15 Minutes of WoW is Moving!

That’s right, folks – I’m taking the show on the road. Well, actually, I’m just taking it to a privately hosted site.

The new address is 15minutesofwow.alternateimage.net

This means that everyone subscribed to the blog, the RSS feed, or following it will need to update their subscriptions as this “.wordpress.com” will stop getting updates in the near future (and may someday be removed entirely).

There may be some errors and changes to the new site as the transition is made so bear with me, but right now all of the posts and comments should have transferred over. Let me know how you like the new layout!

Valor Upgrades and Why I Hope They Stay Gone

Patch 5.1 brought forth a fantastic (or so I may have seemed at first) new feature – gear upgrades with points. This feature allowed a player to take their piece of gear (as long as it met item level requirements) and upgrade it up to 8 item levels with justice points for blues or valor points for epic pieces. This gave players the ability to continue to use their valor points long after they had already purchased or surpassed the valor gear available. In this way, players could keep gaining more power for their characters even if they have incredibly bad luck with drops. Heck, I’ve been able to upgrade my Raid Finder Sha Touched weapon to be nearly the item level of getting a normal drop and above the Mogu’Shan Vaults two-hander that I’ve had no luck on. So why, when I heard that patch 5.2 would remove the valor upgrade vendor, was I happy to hear about it? And why on earth would I hope they stay gone?

Daily Thoughts: Did MoP Really Kill Alts?

I’ve read a lot of posts since Mists of Pandaria was released that Blizzard killed players ability to have max level alts (multiple characters) and have to wonder what merit there is to those arguments. As a player who had leveled one of every class to max level I can safely say that I feel a similar burden of almost any altoholic. My goal is always to have my characters raid ready (at least entry-level raids) and took all of my 10 characters into raid finder at least once. So here we find ourselves in Pandaria, a land with endless adventure (or work as some call it) and an additional class. Blizzard removed the cap on daily quests and made reputation gains important, added pet battles, added challenge mode dungeons, put 3 raids in the first tier, added scenarios, added a farm (ridiculously addictive somehow) on top of what we already had. With so much to do, is there any time for alts? The answer that I’ve found: Maybe.

Daily Thoughts: Brawler’s Guild Woes

Upcoming patch 5.1 is bringing with it a lot of changes and new content. One of the most controversial items seems to be the Brawler’s Guild. Despite the first rule of Brawler’s Guild being “don’t talk about Brawler’s Guild”, there is a lot of talking going on – primarily about the way that a player can gain access to this content. For those who don’t know anything about this feature, here’s the description from the patch notes:

Brawler’s Guild

• Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers who have their mitts on an invitation a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.
• Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler’s Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.
• Entry into the brawler’s guild is by invitation only. Invitations can be found on the black market auction house or by invitation from somebody within the guild.
• As their Brawler’s Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.
• Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler’s Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.
• If this is your first night at Brawler’s Guild, you have to fight.

Black Market Auction House invitations means that only the wealthiest players will have access to the Guild at first and has some people upset. I think it’s awesome and can’t imagine a better way to handle it.

Daily Thoughts: Too Easy is Still Too Easy

I finally got a chance to get into the second half of Mogu’shan Vaults as looking for raid (along with the first few bosses on normal mode as well, but that’s for another time) and I found the bosses to be much more interesting. These encounters were such that completely ignoring the mechanics may result in death (unlike the first half) where I kept my finger near the “Raise Ally” skill to bring up a tank or healer that may have died – cause we’d need them alive to win.

The first boss I landed on was the last one. The group had wiped on that encounter previously though we had little trouble collecting our loot that time. It did at least give me the impression that everyone had to at least catch on to what was happening or the healers would have trouble keeping up. After getting into my next group and passed the first bit of trash, the actual first boss was a little tricky if the group isn’t paying attention. Half of the team was dead before the boss fell. The second boss, Elegon, is a titan defense machine those is a little unlike those we’ve encountered before. This was the only boss we wiped on. Most of the raid, maybe, fell to their deaths, or something. Otherwise, the fight was tough but manageable. It as well ended with the raid looking like it might fall over if there were a small gust of wind.

