Category: World of Warcraft

[World of Warcraft] I was going to join the great webcomic PvP battle server over the last few days, but every time I tried to connect to the server they chose (Dark Iron), I had to sit in 20-25 minute queues and didn’t bother to wait. Too many people were doing the same thing I guess.

While they (the webcomics) seem to think the server’s population will drop after summer is over, I don’t think so. August has been a traditional low activity time so I only expect populations to pick up towards winter. Oh well, it sounded like it might have been fun to be a part of something bigger, but this one got too big.

For what it is worth, the webcomics guilds participating in this is Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny-Arcade and PvP.

I really think it was a great idea, but they turned a brand new PvP server into one of the most overpopulated servers in a few short weeks. I probably would have had some fun.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] I had some downtime from testing last night so I created a Dwarf Priest on the Scarlet Crusade RP server. He was a brand new level 1.

His first quest was self-imposed which was to get out of the snow. He hates the cold believe it or not. He ran when he could and walked when he was tired but eventually made it to Iron Forge. He took the tram to Stormwind and from there he marched to Northshire. He liked the weather better here so he set about making money, honing his skills and getting some priestly training.

After much work, some fighting, a little bit of bartering and several attempts at making friends he found himself tired out. With his hard-earned wealth in his pocket, he travelled to Goldshire and rented a room at the Inn.

Before retiring for the evening, he spent some time chatting with several of the locals. A few had been drinking, but for the most part the time spent here was pleasant. On one occasion, there was even a Troll running about trying to hurt people. A small group gathered to teach him a lesson.

He went to sleep soon after and felt very good about his day’s adventure.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] Tonight I teamed up with a random stranger who was playing a hunter and I was playing my level 9 druid. We did the Relics of the Wakening quest together and in the process I levelled to 10. It was fun working together. I was able to fight most of the time, and still had enough in reserve to pull off some amazing healing when the hunter needed it. In fact, at the end when I needed to run back to turn in a quest I managed to survive for a good long time with 6 or 7 creatures pounding on me. It is really nice to be able to heal.

Best part of hitting level 10 for me was the ability to travel to Moonglade which is a special Druid place (other classes *can* get to it I guess). It was worth the effort to get to 10 just to see it. Very nice and peaceful place, and I picked up several flight paths as well. I sense this place could become a travel shortcut in the future. As a night elf druid, I was hoping to see some tauren druids here, but the only ones I came across were the NPCs. Oh well, I have some more exploring to do there, it seem like a big place. Perhaps I will run into one later.

Up next is the quest to learn how to shapeshift into a bear. This druid might put a damper on my plans to play a dwarf priest on one of the roleplay servers. I’m having fun.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] I logged into a roleplay server and started a Dwarf Priest. Spent a little time roleplaying (nobody else was). There are corpses of Gnomes and Dwarves all over the place, with interesting names. Names like “Blizzsucks”, “Nocontent”, “Deadgnome”, “Dontplaywow”, and “Laggyservers”.

I decided to move on to Ironforge. After 5 or 10 minutes of running, I enter the big city. Lock up, crash to desktop.

So, I figured I would go back to my main server. Queue of 189 and 15 minutes later, I’m in. I log into my level 8 Druid, because I’m bound and determined to see Moonglade even though it is probably not anything special. It’s a goal so I make it mine.

Running around Darnassus, some level 14 Warrior is challenging all the level 6 and 8 players to duals and then calling them “pansies” if they don’t accept. Finally a level 11 Hunter accepts and beats him. The 14 Warrior called the 11 Hunter a “pansy” for using her pet. After that, a level 10 Rogue fought him 3 times, finally beat him on the third time. Meanwhile, a level 50 Hunter is telling everyone that he could beat anyone here up in real life, or he could go get any of his other level 60 characters and take everyone on. A few people confront him with accusations of “no life loser” and such. He proclaims to make $50 an hour so he wins in real life.

I went out questing and finally got to level 9. I returned to one of my quest-giving NPCs in Darnassus. Only this time he has been slaughtered by a level 60 Undead Rogue who is just waiting for him to spawn again. With no high level Alliance players around, he is pretty much left alone. I manage to turn in my quest before he could kill the NPC again, but it was close.

What fun.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] World of Warcraft has now achieved another significant milestone as the largest MMORPG in the world, with more than 3.5 million global customers.

