And just like that another blow...

No, not to a raid boss. But to our guild.

Just read on our forums we're losing another raider. While grumblings usually precede /gquits, this guy was a guild cheerleader. A true Mr. Positivity. I had no inkling he was even thinking about leaving. It's a surprise, I'm floored, but yet then again not much of a surprise considering he was also an officer.

Leading a guild, being an administrator for a guild is work. Extra work that many times doesn't even involve getting to play. You don't get paid, you often get grief.

I've turned down a few "opportunities" to be a guild officer, class lead because I don't want added responsibilities in my game.

Call me lazy, but I just want to log on, have some fun and log off. I imagine many people who have left WoW haven't wanted to necessarily quit the game but quit their gamejob. Quitting for good is just a cleaner way of doing it.

Still progressin'

Despite losing players our guild marches on. I've had fun in our recent forays into Ulduar. And what we've accomplished so far I really couldn't ask for more.

We've managed to defeat a boss or two each time we've been there. The feeling of progressing is what matters most to me. I don't need to progress fast, but I do need to progress to be satisfied.

It would help if we could manage to recruit more players, but recruiting is tough right now with everyone clamoring for players. Too bad the US job market couldn't mimic raiding needs.

Biggest threat to guilds

New releases. Whether it be something as big as expansions or something small as patches.

Something about the milestone, mile marker, what have you, of a release that makes players examine where they are and where they want to be.

Our guild lost some players and I have a sinking feeling risks being disbanded like this blogger's guild Saga.

Instead of being excited about the new instances, I find myself enveloped in a state of unrest.

gj Dual specs

I never have much gold, but I wanted to make sure I had at least enough to get dual specs when patch 3.1 came out.

There were complaints that 1,000g was too much, but it is one of the best purchases you can make outside of mounts you buy to speed up traveling.

I was so excited I bought my second spec that very day. I didn't even get around to messing with it until later. There's not much to it. Instead of one talent spec you can have two and you can switch between them without any sort of spec swap cooldown. It retains the glyphs associated with each spec and beyond the first purchase of glyphs it doesn't cost anything to swap between them.

What I really like is that the spec stores your action bar settings.

Nice job Blizzard!!!

*scratches head*

I like/dislike new releases. I like having new things to do, I dislike feeling I have too much to do!

I've had the chance to see a little of the inside of Ulduar and I've taken part in some of the Argent Tournament dailies. Dailies. Yeah. At least they added a quest line as part of it and I've done some of it as well.

Some things are happening in the guild I'm not happy about. I hope I have it in me to make a change if I end up really unhappy and not let it drag out.

"Whatever the guild wants"

I have never in my history of raiding witnessed someone say this and remain true to it.

You would think raid recruiters would see through this. Actually it should raise a red flag. When you realize the term arose, pardon the pun, as a sign of defiance more than simply being a problem area.

Someone who applies stating their willingness to do whatever the guild wants, you'd think they'd be snapped up in an instant. The problem is, in my experience, these free agents have never stuck with what the guild wanted and in the end usually /gquit disgruntled. What's worse is when they place or at very least widen a crack in the guild's cohesiveness. Misery loves company and someone who publicly vents at the guild in their exit interview usually prompts some other "Yeah I never liked this or that either!" responses from otherwise happy players.

What looks like a godsend, is either someone wishy-washy about what they want to do, a people-pleaser who will not get their neediness reciprocated, a manipulator who plans to switch to what they really want to do the first chance they get.

I'm not saying there aren't those out there really willing to do whatever the guild wants for any long period of time. I've just never seen it.

Categories

Raiders can be described by three things:

1) Skill
2) Commitment
3) Attitude

If you have skill and commitment, guilds trying to get ahead overlook your lack of ability to mesh with them. But people are talking behind their back about you and if you ever said you were going to quit probably wouldn't try to get you to stop. There might even be party after you leave. You're most likely dps.

If you have commitment and attitude but no skill, you're the player who gets pulled in when no one can be found. You may eventually get a permanent raid slot that you'll never give up, officers appreciate your loyalty, but would swap you out if they could. Chances are you are a healer.

If you have skill and attitude, you're the player who raids are happy to see when you show up, but quickly grow to resent your lack of dependability. You have a sense of entitlement. You're probably a tank.

The first part of Wrath Expansion: A Look Back

From a raiding standpoint, by the most competitive guilds, Naxxramas/Malygos/Sartharion were way too easy. The achievements gave them a bit of a challenge (see Immortal) but most had still won the game by January.

For the rest of us raiders, like myself, achievements stretched out the raiding experience right up to Patch 3.1 released today. Like many scrambling to get done, I got one of the elusive drakes just this week, but the other will forever be out of my reach.

Achievements gave me a new reason to keep raiding, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Just like fake goals I've set up in the past. For instance accumulating offspec gear, piling up badges or deciding to reach max exalted with the instance's reputation. I found myself raiding but not for the raid experience. I personally raided a month or so longer than I should have. But achievements prodded me to keep showing up. I was one of a few in my guild pushing to do the achievements so I only have myself to blame.

Trying to obtain more achievement points also caused me to fall back into the habit of playing more than I should, but the shorter raid schedule and limiting my alt(s) time actually caused me to play less than I have in the past.

Most of my gripes stem from how I play the game, not the game itself. The two complaints I have Blizzard has actually committed to not repeating.

