Recently in the Mists of Pandaria Beta, there was an NPC which sparked some outrage amongst some players.  Ji Firepaw made some allegedly sexist remarks.  But its not just with World of Warcraft there are other games where there have been remarks of a certain nature which has sparked folks to cry out and say, things aren’t equal, things are against women, against gay people, against a certain race.  I remember when Bioware allowed same sex relationships in Mass Effect, people flipped out.  Now I agree that some situations the creative artists behind gaming content (not necessarily the ones I listed above) have taken a situation a bit far.  However are some of these other areas just being taken too far and are people just being hypersensitive?

Ji Firepaw’s questionable dialogue went something like this, “Hello, friend! You’re some kind of gorgeous, aren’t you? I bet you can’t keep the men off of you! Join me! You and I are going to be good friends!” To men, he instead says “Hello, friend! You’ve got a strong look to you! I bet you’re all the rage with the ladies! Join me! You and I are going to be good friends!”  Now what if Ji was a female NPC?  Does that change the context of the statement?  What if to men, Ji said “You’ve got a handsome look to you” instead of what he did say?  Would that have quieted some of the outrage?

There is even an article on Kotaku regarding homophobic sentiments in Battlefield 3.  Using terms like “Getting my Sh*t pushed in” and “Getting f*cked in the ass”.  Is this really the signs of an anti-gay video game company or developer?  What if the characters in Battlefield 3 were women and saying this, would that make it less offensive or less homophobic?  Or are people simply looking to make controversy out of something?

Bioware has allowed same sex relationships and even sex in their Mass Effect franchise.  Of course there was some outrage over the lesbian love scenes that could happen in Mass Effect 1 and 2, now with Mass Effect 3 there can be a man on man encounter, and once again the immaturity of some members of the gaming community have shined a spotlight not only on this “feature” but also the lack of progressive thinking of some gamers as written by Forbes.

The thing is many video games are telling a story.  In books, comics, movies and TV you will find characters who do not portray the utopian society of everyone treats everyone with 100% perfect respect and you don’t see the same outrage about people getting offended.  More people seem OK with this type of sexist, racist or homophobic character in a book or movie, but why not in a video game?  Game of Thrones, arguably one of the most popular television series and series of books is filled with characters who belittle women, show man on man and woman on woman sex.  Yet the show is touted as fantastic.  Sure excellent writing and acting help develop the characters and allow the viewers to view characters as creeps, jerks or even heroes.  The TV show House, depicts a doctor who is a complete asshole, he hires hookers and talks down to women a lot, and its award winning and you don’t hear the outcry.

Why is it all of a sudden we cross into video games that we can no longer have NPCs (non player characters) with different personalities towards certain types of other characters.  Hell put in a man hating female character, put gay characters into the games.  Why not, its the world we live in, sure some folks don’t want reality in their games, but not everyone is offended by these things.  As a gamer, I have the right to not be offended by things, just as others have the right to be offended.  I want to see character development, I want different personalities in my games.  I want to dive into the history of a character and determine if they are a creep or misunderstood.

So is the outrage poor execution in video games from a writing and development standpoint that causes more outrage than other forms of media?  Honestly I am not sure, but I just have seen from personal observation people flipping out over these topics in video games more than other forms of media, and I can’t help but think are they sometimes making mountains out of mole hills.

Ultimately as the consumer you have the choice to buy that book, movie or comic, just as you have the same right to participate in a game.  I feel that the spirit of the type of character that Blizzard was developing with Ji had some good building blocks, but was executed poorly, he could have been an ally you just loved to hate because he was an asshole.  But instead of playing with the dialogue for both male and female characters, they completely stripped out the dialogue with what seems like boiler plate discussion now.

I am concerned about the future of games where even the most minor of infraction towards a person’s color, sexual orientation or race could spark outrage from some members of the community, without them looking at what type of character the writers are trying to create and develop.  I personally don’t want all the same personalities, I want a deep rich world with different types of NPCs that I interact with.  However I fear with some people being outraged by anything, many video game creators may not even get the chance to build those characters like many creators of TV, Movies and books get to do today.  In fact they may not even want to deal with the hassle.

I am sure many of you won’t agree with me, but its how I feel.  Some of you may think oh he is desensitized or I am some chauvinist pig.  But the truth is I am EXTREMELY tolerant of a lot of things, and I want to see good story telling, I want different types of characters, I want different personalities.  I want my video games to feel like an immersive experience.  I want something different, I want characters I hate, I want others I love.  As long as things aren’t taken to a level that is truly wrong but in the spirit of good storytelling I say let the creators be creative.  When a company itself comes out against a certain group publicly, sure get offended boycott their products.

