You Are Infected!

The scourge invasion has been going on now for about a week, and I have to say it’s been a fun event.  There are new, albeit temporary, bosses in old dungeons, as well as Karazhan.  Suddenly the Argent Dawn have returned to a prominent place among the factions of Azeroth.

And then there are the zombies.  The internet is replete with screenshots of the capital cities overrun with zombies.  There was a point at which it became extremely difficult to even be in a capital city.  I found myself infected simply trying to put some items in the mail.  Some of the outlying areas, such as Southshore, were especially susceptible to being overrun since a few player zombies could infect all the NPCs in town.  On one day when I was in Southshore, I don’t think there was a single non-zombie in the town.

At first, the zombie disease took ten minutes to turn a player into a zombie and become part of a whole new faction, of sorts: a Scourge faction.  A zombie could neither communicate with Horde or Alliance players, or interact with NPCs, but a zombie could kill indiscriminately, Horde and Alliance alike.

Unfortunately, even when one of my 70’s was transformed into a zombie, I did not find that I could survive very long against guards and other players.  About the only thing I could do of any effect was to explode myself, disseminating a plague cloud and bits of flesh and ichor, infecting all those who were attacking me.

Some people have complained that the invasion is merely a replay of the first invasion, back shortly before Naxx was introduced prior to the Burning Crusade.  To them I say, I don’t care.  It’s fun.  Plus, there is a good chance for some good armor, both from drops and from the new Argent Dawn quartermaster.  Although my Shaman isn’t 70 (he’s 68), I ‘ve been taking advantage of this event and buying the couple pieces of armor available to him.  More are available in drops, but actually killing the mobs that drop these pieces is quite difficult.

Every hour or so, the Scourge invades some of the more remote areas of Azeroth.  Floating Ziggurats appear over Azshara, Winterspring, Blasted Lands, Burning Steppes, and Eastern Plaguelands.  Players hurry to the zone and look for the summoning circle where the Scourge is entering Azeroth.  There, we kill scourge until we’ve broken the summoning crystal, at which point the invasion is basically over.

That sounds simple, but the mobs are quite tough for a level 68 Shaman in greens and blues.  Then there are the occasional elites who drop the coveted purple armor pieces not purchasable at the quartermaster.

But worst of all is competing with other players.  There are lots of mobs, but there are lots of players, too, and generally things devolve into a free for all.  Alone, I was lucky to get two or three Necrotic Runes (the Argent Dawn currency dropped by the scourge, which we exchange for items from the quartermaster).  Then I started grouping with guildmates and I did much better.  Still, we haven’t been able to get a proper group with a healer and tank to tackle the elite Shadows of Doom that one can summon at the end (they drop 32 runes, if you can kill them).

But I’ve done well enough.  This morning early, I went to Winterspring and, since it was a workday, I had the place pretty much to myself.  It was a successful morning of killing the non-elites, and I looted around fifty or sixty runes.  That was more than enough for a much-coveted Tabard of the Argent Dawn and two pieces of epic armor.

I can’t wait to get back into the field, now.  And I’m pumped for the expansion.  If that was Blizzard’s intent, they have succeeded.

A New Old World

One of the perhaps intended consequences of the new Achievement system is that players like me, working towards the Exploration achievement, end up visiting some areas of the old world we never knew existed.  The following screenshot was taken, not in Zangarmarsh, but in Desolace in a remote area called Shadowbreak Ravine.

Apparently, the site is a Burning Blade cultist encampment that Horde mages have to visit for a class quest.  One of the other cool sites that I did not take a screenshot of was a stables with Dreadsteeds, called Burning Blade Nightmares, and a “Captured Stallion.”  Someone in the comments section of the previous link suggests this whole area might have been created for an unimplemented level 40 Warlock mount quest.  Sounds reasonable to me.

Shadowbreak Ravine

Getting Better All the Time

Since the patch last week, I’ve been enjoying the game more and more with each passing day.  The Hallow’s Eve festivities add to the enjoyment, although I am not sure how long that will last.  These repeatable holiday quests grow old fast, as I found out during Brewfest, during which all my goals steadily shrank until all I really wanted to do was earn 200 tickets for the Brew of the Month club.  And after reaching that goal, I didn’t care if I ever again heard another polka.

It may be the same with Hallow’s Eve, although the fact that lower level characters can earn XP from hitting all the candy buckets in every inn in the game makes the holiday a little more desirable.  I’ve been using the candy buckets as an easy way to level my Shaman, while at the same time exploring each territory for the World Explorer achievement.

And speaking of Achievements, the Achievements system promises to enhance replayability of this game long-term.  Almost everything possible in the game is an Achievement, even something as simple as catching a fish from a school (which earns you the Achievement “The Old Gnome and the Sea”); however, I actually like that I can be doing almost anything–even falling from the sky–and hear the distinctive ding that indicates I’ve achieved something, however ridiculous.