1) "Yeah, but can you do *this*?" If 25-man is supposed to be the more difficult raid, make it so. Don't have a 10-mannable dragon be the apex. Or tell us in advance that's the case. Blizzard has admitted that making the 10-man Sartharion + 3 Drakes harder than the 25 was a mistake.

2) "Limited time only" I understand the developers wanting to keep accomplishments special by not allowing raiders to get some achievements after a certain time, but once again can we get more advanced notice? A Blue made a small post advising anyone wanting the new proto-drakes that they will have a restricted time to get them.

Interestingly enough, my plans for 3.1 will make my gripes moot even if Blizzard hadn't corrected things for future raids:

1) I'm sticking to doing only one raid type, either 10 or 25. Probably 25. 25-man raids allow for more flexibility. A 10-man group will inevitably be unable to raid if 2 people don't show up. A 25-man doesn't have that problem. If I'm one of the two absentees (not that I ever have bad attendance), I'd feel worse about it in the 10-man group.

2) I'm not going to break my neck trying to get achievements any more. At least not the ones that require you to depend on others. Yes, this is an MMO, and playing with others is the whole point. However unless everyone is working toward the same goal you are in for a World...of Warcraft disappointment. Growing jealous of the players who didn't seem to care made me question why I was going above and beyond what was fun to get them for myself.

So there's my look back.

I have gripes about 3.1 as a resto druid, but since I haven't played on the PTR they could very well be unfounded. And why start a patch with a bunch of gripes when I just ended one with so few.

See you in Ulduar!

Impression.

When your goal is X and the guild's goal is Y: Secession.

When your and the guild's goal is X, but they do Y: Depression.

When everyone's goal is the same: Progression.

Deciding on a main

I imagine many of our first mains happened to be whatever class we had fun leveling the most. If you were in beta perhaps you had a better idea which class you wanted to play. I remember hearing Warrior was the overall easiest to play for a beginner so that was my first choice and subsequently first main.

Playing a warrior unwillingly corralled me into being a leader and as a follower by nature this didn't sit well for me or the groups I tanked for. My next choice was priest, the premier healer at the time if anyone remembers those days. I stuck with it for quite a bit. It became my main and for a while I couldn't fathom playing anything else, other than piddling around on alts. Raid healing lead to burnout and in came my druid which I dpsed and even tanked some before coming back around to healing.

Now usually players who have several alts all around the same level have this decision to make. And with each expansion some of us have taken the opportunity to swap main, most importantly to get a spot in the new raids released.

With the introduction of achievements you can become pigeon-holed into a main. I know I don't even want to consider getting an achievement on any alts. I can't imagine retiring my druid to start playing a new character and start trying to get the same achievements on it.

I remember reading a couple's blog where the tank had the legendary thunderfury. They both got tired of playing and needed the cash, so they sold both of their characters on ebay. It seemed surprising at the time. (Maybe only an addict would think so!) I would think a thunderfury would carry with it some emotional attachment and achievements are the same way.

The majority of players can agree there is very little focus on the RPG in an MMORPG. But achievements help to flesh out our characters. Like the Deed Log in Lord of the Rings Online and the Tome of Knowledge in Warhammer Online, your achievements tell a story of what you've done and in many cases what you've found are most interested in.

An interest in alts, unless you have a load of free time, is the only thing achievements won't capture.

Feeling left out in your own guild

In a game with 11 million (is it even more than that now?) players you will be hard pressed to find yourself in a situation where at least someone else in the WoWverse hasn't experienced something somewhat similar. The rarity comes from finding someone who has actually blogged about it.

So it is with PTD (Part Time Druid) I find that something back at the beginning of March.

I didn’t see anything in guild chat about a Naxx run starting, and I was frankly a bit shocked...I tried to schedule something for this exact time...I was completely ignored. From what I could tell, it was a run set up through PM, with someone picking and choosing who to invite.

The fact they chose alts over PTD lead a gquit.

Now, unlike some of my guild has done or mentioned doing, I don't want to quit. But watching groups get formed after several pleas to be a part of things is disheartening. Recently someone returned after taking a break, a few of our guild bent over backwards to help them do all of the things I had asked about. I do get a feeling of being left out of my own guild.

But since these things are more or less side projects it doesn't bother me so much. If I start getting left out of the 25-man raids, then I'll have cause to really wonder why I'm in the guild at all.

M & S

You have to do a minor hunt to find out what M&S stands for on the Greedy Goblin's blog. I'll save you the trouble, M&S stands for Morons and Slackers.

Another coincidence. Not too long I mentioned our guild was going to lose members for reasons similar to what this blogger mentioned. You can read it in full here, but I've copy-n-pasted the part I want to focus on here:

The...reason for gquit is "guild does not progress fast enough", meaning "M&S is pulling me back". This case I suggest you to fight for your progress. You will mostly lose and have to leave. However I suggest that if the M&S make you leave, give them hell before you do! The reasons:

* I assume the guild is not an M&S ghetto (the fact that you are still there suggest that). I guess Tobold's guild is good example: can clear Naxx, can't clear Maly. There must be some good players, several average guys pulling their own weight and some M&S. You are not the only one who want progress here! However they are social, meaning "won't speak up if it can cause confrontation". But if you speak up, they will join. So if you start openly speak about X or Y underperforming in the raid, several will support you. (Always target certain M&S, blurry comments offend those who are not targeted and ignored by the targets.) Result: most probably several gquits on the M&S part or you being kicked.
* People overvalue their groupmembers and the group. There are masses of scientific research proving it. So if you quit quietly, you'll be the "bad one" while the group will be the "victim of treachery". They will most probably think that you were a loot whore or a lazy prick who did not want to work for the group. No one can claim that if you are kicked after attacking an M&S named X or forced to leave by everyone supporting him (he does 700DPS because he is just ilvl200, needs more gear). Everyone will know that you wanted progress and blamed not the whole group just one-two bad eggs.
* The grass is not always greener on the other side. The other guild you join may be just as bad as the old one. Or worse. You will have thoughts that "after all they were not all that bad". And you crawl back, keep on boosting M&S and lose all right to speak up. After all you knew exactly what kind of guild it was and came back. If you burn every bridges leading back to such guilds you will have to move forward and finally will reach a proper place.
* Even if you lose, you made an example that speaking up against the M&S is possible. Most social people believe that criticizing others is simply evil and the whole world will hate them. They will see that you are not hated by the whole world, just by the M&S themselves and by their close buddies. Maybe they will not follow you instantly. But when they see you as Twilight Vanquisher while they are still wiping at Thaddeus, they will remember that it all started when you told: "I won't suffer these M&S anymore!"

PS: Don't bother to go to the officers. They are there, they could see the obvious with their own eyes if they wanted to. The pure existence of M&S in the guild is an unquestionable sign of their failure. They are either M&S themselves or socials who rather boost M&S than risk confrontation.They will most probably claim that the M&S is just ungeared.

Now what GG said is a bit harsh, but the PS is what I'm faced with currently. I realized our guild leadership is okay with status quo and no matter how much they say they care about progression and beating the best of the content, their actions prove it is not a priority.

Our guild has very few or zero raid members who are undergeared now. Kel'Thuzad continue to stash some of the best items in the game currently under his billowing robe, so we have that crumb of cheese propelling us through the Naxx maze. But we could also burrow right now and not emerge until Ulduar is released and perform almost exactly as we would with a few more axes and maces.

So instead of attempting speed runs our guild goes through the motions and some of us die inside.

On a good note, I'm coming to terms with my guilds lack of determination. I've decided to become an S, but how much of an M does that make me?

5 months in

I mentioned wrath has been out almost 6 months. WoW must make you lose track of time, it hasn't even been 5 months yet.

Balancing Bloggers?

By coincidence, in the past month or so I've come across 3 blogs that were shutting down or cutting back due to RL. One was a druid blog that I had started frequenting due to playing my druid more "seriously" in Wrath, one was Big Red Kitty, which I didn't read much but enjoyed and another was just a random blog that I found via another random blog I found via another random blog I found...

It made me wonder is it impossible to balance RL, gaming and heavy blogging about gaming?

It is easy to have a blog like mine, where it mostly consists of me ranting about what's bugging me - mostly about people and less about the game (I'll need to dwell on that later!) But it is more time consuming to have a blog helpful to other gamers like Resto4Life or Big Red Kitty.

It is easier to just have a RL, but without gaming its no fun. And of course you wouldn't have a gaming blog without a game.

I have less of a RL, more game and a blog with no content. Easy Peasy!

But having a full RL, gaming and a blog with depth seems highly improbable.

No, nyet, non, nein.

I went with my gut and declined another request over the weekend.

Maybe eventually I won't feel bad about saying no. Especially since I'm not the only able-bodied person in our guild, there is plenty of opportunity for others to jump in when someone asks for help.

Saying no theme

As a part of my Saying No campaign for April I'd like to share a friend's experience.

One of my friends is a tank. The expansion is going into its sixth month and people continue to level alts with ease. But when they hit 80 they ask him to take his Ulduar-ready tank through instances with them. He's gotten to the point he says No. Some might think this is selfish, but isn't it selfish to ask someone to continue to play their original character while you cycle through getting various alts epics?

I'm one of those players who hates saying No. So I have alts that stay unguilded that I can hide on and play in peace. Maybe some day I'll be like my friend. Able to stay in guild and just say "No. No I don't want to run your new alt that just dinged 5 minutes ago through Halls of Lightning".

Day one

Well lucky for me April starts today, because if it started yesterday I would have already failed at my exercise in saying no.

Yesterday evening I sat down at my computer. It was a scheduled raid night and I didn't feel like raiding. We can choose to skip raids. Of course you always have the choice to skip as many as you want but it affects whether you get slotted or permanently replaced. But I think you can miss one or two raids a month before anyone blinks an eye. Now I haven't missed a raid in all of the months I've been raiding again. So if I logged on and asked to sit one out I think they would have obliged. Instead I realized I didn't want to miss a chance at another Immortal attempt. We managed to clear one wing before someone died. At that point I wanted to find an excuse to log.

I didn't bail on the raid, but once again I did something for the (chance at a) achievement and not because I was having fun doing it.

"Just say no" exercise

I found myself doing things in game because it was an achievement and not because I necessarily wanted to do it. For instance PvP. As a healer I'm getting stomped out there even with a hefty amount of resilience. It's not fun, yet I do it anyway in attempts to reach some of the PvP achievements.

I've decided for the month of April to ask myself with each achievement I try "Am I having fun?". If I'm not I plan to stop and move on to something else. This means I imagine I'll do a few battlegrounds and quit pretty quickly vs. slogging through bg after bg. The first few are always fun because my mind manages to forget the beating I took a day before. But usually the pain comes rushing back within a match or two.

I'm not anywhere close to having all achievements like this guy but I am closing in to the point that achievements are starting to look like the carrot on the stick of a carrot on the stick. When the steady stream of artificial dings slow to a trickle.

Do you have 100 badges? Now get 250! Now get 500! Now get 1,000!

WoW is really good at fishing. The worms they provide are really fun, but how is it they manage to keep us on the line when we realize we have a hook in our mouth?

New druid blog

To check later.

My love/hate relationship with WoW continues

Each raid we're inching closer to the Glory of the Raider and Heroic: Glory of the Raider achievements.

However I have to say it has truly been an uphill battle. And not because our guild can't do them, the majority of our guild simply doesn't care. No one goes out of their way to screw up an achievement. But when your heart isn't in it, you tend to have people that don't show up with their game faces on or don't show up at all.

I envy the raiders who killed Kel'Thuzad, Malygos and Sartharion and said "Hey we beat the game, screw you guys we're going home!" Because logging on each evening scrambling to get enough people to even attempt this stuff has been frustrating to say the least.

My plan is to approach Ulduar the same way they have. Kill some bosses, get some loot, the end. Don't give a frack about achievements. Don't spend time wiping a raid so we can beat a timer. Don't juggle people around so that so-and-so can get the one they missed. Just reach the lowest bar set for us and call it a win. Then maybe stress and irritation can be scratched out of my gaming vocabulary when they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Next day update: We are now at risk of losing 2 of our most consistent members because of our guild's lack of interest in doing these achievements. I can't say I blame them for wanting to leave.

Too hard and too easy

A few weeks ago our 25-man raid had a few wipes to Sartharion + 3 Drakes. This is the fight where you have to stay out of Shadow Fissures (a circle of pain on the ground), move between Lava Waves (walls of pain on your sides), avoid Fire elemental Adds (pain around your ankles) and Whelp Adds (pain around your head), just to name a few.

Needless to say we had a few people that had trouble with all that was going on. Eventually our raid leader gave a warning if they didn't shape up (quit dying to stuff) they'd be replaced. Eventually two people were close to the chopping block and as I recall at least one person was replaced.

Later on I found out the person replaced ended up quitting the game. And one of the other players decided to quit raiding. Neither of them gave what happened in the raid as the primary reason. But it seemed obvious to me.

Today on the official forums there was a thread made by someone who said their guild would quit the game if Ulduar turned out to be too easy. I wonder why they haven't quit already. If it was that easy I assume they were done with current content a long time ago.

We want the game to be all things. Too hard so winners can be set apart from the losers, and too easy to keep from having to split up friends and family.

Achievement Pet Peeve

If I hear my guild say one more time "We need this class to do this" I'm going to snap my keyboard in two. It would require Hulk strength, but one more mention that we *need* a priest or we *need* a death knight or we *need* ranged or we *need* melee, I'll turn green and my muscles will rip my tabard apart.

So far everything we've tried with the makeup we end up with has eventually worked. But usually its not without someone griping over vent that we need this type of tank or this type of dps or this type of healer.

Most guilds don't have the luxury of picking and choosing what classes to take to what encounter. And even more importantly, is it fair to all of your Class X when you decide Class X just won't fit the bill for your raid composition?

I get the "bring the player not the class" philosophy, because am I supposed to miss out on getting certain achievements simply because I'm not a Y or a Z?

EQ2 install

I tried re-installing EQ2.

I have to admit I was tricked by the "Install and Launch the easy-to-use Station Launcher application". That part was painless, but when it came to downloading the actual game. W. T. H.

I don't know if I was doing it wrong or what Sony needs to do to improve the process, but jeeze do you want new/returning players or not?

Perhaps they don't want an impatient "WoW ADD" player like me?

Needless to say I gave up. And I have no desire to try LotRO again. So...I dunno what to try next.

Blogroll

I lost my blog roll when I changed the look of the blog. I'd like to get it back, I just haven't bothered.

Just when I find Resto4Life the blogger announces she's closing it, but I've found a few other druid blogs that are very helpful and I feel I owe a link to them on my own blog.

Raid Healing

Note: I didn't want to litter the previous post with my comments.

Wrath content for the most part has been easy. The few times it has been difficult I have heard grumblings about healers. This has got me concerned about Ulduar. Because Ulduar is supposed to ramp up the difficulty and I predict more gripes about what the healers are or aren't doing.

But as Ghostcrawler has said, this comes with the territory. If after 5 years you don't realize healer carry burdens not necessarily their own, then you must be a new raider from ebay or RAF.

It still doesn't make things easier to put up with. Because overall I like the guild I'm in and I don't want to look elsewhere. So its put up or shut up.

Ghostcrawler comments to raid healers

I made this list from recent comments made in a forum thread by Ghostcrawler WoW lead systems designer. Bold and italics are mine.

1) Do not run with bad players

2) [...] if they stand in the fire, overall you have to understand that when you are signing to up to be a healer you are signing up for the primary responsibility of keeping the raid alive.

3) [...] if the idiots stand in the fire, guild kick them. If you don’t have that power, then find a better guild. “Blaming the healer” is to some extent a social problem.

5) [...]if you don’t enjoy healing [...] I’m kind of at a loss for why you raid.

6) I was saying stand up for yourself a little bit. If you are wiping on challenging content, then you need to step it up a notch. If you feel abused by your raiding group, and can’t get that behavior turned around, then by all means, find some better friends.

7) [...] the responsibility of healing the raid is yours. The responsibility of doing things that let you do your job is that of the dps and the tanks. If the tank doesn’t blow her cooldowns and then blames her death on you, she is a bad tank.

More than one mmo?