However as a gamer, I have my right to not be offended, and those that do get offended I hope can recognize that not everyone needs to be offended.

On Wednesday March 21, during my guild’s raid, I happened to log into my Battle.net account and happened to see that I had the Mists of Pandaria Beta available in my list of games.  Needless to say I was quite excited.  Quickly taking pictures to show my guildies who were skeptical who thought I was making stuff up.  Needless to say, and to my guildies who read this I apologize, but I was distracted the rest of the evening.

After finally getting it up and running and transferring over my DK, I immediately spec’d him, though there was nothing more to do with my Death Knight, as the current phase of Mists of Pandaria beta is to focus testing on the Pandaren 1-10 starting zone.

I leveled 1 Pandaren monk through the starting zone, and bugs aside, the experience was extremely well put together.  I expect that once the bugs are fixed it will be even better.  The story has a nice flow.  The different quests where you save folks, collect things, even hopping on poles, give some new yet familiar quest elements to the game.

The entire Pandaren starting zone is very well put together.  The story is clean, the quests are varied and introduce you to a lot of the new mechanics for quests and the new models for mobs.

Next up for testing was running the Temple of the Jade Serpent.  We got to fight some pretty bad dudes.  Interesting but very familiar mechanics, dispell, don’t stand in the bad.  But the enemy models are truly top notch, especially the Sha of Doubt, now I know it says its a place holder model, but damn if it doesn’t look awesome.

Overall the dungeon had a nice flow to it, the art is amazing.  Looks like the loot currently is ilvl 425.

Questing in the new zone was a lot of the same, there was 1 quest that felt different where you had to revive crewmen, however the animation for each took a while, and you have to perform this on 6 people, this felt like an unnecessary slowdown to my pace.  However I do appreciate Blizzard not having us just bandage folks up like in the past.  Parts of the Jade Forest remind me of Sholazar Basin, it definitely isn’t exactly like it.  The bamboo, the mist that permeates the ground, it definitely has its own flair.

Even with all the bugs I have found so far I am really digging the expansion, and what Mists of Pandaria has to offer.

To cap it off here are some screenshots:

Pandaria, looking at the first dungeon area in the Jade Forest

Creating a Pandaren in the starting zone

Pandas in balloons!

 Final boss of the first dungeon

Looking out on the Jade Forest

Some loot in the first dungeon

More loot from the first dungeon

Recently the NDA was lifted and there was a ton of stuff reported that is coming in Mists of Pandaria.  The reveal brought to light several items not previously mentioned and also provided additional details on features brought up at the last Blizzcon.  Some of these changes I am pretty excited for, other changes I am not so excited about, and some things I am left scratching my head as to why are these things not in here?

Dislike Bucket

No new race models.  Seriously?  The game is going on 8 years old, its time,  update those character models.  This is so long overdue its not even funny.  I know Blizzard said Dwarves may be in for launch, but honestly this should have been a priority.  Its not, and I am a bit miffed about it not happening for launch.

No communication for Pet Battles.  Does this mean I can’t challenge people directly?  Also no tracking losses?  How much you want to bet there will be some mod out there to do a complete track that you can upload somewhere for a true ladder on it.  I am willing to bet someone is already dreaming that up.  But if I challenge a friend does that mean I can’t trash talk him?  Or can I not challenge him directly, I need to queue up?  Though it says you can challenge someone in the world, but then says you don’t see their name.  This is just very confusing.  Right now this is in my dislike bucket until I get more information.   Also where are the details regarding pet battles on iOS or Android?  Lets make that happen, then it goes to my like bucket.

Like Bucket

11th Character Slot.  Now I don’t need to delete a character, well played Blizzard.

AoE Looting.  This has been a staple in MMOs for a while now, its about time Blizzard added this.

Zone Visuals.  These things look fantastic.  I love the differing yet related vistas we are getting.  The eastern theme is truly fantastic looking.

Scenarios.  Instanced group quests, that provide valor and rep, that don’t need tanks and healers?  Awesome!  Only taking 10-30 minutes?  Also great!  One of the things I hated about SWTOR was when I came across heroic quests and couldn’t find anyone to group with, same thing with group quests in WoW, but now they are instancing them and making them doable in a short amount of time.  I am very much looking forward to these.

Raise your own cloud serpent.  Get an egg, do daily quests to hatch it and raise it into your mount?  This sounds awesome, so much better than hey pay your gold here is your mount, something a bit more interactive.

Garrosh the Raid Boss.  This is one of my favorites, Garrosh as the end boss of Mists of Pandaria.  This guy is a giant jackass, and throughout the expansion the story builds up to some reason that we need to kill this guy.  This is exciting.  The prospect of Alliance vs. Horde as PVE I am really digging.  I hope there is more of this concept throughout Mists of Pandaria.

