It's the little things

In the end, it's not just the possibility of new gear that keeps one coming back for more WoW. It is, in fact, the little things. Fun times with guildies, inside jokes. Riding through some radom place and looking up to notice how beautiful the scenery is. It almost makes me want to go outside. Nah.

A (not so) scary story

When summer comes around, I always get ants in my pants. One year, I chopped my hair off to chin length, and it looked awful. This year, I pierced my ears. This action in fact proves my insanity, because I've been deathly afraid of needles for my entire life.

I literally had to psych myself up for it. I had to set a solid date on which I WAS going to pierce my ears, and I had to tell all of my friends that I was doing it so I couldn't chicken out of it.

After we got out of school forever (the summer), we went looking for a piercing shop. The one we started going to wasn't open at the time, so we kept driving. And driving. Finally, we found one that was open. Since I'm not old enough to get a piercing all by my lonesome, we had to wait there for my mom to get there, and as we all know, waiting's the worst part. Finally, she got there and we went in.

Surprisingly, I was not the one most scared in that piercing shop. My mom essentially tried to talk me out of it. She kept asking, "You sure you want to do this?" and "Maybe you should wait until later." I, knowing full well I'd never do it if I waited 'til later, insisted. I was a little bit nervous because he insisted on using an actual needle instead of a needle gun, citing the fact the guns aren't as sanitary and they don't heal as well or something.

I am pleased to report that not one tear was shed. Everyone was surprised at this. -.- In fact, the most unpleasant part was not the piercing itself, but the bleeding afterwards. I got two in my left ear, and the second one would NOT stop bleeding. Also, I made the mistake of playing with it when we went to a movie afterwards. The scab opened up and it started bleeding again. Luckily not on my clothes, but it was still very irritating.

Things like this are all about getting past the mental part, I've found. Needles are now slightly less terrifying than they were previously, though I'm sure shots will still make me squeamish. In any case, I'm glad I tried out something new this summer.

Curse You, Apple.

I think it's a really good thing we don't have an Apple Store in the town I live in.

Why?

Because I have the techy's fundamental need for the latest and the greatest gadgets. To me, this includes almost everything Apple produces. I don't know why everything they touch is magical; it just is. There's just something about, say, the iPhone that's so alluring. Some might say it's just the looks of the phone that make it so much more popular than other phones. I'd say this definitely plays a part. I currently own an LG Voyager, and it's just so much more clunky and dated-looking, even though it's only around six months old. The Palm Pre really just isn't attractive at all to me, though it sounds to have some really good features. Looks have come to be a huge part of the gadget market, whether it be phones or laptops or music players. And this is a primary reason why Apple has such a corner on the market.

But it's not the entire reason. After all, there are now many phones from Samsung or LG or plenty of other companies that emulate the smooth styling of the iPhone. The difference is the App Store. When it first came out, the iPhone was just another phone; good looking, but light on features other smartphone owners boasted about. The App Store changed all of that. Instead of being just a phone, the iPhone could now be anything. It's limited basically by the imagination of the programmers making the apps. The iPhone is now a competitive handheld gaming device, a VoiP phone, if you wish, a to-do list, a connection to Twitter and Facebook, even a newspaper if you want it to be. Other phone companies are trying to catch up on the app market, but they really have no chance. Apple has cornered the app concept as firmly as they have the digital music market. Sure, there are other retailers selling music, just as there will be other retailers selling apps. The situation is the same: Apple will be the largest and most successful for a good long time.

So for all those who cut down Apple fanboys, consider that Apple has taken over the market. In most everything they do. For whatever reason, the public eats up whatever Steve throws out at them, and someone's going to have to be very very good to usurp that throne. Sure, there are flaws with Apple's products. But they're shiny.

And finally...

We'll wrap up the major aspects of the patch notes here. Besides the new dungeon and raid instance, the Argent Tournament is expanding in some other areas. There will be new dailys for those exalted with the Sunreaver or Silver Covenant factions, and new mounts and pets corresponding with these factions will also be available. Similarly, there will be new dailys for those who have earned the "Crusader" title (Oh yeah, that'd be me.); these will also give rewards like a new tabard, pet, etc. One of the more exciting new things arriving with this change is a mounted squire, with which you can access bank, vendor, and mailbox for a short time every few hours. Also, there will be new heirloom chest pieces that have a 10% exp boost.

