Level 6 – Much Ado About Nothing!

World of Warcraft: What to do Wednesday!

It’s the day after reset, and alot of people have done their raids for LFR and possibly done their weekly “Circle of Disappointment”. Lots of people have come to the feeling that there is nothing else to do in game except your daily chores. Today I am going 5 things that can keep you busy and entertained in WoW. Some you may already know and do yourself, but it’s good to be put out there an on a list for people.

So before I start to rant here is my list for this week!

1. If you are a PVE player, something that I have personally started doing in between content patches is to start PVPing. I try not to touch it at the beginning as I know that the lull always comes and it gives me something else to strive for other than raiding content.
   Now this doesn’t mean you have to do it on your main toon. Though if you are a mount collector as well, this is a good way to work on those at the same time (key note – they are ground mounts so you don’t have to feel bad about no flying)
2. Transmog. I love it. I usually try and make a new set each week. If you have already done the raids of your circle of dissapointment, then you may already have a bunch of the gear that looks “cool” for your toon. I need to personally clear out my void storage as I am now full. I need a bigger wardrobe it seems for my Undead Lock. (Who knew that male undead warlocks could be so fashionable!)
   You can also get different sets and pieces by doing old dungeons as well, a good addon I like to use is either AtlasLootEnhanced – Beta(which is the one for WoD) which has all the gear that each dungeon drops, or MogIt(which has the same, but in catagories and you can save your own wardrobe and it will mark what pieces you already have.)
3. Achievement Hunting! It’s a great time waster, and there are lots of titles and mounts that you can get for doing it. A great addon I like to use for my achievement hunting is Overachiever, it tracks the achievements and posts if you have /hugged, /loved, or killed something for a certain achievement. Plus the search options are much more in depth than the ones already in game.
4. Roll an opposite faction character. You would be surprised at the difference in content, as well as dungeon quests there are between the two factions. Especially if you haven’t played the other faction since before Cataclysm, or leveled one up. There are alot more and new experiences for you to enjoy and you may learn some things along the way. Though I have rolled some Alliance toons myself, I still believe that a gnome should be under the foot of a Tauren.
5. Help someone. I know, this is a very strange concept in a world all about ME, but I have met some really cool people and have had some very long and lasting friendships, just by helping someone level or through things. It doesn’t take much, and there are many stories on reddit of people getting back in contact with the person that helped them and giving them thanks. In a game that’s all about your own loot, and progression. It really does wonders to your gameplay to help someone else.

That is my list for this week, I have included where you can get those addons that I have spoken about below, and if you have your own idea’s feel free to let me know and I will put them in next weeks WoW:WtdW!

Rykter

Links!

Overachiever
AtlasLoot Enhanced
MogIt

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The Rykter Scale Podcast Episode 1!

TRS Level 1 is up on Soundcloud! The RSS Feed will be up soon today. Hopefully you all enjoy!

Show notes will be up in a little bit!

Level 5 – THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

As most of you have already figured out. 6.2 WILL NOT bring back the return of flying.

In fact, from the interview on Friday May 22nd with Polygon, Ion Hazzikostas mentions “We’re not going to be reintroducing the ability to fly in Draenor, and that’s kind of where we’re at going forward.” He also confirms that this direction includes future expansions,  though he doesn’t discount the possibility of adding flight options in to specific expansion ideas or zones that would benefit from it.

As far as Twitter, Reddit and the forums are concerned. This is the end of the world. Though we may be the ones falling from the sky, it isn’t actually falling.

In my opinion bringing flying to the whole of Azeroth was a bad game design and catered too much to the lazy player. It used to be a challenge to get your flying for Outlands, it was made for it. The world had been ripped from The Nether and distorted. It was near impossible to get to some places just using your ground mount. In fact just to get your Neatherwing mounts and the rep for it you needed your flying mount.

Northrend as well worked for flying, it was designed for it, and you still felt as if Northrend was a HUGE place with flying. Storm peaks for example were massive on the ground, you had towering mountains, and deep valleys. Then you got your flying and it was still huge, at the tops of the mountains there was content, and at it’s very peak. One of the best raids ever designed. Ulduar.

