GET OVER HERE!!!!!

OK, I don't have much in the way of impressions on death knights because I've spent the last 2 days trying to raise my mining up to 300 so I can get to outlands. I will outline my strategy on that in a later post (I will do alliance and horde so as not to choose sides). However, my main reason for this post is to outline my limited thoughts on death knights play wise.

I chose to spec blood for both my death knights. I have heard unholy allows slightly higher damage and AOE capabilities, but I chose blood for a few reasons. First of all, I think vampiric regeneration is the best ability from RPG's. Stealing health to replenish your own is efficient, fun and is way better than using potions or band-aids (both of which DK's still have the option of. Secondly, if I wanted to AOE, I would play my paladin or level my mage. I'm sorry, for as OP as people say they are (and they do massive amounts of single target DPS), nothing a death knight can do will touch either of those classes so why try to make them something they're not? A Corvette is not a family car no matter how much you might want it to be, let it be a corvette. Lastly, I was just more drawn to the blood tree. Although Frost and Unholy both have cool abilities, more of the abilities from the blood tree looked like abilities I wanted to pick up.

As far as playability goes, I have a few observations. First of all, DK's have MASSIVE single target DPS. They are crit machines and they do it FAST. It is completely routine for me to drop thousand point hits it seems like every other attack. Even my human pally specc'd completely retribution and 6 levels higher doesnt throw out burst damage like this. Another observation I have is the reason for the title of this post. Death grip is AMAZING. I am not a fan of PvP. I hate it. However, whether it is a guild that our guild has conflicts with or certain classes (Sorry, although I am against PvP, if you are a rogue or a warlock, you're getting ganked, if I see you, I will death grip you and take you down. If you run, I will chase you down on my epic speed mount, death grip you and take you down), it is AMAZING in PvP. I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to cit more often after pulling them over too. Its like "GET OVER HERE!!!", Bam!!, plaguestrike crit, they drop.

One last thing about death knights. Tell me the rune sword they get at the end of the starter quests is not one of the coolest looking weapons in the game. I know orcs have a natural afinity for axes, but the axe looks so dumb and the sword looks so cool. I have reservations about even replacing it with the hellreaver (even though the hellreaver is a superior weapon stat wise). It looks that cool. . .

My impressions on the Death Knight quests

They kind of remind me of Star Wars episode 3. In the movie it was "OK Anaking, everyone knows you are going to turn evil, we have a half hour of the movie left, be evil now. . .Yes, my master". The death knight quests are the same except reversed. I spent almost the entire time slaughtering Scarlet Crusaders (and peasants and anything random that happened to get in the way). There was ONE quest where an NPC pulled the old Luke Skywalker "There is good in you, I have felt it. . ." and it got my hopes up. But nothing till the end of the line, then its like "OK, you rampaging champions of EVIL, you're good now, we're allies against your former master". Are death knights little more than attack dogs with runeweapons? "Just point me at something to kill, boss!"

One gripe of mine on the quest line is a quest where you fly around on a dragon and dive bomb things. I was a HUGE fan of the bombing runs in Hellfire, they were a lot of fun, no damage, you just ride on the flyer and drop bombs on things. This new quest is HORRIBLE and FRUSTRATING. I play wow because I want to see a guy put on armor and hit things with swords or occasionally blow things up with spells. This felt to me like the car chase missions in Grand Theft Auto: something frustrating that takes a few try and I want to be over so I can get back to the reason I'm playing the game.

Also, is it just me, or do you prefer the look of the initial death knight gear to the blues? That hood you start with is super awesome looking, but the helm looks a little goofy. I disabled it on both of mine and they look ok without, but I hope there is a hood I can find. Also, I wish we could runeforge plate armor to make it black and more deathknight looking. Once I start replacing the starting gear, my DK is going to look like an Arms warrior with glowing eyes (and black skin, the undeadish orcs look AWESOME).

One thing I find both tedious and hilarious at the same time is being level 58 with no gathering skills. I decided both my Orc and Human DK's are going to be Mining/Skinning, so after completing the line with my Human, I flew to Ironforge and decided to get started. Thousand point hits on level 5 wolves are less than satisfying and it will be quite a few of them before I can move to more satisfying prey. I was able to powerlevel my mining by smelting copper, took about 3 stacks to get me to level 55. I think I will head to the Draenei area to do some further mining/skinning (lots of tin there and skinnable animals). I have a TON of silver ore stashed away to smelt to raise my mining past the bronze zone. After that it is onto iron which can be done pretty easily in the yeti caves in Hillsbrad/Alterac (while also raising my skinning). Mithril can be done in the same area. It is thorium that is the pain in the ass. I was able to get a decent amount making loops of Ungoro (Apes and dinos should give me some decent skinning too), but it will take weeks to get enough to get to a decent level.