When I think about how huge of a time sink WoW is, its hard for me to believe I'm going to ask this but who else plays more than one mmo?

At one point in time I've had more than one subscription going, but usually not trying to play them all at once.

But I have been wanting to try a new mmo, if not try an old one again. Not LotRO, but maybe EQ2? I need to search my blog to see why I quit.

Only raiding?

Just like anything, when you have a lull you start thinking about other things so here I am...

Our guild has cleared everything as far as 25-man raiding is concerned. We're thinking about going back and doing 10-man stuff and achievements. But the vibe I'm getting is we're pretty much done until Ulduar.

My continuous attempts to play less have caused me not to log on and pursue achievements on non-raid nights. With so many achievements I could always find an excuse to log on and do something. Instead I've been stopping myself. This weekend I only played about 3-4 hours, which is nothing compared to usual.

One thing I'm wondering about is, since I'm not logging on and getting gold as a side effect of doing quests or farming rep, will I end up not having enough gold to raid with?

Will I be able to sustain my character by just logging on for raid nights? And more importantly will I stay interested only interacting with my guild during raids?

Anyone else only raid when they play WoW?

Viral blogging?

Is that the description of what happens when one blogger reads someone else's blog and posts about it then another blogger reads *that* blog and does the same?

Well whatever it's called, that's what I do quite often and I'm doing it today. From Forever a Noob to Tobold to me. And perhaps it went back farther than that, but I didn't check. Today's discussion is about dual-specs.

At Forever a Noob, the blogger, who has a rogue wants rogues and mages - and I assume hunters - to have the ability to tank and/or heal. What I find quite amusing about this is the last thing many dps would want is the ability to tank or heal. Heal themselves, oh sure! But to be asked to tank (lead) and instance, or stand back and heal noobs? Yeah, be careful what you ask for!

And I would wager, as easy as healing is, they would be horrible at it. Not because they can't handle it, but because I've heard time and time again players say healing is the most boring thing ever to them. I obviously don't mind it, but that's me.

I only know of a handful of players who are able to do a variety of roles well. And out of that group even fewer have the time or access to gear themselves up appropiately for all roles. Yeah dual specs don't give you access to a full set of gear for your second role - you have to do more raiding than the average raider. This is something I lamented literally years ago.

No offense to "skilled" dps, but there is a reason the majority of players are dpsers. You have less responsibility and you can many times get away with being mediocre. Have you grouped with a mediocre tank? Did you look forward to grouping with them again? And good healers getting blamed for a myriad of errors, how do you think a mediocre healer will fare?

So I say give them the specs they are begging for. Which tree branch gets cut is another can of worms.

I'm quickly reminded of death knights. A class fully capable of tanking, yet in my own guild we have 4 raiding death knights and I've only known one to ever tank anything.

Goodbye to Tabula Rasa

I have often said I enjoy playing Sci Fi MMORPGs more than fantasy. Maybe I should change that to I enjoy the idea of playing sci fi over fantasy.

Because the last day to play Tabula Rasa was today. And I don't even remember why I didn't bother trying it out. Based on my blog I was, no surprise here, playing WoW. More specifically looking forward to ZA.

I remember asking around about Sci Fi MMOs and hearing Earth and Beyond was a good one, but had just been shut down within months that I had been looking. I tried Anarchy Online and Star Wars: Galaxies. I was also happy to hear mention of a Star Trek Online MMO.

Yet here was Tabula Rasa and I didn't even give it a try. And now its gone.

When I go looking for a particular type of game and cannot find it, will it be my own fault?

10 v 25

Are you a 10-man raider only, 25-man raider only or do you raid both?

The reason why I ask is I thought I was both, until I heard 10-man Sartharion + 3 drakes is harder than 25. I realized the few 10-mans I was doing here and there wouldn't be enough to get OS10-3 (Sart103D?) ([10]S+3)? No wonder WoW appeals to mathletes.

I've yet to try 2 let alone 3 drakes as a 10-man. In fact every Sartharion 10 man I've done so far has been one step up from a pug, full alts and pulling in people from other guilds. Basically getting whatever we could done without putting forth much effort. I've done more Naxx 10-mans, but it also has been a mix of alts and whoever was bored that evening.

So I can't really say I'm a 10-man raider. I don't have a consistent group of 9 other players I raid with each week with a goal in mind like I do with 25. And although as a raider, you'd think I'd be working on what is considered the hardest encounter in the game so far, I'm not.

I've been tricked!

If you mount it they will come

Bornakk the Blue reported recently

When 3.1 goes live, the rewards for “Glory of the Raider” and “Heroic: Glory of the Raider” are being removed. These achievements will still be active, however, players will no longer receive the Plagued Proto-Drake or Black Proto-Drake for completing them. Similar to our decision to remove the Amani War Bear from Zul’Aman, the goal is to ensure that such mounts retain a degree of rarity in the game; and with raids progressing into Ulduar in patch 3.1, we feel obtaining the rewards for “Glory of the Raider” and “Heroic: Glory of the Raider” would be somewhat trivialized. For this reason we will be offering new fast mounts (310 speed) as rewards for completing select achievements associated with 10 and 25-player Ulduar.

This of course has lit a fire under a few of my guildmates. But still not as much as I thought. I finally realize it isn't lack of time or lack of wanting to do things together, they are simply not interested.

That kinda makes me feel better in a way. And I was definitely a bit more emo than I want to admit with my previous post. I just wish I knew earlier and I would at least try to pursue other opportunities. B

From random estimates, we'll have 2 months to finish up the achievements before Ulduar is released. But I have a feeling it will come sooner than we think.

