Scalable Instances

Why oh why can't Blizzard make instances scalable to the number of people who enter?(It should be noted that my main is covered in "welfare epics" and my other 70 has simple blues and greens because this is all the content I have time for, not because of leet puprz)

It burns me up to think of all the content in this game that I will NEVER see. There is absolutely no way most people will ever get to see the best parts of the game. I don't care about the gear. I just want to see the zones and experience the fights.

I don't understand why Blizzard does it. Why do they develop so much content only to restrict it to the few people who have the time to spend 4-5 hours a day playing? Don't we all pay the same amount? Why can't instances be scalable? I don't expect to have the time and flexibility to be able to be the first person to see the new content but sure as hell want to see it eventually!

It happened first with BWL and Nax when TBC came out. These places are all but deserted now. Now it is destined to happen again with most of the BT, Eye and who knows what else once WotLK is released. I guess I can always keep raising my rogue in hopes of stealthing parts of it at level 80.

Raid vs. Pvp Rewards -- The Real Answer

I understand Raiding takes a lot of time and effort, Pvp does too. I also understand the people who excel at these deserve to be rewarded properly. But rewarding them with "better gear" is not the answer. Simply because as soon as the next batch of content (Pvp or Pve) comes out that gear is just trashed and any sense of accomplishment is gone. They need to be rewarded with "unique gear" (not just in color). Something along the lines of the "Champion of the Narru" or Gladiator titles. Or perhaps the "Purple Trophy Tabard of the Illidari" (I know that is not raid level gear, just an example). And I don't mean unique as in just one drops each time you take 5 hours to kill one boss. I mean unique as in each raid member gets a "My guild made it to the Black Temple and all I got was this lousy teeshirt" kind of deal.

I still have my Benediction staff because it's unique, not because it's a great staff. I don't use it but I can whip it out and cart it around to show it off as an accomplishment in the game. I'm sure the same goes for many GM staffs.

If Blizzard would stop re-shading and upgrading stats on old gear and work on unique equipment/rewards this whole argument would go away.

I know there is the whole argument about performance issues and character models and how much RAM is required but that just doesn't make sense to me. The idea of unique is that there aren't thousands of them. If there were a few people on each server it wouldn't create that much overhead (the unique mounts for example).

How many people on each server get to see the real end game content? Is it too much to ask that they can show it off for more than a couple months? In Arena Pvp you have titles with some meaning why not more of this in for the raiders? Perhaps this gear does exist but is indeed so rare that most people never even seen it.

It seemed for a short time there we had a distinct division between Pvp and Pve rewards. There was the title system for Pvp, restricted barracks, and officers quarters. There was unique gear for raiders (tiers 1-3) and unique Pvp gear. I think the problem started when Blizzard got lazy and started merging this gear (the graphics anyway). At least the weapons haven't fallen into this trap. It is usually easy to tell a Raider from a Pvper by the weapon they carry. Why can't armor be the same way?

There is clearly a distinction between playing style, there should be the same distinction in gear.

Blog links added

I added a load of Blog links on the right side. Too bad I can't list them all. I may add some as I get a chance to read them. I chose the names that stood out and looked to be active. Hopefully some will return the favor.

NoGold.org

I recently found an ad for NoGold.org on the main Blizzard site and immediately joined. The site offers a list of active gold sellers for Webmasters to use with Adsense to filter gold sellers from their sites. I quickly updated mine. Google's filtering mechanism doesn't allow for wildcards which can make it difficult due to the large number of sites and possible URLs. Hopefully this can raise awareness and put some pressure on the business that continues to plague the gaming industry.

Non Combat Pets

There are two types of pets you can have in WoW: agressive and non-aggressive. Aggressive pets are pets who can do damage. They are the Hunter's tamed beasts, the Warlock's summoned demons, the Engineer's created combat toys (dragons and chickens and yeti), even mages and priests have minor pets in The Burning Crusade. Non-aggressive pets are just graphical pets that follow you around. You can have both types out at the same time. This guide is centered around non-aggressive pets (my hunter is only in his 40s). Throughout this guide when I refer to 'pets' I am referring to the non-aggressive type.

Pets are usable by either Horde of Alliance although obtaining some of them can be difficult. The neutral auction houses are always a viable option but be prepared to pay more.

There have been many new pets added with The Burning Crusade. I will gradually add what information I can get. The main addition is a vendor in the Stormspire in Netherstorm. This is a neutral location where you can buy snakes, rabbits and my favorite; the mana wyrm. Some of them are quite expensive but worth it if you ask me. In the Exodar you can buy very nice different color moth pets. These are much nicer than the collectors edition Nether Drake (we got the shaft). Many other interesting pet quests have been added including a magical crawdad that requires a high level fishing.

Dianius' Pet Guides

World of Warcraft's tamable pets