Bossa Studios, known for their games like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, have just announced that their next game Worlds Adrift might be a little bit delayed. Or at least the closed beta stage is, which will push everything back a little bit as a knock-on effect.

A video update from the studio delivers the news and puts it down to wanting to fix issues that came up during the closed alpha test for the game. Luke Williams, a designer says that alpha 6 “highlighted a lot of shortcomings” that Bossa “were not happy to release with.” While they’ve since managed to fix some of these shortcomings, such as a lack of metal on starting islands and the rather alarming amount of screen shake thunderstorms were causing, other issues will take a little longer – thus the closed beta will be delayed as a result.

Coming in the beta will be more character customisation options, along with ship frames now being salvageable to stop the skies being littered with old ships. By the way this also includes other player’s ship frames if they’re just abandoned, so there’s something you can do with your time – tidying the skies and making something from it too probably.

For more details about what is scheduled to come in the Worlds Adrift closed beta, check out the developer diary below for all the information. Right now it seems like the the delay should only be a matter of weeks, rather than months, so expect the beta to release sometime in the summer.

So, it’s been another week of WoW playing. Both Bodeclaw and Teddired have levelled up slightly and gotten a little stronger. so, what’s new with them this week?

Running Wild

I’ll be honest. I chose Worgen not only because of my dislike for the typical human, orc, elf… etc. classes you usually get, and me wanting something different… I chose her because frankly werewolves are awesome. And with Druid being the class I need never ever be anything human again, and this week I decided to test out one of the Worgen abilities I’d already learned – Running Wild.

For those who aren’t aware, Running Wild basically allows a Worgen to move as fast as they would be mounted without a Mount. Unfortunately the hat and mace combo kind of makes Bodeclaw look a bit like a Victorian bard who was turned into a dog, but I loved running around like this. In fact this week I probably spent more time travelling like this than I did in Travel Mode. Unless I was swimming, because frankly Worgens can’t swim as fast as my Travel Form does.

I spent my time running up and down the coast satisfying a bunch of Druidic quests for Malfurion this week. There was also a point where I sat on top of a cave infested with Naga to wait another player who was a Mage so we could tag the boss and not have one of us wait for the respawn. And that’s when I started to play with the slash-commands. I literally sat atop that cavern in my Worgen form to wait… and they still ran right past me. Typical.

Every now and then I also had to return to Lor’Danel to sell junk from my packs and do various other things. I also had one trip back to Darnassus to bank some items too – thank god for the flying transport systems. As long as I find my flight locations for each new area (and believe me, I check my map to be sure I do!) I just have to pay a bit to fly back. Although as a Druid it is also fun to run of course.

And after all that running, even big puppies need their rest. G’night…

Dungeon Running

Meanwhile, Teddired had a much different adventure. I spawned back where I’d left off and went to complete quests, only to be whispered by someone nearby inviting me to join their party for a bit of dungeon running. I decided, why not?

I will admit at first I got a little lost. I did warn the inviter that I was newish to the game, but they were very patient with me. So were the others to be honest. So Teddired and her boar entered into a series of dungeons and it was honestly very good practice for making use of more of my Hunter abilities. I tend to spam Cobra Shot and I did here too, but at the same time I kept an eye on my boar and made good use of Mend Pet as well as other types of shot and summoning the temp Dire Beast as an attacker. I don’t know how well I honestly did, but the group seemed fine with me. So if you’re reading this Blackpowder Inc, thanks for the fun. Let’s do it again some time. Hopefully no other end boss has learned the power of the locked door.

And thanks for the laugh with the blast zone not being cleared in time…

That had to hurt.

Earlier today Bethesda streamed another ESO Live that talked about the balancing coming to the game, but mainly covered the other two specialisations for the upcoming Warden class being added to the game. Last time they covered the class that gave the Warden a beast companion, now they covered the healing (Green Balance) and ice (Winter’s Embrace) builds for the class.

