"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.

Alts again

Back to playing an alt. Even trying to get pvp gear got boring to me, which shows just because there is an "easier" route to purples doesn't necessarily make it a fun one.

I'm trying to participate in 5-man instances this go around. My other two alts just leveled to 70 (I can't remember doing a single post 60 instance on them sans Ramparts) and got parked for the most part. So just like with my priest, I'm trying to force myself to group more.

It's already been a year?

If it weren't for Tobold's blog the 1-year anniversary of the Burning Crusade would have passed me by.

But since he reminded me, I'm going to give BC a grade based on several areas. From personal experience and from what I've read on forums the past year.

Raiding
* More challenge
* Decreased raid size
* Prohibitive attunements
* Improvements to consumables

While attention was paid to making encounters challenging, and the decrease in raid size helped Blizzard do so, it also ended up blocking out a bunch of players.

I actually was a supporter of the decreased raid size, I was tired of waiting for people to show up when said they would. Those casual players who bumped up the 35 man raid to 40. Cut the chaff! Cut the chaff! I chanted. Until I became that player. While I never would leave a raid hanging, I did become more casual. I wasn't willing to commit to a raid schedule anymore. Pre-BC I still would be able to raid on and off. But with BC attunements requiring you to be a part of kills (within instances no one wanted to run anymore) and gear requirements -- filling in for someone became almost impossible in some cases.

I can't remember the last time I've heard someone complain about consumables, but considering I don't raid anymore that might explain it.

I can only imagine raiders would give Raiding in BC a B- (The minus due to the raid size transition and initial bugginess of many encounters).

As a retired raider, I'd have to give it a C. No longer having the chance to take part in an area of the game where I used to spend the majority of my time garners it the lower grade for me.

Leveling
*No more leveling dead zones
*New starter & middle area(s)
*Respectable quest loot rewards
*Gear reset

Blizzard fixed the dead zone areas, those times while leveling you have trouble finding quests. In fact, if you spent time instancing you'd have several areas left to quest in at 70.

With the introduction of the new races, you had brand new starter areas to level through.

Finally quest rewards you could use and not just vendor. And not just in the Outlands (starter areas had some loot that seemed more thought out). Some classes were a bit left out (warriors come to mind - to make them tank?) while others seemed favored (MORE pally loot?)

Can't please everyone though, because the same loot many of us where happy about, some complained they felt their "work" in Pre-BC had been for naught. (Blue just confirmed it will happen again in WotLK so get your whining out now.)

And leveling on alts, from 60-70 wasn't bad either because you could solo it just fine.

I give it a A. I can't imagine anyone giving it less than a B.

Endgame
*Dailies
*Flying mounts
*Heroics
*Reputations
Raiding kept me busy at 70 for a bit. Saving up 5.2k gold for a flying mount turned out to be "content" of its own. But once I had my netherdrake and when I stepped away from raiding, I wondered what I would do with my extra time.I took to leveling alts and focusing on professions a bit more. If I just did dailies I wouldn't run out of things to do, but it obviously is its own form of grind.

Heroics is supposed to be the casual players content. But after you do so many heroics (even they are part of daily quests now). It loses its, if not challenge, luster.

Grinding reputations come easier than they did Pre-BC. But in a genre defined by time-sinks, reputations is the mother of time sinks. I still like that they gave us the ability to increase many of them by more than turning in rare bat back hair.

Many players, like Tobold, took a break after the hit max cap. If you're not a raiding type or pvp type, endgame still is a tad "end of the game" for some. Even the first raiding guild to kill Illidan did it back in the summer. But I've realized you can't fault an mmorpg for this. Some use up content faster and either find something else to do, like another game, or another area of WoW.

I give it C+, considering I'm still playing I should give it a B- huh?

Which leads to

PvP
* Honor grind removed
* Arena introduced
* New BG
* More accesible gear
* Gear tier equivalent

PvP has changed the most, yet changed the least. In the scheme of things only one more BG was added. For someone who only PvPs, I can't imagine they wouldn't complain more about this.

