Achievements ahoy!

And now Kalimdor and Cataclysm zones are completed for Loremaster! My baby night elf warrior Marrion finally finished up Desolace and I was happy to get her out of there. For the previous loremaster zones, I've often finished up the questlines to see what happened, but the Desolace questline seemed awfully scattered and I was just ready to be done with it. In contrast, I really enjoyed Darkshore and Stonetalon Mountains. Playing through them as a night elf I felt particularly invested in the story of the destruction wrought upon their lands seemingly from all sides. 

Having done their part for Loremaster in the old world, my lowbie warrior and hunter will now be hitting the dungeon queues and working on their professions until they can make the journey to Outland at level 58.

My other achievements this week were with Wapsi, because after struggling through leveling and getting ganked on the PVP server my lowbies are on, it was nice to run around on a geared toon and without fear of sneaky Hordies.

Wapsi's working on her farm to finish getting to exalted with the mainland Pandaria factions. It'll take awhile but I'll take it over the dailies. She's halfway through honored with Kirin Tor Offensive so she'll want to finish a few dailies with them as well as running ToT LFR for Shado-Pan Assault. I'm in no hurry to get her through this content, but I will do it eventually to see how the story plays out.

Wapsi also finished up the final questline she had left in Valley of the Four Winds- the Nesingwary quests. I hated them. The Nesingwary quests of the past have always been notorious for asking you to kill lots and lots of harmless creatures, but this iteration seemed particularly bloodthirsty and meaningless. So having completed the Valley quests for the achievement, I can safely say I'll never be visiting Nesingwary in Pandaria again.

I've been wanting to get the Guardian of Cenarius title for awhile too, and since Wapsi already reached exalted with the Cenarion Expedition for the hippogryph mount, she's now working for the Cenarion Circle in Silithus. She completed the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj this week, and I'm going to try the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj although as an intended 40-man raid I assume it will be much more difficult. Still, the Ruins were a faceroll so I'm hoping she can get through most of it.

I've been enjoying logging in each evening and just playing however I feel. Having a bunch of alts means that each one of them offers a little something different, so I'm still feeling like I have a lot that I want to do. Getting out of the endgame grind for awhile was a good choice for me.

WoW losing subscribers

Down 1.3 million in just the last quarter, according to MMO Champion. I've read a lot of blogs today that discuss the meaning and implications of this decline, and for the first time the majority of comments don't consider this a minor loss for a game with a still-heathy subscriber base. Players of all types seem to be considering that WoW may not be healthy right now. What differs, however, are opinions regarding the cause. Everyone seems to be discontented with a slightly different aspect of the game as it stands now.

Speaking for myself, I have felt over the course of this expansion that endgame play is enjoyable only in small bouts. Rep grinds and dailies + the RNG of LFR make level 90 play feel too much like a job. Perhaps others feel this way too, as reflected by the statement, also on MMO Champion, that many players charge through content and then unsubscribe until something new is released. The current endgame model cultivates burnout.

I still play in part because WoW is the best MMO option for a Mac user, but primarily because I love the lore and the visual aesthetics of Azeroth. I love the way the game interlocks with the book and comic series, and I think this is completely unique among the current MMOs. Due to this fact, WoW is also the first game I have ever played where I have been able to become personally invested in my characters, a feeling that builds as they explore the vast world from the starting zone to Pandaria. I really enjoy acquiring new skills and better gear, as well as improving my own skill through leveling. I am a 40-something woman with a stable career and home life, with bills to pay and pets to feed, and the role this game plays as an outlet for my imagination plays a big role in my day-to-day stress relief. But this feeling is lost when my toons reach level 90, and I feel they are no longer exploring but slogging through repetitious tasks for little reward. Just like a job, and a crappy one at that! Soon I give up on them and start another toon so I can return to feeling like a simple adventurer out in the world but destined for bigger things.

In the games I play, I'm looking for a beautiful world full of novelty and excitement, where I can imagine I'm part of a larger unfolding story. Leveling through Azeroth provides that in spades. If I engage in a grind where the novelty is lacking, I at least want it to provide reliable rewards at least every time I am able to log in each day and devote my time to the task. Questing is excellent for that, but repetitive dailies are not, and LFR failbags are definitely not.

