Wrathful and Kingly plans

[Creole Ned]

Anyone have any specific plans for post-Wrath of the Lich King (which as I write this is theoretically about an hour or so from going live)? Cleaning out old quests with 70s? Taking the first boat to Northrend? Creating one of the eleventy billion death knights? Immediately forming a group to do the first dungeon/raid/group quest? Figuring the servers will be down/horrible/crying and taking the day off? Not even (gasp) getting the expansion?

Do tell.

[Circuit]

I'll wait to decide what to do when I see where the bulk of the people end up. I don't think it'll be nearly as crowded in the starting area this time since there are two of them, but in case it is, I'll see what the Death Knight starting area looks like. If both are mucho packed, I think trying the first dungeon wouldn't be a bad idea. Plus fun!

[jackrabbit]

The Menethil boat to Northrend is much less crowded on Arthas than Stormwind Harbor. I don't think as many people know about it.

From the current /who counts, most people are going to Borean Tundra, and very few are rolling Death Knights (relatively speaking).

It appears as if pogo was one of the first 10 or so people in Northrend on Arthas. How does he do it?

[Circuit]

That's funny because pogo said on another forum I go to that he wasn't going to mess with going online at the early hours because of how bad it was when TBC released. Which I knew straight away was a blatant lie. :)

[Falhawk]

I realize we're all nerds to a certain extent but the whole midnight release thing is super nerdy.

[Kermit]

What is the minimum level requirement for Northrend? I'm about 3 bubbles from hitting 64. (I did 3/4th of a level last night instead of my usual average of about a half.)

I'll buy and install WotLK as soon as I've got a character that can go.

As far as Death Knights, after reading up on them, I'm interested. I'll roll one up when anyone else does and group there.

I'll do whatever everyone else is doing. I'm a grouping whore.

[Tai]

My ideal would be to spend 30 minutes clearing the group quests I have left in Netherstorm for XP (I know Paladin has the same quests). Then I'm up for exploring the new area or dungeon or whatever. If no one wants to pump out the Netherstorm guy (I've got that demon that healed that took us a while to deck when we did it for Circ/Ned), then I could probably wait / drop them and head to the new area with the rest.

If the servers are crap I will be playing L4D demo.

[jackrabbit]

I don't think there's an actual minimum for getting there via the boat, but the gear that drops starts at 67.

The 12:00 Release thing is probably the nerdiest thing I've ever done, next to going to PAX.

Every nerd stereotype was there, and it was like they were either oblivious to social norms, or so excited to be among like-minded, that they dorked out with reckless abandon. The most unsettling manifestation was the way they'd make eye contact and share a knowing excitement, like Jack Burton riding the elevator to Lo Pan's wedding in Big Trouble in Little China.

I'd showed up late intentionally to forgo the long line in the rain in winter Wisconsin weather. Even still, the lot for Best Buy was packed. There had to be more than 200 people in line when I got there at about 20 after. There was an excited buzz in the air; the whispers of Northrend and the smell of stale body order. There were three lines: one for the game, two for checking out. There were Best Buy employees everywhere, on headsets trying to look important. A release like this for Gear of War 2, Halo 3, or Madden 2009 probably requires security that resembles Old West cattle rustling. With nerds of this caliber, they queue as their default behavior, and stand quietly until called.

All things considered, it only took about 20 minutes, and there were even collectors editions left when I got to the giant pyramid of WoW boxes. I opted for the normal version.

So far the starting areas are so camped, it's hard to tell if the game is fun. But rest assured, ganking is as prevalent as it ever was. A line of T6 horde body-blocked the entrance to the initial alliance instance. These guys would rather ruin your fun than have any of their own. I can't comprehend fuckery on a scale like that. It's unthinkable that these guys rushed to have the game just so they could ruin the experience for others.

[Circuit]

There's no minimum to get to Northrend, but quests start at 68. Shouldn't be too hard to get you 4 levels pretty quick. We still haven't done most of the Outland instances as a group, so just moving through some of those would get you a decent amount of XP. Plus, provided those instances have 65+ enemies in them, our 70s would get XP too.

A line of T6 horde body-blocked the entrance to the initial alliance instance.

See, that's exactly why all my characters left Arthas. I know that stuff like that isn't going to happen every day, but I'd be infuriated if it happened while I was trying to play the brand-new expansion. I know it makes me a "care bear", but what you're describing is just blatant griefing. It's not PvP. It's a group of assholes who enjoy making other people miserable for no reason other than to balance out their own low self-esteem by being tough in a video game.

