The Angry Dwarfs

Though Blizzcon ended just a few days ago, I’m still not completely sure what I feel about all these announcements. It’s really awesome, but makes me a bit worried in some places. Well, let’s see what we got.

The DirectTV internet stream

It sucked. Well, in the end I’m glad I bought it, because what’s better than looking at the panels? Only going to the real place – and there’s no way I can do that right now, but the stream really sucked. They only had cameras on the main stage (so people watching the stream missed on half of the panels), they cut off the contests the first day right in about 2/3rd, without even showing the winners of Sound-a-like or dance contests (or the machinima contest either – btw the winning machinima is this piece of art by my favourite Cranius and Legs – Don’t Make Me Get My Main. Watch it, its first place is completely deserved). To top it off, the “On-demand” stream is cut into 15-minute streams, but the streams aren’t really continuous – there’s like a 20-30 (or sometimes what feels more) seconds of missing video and sound between them.

Oh, and if I hear their male host once again after this week I will seriously strangle someone. He was just horrible.

The Cataclysm

Well, what can I say here. HOLY SHIT THEY ARE CHANGING AZEROTH.

The new zones look promising, but changing the flow and terrain of the old zones is both awesome and mind-blowing at the same time. When they showed how Desolace, the single worst zone in all of Kalimdor, is being changed into a forest… what the hell are they doing, are they making people want to go there, really? This, combined with the new races, will most likely make me roll more alts, just to see and experience the new zones, quests and all that stuff.

The new content looks pretty good as well. While I’m a bit not sure yet what’s up with all these elemental planes, all the stuff involving Deathwing is very awesome. As is Deathwing himself – they haven’t really shown him before, and when they finally did… holy shit. That is one freaking, terrifying dragon, are we really supposed to step up and fight HIM? Can I like, maybe find myself a nice little corner and hide there, no?

Then there’s the new dungeons – after all this time, we’re finally going to see Uldum, Grim Batol and some new stuff in Blackrock Mountains on top of that. They will have to do something really good in the 4.X content patches to do something even better than these. On the other hand, getting heroic versions of Deadmines and SFK is a bit of a letdown. It’s nice, but yeah, oh well.

Item and stats changes

Awesome. Not seeing armor penetration on an item ever again? Where do I sign for that? And haste making energy regen faster is a very cool use for this stat, much better than “you can now swing your weapons 0.45% faster” that it is now. Seeing attack power and defense rating go down as well is a bit sad, but I’m not really bothered about it. Juggling around the defense cap is only fun for a while, and only really doable if you have enough luck with your drops in high-end instances – otherwise it’s just a pain in the ass you have to endure each time you get a new item.

It’s a bit more crazy for the casters, with removal of both MP5 and spell power, so they are panicking a bit more than we rogues are, but remember folks. It’s getting easier, not too easy. You will still have your stats, it will not be HP/MP/POWAH after all.

DON’T PANIC.

Class changes

I don’t play a warlock (at least not yet ;] ), so I can’t comment on that really, but the new shard interface looks fun. About the hunters – well, getting them focus will change a lot, both in playstyle and the talents. And it’s about time, because while leveling my little tauren hunter I’ve been oom a lot, even with constant switching of aspects from Hawk to Viper, and that’s just annoying, so I’m hoping the unlimited, energy-like focus will make it much better. The ammo change looks very cool on the other hand, and I hope they will have lots of different types of it, making it a fun and a significant choice, not only a burden and a money sink like it is now.

Guild changes

It seems that Blizzard wants to make guilds more than just another word for IRC. Leveling a guild and choosing talents, such as mass resurrection or summoning of your raid? Give me that anytime. Guild achievements are another cool idea that should have been here sooner. What I like most is the changes that they are making to the guild interface ingame – right now that thing is absolutely crappy and hard to use.

Ozzy Osbourne

Well. The guy’s a walking legend, and I have a soft spot for that kind of music, even if it’s a walking, 60 years old legend singing, with a bit weird voice sometimes. ;) The first song, Bark at the Moon sounded a bit weird, but the rest was okay. Still the crappy on-demand DirectTV stream ruined it a bit by cutting the songs in half, too bad.

So to cut this long story short, I’m sold right now and I’m so looking forward to the new expansion. Excellent way to make an already great game even better.

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