I now have a few play sessions in the Wrath beta under my belt, so I thought I’d give some impressions. Keep in mind these are very early impressions, and I’ve only seen the two starting areas in Northrend.  I should also note that I am about as biased as you can be.  I love World of Warcraft, and my guess is that if you’re reading this you do as well.  I’ve played it for four years now, and I see no end in sight.

Wrath, as I’ve seen it, looks like it will keep me playing.

The very first thing I noticed upon logging in was the changes in the graphics.  No, there isn’t any big graphics overhaul, but it does look like they did some tweaking and optimization to the graphics engine.  Everything looks a little crisper, a little cleaner, and the contrasts are better.  It looks to me like WoW is getting a fresh coat of pain in Wrath.

The graphics in WoW have never been about pushing a billion polygons, but they have always focused on one thing:  art direction.  Blizzard is not letting me down in regards to the art direction based on what I’ve seen so far.  In my opinion, though the graphics are cartoony, WoW has always been one of the most immersive games of its type.  The reason for that is rock solid art direction, and a certain cohesiveness to the game world that other titles have lacked.  WoW always felt like a world  to me, and not just a game. 

As far as the starting zones in Northrend, I was a bit underwhelmed with the Borean Tundra when I first landed.  I suppose that part of the issue is that it is the Borean Tundra which doesn’t exactly make for a dynamic, beautiful zone.  Much like the Barrens, there is only so much you can do to make a Tundra interesting. 

The Howling Fjord, on the other hand, is absolutely beautiful.  Right from the boat ride in and the first reveal of the zone, I was blown away.  Here is a pic of the Fjord as it opens up before you.

Awesome, huh?  I love the waterfalls, and in the background you can see Utgarde Keep, the big stone structure with the skulls.  Very, very nice.  I was excited immediately.  There is also a very cool suspended burning ship that you float under before getting to the above shot.  I didn’t get a good shot of it on the boat, but I did manage to get a good view later.  Here it is, from a flying machine taxi I was on.

Just great stuff from Blizzard, though I can’t say I’m surprised.  Here are a couple more scenic pics for your enjoyment.  The first is a closer view of Utgarde, and the second is an excavation site you get to a bit later.

So, everything looks good, how about the actual content?  Well, I’m fairly happy on that account as well.  I’ve only done a whole bunch of the starter quests in the Fjord so far, but I have a pretty fair idea of the direction.  In honesty, it’s mostly more of the same.  Kill X of these guys, collect X of this.  There are some definite improvements, however. 

For one, I seemed to run into extra quest givers all over the place.  I’d be off finishing up one quest to find another nearby that was related.  I will say there have also been a few quests that are trying to shake up the formula at least a little.  One quest has you fighting one big guy after another in a gladiator-like setting.  Another quest had me saving prisoners, but the minor twist here was the prisoners actually stuck around to fight a little.  Not in an escort quest way, but just because they felt like turning on their former captors a bit for some payback.

Another nifty little quest had me retrieving an artifact from within a crypt teeming with undead.  We’re talking a LOT of undead.

If you notice in that shot I have a gold colored shield around me.  That was a buff put on me by the NPC that gave the quest, and it literally roasted any undead I came in contact with.  I was like a pinball of death, it was fun. 

The last thing I’ll touch on right now is the Achievement system.  I love this system.  Really.  This thing is right up my alley.  I played Lord of the Rings for all of the first free month, and the one thing that I REALLY liked about that game was their achievement system.  Sure, they are ultimately kind of pointless, but it gives me another little thing to do in my short play stints.  I started out with a handful completed dealing with Classic WoW and BC stuff.  I also quickly picked up a couple for training GrandMaster in a few tradeskills. 

Then I saw the "Friend or Fowl" achievement, and I had to have it.

At that point, a turkey killing rampage ensued. The funny thing is I spec’d Moonkin since it worked well with my resto gear. (I think I’m going to like the stat consolidation they are doing, by the way. Bye bye "healing" gear.) Turkey on Turkey violence, when will it end?

