feeling dead

Just as I have said, I cannot stay up late during the week. Now I feel like my eyes have swollen to sizeable tennis balls, my brain resists all attempts to get a decent thought out of there (twenty typos corrected from the last 7 words) and all in all I'd much rather be sleeping than working.

The culprit to this was last nights Three Stooges session: the three went where ever they could to be undergeared, underpowered and undermanned. In short, where ever the challenge lies to three casual newbies.

We had thought about taking on the Old World raid instances before they are made void: this is a project we will follow through before Cataclysm. I'm sure of that. But yesterday a devil whispered to us. Take on the ICC 5-mans...

I didn't have to lure my brothers to it. As our mains are all capped now, it should have been pretty straightforward thing to do. But there is always this "but" when we are considered. The "but" in this case was that none of us was too familiar with the instance. Förgelös had never even visited ICC, I had run Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron twice, never got to Halls of Reflection, and Bishop had been there once on a run which had been a disaster.

So the bosses and encounters were completely unknown to us as a group. Add to that the Mutilate-build of Förgelös, who still wears more or less blue/green gear, and you have the soup we were swimming in.

I had high hopes that we could down Brohnjahm, not much more due to our lacking dps. And situational awareness of a shortsighted procupine would prevent us from achieving anything more.

The trash proved that we had the potential: no problems to keep the aggro and downing them in succession. The biggest problem was for the rogue (Förgelös) to stay out of the harms way and stay alive: I think he got himself killed once or twice before we got to Brohnjahm.

Ah, king of souls... First of all, we had to figure out how the encounter works. We spent at least the first 5 minutes to figure out that I had to kite him away from the shattered souls and the others could do their best to kill them while I was backing away from the boss along the rim of the disco ballroom. The Soulstorm proved to be even worse due to the fears cast, causing us lose unnecessary amounts of health while running through the storm, twice each time.

But... Rest in pieces, Brohnjam! We did it on the first try, and quite frankly I didn't believe it at first. One of the most exhilarating experiences at level cap I've taken part to.

After that boss, the trash becomes even easier, and we found our way to the Devourer of Souls. I remembered that this boss was tricky, but I didn't remember why.

First of all, Bishopgeorge, our resident healer, announced he was out of drinks and potions... so no mana refreshes within the combat. "Just try to stay alive when I go OOM" was all he could give us.

Second, Förgelös doesn't seem to have any kind of DBM type assist, so he misses most of the cues of the harm, like the pools on the ground and the soul light which really kills if you stand in it.

"Don't look into the light!" was the best advice I could give.

The first one was a wipe, clear, sound and solid wipe. Out of bad planning and not knowing the encounter. Something started to stirr in my mind as I was thinking what happened, but nothing tangible. Second try was another wipe, this time we got considerably farther, even though our healer decided to take a sunbath... And third was because both the healer and dps decided to make closer acquaintance with the dead.

Fourth was the epitaph of our running against unmeasurable odds. In the heat of the fight, Bishop DC'd and... announced that the battery in his mouse had just ran out. Both Förgelös and I were laughing silly due to this, causing...

Wipe four.

Obviously we got all pumped up by this, because we did it on the fifth try!

Out the bad air, in with the good.

Pit of Saron was another kind of beast. Forgemaster Garfrost went down on the second try, even though Bishop tried to even out the situation by DCing again. He didn't succeed.

Ick and Krick is an optional encounter which really measures -or as in our case, teaches- the value of movement and situational awareness to the newly dinged solo levelling beasts. Or it should at least do that. I decided it was time to bang our heads against that wall, as there was a certain lack in the quality of following the cues on the ground among our threesome.

I cut the long story short by these recaps:
- Förgelös dies in Toxic Waste. Bishop slips and we wipe.
- Bishop dies in the explosions. We wipe.
- Förgelös gets chased by Ick. He runs to Ick and keeps on beating him. We wipe.
- I get chased and run too far. The encounter resets even though Bishop lands several Holy Smites on Ick.
- I charge on Ick, Förgelös starts to whack Ick... and Bishop DC's just before the charge. Wipe.

Our (Laiskajaakko and Förgelös) gear was already red, the clock was around midnight and we had already exceeded our expectations for the evening so we called it a night.

Where Gevlon runs his Undergeared, we run Undermanned!

...

Me and my mouth

First of all, I'm breaking my habit in posting on Friday. Which I try not to do because people do not read blog posts on Friday evenings. It's the lowest reader count day of the whole week, save weekend.

Second, I just stated how I turn into a zombie if I stay up late and wake up early. That was not preventing me from doing it again yesterday. Blame it on the Three Stooges, but I ran with my brothers through UK and UP normal. As trio, of course.