[Budly]

I should have it installed by about 6pm tonight, we'll see how it goes. TBC wiped my whole game and I had to scramble to find my discs to reinstall.

[Tai]

I love the rabbit's writing. Can you make more posts please JR? :)

[jackrabbit]

You just like to see "fuckery" used in a sentence.

[Tai]

Well, that and the reference to Big Trouble in Little China, not to mention the imagery you conjured with the queue statements. :)

[Dg3Nr8]

This game does strange things to people...

originally posted by risimage over at the shack

OMG! I was standing outside my HR manager's office and was going to ask about my W-4. Her door was shut and I was about to knock and I heard her yelling on the phone...

"you son of a bitch! I can't believe you skipped work today to play that fucking game! If I come home and you are playing that game, you better be getting everything you fucking own and moving the fuck out of my house! WHAT?!?! YOU LET OUR SON SKIP SCHOOL TOO TO PLAY! I AM COMING HOME DURING LUNCH AND LAYING DOWN THE FUCKING LAW MOTHER FUCKER!!!"

I was fucking trying so hard not to laugh I had to leave the hallway and get to my office and post this shit. Seriously, my ass hole was puckered up the whole time! Hearing her say "LAYING DOWN THE FUCKING LAW MOTHERFUCKER" is prob one of the funniest things I have heard someone say in a long damn time.

[Circuit]

Sounds like a nice family.

[Creole Ned]

Wrath of the Lich King's wife.

[Dg3Nr8]

Sounds like a nice family.

haha seriously. I'm thinking they may have some deeper issues here.

[Kermit]

I stopped by Target on the way back from a home inspection and picked up a copy $39.99.

I'll install it tonight and be ready. I'll continue to level Devalk when soloing, but I'm willing to tag along and heal if someone is questing new content. I'll probably pick up huge XP just being grouped and fighting level 68-72 mobs. Plus then when I hit 68, I'll already know where a lot of stuff is to start questing again. I can group again with people's secondary characters when they start leveling those.

[Tai]

Or Shadow Labyrinth. :)

That Shack guy wasn't posting from the NHL, was he?

[Paladin]

I took a half-day off, and was on by 3:30 after the day-one patching finished (I did some Christmas shopping too, so it wasn't like I came right home from the store at noon and started installing).

Anyway, the Northrend starting area is pretty crowded, but it was only a problem with one quest where you have to knock targets out of the sky before you can fight them, and some people were poaching. It was really too crowded in that one area. Aside from that, I've had zero problems. Tai and I knocked out some of my 2-3 man quests in Netherstorm. We both have a couple of 5-man non-instance quests there as well, and we picked up a good bit of XP for the ones we did.

Northrend is alot like Hellfire, but on a PvE server, ganking isn't a problem. Lots of mobs that aggro on sight though, and they do considerably more damage than equal level mobs in Netherstorm. On the plus side, the first quest replaced my druid staff.

[Creole Ned]

Early thoughts:

- got a copy at Future Shop downtown. Many others also getting theirs and MANY copies available (didn't see any collector's editions, though). The guy at the checkout said something about how they were selling a lot of the game and I said, "Yes, Blizzard will be wearing their money hats."
- queues! No surprise, really, this is like TBC all over again. The only good part is that Moonrunner is normally a medium-pop server so the queue wasn't horrific. I expect they will be gone soon enough.
- install for me was reasonably brisk, no hitches or surprises
- watched the opening cinematic again and I liked it better this time. I'd rate the opening scenes as 1) original WoW 2) WotLK and 3) TBC (Illidan as a villain is about as menacing as a kid in a Halloween costume)
- took Snackwell to the Borean Tundra, one of the two starting areas for Northrend. Not surprisngly, it was jam-packed and noisy as hell. Did the first half dozen or so quests with Q, Circuit and Budly (well, sort of Budly, he was mostly doing other stuff in the area and wasn't on Vent) and none really stood out, but as intro quests, I expect a lot of "Go meet this person" before the game settles down and sends you farther out from your arrival point.
- with one exception, the performance was excellent. The server was remarkably stable for me, not hitches or pauses. I'm impressed it held up so well under the crush of players.
- the one exception wasn't a performance problem per se, but an odd grouping issue. I made a DK and Circuit grouped up with me and even though we both showed on the mini-map and main map, we could not see each other. It seemed like we were in different instances but with no clear way to join up in the same one. We eventually gave up and just switched to our regular 70s. I haven't played enough of the DK to do more than mash buttons so no real opinion there yet. Circuit strangely rejected my suggestion to make a gnome death knight. :o
- the look of the Borean Tundra from what I've seen so far is excellent. Blizzard has great artists and it shows here. The textures are more detailed, the area is vividly rendered and is filled with lots of extra bits that add to the setting. The constant noise is a bit off-putting but not too horrible. The frosty effect on your "vision" when near the...uh...frosty guys is annoying. Find better ways to communicate effects than messing with the display, kthx!
- as expected, the early loot is noticeably better for anyone who isn't wearing high-level raiding gear. Snackwell has already replaced his weapon, chest armor (twice!), a ring, a trinket and boots.

