Our Alliance Guild ran Blackrock Depths this evening - or at least the first 7 bosses: it has 20 in total. I suspect this is the largest 5 man dungeon in Warcraft.

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Doing some research for the run, I was amazed to read that when it was originally released in Patch 1.3.0 in 2005 it would take 4-6 hours to run. That’s remarkable, and remarkable that people would have the stamina to do such a lengthy run. Especially given how much harder it would have been on release with mobs at level and no min-maxxing possible as this Dungeon would have been dropping the best gear in game.

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Even just navigating it must have been a challenge, with multiple levels and an dizzying array of routes and obstacles. These days it’s much easier with Dwarven mole machines allowing fast travel to various spots throughout the maze.

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It has unique attributes like The Black Forge which is the only place in game where you can smelt Dark Iron Ore, and The Black Anvil which allows those bars to be crafted into items. And those two locations are deep within the dungeon, so you can’t just traipse down there to do a bit of crafting.

It’s lovely that the gear you forged was largely fire-resistance, which set you up for the yet to be released Molten Core, the first Warcraft raid. The Forge is even located just before the entrance to the Raid as a hint and teaser. That kind of precise logical progression is sorely missing from the ‘retail’ game.

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Places like Blackrock Spire are another reason Classic is going to be fascinating. When even the Dungeons are challenging marathons, it will be a real test of the capacity of the modern MMO player. Assuming it’s successful enough to move off Patch 1.12, which it surely will be given the current level of interest.

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#Blaugust15

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Today Overwatch introduced the Role Queue, a feature that forces players to queue as one of the three character archtypes: Tank, Support, and DPS. There are two slots of each role available, which means every game will end up with two Tanks, two Supports, and two DPS.

For MMO players that will be a very familiar concept - it’s the holy trinity but in an FPS, something I don’t think many people would have expected to see. Even the queuing system looks familiar, with rewards for queuing as a particular role based on their current popularity.

As usual, Tanks and Healers are scooping up the loot, and DPS have the long queue. Which suits me fine as DPS is not my forte in Overwatch.

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Being able to queue as a Support or Tank makes me much more likely to try out Competitive play more, as you can be fairly confident you’ll be able to play one of the characters you know well. I can play two Tanks relatively well (D.va and Orisa) and one moderately (Reinhardt), and Mercy is my favourite Support character (aka Healer).

One odd artefact of this is that the non-healing Supports have been moved to the DPS class. In fact they should probably rename Support to Healing, as that’s all that’s left there now. For example Symmetra (another favourite) and Mei used to be Support, but now have to compete in the far more populated DPS category. And both being low DPS output compared to the more pure damage dealers means there will probably be a fair bit of finger-pointing if they’re chosen. Though apparently Mei-meta is the new hotness - I’m waiting for the Sym-meta for my moment of glory!

It’s a bit of a controversial change in some ways. As Skyline says in that video, one of the pleasures of Overwatch is the fluidity of the teams, and the ability to adjust on the fly. Coming up again a heavy tank team? Double your DPS and see if you can overwhelm them. Switch to a specific character temporarily to counter someone on the other team. Just want to have some fun - play a 6 Healer composition and be unkillable. That will all be much more difficult - if not impossible - with the new system, and while fluid comps will still be on offer in Arcade mode, that’s less appealing than the main game.

And another great feature of Overwatch has always been the strength of character, and how different they all are. With Role Locking there will have to be more consistency across characters to ensure balance. We can already see that some of that happening in the patch notes today with Bridgette being nerfed into more of a Healer than an all round powerhouse:

Developer Comment: The goal of these changes is to make Brigitte more of a primary healer for your team, at the cost of weakening her survivability. Since Brigitte will now be only one of two support heroes for your team, it is important that she can provide enough healing to be valuable in that role.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and whether it boosts or dampens enthusiasm for the game. One wild theory might be that this is being done in order to allow Blizzard to launch Overwatch 2 - dare we hope for Overwatch PVE - at Blizzcon. Overwatch Classic (heh) can be the eSports version, with closely balanced characters and locked roles, and Overwatch 2 can be the one where the creativity can run wild.