They also talked about balancing that are coming up. Right now the changes they’ve already made they say are in aid of making all builds valid for something in-game, with everything having its use. Resource management is something they wanted to have as part of the gameplay (Stamina and Magicka pools) and they feel that recently that it hasn’t been, so other changes were to bring that back into line as well. The next patch coming will be this Monday, and will do a number of things. One is to tweak Spear Shards for all classes will still making them somewhat more useful for Templars as well as trading the disorient effect for some extra damage, and it was once against stated they they are trying to making sure everything they offer is viable to someone. As they said they want it so that “any class can do any role” while still letting the classes have their own little things they’re good at.

As for the Warden builds, they first showed off the Green Balance one that builds the Warden as a healing class. Among the abilities are one that wraps the ally in a healing vine (Living Vines) that can heal over time when the target takes damage, and then can be further specialised to either apply minor lifesteal to attacking enemies or give one final healing burst when it expires. Another (Nature’s Grasp) pulls the caster to an ally while giving them healing over time, and can again be further changed to either give all that healing at once or also heal up the caster. Finally, the Ultimate of Secluded Grove was said to be a ‘cheap’ area of effect heal which can either renew Ultimate if used to heal low-health allies or applies a healing over time effect to those caught in it.

Meanwhile, the icy Winter’s Embrace is more about dealing damage as well the buffs and debuffs. The first ability shown off (Frost Cloak) grants both physical and spell resistance to the caster and allies for a short amount of time, and can be improved to have a lower cost and greater radius or grant the caster even better level of protection. Arctic Wind was shown as the Winter Embrace’s healing ability, granting some insta-heal as well as a little over time; but can also be made to heal either and ally nearby or also cause damage to nearby opponents if the caster’s health is already full – depending on which branch you choose to go down with it. Then the Ultimate of Sleet Storm applies defensive buffs to the caster and nearby allies; and can be made to either stun enemies too or will increase the caster’s max Magicka when slotted.

This is just a taste of what was covered, so if you wish to hear fully what’s coming to TESO with the Warden catch up with the VoD here. Warden will be coming to the game from early June, so read up and get familiar with it before it appears on a server near you!

So, after watching Lonesamurai play through the Legion expansion on stream it happened. I have a habit of falling into things a bit late, and usually after observing someone else enjoying that thing. World of Warcraft is now on that list of things.

I tried World of Warcraft once many years back. A free trial with a Night Elf Hunter. I didn’t enjoy it very much then. It seemed weird and tedious, all these quests running around and trying to kill enough creatures for rewards… then there was trying to play on a laptop. The lag played a big part in putting me off I think.

But time had moved on, I’d grown up a little and changed slightly as a person. What’s more I now have my own rig to play upon, with a second-hand Nvidia GPU given to me by a friend. So I decided for the sake of fairness to give it one more go, trying out the Worgen race that hadn’t been available in the free trial the last time I played… and it’s fair to say that I got hooked now the game controlled a lot smoother than it did last time.

So now join me as I talk about my initial experiences in World of Warcraft, through the characters of both Bodeclaw the Worgen Druid and Teddired the Pandaren Hunter.

Starting Off

I knew something about the Worgen origin story before I came into WoW this time. Long ago before my first try, I’d wanted to play as a Worgen and was disappointed to find they weren’t in the free trial. Of course, this was way before Legion and even before Draenor, so they just weren’t available to free trial players yet. I knew that they were cursed and frankly I’ve never been one to go for the typical ‘human, orc, elf…’ choices that seem to be available in each game. So for my second try at this, I was determined to choose Worgen, to give myself the biggest chance of liking it.

The name itself came from my desire to have something cool-sounding and appropriate, as well as ‘Bode’ being the first thing that came to mind. For those who haven’t seen it, the ‘Bode’ meme was kind of popular on a few sites months ago and involved posting photos of round cats with the word ‘Bode’ on it. It’s nonsensical, has nothing to do with Worgen and I loved it.

