Time to take a break for a while from the spoilerrific posts of the new starting areas. I'd like to talk about one of the features I like the most that are coming in cata.
The vast majority of those who take raiding seriously (well, as seriously as you can take a game) know of a little addon called Power Auras. This is without a doubt the most useful addon for raiding. It's the addon that will help you the most at being great at what you do, no matter the role.
What exactly is Power Auras, you ask? Well, to explain why Power Auras is so good and what it's used for, I first need to make a point: WoW's UI is really, really bad. It's functional, but when you want to track ANYTHING useful with it, it shows that it comes from a time where everquest was king and raiding wasn't as difficult as it is now.
WoW's UI comes from simpler times, where keeping track of everyone's HP in a raid didn't matter much because you didn't have to make split-second decisions. The life of the tanks didn't depend of wether you could use a macro to bring him up from 10% to full health in 2 seconds or the Raid wipes. It comes from a time where it didn't matter if you knew that a proc was up so you could capitalize on it and maximize your dps. Bosses weren't balanced around 40 people maximizing their performance. They were balanced on 15 people maximizing their performance, 15 more doing decent to mediocre performances, and 10 more afking for half or the whole fight.
What power auras does is to give you a visual cue of your choice, exactly where you want in the screen, and triggered by anything in the game. Still don't get it? well, let me give you an example: As a Holy Priest, you must keep track of a buff called Serendipity. Now, Keeping track of this buff in the default UI is a pain in the ass, because this buff stacks 3 times and in the default UI that's almost impossible to see, and also the default UI throws this buff along all the other 30 buffs you'll have in a raid, in a frikken corner of the screen.
With power auras, you could configure this buff to show up as a semi-transparent graphic of your choice that appears AROUND your toon, so you always know when it procs. You could also add a counter on its side so you know how many stacks you have, or you could make it less transparent as it gains more stacks. You could also add a timer nearby so you know when it will expire.
Useful eh? Not only this, you could track when a trinket is ready for use, when your target has certain buff or debuff, when you have low mana, low health, combo points, runes... WHATEVER! you can track anything and everything and display it on the screen however you want. That's why this Addon is so Valuable for anyone that wants to be as best as he/she can in a raid.
This addon is, in my opinion, even more valuable than Deadly Boss Mods, because after you know the fights, it's pretty much redundant in most cases. This addon however, will always be helpful, and is helpful for everybody.
Now, the real reason I am talking about Power Auras, is this:
Yes, that's me in the beta, and no, that's not Power Auras. That's Blizzard's own implementation of power auras in-game.
Blizzard's version is much simpler than Power Auras. It just tracks certain critical spells for different classes (In this case, Arcane Missiles procs for Mages) and you can't change or modify the graphic displayed, at the moment. I don't expect it to become as complex as power auras, but this is a REALLY good implementation of the addon. I hope you can have some control and customization in the final version, because right now everything is set in stone and you can only toggle it on or off.
Anyways, for those who love power auras this is something to look forwards to. For those of you who never heard of Power Auras before, shame on you. Go get it right now and learn how to use it, it's guaranteed to make you a better player. Or you can wait till cata and check out the "Official" version. Either way, this was a really neat surprise.
(Damn this was longer than originally planned. TL;DR!)
The Beta is kind of a mess right now. This must be one of the buggiest beta patches, because a lot of critical quests - quests that block advancement - are broken, some mechanics are broken as well, and.. well, it's hard to keep record of anything because it's impossible to see an entire zone, and in some cases, you can't even get to see any of it.
But that's what beta tests are for, right? I'm very grateful I got a beta key and I try my best to report bugs and suggestions every day. With that in mind, I'll keep posting my impressions so far, but unless we get a new (and more stable) patch things will be kind of incomplete.
Also, I was playing on a server that doesn't shows up on my list anymore, so I lost all my characters. Time to start anew, I guess!
Time for some Shen'dralar goodness.
A little lore background: You can now roll Night Elves Mages because the Shen'dralar came back to the night elves and wanted to join them again for the sake of surviving against the forces that threaten Azeroth in cataclysm. So basically if you roll a night elf mage it's either a Shen'dralar or a young night elf that is being taught arcane magic by them.
The night elf starting zone is almost the same as before. The quest haven't changed much regarding what you have to do, but they have changed a lot regarding WHY you are doing what you do. The story is much better now, it's very well told and everything has a purpose.
Some things have changed, to make some quests easier. Everyone that has leveled up a nelf remembers the quests inside the Imps cavern, or the quests in the barrow dens. Those were some really annoying quests, but now the devs changed them and they don't seem much of a hassle, and are in fact fun now.
For this quest, now you get an item that roots and kills the imps, so you are free to explore the cave and complete the other quests without worrying for respawns on these annoying fucks.
One of the biggest surprises was the change to the Barrow Dens quest. This was one of the most annnoying quests because that place is a mess and the mobs were kind of unforgiving. Now, after I entered the dens, a night elf sentinel came to my aid! but the best part is, you could ask her for directions to the 4 quest items you need from here, and she would create a green mist that would flow in the direction of the item! that right there improved this place by 1000%. They could have made the sentinel not attack the mobs with you and this quest would have been vastly improved by the green mist.
I really hope they implement this new tech in some other confusing quests and dungeons. I can see this working in The Wailing Caverns, one of the most confusing dungeons in the game.
I also found a whole new line of quests in teldrassil, along with a new area. This quest takes you to a path up the mountains inside of teldrassil to free some druids of the talon controlled by a furlborg. It was nice to see new things added to this zone.
