Warhammer: first impressions

I like it.

Please take note my highest character is level 3 or 4. So I haven't done much or ventured very far. Also this post isn't orderly, I just wanted to get some thoughts out there.

I was able to join a scenario (think WoW battleground) almost immediately after creating my character. The scenario instance bumped me from my rank (level) 1 you up to 8. The highest I faced was a level 11 which allowed me to run around and not just get slaughtered. Nice feature.

Since WoW's PvP was an afterthought, your goal is to level/gear up first *then* participate. With WAR you can jump right in. Not sure if twinking will/can occur, but so far I like being able to PvP right away.

What can I say about quests? They are straight-forward. Kill x of this, get y of that. And while we might complain about collecting 10 bear asses, honestly how would *you* revolutionize questing? Post your ideas here. I'll wait.

Yeah its not as easy as you think.

One thing warhammer does differently than I've seen before is show the area on your mini-map where your quest objective can be found. I know some will say this is dumbing it down, but before I left WoW I had come across mods that essentially did the same thing and I have to say they were pretty friggin' sweet. The only difference in warhammer you don't have to add a mod for it.

And that's what I'm noticing about this game. It's like they took ideas from WoW mods/addons and put them in. Simple things like cooldowns showing on the icons are already in the game instead of you having to download from curse gaming. If people really hate it maybe they'll add an option to not show it.

People have begged (don't understand the appeal myself personally but I'm also on the side of "do we *really* need housing") for dying armor in WoW. LotRO has it and so does warhammer.

I get this feeling that Warhammer figured it can't beat WoW so it would focus on the stuff WoW doesn't have. I mean really focus on it. One of the first tooltips you get is about dying armor. Good grief it isn't that important. And no one is going to leave WoW because they can dye armor in another game.

This isn't meant to devolve into a WoW vs. WAR discussion. It's not fair to WAR. I'll just say it again, I like it so far. Hmm what do most people post about.

Performance - I haven't reached in huge skirmishes, but so far the game is playable on my computer. For comparison I didn't even dare to try out AoC and I lagged during the beginning of lotro when everyone was trying it out. I also lag in Shattrath. I expect to lag, but haven't felt too much of it...yet. Definitely not enough to make me log off in disgust.

Graphics - Good (since its subjective). Someone complained about the graphics and I really don't get what they're talking about. I think the game looks great. It doesn't have that cartoonish feel that many people complain WoW has (never bothered me).

Combat - This was what worried me. LotRO combat doesn't feel right, hard to explain but it just doesn't. I heard similar grumblings about WAR but so far it seems okay to me.

Community - I think people are too busy playing to fill up chat with garbage. And I was jumping around from server to server too much to say what the community will be like. Although in scenarios people are already complaining (what?!?! say it ain't so!?!?!) about healers not healing. That gets SO old. Why don't people just give up on expecting people to heal? If someone is playing a healing class and not healing you they are not going to be pressured into healing just because you whine about it. They will
A) either ignore you
B) heal you, but if they do it's because they were already doing so, so your whining doesn't help, instead it does just the opposite! It makes us feel like apparently the healing we *have* been doing is going unnoticed.
C) reroll a non-healing class so they can join the crowd that moans about not getting heals.

Whew sorry about that tangent*. Disclaimer: That rant applies to all games.

Anyway, if things stay like what I've experience so far, Warhammer appears to be a game you can jump in play a little and enjoy.

Warhammer: Choosing a side

I've already read that the Destruction (read Horde) side is the most populated.

I came across some funny posts concerning choosing a side for RvR in Warhammer.

I think we will be faced with what I call the Richard Hatch phenomenon. Richard Hatch was the first winner of the Survivor series. Richard craftily formed voting alliances, which was ingenious at first but then was copied for seasons to come.

Many players started playing WoW without thinking about PvP. Many, not coming from a gaming background, didn't know much about the game at all. Those in the know, and those focused on PvP chose Horde. Those not in the know suffered and usually since you don't find out how bad things are until max level, you've made friends, good guilds, find it hard to start over.

But with the knowledge of things from WoW will you choose blindly (read prettily)? Or have you learned from the master(s) that choosing a side for looks isn't the best choice when you want to (or have to) compete. Sure the people in the first Survivor were blind-sided by Hatch's cunniness, but what excuse did all the remaining Survivor tribes have?

The big difference is PvP was only a part of WoW. PvP is Warhammer, so perhaps both sides have good pvp racials if there is such a thing. And perhaps both sides will balance out as far as populations are concerned. (How will they balance populations anyway???)

I'm going to admit that I haven't learned anything and that I'll probably choose whatever seems "cool" to me first. But I'm not going to think twice about switching if things turn out as they did in WoW*.

*Please remember my decision to take a break from WoW and try something else had nothing whatsoever to do with PvP.

LotRO: Found some fun

Fellowships. It is so much fun to quest in a fellowship.

Of course it isn't possible to do so, but if I could spend most of my time in a fellowship group (is that redudant?) I wouldn't have as many complaints about the game as I do.

The benefit of playing a popular class

"Hunters are populated with bad players", "Rogues can't find a raid slot". Here are 2 phrases you're likely to hear in WoW. In LotRO the popular classes are also hunters, as well as champions (guess they are like warriors).

After leveling up and finding it hard to get in groups and raids, some players decide to play a healer instead. But as someone mentioned on the lotro forum, if healing was so fun why aren't there more of them. Some players want to raid bad enough they switch to healing.

So when it comes to playing a new game, latecomers ask "what is the most needed class?" "I don't want to be like the hundreds of other hunters running around". Inevitably people say "we could always use tanks and healers".

It makes me wonder if warhammer has manage to make being a tank or a healer as fun as dps.

Recently I thought about how it must have been rough playing a rogue or hunter or any other highly populated class pre-arenas and especially pre-BC because the best gear was inside dungeons and the dungeon could only allow for some many yellow and green slots.

But with arenas and pvp gear the best gear could be had by mostly anyone without raiding. So all of a sudden not only do you get to play your fun class you also are able to get good gear for it now.

It was a win-win for the popular classes.

People whine about rogues now, but I can't imagine WoW changing (much) how things are because you would alienate a large percentage of your player base.

People snicker at FOTMs, but who doesn't want to play a class that has inherent advantages?

I'm drawn to playing support classes because of my personality. Due to their playstyle and lack of "you are the hero" mentality, support classes are relatively scarcer. But as I ponder picking up warhammer, I think I may be best served by picking a popular class for a change.

Popular classes are popular because they are argumentatively easier or simply more fun.

I've heard of ret paladins who have stuck with the class trying their hardest to make them work (rumor has it wrath has given them some love). Begrudgingly healing just so they have a chance at some better drops.

Why not choose a popular class that developers focus their energies on, something that will have a leg up as soon as I enter the "create character" button? Something I don't have to work extra at just to match up?

I feel a little dirty about following the herd to the popular class. But hey I'm just saving myself heartache later right?

LotRO: Where is the fun?

As I searched to figure out what is wrong with lotro for me. I came across some suggestions that the game would get better at 20. I also read it would get better in the 30s.

Of course bookend that with mention the endgame at lotro is lacking....where is the fun? Only between levels 30-50? What makes it so fun for those levels and not up to 30?

I've cancelled yet again, but just like WoW my account won't kick me out for a few months. That gives me plenty of time to find out if things really get better.

I want to give it a chance because I remember starting a druid in WoW wasn't all that fun. I tried leveling 2 before the 3rd stuck. I hit 20 or so and never looked back, ending up with a L70 eppiced druid that I wouldn't mind leveling some more in WotLK.

So maybe something will happen in LotRO, some magic level will make me powerful and I'll start having some fun and desire to continue on.

One problem could be lack of kinship and community. Many say they don't miss Barren chat or trade channel, but LotRO chat is so bare you almost think you're playing a single player game. And that is a huge problem. Yes everyone likes the ability to solo, but grouping with people, playing against other people or simple interacting with a PC instead of a NPC is the draw of MMORPGS.

I found out I can transfer to another highly populated server for 25 bucks but do I really want to pay that to find out things aren't any better? The sad thing is I haven't enjoyed playing enough to just level a brand new character to 20 just to save myself the 25 dollars. I could just put that toward one of the existing single player games.

I see several players on the forums who have 3 or 4 capped characters. I'm amazed. How could they stand leveling twice, let alone three or four times?

I can and did do that in WoW, but I can't fathom it in lotro.

Simpsons did it

I forgot what tv show - Family Guy? Robot Chicken? - had the joke about any story line that exists now "The Simpsons" has already done it. The Simpson probably did the joke.

Anyhoo, I read somewhere that public quests are something new in warhammer that you haven't seen elsewhere. I assume the idea of distribution at the end is the new part.

Because when WoW introduced the Shattered Sun Offensive quests everyone could get credit for a killed Emissary of Hate (anyone could place a banner through his corpse whether or not they killed him themselves or not). Also in the Kazzak area, everyone could increase their Living Flare whether they killed the elemental or not as long as you were close by when it died.

And I remember back when TBC was released thinking wouldn't it be nice if everyone could get credit for killing those voidspawns over at the edge of Hellfire Peninsula, since we were all in a bunch there anyway trying to be the first to get a shot off as they spawned (hunter *surprise* were usually first to finish their quest and move on).