I'm just going to plug away at trying to get them done and hope for the best.

Fair weather raiding

Suddenly the enjoyment of WoW has declined like the stock market. Okay, definitely not that bad. But I've recently found myself not logging on at all or logging on and wondering why I'm doing so.

It's not the usual reasons - boredom, the feeling I'm playing too much, etc.

No this time it is, for the second time since I've started playing WoW in 2004, the disappointment caused by other people.

The first time, I was part of a group that was making exceptional progress in BC content. The raid leader snapped or something (I was never able to get a clear answer) and quit leading the group. A few other people quickly jumped ship we were left with a group that struggled to get one or two bosses let alone a clear and I ended up so disgusted about it I pretty quit raiding altogether (other reasons helped my decision).

I felt I was raiding with online friends, but instead they just happened to be people who wanted to raid with whoever was progressing fastest. I'll pause to say this wasn't a pug group, these were people I had raided with for at least a year or more.

And now recently, to a lesser extent, I felt I was joining a guild of people who wanted to raid together. But turns out for certain things some of the guild raids with other more progressed guilds.

When I realized getting achievements were not going to be the goal of this guild, I think my enjoyment declined. I understand their position. Achievements are a personal thing. If you want them, chase after them on your own time. But I wonder what is a guild for if you're not going to do things together, whether it take a little longer or not.

I immediately felt like just another healer that was helping the raid run versus someone they liked raiding with. I'm not a healer-for-hire. At least I don't enjoy feeling like one.

I feel like I'm just a part of a bunch of fair weather raiders. I'm holding out hope that my feelings change.

Blizzard seems confident in its game

enough for a Blue poster to say

"If you're just burned out, it's also not the worst thing in the world to try out some other games -- the past couple of years has been great for them. Just check back in with WoW every now and then. :)"

Resto4Life says goodbye

A blog a recently started perusing is shutting down.

Resto4Life was a blog my blog could aspire to. It used graphics creatively (something I feel my blog sorely lacks), the content was solid (unlike my personal ramblings) and had a community.

The reasons its shutting down are equally admirable. Phae is having a baby and the blog takes up too much valuable time. I've often marveled at how anyone with small children can find time to play the WoW meta game.

The blog was helpful to me and many others. I'm not sure who will take up the leafy mantle but Resto4Life will be missed.

Remembering your characters

I think for many of us, World of Warcraft was one of our first MMORPGs that we spent a significant amount of time playing. So the idea of having a place to remember characters you've left behind may be odd. But for lots of gamers they have a long history from games like Ultima Online and Everquest. And when gamers retire they don't quit gaming they just move on to the next game. With that in mind I found The Burial Grounds not weird but fitting.

It is a website that lets you create your own monument to a character you've played with a place for a few comments about your time in a that virtual world. It also lets you mention where you've moved on.

I remember thinking about (I'm sure I got the idea from someone's blog) how it would be neat if there was a quest you could do that actually killed off your character when it came time for you to quit. I don't know of any games that are like that. I've known of players logging out in their favorite spots one last time. Or returning to the starter area. So a site like Burial grounds isn't too far fetched. The graphics look like something out of original Everquest so the momunments themselves aren't anything to look at, but the idea that players don't want their characters forgotten even when they left a game on bad terms, one person typed "I vow to never play that game again" says something.

Blog visit : Part Time Druid

Part Time Druid is actually playing his warrior now and his druid has been demoted to bank alt. That still doesn't stop him from posting some interesting things.

What caught my eye is his Time Versus Skill: My WoW Jealousy post. He wonders if he had the time some players do how much better would he be. I've wondered how many achievements I could get if I could play more. He and I are a bit different though, I'm in a relationship with someone who plays WoW and have no kids, he as at least 2 kids from what I can tell. So I essentially have more free time, but I can empathize.

Although you hear on the forums "There is nothing to do!" I feel like there just isn't enough time to do all you could do in game.

But there is more to it than that, the more time you spend logged on, the more time you find things to do. As I cut back, the key is for me to not log on at all. And all of that...stuff...will still be there but I won't see it, so I won't do it.

Since Part Time Druid is playing his warrior now and I'm trying to throttle my game hours maybe I can snag his moniker.

Cutting back again

After running around for Lunar Festival and then almost immediately having to run around again for Love Is In The Air world events I've hit a mini-burnout.

Just look at my first sentence, I said I was having to do this. I wasn't forced to do any of it, but I felt compelled because if I didn't do it this year I'd have to wait a full year to do it again (gasp)!

Tycho of Penny Arcade described grouping/raiding as "regimented, codified, other-directed "leisure" and "precisely why I got out the first Goddamned time."

Achievements and the world events have begun to feel that way for me.

I've laughed with the guild about how achievements have only exacerbated the completist, addictive tendencies most mmorpg players have. But it should be an uncomfortable laughter. Like the friend whose weekend drink binges that make him so fun to be around have seeped into the week day.

As I sat for hours camping an achievement the other day, I realized I had crossed that line. I should have uninstalled the game then, instead I've compromised and vowed to cut back yet again. Like someone from AA I'm going to take it one week at a time.

I'll let you know how it works out.

World Events Achievements

I haven't had a chance to try, but according to the General Forums it is really hard to get the Be Mine! achievement to complete the Fool For Love achievement.

The Bag of Candies has an extremely low drop rate.

