogue
Warlock
Warrior
(Hunter or Shaman)
EDIT: I neglected the 6-class limit in my original post, listing both hunter and shaman. I've changed it to an either/or situation.
Here we mimic the human classes and add shaman if at all possible. The biggest leap I take here is dropping mages. This is partly because the Worgen already have too many options that fit better, and partly because mages are quite popular. I also find it likely that the combination of no ties to the Kirin Tor along with the worgen transformation probably make arcane practitioners quite rare in Gilneas, a nation known more for its burliness than its cleverness.
---------------------
So there are my predictions for which classes will be offered as options for the new races. There are far too many variables for me to be exactly right, but if I at least had the right idea I'll probably count it as 2 out of 3. :)
UPDATE 8/31/09: Well, though my reasoning turned out to be mostly sound, my conclusions were off-base here, mostly due to information that I couldn't have had or guessed, such as the expanded class selection for the other races. I'm much happier with what they chose to do compared to what I speculated, so I consider myself lucky to be wrong on this one. Now excuse me while I beat up the guy who sold me this crystal ball.
Monday, August 10, 2009
One million WoW subscriptions...
...this is where the money from literally a million WoW subscriptions goes.
Meanwhile, "additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later".
Update: Here's a sensationalist piece on Kotick that nonetheless echoes some of my concerns here. I've got a lot of personal relationships based in WoW that I am loathe to give up, so hopefully another competing MMO will fill the gap.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Simple guide to the Northrend Beasts in 3.2's new raid
The only boss encounter currently available in WoW's new raid instance is the "Northrend Beasts". It consists of 3 different boss fights chained together (with only a few seconds in between), essentially creating one 3-phase boss. Here's a guide to handling this battle in 10-man normal mode. Bring 2 tanks and 2-3 healers (I'd recommend 3 to start out with).
Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler
He's a Magnataur. He throws snobolds at you.
Executive Summary:
Tank him in the middle of the room. Assign two dps to kill Snobolds. Have tanks switch (taunt) at 3 stacks of the debuff. Move (do I really have to say this?) out of the patches of fire.
TL;DR version:
Once you talk to the organizer by the entrance, that wuss runs out and Gormok emerges from the big gate on the other side of the arena. Tank him in the middle of the room, and have the raid spread out behind him. He will drop fire patchs on the ground under random people. Move out of them. Every once in a while he'll pull a little Snobold (little rat-person) out of his pocket (Ed. note: what pocket?!?) and throw it on a raid member, hindering them. Assign two of your dps to remove these snobold hats ASAP. They should make the following macro:
/tar Snobold
Ranged dps are better for this, but melee works fine too.
The boss does an aoe stun in a small radius around himself, so don't stand near him unless you have to.
Every 10 seconds, he will add a stack of an undispellable Impale debuff to the current tank (the icon looks like a spear). Have your other tank taunt the boss once it reaches 3 stacks. 30 seconds later, tank 1's stack will wear off and tank 2 will have 3 stacks, so have tank 1 taunt it back. Repeat until he's dead.
Remind your healers that the debuff still does a large DoT even if the boss is no longer targeting that tank.
Pro tip: Gormok is disarmable. He cannot apply the debuff while disarmed, so you can slow the dot stacking that way.
Phase 2: Acidmaw & Dreadscale (aka Poison One and Bile One)
This is the "not one but two jormungar worms" of internet meme legend. You fight them both at once. At all times, one of them will be half-burrowed (sticking stationary out of the ground) and one will be loose and mobile. They both burrow and switch roles every 30 seconds or so.
Executive Summmary: Have a tank on each Worm, and face both of them away from the raid. The tank should kite the mobile worm backwards around the outer part of the room, a la Grobbulus. Spread the raid out between the two worms. All dps should be on the worm that is mobile. When Acidmaw is loose, anyone in the raid who gets the Burning Bile debuff must run to the tank (avoiding the rest of the raid if possible) to dispel the Parlytic poison from the tank. When Dreadscale is loose, anyone who gets Parlytic poison must run toward the tank who has the Burning Bile ticking on him. The Burning Bile ticks minor aoe damage (2-3k) in a radius around the debuffed player, and ticks of that damage will dispel the Parlytic poison. It can be removed by standing in one of the poison clouds. Make sure that you kill Acidmaw first, but only when Dreadscale is very low on health.