So the idea of public quests is a very cool addition, but WoW kinda already did it. Well maybe Warhammer is actually a chip off the old behemoth - taking and idea and improving on it.

What I miss in WoW...

...that's not in lotro. (Yes I'm trying out lotro again while waiting on warhammer - never thought I'd say that).

What I miss from WoW that Lord of the Rings Online doesn't have is all the stuff outside of the game. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough yet, but I don't remember having to look very hard when it came to WoW.

1) Mods and Addons - many agree mods and addons are a mini game in itself. WoW's ui isn't horrible, but getting to change it around and make it something more useful or simply look different, customize it just to your liking is fun.

So many times I found something in the game not exactly how I'd like it only to find an addon that took care of it easily.

In PvMP raid settings I miss things like Grid for the same reason I liked using it in WoW. A way to see a lot in smaller screen real estate.

2) Thottbot, wowhead - how many times have I wanted somethng simply because I read that what others had said about it. I didn't even have a rogue and thought getting a barman shanker would be cool. It was a way to look forward to things you could get - like window shopping!

Yes, I have imagined how much longer it would take for me to play wow if I couldn't look up the quests on thott. But now I don't feel like I'm "exploring" while running around in circles for a quest item, instead I feel like I'm wasting time I no longer and willing to waste. I also miss some of the funny comments people make. In lotro its like rock is at 15.5x, 40.68y zzzzzzzz.

3) Forums - for as much of a cess pool people say wow forums are, lotro forums are not only tame but boring in comparison.

4) Celebrities - Leeroy Jenkins became well enough known outside of the game that it was a Jeopardy question (okay college Jeopardy but still). You'll never see Mr. T advertising for lotro, but what about Sir Ian McKellen? Okay Billy Boyd then if he's too busy. My point WoW has reached beyond the game itself and that makes it even more fun.

Maybe games were never meant to be so all encompassing, but that's the path WoW has lead us down and I kind of expect it now with other games. I hope Warhammer has some of the things I mentioned here it just adds to the enjoyment.

Warhammer?

I've never really followed games too far ahead of release. So the only things I'd heard about Warhammer are from the WoW forums. I mostly ignored them because many WoW forum posters have a bias one way or the other to where you're not sure you're getting any information objectively.

I also heard it was going to be focused on pvp and given my experience with WoW I had a feeling of exasperation I wasn't willing to pursue in another game.

Yet for some reason, I want to try out Warhammer Online now. Maybe I'm already bored not playing WoW.

I'm not lazy

One of the things you can read quite often on the forums is how lazy "casuals" are. And how easy things are made so "casuals" can participate. And "casuals" aren't willing to put in the work for rewards.

For one brief moment I almost started to believe them - "I *do* want things easy, I'm lazy and don't want to work for rewards!".

But it isn't true. I'm not lazy. I could, and have, spent months where I spent consecutive hours raiding for rewards. I could, and have, spent months where I have run battlegrounds for rewards.

But those activities ceased to become fun for me. So, because I choose to not participate in tedious, boring activity I'm lazy?

I think we have our descriptions or expectations wrong.

Doing quests is a fun activity for me. I know some players who skip quests and either instance or grind to max level. Are they lazy because they've skipped a ton of quests?

I know some players who only log on to compete in arenas. Are they lazy because they don't raid? Are raiders lazy because they don't compete in arenas?

I hope achievements give "hardcore" players the recognition they desire. That recognition that sets them apart from others who decide what they like doing should be rewarded in some better way. Maybe that would make them happy and they can quit finding time to label the rest of us.

I want...

I added another cautionary tale to my blog. This blogger, Boatorious, has listed why he quit WoW and what he wants from Warhmammer Online.

I agree with many things on his list, like the following:

I want to take a break from RvR when I want to take a break -- not because I ran out of potions, need attunements or need to go PvE for gear.

I want the best gear in the game to be RvR gear that can be earned without requiring 20 hours of scheduled play every week.

I want to log on and play the "end game" anytime I want.

I want to log on any given night and play the "end game" with my guildies.

I never want to spend three hours in a PvE instance, ever.

I want it to be easy to find a group for PvE instances and easy to find public quests being completed.

I never want to fight with my guild over loot.

Tier pressure

A good friend of mine recently told our guild he wanted to take a very short break from raiding to do something else. He would be able to log on every now and then, but instead of joining the raid then dropping he'd just rejoin full force later.

One person quickly commented that he should reschedule the "something else" and still raid.

Later on, during the break, someone else tracked him down on an alt and asked him was he going to raid.

Comments like these are the peer pressure raiders feel to raid constantly.

I've taken more vacation time from work than some raiders have from their raid schedule.

I'm not trying to knock raiding. Then again maybe I am. It just seems insane sometimes.

Resolution List Revisted for the 2nd time

I'm playing less, let's see if my list helped me:

1) Play a needed class. One common refrain to the shortage of tanks posts is "there is no shortage of tanks, just a lack of tanks wanting to pug". And this is where I sit. It's not because my gear is great and I feel above pugs, I just realized I don't like being the "leader" often. And that's what most pugs required, someone to lead them through instances. For instances I felt comfortable with (usually stuff I outgeared) I was okay with it. But if I'm struggling to tank I don't want to have to tell everyone what they need to do. So in the end I quit doing 5-man instances for the most part.

2) Focus on one role. Well if catbear is a role I focused on one. As I mentioned in #1 I quit pursuing 5-man instances so focusing a role didn't matter. I was 99% cat and 1% bear (Galvanger and Drek'thar). If you don't group you don't have to be a bear much.

3) Do not raid. The Kara group I raided with had a better geared druid come back (for badges) and I ended up sitting out enough that I quit showing up. The Gruul/Mags impromptu raids disappeared.

4) Do not pick up a crafting profession. I'm still a gatherer. I want to mess around with inscriptions but that's not until WotLK.

5) Get loot through crafting, reputation and pvp. I grew tired of the pvp "welfare" gear grind. I don't even see myself going through it in wotlk if Blizzard decides to keep that type of stuff in the game.

6) PvP marginally. See #5

7) Grind reputations that only give rewards I can't easily get anywhere else. Haven't done anymore reputation grind except Scryer because I was so close to finishing.

8) Give up on fun frivolities I'm not sure why I listed this one in the beginning, what is this game but a fun frivolity? I have the most fun questing with a friend. But sadly I think we've run out of most of the quests we can do as a duo. Pretty much what is left is only group and raid quests.

So I'm playing less but I don't think its as much a result of following this list as it is just how things have worked out.

Done until WotLK

I came across the first random "raiding has been called off until WotLK" announcement. The guild I'm in is still going strong, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this.

It just must be too much of a pain to keep people motivated. The expansion will be a bit of a gear reset and wiping on Sunwell content with better options on the horizon is a tough option to choose. But if you are in a raiding guild, wouldn't raiding be the only option you'd be happy with? Or is it more important to prepare for raiding in Wrath?

My deadline is looming and I didn't get all the things I said I would done, but I'd rather spent my last days playing now instead of preparing to play later.

Rawr!

Responding to a comment on my previous post led me to expound on why I enjoy playing my druid so much.

If you mention druids need buffs on the forums you will be met with Druids are OP in the arena!

But, whether this is true or not, they most likely mean restoration-specced druids. And they also mean in 2v2s (and 3v3s?) So in a small subset of the world...of warcraft...druids are OP. If you pin them in a corner you might get them to admit feral druids aren't awesome in arenas. However this is not meant to be a PvP post so I'll leave it at that.

What I was getting at is there are things I feel are missing for a cat druid in pvp, but in reality I only do arenas as a "something to do" and not to be competitive so I have no complaints in that arena (I'll quit apologizing for the puns one day).

I don't participate in the higher heights of progression raiding, so my dps not matching a rogues, or 90% of a rogues, or whatever percentage rogues would be happy with ferals doing, doesn't matter much to me.

I'm able to tank Gruul level bosses, and as I mentioned I don't do anything higher so my bear is content.

For the purpose of my druid (the occasional 2-hour raid, 5 mans, quests, yucky alliance bgs, dailies, welfare arena) the class is almost perfect.

Wrath: Rerolling, DK or sticking with main?

Since I've pretty much decided I'm going to play the next WoW expansion, I'm thinking about what my plans will be when I come back.

I still have fun playing a druid and at this point no other class appeals to me so much that I'm willing to start at 1 and level up to 80. So I'm sticking with my main.

I do want to play a deathknight as Blessing of Kings suggested.

Will I stick with it? Most likely no. It would have to really turn out to be a fun playstyle for me. And it would have to sway me away from my druid altogether. Because I have no plans to level up multiple characters anymore.

It is doubtful a DK would make me turn my back on my druid. Because the things I like about playing a druid cannot be replaced by a DK. But a druid and DK can both tank and dps you say! Ah, but the real joy I get out of playing a druid are some very simple things.

Stealthing and instant cast swift flight. Yep that's it.

Weaning

I continue to wean myself off of WoW.

I've been selling bank stores on the AH, yet still holding on to certain things just in case I decide to come back.

Yeah it seems I just can't make that clean break.

The more I think about it the more I want to lean toward not coming back for WotLK. I think I used the idea of resubscribing for the expansion as a way to make quitting not seem so final.