We checked all nooks and crannies in our search of secrets in both of them, and for some peculiar reason ended up killing Skadi and simultaneously resetting the encounter!? The second run went even smoother and resulted a clean kill.

All in all, UK and UP are a bit underrated, and IMO they are en par with the Hellfire Citadel's starter instance in many ways: linear, dragons, obnoxiously over-confident bosses and speedy completion even in a sight seeing tour.

If that wasn't enough, I had time to check my EVE account before entering WoW: Tyrannis installed without problems and everything was fine and spiffy. As I have reported, the corporation I'm in was in a war and now that war tagged corp is in alliance with us. During the war there was confident discussion how the enemies of our enemy would crush this corporation with us: now that discussion has turned into discussion on how can we survive the forthcoming assault of those enemies.

The interesting part of this is that the active part of the Corporation is already spiced up with the prospect of a new war: people are organising training for jammers, tacklers and support ship players, the resource gathering is on full force and there is a mission fleet running almost 24/7 as I write this.

Nothing makes you work more harder than an upcoming prospect of war.

But still, I blame WoW for the late night and my current state. Shame on you!

EDIT: Correction. I opened EVE-gate right after posting this, only to find corporate mail telling that the war has started already. Kind of abruptly and caught me with my pants on my knees. What an interesting weekend this spells!

I give up on my aspirations

I made an experiment yesterday. And I will leave that as my last of sort.

You see, my biggest gripes with WoW at the moment is the fact that I cannot raid. The guild I'm in is raiding at reasonable times for normal people, starting at 21.00 on server time. That means 22.00 on my time, which is fine for the most. But the sad fact is that I'm waking up at 5.30 in the morning, and for me a sleep of 4.5 hours during week is way too short. (Basis to this: raid starts 22.00, lasts 3 hours, results ending time 01.00)

Can't do that, I'm worse than a zombie for the next day.

Even if the time was a couple of hours earlier, real life puts it's finger on the reset button. You see, I come back home around 18.00 if I'm lucky. Family requires quality time for sure, so I'm tied till something around 20.00-21.00. Game time commences after that, which doesn't last for long.

"Surely there are raids on weekends, too", I hear from the back. True, but my excuse is my hobby with the dogs. Over the summertime I'm involved with activities which tie me up for the whole weekend, without set ending time on the day. One event may end so that I'm home at 18.00, other so that I come home at 23.00. I can't make a commitment I cannot keep, that just doesn't fit into my thinking.

So I'm calling quits on the whole aspiration to ever raid in WoW. Because of that I'm stuck in the heroics limbo with no light at the end of the tunnel.

You see, the experiment was to play till midnight and see how my old corpse body would do afterwards. It doesn't cope well with the strain, so I work below my level at the moment and I cannot accept that.

Rest safe, Lich King. There is at least one threat less to pester you.

...

Lore tricks

The more I play, the more I'm amazed by some ingenious tricks Blizzard writers have done.

I started the Deathknight I had been postponing for a long time. In fact, ever since I got Laiskajaakko to Northrend I have been working on the idea of doing a DK for myself. The only thing that has kept me from taking the step has been the fact that there are so many DKs everywhere and mostly they are total... dung. And the fact that DK's game mechanics seem strange to me has been keeping me off. If it took me so long to understand the basics of tanking a prot warrior, how long will it take to understand the basics of DK tanking?

Which is why I took on DPS route for levelling. Unholy.

Back to the topic.

I had been wondering about the stories in Northrend which started more or less out of thin air, and involve the disappointed, cheated and cross Deathknight heroes. They have nice tie-up quests leading to them, which provide some insight on the story at hand, but in many cases the reason to the DK is left unexplained.

Until you start playing a DK. Thessarian, who is the first DK you encounter when you start questing in the Borean Tundra, is also one of your leaders in Ebon Hold quests, showing his disrespect for the fellow Deathknights even before the revelation of the Lich Kings betrayal. He shows the backbone and honor not seen in most of the other DK's leading the operations.

After playing the DK starter area, several of the stories I had experienced with DK's in the Northrend with both my warrior and my priest got a completely new meaning.

What a devious trick to extend the game, story wise.

Now I have to play the DK up to cap to see what else he can experience what is hidden from the other ally classes.

This makes me wonder... What haven't I seen, as I haven't played the Horde?

What a dirty lore trick to do, to make me play more.

Looking back

Finally I quit levelling on Northrend and it's time to reminiscent the journey. As it happens, Lodur at World of Matticus just did a nice comparison on the expansions: while I don't share his opinion in all accounts, its good reading for its own sake.