The above shot is me shortly after successfully killing 15 turkeys in 3 minutes.  Once you do that, you get a turkey hit called on you, and turkeys materialize from everywhere to take you down.  It’s a lot like the little Easter Egg in The Legend of Zelda:  A Link to the Past.  They didn’t post a real threat, as my Starfall spell made quick work of them.

So that should get us up and running on beta info.  There are about 2.5 trillion things I could talk about right now, but I’ll try to pace myself.  I’m presently collecting shots of the early quest rewards, and I’ll try to do a post real soon on them.  The devs have said that it isn’t a huge "gear reset" like in BC, and that does indeed look true.  Still, there are some interesting things about the rewards we’ll get to later. 

Be sure to let me know if there’s anything else in particular you’d like me to cover about the beta.

Teron Gorefiend.  How I have learned to loathe thee…

I’m all for a challenge, I really am.  If you look at my list of Top 5 Five Man Boss Fights, you’ll see I have a preference for challenging fights.  I like to have to work to succeed.  Honestly, I do.

But Teron Gorefiend?  This encounter is just flat out frustrating, and not necessarily because it is honestly challenging.

For the uninitiated, I’ll give a brief rundown of how this encounter works.  Basically, a random raid member is targeted with a debuff called Shadow of Death every 30 seconds.  The affected player will die in 55 seconds, and when he dies four shadowy constructs will spawn around him.  The affected player will also become a ghost when they die that has special abilities controlled through the pet bar.  The Shadowy Constructs that spawn CANNOT be harmed by live players, only by the ghost.  You must kill all four before they reach the raid.  The Shadowy Constructs can and will wipe the raid should too many of them make it there.

In a nutshell, if you can’t kill your constructs in time, there is a VERY GOOD chance the whole raid will wipe.

Now, killing your constructs before they get to the raid is not impossible, but it can be quite hard.  You have to be quick and you have to be able to target the four constructs efficiently.

Basically how it pans out is that some people have a fairly easy time doing it, while others find it nearly impossible.  If you play a lot of First Person Shooters, this event would probably be cake for you.  The problem is, people who play WoW aren’t necessarily the types that play First Person Shooters. There will undoubtedly be at least a couple people in the raid that just can’t get the job done.  You’ll find yourself hoping that Player X does not get the debuff.

This is bad for raiding.  Raiding is already fairly stressful, what with gear requirements and learning all the different and difficult encounters.  Raiders already have a tendency to single people out for under-performing.  The last thing we need is an encounter that makes it blatantly obvious.

The Teron Gorefiend fight does just that.  It can drive a wedge into the raid as frustration sets in.  "Why can’t Hunter X kill his stupid constructs?"  It can very easily devolve into a bout of finger pointing and hurt feelings.  I can’t imagine how many guilds have been driven apart by this one stupid fight. 

If you’re lucky, you raid with good people who won’t point fingers and understand that this encounter is just plain stupid.

And I am telling you that it is.

As a disclaimer, this is not sour grapes.  I can and have successfully killed my constructs when given the opportunity.  I had trouble my first try, but after that I started to get the hang of it and am no longer intimidated. 

My problem with it is that WoW is not a first person shooter, nor a twitch game.  If I wanted that kind of challenge, I’d be playing Call of Duty 4.  I play WoW because I DON’T like twitch based challenges.  I had my fill of those in the old NES and SNES days.  (And, in the interest in full disclosure, I was damn good in my day.  People all around feared me when I selected Ryu in Super Street Fighter.  Hell, I even mastered Zangief just to embarrass my friends!)

I feel bad for the people that have never played twitch games, and might not be equipped to handle the speed and targeting necessary to get the job done.  Hell, I know quite a few people who never played anything prior to World of Warcraft. 

