UPDATE: I’ve done a big roundup of all the most important news relating to Dragonwrath, along with a guide on how to make sure you get one as quickly as possible. You can find all this and more here! It’s only recently emerged in the Public Test Realm datafiles, but the internet is already rife…
Author: Gazimoff
One Year Old!
I’m not usually one to celebrate milestones, but I think this one is worth sharing – Mana Obscura has made it to it’s first anniversary! It’s taken a fair bit of work to get this far, but it’s also been a lot of fun and incredibly worthwhile. The blog started off on March 1st 2010…
Looking For Dramatic Change
If you ever wanted a minute by minute reading of why tanks and healers feel special, you need look no further than the infamous Looking for Dungeon tool. It’s a bit radical to see tanks get insta-pop dungeons and healers have maybe five minutes while DPS are left to sit around for maybe an hour…
The Last MMO on the Street
It’s difficult to argue against the hype that a strong retail release can generate. Pictures of gamers lining up in the cold and the dark to be the first to get their hands on a new game make for great newspaper articles and TV features. There’s also the social part of being one of these…
Comparing Mages: Warcraft Vs. Rift
There’s a common theme among fantasy MMOs. It doesn’t matter what game it is, you can expect to find the same three character classes. There’ll always be a plate wearing warrior type that’s ready to soak up the damage and a cleric or priest (or even minstrel) type that throws out healing. Then there’s the…
Managing Limited Game Time
There are times when I miss my youth. Back when I was a student I’d be free to play the night away, blasting cyborgs in Quake 2 or bludgeoning head-crabs in Half-Life. I’d blitz through a game in four days straight, chomping through single player content like a man possessed. The other thing was that…
The Incredible Shrinking Raidgroup
I wanted to focus on a particular experiment that Blizzard’s been working on over the years – that of the optimum raid size. We’ve seen raid sizes start at 40 players in Vanilla, but slowly drop to 25 in Burning Crusade and then 10 players in Wrath. With the new lockout system in Cataclysm, 10-player…
Magic Mondays
This is a bit of an idea. You see, I’m notoriously poor at doing two things: keeping lists updated and sharing some of the great stuff I’ve found that’s been created by others. I’m told that routine helps – put together a plan of what you want to do, then do it on a regular…
Encounters That Rock!
There’s a great shared topic over at BlogAzeroth right now: Naithin asks what causes an encounter to ‘click’ in our minds. When do we reach that point when a boss fight switches from being a difficult challenge to possible, then to trivial? It’s a good question, but I don’t think it’s just down to preparation,…
Reader Q: From Arcane to Fire
I recently got a reader email asking for some advice with improving their fire spec. I love getting messages like this as it gives me a chance to help someone out and get geeky about my favourite spec at the same time. This particular email was eerily familiar… We started raiding last evening and had…