I have been pretty negative on the storytelling aspect of Vanilla and Burning Crusade, mainly because the catching and compelling storylines have been far and between. The few lines in Vanilla (Missing Diplomat, or the Darrowshire Heroes questline for example) are just remarkably good story telling, both taking you along as the 'hero', or at least creating the illusion.

Burning Crusade follows the same rule: sometimes you feel like part of the story, but there is no real storyline to follow. And the areas are pretty much separated one from another, with as much connection in between them as there is connection in their visual styles. Like Lodur said:

The terrain didn’t blend very well between zones. Good example would be going from Zangarmarsh to Nagrand, the contrast was incredibly violent. This theme persisted through most of the between zone areas

I quite undersign that. Also, levelling now, way behind the main wave of players, the reputation grind is pointless: at the point when you start to gain benefits from the rewards (or are in a position to get them) you are headlong in the Northrend already, wondering how to get that Scryer shoulder enchant easier...

To the word of the day: levelling game in The Wrath of the Lich King. The short version is that the levelling speed was too fast, levelling was too easy and the quests pretty repetitive with few very nice sideshows on the road. Longer version: let's break the short one into pieces.

Like I stated earlier, I levelled for the first time and way behind the main population. This causes the illusion that you are levelling alone or in the best case with just few people around. This makes grouping a pain in the behind, too, but that seems to be common problem persisting till the level cap (and not getting any easier even then, either).

The entry to Northrend is shocking: after the tranquil and almost solemn Outlands you enter into a warzone: where a certain *other* MMO claimed that the War is Everywhere, it surely feels like that when you set your foot on the continent! In Borean Tundra -where I landed first- you are confronted with Nerubians fighting to push the human contigent in to the ocean (and end up saving their day), in Howling Fjord you are put against the raving Vrykul's and their bloodrage. In both places the quests are pretty standard, not too involving but usually continuing onwards. This was a change in the pace: you didn't get single shots, nor the 'best' quest rewards from the first quest. The gear reward came only after completing the quests on the questgiver, which actually showed you easily when the quests got finished! Great thinking in continuity wise.

The levelling speed increased greatly, in my case most likely due to the fact that I got myself involved with the stories. I just had to kick the green viking's butt for the Kaluak's (gaining reputation enough to get the sweet breastplate as early as possible), help the Explorers Guild to get into the bottom of things in Howling Fjord and so on. The questing in storylines compelled me to check the next phase. This caused even more profound problem: I over levelled the instances yet again. For a first timer this is a loss, for the gear reward from the instance quests and bosses are huge improvement to the gear achieved otherwise.Also the fact that the areas have dailies available from very early on increases the levelling speed, for the dailies are very easy quests with maximum exp reward, and in addition to questing you could easily do easy dailies every day without hindering your questing. Reputation grind while questing is an option, and a good one.

Even though the speed was increased mostly because I wanted to continue the book, the quests were overly simplified. At very early stage the protection warrior was downing mobs 2-3 levels higher, and with max rested bonus this means 2-2.5k per mob. Take ten "kill ten foozles"-quests and its reward and you're rocking. It was a kind of disappointment that the 'challenge' was off, but then again the experience in Utgarde Keep showed me that the challenge was in the instances. The disparity of these two is huge.

Needless to say, that the graphics are beautiful. But phasing still amazes me from time to time, as I encounter it while tying the lose ends of the quest chains. The first instances (Borean Tundra coastline) showed that it's a powerfull story telling device, Wrathgate proved that it combined with a strong story gets you very much involved in the story yourself and the Argent Vanguard and Shadow Vault quests show the power of the phasing in a way that the game makes you feel you are making a difference. I still cannot fly over the first without grinning, you know why if you have completed the Tiron Fordring's quests in the area. The effect is fantastic!

There are few sideshows which are worth the while and some which aren't. Granted that the D.E.T.H.A quests are nice and cuddly and all, but they serve no purpose in the overall content. Well, maybe they foreshadow the Hemet Nesingwary quests in the Sholazar Basin in a way, but otherwise they were IMO just a distraction. On the other hand, Nesingwary's quests -even though they were mainly killing and slaughtering as always- gave the feeling of accomplishment in a peculiar way. And no one can deny the power of distilling your own booze, for sure.

If there is one thing that bothered me all the way up in Northrend was the fact that the gear upgrades were pretty static and came at certain level ranges. You get seven similar pieces of gear with just slightly different stats to suit some specifications, which was enraging. The gear ups till -something like- lv75-76 were more or less cosmetic, at least looking from the world drop/quest reward side, but at that point the reward structure changed dramatically. Perhaps because at that point the first Honored faction rewards came into play, the rewards from quests had to be at about level with them. Inferior, but at level.