When Cataclysm hit, you could get your flying in Azeroth at 60. That I think was the mistake. Every other time you got flying it was gated till you were max level or close to. In BC it was 70, WotLK it was 77 (though once you had an 80 you could buy it for your toon that was 70), MoP even got it right, by making you wait to get your flying on Pandaria.

I believe it was too easy, and given too freely. Yes I do enjoy it. Yes it makes my life easier. Will I miss it in future expansions? Nope. Because Ion is right when he said to Polygon “The world feels larger, feels more dangerous [without flying],” he says. “There’s more room for exploration, for secrets, for discovery and overall immersion in the world.”

I have had a blast in Draenor finding every little nook and cranny, trying to wiggle my way through Spires and I missed taking a flight point and going pee. Yes I could still do it when there was flying in all of Azeroth, but it was more efficient to do it the other way.

I’ve missed the days of not flying in Azeroth, and I am happy with the direction that they are taking it in. Though it shouldn’t take half of an expansion to give us the answer we already knew. That’s just bad business.

If you would however like to read the rest of the interview where Ion talks alot more about what is happening in Draenor (such as 6.2 and it not being the last big content patch of WoD) you can read it here Polygon VS Watcher Interview.

/endrant

Rykter

SC2 – Legacy of the Void News!

Greetings! Blizzard announced not long ago that they were starting to give away beta keys to Legacy of the Void which means, within the next couple months the game should be going into open beta.
The latest balance update for Legacy Of The Void changed a couple of key elements in my opinion, such as making the cyclone not able to shoot air right off the bat. I found that to be something fairly difficult to handle from the pro games I watched. At a lower level cyclones would be sure to easily win some games due to lack of mechanical skill of players, you now need a fusion core to make them able to attack air. They also split up the Mech and sky Terran upgrades which I believe would add more diversity to the builds, and make you need to choose more of a specific build adding a more risk/reward to it all.

Blizzard finally added a new Terran unit after they removed the herc because of it being so strong in terms, early harass and easily being able to take out specific targets in the mid/late due to its pull ability; I’m looking forward to see what the liberator has in store (I think it will do a considerable amount of damage to some early Zerg play depending how much damage the splash does).

Zerg has now had 2 ‘move while burrowed’ passive’s removed for good reason. Having your roaches passively start with tunneling claws would make early Zerg rushes/harass ridiculously strong and make it so they would be hitting at the same timings, but instead with the ability to hop out of the ground around your mineral line/army to get a full surround and possibly take it out completely.

Swarm hosts also had their passive ‘move while burrowed’ removed, I don’t even think I need to explain it. Swarm hosts that could move hidden under ground able to launch up a bunch of flying locusts into the air to go harass where they please!!
That would just be disgusting. I think Zerg is in a good place with these changes.

Blizzard has been doing a decent job with these balance changes, although they could be focusing a bit more on the Protoss side of things. From what I’ve seen Skytoss is really strong right now, I haven’t seen any huge changes with it lately. I do hope they make some changes to make Protoss more balanced in the future.

Well that was my 2 cents about the new changes made to the Legacy Of The Void beta, I’ll be keeping you guys up to date as I get the info.

BreausepH.

Round 1 – EVERYBODY!! HOTS HOTS HOTS HOTS HOTS HOTS

Heroes of the Storm is officially in Open Beta!!

What does that mean to you fellow Blizzard game fan? It means there is no reason for you not to jump into The Nexus and start doing some Team Brawling!

Though before doing so, there are a few things that you should know and take into consideration. This post today will hopefully help some of you just joining us here in The Nexus better understand how to play, and start your game play off on the right foot.

When I first started into the closed beta I had no idea what I was getting into and didn’t actually read up on anything. I had dabbled in LoL and Dota 2 a bit, and played my share of Warcraft and figured it was pretty much the same, and at its core it sort of is. Like a lot of Blizzard games though, they are easy to play, but difficult to master. Heroes of the Storm is no different.

When you first enter The Nexus you are given a tutorial, which does a decent job at explaining things about Raynor and a little bit about a ranged assassin. Which is one of 4 basic roles that you can play as Warrior, Support, Specialist and Assassin. Each one of these have their own specialties in participating in the objective to destroy the opposition teams core.

