Warcraft 3.2
Yea this is a Warcraft post, if you don’t play WoW feel free to move along, nothing to see here.
Blizzard recently released patch 3.2 for the game which included TONS of changes and content. There are a few that I think are extremely cool, let me list them.
Mount time was cut in half. It’s funny how removing 1.5 seconds from an event makes it feel 
much better. A related huge change was the increase in standard flying mount speed. Regular flying mounts were always annoying and borderline useless because of the speed penalty. Yea you could fly but you only could move at the same speed as a regular ground mount, a 60% increase over foot speed. Well with 3.2 they more than doubled the speed of the flyer to 150% of foot speed. For someone that is trying to level a character from 70-80 this has huge implications.
Prior to this patch you were only able to start flying in the northernd zones at level 78 when you could pay 1000 gold for the cold weather flying ability. Up until that point you were stuck being land bound. Now, if you already have a level 80 character you have the ability to buy a book to send to your lower level characters that allows you to fly in northernd immediately at level 68! The combination of these changes will result in a dramatic increase in the levelling speed of a lower level toon. Being able to fly in straight lines between objectives at 150% speed is much better than riding around objects on the ground at 100% obviously.
Blizzard also has shifted the new mount goodness all the way down the chain. You can get your first mount at 20 now (used to be 40 way back when) and you can learn to fly in Outlands at 60 instead of 70. All of this of course is designed to help players get to level 80 as soon as possible where the real fun begins. Bravo to Blizzard.
Like I mentioned there are tons of changes that are covered in much more detail elsewhere, let me just say that if you used to play WoW and got tired of it for one reason or another I recommend you give it another look. It’s an entirely different game nowadays.
Speaking of old WoW players coming back, I recently got my old buddy, co-worker and fellow game player into WoW. He actually was one of the people that got me into playing WoW initially. My buddy was hardcore into the game, he knew the quests inside and out, always levelled faster than the rest of us, always had better weapons, more abilities etc. etc.. However over time he went over the edge and WoW sort of consumed his life to the point where it was causing issues at home. He was doing stuff like buying gold and accounts all in the quest to have the ultimate WoW uber character. He HAD to walk away.
Away he stayed for years and years, despite our requests for him to come back and play, just in a more balanced and healthy manner. Well last week I was telling my buddy about all the cool changes in 3.2 and I again urged him to check it out. He was intrigued by my descriptions but he had vowed to never go back to the game. Well I continued to work on him and it came down to getting the ok from his wife since she was the one that was ultimately hurt by the events the first time around. I asked her to let him to dip his toe back in the water. Since he quit WoW he has played a ton of different MMORPG games and has demonstrated an ability to do it in moderation, something he could not do with WoW. I laid this out as a basis that my buddy would be able to once again play WoW without becoming a train wreck. Eventually she agreed to let him try it out but of course it would be under a watchful eye.
We came up with several scenarios for how he could reenter the game. At first he created a 10 day free trial account, however the account was very limited and didn’t allow him to see any of the new content. We worked out something that worked out for both of us.
I have had two WoW accounts for a long time, I took over the account of a co-worker around three years ago. On that account I had three level 70 characters that I have not touched for months. I told my buddy he could simply take over that account from me, that way I am relieved of paying for an account I basically was not using and he gets back in the game with a huge head start on the levelling game.
I have been trying to help him get acclimated to the game and all of the changes. It’s enough to make your head spin. It’s good to have him back in the mix, hopefully the end result is more positive this time.