Asilwen Is Ill

So that is why there was no post yesterday. Sorry to let you down this week, I have a virus (if it were a disease I would just cleanse it but I cannot rid viruses!) I will have a post for you Tuesday, promise! Now I'm gonna go back to resting/sniffling.

So to make up for no post this week, please enjoy this picture of what happens if you use a Potion of Illusion
on someone who is in the form of the Alchemy Dragon... then ride that person AS an Alchemy Dragon. (I'm the one on top!)

Enjoy:

Raid Ready

I fall into this trap with myself at this point of the game where I have yet to do an official raid yet and am trying to prepare. According to my iLvl, my skill level, and my mental state yes I'm ready for raiding technically. But I feel like I'm not. I am a completionist, I don't think I'm ready for a raid until I have done every single thing I possibly could before entering. Does anyone else feel this way?

I in no way want to be carried and always want to pull my weight. This kind of mindset is a gift and curse. I would rather wait until I have every single piece from heroics and crafting before I even set foot just so I know if any one's holding the raid back it isn't me. Is this crazy? To my extent, kinda. But really I kind of wish everyone had a tiny bit of this mentality. I really feel like the majority of people have no feeling of responsibility of self preparation. Like raiding is supposed to be the natural next step after 85 with no work in between. As almost as if they "dinged" level 85 then were immediately teleported into Bastion. 

I for one am a big fan of linear progression without, how should I say it, warp pipes (for all you Mario fans out there). I want raiding to require to require you to do everything in order. For example let's use Wrath of the Lich King's raids. In order for your to do Ulduar you should have to do Naxx and everything before Ulduar. I do not like the point/badge system where with every near tier the gear you can get from getting points from heroics goes up. That would be the warping point. Like the people that near the end of WotLK that had never even stepped foot into Naxx or Ulduar were getting Kingslayer titles (not that is some astonishing feat, just annoying.)

I guess what I'm alluding to is the return of Attunments. I believe while Cataclysm was still in the process of being made they toyed with the idea of bringing them back and I really got my hopes up. Attunments are one of the best parts of raiding in my opinion because it was another tool to see if someone was raid ready. This is why I still think to this day for the most part The Burning Crusade is when Blizzard got raiding right. Everything had to be chained. You couldn't do Hyjal without doing a quest that made you go into Serpentshrine Caverns and Tempest Keep. And the raids had reasonable player limits (10 and 25, not 40 man raids). This is how it should be done.

Attunments and keys are what I miss most of the long list of good things removed from this game. They got taken away because of people and their wanting to raid on alts. If you really want to raid on your alt that badly, go get it attuned. I got three alts attuned for Kara because I wanted to raid with them. And once I was attuned, I knew I was ready for the raid (or at least most of it; and yes for the record I know getting attuned for Kara is like nothing but still just saying.) Nowadays it's "Oh you have 348 average iLvl? Welcome aboard!

So Blizzard, please, please, please make raids have attunments in the future. If you do, I promise I will buy every single unicorn you ever sell in your little shop of micro-transactions... (we'll just ignore the fact I would buy them anyway.) Who's with me?!

Lipstick on Pigs

Although this was announced some weeks ago, I was not here to talk about it. ZG and ZA are being re-released in 4.1 as 5 man dungeons and well; I'm not exactly the most thrilled about it. It just makes me ask the simple question of why?

Why is it necessary to bring back these instances? Am I saying I hate ZG and ZA? No way, in fact ZA is one of my favourite dungeons to this day. I just don't understand it. Why not take the redesigned boss fights they made for these dungeons and apply them to an entirely independent new dungeon. I just don't like recycled content. Old content that is reintroduced is not NEW content.

Blizzard doing things like this worries me. Not worries in the way of I'm freaking out or threatening rage quitting, just worries me in a way of the direction they're taking the game. The "new" dungeons seem catered to the "new" WoW player. The ones that are Wrath-babies (my apologies if this is you, I mean no harm) or even Cataclysm-babies. They're saying "Hey these were great instances, so we're gonna redesign them and update them so people can run them again." This is great... for everyone but people that already spent countless hours already in those instances when they first came out. I understand they're redesigned but they're still the same instance. Put these new bosses and loot into a new Zul instance... name it like Zul'John or something, it doesn't matter. No one would know the difference.

I guess to sum up that last paragraph: Blizzard redesigning old dungeons is supporting newer players but leaving veterans unfulfilled. Which seems to be a major theme in Cataclysm. I just feel like the long time fans are left in the dust. Honestly I feel like Blizzard needs to implement a few new things that change the game and make it a bit intuitive to keep it fresh.

What's just around the corner for WoW if this is popular for them and they deem this a success? The next expansion could be "Return to Outlands" where they redesign Outlands and all the raid progression will be as before... but don't worry guys, there will be NEW LOOT AND MOUNTS. Then after that? "Wrath of the Wrath of the Lich King"? Where Bolvar is causing problems in Northrend and we have to go kill him while "enjoying" a redesigned Northrend? This potential 'Tol'Barad PvP' style of game design may be (honestly) severely exaggerated, it sadly might not be too far off. This future would be awesome for the new player (which seems to be Blizzard's new demographic) but terrible for the people who have been there done that.

Which, for the record I'll say now, if I ever have to go to Northrend again for anything relevant I will just quit on the spot. I hate that place with passion. I'd rather go raid the library, it would be more fun than that dull place.

Alas, yes I will run these dungeons, yes I will probably enjoy them. But I feel like more could have been done. The recycling of dungeons feels like, to me, a Disney Movie from their "magic Disney movie DVD vault". They randomly get reintroduced to the current public with more and more features and you buy into them because they are your old favourites and, admittedly, that super cool Hakkar poster would look nice on your wall (and sucks you in deeper). But in the end was a new product made?

No, just an old one upgraded then published as if it were.
And this doesn't sit well with me if this is the future for my beloved Azeroth.

I'm Back!

There's a naga riding a camel. That can only mean one thing! I'm back! Yes after a bit of RL aggro and some WoW stagnancy I am ready to return to blogging and the world of Azeroth.

I have a sense of renewed inspiration as my guild is once again changing directions, going towards raiding.

I also want to thank Jamin at Time Wasted Tuesdays (I think) for featuring me despite being on a hiatus! I appreciated that so much it helped motivate me to logging back in! So thanks again.

So I just wanted to give that short update, I planned on officially returning next Tuesday, but I was just tooooo excited to hold back. Anywho that's all for today, the whole point of this short post was just to say I'm back!

So... hi!