Unlikely, but then so was Blizzard doing Warcraft Classic.

#Blaugust14

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The reserve-your-name event for Classic seemed to start about as well as the original launch by the sounds, which is appropriate.

I dutifully logged in at 0800 with a bunch of names ready to go, was briefly queued, then connected only to find that all the servers were showing as ‘Locked’. Mysterious. Clicking on Arugal loaded up a ‘Logging in to game server’ message that sat there doing nothing until I clicked Cancel and tried again. Unfortunately the same thing happened. At that point I decided this could go on for a long time, so I bailed and went to work for the day.

Tonight I logged on again, and immediately got through and onto the Arugal server. A few moments configuring a Tauren Hunter later, I tried my original name - ‘Stroeb’ - and was successful! It pays not to want a real word or popular fake name. I also managed to get ‘Banehammer’ (a favourite WotLK character of mine and my original tank) on the Remulos server, and ‘Angler’ on Pagle - perhaps my favourite of the lot. Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza here we come (if/when Blizzard upgrade Classic to v1.7 that is!).

The idea of Classic has continued to curtail my time on Live, other than the Alliance dungeon progression crew. I’m occasionally dipping in and doing a few Nazjatar dailies, but it’s nothing like the dedication and enjoyment I got working toward Pathfinder I. While I will eventually unlock Pathfinder II I suspect it will be some time coming.

Doing things very late in an expansion often works in your favour as buffs and rewards tend to be increased toward the end of days when Blizzard gets everyone ready for the New Thing. Classic may turn out to be too much hard work once the reality sets in, but for now the idea of a true fresh start - no imported gold, no heirlooms, no muscle memory - is still tremendously appealing.

#Blaugust13

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Last night I reached level 10 and unlocked a swathe of features, most of which I missed as the screen alerts and pop-ups flew by. The main one was that I am now officially a Gladiator tank.

While I’d unlocked my first clear tanking ability at level 8 with Rampart (reduces incoming damage temporarily), at level 10 several new abilities appeared. The main one is something called Iron Will which increases the enmity enemy mobs feel toward me. This looks like it’s a permanent taunt, making me much more attractive to mobs when fighting in a group. It’s tied to an ‘Oath Gauge’ which is a on screen icon that’s either on of off as far as I can tell - so less of a gauge than a switch.

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A passive Tank Mastery trait also unlocked, which has the standard reduce damage + increase HP buffs based on my vitality and strength attributes respectively.

One thing the game hasn’t done a great job of explaining - unlike many things which are explained very well - is the stats I should be aiming for on gear. Many of the quest rewards make me choose between Strength (leather) and Intelligence (cloth) upgrades, so I’ve been gravitating to Strength. But I did seem to see somewhere, though I can’t find it now, that Intelligence is important for tanking, so I’m not sure what to choose here. Given I won’t be tanking - or at least not yet - I think Strength is still going to be preferable, especially with the Tank Mastery trait bonus.

I’m enjoying the Gladiator, feeling like you can take a few hits and being well armoured and armed is always satisfying to me in a game. I should probably start thinking about starting a new Class now that I can, but for the moment I will stay true to the Gladiator way. One of the rewards for reaching this milestone was a piece of unique untradable body armour (though I suspect every other Gladiator is also wearing it), which had the unfortunate effect of exposing my less than ideal pants.

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I was a little surprised to find there wasn’t much song and dance about reaching level 10 back in Ul’dah at the Gladiator Guild - just another clean up mission - but I suppose that’s the Gladiator way: all business.

Level 10 should also mean professions are available, and given you can do all of them at once I should probably be a bit cautious that crafting doesn’t take over the gameplay for me. Fishing is guaranteed though.

I had been assuming the Gladiator missions were the main quest line, but there is a ‘Main Scenario Quest’ which must be the core story - I’d just been chugging through all the quests as I moved around the map so wasn’t following closely which was associated with what. Thinking back the core story did seem to involve a lot of courier deliveries and kill five thing quests, so maybe that’s why it hadn’t grabbed my focus. Time to pay attention.

