WoW, Casually: What really happened in Patch 3.2
by Robin Torres 
Sep 10th 2009 at 2:00PM
Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.
Timely, huh? Patch 3.2 was how long ago? Yeah, well I plead BlizzCon. Regardless of time passing, there are some tidbits here and there that I would like to chat about that happened in our most recent content patch. But before we get to the things that really affect those of us with limited playtime, I'd like to express a strong opinion about badges and easier leveling.
Timely, huh? Patch 3.2 was how long ago? Yeah, well I plead BlizzCon. Regardless of time passing, there are some tidbits here and there that I would like to chat about that happened in our most recent content patch. But before we get to the things that really affect those of us with limited playtime, I'd like to express a strong opinion about badges and easier leveling.
We casuals are constantly blamed for the "dumbing down" of WoW. The complainers state that we want an easier
game and therefore Blizzard is pandering to us. I've babbled on about this before, but I've recently come to a different conclusion. In my house, I'm the casual and my husband is the leet hardcore raider. Which one of us is regularly doing dailies in order to get the Emblems of Triumph for Tier 9 gear? Mr. Raider. Is he PuGging it with casuals or are they all leet hardcore raiding guild runs? The latter. Who complains most in the house about how boring leveling is? The Spousal Unit. The majority of people clamoring for easier leveling and more diverse ways to get their gear are the players with plenty of playtime on their hands. They are the ones speed-leveling multiple characters to 80 in order to fill gaps in their raids. They are the ones that feel that adding two dailies a day to their playtime is easy.As I have said before, while acquiring Tier 9 badges is certainly within a casual player's grasp, it requires a non-casual time commitment to get gear in a reasonable time frame. If you are playing for a couple hours every day, then you are playing more than most of us "casuals" are. But, the fact is that making the game more accessible to everyone benefits everyone. Look, it's Captain Obvious holding up a "Duh!" sign! Moving on...
Following are highlights of things which affect casuals that actually happened in patch 3.2:
More stacking: I didn't see this in the admittedly copious patch notes, but it seems that the low level pots and meats are stacking in bigger stacks now. The 5 stacks I was forced to send my alts from my Alchemist, combined into 20 stacks when picked up from the mail after the patch. Low level alt bags suddenly got less full.
Mounts: Faster, cheaper, accessible earlier. The world just got smaller and leveling became less travel-ly.
Flying mount clue: Don't know where to buy your flying mount in Outland once you hit 60? As soon as you take a flightpath after leveling to 60, you will receive an email telling you where to go. Spoiler: It's in Hellfire Peninsula.
Wand cooldown: If this was spelled out in the patch notes, I completely missed it. Wands now have an extra cooldown after casting a spell. It took a while for The Spawn to get used to it after the patch while playing Itchee the Gnome Warlock and I'm still having issues.
Vendor prices: Item descriptions for everything in your inventory now include the prices you'll get from a vendor. I love this feature for deciding which greys to delete when my bags get full while questing.
Easy Equipment Comparison: Shift mouseover a piece of gear and you will see a stat comparison. Quest rewards automatically show the same breakdown. You get a clear list of what stats will be affected and by how much, should you choose the new gear over your currently equipped item.
More mailboxes: Old world major cities now have more mailboxes. I particularly like the one located on the path just outside the portal dropoff in Orgrimmar. It's great for when I have to run and spend my AV tokens on combat potions and then pick up the overflow in the mail. AV is still the only BG in which I accumulate any spendable amounts of tokens. We'll get to why this won't change anytime soon below.
Interface changes: There are now exclamation points to point out new features in the Interface menu. The new Features menu includes the Equipment Manager and Talent Preview toggles. I strongly approve of moving Talent Preview from Display to Features, having complained about it before.Quest Tracker: If something good happened here, it isn't apparent to me. Unlike my original assessment, if I want an informative quest system, I'll reinstall something like Quest Helper.
Crocolisk pet drop increases: There is nothing official from Blizzard about this, but my guildies, Warcraft Pets and I have all noticed that the crocolisk pets are dropping much more frequently from the Bag of Fishing Treasures received after turning in Crocolisk in the City. I still don't have Muckbreath, though I have the other 3. If obtaining the Lil Game Hunter Achievement is on your list, check the daily fishing quest outside of Shattrath for when the quest is available (it differs per server).
Battleground changes and experience: This is my favorite change in the patch. They've made Battlegrounds, faster, less annoying and a way to level up quickly. I love questing. I really do. But the experience gain per time spent is pretty outrageous, particularly in Alterac Valley, where a loss is about a bubble of experience and a win is approximately 2 bubs. I am going to go into this in more detail next column, but if you haven't given BG leveling a try -- you should.
My in-game experience post-Patch 3.2 has been a more pleasant one. My only real issue with playing WoW currently is that I want to play a Goblin now! Yeah, yeah. Patience is a virtue. Blah blah blah. What are your favorite changes since the patch?
WoW, Casually is a column for those of us who are playtime-challenged. We've got your guides for choosing the best class, finding a casual guild, keeping your account safe and choosing the best addons for casual play. But wait there's more! If you have questions or tips about how to get the most out of your limited playtime, please send them to robin AT wow DOT com for a possible future column.Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, WoW, Casually
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
matag Sep 10th 2009 2:10PM
Great Article Robin! Just an aside... I, like you, have a website that focuses on strategies and tips for what I call "busy" or "Real Life" gamers. I would love for you to check it out sometime, but I see no real contact information for you (besides for the comments section of course), and I am not sure if this is an appropriate space to share that link! If you have some sort of contact information that you use for blogging if you would kindly email the address associated with this post! Thanks again for a great column!
Robin Torres Sep 10th 2009 2:13PM
robin AT wow DOT com :D
matag Sep 10th 2009 2:20PM
Thanks!
