Played Lately: World of Warcraft

• It's my turn to make the obligatory patch 2.4 post for WoW, so I'll go ahead and get that out of the way. So far, I really like it. Hmm, maybe I should say more.


• When I finally got into the game and got my mods up-to-date, I was greeted by a very different Shattrath City. I only took a few minutes to check out the new quests before portalling to Silvermoon and from there to the Island of Quel'Danas. There were a lot of people all standing in very close proximity. Rain was falling thickly and the misty darkness obscured the horizon. There was also an ongoing war on the waterfront between the Shattered Sun Offensive and the blood elves and demons defending the Sunwell. In other words, it was really cool to watch. The new dailies were interesting, if overcamped at this point. I also got a chance to witness the capture of the Sun's Reach Sanctum and the new quests there.


• After a rather fruitful run in Karazhan this week, I was able to get a group of guildies together to run Magisters' Terrace, the new five-man instance. I had more fun in this instance than in any of the others I've run. Each of the bosses plays like a "best-of" selection of earlier encounters. It looks beautiful and is a lot of fun. The only problem I had was the final boss. I like the encounter, but my lack of stamina and the difficulty of healing made it just south of a nightmare. We won, but it did dampen an otherwise fun evening.


• What haven't I checked out? Well, I haven't PvP'd at all, so I'm not sure how the removal of diminishing returns or the updated Alterac Valley have changed that. Considering how little I PvP, I doubt there will be a huge effect on me, but I'm still interested to see them. I also haven't tried the fishing daily quest because none of my characters fish well enough. Someday, maybe.


• On a semi-related note, I decided that I'm not going to leave my guild any time soon. I wasn't seriously consider it, but I did wonder if staying in the guild was keeping me from seeing the deeper raids. Chaotic may not be ready for 25-mans any time soon, but I'm not ready to burn bridges for the short term gain.