I’ve currently made it all the way to Darkshore where I’m currently after some Twilight Hammer cultists. I passed through their area earlier and rescued some Elementals so I’m honestly looking forward to going back and properly kicking them down. I’ve gotten into the habit now of accidentally finding quest areas waaaay before the quests that I need them for are received. Strangely I’ve only managed to do it on this character, not my other one… I guess my Druid is more curious than my Hunter is?

#

I discovered Battle Pets through the purchase of my Hawk Owl. Took a little fiddling around before I learned how to summon it, but now I’m walking around with it flying behind me and that suits me just fine. I’ve gotten through the first level up quest, now I’m going to try and get my Lv 3 quest done so I can start catching and collecting.

As far as my race and class choices I’m enjoying them a lot. Worgen has the ability at a point to go between their Worgen and human selves but I chose Worgen to not be human, so needless to say I’ve never actually made use of that ability. What I have made use of are the Druid transformations – Cat, Bear and Travel forms so far. I chose Feral as my specialization so right now I probably spend more time in Cat form than I do any other form, and fighting as a cat is a lot of fun. Especially being able to hit multiples with the Thrash ability. Since I hit Lv 20 only recently I’ve not really done a lot of running in Travel form yet, but I’ll give them points – that’s one impressive looking stag!

However, when it was decided I’d be doing a weekly player diary I didn’t want to get beyond Lv 20 on my Worgen, so when I hit that shortly before Easter, I made myself another character so I could still play…

My First Alt

My first go at WoW had been inspired slightly by some video I saw of the Pandaria expansion when it was still in closed beta. So really, there was only one other race I really wanted to try out…

When I went to make myself a Pandaren, I had no idea what class I wanted to play or really what I wanted her to look like. When I discovered that Red Panda was also kind of an option I went that way, and when I found a hairstyle that incorporated a coloured hair streak I had to choose it (and make it purple of course). When it came to classes I was a little more limited and i certainly didn’t feel like doing the typical Pandaren Monk that most players chose – when I saw Hunter was a choice I went that way because really I do like Hunter as a class and hoped this time to finally capture a new pet.

I played through the initial questlines and when it came time to make the faction choice, I went Alliance mainly because the Horde actions didn’t really convince me that I should join them. Stormwind though was on first sight both impressive, terrifying and somewhat stuffy all at the same time. I would never make a good Paladin, pure upright goodness that seems overly superior doesn’t sit well with me at all. I also still get lost all the time, no matter how many times I go there. I’ve only just remembered the vague direction to head for the Gryphons…

Speaking of Stormwind, one of my trips back was to learn how to use Mounts. This was yet another thing that I have sworn i will collect as many of as possible, so I went to get my training from the Pandaren for the quest and then… well, as I said I get lost in Stormwind so damn easily. So, I went mountain climbing…

I’m not really vertical there, it’s just a clever camera angle but I was pretty damn close. Upon finding my way down (taking some damage but not enough to kill me outright) I swam down a river til I met a dwarf called Turp who told me that he just wanted to live our his retirement in peace before telling me to get along now. So I did. I had better things to do anyway.

I now find myself in Duskwood, having just completed the Noblegarden chocolate hunt to get myself the pets and the rabbit ears. Lone fortunately saved me having to find enough for the mount too by gifting it to me, so I at least didn’t have to grind Noblegarden Chocolate for much longer than I did. I’m fighting undead alongside my boar, a Young Goretusk I tamed the moment I learned how to tame a second pet (well hey, I had to try it out!). Maybe not the most impressive Boar, but he is mine.

As I progressed it seemed that Teddired would be a part of this diary too, so now you can expect little updates from both of them and their adventures. Two for the price of one!

This has been a brief introduction to how I came to play World of Warcraft, as well as a little bit about both my character so far. I’ll go into more detail about actual game events next week, I thought this week would be best served lying a foundation though for you to follow along with.

See you next week!