Werit plays WoW?

It's true, I installed and played WoW yesterday.  It all started with an email from Blizzard offering me Mists of Pandaria for free and seven days of game time.  I applied the game code to my Battle Net account and figured I may as well download the game while I was there.

I also  took a look at their recent 5.3 patch and was impressed by the amount of stuff that was added.  Lots of scenarios, which always looked like a neat idea to me.  They also have a robust LFG system which includes raids.  Since they have the gear score system (unlike SWTOR) they can put requirements on raids, allowing them to add more to the system.

I have not played WoW in quite a while.  My main there is a Human Warrior at level 80.  So I still have to work my way through Cataclysm content.  It also seems like I was a bit of a pack rat the last time I played.  Just look at this inventory.

My first order of business was to clean up that mess.  I either sold or destroyed pretty much everything that I did know I needed.  Then I cleaned up the quest log, laving just the breadcrumb quests for Cataclysm.  Then there is my gear, ugh.  I look pretty awful.  SWTOR has definitely spoiled me when it comes to looking good.

I then went to upgrade my professions (Mining and Blacksmith) so I could continue my progression.  Then I noticed my flying mount would not actually fly in Stormwind.  It seems I need to buy an upgrade for that too. Flying is one of the things I really enjoy about WoW, so I was happy to spend the 200 gold.

Next up, speccing my Warrior.  I went with Fury, as I intend to just be a simple DPSer.  I also love Titan's Grip.  Dual wielding two hand weapons is just cool.  Although, I could not find any reference to that skill, maybe it is innate now?

My next stop was Mount Hyjal to start the Cataclysm content.  I had to get my keybinds setup correctly first, then figure out a rotation.  I actually died to the Rock Elementals right outside the starting area.  The item level from he first quest reward was surprisingly high, much higher than any gear I was wearing.  Of course, it was mail, not plate.  To the vendor it goes!

That about covers my time in WoW.  We'll see how much more time I spend in the game.

Read More

Starting Over

I decided against bringing over my level 80 Warrior to Rexxar, so essentially I will be starting over with my Goblin Hunter.  I'm actually pretty happy about that, there's something about starting from nothing and working your way up.  No heirloom items, no crafted stuff from friends and not even any started gold.  Well, it's time I get started.

Read More

Werit does Warcraft

In this week, this is very tough, in this week I'm going to take my talents to Azeroth and join the Horde.  Just part time of course.  I will be taking up the Horde's cause as a Goblin Hunter.  Green guy with a gun who loves explosives, how can I resist?

Read More

!work - 12/11

It's been a fun week for gaming.  Both WAR and WoW released some patches, which is likely keeping a bunch of gamers busy.  For those of us stuck at work, that is little comfort.  At least we can read about other people having fun.

Read More

Until we meet again WoW

Recently, I had re-subscribed to WoW. I did so with some objectives in mind, but now that they are finished I have canceled. What I wanted to accomplish was:

PvP Experience. This was the main reason I came back to WoW. I wanted to see how feasible it was to level a character via PvP. It turned out that for a low level character it is not very feasible. However, once you can run Alterac Valley it becomes doable.

Level 80. I had a Level 79 Warrior and was a full level away from the cap. Using Alterac Valley I was able to get him to 80 pretty quickly. I saw a lot of mid-70's in there, so I don't think I was the only one with that idea.

450 BS. My Warrior is a Blacksmith and had his skill up to ~443. Since 450 is the max I figured I'd try and cap that too. The last 10 points are usually a pain but it turned out to be pretty easy. I had over 1,000 gold and a couple of titansteel bars. I bought what I needed for Spiked Titansteel Treads, crafted them and sold them on the AH. With the gold from the sale I crafted another and sold it. Rinse and repeat until 450.

Reaching 450 was a disappointment. I thought there would be something cool to craft, but there wasn't. It turns out all of the 450 recipes are raid drops. I don't even think I got an achievement for it.

Leveling by PvP was not very fun as my fury warrior. Maybe I am just a bad player, but I seemed to get utterly destroyed by rogues. I'd get stunned, break the stun and stunned again. It really makes me appreciate Warhammer.

There is some temptation left in WoW. As a fury warrior I use Titans Grip and my current 2h weapons are quite old so I do want to upgrade them. I have a thing for symmetry, so I want to wield 2 of the same kind. It looks awesome. The Argent Tournament has a 2 hander that is not unique... but it would take me 2 weeks at least (guess) to get them. I really don't want to do dailies over and over again.

