Yes, this is a Green Day reference, and it fits because I am really ready for September to be over with. By the end of September, I hope to have Halo:Reach, and NHL 11. (BTW Madden 11 on the 360 is a lot of fun, but I digress.) I hope to have my infant son, Caleb, (he is 5 weeks old) sleeping a little better during the night. By that time I also hope that I have a little more money floating around courtesy of student loans.
Most importantly to the readers of this blog, BlizzCon will be right around the corner at that time. I can’t wait to participate in the coverage! This is going to be a blast, and I hope that you come to Rawrcast for your BlizzCon needs. Read more…
When it comes to the new talent trees, there are 3 types of people in the World… of Warcraft.
- The people who love it
- The people who hate it
- The people who couldn’t care one way or the other
For the purpose of this post, we’ll say goodbye to the 3rd group. Don’t take it personally, however in this situation your opinion doesn’t add weight to either side of the spectrum. I still love you.
Read more…
This week’s news brings a glaring stare on the poorly moderated and managed WoW Forum community. Blizzard’s poorly planned solution as announced with the addition of our REAL NAME (Real ID) to the forums to increase poster accountability. The immediate backlash of the player community led Blizzard to rethink their stand on the issue, and how they can better provide managed community forums without giving up our security in doing so.
Lore goes kinky when Eulixe goes into detail about how Jaina and Arthas shagged… they shagged rotten!
We also discuss our newest adventures in the Cataclysm Closed Beta, and discuss new Mastery and Talent System changes. All of this, and an Rawrcast Exclusive: Eulixe’s Top 3 WoW Lore Stories of All Time! This week’s episode is available via iTunes, RSS feed, direct download, or you can stream it from our website!
Links to topics discussed this week:
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In The Beginning
It’s hard to believe it’s been over half a decade since WoW hit the shelves. Since its release back in November 2004, WoW has grown into a titanic force of an MMO. Even if you have never experienced WoW for yourself, there’s no doubt you’ve heard about it through other popular media. With it’s easy to pick up gameplay, fantastic stylized world and all the social interaction you can shake a stick at, it’s no wonder WoW has become the most successful MMO of all time. Pushing upwards of 11 million players, Blizzard has created a monster, destroying most of the competition in the process.
Quests are an integral part of MMO’s. Without quests most MMO’s or RPG’s for that matter, would be nothing more than a grind-fest. WoW is no exception. Containing thousands of quests, you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t completed at least a few hundred.
Quests are what drive players though the content. They direct you to the next level appropriate zone, they reward you with gear upgrades and there one of the best ways to get a game’s story over to the audience. So why is it, with quests being such an important factor in MMO’s, they seem to be overlooked so much of the time?
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Progression in ICC has been moving along at a steady rate for many guilds. The stacking buff in Icecrown Citadel that updates about once a month to add increased healing, health, and damage done allows many guilds to do previously impassible encounters and gives them enough steam to work through many more encounters until the buff is updated. Indeed, if we look at the graphs from WoWProgress, the leading site in tracking guild progression, the mechanic of the Icecrown Citadel buff has caused a steady increase in the number of guilds defeating each encounter.
In fact, they look rather linear. In comparison, the tier 8 and 9 progression graphs are not nearly as linear. After a short burst of hardcore guilds downing content, the number of new guilds defeating the content tapers off. Additionally, many less guilds have done older content than ICC. Click through for more… Read more…
I understand the need to put demons into spec niches. I respect it, and to be completely candid, I actually love it. I like the idea that when I walk around with my cute little felpuppy everyone knows I am affliction without having to inspect me. I wear my affliction spec like a badge of honor, and my felpuppy is my most recognizable badge. I love the demonology locks who stroll around with their felguard, and the destro boys who have their little imps are just as proud of their mastery of fire as I am of shadow magic.
The problem has become the 2 factions of locks in WoW. There are some, who like me, don’t really see a need for more demons because some of them are wasted as it is, and then there are some who feel like we deserve more demons to play with because we are locks and, you know, that’s what we do. Sadly, I can’t really argue much with the other camp when Blizzard is pulling the shit they are pulling with one of our new learnable abilities. Read more…
Lets talk today about the in-game economy at this point before expansions. If you recall, when a new expansion comes out it has always been a mad rush to the level cap for most people. The sudden influx of gathered materials (herbs, ore, low-level gems, etc) is staggering. For most professions, you aren’t able to make much gold when leveling up your toon and professions since there seems to be thousands of other people making the same trek to the caps.
However, this time around we have two expansions under our belts, and we can better gauge trends in the economy. Is it a bear market, or a bull market? Either way, that’s a druid…. Read more…
In a stunning revelation, an inside source has again come to rawrcast.com and revealed what must be the biggest secret about the upcoming expansion, Cataclysm. Blizzard has already announced that the “old world,” the world as it stood when World of Warcraft launched back in 2005, was getting a complete overhaul. All the zones that players have grown accustomed to over the past 5 years are going to be changed, some radically. Desert zones are going to become lush forests, forests are going to be full of molten lava. Quests are being reworked and instances or dungeons as we all know them are going to be tuned to the new level cap, bringing new rewards. There are going to be two new races to pick from, the Worgen and the Goblin. The level cap is going to be raised from the current level 80 up to level 85. Cataclysm is shaping up to be a huge expansion to the long-running MMO.
What has shocked a lot of players is there was not an announcement of a new class to play with the expansion. In Wrath of the Lich King, the Death Knight was introduced. The Death Knight has become a viable tanking class. The Death Knight helped to address the lack of tanks in the game. Now, an inside source, an inside inside Blizzard source has leaked to rawrcast.com that Cata will bring a healing class, the Monk, to the World of Warcraft.
Read more…
How awesome would it be if Blizzard opened up a new zone in the Caverns of Time for players to quest in. The idea would be that the Keepers of Time, responding to some threat to the past, would send you back to the Western Plaguelands right after the Fall of Lordaeron. Players would begin questing with the Scarlet Crusade faction and each quest would tell the story of the history of the Scarlet Crusade. Each character would have to take on human form (as the Crusade are suspicious of non-humans) and earn reputation with the Scarlet Crusade through a main quest line as well as daily, repeatable quests.
You may ask yourself, the idea of having a zone located entirely in the past is cool, but why the Scarlet Crusade? The answer is because they have such a compelling story and because they may disappear when WPL gets cleansed in the upcoming expansion. The Crusade is an extension of Arthas’s mindset when he culled Stratholme. That mindset, when in doubt as to whether someone is undead, it’s best to err on the side of caution, was coupled with an overzealous religious purity to create the Crusade. Further, how fantastic would it be to be a part of a vigilante organization hunting down the Forsaken and clashing with historic characters from the Alliance and the Horde alike? What could be cooler than being involved in quest lines to create the Scarlet Monastery and to defend Hearthglen from invasion?
For all of you Lore Heads out there, what periods in Azerothian history would you want to quest in and why? Include some WOWWiki entries so that we can all brush up on our WOW History.
