Filed under: Gamers on the Street

Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

When we logged onto Aerie Peak to visit with players for this week's installment of Gamers on the Street, we thought we'd be in for a nice chat about patch 2.4, The Sunwell Isle. But that's not exactly what we got. It's not as if there weren't players to talk to. At prime time on this heavy-load server, there was plenty of hustle and bustle in the major cities. In fact, there was more activity than usual. But it wasn't an infusion of energy from reading about the new content now being tested on the PTRs that inspired all this activity: love was in the air.

We gave up trying to make direct contact with players after being soundly ignored by an award-winning streak of more than 20 Horde players, all intent on curing their broken hearts. Most of the players who replied to a general query for their impressions on the patch reports responded with a question of their own: "Hey man, I heard about that patch thing. What exactly is gonna be in there?" In desperation, we finally shot a whisper to the lovely young troll who had been pelting us with rose petals for the past five minutes. She was generous enough to share her thoughts on what was ahead – and her rose petals cheered us up long enough to finish surveying several other players. Thus, we bring you this week's word on the street – such as it is – of what's on players' minds about the upcoming patch.

Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

What's the "right" class and spec to be playing right now? What's going to make the biggest splash on the scoreboards? Why do players choose the classes that they do? WoW Insider readers, who generally enjoy theorycrafting and playing their classes to the absolute hilt, are a savvy lot when it comes to class balance and what specs are hot, hot, hot. Log in, though, and you're much less likely to encounter players who are concerned with theorycrafting or running up whatever spec is considered the new hawtness. In game, players seem concerned about how to get a fair shake with their character of choice.

We logged in during prime time last night on The Forgotten Coast (PvP) realm to see what players had to say about the classes of 2008 -- who's hot, who's not and how it all affects their characters and play styles. Who got the raves, and who's chalking up the most bad press? Read on to find out ...

Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

I'm leveling too fast. My brand, new main character is already in her mid-50s and closing on BC content fast. One night's worth of questing while my husband was offline catapulted me two levels ahead and greened out our next planned instance. It took a week's worth of jostling to get our quest lines and zones back in sync with one another. And money for my mount at 40? Who are you kidding? Even with steady gathering from 1-40 with just that in mind, it took dedicated money-making days to bring in the cash I needed in time (err, relatively in time – I didn't mount up at level 40, that's for sure).

One of patch 2.3's handy-dandy, user-friendly changes was a boost in leveling speed for characters between levels 20 and 60. The XP required per level was reduced by 20 percent, and the amount of XP granted by quests between levels 30 and 60 was increased. Loot in leveling dungeons was improved. Oodles of outdoor elite mobs were changed to non-elites for solo-friendliness.

Fast forward a few months ... Do players like the results? We dropped in on the Ysondre server earlier this week to see what leveling players think about the current state of XP'ing in Azeroth. Read about their XP experience and share your own thoughts on how fast is too fast, after the break.

Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

Some days, reader e-mails get more ... well, real than others. Not long after Gamers surveyed players on their New Year's resolutions, we received this e-mail from Drakthog of Moonrunner: "Yeah, I was the jerk who posted (in comments) about the Alliance not being able to chew gum and talk at the same time. I decided to put my money where my mouth is. I'm an officer in <The Pride> of Moonrunner, a casual guild with many members of different backgrounds -- military, civilian, hardcore, casual, old 70s, new 70s, old and young. Should you wish at any time to hop on Horde side and ask a few of my loyal friends and guildmates their point of view on anything, I'll volunteer them to speak to you, at length, on any topic you wish."

Talk about an offer you can't refuse! If you've ever seen Gamots (the Ben Urich of Gamers on the Street) at work on your server, you'll recognize that we'll talk to just about anybody – let alone a whole collection of anybodies with opinions a-plenty. So one night this past weekend, we popped into a chat channel with the members of <The Pride> to hear what they had to say about the state of post-modern raiding.

Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

If you've ever suspected that official forums posters are the squeaky wheels of the World of Warcraft, you may be right. With all the noise there about various buffs, nerfs and changes in Patch 2.3.2, you'd think that all of Azeroth and the Outland would be in turmoil. But when Gamers on the Street popped in on Doomhammer server yesterday to see what players thought about Patch 2.3.2, player response was considerably underwhelming. Replies from players on this high-population, longstanding server ranged from "What mage changes? I guess I should read the patch notes more often," to "Oh, there was a patch?"

