SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.

So WoW just shutdown, I've been hearing a lot of things lately about what's supposedly coming in this patch, many people are going OMG LOL RUBE SCNTUM. Needless to say, I'm excited for it - hurra new bossfights, realm firsts and whatnot. We'll be fighting against our usual competitiors for realm firsts ofcourse - Do Not Panic (DNP, alliance) and the polak guild Siege (horde) whilst I have every confidence in the guild I'm in (Oblivion, horde) I don't think we will get realm firsts. I can see how it will go - first few bosses will be killed at a fairly similar rate, DNP probably getting most of the firsts, us and Siege will be fairly level as to who gets first kills (imo despite having the "recorded" higher progression they actually have a very similar playstyle to us and as such... we draw a bit).

ANYWAY, I'll look at the other patch 3.3.5 patch notes FIRST prior to going massively in depth into the Ruby Sanctum. So what else is there...

• Real ID
• Players using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option will have no cooldown.
• Chat Frame changes (right click chat types and sort them, mouse wheeling to scroll through chat, "classic mode" which doesn't include those changes and simple chat ui removed)
• Friend list statuses "Available, Away and Busy"
• Broadcast messages (mass whispers all Real ID friends online).

And...

...

Wait, what? Really? Aside from Ruby Sanctum that's it? OKAY, okay, so Ruby Sanctum is a big deal, but I can comment on that little other amount of stuff I suppose.

Real ID - Okay, at a first glance I have absolutely no issue with this, it in fact strikes me a bit like what Xbox LIVE does (and presumably the darkside PS3 also does, I don't know, do I look like a PS3 user to you?) and that works fine. What I am not fine with is how Real ID + Broadcast will work out. The idea of my Real ID friends mass whispering me with others A) tells me that they might not actually be directing something at me and B) will get annoying as sin. Now my friends are awesome, they're my friends so yeah, I like em, however, give any of my friends a "mass annoy" button and they'll use it. My other issue with Real ID some of you will laugh at and that's fair enough - you're part of the older gaming generation who enjoy looking down on the younger generation, but before I begin, I've been playing WoW since vanilla beta, which is more than most adults I know have been playing it, so, yeah, before you laugh. When I started playing I was 10 (OMG AGAINST ELUA RULZ OMGOMG) but yeah, so the account wasn't signed to my name, it was instead put to my father's name. Now, this would be fine if Real ID didn't use the real life name from your sign up as what to show me up as. This can do a few things: it can let me be thought as a man (I'm not called Gareth), it can cause confusion as to who I am to other Real ID friends from other games and it can enable a new "hey we can use this to take the piss" feature. So anyway, most of you won't be facing that issue and for the most part I'm sure this will be fine (until someone finds a way to exploit it), but regardless I look forward to using it, I just hope it doesn't go the way Blizzard's Voice Chat system did when it was released (pure lol).

I actually covered 2 of 5 there didn't I? So anyway, next the Dungeon Kick Alterations. This is one part where I cannot fault Blizzard for once and give a big huge hug and a WELL DONE badge. I like these changes a lot. As a raiding tree I do have a fair amount of gear but like most dedicated raiders, I will, of course, still use the LFG tool and do my random heroic every day - and if applicable, as it is at the moment, my seasonal event daily in Midsummer Festival. Why? It gets me FROSTIES, yup, Frost Emblems, I won't turn my nose up at em, as I'm just a delicious 16 badges off my cloak (cause I will never get hc 25m deathbringer's cloak QQ) replacement and even after then, saronites, alt gear and pvp gear OMNOMNOM. But anyway, I digress, basically I use LFG every day at least once if not twice (or more times if I'm bored or get guildtripped by friends and alts), so I end up grouping with a fair few randomers. At best the players I get do "alright" pug dps and don't mess up so much, that's at best. Since I'm a healer, I actually can't contribute with a decent level of gear - a well geared and experienced dps can level an instance and make it go 50% quicker though sheer "I stabbed it twice and with my damage it died", a skilled, experienced and geared healer can... HEAL YOU TO 100% MORE EFFECTIVELY ZOMG. yeah, whatever. So trees aren't massively contributive in pugs, so what. It just means nobody dies, unless you get someone like I got today. I will refer to this person as Huntard, as it fits them perfectly. Hunter joins LFG, gets grouped with myself and 3 other average players - 2-3k dps each of them. Hunter does 1.5k DPS and then tops it off by doing two things at once totally wrong; A. he ninjapulls the boss B. he ninjas the consequential loot. Now obviously we didn't die from his ninjapulling, I've cleared ICC25, it takes more than an unexpected Prince WhatshisfaceFrostTomb pull for a wipe. We've just been in combat, I can't kick for 5mins or so until we're out of combat, if we pause to kick him (i.e. wait for kick cooldown) other people will leave, I don't kick often so... yeah, this'll work out much better in 3.3.5, plus, we won't have the issue of noob leaves and is replaced with noobier noob.

I ranted a lot there, I apologize, I had to let off rage about my battlegroup's FAILEST FAIL OF FAIL EVER PUGS. So anyway, Chat frame changes. I'm going to wow you right now and say OH MY GOODNESS BLIZZORD YOU HAVE ACHIEVED CHANGING NOTHING, yep. I have a mouse with a mousewheel, wheeling it atm scrolls the chat if I'm hovered over it, so either some tard that's mouse scroll wasn't working already QQ'd so they made it an official change or I don't know, I'm god and have access to patch changes before all of you. I honestly don't right click my chat ever, so I won't need to go back to "classic chat", I never use Simple Chat ui (I don't even know anyone that does, wtf is that?) and I don't really use separate tabs, I have two chat tabs - Combat Log and Chat. They even made it easier for me by giving you filters for your combat log, of all the laziness. But yeah great I suppose, whatever, lets just continue.

Status changes. OH BOY, YOU MEAN I CAN CHANGE MY STATUS LIAK ON MSN OR SKYPE? oh this is so new and origin-- hey wait, don't we already have "Online", "AFK" and "DND"?..

So in shorter words what do I think?

Real ID - Good.

Vote Kick - REALLY Good.

Chat Frame - Meh

Friend Log Status' - Wait, what?

Broadcast - Bad.

I'll do another post on Ruby Sanctum in a few hours once I have some more information than the lore. We'll be raiding it in approx. 17 hours so I'll give first-hand impressions and contributions from then onward.

Syn OUT!