Finally, the zone seems to end in an EPIC quest where you combat the remaining corruption on teldrassil (which is an army of demons and satyrs) by being infused with power by Elune herself. Your actionbar changes to different abilities that sound totally epic. Alas, this quest is bugged, so I can't really say how it ends, or how it goes, or take screenshots. From the looks of it and the buildup, it seemed to do justice to the zone.
I glossed over this zone but as with the human zone the experience here has been vastly improved. This zone used to be very dull and pointless, but now it's very interesting and not annoying at all. The new flight points in the zone cut down the walking you have to do, and overall it's very well tuned. I can see myself leveling up my night elves in this zone again.
By the way, I visited Darnassus, and with the changes to some of the architecture and the new graphic improvements it looks prettier than ever. Also, there's a new zone, the Howling tree, and it seems to be where the worgen will hang around. It's very beautiful.
I will leave you with a slideshow of some of the pictures I took. Enjoy!
As the 90% of beta testers, I created and leveled up a Worgen when I got in the beta. It's the first thing most people do, besides checking out the post 80 content. I will probably not talk about it much because the information about the worgen quests are avaliable everywhere.
After the obligatory worgen roll, I rolled a human hunter, and that's what I'm going to talk about today.
Compared to the other revamped zones, the human starting zones (Northshire Abbey/Elwynn Forest) haven't seen nearly as much changes. Anyways, as I rolled my hunter I got dropped in the same place you start right now on live, except there's a new recruiting booth nearby. Once you get your first quest, you see King Varian aproaching. Yes, now humans get recruited by King Varian himself!
Anyways the quests are mostly intact. Kill wolves, go for the troggs, "YOU TAKE NO CANDLE", etc. The only change is that there are no more Defias around. The Defias are completely gone (Or at least they make you think that!), and instead you get the Orcs from the burning steppes that are attacking the Abbey. They burned down the grape farm, btw.
After you get out of Northshire you are sent to Goldshire just like in Live. Again, the quests are the same but they have been somewhat reorganized so you don't have to walk as much as before. But you have the same quests in the Saldean farm, and well you get the point, it's mostly the same but better streamlined.
Something they changed though was adding Flight points in both Goldshire and Eastvale logging camp. This makes the questing in this area MUCH better. I remember hating that dreaded walk from Goldshire to Eastvale. I didn't find new quests in the logging camp though, it's again mostly the same as in live, only not as annoying. All of the annoying quests were removed as well, so that's a plus.
As far as I've seen, all the zones now have a theme that leads into a couple of final quests that are the climax of the zone. Elwynn doesn't have a real theme, you run around helping people and handling the trogg, gnoll and murloc problems. There's a final quest though, and it was kind of epic, and surprising!
Everyone remembers Hogger. It's one of those WoW memes that everyone inside of the game knows, and even people outside of the game know as well. Well, Blizzard saw the chance to capitalize on this and they gave Hogger his own hill in the gnoll camp. When you engage him, the fight seems like normal, but this time around, he calls minions when he's low on health, and also runs off to his hill and eats the carcasses to regain his health! Badass.
After I dealt with him, to my surprise, General Marcus - warden of the stockades, appears along with 2 mages, and takes him as a prisoner to the stockades! what's even more fun is when you turn the completed quest to Marshal Duggan and he complains about the implications of having a powerful gnoll in a jail with a lot of other gnolls.
Below I am posting a slideshow of the whole thing:
View all
Overall, don't expect a whole new experience for the humans and their starting zone, Elwynn Forest. although it changes dramatically once you get to Westfall, the experience in Elwynn is mostly unchanged. However, it is much easier to level up here now, and the experience is less of a hassle and definitely more fun.
I wanted to create a Goblin but Blizzard blocked new Goblin characters because it was crashing the server or something. So I created a Human hunter instead. The human starting zone (Northshire Abbey/Elywinn forest) has hardly changed, except for the Defias being completely gone and the Dragonmaw Orcs from the Burning steppes invading. They consolidated some quests and there's less walking around overall, but it's mostly unchanged.
Next I created a Gnome Priest, the most epic new combination you can ever try. The new gnome starting zone is really fun, although it's really short. You can feel the fun and quirky gnome spirit right from the start. It was my favorite revamped starting zone. Plus, GNOME PRIESTS.
After that I tried a Tauren Paladin AKA Sunwalker AKA Holy Cow.
Overall, paladins are more fun now that you get more spells when you are low level. The Tauren starting zone from 1-5 has changed a lot, and it doesn't require you to dive in that dreaded quillboar maze anymore. Before you get out of the 1-5 zone, you get a very nice quest that sets up the spirit of being a Tauren and why they fight.
Then I tried out a Night elf Mage. This is the zone I found that had the less changes. The quests require you to do the same as before, and the locations haven't changed as far as I've seen (I still haven't done the whole zone, just got to dolaanar and did a couple of quests) but what has changed is the story behind the quests. It's really cool how everything actually makes sense now, and how they tell you the story of the night elves as you go, even including the recently released "Stormrage" novel.
Overall, this really feels like a huge change to world of warcraft. The new tutorials will really help new players, and the new quests are so much better planned. Also, quests rewards were reworked and the models are completely different, and they look much much better than the old ones. The game is REALLY hard at the moment. The mobs hit like a truck and your HP regen is pathetic. I don't know if it's a bug, but I hope so, because as an experienced player I died several times with some of this characters.
I will keep posting about my experiences with the Beta. I will be uploading photos to my imageshack album, you can check it our here, I will be constantly uploading pictures.
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