I spent a lot of my gold (I didn't have much in today's standards) on buy reputation mats. I then spent the next few days doing dailies and earning it back.

I made a game out of how fast I could do dailies, thinking about what order would have been faster. But once again doing a bunch of dailies over and over, or a bunch of anything (re: achievements) over and over is what I have to step away from.

If it sounds like I'm trying to talk myself out of playing it's because I am. I can't seem to find another game to take WoW's place to make things easier. :(

WotLK release date speculations

We all have them. Here's mine.

Based the previou beta period of about 3 months I want to say they may shoot for an October release.

However maybe they'll try to push for November 23, 2008, celebrating the 14th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. That will also give them the Thanksgiving holiday period were people will have some extra free time to play and advertise to their friends.

Then again maybe they'll want to take advantage of releasing it near Christmastime.

Longest Countdown Ever

No not until the WotLK expansion is released, but when my subscription runs out!

I still have well over a month before I logout for good, and I still find ways to stay busy in-game.

But now that there is mention of achievements that you can only obtain *before* WotLK is released, it makes me wonder...just in case...should I attempt to wrap up more things before I call it quits?

And this is the same web I'm caught in spun by WoW's addictive spider. What about all the goals I never completed??? What about the goals I don't even know about that I want to complete?!?!

It is a nasty web. Nasty, nasty thing. I didn't sign up for beta on the chance I get stuck in *that* cocoon!

The NDA has been lifted from what I've heard. I still like reading all about it and seeing the screenshots. But no! This fly wants its freedom!

*buzzes away*

Achievements!

The announcement about Achievements got me excited about Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

I think EQ already has this, but the achievements actually improve your character. These are more like maybe LOTRO things like exploring several places will give you a "World Explorer" achievement.

I was excited and at the same time sad. Because the things that are stopping me from playing soon - spending too much time in-game, well Achievements make it sound like I'd be on acid.

I never ran out of things to do really, I just ran out of things I considered fun. And achievements sound like a ton of fun things to chase after.

Exactly what would keep me playing hour after hour after hour.

I look forward to them adding it. Not for myself. But for other gamers who don't have a problem with their slash played. :)

L2P terribad scrub

I guess I'm getting all the ugliness that is part of a mostly anonymous social gathering we call MMORPGs out of the way as my time winds down.

With the addition of arenas and the armory it is hard to have opinions on the WoW forums without your opinion's validity, accuracy and importance being called in to question based on how well you have performed and what gear you have acquired.

What puzzles me most is how often WoW players like to point out that WoW is extremely easy to play. And if you aren't a top rating arena pvper or Sunwell gear donning pver or even both there is no hope for you - you know because the game is SO easy! Yet, in usually in the same breath, we are expected to sit at their knee for achievements gained in this realm.

It's like learning to spin out on a big wheel, and looking down on another kid because they couldn't. Aren't you all high and mighty! Oh wait...all you've done is learn to spin out on a big wheel.

This is really only directed to those players who have let their "accomplishments" somehow go to their head.

I guess good sportsmanship is the term I'm looking for here.

Why is it okay here?

For some strange reason I was thinking about griefing the other day. "Griefing" - going out of your way to ruin someone else's time.

In what other games and hobbies is griefing okay?

Killing someone in PvP fine. But corpse-camping them? Going out of your way to wait until they rez only to kill them again?

I remember why I was thinking about it now. Someone went out of my way to say some nasty things to me.

At least I got over it quickly, but it makes me wonder why that behavior is tolerated.

Playing to the end

So what will I be doing for the next 2 months as my subscription nears expiration?

I find it interesting that if I choose to not do certain things because I'm quitting its almost like quitting anyway.

For instance, I went on a shopping spree like most players when Season 4 started. If I happened to already have enough materials to enchant a few of the new stuff I purchased I easily did so. However when it came to purchasing gems off of the Auction House I struggled with whether I should even bother. Because I would need to farm for more gold.

Do I want to spend my last days farming for primals? Or do I want to jump into a battleground?

The answer is an easy one. And I find myself still running around with a several un-gemmed, un-enchanted items.

But the question I've pondered the most is should I bother getting the best enchants/gems if I'm going to quit?

Which leads to should I bother getting honor and arena points or running instances for gear if I'm going to quit?

Which leads to if I don't PvP or PvE I might as well not log on.

But I want to play and knowing I have a time limit encourages me to decide what is most important (read fun) to me. And quit playing for what is going to happen down the line.

A recipe dropped and I collect recipes, so instead of passing I rolled for it. Who cares if I'm not going to play tomorrow. Today I added to my recipe collection and that is part of having fun in the game to me.

What would you do if you knew you only had 6-months left to play? 3 months? 1 month?

I remember a guild member quit raiding because he knew down the line he would have to quit. He didn't want to take gear that other players would need and he also didn't want to take a slot that could be used to train his replacement. So as a result he ended up quitting raiding long before he quit the game.

I don't really want to do that. I don't want to pass on things and quit earning things and stop enchanting things because I know I'll be quitting. I don't want to be left standing around in Ironforge until my subscription runs out.

Following AoC

Back in May I blogged about new Age of Conan fansites.

Can you tell how well a game is doing just by the amount of blogs that exist for it?

You can at least get a few ideas what the game is like from them. Of course they will be biased according to the blogger.

What brings me to this is the end of a AoC blog nearly before it began.

Apparently the blogger had high hopes for the game, but yet we see within less than two months this gamer has decided AoC isn't engaging enough.

As I blog this with the feeling of passing by an accident, I wonder did I want to see AoC fail? No, not at all. I wanted another game to pull me from WoW. And now that I'm canceling WoW I desired an alternative.

Maybe because I felt my pc couldn't run it, I wanted to feel like I'm not missing out anything anyway.

In all fairness, revisiting the blogs I came across back then, one of them mentioned they are having so much fun they haven't had a chance to blog. Then again, they also haven't reached max level.

"See you next week"

People post "I'm quitting!" and the usual response is "Can I have ur stuf?" but also a common response is "See you next week".

I've known several people in my guild who posted what sounded like definitive goodbyes only to pop up again months later. I'm not talking about the ones who decided to take a break for the summer, but the ones who say "It's been great knowing everyone and I'll never forget the fun we had".

I thought about this as I found myself unwilling to actually delete my characters even though I plan on quitting for good.

If that's my plan why do I need to hold on to my characters...just in case? I also want to get rid of most of my banked materials and gold, yet I want to hold on to a few things....just in case.

I don't even really want to come back for WotLK, so why can't I do a mass mailing of all my stuff to friend and do a youtube delete?

Is it because I'll realize I really miss wow and end up re-subscribing a week later?

No, I think it is because I just want to hold on to something I've spent so much time with -- as virtual as the thing may be. I would have bought a Figure Print if it weren't for having to win a drawing for it and also because the quality of the Figure Print is a bit lacking not to mention sometimes gifts are burdens (link to Penny Arcade here).

It is weird thinking about not wanting to lose ownership of my virtual loot. I've heard of people selling their accounts with legendaries on it and here I sit unwilling to part with my characters who were never at the pinnacle of any area of WoW be it PvE or PvP.

I rationalize it by saying I wouldn't get much if I tried to sell my account anyway and if I delete my characters I could always get a GM to restore everything.

So when my subscription expires my characters will still be there waiting for me, whether my break is a week or a month or a year.

Now or later

Maybe I just had a bad evening of play, but I'm toying with the idea of quitting before my actual cancellation is up.

I'll probably feel better when I get a chance to sleep on it. Goodnight internets.

One thing I won't miss about WoW...

Penny Arcade "summed" it up quite nicely here.

No more mmorpgs for me?

I received a reminder about buying Age of Conan. I finally unsubscribed to the "newsletter" because I have no plans to ever subscribe.

The main reason is most likely the fact my computer can't run the game, but another reason is I think mmorpgs and me maybe aren't the best fit anymore. At least not to the extent I've played a few.

I don't strive to be the very best, but I do like attempting to do lots of things in the game. I feel like you can't do a lot of things without spending a lot of time. And, like many WoW players realize (some much sooner than 4 years later), a lot of that time can be better spent elsewhere.

I'm quitting mmorpgs while circumstances make it easy to do so. Given my compulsive nature for mmorpgs, I'm lucky my pc won't run AoC well, Wrath of the Lich King nor Warhammer have mentioned any plans of releasing any time soon.

I'm setting my sights on some single player games with 40 hours of play or something like that. Something that will give me a sense of completion that is fleeting in WoW.

Fire Festival

I participated in some of the events like Lord Ahune mostly at the request of guildmates (our series of runs yielded the enchant and elemental pet but no scythe). But fortunately I don't feel excited or compelled to farm 350 blossoms to purchase something.

Believe me, last year I would have.

But for how long?

I canceled my WoW account today.

Well I have a recurring subscription so I have over a month left of play.

I don't plan on quitting immediately and if I end up having unexpected fun before my time is up I'll resubscribe.

My reason I gave Blizzard was "I play too much." And it is true.

Back when I was having a blast playing WoW I didn't care that I played a lot. I'm having a little fun now, but not enough to justify how much time I put into it.

Raid guild disbands

I'm curious about why the top raiding guilds are disbanding now instead of before Sunwell was released.

Maybe they had been holding out to see what would happen?

Just sticking a post here to look at later.