TL;DR version:
At best, you'll get a few ticks of drinking done in between Gormok and these guys.
The burrowed worm acts as an immobile turret, and should be treated a lot like Mimiron's head. Point him away from the raid. My group had a warlock tank this using Searing Pain. I've read of other groups using a traditional tank on the burrowed worm, but I found myself getting knocked back a lot when trying this. Either way probably works. The image to the right is not the same color as either boss, but it's there to give you an idea of what the worms look like when half-burrowed. They will be stationary, but most of their body is still visible.
Whichever worm is not burrowed will be free to move around like a traditional mob. Have your main tank pick it up and face it at an angle away from the raid. The loose worm will drop a poison cloud just like Grobbulus, so the tank will need to back up periodically to move the worm out of these clouds.
The raid should gather loosely in between the two worms. Every time they switch roles, they will burrow underground then re-emerge in random locations, so the raid needs to be alert and figure out where to move on the fly. The worms have a frontal cone and leave the clouds behind them, so make sure all ranged and healers stay behind the burrowed worm and to the side of the loose worm.
The gimmick to this fight is the interaction between Paralytic Bite (applied by Acidmaw) and Burning Bile (applied by Dreadscale). The Paralytic Bite is a one-minute-duration poison that increases in damage-per-tick the longer it is applied (will eventually kill you) and also slows the victim the longer it remains up, immobilizing them completely after about 20 seconds. The Burning Bile is a DoT that damages the victim and anyone within 10 or so yards every time it ticks (for about 2-3k). Getting hit with a tick of this is the only way to dispel Paralytic Bite (aside from Divine Protection for Paladins and Ice Block for mages).
Whichever worm is in turret mode will randomly apply their respective debuff to members of the raid every 20 seconds or so. They target one raider, but the debuff has an aoe application, meaning that if your raiders are too close together, more than one person will get the debuff. So spread out. Meanwhile, whichever worm is mobile will periodically apply its debuff to its current target, i.e. your tank. So you'll either have poisoned raid members who need to get close to a tank who is ticking the Bile, or you have biled raid members who need to dispel the paralysis from the tank.
There are a number of ways to deal with this. What I suspect most raids will do is have any raid member who gets debuffed simply run to the tank, dispel, then run back (making a detour to a poison cloud to dispel Bile if needed). Since we already had two tanks anyway, we took some pressure off our healers by having the offtank taunt the mobile worm whenever the main tank was hit with the debuff. Then the main tank would move toward the raid to dispel/be dispelled. This spread the damage out a bit too, since the original tank was no longer taking melee damage and the new tank didn't have a dot ticking while holding the boss. It also made it a lot easier for raid members slowed by Parlytic Bite to reach the Biled tank.
Also, keep in mind it's beneficial for the group to stack up when Dreadscale is loose, but dangerous to do so when Acidmaw is loose (since random raiders get the aoe Bile). The simplest solution may be to always group up, because it makes it easier to reach a Biled tank while slowed if you aren't spread out, and the Bile dot is small enough that it shouldn't be dangerous, provided your raiders can move out of the group fast enough (see: XT-002).
Since Paralytic Bite cannot be dispelled except by Bile, you must kill Acidmaw first, and make sure all Bites are dispelled before killing Dreadscale. However, once you kill one of them, the remaining worm enrages, so don't finish Acidmaw until Dreadscale is low on health.
Phase 3: Icehowl
Icehowl is a giant Yeti. Fighting him is very simple, but he's a heavy-hitter.
Executive Summary: tank him with your back to the wall and the raid spread out in a half-circle behind him. When he knocks everyone back and stuns them, be ready to immediately strafe sideways if he emotes that he is targeting you or someone near you. Blow cooldowns while he is stunned after running into the wall. If he kills someone and enrages, have your hunter tranq shot it.
Click here for specifics on all the boss abilities, courtesy of MMO-Champion.com.
