Greatest Hits of 2009

Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope your Holiday season has gone well. Been touring around a bit, so far as Vegas!

Anyway, 2009 is over, but it's been quite the year for WoW! We've been given so much over this year, dwarfing probably more than any other year in the game's five year history. I've decided to countdown what have probably been the most influential changes to the game in a general sense. Of course a blog list will vary from your own opinions, but take a gander all the same

#10 Disenchant option in Dungeons

This probably seems like a small one to some people, but not having to determine who in a group is an enchanter and speed through the rolling process, not to mention not having to pass out shards in the end, just screams as a great time saver for 5 man groups. Very subtle but very cool.

#9 Revamped starting experience

If you haven't rolled a new toon recently (which I wouldn't blame most) let me just sum up that levels 1 to 20 are now easy mode, and thats not a bad thing at all! Making the game more attractive to new players is great for retaining new players. Having spells cost less mana, more appropriate starting weapons, super reduced chance to be dazed, it's all great stuff that will really start paying off when Cataclysm hits the shelves.

'cause we're all gonna try out a Worgen, don't even deny it.

#8 Turning off Experience

This is something a lot of Twinks have been asking forever! No longer do you have to worry about walking out of a town randomly, accidently gain level 20 for some reason and make your Shadowfang worthless. At the same time though, this is a bit of a double edged sword for twinks since experience-less toons now have a much increased chance to be matched against each other. So no, twinks won't be mowing down under-geared gnomes all day long now, but not pushing yourself out of your bracket after your all twinked out is more than an even trade. Being able to turn of xp if you like to quests with others is also kind of handy for group play. Really though, this change goes hand in hand with the next item on the list.

#7 Experience in Battlegrounds

There have been reports of people trying to level purely through PvP now, which is actually kind of viable. Questing around and queuing up for a BG while you do so is a good way to stay on your toes while leveling. Go in with a group and you increase your odds even more. Those with many alts that like to pvp will love this change. Try rolling around in a fresh 58 / 59 DK for some fun times.

#6 Normalization of Profession Bonuses

This is another sort of two-sided change that some people will take issue with. Those people are the ones that took Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting because it offered the largest stat gain of any profession combination, especially being able to gain extra socket bonuses you would normally pass up. For everyone else though, a sigh of relief washed through WoW, now knowing that the you would be gaining very similar buffs just by having 400 or so profession points in two professions. It's not quite perfect though, Master of Anatomy is still woefully under-powered, Lifeblood is great for grinding but situational at best in the endgame, and Toughness is just for Tanking, maybe PvP. Still, we're better off having some variety in crafters for the game as a whole.

#5 Gems for Honor, Badges for PvP

A nice little cross-game action with this one, Being able to redeem PvE currency for PvP rewards and vice versa has helped broaden the game on all fronts. Hardcore raiders now find themselves doing more Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds so they can get some Honor for gems, and now badges from heroics can go towards PvP gear for everyone. Another subtle but nice change.

#4 Earlier, Faster Mounts

Remember how big a milestone level 40 was? Getting your first mount and being able to move across the globe at something other than run speed was revolutionary for many and a matter of pride, if not a right of passage back in Vanilla and BC!

I don't miss those days though when I look at the system now. Being able to get your first mount at level 20 is just a much better idea! 20 is when you start having to get out of your predefined zones and start looking for adventure elsewhere, and being able to trot along the countryside makes such a difference when leveling. Epic at 40 and flying at 60 go right in line with the progression, but the increase to regular flight speed is probably what takes the cake for a lot of people. Not everyone has the time and devotion for epic flying (a real real shame) But 150% flying speed over the old 60% is a much better feeling so that you don't feel like your gibbing your land speed for the ability to go over obstacles.

#3 Revamped Badge System

We caught a gleaning of this on release with a two-tiered badge system that rewarded better gear for those that could find the people for 25's. Since then we've seen more tiers of badges added and heroics updated in order to provide gear for this behind the cutting edge raid curve or just getting alts leveled up. Many players cried fowl when this plan was released, claiming that it made the game easy mode and took away from the reward and stature of the "Hardcore Raider." In truth, it has redefined what can be considered a hardcore raider. Blizzard has said they want more people to see the endgame of content, and with this change everyone will get the option, even if they just have to keep plugging away at heroics. The difference now comes at the speed of which you finally get to take down that last antagonist at the end of his nefarious lair. If your hardcore, it may be a week or two with the release of the content. If your casual, it may be further down but it is possible!

Really though, if you define yourself into this "Hardcore" classification, you should be worrying less and less about people running dungeon for their Tier 10 and more concerned with how Heroic Deathbringer Saurfang is going to punch your face in.

Nice little rant there. These next two choices were tied in my mind, but I had to put one before the other, so here goes:

#2 Dual Specialization

It finally happened this year, something we've all been requesting for a very very long time got implemented and now we no longer have to click a little box 71 times for new talents, go through the additional trouble of re-glyphing, then reset your action bars and macros! So much time saved, its amazing really. Before being able to change with the click of a single button seems like the dark ages. Dual spec's are what caused me to switch my main role in raids from a DPS to a Tank. Being able to be a tank for heroics all the time has quickly allowed me to build up skills vital to be learned as a tank and take it on full-time. I'll admit though as soon as I got it for the first time, I almost instantly wanted triple-specialization. My healing as a Paladin is rusty, and the spell power plate just keeps dropping in excess for my raids =P

Well, if you've seen my second pick, you can probably guess my first pick.

I mean, I only talk about it all the time.

It's a revolutionary change to the game thats added so much value.

Well, without further ado, the greatest change to WoW this year was easily:

#1 Jousting

I think everyone can agree with me when I say that it was a fantastic idea by Blizzard to add a psuedo PvP option to PvE when they added the Jousting feature with Call of the Crusade in 3.2! And boy did they implement it into a lot of stuff for that patch! Lots of new dailies and a Boss in the 5 man EVERY SINGLE TIME! So you can enjoy the not-boring, not-tedious, and not-hated fighting craze thats sweeping the nation. And boy, do I see people using the Jousting-duel option all the time, for bragging rights or for settling tenuous socio-economic disputes in Great Britan. I can only hope we end up Jousting the Lich King himself!

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Nah, I'm just yanking your chain =D

The Real #1: Revamped Looking for Group system

What can I say that hasn't been said already? It's a revolutionary change to the game thats made running dungeons more popular. And truly, dungeons are where WoW shines in terms of design. Being able to queue up without having to dig through various chat tells takes away so many headaches as the games pairing system is more than competent to build you a group. Rarely will you get an unworkable group or instance. More-so is that the function works so well while your leveling up a character. Being able to work on quests and have a dialog box pop up and port you straight end is so amazingly wonderful, and the teleport out option is also incredibly handy. While I do value Dual Spec's, how great this addition was caught so many off guard it just had to take my top spot!

Well, thats all I've got for tonight. I hope 2010 goes great for everyone and I hope to be writing well into Cataclysm. So I'll see you all in a random dungeon!