So, if these fights were of appropriate difficulty for a raid finder situation, then why is this post about things being too easy still? Because the first half is still, ridiculously, too easy. Sure, raids typically get progressively harder as you go down the bosses, but even raid finder bosses shouldn’t be as much of a set of pushovers as the first three were – particularly given the raid is still pretty new and people don’t know it yet. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I’d like to think that most gamers (of really any type) want some sort of challenge as part of their enjoyment. Instead, the first half of MV shows people it’s a place to go to get free epics then it’s a slap in the face when the second half makes them work for it a little. Although I’m hopeful that future raids don’t aren’t such a walk in the park (which may be insulting to the difficulty of walking through a park), I can’t quite understand why these particular bosses were balanced this way. Any ideas?

Daily Thoughts: To Need Or Not To Need – A Dungeon Loot Discussion

There are two main camps with very different rationale regarding dungeon loot etiquette – specifically in looking for dungeon (LFD) groups. These dungeons are queued up with an interface that, after a wait (much shorter for tanks and healers), dumps you in a dungeon with random players. Chances are you’ve never seen these other players before, they’re probably from a different server, and you’ll probably never see them again. Then, along with this new-found group of temporary companions, you proceed to trounce a bunch of enemies, bosses, and hopefully collect some loot. Here is where the issue comes into play. In a LFD group, the “Need” roll, or highest priority option, is limited solely by class. A Paladin in the group, regardless of the role they’ve chosen (tank, healer, or DPS), can roll need for plate tanking, dps, or healing gear (including rings/necks wither either intellect, strength, or tanking stats). The two camps of thought vary dramatically at this point. One side thinks that it’s okay to need on anything your class can use, anything at all that is an upgrade (as is allowed by the game system) while the other firmly believes that some courtesy should be shown and the player should limit their need rolls to the role they have chosen (unless the gear is not needed by the player filling the role). So which side is right and which side is a selfish, entitled, wanker?

Daily Thoughts: More Awesome MoP Images

The first few of these came from the Pandaren starting zone The Wandering Isle (great starting experience, by the way), and the rest from Pandaria.

Daily Thoughts: Why Demon Hunters Will Never Be A Class

There seems to be a perpetual debate in different WoW social circles (Blizzard Forums, private forums, game chat, etc) about what the next class is that will be released. Aside from a plethora of slight variations of WoW classes that exist in other games with different names, the most common that come up tend to be the Bard or the Demon Hunter. I’ll get to the Bard in a later post. Demon hunters have been present in the Warcraft universe since Warcraft III, starting with Illidan Stormrage, and have continued to exist into World of Warcraft in areas of the game that have heavy demon infestations (Outlands, Felwood, etc). So, there is a mild case that can be made for adding them as a class since they do exist in Warcraft lore. Why is it then that they’ll never exist as a playable class?

Daily Thoughts: When Does Accessible Become Too Easy

I participated something last night that made me wonder if perhaps making content accessible to the masses can have an adverse side effect of making that content far too easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those who hails back to the “harder” old days that let only an elite few actually see all of a raids bosses. I really like that there are normal modes to bosses that don’t require dozens of attempts to kill. I love the relative ease of blowing through a MoP heroic dungeon without much worry that I might be wiping to this boss for the next 45 minutes. I even enjoy the concept of the Looking for Raid feature. Particularly on nights where we’re short guildies online to do a normal raid or just so I can take an alt through the content without having to make a second raid / join a second raiding guild. So, keep in mind that I think it’s okay that the LFR bosses and trash pulls can be a low stress, easy-going, fun way to get some sub-par raiding gear. But after doing the first 3 bosses of Mogu’shan Vaults, perhaps we should consider that content that has been made so accessible that there’s no challenge left might not be worthwhile content after all. There may be some spoilers to raid content after the break, so be warned!

Daily Thoughts: Mists of Pandaria First Impressions

I wanted to give a few days of being max level before attempting to post my commentary on the expansion. My opinion, however, has not changed since I reached level 86 to level 90 and to now. Mists of Pandaria is a solid upgrade and addition to World of Warcraft. If you read my last post, or feel like going to read it now, you’d have seen that I was indecisive regarding what character to make my ‘main’ for MoP. In the end, my Death Knight won out over the rest. I leveled from 85-86 as Unholy, but quickly switched to Frost. Howling Blast, hitting all targets for decent damage and applying dots, is simply one of the most superior AoE options available right now – particularly for questing, given the heavy movement that comes from running to and from mobs/nodes/etc. Questing was easily the most enjoyable that it has ever been to me, possibly with the exception of when I started playing back in The Burning Crusade. I wouldn’t think this is because TBC quests were better (they weren’t), but just for the new factor at the time. The zones were amazing. It’s been quite sometime since some visage in WoW made me think, “Damn, that’s pretty awesome looking.”