List revisited

It's only been little over a month since I last looked at this list. But looking at it now and then could help me stay on track check off list.

1) Play a needed class. I haven't grouped for an instance in weeks. You just don't need three tanks and sometimes you don't even need two. I'd probably have more luck as resto. But I simply refuse to go that route. If I end up trying out resto out of curiosity fine. But I'm not going to respec a role I don't want to play just to instance places I've already been for loot I already have. Downside? I miss the social aspect.

2) Focus on one role. I stuck to this and was lucky to get cat gear while all the while focusing on bear gear. Unfortunately even though I found myself doing anywhere from #1-3 dmg while in cat, I wouldn't get slotted if there was already tanks around (see #1). I'm just a tiny bit bitter about this. But I'm satisfied enough with my situation that I'm not going to respec resto and start trying to amass healing gear.

3) Do not raid. I've done a few of the short 25-mans. But I'm hardly raiding at all. Which is fine with me (see #1 and #2).

4) Do not pick up a crafting profession. I've stuck with this one, but I'm feeling the pull to go backwards. I'm trying to keep it in my mind that I'd rather not take up a crafting profession until the expansion when Inscriptions are introduced.

5) Get loot through crafting, reputation and pvp. Still working on this. I could always make a goal to get all of the badge loot. But the idea of grinding all those badges hasn't been appealing. I've gotten one expensive piece so far. So I have an idea how long it takes.

6) PvP marginally. No new battlegrounds makes this easy to stick to. Even with arenas I'm surprised more pvpers aren't complaining this.

7) Grind reputations that only give rewards I can't easily get anywhere else. I didn't stick to this. I've been grinding other reps.

Check off list

I came across another blogger who had a list of New Year's resolutions and it reminded me of the list I made a while back.

There is so much to do in WoW it is easy to lose track. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But having set goals is a good thing if you find yourself wandering aimlessly in the land of Azeroth.

I was going to make a check off list (things to do before the expansion) but I quickly changed my mind. I don't want to find myself grinding toward an unknown date.

I do plan on revisiting my personal list from time to time so I've added it to the side.

AoC classes - no surprises?

I decided to sneak a peak over at the Age of Conan class forums.

Keep in mind this is a HIGHLY scientific study (please note sarcasm):

The Assassin forum, which sounds like a rogue to me, is the most popular.

Followed by Ranger, which I assume are similar to hunters.

The least popular class forum is Priest of Mitra (uhm like priests?).

And a little less popular are Conqueror, which from what I could tell are tanks.

No surprises there, the most popular classes are dps and least are healer/tanks.

I know many players enjoy playing healers and tanks. I'm one of them.

But will there every be an MMORPG that breaks away from having healer/tank classes?

Age of Conan - the $300 game

I mentioned earlier that with my system I wouldn't be able to play AoC. I went on to talk about how excited and hopeful the new AoC blogs sounded and listed a few fan sites.

Well already one of them has found out they can't run the game either with their system.

Call me a wanna-be-gamer, but when I purchase a game I don't necessarily want to have to buy new video cards and ram and the like.

Everyone likes reporting gloom and doom but honestly that cannot sit well for AoC.

From another world...of warcraft

Just a second ago I was over at Blessing of Kings discussing raid schedules.

Someone mentioned they had quit their 5-6 night a week raid for a "guild that only raids 4 nighs a week and 4 hours a night."

only

ONLY????

Although I've done it myself in the past, all of a sudden this sounded like something completely foreign to me!

It was like listening to a player from another world.

My guild's website, which has become more of the raid guild's forum now, is less frequented by me. I'm not raiding so I don't care about sign up sheets and who's in line for what and strategies.

I like keeping track of world first boss kills, but even the race wasn't really a race with gates along the way and several of the best guilds disbanding.

And while it was cool to hear about the new legendary bow, it's extremely hard to get excited about new raid loot. Given my decreased level of participation, I'll never access it.

Maybe I'm coming full circle, back to being the player who didn't know what a raid was and listening to players talk about it like it was some other planet with a totally different culture.

Blog activity level

I get a disappointed when I click on a blog only to find out it hasn't been active in a year.

It is bound to happen, especially with niche gaming blogs because it's common for people to quit playing the game and moving on to a new one.

I'm going to try to add the last time a blog was updated on my blogroll or maybe a type of activity level (defunct, low, moderate, high).

Kil'jaeden kil'led.

The last boss in Sunwell Plateau instance was defeated over the Memorial Day weekend.

So what's that? 2 months from the first boss to the last including the gate pacing stopgaps.

Illidan was first downed on June of 2007. 8 months or so of no content for players at this level and now they've finished the new stuff.

The good news is, if you believe the rumors of the November release date for Wrath of the Lich King, there will only be 5 or 6 months of farming this time around.

Is it Time to Quit Raiding?

I finally quit raiding by choice and by force although I don't have an exact date when it officially happened. It was a tough decision because I like raiding. Matticus came across a questionnaire that could have been helpful to me a while ago.

Here are the questions and my answers (mixed with how I would have answered them in the past and how I'd answer them now):

1. What are the goals I have for this game? Have I achieved what I set out to do? See content the majority of players don't get to see. When I first heard about raids it seemed like this elite thing to do. Once I got involved I realized that was true and even more so.

2. Am I even interested in raiding anymore? Yes, when I was trying to quit I was still interested I just couldn't put up with the schedule anymore. I eventually grew to be less interested, but I wasn't like that at first.

3. Am I getting personal satisfaction from raiding? Yes, I enjoyed learning fights and finally beating bosses.

4. How many raids have I attended in the last 60 days? How many mandatory raids have I missed? I can't think of a time I ever missed a raid that I said I would attend. I had over 90% attendance and even raided when I was asked to on the nights I had scheduled off (which led to one of the nails in my raiding coffin).

5. Do I have the time to dedicate myself to raiding so that I don’t hinder the progress that is being made by them? Like #4 when I raided I dedicated myself to it. I didn't even like the idea of cutting back my days of raiding just to continue raiding because that's not really dedication in my book.

6. Am I satisfied with how raiding is being handled? Meh, what's not to like.

7. Are my contributions being noted or appreciated? As a healer it's hard to say, you're always wanted. I guess being chosen over other healers is being noted and appreciated so I'd say yes.

8. Did I give this guild’s raid groups enough time to stabilize and progress?

9. Where does this Guild expect to be in raiding a month from now? 6 months from now? A year from now? Yes they are still raiding, even more hardcore than in the beginning.

10. Do I have conflicts with the leadership that cannot be resolved in a way I’m satisfied with? No conflicts related with raiding.

11. Will I still be raiding in 6 months or will real life activities take over? (School, work, etc.) I couldn't see myself still raiding and I didn't.

12. Is this guild dying? No, on the contrary this guild has become more of a raid guild with each passing boss kill.

13. Am I getting tired from raiding? Is it sapping my energy and cutting into my life responsibilities? YES. YES and Yes. This one question was really the only question that needed to be asked in my case.

14. Am I an asset to this Guild’s raid? You're kidding right? I'm a healer.

15. Could I be doing anything else other than raiding right now?Yes. This was one of my main problems with raiding. If you have any other responsibilities in life and you decide to raid, you pretty much can only raid. Because it requires time outside raiding to support it.

16. How will my departure affect the guild? Will they survive without my presence? As many long-time raiders quickly and sadly realize after quitting, raids survive without you. There may be a rough week or so as they try to replace you. But as soon as they do, you are less remembered than Garr's loot table.

I'm purple! Shouldn't I be happy?

I can still remember where I got my first epic. A world drop. I remember a guild mate told me to sell it because he could craft me better. But it was epic....EPIC!

So I equipped it and happily used it. I remember other players actually asking me about it. I still have it although I've long since quit playing that character. Epics were really rare back then.

Fast forward to this year, where I finally decide to level an alt I'd had for almost 2 years to max. Within 2 months of hitting 70 I find myself wearing mostly all epics and as a druid this is in cat and bear form. And this is from me playing the least amount I've ever played since starting back in 2004. Yet this is by no means a record of some sort nor an exceptional feat.

You are able to craft your own epics with relative ease now and you can get "welfare epics" from badges and pvp. Not to mention epics from faction grinding. You can get a full set of epics without ever setting foot in an instance.

Epics are common now and less meaningful. Heck even legendaries almost seem common now - our guild recently asked some of the raid members to list items they wanted and the rogues wrote down Warglaives like they drop every day.

So it's no surprise that I log on to my character dripped in the color of royalty and feel like I haven't really accomplished much. My character is much beefier and deadlier than any character I've ever had probably. But I have no stories to tell about how I ran Stratholme 100 times for Beaststalker pants, because there were no alternatives better. No tales about how I pvped my way to a rank 10 Lieutenant Commander's Leather Helm, because that separated the men from the boys.

I don't miss those days, but I kinda wish there was a happy medium. Where things take some effort to get, but don't sap your life energy out of you. This is as hard to do as balancing classes for pvp. Everyone's level of effort is different. What seems like easy grinding to me may make someone else say I don't have a life. What seems like a monumental effort to me, may make the next person think I'm casual.

Either way, what I've done felt really easy and leaves me a little unfulfilled. I try to think what my first character with her epic sword she was so proud of would think about my spoiled alt brat.

