What's Missing from the cataclysm announcement

So with all the announcements at BlizzCon and the great questions asked by the participants, I find that there were a small omissions, but one that was FREAKING HUGE:

Where's the Hero class?

Uh, did you just forget to add one? Are you holding back on the announcement? Is it yet to be decided? Or did Blizzard FINALLY realize (and oh god I hope so*) that DK's were such a disaster that we're DONE with hero classes?

I'm actually more shocked that none of the Blizzcon attendees asked this question. Maybe it wasn't in the streamed video, but I haven't seen any discussion about a heroic class. I haven't even seen any discussion about the omission of a heroic class.

Other interesting omissions:

The Emerald Dream: I was hoping to see the Emerald Dream/Nightmare in the new expansion. The entire male half of the night elf race spent around 10,000 years here, and now Malfurion's back... but where the hell has he been.

PS WHere the hell has Malfurion's BODY been for the past few years?

Alas, the other omissions have currently fallen out of my head. I'll edit or post more later, but these are the ones that have been on my mind. Stay tuned for more thoughts on my thoughts on Azeroth, I've got some stuff simmering.

-Tris

*PS I'm not really opposed to the concept of hero classes. Just what they've DONE with this one hero class has seriously wrecked the play environment IMO. More to come on this soon.

Where we are and where we're going

So Blizzcon has come and gone, and we've got a lot to look forward to in the coming few months/years. And I for one am looking forward to it. As a preview:

After a long war in Northrend, we're coming home, and the world isn't the same as it was when we left. As the producers put it "maybe we left a little bit of ourselves up there in Northrend". After all the war, we're heading back to Azeroth, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. The cataclysm will occur when we get back, and Deathwing has returned, sundering parts of world in his wake. Even though the world has changed, I am glad we're coming home, and it sounds like that's the way it going to feel.

And we FINALLY get to visit Kezan, Gilneas, and Hyjal.

Other new bits we can expect:

First, Goblins and Worgen:

Not sure where to begin here, so I'll start with the admission, I was wrong.

I CERTAINLY did not beleive that these would be the new playable races. And certainly wasn't willing to base the prediction on the inclusion of the masks included for the Halloween holiday.

A horde goblin faction is an obvious choice. They were Horde allies in WCII, and still operate their zepplins. They're nice little green guys that will fit the Horde lineup well. The rocket belt set of abilities seem a little forced, but other than that, they're right on target.

My feelings on Worgen are mixed. I'm not sure what other race would have worked, and they've cleanly worked it into the lore it sounds like. Their abilities sounds pretty cool and the styling of Gilneas with its gothic style should be spot on.

More tomorrow about things that I found suspiciously UNmentioned.

-Frozen Voodoo

Sunken Temple, BlizzCon and Grunty

So this is one of those times I realize that I'm not nearly as young as I used to be. I was up late running Sunken Temple, and damn, now I'm feeing it.  I've become such a freaking sucker for healing instances, its just so EASY to get into a group. Not only that, my regular guildies and PUG members seem to think I'm getting pretty good at it. So After running Uldaman and Zul'Farak with my other two primary guildies and a couple DPS pick-ups, I was ready to log. The ZF group was by far the best run I've had in a very long time, the group knew all the fights, except for our newbie, and he caught on really fast. I'm very proud of him. When i was just getting ready to log, I got an invite to Sunken Temple. Now, I love Sunken Temple, I think it was a great example of vanilla instancing with a lot of flavor. I had just run a friend through on my 80 Hunter a few days ago, and had a refresher on all the fights, but I hadn't run Sunken on a level appropriate toon in about 8 months. At first I said no, but then we were able to get our Pally tank in and my resto druid. And down we went into temple...

The roster:
48 Resto Druid (me)
48 Prot Pally (Guildie)
46 Prot Pally (original tank, but went DPS)
47 Mage, I think fire
55 Elemental Shaman

Then I found out I was the only one with any experience in ST

"Crap", was first thought.

Luckily, my second was "Well, lets suck it up and see how it goes..." Thank god I rethought it, beacause it went really well. We had great DPS from the Shaman, which made life vastly easier with her chain lightning and the mage's blizzard. After a few little tweaks to playing style, we were golden. Basement was cake, and then the upstairs was smooth, just one wipe when we pulled way more aggro than we could handle with the mobs in the Prophet's chambers. It was fun getting to say "Okay, now it gets hard" when we got to the top floor when the shield was down. It was a great run, and I feel like I was able to educate some good players how to to get through it. Its a massive headache if you don't know what order to do things in. I got some nice Feral gear, and everyone came out ahead in gear, which is the best kind of run.

So I'm finding that I really like healing, and its a good place I think to lead a group from, because I HAVE to watch everyone. I look forward to more runs.


In other news, I'm looking foward to Blizzcon launching.  Even though I won't be in attendance, I will be streaming it online and I'll still consider it to be my first BlizzCon.  It will be nice to get the story about whats gonna happen in the coming months to years and see the progress that Blizz has made on their other projects (StarCraft, Diablo, Unannounced future MMO).


I admit, the Murloc pet will be cool too...

-FV