Blizzard Goes Back to the Vanilla with the WoW Classic Season of Mastery

With the team spending their time scrubbing questionable content while Shadowlands founders and their legal problems continue, Blizzard has decided to play the nostalgia card again, returning to the WoW Classic well that got them out of the doldrums of Battle for Azeroth.

Classic is as classic does

Last week Blizzard announced WoW Classic Season of Mastery, which will be their second run at a vanilla experience.

That means some new fresh start WoW Classic servers will be coming our way at some as yet unspecified future date.

But wait, there is more.

Taking lessons from the original WoW Classic run Blizzard has decided to move the dials a bit when it comes to how the game plays.

To start with, players will level up faster.  Per the announcement:

We’re planning on increasing experience gains from what they were in the first iteration of WoW Classic. Our current plan is to set them close to what the 1-60 XP rates are in Burning Crusade Classic with a bigger focus on quest XP increases.

That should flatten out the slump from the late 30s to the late 40s when it comes to the leveling curve, or at least keep players from having to scrounge for every single quest in every zone before moving on.  I do like the pace of the Burning Crusade Classic 1-60 leveling, but I somehow managed it with three characters before that hit.

There are also a couple of “quality of life” changes mentioned in the announcement:

• Meeting Stones converted to Summoning Stones
• Increased Mining and Herbalism nodes

The former seems like a bit of a cheat, though I suppose I am biased having gone through WoW Classic without summoning, but mining and herbalism nodes did seem to be a bit of a choke point.  As Blizz points out, more players are on classic servers than were back with the original launch, so maybe that deserves a review.

Blizzard is also going to introduce honor system and battlegrounds right away rather than trying to simulate the progressions (and problems) that were seen both back in the day and with the WoW Classic phases.

But the big focus of this appears to be on raiders and raiding guilds.  Do I once again detect the hand of Holly Longdale guiding this?  Certainly raiders were a key demographic for the EverQuest retro servers.

While the new servers will go through the same six phase plan that WoW Classic did originally, the goal is to roll them all out at an every other month cadence, so the final phase will be available in less than a year.

Meanwhile, the team is concerned that the raid bosses seemed a little bit too easy in WoW Classic, so they are making some adjustments to increase the challenge in order to make groups wipe at something closed to the 2004 rate rather than the 2019 rate.  Those include:

• World buffs (like Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer and others) disabled in Raid instances
• Restoring mechanics that were removed early on to some Raid bosses
• No boss debuff limit (up from 16 debuffs in WoW Classic)
• Increased health on bosses, to offset player buffs and the removed debuff limit

So get set your raid calendar I guess and get ready for tougher fights.

Now I wonder how popular round two of WoW Classic will be.  There was at least a decade of pent up demand to see the content that had been missing since Cataclysm when it first launched in 2019.  Who will be queuing up this time around?

Somebody will, I am sure.  If the EverQuest progression server experience has taught us anything, is is that there is always SOME demand for a fresh start retro server experience.  Daybreak seemed to be able to swamp a server and have queues throwing a fresh one out there every other year.

But Blizzard and WoW… well, they have their own complications.  Leaving aside that the company is in bad odor due to its own bad behavior, they haven’t had Burning Crusade Classic running for all that long at this point, which has a lot of draw for raiders as well.  I am certainly not feeling any huge draw for the vanilla experience… or a slightly reformed version there of… right now.

As noted, the launch date for this new round of servers has yet to be mentioned, though beta testing for them started yesterday.  My invite must have gotten lost in the mail.  Blizz has tried to address some of the outstanding questions, but we’ll have to see how this rolls out going forward.

A Tale of Two Keepstars in FWST-8

I woke up yesterday and wandered over to my computer at the usual 6am-ish time, the price of working for a company with its HQ in central time and, as the usual channels and apps came up I saw on Jabber that Fraternity, one of the PandaFam alliances in the PAPI coalition, had dropped a Keepstar in NPC Delve and we were throwing things at it to kill it before it could finish deploying and start its anchoring cycle.

I didn’t have time or the attention span to get in a fleet op for real, but I undock an interceptor to roll out and see if I could lay eyes on this new event.  I wrote just yesterday that this was a possible scenario and one that The Mittani seemed to be relishing.