Because I'm borrowing their picture so you better give them some traffic!
TL;DR version:
Icehowl is only dangerous because he hits hard. The fight is almost entirely a tank and spank.
Your tank should put his/her back to the wall to mitigate Icehowl's knockback. The raid should spread out in a half-circle behind/to the side of him. Melee should stand apart from each other as well. Think Anub'Rekhan in Naxx.
Every 20 seconds or so he'll blow freezing breath toward a random raid member. This is just like the ability of the trash leading up to Hodir. It freezes anyone in the cone it touches (thus the spreading out).
A few times during the fight (I didn't time it, but this first phase lasted about a minute each time) he'll stomp the ground, stunning the entire raid and knocking you all back against the wall behind wherever you happen to be standing. He will emote that he's focusing on one of you, and when the stun wears off you have only about 2 seconds to strafe to the side (you get a speed boost during this time). He'll hop back, then charge right at where you were. He will insta-kill anyone who is still in front of him when he reaches the wall, even if they weren't the intended target, so your raid needs to be aware of who is near them and whether they need to move. If he hits someone, he'll turn red and enrage, and you'll need to immediately dispel this with Tranq Shot or Anesthetic Poison, because your tank probably won't survive this. Since we had two tanks for the other phases anyway, we just had an offtank at the ready in case he did this and killed the main tank. If Icehowl misses, he'll comically hit the wall and stun himself for about 20 seconds, taking double damage the whole time. Use this opportunity to Bloodlust and blow your cooldowns to dps him. Once the stun wears off, the main phase resumes, so get back in position.
Finish him, and collect your ilevel 232 loot that dwarfs anything you could get outside of Uld 25 hard modes!
I'd gauge this encounter as roughly as difficult as Freya normal mode. Go go loot pinata!
Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler
He's a Magnataur. He throws snobolds at you.
Executive Summary:
Tank him in the middle of the room. Assign two dps to kill Snobolds. Have tanks switch (taunt) at 3 stacks of the debuff. Move (do I really have to say this?) out of the patches of fire.
TL;DR version:
Once you talk to the organizer by the entrance, that wuss runs out and Gormok emerges from the big gate on the other side of the arena. Tank him in the middle of the room, and have the raid spread out behind him. He will drop fire patchs on the ground under random people. Move out of them. Every once in a while he'll pull a little Snobold (little rat-person) out of his pocket (Ed. note: what pocket?!?) and throw it on a raid member, hindering them. Assign two of your dps to remove these snobold hats ASAP. They should make the following macro:
/tar Snobold
Ranged dps are better for this, but melee works fine too.
The boss does an aoe stun in a small radius around himself, so don't stand near him unless you have to.
Every 10 seconds, he will add a stack of an undispellable Impale debuff to the current tank (the icon looks like a spear). Have your other tank taunt the boss once it reaches 3 stacks. 30 seconds later, tank 1's stack will wear off and tank 2 will have 3 stacks, so have tank 1 taunt it back. Repeat until he's dead.
Remind your healers that the debuff still does a large DoT even if the boss is no longer targeting that tank.
Pro tip: Gormok is disarmable. He cannot apply the debuff while disarmed, so you can slow the dot stacking that way.
Phase 2: Acidmaw & Dreadscale (aka Poison One and Bile One)
This is the "not one but two jormungar worms" of internet meme legend. You fight them both at once. At all times, one of them will be half-burrowed (sticking stationary out of the ground) and one will be loose and mobile. They both burrow and switch roles every 30 seconds or so.
Executive Summmary: Have a tank on each Worm, and face both of them away from the raid. The tank should kite the mobile worm backwards around the outer part of the room, a la Grobbulus. Spread the raid out between the two worms. All dps should be on the worm that is mobile. When Acidmaw is loose, anyone in the raid who gets the Burning Bile debuff must run to the tank (avoiding the rest of the raid if possible) to dispel the Parlytic poison from the tank. When Dreadscale is loose, anyone who gets Parlytic poison must run toward the tank who has the Burning Bile ticking on him. The Burning Bile ticks minor aoe damage (2-3k) in a radius around the debuffed player, and ticks of that damage will dispel the Parlytic poison. It can be removed by standing in one of the poison clouds. Make sure that you kill Acidmaw first, but only when Dreadscale is very low on health.