Hardly anyone lamented the removal of the old honor grind. But the players who hit Grand Marshal and High Warlord were (justifably?) peeved to see their weapons so easily obtained. I don't think they care it was replaced by better gear, just that they allowed anyone (including me) to get it.

Arenas accomplished (some say diminished) what raiding could not. By making top of the line gear available to just about everyone who spends time trying to get it.

Some raiders, I have to assume ones who never really like raiding, jumped ship because they felt they could get just as good gear from pvp than pve. Nevermind, many pver's wouldn't use pvp gear and many pvper's wouldn't use pve gear.

I want to give PvP a A for effort, but it loses points because of the imbalance and issues with AV. Since I pvp as an alliance pugger it gets a F. But anyone with sense wouldn't pug! I'll drop it down to a B.


Miscellaneous
*Headless Horseman event
*Beerfest
A++, would have received an A+++ if the Beerfest hadn't bugged out and more people had opportunity to get a ram.

So

Overall
I guess that means the Burning Crusade gets a B from me. They did a nice job with it. And some of its flaws stem from me just playing too much and soaking up more than they can provide.

Not bad, not bad at all.

PvP taking the m out of mmo?

I have been dabbling in PvP as a filler, since raiding as pretty much become non-existent for me.

I'm not good. But its something I can do without sticking to 24 other people's schedule. I can stick with my own time zone for the most part.

I read alot about the state of PvP on the forums, once again not exactly the best barometer of what's going on. But reading rants is always fun.

The latest is about AV (Alterac Valley). In some battlegroups (several realms share these) Alliance kept losing, but instead of getting a fraction of the honor they got 0. So they boycotted AV and quit queueing. This lead to horde, used to instant or 5 or 10 minute queues, sitting and waiting in hour long queues. I'm biased, but Alliance didn't seem to complain as much about getting 0 honor, well not verbally. Horde claimed Alliance did this on purpose to punish them. But it's easy to see if you get zero honor you're not going to spend hours to accomplish essentially nothing.

Blizzard latest attempt to fix things was to make some of the npcs harder to kill for horde. And obviously horde are now complaining about that.

But the underlying complaints are what interest me most. That AV is just a place to honor farm. And that some say hardly anyone really wants to pvp there, they just want a place to gain honor, and buy their gear because, well the "real" pvp is in arenas. But arenas are only 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5.

And that leads me to this: Someone on the forums asked "What killed pvp?" and someone answered "That and making the most important aspect of PVP being small scale...in an mmo."

Do you agree? Did making arenas the be all and end all of World of Warcraft pvp ruin it?

WOW Resolutions

1) Play WOW less
2) Enjoy WOW more

I pretty much am at a point where I've found myself several times in Azeroth/Outland. The place where I know I'm not getting as much enjoyment out of the game as I could simply because I spend too much time in it!

I burned out on raiding because I'd raid almost daily. I burned out on PvP because I'd spend entire weekends in AV. I'd burn out on characters because I'd spend weeks leveling them non-stop.

I want to play the game less. It will be good for me as far as the game is concerned and definitely as far as RL (sunlight!) is concerned too.

What's your WOW resolution?

WOW went downhill from there...

I've heard that for many games...I don't remember exactly but it usually goes like this:

*Star Wars Galaxies went downhill after the combat revamp
*Everquest went downhill after the Planes of Knowledge

Everyone can predict what will happen in the future - predictions like opinions are free.

I predict, many many years from now, people will say after the introduction of Welfare Epics the World of Warcraft went downhill from there.

Making epics so easily available seems like a good idea, and while I do personally like an alternative to raiding at endgame, what carrots on sticks will that leave for us to chase after?

I'm not predicting gloom here, WOW has already lived a nice life and will continue to do so. The pushback of Warhammer seems to have knocked the only upcoming contender off the block before it even had a chance to compete.

Holidays

More time to play!!!

What are you going to do in WoW during the holidays? Are you going to play at all?

I plan on participating in the BG weekends more than usual, and take advantage of the leveling changes (less xp required per level/more xp gained for quests and kills).

