• World of Warcraft Comes to the Big Screen in Zombieland
• FigurePets Series 2 Now Available
• WoW: Brewfest Extended Two Additional Days
• WoW Europe Announces the Icecrown Citadel 5 man Instance

Welcome
to The
Overpull, Ten Ton Hammer's weekly newsletter that discusses all things
WoW. Want to read this on the web? Click here.

Did you get your Brewfest achievement? If not, it's another year before you can try it again, assuming it's not kicked out of the game by Cataclsym.

Patch 3.3 hit the PTR and we've got PTR notes. I'd talk about it here and there, but we've got a lot down below that covers all of that.

In the it's a wipe news, wowbash.org is gaining massive popularity in the "you'd think there would be a lot more mean chat logs on a site called wowbash.org" department. I'm not going to link due to the NWS language used, but some are pretty funny. Like a GM joke that starts with "How many GMs does it take to clear Trial of the Crusader", "How many.", "0, Additional instancescan not be launched at this time."

• Editorial - Getting Ready for Cataclysm
• Azjol-Nerub/Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom
• Faction Changes: The Ultimate Cop Out?
• WoW: Grind Versus Gates, Attunements and You
• WoW Editorial - The Will to Raid
• WoW: Gear Scoring Cred or Noob Meter?

Blues Clues

• Ghostcrawler posts this for Rogues - "We need to make Vanish work as advertised. As I've said, if this results in a massive net buff for rogues, we will compensate in other ways. However, the intent isn't that it's another version of Cloak. We just want to compensate for server lag, missile travel time and the like. It's entirely possible 1 sec is too generous to accomplish the job and a smaller number will work. That's the kind of thing we will be evaluating through the PTR process. " So there you go Rogues.

Welcome to The Overpull with your new host, David “Xerin” Piner. Those of you who didn’t read last week’s issue (shame on you), your regular host Jay “Medeor” Johnson is over in Aion right now. I’m here manning the post and brining you a fun filled flavorsome email full of happy, no dare I say even kawaii times. Yes folks, that’s right, this newsletter has both jumped the shark and hit ludicrous speed by infusing it with Japanese terminology.

Let’s get the recap going before we delve into some serious, some funny, and some questioning newsletter happy go lucky times. Questioning doesn’t belong there, but I’m going to let it slide. We’ve got a new 5 man coming out with Jaina and Sylvanas at the forefront of the excursion into Icecrown. The honorable Sir “TEH” Lich King is making an appearance in the end to provide you with some more purps. 3.3 notes are up on the PTR. Finally, in the no one really cares department, Blizzard has a YouTube account and a new website.

In this edition of loading we’re going to start two new special serials. The PTR Roundup which will focus on PTR changes each week if there are any and a special Lore section that’ll appear whenever there is some good times to talk about it. You’ll find the PTR discussion below and the lore discussion at the end after the weekly question.

There's a lot this edition, feel free to skim anything you already know like the PTR stuff.

What’s the Buzz

There are going to be three new five man instances coming next patch. The raid should be coming out too, but they’re not in the notes right now.

We’re taking a time warp back to The Burning Crusade era with the introduction of three wings. Each wing will unlock the next, but if you feel like you’re doing Mechanar, Botanica, and Arcatraz all over again then you are. I’m sure one instance will be the one everyone runs and the other two will sit pretty. Then again, they’ll be dropping ilvl 232 gear.

Woah woah wait up. What did you just say? I ain’t kidding yo. They’ll be dropping ilvl 232 gear. The same gear that drops in Ulduar and if it’s like Trial of the Champion’s ilvl 200 gear then it’ll be label’d a 232 but really be a 245. That’s insane and always this week’s weekly question which you’ll find down below.

The three instances are pretty short. Thanks to the nature of the Internet we already have the maps so we know they’re going to take forever to get done. That’s the good news. I hate long heroics that ramble on longer than Captain Picard does when he’s got something unimportant to say. It’s even worse once you get saved and then the group turns out to suck. I’ve got a story about the Occulus about the Ruby Void achievement sometime I’ll tell. Maybe next week.

The three instances are The Forge of Souls which will be two bosses and a quick hop, skip, and jump through some unknown creatures. When you’re done being melancholy there you can go to The Pit of Saron where Gandalf the Whit- never mind, that’s not funny anymore. It’ll have three equally unknown (but probably easily killed) fellows waiting for you. Once your blade is soaked well enough in the blood of The Lich King’s minions you can head on over to the Halls of Reflection.

The Lich King, as fabulous as he is, has his very own Hall of Reflection in front of what I suppose is his throne room. That’s pretty cool eh? I imagine he’ll be sitting on this throne with a glass of wine and beckon you like Dracula does in Castlevania. You’ll scream DIE MONSTER, YOU DO NOT BELONG IN THIS WORLD as he stands up all cool like and hands you his purps.

