In the Christmas Spirit

The Twilight Society (Horde - Sentinels), the guild I have belonged to for about 3 years has reached a new milestone. I have to hand it to the organizers of this event, Zermata and all the others who helped. Last night members of my guild went around to all the horde towns and villages and handed out wrapped gifts to non-guild players in a attempt to spread the holiday and Christmas Spirit. To my knowledge this is the first of its kind.

This gift giving was received very warmly by other players on the server. Many thanks were given a few recruitment leads were made. I have to say I felt very proud of my guild for committing these acts of kindness. Very proud indeed.

My guild is a social based guild, and often hold social events, parties for players who reached level 70 or now 80, and truly has a family atmosphere. This giving exercise really speaks highly our of guild leadership and membership.

Scooner commented during the event that he wished Blizzard would catch wind of our dealings and give us some special recognition. My first comment was "good luck", but I wonder in the vast player world of WOW, if any other guilds have tried such a project. I am guessing our endeavor has be one of the first of its kind.

I cannot say enough how proud I am of the Twilight Society and the leadership that made this event happen. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and a great holiday season. If anyone knows of other guilds who have done something like this, please comment to this post I would be interested in seeing who else out there might have pulled this off.

From my sharpened pen, Blood and Honor! to all..............


Dolance

IF I COULD CHANGE THE WORLD!

In this post, I am going to examine things in the World of Warcraft that if I could, I would change or improve. Now, these thoughts are not entirely all mine, I have complied some of them in my reading and communication on the subject, but I believe that these would be beneficial to the play and environment of the World of Warcraft. I would ask after you read these to express your own ideas on the subjects. I would like to have some stimulated debate on the pros and cons of these suggestions as well as here what changes you would like to see in WOW. If you care to dream, offer your insights, please.

Real Estate

For some time now there has been much talk about player and guild owned structures in the World of Warcraft. This would allow players and guilds to carve out their own little niches within WOW to store items, decorate, and meet. The benefits to this could be tremendous. Guilds would have a "guild hall" to store items, post photos, meet to role-play and discuss raids, and each player might have a footlocker or small closet in their guildhall where they could store their items. Player houses could be a place for players to store heirlooms, gear, post photos, and invite folks over.

This would also allow crafters to have recipes to construct items that could be placed in these structures creating yet another aspect to the economy; and you thought Obama was going to create more jobs! LOL. The houses/guild halls could be level regulated and cost different amounts for different structures and floor plans. I would suggest that items would be available for purchase and installation into these places; to include repair/vendor bots, porting gates/devices, bank interfaces, AH monitors, and mailboxes. I also would hope that if this came to fruition that WOW would make this structure completely designable to include interiors, exteriors, landscaping, and furniture modifications. Would it not be neat for herbalist to be allowed to plant a garden to farm their wares or leather workers to raise beast for their hides?

I have played MMO's, specifically Star Wars Galaxies which allowed guild and player structures. The problem I saw was that many of these structures littered the landscape and often would go un-used or abandoned. I have a solution for this. Make the structures and a small surrounding property an instance and provide something like a hearthstone to get there. If a player wanted to invite another to their home, they could have some type of portal invite system that would allow this. You could even have a system within the social menu to allow persons certain level of access to your property. This sounds logical, does it not? I am not sure what game mechanics are involved here, but I believe this would be a feasible system to avoid visible urban sprawl in The Barrons.

Profession: Woodcrafter

I propose the following: the profession of woodcrafter and the sub profession of logger. How this would work is the logger would be able to gather and process wood for materials that could be used as a woodcrafter. This profession could possibly make bows, staves, boats, wagons, arrows, furniture, and parchments. Blizzard could also open up sea exploration, sea navigation quests, and maybe even ship combat. I know this spurn directly from other MMO's, but let's be honest part of the success WOW is their ability to take MMO gaming aspects and make them much better than anything else available. I believe this would add yet another awesome aspect to the game.

Bounties

Players could place money-based bounties on other opposition faction players. The expense would be based on how much the initiating player wanted to spend but have a level threshold minimum. Filling these bounties would reward the monetary prize along with some xp. Any time a player enters a BG or other pvp type environment that would be susceptible to these bounties for a certain period. These bounties could be posted in an interface in cities.

I truly believe this would be a great addition to world pvp and allow opposing factions guilds to wage war on one another. This later aspect I think has great potential for game play and may even provide for a different type of guild; one solely for waging war against an opposing faction guild. Could you also imagine the role playing potential this may have?