Damn.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] Battlegrounds has been around a little over a week now. Most blogs seem to be blasting the system, but I’ve been a big fan of it. Yes the system has a lot of flaws that I will get to. However, battlegrounds has done what new raid instances (which cannot be experienced by anyone who is a casual to moderate player) never could. Battlegrounds has brought people who had stopped playing and considered cancelling their subscriptions back to the game. During the past week or so I have been seeing a lot of people that I quested with way back when. Admittedly, many are there just to see what the fuss is about, but those who have gotten into battlegrounds, like myself, are pulling all nighters again just like the first week we had the game.

As mentioned earlier, while I personally enjoy Battlegrounds, some people are put off by the many bugs and poor design choices. The top 3 seem to be:

1) Lack of any organization: I mentioned this in my previous posts. When you enter Battlegrounds you are not placed into any sort of group unless you were already part of a group when you enter. I’m not sure if its laziness or selfishness, but most people seem content to just kill things on their own or with a small group. Even when a raid group gets going, you can be sure that about half of the people on your side in the instance will just continue to go about doing their own thing. When you do get a decent sized group, it is another monumental feat to get more than 3 people to charge with you. Despite the lack of any penalty for death (aside from a walk from the graveyard) a lot of people aren’t willing to put themselves on the line.

2) Queues/Game time: They can’t really do anything about the wait times, but I agree that the games take way too long sometimes (more so Alterac than Warsong). This is a problem because certain NPCs in Alterac that give side quests do not respawn. On our server we’ve had a battle going on its third day now where the Alliance has not lost one bunker and have been at the gates of Frostwolf Village since day one. To win and reset the instance they must kill our leader in Frostwolf Village. They’ve summoned their calvalry and elemental and yet the Horde have held them off for 3 days. The Horde’s chances for victory, with the Alliance still having all their bunkers in tact, is slim (although it has been done on our server under similar conditions before), but those who need to turn in quests to dead NPCs are pretty much out of luck until one side finally wins.

3) Imbalances: Alterac seems fairly balanced as far as player classes are concerned. Warriors are still getting most of the killing blows, but I’ve gotten quite a few and I’m a priest. The map is, I think, a bit unbalanced, although I think that may be part of the design. In my experience the Alliance base has been very difficult to get in to (without an elemental anyways), but once we took out the two bunkers and crossed the bridge, it has fallen easily. The Horde base, on the other hand, has been breached many times by the Alliance, but getting to that final room where the Captain is has been difficult for the Alliance. In Warsong, the map is balanced, but both sides must employ a different style of play. The Alliance has the paladin, who, when paired up with a priest or two, is a pretty unstoppable flag carrier. When a guy who wears plate armor, can heal himself, can become temporarily invincible, and can cure himself of damage over times gets the flag, it is pretty hard to stop him. While the shaman’s ghost wolf form is useful, the shaman is much weaker than a paladin and must rely more on the team’s ability to keep enemies away while he makes a run for it compared to the paladin who is more of a walking tank.

Well, that’s just my two cents on the issue. I’m sure I’m wrong about some of it and there’s probably much deeper problems out there that I missed, but for me these have stood out. Despite this, I am a big fan of BG and they have reignited my interest in the game. Blizzard will be getting my $15 for at least another month. More are said to be on the way (hopefully one with the Undead as faction leaders), plus siege weapons are in the planning stages.

The news is out, Blizzard has surpassed two million paying subscribers worldwide, all playing World of Warcraft. That’s just insane. That’s a lot of money rolling in. Can they handle it? Will they stay on top? Is there nothing left for them but a big crash?

The crash has already started, at least in my little world. Most everyone I know that has played it – including casual and hard core players – has quit playing already.

But still, 2 MILLION PAID SUBSCRIBERS. As Abalieno wrote: “You say that some parts of the game are broken? HA! Two million subscribers. Rimshot.” That is the fact, Jack.

– Ethic

I was bored at lunchtime and found this thread on the World of Warcraft forums. Notice the parts I highlighted. It was good for a chuckle anyway.

How can I avoid losing my items in the first place

One current workaround to this problem is to only store Soul Shards in your main backpack, not your other bags. The bug will not manifest itself if you follow this rule. Another suggestion would be to ensure that you are always playing with a lot of empty inventory space.

If any more workarounds to the problem are discovered, I will update this post.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion. Thank you for your patience while we get this issue resolved.

Edit: A better workaround to this problem is to actually not store any Soul Shards in your main backpack at all. Instead, store all of your Soul Shards in your other bags, and this problem will not occur.

– Ethic