How much "content" will ZA give us?

Our guild is able to field several 10-mans, and one of them has already cleared ZA. Others are still going at it, but are close.

That's much different than Karazhan. Karazhan took our fastest group a few months, if I recall correctly and our slower group finished up just a few months back.

Of course at the time there were no 25-man dungeons funneling better gear for us to wear.

I am guessing Black Temple and Hyjal guilds don't bother with ZA at all. Well maybe they take their alts in there, and I've heard its an "offspec" place. There is also one recipe, but it drops off arguably the easiest boss in there.

For many of us the loot is an upgrade, if not for our main gear but our off-duty gear. Going somewhere and not having to watch things get sharded is a thumbs up.

And I assume SSC/TK guilds are gunning for the chests. Chests only open up when you kill each boss within a certain time limit.

So far, I have no idea how we're supposed to beat all of the timers. But just like Karazhan the same time it might take to learn the first boss for some, others can do the whole place, I imagine outgearing the place will do it. But that is just a matter of going back and doing it over and over.

As far as new content goes, that's not really offering months and months of entertainment as I see it.

I'm so glad to be out of Karazhan and into some place new, its really hard for me to complain.

I don't like the people I raid with...

Actually I do.

But I got this sentiment off the General Forums from the official WoW site.

Apparently raiders are upset that epics are so easy to get from PvP they are slowly running our of people to raid with. Someone bemoaned the fact that all the people who only raided for epics are gone because they could get their epeens enlarged elsewhere through arenas.

My question was do they really miss these people?

And then it dawned on me, people have been raiding with people they don't particularly like or care in the name of progress since raiding began. Of course. And that's why you have raiding guilds who won't put your Aunt Charlotte in that last dps spot.

The desire for epics have fueled the raiding machine for years. But people are refusing to pay the high cost of fuel in form of repairs and only a chance at an epic versus the guaranteed epics at the end of a few weeks or months of arenas and battlegrounds.

Someone else finally started another thread stating the problem isn't PvP "welfare epics", but raiding itself is what is turning raiders away. The randomness of drops, the trash and trash respawns, the repair and consumable costs.

With Patch 2.3 PvP rewards supposedly better than what you can get out of the hardest raid dungeons, I'm guessing it isn't just epeen chasers that are asking why am I bothering to raid.

Season 1 PvP Armor 4 Sale

I think today you can purchase the S1 Arena armor for honor points instead of arena.

Being able to do this makes more and more sense to me.

Those who are able to achieve the rating required to get the gear when it means the most are able to. Those who aren't are given the opportunity to do so 2 seasons later.

Those who couldn't kill bosses back at their original "hard setting" are able to once the bosses are nerfed. Once again, much later when it doesn't rank on some boss killer website.

I think the term elitist applies when you don't ever, ever, ever want someone to have what you had. This way of thinking fails when it comes to gaming, especially in a never-ending game.

I will be able to purchase something many players have long since sharded, sold, deleted, or stuffed in their bank. Why those people care, I have no idea.

It's a myth

Zero pressure raiding?

Yes ontherocks you're right, I can do better. But it was more of a bookmark for me, to come back to later.


And, here I am.

In that post I saw the history of raiding in the guild I'm in:

*Finding out if many in the guild want to go the direction of end-game raiding
*Discovering which ones really mean it - by always being prepared
*Discovering those who don't - by being late, no consumables
*The break down of the so-called "relaxed, friendly atmosphere"
*Having to choose certain class mixes, some tried and true members falling by the wayside
*Hearing comments of how the "guild has changed"
*For those who decide to stay and thrive, the camaraderie of working as a team
*For those who stay and struggle, watching from the sidelines

And where I've struggled personally
*Deciding "not being quite casual enough but succeeding at group content is better for most guilds than being too casual and failing."

Why I say its a myth? I just think you can't be casual, not really. What I've heard people call casual (imagine spending 3-4 hours a night, 3-5 nights a week bowling or softball or soccer) really isn't.