XP PVP Rewards

I am not sure the best way to approach this. I have thought that an honor point to xp transfer of some type may be the way. I also think maybe that pvp objectives might issue honor points and xp in small denominations. I love to pvp, but due to the little playtime I get sometimes, I often feel that I am wasting my play time and potential advancement of non-end game toons because I am not leveling.

I really hope some of my ideas on this post are insightful. I enjoy idea mongering and believe it's post and discussion like this that help game dev's to evolve the game we all love so much. Again, please comment to this post, or email me with your thoughts at roguetwilight@gmail.com

Blood and Honor! to all and have a very safe and happy thanksgiving.

~From the Sharpened Pen of

Dolance

http://markssapstraps.blogspot.com/

Breaking the Chains.......

The first hero class in the World of Warcraft, the Death Knight! What is a Death Knight? Champion of the Dark? If you have started a DK and moved through the starting quest, you may have a good grasp on this already. If you have not made a DK and want to, I might suggest you stop reading now, to avoid ruining the story line. One fear I had with the DK is that this class would be an extension of the Lich King and as far as role playing goes be a destructive presence in the land of Azeroth.

I primarily play the horde side and have to be honest, there seems to me to be just as much if not more of justice and honor within the Horde as there is in the Alliance. I believe that one of WOW's better features is that the Alliance and Horde are opposed, but there really is no clear alignment of one side being the all evil empire. If you look close at the story lines of the Orc and Tauren you will find a lot of honor based tradition that in my opinion rivals the honor of some Alliance Races. In fact, the Tauren might have gone to the Alliance, if not betrayed by the humans. And speaking again from my vantage point, the players on the horde side seem to be more mature and honor based.

The DK starting area was done superbly. It follows a story line from being a minion to the dark, to breaking the chains of the Lich King, and delving back into the factions of Azeroth. The last quest simply makes you go beg forgiveness and acceptance back into your faction side. Very well done!

I have taken my DK Injon towards the discipline of frost. I enjoy tanking and this seems to be the proper path. I had heard from persons in the beta that the frost DK would make a great off-tank but was never intended as a main. I found out after my first dungeon, this is hardly the case. I have tanked on palys and warriors and found the DK to be as good if not better. I tank very well as a DK and enjoy doing it. What I love even as a frost DK, I have been able to dps dungeons as well. Certainly not as well as other dps classes or the blood/unholy spec'd DK's, but enough to hold a dps spot. Amazing design indeed.

I believe with the latest patches and expansion, Blizzard is really trying to make classes more versatile. This is good but also may be a problem. If everyone can tank and dps, the mastering of these arts is going to be less. I have heard plenty that Blizzard wants to make their playability easier for the average once in awhile player. I have mixed emotions about this. I enjoy the class specialization and and the team position matrix of WOW, so I hope they are very careful with this transition to the middle. We all hate waiting for a tank or healer for a group, but lets not get away from position separation of the classes; I fear this would change the game in a way I would not care for.

I was lucky enough to have time to venture into some BG's this past weekend
with Injon. I have never played better in a BG in my life, even with a
rogue. At one point, I took a 69 lvl NE DK (Injon Lvl 64) two times consecutively.
The frost must be my thing. Due to this success I can see myself running more BG's, I have always loved pvp, but find it hard to justify during the time I play because your not really leveling.

Well I hope you all are enjoying the expansion, and hope to hear your comments soon. Blood and Honor! my friends and good day.........

Dolance

Initial Thoughts........

Initial Thoughts........

WOW!.......Wow!..... The question I first pose is "Was the hype, the wait, and all the blog writing, made worthy by the launch of the Wrath of The Lich King?".  While the jury may be out for some, I certainly have a verdict on this.  A resounding yes.  Wow....again.  I am absolutely amazed at the vision, content, and playability that Blizzard has put into WOTLK.  I was very impressed with several aspects of the game.

First off I entered Howling Fjord with my 70 rogue Dolance.  I was immediately impressed by the scenery and architecture.  After starting some of the quest, you could really feel the urgency in the fight against the alliance and the Lich King in that zone.  The quest were very unique including a fly in quest, bird hunting quest, and others.  As I compared it to my memory of my first thoughts of Outlands, I was by far more impressed with Northrend. I really think that Blizzard looked at some of the competing MMO's coming online and went out of their way with their own form of "shock and awe".

The instances are spectacular.  I have been hearing how easy they are suppose to be.  I have been through Utgarde Keep and The Nexus and in my opinion the bosses where very challenging.  There was a certain amount of strategy involved and included true team play.  The scenery in UK was phenomenal and included some outdoor parts, which I thought was innovative.