Overall, I'm looking forward to checking out Northrend and more mildly interested in the DK. I really dislike the silly overcrowding, though. I'd be tempted to just stick with lower level characters for the first while if I didn't think everyone else would just race ahead of me.

[jackrabbit]

Well, so far the ganked game is beautiful, the ganked music is amazing, and the quests are ganked interesting. The lag is a little gankedbad, and it makes it ganked impossible to ganked really defend yourself, but there's an unspoken ganked truce between factions where ganked no one really bothers ganked anyone else.

I should have rolled on a PvE server.

However, I've been able to tour the countryside at my leisure while making corpse runs.

I'd move to a PvE server and never look back, but the wait is 10 hours. Hopefully things will improve. This is truly annoying and colors my whole appreciation of the game.

[Circuit]

I wish you'd move to Moonrunner. Besides being able to (theorectically) play with us, I could get you in the Drop Bears to raid if you wanted. I've been in a few 25 mans with them and they're a really awesome group of people. They're not a hardcore raiding guild in that they don't devote all their time into forced labor in order to gear up everyone for raids, but they have done as far as Black Temple post-3.0.2 nerf. They're really laid back and I can't stress enough how oddly nice of a group they are. I was amazed at my first Magtheridon run at how long it took to hand out all the loot simply because people were arguing over who got stuff. And not the bad kind of arguing, the polite "No, seriously, you take it" kind.

Also, the Death Knight is friggin' rad. I stayed up stupid late and finished the quests and got to Stormwind and they've done an excellent job with that whole thing. I'm really looking forward to learning how to play the class, too, because it's quite different than everything else in the game. Plus you get scary armor.

[Tai]

I did the 20 minute install, played with Paladin a bit clearing up quest log as mentioned. I'm perfectly willing to let the crush ease in the new areas before going over there.

I saw Paladin's staff, it's pretty ridiculous +776 attack power, +40 agi and +70 stamina, or something like that. and 10 DPS more than my blue staff. I'm afraid I will be turning in my cool flaming skull on my first quest. =P

I got an early night, so you may have noticed I was just idle in vent. Perhaps we can do some grouping this evening though. :)

Also, JR, you may recall me as a big fan of PvP on Arthas, but Moonrunner has been an awesome experience, life is just easier, I can always flag myself PvP when I want some of that, but I can also get stuff done without interference when I don't. There's also always TF2 for real PvP anyway. I hope you put in for a transfer last night before bed, and that we'll see you on Moonrunner tonight. :)

[Falhawk]

There's also always warhammer for real PvP anyway.


fixed

[Tick]

Re: Ned and Circuit not seeing eachother in the DK starting area. There are quests that have "phases" now, and the area around the quest changes depending on what phase you're on (and players in different phases can't see eachother). It's kinda odd, but it makes the world a bit more dynamic, which is nice. There will be quests where you'll have to kill someone important, and he'll stay dead as far as you're concerned. What a concept! (of course, then you can never help your friends do said quest, which sucks - hopefully not too many group phase quests).

Borean Tundra is much more spread out than Howling Fjords, so despite being more crowded, there seemed to be less gankiing. Might have been fewer horde, there, too. Maybe they can get to there from a smaller town and can get to the Fjords from a major city, the reverse of how it is for Alliance?

Also, the quest rewards for the instances and the stuff that drops in the instances is almost on par with Tier 5/badge gear, sometimes better (I got shoulders from a quest that were about 95% the stats of my current shoulders, which dropped in Mt Hyjal, the first T6 raid in TBC, tho the shoulders are not T6).

[jackrabbit]

Yeah, last night went MUCH smoother after I went over to Borean Tundra. I wish there was a "Skip to 80" button, though.

[Circuit]

Re: Ned and Circuit not seeing eachother in the DK starting area. There are quests that have "phases" now, and the area around the quest changes depending on what phase you're on (and players in different phases can't see eachother).

Yeah, I figured that out after everyone went to bed and I stupidly stayed up and continued the Deathknight quests. Besides the anti-teaming aspect of it, the quests are very very well done. I won't spoil anything for anyone who hasn't done it, but even if you don't plan on leveling a Deathknight, the quests are well worth doing.

