WoW Twinking - 90-99 Bracket

So somehow I missed a change to the game, which both makes me want to play WoW a little bit again, purely in a casual way, and also never, ever, ding my character to max level.

Twink PVP has been around since the dawn of battlegrounds, and its had a fairly serious scene for a long time. Level 19 twinks were often the most popular, but it had broadened to level 70 and even "1 below max" twinks in recent years. Theres even a scene for the free to play twinks, who cant take advantage of the heirlooms, which were often best in slot. I myself have plenty of twink characters on my account, namely for the 11-15 (pre-mount) or 16-19 brackets, where you essentially have little more than heirlooms and enchants on nothing gear.

So whats the change that has made me really interested? Legendaries and Scaling.

Legendary weapons are iconic in the game, none more so than the Warglaives from Black Temple at level 70. They left their mark on the 70 arena scene, and are arguably the best looking weapons in WoW. Then we have the likes of Sulfuras and Thunderfury and a few other later additions, we are looking at some truly awesome weapons, that have been defunct for years. Now all of a sudden they are some what relevant.

Twink PVP now scales the items in the BG's - at the 90-99 bracket all items are scaled to 591, with the exception of some heirlooms and leveling items which will exceed this scaling. However, being able to use the healer legendary or warglaivess and have them being legitimately good just

The scaling also opens up an INSANE amount of customization. While Best in Slot is going to certainly involve getting out and leveling and picking up some of these 98 level epics and what not, being able to go back and find old set bonuses, and those fantastic trinkets with brilliant procs will just add what I'd consider the biggest depth to the game for a long time. WoW is so cookie cutter now, that there is very little room for customization. Max level players need to follow by at large the most efficient stat route or suffer the consequences. Though my priest at 90 did gem/stat change to suit mys style, nearly all my other characters followed a very precise route - and even personal flair was only added once certain stat caps were hit.

Right now on the priest I am testing using 6 of 8 Transcendence, the old tier 2 (and one of my favorite sets in the game. Through in the level 90 2 piece bonus and I've actually got 3 different set bonus's, the legendary mace from Ulduar, its become fairly enjoyable to actually think back to the past history of items and see if there are things that are worth getting to make BG's and Arena more fun and versatile.

So with that said, the only time I think I'll do twink PVP is at weekends when there will be people on, but its something I'll definately be doing. It wont get in the way of my other persuits, especially Smash Brothers, but its a great way to keep my confidence up and also keep my micro skills working.

Also without a shadow of a doubt I will be the best player in the twink brackets. I am yet to see a single person with anything above 2.2k experience, let alone gladiator. So with me riding in with High Warlord, multiple 2K+ rating requirement items and vanity pieces, and the gladiator mount to boot, it has made me quite the target, the way I like it.

The 2015 Play Through List

So with the dawn of 2015 I really want to set out to clock through some old school games that I largely didn't get a chance to play as a kid, and then just had "no interest" in playing during my competitive period of gaming which lasted from all the way back from '99/00 to pretty much last year. In reality '09 saw the end of my competitive tilt in gaming, but I still had this block in my mind that no game without a versus mode would peak my attention. Maybe I am just mellowing in my old age, or that sense of impending doom of I may never really get a chance to do it, playing through these games that I just know I will actually enjoy seems quite a good idea.

A large portion of the games that I never played comes from that our house was a SEGA house growing up. My brother dictated the consoles and games we got, being six years my elder. If you look back, games like Sonic and Double Dragon, awesome in their own time, just don't stand up to the Nintendo classics like Mario, Zelda and Final Fantasy.

Some of these games I've played through other parts of the franchises, or played games from their developers, others are just there based purely on merit of where they stand in peoples eyes, classics if you will.

I am still getting my fill of "competitive" play, or rather PVP, via Smash 4 online (Wii U), Counter Strike and I imagine I'll step out to Mario Kart Wii U very soon.

The 2015 List

Foreword:
I'd love to say that I'd play through all the Final Fantasies this year, but on the FF subreddit it took a calendar year for them to go through the entire series, and right now I am watching Cereth, one of my favorite FF streamers "race" through the entire FF series (including side games) and as of typing he is on FFX with 330 hours to his name - 15 games clocked to this point.

One thing I will mention is that on many of these playthroughs I will do some research and planning ahead of time, you can take the player out of the competitive games, but you cant take the competitive out of the gamer. Wandering aimlessly between quests or losing time on maps is not my idea of fun anymore (15 years ago it would have been). Any game I play I'll search out the best strats, mechanics and things I need to know, and single player games are no different. Ideally I'll look to speed runners, but in times of glitching runs or highly practiced mechanics to beat levels, I'll likely just use solid guides.

The following games are in some form of order of what I want to play - I may switch around if chronology is important.

The Games:

Final Fantasy VI - SNES
Zelda: Twilight Princess - Wii
Final Fantasy IX - PS2
Final Fantasy X - PS2
Final Fantasy VIII - PS
Zelda The Wind Waker HD - Wii U
Zelda Ocarina of time 3D - 3DS
Chrono Trigger - SNES
Zelda A Link to the Past - SNES
Secret of Mana - SNES
Mega Man - Zero - DS
Starfox 64 - 3DS

I'll be shocked if I can get through this all this year, I also dont want to ignore new releases - we recently picked up all the next gen consoles, and there is plenty there that I want to play. I am quite interested in Halo 5 and its online multiplayer, I might have to get practicing on Halo 4.

First Up:
I'll be likely restarting Final Fantasy VI on the SNES emulator on my PC or putting it up on an emulator on my mac on the big screen TV, currently I am playing it on my phone, and as amazing as the game is, the phone does get slightly in the way.

I love the idea of mobile gaming for old RPG's, but I might just limit it to shorter RPG's - ones that you can do in 4-6hrs opposed to 10+ as your' unlikely to sit down for more than a few minutes to play them on a phone.

Welcome to World of Bully

The obligatory entry post.

This was intended as a total rip off and throw back to one of my favorite idle time WoW blogs, World of Ming. More than anything it would be a gesture to that nostalgic feeling I had of the old days, not just of the WoM blogs, and the others that inhabited the hub sites, but also way back to when I posted on RTCWnation,  Cached.net, ESReality and xfire.be, not to mention some of the guest spots I did around the world.

We live in a world of social media now, and while written blogs are still there, and in some communities are still popular, we've definately seen a transition over to virtual content from YouTube, Twitch TV, Twitter, Facebook and reddit. Arguably reddit and the last remaining forums are the movements that have driven off the controlled and moderated blog sites. In this social media driven world, people prefer "access to anyone" content, which can be lifted or buried by the users themselves, opposed to the choice select writing articles. With that said, expert guides are always going to be popular, as a small and elite group are arguably the ones that can give us access to that.

With that said, I had planned to make this blog while I was playing World of Warcraft again. I was mixed up in the competitive RBG scene on most of the top teams in Europe both ally and horde side, while having some fun in arena. However, with WoD's release, I saw the best time for me to quit.

As such this blog will now focus on three things;

Smash 4 and my learning curve in this game.
My desire to go back and play classic games I've missed because for the last 15 years I've literally only played games that involve a "versus" mode.
A blog on more general, and sometime specific, notes on competitive gaming, practice and self improvement.

Moving into 2015, I am going to make a list of games I want to have completed going into 2016, and will start that today. I plan to post on progress through these games, thoughts and reviews.

I might also from time to time post on XWing the miniature game, however, likely I will reserve those posts for SONS blog.