The problem was, I don’t think we were quite expecting it to happen at just that moment.  It came when the EUTZ people were still at work and some of us were still asleep here in the US.

And, of course, nobody was saying where the Keepstar was being deployed because op sec is opsec I guess, but NPC Delve isn’t that big, so I zipped out there to look around.  I went north first, wondering if they were coming in from Querious via that route.

That proved fruitless, so I went south and figured I was getting warmer when I blew through a gate camp in PR-8CA and knew I was in the right place when I was hit in the face with the 10% tidi slow down as I gated into FWST-8.

NPC Delve and vicinity

There I found about 3,500 people in local and a Keepstar on the overview… sort of.  My “show all hostiles” overview runneth over as they say, and I had to pull one up that just showed hostile titans and citadels before I could zero in on the structure.   I warped over to it in order to get a closer look.

Keepstar deploying in FWST-8

I flitted around, watching the hostiles supers and titans and as our side sent in waves of ships to kill the structure before it could start its anchoring cycle.  Foolishly, I decided to shoot the Keepstart, because never not whore on a Keepstar email if you have the chance.  That let the Keepstar hold me down just long enough to get me blown up.

My Ares on grid for the moment

I was podded shortly after, which sent me back to 1DQ1-A.  But that is just a few gates away, so I was quickly back in another Ares and on grid shortly thereafter.  The Keepstar was almost dead by that point.  I took a bit more care this time, got on grid with it, and took a few shots at it just before in went up.

The Keepstar Explodes

Of course, with the Keepstar gone there were still, at that point, almost 3,900 people hanging around in system, so the shooting carried on with both sides trying to get some more kills in.

Who is holding whom down here?

It looked like we might be able to down at least one hostile titan, as there was a Brave Ragnarok off on its own.  But that did not come to pass.  Instead the bad guys went about killing off as many of our dreadnoughts as they could.

Erebus doomsdays a dread

I got a bit sloppy again and managed to lose another Ares, but that was fine.  I got to see the spectacle and shot the Keepstar before it blew up.

The results of the battle were very much against us when it came to ISK.  The battle report was very lopsided.

Battle Report Header

We may have destroyed the Keepstar, but we did it by pouring dreadnoughts and heavy assault cruisers and bombers on grid in a constant stream to get chewed up by the hostiles.  Here are some of the loss counts.

Losses by ship type – Imperium is Team 1

Down in the details you can see that the hostiles commited 59 titans and 209 super carriers to the battle, while we sent in none.

Of course, the one kill mail that nobody can find it the one for the Keepstar.  The theory is that the hostiles shot the Keepstar in the end just to make their kill boards all the more green (completely consistent with past actions) and one of them got the final blow and won’t sync it with zKillboard just to annoy us.

So you can add 187 billion ISK to Team 2’s losses, as that was the value of a Keepstar lost in similar circumstances last week.  And that means that, effectively, I did not get on the kill mail.  Oh well.

That makes this another trillion plus ISK battle.  A serious fight, one that put FWST-8 and surrounding systems at the top of the list for ships killed yesterday.

Where the war is

And even as that was settling down a ping went out from Asher:

(8:45:17 AM) directorbot@goonfleet.com: Watch for enemy freighters jumping into systems, we believe they have 1 KS left

~~~ This was a broadcast from asher_elias to all at 2020-10-05 15:45:17.848456 EVE ~~~

And, sure enough, they did have one more.  They managed to slip it in to FWST-8 and get it through its preparation, so it will finish its anchoring and go into its initial repair timer a little while after this post goes live.

So there will be another Keepstar fight today.  This time it will be deeper into EUTZ and early USTZ and we will have had 24 hours to prepare for it.  I hope somebody told CCP to reinforce the node.  We may need it.

This is reminiscent of the battles at UALX-3, where TEST lost a Keepstar to PanFam and threw down another while PanFam pilots tried to petition their way out of being stuck in the system after the server crashed.  That was back when we were helping them against PanFam.

Of course, the reason for throwing more Keepstars down this time around may be less about content and more about the fact that CCP’s Quantum Core patch is going to hit next Tuesday, after which a new Keepstar will require a 30 billion ISK core to be installed after it anchors, which will require a freighter to haul it out.

Other Coverage:

• INN – Imperium Sacrifices 250 Dreads to Kill Keepstar in FWST-8

WoW Classic Sunday and Layering Progress

For whatever reason Sunday has become my day to catch up on WoW Classic news and updates, so I might as well keep rolling with it.

Classic is as classic does

First up, Blizzard put up some information about their progress with layering, listing out a number of servers that has successfully been reduced to a single layer.  As of the post on Thursday there were 13 American and 6 European servers that had been locked into a single layer.  They also said that it had been several weeks since any realm had needed to run more than three layers in order to accommodate the server population.

You will soon see an indicator in the realm selection screen as to whether or not specific realms are still running multiple layers or not, and free transfers off of especially crowded servers will remain open until they get all realms down to running a single layer.

That plan still seems to be to get ALL realms down to a single layer before going to phase 2 of the WoW Classic plan, which might involve some of the more crowded servers getting queues again if people won’t transfer off.

We’ll see if we get a timeline of sorts for the phases next month at BlizzCon.  In the meantime WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas was interviewed about phases over at PC Gamer.

On lighter news, Blizzard has continued with its city tour series, this time putting up a post about Darnassus, home of the night elves, and Thunder Bluff, home of the Tauren.  I guess the theme was “cities where druids start.”

There is also another entry in the video series with some of the WoW team, this time featuring Tom Chilton.

Tom Chilton’s name might be recognizable as one of the auction house NPCs in Stormwind has his name.

Tom Chilton also might be remembered for spilling the beans on WoW subscriber numbers after the company had officially stopped talking about them, which Blizzard then denied, as well as being the one to say Warlords of Draenor garrisons would essentially be the WoW version of housing back at BlizzCon 2013.

I actually have a few Tom Chilton quotes, like that one about expansions building barriers. or when he said WoD was further along than people might expect (BlizzCon 2013 again) which got everybody assuming there would be a February release or something crazy like that.  But he did help make WoW, so you have to give him that.

And, finally, Fandom Entertainment has jumped on the bandwagon with an Honest Game Trailers look at WoW Classic.

All the negatives won’t keep me away.

Always Something to Clean Up in Space

After having caught the first move op back to Delve last week I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself in New Eden.  I haven’t ratted in over a year, and I haven’t mined in much longer than that, and have no desire to do either.  When you see those Delve numbers on the monthly economic report, I contribute nothing to those two categories.

Meanwhile the peace in the north has meant few strategic operation opportunities.  I like strat ops because the have a goal and I am a very goal oriented person.  Roaming just to roam, unless it is with Reaver, isn’t something I enjoy.

Fortunately it appears that NCDot was looking out for me.  It must be because I am friends with Matterall.  They left a couple of Astrahus citadels in Aridia set for US time zone timers, so when a fleet went up to go shoot them I was awake and ready to go.  It was going to be Hammerfleet doctrine, which is built around the Ferox battlecruiser, which meant that I would get to show off the Cordite Blossom SKIN that CCP briefly offered as a fundraiser back with the September update.

Cordite Blossom Ferox at a jump bridge

The fleet was under Dave Archer and, of course, he didn’t tell us what we were up to, just that it was a strat op.  The presence of spies and the requirements of operation security means we rarely get told much until something is already happening.  But that it was a strat op in a doctrine that is often used to shoot structures, and because there was a small carrier op under Zed Starshine going with us, it seemed like a good bet that there was a citadel out there that needed bashing.

And that we took the jump bridge to 1-SMEB pretty much guaranteed it was in Aridia.  So off we went, shepherding the slower carriers that would be used as the firepower for the shoot.  Getting there went smoothly, except for the point when somebody in the fleet set off they cyno by accident.

