The Queue: I just woke up
@MatthewWRossi
It’s 4 am my time as I write this, I’m insanely tired.
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I…have to disagree about comparing Arthas and Kerrigan, at least at first. Arthas made his choices willingly the entire time. Kerrigan did not (until Heart of the Swarm when there IS more of a comparison, but Kerrigan still showed more mercy than Arthas ever did by saving as many innocent civilians as possible). Just my two cents.
I would agree because in my opinion Sylvanas is the better comparison to Kerrigan. Two women who fought against unrelenting odds only to find themselves corrupted into mockeries of their former lives by those very same forces they stood against, who managed to attain some level of control over what they’d become but in the process shed so much of who they used to be that they can’t ever really go back.
Do not hold on to your mats thinking they will be valuable next expansion. Blizzard has a tendency to put catchup mechanisms in place so that players can power level professions using the materials from the next expansion, you will end up with a pile of mats no one wants.
Right now is an excellent time to ‘cash out’ I would argue. People are thinking about the next expansion, we’re in HFC for the foreseeable future — now is the time for the leveling of alts. Sell now, or soon. Don’t wait.
Quick question for discussion-I often read others who feel that WoW’s graphics are not up to par with other games. I’m curious about this, as while I know it is a matter of personal taste, but WoWs graphics have never bothered me. Recently I had the opportunity to start playing GW2 and one of the things I had heard was how great the graphics were-but they really don’t seem to be anything much compared to wow. I’m currently able to run graphics at a pretty high level, but I tend to find I prefer the wow style much more than other games in the genre. Maybe it’s because the colors tend to be more saturated and vivid- or perhaps it’s a personal preference for the cartoonish, but I’m wondering what flaws people do see with WoW, or where others’ preferences are.
Personally, I think Blizzard made an excellent choice back in the early 2000’s when they were designing World of Warcraft and they deliberately chose to make the game as they did, deliberately evoking the feel of Warcraft III with their simpler, more stylized graphics. Yes, it’s true that WoW has never tried for realism. Many MMO’s have come and gone that did, and while at times these games can succeed at producing a visual experience you won’t get in WoW, the old girl still manages to surprise me at how beautiful it can be while keeping a look that doesn’t hit the uncanny valley nearly as often. Seriously, whether or not you liked this expansion, go ride around Frostfire Ridge and tell me you don’t get cold — they did an amazing job of producing a harsh winterscape through purely visual means. Similarly, Shadowmoon Valley is simply gorgeous, and I’ll never forget riding into the Spires of Arak the first time and that laser ripped its way through the land below it.
WoW definitely embraces a distinctive aesthetic that doesn’t go for max realism, and I think they made the right call there.
Q4tQ: Is it feasible that WoD and Legion would have been originally conceived as a single expansion, and then later split into two parts?
Sure, it’s feasible. I can easily imagine that, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable thing for a company to do. That doesn’t make it actual, mind you — Blizzard has said that’s not what happened. They’ve apparently been working on Legion for a while.
Based on my own gut, I find myself wondering if Legion was conceived first, in fact. There are a lot of hints dropped in Mists of Pandaria about the return of the Burning Legion. While it’s true that having Gul’dan show up to find Illidan wouldn’t have been doable without some means of resurrecting him, that reason didn’t have to be Garrosh and his time shenanigans. You could in fact not even have had Gul’dan at all. Imagine if the Legion made Garrosh an offer and arrogantly he assumed he could avoid the corruption, that he could prove himself superior to his father — he takes the deal, gets broken out of Pandaria and makes his way to the Warden prison to free Illidan.
Boom, Legion invasion. I have absolutely no evidence that Blizzard was intending to do Legion and ended up delayed or deciding to do another expansion first, it’s just a gut feeling I have.
Q4TQ: For WoD, they did the big stat squish, due to the numbers for stats, player health, and npc health all becoming insanely high. It seems to me, as we near the end of WoD, that the health pools of players, at the least, are starting to edge close to what they were in early to mid MoP. Do you think they will do another squish after Legion (or possibly sooner)?
We’ll see what DPS is up to by the end of Legion. If they do a stat squish, I expect it to be after the next expansion, maybe two in.
Okay, that’s the Queue for today. Dark Lady is the Swarm watching over you.
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Q4tQ: When do you feel is this best time to “cash out” on an expansion? I’m talking about selling all the items that are currently relevant, but will be outdated come next expansion. Stuff like Felblight, potions and flasks, gems, etc, that are useful for current endgame that will be quickly replaced by low level Legion materials. In addition, do you sell the raw crafting materials, ore / herbs / dust / leather, or hold on to sell next expansion when people are looking to power level and catch up their professions?
Hmm, after reading that back I’m wondering if this is best saved for the next gold capped article…