Unsure Bucket

Manage your farm.  This feature I know many people are comparing to Farmville.  However reading over the details it almost sounds like its a form of player housing, or at least Blizzard’s first step into that.  Ways to improve your farm, clear plots, grow food, herbalism nodes, gifts for NPCs to improve rep.  If you can do stuff for other professions too like fishing, jewelcrafting.  Also hopefully the daily quests are varied enough to make it interesting and that the farm concept doesn’t prove to be exactly like a Farmville ripoff.

Challenge Modes.  With gear scaling to be normalized when you do the challenge modes for dungeons, there will always be a challenge there, however the rewards seem purely cosmetic.  Is the time and skill required to get these challenge
modes completed worth the rewards you get out of it?  Right now I am not sure if the transmogrification gear and epic mount are enough of a reward, will have to wait and see how great they look.

Conclusion

There are a lot of features I am looking forward to in the new expansion, now I only listed a few there was a lot more that was mentioned after the NDA was lifted.  However this is what caught my eye.  What about you, what are you most excited, least excited about, and what items are you still unsure about?

As a fledgling blogger, when Cer requested (he didn’t give me a choice in the matter!) that I write for Variant Avatar as a guest, I was equal parts nervous and excited.  It’s something I’ve definitely wanted to get into, but have never felt like I had enough time to dedicate to a blog.  That, and I can never quite wrap my mind around the notion that there actually might be people out there that are interested in what I have to say!

Some of you may know me either as a fellow guildie of Cer’s from “Phalanx of Nod“, or as one of the three co-hosts from the greatest podcast ever “The Sundering” (ok, so maybe I’m a little bias on that one) For those who don’t, some quick background on who I am.  I’m a 26-year-old student in pursuit of my Master’s degree in English (yes, I am quite the masochist).  I have lived and breathed gaming since I could finagle a controller (or mouse!) in my hands…and no, before the jokes come in, that doesn’t mean I learned how to use them yesterday!

As such, much of my day is spent listening to other people talk about how great literature and literary theories are.  Nearly everyone has a specialty in something that sounds really grown-up and fancy.  I’m still coming to grips that I don’t love crap like Victorian romance novels as much as my classmates. That’s not to say I don’t love literature or writing (although writing research papers can be pretty lame).  Conversely, none of my classmates love video games the way I do. I have an edge in that I recognize the textuality of things that exist outside of just novels.  Of course, admitting this out loud in a professional setting is a hurdle I still need to jump. That said, no one is allowed to pass judgment on my atrocious pictures (I wanted to add some humor to this, because I didn’t want things to become like another one of my damn classes).

One theory that has run rampant in video game studies right now is that of looking at them through a Feminist lens.  There’s nothing wrong with this, although I would argue that there are too many of these papers that view broads solely as being victims and/or are over sexualized, versus pointing out women who hold roles that are empowered.

But I’m not looking to talk about that right now.  I want to talk about men.  Not so much about how they have weens and the fact that having one would be freaking sweet (I would physically pee off EVERY ledge I could find) but how men have been portrayed in video games.

One of the things that bugs me is how a great deal of attention is paid to the size of a chick’s breasts and waist, yet no one takes a minute to point out the outrageous sizes that male avatars are given:

Seriously?  I’m pretty sure I don’t look like a plastic doll, and Cer doesn’t look like a kitchen appliance (the only similarity is that both can store a serious amount of bacon in inside of them).  In a lot of ways, society (some would argue that it does completely) determines how we define what it means to be masculine and feminine.  In gaming culture especially, I think we find that they can be very binary, black and white things.

My husband has been quick to point out that guys don’t really give a damn that their avatars can sometimes have a 60’’ chest and a 28’’ waist.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say he’s probably right (although I’m careful to categorize an entire group in one fell swoop).  Which may be a reason why we don’t have a lot of discussion about it at a professional level like we do regarding women.  But that doesn’t mean it’s something we shouldn’t think about or just sweep under the rug.  One of the great things about this industry is that the sky’s the limit, and the more that we push ourselves to think outside of the box, and to turn stereotypes on their heads, the bigger variety of games and characters we are going to see (and that’s always a good thing).  I think the industry is moving in a healthy direction (I love what Bioware has done for FemShep, for example).

Since I know how boring this stuff is, I won’t go on and on about how males in video games always seem to fit this mold of what we define as “manly”.  I also don’t want to imply that they should be emasculated in some way.  But having a character that doesn’t look misshapen, and that has some sense of emotion wouldn’t be a bad thing in my opinion (just like having a strong female protagonist can be a good thing too).

