Keep in mind that I’m almost 100% strictly a 5-man Heroic player in a guild with limited player activity so this tool is perfect for someone like me. It allows me to jump on at almost any time of the day and find something to do. While the queue times for a DPS class seem to be between five and ten minutes in my Battlegroup, on my Healer I’m seeing queue times measured in seconds and not minutes. It’s never been hard to find a group on my server as a Healer but it wasn’t unheard of to have to wait for 30 or more minutes as a DPS class. Now that the new LFG is composing groups out of players from multiple realms that long wait has been eliminated from the game and I couldn’t be happier.

The added twist of a Random Heroic quest is a great replacement for the old and stale Daily Heroic quest available before Patch 3.3. The rewards you get from the Random Heroic, in the form of extra Emblems, is the perfect gearing reward for player’s who have a lot of alts needing upgrades. Now that Heroic bosses drop Emblems of Triumph it’s not inconceivable to have enough Emblems to buy a piece of Tier 9 gear after a few hours of game play. It’s almost too easy.

That brings me to my only criticism of the new LFG system. It’s going to make an absolute mockery of gearing a character. The drive of most WoW players is the search for better swag and while LFG allows you to get that rush faster than ever it will eventually leave you geared out and looking for something to do. That’s great if you have five characters like some people, but for others like me with only one or two, it means you either grind out the same content over and over for little reward or more on to something new. Like raiding… gross.

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Don’t forget that as the holiday comes to a close the giant Christmas trees in Ironforge and Orgrimmar have gift boxes underneath them. This part of Winter Veil runs from December 25th to the end of the holiday on January 2nd. The gifts range from companion pets to holiday themed food items. For the last two years, the most rare of the companion pets has been pretty excellent so I am looking forward to what this year has in store. In 2007, the pet was a small clockwork robot and last year it was a remote controlled car.

There are also additional clothing patterns in the game for Winter Veil. You’ll have one mailed to you in game when you first log in during the event. Making these clothes and selling them on the Auction House is an excellent way to make some money during this time. The old standby strategy of cashing in on people’s laziness is especially true during these world events. Players are trying to gather the items they need for various quests and achievements as quickly as possible and they normally don’t care about being smart and getting a good deal. It’s not unheard of to buy common items from a vendor for little to no money and then turning around and selling that same item to a player on the Auction House at an incredible markup.

So if you’re just looking to rack up more achievements or trying for the rare mount from the overall world event achievement get started on Winter Veil. This is probably one of the easier world events to complete just because of the length of it. A level 80 player can probably knock all of the achievements required to finish Winter Veil over the course of several days and still have a week or more to spare.

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I have purposefully avoided everyone else’s comments or thoughts on this new microtransaction movement in the game. I would imagine most players are angry and upset over this money play by Blizzard. Well, I’m of the total opposite opinion on this. These pets don’t give you an advantage and anyone who argues that this lays the groundwork for that to eventually happen is just overreacting and speculating at this point.

Blizzard is not running a non-profit enterprise. This should not come as a huge surprise to anyone since everyone playing the game has been paying them every month for the privilege to do so. For those of you who bough the pets like I did, enjoy them. For those of you who didn’t buy the pets because of some weird hangup, calm down and save yourself the time and energy of ranting on a message board about how unjust your favorite virtual world might become.

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Champion’s Seal Loot

There’s some decent loot to be purchased with Champion’s Seals now. I immediately blew most of my stockpile of 300 Seals by buying the fantastic Sunreaver Dragonhawk mount (pictured above), the Argent Crusader’s Tabard for quick teleporting to the Tournament area and last, but not least, the Bind on Account Polished Breastplate of Valor to complete my BoA Plate set.

New Argent Tournament Dailies

The new Argent Tournament Dailies, which I believe you need the Crusader title to do, are relatively simple. They all involve a bit of travel but it didn’t seem as awful as the original four Champion dailies feel with the exception of one daily that is all the way in Storm Peaks and might not be worth the effort for some.

The amount of Seals and gold you can earn by consistently doing these quests is going to be pretty impressive. They don’t appear to require groups either so those of you, like myself, with an allergy to playing with strangers should be pleased.