All in all, I levelled too fast and skipped several areas. But then again, the only areas that really matter are Dragonblight and Icecrown for obvious reasons, and everything else is just foreshadowing the incidents in those areas. If there is something I wish for in Cataclysm, it's that they bind the stories into as good and narrative packages as they did in the best ones in The Wrath of the Lich King. That will make the day for sure.

Before long

My vacation starts today, meaning that I most probably won't be either playing or blogging for at least the next few weeks. At least the first two weeks I will be away from the computer altogether, though I may update my other blog during the time due to the fact that we're travelling to European Championships in Lure Coursing with our dogs. But for this blog... it's going to be a short silence.

This means that your blogroll will be a bit shorter on my behalf, too. As it happens, I'm not the only blogger taking a well deserved summer vacation: more prominent names have already taken their leave.

But before the 'long absence' I'll recap my last night's endeavours. First of all, the initial patch load was pretty quick, but for some reason it lagged my computer even after it had finished: was is just a freak incident or is there a real data leak in the loader, I don't know. But after restarting my machine the performance was quite different.

Secondly, I found out another reason why it's next to impossible for a new player -even in social guild- to get access to the lower instances and learn from them. You see, I travel with LFG tool on all the time. I have the "first time tank, noob warning" in the comments, which in a way works as a warning to the 'fast levelling' level capped know it alls.

Or should work.

In the initial party there were two druids (boomkin and asparagus), DK, mage and Laiskajaakko. Fine, the composition is quite reasonable. The tree-druid was the one who got the party going, and she was excellent: she took into account the fact that I am only learning to tank, gave me time and gave me information which I obviously didn't have due to my inexperience. She also tried to slow down the rest of the group, as the boomkin was one of the impatient know it alls: "sure I have omen, but the tank is slacking" was his comment on stealing aggro. Doesn't matter how hard I try, my TPS remains below 2k, for some reason or another: I don't think it's about the rotation or such, there is now something I just don't get.

Anyhow, we wiped. Partly because I couldn't keep the aggro effectively in the 3 or 4 mob pulls. Partly because the boomkin was doing steady 1500 damage and generating huge amount of aggro, stealing it constantly from me. Even with spamming taunt and devastate I wasn't keeping up to him.

So the bird-man left the group. So did the DK, as they were a couple.

And we got another two to run the rest of the instance. A paladin and another DK.

Who listened to the tree druid, checked their threat and all in all the rest of the instance went flying by. I suppose a big part of it was the fact that I got the time to call the pulls, get the initial aggro and just do my work on my pace. Thanks to the resto druid, I felt I could work within the group.

Still I hate Ingvar: he sucks.

Anyhow, I later heard that the warrior threat generation is a bottleneck in WotLK and that the situation is not unheard of. I tested my rotation later on against some elites for a quest (being healed by Bishopgeorge) and breaking even 1800 TPS seems extremely hard with the gear and talents I have...

And I remembered only as I logged out, that I haven't visited a class trainer since lv70... that's too skill ups ago...

Anyhow, the impatience and intolerance of different skill levels among the PUG's may be a big cause for the discussion about how terrible PUG's are: while the people with extensive raid experience -from vanilla even to the current top content- would like to advance on their own pace, there may be a player without that experience in instances, slowing the progress and trash clearing. I know that my talent build isn't that for clearing trash, and I don't have the Glyph of Cleave in my repertoire: it doesn't serve my levelling. However, this should be in the normal instances as the trash clearing is all about multi-mob tanking.

So, instead of trying to excel in PUG's, people should learn to adapt and wing their playstyle accordingly. This is something that is very hard to do, as the courtesy is a two way street. If you act snobbishly about it, the one feeling inadequate will act aggressively. That's self-preservation for you in short.

I want to thank all of you wonderful and helpful people PUGging day in, day out, helping newcomers and people who are not up to the challenge to overcome their lack of skill. You are the angels and helpers, who really make MMO's worth the grind to any instance, making the newcomer player feel at least a bit helpful on the way.

Thank you.

It sucks to be me

Yeah, that's a rip off from Avenue Q, the home of the song for the exceptionally hilarious WoW video "The Internet is for porn". But it describes my feelings after the weekend and my first PUG in Utgarde Keep.

I suck.

Big time.

I feel responsible for the three (3) wipes on Ingvar the Plunderer and one on Prince Keleseth. The latter was pure neglect on the party's healer's mana (she was all dry...) and a great learning experience on that. But the final boss...

