WoW Cataclysm Cinematic!

Just WOW!

What is the Magic Word Blizzard?

I have yet to discover the magic word to get a beta key.  I was lucky to get a spare key from someone through Twitter for wrath which gave me access to the beta.  I played, filled out bug reports and made posts about the new features along with videos.   But that was a great fluke and someones kind heart at the time.

So Blizzard, what word do we use?  How do we get in to contribute to the community?  It would be great to keep interest in the game and report on it.  So. . here is hopping. . praying and holding out the notion that real testers are better than 12 year olds who load up, play 20 mins then QQ about it being broken. .  Its BETA!!!

Thanks for letting me rant :)

Welcome back BRK!! But ARG!!!

This is late in coming but I want to welcome back Big Red Kitty to WoW.  We missed you but are VERY glad things are working out.

But I have a BONE to pick!  I was all happy and fine with letting my hunter sit. . I leveled him all the way to 80 and he was my main toon for years until I retired him.  Between falling in love with other classes (Prot Pally and Resto Druid) I retired him. . And was HAPPY. 

Enter Cata. . I was all set to re-roll my lock as a worgen and you go and start posting all these videos of the hunter and I’m like. . GRRRR BRK!!!!!

Now I am wanting to re-roll a hunter.

THANKS!!!



Thanks Daniel. . look for a new hunter come opening.
Everyone check out BRK’s Youtube feed and his blog!  He is back!

24 Hour Maintenance? Why?

Many noticed yesterday when they logged in that a slew of servers where getting their turn at a 24 hour down time for maintenance.  A few in my guild, my daughter included, were very disappointed at the loss of being able to play.  She just got to Northrend for the first time and is excited to get to 80.

The question was asked as to why these servers where down for 24 hours and why this set?

To answer that lets look at why this is happening.  Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere everyone is aware that Blizzards third expansion, Cataclysm, to World of Warcraft is in the works and more than likely going live around October.  This new expansion is adding lots of new features and expanding some things like phasing that we saw added to the game for Wrath. 

New features means new demands on an already aging server infrastructure and code base.  Upgrades are inevitable and needed to make sure we have a smooth gaming experience.  To do this they have to take live servers offline to either upgrade software, hardware, network hardware (Oh I hope the Boston data center gets a much needed backbone upgrade!) or all the above.  A few weeks ago a slew of servers had their turn and now its my servers turn.

So the next question is. . Why these servers?

That is simple.  Batlegroups.  Huh?

Blizzard uses Battlegroups to divide servers up into groups.  The most visible use of these battlegroups is when you que for a Battle Ground.  You will be placed into a BG with people from other servers within your battlegroup.  Now with the inclusion of the new Looking for Group system you can enter an instance with someone from your battlegroup just like you did in BG’s.  But did you know that there is a reason behind the servers in a battlegroup?   Its not random, its about where the hardware that your server sits on is located.

Battlegroups are clusters of servers that all reside (presumably physically) on the same server hardware box at one location.  These locations are called datacenter’s.  For the US market Blizzard uses four datacenters spread across the country.  Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.  WoWWiki has a wonderful page showing the datacenter and battlegroup break down. 

If you look at the list of today’s 24 hour downtime and compare it to the wowwiki list you will notice that it’s the Boston Datacenter’s turn for this downtime.  The Boston DC houses the Nightfall, Retaliation and Stormstrike battlegroup.  June 8th saw 24 maint for the Los Angeles datacenter while Chicago followed suit on 29th of June.  With today's that leaves the Seattle DC left and all will be upgraded. . to this point.

This is a good thing.  As I told my daughter and guild mates, its better to have 24 hours down now than 2 to 3 days down due to issues that we have seen in the past during other expansion releases or major patch roll outs. 

Personally I still hold hope that network bandwidth is increased to the ageing Boston DC.  Looking at another link on the wowwiki site you will notice that a good number of original servers are on the Boston DC.  West coast players, especially California, has a rather high ping traveling across the country to the Boston center.  Sure you can play on a LA or Seattle realm but for some of us the old servers are home. 

So in the end 24 hours will give you time to. . .

• Write a blog post
• Reorganize your social media presence
• Take out the trash for your wife
• Work on your UI (once the other servers come back up)
• Or just spend time with ones you love.

See you all soon

New Talent System!! YUM! Nom Nom Nom

It’s always fun or fail when someone the age of the answer to Life, Universe and Everything tries to use netspeak/meemespeak in a title.  But let’s talk about talent!

Blizzard released a new version of the Cataclysm beta this week introducing the new 31 point talent system.  The system streamlines our choices with some major features.

The first thing you will notice is that, well, you only have 41 points total now to spend on your spec.  This is a change from the current 71 points.  O.o  That is. . . .brilliant.  No more spending hours looking at your talent sheet wondering if you need to spend a point in aspect of the useless.  The devs wanted to remove a lot of the redundant or useless skills that can be folded into a passive or specialization talent (I will discuses the new specialization system later, once I wrap my head fully around it.  Sort of hard since I don't have Beta access :(  )

Another new feature includes having to chose at level 10 what tree you plan on using.  As it stands right now on live you can start putting points in any tree of the talent page.  So for example you could put 1 point in Prot, 1 in Holy and 1 in Ret as a pally.  This more than often creates a build that is. . lets just say. . less than effective. 

The new system forces you to chose.  So if I chose to level protection I would chose the protection option.  The nice thing is a new graphic will show you the key features for each choice you make.  After choosing which tree to specialize in you begin putting points into that tree.  The points will come now every other level instead of the 1 per level we currently have. 

THE BIG WARNING

This is just the first view of the new system and subject to change as the beta moves forward.  Do not take any of these trees as gospel, yet.

I have set up a Google Wave with some of the new builds.  Google Wave allows us to edit and add to a living document showing some awesome user created builds to kick around.  If you would like to participate in the wave just ask manorton@gmail.com for an invite.  I have to do it this way until we figure out how to open the wave up for people to simply join.

Check out the talent calculator at WoWTal.com  Just be sure to not spend over 41 points.  I did this the first time and thought my combat spec rogue was VERY OP, lol.

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