Out in the adventuring world I have started to get a better handle on my survivability too. Handling multiple mobs seems to be ok, as long as you’re careful, though having only one AoE ability so far is a bit limiting. The FATES have become easy but I think I’m outlevelling most of those in the first zone now. They are a bit repetitive after a while, with most being a variation of defeat the waves of mobs and collect all of the things. I’m not sure that I’ll continue with them unless they sound interesting or different - I think GW2’s public events might be better designed on the whole.

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The GCD feels a bit slow still, but I’m starting to enjoy the pacing of the attack sequences. It feels almost like a rhythm game, albeit a slightly ponderous one. It’s fun working it out without referring to guides, though I suspect I’m being less than efficient. The ability options are starting to grow too, so getting some kind of optimum rotation going will take some study.

And I need to find some pants.

#Blaugust12

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I’m now level 7 and starting to settle into the gameplay. I made a few new discoveries, including the confirmation that there is indeed a telegraph warning when fighting, which will mean movement is going to become increasingly important.

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There’s an excellent Help system in the early levels, that leads you through the concepts you’re going to need to be familiar with in order to play. It’s thorough and sensible, talking about BOP items, rarity, how experience is earned, FATES, and everything in between. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but excellent for the new-to-MMOs player.

Strangely I still hadn’t seen any general chat though, so no way to ask for help or hints. As I was despairing on how to find it I did finally see something come up in the chat panel (I guess it was a /say so not strictly chat): gold-seller spam. Ha. Sigh. Eventually I decided to research it online. Turns out there is no general chat channel - no wonder it was quiet. There are things called a ‘Linkshell’, which sound like custom chat channels with friends, but you need to be invited to those.

Luckily Nogamara had tipped me off to the existence of something called the Novice Network, which is a dedicated chat channel for new players. The trick is that you can only be invited to participate in it by players who’ve qualified as a Mentor - and you can only find them by the icon on their nameplate (just as new players have a sapling on theirs). It’s quite a few hurdles to get over to join, and I spent a fruitless time trying to find a Mentor in Ul’dah until today. A kind Lion-person invited me to the Novice group, and suddenly there was plenty of chatter - most of it unfortunately about the relative merits of early FF RPGs, but it was better than the silence!

I think the idea of Mentors and Novices is great, and something I’ve thought about for a long time, but it’s quite odd putting it behind a few tricky mechanisms, things that I think would definitely trip up a player with no MMO experience.

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I was excited to come across my first instanced FATE, which turned out to also have the first example of voice acting in the game. One was a squeaky voiced female Lalafell, the other a ‘Handsome Stranger’ with a deep and confidently male approach - both seemed appropriate to their model, though I’m not sure I could stand too much Lalafell if they all sound like this one.

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The FATE itself was a mini-boss fight, with the stranger doing the tanking and me providing assistance and handling the adds - though I’m sure my good looking friend didn’t need the help. At the end I picked up a crystal which started a dream sequence of some kind. The lore is no clearer than it was at the start, but there’s something big brewing involving these Crystals of Light and pleas for me to ‘shine my light on all creation’ - I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that responsibility.

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I also participated in an open world FATE, starting an on-level fight that I would certainly have lost had not a few other players joined in shortly after it started. That was fun too, though I couldn’t work out how to play the Tank role - I suspect I’m too low level just yet, not having any taunt abilities. In fact one hilarious Gladiator training quest back in Ul’dah had me finding some city brutes and drawing their attention from the citizens they were bullying - aka taunting them. The command to do that was /me, as in, ‘look at me’. Hardly threatening! I did in fact try /me during the FATE just in case that was somehow an actual taunt, but (thankfully) it didn’t work.

Combat remains interesting and looks better with each new ability you get. I’m looking forward to getting finishers and other specials that will no doubt have some spectacular effects.

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My Gladiator Guildmistress also gave me something called a Hunting Log, which has a series of seek/slay quests within it to earn extra experience. It’s a grind checklist really, but in a new game it sounds like a lot of fun rather than a chore. The mobs you are hunting for are handily marked with an icon when you’re out in the world, which is a nice touch and saves having to refer to the Log constantly.

There’s a series of other Logs that will become available, and I was super excited to see one called the Fishing Log - I can see myself spending way too long completing that book.

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#Blaugust11

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