I'm finally working seriously on Loremaster right now because adventuring and exploring all of Azeroth is more appealing to me than doing one more daily quest, even though I've just barely touched the Isle of Thunder story on my level 90s. And I've already thought more than once that when I have that title, aside from checking out some of the older raids, I might be about done with what I want to achieve in this game. Once I've explored everything in the world, and if new content continues to consist of endless repetitions at endgame, I find it hard to see my interest in the game being sustained.

It's hard to offer potential solutions to these issues in my gameplay, because as I said at the beginning, everyone enjoys different things, and based on this, everyone has different ideas for what needs to be changed.

So again, I speak only for myself in saying that the number one thing that would improve my enjoyment of endgame would be to increase the frequency of rewards. Each day when I complete my dailies with one faction, I want to get a letter from Jaina or Taran Zhu, like we got during the Shieldwall/Dominance story, but including some substantial reward (as in, not 28G 50S). Each LFR I complete with no drops I want a similar letter. I want to feel a sense of accomplishment, both in terms of participating in the story and in terms of acquiring something that will help my toon do her job in conquering evil.

The novelty issue is more difficult. The current model of frequent patches consisting of repetitive content is a recipe for burnout and is clearly not working. Switching among alts might keep things fresh, but despite the changes made for alts grinding faction rep, it's still a long haul and coupled with the frequency of running a week's worth of LFR without a single drop, and the gating of faction rewards with valor as well as rep, not an enjoyable way to spend one's gaming time for more than one toon. The endgame content as it stands is just not repeatable. There are few options for generating novelty across multiple toons, but realizing there are limits to just how much new content Blizzard can put out, I just hope that someone smarter than me (and smarter than the current dev team) figures out how to put a new shine on the endgame.

That's about all I have on the topic. I'll be merrily playing my Loremaster team through the upcoming weeks, and then we'll see where I go from there.

The state of my game

I'm still playing WoW, still looking forward to my couple of hours each evening to dive into Azeroth and away from the cares of the real world. But I've shifted my gameplay in a few significant ways.

First off, I'm turning my back on the Horde until Garrosh is gone, or until I feel like playing a toon I can think of as being somewhat accepting of Garrosh's activities. My death knight, blood elf warrior or orc warlock perhaps. I couldn't imagine Wapsi, as a tauren, not being disgusted by the events of the Dominance Offensive storyline. So she joined my shadow priest and my other Alliance toons as a Horde defector.

Soon after arriving in Stormwind, Wapsi finally got her sha-touched weapon and moved on to the Isle of Thunder. But there she stalled. I still don't feel like doing dailies. I still don't feel like running LFRs for 8 hours a week for on average 0-1 drops. Add in 3 more level 90 alts and that's 3 times more of stuff I don't really like to do, at least not right now. I needed a change.

I've been reading a lot of lore lately. Tides of War was great, and it made me dislike the Horde even more, if not for being outright evil then for letting Garrosh go on and doing little aside from muttering in the background. I began to really identify with the Alliance heroes, especially Jaina and Varian and Anduin. I am anxiously awaiting their final clash with Garrosh at the end of this expansion.

Although I was more interested in playing Alliance than ever before, I couldn't get into my partially leveled toon. I wanted to experience the Alliance from the ground up, savoring the lore along the way. So I rolled a new toon on a faraway, low population PVP server, no money, no heirlooms, just making my way in the world of the Alliance, where the Horde is only the enemy.

Anamosa may or may not have taken the Worgen curse willingly. But as a hunter, she finds that her new animal side greatly enhances her bond with her pets, and with her prey.

Oh, how I wish that hunters wore mail from the start, as her low-level quest rewards are perfect for a hunter out exploring the dangerous world! At least the vicious stable of pets she's tamed will always be with her.

Anamosa and two more toons I will be creating soon will be picking up the remaining zones I need for the loremaster achievement. I'm hoping I won't poop out on that goal like I have before, and that questing through zones here and there on different alts will keep it from becoming a grind.