Moving on, they’re the same captains that waltz in with Arthas when he kills his dad all emo like and help him slay everyone in the capital. Not that, the previous Warcraft games didn’t feature Orcs doing the same thing, of course. They’re just not white haired and fashionably goth. Anyway, once you’re done there you can fight Arthas himself and destroy Forstmourne or save the soul of Prince Arthas or maybe he’ll kill Jaina/Sylvanas and they’ll be bosses in the raid instance. Who knows. I personally expect him to rez a few 5 man bosses again and just throw ‘em at you laughing manically like Baal in Diablo 3 then leave a chest with purps and a vague threat to meet him in the raid.

The big issue here is the ilvl 232 loot. I remember a time when loot was hard to get and your gear didn’t outdate every other month by leaps and bounds. My gear right now is pretty awesome, but next patch it’ll probably be at “welfare purp” level because everyone will have it. The raid is probably going to drop 252s for greens and 278s for purps or something equally overpowered. I wouldn’t be surprised if Triumph replaces Conquest either and we get a new badge to run the daily heroic with. That means tier 9 will be pretty worthless. We’ll talk on that later, let’s take a look at the PTR.

The PTR Roundup

In this section I’ll talk about the PTR and what PTR notes are up right now. 3.3.0 hit the PTR recently and let’s look at some of the changes.

All races now have equal stat starts with equal stamina. If you read my WoW is not an Esport article you’ll get an understanding of why this matters (not). One point means nothing in the grand scheme of things, at least to me.

There are A BUNCH of level 1-20 tweaks going into place. I imagine this is the pre-Cataclysm stuff. More mana regen, 2-handed starter weapons, and blah blah no one cares. It’s easier to level up. There you go.

Druid, Death Knight, Mage, and Hunter pets get avoidance buffs, but nerfs in PvP. Big deal, at least to me. AoE damage is negligible in PvP.

Hunters get a Misdirection rework. Arcane gets buffed for Mages (WTF). Rogues get one rank of stealth (no one cares but that level 10 Rogue complaining in the Barrens) instead of like 20. Vanish is “fixed” so you shouldn’t get unvanished by a pet or a dot tick. That’s wonderful for everyone who isn’t a Rogue. Warlocks get Imps at level one. A built in Questhelper might make it into the game. That’s about it.

Well, not much so far, but as we know more we’ll probably get hit by a big round of changes. Stay tuned to The Overpull as we give you the scoop on the changes. If they’re something major you can always find the news on our main WoW site.

It Happened in /Trade

[1. Trade] WTS NAKED PIX OF MY GF 100G

I almost paid the 100g just to see what porn site the guy would choose. Sigh.

The Weekly Musing

This week’s question is:

Do you think that the accessibility of gear along with the rate of new gear that is introduced is fair or is it just wrong?

I want you to answer that question. It’s not really a yes or no one, but go ahead and put the answer in your head before we go on with some facts.

WotLK was released in November of last year, almost a year ago. Naxxramas was the first and only major raid instance and dropped ilvl 200/213 items. Kel’thuzad, that enigmatic necromancer who just won’t die, dropped item level 226 in the 25-man version which were best in slot weapons at the time. Ulduar came out in April after about two or three months of waiting (we’re talking progression wise, not real time). Ulduar dropped 226 items as a standard and 232s in certain situations. The Trial of the Crusader instance came out shortly thereafter and dropped ilvl 258s with a few going above that (tribute chests have 272s). So, within a year we progressed from ilvl 200 to ilvl 258s. The 5man dropped stacked ilvl 200/219 purps in normal and heroic.

That’s not all though. Badge gear progressed too. Right now you can get ilvl 245 gear with Triumph badges off of doing the daily heroic and puging the easy VoA. You can get tier 8 (ilvl 226) with Conquest Badges. The average ilvl of a progression raider is going to be 258 with a few above that. That’s not a whole lot away from 245.

That means that right now, unless you’re running ToC, you’re not going to be better than your average VoA/Ony/Daily Heroic pug. As a matter of a fact, unless you’re running Trial of the Grand Crusader in 25man you won’t be able to get ANY gear except for weapons that a pug wouldn’t be able to snag as well. That doesn’t mean that it’s not worth it, you get the gear faster, but still.

Let’s take a quick history lesson. In old world WoW, your raid gear lasted the entire time. If you got something from BWL then you could easily keep it all the way to Naxxramas unless you were the tank. BWL gear was respected for a long time, AQ40 gear was “it” even when Naxxramas was out due to the difficulty in getting it. Naxxramas gear is, right now, still desirable as collectable because those items are no longer available in the game. That’s how cool old world was about giving you gear and letting it keep its shine.

The Burning Crusade was a little bit different, if you didn’t play it. The 25 man raids were hard, if not impossible to get into and most 40 man raiding guilds broke apart when they hit the brick wall that was Naxxramas. Attunements were a major brick wall because you couldn’t attune to an instance without a raiding guild AND you couldn’t join a raiding guild without attunements. Raids were long and extremely difficult. Badge gear served as a way to make your character awesome, but only Black Temple level gear was available and that was when the Sunwell came out. Before then it was Karazhan level only. So everything above The Black Temple never saw a non-raiders inventory until WotLK.

