WORLD OF WARCRAFT POST #2

Every few months or so, Blizzard Entertainment, viewed alternately as gods or scum, releases a major patch to its MMORPG World of Warcraft, a game which has me by the throat and won't let go.

The purpose of most of these patches are to fix things. Perhaps a graphical bug makes you see spots. (If it's only one person reporting the bug, then Blizzard tells him to call his opthalmologist.) Perhaps there's an unkillable monster that wasn't meant to be. Perhaps there's a guy sho's supposed to drop a Sacred Diamond-Edged Bastard Sword of the Monkey but isn't.

Consider the most recent patch, patch 1.7.0. The most notable changes are the addition of new stuff. The Arathi Basin battleground left the other two battlegrounds deserted for a while. The Zul'Gurub instanced dungeon got everyone on the Skullcrusher server, my server, all hungry for new loot, incuding a 5-piece armor set for each class.

I'm not sure whether Immortality is the biggest or most skilled guild on the alliance side, but I will say this: they have the most Bling. If you are a level 60 character in Immortality and you have no epic gear, it must mean you haven't been in Immortality for more than 24 hours. This guild has reputedly killed Onyxia -- a dragon so powerful Blizzard allows a full raid group of 40 people to make the attempt -- with a mere 26 people. For 500 gold, you can go with them on Onyxia raids until your tier 2 set helm drops. They were the first to finish Molten Core on alliance side and have reached or maybe even beaten Nefarian in Blackwing Lair.

I would have been able to find out directly if the Onyxia rumor was true, but both of my friends who were former members of Immo are no longer so. (Afic rerolled Horde and joined Nightmare Asylum, and Avelynn has been kicked out for having Afic as a roommate.)

The point being, either Immortality or Nightmare Asylum (its Horde counterpart) will probably beat it first. Maybe they already have.

Another major change was to the Hunter character class. Their pets have gained a significant buff, largely due to the availability of new passive pet abilities that improve armor, stamina, and spell resistance.

Though my main character is a priest, I do have a hunter character who is level 51 as of this writing. Maybe you've met Keahrde. I've been doing a lot of Maraudon runs with him in an attempt to get him a Megashot Rifle (mission accomplished!) and do some quests. Before the patch, his trusty wolf, Lekhrad, had about 170 unspent training points because there wan't anything to spend them on, even after teaching Lekhrad all the relevant skills (highest rank of Bite and Dash). Now, Lekhrad has 30 left. I thought Lekhrad was a pretty good tanking pet before (his Stamina was greater than his master's). But there's definitely an improvement with the added skills. Mend Pet? HAHAHA!

The other improvement to the hunter class is the redistribution of their talent points. This is Blizzard's attempt to give players the ability to make your hunter different from someone else's hunter. Because of the sweeping changes, all hunters were allowed to spend the talent points again (One per level above level 9; for a level 60, that's 51 points. For Keahrde, 42. Hunters below level 10 didn't miss anything).

I spent my points roughly the same way they had been. Mostly in the Marksmanship tree, with a few in Beast Mastery. I recently grouped with another hunter who had done the opposite: lot of Beast Mastery, a little bit of Marksmanship. (Good job Blizzard on encouraging people to use the third tree, Survival, for their hunters.) The difference was noticeable. I definitely outgunned the other hunter, but his pet blew my wolf out of the water. (I'd guess that was also because he had tamed an elite cat named Broken Tooth, which has the fastest attack speed in the game, while I had just picked up the first wolf I could find after learning to tame beasts.)

But the fourth and final item is what I want to bring your attention to most. Blizzard implemented a function called the Dressing Room. If you see an item that can be equipped and wonder, "What would I look like wielding that?" you just need to CTRL-Click to find out. Useless Timewaster? All Right! I was all set to search for a priest in Immortality with the full set of Vestments of Prophecy, so I could see what Omni, my 60 priest, would look like wearing that set.

But then I started thinking: Why do we have this? Why not something more useful, like bug fixes? or maybe they could have started to overhaul another class? (Rogues need a serious nerf. If you play one, and disagree, stop reading now.)

Then my thoughts turned, as they so often do, to current events, specifically Hurricane Katrina. and I drew the following parallel:

PROBLEM: There are all sorts of balance issues and bugs that need to be fixed. Not to mention, the Tier 2 Epic sets look like shit.
SOLUTION: Ignore this and give the players a Dressing room feature.

PROBLEM: There are hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need the government to give them aid so they can rebuild their towns and their lives.
SOLUTION: Ignore this and start talking about another tax cut for the rich.

The difference between these two scenarios is that Blizzard is irreplaceable. "We built this world. You don't like it? Go play Guild Wars. We'll survive without your $15/month. Because we know you can't survive without us."

But we can get rid of the people in power who fucked up here.

And ite reminds me of the fact that once Bush's remaining 3 1/4 years are up, we don't have to deal with him ever again.