Making up things to do

The other day I found myself making a list of "new" things to do that would give me a reason to log on more. Along the lines of "grind for an azure whelping". Making the list turned out to be more fun than actually attempting to do any of it.

I'm doing some 10-man raiding here and there. Lucky for me there is a wait list, so I don't always get in. Lucky I say because I don't want to find myself raiding 3 or 4 times a week again.

So I look at having to find things to do as a good thing. I'm more inclined to not log on at all. WoW is weaning me off WoW.

I know without checking that I don't have the machine needed to run Age of Conan. So I'm not going to bother with it. Once again fortunate for me.

I am curious how I got to this point. I've done several hundred things ad naseum in WoW, why is it now that I'm bored with it when I wasn't before?

Games n' Blogs

I started my WoW blog after I had leveled my second character to 60 (then the max). Never had a game been so much a part of my life, so it obviously never occurred to me to blog about it but it fit. I had actually started the blog as I was weaning myself off of raiding.

Many of the WoW blogs I read have players taking breaks, saying goodbye to WoW, but more often coming back. Many blogs are about their adventures in the game, links to loot, disgruntlement, fun and boredom.

It made me wonder why other people start blogs about their gaming experiences. And also how innocent blogs must start out when games are still fresh and new.

So that sent me searching for blogs about Age of Conan, the closest new MMORPG on the horizon. The first blog seems like a company sponsored advertisement fansite. I finally found a few that seems to be a legitimate fan fansites.

Of course it is too soon for these bloggers to have that much to say. But I wish them well as they begin their love affair with a new game. I miss that feeling.

Gimme Gimme more

A link I used to visit so much I put it on my side bar but hadn't visited much recently. So I was surprised to see a goodbye to WoW, for now from Relmstein.

Well not too surprised. While it appears that his reasons for taking a break are because he primarily pvps and without Season 4 (which I imagine is more of the same of Season 3 which was more of the same of Season 2 which is...yeah you get the picture) to look forward to.

Playing different players is more dynamic and new "content" in its own right. And talk about return on investment! Create an empty room, put a pillar or bridge or moat in it has got to be the lowest development cost ever! That players enjoy it so much has got to be a happy surprise for Blizzard.

But exactly how many seasons of the same will pvpers put up with? Pillars aside, there really isn't anything new introduced to arena play.

And as someone mentioned (can't remember where I read this) arena really takes the massively multiplayer out of WoW.

I remember someone saying they didn't need an epic mount because all they did was log on, get summoned into a 25-man instance, raid, and log off. I imagine the same can be said for a lot of people who hang out in Shattrath or Nagrand or Stormwind or wherever a battlemaster is and log on with their 4 other friends, arena, and log off.

And with the tournament server you don't even have to spend time leveling!

Even if they release the date of Season 4 I expect more WoW players to start asking for more. Blizzard needs to start delivering more content faster. It is it's own worst enemy. Being a fun game you play a lot thus you run out of things to do faster.


I hit exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive, ran Magister's Terrace several times and now all that is left is to do the same on alts??? Bleh.

I personally haven't left it for another game, but I am playing LotrO alongside it just because WoW isn't giving me anything new to do. I feel like I need to take breaks from it so that when I come back to doing the same ol' thing it's not so stale.

LotRO re-visited.

I subbed to Lord of the Rings Online again.

Unlike suspected, my characters were still there.

And unlike I promised myself, I picked another healer character - a minstrel.

After reading all classes solo fair in LotRO so this time around I figured what they hey. I hadn't leveled any of the characters very far at all the first time around. Yet I still wanted to try something different and a minstrel was left.

I quickly reached level 10 due to being familiar with all the quests in the hobbit starter area and noticed I unlocked Monster Play. Monster Play is where Free People "Freeps" (any hobbits and elves, etc level 40-50) fight "Creeps" (automatically max level orc kind, wargs, etc.)

I admit my blog is on the pessimistic side due to MMORPG grind burnout, and I really wanted to enjoy it (who doesn't pick a game to have fun in it!) but I have to remain honest and say Monster Play got old quickly. Actually working together with a group to take back keeps was great fun, but when I realized I needed to do 250 quests to get maps (think portals to all the bunkers in Alterac Valley) to really enjoy PvMP (Player vs. Monster Player) my enthusiasm sank like a stone. And a lot of this activity is PvE. On top of that repetitive PvE. As a creep, imagine logging on inside AV and never being able to leave. You are always in AV and the only way you improve your character is to do AV quests and kill horde who may not always join your battleground.

I liked finding out what it was about. But it's like doing a series of quests, having fun figuring them all out then someone saying - okay do that same thing 100 more times.

As I said the saving grace is how LotRO players, at least the world I play on, actually work together to defend or take back keeps. But this organization is due to a small, small player base. Once again, to put it in perspective, remember how Alterac Valley used to be before cross-realm battlegrounds. You see the same names on each evening, but in the vent I've joined for example, you already hear rumblings of jumping ship for Age of Conan.

I'll continue to play it simply because I need something besides WoW to play in order to keep it fresh. When I get tired of LotrO after a week, I can go back to WoW and so on. Not an optimal solution, but I really don't see any alternatives.

Sometimes you get lucky

I try to get a group going for a heroic in my guild first before pugging it. I've only been successful getting a few to join me once. Most of the people in my guild don't need to do heroics. They can get badges from 10-man speed runs and 25-mans drop badges now.

So I'm not one of these players who refuses to pug, because if I were I have a feeling I'd never get to do any heroics.

So this weekend, I spammed for the daily heroic got some surprisingly well-geared people to join (they must have been really bored). I went from worrying if we'd have enough dps to worrying if I'd be able to maintain aggro.

The heroic went very well, with just one wipe due to us trying to rush it.

Sometimes you get lucky with pugs.

Heroics

My pug experiences leveling up in normal instances were, let's say, 90% positive. That's a pretty good percentage to entice me to look forward to doing heroics.

I've managed to clear every heroic I've done, but my experience has dropped to 75%. Not so low to make me stop doing them, but not so high for me to look forward to doing them.

I want to take steps to improve my made up percentage.

Now, I spent time getting gearing up to make sure I didn't gimp the group. i.e. I followed the suggestion for gearing up for Karazhan. I actually tanked several bosses in Kara, so I feel my gear is good enough.

Unfortunately, in the few heroics I've done so far I'm noticing there will always be at least one who doesn't do the same. And sometimes two or three. I'm not saying someone should outgear the place, but I swear I think people join LFG heroics 15 minutes after dinging 70.

So against my nature, I'm starting to become more choosy when looking for people to join my groups. And it is no surprise people in LFG are starting to advertise themselves. "Full epics"...."800 shadow damage"...

I've begun whispering people about their gear and armorying them. I hate hate hate that, because I don't like feeling like I'm elitist. Also it isn't like there are a slew of people wanting to do heroics anyway.

But after spending hours in instances that people say should take an hour and wiping on pulls that we should have no business wiping on, I feel it is worth to myself and the group.

I'll admit a lot of this has to do with me being a new tank. I'm sure there are things I make mistakes in doing. But if I get stunned and you get 1-shot, better gear helps with that. If the healer runs out of mana because it takes us too long to kill something, gear helps with that. I'm not sure exactly how awesome tank druids dps is, but you should be doing more dps than me, gear helps with that.

I don't expect zero wipes. I don't expect people not to make mistakes. But just imagine the cushion you have by gearing up in all the methods available. People notice, I know I do.

In the meantime, to help ease my pain, I try to only do the heroics that match whatever the daily is. That way at least I get 2 extra badges for the trouble.

I'm halfway to one of those 2.4 badge rewards. I continue to find it insane that anyone thinks badges are easy to come by. But I digress.

Because sometimes we need reminding

Matthew over at WoW Insider made a good point, that many times it isn't the game that needs adjusting its our attitude.

I have a bad habit of logging on the game for no other reason than habit. Awesome news for Blizzard's profit margin. Horrible news for just about everything else.

By making a concerted effort not to try to do it all in the game, I feel like I'm playing a little less. But that is still most likely tons more than the average player. Average including players who probably wouldn't blog about WoW!

Looking back on my list of ways to avoid time sinks, let's see how I've done:

1) Play a needed class. As mentioned earlier I'm reaching a level where my tank isn't that desirable...for the instances I want to do..with the people I want to do it with. Perhaps I need to set my sights lower. The result is that I play less, but not in the way I wanted.

2) Focus on one role. To my chagrin, I've found druids need to obtain decent cat gear, even if they want to be tanks. While it would benefit me to do so, I don't plan on playing more than I have to in order to get dps gear. If it falls in the instances I'm tanking I'll just consider myself lucky.

3) Do not raid. I went back on this one. I am raiding Karazhan, but it is with a group of people who don't seem to care if you don't show up from one week to the next. This means you risk not getting to raid sometimes, but it also means if I don't feel up to raiding, I'm not going to get that subliminal pressure.

4) Do not pick up a crafting profession. I've stuck to this one. But I've really struggled with it. Some of the nicer items can be crafted. Then I think there are many items just as nice that don't require me to have a profession and since I'm not a hardcore raider do I really need 2 more points of this stat or that one????

5) Get loot through crafting, reputation and pvp. This has worked out very well for me. I've heard druid tanks have it easier than other tanks. So I'm marking this one in the fortunate column.

