Beta-beta-bo-beta, Banana-fana-fo-feta – BETA!!!

Alright, so the good news is (if you couldn’t tell), I won a Beta key from NowGamer.com thanks to tweet from @NowGamer_Dave about the competition. They have 1,000 Beta keys to give away, and they’re handing out 100 of them each day. Today, September 3rd, is only the second day so there are still 900 more just waiting for you to get your hands on them.

A heads up for some of you who I know had a problem with RealID because of the whole showing your real name thing – part of participating in this contest is giving them your full name, so if you’re not willing to part with that information then you can save yourself a little disappointment ahead of time.

The question is simple, and so is the answer. All they want to know is which year World of Warcraft was launched. The US and EU versions were launched in different years, and the answer they’re looking for is the US answer. So if you know the US year then you’re good, and if you know the EU year then just subtract one from it. If you don’t know the answer, then go spend 15 seconds on Google and you’ll find it.

What this means for Psynister’s Notebook
Right now I’m not entirely sure what it means as far as the blog is concerned. Am I going to jump head on into the Beta and leave the live behind? Not a chance. Am I going to spend a good deal of time over there? Well, that really remains to be seen and is heavily dependent on how frequently things do or do not work.

I do plan on playing around a bit with high level toons in the Beta, just to see what it’s like to play the classes that I’m already messing around with to see all of the abilities, but I’m not going to do that for very long. I play to level, I blog about leveling, leveling is my gaming passion – so that’s what I’m going to spend most of my beta time doing.

Now, the whole point of having a beta is to test, to document, and to report. It’s not about getting a sneak peak at everything and getting to play around with the new toys before everyone else. Well, it is, but it isn’t. The main objective is testing and that’s what I plan on doing. I’m going to do my testing from a leveling perspective though, not from an end game perspective.

I’m still going to follow through with my actual Cataclsym plans of leveling those race/class combinations to at least level 20, but I’m going to do basically the same thing here with different combinations. I’m sure we’re still going to see plenty of changes between now and the official launch, so I’m not worried about being redundant.

Beta Plans
I already wrote about what I plan to do in Cataclysm itself (here), so I’m looking at that now as I consider which characters I want to roll in the beta. Do I want to roll now what I plan to level then, only to redo it all again when the game actually launches? Or would I rather roll other combinations just for the sake of trying out this or that? I’m not the kind of person that doesn’t like to do things over again, it doesn’t bother me to roll a race/class, level them, delete them, and then reroll the exact same thing. At the same time, I don’t want the live experience to be ruined by the beta experience (if that makes any sense after the previous sentence).

There are only 10 character slots per account, and only ten classes. There are 12 races, so two of them will have to be left out of the initial run, but that’s fine because I don’t mind doubling up on some classes.

Psynister: Blood Elf Death Knight (Frost)
Psynralyl: Dwarf Shaman (Enhancement)
Psynwise: Goblin Warlock (Affliction)
Psynexxia: Gnome Priest (Shadow)
Psynthato: Troll Druid (Resto)
Psyncazador: Night Elf Hunter (Marksman)
Psyningchaos: Undead Mage (Fire)
Psyndach: Tauren Paladin (Prot)
Psynarrens: Orc Rogue (Subtlety)
Psyneretio: Human Warrior (Prot)
Psynfitoom: Worgen Druid (Balance)
Psynzzlybear: Draenei Mage (Frost)

The only reason I’m rolling myself as a DK is because I want to see if there are any changes to the starting area. I don’t really care to see the Cataclysm DK beyond that point as far as the beta is concerned. While my introduction to the Enhancement Shaman’s greatness came from Stoneybaby, my wife Fynralyl is the first shaman that comes to mind. There’s no question that I never would have bothered with a Warlock if it weren’t for Cynwise. Gnomes were a toss up as I have two Gnome-loving, Priest-playing friends that jumped right out at me, but I had to settle on one so Anexxia got it.

When I think druid, I think Ithato and Lufitoom, with Ithato on heals and Lufi on kills. Hunters are kind of like the minions from Despicable Me, there’s a million of them and they’re all so much alike in so many ways, and yet so different. I scrolled through my twitter feed and started looking at them all until one stood out to me, so Nochecazador won the Hunter’s spot. There are a lot of Mages out there as well, so I really had to do some serious deciding there, and in the end decided on Bringing_Chaos and Krizzlybear (apologies to Gnomeaggedon, but I just couldn’t make you anything other than a Gnome and I’m not doubling up on races yet).

The Paladin class is where I started getting serious about WoW blogging, so my introduction into it came via several Paladin bloggers and twitter users. I had to settle on one though, and the big bad Pally daddy that stood out to me was Rhidach. Arrens takes the Rogue spot as one of the first WoW friends I found on twitter, but curse the undead sucker for having a name that just doesn’t mesh well with my own. The first Warrior tweep I stumbled onto, who also had a big impact on my tanking early on, was Veneretio and I’m also doing him the favor of bringing him to the Alliance side since I know deep down that he loves us so much.

The rest of the choices up there are all based on people that I know from either twitter or blogs. I’ve taken their main class and spec, or at least the class and spec that I associate with them the most, and stolen pieces of the name that I know them by and slapped a new race on them. (I know a lot of people from twitter and in the bloggosphere, so when I thought of who/what to play I went with the first person that came to mind for the classes and specs that I picked, so if you don’t see your name up there….well, deal with it as I’ve only got 12 slots here, people. :P)

And that will be my plans for leveling during the Cataclysm Beta. The goal is to get one of them to level 20 and then switch to another until I’ve got them all to the same place. Then I’ll start over again at the top and push them towards 30. The first two that I’m unimpressed or bored with in the beta will be the two that get deleted to allow for the other two that won’t fit in the default 10 character slots.

Once I’ve gotten the classes to level 30 I’ll have to decide what I want to do from there. Should I switch to just playing one or two of them for the sake of seeing the leveling process over a larger range, or should I keep doing what I’m doing? I don’t know yet, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.

I’m not sure yet which will be more beneficial form a testing stand point. Do I think I can level 12 different characters to level 30 by the time Cataclysm launches? I have no doubt in my mind that I can do that. Do I think I can do that and remain active in my guild in the live game? Well, that’s the part that’s still got me thinking.