So it is time for me to say goodbye to WoW. I suspect the next time we meet it will be in the Cataclysm expansion.

Read More

WoW PvP for fast leveling

In a previous article, I wrote that exp gains in WoW Battlegrounds was low. This is certainly true for low level characters. I had a 79 Warrior and I figured since my subscription was active I may as well get him to 80. A quick look at the exp bar and I had 1,600,000 exp to go, groan.

It turns out Alterac Valley (AV) is great for leveling. You can easily gain 100,000 - 150,000 exp in 10-15 minutes by playing that battleground. Each tower is worth about 20,000 xp as is the NPC in the middle forts. If you manage to kill the opposing general, that is another 33k worth of xp. The quests in there also give ~20k xp.

I don't find AV fun at all, but it still beats PvE. It does make me appreciate WAR's scenarios though, as that is what I did after gaining 6 or 7 bars in a short amount of time. I am tempted to make a Death Knight and see how quickly he can level via AV. I'm not sure how much longer the gravy train will last, as AV seems to be the only BG that has multiple instances at any given time. Did Blizzard intend it to be that good for leveling?

Read More

Is WoW for teenage girls?

Let's look at the facts:

• You can give your character a 'makeover.'
• There are more vanity pets than monsters.
• You can stylize your pet (aka Druid)
• Jewels seem to be the largest profession.
• And coming soon: You can play a Werewolf.

I'm sorry, I guess they are called Worgen in WoW. A were...Worgen is just one step away from a Vampire. That's right, Blizzard is setting up to release a playable Vampire class. With the popularity of Twilight and the new abundance of high-school vampire shows on TV, why wouldn't Blizzard want a piece of the action?

I kid of course :)

Read More

WoW PvP leveling

My curiosity got the best of me and I re-subscribed to WoW. It will just be for the month though. My main goal was to check out how feasible it would be to level primarily by Battlegrounds. The answer is: not very.

I had a Level 12 mage sitting around and figured he would be a perfect test subject. Warsong Gulch was queued up and in a short time I was in.

XP is low. For each flag capture my team got, I received ~225 XP. For a win I received about ~225 xp. I'm not sure if I would have gotten more if I had personally captured the flag but in any case, XP is pretty low as you don't get XP from killing players.

I estimate it would take 10 - 15 WSG matched for me to get to Level 13. You know those are rarely quick, so we are talking a significant amount of hours to get to Level 20.

Variety. WoW doles out the battlegrounds in small doses. So starting at level 10 you get WSG, at 20 you get Arathi basin, at 50 you get Alterac Valley and so on. You will be doing a huge amount of WSG or AB, which will get old quick.

Rogues. I hate them in WoW PvP. That is all.

No Bolster. In WoW, you do not get a boost in stats to help level the playing field. This can make most of the early levels pertty hard. I know at level 12 I was being 2-3 shotted by level 19's. They could have been twinks who have yet to level out though. Still, you'll be a good bit weaker than your high level opponents.

It doesn't seem realistic to think you can level a character mostly by battlegrounds. The low XP and lack of variety will make it a grind of epic proportions. Especially considering how easy most of the PvE is. It is a shame, if they added XP from player kills it may actually be fun. Then again, maybe not.

Read More

WoW and TOR

I was reading a post and it really got me thinking. Rivs mentions that the new WoW 5 man is great for getting tokens (badges) so why would you want to raid? My response was, what is the gear for, if not to kill a boss. But WoW is not about killing bosses really, it is about progression. So if you are not a raider, what good does the latest 5 man dungeon do you? Other than the first time of course.

That got me thinking about TOR, as they say they are about the story. If that is true, I really do not want to see any large raids. If part of my story is to kill a Sith Lord, I do not want to be barred by the need for a raid. Also, having to run things multiple times to get the gear so I can advance in the story would end up killing the story.

In single player rpg's, do you have to farm bosses? No, you just have to kill them once and the story advances. I expect the same in TOR.

I do want large group activities though. They need to be dynamic and creative. Maybe a PvE battleground where there are no Bosses, just waves of enemies (NPC). They could easily make this dynamic. It would also fit, as this is Star WARS. They should be fun and fast paced. I would expect tokens from them as a reward.

Read More

August Gaming

August is here already. This month is really the calm before the MMO storm of September. There is plenty to look forward to though.

