Patch 3.3 Impressions

With the latest patch finally showing up in the background downloader, it usually means it’s release is coming quite soon. I won’t be playing the guessing game this time, but the downloader being active usually means from a week to a few. I was putting off writing this post for a while now, mostly because due to the live game (and other not game related activities) I was not online on the PTR this time. But, the time has finally come.

Good:

• The new raid instance and the heroics. I love new dungeon content, especially if it’s something like I hope Icecrown will be – fun, challenging but not impossible, and if I get a few extra good quality stories with it, I will be extra happy.
• The revamped LFG system. Cross-server pugs? Random dungeons, along with a tool that don’t require me to spend most of my time in Dalaran when I’d rather be wasting my time farming stuff or doing quests? Pretty much awesome.  Plus, you can’t go wrong with tanking for pugs – it’s always entertaining.
• The Quel’Delar questline – it might not be a legendary (and being a tank on my warrior I’ll probably won’t get the orange axe anyway), but it looks very cool and promising. Besides, I already have two Quel’Serrars, so it’s only appropriate that I’d get their sister blade, even if it will have to be of the two-handed variety.
• Quality of life improvements – things like removing the level restriction on meeting stones, various changes for early leveling, changes to the map and quest tracking… it all adds up and it’s removing various annoyances from the game.

Bad:

• The gating system. I really hope it will somehow work out, but seeing the news that we’re gonna only have the first four bosses availaible for several weeks… I can only hope that they will provide enough of the required fun and challenge in that case. Not to mention the limited tries on the last bosses on each wing, though that might be something not that bad really, since it will make us really focus and figure out what we did wrong.
• Changing the Master Angler of Stranglethorn. While I like the Kalu’ak Derby itself, I feel like adding it to this achievement is kinda making the Stranglethorn fishing tournament pointless. I know why it’s been done, but still, they could do it in a different way, like adding a new meta achievement for at least one of both tournaments and then adding this new meta to the Salty one.
• Restricting raids to players above level 10. While I understand it’s meant to be a quality of life change for new players that might not be aware of what a raid group is and what it does (and trust me, everyone did try to quest while in a raid at some point), it’s a bit disappointing because it will restrict fun playermade events.

Ugly:

• The tier sets. The rogue one is once again just weird, and while I know that geists are really an appropriate look for Icecrown Citadel, it’s still not something I’ll want to see. The warrior stuff is pretty mediocre, as I really liked the look of T9 shoulders, and the druid headpiece… let’s not mention the druid headpiece.