It's Alive and Well

After a new, clean install of the game client and subsequent patch, World of Warcraft was alive again on my computer. I've been eagerly logging into my characters to redo their talent points and glyphs, and see what's missing and what's needed.

Seona was the first to get looked at. With the talent trees the way they are, now, I'm heavily debating whether my second spec should still be Retribution. Before 4.0, I had one Ret spec that emphasized PvE and another Ret spec that emphasized PvP. It seems a little silly now to do the same thing. For the time being, until I decide if I'd rather be able to tank or heal, or really min-max (which I've never been any good at) for the two environments, my second spec will remain blank. She is, naturally, still mainly Retribution.

In fact, just last night, the Kingship of the East and her allies stormed Orgrimmar and had an epic battle in the streets, all the way through the Drag to Thrall's chamber. It was both awesome and amazing. I'm honestly surprised we didn't crash the server, because it was already on it's knees just with that many players in one spot. Too many abilities going off, too much server lag. In fact, even with the settings turned to Low, all of them, my fps hovered just around 10 or so. Still, most fun I've had in ages. The only unfortunate thing? We were more than one raid, and mine didn't tag Thrall, so I STILL don't have that damn bear. *QQ*

Purah is now a Blood/Frost Death Knight, although since Blood is now a tanking tree and I've never, ever played Frost, I'm feeling a little lost. What little research I've do for various rotations and such just has me more confused, because there's no telling how dated the information is most of the time. With Blood, there are some who say it is effective to run disease-less, but that is so out of the norm... wouldn't the diseases aid in generating threat? Maybe threat generation is easy enough with out them. I'm also still getting used to the idea of dual-wielding for Frost (hello Tankard 'o' Terror and Eternally Folded Blade! What? *shifty-eyes* They were the only one-handed weapons I had... *blush*). He'll need the most work in the upcoming days, because if I thought I had to relearn Retribution, it's nothing compared to learning not one, but TWO new specs.

A bright note is that the Cradle of Filth guild is coming back to life. I have several alts in the guild, and as a (nearly) founding member, it's fun to see some old, friendly faces. Speaking of alts, my troll priest, Eruza, who I haven't touched in ages, is actually up to level 20 now. I specced her as Discipline and couldn't be happier. I might have to seriously look at leveling a healer now, because Disc priest is actually fun.

As for Yrovi, I haven't had a great deal of time to play with her, yet, although I have at least set her Protection spec back in place. Next up will be fury, as I'll remain a dual-wielding, whirl-winding, unstoppable DPS machine (haha, yeah, right... in my gear? ;-p ) for the expansion.

With Hallow's End up and running as well, there is plenty to do each day in between figuring out my toons. I may even have to take a few other alts off the shelf to check them out, dust them off, and see if leveling is less painful now that the talent trees and abilities are good to go.

See you in the world... of warcraft.

Change Has Come... and It Hurts

So.

Patch 4.0.1 destroyed my WoW. I was very excited (like the rest of the world) and was prepared to begin the patching process on Tuesday (like the rest of the world) and started up my launcher and watched the downloader check my patch part 1-3 and download the last bit, and the updater launched and all was good and right with the world... of warcraft.

Well, only 16% was good and right with the world. At 16% of the update for the patch, the updater stopped and asked me for the Cataclysm disc. As much as I wish I have the disc to give you, Mr. Updater, sir, we're SOL on that. So, Cancel that order, please. That conversation ended with Mr. Updater crashing and telling me that it couldn't read some Northrend something-or-other.

Long story short, after trial and error, and redownloading the patch (yes, all 5 GB of it), and still no luck, I gave up, deleted WoW and started fresh. Yes. As I'm writing this, Mr. Updater is going happy at 84%, and I imagine I'll finally get to log in to WoW in another half-hour or so.

That said, I have heard many rumors on the Mac Technical Help forums that the new version of the game does not play nice in terms of graphics, and I may have to turn a whole bunch of settings low in order to play, as well as turning the new water and sunlight graphics off. That's a bit of a shame, but at this point, I'll be glad to just have a working WoW client again.