That wasn’t what he meant to do

That sort of thing doesn’t happen as often as it could.  But it was quiet enough in the area that we left him behind and he was able to catch up.

The Astrahus itself was being gunned, so as we orbited the structure it threw various things at us.  For the most part that kept logi awake with something to do.

Paints and webs on somebody

The unaware and incautious were in trouble however.  Small stuff had to warp off to stay safe and the few people who did dumb things, like lighting their microwarp drive when a bomb was coming in, paid the price.  But losses were minimal.  When the heard had been culled of the incompetent the gunner started in on our drones and we had to pull those and pick up with guns.  However the fighters from the carriers carried on without issue.

Unfortunately, this shoot was just for the armor timer.  There was no kill mail to be had.  The kill was set for three days down the road.

Timer counting down

Then we moved to another system and did it all again, shooting another gunned Astrahus to take care of another armor timer.

The Ferox line and a planetary atmosphere

That set up another timer for a kill next week.

After that it was a quick run back to 1-SMEB where the carriers could jump and we could take the jump bridge back home.   So I managed to get in on at least one fleet this month and helped clean up some hostile structures.  We’ll see if I remember to check for the fleet that will go get the final timers and the kills.

Headed to EVE Vegas

As this post goes live I am probably standing in line at the airport hoping that Southwest has their act together when it comes to my flight to Las Vegas.  That flight is taking me to my third year at EVE Vegas.

EVE Vegas 2017 – SOLD OUT

Once there I will likely be hobnobbing with the usual crowd of bloggers, podcasters, and other EVE Online media types who are, honestly, about the only people who know me there.  To my knowledge I will be the only one from my corp to attend and last year there was only one other pilot from my alliance in attendance, so prospects there are low.  Not that they would know me.  I am horrible at actually doing things with my own corp or alliance.

Pilots of the Imperium will be out in force though, and I hope to spot a few fellow Reavers.

Events at EVE Vegas include the usual company presentations… I expect we’ll get some new details about the Life Blood expansion coming later this month…, promotions for other CCP products, player presentations, the Saturday night party, and a special screening of Blade Runner 2049 with proceeds going to the Able Gamers charity.

There is a dev post up about the event with further details.

Those attending the event are also eligible for some discounts, which is probably a good thing as Vegas is not a cheap date.  It was $13 for a Jack and Coke at the Heart Bar last year.

For those not attending CCP will be streaming presentations on their Twitch channel and has a schedule up.

Streaming Schedule for EVE Vegas 2017

Anyway, I am off to Vegas to see what I shall see.

The Pokemon 20th Anniversary Continues with a Keldeo Download and More

The celebration of the 20th anniversary of Pokemon continues.  This month’s legendary Pokemon is Keldeo.

Keldeo the water colt

Keldeo was introduced as a special event Pokemon in the generation V games, Pokemon Black & White and Pokemon Black Version 2 & White Version 2, and became obtainable via a trade mechanic in Pokemon X & Y.

Keldeo’s GameStop event

This is the first of the 20th anniversary download event Pokemon that I have not obtained through some past event.

Instructions on how to download Keldeo to your copy of Pokemon X and Y or Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are available on the Pokemon site.  You have until October 24th to make it happen.

This leaves only two more 20th anniversary download events to go.  The remaining Pokemon are:

• November – Genesect (GameStop Card Event)
• December – Meloetta (Nintendo Network Event)

In addition, there is a special event to download Hoopa, another rare Pokemon.

Hoopa Event

This one requires a code to get, but do it quickly as the event only runs through October 9, 2016.  The code is “2016HOOPA” with further details available here.

November will also see the launch of the next titles in the core Pokemon RPG line, Pokemon Sun & Moon.

Sun and Moon coming in November

And as part of the ongoing slow reveal that Nintendo does every release, we have finally been shown the first evolution of the starter Pokemon for the new games.

The grass starter, the adorable Rowlet, will evolve into a the Dartix

Owlet to Owl

The fire starter, Litten, evolves into Torracat.

Kitten to Cat

And the water Pokemon starter, Popplio, evolves into Brionne.

Ongoing circus acts

I’ve always been a partisan of water Pokemon when it came to my starter since the days of Piplup in Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, but somebody always seems to have it in for water when it comes to their evolutions.  They start cute and evolve ugly. (Except for Squirtle I guess.)

This time around I am going to go with first.  Rowlet is cute, and the evolution isn’t bad, but I traditionally have no luck with grass Pokemon.  Nintendo has a video up so you can see the evolutions in motion.

 

And, finally, on the Pokemon Go front, Niantic has announced that their next update will make it a bit easier to catch them all.  As you earn medals for catching quantities of certain types of Pokemon, those types will become easier for you to catch and the likelihood of finding a rare version will increase.  There is no timeline for this update beyond “soon.”