Tag: Shadowlands

Xmas Holidays: First Week

By Sardoken on

Our home working computers are hidden inside of a wardrobe, the apartment is fully decorated (picture above), the laundry basket is empty and everything is planned to the last detail. But you know how it goes, after 3 days the plan was entirely changed…

We were supposed to watch the second season of The Boys, followed by Truth Seekers. Instead, we’re re-watching one of our favourite TV shows ever: Dark and it is as good as the first time we watched it.

TLDR: We’re on holidays, we don’t follow the plan we had made and we’re having a blast. The best moments are often unplanned.

By the way: it’s my birthday and Soforah is making her infamous vegetarian lasagna for this evening, we’ll just have to pop it in the oven, life is good!

Two Hours Before Launch

By Sardoken on

We logged in WoW yesterday with no intention to take part in the big Shadowlands launch. We had the time to complete a few dailies/world quests, then the lag made it almost impossible to do anything else than read the chat and feel the excitement.

As we logged out, Orgrimmar was filled like I haven’t seen it in a long time. Thousands of people side by side, waiting for an event to start, this is the kind of moment that makes World of Warcraft so amazing. No other game can give such a fantastic feeling.

All we have to wait now is 10 days before we can finally join the fun.

Last Day Before Shadowlands

By Sardoken on

People are getting ready to enter Shadowlands or, at least, to participate to the huge lag-queue-bug fest that is an expansion launch. But we won’t be there. Woooooot?!

We have almost the entire month of December off and we’d like to start leveling our characters at the beginning of our holidays. So, we’ll resist the temptation, we’ll even lock our experience gain until the 4th of December.

Even if there’s something incredibly exciting to be in the first wave on release date, Sof and I have participated to too many expansion launches to still believe that the experience will be smooth. The game will truly be enjoyable 10 days later. Hopefully, by then, the queues will be smaller, the competition for the quest objectives will be less savage and the lag will be reduced.

Meanwhile, I’ll be fishing in Pandaria or killing rares in Nazjatar…

The Rares System Is Bad

By Sardoken on

Shadowlands event is up and, while I had fun for like an hour or two, I quickly arrived to the point where all that’s left to do is to wait for rares to spawn. I’ve hated waiting for rare mobs to spawn since Timeless Isle, it’s a poor way to keep people engaged in the game.

My hard earned free time could be better used than stand in front of a spawn point, watching at the clock. I’m not asking for hand-outs, to the contrary, I play WoW because I enjoy to work toward goals. So, let me grind, farm and gather currencies that I can later exchange for rewards, instead of having me wait for it to maybe drop.

It’s Happening!

By Sardoken on

I could not not write a post about this week’s best news: Shadowlands will be released on November, 24th and it couldn’t be a better date. Sof’ and I will begin a month of holidays at home (unrelated to the confinement, related to not giving a shit about the outside world) on December 4th. By then, the new expansion will have had 10 days to bug, lag and crash.

Remember when I said that it would be between Nov. 23th and Dec. 8th… Ok, I said it would be the later, but I wasn’t too far, huh?!

We were already prepared to not see WoW’s new expansion this year, with this nowadays’ general delaying trend, California’s wildfires and god knows what 2020 still has in stores (aliens, volcanoes, Trump?)… But it’s definitely coming, Blizzard has even moved WoW’s 16th anniversary to November 2nd so the two events wouldn’t overlaps.

Now, let’s start stock piling food…

Shadows Rising

By Sardoken on

Writing a prequel to a new expansion is not an easy task, the real plot will unfold in the game while the introduction story is mostly about the tensions that grow before the war. While there is a plot in Shadows Rising, the book focuses on the relations between the characters that will play a role in the expansion to come.

I won’t lie, I didn’t have much pleasure reading this book, it was often overly descriptive and slow. Also, I’m not a fan of Madeleine Roux’s writing style. Unfortunately, Christie Golden was apparently already busy with another project (which looks amazing)… I just hope that Roux doesn’t become a new resident writer for Blizzard.

What I did enjoy though was to read the book as I was completing the Horde campaign with my Paladin. It gave more depth to many characters that I was discovering in the game (like Talanji and Bwonsamdi).

I am now ready for Shadowlands. Only twice sleeping before the pre-patch, yeah!

Shadowlands Delayed

By Sardoken on

Blizzard just announced that Shadowlands, the next WoW expansion which was set to be released on October 27th, will be delayed until late 2020.

Well, I didn’t see that one coming…

But, since we’re veterans of launches (and the mess they usually are), we didn’t plan a single day off for the release. Actually, we were planning to take some time off in December.

I know that November 24th and December 8th are the two most possible new dates for the release but I’m not sure that Nov.24th is gonna happen, since it’s right before Thanksgiving and the launch of an expansion requires most people to be at work. So, I put my money on Dec.8th.

I just hope that they won’t delay it until 2021 because I really would love to run in Shadowlands during the holiday season.

Venthyr Allegiance

By Sardoken on

We made our choice for Shadowlands, our allegiance will go to the Venthyr covenant. The first reason is simply aesthetic, Revendreth is awesome and we definitely can see ourselves in the middle of the intrigues that are taking place in this gorgeous gothic zone.

As we’ve already stated in our previous post, we both plan to main retribution paladins for the new expansion and the plate armor set of the Venthyr looks awesome:

The abilities also seem to fit perfectly our specilization:

Ashen Hallow will boost our AOE, provide some healing and increase the damage output of Hammer of Wrath.

Door of Shadows will grant us a movement ability which will be more than welcome because we lack in mobility.

Many people will argue that Kyrian would suit better the fantasy of a Paladin but we’re not really into Angelic Paladins. Retribution is about dispensing punishment to those who deserve it, our place should definitely be with the Venthyr covenant.

I believe that the last push was the Afterlives video. The more I watch those animated shorts, the more I believe that Blizzard should publish its own comic books. It would be a better way to introduce a new expansion than the book I’m reading at the moment, but I’ll talk about it in another post.

Voting for Shadowland’s Free Mount

By Sardoken on

Blizzard is gifting us with a new free mount in Shadowlands and they let us vote for the one we’d like to receive. The mount isn’t created yet, we vote for the concept that will serve as base for the final design. Of course, community artists have already created fan art for the contest.

Both Soforah and I voted for the Nerubian Swarmer. We thought that the Ancient was more for druids, the flying book for mages and the other mounts didn’t really look appealing.

Unfortunately, as we voted, we discovered the results and, so far, the Nerubian Swarmer is last while the Ancient is first… The poll will run unil September 19th, so everything can still change.

No matter which mount wins, I’ll be very happy to receive a free mount and I found the contest to be an excellent way to include the community in the design of the game.

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