The Cataclysm expansion seems to be going pretty well. Apparently my server has queues with at least 1500+ starting in the evening and even well past midnight the queues run in the hundreds. What that basically means is that when I want to play at night I have to wait over one hour. Oh well.
I kept saying I would never go back to playing WoW full time again, but I guess I’m wrong. Pretty much everything else I tried was just trying to be WoW or else just sucked. Why play free2play games and not be on a level playing field with paying micro transaction customers. Why pay for another subscription based MMORPG when WoW is better?
Anyhow I hit level 70 this past Saturday. Probably 3 years later than I should have. I just took the time to look up stuff for my Priest and see where and what I should probably do. Instead of Thotbott I’m now navigating WoWWiki for information. All the priest gear sets seem to be really confusing along with this gear score thing which really seems to be just used to shut people out of raiding if you have a low one. I hate questing so I’ve been leveling through battlegrounds. I also don’t like doing instances, but I’ll probably force myself to do it in order to get the better gear.
The way they have set up talent trees now pretty much locks you into a primary and a secondary talent. You’re pretty much forced to get an entire primary talent and it is almost impossible not to get most of the right talents. In some ways I like that they keep changing things up but in others I wish they just left everything alone and just add new choices so people could just choose themselves. For the idiots that just want a clear path they should just add a preset template option. The healing tree really gets confusing though since at the end there are some choice spells you can maybe leave out which are instant casts. I’ll probably have to get used to this Chakra thing which seems rather ridiculous since you have to constantly have it up if you want maximum healing.
I also spent a good part of my time this past week looking up add-ons or mods. I loaded some CTMod add-ons and CTRaidAssist to get me up and running initially. I went to Curse Gaming to see what the latest ones were. I began to realize why I probably quit playing when the Burning Crusade expansion came out. All my mods were broken and I was burned out. Clearly the user interface makes a huge difference for many people. It allows users to play better and feel good about playing on their customized screens.
I asked my hardcore buddy what user interface and mods he uses and he said he just uses the default. Mods are for noobs, but then his major characters are a Warrior, Druid, and Death Knight. I wish I could just use the default but the button bars aren’t placed well and unit frames or target and user frame are too small for my new 24” widescreen monitor. The default button bars also get cramped and the Gryphons and the second row having a gray background really don’t sit with me well.
I used to use MoveAnything and Bongos2 for my user interface and some CTMods. I was glad to see that updated version of MoveAnything and Bongos2 (now called Dominos) were available and working fine. The MoveAnything mod allows me to resize my user and target frame and move them to wherever I want. Dominos is primarily a button bar customization mod. I also added a nicer combat log display mod called Hitsmode5 and a button cool down indicator mod called OmniCC. I also added the Decursive mod to make dispelling and curing diseases easier for my priest. Easy mode for my priest, why not? I’m returning and just like a newbie after all. I guess I still refuse to use Healbot which is extremely popular to use for healers and priests.
I learned from forums and some guild sites listing suggested and required raiding mods that CTRaidAssist was pretty much hardly used anymore after it initially broke when the Burning Crusade came out. It was replaced by Ora2 (Tank windows and other features) and SRaidFrames. I loaded SRaidFrames. The major improvement is that it has a spell range indicator which CTRaidAssist lacks. Another mod called Grid also seemed very popular but I like the SRaidFrames look which is nearly identical to CTRaidAssist. I would have just used the WoW default raid group windows, but they revamped it and you don’t have as much control moving the groups around on your screen.
I loaded WoW Instant Messenger since there is so much going on your chat screen you can easily miss whispers. I have not loaded a spell damage meter, a damage boss mod, or Ora2 since I haven’t started raiding yet.
Questing has become so ridiculously easy. In the past you would have to explore and find where and what to kill. One would have to actually think or map out things on your own or else look up the locations of mobs on a website. Now you just have to look at your in game map and it tells you exactly where to go to find practically everything. I guess people enjoy following a clear path without having the challenge to locate mobs. Making the game easier with fewer obstacles attracts more people and more money I suppose. Why don’t they just give you the option to buy an instant level 85 character? They really should sell gold since the people who are willing to buy gold will do so anyways. Those who like to quest and role play can play the game from level 1.