But the reason why I'm blogging about this is the amount of exasperation people are having about it. There's already thread capped out and another one has started.

Players have mentioned they have alarms set to remind them to log on every hour, and (I assume jokingly) have been losing sleep over it literally.

One person even went on to say they wish there was no such thing as world events. Before achievements you never would get such an outcry over the same activities.

The adage "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" doesn't seem to apply here.

The opposite of attunement

One thing I've noticed on my realm are the number of guilds that are moving from 10-man to 25.

Raiding is inarguably more accessible now a big swing from BC attunements that required 5-man milestones that many groups couldn't (or didn't bother to) reach.

Now the type of player who claim they only want to do instances with their 10 friends, are starting to branch out and up.

Guild #29,358 downing the 4 Horseman isn't going to make its rounds on wow blogs and websites but I don't hear wow losing any numbers.

10 vs 25 man loot

I've noticed this twice on the forums, in General and in Raids & Dungeons. A request that 10-man loot be equivalent to 25-man loot.

First you have to go on the premise 10-mans are as difficult as 25-man dungeons. I cannot speak from personal experience, but from what I've read 10-man Sartharion + 3 drakes is harder that its 25-man counterpart. One encounter isn't enough to support giving a 10-man boss the same loot table as a 25.

Just as Blizzard decided to decrease from 40 to 25. The argument is more people cause more complexity. And this I agree. How often have you beat an encounter because of less people than more. It happens. The oft quoted "herding more cats" is mentioned when discussing why larger raids are harder. It's quoted because it's true.

Also don't forget, if there is a instance tuned for 5 or 10 you start to have to make it workable for a variety of specs. You end up having to water it down so Joe 'n Friends can down it with whatever class mix they decide to have. If they tuned it tightly to make it rough going, many of these close knit group of friends simply would not have the necessary elements needed.

What I found most interesting is a few people saying they should just get rid of 25-mans altogether. But they didn't really give a reason why. To me it sounds like some players want their 10-man achievement to be the pinnacle of the game. Which makes them no better than the elitists they despise.

What happened to smaller groups just want to see content?

It quickly goes back to why do you need 25-man loot if you are only willing and/or able to tackle 10-man instances? I remember when I had decided to take things more casual I knew I wouldn't be able to have access to the best loot anymore. It seemed fair to me.

Choosing which achievements to chase

To quote Michael Corleone "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."

Attempting to "complete" all the achievements sure feels that way.

I'll never be Beelsebub the gnome warlock, who at last count, has 7,630 achievement points.

But I also realize I already may be above average myself - nearing 5,000. For example, let me use the example of a guildie who has expressed no interest in acquiring achievements points beyond what we get through raiding, etc. I must preface that he's a Death Knight. He hasn't even hit 2,000.

It's similar to "anyone who plays more than you plays to much and anyone who plays less, plays too little." How far you want to take achievements is up to you, but I think most would agree passing the 6k mark as hardcore achiever.

I have a feeling getting that far will require me to play beyond my comfort level. That leads me to choose which achievements I should bother with. For example Baron's mount is one of those achievements that could potentially take a lot of time. Yet I want the mount. I could get a ton of other achievements done in that same amount of time. Yet...it's the Baron mount!

Yeah the choices may be harder than I thought!

Wild Growth 6 second cool down

I've only raided once since the Wild Growth nerf. What I discovered is while I don't use Wild Growth much, I did use it more than I realized. In other words I found myself reaching for it when the cool down wasn't up more times than I expected.

I consider myself lucky. In druid years, I haven't been resto very long. So healing spells changing doesn't really effect me as much as someone who may have relied on it for months.

Rejuvenation

The blog title not only reflects my current role as a resto druid, but also what I feel my blog needs.

I feel like I've been blogging and playing wow almost begrudgingly. As if I'm forced to do so and as if unhappy doing so.

I like to blog and I like to play wow. I can only imagine I have some deep-seated depression going on. But if it is indeed the case I'd rather it not permeate into 2 of the things I supposedly enjoy. That I feel the need to say this at all leads toward something I'd rather not dwell upon.

I'm going to try to spruce up my blog a bit. I look at Resto4Life and Tree Bark Jacket for inspiration. My next post(s) will be attempts to be cheerier. I'm sure my cynicism will leak through, but my hope is that it will lead to a better reading experience for anyone who still reads this.

What type of healer are you?

I came across this post over at Matticus' fine healer blog.

Based on the signs I could fall under 4 of the 5 archetypes in my healing career.

I think in the beginning I could identify with Hero Complex. I'm not sure what came first for me the Reluctant Healer or the Ex-Healer. And now I think I most closely identify with the Average Gamer. I've never had the God Complex and this is written with such extremes I doubt many players have. Healers may be rare but they aren't that rare where other players would put up with this type of behavior.

Do the quests!!!!

Wrath brought us some interesting quest chains this time around.

If you really hate questing then ignore this. But I don't want to hear a single person say there is nothing to do if they haven't even bothered to, at least, do a majority of the Northrend quests. And no, majority does not mean just enough to get you to 80.

The world changes as you complete these chains and there are things you miss by not doing them.

I won't tell you what they are because that would defeat the purpose of saying "Do the quests!!!!"

Now you know what I've been up to.

Holding raid slots

Due to RL a friend of mine decided to cut back from raiding for a while. He was only gone for perhaps a month or so. But when he came back and wanted to raid full time, he was sat on the bench. He understood that as a price to pay. He had to earn his raid slot back.