[Tai]

Also, the quest rewards for the instances and the stuff that drops in the instances is almost on par with Tier 5/badge gear, sometimes better (I got shoulders from a quest that were about 95% the stats of my current shoulders, which dropped in Mt Hyjal, the first T6 raid in TBC, tho the shoulders are not T6).

Guess I won't put those first instances off as long as I thought.

[jackrabbit]

I just finished the Death Knight quest series. It takes about 2 hours, but it's probably the best questing experience the game has yet to offer.

The story is great and the writing is more reminiscent of Mass Effect than WoW. Everything about the experience is well done, and even though I'm still struggling with understanding the class mechanics, this character has bonded to me.

I may never take my Night Elf Male Death Knight, named Oathe, to 80. But already I feel like he and I have been through a lot.

While I'm not in love with the expansion content past 70, the 55+ phases of the Death Knight are amazing.

[Circuit]

Postal, Pal and Kermit did a quick trip to Ramparts last night to see if I could figure out Death Knight tanking and so far it's pretty confusing. I'm not sure exactly which abilities create lots of threat and it's weird tanking with a two-handed weapon. The devs did originally say they intended the DK to tank with a two-hander, but it seems like dual-weilding two tank wapons would be better.

The main thing I'm having trouble with is pulling enemies off of teammates if they grab aggro. There's only one actual taunt and it has a 35 second cooldown (25 with talents). It also happens to be the coolest taunt in the game, so there's that. The bulk of threat generation seems to revolve around managing diseases on the targets, sort of similar to keeping blessings up with a Paladin, but I'm just not sure what to use to quickly grab aggro back from a teammate if my taunt's on cooldown. I do have several ranged spells so that probably helps, but so far it's just such a different class I haven't yet figured out exactly how to play. On the plus side, I didn't seem to have any problem at all holding threat on the one boss we fought.

I think the main thing is probably just learning to recognize all these new icons. It's weird starting a character at 55 and having to learn several brand-new abilities, especially when it involves this weird rune system thing. I haven't totally wrapped my brain around how that works. Runic power seems to operate like Fury for a Warrior in that it builds as you do damage (except in this case it builds as you use abilities that use runes), but so far I haven't been able to recognize when to use different abilities that require the different types of runes.

I'll have to play with it some more, which I'm happy to do because despite my general lack of understanding of how to best play the class, it's a lot of fun. Plus, the armor you get to wear after finishing the quests is just plain awesome-looking.

[Paladin]

Who wants to try a WotLK 5-man instance tonight?

[Circuit]

You know you don't even have to ask me. I'd like to check out Utgarde Keep.

[Creole Ned]

I avoided the (bigger) crowds last night and played my death knight version 3.0 (v. 1: night elf male, v. 2: night elf male with slightly different beard, v. 3: night elf female with bouncy, retarded emotes. yay!) I got her to just a little into 57, completed the two quests in the hold and the one guy lights up with an exclamation point and then takes off. I chase after my quest-on-legs and can't catch him. When he gets outside the hold he mounts and takes off but I see him stop a short distance away. A-ha, I sez as I mount my screamy horse to catch him...and he fades away. :P

So apart from having no quests (I imagine he is back in the hold), things went pretty smoothly for Flatbread and I'd agree the quests are very fun -- a good example of how the designers can get creative when crafting quests intended to be solo-only. Conversely, some of the first quests in the Borean Tundra did not hold nearly the same promise.

[Circuit]

Yeah, that's one of those scripted quests where the NPC does stuff after one person hands in part of it. Sucks when there are several people standing around trying to complete it.

[Tai]

There were some quests in Borean this morning that I found enjoyable and slightly different (eg, elephant retribution type thing). Still plenty of get me one brazillion ears, and 20 million glowing chests quests though. =/

I dinged 71, I would lke to see an instance.

[Paladin]

Some of the quest designs have been really brilliant. Others have been really bad. I did a bunch of quests at the airfield tonight. One quest sent me to a crashed necropolis where you had to get items dropped by 2 bosses. Like several other quest I've hit so far, if it's just alliance around, you can usually get a bunch to group together and everyone does it at once. But these had at least as many horde doing them as alliance, and it turned into a scrum to see who could AoE the respawning mob we needed first. Dumb.

Contrast that to one I got at the airfield where you have to kill 4 robots in the scalding pools. There are 4 pumping stations. At each station is a valve Turn the valve and the mob spawns, already tapped by you. No one else can grab them, and they respawn as soon as someone turns the valve. Much, much better design.