I just want to say thanks for having me on to write a bit Cer; it’s refreshing to write something for once without fear of having the hammer of academia smashed down upon me by a professor.  And of course, thanks to anyone who took the time to give this a read; I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on the portrayal of characters within the games we play, or if it’s something you even pay attention to!

While I have been slack in updating this site, my other post will have to be put on hold.  Blizzard recently announced there would be no Blizzcon in 2012, so that they could focus on getting out Diablo 3, Warcraft Mists of Pandaria expansion and the next Starcraft 2 expansion.  Pushing Blizzcon back to sometime in 2013, yet to be determined.  So for many Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo players, they see Blizzcon as a way for the communities of all the games to come together and mingle.  With tons of after parties, the time after the conventions has almost become a bigger spectacle than the convention itself.

However now we sit realizing that Blizzcon 2012 is not to be, but yet many folks still yearn for the comradery of their fellow geek gamers.  So what is the community to do?  While some have taken up to petition to Blizzard to still hold their convention, I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, and if they did, we may end up with the 2010 Blizzcon presentation of “Geek Is…” which I am sure is OK for some, but many were left wanting after that.  Well folks you are in luck because outside of Blizzcon there is a plethora of conventions during the year that are hosted in many parts of the country that you can organize meetups during, while still having a geek central theme.

San Diego Comic Con

Probably one of the largest conventions of geekery, from TV, Movies, Comics, games, its 75000+ people flocking to find out whats in store for the coming year in media.  People in costumes, celebrities mixing it up with fans, its quite the spectacle!  Its located in…you guessed it San Diego.  Not too far from where Blizzcon was held.  This is easily a valid option, in fact Blizzard has participated in this convention in the past, so you can still get your fix!  Though tickets are similar to Blizzcon, difficult to get, have to be quick with your refresh button on your browser.

Info: http://www.comic-con.org/cci/

PAX East

PAX East is in well their terms a “festival” for gamers, video & tabletop.  It is being held in Boston.  There are panels, contests, tournaments.  For those on the east coast always complaining about Blizzcon only being west coast, where here is a valid option.  Though at the time of me writing this, the 3 day pass is sold out, so only individual tickets are for sale.  Being held from April 6-8th.

Info: http://east.paxsite.com/index.php

PAX “West”

PAX was last held in August of 2011, so you can expect it to be held around that time in 2012.  Its held in Seattle, so another West Coast option for folks.  Similar to PAX East.  Here is another option targeted towards gamers.

Info: http://prime.paxsite.com/

DragonCon

Dragon Con is one of those conventions that focus on sci-fi and fantasy.  Usually drawing a lot of Star Trek, Star Wars.  Of course there is gaming, comics and many other things as well.  Located in downtown Atlanta, GA.  Typically held in late August.  This is another great option for east coasters.  Also for you cosplay fans, there is tons of it at Dragon Con.

Info: http://dragoncon.org/

New York Comic Con

Comics, cosplay, video games, TV, movies its a plethora of all things geek.  Also its in the middle of Manhattan!  So not only can you go to the con, but also you are in the big apple.  See the sights, hang out in Central Park, climb the Empire State Building and much more.  Usually the con is held in October, and for 2012 its scheduled for October 11-14th.

Info: http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/

Wizard World – Chicago

This one is from August 9-12, and a great option for those closer to the middle of the country.  Plus this con is in Chicago, go get some deep dish! They got a lot of great stuff, need a Warcraft connection, they got William Shatner, if you remember he played a shaman!  Plus many more comic, sci-fi and geekery to be had!

Info: http://www.wizardworldcomiccon.com/home-ch.html

So there are a few options.  Of course if you and your guild want to get together you don’t need a convention.  All you need is some planning and a location.  Plan some events, maybe some trips.  Go to a fun location where you all can sight see, or whatever.  You don’t need Blizzcon to bring together the sense of community many of you feel, you just need to organize on your own.

So in light of no Blizzcon 2012, what are you doing?  Any other plans to get together with your guildmates your gaming friends?

I was recently invited to be on the Twisted Nether Blogcast.  I have to say I am extremely excited as they were a large part of why I got into blogging to begin with.  With the recent announcement of Dragon Soul nerfs, no Blizzcon 2012, I am sure there will be some good discussion.  My biggest thing will be toning down my bad language that I frequently use on my podcast, The Sundering.

I will be on the show this Saturday, January 28th at 11pm ET, 8pm PT.  I would love to have all my friends show up in the live chat to throw me off my game, you know what little I actually have.

It was 2 years ago I got to meet Fimlys and Hydra at Blizzcon when I went with them to “The Raid” pre-screening at the House of Blues.  Last year I thought I was late to the TNB meetup and saw someone mention it was over on twitter, so went back to the Hilton.  Where Fimlys found me and said, hey, where the hell were you?! At which point we had a drink, took a picture and chatted some.

