My lovely friend Zeirah and I are challenging each other with a weekly blog post. We choose a topic and both write about it. This week’s topic is all about Patch 7.1. You can read Z’s post about this topic right here.

It’s lucky Z and I do these challenges each week, or I wouldn’t have had an update this week at all!

This week patch 7.1 Return to Karazhan was released. And what a patch it is! 7.1 brings with it a new min-raid, a whole bunch of new pet battle content (including a new Raiding With Leashes achievement and wild pets to raise into mounts) and, of course, Karazhan – the mythic dungeon on steroids (plus a buch of other stuff) . So how have I been spending 7.1? Feeling bloody miserable.

This is not the fun post you’re looking for.

It’s a bad time to ask this question because I’m generally having a not so great time in game. Though it’s nothing really to do with the game, per se, and more to do with the people in it. To put things bluntly, I’m not having the greatest time in guild at the moment, and it’s really affecting how I play. Although I can’t place the blame solely on that.

As I mentioned up front, a big part of 7.1 has been the introduction of the Return to Karazhan dungeon. I have really been looking forward to this dungeon since I heard about it being redone (hell, I was excited when there were hints of rumours that it was being done!) I’m yet to step foot in there.

One of the most challenging aspects of Legion as an expansion is, I feel, mythic dungeons. Not because of their difficulty to complete, but in their difficulty to find people to group with. Now please do not get wrong – this is not any fault of Blizzard’s – I completely understand why things are this way, and if it were up to me, I’d also design it this way. But for me, it’s hard. I have never been any good at group finder. My anxiety always gets the best of me and I get too scared to join groups. I have been trying to get better about it, and have been running random heroics a lot more often than I used to, just to try and get better at playing with strangers. But I’m hopeless. I had a list of mythic dungeon missions from my class hall in my quest log for the longest time that all went away when 7.1 came out. Such a waste of opportunity, and all because I was too scared to run a mythic dungeon with strangers.

The obvious answer is to run with guildies, but even then that’s a problem (and comes back to why I’m not feeling great in guild at the moment) because I don’t feel comfortable with my guildies. I can’t make mistakes around them, because I know that comments will be made or griping will happen (because it does happen – seen it and experienced it). So it makes my anxiety levels all that much higher as a result. Which means I haven’t yet done the attunement to get into Karazhan.

You’d think that would be the worst of it. But no.

You see, the biggest trouble that I’ve had since 7.1 came out is that it has destroyed my display settings. Fixes that were made to improve display on Macs for OS Sierra ended up trashing settings for those not on Sierra, which includes me. Prior to 7.1 I could run with my settings on 8 during raid, and 10 out in the world. Since the patch went live, I can’t play the game at all unless they’re set to 4. Yep, 4. It has made me incredibly upset. When settings are on 4, there is no water texture – it just looks like there’s nothing there:

I wouldn’t be as mad about it as I am if I hadn’t spent a ridiculous amount of money buying this computer just last year. (And please spare me the Mac jokes – they really aren’t funny). I just find it upsetting because the game is so, so beautiful, and that’s been taken away. There are apparently fixes in the works to help with this, but there’s no ETA on them. And there’s no money for a new computer. So I just have to deal with it for now. I know it’s a stupid minor thing, but it upsets me a lot.

Ok, enough being a sook.

There are some good bits though, right?

Of course there are! These issues I’m having are to do with me, and not to do with the game. 7.1 really is an incredible patch so far. One of my favourite additions has been the introduction of the Falcosaurs. They are these feathered dinosaurs that are roaming around causing trouble, so we have to go cull them a bit to keep people safe. In doing so, we create an orphan who needs a new home – so of course we adopt him! I have gotten one from Val’sharah so far. I tried twice to get the one in Highmountain, but it wouldn’t spawn for me no matter what tips I tried from wowhead, so I’ll come back to that another day.

They are kinda cute though, in their own ugly little way 🙂

My absolute favourite thing, though, is that we’re continuing on the Suramar storyline. I love how dynamic Duramar is – it’s constantly changing for us. I’ve really been enjoying it. And boy did I kill the crap out of some demons there this week! They made me so mad with what they did!

But best of all – hands down absolutely the best of all – when in Suramar with the disguise on, I can *finally* use ghost wolf form, because I turn into a MANASABER!!!!! ❤ ❤ ❤ I’m so pretty!! I wish there was a toy or glyph in game that could make this a permanent ghost wolf alternative.

I also really loved going back in to Shal’Aran since betting exalted with the Nightfallen. I won’t spoil anything here, but there were some changes that I really, really liked.

A new Raiding With Leashes achievement also came out in 7.1 – there are now 18 new pets all up that have been added to Wrath of the Lich King raid zones – 16 for the achievement, 1 more for completing it, and another 1 that is super-dooper rare, but not part of the achievement. I ran all the raids on my shaman this week and got a grand total of…. zero. I got zero pets to drop for me. Oh well.

Overall, I think 7.1 is brilliant. It’s a huge amount of content that we’ve been given in this patch, and I can only see more to come. And I’m loving it. I’m sure we’ll get some hints about what is coming up next during Blizzcon next weekend. But for the time being, there is a load of stuff to do in 7.1, including me trying to be braver.

Hope you’re all having a great time in game! 🙂