Last night Anamosa ran all over Kalimdor picking up flight paths on her way to Feralas for her next bout of questing. I had a blast mining ore, taming pets, seeing the sights, and ganking the occasional forsaken rogue who shouldn't have picked a fight with me. I have to say that at the moment, playing on a PVP server is pretty fun. It heightens the feeling of being out in a dangerous world full of conflict, and as for the level 90 griefers, I'm keeping a little book so that Anamosa can visit them sometime down the road! And there might be one tauren druid who will be getting a few letters from a level 1 goblin...

I'm trying to notice all of the little things too. After paying a lot more attention to the Anamosa's Gilnean history, I like seeing the the night elves and worgen are allied together throughout the world. Anamosa can always find a fellow worgen at a night elf outpost. Here's Jeffrey Gregarius and his pet cat Spaz, which made me smile.

I'm immersed in all that I love about WoW again!

Isle of What?

This past week I've been experimenting more with the new ways to collect rep, valor and item upgrades for alts. My impression so far is that progression is much easier once a toon reaches ilvl 460 and begins LFR. Before that is still a heck of a grind, and expensive to boot.

LFR drops have indeed improved! Is that a sha-touched weapon? Why yes, for my druid who wasn't all that concerned with doing the legendary questline. With her lovely new staff, she is now much more interested in dropping comets on Mogu for the Golden Lotus, which will also help her reach exalted with the Black Prince. She still needs a lot of Sigils though, since LFR had been so unkind to her prior to the patch. She wouldn't have gotten into ToES LFR at all if not for a cash infusion for PVP shoulders and a lovely crafted fan from my recently defected priest....

...through some miracle of what remained of her immune system, Blatella the forsaken shadow priest found herself in human form once again. Better get out of Orgrimmar, and change your name, fast!

It wasn't a complete cure, unfortunately. Must have had a dormant case of the worgen curse while she was undead. No worries, it's good to be alive again!

So yeah, I moved my priest over to my Alliance server so she could provide crafted inscription goodies to my casters (and renamed her Myrmis, had to make the transformation complete). She's geared enough to begin Isle of Thunder-ing, but I want to run the Operation Shieldwall quests on her first to get her new Alliance affiliation in full swing. Although I'm loving her new worgen form, it felt really strange to be slaughtering Horde on the beach with Varian during the first quests. She can't let on that she was once one of them though, so she does as she's asked and keeps her poker face on.

Calyx crafted her lovely 476 goggles and has been spending her JP on 458 gear because she had received 0 armor drops for at least 12-15 heroics run this week. In keeping with her charming but gold-digging nature, she shook down Myrmis and Mnium for enough gold to buy a lovely crafted 476 frock off the auction house. Pretty much broke the bank, but between the dress and a valor-bought belt she's just two points away from LFR. In 4 days Myrmis will have enough Scrolls of Wisdom to craft a staff for her, so that will push her over the line if she still doesn't get anything to drop before then.

In conclusion, LFR has indeed been nice to my alts, particularly Mnium, and has encouraged me to do some dailies to get back up to speed with the legendary questline. The rep boost for single heroics is small but nice, and has been building up on Calyx as she needs to do at least a heroic a day for valor and gear. The option to do a scenario each day is nice too. Added to the work orders on the farm, and the reps are coming along nicely, although I was skeptical that they would make much difference when I first did them.

I'm not sure when I'll venture to the Isle of Thunder. I feel like I have plenty to do without adding all of the new factions. Myrmis is ready for the LFR and I'm not sure she'll run it this week, as she still needs 2 pieces of tier armor from the last bunch. I'm in no hurry, it will be there when I'm ready.

5.2 first impressions

I haven't even ventured onto the Isle of Thunder yet, although my Horde priest Blatella is pretty close. She ran Terrace LFR this morning and no armor upgrades (another belt, whee!), but she had enough valor afterwards to purchase the Golden Lotus robes. She really needs to start her Dominance Offensive stuff so she can get Revered with the Black Prince and all that. We shall see.

Last night Mnium got Nana Mudclaw's vote for Farmer Yoon, and planted more Snakeroot for Calyx's ore addiction. She ran MSV LFR and got a big upgrade (a helm) and a duplicate (a cape). Not enough valor for the Klaaxi legs and not revered with anyone else, so she'll be here for awhile. Oh, ran one heroic dungeon championing Golden Lotus, the rep reward wasn't huge but it will help. I guess I'm more looking forward to being able to do work orders for rep when her farm is complete.

