World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

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.

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

First and foremost, OMG with a capital F. This report brought to you by a newly frozen over netherworld - players will be able to change factions - yes Horde to Alliance. See Blue Notes and my thoughts below. This is huge. As in game changer, cats living with dogs type game changer.

For those of us with alt-itis or its even more painful main-changer-itis, the newly announced ease of gear gathering should come as a welcome addition. With Emblems of Conquest becoming the Kleenex of facial tissue, we should all be able to gear up an alt and make them a main in record time. The noise you hear is the hard core raiders losing their minds after the gear they spent weeks getting can now be found in every box of Cracker Jacks. Lich King has no gear grind comparatively speaking, so this is a good thing.

Guild banned for Yogg+0 (meaning Zero Watcher) exploit. Apparently Exodus found a way to make Phase 3 a little easier, but they forgot that the cameras are always rolling. Zing, that has to hurt. Moral of this story, don't exploit Yogg he has good bodyguards. The exploit has been hotfixed so that little loophole has been closed.

 

Singing with the Blue Notes

This week's memorable blue posts:

Change my shorts, that is a big surprise!
This is absolutely out of left field. Nethaera has announced that players will be able to change factions at some point. Unfathomable is all I could come up with.

Putting the Ring in Engineering
Zarhym explains why Engineering is getting a huge boost (on the PTR, we'll see how much makes it to the live servers). Engineering has never been a big draw, even with mecho-hogs, so maybe, just maybe my lowly engineer will see a reason to ramp up.

BOP now means Bring On Purples
Another very nice change is the system for allowing raid loot to be redistributed for a period of two hours to other players in the same raid ID. The reduction in GM tickets on Tuesdays alone will pay for any coding this required.
   

I'm still reeling from today's announcement that we most likely will be able to move our characters from Horde to Alliance and vice versa. I rarely say never, but I believe the first time I heard someone discuss this idea, I said, "No way, they would never do that." See how well my crystal ball works.

My first thought was, which characters am I swapping? I have so many characters from level 40-70 on both Horde and Alliance that I could fairly easily round up one of every class on both sides and get them all to end game without too much difficulty. Why would I do that though? So many possibilities. What isn't discussed is the cost, my guess is $25. It's a high enough number like a realm change, but if they go any higher I'd bet they wouldn't get many takers.

The next thought is Why? Why should I change over a character from Horde to Alliance? The BC and WotLK factions are available to each side for the most part and there is almost complete symmetry for Major City Rep, etc. Do I finally bring that Mage over from the Horde that hasn't seen the light of day in years, or do I take that Human Paladin and make him a pretty boy that laughs funny (Blood Elf)?

Enough about me, let's ask why Blizzard would do this. Blizzard is pulling out a lot of stops these days. Their community communication is flowing like a runaway fire hydrant where it once was a dripping faucet. Then there is the easing of difficulty; the ease of leveling with lower mount requirements, the ease of getting gear through Emblems. Something is going on. Either Blizzard doesn't like what it is seeing with it's internal number crunching and player participation, or they are trying to sink their claws in deeper so we don't start looking at Aion, or Jumpgate: Evolution or the other games rolling out.

There is a third theory, Blizzard always throws the baby out with the bathwater whenever a new expansion is deployed. In Medeor terms, this means that Blizzard just chucks all restrictions and makes the game and loot very accessible when they are just about done with it. Remember how easy it was to get gear right before Lich King shipped? They don't care about giving out the loot because it will all be moot soon anyway. Loot or Moot, there is no way they are going to deliver an expansion anytime soon, so we can probably dismiss this.

The PTR is so full of changes that the news gets crazier and crazier, are we sure this isn't April first? Now there is news that raid lockout timers can be extended, and there will be universal loot tokens that drop from the Coliseum bosses. Lots of this can and probably will change prior to going live, but Patch 3.2 may be named the Call of the Crusade but it might be known as the Camp of Confusion, there is almost too much to absorb and attempt to reconcile the impacts. In this math-heavy game, the number of variables is going up exponentially.

So far I like what I'm reading and seeing on the PTR, but is it too much of a good thing - are we at the buffet in Vegas with the piles of shrimp? I always hurt myself there. At first it's great, but after a while I have a headache and slide into a food coma. I'm almost feeling numb to the volume of changes. Will this many opportunities just bring me to a point of paralysis - what do I do first? Do I move that Horde or Alliance character? Do I level up Engineering? Do I go back to the tournament that I abandoned after one week? Do I just raid and blow through Heroics to pick up Emblems?

Granted, none of this is on the Live server so it doesn't truly matter, but some of it if not all of it will make their way to the live server. I already feel myself falling behind and it's not even deployed yet.

"Just keep swimming." Dori, from Finding Nemo.

Am I way off base, or am I on to something? Are you going to move characters to the other faction? Is the Call of the Crusade too much? Or is it not enough? Share your thoughts on our forum.

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