Isle of Conquest

I tried the new battleground, the Isle of Conquest, a few times but I want to hold off my impressions for awhile. It was insanely laggy and the map is so huge, with so much going on, that it was hard to get a good grip on what it will really be like in the future. I think once Patch Mania simmers down and we all have a time to figure this battleground out it’s going to be one of my favorites though.

Trial of the Champion

I managed to give the new 5 man, Trial of the Champion (or ToC as the cool kids call it), a shot on both Regular and Heroic. We didn’t quite have the heals to live through the Heroic version and we quit after several wipes on the second encounter. The Regular version, minus one “Oops” wipe, was much smoother and gave me a good look at what this new 5 man has to offer.

Some people are going to white hot hate the opening fight that requires jousting. But it’s relatively simple and compares well with the Battle Before The Citadel quest. The next two encounters reminded me heavily of Violet Hold. Actually, the whole Trial of the Champion is kind of like Violet Hold on acid. It’s just small trash and then boss time. If you like Violet Hold’s gameplay then you’ll probably love ToC as well.

Emblem Changes

The switch from Emblems of Heroism to Emblems of Conquest in Heroics is great. Now I can gear up a bit without having to bite the bullet and join a raiding guild. Also, this should make interest in my small stable of alts increase as the odds of getting them in good gear just drastically rose with the Emblem change.

Early Verdict

I have to say that even after just a few hours that I like this patch a lot so far. The new battleground, while confusing at first and very laggy, shows some promise as well. The Emblem changes, new dailies and the new 5 man should help keep my interest in the game going strong.

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My Hunter has 300 Champion’s Seals and my Priest has 100 of his own. What in the world am I going to do with all of those? I don’t like any of the mounts and I don’t need any of the gear so we’re down to vanity pets (of which I have more than enough) and tabards and banners. I say “No thanks” to those two items as well.

So starting today I’m going to put down my lance and taking a break from the Argent Tournament dailies. I’m going to switch gears with my playing time away from dailies and make the last push on my Death Knight to ding 80.

The Poll

It’s time for a show of hands. I’m interested to see how many readers of this blog are still actively participating in the Argent Tournament dailies. Or, if this applies to you, never even started with them to begin with.

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Cutting Down Lag

Some players complain about the lag inside Wintergrasp constantly. I personally only have problems near the end of a battle when the interior courtyard is overflowing with players and even that isn’t a problem 100% of the time. So I think this incessant whining that Wintergrasp is too laggy to play is less a universal truth and more an issue with people having poor ISPs. The problem is that those people are the ones that cry the loudest.

Promoting Battlegrounds

There’s also been mention from Blizzard employees that they hope this change in quests will shift more focus back on the existing Battlegrounds. Since Wintergrasp is such an easy means of earning honor every day there isn’t much use for any of the Battlegrounds any more. If people don’t need to visit the zone each day for the quests they’ll naturally be earning less honor throughout the week and will have to seek it elsewhere via Battlegrounds. I actually think this part of their argument is reasonably valid and might work out in their favor.

My Unrequested Opinion

The hope with these changes is that fewer people will continue their regular daily schedule of entering Wintergrasp and that the player count will bottom out so that the lag in the zone lessens. Whether or not this will come true is yet to be known. My hunch is that the faction-wide buff, the access to the Vault of Archavon and the sheer fun factor of Wintergrasp is going to keep player participation (and therefore the lag) the same as ever.

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The New Rules

Some of these rules make absolutely perfect sense to me. I’m actually surprised some of them even had to be mentioned or reiterated. Unfortunately, there are a few rules here that could eventually be game changers in the addon scene and not in a beneficial way at all:

Add-ons must be free of charge.
Their first pitch is a fastball, isn’t it? This is the most important addon policy so I’ll devote the most time to it. I’m 100% positive that this is a direct response to the Carbonite addon. Carbonite had a subscription model for their addon in addition to a free version that served up ads inside the addon itself.