Despite what I thought my initial response to the Death Knight surge was going to be, a short time into WOTLK, I gave in.  A friend of mine rolled one and I saw it fit to roll along the side of him.  The starting area and the quest lore were "bar none".  What a spectacular way to start out a toon.  The first Hero Class has a heroic start.  And to go on about the DK is another post in itself (soon to follow).

I give Blizzard a 10 out of 10 and congratulate them and all the players that love the game.  Please post your comments and thoughts.

 

 

Dolance

To Death Knight or Not to Death Knight

To Death Knight or Not to Death Knight

The day has arrived.......Like most, today is like Christmas day at age 8; with the release of the WOTLK, there is excitement and renewed spirit in the air. I woke up an hour early this am to make sure I was able to stop and get mine purchased. I'VE GOT IT!

Today is going to be a very long day at work, for sure. Between tasks, like most days, I will be hitting the blogs and the forums to get a feel from the lucky ones getting to play the game first, some since 1201. Lets just hope the WOW gods are kind, and the servers stay up.

I have taken tomorrow off to play and am thinking there should be a calling for a new Holiday Worldwide. The second Friday of every November should be known as Azeroth Day! This would be a national no work holiday. Can you imagine the boost to the economy of all the holiday related paraphernalia that could be marketed. Tell me Obama's economic plan is any better...... If this isn't a reason to run for president in 2012; what could there be?!

The one question I have been posing is to start a Death Knight, or to wait. I have posed this question in guild chat and really have has some varying responses. From why would you not, to no way. To me this is quite the dilemma. If I start a DK now, this would involve at least the next two days trying to power level so that I could see the new content. If I opt out to island hop Dolance, I can see the new content today and get a good start on my pursuit to 80. My initial thoughts, and I am sure I will go back and forth on this issue today, is to roll my deathnight, play my rogue until boredom sets in if it does and then lvl my DK during breaks in between. I really enjoy this type of play style anyways. I would be interested in hearing from others in how the have tackled this issue.

Have a great day wow fans, and it is likely I will have another post on this day. Happy Azeroth Day Eve!





Dolance

Introduction

Introduction
Welcome to my blog! Let me introduce myself. My main is named Dolance (Rogue-Sentinels) and I am a member of the Twilight Society Guild. I have been an avid player of WOW for a little more than three years. I have been a member of my guild just about as long.

I am in the process of transition, so to speak, I am going from the hobby player to the more intense "new" expert player. How I discern the two, is the hobby player seems to just play the game without a lot of interest or knowledge about individual game mechanics. This is where my change is heading. I am know finding my self grinding forums for builds, using spread sheets to compare gear added values, and spending an about 1/3 hour ratio of research as compared to play hours.

I have a fever, that a quit few of you share, and that is "altitis". I love every aspect of the game and really enjoy playing different character classes. This has cost me a lot. When you figure the hours I have in 15 separate characters, I could easily have 4 70's. I enjoyed this style of play but still feel some of that time has been waisted. I feel overall though this has helped me some in raid and instance play, knowing the different class strengths and weaknesses. I have just leveled my first toon (Dolance) to 70 and plan to master this class through him and he new expanded content in Wrath.

What are my favorite classes? Hard to say, my three top in order would probably be War-tank, Hunter (BM), the Rogue (Talents vary from day to day : ) ); but the separation in their rankings is very slight. Each offer to me their own pleasures, but it would be hard for me to select just one if I had too. And this goes back to my affliction, simply if I had to play just one class all the time, I believe my burn out rate would be more severe and frequent. It is so refreshing after getting bored of a certain repetitive aspect of a class to hop on to a different toon and work WOW from a different aspect. I really think this is one aspect of WOW that is different from some earlier and present like games; Class Roles.

I played EQ, LOTR, EVE, STAR WARS, Matrix, and of course the old dice and paper games; and the Class Role delineation and individuality (pve) has been done exceptionally well by Blizzard. This to me has contributed a great deal to their success IMO.

Now, one might ask the question, why blog about wow? That is a good question, and there are currently many good wow information sources, wowinsider.com being the best I have found. My planned mission is to feature aspects of the game that are intriguing to me or things that I learn along the way written in simple layman terms. I am not sure if I will find an audience or not, time will tell.

One thing I have found in my research of wow, is a lot of writers write at a level with jargon and knowledge of the game just outside my understanding and I am sure I am not the only one. So my information might be useful for those who are like me learning past the hobby class, but still not well enough versed to understand the elite's. Well I plan on writing everyday or two and would absolutely recommend if anyone reads this to provide your comments and experiences. My plan is to have an interactive blog allowing for the sharing of thoughts, ideas, and concepts. Who know this may go nowhere, but I enjoy writing and I love WOW! a perfect combination.