Besides the holiday Achievements I’ve been working on, I have also earned my first title: Jenkins.  Yes, my warlock now has a last name, Holdwine Jenkins.  Last night, some guildmates and I went into Blackwing Lair, to the infamous Rookery where Leeroy made himself infamous, and we cleared out 50 whelps in 15 seconds, thus earning us all the last name Jenkins.

These titles, or last names, can be turned off, but I kind of like it.  I am especially attached to it because before we completed the achievement, we had our very own Leeroy moment when the DPS stupidly followed the tanks into the rookery instead of letting them round up and drag out the whelps.  Then a healer threw off a heal…and the rest was a disaster.  The whelps attack any healer who actually heals, regardless of threat.

These were all things none of us knew, either having never been in BWL, or having ben there so long ago that strategies were long forgotten.

In a way, it’s kind of a sad commentary on the game that we experience only a fraction of the content available, usually only the newest.  I’ve often thought the best thing the next MMO could do would be to design content that did not become obsolete with each major upgrade.

What little I saw of Blackrock Mountain was spectacular; it’s a shame that once everyone has achieved their Jenkins surname, the mountain will once again sit lonely and unvisited.

The Patch That Failed

My excitement for the new patch fizzled rather quickly when the servers did not come back up at the scheduled time.  An hour passed, and it was six o’clock.  Then seven.  Then eight.  Some servers came up around eight, but none of mine.  I created a level one Orc Shaman on Altar of Storms, just to log in and evaluate the state of my addons.

Eight-thirty, and our raid was cancelled.  Nine, and I was still playing that level one Shaman (now level five).  Actually, “playing” is not the correct term because the world server went down so often.  Even when it did not crash, the lag made playing next to impossible.

Altar of Storms was crowded with everyone else locked out of their own server.  Sarkoth was being slaughtered every few seconds before his spawn spot had even grown cold.  The ground was littered with the corpses of boars.

Inevitably, every minute or two someone would ask in General, “Does anyone know if X server is up yet?”  No, you moron.  Why don’t you log out and check.

At ten, my main server was finally online, and I logged in to my bank alt first.  I added his non-combat pets to his character pane; I checked mail.  I went to the bank to drop off some items…and the world server crashed.

At that point, I gave up.  There may have been a time when I’d have sat there until midnight or later trying to log in and play, but accomplishing nothing.  No more.  Those days are over, and I refuse to lose valuable sleep for a game that will still be there tomorrow.

Supposedly, it’s more stable today.  Some of my guildmates have already powerleveled Inscription as far as they can.  Others have tried out all three new specs.  I have yet to even log my main character.

At this point in my life, my mottos are “All in good time” and “I’ll get there when I get there.”  No game is worth a wasted four hours trying to patch, log in, and play.  Tonight, if the server is fairly stable, I’ll log in and deal with my respecs.  Then I’ll probably do some dailies to test my new spells.  If the servers aren’t stable, oh well.  I’ve got books to read and a weekend ahead.  I’ll leave it to others to play a game that is temporarily somewhat  broken.

Patch Day

So, today is the day Northrend draws a little closer to Azeroth.  Patch 3.02. goes live sometime this evening, following the extended maintenance period scheduled to end at 2 PM Pacific.  That’s five o’clock here in the East, probably the longest time I can recall the servers ever having been down.

I signed up for a guild raid on Zul’Aman at 8:30, and now I am kind of regretting it; I think I’d rather have this evening free to play with the new talents and features.  I don’t even know if all my addons are going to work, or not.

At least one person has dropped from the raid for these reasons, and I wonder if the rest of us will decide to give it a break as well.

I’m surprised that I feel excited about the new content, but I am excited.  Probably the new Achievements system is going to be the thing I check out first, followed by (or maybe preceded by) adding all my mounts and non-combat pets to my mounts/pets panel in the character pane.

I’ve also got to spend some time at lunch today reworking my talent trees.

One of the big additions to the game today will be Inscription, but I don’t foresee myself leveling it on any character currently.  My bank alt and my rogue are my only two herbalists, and they are both low level (23 and 36 respectively).  That said, it is tempting to drop mining/jewelcrafting on my Shaman and take up herbalism/inscription.  Both mining and JC have been a bitch to level, and I have never felt like I’ve gotten much out of JC.  Still, it’s always tough to drop a high-level profession and start over.  It might be wiser to start Inscription on my bank-alt Priest and level it as far as I possibly can before having to level the character.

As an update to what I’ve been doing in game, this weekend, I spent most of my time leveling my Shaman.  I mentioned recently that I had lost interest in the character and probably would not level him to 70 anytime soon, but I leveled from 64 to 66 this weekend and now hope to reach 70 before the Expansion.  What’s more, I really enjoyed playing him again.  Maybe I just needed a break.

Anyway, now I’d like to level my Shaman and Warlock near simultaneously, in Northrend, so that I can maximize the rep and other gains from running instances on both characters.