I’ll touch on the ads in a few points but the idea that the makers of Carbonite, or any other addon, can not sell their work to the general public is, in my opinion, ridiculous. I would argue that the vast majority of addon developers have no interest in charging for the tools they have developed but to not even have the option to be compensated for their time and effort is a controlling maneuver by Blizzard.

The ultimate result from this will be a decrease in addon developers. Programmers are a proud lot who believe in an open and fair system for them to work within. They’re not all driven by money, of course, but they are motivated to work on products and for systems in which they feel their work has a fair chance to be used and appreciated. Blizzard isn’t showing much appreciation for its fans by dictating what developers can and can’t do with their addons.

And let’s not forget about people who sell leveling guides and tools that include addons to help you level as well. BRK mentioned these guides specifically on the latest WoW Insider Show as people who will be furious with these changes in policy. He, as well as myself, have something of a vested interest in these guide makers as they help fund our blogs through their advertisements we run and the commissions from sales that we get.

Add-on code must be completely visible.
I think this part is a beauty. What better way to insure that no one ever charges for an addon than to force addon developers to make their code visible by anyone (including their competitors). Again, this is a way for Blizzard to control and mediate the addon community.

Add-ons may not include advertisements.
This is one rule I’m in total agreement with. Blizzard has already setup a system, with the game launcher, for serving their own advertisements inside WoW. For them to allow addons to do the same thing would undermine one of their sources of revenue.

The problem I have with this is that they’re also eliminating paid addons. I think it’s proof that Blizzard wants to be in total control of the addon marketplace (down the line). What if they start selling ads inside certain features of the game? What if they have an in-game ad inside their new Equipment management interface?

Add-ons may not solicit donations.
This is, by far, the most outrageous item on this list. There are some obvious workarounds to this since they clearly can’t prevent you from asking for donations on the download site of an addon. The trouble is that most people download their addons from centralized sites like Curse so it’s much harder for the addon developer to get a “donate now” button in front of the eyes of their users.

Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit.
And here’s where the rubber meets the road. Blizzard is basically saying here that if you don’t like playing in the sandbox they reserve the right to haul out all of the sand. This also ties into any conspiracy theory you might have about Blizzard taking the concepts (and code) from existing addons and putting them into the User Interface themselves before shutting down the addon’s access to those same interface components.

The Fallout

The developer of one of the most popular addons around, QuestHelper, has already made plans to shut development down as you can see from the image I added to this post. I haven’t heard anything about the makers of Carbonite pulling up shop but it seems pretty obvious that they’re Blizzard’s #1 target in this mess. They’ll probably get a cease and desist letter from Blizzard and possibly even have their addon blocked in-game.

The Future

I have to admit that the idea of making my own addon has been something I’ve thought about every since I first started playing WoW the first time around. None of my ideas have been very elaborate, or come to fruition, so I don’t think I’d be in a position to consider charging for anything. But the stance Blizzard has taken regarding the commercial viability of addons makes me leery about dipping my toes in these waters at all.

It wouldn’t be a big shock to me to see, in a year or two, an iTunes-style system controlled and managed by Blizzard for addons. With an addon “store”, per se, Blizzard can dictate what kind of addons they promote and allow inside their game as well as take a monetary percentage for each sale of an addon.

Blizzard is in the business of making money. Everyone understands that and no one with half a brain would dispute that they shouldn’t be rewarded for their efforts producing their product. But why does Blizzard feel the total opposite about addon developers?

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I’m not only anxious for the content of the 3.1 patch but also to see how effective this round of testing is going to be. I haven’t hidden my dissatisfaction with the last few patches and their apparent lack of quality testing. Hopefully, this time around with 3.1, there are better efforts at not just bug reporting but bug fixing as well.

EDIT: Upon further review I’m recommending that anyone who wants 3.1 details just go straight to MMO Champion. WoW Insider is basically just writing new posts each time MMO Champion updates with direct links to their content. You might as well cut out the middle-man and go straight to the source.

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My question for you is: at what point do you have enough gold? I’ve said before I use gold counts as a kind of scoring system within the game and I’m to the point where that artificial score is the only practical reason for having this much virtual currency.

