Oh, goodness! Have you been waiting for me?
I certainly hope not, as I am less reliable than a '97 Chevy.
Anyway, the actual act of gaming has drawn my attention away from you and your faithful readership, which is probably why there are only two of you left. You are saints for staying, truly.
But now to get down to the meat of the subject.
Warcraft.
So I presented a rubric in my last WoW post, and I've endeavored to assess the game accurately and fairly on that scale.
1) Game Balance - Besides a few lesser annoyances, I'm relatively pleased with the new balance scheme. Paladins still heal too well in my opinion, and Death Knights are worse than useless in most cases, but overall, no one should be complaining.
2) Social Appeal - The mechanics are well-rounded and solid, and I'm pleased with the significant bonuses I can theoretically get. I say theoretically, because after several weeks of dedicated game-play, my guild is nearly to level 2. The system is simply not viable without a real guild population to fuel it. This is how it should be, but is nevertheless frustrating to a guild-master having trouble recruiting. As a completely unrelated side note: If you play, join the Green Dragon Legion on Kirin Tor. We may or may not pay you.
3)Intelligent Economics - Perhaps the most favorable change of all is the removal of ridiculous gold sinks. They still exist, but in much smaller incarnations, acceptable investments for the related benefit. I've managed to rack up some healthy gold reserves, even while spending on the flying skills, extra gear, and random useless crap I like. I feel rich and powerful, not trodden into the choking dust of poverty. I'm a hero, not a starving mercenary. Actually, I'm still a mercenary, I did a series of quests in which I took the walrus people's gold to kill off the wolverine people, and then turned around and took the wolverine's money to get rid of the bastard walrus people who paid me to kill them. It was great.
4) Hunter Skillz - My main got nerfed on his melee and crowd control abilities, but the trade-offs were more than acceptable. I'm doing a high-end DPS, I can solo even better than before, and I'm not excluded from instances or BG's for my class or spec any more. I do wish Blizzard would change it so I can sign up for instances as a tank though, because my pet is more than capable of keeping a whole mess of mobs, and a boss stun-locked and aggro'ed for as long as it takes me to kill 'em. Just saying.
5) Four words: I met Malfurion Stormrage. No, no, no, I've got one better: I met Ysera, the Emerald Dragon Aspect! Okay, so that was more than four, but the point is my little happy lore spot is still twitching orgasmicly from the cool shit I've got to do in Cata-land. They have done really, really well on the lore here, it makes sense, it's dramatic, and the world changes as you wander through it. Two thumbs up here as well.
In short, I approve of the expansion, and will continue to waste hours of my time living a life other than my own. I can recommend the game to anyone who's interested, it's fun and moderately addictive.
For part three, in about a week, I'll talk about the things I've learned, and share some bits about the guild system, and random instancing.
Next time, I'll talk about another online game, League of Legends. That'll probably happen Thursday or Friday. Feel free to request a topic, or send me info on something gaming related I ought to be mentioning.
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