The Warrior:

Warriors are essentially tanks, and are very effective at absorbing damage , allowing them to act as a buffer between their teammates and the enemy. They are also VERY good at starting team fights, being able to jump into the fray and disable enemies. They have high health and benefit from lots of defenses.

The Support:

Supports can heal and buff their teammates and are imperative in any type of team build you do. With high amounts of mana and skills that can shield, reduce cooldown, heal and buff other players they can keep popping out skills to deny the other team a kill.

The Assassin:

The Assassin is just that. The damage dealer, from ranged assassins like Kael’Thas to melee assassins like Kerigan. These people bring the pain to nuke down enemy heroes. Teaming up heroic abilities with your team mates are the key to success when you are taking out enemies. They rely on ability power and attack damage to increase their effectiveness.

The Specialist:

The Specialist is a unique role to play, as each one has different skill sets from destroying enemy turrets and bases, locking down Heroes for other team mates to nuke, all the way to buffing up your mercenaries. Specialists work with ability cooldowns and mana to help push lanes and take down enemies.

Now that you know the roles of the heroes what next?

Play the A.I. and level up the free to play heroes of that week to level 5. Each hero you get to level 5 is 500g to buy yourself heroes with. Also playing the A.I. is a very good way to learn what heroes you like with a smaller challenge. You can get used to the game and see how it works, the controls, how to lane, and how to push.

When playing the A.I. you can do it solo, in a group of friends, or have 4 other random people on your team. Anyway you do it is good until you feel confident in what you are doing and your play style to hop into Quick Match.

Though before we get into Quick Match, there are some skills you will need to master and learn.

First. Don’t Die! You may think this is a very simple thing to do and that everyone should know it, but there is no reason you should be putting yourself into a position where you can be taken out. That is a huge exp boost to the other team. Which means faster levels for them.

Second. Everyone needs to be in a lane. By doing this, the mercenaries that you and your mercs kill will add to your teams experience gain and help you get stronger. The faster you can get to level 10 before the other opponents the better. That gives you a HUGE advantage in team fights as that is when you get your Heroic abilities.

The other piece of advice about learning to lane, is make sure your mercs are out front when you are attacking towers. The towers attack them first. Another is that if you see that your mercs are going to die and you can push the opposition team AWAY from them, they will not get the exp from those kills. If you are able to do this, you can keep getting level advantages faster.

Third. Objectives are key. Each map has its own objectives, from the Haunted Mines, to Blackhands Bay. Collect what needs to be collected as fast and as soon as you can with your team mates. A hint I have about the Haunted Mines, is go for the golem first! It drops more skulls and if you all go in as a team, you will have an advantage over the opposition.

Fourth. If your team mates are pushing or are starting a team fight, even if you don’t think it’s a good idea PUSH. You have a better chance of confirming a kill with all of you there than if you leave. 5v5 is always better than a 5v4. Also try to take out the healer as fast as you can, and ignore the tank if you aren’t going to make yourself vulnerable. He’s meant to take damage, and it’s a waste to go after them first.

In conclusion, it’s an easy game to pick up, but very difficult to master. Things such as the Wombo Combo, Dual laning and Abathur (don’t get me started on him).  Main things are play lots of heroes and find ones you like. Learn to play each type of hero and get each hero up to at least level 5. That’s a lot of gold and a lot of experience, and if you can afford it, buy a stim pack and play with friends. Each friend you have in your group increases your exp gain, and the stim packs increase exp gain by 100% and gold by 150%.

Well that’s my two cents. See you in The Nexus.

Ad as always go HAM on the Core!

Rykter!

Level 4 – Why? OH GOD WHY?

Do I still find World of Warcraft fun anymore?

(A mini bio on Rykter)

After many years of playing this game, I get asked that a lot. For a game that is 10 years old, don’t you get bored? Is it still fun? Isn’t there something more constructive you could be doing with your time? Shouldn’t the dishes have been washed? The answer to all of them are profound YES.

It is however what I like to do with my time, and throughout the years I have done many different things and played many different classes.

I actually got hooked into World of Warcraft before I even knew what it was. I had been at a co-workers house for some beers about a month or so before Burning Crusades came out and he showed me a part of a match of Alterac Valley and his warrior as a tank in MC. I was just astounded as all these people were working together to keep everyone alive and kill all the things! I hadn’t ever seen anything like it, and this big dumb cow was in the front of it all.