[jackrabbit]

The quests where you pilot a plane or a bird or a mechanized harvester all break my UI. I suppose I should try new addons, but the default UI makes me break out in hives. SIDE bars? Who needs bars on the SIDES?

[Creole Ned]

The sidebar is where I have Mangle.





(not really)

Also, I really enjoyed the whole death knight intro but the rationale they give at the end for you being Alliance was pretty weak. Great quests for the most part, though. Just don't die during the big finale -- trust me on this. :P

[Paladin]

I assume by big finale you mean the flying quest? If so, I wish you had told me that before. I died at least 4 times. :)

I finally gave in and rezzed at the graveyard.

[Circuit]

No, I think he means "big finale" as in the final quest. I could be wrong, though. ;)

[Tick]

Everyone, and I mean everyone, should do The Nexus at some point. God it's pretty.

Also, not that anyone cares, Lunatick is 73, has done the first 4 5 mans successfully, and has completed every freaking quest in borean tundra (and about 40% of Howling Fjord).

[jackrabbit]

Just logged in to get some gaming time and faced off with a 980 person queue. Dauntless, I caught up on email and forum posting while the queue counted down. At about 120 in queue, I got disconnected.

Relogging took me to the realm selection screen like when the realm crashes, then put me back in a queue of 900+.

I'm convinced at this point that Wrath has decided to make me hate it. I'm beginning to be willing to oblige.

[jackrabbit]

Twice.

FUCK YOU, WoW.

[Tick]

Alt tabbing may be the problem there. For some reason, Melissa and I have both been dc'd recently when alt tabbed out. It's not 100%, but it's happened 3 or 4 times between the two of us.

[Budly]

I got d/c'd on the boat and upon relogging was stuck in the boat and had to hearth to get out. And trevor had a 1020 queue friday night on arthas. I had 420 on moonrunner at the same time.

[Creole Ned]

We had the server reset partway through Utgarde Keep last night. I ended up with my character stuck as a ghost and unable to login for the better part of 10 minutes or so. It's odd because launch day seemed much smoother.

Anyway, still seeing queues on Moonrunner tonight but really no more than a few minutes during primetime. I'm fairly certain they'll be gone in another week or so.

[Tai]

Everyone, and I mean everyone, should do The Nexus at some point. God it's pretty.

Also, not that anyone cares, Lunatick is 73, has done the first 4 5 mans successfully, and has completed every freaking quest in borean tundra (and about 40% of Howling Fjord).

I haven't been inside but I've done all the lead ups and now have 3 quests in there. I have yet to do an instance, although it sounds like a toss up on whether you actually get to complete the instance these days. Sounds like I need to try some soon though, even if I have to PUG them. :)

I've done all the Borean Tundra quests except for the Winterfin Murloc set (two or three more of those left), and will probably head over to Howling Fjord to rip through those. I seem to be averaging about 150k xp an hour, and am almost level 72. I've replaced all my gear except for my Helm. :thumbup: (I highly recommend making sure you do the Last Rites quest).

Does anyone know where the Quartermaster for the Valiance group is?

[jackrabbit]

I'd still like to get a group, knock out some quests, and see the instances. I think even with one other person I'd be less of a target for ganking. It does seems harder now to get a healer for instances than it had been, but easier to get a tank.

I really want to push to 80 but feel like my own time constraints and unfortunate circumstances are conspiring against me. I'm supposed to be playing games to unwind, not to become more stressed out. Sorry if I'm coming off especially harsh in here, but I was looking forward to Wrath so much, and when I can't play cause I'm getting camped or cause the horde line the entrance to an instance, or cause I sit in a 4-man group for an hour waiting on a healer, I just get kind of angsty.

[Tai]

You're not coming across as harsh, you're stating quite clearly the prime reason I moved to Moonrunner - to play with otehrs and to get away from the ganking/griefing idiocy. :)

[Budly]

Are none of the HCA crew playing with you?

[Falhawk]

Are none of the HCA crew playing with you?

most of us didn't return for the expansion

[jackrabbit]

Nope, no one in HCA came back. I'm in Tick's guild now, and there are plenty of very cool people to play with, but I think with the newness of it all, and the desire to hit 80, we've all been playing primarily solo.

I guess with each iteration of the game I keep thinking it will be like the initial release of the game. I just wish I had it all to do over again so I could have stayed on Garona, the low pop PvE server that I rolled on initially instead of moving to Arthas.

[Orion]

ah yes, I remember well our first several levels on Garona. PvP just wore me out, I suppose.