• Hearts of Iron 3 storms the front on September 7th. If you like World War 2 grand strategy games, this will be for you.
• World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 is likely due out this month as well. A new raid, battleground, PvP experience and more are apart of the patch.
• Champions Online's open beta will start on August 17th. The NDA will be down then too, so expect plenty of chatter.
• Warhammer Online will be having a live event, the Wild Hunt, starting on August 31st. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see the huge bug patch, 1.3.1, be released soon too.
• Star Wars Galaxies will be releasing a new Cybernetics system along with many new craftable droids.
• Blizzard will be holding BlizzCon on August 21st. The expected big news is WoW's next expansion.
• Crimecraft is due to launch on August 25th.
• Aion is having some more beta events too.
  

That's what is on tap for August, I miss anything?

Read More

How to make a PvP MMO

Time to get in my recliner and become an armchair game designer. Making a PvP focused MMO is tough. You have to make an engaging game that keeps players coming back but it also has to be balanced. There are two critical design aspects that a would-be PvP MMO must take into consideration: Scale and Ownership.

Scale

Scale means the amount of players it takes to accomplish a goal. Let's look at WoW's PvE Scale: 1+ (solo), 5 (dungeon), 10 (raid), 25 (raid) and 40 (old raids). Nice distribution from solo to a large group and provides stuff to do for everyone.

Now look at WAR's for the RvR lakes: 6++ (Battlefield Objective), 12+++ (Keeps), 100+ (Fortress) and 48 (city instance). It clearly skews toward a much larger scale. Defenders just increase the numbers further for B.O.'s and Keeps.

This has the effect of making players feel like grunts rather than heroes. The lack of small scale goals also leaves players feeling bored and teaches them to wait for the zerg. Even PvP games such as Eve and Darkfall provide content (in the form of players or NPC's) for small groups. To keep players engaged, you must provide a wide variety of scale.

Ownership

This would be the goal or objective piece of the PvP MMO. Why are the players fighting each other? In games like Eve, Darkfall and even DAoC guilds fight over ownership of objectives. By owning them, their guild gains benefits. They lose ownership when someone takes it from them.

In WAR you don't own a keep, you just lease it for a short time. It is hard for a player to get motivated when the scale of the objective is too big. They really don't have a stake in their city or taking the enemy city. It is all transient anyway, once someone gets to the city it will all be reset.

It is important to have that feeling of ownership in a PvP game. It is what drives many wars in real life and it carries over into MMO's too. Give players stuff to own, small and large scale, and players will create their own incentive to fight.

By combining a wide variety of scale and objectives that players can own, a PvP MMO will have a solid foundation.

Read More

WoW adds PvP Exp

With the 3.2 patch, Blizzard plans to give experience points in Battlegrounds. You can read the full Q&A here. At first I was very excited, as I love PvP leveling. Then I read this:

"Experience will be granted based on honor gain from actions, not kills. For example, if you capture a flag in Warsong Hold, you would gain experience, but killing a player would not grant experience."

That seems to kill the notion of leveling via PvP. The following section they even say that they want it to be slower than leveling via PvE. Why can't it be equal?

WoW also does not have any kind of Bolster (increase stats to an arbitrary level for that level tier) mechanic, so it will still be quite painful versus all of those higher level players when you are at the bottom of the tier. Luckily Twinks will be in their own bracket, so you won't have to deal with them. There is also no loot drops on players, so gearing up only by BG's might be difficult.

Blizzard seems so close to giving people a good PvE alternative, but they are reluctant to take the steps that are needed. Add in a basic Bolster mechanic to even the playing field some and grant experience from kills. It would be nice for PvP not to just be a waste until you are level capped.

If Blizzard did make PvP leveling viable, would I play? Maybe. There is still no end game I am interested in. Also PvP in WoW just feels strange after playing WAR for so long. It's hard to put my finger on it, but it really does feel like it was tacked on rather than being planned from the start.

Read More

Free vs Paid Expansions

Is there anything more exciting than new MMO content? Maybe, but for this blog post, no. Most often this new content comes to us via expansions. Sometimes they are free, sometimes they need to be paid for. Each MMO has its own idea of how this should be done. For this post, content additions and expansions are roughly equal.

On the free side you have games like Eve, Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes/Villains. They tend to release new content, at decent intervals, for just the cost of the subscription. SWG recently released the Battle for Hoth and an Appearance Tab system. CoX put out Issue 13, which had many improvements.

If you added up all of the free content those games release for a year, would it add up to a paid expansion? I think in many cases it would, but then you would have to add in the fact that you had to wait. Free expansions allow for more additions, quicker which means a more dynamic game.