6) PvP marginally. I've found it easy to stick to this one. It doesn't help alliance's tendency toward losing streaks helps.

7) Grind reputations that only give rewards I can't easily get anywhere else. I did end up grinding for a mount (see #8), but the grind was very easy compared to Pre-BC grinds. I still have a few reps that I want to hit exalted with, but I'm in no hurry. SSO turned out to be extremely easy. So I'm free to do some older ones.

8) Give up on fun frivolities I'm not sure why I listed this one in the beginning, what is this game but a fun frivolity? I ended up getting a Talbuk and it was pretty painless. I did it with a friend so actually it was fun.

That's what it is all about.

Travel for sub 40

I decided to take a small break from trying to get groups for things on my 70 and spend time on my lower level alts.

One thing I forgot but was quickly reminded of is what a pain getting around is!

I chose 2 alts to play and I spent at least 20-30 minutes on each of them getting from a main city, to a spot where I could pick up quests, then travel to do them. In one case, I found the area I chose to still be a bit tough for me, so I spent another 15 minutes trying to get someplace else only to do one quest and get bored with it.

My one alt is a mage so I used blink, and the other is a shaman so I used ghost wolf, but it still was a huge step back from traveling at epic flight speed.

I told a friend, only half-jokingly, that I would pay for someone to get my alts to 40.

The first time through having to take time to travel made the world seem big. It made you feel you had a lot to explore. The fifth or sixth time through makes you feel like you are literally watching minutes of your life tick away for nothing.

Should I find a barrow den?

I've hit a small wall that has me a bit discouraged.

I got geared up for heroics and Karazhan just as 2.4 was released.

As you can imagine, not many heroics are being run that aren't Magister's Terrace. I can't seem to find a Karazhan group either. Because what Kara group is running without a tank already?

There are several posts about why tanks are hard to find, and I'm now experiencing one of the reasons why.

If you decide to embrace tanking you are nothing without a group. And since groups aren't really going to exist without having a tank, that position is filled.

That leaves me to start my own groups, and I've been pugging for that reason. But the headaches that sometimes come along with pugs are starting to wear on me.

I'm hoping Karazhan will become more popular again as excitement over new instances and the removal of attunements to old instances die down.

I forgot how good I had it with 25-mans. And I don't mean the loot. I mean having a group to do things with that you knew would do something every week. But having to do so much every week was part of the reasons why I left.

I'm not really ready to hibernate, but I'm not finding reasons to log on much.

750

750 badges.

That's how many badges of justice I would have to get to purchase upgrades for my alt.

Seems a bit insurmountable at the moment....

Let me cross off the things that maybe I'll have a chance of getting close (not as good) alternatives for elsewhere.

It drops me down to 615.

Still seems as unreachable as 750, given I've managed to get 45 badges so far in the past months or so.

Hmmm let's mark off the 2.4 items for now, those are the highest costing...

Now I'm down to 70. That's much more reasonable!

The question becomes do I really want to spend 35 badges when I could use them toward a 150 badge item?

I'm interested in keeping track of how long it will take me to get 750 badges total. Will it keep me busy until WotLK? Yes.

But will it keep me entertained?

"Can" versus "have to"

Nice post on Blessing of Kings, pointing out that dps doesn't necessarily have to group with people while for the most part healers and tanks do.

No, please don't nitpick that tanks and healers can do things on their own. Of course they can. But the overhead of tanking and healing is an extra price many players aren't willing to play.

Someone makes a post on the official forums every once in a while to allow free respecs or a choice between two specs that you can choose from for a nominal fee. Those supporting this the loudest are tanks, then healers. Prot tanks, namely warriors respec completely to have fun in pvp or to farm a little bit faster.

DPS can leave a group and just about do anything in the game without the feeling they need to group up for something.

Sure they can, but they don't have to.

I remember on my healer whenever I complained on the forums about farming, someone would inevitably say "take a friend!"

I group with friends when I want too! How many of your friends want to group up to farm something for you, let alone themselves?

The dailies and adding damage to healing has helped tremendously. But I still look forward to doing dailies on my dps character which is much more fun and easier.

What is it called

...when an individual goes after his best self-interests but in the end it benefits the group?

A discussion came up in guild about loot (what?!!? no way!!!). While passing on loot so others can have it sounds like a good idea. I'm leaning on the side of the fence that ultimately it works out for the worser.

My reasoning is due to why a player needs loot deferred to him or her in the first place.

Is it a new alt? Then the other people shouldn't have to bear the brunt of getting them gear.

Is it a new role? If the guild has asked them to play it then maybe I can see deferring to them so they can fulfill it properly.

Is it a new player? Once again, should other players have to bear the burden of getting them geared?

If a player themselves isn't working hard to gear themselves in all of the myriad of ways you can currently do now, I don't feel gear should be defaulted to them as a result. If a player has the ambition to get things crafted, pvp, earn badges etc vs. showing up for a raid and hoping everything gets defaulted to them which is the one you'd rather have in your raid?

Armorying PUGs

On my new alt, I run with pugs 95% of the time. It's a choice some of my guild refuses to make. And I admit it can be very trying sometimes. But I like the idea of grouping with people who want to do the instance. And I assume if you are in LFG you want to do the instance.

I never go in with the attitude I'm going to bail if the group sucks. We all can't be geared to the teeth and know the instance inside-out. But I have started making a 2-hour rule. Which I think is very generous. I stop at 2 hours. I can't think of any instance that should take longer than that. So regardless of how close we are to the end, I tell them before hand, at hour 2 I'm leaving. I'm potentially penalizing myself because that last boss could drop something I need. But I'm willing to take that risk.

Even with my pug-friendly attitude I have found myself getting more and more annoyed with players who come to instances they have no business being in yet. There are so many ways to get geared up now. There really is no excuse to show up clad in "of the bandit". I could have saved myself of that headache had I armoryed the player first.

I really don't want to head down that road. Of being choosy in the land of misfits. If any of us were so uber that we didn't need to pug we wouldn't be there in the first place.

Atari 2600

A more innocent age

As a commenter pointed out, I stand corrected.

The new Molten Core game will be available for the Atari 2600 platform first.

Although, I don't think they'll use old-guy-plays-video-games-with-neighborhood-boys advertisements this time around.

WoW's April Fool's

If the lols all over the officials forums didn't make you take game issues less seriously I don't know what could.

And I'm sure we'll all flock to play the new bard class! :)

My favorite was the ascii version of Molten Core, with the unlocked bear level.

PvP to be added to Hello Kitty Online

Disgruntled with World of Warcraft's pvp system and irate with the arena changes, people were dismayed by the announcement Warhammer Online was being pushed back to the fall.

As a result, resounding cheers and befuddlement welcomed the news that Hello Kitty Online will be released with a PvP version for only and additional $10.00USD per month. The mod will simply be known as Hello Kitty PvP.

Due to the age of the population Hello Kitty attracts, an age restriction is in effect for the PvP version. Not surprisingly it has been rated M and the label is slapped on the PvP box that will only be sold from behind the counter. The original version Rated G of course can still be picked up off the shelves.

I've splashed my page with pink in honor of Hello Kitty lovers everywhere.

Do you agree or disagree with the change?

Unhealthy pressure

Shalkis and I had a discussion that touched on some of this before. But I've noticed something happening in my own guild that made me want to talk about it further.

If you have a situation that through positive or negative reinforcement you are pushed to play more or longer than you should, is it Blizzard's fault for putting those types of situations in the game? In the case of raiding, is it the guilds' fault for not fostering a healthier environment? Is it the player's fault for not restricting themselves?

I hope I correctly paraphrase Shalkis when I say he thinks its up to the player to decide how much time he or she will play. And I agree. No one puts a Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle to anyone's head and says play more!

When you notice people obviously aren't spending time with their own families, or the reason why they play so much is that they dropped out of school or are unemployed, shouldn't the opposite be reinforced? Or do you just assume everyone is an adult and can handle their lives as they see fit?

I guess I answered my own question. :/

How many dailies do you do a day?

I managed to do all the new ones for SSO in the beginning, but quickly realized I don't want to log off and find that I spent all my time doing dailies.

Some people in my guild have 4 characters and are doing all the SSO dailies on ALL of them. Another guy is trying to do all 25 (SSO et al) each day. I didn't even think there were that many!

I think I'll stick to the ones( I think about 4 or 5) on the Isle. Because the time racks up when you start traveling to HFP, Netherstorm and Nagrand.

SSO and Dailies

Do you feel as if you are working toward recapturing the Isle of Quel'Danas? Or randomly running around doing quests? Good thing the Shattered Sun Offensive (SSO) pays me gold to aid them or I wouldn't bother.

Okay, actually I would. Each new quest is after something new to do - but is Ogri'la, Sha'tari and SSO what Blizzard considers new content?

A series of quests we haven't done before is new content. But being expected to do them over and over again for months isn't. After you do MrT (MgT? MT? MsT?) on normal and heroic all that remains is to do it over and over again. If you are a high-scale raider Sunwell Plateau will keep you happy for a while.

It's a free patch not a paid for expansion, so I can't really complain can I?

Removal of Attunements

What will the removal of Karazhan, Hyjal and BT do to WoW? Only time will tell, but over in the Everquest universe here is a description of what keeping attunements (flagging in EQ) does to a community.

