Monday, September 21, 2009

My WoW Weekend...

I had not intended on playing WoW at all this weekend; my wife and I had a planned trip to our college alma mater, the University of Mississippi(Ole Miss for those in the South and sports fans) to see our home football opener. However, this fell through early in the week when we realized my wife is just not in good enough condition to travel 6 hours, now that she's 7 months pregnant. Therefore, we had a weekend at home.

I had a fairly preductive weekend; gaining several gear upgrades and lots of achievements.

I had every intention of full-steaming ahead with leveling Bara to 80, and Friday morning started off as such. Our resident guild mother(and my resident therapist, God Bless her) Eus was on her hunter and wanted me to level in AV with her, which I was happy to do. After about 4 hours of that, and nearly and entire level later, I gave the BG's a break after lunch when the wife came home from her halfday, and after doing my dailies on Nym, I gave WoW up for the day.

Saturday and Sunday were different stories altogether. Nym was on-call for tanking duty, and he was certainly used. 5 ToC runs, 3 heroics, 5 Direbrew fights, and a 10 man run of the three Watchers in WG. I'm certainly feeling very comfortable again with my tanking, and confident to take on more difficult challenges. Having great heals from our top quality healers in my guild certainly did not hurt, either. I also grabbbed lots of gear, upgrading my hands, waist, legs, feet, and trinket.

A few things I've noticed, as someone who was gone for a long time and has recently returned to the game:

1.)Pugs, for the most part(and pugged players, in extension) are much more competant now. I'm sure this is a result of more time with the content; however, even at the end of BC after two years with the content, people still couldn't figure out their a$$ from a hole in the wall. It just seems that either the players are learning their roles better, or.....

2.)The content is stupid-easy. I know, I know, I've seen this said by everyone from Blizzard programmers all the way down to George W. Bush(just kidding, he still hasn't even seen Naxx). But for someone who left 3 months into WotLK and was grinding heroics to get geared for Naxx(looks like not everything has changed) and heard how even geared people could get slaughtered if they didn't know the fight, things have changed. I sauntered into Naxx halfway through for the first time last week, on Grob. I, along with 4 other members of the 10-man, had never seen Naxx. We swept through our first two bosses in Construct Quarter without a wipe with half the party just winging it. I OT'd and never came close to dying, neither did Jake, our MT. And it was with 2 healers(we had a 3rd, who was incompetant to say the least). I know its the entry content and once I get into Ulduar soon and then on from that, I may eat my words. But for now, someone who has essentially been playing for two weeks has been kicking ass.

3.)Blizzard seems to try REALLY hard to make the game fun. They really do. Cataclysm will probably be the best X-Pac to any MMO I've ever played, and I've played a few(WAR, SWGO, EVE). But once you get to 80, most of the game......sucks. Now, I play WoW in this percentage:

PvE content/raiding/heroics-50%
Social interaction/guild/crafting/Bullshitting-40%
PvP-10%

And that PvP is regligated to two areas: AV and World pvp.

But if it happens that you just can't be on at the "appropriate times", the game can fall flat for you. I work 4 10 hour days, Monday-Thursday. That leaves about an hour free Mon-Thursday night I can't do much more than check my AH. My play times are Friday/Saturday/Sunday, from about 8am until about 9pm. And I know that part of this is my fault due to my availability, but as a tank I find my options limited. Yes, I can pug heroics. But what else? I'm worthless in Arena. And in BG's. And dailies only take so long. I think more effort should be put into things that can be done alone once you're 80 to keep you involved. I think I've heard that Cataclysm will do some of these things, like more rewards for putting more effort into your crafting, or things to do for your guild that will up its level and advancement.

Ahh, that's a long rant. I had more to say, but it can wait until later. Next up, the pain of trying to find time to level/play an alt that no one needs when they do need your main. :)

3 comments:

  1. Nym, I try, that's all I can say rofl. Glad we got to spend some quality time together in AV. We had fun in AV...and my eyes are about to bleed I know I ran that so much. But, if you are tired of questing or just want to try a different way of leveling, then AV is the way to go.

    I agree, Cata will be very different. I'll just be glad to get back to SouthShore with those ally varmits not running around anymore...with their running rampid....hitting you...and the screaming...

    It's like they don't want ya around or something? (shrugs shoulders)

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  2. Nym, if you haven't heard, prot is the new ret for pally pvp. I've seen so many prot pallies in BGs--between all the defensive measures and massive hp/armor they are HARD to kill

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