I was even on episode 8 of The Double O podcast with Hydra talking about gaming and parenting back in 2011.

I almost consider this coming episode a great reunion of sorts to talk with both of these fine folks again.  Hope to see you all in the chatroom!

Looking for Raid is the latest feature in 4.3 to allow folks who aren’t in raiding guilds to see raiding content.  Now LFR content is much easier than even normal mode, the gear rewards let folks get the latest Tier gear though at an item level of 384 instead of the 397 off the normal modes.  Tier gear was also changed to only drop off bosses in the Dragon Soul.  So LFR is a way for non-raiders to not only raid but also get the tier gear.  Some of the tier gear is so good, well the set bonuses, that several top end guilds have run their players through LFR simply to gear them up and get those bonuses.

Now all these benefits seem pretty great, right?  What about the downside of LFR?  I firmly believe by making the end-game content so accessible that players no longer need to be a member of a guild to gain access to the latest content, which in turn hurts the guild community as a whole.

Guilds, ever since vanilla WoW were a way to organize people to see the end-game, to raid, to accomplish content that was not able to be completed by a person solo.  We would see some folks try to organize PUG raids after content was cleared on a server, however with the addition of LFR, people no longer need to organize PUGs to see the raid content, all it takes is to queue up for LFR.  In fact there are many people in LFR I have met who are unguilded.  I asked one healer why they were unguilded, their response “Because why do I need a guild, if I have LFR to see content”.  That statement alone got me thinking, is LFR hurting the guild community?  I think it is.

Because potential guildies no longer need a guild to see the content what is the incentive to joining a guild?  Besides some of the guild perks, maybe some guild repairs, there isn’t a need unless you are one of those folks who wants the challenge of normal or hard mode raids.  If you are happy in just seeing the content, then LFR takes care of that need.  No the gear isn’t the best, but the fact is the last raid in the game currently has been beaten by mostly everyone.  Many folks have been able to bum rush the biggest of the bad and see the end game cut scenes.

Look I am no hypocrite, I run LFR, getting the gear that drops in there helps me out with my guild’s normal modes, but every time I take down Deathwing it feels hollow.  Where in normal mode beating the game at the very least provides a sense of accomplishment, LFR I feel doesn’t provide that.  In fact many folks in LFR think LFR and normal mode is the same thing!  So part of it may be an education thing, but I think LFR has opened up the content too fast to too many people.  To the extent that I see guilds folding or recruiting non-stop to get members to fill the now vacant raider positions.

I am not going to sit here and say how LFR is ruining guilds, though currently its not making folks look for a decent guild either.  I will offer some suggestions on how to minimize LFR’s impact on the community.

1. Remove tier gear from the loot tables.  If tier armor set tokens only dropped from normal mode and higher, and not in LFR, there would be more reason to run normal modes.
2. Do not allow the final boss to be played.  Make it so the final boss is something special for guilds & organized raid groups.  Letting the end boss of an expansion be able to be beaten even if its easier by a bunch of random folks without truly working at it, cheapens the experience.  Open it up only after the next tier of raiding is available or upon the next expansion.
3. Don’t allow best in slot gear, including trinkets with special on use or random procs to drop.  Use a shared loot table with items across all bosses.  This would also push folks to run normal modes.

I think LFR can be a valuable tool and a great way for folks to see the content, however I think the content needs to be limited, and the rewards also need to be limited.  Limiting these things makes guilds more attractive and helps build that community.  I firmly believe that World of Warcraft has thrived for so long because of the community.  By adding features which limit the community aspect of the game, I think you will see more and more sub numbers drop.  So lets get back to content that focuses on the community of guilds, and not on random people in a group.  Lets focus on content which rewards some work and effort, now I am not saying let people bang their head on a boss for 4 months, but let the reward equal the work put in.

Patch 4.3 Hour of Twilight is around the corner and there is a lot to be excited about, there is also some things that folks are concerned about.  The patch is expected to drop most likely on November 29th, or possibly the week after on December 6th  However while I am excited by some of these features, parts of them I have concerns regarding the implementation.

Transmogrification & Void Storage

First Void Storage to store unused gear for Transmogrification purposes is great, and a welcome addition, almost like a second bank.  My biggest gripe here is its not accessible from my personal bank, I need to go to multiple places to use it, but that’s just me being lazy.

This feature is long over due in my opinion.  However some of the limitations really stink.  For example not allowing legendary skins to be used for transmogrification purposes seems like a cop out.  I know many people who would love to continue to use their legendary, the topics alone to allow legendaries to scale with level are too numerous to count.  Allowing them to be used for transmogrification would be a great compromise, but for some reason Blizzard does not want to allow this.