I'm not an addict, I can quit whenever I want to!

Well obviously I couldn't stay away from Wow for long. I reactivated my account this weekend. I just realized this is pretty much the game I want to be playing. There are aspects of it that frustrate me to no end, and I can't find a "perfect" situation, but I still enjoy playing and its a really good value ($15 a month for as much as I play works out to about $0.19/hr).

My month (or thereabouts) hiatus did give me some time to come up with a number of solutions to my Wow dilemma. First of all, I'm not going to restrict myself to one realm. I can get the full Wow experience, it just doesnt have to be an either or type thing. I will focus on Leshif (and maybe my DK) on Daggerspine, and do all my crafting and the majority of my questing on Azuremyst. Plus, leveling only 1 (maybe 2) characters to 80 in the beginning I can quest on only rested XP and if I get ganked and/or frustrated, I can just switch over.

On a non Wow related note, I stayed home from work sick today. I tried to take care of my fiance this weekend and I think I managed to get myself sick in the process, go me!

I'm coming back and why I prefer Alliance over Horde. . .

I guess it was inevitable. I couldn't stay away for long. There are certain things that I look for in games. I want to kill things in an entertaining fashion, I want to improve a character and probably most important, I want this character to look cool. Not only do I want the character to look cool, I want him to look MORE cool as he advances. I just wasnt getting this from Guild Wars or GTA. I have been checking server populations and after the queuing and population spike in the week or so after WotLK released things look to be back to relatively normal. So, to make a long story short, I will be returning to Azeroth, probably sooner rather than later.

This all got me to thinking. I have always preferred the Alliance side, but why? Well, its extremely superficial but the answer is window dressing. I like the way the alliance side looks better. There are 3 Alliance races that I like the character models for: Human, Night Elf and Draenai. I think a fantasy character should have some respectable facial hair (yes, I am shallow enough that I obsess over my characters' facial hair, I can't help it, I have some in real life, I think I should have some in the game too). The Horde has 2 races, only one of whom has decent options (It is ironic that my friends who complain about the alliance being populated by teens play characters who look like teenagers, you know kind of skinny and with weak little beards). The main Horde cities are Oggrimar and Undercity. They are ok looking and although the design of Oggrimar sort of angers me (I get lost looking for things), UC is pretty well designed and easy to find things in. However, when I started playing Alliance and first set foot in Stormwind, I thought "this is what a fantasy city is supposed to be." Stormwind is amazing, Ironforge is more convenient to some things, but my heart will always be in Stormwind.

This has nothing to do with which server I prefer or PvE vs PvP. Pretty much everyone I know plays Horde. This may not affect where I ultimately end up. But I prefer Alliance, and I probably always will.

Guild wars vs Warcraft

So I have been playing guild wars for a while and I thought I would do a comparison between it and Warcraft. I won't be reviewing the PvP aspect because I havent participated in it, nor do I intend to. The areas I will focus on will be presentation, system, PvE content, crafting, lasting appeal, and polish. I'll rate each and give an overall rating at the end.

Presentation:

Warcraft - You either love Wow's graphics or hate them. The character models are slightly cartoony, shoulders are huge and there are some crazy looking weapons. There is enough variety that even a given 2 starting type characters won't look the same. There are a ton of different "looks" of item sets. I personally love the presentation, my only gripe is a personal one (*cough* Blood Elf facial hair *cough*). I personally prefer the Wow style to a more realistic looking game, but again, thats a personal preferrence, but the quality is definately there.

Guild Wars - Guild wars is an example of a more realistic game. The graphics are executed well, the character models are defined and the environments are good. Where guild wars falls short is in variety. There are different facial models, they all generally look the same. No real racial choices and no facial hair. Also the armor models are extrememely limited. The ones they have are done well (although I prefer the big shoulder pieces), I would just like a bigger variety and more mixing and matching besides just the ability to dye pieces (which is cool, but of limited utility).

Advantage: Warcraft - Variety takes the crown here. Warcraft just has a lot more options and ways to make your character look unique.