TL;DR version:
At best, you'll get a few ticks of drinking done in between Gormok and these guys.
The burrowed worm acts as an immobile turret, and should be treated a lot like Mimiron's head. Point him away from the raid. My group had a warlock tank this using Searing Pain. I've read of other groups using a traditional tank on the burrowed worm, but I found myself getting knocked back a lot when trying this. Either way probably works. The image to the right is not the same color as either boss, but it's there to give you an idea of what the worms look like when half-burrowed. They will be stationary, but most of their body is still visible.
Whichever worm is not burrowed will be free to move around like a traditional mob. Have your main tank pick it up and face it at an angle away from the raid. The loose worm will drop a poison cloud just like Grobbulus, so the tank will need to back up periodically to move the worm out of these clouds.
The raid should gather loosely in between the two worms. Every time they switch roles, they will burrow underground then re-emerge in random locations, so the raid needs to be alert and figure out where to move on the fly. The worms have a frontal cone and leave the clouds behind them, so make sure all ranged and healers stay behind the burrowed worm and to the side of the loose worm.
The gimmick to this fight is the interaction between Paralytic Bite (applied by Acidmaw) and Burning Bile (applied by Dreadscale). The Paralytic Bite is a one-minute-duration poison that increases in damage-per-tick the longer it is applied (will eventually kill you) and also slows the victim the longer it remains up, immobilizing them completely after about 20 seconds. The Burning Bile is a DoT that damages the victim and anyone within 10 or so yards every time it ticks (for about 2-3k). Getting hit with a tick of this is the only way to dispel Paralytic Bite (aside from Divine Protection for Paladins and Ice Block for mages).
Whichever worm is in turret mode will randomly apply their respective debuff to members of the raid every 20 seconds or so. They target one raider, but the debuff has an aoe application, meaning that if your raiders are too close together, more than one person will get the debuff. So spread out. Meanwhile, whichever worm is mobile will periodically apply its debuff to its current target, i.e. your tank. So you'll either have poisoned raid members who need to get close to a tank who is ticking the Bile, or you have biled raid members who need to dispel the paralysis from the tank.
There are a number of ways to deal with this. What I suspect most raids will do is have any raid member who gets debuffed simply run to the tank, dispel, then run back (making a detour to a poison cloud to dispel Bile if needed). Since we already had two tanks anyway, we took some pressure off our healers by having the offtank taunt the mobile worm whenever the main tank was hit with the debuff. Then the main tank would move toward the raid to dispel/be dispelled. This spread the damage out a bit too, since the original tank was no longer taking melee damage and the new tank didn't have a dot ticking while holding the boss. It also made it a lot easier for raid members slowed by Parlytic Bite to reach the Biled tank.
Also, keep in mind it's beneficial for the group to stack up when Dreadscale is loose, but dangerous to do so when Acidmaw is loose (since random raiders get the aoe Bile). The simplest solution may be to always group up, because it makes it easier to reach a Biled tank while slowed if you aren't spread out, and the Bile dot is small enough that it shouldn't be dangerous, provided your raiders can move out of the group fast enough (see: XT-002).
Since Paralytic Bite cannot be dispelled except by Bile, you must kill Acidmaw first, and make sure all Bites are dispelled before killing Dreadscale. However, once you kill one of them, the remaining worm enrages, so don't finish Acidmaw until Dreadscale is low on health.
Phase 3: Icehowl
Icehowl is a giant Yeti. Fighting him is very simple, but he's a heavy-hitter.
Executive Summary: tank him with your back to the wall and the raid spread out in a half-circle behind him. When he knocks everyone back and stuns them, be ready to immediately strafe sideways if he emotes that he is targeting you or someone near you. Blow cooldowns while he is stunned after running into the wall. If he kills someone and enrages, have your hunter tranq shot it.
Click here for specifics on all the boss abilities, courtesy of MMO-Champion.com. Because I'm borrowing their picture so you better give them some traffic!