New haircut, transmog and pet for Mnium! The transmog is based on the early Jade Forest quest rewards, with some Wrath PVP shoulders, gloves and boots that she bought with JP. Looks amazing with the purple hair! The mechanical Pandaren dragonling was crafted by Calyx the other day.

So Mnium will be looking awesome while she works on her farm and runs heroics the rest of the week!

A grand patch day for altoholics

It's Patch 5.2 day! I've updated the game via the launcher and I have a browser tab open to the Realm Status page, so I'll be ready to log in as soon as servers are back online (and I'm finished with my grading for the day, heh!).

I'm obviously not a raider, and I only have one toon geared enough to begin the 5.2 questing content, Wapsi, and she's on a bit of a vacation right now while I play my three caster girls. So why am I so excited about this patch?

I am an altoholic and an explorer. My "game" consists of creating and learning new characters, and exploring every little thing in the game with them. I suppose I have a short attention span and this is how I keep the game fresh. It's working, as I haven't come close to running out of things to do.

That said, this expansion thus far has placed one roadblock in my enjoyment of alts: the endgame rep grinds. I am more than happy to grind rep one time, to see the content and get the achievement. My enhancement shaman Wapsi did this, and got the commendations for all of the factions to make subsequent grinds easier.

It wasn't enough. I burned out hard on Golden Lotus by my third level 90 toon. Because this faction gates access to Shado-Pan and August Celestials, I can't even move to those latter factions with my new level 90s just to keep things fresh. Level 90s have no choice but to begin their endgame with conscription by the Golden Lotus. Add this to incredibly bad luck with drops in LFR, and these toons will languish for weeks without the gear to move into the 5.1 content.

The 5.1 factions are also gated by LFR and rep grinds, since you need sigils and rep with the Black Prince in order to progress his storyline so that your kills for Shieldwall/Dominance Offensive count towards getting Revered with him.

Feeling stuck on my level 90s for the above reasons, this past week I've mostly switched to working on a rep grind that I have not gotten tired of on my level 90s- Tillers. Once I recalled that I could farm motes and ore for my engineer and inscriptionist, I got excited about this faction again.

Another rep grind that I haven't minded doing repeatedly? The Klaaxi, simply because I can now reach revered with them simply by completing level 89-90 in Dread Wastes and sticking to the Klaaxi quests alone. This could also be the case with the Shado-Pan, as selecting the appropriate quests in Kun-Lai Summit and Townlong Steppes gets me about halfway to revered. But again, the damned Golden Lotus gating means I can't finish up the path to revered until I run around in the Valley hitting Mogu for two weeks.

It all boils down to this: WoW is a game I play for enjoyment, and my gaming time is limited. When I log in and see that my choices for progressing through content consist of running Golden Lotus quests that I have done umpteen times before, and spending two hours in LFR after which I will receive not one item upgrade for my efforts, I feel like I have not had a good playing experience. And I will quickly run out of motivation to play those toons, despite having greatly enjoyed them during the leveling process. I can always level more alts, but eventually the roadblock at endgame is going to dampen my desire to do that as well.

That all said: from what I have read so far, I think this new patch is going to solve a lot of the issues with the futile hamster wheel of endgame. I came to this conclusion this morning while I drank my coffee and read blog posts by The Grumpy Elf and Azuriel of In An Age. As soon as servers come back online today, I will be able to tackle Golden Lotus rep in four new ways (three of which will work for my new-ish level 90s):

Daily scenario: 325 rep
Daily heroic dungeon: 750 rep
Work orders on my Tillers farms: 2 each day for 400 rep @
Rare spawns on the new quest hub island: 1000 rep

I am now excited to log onto my newly 90 elemental shaman and run a scenario and dungeon, not just for the hope of gear upgrades, but so she can work on Golden Lotus rep. Or, she could just skip to Shado-Pan since she's closer to revered. Choices, yay! The Tillers work orders will be available soon enough, as all of my level 90s are working hard to open up their farms so they can collect crafting materials.