System:

Warcraft - Despite numberous changes for "balance" the basic system remains the same. You pick your class, and you have talent trees which determine the abilities your class has in addition to basic class abilities. It gives you some room for customization and proper talent selection is basically a requirement for endgame content.

Guild Wars - This is the area that Guild wars really shines in. Each character has a primary class which determines armor and has a unique ability, and a secondary profession to select from. This gives a total of about 90 different combinations, and almost infinite variation when you take into account skills actually equipped on the character. It allows a surprising amount of variation, and from a role playing perspective you just have to think outside the box a little. My character is a warrior/monk. The monk skills that I took are smiting (holy damage) and protection, so I really think of him as a prot paladin. I could have gone straight warrior, or warrior/necromancer and gotten more of a deathknight type character.

Advantage: Guild Wars - Variety for the win. Seriously, this is the area where guild wars really shines. If you can't figure out a character to play, give up RPG's. You could make a Ranger/Necromancer combo if you wanted to. How does that go together? I have no idea, but it's possible.

PvE content:

Warcraft - The bulk of Warcraft's PvE content are Quests and Instances/Raids. I have mixed feelings about Warcraft's PvE content. Raids are going to be inaccessible for most casual players and most of the quests are of the "kill 10 rats" variety and difficult and/or very frustrating to do with other people around. On the other hand, the instances are very well designed and fun. From old content through expansion, there are a lot of them, and they are enjoyable and provide a healthy dose of lore.

Guild Wars - Guild Wars has a feature that I LOVE. All the content outside of cities is instanced. If I am solo questing, it is only me killing mobs. I don't have to worry about ganking, I can quest at my own pace, its just amazing.

Advantage: Guild Wars - Purely on the strength of the instanced solo content. While I think Warcraft has excellent instances, the solo content in Guild Wars is perfect for a player like me who wants to solo and be left alone.

Crafting:

Warcraft - Warcraft has an extremely deep and varied crafting system. Call it a money sink, time sink, not efficient, whatever you want, its there. I will be the first to admit its not perfect, but again, it offers a lot of options, and players can skip it completely by double gathering.

Guild Wars - Well, to be honest, I am underwelmed with Guild wars' crafting. It has promise, but the execution is rather lackluster. All "crafting" is done by NPC's. You get materials (either raw materials or item enhancements), pay them a fee, and they give you back an item. Its a useful system, but it just doesnt feel like crafting. And breaking items down into component parts with the use of salvage kits, while a good idea, just isnt that enjoyable.

Advantage: Warcraft - For all the faults of the wow crafting system (which is mainly just gear takes a long time to make, is expensive and not as good as drop gear), its leaps and bounds better than guild wars.

Lasting Appeal:

Warcraft - Well, I played it for a year and a half and didnt see everything. Although expansions are infrequent, they do always provide interesting new content.

Guild wars - undecided, probably low. The expansions don't raise the level cap, and although they provide new classes and campaigns there's nothing that jumps out at me and makes me want to pick them up.

Advantage - Undecided - I'm giving Guild Wars the benefit of the doubt here. I am anticipating it will hold my interest for about a month, so the advantage would seem to rest strongly on Warcraft, but I can't say that for sure.

Polish:

Warcract - Warcraft has had continual improvements and polish is one of the areas where it shines compared to any game. They have really made attempts to make sure the everything functions at a high level and there are tons of features there for player convenience.

Guild Wars - Not so much. Its not that the game is rough per se. Its just the equivalent to comparing a high end diamond to one you bought at Walmart. Yeah they're both diamonds, but its the little things that make the difference.

Advantage - Warcraft - End of discussion.

Overall: Warcraft 3-2 - While Guild Wars has a lot going for it, and I think it will be a good way to occupy my time for a month or so, it isnt on the same level as Warcraft. It is definately a worthwhile game, and for $20 with no monthly fee, I would encourage anyone to pick it up. However, as is usually the case, you get what you pay for, the options and polish of Warcraft are lacking in Guild Wars in every area except class selection.

Guild wars to tide me over. . .

I still don't know if/when I am coming back to Wow. I havent really gotten that far. I did put out feelers to my friends that I know play to see who plays where. What I was really looking for was an Alliance PvE server. Nobody that I know plays on one currently. Wow isnt my ideal game, but in looking around, it appears to be the best of what's out there. I don't know if that justifies coming back, I'm still working on that decision.

When I sent out messages to my friends to see who plays where, I got a reply back that one of my friends from college started playing Guild Wars. I had written this game off previously because I'd heard it was heavily centered around PvP. Well, its $20.00, no monthly fee, and I have a friend who plays. I figured at worst, I play it a couple hours, get bored with it, and quit. I'd be out $20.00, no big loss.

