Niels' blog

Realmstatus1

Exactly 3 weeks ago i wrote a post about my guild and my own excitement about patch 2.4. I wrote in that post, that i thought it would be out in 3 weeks. As we all know, the patch will be out tomorrow, and i can't wait.

Tomorrow morning when i wake up at 5am i have to leave my place at 6am, and i'll be at the university till about 3-4pm. Which in other words means, no WoW for me till 15-16pm. Oh well, i can't be bothered to moan about that, the patch is here! After 6+ months of Black Temple / Mount Hyjal farming it finally is here!

It is a time of joy for all WoW players. Let's hope the patch lives up to the expectations.

After browsing the PTR the last few weeks my guildies and i are getting more and more excited about Sunwell.

RSbank

The preparation has started:

• We have bought herbs for thousands of gold (see picture for some of it)
• Raid setup has been reconsidered and experiments have and are being done during BT/MH farm raids
• Leather working drums are being tested and people are rolling Leather working
• Materials have been gathered for the new crafted items in 2.4
• Guildies have rerolled professions to be able to get crafted items in 2.4
• ...and so on...

SWbank1

Even though the level of excitement is at such a high level, most of us are convinced, that we will not be seeing sunwell live within the next 3 weeks. However when it's released we are going to be so prepared!

SWbank3

SWbank2

I logged on steam the other night, to play a bit of Dark Messiah, when i spotted an ad about a game called Audiosurf. I quickly recognised it as one of those music-puzzle-games. What caught me the most was, that it actually has the ability to scan your MP3s for play. I saw opportunities. It got on steam 15th Feb, so it's pretty new on steam. I don't know how long it has been around. It has 14 different game modes of different types and difficulties. I'm a big fan of music, and i must say, that i really enjoy the game.

Audiosurf1

It costs 9.95 USD, I had to buy it. It's worth the cash, and i bet you will enjoy it, if you like music. There's a demo, if you are not sure. However the demo has not near as many oppertunities as the real game, you gotta find your favorite game mode.

You control a 'space-ship' on a long road, with 3 rows. Depending on the game mode you have to catch/avoid the boxes as you fly. It's all about rhythm, tempo and intensity of the music. You will be surprised how good the game is at analyzing the music. When you play the game you can feel, how it's following the music, and i believe, that you have an advantage, if you play a familiar song. Unlike guitar hero, where it's only the actual boxes, that follows the music, Audiosurf has hills, bumps and effects. It results in very alive and action filled play.

The game of course has a point system. You will gain personal scores, and there are combos and combinations that will gain you extra points. It has a score tracker, so that you can compare your score with others and compete. You have Global scores, Local (country) scores and you have friends (steam). A feature, which got me slightly addicted. Quickly got some friends to try it, to compare scores and compete. That in itself isn't very revolutionary i guess, but it's well done and it makes maximum use of the game and the game's features.

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I've been busy with all kinds of stuff. However 3-4 days ago i got a quick look into PTR. There has been some trouble with the EU character copy function. Which has resulted in very few people getting their chars copied probably.

I did get my warrior as one of the few in my guild. I must say the place looks fantastic. I decided to check out the new daily quests. They were not too complicated, nor too simple.

The ground was covered in lvl 1 characters. As a somewhat hint towards the fact, that the character copy page was broken. The US servers have already already toasted many bosses. The European players are struggling to get 25 guild members copied.

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Some really positive news:

Blizzard has - based on player feedback - decided to make Marks of Illidari (Shattrath Flasks) useable in sunwell pleatue.

Very very nice :) It means, that i will only have to grind half the amount, as i thought i had to. We do have 400x [Mark of Illidari] in our guildbank. It's currently very unclear, if the marks are going to drop in sunwell. It would only make sence.

I got a look at the reputation items. They look pretty decent, sadly i couldn't find any real upgrades. However i think many players will find good upgrades there. One 'upgrade' i found was the exalted tabard. It looks extremely kick-ass. Check out the screen below:

Tabard

So a lot of stuff has gotten confirmed over the last 24 hours. It seems that a lot of the rumours were true. For more information check out http://www.mmo-champion.com. I have a few comments i'd like to add:

BT-Quality badges loot will be available from vendors on Sunwell Isle

Hehe, it seems like Blizzard are pissing you in the face when you've been running around thinking, that you were preparing for Sunwell the last 7-8 months in BT and MH. Anyways, i understand they've got to drag the players here who haven't managed to make it as far yet. I just hope that Sunwell will be a darn difficult instance otherwise we'll be seeing thousands of players on one server with the best gear in the game. That sorta kills the 'epicness'.

The 25 daily quests extension is in.

Way to go :) Now we'll be able add our contribution to the unlocking of the content, while actually getting some cash!

The legendary bow is indeed named Thori'dal, and the screenshot posted on some forums is true.

Looks really awesome, finally the hunters will get what they've been waiting for :)

The old Sunwell Loot screenshot is now confirmed.(models of weapons, armors and creatures has been found)

As for the weapon stats, they look interesting. However we can't know how much they'll be changed until release. The models looks kick-ass as always!

Warriors

• Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.
• Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).
• Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.
• Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.
• Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP. 