We visited with players both Alliance-side (talkative and opinionated) and Horde-side (Horde, O Horde ... where were you?) to find out what players thought of Patch 2.3.2 specifics. (And much to our disappointment, we didn't run into a single transmute-specced alchemist who'd had a proc since the patch.) Read on for players' thoughts, after the break.

With Wrath of the Lich King already blipping away on many guilds' radars, a lot of players are plotting their way through existing content (or figuring out how to get into it in the first place and then pick their way through what they feasibly can) before the new content hits. Back in town on a peaceful early morning, you'll find players with a broad view of the things they want to accomplish in the weeks and months ahead – New Year's resolutions for a very Warcraft year.

Gamers on the Street popped into Ironforge on the Warsong server early one frosty, cold morning this week to see what the early birds were planning for 2008. Their ideas, after the break.

In Gamers on the Street, Krystalle Voecks will be creating characters and joining different US servers in an attempt to find out what the everyday Gamer thinks about different things going on in and around the World of Warcraft. With research in hand, she'll report back here, to share the word from the front lines.

After a week off to plan the Stampede on Stormwind event and deal with that Real Life thing that likes to sneak up on me between raiding and writing, Gamers on the Street has returned for another weekly chat with the denizens of Azeroth! Poised and ready to ask the nowhere nearly hard questions that many other people spend all their time on the forums thinking up. This week's run took me to the Bronzebeard server where I actually was able to find people on both sides of the fence who were willing to share their opinions about the news from Blizzcon about the upcoming expansion, and some of the buzz that has been going on ever since.

For this week's interviews with a couple of very cool WoW players, join me after the jump for the word from the Gamers on the Street.

In Gamers on the Street, Krystalle Voecks will be creating characters and joining different US servers in an attempt to find out what the everyday Gamer thinks about different things going on in and around the World of Warcraft. With research in hand, she'll report back here on Thursdays, to share the word from the front lines.

With BlizzCon starting tomorrow, you'd have to be living under a rock to have missed the buzz and rumours flying about things like Wrath of the Lich King. I've seen fairly credible concepts (Northrend is coming!) to some really crazy things (The new area is the Maelstrom, the level cap is 85, flying mounts are coming to ALL of Azeroth, and Bob's your uncle.) I couldn't resist hitting the virtual bricks this week and checking to see whether BlizzCon fever has hit everywhere, or if the only notable thing to most people is that L70ETC is rockin' Terrorkar Forest to its foundation every hour on the hour.

In Gamers on the Street, Krystalle Voecks will be creating characters and joining random US servers in an attempt to find out what the everyday Gamer thinks about different things going on in and around the World of Warcraft. With research in hand, she'll report back here on Thursdays, to share the word from the front lines.

With all the excitement about the PTRs and pre-made characters, I thought it would be interesting to ask people what they thought about some of the upcoming changes that Blizzard is adding into WoW in patch 2.2. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that I asked admitted that they didn't even bother reading the patch notes until they were released as live. Many said this was because of changes happening so fast that it wasn't worth tracking until it was finished. Others had only heard about the frenzy to get on the PTRs, and maybe of a couple of things in the works. But after a bit of searching, I managed to get two people who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules and give me their thoughts on their "best and worst" in the upcoming patch, as well as their thoughts on Voice Over IP (VOIP) that Blizzard is building into the game and hopes to make available soon.

Hello all, and welcome to Gamers on the Street! In this column I will be logging into a different server each week to create a character and ask completetly random gamers of both factions their opinions about things that are currently impacting players in World of Warcraft. In this way we hope to reach out to the community and give some everyday gamers a chance to talk about some of the things going on in game.

This week, I picked the Gnomeregan server by asking someone in the <It came from the Blog> guild to name a server for me. It was the first one that was given to me. I rolled my two characters -- a Gnome Rogue and a Troll Rogue, which I dutifully leveled past one so nobody thought I was a gold spammer -- and headed for the major cities nearby to ask my questions. Amusingly, getting anyone to talk to you at level five (Alliance) or three (Horde) was difficult to say the least...