"Winning" with a stacked team

I play on a server where it was a while before any guild killed Illidan. The first, like many guilds, had recruited from off the server. Recruits were players who had already been to BT/Hyjal. When they listed who got drops, none of the names were recognizable. When giving out grats it was like cheering complete strangers on. A few weeks later guilds of server veterans downed Illidan too. We could actually give personal congratulations.

For PvP, players wanted to go where the action was, so many flocked to Battlegroup 9. A group of servers know known for having the best pvp teams. I guess we're lucky so many are confined to one battlegroup. And I feel sorry for any casual players, how often do they get owned?

Battlegroups made queues much, much shorter for alliance on servers like mine, and they did so by introducing names we had never seen before. Rivalries tried to form - "Our server is better than yours!" But without specific names to taunt, they fizzled as quickly as they arose. There are no pvp heroes anymore, because no one knows anything about the battles they have fought and won. When someone won the arena mount (for being in the top percent of arena players) they only way many of us knew was because the player themselves kept posting about it, not because any of us had fell at his hands on the battlefield.

When Karazhan was released there was mention of intra-guild friendly rivalry. Groups formed around cliques, families and schedules. As it happened, color me shocked, those with freer schedules and extra hours to spend, kept going at it until it was clear. There was no competition. The rest of the groups eventually cleared on their own timetables. Something I envy now. Yes I was in the first group.

Recently a few people were cherry picked from the normal groups that had done Karazhan for the past months, to form a "supergroup" to clear Zul'Aman. In the past when the guild accomplished first kills I felt some sense of guild pride. But what obstacles did this supergroup overcome?

It just seems the strategy for winning du jour is stacking teams. Not just in the best guilds where its expected, but for the mom-and-pop guilds who aren't supposed to care as much about progression.

With 25-mans, several guildmates were pushed aside for "better" players, with the intent of bringing them back in when we had a better handle on the new dungeons. Needless to many of those players decided not to come back. Is this how its supposed to be done?

Will ZA be a hit?

Tigole the lead designer in WoW has said "Karazhan has been a big success and I think a lot of players really dig the 10 man raiding size."

Will Zul'Aman continue with that success?

I say yes. Players like having that alternative to 25-man raiding. Aside from heroics, Karazhan and Zul'Aman are the only games in town.

It's also on a 3-day reset which will allow for more swapping in and out of people.

And so far, from what I've seen the trash is minimal. They seem to reward you for your efficiency of getting through trash.

But I think its going to be a bit bumpy. For one there is no attunement. While people cry about attunements, they forget what attunements are. They are a way of preparing you for what lies ahead. Some groups, like hardcore guilds don't really need attunements and they look at it as a speed bump to their progression. But on the other end, you have players who think if you can get inside an instance you should be able to do the instance - regardless of gear, preparation or organization.

With Karazhan you had to run a few instances to get keyed, by getting keyed you at least got some gear and practice with a few encounters that weren't just tank and spank. But with ZA you don't need any kind of key. I wonder how many fresh 70s will try to find a group for ZA, simply because they can, when it has already been said that ZA is Prince/Nightbane starting difficulty (meaning it gets harder from there).

I think tackling ZA in less than average gear is going to be met with some surprise. I hear that people are going in with blues - I'm interested to know how far they are getting.

In the chat channel, people were looking for more to pug ZA. Perhaps my view of pugs are a little bit low. But I wouldn't pug ZA with a 10-foot amani hex stick.

Our group first night in, one of the many groups our guild fostered, was decently geared for ZA (Kara and T4 mostly) and we made it through a few bosses. We kept ourselves to only spending a few hours there. So I look forward to experiencing the rest in the future.

As long as you don't go in expecting to fly through it and take it for what I think it is, I think players will like it. If you clear it under the timer the first night out, this content is not for you. Unless farming for badges counts for content.

It's a new area for those either done or pretty much done with Karazhan, yet perhaps not willing (due to scheduling) or able (due to guild size) to tackle all of 25-man SSC/TK.

The gear in ZA and from heroic badges (which drop from Kara and ZA now in addition to heroics) may also get you better geared up for SSC/TK battles if you're so inclined.

Remember I've only been through some of it, so this is speculation. My guess is it's a good fit.

Oh, don't forget to pick up the quest to get a 20-slot bag.

Patch 2.3 & Zul'Aman

It was announced that, baring any unexpected issues, the next patch will be released next Tuesday. This includes the opening of the next 10-man instance Zul'Aman.

I have been looking forward to ZA since I first heard about it. I tried to spend time "casually" raiding 25-mans and even that is a chore. In order to be able to raid sometime, you pretty much have to be prepared to raid all the time. Which was more work than I realized I wanted to do.

Since 25-man raids exist and Zul'Aman is 10...there the whole matter who fitting square pegs into round holes again. Before I had the common goal of Karazhan just being a step toward 25. But this time around I'm treating 10-mans as my endgame.

What I foresee this meaning is me not being able to find a place to do 10-mans, if all the 25-man raiders group up. I never thought it would be an issue. But things change.

For the first time in a long while, I'm wondering should I find another guild. I just need something my speed, more conducive to WoW being less of a time commitment.

Its very easy to stay up late when everyone around you is doing the same. Its easy to think raiding for as many hours as I have in the past as being normal when everyone I play with pretty much does the same thing.

Lately, I thought about how I'm the same gamer, just the raiders in my guild are pushing to raid longer and more often. This...just when many raiding guilds have broken up or were merged into other guilds. I get the feeling our guild wants to play catch up more than just go at their own pace.

They don't really seem to care if I make that push with them, and maybe that's telling in itself. If Zul'Aman doesn't work out how I've been hoping it does - a more casual raiding opportunity - perhaps a change of surroundings is in order.

Legendary Randomness

I'm not inclined to seek out the numbers and crunch data...but I swear legendary weapons sure seem to drop more often than you'd expect.

The Burning Crusade was released in China back in September, yet one ambitious guild has downed Illidan already and guess what? A legendary dropped.

IIRC, the first Ashbringer dropped early on when one of the top guild's during the Naxxramas era.

And it didn't seem long after Blizzard added the druid epic flight form quest that players were coming away with the raven mount, I think the next day?

Now I'm not complaining, and WoW does have a lot of players, but I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to conveniently have a much looser loot table at the beginning of things, just as advertisement.

Welfare epics

Welfare epics describe the arena epics you can purchase. They are called welfare epics because of the presumed ease at which you can obtain them.

The biggest complaint is the fact that you only have to participate in, not win, the arenas matches to earn points. You can essentially have a losing season and still come away with rewards.

Of course, you gain less points this way and players tend to gloss over how long it takes with the 10 games a week method.

Players also complained about the Headless Horseman helm and epic rings. The helm may have been on the level of tier 4 or better and the rings were exactly like the ones you can buy with heroic badges.

As a result, these higher rated pvp teams and players who had ran heroics over and over felt their efforts were diminished.

Blizzard is changing the arena awarding system with patch 2.3, but there are no plans to change the HH event to make it harder or remove the epic drops.

To those who think casual, not-so-skilled, or whatever category these welfare epics are ascribed to shouldn't have a chance at what some take for granted I say this:

This is a carrot-chasing game. We keep the cart moving by trying to bit at the carrot. For some of us it takes weeks, others months. Why one donkey cares what the other donkey is doing I'll never know. But to stay in business they have to let us nibble on the carrot sometimes lest we lose sight of why we're playing and get a taste for apples.

Boo!

After the seemingly abrupt end to Brewfest, the Halloween events have started!

The Headless Horseman is a level 70 5-man (recommended) elite boss found in the Scarlet Monastery graveyard. He drops some great purple treats - epic ring of some type is guaranteed, as is a broom (of various speed levels). There are chances other epics will drop as well. The best one, gear-wise is the plate [Horseman's Helm].

But since we all have different tastes of what we think would be a great drop, arguably the best overall may be the non combat pet [Sinister Squashling] or the mount [Swift Magic Broom].

