I play Alliance on a server called Thrall, so of course I was setting myself up to fail from the start. Still, while it was a Horde heavy server, it wasn’t all that bad until faction transfers went live. Suddenly, quite a few people I knew went Horde. The leadership of one of the most progressed Alliance guilds (which wouldn’t even be top 5 Horde side) crossed over. On the Alliance, we never saw the inside of the Vault of Archavon again.

There is currently zero incentive to roll on/transfer to the low population side of a server. Why go somewhere that never holds Wintergrasp (except at 5 am on a Thursday) or is severely outclassed in endgame progression? This is something that should change.

Blizzard would never do it, but a solution I have is simple: supply and demand pricing for server transfers and faction changes. When they want to populate a server, they offer free transfers off of the source servers to the destination server. This seems like something that could easily be implemented.

Using Thrall as an example, which, according to Warcraft Realms, is 80% Horde and 20% Alliance.

Let’s say you’re a Blood Elf on a server who has found a raiding guild on Thrall that suits them. Because Thrall is heavily Horde, the normal $25 transfer fee would be increased to, say, $40, due to the Horde population already being high. The max cost would be $50 for a server transfer for those who want to transfer to the high pop side of the servers with the most extreme imbalances (ohai Mal’Ganis.

On the other hand, if you’re an Alliance player who would like to come to Thrall (and, really, you should. The water’s fine. And Brade Frurry is recruiting!), the cost would be reduced to $10 or $15 due to the Alliance population being so low.

Now, say you’re a Blood Elf paladin already on Thrall who has seen the light and realized that Blood Elves are terrible and you’d much rather be a Draenei. The normal $30 faction change cost would be reduced to $15, as incentive to join the low population side. The minimum cost for a faction change would be $5, for the servers with the largest imbalances (again, see Mal’Ganis).

Would this solve the problem completely? No, of course not. But what it would definitely do is reduce the bleeding. Faction imbalances are bad for PVE progression and server economies. You’d still see people gladly pay $50 to transfer their toon to the high pop side for a top progression raid guild, so I think it would be a complete wash as far as Blizzard’s bottom line was concerned. And if you don’t like it, you’re always welcome to reroll via heirlooms.

Prediction #1: World of Warcraft: The Emerald Dream is announced at Blizzcon ‘09.

Result: Well, I was right in that a new expansion was announced at Blizzcon, but instead of going to the Emerald Dream or the Maelstrom, Blizzard turned the old, forgotten world of Azeroth on its ear and then blew it up, unveiling Cataclysm.

Score: 1 out of 5

Prediction #2: 2. Ulduar (and later Icecrown Citadel) are PTR’d and beaten the day they are patched into the live game.

Result: Ulduar was released with patch 3.1 on April 14th. Ensidia killed Yogg Saron at 02:24PM CET on April 16th. Good enough for me. With patch 3.2 and Trial of the Crusader, Blizzard staggered the release of the raiding content (one boss per week) presumably so the raid wouldn’t have been cleared 15 minutes after being patched in. This process continued with 3.3 and Icecrown Citadel. This is a complete bullshit copout so that your bleeding edge raiders don’t put Arthas on farm status day one. He goes down within 24 hours of being unlocked, by the way.

Score: 5 out of 5

Prediction #3: Emblems of Heroism will be redeemable for Emblems of Valor.

Result: Well gee, who knew that both of those badgers emblems would go the way of the dodo a little over halfway through the year? Instead of a bulk exchange for the higher tier emblem, patches 3.2 and 3.3 saw complete emblem resets where the only way to acquire Heroism and Valor emblems (and Conquest as well, introduced in 3.1 and vaporized in 3.3) was to do a 1 for 1 trade down from the top. While this is just spectacular for alts (and spectacularly bad players), on my main character I wonder why I went and did Naxx every week for so damn long. Now I can just spend a couple of hours doing heroics and BAM, a few pieces of tier 9 are mine.

Score: This is mildly tricky considering exactly what happened, so let’s call it 2 out of 5 for no particular reason.

Prediction #4: Dual specs solve little.

Result: Nailed it!

Now, as a healer I enjoy very limited downtime using the new Dungeon Finder. On the worst day I have maybe a two minute wait for a group. And there have been quite a few days when I’ve totally earned my Emblems of Frost because the tank. Really. Sucks. Like, he’s got PW: Fortitude, Gift of the Wild and Blessing of Kings and he’s rocking 30k health and doesn’t have a prayer of holding aggro. But miraculously he does. Why? Because two of the three dpsers are doing under 1,000 DPS. God help you if all 3 DPS are capable and you have a weak tank.

It took me a couple days of healing my ass off to figure it out: the vast majority of these guys are main spec DPS who just don’t want to sit in queue for 15 minutes between randoms; choosing to tank, even if they’re not good at it or their gear sucks gives them as short of a wait as I have healing. Unfortunately, that makes my job so ridiculously hard. Dear Random Instance Tanks: stop sucking. Love, Doofy.

