Tonight our Alliance guild finished off Blackrock Depths, the penultimate Vanilla/Classic dungeon, having finished the ‘Detention Block’ last week.

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Now split in two Dungeon Finder halves, the second ‘Upper City’ section has four bosses you have to kill for the Achievement, but 13 total. Oddly enough, the Dungeon Finder split has made it very difficult to navigate - it more or less leads you to the four achievement bosses while ignoring all the rest. As a result we ‘finished’ in 45 minutes, then spent another 90 minutes unravelling the puzzle of finding the remaining bosses.

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Navigation is also not helped by the map changing between floors somewhat arbitrarily, making it particularly hard to work out the path to the bosses. You used to start at the start and work your way through the entire dungeon, which mostly made sense. Now it’s confusing as you appear mid dungeon, have to back track, and use mole machines to get around impenetrable doors.

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None the less, it’s a a wonderfully complex and diverse dungeon, a living breathing Dark Iron city, full of everything a city would have: kings, queens, jailers, crafters, gods, and monsters. There’s a huge number of schematics and plans that drop, befitting a Dwarven empire, and rep hand-ins that require you to return things you create in Molten Core.

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The Grim Guzzler is as crazy as ever, a bar full of hammered patrons all of who eventually turn on you once you start spilling their beer and spiking their kegs. With predictable results.

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One amazing - and crazy - piece of design in the Relic Room, which has about 15 locked safes. You pick up Relic keys as you venture through the dungeon, which allow you to unlock the vaults for a random loot chest - Blizzard were well ahead of the loot box game here. In one run you won’t get enough keys to unlock all the safes, but there’s a quest boss that only appears if you do - so you have to hang on to the keys and co-ordinate to open the room together later. Not something to do via Dungeon Finder obviously.

That mechanic - and many others in BRD - are another reminder of how co-ordination and teamwork were highly valued and required in the original release, even for dungeons.

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We now only have Blackrock Spire to do, before we can unlock XP and start on the Burning Crusade dungeons. In a fortuitous piece of timing, we’ll run Spire just as Classic launches - finishing up right as we’re starting all over again. #Blaugust22

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I’ve been trying to work out exactly why Classic has become so appealing. There’s the obvious things like revisiting the very first outing for a game I’ve devoted long hours to. I wasn’t there at the beginning, so while many of the features are familiar from Burning Crusade, this will allow us to experience where it all started.

Then there’s the somewhat masochistic appeal of having to struggle instead of cruise. As has been well documented, unless you’re raiding ‘ahead of the curve’ the retail version of Warcraft has become a walk in the park when compared to ye olde days. I can’t remember the last time I felt any sense of danger or need to be careful in game, and purple loot is no longer a thrill, it’s an expectation. Which is not to say the live game isn’t entertaining. There is entertainment aplenty, great storylines, beautiful design, and it still has the capacity to surprise even 15 years later. It’s just that it is now a different game to what it was - again, if you’re not raiding. Raiding has become the sole place where you still have to work hard and have a team.

I started thinking that concept of needing to work with other players gets to the core of why Classic might work, and Belghast’s terrific post musing on MMO communication drove that thought home:

The first MMOs worked and created the lasting relationships that they did in part because we had a serious need for other people. What I mean by that is that in order for us to have a fun night, we needed a bunch of other people to be similarly interested in doing the same thing. This meant that without really meaning it… you yourself were open to doing things that were maybe less than optimal for your evening because it would mean that in turn the other player would be willing to assisting you at a later date.

My fondest memories of Warcraft are raiding Karazhan with one or two close friends and a whole bunch of people I’d never met. We spent hours and hours working together through that epic Raid, slowly improving and progressing, helping each other gear up and talking tactics offline while we waited for the next scheduled run. It was epic, exciting, and the thrill of defeating each boss to allow us to move on was unbeatable.

Taking a team of friends into WoTLK raiding was similarly exciting, and although we only made it into the first wing of Naxxramas before real life struck, that first wing was incredible. We were doing something together through hard work and perseverance, marvelling when our strategy and preparation came together into a well oiled machine. Which didn’t happen often, but when it did it too was an unbeatable thrill.

Of course the same thing could be said to apply to raiding now, but the temptation to just do it in LFR or press a button, as Belghast put it, is often too great. Plus we’re all ten years older, so attention and time is far more thinly spread. Classic feels like a chance to travel back to a time when teamwork and strong server-based bonds were requirements for success.