Always good to see they add to events instead of just rehashing old events!

gg ret pallies?

After further discussion and testing we’ve decided to add threat reduction deep in the paladin's retribution tree. Fanaticism will now reduce threat caused by all actions by 6/12/18/24/30%, in addition to its current effect.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog

Let me try to steer the blog away from my priest concerns, what a surprise they only come up when I'm spending time playing one!

Back to fun stuff like Brewfest!

Were you lucky enough to get the quest to head back into BRD before they disabled it? The reward is a glowing off-hand [Dark Iron Tankard]. It's not as detailed as the main hand [Yellow Brewfest Stein], but I'm sure most dwarves only care about what's inside their dual-wielded mugs.

Priests - The Utility Class?

I think I may have figured out what has been bothering me about the priest class.

We have moved away from healing as our #1 selling point and now our buffs (and debuffs in terms of shadow priests) have taken top slot.

Now, this isn't really a problem per se. I just have to get out of the mindset that the class I rolled for a specific purpose has a new role.

However the problem arises when the utility I can offer is already offered by another priest.

If BC is all about buffing damage output instead of healing damage input then they need to give us more ways to do so.

Jack of all healing

...master of none.

AKA today's mini-rant AKA spent time playing my priest main recently.

If you check WoW's official site for class descriptions, the first words that describe the priest class are as follows "Priests are the masters of healing". I, like I'm sure many others, took that to mean if you want to play a healer play a priest.

Times have changed for the career healer. In my limited experience the master of healing in BC is the paladin. With this in mind, I understand the hard feelings warriors have when tanking is usurped by paladins and druids. Or when mages feel pushed out by warlocks. You picked a class because it was tailored for it. Yet another class does your pigeonholed job just as well if not better.

It's hard to describe without it sounding like nothing but sour grapes. But I can bitter it up even more. A priest can do the grunt (no pun intended) work. But becoming Master of the 5-man when no one can find a paladin wasn't in the job description.

Brewfest!

Don't forget to participate in Brewfest.

There is a very easy quest you can do to get a wolpertinger aka what-the-heck-is-that aka jackalope. And several other quests that reward you with tickets. With the tickets you can purchase a Brewfest outfit, perfect for celebrating the imbibing of spirits! Of course I think dwarves will just look awesome in them! I hope the quests are something you don't have to be 70 to complete all of them.

Lasting guilds

I've found raiding wasn't the culprit for all the time I spent in the game. I wanted to pin it on something. But I still play as much as I ever have it seems.

I came across a guild website that recently disbanded. They were "the" guild when I first started playing. They had all the first tiers, back when I didn't even know what instance dropped what. I would get close enough to inspect them and sometimes ask "Where'd you get that?" questions I'm sure they were asked many times before. But then, when you stand on the AH bridge or in front of the bank steps what do you expect? ;)

Yet after the rough part (so I've heard) of Naxxramas, and the sever caused by changing 40-mans to 25, this guild that competed on a worldwide level is no more.

BC has its casualties. I was really wrong when I predicted the 25-man limit would be a boon for raiding guilds. Instead it seems, having to be on your toes for every single raid is draining for many. And not being able to sub in replacements without extensive re-learning is painful. PvP and crafting offers you armor and weapons on par with what raid instances offer. The top guilds are pulling players from other guilds. Guild "loyalty" is fleeting. Guilds built on players desiring raid progression can't be surprised when one of their own leaves for even better progression.

I'd rather raid with people who like to play with each other. Those that put guild cohesiveness above progression. But that also has its drawbacks as you get tired of wiping on the same bosses. Those guilds tend to have players who raid with other guilds. And sometimes those same players just end up leaving to join the more progressed guild just like the top raiding guilds experience attrition. Its made me a bit of a cynic as far as raiding goes.

The guild I am in has recruited lots of new people that I don't know. Since I don't raid anymore, I haven't bothered to get to know them. Especially when they've joined just to raid. Even though I did the exact thing when I joined almost 2 years ago. I don't worry too much about it, in the age of revolving door guilds.