Warcraft Patch 4.0.1

Blizzard released patch 4.0.1 yesterday, introducing major, sweeping, changes to the game; consider it a foreshadow of what's coming to Azeroth when Cataclysm comes out. I got the patch installed and ran a few instances and did a little questing last night (gotta do my dailies) to see how things are going and thought I'd share some thoughts.

Not surprisingly I heard a lot of complaints about everything, many people summing up their thoughts with the phrase "Blizz has wrecked WoW!". Do I think Blizz has wrecked WoW? In a word, no, but I do share the general feeling of frustration over what has happened with some of the class changes. What it boils down to? I now have to relearn how to play my class.

My main is an Affliction Warlock who I have lovingly brought from a level 1 nobody to a level 80 powerhouse over the last 6 months and it's difficult to see that essentially thrown out the window and replaced with something I don't quite understand. What happened to my spells? What they left me with has changed drastically, they plain threw away a few of them, and they gave me a couple I don't fully understand. I'm really not looking forward to logging in with my Hunter or Paladin and dealing with the mess created for them.

Talent points? Let's forget the money I spent respeccing her talents to tweak her DPS, that was my choice, but in the new system, they are not nearly as customizable, way fewer points to assign and for some reason I no longer either generate or require soul shards. Not a bad thing as shard management was always a bit of work, but it gave playing the 'lock another facet that I enjoyed. I want to change demon's? Fine, but I need someone's soul to sacrifice first. Soul Burn loses a bit of something when you no longer need a piece of someone's soul to use it. The new glyph system is kind of cool, but again it takes something away from the game when you allow people to retain the knowledge after changing glyphs.

I could go on, but I think that sums up most of the frustration, it sums up mine anyway. Am I going to quit playing WoW because of this? No, I'm not, and I honestly don't think it's going to chase many other people away either; definitely a few will leave, but they were probably looking for an excuse to quit playing anyway. I can actually see this generating more interest in the game and bringing and keeping more players, which equals more money for Blizzard and, by proxy, more money and better content. The changes have, by and large, simplified the RPG aspect of the game and distilled it to a point that more people can recognize and manage; not exactly what I was looking for, but I'll learn to manage.

It's easy to be angry about change but being easy doesn't make it right. At the end of the day this is simply a game and it's time to learn a few new rules.