I have more than enough money to buy epic flight for my Death Knight and Holy Priest at this point and neither of them are even eligible to fully appreciate that skill yet. The Death Knight is level 71 and stuck in Northrend on his Swift Zhevra and the Holy Priest is level 63 and running around in Outland still.

What Now?

It’s come to the point where I’ve started giving auction-able items away to people on the Trade channel. I’ve learned what items sell quickly and what items tend to drag out at auction so the long term ones I just give away to avoid the hassle.

I’m leaning towards easing up on the Auction House routine I’ve come accustomed to and instead focusing on leveling up my two alts so I can start spending a bit of that moldy gold I’ve been hoarding for the last few months.

For anyone reading this with the same situation, what did you do? Did you keep going to earn more and more gold or did you slow down your gold making ways for awhile?

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I’m a software developer (not on the scale of these guys, of course) so I can relate to issues with bugs and release problems. My big concern here is that 3.0.8 brings to light a serious problem with Blizzard’s testing mechanisms.

What is the PTR testing exactly?

Blizzard has an entire sub-system setup for players to test future patch releases. Someone is obviously dropping the ball here considering the state of things after this patch. Right now all of the servers are down for four hours as the latest crisis with Arenas is settled. The Wintergrasp debacle, which was settled yesterday, is another example of a critical error that made it through this joke of a PTR process.

As a recently nerfed Hunter, who plays a class that was declared overpowered even after months of PTRs and Beta servers for Wrath and the 3.0 patch I think it’s time Blizzard seriously addresses their public testing methods.

It seems painfully clear to me, and I’m sure to many others, that the Beta tests and PTRs are just an excuse for most players to get a head start on their peers by learning tricks to the game first before anyone else. There can’t be a lot of testing going on during the periods when the PTRs are live.

No Wonder Wrath Seems Easy

Maybe Wrath is so easy for a lot of people because they spent all of their time during the Beta learning how to beat everything in the game instead of helping Blizzard test and balance things out. Things usually are easy for people when they’ve done them repeatedly, over and over, for months and months.

I’d agree with anyone who said that they pay each month to play and not to test. But you pay each month to play on the live realms using the currently released content. The Beta and PTRs are future content that you, technically, have not and are not paying for at that moment.

The Solution?

I’m not sure. Maybe there should be some kind of incentive program for PTR and Beta players so that they actually contribute more bug reports. I’m not proposing that no one is submitting bugs to Blizzard but I’d put money down on the fact that a majority of “testers” aren’t testing anything at all and are just involved in the usual WoW rat race to be first at everything.

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I realize now that a much better post would be to discuss why people think Wrath is so easy and why that might not really be the case.

This feeling that Wrath is so much easier than people thought it would be has a lot to do, in my opinion, with the fact that the majority of people crying out about this are not good representatives of the average WoW player. I hate to toss around the “hardcore” label but most people who would take the time to post a comment on a blog or write a post on a forum about how easy the game is and how awesome they are probably deserve to be called hardcore.

The typical WoW player, like those in my PuG the other night, are realistically a much better example of what people are experiencing playing the game. We struggled mightily just to get to the second boss in UK and we never managed to beat it. Three out of the five members of our party were just not geared well enough, or had enough of an understanding, to finish the run. That doesn’t mean that they’re terrible players. It just means that they don’t compare to players I’m accustomed to playing with. In time, that same group won’t have any problems at all finishing Heroic Utgarde Keep and that’s what makes WoW so great.

It’s not about how good you are compared to other people. It’s about how good you are compared to your former self. This is the backbone argument for casual WoW players who aren’t interested in the rat race of gear, stats and DPS charts. They don’t think Wrath is too easy or that Wrath is too hard and they know that, in time, they’ll be able to experience the entire game at their own pace and on their own terms.

Anyway, people who think Wrath is too easy aren’t looking at things from the right perspective. There are 11.5 million people playing this game right now and I don’t think even a small percentage of them would agree that Wrath is easy. The problem is that they’re too busy enjoying the game to let the “hardcore” players know they’re wrong.

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