Post BlizzCon and Thoughts on Mists

To everyone that’s annoyed at me for asking a question on the live Q&A that wasn’t actually developer related, I’m really sorry . I fired out like half a dozen different healing related questions before I gave up. I know there’s one person in particular who’s in my guild who is extremely upset that her questions didn’t get selected and mine was chosen.

So my bad!

Me: “Is @ChrisMetzen the real Chris Metzen?”
Zarhym: Yes sir!

Despite the fact that  have the worst case of con crud in years, I feel so refreshed.

Rejuvenated.

Regenerated even.

No joke about the con crud. My immune system feels like it’s been completely carpet bombed. No more staying up until 4 AM after drinking copious amounts (at least, not for a while). Next year we’re definitely going to have to do this again. Las Vegas in two days and two nights just simply isn’t enough. I’ll run down the major highlights of BlizzCon and then lay out my thoughts on the expansion as a whole. I wish we could have a BlizzCon every week. Or every month. Or something.

I hope it’s not this valley fever thing I hear about.

Meeting the guild (again)

Although some of the players have moved on, it was nice regrouping with some of the older crew and meeting the fresh, new faces. Putting the actual faces behind the players is always a big thrill and it’s why I’ll continue to head out to BlizzCon every year. It wasn’t all drinking all the time (even though it was a majority of the focus). We had some serious discussion about the future direction of the organization as a whole. It’s always a nice experience to hear from players in person instead of seeing their thoughts on a forum post or via Mumble or something.

Which by the way, we are looking for tanks and DPS for 4.3 and beyond.

Meeting the community

Thanks to all of you that showed up and said hello! The kinds words and encouragement help validate the things that Lodur, myself and other bloggers out there do. We love what we do (otherwise we would’ve thrown in the towel). It was great running into Oestrus, Ophelie, EmberDione, Fimlys and… ugh, too many names to remember and count! Ran into my former podcasting partner, Kinasthesia of Vodka. Had a great time talking a bit of shop and some of his thoughts on the live raid. Disappointed that they lost (they were looking so good up until the end, too). I’ll have a full blog post on the actual live raid concept later on.

There was one night where I was leaving the Hilton and heading back to my hotel. There were these five loud guys who just randomly came up to me and high fived/hugged me. I was a little worried for a sec (switched to defensive stance) but they were just another bunch of drunk, happy geeks.

To those of you that I didn’t get a chance to meet, I am so sorry . We’ll have to try again next year.

Learning Craps

• Must be on right side of table (since we’re right handed)
• Must fist bump after every good roll
• Must be in possession of drinks

That appears to be the secret to the success when my guildie and I were playing.

WoW Insider Party

Meeting up with the colleagues, meeting up with the readers is always a huge thrill. I think we hit over 3500 guests who came by. Apparently I was caught on Gamebreaker texting a guildie for a brief few seconds and made her night. Whoops! Made quite the dent in my bar tab too (About $500).

Mists of Pandaria Thoughts

Overall, it seems to be a lighter expansion feel compared to the previous ones where the world was about to explode or some villain was going to try to whoop our collective butts. I know a number of people in the community are pissed off and disappointed with it but I’m actually looking forward to it. Pandas as a new race is one that I felt is long overdue. They were supposed to make an impact on the game during Burning Crusade in fact as one of the Alliance races but it was not to be. So now we’ve got a sort of oriental themed expansion and from what I’ve seen, it looks really good. No matter how funky the idea of pandas may seem as the new race, I’m extremely curious as to how their story is going to be presented. Not quite sure how I feel about the overall talent system revamp. I feel that Priests and Shamans probably got the best out of all the classes. Not sure where the healing was on the Resto Druid side of things. But this stuff is mostly concept and in really early stages of development. We’re no where near anything playable yet so we’ll know more as get further along. This is going to be the chill out and cowabunga expansion pack.

Ever watch Finding Nemo? There’s that one scene where Nemo wakes up with those really big turtles. I envision Pandas sounding something like that. They’re a laidback race without a care in the world and they just love to eat, drink and party. I wish I could be more like that.

I’m probably going to be one of the few people that’s not going to give a crap about the pet battle system. It’s just not my thing at all. I have a sneaking suspicious it might lure in it’s own subset of players though and give them something else to do.

And yes, I am definitely going to set myself up with a monk. I got a chance to play it a little but the healing side of things wasn’t available yet. As we get closer, we’ll have a better idea of what their healing class philosophies are.

Challenge modes appear like they’re going to be a great distraction. I believe it was mentioned that there are no plans to include any max-level non-heroic dungeons (which means all of the MoP dungeons will range from 80-84). You’ll probably need to finish out chain quests and get started with crafting just to get even start heroics again (normal dungeons may not be an option).

Anyway, I’ll have specific posts about my thoughts regarding the Monk and the talent system coming up soon.