Another issue I have is weapon transmogrification.  While ranged weapons can be used on any ranged weapon, for example making a gun look like a bow, a crossbow look like a gun, etc, other weapons are excluded from this.  Only one handed axes can look like other axes.  The issue with this is, as a DK, I would love to dual wield swords, however right now axes are where its at in 4.2.  Well, unless I find some swords, I am stuck using axe models.  I would like to see Blizzard allow any 1 handed weapon transmog another 1 handed weapon, and the same goes with 2 handed weapons.

Beyond those two gripes I am very much looking forward to this feature in 4.3, customization is great and anytime you can make your char more distinct from others is a great option.

The New Darkmoon Faire

The Darkmoon Faire is moving out of towns and to its own island.  There is a ton of mini-games including tonk racing, whack a gnoll and many others to play to win tickets to buy mounts, pets, even transmog gear.  This will also make it much easier to earn rep with the Darkmoon Faire, much to the dismay of all those who spent countless hours earning that rep via deck turn-ins for the Insane title.  There will also be daily quests for crafting, gathering and secondary professions, to help you level them up even faster.  All is good stuff

Now the big issue I have is, the faire will be around 1 week a month.  With these games and dailies, rewards this island is going to be crowded to holy hell.  The entire server will descend on this island, I am thinking lagfest the whole time, if not the whole place will crash those who are there.  I am hoping I am wrong, but I feel they could have made this separate instances somehow and spread it across all servers to balance it properly.  Either way as it stands I have concerns over playability during peak hours for a small island that will be jam packed.

 Raid Finder

Think of the Raid Finder as LFG for the new Dragon Soul raid, however that being said, difficulty is drastically reduced as well as the item level of the gear.  The Raid Finder is great for those who aren’t in organized guilds to do normal modes, but still want to see raid content.  Due to the nature of LFG, the raid difficulty is scaled down to basically easy mode to allow more folks to see the content.  With diminished difficulty, you also get lower item level gear, which will still be better than Firelands normal mode gear by 6 ilvl, but lower than normal Dragon Soul.

I think this is a great way for folks to see the content, even for raiders to get an idea of the fights other than just watching the videos online for it.  Also a good way for players to raid who may have missed their guild’s raid for whatever reason.  What I think is lacking is to expand this to other raid content, many times people want to see the older content but not everyone on a server may want to do it, while some raid content is easily soloable now from past expansions, some encounters require you to have more than 1 person.  Especially with transmogrification now, I see older raids being more popular, allowing folks to organize pugs in a convenient way seems like a no brainer.

Dragon Soul Raid, Related 5 Man Dungeons, Valor Points  & Tier Gear in Raid Only

In patch 4.3 we finally get the showdown with Deathwing.  In fact we get a 2 boss battle with Deathwing, which sounds awesome, and from the spoilers on the fight I am very much looking forward to it.  The fact that Blizzard is doing 3 five man dungeons that tie into the raid similar to what they did with ICC, I am really digging this.

Tier gear only in raids, I am also a big fan of, sure I like the simplicity of getting raid gear and a 2 piece tier bonus without raiding, but to be honest I like them making raiding feel a bit more special from the aspect that tier gear can only be received in the raid itself.  Reminds me of vanilla WoW, in that all tier gear came from either bosses or raid trash, when you saw someone wearing the gear you knew they were a raider, and while I am not a hardcore raider by any means I do like this feature.

It also looks like that for normal raids, valor points are getting normalized across 10 and 25 mans, now that tier gear is only dropping from bosses.  Whereas before if you ran 25 man you would get more valor per boss than in 10 man.  Now its all evened out it appears, with the exception being the raid finder.  I personally do not mind as my guild will do both 10s and 25s, depending on attendance and class balance so I say bring on the change, but I know some folks are saying this is just another way Blizzard is catering to casuals.  I would like to point out in several instances, 10 mans are more difficult than their 25 man counterpart and much less forgiving if someone dies, even if Blizzard says 25s and 10s are equal.

Conclusion

Overall I am nervous for some of these changes, as it could create technical bottlenecks in the game which will limit folks from enjoying some of the content.  There are some changes that are long over due, like character customization with transmogrification and moving tier gear to raid bosses only.  So what gripes do you have with 4.3?  What are you looking forward to?

With max level growing to 90, that is a lot of levels and a lot of content to get through if you already have several toons at max level.  If you wanted to start over and get a new toon to max level its a lot of redundant content to get through, especially 90 levels worth even with heirloom gear, rested experience and guild perks.  So maybe just like with recruit a friend where levels can be granted, is it time for Blizzard to sell levels or a higher level toon to experienced players?

