Random Thoughts

On 3.1:

In all, other than the time it took them to patch the servers (which didn't matter to me since I wasn't available to play until 9 server), I was impressed with the patch. Most of my addons worked, only a few gave errors, and when I clicked through the errors, they all worked as intended. I started in Dalaran, did the daily cooking quest, and picked up the new daily fishing quest. It took me to Sholazar which was nice since I got my Frenzyheart dailies done at the same time. I then returned to Dalaran, turned in the quest, and then flew up to Icecrown for the Argent Tourney.

On the Argent Tournament:

Pretty darn cool. I easily breezed through the intro quests, picked up the other dailies, and quickly earned 5 tokens. The quest to obtain 15 tokens will be done on Thursday, so it should be nice to see what opens up after that. Dueling on horseback is pretty sweet and the dailies take you all over Northrend. The only issue we had was after starting the Black Knight quest line and going to Westfall, when we tried to hearth back to Dalaran, the Northrend server was down and I had to call it a night.

On WoWMatrix:

Yesterday, news was released that WowMatrix had been blocked by both Curse and WowInterface. I completely understand the reasoning behind blocking WowMatrix, and, ultimately, it was the right decision to make for both sites, however, the way they handled it was completely wrong. They waited until patch day to block WowMatrix. They had been planning for weeks (if not months) on blocking the application, yet they didn't alert anyone to that fact. They gave no one a chance to prepare for the application breaking. The kept all the end-users in the dark and waited until the worst possible moment for everyone to break a vital application.

Like I said, I understand why they did it. Simple economics. WowMatrix made it so you didn't have to visit Curse or WowInterface to get your addons and they lose income because of that. There is no other reason other than simple $$$. However, again, like I said, the way they broke WowMatrix was despicable. They chose to break the application without providing any viable alternative. The Curse downloader obviously only works on Curse and is quite gimped and installs addons you didn't choose to install. As for WowInterface's updater, well...they don't have one. They'll gladly shut you out of their network, yet provide no alternative. Kudos to you guys.

So they shut down WowMatrix, which was a simple, efficient way to download addons without providing an alternative and they do so on the busiest day of the year. And what happens? Both sites crash or slow to a crawl. Gee, who would have seen that coming? Both Curse and WowInterface reported bandwidth drops of 30% and up, however, both were unable to stay up as people who used WowMatrix flooded their sites looking for updates, and, in most cases, not finding them due to poor search results, slow sites, and outdated addon listings.

On Achievements:

On Monday a few of our regular raiding team got together to do heroic achievements. Still working on that red drake and all...we decided to try the spider lairs, Azjol'Nerub and Ahn'kahet. After repeated wipes on Watch Him Die, we skipped it and proceeded to easily get Hadronox Denied and Gotta Go!. Not too bad. Over in Ahn'kahet, we easily got The Party's Over (Phosphorex had to sit that one out) and Volunteer Work. Respect Your Elders took us two tries, but only because we had a slight healing issue in the main room, but we got it done. Volazj's Quick Demise will have to wait as that is a very tough achievement. I think we'll have to all go in as DPS as I had troubles getting the healer down in the madness portion.

Of course, last night I earned Argent Aspiration and Dual Talent Specialization. I was a little disappointed to see no new achievements outside the Argent Tourney and Noblegarden. There are some smaller ones like for Dual Spec and for the new fishing dailies, but nothing fun like in the last patch. Oh wells, I think the Argent Tourney and upcoming holidays will keep me plenty busy.

On Paladins:

On Monday, I met a fellow blogger in the game after she saw my spam in trade chat. Please take a second and go say hi to Platezilla. She has some very cool updates to read and an awesome story about her death knight Velanora.

Thus ends my rants, tonight, more Argent Tourney fun, and maybe some tries at the Emerald Whelpling out in the Swamp of Sorrows. Oh, and perhaps some manual addon updating since WowMatrix doesn't work :(