Weekly WoW Newsletter - The Overpull

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Weekly WoW Newsletter - The Overpull

Posted March 3rd, 2009 by Medeor

We only Overpull most of the time.

Welcome to the latest World of Warcraft newsletter from Ten Ton Hammer. The Overpull, where we gather most of the things we should and a few we probably shouldn't.

Now on Farm or That's a Wipe

In this section we'll look at the hits and misses taking place in the game.

A big hit is underway in Europe where The Intel Extreme Masters offers over a quarter of a million dollars for a 3v3 tournament. The usual Euro suspects will try and farm the competition and in the end we all win as more media focuses on our game.

PTR Notes in a nutshell:
Dual Spec: Full of "Teh Win and Farmy Goodness," but at a price!

Class changes: Magic 8 Ball says "Too Soon to Tell"

Druid Bear Armor Reduction: Ouch, wipefest incoming?

Ulduar: So far it looks promising, but I see many wipes until it's on farm status.

Glyph Changes: Are you kidding me? Talk about a work in progress...

Caverns of Time

Ah the good old days. Some we miss, but most we just appreciate (for the fact that they're gone!).

Do you remember the original Naxx? Me either, I never got close to that place.

Remembering the Druid:
Remember when Druids could only heal and Feral or Balance Druids were laughed out of raids? Not any more.

Yes, druids had a tough go of it for the first few years. Switching forms always required he druid to leave a form and turn into a Night Elf/Tauren before morphing into another form. How many times did druids get stuck mid-change and out of mana?

Next week, Mages.

Medeor's Mishaps and Mayhem

This week the WoW gears are turning under full torque. Between the Intel Extreme Masters 3v3 tournament in Germany and the boatloads of information from the 3.1 PTR, my head may explode.

First off we have the big 3v3 tournament in Germany. The ESL (Electronic Sports League) is hosting the Continental Finals Europe edition this week. The big European names in professional WoW will be there such as Nihilum, SK Gaming and Fnatic. The top twelve teams of Europe seem to be represented but in true old-guy fashion I can't tell how to pronounce most of them (like aAa nawaK). Come on kids, put some names in there that marketers and old people can get excited about and leave the "Cru$hHax1" names on Xbox Live.

The patch that ate Cleveland.
Two things scare me, besides Austin Power's famous "carnies," I get nervous when Blizzard says: "This upcoming patch will be the largest one we've ever done with tons of new content and a lot of class changes." Blizzard's track record for delivering big patches is on par with Gilligan's ability of getting off the island. I see great server crashes, reboots, lag, bugs and all of the assorted fun coming at us in big chunks. Prove me wrong Blizzard, prove me wrong...please.

One patch note that caught my eye was "New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added." Maybe now we'll notice some differences in the armor. I was convinced that Northrend got all of their gear from one assembly line so it all looks the same. When Blizzard does some graphical touch-ups they are usually pretty good, so I'm actually looking forward to this one.

Blizzard is apparently going back and reading the forum posts from a year ago or longer as a lot of housekeeping changes are coming in 3.1 to ease some of the day to day stress of playing WoW (oh yes, so stressful!). Such as:

Mounts will learn how to swim so we don't have to remount after misjudging the depth or distance of a stream (I'm looking at you Terokkar Forest).

We'll be able to queue for battlegrounds anywhere in the world. Who can say that Warhammer wasn't great for us? In an obvious borrowing, we can now click to enter without using our hearthstones just to queue up for an hour to get in AV. Which leads me to...

Hearthstones going to 30 minute cooldowns is an interesting change that has almost no impact on my Shaman (and his 15 minute recall), but may help alleviate the various work arounds that players have created.

The Outfitter mod has been assimilated as "Gear Manager" so that players will have a way to better, err....manage their gear. Site unseen, I'm excited about this as I don't seem to be able to keep my Outfitter updated worth a hoot. What's the next mod for assimilation? Questhelper/Carbonite? Speaking of which, I'll be interested to see this in action "New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available."

Speaking of mods, expect all of them to break and then if any work you can be pleasantly surprised.

Is Patch 3.1 all you could ask for? Are you tuning in for the European Championships? Let's discuss.

Until next week, have fun and thanks for reading,
Medeor