I just sucked.

You see: I have read the event, I know the stages and I have read the strat. It just doesn't click. I can see the STOMP warning, but my brain hits Heroic Strike. I can see the Whirling Axe warning, but my finger works on the Revenge -oh, Sword and Board procced! And BOOM!

Otherwise the weekend was pretty nice. 'More of the same' questing in Northrend is abundant, but there are certain gems in the mix here and there: where as Outlands was exactly more of the same as the Old World, the experience and technological advances can be seen in the quest design. Also, the issue I wrote about earlier with the short storylines showed the other side of the design: to my big surprise the questline starting from Orfus of Kamauga spread across several quests leading to the Pirate camp and finally to the revelation on the existence of the Kvaldir pestering Howling Fjord! And just when I had given up the idea of long and intriguing stories in Northrend.

WotLK can surprise you, now I agree with that. Gold nuggets like helping the sea lions to mate, the pirate miniquests (can't call them anything else) and few others really make the game feel different for a while, until you are slammed in the face with yet another slaughter grind like the Iron Dwarf quests in the northern part of the Howling Fjords.

Laiskajaakko is only 4 quests short of I've Toured the Fjord and is now stuck with quests requiring 2 or 3 players: the 2 player one has already proven to be a bit too much for him to tackle alone, so I'm not taking any guesses with the 3 one, either. With Bishopgeorge's help I'm sure we can tackle both of those. Then I have to find a couple more to complete the achievement... and to be able to move on to Grizzly Hills!

Utgarde Keep proved to be a disappontment otherwise: poor loot, awful looks and dumb mobs. Very much like Hellfire Ramparts for the first time. But Ingvar has more special moves compared to Vazruden, and hits harder, so I just have to overcome my fear of moving and fighting at the same time.

And I have to learn to follow the fight, too.

I will learn.

Paradigm change for me, thank you!

I've been Tweeting about it and I was ecstatic about it in my earlier posts, but I haven't reported about the actual issue itself. Yes, how the Three Stooges have joined the ranks of a new guild. The three blind mice have found a new home, and if all goes well -and no one of us blunders spectacularly- we should be approved as 'members' to this fine bunch of casual raiders.

Anyone who has even the slightest inclination in looking places like WoW Armory or such will find out that we have been rolled into Highland Warriors , which is -after the recent Mimiron kill (HarGREAT!!!) in Ulduar 25- at rank 23 in the server wide progression list, and in Ulduar10 on the 12th spot.

And the first casual one, besting many of the hard core guilds over there.

As I have a lot to do with this, all I can say is that I'm in a group which has brought up the competitive part in me. Like my recent rant about not being prepared shows, it hit hard to realize that the people in this guild are professionals, and I'm just a noob. I feel like a guy in a tv show who went to fight with the masters -or their best pupils- of ten martial arts after 6 weeks of training said: I don't know what I'm doing here, these guys fight to kill...

Maybe I'll have enough to pull it through as casual and someday raid with this fine bunch.

I've been online to the extreme during this week, and I can see it's affecting my casual being. I'm stressing over the progress of my toons and I'm not really enjoying the ride: it's too darn slow!

But then again, if I'm giving up on the content, I will feel miserable: how did I get here? What happened in the earlier part of the storyline? And so on.

So far what I've seen in the guild has been about two grades better than I have thought it to be. Like I said, the people are professionals in their way: personalities, but all are clearly focused on doing their best. If Gevlon calls casuals as morons and slackers, he sure as hell hasn't seen these casuals! The activity is such that people are organizing lower level achievement 'raids' (to Old World content) while the raid locked teams are doing their runs. And all the while there are questions whether anyone is interested in coming to heroics... I'm dumbfounded after all the time in the quiet small guild living and being able to follow all chats at the same time. I need a paradigm change with this, definitely.

The sheer amount of people and toons has fooled me in the way that my social ape has gone bonkers and I have been slapped in private for greeting the toons as they come in. Only because I just cannot connect all the gadzillion alts with their respective mains, yet, and I've been greeting the ones I know I've been chatting with/to. Can't help it, or my hyperactive clicking on the Guild Greeter announcements... oops...

So I have to prune the Guild Greeter list and personalize the greetings a bit. Already I have introduced my signature greeting in logging in (Terve kaverit == Hello friends in Finnish) and upon logging out (Soommoro which equals approximately kkthnxbb and laters). And I think that will be all of the 'native' things I'll use.

What I've been doing? Laiskajaakko has been questing and like I have said earlier I hate Gjalerbron for its repetitiveness and grinding status: the storylines in there are nice, but the killing is not. Though I cannot say that killing Glaciron didn't boost my spirits... It was great, but too easy...