I'm a rather large fan of the Argent Tournament, and I find these changes to be excellent. I have a reason to go back and start doing the dailys again, since I'll need more seals for all those shiny new rewards. More dailys to have is always good. I like how Blizzard has provided enough dailys in the expansion that players can kind of choose which ones they're going to do that day. For example, I may want to do some Hodir dailys one day, Oracles and Kalu'ak the next, or spend the whole day just doing Tournament dailys. It doesn't have to be the same thing every day, though that's the way most players seem to do things. It might not get you that one rep all that fast, but it is nice to know one has options.

Finally, the last changes I'll talk about are the changes to travel. The level needed for ground mounts has been reduced across the board, and regular flying mounts are now available at level 60. Higher level flying skills have remained the same. Prices for ground mounts and training have also been lowered. Also, portals have been added from Orgrimmar and Stormwind to the Dark Portal, so players have easier access to the Outlands, and a zepplin route has been added between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff.

As far as the mounts go, I'm really excited. Alt leveling will be much less painful, and I'm all up for that. It will be interesting to see how the feeling of leveling in Outlands changes when everyone's zipping around on (150% speed) flying mounts. Thank goodness for the speed change too; 60% just felt like a standstill. Portals, meh. Blizzard's taking away my business! Not that I make portals for people all that often, but still. It's a good market. The zepplin is good though. I never really used Thunder Bluff that much, mostly because it's so disconnected from everything else. I still probably won't use it that much because the city itself feels disconnected to me, but it's a nice change for leveling and such.

So, that's all the major changes coming in the upcoming patch. The PTR also just came up yesterday, so everyone go test to their heart's content! I'm not much for the PTR; I like to see the content only when it goes live. I do appreciate all the juicy tidbits though.

Also, I should probably say that most of my numbers and info come from WoW.com. They rule.

Midsummer Festival!

A slight excursion to the current holiday. The Midsummer Fire Festival has been going on for a few days now, and unfortunately, I've just started. This holiday essentially consists of honoring and desecrating fires, as well as several different torch tossing dailys. The achievements, which I myself am going for, require one to honor and desecrate all the fires, steal flames from enemy capital cities, and to buy a set of clothing from holiday vendors using the currency of the holiday, which are Burning Blossoms. The one other thing is the defeat of a boss named Ahune who resides in the Slave Pens in Outland. I am ashamed to say, I've never done an instance in Outland outside of Ramparts. I got started a few days late, and I've yet to see someone looking for a group for Ahune, which worries me a little bit. Hopefully one will come around.

The main part of getting this achievement done is time. I have to do most of the fires in Eastern Kingdoms and the ones in Outlands. You know what I hate about this? Little bastard druids who follow you around and camp your non-PvPing ass. That's what I hate. Anyway. Time. It's taken me a few hours to do most of Kalimdor, and I suppose it will be similar for Eastern Kingdoms. Ahune probably won't take that long; he's a boss apparently just inside the entrance of the Slave Pens. To access the encounter, players must pick up a quest from an NPC inside the instance, who directs you to another NPC who gives you an item to summon Ahune at the Ice Stone (which hasn't melted lately, I might add). He should be a fairly quick kill, since he is still level 70.

And that's about all there is to this event. The Burning Blossoms you aquire from the fires around the world should be plenty to get the set of clothing. Blossoms for the extra items can be gotten from the daily quests in any major city.

Here are a couple of in-depth guides to the Festival: WoW.com, Wowhead. Both are good guides, with a few differences. The Wowhead guide is much more in depth: it has more information about the specific requirements, quests, and rewards, all of which can be easily investigated further with links further into the Wowhead site. The WoW.com guide is more of an "at a glance" guide, and is good to use if you're, perhaps, just looking for coordinates of the fires. Either one works just fine.

Personally, this event is slightly nostalgic because it's the first event I remember doing, last year. I started in early May last year, and they didn't yet have the Easter event. I thought I was so cool that there were holidays integrated into the gameplay in WoW. It was so different from what I was used to, which was mostly console RPG's and platformers. The dynamic nature of the game really stood out to me through the holidays. It's rather quaint to think I was so impressed by something in which the only major benefit I got was a nice little xp buff.

Next, the rest of the 3.2 changes. If I feel like it.