Have fun.

Sometimes we need reminding.

MgT too easy? too hard?

Word from the official WoW forums is Magisters' Terrace (or MgT as we'll call it - thanks Ratshag) is too easy....or too hard...depending on who you ask.

We outgeared the place on normal so I can't really give an accurate assessment. (I hate when someone says "It's easy, L2P!" and you inspect them and they are wearing gear from BT.)

But my observation is it will be tough on normal for the people it was intended for (they said it is supposed to be on the level of Shadow Labyrinth and Shattered Halls).

Edit: The justification for the difficulty is the epic drop at the end.

Magisters' Terrace

I took part in some of the Sunwell Offensive activities and did a run through MT. (Do we call it MT? How many people really use MT to describe Mana Tombs? No one goes there right?)

Al'ar's mini-me dropped off the maimed Kael'thas. I didn't win it - but since the vanity pet bags weren't introduced in this patch as rumored - it was a blessing in disguise.

I don't know how big of a request this really is but: Blizzard should introduce patches of this type every 4 months (not necessarily with a 25-man instance included - maybe make those every 6 months).

Patch 2.4 today

That was quicker than I expected! Coincidentally, I shortened my to-do list drastically the other day. I have nothing left to do that just *has* to be done before this patch, but my plan was to close the chapter on some things. I won't have time to do that now.

However, if the flurry of activity causes me to push some items to the back burner so be it. History has proved its best to take part in certain events during the height of their popularity (have you tried to get a group for Zuluhed the Whacked or the quests to open up Ogri'la or Skettis lately?)

Time is the currency of WoW

I came across another phrase that caught my eye, this time in a post made by Ciderhelm (TankSpot's administrator).

It was in the context of hardcore raiding.

Surprisingly, the same things being said in this post about people no longer being able to raid (hardcore) apply to people who were never able to raid (casual).

The hardcore vs. casual thing has been done to death. So its interesting when you see they have common ground.

His solution was to make encounters with timers. If you aren't good enough to finish it in time that's your attempt for the week. But as someone mentioned it has to be on the person to limit themselves to the amount of time they spend in the game. As soon as timer-limited encounters are introduced would people play less? No they would spend the rest of the time farming to the hilt for extra resist, pvp gear, badge gear, the most beneficial consumables possible. In other words they would shift their time elsewhere but it still would be unreasonably spent in the game. Because raiders want to separate themselves somehow with their accomplishments and they are willing to spend that currency to do so.

Fury of the Sunwell

Upon logging on we are now being greeted with a splash page advertising Patch 2.4

Unlike the Patch 2.3 - the Zul'Aman patch (I expected it to be my saving grace from 25-man raiding), I'm not particularly hyped about Patch 2.4 which doesn't even include a 10-man option.

Purely personal reasons. I was expecting to spend a lot of time in ZA but it turned out to be a bust. I then moved on to an alt and although I'm back in ZA on my main, as it stands it looks like I'm not going to defeat Zul'jin before Sunwell is released. And to be honest I don't look forward to playing on my main for the new content. Yet my gear on my alt is probably not ready for to take a part in it.

So I split time trying to finish off the last boss of ZA (I've decided this is the last content I really want to see - meaning I've given up on setting goals requiring any kind of raiding) while also trying to gear up my character I enjoy playing more as the fury of the Sunwell looms overhead...

Principle of Progression

I was browsing World of Matticus and he mentioned a phrase "principle of progression".

What I think he means is you should do Step A before moving on to Step B or trying to skip A and B and go directly to C.

I mentioned briefly in a another post about how removal of attunements allows you to skip what actually isn't a bad idea - gearing up your character and gaining some experience.

When 23 of your people are ready to move to the next step, but your 24th and 25th person are blocked due to attunement its a bad idea. But when 3 to 4 of your people out of a 10 man team either aren't willing to wait or haven't bothered to spend time getting gear by other means (pvp, badges, heroics, or simply normal level 70 instances) an attunement process is preferable. Especially if you can't get them to understand why minimum raid requirements exist.

I call it the "run me through deadmines" syndrome. Someone on an alt in quest greens thinks its okay to have another group run them through a place like Karazhan. If the group agrees? Sure no problem, but I can bet you epic mount gold the people who have actually spent the time to gear themselves up aren't so eager to spend more time in the same exact place to get an alt some easy gear. Guilds sell spots for this exact purpose!!!! Because they want a return on the investment of their time.

Cenarion Labs: Time vs Talent

Cenarion Labs: Time vs Talent

With my interest in all things druid, I came across this post as another casual player has hit the wall with what they can accomplish in the game.

Fortunately for me, as a brand new 70, I have lots of things I can do in short amounts of time that will improve my character.

As this poster pointed out "There are two separate sets of people who play this game- those who are able to make the time commitment and those who are not."

I can actually make the time commitment, but I am no longer keen on doing so. Spring is around the corner, I've been playing WoW for a few years now. And I've reached another phase in my gaming.

You wouldn't think so based on this past weekend. I spent about 5 hours straight doing an instance Sunday. And while the time passed quickly - as I was playing on a new character - I came away realizing I don't want to do that again. Old habits die hard. I can easily get caught up in raiding and have to make a conscious effort not to do so.

This new phase of WoW involves me sticking to things that don't require a schedule or anything that will last more than 3 hours. That will leave me faced with the things on his list. When I get to that point it's either leveling yet another alt or taking a break. I can easily see myself in that druid's paws some day.

Full on Night Elf!!!

Does anything scream night elf as much as a druid does?

Apparently not as much as I thought, as I looked up the classes from WoW's ancestor, Warcraft. From what I can tell by quickly browsing, those classes would actually be:

• Demon Hunters
• Keepers (half night elf, half stag)
• Priestesses (at least I got that one right! except those Priestesses were more like hunters?)
• Wardens (think Maiev)

Anyway, I'm playing a druid now and have added a list of links to druid blogs of interest. Focusing on feral. I feel like I've healed enough for one night elf life time (yeah it feels that long), I refuse to go restoration on this character.

I've joined a new guild

My main remains in my old one. But I joined a new guild on my alt.

This time was much different than before. No more selling myself on what type of gear I had, going on trial runs, needing to have someone vouch for me, clearing things with my old guild before joining the new one. All things I realize make sense for a raiding guild, but not for a casual one.

Nope, this one just involved a chance encounter with one of the officers and then shortly later getting an invite.

Their one rule? "Be polite and respectful of others".

Keeping up vs. going at your own pace

I think I know why I should have left my current guild when I quit raiding.

My guild's priority shifted to raiding 2 years back. That's how I came to join them. I wanted to raid and they were starting to raid on their own.

Things were good at the time. They raided at the right pace for me and I got to see lots of encounters that many raiders take for granted.

Then the raiding picked up, more days, longer hours and I could no longer keep up.

But since our guild wasn't originally a raid guild, a few people remained that didn't raid and I also was welcome to stay and fill in now and then.

It sounded like the perfect match still. I could in some way be involved with what was going on. I would get to see a few bosses that I hadn't spent any time during the learning phases on. And I could sometimes still group in 5 and 10 mans with some efficient and effective players.

But along the way the guild changed a bit and I did too. The guild's 25-man group started grouping more with themselves in the 5 and 10 mans (no surprise there) and I started caring less about getting one more badge or one more timed kill. My goals and the guild's goals had diverged even further.

And perhaps I've done a disservice to my guild and myself.

With someone like me around, they could pull me in when someone was absent, instead of focusing on getting a new raider geared up that could be rotated in and play on a more consistent basis.

And I albeit unknowingly still tried to keep to a raider's goals without raiding! I can't imagine our raid guild is any different than any other, so during raids, guild chat is peppered with epics being linked as they drop. I would note what I needed to get close to those things in badges. There is also talk now and then about different resist gear, and epic gems needing to be crafted - all things that if you don't raid you shouldn't give a flying fig about. But in the back of my mind I was making lists that I needed to get those things as well.

The reason why I've had so much fun on my alt is in part to the fact I'm not in the guild, I don't see the chat. I don't see what I'm missing and I don't have any urgent need to quest faster, group more, farm a lot.

So I'm thinking I should have dropped my main out of the guild as soon as I "retired" from raiding. Just the way I first joined a raid guild to be with like-minded individuals, why would I remain there now that we no longer were? What has and is keeping me there at the moment are memories and my self-defined loyalty. But I don't want to try to keep up with something that is out of my reach. I want to go at my own pace and I think finding a guild where people embrace that would improve my game time.

Raiding requirements

One of the slightly negative things about the removal of keying and attunement is that players can now join a group for something without the gear that you normally acquire by jumping through the keying and attunement hoops.

And while you can get decent gear through other means than raiding, doesn't mean everyone does so. In the end raiding (with a group that knows the instance) is still the easiest way to get geared up.

I do wish people would be considerate when joining something unreasonably undergeared - like no one will notice. It makes things harder on everyone else.

Will they find a balance?

If I sound like I've been doing a little bit of "hardcore" bashing, I apologize.

I guess now that I don't raid, I'm on the other side of things. Some of the things I used to do are starting to seem more and more.....insane. But I still remember the feeling you get when a boss dies that you've been working on for weeks if not months. And while I was never truly hardcore or have any idea what it would be like to be in a top raiding guild, I empathize.