So, with fingers crossed, I will hope and pray that the Updater continues as normal and finally gives me the deliciousness that is World of Warcraft 4.0.

See you in the World... of Warcraft.

Maybe.

Deathwing is Looming and Change is Coming!

I recently downloaded the PTR client and copied over my three 80's in order to see just what all the fuss was about. It was a good thing I did so, because I discovered a few things, the least of which is having to essentially relearn how to play my Paladin. I mean, I've been trying to get ready for what's coming, even telling myself to be very thrifty so that I can save up for a new computer (not just for Cataclysm, I need one anyway, and now that Cataclysm is coming out in early December, I'll just consider my comp an early X-Mas present to myself). I've been reading blogs like bigredkitty.net, Wow Insider, MMO-Champion, and watching beta videos, mostly from TotalBuiscuit, because he's an angry, ranty, in-the-beta-when-I'm-not, British guy, and, clearly, you can't have too much angry-British-guy. So, on to my revelations from the PTR...

First Thing I Learned From the PTR: I am very dependent on my AddOns. This isn't really that big of a surprise to me, especially since I recently did a complete UI overhaul on Live to get a more organized and visually interesting setup for myself. Why I decided to do this a few months before an expansion is going to essentially break everything, I don't know. I guess I'm a masochist like that. Also, it's been so long since I've used the default UI from Blizzard, that it looks alien to me and made me want to cry in frustration, so I haven't actually really gotten a great deal of practice with any of my level 80's on the PTR just yet.

Second Thing I Learned From the PTR: I am not a fan of the new streaming downloader. I find that I would rather spend the hour or two just downloading the whole thing and then have pretty, faster-loading stuff in game, than to get started right away with a game that looks... glitchy with really bad graphics, and missing NPCs. I swear, it took forever for the important NPCs in Orgrimmar to show up on copy!Purah when I took him there to mess around with the even quests. Basically, I'll do as I've always done and install the whole thing right away, most likely. We'll see how impatient I am once it truly hits. Also, did I mention that the little spinning wheel that turns colors and stuff to indicate what is downloading... it's ugly. I don't like it, and it's right in the center of my screen, like, hardcore. *angry-pouty face*

Third Thing I Learned From the PTR: I will essentially have to relearn how to play my characters. People have been saying this for some time now, and I don't really know why it seemed to have caught me by surprise. Maybe it's because it's one thing to say "Oh, hey, yeah, you'll totally have to relearn how to play your class, because Deathwing is doing more than just giving Azeroth a new facelift in a bad way..." and actually seeing the changes and trying to figure out what the hell abilities you're supposed to use on a regular rotation now. I am actually glad that we aren't GCD locked anymore, although the first-come-first-served mentality wasn't too hard to work with for me. It made playing PvE simple. PvP... well, we won't talk about that.

Fourth Thing I Learned From the PTR: I am going to like the opening event! This isn't really a surprise, I loved the Wrath opening event (unlike all those QQ'ers out there who bitched and moaned about it) and it looks like they've pulled out all the stops on the Cataclysm one. I didn't do a great deal with it, yet, but it looks like fun. Part of me wants to save some stuff for Live, especially since Seona is on an RP server, but the part of the event that is running on the PTR now is exciting and full of action. I think that the only part that may get slightly annoying are the semi-regular earthquakes... but then, earthquakes aren't really meant to be comfortable, right?

Fifth Thing I Learned From the PTR: I have not spent enough time on the PTR. Seriously. I've really only logged into it a couple of times and could really use more time in there getting used to the new abilities, talent builds, glyphs (a few are gone for good, as I noticed some "Charred Glyphs" in copy!Purah's bag... they are vendor trash now), UI enhancements, etc.

Cataclysm is coming, folks. If you haven't been getting ready for the upcoming changes then all I can say is: "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED." Because that joke never gets old, right?