So there are the facts. What’s my opinion? Well, I think that raiders are having an unfair time keeping ahead of the game and the rapid pace of trivialization of content is astounding. There are becoming fewer and fewer reasons to raid unless you’re in a guild that can get content down FAST or during a period that you can get the special title/mount reward. ToC loot will probably be pointless when the Icecrown raid hits because I’m sure most of it will be on a vendor somewhere. Unless Blizzard puts their foot down and says this is the end of the line freeloaders, raiders only from here.

Then again, you have the problem that a new player in the game isn’t going to be able to get enough loot to raid, like in the days of old. When a guild progresses past a raid then there is no longer a reason for them to run it. Then you have the situation where it becomes impossible to experience the content unless you were in the initial groups running through which puts us in that sad spot.

I can understand making raiding accessible, but egos are a big part of the progression and as I’ve mentioned over and over again, you have to have inaccessible content to drive people to play. The casuals have every right to scream for the handouts, since they don’t have the time to put into the game, but having the “true raiders” is beneficial in keeping a select few at the top and everyone else longing to be there.

I think Blizzard should find a sweet spot between content that’s accessible and content that’s inaccessible and draw a much bigger line between casuals and raiders. Maybe not as big as before, but something that’s not a “patch apart” would be nice. Say instead of the difference between 245 and 252 it was 232 and 252. That way, their gear is good enough to get into Ulduar and even ToC, but not good enough to walk directly into ToC hardmodes and do perfectly fine.

Well, I’ve talked long enough. What are your opinions on this subject? Join us on the forums right here.

The Lore Corner

Arthas is a lot like Team Rocket from Pokémon now. He shows up, makes a bunch of threats, and then runs off again giggling the entire time never doing anything. Let’s go over some example. The first time you technically meet him is as a Death Knight. Tirion shows up, ganks Ashbringer from one of his minions (Mograine if you must have specifics), and has the following conversation with Arthas.

[Tirion] LOL I HAS THE ASHBRINGER NOW 
[The Lich King] lolwtf bye I’m outta here you op come play me fair terms on my land

It’s like two kids screaming at one another over a Super Smash Bros. Melee game and finally repeating NO ITEMS, FOX ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION over and over ad nauseam. Except the end result here is that you don’t have to quest any longer instead of throwing an Nintendo Wii out the window.

You meet Arthas a few more times. The first official time in Northrend is in the Howling Fjord where you go try to assassinate King Ymiron.

[The Lich King] LOL I SEE WHAT YOU DID HERE, naw I’m going to take this guy and head on over to that tower over there and shove him there and then when you come into the dungeon he’s going to PWN you haha I am so smart.

Taking his words to heart, like any foolish hero, you run straight to Utgarde Pinnacle where he shoved King Ymiron. You see him again, of course. He has to show up.

[The Lich King] LOL HAHAHA I play my TRAP CARD you didn’t see that did you. I am going to buff this chick here with UNIMAGINABLE POWER and then she’s going to kill you rofl I’m too cool.

You then sit there and tank her for half an hour while you fail to get an achievement. King Ymiron, who waits at the end, gets killed in like 30 seconds because he’s stupidly weak. Call that a victory for the heroes right? Next time is with a troll you help become one of the scourge commanders and then you go kill him. He shows up again:

[The Lich King] rofl you killed this guy I COULD TOTALLY PWN YOU RIGHT HERE but I’m not, I’m going to wait my turn, I still have a ton of life points cu l8r.

Then, in Icecrown, you fight some dude who has some important reason with some person from the Ebon Knights possessing someone. He shows up again, lets you fight the dude, then when you win:

[The Lich King] rofl u killed one of my best lol I could kill you now, but naw BECOME MORE POWERFUL, come to me yes hahahHAHAA THE LICH KING BLASTING OFF AGAIN

That’s not the last you see of him. Remember Tirion who ganks the Ashbringer (THE one item everyone wanted for the longest time)? He’s the same dude who ate an endless supply of worm meat for years and gave some pretty cool quests in the old world. Well, after the Alliance and Horde fail at breaking into The Lich King’s house he comes in the back door, takes over a hill and sits there for a bit. He then waltz over to the other end of the zone and builds a freaking tournament and a few jousting camps here and there. Well, guess who shows up again.

[The Lich King] ur in my house now, im gonna mess u up, remember that bug guy?????? well guess what hes back u might have killed him w/ 5 people but now i’m going to buff him and he’s going to wreck u cuz I said so c u l8r

Of course, being the genius he was, the story should end there because a Death Knight is going to cast Path of Frost and the Lich King does win. He wins by making you pay 200 gold in repair bills as a Death Knight keeps doing it over and over.

Assuming a Death Knight doesn’t use path of frost and ruin the raid, you beat Anub upside the head for a bit and he gives you a ton of purps. So far he’s shown up multiple times and never lays a finger on you. Instead he works towards building a Rube Goldberg machine to destroy you in a fabulously spectacular way. I fully expect him to not wield Frostmourn, but instead dual wield Hogger and Van Cleef and throw 5 man instance bosses at you like that guy who throws bear pelts.

Sigh, what a WoW we live in. 

-David "Xerin" Piner