I got Pupunen to Outlands at level 58, and I think it wasn't a level too soon. So far she hasn't done any combat, but the current Discipline will have to do until I get her to Shattrath and can dual spec her to holy and shadow. I just want to see how the dual speccing works and how easy it is to jump from the evil killing machine to the holy healing machine.

Can anyone tell how you can click the action bars with Clique on? I can't click the skills as I have Clique on for some reason... And for healing I have come very dependent on clique...

Tonight... I will run with LFG on all the time and go where ever it may take.

Manic and depressive

Ever since I started to apply for my new guild I've been trying to find ways to improve my amazing skills as a tank/warrior. Because of the new content of Northrend, I've been manic in my playing, finding new enthusiasm into the stale quest grind of Outlands. That is due to my explorer nature: seeing new things and experiencing new events just thrills me like nothing. I've explored Outlands almost completely, and I feel there is nothing to see anymore, except the instances I've overlevelled.

Then the depressive part hits, like yesterday. I was reading WoWwiki, and for the first time I was reading the instance descriptions and strategies for Utgarde Keep. First of all, the boss drops -which I have never earlier checked before entering an instance- are a huge disappointment for a protection warrior: all plate in the normal instances up to lv80 have +INT in them. So no help from that part. But the strategies part struck the soft part in my soul.

I am not prepared.

The game hasn't been able to prepare me for the movement on boss fights, nor for the intricate finesses of even the earliest bosses, because I have been forced to skip a lot of content. The highest instance I have ever visited has been in Auchindoun, in which the bosses were more or less tank and spank ones. And I have never experienced a heroic with more challenge.Which is another point leading to my conclusion.

If I hadn't been playing with this certain tanking mentality which Veneretion mentions in his blogcast , I wouldn't be here and trying to find ways to make myself better. Veneretio says -quite bluntly, which I like- that he doesn't want to be mediocre tank, he wants to be amazing.

I don't want to be a mediocre tank. I want to be at least a great one.

I'll leave the amazing part to the ones who need the self-induced ego-boost.

I feel at the moment, that the learning curve has suddenly turned into a more steep incline than the Northrend questing content has suggested.

If I think of the situation from the viewpoint of a total newcomer to the game, I'm even more puzzled. Just think about it: you breeze through the content, dinging every now and then and hit the levelling brick wall in Northrend. Up till then your levelling speed is such that you don't have to worry about the gear bonuses and definitely not about maxing anything: you are changing your gear faster than your real life socks. Hopefully.

All of a sudden you are plunged into this new minigame, where you are given a new piece of gear at the end of each quest chain. With almost identical stats, with only changes in the bonuses. Where as you have been this far getting only the bonuses mentioned as being your character's classes basic stats, now you are faced with bonuses which are somewhere inbetween and require serious understanding of the theorycrafting (in which I suck, big time).

How does that make a newcomer, first time leveller or a returning player?

I haven't tried the Deathknight 'tutorial game', but it's been said to be excellent start for a new high class toon, but I doubt it doesn't have a bonus tutorial either.

But my conclusion is easily this: As I have passed the instances in the Old World and Outlands (besides the lower level ones in both), I have also passed the boot camp in instance running. This means also, that I have passed effectively the training in raiding, which has been the prominent end game pass time of the current raiding community. The newcomers will find this even harder as they will boost themselves through the levelling game to this point, find no groups willing to take them and hear snickering about their faulty gear.

I'm not going to take it.

I don't want to be a mediocre tank. I want to learn and be a great one.

But where is the training area? I've passed the tutorial already...

Howling Fjord by Weekend

Quite a weekend that was: unbeliavably the Three Stooges were logged in daily, waiting for the recruiting officer of the new home for the fools to arrive online. Which happened conveniently on sunday afternoon, after Laiskajaakko had dinged 72, gotten Honored by The Explorer's League and Revered (!) in Valiance Expedition and visited Dragonblight for the first rescue mission.

But let's start from the beginning. On friday the Three Stooges went along and quested for their fullest in the Howling Fjord area, mainly dealing with Vrykul infestation in the area. This kind of grind is/would be boring done alone, so this was the best possible situation: holy trinity doing their best to best the world.

On Saturday I spent most of my time levelling alone. Finally I found the quests people have been talking about, you know, the ones which are different from the typical kill ten foozles grind. To walk around the dark iron dwarves in a body suit was hilarious, as well as the harpoon surfing: really eye candy for the people. But really won the day was the quest in which you guide the hawk and collect the eggs. Granted, it's the typical collect ten dingles, but the twist was something for me who hasn't enjoyed the flight for too long. And of course, the flight mission of Steel Gate Patrol was a joy I did on Sunday, too. Not exactly the best dog fight simulation, but surely worth the daily!