Squirr3llywrath9 Sep 10th 2009 2:14PM
While I agree that most of the new changes are awesome, i'm going to have to disagree with you on BG leveling. AV used to be my favorite battleground, now I try to avoid it whenever possible because the level 72s that queue up don't understand they are holding the team back and then they try to tell 80s that they aren't carrying their weight. I've also noticed a good bit of the lower level characters are often afk which is also pretty lame.
TL;DR version: make an 80 av bracket or require people to be 75+ to queue.
gari.rogers Sep 10th 2009 2:20PM
I dunno that I agree with this. I think more lowbies in AV has been a good thing on whole. AV isn't so much about l33t skillz and gear as keeping a group in a tower until it's capped. I don't care if you have a group of 5 74's in a tower, cause chances are if they stay there, stay together and have a healer they'll cap the tower unless there's a zerg coming in. That wins AV.
That said, if you're upset about it I'd suggest putting together a 4-5 member tiger team and going and taking the other side's towers yourself. Rated BGs aren't that far off that you can't start putting together a group to specialize in Tower Patrol.
Scott Sep 10th 2009 2:23PM
^This
I'd rejoice the day Blizz creates a seperate 70-77 AV bracket. While I enjoy running a lvl80 alt through AV, I don't enjoy half the level of half those composing the raid group be under lvl75.
Knyle2 Sep 10th 2009 2:59PM
It is a tough balance, Overall I think AV is done as a real source of pvp fun, because like u said so many lowbie use it for xp.
In fact I got my most recent, And only second char ever finally to 80 using AV it took me about 20 hrs of AV (paritially afk'n for laundry food and movies) I did 0 quests. which now means Im sitting on over 7k gold from doing all of those quests as a lvl 80.
Its rediculously too rewarding as far as xp is concerned.
They should either, or something like,
put 80s above everyone else in Q priority,
never let more than half of the popluation of either team be non 80s.
decrease the xp.
or take AV badges out of the pvp (all 6 badges) turn in repeatable quests.
AmazonLily Sep 10th 2009 3:27PM
I agree with Gari. As long as people are cooperating and working together, you can easily win an AV match no matter the levels. I leveled my Priest from 70 to 80 through AV. I did some quests out in Borean Tundra, but I honestly could not take it. Despite what the achievement claims, there IS something boring about Borean.
I made sure I contributed as best as I could. I defended what I capped and even defended what I didn't cap. The only time Alliance would lose would be when Horde would decide to defend Galv, sending us back to our base where no one would push forward, thus creating a turtle. People would then say, "this is because of the lowbies" or even blame it on the people who were AFK in the cave, but the majority of the issue was lack of cooperation.
Great article by the way! I don't consider myself a casual since I spend quite a lot of time playing, but I still love your articles because I'm not a raider (I'm all about the PVP). I just got back into the game when 3.2 came out so I wasn't too sure what changed.
turkeyspit Sep 10th 2009 3:30PM
At LV 51, you get a whole bunch of quests that can be achieved inside Alterac Valley: stuff like capturing a GY, completing the Mine quests, etc. Just for winning an AV Match, you can get ahold of some nice gear. I remember both my Hunter and Paladin drooling over that Polearm. Also, at LV 51 those quests give a nice chunk of XPs.
What a shame that to do these quests at 51, you have to play against LV 60s.
Capture a GY? The NPCs are LV 57 (iirc) which puts them just under 'skull' level.
etc.
BG brackets should be no larger then 5 levels. Having 71-80 brackets, etc is just plain stupid, and ruins the experience for all concerned.
Tinwhisker Sep 10th 2009 3:57PM
Remember too that the other side has just as many lowbies; your team isn't at any great disadvantage.
I've been leveling a mage through the 71-80 BGs and I've not really noticed any changes for the worse in the pace or anything else. One thing I have noticed is that PvE objectives (like killing Bal, Galv, Vann or Drek) simply cannot be done effectively by anyone other than the max level characters. It's a bit easier for Alliance to take towers than Horde to take bunkers because of NPC LoS but that's still not a huge deal.
Thundrcrackr Sep 10th 2009 4:10PM
There simply needs to be an "End game" bracket for 80s only. (or whatever the current max-level is.) The fact that there isn't is just retarded. A top geared 80 can one-shot a lvl 71.
Jamesisgreat Sep 10th 2009 5:23PM
All these low level 70's certainly make achievements like the Sickly Gazelle a heel of a lot easier though :)
gari.rogers Sep 10th 2009 2:15PM
I still maintain Questing with Questhelper is faster than AV. I've stacked 5-15 quests, gone out and done them all, got most of a level from DOING the quests, then get most of the next level for turning them in, especially below 60. AV is quicker if you don't have Questhelper, or can't stack your quests like that. (Or you just want to squeeze out those last few bubbles to a '*2' level....)
Leonffs Sep 10th 2009 2:35PM
That's a gross exaggeration. In Northrend it is more like 75ish quests to get 1 level. Way more than 15.
gari.rogers Sep 10th 2009 2:50PM
Grossly exagerated XP is what you get below 70 :P
Stridez Sep 10th 2009 2:16PM
Ohai guiys! Where's mankirk's wife?
Kaphik Sep 10th 2009 2:22PM
Don't worry, in patch 3.2 she'll be on the ground right behind her husband. ;)
Kaphik Sep 10th 2009 2:22PM
Bah, typo, that was supposed to be 3.3!
kaos95 Sep 10th 2009 2:23PM
I love the lowbies in AV, not only are we winning more on my battlegroup (for the HORDE, shadowburn) I am getting far more HK's lately
Arednel Sep 10th 2009 6:03PM
damn shadowburn, i was sick to death of the org SB daily we used to get and I'm no where near level cap!