On the pay side, you have games like WoW and Everquest. These games do put out free content upgrades too, but usually they are few and far between (I am looking at you WoW). When they do put out a paid expansion, it is usually packed full of content and worth the wait. The downside is that paid expansions can be slow to hit the marketplace.

Finally there is the hybrid, like Lord of the Rings Online. They put out free content updates (Book 13 ) pretty regularly and a rather large paid expansion (Mines of Moria).

As far as WAR goes, we will have to wait and see what approach they take. I think it will be a hybrid, but I can't recall where I heard that. They have released 2 new careers so far and have plans to release another two soon. These were cut from launch, but are free content none the less. I can't wait to hear their ideas for a paid expansion.

What kind of expansion do you prefer?

I would have to go for LoRTO. It seems that they are giving their customers the best of both worlds in terms of content. I really do like the free updates, however, I suspect a paid expansion can be very healthy for a game. Maybe it is just psychological, but the expectations are higher when shelling out extra money, regardless of the amount of free content they have been releasing.

Read More

WAR PvP ruins it in WoW

Over the weekend I was playing a bit of WoW and I heard some people talking about the new battleground, Strand of the Ancients. It sounded pretty neat, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Overall it is a neat battleground. There is a beach landing, tanks to fight in and a big fort to take. In the end thought, it was not very fun for me.

I have not done much PvP in WoW since I started playing WAR. There really seemed to be no reason to play that aspect of the game. It seems I was right. While PvE in Wow may be great, it is really obvious that PvP is just an afterthought. Not that there is anything wrong with that for WoW.

Some things that just don't work for me:

• No Bolster. Having to wait until the latter levels to be competitive is just a bad design decision. You could go in there as a 72, but you won't have very much fun versus 80's.
• Cross-Realm. When you go into a battleground, your teammates and enemies are from different servers. This does make getting in a match quicker, which is in line with WoW's honor grind. Rivalry is a big part of PvP in games, without it WoW's battlegrounds lose some excitement.
• Rogues. Say what you will about Witch Elves, but I would take them any day over a WoW Rogue. I play a Protection Warrior and heres how it goes: Rogue saps me, does a couple of attacks and re-enters stealth. Repeat. I know I can break it once or twice, but they are able to get stealthed again pretty quick. Must be a certain tree, as they are usually warrior food.
  
• No Point. The battlegrounds contribute to nothing. Lake Wintergrasp allows your side to get more experience points and Stone Keeper's Shards. That is pretty much it.
  
• Feels clunky. This is highly subjective, but the WoW PvP just feels bad when playing. It is most likely due to my class choice, but it just didn't feel fluid.
• Choice. Again, this is probably class subjective, but it feels like there is a lot less choice of how to PvP in WoW. In WAR, there are the 3 mastery trees (aka talent trees) but there are also tactic choices and morale ability choices. I feel like I can do a lot more experimentation in WAR.

I'm not sure I will go back to PvP in WoW. I'll likely check out Wintergrasp... but I don't see myself touching a battleground again. Before WAR, I used to do them for a change of pace once in a while, and then to get my Gladiator Shield Wall. Now, as I have no need for end-game gear (and you can actually craft some anyways)... there really is no reason to go back. At least Blizzard made the right decision not forcing people to PvP for entry level raid gear.

Read More

Werit 1, Bugs 0

When we last left our hero, he was about to head into Azjol-Nerub. It seems a faction of rebel bugs, Nerubians as they call themselves, want their now Scourge-ified leader killed. In addition, they want the eggs of the scourge destroyed. Since the only good bug is a dead bug, why not?

The only major equipment chance up to this point is I am now sporting a Saronite Defender (with a Titanium Shield Spike). My previous shield was a Gladiator's Shield Wall. I love shields.

As usual, I set out to find a pug. It took a few tries to find one, but eventually I did. It turned out to be a great group. We completed the dungeon in pretty decent time (~35 minutes) and only had one wipe. The wipe was due to poor coordination on who should be attacked. This was likely my fault as I was the tank.

Some notes:

• Krik'thir the Gatewatcher has some neat speech.
• The Anub'ar Webspinners usage of Web Wrap is what led to our wipe.
• Anub'ar Skirmisher's will randomly decide to attack a party member for 10 seconds and can't be taunted. This is quite annoying, but neat.
• Hadronox was a very close fight for us. This nasty spider puts out some nice poison damage, which I completely neglected. Thankfully our healer was on the ball and managed to keep me up.
• Anub'arak was a decent fight. He has spikes that will toss you up in the air, so some attention is required. Also, he likes to burrow underground while some of his minions attack. Other then that, it wasn't very difficult.

