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| Thrall, Aspect of Stealin' the Scene. |
We’ve had a week since 4.3 dropped and it’s been a lot of fun so far, I made money hand over fist the first few days. Oh, Auction House, you are so good to me. Ahem, anyway! I don’t know if I am an exception or the rule on this, but this patch has thrust me fully back into PvE and for that I am thankful.
-Feeling like a Hero-
I’ve been through all the new heroics multiple times with various characters in a number of roles. These are heroics that feel right again, they have just enough going on to keep you engaged, but are still easy enough to blunder through on the first go without too much hassle, I’m in love. I do worry though that it might not last, I beat that loot piñata hard this first week and have 4 mostly complete sets of gear to show for it. We might be in love now, but I think we’re gonna see the same sort of content burnout we always do. I just hope the speed and ease of these will help, when you don’t have hour long slogs to deal with moods tend to be better.
-The Hive Mind-
The other big deal of course is the raid finder. I found it a pleasant surprise really, folks dealt with the content very well. I can’t say for sure if it’s as easy as it seems or if it’s just my latent raider kicking in after better than a year of dormancy. Naturally, of course, the human factor was, what’s the word for this…present? People are people, they whine, they insult, they stamp their feet and quit when they don’t get their way or fail to grasp a simple concept (Hagara, I’m lookin’ at you). None of this, however, stopped the 20 of us who gave a damn from putting our heads down and terminating the boss with brutal efficiency. As time goes by people will learn the fights and the wrinkles will smooth out. It'll eventually be an overgrown dungeon finder, swift, silent destruction... for fabulous prizes!
-Conquistadors-
Taking a different track, while the season is just getting going I am a huge fan of Conquest Points from Battleground wins. I’ve already seen the Allies trying a lot harder now that we got a real prize on the line. The gains feel just right too, the current cap of 1650 can be met with 3 or 4 wins a day, which can be meet, barring horrible luck, with a few hours of BG in the evening. Feels like a good balance. Throw in some arena and a casual team can knock out a few wins one night and make up the rest with a BG or two a day for the rest of the week.
-Looking Ahead-
This patch as a whole is meant to be a sign of things to come according the Blizzard. The test run for the raid finder, dungeons that conform to the goals of MoP design (3-4 bosses, couple pulls of trash in between, 30 minute run times), and being able to play the way you want without the rewards being restricted to those with a large guild. I like it a lot, it’s a good feeling and it’s successfully gotten at least one casual back into current content. When the new expansion drops containing two or three raid finder queues of three or four bosses each and has nine different well-crafted, smooth running dungeons that flow along from boss to boss I’m gonna be a happy player. And despite what some may say I think most other players will be happy too.