TL;DR version:
Icehowl is only dangerous because he hits hard. The fight is almost entirely a tank and spank.
Your tank should put his/her back to the wall to mitigate Icehowl's knockback. The raid should spread out in a half-circle behind/to the side of him. Melee should stand apart from each other as well. Think Anub'Rekhan in Naxx.
Every 20 seconds or so he'll blow freezing breath toward a random raid member. This is just like the ability of the trash leading up to Hodir. It freezes anyone in the cone it touches (thus the spreading out).
A few times during the fight (I didn't time it, but this first phase lasted about a minute each time) he'll stomp the ground, stunning the entire raid and knocking you all back against the wall behind wherever you happen to be standing. He will emote that he's focusing on one of you, and when the stun wears off you have only about 2 seconds to strafe to the side (you get a speed boost during this time). He'll hop back, then charge right at where you were. He will insta-kill anyone who is still in front of him when he reaches the wall, even if they weren't the intended target, so your raid needs to be aware of who is near them and whether they need to move. If he hits someone, he'll turn red and enrage, and you'll need to immediately dispel this with Tranq Shot or Anesthetic Poison, because your tank probably won't survive this. Since we had two tanks for the other phases anyway, we just had an offtank at the ready in case he did this and killed the main tank. If Icehowl misses, he'll comically hit the wall and stun himself for about 20 seconds, taking double damage the whole time. Use this opportunity to Bloodlust and blow your cooldowns to dps him. Once the stun wears off, the main phase resumes, so get back in position.
Finish him, and collect your ilevel 232 loot that dwarfs anything you could get outside of Uld 25 hard modes!
I'd gauge this encounter as roughly as difficult as Freya normal mode. Go go loot pinata!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
3.2 Cometh: What You Actually Need to Know
So I was about as wrong as I could possibly be on this one. Patch 3.2 hits today, which I have to admit is at least mildly exciting. Something is better than nothing. The patch notes are here, but there are enough changes that it's easy to get lost. What's the fallout for us?Your brief to-do list when you log on tonight:
-epic gems
-the new 5-man
-the new raid
-the new BG
-new dailies (blech)
-start gathering badges
1) New Battleground: which is awesome. All old BGs are now faster, and reward you extra for defending.
2) New raid: Only one boss will be available today, in only the normal difficulty in 10 and 25 mode. In the Northrend Beast encounter, you'll fight a succession of 3 battles: first against a minotaur, then "Not One, but TWO Jormungar Worms!!!!", then a giant Yeti. Early reports from the PTR give the impression that the strategies are, respectively: 1) tank switch, 2) kite while mixing the two types of spit, and 3) tank and spank. Now that's raiding excitement. Guide here.
3) New dungeon: normal mode drops Naxx 10-level loot, heroic drops Naxx 25-level loot. Trinkets are in normal mode, weapons on heroic. You'll be running this every day on every one of your alts. Heroic also drops Champions Seals, which were previously only available through Argent Tourney dailies.
4) Epic Gems: They have 4 more stat points than rare gems. You can get them by prospecting titanium, 10-20 heroism badges (depending on color), 10k honor, or an alchemy transmute on a 20-hour cooldown. My prospector's entire bank stocked with titanium is betting that prices will be INSANE for the next few days, so I hope you have some honor/badges saved up. Unless you are on my server. Then I advise you to buy gems at horribly marked-up prices. Patterns require quite a few JC daily tokens to get, so also expect patterns to be rare. If you need a non-traditional cut (something other than spellpower or strength, etc) then arrange for a JC guildie to pick up that pattern. Tell them they'll make money on the niche market while everyone else is flooding the AH with Runed gems. Guide here.