In a way it’s like the Magtheridon fight.  Sure, that necessitates quick reflexes and clicking the cubes at just the right time, but you have control over who should click the cubes.  In the Teron fight, it is completely and utterly random.

Boo.

So maybe you convinced  your wife to give WoW a try.  And as wives are wont to do, she rolled a healer.  Over time, she grew into a fantastic and reliable raid healer, and you invite her without hesitation to the raids.  But then you get to Teron, and she has to become a DPSer with abilities she’s never seen before.  And to top it all off, if she fails, the raid dies.

That is just plain idiotic.  How did Blizz come up with this stupid encounter anyway?  I have a theory.

One day, a dev was getting a root canal.  While he was getting this painful and tedious procedure, he also had to do his taxes at the same time, as it was April 15th.  So he thought to himself:

What could be worse than this?  If only I could come up with a boss fight that is the equivalent of this hell I have subjected myself to!

And so Teron Gorefiend and his Shadowy Constructs were born.  The WoW equivalent of a root canal and doing your taxes rolled into one.

Yeah, that’s fun.

This will be a short post, I’m still not quite clear to get back to a regular schedule. A 3 day old baby wreaks havoc on your schedule.  Anyhow, Mom and the little guy are home, and everyone is doing just great.  Thanks to everyone who sent their well wishes!

From here on out, Beta alert!  There are no spoilers really, but just so you know it’s beta talk.

As far as WoW goes, I haven’t had a whole lot of time for the game.  I did get in a BT run on Wednesday night, and saw the Najentus fight for the first time.  Sadly, he didn’t drop the helm I was hoping for.  Anyhow, we also took down Supremus and the Shade, and took a couple quick attempts at Gorefiend.  I’m hoping we take him down Saturday.

In other news, and the reason for the title, is that PTD is now in the Beta for Wrath.  A VERY gracious reader sent me an email the other day and asked if I would like his beta key.  He didn’t have any time for the game, and thought I would put it to good use.  I replied in the affirmative about 1.5 seconds later.  I was going to name said reader, but then I thought that perhaps that would cause some breach of some thing or other, and get either his or my accounts in trouble.  So we’ll leave it at this:  you know who you are, and I’m very, VERY thankful. 

I spent a good 3-4 hours downloading the client and getting it patched up.  I also need to thank Phaelia for pointing out a place to find workable mods for the beta.  I couldn’t live without ArkInventory at this point!  Around 11:30 or so last night I finally had everything up and running, and logged into the beta server.

Who the heck took Pummra?  I know Phae and Valenna had a hard time with their usual names as well.  This must be stopped! 

Anyhow, it gave me the chance to rename Pummra anyhow, as I haven’t felt like Pummra in a long time.  Now I get to go by PTD!  I just hope blizz doesn’t suspect me for a gold seller due to my lack of vowels!

Anyhow, I didn’t have a lot of time, but I spec’d him feral, and grabbed my kitty gear.  I hear respecs are real cheap, so I’ll probably try out a few different builds.  I did manage to remember to take a screeny or two, so here is a shot of Stormwind Harbor.

So I took the boat to Northrend, and ran around town a little. I  didn’t have time for anything serious, but I at least wanted to look around.  I quickly realized I made a silly mistake when copying Pummra over.  He was broke at the time, down to 7 gold.  Basically, I couldn’t train skinning or leatherworking for lack of cash!  Oh well.  I wonder if I can recopy him after loading him up with cash.

So that’s it.  I’m in beta, and I’m thrilled.  The server is down right now or I might not be writing this.  Now I have a question for you.  Is there anything you’d like me to cover regarding the beta?  A particular build for a druid perhaps?  Maybe something about tradeskills?  I’m wide open at this point.  If there’s something you’d like to hear about, go ahead and let me know in the comments. 

You might not see much here for the next few days.  My wife and I just had our second baby today, a boy.  So that puts PTD temporarily out of commission.  I will be back as soon as I can!

PTD