So lets say you are like me, and have 4 level 85s, 1 level 80, 1 level 79, 1 level 46, and a few lowbies.  Clearly I have proven that I understand the leveling process, I have 4 toons at max level and working on more, but whenever I look at my lowbies hovering between the 10-30 level mark, I get to that point where I say, “ugh, its a long climb to get to max level”, its usually when I say this that I step away, or go back to one of my higher level toons.  Its just that after doing the climb multiple times, when faced with doing it again, it feels more like a chore to get to the content that I consider fun.

Don’t get me wrong I have enjoyed the leveling experience, but after leveling 4 toons to max level, there is no excitement in it for me anymore, it just feel like work, a chore.  Now there are probably plenty of folks out there who love leveling, a fellow blogger Psynister is one of those folks who loves the leveling experience and spends most of his time doing just that.  But there is a large majority of players out there, myself included who find true enjoyment of the game after we hit max level and get to tackle all that max level content.

Right now, the cost of a re-roll for a raiding player can be quite steep.  Level from 1-max level, then start running end-game heroics and dailies in order to get gear just to tackle entry raids.  Lets not forget about your rep grinds to get the right helm and shoulder enchants.  Its one of the big reasons I think some raiders burn out, is they are ready for a change but after investing so much, the thought of the leveling grind on a fresh toon just sounds exhausting and not a task they wish to undertake.  However increasing the experience you gain from questing will appease some folks, but when newer folks go through a zone, and are only halfway through and the quests turn gray they will be a bit disappointed that the zone is completable at the expense of gaining no more experience.

So what can Blizzard do?  The notion of selling levels is something those with disposable income I know would jump at, especially a legit way of doing it at least.  First off there is already a mechanism in the game with the recruit a friend to grant levels, but if you are one of the folks who can’t benefit from this system what then?  So the code is there in the game for granting levels and can be leveraged.  Now I am not advocating that a brand new player can buy the game and buy their way to the level cap.  I still think its important for new players to level up, learn their character, some of the story, learn to interact with the world, etc.  But a seasoned player, one who has leveled multiple toons, maybe to the tune of 2 to 3 characters to max level, should be allowed to purchase “grantable levels” to speed their climb to the level cap.

Sure there are some flaws with this idea, in that people do not learn their class as they level, but I would say a seasoned player understands the game enough to do the research and understand where to go to find out what rotations, specs, etc.  Though I also contend that someone who say wants to try out druid healing, doesn’t typically level as resto, they level as boomkin or feral, then once they hit max level, they spec change.  Its essentially the same thing as purchasing grantable levels up to the level cap, they would still need to relearn their class all over.  Many will even say that the game fundamentally changes once you are at max level, leveling specs are many times no longer valid (though this will change in Mists of Pandaria), and for a veteran of World of Warcraft I can see this being a valid option to reduce burn out but allow them to get into playing a new toon.

I do think that the system should be disabled upon the release of a new expansion for a period of time, and make a player level at least 2-3 toons back up to max level before allowing the system of buying grantable levels again.

In the end there isn’t much incentive for folks to go out and grind out levels 1 to max level unless they are die hard leveling fanatics, seeing the same content over and over, other than maybe the starting zones I contend is not compelling gameplay.  So in an interest of providing more options to veteran players who have already invested in leveling up multiple toons, allow them to spend some disposable income and buy grantable levels for a 3rd or 4th alt depending on the threshold that is set of (2-3 or more max level toons).

What are your thoughts?

Blizzcon 2011 has come and gone.  Besides the big announcements this year there was plenty of fan meetups after the convention in the evening, from the WoW Insider meetup to the Hilton After Party.  Being able to hang out with 7 of my guildies at the convention was one of the highlights, besides of course me trying to convince Ghostcrawler to nerf Warrior tanks, mostly because my best friend is one, and I wanted to see him squirm.

Enough about what I was doing, lets get down to the big announcement, Blizzard announced that Mists of Pandaria would indeed be the fourth expansion to its epic blockbuster MMO World of Warcraft.  Though it seems it got a mixed reaction, let me break down some of those features and the reactions I heard and talked to people about while at Blizzcon.

With the fourth expansion we will see a new class, Monk.  Which I happily predicted.  Now the monk class is going to be a bit different than what we are used to from a melee perspective where there is no auto attack, that the players must push a button for the monk to attack at all.  While this mechanic sounds interesting, I am just not sure how this will stick and I predict after a while Blizzard adds auto attack in for Monks.  The example they gave at Blizzcon of where if a mob is at 5hp fighting a warrior, the warrior’s auto attack will finish them off, but for a monk they need to wait to push a button, to me that reason should not be the justification for not having auto attack or why its cool to not have it.  If Blizzard can have the cooldowns set in such a way that you can constantly be pushing something I think it will work out ok, but if you are ability capped and wind up just standing around that will be a big problem.  Now the idea that they will also handle tanking and healing duties was interesting, so they will share gear with bear and resto druids respectively.  The idea behind the healing for them was interesting.  Blizzard said they were challenging themselves to break out of the current click that health bar and cast type healer, instead maybe have DPS translate into healing, maybe by placing AoE type statues or totems around the area, that would be charged and release heals, if implemented correctly this could be a fun new healing style that might draw more folks into a healer role that previously were turned over from the whack a mole type healing setup that exists today.

