Insert Obligatory Title about 3.3 Here
Patch Day Has Come And Gone
Patch 3.3 landed with its usual whirlwind of broken addons, incredible lag, and the murmurs of QQing filling the air.
I’ve waited a bit to write about my impressions on 3.3, because I needed time to let it all sink in a little. Today is now the third day of 3.3 being live, so I realize that if I don’t write about it now, I will have missed the boat.
First Impressions
I logged in as soon as the servers went up on December 8th. First things first, I checked my addons. There were a few errors here and there, but nothing that was completely unfunctional.
The new Quest Tracker and map functionality is interesting. I decided to turn off Cartographer and Quest Helper, and give it a shot. The most annoying thing for me is that the default Blizzard map doesn’t allow you to turn while its open. Now you can open a sort of ‘mini-map’ with the arrow at the top right of the map that does allow this. Final judgment is still out on these features though.
I then attempted to try out the new LFG interface with a few other guildies. We were matched with a 3rd DPS to fill out our group and everything was blazinging fast at first. Then of course we got stuck on the loading screen and unceremoniously kicked back to wherever we started, with a nice little deserter debuff as a parting gift.
In guild and trade chat everyone was saying that they were experiencing similar issues. I decided to do the smart thing for once, and give up.
I sent off Bind On Account shoulders and a chestpiece to my horde-side priest Rainah. It worked flawlessly! I spent the rest of the night leveling my priest alongside Jardal’s shaman.
Second Day
The second day I attempted to try out the new LFG again. Jardal and I put ourselves into the queue for the Random Heroic with myself as DPS and him as Heals. After 30 minutes or so of no luck, we gave up and went to dinner. I was a little surprised and disappointed that it didn’t find a match for us. I’ll have to try it again at various times of the day and perhaps just by myself.
After dinner we tackled the new 5-mans on normal. It was a blast! There’s a nice amount of trash, and the bosses are interesting (and sure to be challenging on heroic). The questline that takes you through there is very well done. It also gives you some excellent rewards – Emblems of Frost and a big chunk of gold.
An important thing to note is that unlike normal TOC, the normal versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans reward you with Emblems of Triumph. The loot isn’t bad either - I managed to pick up two new daggers – Heartshiver and Krick’s Beetle Stabber. There are two more shiny daggers waiting for me on Heroic mode.
With a well-geared and well-organized group, normal isn’t too much trouble. We did have a few moments of panic while running away from the Lich King in the Halls of Reflection.
The plotline through the three instances is a great touch. It reminds me a bit of the Caverns of Time instances (although Arthas is much cooler in Halls of Reflection than he is in Culling of Stratholme. Apparently by becoming the Lich King he learned how to move quickly?). I hope Blizzard continues to incorporate plot more often into their 5-mans.
So there you have it… the obligatory patch impressions post. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting for you to read soon!
