“The Grind”
With Wrath of the Lich King arriving last week it only made sense to jump into the new content “Lich King” style. Although we had initially reacted to the beta, playing the final content was much more fun with all of our guild and friends to play along.
It only took a few hours to get my new Death Knight to level-58 beyond the starting area and into the real world of Azeroth. Upon reaching the main city (Ogrammar as we’re horde) I picked up two new professions to make me a bit of dime: mining and skinning. This is where the beauty of the Death Knight fell apart…
A level-58 character has a few options open for exploration with the Burning Crusade content being the most desirable starting point. However, quickly it became apparent that my professions of mining and skinning were useless in Hellfire and other Burning Crusade areas. Why? Professions start with a value of 1. The last expansion requires your professions to be roughly 300 before you can utilize them.
My level-58 Death Knight has no experience in the ways of skinning and mining, what has he been doing all his life? Apparently killing innocent people in small villages throughout the Eastern Plaguelands. My anticipation with leveling my Death Knight died knowing I’d spend the next few days hunting mines and killing animals as if I where a level-10 toon.
There I was, a high level character trolling Crossroads and Thousand Needles hunting for copper and tin and skinning all the low level creatures I could find. Why didn’t Blizzard consider this when they allow you to create a level-55 character on day one? If we don’t go off and grind our way to a profession level of 300 we might as well not even pick professions at all.
I was not alone in these findings, along my path I found several Death Knights with skinning knives and mining tools looking for open opportunities to cut into the earth or the dead animals skins all around them. Sure, we can kill a cat in seconds flat but the “grind” is what we wanted to avoid, this is what characters spend their first twenty levels doing!
After three sessions of mind numbing grinding I’ve managed to reach a skill of 340 in skinning and coming upon 200 in mining. Mining is still too low for high level game content so I must whisk myself away to noobville every so often to catch a few mythril nodes and pray for a gold deposit along the way.
This may not be a bug in the Wrath of Lich King expansion but it sure is an annoying design flaw.
@Iphone: I’m with Paul, I got and have had a Iphone 4 for about 2 years now, I don’t like the idea of rushing to get things when they are first released, I take a while getting new consoles and phones.
@Wasteland 2: I am surprised Jonah didn’t mention more of the Kickstarter games that have been successfully released when Paul said he knew of only one (Wasteland 2). There is also FTL, Broken Age, Shadowgate, & Shadowrun Returns. Pillar’s of Eternity is coming out and I’m sure can be added to this list soon as well. If you only focus on the ones that fail you’re going to miss the ones that are succeeding.
Wasteland 2 has been fun so far, I like being able to create a party unlike in Fallout where it’s just you and some NPC’s. I also suggest trying to use energy weapons, they seem to be very powerful to me.
@Zelda rumors: I don’t recall or remember any of these but I do agree with Paul on the whole feeling something is there if you could just jump one more block or open a locked door. You want to know what’s there, humans love mysteries.
I do remember the stories about trying to find the lost level of Super Mario, which was actually true.
There are a slew of crazy Harry Potter theories and I do remember the “Weasley is our King”
@QotW: As for falling for any game Rumors I don’t think I really did, most of the time I had sources to validate if it was true or not. If I couldn’t do it or seemed astronomicaly impossible I figured it was fake. However the closest would be when Areis died in FF7 (I’d say spoiler warning but if you haven’t played it yet your’re probably never going to). I wanted there to be a way to save her since you could actually save Gremio in Suikoden, you can’t fault the logic of a angsty teenager.
The more I thought about it though the more I realized she had to die for the story, it was her death that brings about the Holy spell to save the world from Sephiroths Meteo. So yes listen to Paul if it doesn’t make sense in the story narrative, it probably isn’t true and if it is the game isn’t worth your time.
@iPhone yoga
It seems that someone did not pay attention during their physics lessons on the property of metals. I am sticking to my iPhone 4S. Last thing I need is my phone going all Beyoncé on me. But I am sure Apple will fix it. When they had problems with cracking screens, someone released a screen protector which was used for attack helicopter wind shields. You know, just in case you want to check your Facebook in a middle of a war zone.
@Windows NEIN!
Oh Lord, another Windows edition. When will Microsoft understand that the best way to fix a mistake is to never make it in the first place. I just hope that they were reading their feedback and will make a definitive windows experience. Considering that there is no alternative on the market, a good new windows is a necessity.
@QOTW
I don’t browse the net that much, so I avoid most of the rumours. If I do hear something, I triple check it for confirmation. I think my favourite rumour was the Halo 2 Scarab Gun. It was a plasma rifle that shot massive blasts of energy akin to the gigantic Scarab walking tank. It sounded like a hoax, until people proved that it actually exists. This set of a chain of rumours of other hidden weapons all across the game. Countless hours were spent in chasing ghosts in that game. A good marketing ploy if I ever saw one. My second favourite Bungie rumour is that Destiny has a storyline. Apparently it’s hidden somewhere deep deep within the game’s code and only the most dedicated players can find it.