For the evening I spent the time helping the Two Fools to do the same quests, effectively enjoying their gaps and enjoyment. And failures. Though they didn't make it to the Explorers league, yet, even though Bishopgeorge dinged his 71.

On Sunday I spent most of the time trying to return completed quests with Pupunen, whom I desperately want entering the Outlands, soon. I've given up with her on the finesses of levelling, and I'm pushing her up to get her tailoring and enchanting up from the 300 cap they are in. So I mostly flew across the Old World, making about 1.5 levels when the brothers logged in.

And surprisingly, our recruiting officer.

We grouped up, heard some 'truths' about the code of conduct (we're adult, so this should have been cut even shorter... :P) and off we went: from The Order of the Fist to the new guild in two button clicks.

Kind of sad, but exhilariating at the same time.

As we were already at our own questlines, we continued to quests for some hours: I finished the wolf questline, dinged 72 and did the Steel Gate Patrol once again. Way too much fun.

Then I logged in again later to finish the first slaughter mission into the Gjalerbron: the first set of quests which make me feel that the questing is just grinding in different guises. The flight quests and the bombing quests are a breath of fresh air only to be squashed with these slaughter orgies: "kill 18 these, 10 those and yet another 8 of another kind for the good of the people". You are the army around here, kill them yourself... oh, wait, I think I'll do that for the experience, reputation and that nice shiny which I can sell for money...

Which reminds me of the thing that has started to bug me royally: the quest chain rewards. They are the same stuff, time and again, but just with different bonuses. It gets very, very boring after the third breastplate with 1262 armor and different bonuses. Just to pick up the 'right ones' to suit your current spec seems to be the new minigame, and I'm afraid this will not stop in the further areas.

I hope I'm not right. Though it seems I have to switch from the sword to the Valiance Expedition rep mace... I just hate it. There has been just two adequate upgrades to my Honor Hold rep sword for the whole time in Northrend, and now I'm offered a huge improvement as a mace.

How degrading is that, really?

Casually casual WoW

Blizzard surely caters to the group paying their bills. That's the thought I have from yesterday's questing around Valgarde. The thought hit me after I had fulfilled third questline in Howling Fjord (after fulfilling several in Borean Tundra): the questlines are all short enough to be completed in one session, with a nice shiny quest reward at the end of the rainbow.

I just don't remember who or when said that casual gaming is the growing disease in MMO's. In a way this is true, because being a casual means you cannot commit to the game fully: sure, you can commit to a raid schedule and leave everything else off. I'm speaking of my own experience, naturally, for I feel that my commitment to the game and my former guild was hindered due to the fact I didn't commit enough time to it.

But now Blizzard is catering more and more for the casual gamer, the guy next door who logins, kicks a few quests and logs off. Which is great for me, as I feel I can accomplish something within the short time I play. But the story-driven mind is crying: now I'm forced to read a set of mixed short stories instead of a good novel: I've yet to encounter the stories like The Missing Diplomat, Absentminded Prospector or the Darrowshire questline, which guide you through twists and turns and areas to a climatic conclusion (well, the Absentminded Prospector not so much...), and really make you feel the urge to uncover the next part of the plot.

Sure, us casuals are more abundant than the real hardcore raiders, who are catered with the latest content. So guess who is putting up the finances for the new development? And who should benefit more on this basis?

And of course, as a social gamer, this leaves me with only one question: what this means to the social aspect of the game or the guilds? There are already some posts in the blogosphere about this, and it doesn't look too good, IMO, if there is no connection with the people you're playing with.

Small steps

Yes. I went to a store and now I have full WotLK. But you can imagine my amazement when I logged in and found out that Förgelös had already activated his! With the devil hitting my mind -and as Bishopgeorge was online, too- I started to group Laiskajaakko and Förgelös... and Bishopgeorge upgraded his account!

The Three Stooges ride again, this time under the crisp boreal sky!

While I was travelling from Valiance Keep to Valgarde, where the two miscreants decided to land, I experienced my first Whoa! moment in Northrend. Or WoW moment, to be more precise.

The turtle ride from Unu'pe on was just a nice show of creating a scenic time sink. I rather enjoyed the scenery on the route, but what really bugged me was the waiting time at the dock: I'd rather be killing things -and naturally doing quests- than waiting for the transportation without any knowledge of the time it takes for the swimming/flying/teleporting thing to arrive!

