AFR #285 – Then and now

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Yeah, so apparently I’ve decided that Blizzard is a big blue dot with an attitude.  /shrug

I’m really happy that Blizzard has changed its mind about things like player housing and revisiting Outland.  I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll handle both of those things.  I’m not terribly excited about 90-boosts, but I’ve got nothing against them either.  On the whole, I’d say Blizzard is on the right track for the next expansion.

But Blizzard has been saying for years now that they want to get expansions out on a faster schedule.  All through Mists they were doing a great job getting patches out quickly.  It’s a little jarring now to face potentially being stuck in the same content for over a year.

AFR #197 – Some enchanted raid night

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Like the old saw about generals always preparing to fight the last war over again, it’s interesting to see how the endgame keeps evolving in response to the failings of the previous expansion.  In Vanilla, just getting a raid together with everyone in the right resistance gear and with the right quest chains done was a major hurdle.  Burning Crusade made things more accessible, but encumbered with complex attunement chains.  Wrath embraced the idea of accessibility to such an extent that people got burned out on running the same raids over and over at  different levels of difficulty, and also simplified dungeons to the point of pull group, mash aoe button, pull next group, repeat.  Cataclysm significantly stepped up the challenge of endgame dungeons and raids, but gave us nothing else to do with our max-level characters.  It’s too early to know what the Pandaria endgame is going to be like, but it’s a comfort to know that those of us who choose to opt out will still have plenty of other things to do with our gaming time.

AFR #179 – Never getting out of here

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Yeah, that’s me– I’m the guy who can’t move on to the next zone because I can’t bear to drop the gray quests from my quest log.

And don’t worry, the AFR gang will be getting to Northrend soon enough (even if they have to leave Alaxia behind).

AFR #176 – Don’t tell St. Patrick

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Look, it’s a crossover!  People love crossovers, right?  Right?

…

*Crickets*

AFR #174 – All dressed up

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When I’m looking for transmogging gear lately, I keep finding myself going to Outland for it.  Vanilla gear was fine, in a fantasy-grab-bag kind of way; in Northrend everything was dark and spiky, even the cloth; in Cataclysm the gear looks all right, but unless you’re wearing raid tier gear it’s just drab.  Outland is where it gets crazy– bright colors and interesting shapes.  And if you’re looking for a headpiece that won’t hide your luxurious locks, it’s pretty much Outland for you.

I guess that makes me a pretty sparkle princess.  Whee!