First Impressions.

I was going to just edit that last post, but what the heck. I haven't had a multi post day in a while.

I've been mulling over the ideas behind the Cataclysm expansion in the back of my mind while I've been crunching my spreadsheets. I'm kind of excited about it, the same whay I get excited about anything new, but at the same time...

I can't help but feel like Blizzard has sold out. I think I'd almost rather see them throw their efforts into a new MMO than mess with the game that's already there. Heroic old instances? Great! New races, well alright, though I think werewolves is a stretch. Blowing up Azeroth? Uh...

I'm sure it will look awesome. I'm sure it will play awesome. I'm sure I will take 2-3 days off work and wait in line in the freezing cold to get it. But a not so little part of me will have a hard time letting go of the old world as it is now. Once it's destroyed, it will never go back. Good thing I took screenshots I guess.

My comments on the Blizzcon Keynote

It's the end of the world. Quite literally.

Looks like Zully better dance her little voodoo troll butt back to the old world before it happens. I was actually making a list of achievements earlier, and I think the old world ones just got bumped up higher on the priority scale.

I'm sure this will all be phased, and I'm sure our current 80s will be starting with the new content.

Time to start saving up a few holidays to take around expansion time. :-)

Everyone's Greedy...

There's an article on Wow.com today about sharding etiquette. I was interested mainly because of the pug I did for ToC the other day (my first on Alterac).

I did 2 runs with mostly the same people. The first run it was just everyone greed, and it was hunky-dory. The second run, magically after the first boss when everyone had already rolled, I won the item and, as I usually do to preserve bag space, D/E it right away. The tank then declared that we would roll on shards at the end. I stated that I wanted to keep this one because I won the roll, and we could do that for the rest. He just repeated himself and said "if we're lucky, we'll all get one anyway". Oh, I see, so not only might I NOT get the shard I won, but I had no chance at getting more than one because they were going to use "top rolls". I didn't argue, and I was just going to jet with one regardless, but I won a top roll so it was a moot point.

I'm not sure why this bothered me. I usually don't care. Then again, now that I don't have as many people backing me for runs and throwing me stuff to D/E, I see myself actually *gasp* running out of mats. I want to be able to chant my stuff with whatever I feel like, damn it. I put a lot of time and money and effort into maxing my chanting out. At one shard a run that's going to be really hard. I'd rather gamble that I'll win one or more items with rolls TYVM.

So I'm going to try a new policy. Everyone greeds, and if they want something D/E, they can trade it to me after the run. We can do that now with the 2 hour BoP window. It'll make my life a lot easier in PuGs.

New Troll Here...

So I keep hearing rumors about Troll Druids. This brings up a bit of a dilemma for me. I'm loving my druid. If it takes a year for the next expansion to come out, I'm sure she'll be 80. But...

Will I reroll Troll? Right now every single class I play could potentially be a Troll. As it is, all my "best" toons are either Troll or Tauren. I suppose I have a Tauren warrior, not a Troll, and now a Tauren druid. But still. Considering my little troll brigade, there is an appeal to have my druid be part of the blue skinned family.

What are the odds Blizzard will allow a freebie one-time race change now that they're going to allow faction changes? I don't see myself paying for race change, honestly, but if they add new classes, especially for druids which only had one option, I would think they would consider letting people switch.

Future... Future.... Future....

I have a vision. A vision of the future.

I see EnM starting 10 man raids in a few weeks, maybe a month. I'm really excited about being able to raid again. Anyone who knows me knows I'm about the content, not the gear. We'll probably have to PuG a few, but at this point that may be a good thing. The five of us rip through instances like nothing, so I think anyone who PuGs with us will consider joining us. The loot rules might be a little tricky for a while though. I don't know if PuGs will be willing to go for a "guild first" raiding policy. Maybe if we specify certain items as straight up rolls, like weapons and tier gear, like the Steaks used to do. I'll have to think about that.

As for our current roster, I'm really hoping Dep will quit his whining and maybe feral tank for us. I'm pretty sure at least one of our DKs is a tank as well, so we should be set with that. I'm not sure if there are any other healers besides me. That could be a challenge. That may need to work itself out through recruiting. PuGging healers is always scary. We've got lots of melee DPS, but not a lot of ranged. I guess it depends on who wants to bring what character. Generally, it looks like we have as regulars 2 tanks, 1 healer, and 3 dps. There's 2 or 3 more DPS out there as well, they're just not 80 yet. I could probably bring at least one of the Wolves, maybe two if I can coach them a little. That's a pretty good start for a raid. If Coffee and Dkow come back we'll be in much better shape (though they're not approaching 80 yet). I'm hoping they're just on vacation. I miss Krom. I wonder if he'd switch servers if my guild starts raiding.

Goblin set up a Vent server for us (though it looks like we'll still need to pay for the server license. 8 slots isn't going to be enough once we start raiding). That should help even in heroics. We're going to be running a lot of heroics over the next few weeks. Then again, I like to talk. Other people, not so much.

We need a raid leader. Someone less anal than me. I don't want to end up like Px giving everyone orders all the time, it makes me feel like the succubus looks. Which I suppose isn't all bad, depending on who you ask. I'll probably end up doing it for the earlier instances (Naxx/OS/Maly), but whoever wants it is starting with just as much knowledge as me once we get to the "new" ones (Ulduar/ToC). Mainly though I am good at administrative BS and event planning, but I'm not very comfortable leading a group. That's been covered before, of course.

Overall, I'm feeling optimistic. Once I'm back into an early evening schedule it should make raiding easier. I think the 6p-10p Fri-Sun schedule works pretty well. We'll see which of those days I end up cutting short.