Things to Come

New things are on the horizon again from the Blizzard, as they prepare to launch their next patch, 3.2. Some of them are good things and some of them rather depressing. I have always been an enthusiast for the Argent Tournament and for me, the news is exciting; they are finally completing the coliseum at the tournament grounds:

"In order to prepare for a siege on Icecrown Citadel, players will be called by the Argent Crusade to test their mettle in the Coliseum. 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player challenges await inside."

What are the "challenges" that they are talking about, it is hard to say. It could be a new instance or a ring of blood type of battle. Personally I hope it is a new raid instance because we still lack a good middle ground for raids. Ulduar was a great addition but lets face it, startup raiders will not be able to do it for some time and you cannot really call VoA and OS as raids - at least with a straight face. In the end we only have Naxxramas that is actually a real dungeon and many people, me included, would hope for more variety.

One might also make the case that we should soon also see a benefit to our reputation with the Silver Covenant faction. As for the moment, it is neigh useless but yet we still receive a health amount of reputation with them from various quests, including specifically the Argent Tournament dailies.

Another most welcome upgrade will be for the druids who are, finally, getting new skins to both their cat and bear forms. The skin will vary between races, so night elves and taurens for example, will look distinctively different. I am willing to wager half the druid population are extatic about this changes, as it is a rare player who isn't tired of watching the same, giant bear ass day after damn day.

One update that the world of player is in an uproar is the nerf that is being targetted at the jewelcrafters; as of 3.2, the dragon's eye gems will no longer be considered prismatic. This is a pretty major set back because that is one of the main benefits of using those gems. The main reason for the uproar is that so many gear sets in the game seem poorly designed when considering colored sockets.

As a personal example, my current dps gear set has literally 5-6 blue sockets, with one yellow and two red sockets. Anyone is free to explain to me in what world it makes any sense to have blue sockets in dps gear, because it bewilders me. The good news is, the patch has not even hit PTR yet so a lot of things are subject to change. So, if the gems are being nerfed, hopefully they can find a way around the socket issue.