That wasn't the WOW! moment. That moment came in the Howling Fjord: as I landed to Kamauga after two waiting times (longer than the rides themself, at least felt like it!), I noticed that the Valgarde was still a short trek on wards. The first interesting thing I noticed was that I was hunting the same creatures as the local wolves: to kill the prey or the predator, that's the question. Nice addition to the game dynamics, really.

The WOW! moment came when I stepped into the Ancient Lift. My gasp of amazement silenced our brotherly discussion completely. It was way more than anything in Outlands. I can remember my first time in Kalimdor with my newly created Tauren Druid -Bullcopra- when I had similar moments.

The trip was worth the boring quests and grind-like starting of the Howling Fjord quests.

I'm looking forward for more of the same, if the same is like the raid on the Ancient Lift.

The Three Stooges already made plans to enter Utgarde Keep. We will get beaten, but we'll have fun.

Oh, and the last small step: Förgelös applied to the same guild I have my application open. Now to get that lazy player of the priest to do the same, and we're rockin'.

Great thinking, Blizz!

Just a quick burst of frustration:

I have missed some information and in that case it's not been stated clearly enough. I got stuck just 1 point short of lv71 on my WotLK trial yesterday. Only because no-one has stated that the trial is valid only for that level.

Granted, you can cruise around the Northrend for the 10 days, twiddle with your DK (which I won't do) and have fun with the factions, but you won't gain lv71.

Granted, it makes sense in the way that people who don't purchase the expansion will stay at the level cap of TBC, but I'm furstrated and agitated and feel cheated.

Enough.Sorry, thank you and goodbye.

PS. I'm going home via store to purchase that expansion. Onwards to victory!

Belated first impressions

Sure. I made the unimaginable thing.

I activated the WotLK trial. Without my brothers, I entered Northrend, trying to fight the expectations posed to me throughout the months the expansion itself has been around.

First of all, I have to say that the downloading and updating of the game client sucks. Big time. The game client took about 4-5 hours to download: not due to my connection, but because the downloader just couldn't get enough data to deliver. Secondly, after this was through, the updates from 3.00.00 till 3.1.9XX took 3 hours and 38 minutes (that's what the downloader told me). PLUS the installation/initialisation of the install.

So, it took almost 10 hours from the beginning of the download to the final, playable game.

Purchased game would have cut that in half, because the 3+ hours of patches would have been there, still.

Enough technicalities. Off to Stormwind and Northrend.

Valiance Keep. The entry to the city-castle is impressive: the icebergs floating in the sea, the flashes of the cannons and the occasional trembling of the ground. The game-not-to-be-named had a slogan which suits here exceptionally well, and is in fact the carrying theme of the Borean Tundra: The War is Everywhere.

The recruiting queue, the mission briefings, everything in the Valiance Keep points to the fact that this keep is doing it's best to keep the foothold of the Alliance in the area. And as you move outside of the keep, the war hits you in the face: the marauding troops of the Nerubians keep pushing the human defenders to the brink of falling.

What really pleased me to see was the fact that your character was greeted as a hero by all the people in Valiance Keep. The initial questgiver giving the directions to the keep's master especially stated so and thus the initial storyline was started.

But then started the congestion of storylines and all of a sudden -even though I read all the story texts- I was swamped with a notion that I don't know what story this specific quest belongs to!

My first impressions can be summed up in one sentence: Outlands, but more of the same.

Ok, have to have something positive to say. The initial quests give gear rewards which improve the easily acquired Outlands blue gear pretty nicely, which was to be expected. The way how the gear is handed out is just plain slap on the face though: every quest gives you a choice of all basic types and the initial plate is geared towards warriors... protection warriors especially, being +STA gear. With odds and ends of other bonuses.

The loot, on the other hand, has proven to be a bit disappointing. Where in Outlands you could hope for an easy blue or good green as a drop, here in the six+ hours I played I got only three adequate greens. A couple of recipes were a plus, but otherwise the drops have been disappointing.

Like I said, there is too much to get oneself immersed into the problems and difficulties of the human settlers and Tuskarr/Kvaldir-conflicts, and the amount of factions poured over my poor head was way too much.

There is no coherrence in the area, all is just a jumbled mess.

What I realized was that the way to steer a character on a 'route' in this kind of a world would have been the Fighting Fantasy gamebook approach: at the questgiver you can decline or approve the quest, and either choice would open different opportunities at the next quest. In this 'every quest is open to everyone right away' approach the stories in the game get lost and I have to say that I enjoyed more the few hours I hunted down a couple of elites in Netherstorm with my brother, than the jumbled mess of stories in the Borean Tundra.

I can only wish it gets more interesting later on.