5) Badges, badges, badges MUSHROOM MUSHROOM: Everything in the game, from
heroics on up, now drop only Conquest badges. The only exception is the new Coliseum raid, which drops a new Triumph Emblem which can be used on tier 9-level gear. No more heroism or valor, though you can still trade down for them at the vendors and all of that loot remains in the game. So now you can buy a selection of tier 8.5 by running just about anything. Once you have all that, trade down and buy some tier 7.5 with valor tokens. The daily regular dungeon quest now gives 1 Conquest emblem, while the daily heroic now gives two Triumph Emblems (so you can even get tier 9 without raiding! If you do dailies every day for two months! Yay...for...casuals? I guess?)6) Respec your DK: All DKs got their talents reset today. Go blood or frost, depending on whether you want to dual wield or swing a 2-hander. Frost is now the Dual-Wield tree, so don't bother with it unless you have two decent, slow weapons for dps or 2 nice tanking weapons for...erm... tanking (though be advised that as a dual-wielding tank, your threat will be in the pooper because tanking weapons tend to be fast and Threat of Thassarian doesn't apply to Rune Strike). Since you can't use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle on one-handers, your survivability should be similar with 2 tanking weapons as it is with 1 dps two-hander. Also, DK tanking got nerfed hard, particularly with Icebound Fortitude having its cooldown double to 2 minutes. Gone are the days of them being so OP that they are the only option for some of the Ulduar hard modes like Iron Council and Vezax (though they still may be favored for Vezax due to their free self-healing). Unless you are in love with dual-wielding, go Blood for DPS, mainly because it takes advantage of all the armor penetration gear dropping in Ulduar, the new raid, and the new 5-man. On top of that, Unholy is a complete mess right now, with DPS DKs actually dropping Scourge Strike in favor of Obliterate and stuff. I'd recommend you don't even bother with it.
7) Dailies (if you're into that kind of thing): I'm sick of dailies, so I'm not really up to speed on this one. The gist is that if you already have exalted with AC and every one of your faction cities, then you unlock even more dailies which allow you to pimp out your squire (in the sense that you equip him with upgrades, not the sense that you sell his innocence to pedophiles) and stuff. Unless you main is an engineer, this is worth doing on your main because it unlocks a mobile bank/mailbox/vendor. Guide here.
8) Professions: Speaking of engineers, you got buffed. Hurray! Start farming mechanical mobs in Storm Peaks for a butler recipe, and enjoy your AH in Dalaran. As for the rest of you, your profession bonuses got upgraded to match the new epic gems. JCs may need to resocket some of their Dragon's Eyes, as they are no longer prismatic. Alchemists have a new reusable arena flask to make. The rest of us probably won't have to do anything new.
9) Ret paladins: the rest of you can dismiss what I'm about to say as gibberish: use Seal of Vengeance/Corruption (Seal of Blood/Martyr has been deleted from the game), save your Art of War procs for Exorcism because they now make it instant cast (otherwise it has a 1.5 sec cast time now)
10) FINALLY implemented new feral forms and totem interface! Congratulations to all of your druids and shamans out there. You deserve it after suffering through tauren cat form and having to find bar space for all those totems so you can put all 4 out every time the group moves.
11) Dungeon ID extensions: Now you can extend your raid lockout for another week. You can do this as many times as you want. You decide on your own to do it, so you can't get stuck to an ID by a raid leader. You can even extend recently expired IDs before you get saved to a new one, or choose to un-extend a raid ID you already extended if you didn't do anything new in the instance that would get you saved to it! This is a really great change.
Enjoy the patch!
PS: Special Bonus: For a limited time, there are new orphans in Dalaran. Vanity pets, go!
Friday, July 31, 2009
MMO Roundup: 7/31/09
Champions Online: I really want to be a part of this hype train, hopefully it starts up soon. As it stands, I can't really say much because of the NDA.
They've begun outlining the powersets on the Champions website. This is a great idea. The powers are one of the main attractions. I really can't wait until someone codes a web-based character planner (are you listening undoubtedly-overworked CO web team?) Then again, I'm exactly the kind of geek who can pass half an hour playing with a WoW talent calculator, though I wonder if I'm the target audience.
I had been wondering what the end game would be, and a recent interview with lead designer Bill Roper revealed that, at launch, the endgame will mainly consist of a randomized series of 5 daily team missions that can be completed to unlock a 6th, more epic mission. These missions will reward tokens that can be redeemed for rewards. So in the fashion of the Champions so far, they've taken an idea from WoW and rebuilt it from scratch to fit their game. And it's right up my alley: randomized, small group, alternative reward system . . . it's like they read my post about endgame grinding! Or at least part of it.
