Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend BlizzCon this year, but a large group of the DJ’s contingent was there to represent. I fully intend to make a comeback next year. Everyone was expecting one expansion announcement and we were all blown away by the fact Blizzard took the time to announce three. I guess the leak and fantasy expansion idea communities will be taking a break for the next few years until this upcoming story arc concludes. It feels nice to see Anduin again as he enters his Chris Pine phase.
Let’s talk about some of the announcements, shall we?
- Warbands: Good! This might be the system I look forward to the most, especially with the way alts are handled. I’ve got something like 7 competitive alts and it’s time consuming to keep them all rep relevant when all I really want to do is jump into dungeons and raids with them. Shared bank and shared reputation are much needed, and it will ultimately free up time for us players to do other things that we enjoy more.
- Delves: Okay! I’m going to hold off on weighing in decisively until I see it in action. It’s a neat concept and it brings back all th e scenario and island (BFA) type content we’ve had before in the past. No role specific queues? That’s okay too. It does seem like it’s building upon the escape room type content we’ve had this expansion with the Sniffen digs.
- World content vault: Good! Sorry PvP bros. This one’s a good change ut at least you get extra currency to buy armor pieces now.
- Hero talents: Good! Another way to help further distinguish classes from each other. I do wonder if there’s intent to mess around with existing talent trees or if the dev team is satisfied with it’s overall look.
- Transmog cross armor: Good! I love going on transmog farm runs on my Priest, but our groups bring one of each type so we can freely trade, but with this change I don’t have to feel sad about vendoring armor items my class can’t use anymore that no one wants.
- Cross-realm guilds: Good! This is going to impact our guild philosophy going forward since we normally expect trials to transfer over, but this is a barrier that’s lifted where there is no financial burden to players right away and if they enjoy our atmosphere, they can pop over.
- Dynamic flight: Okay! More cosmetic than anything else and it’s neat that we can enjoy the new Dragonflying mechanics while zipping around on other flying mounts.
Of all the BlizzCons to miss, maybe this was the one that was worth missing out on. I heard there were so many problems with the seating issues and lack of activations (or activities) inside the con. I wonder how much of that was due to time. Normally, Blizzard starts planning BlizzCon in January but since there were still some partial health restrictions in place. Maybe that affected the work of their event team and shortened that time line. Still, I hope they learn from their lessons here. Ultimately, I don’t really go to BlizzCon for the stuff to do there and I continue to maintain that your BlizzCon experience is what you make of it. For me, it was always about meeting up with my friends and enjoying their company.
It’s like a family reunion you actually want to go to, and that’s where that appeal was for me.
State of the Jesters
Roster is currently sitting at 26 players. Our immediate needs continue to be a Rogue and a Warrior. We’re standing pat on range, but would accept another Shadow Priest. We have raid orientation coming up this weekend (future post) which will set expectations and foundations for our team heading into the tier. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to rest because I’ve been on a recruiting blitz for the past 8 weeks. I’ve held as many as 8 interviews in a week.
Next thing for me is setting up our defensive usages before our raid week begins. I get a chance to jump into the raid early with my third Priest to get an early look at some of the bosses and how to handle them.