WoW: PvP in 3.2

The biggest changes in this patch relating to PvP are the new battleground and the XP changes. The new battleground, the Isle of Conquest, will have 40-man teams on each side, and will have vehicles and generals similar to those in Alterac Valley. I don't have much to say about that one, except that I'm sure I will eventually try it out. Hopefully, I'll get to it a little bit sooner than I did Strand of the Ancients.

The XP changes are a little more interesting to me. Players will now be able to gain XP from completing battleground objectives. To avoid the wrath of twinks, players can also now turn off XP gains altogether. Still, this change still affects twinks. From now on, players will be put in battlegrounds only with others with XP turned on or off, corresponding to the players' own status. Essentially, twinks will only be put in batttlegrounds with other twinks.

Now, I don't twink at all, but it seems that this leveling of the playing field pretty much takes all the fun out of twinking. After all, the best part about twinking is pounding little normally-geared low-levels into the dirt. If all you can do is attempt to pound other twinks into the dirt, it's not nearly as cool. All in all, it won't be seen if this is the so called "death of twinking" until the patch hits. Aside from that whole thing, it will be nice to have more of a reason to go into battlegrounds as a lower-level toon. I'm currently leveling a priest alt, and it'll be nice to have an incentive besides an awesome mount.

Other changes include a general shortening of battlegrounds. Battlegrounds that require victory points now require less points. Some other assorted buffs grant additional honor. Finally, Warsong Gulch has a 20 minute timer. Hallelujah! I've gone through way too many nightmarish WSG battles zerging and zerging the flag room, never getting anywhere. Never again, muahaha! This change is similar to the raiding changes in that players will be able to get better gear, faster. This is also exciting to me because I'm trying to get into PvP more, and this will help me get some more resilience pieces so I can be less of a squishy squishy mage.

Next, I'll finish up with the rest of the (more interesting than PvP) changes coming out in the patch.

WoW Patch 3.2 Thoughts

I should probably begin by saying I'm a level 80 mage on the Rivendare realm. I'm currently specced Arcane, and am a semi-hardcore raider. I suck at PvP, but I'm working on it.

Now that that's out of the way. Information about the upcoming Patch 3.2 has been rolling out at a breakneck pace (of course, all while I'm out of town). The PTR is imminent, and many of the changes are, to be mild, hotly contested. Since my personal interest lies mostly in raiding, I'll start with that.

The centerpiece of this patch is the expansion of the Argent Tournament. Up to this point in the game, the Tournament has been focused largely around daily quests. The updated Tournament will include a new 5-man dungeon, Trial of the Champion and new 10- and 25-man raids, Trial of the Crusader. There will also be heroic versions of both the raids, Trial of the Grand Crusader, in which raiders will have only a few attempts at each encounter each week. All of the raids are on separate raid lock-outs.

Personally, I like all of these additions. There's a little something for players of every level, from new 80s running Heroics to hardcore raiders who demand more and more difficult encounters from Blizzard. Also, the fact that all the new instances are on separate lock-outs means... more gear! The only concern I have with this set-up is the possibility for different levels of gear presented. Currently, Blizzard has it set up so the 10-man and 25-man raids each have different item levels of gear that drop in them. If they continue with this model, they could have a large plethora of gear levels dropping from similar instances. I think it would work best if they had two levels of gear at max. I guess I could deal with three.

The second change is to the emblem system. Currently, there are three levels of emblems: Heroism, Valor, and Conquest. In Patch 3.2, all heroics and raids dropping Heroism and Valor badges will drop Emblems of Conquest. This is the change that seems to be the one people are most upset with. For the most part, those most upset are those hardcore raiders who have already worked up to tier 8. They see this change as having trvialized their months of hard work, since any newly minted level 80 can waltz into a heroic dungeon and get themselves a few easy pieces of tier 8 gear.

In reality, Blizzard isn't just trying to piss off their most loyal players. If this change was not made, each player would have to go through heroics, Naxx, and Ulduar to get to the shiny new tier 9 content. This is not much in the best interests of a 25-man raiding team, and Blizzard knows this. Personally, that's not the part I have a problem with. It feels like the dev team is slightly schizophrenic; the 10- and 25-man system made for a complicated emblem system. Now, it seems they've deemed it too complicated. Now, they jump into a different philosophy, one of more simplicity and ease of use. For the most part, I'm all for it. I kind of just wish they would make up their minds about what's going to go down. Of course, the game does go through different cycles, and maybe this expansion has just gotten to the point of a little change.

Next, a little bit on the PvP changes.