This Week in WoW

So the current topic of debate seems to be the age old question of sexism in World of Warcraft.

I will admit that I'm not as concerned about it as others, but then I've always had a "tomboy"-ish attitude to things my entire life.

The attitudes that have been in game can easily be summed up by certain armour types - I have chosen this one to illustrate the differences:

Same gear, but startlingly different as to the gender of the character wearing it.

Mostly, the gear styles and the attitudes date back to a time of when female gamers were a rare thing, and of course everyone knows there are no girls on the internet.

Attitudes have since changed and there a lot of women playing games these days. 

The current debate has been kicked off by a statement from Chris Metzen at Blizzcon - a statement I fear he may have come to regret, but I believe was made in jest, a spur of the moment comment related to the questions being levelled at them.

"That honeymoon is over, it's more of a boy's trip."

Personally, with the information released so far regarding Warlords of Draenor, it didn't bother me in the slightest that all the Warlords are male. I don't necessarily need to see strong female NPCs in the game to feel included. However, I appreciate that others are feeling left out, and worried about the example this is setting to the new generation of players they are trying to shepherd through the vast universe of Warcraft we like to call home.

As I tweeted yesterday:

Now obviously, I know we could do with more female role models in game. Attitudes do change and hopefully as we hear more about WoD we will see what is coming. I can partially understand the Warlords being male as an expansion is set in the past, yet I wouldn't be too upset with what we know so far. Mostly, because we don't know a lot yet and we could be pleasantly surprised.

The other argument circulating at the moment is the amount of people upset that there will be no flying in WoD until patch 6.1. The amount of QQ has been phenomenal with people saying they are done and leaving the game.

This is something that I just don't understand. With the exception of Cataclysm (because the new areas were mixed in with current content so it would have been weird), every new expansion doesn't have flying until you reach a certain level, or until a certain point. I enjoy exploring a new area, and I feel that flying around it you miss a lot of things that you would find by just travelling along the ground.

We can't fly until we reach level 90 in Mists and I can definitely say it hasn't impeded my gameplay at all. Now I'm not saying that I would like flying taken out completely (like some people seem to suggest) but I have no issue with not being able to fly until I reach a certain level!

Last night, I attended the Friday Fun Run with a few people from Twitter on an alliance character - solo healing ICC25 at level 86 is an interesting thing to do!

Plus Rinike stayed alive at the Lich King! (Haxx0r :-p)

Much fun was had by all!

Character wise, my Shaman is progressing through the Legendary quest line and is currently working on getting her 3000 Valor - yes, I must be mad to be doing this again! Shammy healing is a lot of fun though!

I have stopped going to normal 10 man raids on my hunter - I don't enjoy raid leading (red: am not very good at it!) and the team is sorting out which days people can actually attend. I'm still going to flex runs however and got the heirloom strength two hander last week!

A Slowing of Things

Everything is fiiiiiiiiiine!

In the Winter months I always find myself becoming lethargic and more prone to feeling a bit down (unless we get a rare sunny day!)

I want this keyboard!

This being said I'm in one of those phases at the moment and just can't decide what to do in WoW recently. I log a character for an hour then log back off again bored - which doesn't make for very interesting reading.

That being said, the frequency of my posts are likely to decline for a while, but I'm writing this so people don't think that I've disappeared never to come back.

Normal blog topics shall appear every few days (hopefully!) but I shall not be posting daily until I get myself back out of this rut :)

Hunter Talents

One thing that it took me a while to track down were the level 100 talents for hunters!

I had seen the ones for Death Knights (Defile and Necrotic Plague being two of them! Om Nom!) but had only managed to spy one for hunters until the day after Blizzcon.

Obviously, its very early days and this is subject to change etc. etc. but as it stands currently these are what have been announced as the level 100 talents for hunters:

Bola Shot: 30 focus. 40-yard range. Instant. Fires a bola at the target which wraps around them, and after 1 second it explodes, dealing 3000 fire damage to them. Adds an additional 2000 fire damage to all enemies within 5 yards. Replaces Arcane Shot.
Snipe: 40-yard range. 2.77-second cast. Carefully line up the perfect shot, dealing 150% weapon damage. Generates 60 focus. Cannot be cast while moving. Replaces Steady Shot and Cobra Shot.Beast Mastery and Survival: Also refreshes Serpent Sting.Marksmanship: Also triggers Steady Focus.
With Or Without YouBeast Mastery -- Versatility: Passive. Increases the effect of your pet's Combat Experience to 70% increased damage. Your pet now gains the following abilities, regardless of spec: Rabid, Spiked Collar, Thunderstomp, Blood of the Rhino, Great Stamina, Bullheaded, Cornered, and Bull's Speed.Marksmanship and Survival -- Lone Wolf: Passive. Increases all damage dealt by 30% when you don't have a pet active.

Now two of these especially are of interest to me personally, and they would be Bola Shot and With or Without You.

I'm not going to lie, my interest in Bola Shot is mainly because of the ability with the same name that my Demon Hunter uses in Diablo 3 ^^ Still, it will be interesting to see how that works in WoW.

As for With or Without You - all my hunters are main spec Beast Mastery. I've never (personally) wanted to play without my pet, yet this talent intrigues me. It looks as though its going to be nie for BM hunters anyway, but the "Lone Wolf" passive for MM and SV intrigues me also. I may have to switch one of my hunters to one of those specs to try it out!

The BM part of it giving pets all the abilities will be an interesting thing to see how it works. DPS pets with Thunderstomp? Tank pets with Rabid? Nom nom! I shall certainly be looking out for a PTR and seeing if I can test these out any time soon!