It wasn’t until a month before patch 2.4.3 came out did I actually purchase and install Warcraft and create my first Undead Warlock named Kujata. I got him to 45 or so, then dabbled with my first druid named Tierz and got him all the way up to 70. While all this was happening I met my now wife and invited her to play as well. Then starts the 2nd warlock of mine Locktight.

Now through the years I was in some guilds, and ran a few very good, big, fun guilds that even though a bunch of the people don’t play anymore, I still talk with them. I learned alot from being a guild leader, how to manage a team, how to initiate conversations. In fact I learned alot more LIFE skills from running a guild than actual raiding. But over the couple years I was GM I was also raid leader and main tank all through WotLK. It burnt me out and had to actually step back from wow for a couple weeks and see where I stood. I did however come back and our guild merged with another and I helped manage that one with my DK tank and my warlock.

From there I jumped from server to server, and game to game, yet ALWAYS coming back to WoW. There was always something about it that pulled me in. There was always something in a different game that reminded me of WoW, sometimes they did it a little bit better, but it was the whole together ensemble that keeps people and me playing. So after a while, I’ve pretty much stayed dedicated to WoW and I figured out a way to always have something to do.

In this expansion especially, I tend to do the raiding up front and do as much of it as I can. Then comes the lulls, the time and place where most people think that it sucks, that there isn’t anything to do. For me, I haven’t touched things like, mount farming, PVP (2 weeks ago was the first time I had even stepped INTO Ashran) which I am having an ABSOLUTE blast doing. I have gone and made an Alliance druid with Reghan and Breauseph on Aerie Peak and we are going to explore that side of the story. I have done NONE of the mount quests for stables. No real treasure hunting. I am also now seriously looking at more transmog.

The reason for all of this? It was expected. There is always a lull, there is always the downtime between tiers. It isn’t anything new. It may have come a little sooner than last expansion, but that is also I think because they are trying to push out content faster than before. (Though I don’t believe they are doing a successful job on that part).

I have always paced myself, and I have a list of things to do if there isn’t anything to be done. I learned that one from my parents, who would tell me that if I couldn’t find something myself, they would do it for me. I usually didn’t like what they found for me.. And that’s a part that has always stuck in game too.

So if you don’t want to be bored, aren’t as excited in the game. Make a list, don’t do everything at the start of an expansion, it’s still going to be there 6 months down the road. Sell stuff, do professions -even if WoD has made them feel trivial- and stop complaining.

World of Warcraft is boring. You are bored of running your own hamster wheel, and it’s time for you to take a step down and go see what else is out there for you to explore.

Rykter.

Level 3 – I looooove Gooooooollllldddd

Currencies.

World of Warcraft has had a lot of different ones over the years ranging from Gear Tokens, Emblems, Justice and Valor Points, and Apexis Crystals just to name a few. It has always been some form of mechanic to gate what you can and can’t do and how fast you can do it. In WotLK you could grind out Dungeons to get Emblems of Triumph, or in MoP go to Timeless Isle to grind out frogs to get currency to improve your gear.

It all however boils down to gold, the in game market now more than ever is centralized around it. In fact it is so centralized around it that we now have The WoW Token and for $20 USD you can purchase one and put it on the Auction House for what ever your region selling price is. The price you list it at is what you get in return, regardless if the market goes up or down while it is on there, and in return the person purchasing it gets 30 days of game time.

You can take a look at https://wowtoken.info/ to see what the going price is to maximize when you want to sell one or buy one.

It is also now, easier than ever to make gold in-game. From garrison missions, to farming 25HC Cataclysm raids, selling battle pets and the like. People are now accumulating a lot of it. And that’s not a bad thing, in earlier expansion it would take you months just to save up enough to get your Epic Riding or Epic Flying. Now that is chump change in 2 days worth of work if that.

The only bad thing I see, and it was something I was afraid of when the WoW token came into play is not having it as a possibility that you could Pay to Win.

In the most recent patch notes, you are now able to buy all the Apexis Crystal gear up to 675 for in-game gold instead.

This is just 6.2 PTR prices and are subject to change.

