Before people think this is shameless advertising, I'd like to get one thing straight. This is all just my thoughts and experiences, nothing more, nothing less. With that out of the way, on with the show!
As I've mentioned a few times, I'm part of the community over at http://pvp-live.com/. For a few months now I've been active on their forums, trying to keep things active, promoting discussion on the news posts, and things like that, I even got myself a new twitter account to keep tabs on gaming things, a few friends, and to keep track on, and retweet, anything that PvP Live dug up and reported on.
A friend of mine, Davis (@notoriousMWI), mentioned that he worked for PvP Live as one of their bloggers, so naturally I inquired about what it was like, how long has he been working for them, the usual questions. I liked what I heard, so I asked if they needed any help with anything, and submitted a makeshift résumé for a position as a Forum Moderator. I was welcomed with pretty much open arms, and I genuinely felt like I could do something to help out the team and it's community. Since then my role has been expanded to being on the blogging team for them, and getting out regular articles as and when we get news (which is always pretty slow on weekends).
In the 3 months or so that I've known about and been part of PvP Live. It's been the most enjoyable experience I've ever had playing World of Warcraft, and if I ever had any reasons to quit, the team swept them all up and dumped them in some corner somewhere. They're some of the most passionate people I've ever had the good graces to talk to, and it's really admiral how much work they put in to make PvP Live a fun community to be part of.
I know I said I'd end up posting two blogs a week, but as this is a personal blog, I think I can drop this one to being written on Sundays, so apologies for that. If you ever want to read any of my (technically professional) articles, then keep an eye on our site @ http://pvp-live.com/ for any articles written by Exhil, though I will continue to post things on this blog at least once a week, work permitting.
For the foreseeable future I'll be working with the team at PVP Live, but I'd like to thank you all for reading my posts here at CSTK If it wasn't for writing my thoughts down for a change instead of just It still gets me hyped knowing that people read my thoughts, even if you don't always agree with them. Until next Sunday:
Seeya!
Sunday 12 January 2014
Thursday 9 January 2014
Season 15 Confirmed, Hotfixes, Buffs, It's All Kicking Off This Week!
As I'm typing this, I'm busy being happy that Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has joined twitter. He's long been an advocate of avoiding it as he had the opinion that 140 characters wasn't enough to communicate his thoughts properly, however as I've read today...
Anyway, on with the show!
Holinka let a cannon off earlier this week with the announcement of a new PvP season in Patch 5.4. This surprised some, and didn't surprise others as expected. There's a first time for everything, and this is the first time that Blizzard have released two arena seasons in one tier of content. The gear has been datamined previously, clocking in at iLevel 540 (Flexible level gear, non-upgraded), and the achievements have been in place since 5.4's launch, though it was suggested by the Blues that the achievements were only there "just in case" a new season was needed.
For the most part, I don't have an issue with this. 5.4 is dragging a bit now and content is stale, people will of course need something new to keep them on their toes. I do, however, have an issue with it pushing back the Warlords of Draenor Beta, and subsequent release date. I've cleared Siege of Orgrimmar on Normal mode, killed a few bosses on Heroic too, got my 100 3v3 wins Skeletal Warhorse, grinded out the 27k Conquest for the Grievous Gladiator achievement. Realistically I am done with this patch, but if Blizzard add in a new season, it's more content which, personally, I will happily chew up. I'm probably always going to be playing this game until it's completely broken or way too easy for my tastes, but as long as Blizzard keeps supplying me with content, I'm perfectly happy to shell out the £8.99 a month subscription fee.
In a similar vein, a few hotfixes have come through this week, with changes to Hunters, Shadow Priests, Boomkins, Elemental Shamans and Death Knights, which are as follows:
Here's where I start getting ranty.
First, why in the name of all that is sacred are Hunters getting a damage buff. Please someone explain to me why. It was perfectly possible for a Marksmanship Hunter to kill 150-200k of your health in the opener due to lining up Chimaera Shot and Aimed Shot, providing they both crit. Now they're going to do even more damage. I've seen screenshots of Orc Deathknights with 100k attack power selfbuffed + trinkets + racial since this hotfix. These are changes that should not be suddenly dropped on people. Much like the change that got dropped onto Mortal Strike, giving it a bonus 25% damage, less than 24 hours before Patch 5.4 went live. These changes need time to tweak on PTR before being shipped to live, else what is the PTR even for?
The changes to Shadow Priest and Balance are, in my opinion, needed. Playing a Warrior, it's remarkably easy to kill a Shadow Priest or Boomkin that doesn't know what they're doing. You jump on them, pop your cooldowns, stun them, and Slam them into their graveyard. Against one that knows what they're doing, they'll survive, but still not for long in a game where the current meta seems to revolve around burst damage and burst healing. You either heal yourself for 20%+, or you die. No middle ground. I believe (no testing done yet) that this change will be useful to aid the survivability of these two classes, though in the case of Balance Druids, they need to have their healing toned down in one way or another. It's still way too strong for a non-healer class.