Again the endless rage thing, might take off a bit of the hilariousness about endless rage. However it's no big deal. The stance, whirldwind changes sounds pleasing :)

All welcome changes. It has always been a mistery to me, why honor had to be updated only once a day. I mean, it's understandable with arenas, and it was an awesome thing back when we had ranks, but now that items can be bought from honor, it's just what we've been waiting for. There are more sweet PvP changes confirmed aswell. I see the daily quests might actually start some really cool PvP at those outdoor places. 

 The cash and the token would've been very welcome 8 months ago =p Oh well, what does it matter if people can go for badges instead? The attunements has been removed, and i'm guessing it'll also be followed by some major nerfs. It's again an understandable way of getting everybody to see the content. The title will be very common, but it's always nice to have more titles :)

This one made me laugh slightly. Blizzard are you giving up? It's an annoying bug, and this is not a solution! 

This is a subject I've been through so many times. It became very clear at the release of Hellgate: London. As soon as people heard, that it was made by the dudes from Diablo2 people started the hype. Now the first thing people did, was to compare it with Diablo.

Hellgatelondon

I've got to admit, that Hellgate: London is a recreation of many of the very successful game mechanics of Diablo2, but it's still a different game. I also believe, that if you have been in love with Diablo, then there's a higher chance that you will like Hellgate: London. There's no garantee though. Especially not if you've been playing an MMO over the past few years.

MMORPGs is not a new invention, but it has really got popular over the last few years. It has so much potential, and there's very few people who can't see that. It's good, but it's not RPG. When people leave their MMORPG to play the new Hellgate:London, with the expectation of getting the same game experience as they got back when they played Diablo, they get disappointed. They forget about the actual game. The fact of the matter is, that even if we went back in time, and removed Diablo completely and then released it now, then it probably wouldn't get that much attention. We didn't know better back then, and we enjoyed it. I could go back and open Diablo, and i would be bored very quickly. With that said, I've had a great time in Diablo.

Diablo2

So my point is not to compare back on too old games, we didn't know better back then.

• Have you ever been thinking: "This is not near as good as the old game."?
• Have you tried to open one of your old games and get disappointed?
• What is your opinion on the subject?

One of my favored websites MMO-Champion has been making a compilation of the leeched information throughout forums and interviews. I have decided to comment a bit on it. It's a pretty long post, so I've only picked some of it. To see the full version you can go to http://www.mmo-champion.com

Sunwell Isle

• Sunwell Isle will be located off the coast, north of Silvermoon, and will be patched in with patch 2.4
• Sunwell Isle will be a major questing hub with a 5-man Normal and Heroic Instance (Magister's Terrace) and a 25-man raid (Sunwell Plateau). The goal with Sunwell Isle is to close the Burning Crusade storyline before the release of the next expansion.
• There are still a few scenarios left that could be released to provide the players with more content if WotLK gets delayed for any reason.
• At the release of the patch, players will access a small expedition camp where they can start questing. However as the questing progresses, players will expand the camp and make it grow to a small town by retaking building to the enemies (running daily quests mostly). You can consider it as a AQ Gates opening event, the more daily quests that gets done, the faster the whole server will progress.
• The quests will end the Tempest Keep story arc.
• "The Shattered Sun Offensive" will be the new faction of this quest hub. It also seems that Aldor and Scryers will finally start fighting together against the new threat.
• Both 5-man and 25-man dungeons will be accessible from the start, but some bosses will have to be unlocked by running the daily quests (server-wide) and/or leveling your reputation. The 5-man instance will most likely requires Honored reputation with The Shattered Sun Offensive, the first three bosses of the 25-man instance will be accessible from the start, while the three last ones will have to be unlocked through questing.

Sunwell Plateau (25 Players)

The Sunwell Plateau (5-man) will be a multiple-buildings instance powered by captured Naarus. The last room will contain the Sunwell.

• Kil'jaeden will be the final boss of the 25-man instance. The other bosses include Brutalicus, a giant Pit Lord who has lost his wings, Kalecgos, a blue dragon enslaved by Kil'jaeden, a Fel Dragon, the female Eredar Twins, and a Dark Naaru.
• The 25-man instance will be slightly harder than Black Temple, and is tuned for Tier 6 geared players.
• There will not be any "real" Tier 7 set, but some of the drops will be set pieces (not necessarily class specific). The drops quality will be above T6.

Here we got information about the instance we've been waiting for, for a long time. The isle itself and the whole concept of daily quests and server unlocking sounds very promising. If Blizzard has put some efford into it (which i hope, considering the long time they've spend), it's going to be awesome. I will run through the 5-man instance quickly to check out the ending of the Kael'thas lore. However what catches my interest the most is Kil'jaeden, the Fel Dragon, the twins and the dark naaru. Espeacially Kil'Jaeden and the twins sounds interesting. 

Also, if you've been looking at patches carefully, you might have seen the name of Brutalicus somewhere ... yup, he's already in the game files ! 

Brutalicus

A new pit lord.. exciting! My guess is he's going to be an outdoor boss on the isle. He has been found in the game files already.

Warrior 

• Endless rage will now yields the correct amount of rage (25%).
• Off-hand weapon can now critical hits from Whirlwind trigger Flurry and Rampage

This should certainly make endless rage build more viable, but i still think i'm going to stick to my MS/flurry spec for PvP. Not that the off-hand change affects me PvP-wise.

As for release date. It hasn't been released on PTR yet, but it should be one the way. That doesn't change the fact, that it'll have to stay on PTR for 3-4 weeks. I'm going to make a new post, when more information gets out.