It’s almost certainly a pipe dream to imagine being able to raid - those ten years aren’t nothing - but even running dungeons and epic quests like Rhok’delar will mean community and communication become paramount, and that might be something special. #Blaugust21

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Having discovered professions, my next goal was to hit level 15 so I could catch an airship of some kind to Limsa Lominsa in order to train Fishing. If FFXIV is only going to be a month long project, fishing has to be part of it.

Levelling didn’t take long. Following the main storyline and the nearby side quests netted most of the required experience - and a taunt skill which will come in handy.

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During the questing I answered my question about what happens if you’re equipped for a profession when you encounter an aggressive mob: you run away. I hadn’t worked out how to tell which mobs would attack when you passed through their aggro radius and accidentally drew the attention of three angry ants. Fighting them with my pick wasn’t going to work, and I couldn’t quickly change outfits, so I sprinted away. Luckily they are on rubber bands so I was soon safe, but I learnt the lesson. It does make gathering seem a little hard to do at low levels - it might have to wait until I’m a bit more powerful.

I discovered that my ‘shield bash’ ability is an interrupt for the telegraph abilities of mobs. Smacking them when the ground effect appears stuns them and cancels the special move. Very handy and easier than running out of range. I suspect that later mobs won’t be quite so easy to disrupt, but for now it’s a fun ability. I also polished off the first tier of the Hunting Log, which rewarded a good chunk of XP but disappointingly nothing much else other than a massive banner alert that things were about to get more difficult.

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The final discovery in this play session was that I’ve reached a level where things are starting to be dangerous. I wandered into a camp of small sentient creatures and started mindlessly slaughtering them. There was some kind of glowing purple circle around the quest objective which gave me pause, but so far glowing things hadn’t seemed to make much difference so I pressed on. Suddenly a mini-boss of some kind was summoned and started casting something nasty, at the same time as the remaining trash mobs all decided to finally notice me and start attacking en masse. Bravery and valour took a back seat as I employed the sprint button again to get out of there, barely making it alive. I went back with a more methodical approach and succeeded, though it was still a lot tougher than anything I’d previously encountered.

I also had some close scrapes with some particularly aggressive mantis like creatures and some giant poisonous toads. I was looking for colour cues as to what will aggro and what will let me walk straight through, but I think it’s a small icon next to their nameplate that is the tell.

Clearly I’ve reached some kind of tipping point between friendly newbie zone and somewhere with more expectations, and I may well be doing something wrong (or non optimally) too. From now on a more cautious approach is called for - and I should pay more attention to the swirly coloured magical stuff.

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When I reached 15 nothing actually happened. I think I was kind of expecting a quest to magically appear, similarly to how flying does in Warcraft. Not that this was flying, but FFXIV has been very good at introducing new concepts as they become available and the ability to take airships to new cities seems to warrant that kind of notice. My guess is this is locked behind a quest chain I haven’t quite completed, like learning Professions was.

So fishing will have to wait - but not for long.

#Blaugust20

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Spoiler alert for Patch 8.2

Today I finally did the Stay of Execution scenario, months behind schedule, and it was superb. Long an advocate for the Tauren, and for Baine Bloodhoof to become our next Warchief, this solo dungeon make it all the clearer that he is the right choice.

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I unlocked it by finishing up some quests in Nazjatar, not really knowing what was going to happen - somehow I’d managed to avoid spoilers for all this time. I was shocked to find that Sylvanas was about to execute Baine for ‘betraying’ her when he reunited the newly Undead Derek Proudmoore with his sister Jaina.

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A Shamanistic vision shows us that he is imprisoned below Orgrimmar (in a repurposed dungeon based on the Siege of Orgrimmar raid), and we need to act immediately to rescue him. We’re joined by Thrall and Varok Saurfang, heroes of the Horde and stars of the Safe Haven cinematic, and it’s a thrill fighting alongside the two elder Orc legends.

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But that’s nothing to the shock of who we find half way through the mission.

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Jaina. I was genuinely surprised, which I guess says something for how little attention I pay to the streamers and data-mining lore-reveals. It’s a nice feeling to find a game you’ve played for so long can still take you by surprise, and a reminder of just how strong Blizzard’s lore and writing team can be - and a reminder of why we keep playing.

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Jaina is there to rescue Baine too, not just because of the Derek Proudmore moment, but because Baine is good people. He, of all the participants in this war, doesn’t deserve a traitor’s death. The confrontation between Thrall and Jaina is beautifully played out, as they - and we - unite to rescue Baine from Sylvanas’s prison.

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A faction leader, disgracefully strung up by Sylvanas. No honour here.[/caption] The in-game cinematic that finishes the scenario is one of Blizzard’s best. Jaina and Thrall gazing down on Thunder Bluff, fearing Sylvanas’s retribution, and both reflecting on the terrible cost of the years of conflict and death.

