Pages

Monday, September 13, 2010

Liquidate now!

MMO Champion is estimating that Cataclysm will be launched on November 2nd or close to that date. I tend to believe these guys because they've been right in the past with their predictions. Apart from that, patch 4.0.1 will hit live servers sooner than I would have expected. All this means that Cataclysm is indeed upon us.

My subscription has expired for about a week and I don't want to renew it just yet. I want to play again before Cataclysm for several reasons. First, I want to get some more discipline healing done on my priest. Second, I need to sell all my stocks of mats because I have a feeling they'll lose a lot of their value in the expansion.

Normally I would have hung on to my stocks because a lot of people will re-roll and will want to power level their professions. This expansion, however, will be different. Remember that while normal recipes will give one skill point, blue and epic ones will give more, up to five if I'm not mistaken. This means that fewer mats will be required to level your professions so demand will likely be lower.

Furthermore, since people will be able to fly in Azeroth, they will also be able to gather old-world mats very quickly, likely leading to an over-supply.

That's my problem for now. I have to clean up my inventory and guild bank. I'm not really looking towards making a killing during the first days of Cataclysm. If I can see an opportunity I'll take it but I won't be intentionally spending time to make even more gold. I want to enjoy the game by playing my classes in the revamped world.

I'm still not sure when I should renew my subscription. If the Nov 2nd date is correct, maybe I should wait until the first week of October. I still have a lot of things to take care of in real life until then. I haven't even been around a computer for the past week so I'm a bit out of touch with the online world. What I'm seeing from the Cataclysm beta makes me hungry for leveling some new classes and trying the new mechanics.

10 comments:

Echo said...

I would suggest you to just sit, relax and wait. I'm in the beta since 2 weeks and to be really honest... it's all about "kill x mobs, bring me y items" all over again. Yes, we definitively get some cool new stuff... But the "cool" effect -at least for me- faded pretty soon (2-3 days).

After so much tim in WoW I really start noticing the problems, more than the qualities. Animations, 3D models, graphics in general.. .well they all suck, and suck VERY hard.

I don't manage to immerse myself in the storyline and in the quests when I see "popping" mobs from nothing, npc's fading away while running, zero-animations for common stuff (mount and dismount, for example).

The game itself was awesome 5 years ago. Nowadays... I must admit that it looks pretty basic and poorly designed, from a "visual" point of view.

Oh... and one of the two starting areas is a nightelf-like zone. I just puked when I saw it :-|

Echo said...

Relatd to "new mechanics" I've been playing with a hunter (my main toon since 4 yeas or so). I was very excited at the idea of focus, no ammo, pets-revamp and so on. But you know what? At th end of the day I'm not enjoying my hunter anymore.

From mana to focus is a *HUGE* change, both in terms of playstyle and fun (in my opinion). So many things changed that I feel like a sort of "gimped ranged-rogue". With less tools in my arsenal.

Maybe it's time to really put the game away and move on :-)

Gyldenfeax said...

I've been wondering when Cataclysm will be released and I hope it's not November 2nd. I'm 8k rep short of exalted with the Hydraxian Waterlords. 8k means 8 runs at 1 run a week. It's mid September now so if MC is removed and November 2nd is the release date I won't make exalted.

Wow graphics might be dated but it's content that really matters. Hopefully quests are more fun and dungeons less of an AOE-fest. Increased use of phasing might also spice things up a bit. A break from the game does make it more fun when you return, but 5 years is a lot to devote to 1 game.

Hopefully the popularity of hunters means Blizzard will be careful not to take the fun out of the class. A lot of people have a hunter as a secondary toon and that's a lot of people to piss off.

Cold said...

Can't you just grind elementals in silithus for the rest of your rep?

Darth Solo said...

@Echo I'm more optimistic than you, I'm afraid. The graphics don't bother me because the gameplay is almost never-ending. Yes, from time to time I get burned out and I take a break, sometimes months at a time. But eventually I will return. The changes from Cataclysm are great and they are so many that it's gonna be almost a new game. I can't wait for it. As for hunters... I'm afraid that focus will break the class but we're still in beta and things will change. If they end up making hunters annoying I won't care too much because I have a lot of other classes that I want to play.

@Gyldenfeax that would suck for you but are they removing MC for good or just adjusting it to be a regular instance?

Yeah, from what the devs are saying, dungeons will require more finesse and CC which is something I am looking forward to, having played in vanilla WoW and now in Wrath. Back in vanilla each class capable of CC had to use it or else the group was in trouble. These days people not only forget that they have CC abilities but it seems that most of them prefer to wipe after pulling insane numbers of mobs rather than spending a couple of extra minutes for some CC.

Gyldenfeax said...

Unfortunately, Cold, Silithus mobs only get you to honored. I'm currently only getting rep from bosses.

I wish they would confirm it one way or another, Darth. Two-manning MC every week is getting old real quick. I much prefer to take bites out of things over longer periods, if and when the mood takes me. I hate rushing!

Jeremy said...

I was wondering when Cata was going to hit, and I'm very looking forward to it. I've put my disc priest on hold and been leveling a druid that I just started a month or month and a half ago. I hit 60 last night, so.. I've got about 6 weeks to get to 80 and buy some heirlooms for the level 1 that I'm going to start over come cata. :P

Darth Solo said...

@Gyldenfeax how is 2-manning MC? Hard or easy? I think you'd better try to get your rep now as you'll never know what happens later and you might miss out on it. Still, I'd be surprised if Blizzard completely removed ways to get maximum rep with certain factions.

@Jeremy depending on how many heirlooms you need you'll have to run heroics like crazy in those 6 weeks. How many can you run in a day?

Gyldenfeax said...

I've soloed MC on my PVP Prot geared Paladin and with sufficient fire-resist gear and a magic resist pot for Gehennas it's doable but way too slow (4 hrs or more).

With my BM Hunter (in PVP gear) on my second account teamed with my pally it takes 2-2.5 hrs and is completely free of "oh shit" moments. Still repetitive though. Of course, doing it alone (is dual accounts still solo?) gets you all the loot. No Bindings yet but the Eye of Sulfuras dropped a few weeks ago.

Jeremy, you can also get pvp orientated heirlooms (weapon and shoulder slot) with Stone Keeper Shards doing Wintergrasp quests. It's not exactly ideal for pve but still gets you a 10% xp bonus.

Darth Solo said...

Doing it with two accounts is solo-ing on steroids! I wish I could do it but I simply can't justify buying 2 accounts. Not to mention separate hardware, unless you're playing on the same machine which seems harder to do.