Beyond that, the Nemesis system sounds like good fodder for mid- and endgame content. At level 25, you can design your hero's own arch-enemy, and then get special missions where you face him and storyline seeds such as ambushes from his minions (whom you also designed). And these are all shareable with other players, so for instance you could be doing a 3- player mission and run into a supervillain who turns out to be your teammate's nemesis.
But this is all speculation, it remains to be seen how this will play out in reality. I'm looking forward to the beta becoming open next month, when I'll be able to talk a lot more about this game.
Cryptic recently announced their pre-order bonuses as well. Puzzlingly, Amazon and Wal-Mart do not offer head-start access (log into the live game a few days early), while Gamestop and Best Buy do. So ordering from GS or BB seemed like a no-brainer. Since I'm not a fan of Gamestop, I wanted to pre-order from Best Buy. Unfortunately, Best Buy doesn't have any preorder bonus details up on their website, and in fact even has the wrong release date for the game. Rather than risk missing out on the open beta or early access or even the first week of the game due to BB's lack of interest, I ended up swallowing my distaste and pre-ordering from Gamestop. Hopefully Cryptic can get BB to get their shit together. Champions recently topped GS's sales list, and I'm betting that's because they were the only retailer to offer early access and detail the preorder bonuses on their website, so GS is probably receiving the bulk of the preorders.
Retailers, take heed. Paying attention to the MMO audience pays off.
Aion: Surprisingly slow simmer on this front. Voices were added to the game for this weekend's beta event, which is nice because the first version of Hatch ended up with a hilariously high-pitched voice when I was forced to choose without being able to preview them (and they were still using the Korean voice acting). Still on the radar, but I have to say that while this one looked solid to begin with, the more polish Cryptic applies the Champions, the more it looks like Aion won't be getting my full attention this September.
WoW: As we await Blizzcon, a few things of interest have popped up.
By now, you've all heard that Sam Raimi will be directing the WoW movie. This announcement makes me think 2 things:
1) Cataclysm might be the name of the movie, not the xpac. I hope it's the xpac, because nothing short of a world-changing revolution is going to keep me interested in WoW for another 2 years.
2) Sam Raimi is not to my taste, so I'm disappointed by the pick. His direction is serviceable for the most part, but I find a lot of his unconventional camera work to be more annoying and unprofessional-looking than creative (see the scene from Spider-man 2 where Doc Ock first wakes up and kills the medical team that was about to remove his tentacles for an example). It feels cheap. And though I enjoyed some of the humor in Army of Darkness, that's largely due to the writing and acting; I don't think the directing helped it along much. Though Spider-man is my favorite comic book character ever, I was disappointed with the films overall, and most of that can be attributed to the directing (and the casting and the acting, except for J. Jonah Jameson). This news is almost as bad as Shia LaDoof getting cast as Y the Last Man (sidebar: DEAR GOD WHYYYYY?!?!?!!?)
Other than that, the WoW zeitgiest is focusing on the patch. Evidence is mounting that the patch will be released this coming Tuesday rather than the post-Blizzcon release I predicted.
1) MMO-Champion pointed out that the current PTR patch is labeled "Retail", a sign that it's almost ready to ship.
2) Blizzard released a Q&A today about the two major new features in the patch: the pve instances and the pvp battleground. As we know, PR is done when a weakness needs to be covered. I think they are seeing a lot of confusion from players about how things will work, and the fact that they chose NOW to clear it up rather than later points strongly to an impending release.
As a player, I don't really care either way. As a blogger, I'd like to be proven right. :)
We'll see how it goes. Until then, have a great weekend!
They've begun outlining the powersets on the Champions website. This is a great idea. The powers are one of the main attractions. I really can't wait until someone codes a web-based character planner (are you listening undoubtedly-overworked CO web team?) Then again, I'm exactly the kind of geek who can pass half an hour playing with a WoW talent calculator, though I wonder if I'm the target audience.