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Thrall’s regrets in particular struck home with me, his sorrow over the death of Baine’s father Cairne, and all the conflict and ruin that has wrought. Jaina’s reaction to Thrall’s pain is magic, and brings great hope for future peace between the two warring factions.

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I still hold some slim hope that Sylvanas will somehow be shown to have been acting in Azeroth’s best interests, that rousing Azshara and N’zoth was required in order for the factions to unite and defeat the larger threat. But the destruction of Teldrassil has probably put paid to her reputation ever being rehabilitated. Her time is over.

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If anyone can heal the rift between the Alliance and the Horde, it’s Baine Bloodhoof. And if Sylvanas really does try and burn down Thunder Bluff nothing can save her from our retribution.

#Blaugust19

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I’d forgotten that upon reaching level 10 I could start to train in the gathering and crafting professions - or Disciplines of the Land and Hand in game terms. It wasn’t only level 10 that was required, it was that plus finishing the mandatory Gladiator introductory sequence. I almost felt guilty being tempted when my Guildmistress told me that much as she hated to say it, I was free to go and train in other Classes.

What I didn’t realise was that training the Hand/Land classes was the same as switching to an entirely different Combat Class. When I trained as a Miner I suddenly lost all my Gladiator skills, my action bars swapped, and I was suddenly near-naked in the middle of the Mining Guild.

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Working out how to dress more appropriately, I soon found the ‘Recommended Gear’ button on the UI, which very smartly worked out what gear I should equip for my current Class. And then I could save that as a Gear Set, and switch between Combat and Profession equipment with ease.

I was equipped with a Mining Pick and had a single action available called Prospect, which promised to reveal mining nodes on my minimap when active. This is very different to my experience in other MMOs where gathering and crafting are very much secondary skills, requiring only a tool or two in your inventory. Here you become a miner, or goldsmith, or tailor, etc.

At first I was sceptical that this was a good idea - having to swap entirely to a new load out and skill set just to mine some ore seemed quite cumbersome. And it means that you can’t just spot a node as you’re adventuring and gather it on the move. You need to set out specifically to gather, or craft, and abandon your combat role entirely. I do worry what would happen if you set out with mining pick and sub-optimal armour equipped, only to encounter some aggressive mobs that needed your full kit to counter. I wonder if you can swap mid combat, or if it’s like other games where once you’re engaged you’re locked out.

Mining pick equipped, I ventured back out into Thanalan and soon found my first node. They are much prettier than Warcraft that’s for sure.

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I duly started picking away at it, and discovered that FFXIV has a much deeper crafting system than I expected. One you find a node, you can choose what you want to try and extract from it, and what the chance of recovering each possible reward is.

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This kind of blew my mind, as this made gathering is a game in itself, with chance and gambling and decision making instead of just mindless clicking on shiny nodes. There’s a full list of levels and skills to be learnt, quests and objectives, and I presume you could play the game as solely a crafter if you were willing to forgo combat.

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I’ve always been intrigued by Bhagpuss’s reports of the full crafting storyline in EQ2, and it looks like FFXIV has at least some semblance of that, though whether it goes quite as far as EQ2 does is yet to be seen:

It’s completely viable [in EQ2] to have characters who only craft and still have a well-developed, structured throughline from creation to cap that includes everything an Adventurer could expect. There are signature questlines at all levels, side-quests, storylines, upgradeable gear and tools, important NPCs to meet, titles to earn, achievements, you name it. There are even craft raids.

Training Mining also unlocked a Gathering Log full of lists of items to find while Mining. Similarly training Weaving created a Crafting Log, though it was more functional, containing recipes for how to make gear and accoutrements. Crafting an item involves chance, material wear, and action bar skills in order to make the object you desire. The animation is also pretty great, a full spindle or needlecraft pad appearing for weaving, and accompanying over the top excitement when you successfully make a ball of twine.

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Exploring this has opened up a whole new world within FFXIV, and I found myself excited to start progressing the profession chains - perhaps even more than following the actual storyline. The fashion, armour, and weapons you see just wandering around Ul’dah continue to be astonishing, and I assume that much of it is created via crafting, no doubt at great expense. The bigger capitals and endgame hubs must be a sight to behold, and I can imagine setting up as a crafter of exclusive goods must be an excellent earner and satisfying game in and of itself.

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My only regret is Fishing isn’t available in Ul’dah, for that I need to travel to somewhere called Limsa Lominsa - and to get there I need to get to Level 15 apparently. I’ll do that on my Gladiator given I’m 12 now, unless Gathering ore becomes more interesting!

#Blaugust18

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