The loot:

• I did get the Signet of Arachnathid Command. Very nice tanking ring that goes along well with my Violet Signet.
• A nice quest reward: Expelling Gauntlets
• No Stone Keeper's Shards this time.

One other thing to mention. Before the final boss, there is a huge drop into a pool of water. I was reluctant to make the leap. As I did, I must say I actually felt a bit nervous as I plummeted. Surprising as this is a video game and I wasn't actually falling. Good work to whoever designed it.

Read More

Enter the Dragon(blight)

This WoW post has been in my backlog to do for a while, so it is not really up to date with my character. After I took care of business in the Nexus, I headed off to Dragonblight. In order to get there, I took a turtle boat from Unu'pe to to Moa'ki Harbor. The turtle boats are pretty nice. Ever notice how they run those things? There is a carrot on a stick in the front. Great stuff.

I took care of the quests in the harbor:

• Apparently the Kalu'ak don't like to fight.
• Had to take out Jaws once and for all!
• Got sent to a haunted lake, no Jason sightings.
• Met a sea goddess name Oacha'noa, who is huge. She made me do a cannonball into the water to solve the quest... Guess gods have to get their kicks somehow.
  
• That was pretty much it. I thought this ended very abruptly as the story never really went anywhere.

After the Harbor, I was sent to Stars Rest which is West of the harbor.

• Quests were mostly based off of what was happening in the Nexus. I like storylines, even if they are only somewhat related.
• Most quests involved investigating what the Blue Dragons forces were doing in the surrounding area.
  
• After much killing, the most effective kind of investigating it seems, we find that they are funneling magical energies to the East part of Dragonblight. Nice long 16 part quest line.
  
• Learned of a traitor at Wintergarde in the West.
• I also had to deal with some bug worshippers to the North. Those things just won;t go away.

Overall the quests were not too bad. Nothing very frustrating but the story was just so-so.

I did come across Azjol-Nerub and was asked to venture in to help out some rebel bugs. Before I head West, I must take care of them.

Read More

How WoW will help WAR

More specifically, "How Lake Wintergrasp will give War subscribers."

I used to not be a fan of PvP in MMO's. I know, you are shocked, but it is true. I grew up on single player RPG's and other single player games. When I got into MUD's and MUSH's, it was always for the role playing and other non-pvp content. When the graphical games came on the scene, I never really participated in their PvP either.

It wasn't until Lord of the Rings Online came out that I became a fan of PvP. I know that sounds strange, as LoTRO is mainly a PvE game. When I first started playing it, it was for the PvE content, but one day I thought I would try out their Monster versus Player PvP system. After that, I barely logged into my player character anymore.

I think Lake Wintergrasp will have the same effect on many WoW players as time goes on. World PvP that allows you to advance your character, has a goal and has familiar enemies is very addicting. Wintergrasp may not have all of these ingredients, but it is offering a taste of what non-battleground PvP can be like.

Once players get a taste they may find that they like it, a lot. I know I did, but I found that LoTRO's system just wasn't enough and it never would be. I went looking for a game dedicated to that type of gameplay and found WAR. The same is likely to happen with WoW, as it is a PvE game at its essence. There will never be enough to satisfy the player who wants to do Wintergrasp type activities with all of their gameplay.

Over time, I think the inclusion of Wintergrasp will actually send folks to WAR. Of course, it may be an insignificant amount, relative to WoW's base. This is one downside to WoW trying to give players everything they want, they just can't give enough.

Read More

Werit conquers The Nexus

As you will recall, I have had some trouble with completing The Nexus. Well, no more! This weekend I managed to complete it... it's a Christmas miracle! Well, maybe not, but still I am pretty happy.

I logged on in the morning and on a lark went looking for a group. I actually found a bunch of random folks willing to go and all of them level appropriate. The group was great and we had no afkers! In fact, there were only 2 deaths and both were not in combat. I was one of them... got myself stuck on a ledge and had to take a leap into the Nexus.