I had been wondering what the end game would be, and a recent interview with lead designer Bill Roper revealed that, at launch, the endgame will mainly consist of a randomized series of 5 daily team missions that can be completed to unlock a 6th, more epic mission. These missions will reward tokens that can be redeemed for rewards. So in the fashion of the Champions so far, they've taken an idea from WoW and rebuilt it from scratch to fit their game. And it's right up my alley: randomized, small group, alternative reward system . . . it's like they read my post about endgame grinding! Or at least part of it.
Beyond that, the Nemesis system sounds like good fodder for mid- and endgame content. At level 25, you can design your hero's own arch-enemy, and then get special missions where you face him and storyline seeds such as ambushes from his minions (whom you also designed). And these are all shareable with other players, so for instance you could be doing a 3- player mission and run into a supervillain who turns out to be your teammate's nemesis.
But this is all speculation, it remains to be seen how this will play out in reality. I'm looking forward to the beta becoming open next month, when I'll be able to talk a lot more about this game.
Cryptic recently announced their pre-order bonuses as well. Puzzlingly, Amazon and Wal-Mart do not offer head-start access (log into the live game a few days early), while Gamestop and Best Buy do. So ordering from GS or BB seemed like a no-brainer. Since I'm not a fan of Gamestop, I wanted to pre-order from Best Buy. Unfortunately, Best Buy doesn't have any preorder bonus details up on their website, and in fact even has the wrong release date for the game. Rather than risk missing out on the open beta or early access or even the first week of the game due to BB's lack of interest, I ended up swallowing my distaste and pre-ordering from Gamestop. Hopefully Cryptic can get BB to get their shit together. Champions recently topped GS's sales list, and I'm betting that's because they were the only retailer to offer early access and detail the preorder bonuses on their website, so GS is probably receiving the bulk of the preorders.
Retailers, take heed. Paying attention to the MMO audience pays off.
Aion: Surprisingly slow simmer on this front. Voices were added to the game for this weekend's beta event, which is nice because the first version of Hatch ended up with a hilariously high-pitched voice when I was forced to choose without being able to preview them (and they were still using the Korean voice acting). Still on the radar, but I have to say that while this one looked solid to begin with, the more polish Cryptic applies the Champions, the more it looks like Aion won't be getting my full attention this September.
WoW: As we await Blizzcon, a few things of interest have popped up.
By now, you've all heard that Sam Raimi will be directing the WoW movie. This announcement makes me think 2 things:
1) Cataclysm might be the name of the movie, not the xpac. I hope it's the xpac, because nothing short of a world-changing revolution is going to keep me interested in WoW for another 2 years.
2) Sam Raimi is not to my taste, so I'm disappointed by the pick. His direction is serviceable for the most part, but I find a lot of his unconventional camera work to be more annoying and unprofessional-looking than creative (see the scene from Spider-man 2 where Doc Ock first wakes up and kills the medical team that was about to remove his tentacles for an example). It feels cheap. And though I enjoyed some of the humor in Army of Darkness, that's largely due to the writing and acting; I don't think the directing helped it along much. Though Spider-man is my favorite comic book character ever, I was disappointed with the films overall, and most of that can be attributed to the directing (and the casting and the acting, except for J. Jonah Jameson). This news is almost as bad as Shia LaDoof getting cast as Y the Last Man (sidebar: DEAR GOD WHYYYYY?!?!?!!?)
Other than that, the WoW zeitgiest is focusing on the patch. Evidence is mounting that the patch will be released this coming Tuesday rather than the post-Blizzcon release I predicted.
1) MMO-Champion pointed out that the current PTR patch is labeled "Retail", a sign that it's almost ready to ship.
2) Blizzard released a Q&A today about the two major new features in the patch: the pve instances and the pvp battleground. As we know, PR is done when a weakness needs to be covered. I think they are seeing a lot of confusion from players about how things will work, and the fact that they chose NOW to clear it up rather than later points strongly to an impending release.
As a player, I don't really care either way. As a blogger, I'd like to be proven right. :)
We'll see how it goes. Until then, have a great weekend!
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