It does seem to me that I'm going to end up writing two blog posts a week, as apparently I've slipped into a Thursday/Monday rhythm. Provided there is something to talk about, I'll do my best to entertain you all, but until next time, seeya!
Exhil MD.
Holinka let a cannon off earlier this week with the announcement of a new PvP season in Patch 5.4. This surprised some, and didn't surprise others as expected. There's a first time for everything, and this is the first time that Blizzard have released two arena seasons in one tier of content. The gear has been datamined previously, clocking in at iLevel 540 (Flexible level gear, non-upgraded), and the achievements have been in place since 5.4's launch, though it was suggested by the Blues that the achievements were only there "just in case" a new season was needed.
For the most part, I don't have an issue with this. 5.4 is dragging a bit now and content is stale, people will of course need something new to keep them on their toes. I do, however, have an issue with it pushing back the Warlords of Draenor Beta, and subsequent release date. I've cleared Siege of Orgrimmar on Normal mode, killed a few bosses on Heroic too, got my 100 3v3 wins Skeletal Warhorse, grinded out the 27k Conquest for the Grievous Gladiator achievement. Realistically I am done with this patch, but if Blizzard add in a new season, it's more content which, personally, I will happily chew up. I'm probably always going to be playing this game until it's completely broken or way too easy for my tastes, but as long as Blizzard keeps supplying me with content, I'm perfectly happy to shell out the £8.99 a month subscription fee.
In a similar vein, a few hotfixes have come through this week, with changes to Hunters, Shadow Priests, Boomkins, Elemental Shamans and Death Knights, which are as follows:
Here's where I start getting ranty.
First, why in the name of all that is sacred are Hunters getting a damage buff. Please someone explain to me why. It was perfectly possible for a Marksmanship Hunter to kill 150-200k of your health in the opener due to lining up Chimaera Shot and Aimed Shot, providing they both crit. Now they're going to do even more damage. I've seen screenshots of Orc Deathknights with 100k attack power selfbuffed + trinkets + racial since this hotfix. These are changes that should not be suddenly dropped on people. Much like the change that got dropped onto Mortal Strike, giving it a bonus 25% damage, less than 24 hours before Patch 5.4 went live. These changes need time to tweak on PTR before being shipped to live, else what is the PTR even for?
The changes to Shadow Priest and Balance are, in my opinion, needed. Playing a Warrior, it's remarkably easy to kill a Shadow Priest or Boomkin that doesn't know what they're doing. You jump on them, pop your cooldowns, stun them, and Slam them into their graveyard. Against one that knows what they're doing, they'll survive, but still not for long in a game where the current meta seems to revolve around burst damage and burst healing. You either heal yourself for 20%+, or you die. No middle ground. I believe (no testing done yet) that this change will be useful to aid the survivability of these two classes, though in the case of Balance Druids, they need to have their healing toned down in one way or another. It's still way too strong for a non-healer class.
It does seem to me that I'm going to end up writing two blog posts a week, as apparently I've slipped into a Thursday/Monday rhythm. Provided there is something to talk about, I'll do my best to entertain you all, but until next time, seeya!
Exhil MD.
Monday 6 January 2014
Visual Updates, Both Near And Far!
I know this one is a few days earlier than normal, but I'm happy having it written and published anyway. Sue me. In other news...
...As you can see, I decided to give the blog a little makeover, and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. 2014 is going to be a big year and I wanted to make sure I'm keeping on top of everything, from my blog here, my online life, my offline life, and my work with PvP-Live. Giving this place a spring clean in preparation for the year is just something small I could do in the early hours of the morning, so I figured I may as well.
Continuing on with the theme of updates, I decided to make a post about Blizzard's character design updates. As you can see in the above picture, Chris Robinson (Senior Art Director at Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft) announced last Friday that they are looking to get the next new character model available for viewing in the next week or two. Based on popular opinions, it's looking to be either Night Elves, Humans, or Trolls (regardless of gender). I'm really quite excited for these three for a fair few reasons:
- Night Elves in HD, hopefully without the irritating jiggle/bounce/thing that they do while you're standing still.
- Humans that actually have a decent running animation.
- Facial options that don't look ridiculous unless you have a beard for Human Male.
- Trolls with beards? (Vol'jin has one)
- More naturally flowing hair for all 3 of them.
Graphically, this will be a tonne more pleasing on the eye, and it will at least help me if I end up using my free Level 90 Boost to make a Warrior on Alliance on my server. However, for the time being, I'll be happy enough looking at this lovely chap:
Obviously with a few extra bits thrown on top.
Really looking forward to what Robinson and the rest of the art team are putting together for all of the new models. I absolutely love what they've done with Dwarves and Orcs so far (never been a massive fan of Gnomes anyway) and with that standard in mind, the rest of the new models are going to be spectacular.