Well, Well, Well, Lots of Squee!

Warlords of Draenor it is!

Like most of you I spent last night glued to my computer screen (unless you were lucky enough to actually *be* at Blizzcon!) and there were many many things that made me really happy!

Like the fact that heirlooms and toy items will no longer be in bags! That alone is going to save me a whole lot of bag space! No confirmation on tabards yet but there was a maybe about those!

Something that never really bothered me but that a lot of people wanted was player housing, which we seem to be getting in the form of Garrisons which you build and upgrade. You also have access to professions through these - including limited access to ones you don't even know! I'll be interested to read more on this as more information is released.

Also bags will have an option to auto sort, which is fantastic for people as OCD as me for having certain things together in certain bags, and quest items will no longer go in bags either! So much saved space! Also you will be able to craft directly from mats that are stored in your bank, no more trips back and fore!

Another thing that made me very very excited was the free character boosted to level 90 when the expansion is purchased, and a heroic version of Upper Blackrock Spire. That place is going to cause so much QQ and I really look forward to seeing how hard it is at heroic level.

We also got to see some of the new character models! Quite frankly they look amazing and I can't wait to see what some of the ones I actually play are going to look like, these are the female models we have so far:

Suffice to say, the dwarf hunter is definitely staying, and I may need to make a gnome or two now as well!

Bring on the belf and troll models!

Will stop here otherwise I'll write everything in one go and have nothing left for tomorrow! (Yeah right!)

Is it Blizzcon yet?

I can't possibly be sure whether it is or not with how crazy my Twitter feed has gone :p

I shall attempt to make some legible posts regarding various things as and when they crop up!

An Alliance Itch

So the last few days I have come to the conclusion that I do not wish to do LFR on all my level 90s. And this has left me a little bored.

I have my nice new Draenei priest that I free character transferred from Draenor Horde to Emerald Dream then faction changed so she has been levelled from 83 to 85 and is working her way through Jade Forest now :)

Its been so long since I levelled an Alliance character of any description that it has made a nice refreshing change.

Here she is:

I've always liked Draenei females so am loving levelling her atm. She is still Holy mainspec and takes mobs down fairly quickly with the "DPS" Chakra.

I also finally gave in and made a Dwarf Hunter. Not only have I made a Dwarf Hunter, I have made her on a PvP server!

This may not bode well, but as she is still sub level 10, all is right with the world!

Not sure how long they will stick around, but it's nice looking back in on the Alliance questlines :)

Trademarks, Countdowns and Levelling, Oh My!

So blogless weekends are fast becoming a thing :-p

I apologise but we have my nephew on weekends and seeing him become a proper little person is so exciting ^^ (Even if his favourite word is currently No)

In other news, as most of you no doubt know, MMO Champion posted about a new trademark being registered "Warlords of Draenor".

Most speculation seems to centre around a return to Outland, either going back in time or picking up where we left off. Either would be fine with me as so many people seem to talk about the brilliance of the TBC expansion, but I only started playing towards the end of it so never got to experience the parts most people loved. That being said, it will be interesting to see if a revamp of the current Outland is on the cards (and I hope it is as I have had so many characters "stuck" in that part of their levelling paths!)

Countdown wise, The Godmother has been informing us how many days are left until Blizzcon on her blog! I have my virtual ticket and will be slowly altering my sleeping pattern over the following week to enable me to be awake for as much of this weekend as possible. Alas funds do not allow me to attend Barcraft-on-Thames or I would have attempted this also! I need to start listening to more podcasts though it seems!

Levelling wise - I have made another warlock! This followed a guild conversation of me having multiple alts (I do not have over a hundred hunters! Nice as that sounds) and that I should definitely make an undead Warlock as my next alt - so this is what I am currently levelling!

I am levelling her as destruction as a) I miss Rain of Fire, and b) I want to learn how to play it! She is currently level 26 and counting! (If you want to have a nose at her and tell me if I need to change any talents (and yes I'm aware she has no glyphs yet!) you can find her here: Aurosa).

I also have my #hunterweek character to level - she has been removed from the loving bosom of the hunter only guild on Draenor to get our guild perks and she is sitting at level 11 waiting for me to come back to her.

The Shaman is quite well geared now and I must say I have fallen in love with Shaman healing. She keeps up with much better geared characters and is usually near the top of the healing meters and I'm having little to no mana regen issues. I'm even thinking of doing the legendary questline for her too to get a cloak!

Flex wise, we have killed Garrosh again and more people got their heirloom weapons! We usually manage to clear parts 1 - 3 on a Thursday and then keep the last part for Saturday night. This last Saturday our illustrious guild leader forgot about Flex (shock and horror!) and went to a Firework display. A guildie who has his number texted him to see where he was, ending him saying he would be with is in about an hour. So I queued us thinking I could try and lead us through the first couple of bosses until he managed to get online. Queue us wiping over and over to Siegecrafter Blackfuse ending in us taking a ten minute break until he got online - then we proceeded to one shot the boss. 

I'm not to worried about this as we have only done those bosses twice now so I am not as well versed in those as I am with the others, but it was stupidly funny how easily the boss fell over with our Guild Leader there to talk us through it on Vent!

No loot for me this week, but it was lovely to see more people signing up for the Flex runs and getting loot (we are generally running with between 20 and 25 people each time now!) I'm even starting to wonder if we are going to have to start up another Flex group to fit everyone in ^^

Roll on Blizzcon!