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World of Warcraft 3.1 Patch Brings Dual-Specs, New Raid
On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.
To start, you net about 700 gold in the level from 70 to 80. If you're careful, much more.
Fundamentally, MMORPGs that use a DIKU archetype system (classes) find an overabundance of damage dealers and few tanks; even fewer healers. It's easy enough to note that leveling up / grinding for money / pvp rank / whatever (DIKU style) you need damage, making the classes capable of tanking/healing even more sparse as they min/max toward the damage specs. This is a nightmare for developers who have to try to balance that system. I'd say dual speccing is useful for just under half the wow population and really makes the non-damage dealing classes much much more attractive as there is now true flexibility, guaranteeing more $$$. From a player perspective, it's a win. From the developer's perspective, it's a win. From the publisher's perspective, it's a win.
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The Burning Crusade did not ship with SSC, The Eye, or Hyjal. These were all added in later content patches.
1. Getting from 1-80 without instances is not hard at all.
2. Blizzard made it easier to get from 1-60 (I think), by reducing the exp required per level.
3. Instances are a boring way to level up, compared to questing.
4. There's more quests in the game than it takes to get leveled up. For example, you could easily hit level 70 in Outlands after doing Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar Forest, Nagrand, and a little bit of Blades Edge Mountains. That leaves the rest of Blades Edge Mountains, Shadowmoon Valley, and Netherstorm to get quests where you got more gold rewards for quests. In Northrend you could hit 80 easily by the time you've done Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'drak, Scholazar Basin, and if you're a bit unlucky a little in Storm Peaks. Either way you'll have most of Storm Peaks and all of Icecrown to get gold from quests.
5. Lv60 and Lv70 raids aren't done frequently. The people that do them frequently either do them with a small elite group of players because they're looking for specific stuff (Elementium Ore from BWL, Bindings from MC), or they do it with high level characters because they don't want to be carrying people.
6. Instances are fine to find, the problem is that some instances are quicker and have better equipment and people generally drift towards those instances. You can almost always find Scarlet Monestary groups horde side, but trying to find a group for Sunken Temple or Blackfathom Depths is near impossible.
7. If you were a low level when BC started there should have been numerous new low level characters, tons of Draenei alliance side and a tons of blood elves horde side. I smell BS there.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork