DREMWKR  This patch adds much more than just a new instance. It is an important one for mac WOW players. Blizzard has rewritten much of the mac graphics code to give the game a smoother animation and visual feel. The game threading has been redone to take further advantage of multicore processors, and the graphics engine has been enhanced for a better overall look. I salute Blizzard for continuing to develop WOW as a native OSX game.

Another great inovation Blizzard has done is Dual-Specing. I can now flip between being a Shadow Priest for dps (damage) or a Holy Priest for hps (healing) without having to run back to the cathedral and pay 50gold for respecing, giving me more flexablity for raiding with my friends or PUGs.

Of the changes to the classes, the greatest was done to Holy Priests, Blizzard thought there was too much mana regeneration in the game from spirit and cut it 40%. MP5 speced gear/gems/enchants was uneffected. Since Holy Priests instant cast Circle of Healing (AOE) was put into a 6 sec. cooldown, in the WofLK expansion, they are the only casting class that doesnt do continous casting in combat. My Mana regen went from 800 and something down to 500 and something because of the patch. Also the mana regeneration spell was changed so it no longer applied to the caster, but the other party members, and it is now only temporary. This does mean that all casters will need drink up (mana up) alot more often, and that in long fights, holy priests are at a significant handicap compared to Holy Paladins, Resto Druids, Resto Shamans, etc.

I do play other MMOs on my mac using bootcamp, because most other MMOs are not OSX native. The closest to WOW is Warhammer. The PVP combat in WAR is much better than WOW, and its Public Quests are really nice. Leveling in WAR is much less of grind, and battlegrounds generate XP. I have heard over and over again from my WOW guildmates that play WAR, "(leveling) is so much more fun than WOW". It has also been my experience that the Battlegrounds are much more even between the factions. My WOW server the Alliance was outnumbered 3 to 7 or 8, and so rarely does my side ever win. But

if you dont like PVP, WAR is not for you, the PVE is better in WOW and much more developed, with the lore story telling much more integrated. WOW does have much better artwork and graphics, they are extraordinary and belong in a modern art museum. WOW's music is much better as well, so good, I would pay money to go to a symphony concert of WOW music, if you don't believe me, check out the WOW music at the iTunes store.

Things I wish WOW had that should be borrowed is: WAR's interface is more intutive and less cluttered, and when you pickup a quest, its in book format that is gives much more useful information. I also like the book/page turn transitions when porting, or going into new instances, BGs etc better than the generic montage graphics WOW uses.

  
(Version 3.1.0.9767)

DREMWKR  Version 2.40 "Fury of the Sunwell", is out and I have played several hours on it. Besides the new content on the Sunwell Isle, there are a few things else I have noticed:

*Players skill up faster now in weapon and defense skill, making leveling up a little easier.

*It may be just me, but transactions on the Auction House seem to be less glichy and faster. Since I make most of my gold buying and selling on the AH, this is wonderful.

*It may be just because I play Alliance for most of my PCs, I find in the battleground Alteric Valley (AV) still unbalanced, on the other hand, if you play Horde, this may be a good thing.

*The fpm on my MBP has increased slightly, I suspect that Blizzard has done a little under the hood tuning.

*This may be just my imagination, but some of the weather effects, noticably sandstorms have been improved.

*Almost all the add-ons by now have been upgraded for the new patch, I strongly suggest you get and run the latest version of WowMatrix to do in it one shot. I have 33 or so add ons and modules so this is a real timesaver.

*The ingame chat seems to take up a little less of the processor, perhaps it is now multithreaded more effienctly.

Overall, this is an minor expansion combined with game enhancements that make Wow the most brightest and most polished MOG. This is truely a world class game made for the Mac. All Mac users, gamers or not should at least think about trying it, just to see what all the buzz is about. Remember, Blizzard supports Mac games better than anyone and has since System 7 and for that alone they deserve a second (or first) look at their products.  
(Version 2.4)

DREMWKR  v2.33 upgrades the memory management of rendering core of the graphics engine so that the game, individual zones, instances, and charatures load noticebly faster. Also since v2.3 I have noticed slightly higher fpm even when the video settings are maxed out. In game voice chat has improved, but Vent still has it beat hands down. The in-game voice chat is still not good enough to replace in-game team texting, at least for me anyway. In the Battlegrounds, many teams are Vent only, I have not noticed any in-game voice teams only. My suggestion to Blizzard is to have an external app to do voice-chat, with links to the game (like Vent).

Playing with maxed out sound and video, I found was almost like playing the game again for the first time, I found myself amazed again at what wonderful and well done art and sound Blizzard has done in the game.  
(Version 2.3.3)

DREMWKR  WoW frames rates are now even higher after OSX 10.57, even with the video set to "Ultimate".  
(Version 3.1.1a)

DREMWKR  This is just some fine tuning of the 3.1 patch. The new instance Ulduar features siege vehicles and is blast to play, but is wicked tough to beat. Runs great on my MacPro.  
(Version 3.1.1a)

DREMWKR  After installing the expansion "Wrath of the Lich King" and playing it for about 2 1/2 weeks, I have found it to be the best expansion, if not the best gaming experience in the MMOG ever done. The questing in Northrend both Borean Tundra and the Jford has been very compelling: in terms of both gameplay and lore, I have spent many happy hours exploring and the new areas and doing the new quests. I did a Death Knight in the Beta, and found the starting quest line the best ever done in any MMOs. Right now I am focusing trying to get my Holy Priest to 80, but will go back and do a DK just to do its quest line again, it was that good.

I have now done several instances in the expansion, many of them with 4DKs (DKs can't heal), I have found them to be beautiful, and well planned. They tend to be shorter with almost all being able to be done within an hour (vice the 2 to 4 hours the preexpansion ones), and in general more doable and accessable (& that DKs are OPd). As a healer, however, I have found several specific bosses more challenging, and as a whole it seems that cloth wearers (Locks, Mages, Priests) are at a disadvantage (in terms of getting killed more than before the expac). The artwork in the expansion is simply a masterwork, not just for MMOs but for all visual arts, it really belongs in a museium. The music is wonderful, even memorable and is so closely integrated into the game, it gives it a cinematic effect drawing in the player emotionally. While not in the game notes, the graphics engine has be upgraded, even the "old world" looks better.

One new feature I have a complaint about is the new ingame group calender, it does not allow the raid leader to send out group invites, instead its one at a time, for something like 10, 24 or 40 man events, it is just too much of a pain, the Group Calender add on is still so much better.

I did take my own advice and order an encryption dongle from Blizzard shortly before the expansion came out, I was wrong about the price in my last post, it was only 6.50USD, and shipping was FREE. However, as events turned out it too Blizzard about two weeks to send it, and so on the 2nd day of the expac, while I was in the middle of buying and selling on the Auction house, I was suddenly DCd, and unable to log to back on my account. I immediately changed my password, got back online and found I had been hacked and 2 of my toons had been robbed of items and gold. I put an immediate ticket to the GM, but because of the new expac it took hours for Bliz to respond. It took about a week and I did get most of the items in my bank and packs back but little of the gold for one char. nothing for the other. According to Blizz, I was the subject of a Denial of Service Attack and sophisticated hack, they didn't say (and not likely to say) but it may have been an inside job, it may be that someone actually reads these reviews.

Before you say that was near impossible, I know the same thing happened to a veteran guildmate in Irontree, and not only did he have his toons robbed, but put 24K USD on his creditcard. (The current CC info I have with Blizz was outdated, since I just had gotten a new card). He did say that Blizz did dig into it and provided the CC company with the records showing what happened, they did not and would not provide it to him directly (my guess it to keep players from going after current or former Blizz employees-and then Blizz getting sued by its unhappy employees). Anyway, the security dongle came in a week after the expansion, and I have not had any trouble with my Blizz account since.

My additional experience tells me two things: 1) It confirms that account hacking is out of control in WoW, and 2) EVERY ONE WITH A WOW ACCOUNT SHOULD GET THE 6.50USD SECURITY DONGLE FROM THE BLIZZ WEBSITE.  
(Version 3.0.3)

DREMWKR  I have been playing the 3.02 and 3.03 versions now over the last month. As a Holy Priest it took some adjustment to the elimination of the separate +Healing and +damage bonus points to my gear. I had two separate sets of gear one for PvP and dps, and one for end game raid healing. After the change I found an optimum combination of both. Overall, the mechanics where adjusted so I didn't notice much of a change in healing, but a significant boost in dps. It is now easier to advance from 60 to 70, in prep for the Lvl 80 expansion. Changes were made in the interface to help reduce items in bags, so more room. The new profession Inscription, makes things more interesting gearing out, and at least the ones for Priests I like. Blizzard made these changes to make it easier for friends and guildies to play together with fewer class specific requirement. One thing they added that I really liked was Achievements, for example for being exhalted with all the Alliance factions I got the title "Ambassador".

In regards to the previous comment, you can level up, and end game gear up, playing unguilded, I have had generally good experiences with pickup groups in instances and in battlegrounds, and have made alot of good friends spanning many guilds. As for guilds I am in a good one- Irontree on Lightinghoof, that is well established and run by real adults. It is not easy to get into it, but that seems to help alot in quality of game experience. I suggest if any player is unhappy in their guild, ask around, and play with other guilds in instances, because it really makes a big difference.

One note of caution I must make: One day, I opened my Characture window and noticed that six of my epic (purple) gear was gone. I got an ingame note and an eMail saying that I had done business with a gold dealer that hacked other players accounts. Since I buy and sell hundreds of items a day on the AH (how I make good ingame currency stream), it could have been any one. But since I buy and sell mainly cloth and leathers, and all of the items taken were instanced bind on pickup items, I figured out that none of the confiscated items were in fact hot and challenged Blizzard to show otherwise. I did get a note back restoring the epic gear, but all of the epic gems, enchants, enhancements were gone. Also in the note was a whisper I had responded back in sarcasm to a gold seller that said he had gold for me. It turns out that Blizzard had gone back and looked at every tell I had gotten since I started playing the game, years worth. Blizzard said I was a gold buyer and justified the confiscation of the epic enhancements worth four figures of in game gold on that alone, even though I am certain none of them were hot either or any of it was purchased with hot or "gold dealer" gold. (I have no problem making gold in Wow, I am not a gold buyer-even though I get no shortage of offers in game and eMail). It took weeks of grinding to restore these items, and during this time I was unusable for the Guild's raid schedule.

So my word of caution is this: Anything you buy and sell on the AH is not necessary a done deal, no matter how secure your own account is, because hacking is basically out of control in WoW, and Blizzard's appearent strange attempts of vendetta by a faceless employee to fix things afterwards can make things worse. If an account is hacked Blizzard does not create new virtual items to replace the stolen ones, it takes existing items from other player's accounts, basically to avoid item inflation on the Wow economy.

I have made my review based on a charitable assumption, that the job of being a Blizzard hacked accounts restorer is a difficult and thankless one at best, and even doing what they feel is their best, there is alot of mistakes and collateral damage, with some of it I will have grace to say unintended. And that my case was the exception rather than the rule.

I have seen so many fellow guildies have their accounts hacked I suggest all Wow players get the USB encription dongle for about 10USD.  
(Version 3.0.3)

VEGGIEDUDE  This is the first time I've had serious problems with a game patch. It doesn't seem to be compatible with my year old iMac. The graphic card is ATI Radeon X1600. Now and then weird artifacts will be flashing on the screen, and at least two times the machine froze up and I had to do a force restart. Force quit the app was not possible, so until there is a fix, I am playing it in window mode (not full screen) so the next time the game freezes up, hopefully I can escape better.  
(Version 2.4.2)

DREMWKR  Update 2.30 is out. *The God's of Zul'Aman" I don't know why is not on MacUpdate. This is a significant overhaul of the game. It was redesigned to reduce tiresome grinding and now quests are much more important. And it is easier to level. On the hardware side, the game was rewritten to get better performance from multiprocessor macs, and in terms of Frames/min. it is significantly faster AND looks better. It seems that Blizzard actually reads its mail (at least eMail) and responded to users. I have had no stability issues at all (MacOSX10.50 & 10.51), an improvement over my last Review. The Mac is not a second class citizen when it comes to the World of Warcraft. Just for that alone it should get 5 stars.  
(Version 2.2.3)

DREMWKR  1st: The minimap problem listed below has been fixed, and has been for a while.

2nd: All things considered, WoW is still the best MMO overall, and the Mac community is blessed by its support by Blizzard.

Pros:

*Its gameplay (questing/BGs/instancing) is without equal.

*The artwork in the latest expansion is masterful.

*The music/soundfield effects are emersive&reality suspending.

*It is the most polished MMO.

*The game zoning in an industry innovation for all games in the future.

*Its add-0n system in LUA extends the leading edge of gameplay beyond all others.

*The toon animation exceeds all other MMOs, my Dranie runs smoother as a goat footed alien, than the compition's humans.

*The spell casting really FEELS like spell casting.

Cons:

*The graphics engine was developed for Warcraft III, and is starting to show its age:

*The game tends to be very laggy, and even unplayable in crowded areas such as Daleron or Wintergrasp, even with a state of the art Mac Pro 8 core and top end graphics card.

*The game toons are very limited in terms of customization, the human females only have about 2 or maybe 3 attractive faces, so all human females look like they came out of a clone factory.

*The game graphics now are starting to look dated compared to Warhammer or Aion, the WoW cartoony style was necessary by the primative vid cards of 7-9 years ago.

*The lag and low framerates, cartoony style, and limited individualization compromises the otherwise great game emersion experience.  
(Version 3.2.2a)