This was the first time I had tanked in many months. Overall I think I did decent, but there is always room for improvement. I am a keyboard user for skills, so I have found myself getting confused with my WAR key mappings. I pretty quickly fall into the tanking habit though. I see there is a built in threat meter now. I wonder if I can get that view above the mobs head (with the nameplate). Some notes:

• Grand Magus Telestra: That Gravity Well spell is very annoying, as it playes tether ball with the party. I also found her split to be pretty annoying, as for some reason I have trouble seeing them. Maybe it is all the spell effects going off? The fun part of this is when I reflected a polymorph spell, turning one of her images into a cat.
• Anomalus: This fight way pretty easy, although it reminded my of the Curator (without an immunity time). Just tanked him, then attacked his adds when they spawned.
• Ormorok the Tree-Shaper: This big fella was also pretty simple. His main trick is to lay out ice spike, which will propel you into the air. There were actually a pretty good amount of spikes, so it took me a couple of trips into the air to figure it out. Just move slightly off the spikes.
• Keristrasza: She was not very difficult for a final boss. Her trick is a nasty DoT, Intense Cold, which you can break by moving. So I just tanked her in one spot while jumping. That was pretty much it.

Overall I did like the dungeon. The atmosphere was right up my alley with it's sci-fi aspects. I was disappointed after I turned in the quests and found out nothing more of the story. it just stopped cold.

What did I walk away with?

• The Nexus achievement.
• A Monarch Topaz from mining Ormorok. It is worth about 70g on the AH. I think I'll hang onto it though.
• Several greens, which I figure will amount to around 50g.
• No loot drops. There was a single plate drop, but it was more for DPS and not tanking.
• A Small Dream Shard, thankfully we had a DE'er with us. I'll hang on to this as well.
• 3 Stone Keeper's Shards. Lake Wintergrasp was in Alliance control, only 197 more to go until something like this!

Read More

At an impasse

Recently, I have hit a bit of trouble with WoW. When we last left my 72 Protection Warrior, he was off to Coldarra. I finished up all the quests there, which were not too bad. I really like the scenery. The last thing for me to do there (and in the Borean Tundra), was to venture into the Nexus.

I have 4 quests in there to do, all of which sound kinda neat. The Dragons in WoW have always been an intriguing part of the story for me. The big quest is to rescue a friendly Dragon, who Malygos is making be his ...um... 'consort'. I guess it is kinda fair, as we lured his previous consort into a trap and killed her. There are a couple of nice rewards I can actually use too, Tundra Pauldrons and Boots of the Unbowed Protector. My first Kara epic will be replaced by the boots.

My problem is I can't seem to complete the Nexus. There are a few reasons for this.

• During the week, I do not have chunks of time big enough for a dungeon. With WAR, only being able to play in hour chunks is fine. In WoW it is fine for questing... but a dungeon may take more than an hour.
  
• When I have had time, it has been in off hours not ideal for grouping with my guild. I really like the folks in my guild, but my hours are a bit off. My prime time hours are reserved for WAR at the moment.
• I have had a miserable time with Pugs as usual. Healers are very hard to come by so getting a full group is rare. When I have gotten a group it has fallen apart. The one time I have managed to actually get to the first boss, someone went afk for 10 minutes and the group fell apart.

I do not want to move on until I complete the Nexus. It is just the way I play, I like to have everything from the zone completed and off my Quest Log. I'm not really sure how I will get the Nexus done, unless I ask an 80 (or two) to run me through. The run through is usually my last resort, as I really want to complete it the proper way. In the mean time, I am lounging around at the inn, full of rested xp.

Read More

On this episode of Wings...

My 71 Protection Warrior made his way to Fizzcrank Airstrip, as he heard they needed some help. It is a pretty cool looking facility, even if it is crawling with Gnomes. Having watched Wings years ago, I was expecting a pretty hilarious time. TV you have fooled me again! Actually it isn't so bad, but there are a lot of quests out of this airstrip.

Some notes:

• Did Lowell ever have to search through wolf poop? I did.
• I searched through poop and dead bodies, dressed up like an Orc, was turned into a Gnome (ack!), spent time as Exxon, killed many robots, killed some innocent creatures for their spice packs, made D.E.H.T.A. mad and got involved in a soap opera evil twin plot.
• I was disappointed that there were no bombing missions, we had an airstrip and planes!
• I would love to have one of those planes as my flying mount.
• Received the achievement: Explore Borean Tundra
• Lots of vendored quest rewards.

Overall this area was just ok. No start or continuation of any story archs, which made it kind of bland. The quests themselves were not so bad, although those robots got pretty annoying. I did like the Ultrasonic Screwdriver quest, as you could get a few robot helpers.

When I was finished at the airstrip I had reached level 72. One thing I am not really liking is I have nothing fun to do at the class trainer. I'm not sure there is anything new to learn, only more advanced ranks of what I have. I now have 2 talent points to spend too. No idea what to use them on yet.

Next stop for me is Colderaa. This is where the Nexus is located and what I hope is a pretty decent storyline.

Read More