I have a few observations about that game both good and bad. First of all on the good side: I really like the ability to pick primary and secondary classes. Primary gives you a "special" class only ability and controls armor you wear, but you can select skills and abilities from either class. As an example, I picked warrior as my primary. I had an option of going straight warrior, picking monk as secondary to go more paladin, necromancer to be more of a deathknight, or some other combo. It really gives you a lot of variety. The other feature that I think is AMAZING is that the world outside of towns is all instanced for your party. I can go kill 10 rats and not have to worry about someone else having come by and having to wait for the rats to respawn. I can solo at my leisure and don't even have to interact with other players unless I want to.

On the negative side there are a few things that take away my enjoyment from the game. First of all, where the hell is the bank? For that matter, can I get a little better marking of who does what and where? In wow there are these enormous signs or other features that mark things like the inn, AH, flightmaster, whatever. It took me almost an hour to find a vendor to sell my excess crap to and I STILL CANT FIND THE STUPID BANK. Also the crafting system shows promise, you get items, use a salvage kit to break them down into component parts and you can give those parts to an NPC to make things for you. Great in theory, but A) the salvage kits are expensive and B) I'm tired of carrying around wood planks and iron ingots. Also, I'm not getting much in the way of story or flavor from the quests, I'm just kind of running around doing things. And the text is pretty small and hard to read. And I'm allegedly almost 1/4 way to the level cap and wearing the same armor. In wow, I would have changed armor 2-3 times by level 20. I also am not crazy about the armor models. Maybe I got too used to wow with the over the top shoulder pieces and more manga-esque designs, but I like them. Also, where's my facial hair? I like the abililty to vary my height, face and haircut, but is it that hard to program a beard on someone?

All in all, I like system, quests are pretty tedious, graphics are not what I prefer, the items have promise (life stealing is my favorite feature in games). Overall I'd give it a B- so far, enjoyable enough but with plenty of room for improvement.

Brock Lesnar pwns in PvP. . .

OK, this post has absolutely nothing to do about Wow or any other MMO. I have a background in martial arts having taken many different styles for about 4 years. I had to quit practicing due my concussion issues and a general lack of desire to be beat up all the time (bruised and sore as a permanent condition isnt a fun way to go through life). There are times I miss it, but then I think about the crazy diet, constant working out, and re-allocation of priorities in my life, and it just doesnt make sense to get back into it. However, I enjoy watching mixed martial arts because I understand whats going on and I like analyzing the different tactical approaches.



I watched UFC 91 last night and DAMN. First of all, they said 54% of people thought Randy Couture was going to win. Those 54% obviously have ZERO knowledge about MMA, the combatants, or both. Brock Lesnar is a MONSTER, I saw him in person when he was a WWE wrestler, he is 6'3 about 285, they said he weighed in at 265, I would assume he cut water weight for the weigh in and was back to about 270-280 for the fight. His main weakness right now is his lack of submission defense, this resulted in his lone UFC loss (a disappointing submission loss by heel hook, its a version of a leg lock). His fighting background is as an amateur wrestler, he won the 2000 NCAA heavyweight wrestling championship. He is pretty much the epitome of "ground and pound". Randy Couture also has a background as a wrestler and he is around 6'1 220. At this point, his stand up boxing is superior to Lesnar's, and he is one of the best conditioned MMA heavyweights. His main weakness is lack of a submission game. What stands out here? Two fighters with the same general style, one of whom is younger and outweighs the other one by at least 50 lbs. I thought Couture's only way to win the fight was to turn it into a stand-up boxing match. Use his superior boxing skills to counter-punch Lesnar, keep from being taken down and control the pacing of the fight.



Here is a picture from the weigh in (Lesnar is the huge scary looking one)



What happened? First round was back and forth, in the second round, Lesnar took down Couture and proceeded to rain down punches on Couture's head for the TKO.



Lesnar will face a stronger test in the winner of the Nogueira vs Mir fight at UFC 92 (Mir was the one who defeated Lesnar by submission). Both have excellent submission skills and are closer in weight to Lesnar.



On a non Lesnar note, Dustin Hazelett had one of the sickest submissions I've ever seen. He got his opponent into a crossface figure 4 keylock, rolled him up onto his shoulders, and then straightened his arm into an armbar that looked like this. OUCH!