Score: 5 out of 5

Prediction #5: Refer A Friend is reintroduced later in the year with benefits extending up to level 70.

Result: Surprisingly, this didn’t happen. But, having now leveled a brand new character to 80 during the year, I can say that the Outland experience isn’t bad at all. Even heading there at 58, I basically completed two and a half zones and then I was on my way to the friendly confines of Northrend. Now, being decked out in full heirlooms (shoulders, chest, ranged weapon, dual wielding daggers) made things considerably less painful and I’m sure someone brand new to the game will have a lot tougher of an experience. On the plus side, the dungeon finder actually works for Burning Crusade instances when you’re level appropriate so someone willing to tank or heal could certainly cruise through to level 68.

Score: 0 out of 5

Total Score: 13 out of a possible 25.

Clearly, I fail at prognosticating. Oh well.

Happy Twenty Ten to all!

So, um, hi. Here’s what’s been happening as of lately.

1) Sort of inherited co-GM of Brade Frurry, my guild on Thrall. The old GM and founder had some nerve and decided that a life was more important than WoW and more or less up and left one day. Miraculously, we stuck it out somehow.

Also, WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS WAS SO FREAKING STRESSFUL?! YOU’RE ALL FIRED!

2) Went from barely being able to fill 25 mans to having to sit people to back to not being able to fill a 25 man again. We had some departures, including two officers, over reasons ranging from drama to raid burnout to a better raid schedule. Needless to say, funnest raiding guild on Thrall (A) LFM 25 man raids!

3) I rolled a hunter.

Did I just not blow your mind?

I ROLLED A HUNTER.

After hearing all about Pike and Rilgon, I had all these Emblems of Heroism (pre-3.2…I guess it has been a while) burning a hole in my pocket and some heirlooms were starting to look pretty good. I also heard this thing about how fun and awesome, Marksmanship spec was and well…

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thrall&n=Panache

Look out, I’ve got epics, Chimera Shot and enough Mammoth Cutters for a 3 day long raid.

Outside of that it’s just been WoW, work and sleep. Work has been hellaciously kicking my ass over the last little while, but I’ll try to be better about updates in the future. If you’re still out there.

However, this line from Zarhym did jump out at me:

We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding

So you’re saying that we’ll just be able to AoE the whole thing (including Ony) down and it’ll be a faceroll for bad raiders? Sweet. Sign me up.

You see, with Patch 3.2, the party’s over for Holy. Since 3.0, we’ve been able to heal with nearly unlimited amounts of mana. Oh, they tried to stop us before, with a change to Divine Plea in 3.09 that reduced healing by 50% while active. This hurt a little, but we still had mana to spare if Divine Plea was used correctly. We still laughed at the idea of mana potions. It was intellect gems all around. Innervates? Save that for the priests.

Then, with 3.2, Illumination got nerfed. Again.

You see, when Holy finally got properly itemized gear in The Burning Crusade, it became immediately obvious that paladins were the best healers. In fact, the bleeding edge raiding guilds early on in BC were only using paladins due to the fact that when they crit with a heal, they got the mana cost of the spell refunded, so stacking crit gear meant unlimited mana. So patch 2.1 nerfed the talent to refund on 60% of the mana back. We cried about it (well, I did, anyway) but we moved on and settled into our proper healing role for the rest of the expansion.

Then came 3.0 and the Era of the Big Heal. Holy Light has become the key spell for paladins in Wrath, being able to get a majority of the mana back from that big casting cost spell was a large part of our close to limitless mana. Add in a libram that reduced the cost by 113 mana (but did not affect mana refunded on a crit) and the ability to still come out ahead on mana with Divine Illumination and paladins did not really have to worry about anything until the latest patch.

Five points in Illumination now only refunds 30% of the mana cost of a healing spell crit. It’s almost not worth having. In fact, I would gladly put the points elsewhere if they weren’t required for Holy Shock. I’ve already noticed a huge impact on my mana just from doing heroics and it makes me sad.

So pass the Runic Mana Potions, hook me up with some Lustrous Majestic Zircon and yeah druids, that IS a paladin asking for an Innervate. And hug your Holy paladin today, because it will make them feel a little better about finally running out of mana.

# Construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum is complete. Testing not yet available. New raid normal and heroic modes for the Crusaders’ Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25 player versions. 10 player (normal), 25 player (normal), 10 player (heroic) and 25 player (heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.

* Trial of the Champion
o 5 player (normal and heroic mode) dungeon.
o Daily quest added to the heroic daily dungeon quest giver.
* Trial of the Crusader
o 10 and 25 player (normal mode) raid dungeon.
* Trial of the Grand Crusader
o 10 and 25 player (heroic mode) raid dungeon.
o Crusaders’ Tribute: Active on heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.

Okay, so there’s a 5-man dungeon that can be done on normal or heroic. Then there’s a 10-man raid and 25-man raid. These can also be done on normal or heroic. While a heroic raid used to be the 25-man version of the 10-man normal raid, you can choose to do a 25-man raid on normal mode or 10-man raid on heroic mode.

Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar – both located near the Battlemasters in either city – and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.

Behsten and Slahtz. Behsten…Slahtz. Best in…slots…

*head explosion*

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold

*head explosion*

# Emblem System Changes

* Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
* Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
* The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
* The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
* New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

Okay, so we’re now getting Emblems of Conquest from stuff that would normally give Emblems of Heroism and Valor. There will be no way to earn Emblems of Heroism or Valor except from redeeming Emblems of Conquest for them. Many items will still be purchasable via Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as the new epic gems (*mild head explosion*) but they will no longer drop in dungeons or raids and are no longer the reward for doing the heroic daily quest. Instead, there will now be Emblems of Triumph (FOR ME TO POOP..oops, sorry) as a reward for this quest and there currently is no other way to earn Emblems of Triumph that is known at this time and what Emblems of Triumph will be redeemable for is also currently unknown right now and FOR GOD’S SAKE WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY-03vYYAjA

Anyone got a couple aspirin?

Whenever someone asks which part of Ulduar to teleport to, take a drink.

That’s all you need in here, really, because you’re going to die from alcohol poisoning.

“It had a good run,” Blizzard “blue” poster and game designer Ghostcrawler said late Monday evening as official word of the patch reached the various World of Warcraft news sites and trade chat channels in game. “Five months is an extremely long life span for content these days and our players are clearly ready for something new.”

What was at one time the bleeding edge of endgame content in WoW, Naxxramas was rapidly pwned hardcore by players of all types during its lifespam. First in three days by Ensidia, one of the world’s top guilds, and then more gradually by other guilds around the world, until end boss Kel’Thuzad was being soundly defeated by players that many would consider “noobs.”

“Some claim that Naxxramas was made to be too easy,” Ghostcrawler added. “And that it shouldn’t have taken us five months to come up with more content to replace the old content that was cleared in a month. I say, look at all those epics, man!”

Indeed, during Naxxramas’ lifespam multiple players were able to take multiple Warcraft characters into Naxxramas on both 10 and 25-man raids and gotten their share of phat loot much faster, speeding up the process of no longer needing to go anywhere near the raid once newer content had been released.

Because Naxxramas has been described by much of the player base as “easysauce” and players had five months to kill in between the release of The Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack and the first official patch containing the next level of endgame content, the raid has now joined the category of “nostalgia raiding.” The breakneck pace that a raid went from cutting-edge to nostalgia does not appear to concern Blizzard.

“We expect some Retro Raiding nights to visit Naxxramas to pick up those last couple achievements,” Ghostcrawler continued. “You know, to break up the soon-to-come monotony of Ulduar.”

Naxxramas is survived by that god damned Eye of Eternity on Heroic and Sartharion with three drakes up. Passing on into the realm of the obsolete before Naxxramas were Sunwell Plateau, Black Temple, Mount Hyjal, Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, Magtheridon’s Lair and Gruul’s Lair.

I near a yellow dot on my minimap and suddenly I see a vykrul mob riding around on something. A quick click shows me that it is none other than Vigdis the War Maiden. It’s a rare spawn ZOMG. I’m specced Resto at the moment so I wonder if it’ll be a tough kill like the rare spawns in Burning Crusade. But it’s not. Ding! Northern Exposure! I think at the time that it’s a little silly that my shaman of all toons found one, but hey, what can you do.

A week or two later I’m herbing again in Zul’Drak and draw some aggro and it’s a mob I don’t recognize. Hello there, Griegen! I’ve now killed two mobs on my way to the most insane achievement evar, Frostbitten.

Just the other day, I got to take the mage along to a Naxx 10. Which we’re totally sick of, by the way, but that’s another post. Anyway, two achievements were obtained without even attempting to try. The first was Arachnophobia. We weren’t rushing it, we just calmly and with precision destroyed Faerlina and Maexxna and it didn’t take an hour to hand out two pieces of loot. The second was Make Quick Werk of Him. Patchy went down in style in 2:52.

So for those keeping score at home, that’s an achievement (and two rare mobs) killed on Doffy the Shaman and two achievements earned on Sherm the Mage. Take a moment and guess how many of those Doofy the Paladin has.

If you said none, you win! Please e-mail me for your prize. (Note: prizes void where prohibited. Which is wherever you are reading this.)

On my paladin I’ve done 3,000 quests, gotten exalted with over 20 factions (on the way to 25), spent 1,200 gold on a 22-slot bag, took 10 minutes hitting a level 80 elite barehanded, spent way too much money on mounts and pets and gotten a few other pretty darn ridiculous achievements. But I’ve never seen a rare mob and certain achievements will just elude him forever. Despite being Guy Who Never Dies On Heigan (four months and counting since the last DanceFAIL), I am just not allowed to have The Safety Dance achievement.

What achievements have you gotten on the wrong toons?