What does this mean with the WoW Token and the changes made? Pay to Win. It may not be that, it may not be the reason for this and they just want people to have more accessibility to the new content. But when you put a type of way to buy in-game currency, then put gear on sale for in-game currency from NPC’s then this is a problem.

Yes there is the argument about BOP’s selling for gold, or even people selling full runs of Blackrock Foundry Heroic for 250k but the BOP’s have always been there, and the people selling the runs have done that in the past.

Blizzard only ever sold gear for gold, on the next expansion when the gear is obsolete and people want to use it for Transmogging. You can go to Shattrah, inside ICC or Dalaran and buy old sets for gold, but that gear was not current.

The other thing that irks me, that I have noticed no one has really mentioned in the patch notes about gold and currency. Is that in 6.2 they are removing the 1000g that you get with the BRF and Highmaul Cache. I know I for one would use Treasure Hunting traits to double and triple the amount of gold I would get out of there.

It stinks. It has the smelly smell of people not having it as accessible to get the gold ,and wanting to gear an alt or main that just needs that bit of gear to get them to the iLVL for Hellfire Citadel or HC/Mythic BRF. If you notice the 675iLVL gear is 20k gold in the picture, about the same cost of gold that you would get out of a token.

This may not be the intention that Blizzard meant to do, it may just be a coincidence. But it boils down to real money to buy in game rewards. It’s something that Blizzard has never done, and should change before the patch comes out.

Then again, that’s just my two cents. Let me know what you think.

That’s all for now.

Rykter signing off.

Level 2 – The Sub Loss, and what I think the problem is.

As everyone has known since last week, the quarterly earnings for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft came out and guess what.

Psst…They weren’t very good.

In fact they lost close to 3 million subs, dropping from 10 million subscribers at the start of Warlords of Draenor to 7.1 million, which is around what they were at the peak of Mists of Pandaria.

Now there are quite a few people saying that some of the changes that were made in or introduced in Warlords are the reason for the decline is subscriptions. Such as the introduction of “Garrison Chores”, how much content that is available to them, no flying in Draenor, professions don’t really mean anything anymore are just a few. To be frank yes those are contributing to it all, but I believe the main factor in it is due to the lack of community that is in WoW now a days.

The lack of central dual faction hubs, the removal of the use of major cities, insta-click LFR (which yes does have a lot of good uses) and Garrisons. They have taken the Massive Multiplayer out of the M-M-O and have reduced it to an Online RPG that you don’t really need to interact with people to play anymore. Except for a few guilds such as CTR on Aerie Peak, which is one of, if not the largest WoW community out there, the community is mostly gone in the game. I believe that is the main reason people are leaving.

With content being put out so quickly now in Blizzards new business model, people are doing the things they want to and then leaving. I’ve seen people on twitter say that they will be back as of 6.2 when the new raid tier comes out, but till then they are gone. I do believe that the introduction of the weekend events such as the Timewalking Dungeons and Mythic Tier 5-mans that it may help pull those people back in.

Now the reason I say that community and the lack there of is the major contributing factor in all this, is to take a look at private servers. When I took my break from Retail, I had decided to go and try out some private servers to keep my itch going for World of Warcraft. The server I eventually ended up on was a Wrath server. Now a bunch of the people on that server played there due to lack of funds, but a majority did it for the community. There were events held that you could sign up for. Some that just started randomly by GM’s of the server, or were announced ahead of time that it was taking place.

It can’t just be a content thing, because even after Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria came out, those same people were coming back and playing with the same people. There friends were there both in Retail and in the Private server.

Now private servers are not the answer, but I think if Blizzard took a look at some of them, and not for the player base that they are taking from them, but for how these servers after so long still have these people. I think they might learn something from them.

That however is just my two cents and ramblings and may add more on this later. That’s all for now.

Rykter signing off.

Level 1 – Welcome to The Rykter Scale!

So I have been thinking of doing this for a while. This will be the start up of a World of Warcraft/Blizzard Gaming blog and hopefully podcast. The reason for this? I play a lot of Blizzard games, PC games in general and think I have something to share and offer. (Give people more of an opinion out there and see if anyone else may agree with me.)

Anyways here’s hoping that it all works out and picks up quickly…I may need a bigger hard drive but Christmas is coming and hopefully Santa brings the Mrs and I a new Rig!