I read where a top 10 raiding guild decided WoW is becoming (has become) too casual. It was in reference to badges (and arenas too I guess) allowing everyone, so inclined, access to tier equivalent loot without stepping foot into tier instances.

But another thing that was surprising is they are saying the Sunwell instance (the part they attempted) didn't give them the challenge they desire. In fact even Illidan didn't seem to impress them.

Pair this up with the person in the pug I was with this evening telling me they never expected their guild to see Karazhan but this past week they entered together for the first time. (I didn't have a chance to ask how long they've been a guild.)

That's a huge gap in participation. Badges for the new Karazhan guild will be like gold doubloons. Badges for the Illidan guild will be like skittles. How would you find a balance for that?

"Catering to casuals"

The only people who say this and really believe its true are people who have no idea what it is like to be casual.

The price of 150 badges for one thing, one single item, puts it right in the place it needs to be. Someone who isn't casual simply wouldn't understand how long it would take to get that one item, forsaking everything else you could possibly buy with badges.

It's similar to pvp rewards. Anyone who was truly casual would see the possibility of acquiring some nice gear, but also recognize the huge task they have ahead of them.

And you'll notice I didn't say insurmountable task. Apparently, this is what "hardcore" players want some things in the game to be....for others.

When to call it quits?

No, not the game silly!

After how many wipes do you say this group/raid just isn't going to cut it?

I don't have a magic number, just a feeling. I don't have unlimited time (who does?) and wiping over and over isn't always productive.

My old raid leader seemed to function on zero sleep. His motto seemed to be keep wiping until the thing is dead or 'fan;gwrwgfmcwkc;wowieon' appeared in raid chat due to people's heads falling asleep on their keyboards. (Did I mention I don't miss that part of raiding?)

Back when I first started WoW (had to be on the weekends!) I remember spending over 3-4 hours in a lowbie instances. I'm not talking Molten Core, I'm talking places like Maraudon and Sunken Temple. Not only were the places prone to lots of wipes, the corpse were runs brutal and the instances themselves were huge!

People seemed used to spending hours upon hours upon hours doing single instances. I'm so glad TBC made them shorter.

I've been pugging them all so far, with one or two friends joining me every now and then. But I have only bailed on one. I chalked it up to my inexperience. After wiping on the same trash for about the fourth time, I felt I wasn't up to the task of tanking. And I definitely wasn't up to doing it over and over. I apologized to the group and they removed me.

Later I did the same instance with a higher level of players, great cc and we finished it in a decent amount of time. No muss no fuss.

Avoiding time sinks

I continue to enjoy my latest and greatest alt.

I'm having the fun you'd expect to have in a game. Something I hadn't even realized had been missing. I haven't pinpointed the difference for sure, but I think it's because I'm grouping again.

I had quit 25-man raiding and to my surprise, the 10-mans wanted to gear up the 25-man raiders, so by leaving one group I lost access to the other as well. I fell back on playing alts, but alts that soloed so well I soloed/duo'ed most of the time.

Now I'm playing a hybrid class, but I didn't want to heal (did enough of that on my priest). So this time around I'm tanking - "the" pve grouping role. I'm not great at it. But I've only not completed one instance I've tried so far (went back with a different group and cleared it). My alt is not in my guild so I pug everything and so far things haven't really been that bad. Not 70 yet, things may change at end game with heroics, etc. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

In the spirit of this new found enjoyment, I've decided to try and make a concentrated effort at avoiding the time sinks in the game.

1) Play a needed class. I haven't spent much time grouping as dps, but healers and tanks seem to spend less time in LFG.

2) Focus on one role. As a hybrid I could spend lots of time gearing up for all the roles I could fill. But I ended up playing double time on my priest gearing her up for shadow AND holy. I'm not going to do that again.

3) Do not raid. I'm not going to raid with this character if I can help it. Maybe one day I'll do Karazhan. But I really don't want to get into a scheduled situation where I can't log off when I want to.

4) Do not pick up a crafting profession. I've hit 375 with my gathering professions. If I want to farm I can, but I don't have to try and spend hours getting mats for one skill up, or to purchase a recipe, or to get a recipe drop. I spent hours in an attempt to farm all BoE recipes, I think I only had one left to get.

5) Get loot through crafting, reputation and pvp. Instead of running an instance ad naseum for a lucky drop, find alternatives through other avenues. I'll never have the best of the best without raiding or arenas anyway.

6) PvP marginally. I've spent countless hours on battlegrounds not necessarily enjoying myself trying to earn honor. AFKing screws things up, but I can definitely understand why people do it. When during a bg I find I'm thinking AFKers have the right idea - log off immediately.

7) Grind reputations that only give rewards I can't easily get anywhere else. Do I really need exalted with Sporregar? The bat *is* cute, but helm and shoulder enchants are better.

8) Give up on fun frivolities - this is a hard one, but probably will give me the most bang for the giving-up buck. Spending hours farming ogres for a Talbuk no longer makes sense if I'm trying to spend more time in RL.

Did I miss any other time sinks?

Perhaps its not really a time sink if you have fun doing it. Yet it is so easy to get lost in this game and wonder where all your time went. It sounds like I'm cutting a lot out of the game, but I'll still spend numerous hours playing even without all of this.

Puggin' it!

I've been pugging instances again as I level up yet another alt. This is an unguilded alt, free from the pressures of "come heal this instance for us please" (more on that later).

Believe it or not, the worst part of pugging is BEFORE we even enter the instance. Waiting for the group to form, waiting for everyone to arrive. You spend a good 15-45 minutes right there.

Of course, I could join a guild and have less pug stress. But so far I'm enjoying pugging again. I've come across a surprising amount of ret paladins, and unsurprising amount of draenei shaman.

My expectations of pugs are so low, that I come out feeling great about them. Part of it has to do with the feeling they really nerfed these instances from a year ago. Part of it has to do with running normal instances is easier than heroics. And part of it has to do with me being in a new role other than healing. But besides all that, players seem to work together for the most part. I imagine just about everyone is on an alt, and know these instances very well. And if they are like me, they are so happy to find a group, they want it to succeed.

The good and bad thing about guild runs is, you know each other so well things move very fast and efficient. But you also have less unexpected things happen - in one word - boring. You also come to take for granted that someone will heal your instance or tank your instance and quickly lose sight that you're burning them out. Pugs are more appreciative and anonymous, you won't be swooped down on like a vulture's lunch when you sign on the game.

I'm trying to stay happily oblivious to the impending doom that is end game. Right now, by spending an hour and 1/2 I have a chance at a nice drop. I enjoy my time spent online, and I haven't made a promise to a pug that I'll be on the same time tomorrow and after that and after that to run another instance with them.

Life in Azeroth and beyond...is good.

2.4 PTR

3 bosses in the new Sunwell instance have already been killed on the PTR. With only 6 bosses total, those remaining 3 bosses must be extremely hard. Or the top guilds are going to have another 6-8 months with nothing to do.

Have I won the game?

It just dawned on me that I've pretty much done the things I really wanted to do in this game. It is my own virtual finish line that I've set. I can't think of anything else I feel I need to do if something came up and suddenly I had to quit.

Sure there are instances left to visit, crafting profession caps left to be reached, reputations left to hit exalted on, and all those mounts I can save up for! But none of those things will I look back on wistfully and say "I never did X while I played, I wish I had".

Feels good. And kinda frees me from the game. (No I'm not quitting.)

Oh no!

Okay there is one thing. I many times wished I had played a horde character to max just to see what pvp is like on the "smarter", "more mature" side.

Drat.

8 months of no new content?

I came across a forum post about guilds who killed Illidan 8 months ago. Essentially they are beyond bored and have warned Blizzard that they will not wait another 8 months for new content.

Lucky for Blizard no other MMORPGs are close to release. You sometimes see mention of WAR, but I haven't heard anyone mention anything about the Pirates or Tabula Rasa MMORPGs come to think of it and both of those are out already I think. At least LotRO got a little bit of publicity before dropping off the radar - too bad they didn't have their higher level content fleshed out ahead of time.

We've had a few guilds clear everything before the beginning of this year. You don't really hear them say they are done farming yet.

The guild I'm in is still in Black Temple/Mt. Hyjal and they have a ways to go before they clear both from what I've heard. And this is with the more dedicated players in our guild. They are kept busy with that and Zul'Aman and don't seem a bit disgruntled.

And we have several guilds still in Serpentshrine Cavern/Tempest Keep mostly stuck at the end boss humps. They are kept busy actively recruiting. Although you see some players trying to jump ship because they recognize this will be the bottleneck until either those bosses are nerfed or attunements are lifted.

Why is there such a divide in groups who can clear all new content within a matter of months, groups who may clear most of it in the time span of a year or so, and guilds who will never get very deep into 25-man instances without extensive nerfs and removal of attunements?

And Blizzard has to try to keep them all happy. If you release content faster, the slower guilds feel like they can never keep up - and lose their better players to better guilds. If you release content slower, your more progressed guilds get bored and irritated and people stop playing the game altogether.

Why did they release SSC/TK at the same time they release BT/Hyjal? Maybe they should have spaced them out a bit more, made the bosses harder. Slow guilds wouldn't have noticed (because they always get nerfed eventually) and faster guilds would have been kept busy longer.