When 3.3 first came out I had mixed feelings. There was this part of me down in my gut that screamed “I DON’T LIKE CHANGE!” over and over again and then there was the part of me up in my brain that told me “Don’t be silly, absolutely nothing bad has happened!”
Now I’ve had time to think about what this new patch has brought I realise that for me, only good has come from it. For a start the new looking for group system is certainly very handy, allowing players from various servers to group together for instances. Although people may complain about not being able to pick and choose their own group-mates and some say it lets poorly geared players leech off the elite, if the elite are truly as amazing as they seem this wouldn’t affect them at all. All it does from my experience is allow new players to access opportunities they wouldn’t have had before.
Another thing that has emerged to be incredibly useful is the replacement of daily quests with the “Looking for random group” feature. This way players who are not fussy about which instance or heroic they do are rewarded with a satchel of useful goods (which has a tasty little blue for you) if you’re level 10-69 or emblems of triumph or frost if you are levels 70-79 or 80 respectively. This leads to faster groupings and more rewards which can only be a good thing.
And of course, how could I talk about looking for group without mentioning the new instances and the new raid?! Icecrown citadel has three new instances along with the inevitable raid. The first instance is the Forge of Souls and the goal is to ruin the twisted engines known as soul grinders found in this portion of the citadel, and then players can advance to the next instance which is called the pit of Saron. Players who venture here will immediately be confronted by the lord of this lair, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Before they can present a threat to Tyrannus, players have to free slaves who have been trapped by the Scourge. Until that happens, Tyrannus leaves all adversaries to his minions, workers of the citadel's mines. From there you enter the Lich King’s private chambers, the Halls of Reflection. He summons his two former captains to attack you and once they die he confronts you himself. The result doesn’t exactly go to plan.
I can’t really comment on the frozen throne raid as I haven’t actually done it yet! Suffice to say I’ll be doing it given a whiff of a chance and I’ll fill you in as soon as I do.
The last thing I’ll mention is the new quest tracking feature. On the map there is now a blue blob where your objective for a quest is. This makes it easier to find the less obvious objectives for quests while still making you work for your experience by looking in the area. I know it’s not your precious questhelper with its big green arrow to follow but at least they showed you where to look!
The last thing I want to mention is the new armor set, Tier 10. Pieces of this set can be bought with emblems of frost and it looks to be the end game armor for wrath of the lich king. Many people have complained about the looks of the various sets but to them I would say: Shut up and look at the stats. I will be dancing for joy as soon as I get my first piece of T10 but until then I’ll have to make do with my T9.
Well that’s me for now; no doubt I’ll run into some more interesting features at some point or maybe even the Lich King himself but until then:
Greg out.