Next up is, Pandaren.  My lord the amount of complaining against pandas in the game.  Everything from “there is no lore”, “its a cop out”, “they were an april fool’s joke”, etc.  I heard it all at Blizzcon and after.  But I also heard just as many people say how much they loved the idea, and are excited.  Me I sit in the middle on this, I would have preferred they be non playable, but have the Monk class.  I would have been OK with that, but right now I am just waiting to see.  I will say the starting area was fun to play though, and the graphics for the pandaren are amazing on a 7+ year old graphics engine.  I think part of my issue is that Pandaren can be both Alliance and Horde, having them be on both sides feels like we lose something from a PVP perspective.  As it stands now I see Tauren, undead and orcs I know thats the opposite faction, but when I see a Pandaren, I just won’t know.  Of course there is the red text, but I look at the characters first, because lets be honest if you were in real war, you don’t have little red text over an insurgents head telling you they are a bad guy.

The talent system changes are great I think, as they allow you to customize what you can do and compliment how you would like to play, instead of forcing you to take a certain set of talents then having 2-4 garbage talent points left over that are basically meaningless.  Granted, I sincerely doubt that sites like elitistjerks.com will be out of business because of this.  Despite what Blizzard may think, you will not get rid of the theorcrafting or the mathematicians of Azeroth in finding what that optimal build will be.  However if Blizzard creates a wide range of content where different talents will shine better than others from time to time, you will see people switching their talents like glyphs, which was also another feature that Blizzard said they were looking to accompany this new talent system.  I am all for this system, the talent tree system feels dated, I want something new, and the new Death Knight talents let me play more and more like a Sith, which I am all for.

Pokemon!  OK not really, but non combat pet battle system.  Yup we will soon be able to take our non-combat pets, level them up and fight them against other players’ pets.  This is something I not too long ago predicted on my podcast, The Sundering.  Granted it was under the segment of ridiculous future patch predictions, who knew that this ridiculous prediction would become reality.  Essentially you create teams of 3 pets, level them together to fight in turn based combat against other pets.  This will be a huge time sink after the rep grinds, profession grinds are all completed.  What will propel this new gameplay mechanic to the next level is if Blizzard offered this up as a mobile game via iPhone or Android, that would really kill productivity the world over.  In fact if blizzard offered this as a feature in the wowarmory app for say an extra $3 a month, I would probably pay it.

Next the big one, World of Warcraft Annual Pass.  Basically this is a limited time offer for a 1 year commitment to subscribe to World of Warcraft based on whatever billing model you want, bill monthly, every 3 months, or 6 months, you are just committing to doing so for a total of a year.  What do you get out of this cellular type contract?  Well you get an in-game Tyrael’s charger mount when patch 4.3 goes live, which this mount looks unbelievably awesome.  Next guaranteed access to the next World of Warcraft expansion beta program, so play Mists of Pandaria before anyone else.  Then the next one, a free digital copy of Diablo 3.  So if you were planning on playing WoW for a whole year anyway, getting the mount, access to the beta and a free copy of Diablo 3 is a no brainer.  Many folks claim this is a money grab or a desperate way to keep subscribers.  Folks, lets not forget Blizzard is in the business to make money, with Star Wars the Old Republic coming out end of the year, it makes sense to try to keep your subscriber base locked in, its solid business sense.  For me, I was planning on playing another year and also getting Diablo 3, so this deal was like hey Blizz, thanks for the free stuff.  Not sure how long the deal will last but if you are going to play WoW for another year, sign-up, get some Diablo 3 and some other nice perks.

In the end, while I am not overly excited by playing Pandas, I wasn’t that excited, nor am I currently excited that we have space goats, err Draenei, in the game.  But I have the same choice, I do not have to play as one.  Do I like the other changes they are making?  Absolutely.  The new continent looks fantastic, the talent system is a fantastic redesign and can’t wait to see it in action.  I am looking forward to the monk class, which if they pull off the healing spec and playstyle well, I may even consider re-rolling, who knows.  Then the WoW annual pass was a simple decision.  Overall I am looking forward to Mists of Pandaria, and the changes it will bring to the game, which I feel are badly needed.