In no particular order:
Raid boss nerfs.
I know it’s disappointing for raid groups who were just about to beat Boss X on pre-nerf difficulty, and I sympathise, but: overall, I think this is a nice dose of fun for the people who get to see a few bosses they otherwise would have missed, and it’s a nice chance to just goof around and not take things terribly seriously. Raiding should not be srs bzns all the time, after all.
New talents.
For the first time in three years, I specced Retribution for a couple of days, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back to my Holy comfort zone right quick mind you (to heal an AQ40 pug I should have known was doomed, really), but after years of struggling and making do with shockadin, to play Sailan and actually do real DPS was great fun. Ret has plenty of nerfs incoming, so it won’t last, but it was fun while it did.
The Scourge Invasion world event.
There are a lot of negative things you could say about the enforced PvP aspect of the zombie plague, and Lume said them very eloquently; I’m not going to talk about it now because this is a positive post, darnit.
There are two things I love about the Scourge Invasion, 3.0.2 style:
- The old content of 1.12 – the necrotic crystals, the killing masses of zombies and skeletons and ghosts, the fighting for mob tags and the mad accumulation of necrotic runes – is just fun. Speaking as a paladin, smashing the undead is kind of my raison d’être, y’know?
- Lore and Storyline. While the effects of the zombie invasion are frustrating, it’s engrossing to see history repeating – this is what happened to Andorhal, Stratholme and other human towns. The quests surrounding the event give a glimpse of history, and at the same time they lead into the storyline of Wrath of the Lich King, foreshadowing what is to come.
Achievements.
I’m sure no-one’s surprised that I think these are great fun. I do have a couple of quibbles about the system – mainly that there’s not enough distinction between meaningless achievements (like using a toothpick) and achievements that require some effort (like reading every book on the ‘Well Read‘ list, which requires a couple of instance runs to finish). However, I love the system and I love its rewards – I’ve already scored myself the Ambassador, Diplomat, and Guardian of Cenarius titles, and Stinker the Skunk pet.
Now There’s A Name I’ve Not Heard Since…
The guild is livelier than I’ve seen it since we stopped official raids; the people who were still playing a night or two a week are on all the time, and people who’d cancelled accounts or drifted away are back to check out 3.0.2 and get ready for Wrath. Although we’re not doing anything in particular that needs numbers, a more lively and dynamic guild is always a good thing, and it’s reaffirmed my belief that we’re going to have a good solid raid group come WotLK – we’re pretty close to raiding strength already, despite having lost enough of our old raiding team to drama, RL obligations and differing priorities to put an end to our 25-man raids a few months ago.
Shockadin might start looking good again……
I have to agree with all of it. Patch 3.0.2 brought a fresh wind of change into the game, exciting everyone in my guild.
My only disagreement lies in the raid boss nerf. Mucking around is fun, but at some point you want the challenge as well. The sense of achievement. Especially if you’re delving into content you haven’t done before as a guild.
Nonetheless, I’m still very excited, and I’m making the best of it while Retribution is still good.
“at some point you want the challenge as well” – well, yes, but there’s been 18 months for people to challenge themselves for a sense of achievement; this is the ‘last minute’ before WotLK is launched, and seems a perfect time for mucking around. I can understand that some raid guilds are desperately trying to squeeze as much content out of TBC as they can, but I think 95% of people have seen all the serious progression they’re going to, and are just now choosing to kick back and relax on a bit of a raiding vacation.
I have had more fun in WoW in these past few weeks than I have had in months. Between Hallow’s End, my friends and I helping each other get achivements, new talents/skills, and the zombie invasion– which I absolutely love by the way, no complaints from me, I mean, waiting five minutes for a questgiver to spawn is nothing when ARTHAS is coming back… I am having a blast!
“Mucking around is fun, but at some point you want the challenge as well.”
Depending on your level of progression, it’s still a challenge. Fights that required coordination before the patch still require coordination. We tried to brute force one of the ZA bosses we’d never been to before, only to find out that that method wouldn’t work, and that we had to think about what we were doing, pay attention, coordinate, etc. The nerf has obviously given us a big leg up, but you can’t walk in and drop these bosses by just looking at them (most of them, anyway).