Flying Requirements in 6.2.1ish

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19800551/dev-watercooler-flying-in-draenor-6-10-2015

It will require these current achievements:

• Draenor Loremaster - Under Quests > Draenor > "Loremaster of Draenor"
• Assaults - Under Quests > Draenor > "Securing Draenor".  If you don't have them you should be able to buy them in your garrison.
• Map Reveals - Under Exploration > "Explore Draenor". Use your feather if you can't find the specific spot.
• 100 Draenor Treasures Found - I don't think the achievement for 100 is in place yet.  Use the one under Exploration > Draenor > "Grand Treasure Hunter" and get your count over 100. There are addons to help and of course you can buy map garrison missions from a guy in Ashran.

And it will require "three new Tanaan Jungle reputations to be at Revered.

A Player and No Longer a Fan

What a difference a month makes.

I've been playing World of Warcraft for over eleven years.  I have been subscribed the entire time and never really stopped playing.  I like many features of the game.  I like many mechanics of the game. I like various changes they've made. (Though, I usually don't like it when they take something away.) Over the years, my main has cleared the hard if not hardest raids before they were an easier instance.

I played some Hearthstone, Starcraft, and Diablo and have tried Heroes. A few months ago, I would have called myself a fan of Blizzard. I was also trying to get tickets and fly across the country to Blizzcon.

I'm now thinking I'm glad I didn't get tickets.  It still would be neat and an experience to go. But I'm less interested and that would creep in. I'd feel like an observer instead of someone participating. I will still play, but my interest is fading.  I don't think I can call myself a fan. I'm just a player now.

Sure it's normal that the interest fades when the content is old and done.  And there are many contributing factors.  Garrisons are great and terrible.  6.1 is what 6.0 should have been. The raids are old. The zones are empty because everyone is in their garrison. But all that is a bit beside the point. It's something else.

It feels like there is a lack of respect to the players.  The idea that all that raid farming and hard won achievements yield mounts that flop around on the ground is ... garbage. Our flying mount rewards have turned to garbage.

I think Ion's justifications around not allowing flying are flawed. But the wow fan blowback on this is strong.

If you're curious about this, look into:

• http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17908690989 (Over 17,000 sometimes heart-felt comments about flying future in many capped threads)
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringBackFlying
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/LetUsFly
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoFlyNoSub

What'sup with Kheldul

Twitter
The in-game Twitter connection is pretty nice.  (You can also access it directly with the /share command.)  I like it for posting screenshots and misc updates.

Twitter definitely relieves any posting needs here.  I initially made my Twitter account just so I could follow people and things and have a nice feed of stuff to read. Now I post. I do keep my non-game self and gamer-self separate.  https://twitter.com/Kheldul is the one you should follow.

Twitter of course doesn't handle long exposition. That said, I've been leading technology at a startup for the past 14 months and I don't have a lot of time for technical research, theory-crafting, or wild speculation.  I worked 65 hours -- not including travel time -- Monday through Friday.  Then I worked six hours over the weekend.  That said, I enjoy other's hard theory-crafting labors as the quick route to victory.

Blizzcon
I am most likely going to be coming to Blizzcon.  Ticket TBD. I've been playing wow since day one -- and many Blizz games before it. This will be my first.  I'm not a convention-goer.  I'm a bit of a closet gamer-geek. I also hate Hate HATE lines. So I may need adult beverages.

Game Status
I still login often.  Usually a couple times a day.  I've only got four level 100s. I still raid approximately three days a week.  If we can't get 20 raiders we'll probably stop at least one -- maybe two -- of those nights.  We don't have any gear left to upgrade in Heroic BRF except off Heroic Blackhand.  As of this writing we don't have him down yet ... and we only need one more Blast Furnace kill for the port to him.  I enjoy Heroic Blackhand.  I like the balance of damage in/out and I have the demolisher kiting job in P2.

Child
My daughter (age 12) really likes warcraft.  I have only let her play four times so far.  I'm concerned she'll become engrossed by it.  (Like I am.)  She reads each and every quest.  She remembers people's names and learns the lore.  She enjoys the appearance of everything much more than me. It's interesting to see. For now she's on my account. I toss her some gold and fun items.