Would appreciate any thoughts you guys have on the new character models, so feel free to send me a message on http://pvp-live.com/ to the account "Exhil", or if you use twitter, tweet me @DrExhilMD.
Until next week guys, seeya!
Exhil MD.
Thursday 2 January 2014
Happy New Year!
Well, this'll mark my 24th blog post on CSTK, and the first of many in 2014. And apparently as my first act of craziness for this year, I'll be making a return to Protection for PvE in Warlords of Draenor with a few friends. Feels like I never quit tanking. On a separate note, I've had a load of stuff happen to me and my friends over the Xmas holidays, and though some of it was a bit unneeded, I broke into 2014 with a smile on my face. I've got a feeling that it's going to be a very good year.
Just as a quick shout-out section (first time for everything) I'd like to give a fair few people that made 2013 a bearable year a pat on the back:
The Undecided/Orb Of Souls (Argent Dawn EU) and Solace/Elusive (Aerie Peak) - Mah boys. Been a blast raiding with all of you this year, made some really good friends, had some good times doing random stuff and slaying dragons together.
All of the team at PVP Live - It's a real honour to be able to work/be in contact with such an amazing bunch of people who are so passionate about the game and its design. 2014 is going to be a really big year for us all, so be sure to keep an eye on @PVPLive if you use twitter!
My Inspirations - There's always players that, regardless of class, make me happy to be part of Warcraft, ranging from IRL friends to professional players. Bajheera, Klinda, Hotted, Sodapoppin, Thugonomicz, Jah, Cobrak, Mike Preach/Ghost. Always entertaining to watch and have always provided something to cheer me up if I feel something is a -bit- too wrong with the game.
Nox, Mwi, Feels, and the rest of the rest of the guys from Bad Manner. The Maximum Overwelsh + 2 (Santern and Thalgun) on the Unit Fourteen mumble channel. Ducky, Tash, Ally, Josh, Jack, Mj, and any other friends I've made from IRL or in-game. Hangart, Conine, Lince, Lamelime, Scarodorne Clayton, Phalek, Khris, and all my other Warrior brothers. All of these people give me reasons to keep playing every day, even if it's just to log on and laugh while sitting around in Shrine or Orgrimmar.
As I said before, 2014 is going to be a good year. Warlords is looking to be the best expansion Blizzard have ever released, Hearthstone is being released, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls is being released, The Elder Scrolls Online is being released, Godzilla 2014 is being released. And this isn't even counting any plans I have with my amazing girlfriend who reminded me that I'm meant to be writing my blog on Thursdays (Thanks Laura!).
That's all for this week, unfortunately Blizzard still haven't dropped any more info about Warlords of Draenor's PvP aspects (Ashran, Trial of the Gladiator) for me to comment on more than I already have, so I shall bid you adieu and see you next week!
Exhil MD.
Just as a quick shout-out section (first time for everything) I'd like to give a fair few people that made 2013 a bearable year a pat on the back:
The Undecided/Orb Of Souls (Argent Dawn EU) and Solace/Elusive (Aerie Peak) - Mah boys. Been a blast raiding with all of you this year, made some really good friends, had some good times doing random stuff and slaying dragons together.
All of the team at PVP Live - It's a real honour to be able to work/be in contact with such an amazing bunch of people who are so passionate about the game and its design. 2014 is going to be a really big year for us all, so be sure to keep an eye on @PVPLive if you use twitter!
My Inspirations - There's always players that, regardless of class, make me happy to be part of Warcraft, ranging from IRL friends to professional players. Bajheera, Klinda, Hotted, Sodapoppin, Thugonomicz, Jah, Cobrak, Mike Preach/Ghost. Always entertaining to watch and have always provided something to cheer me up if I feel something is a -bit- too wrong with the game.
Nox, Mwi, Feels, and the rest of the rest of the guys from Bad Manner. The Maximum Overwelsh + 2 (Santern and Thalgun) on the Unit Fourteen mumble channel. Ducky, Tash, Ally, Josh, Jack, Mj, and any other friends I've made from IRL or in-game. Hangart, Conine, Lince, Lamelime, Scarodorne Clayton, Phalek, Khris, and all my other Warrior brothers. All of these people give me reasons to keep playing every day, even if it's just to log on and laugh while sitting around in Shrine or Orgrimmar.
As I said before, 2014 is going to be a good year. Warlords is looking to be the best expansion Blizzard have ever released, Hearthstone is being released, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls is being released, The Elder Scrolls Online is being released, Godzilla 2014 is being released. And this isn't even counting any plans I have with my amazing girlfriend who reminded me that I'm meant to be writing my blog on Thursdays (Thanks Laura!).
That's all for this week, unfortunately Blizzard still haven't dropped any more info about Warlords of Draenor's PvP aspects (Ashran, Trial of the Gladiator) for me to comment on more than I already have, so I shall bid you adieu and see you next week!
Exhil MD.
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