On to gearing up. First off, valor gear for all of the 5.0 factions has decreased in price by 50%, and that of the 5.1 factions decreased by 25%. Add to that additional valor rewards for running particular heroics and scenarios (the toughest ones it seems), and getting my ilevel up for LFR will be much, much easier.

Scenarios and heroics will now also award more justice points, which doesn't seem like it will help with much except obtaining the JP faction gear for transmogging (yes, that was already on my list for my shaman!).

I am very curious to see how quickly I can get my elemental shaman into LFR, my boomkin into the second tier of LFR, and my priest into the newly released LFR with these changes. One week? Two? Excitement!

I nearly wept tears of joy when I saw the transmog changes as reported on WoW Roleplay Gear. Swords, maces and axes are now interchangeable! Just this weekend my shaman found the Klaaxi Blade of the Poisoned Mind, a BoA caster sword, and of course shaman can't use swords. Will she be able to use this for transmog? I will be testing this out if Calyx gets a one-handed weapon at some point, because the Klaaxi sword is beautiful and I would really like to use it somehow!

And last but not least, so many class changes this patch, and some really exciting ones for the classes I play! For the first time since Mists dropped, shaman are getting some attention. For my elemental shaman, I am looking forward to:
   -Chain Lightning will now deal the same damage to subsequent targets as it does to the first
   -Elemental Mastery now has a 90 second cooldown (was 2 minutes)
   -Stone Bulwark Totem now absorbs 25% more damage
   -Glyph of Flame now causes the shaman to heal for 30% of the damage dealt by Flame Shock
   -Flame Shock duration has been increased by 25%
   -Lava Burst always deals a critical strike, and when cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, deals 50% more damage
   -Elemental Focus and Shamanism passive buffs give greater increases in spell damage and Lightning Bolt damage, respectively

I am really looking forward to seeing how all of these changes work out; if Calyx does a little more damage with her Lightning Bolts, and is a little less squishy, I will be ecstatic!

Dranei love

Boy oh boy do I love my newly dranei shaman! I've been healing dungeons with her and just decided to level 88-90 as elemental. While I'm still not sold on the elemental playstyle (I hate Lightning Bolt), Calyx sure does look cool while she's doing it. The dranei casting animations are a wonder to behold. Coolest of all is the animation for Unleash Elements, which is just kind of a meh swooshy thing on my tauren, but is an all-out YEEAAH on Calyx, with flame bursting up around her. I

Like my enhancement shaman, however, Calyx is rather squishy during questing, even with pretty decent gear from dungeons, the AH and a hand-me-down Klaaxi staff from Mnium. I've heard it said before on the official forums, and I completely agree that shamans are rather hampered by the lack of an instant cast self-heal or bubble, something that many other classes have. I was amazed at how much less damage Calyx received when she had her Earth Shield from Ban Bearheart at the beginning of Townlong Steppes. Why do only Resto shammies get to have Earth Shield? Not only would it be extremely useful for dps specs, but it looks cool as heck swirling around at the same time as Lightning Shield like a little planetary system!

I just began questing on Calyx again recently, because the past few days I have been a bit obsessed with leveling her engineering skill. This is for one reason only- goggles! They look damned cool, and I have wanted to be able to equip them on one toon or another ever since I learned they existed in game. So here are her first transmogrify-able goggles, a BC recipe. Leveling engineering hasn't been as difficult or expensive as I thought it would be, since Calyx is leveling her mining at the same time. She has just begun Cata-era recipes, and will be looking for Obsidium in Mt. Hyjal as soon as she has finished leveling to 90.

Leveling as elemental hasn't been so bad, despite my not being too enthused with the rotation. Maybe it's riding around on a yak, her cute little sporebat pet from back home, or her lovely new duds, but I'm enjoying watching Calyx run around slaughtering all the things. I'm reminded once again of how important visual aesthetics are for me- one of the biggest reasons this game has sucked me in is that I just really like how it looks. I may not currently be in a creative phase where I am making art of my own, but every time I log into WoW I feel like I am participating in a piece of art. Without this visual appeal, no amount of content and achievements would have kept my interest for so long.