However unless you're really good you don't usually leave a spot open for someone to leave for that length of time and come back to. So his raid slot had been filled.

The next alternative was raid swapping. And this is what both the guild and he felt was fair. After sitting on the bench for a while, always willing to fill in as needed (and it was needed) he hoped to start getting to get in the game and let someone else warm the bench.

Unfortunately, although the raid leader said this was what would happen it never did. The raid leader consistently sat my friend on the bench even though he performed exceptionally well each time he got to raid.

In the end my friend switched guilds and is much happier as a result. Looking back we can only imagine the raid leader had an axe to grind but wasn't willing to share his reasons. What's worse than a over the top aggressive raid leader? A wishy-washy passive one.

I happened to follow me friend to this new guild and since I've been there someone left and they said "your slot will be waiting for you when you return". It is indeed a warm sentiment to share when someone leaves raiding unwillingly (due to RL, money, etc.) and I'm sure a nice one to receive.

Our raid roster at the moment is just right for most content (we can do some of it undermanned), but with us on the slim side for the harder content (where every person counts).

If the player comes back now, he'd be very welcome on our harder instances, but there is a chance someone would have to sit out on the other ones to fit him in.

And I have to ask is this fair to the person that filled in for him while he was MIA?

How do you tell the paladin you're recruiting "Hey we really need you right now, but there will come a time when Joe the Player comes back and you'll be relegated to the bench"?

So I can see it from my friend's side as well as a little from my former guild's side. I wouldn't tell a player their slot is safe. It isn't fair to the other 24 players who want to raid, especially if they can't at least give you an estimate on when they think they'll return. I wouldn't tell a player they aren't able to earn a position back on the roster either, especially if they have been a consistent raider in the past. If I felt there was no place for them, I hope I'd have the guts to tell them so, especially if I care an iota about them.

For the good of the guild

Quite often you read a blog and get ideas for what you want to talk about on your own. This happened with Tobold's blog which lead me to Matticus' blog which lead me to the Greedy Goblin's blog and back here.

Apparently Matticus is a guild leader faced with a raid member who decides he wants to take a break until Ulduar (the next raid after Naxxramas) because he has all the gear he needs and doesn't want to burn out.

I can side with both Matticus and the paladin to some extent.

In the guild I joined with the release of Wrath, I've seen players with different levels of progress:

1) The over-achiever who leveled the fastest, raided the earliest and has gear for various specs already. Has more gear than what he knows to do with.
2) The average-guy (for our guild) who leveled pretty fast, raids a lot but may or may not be lucky with drops. Has pretty much what he needs now. <----I'm here
3) The lucky-guy who didn't level fast, raids just enough, but got lucky with drops. Has pretty much what he needs now. Lucky bastard.
4) The bringing-in-the-rear guy who didn't level fast, doesn't raid much. Doesn't have what he needs, but may get lucky gearing up fast because the rest of us have pretty much what we need.
5) The alts. These are the #1 and #2's characters. Who either have everything or pretty much what they need and want to gear up their alts.

I am in the camp that I am willing to continue raiding for my guild on my main ONLY if they are gearing up their main characters. I have no desire to keep going to instances just because they want to put their 2nd and 3rd character in epics.

This, for me, leads to burnout very quickly because
1) I'm not getting anything out of it, except the chance to be nice
2) Being nice is often misused and abused
3) Runs go unbearably slow with too many alts

For the good of the guild, I will keep raiding and finding reason to raid for the core of the raid group. Because I hope they will do the same for me.

When I see more and more alts coming to raids, I'll either politely bow out or bring my own alt!

Queue Queue

I've heard some queues are upwards of 1.4k My server isn't that bad, but it has been averaging 45 minutes.

Also if you are lucky to get in, sometimes you are met with "cannot start additional instances at this time" when trying to zone into an instance.

And then there's the lag felt 'round the world when the battle of wintergrasp is at the door to the keep.

I bet other games would kill to have these kind of problems.

New Year's Resolutions

For me this time last year I had 2 simple resolutions
1) Play WOW less
2) Enjoy WOW more

Overall I think I played WoW less than I had the previous years, even canceling the game for a short while.

I enjoyed my new character more than my old one, even going so far to retire what I felt would always be my main.

However I can't say with honesty I kept my resolutions. This leads me to set the same resolutions this year. Maybe I can do better this time around.

As mentioned in my previous post I've been rebelling against the idea of playing alts. My theory is if I'm that bored with my main character I should just log off the game instead of hopping on an alt and attempting to finish another endless list of things.

I've been tempting to start new alts already, but with my resolution in mind I'm staving off temptation. It has actually been working a little I happily admit. I've logged off several times recently simply because I've grown bored of what I'm doing on my main. Not having another alt to sink my time into helps make logging off easier.

I want to look back next year being successful keeping my resolutions this time. That will be the best achievement of all.

The Alt Expansion?

A while back, in an attempt to lessen my play time, I decided to focus on playing one character instead of spreading it out among alts. This dovetailed nicely with the introduction of achievements. More time on one character, more opportunity to complete achievements on it.

But with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion I've noticed a curious thing. With its ease of leveling, ease of regular instances, ease of heroics and current ease of raiding even the more casual player can finish end game within a few months of its release.

The curious thing is how many players, at least in my guild, have essentially shelved their main characters to play alts. In the past it would at least take several months before you even found things have eased up enough (getting your professions maxed, getting your gear crafted, getting attunements) to have "free" time to start playing alts.

"But there is a lot of end game left!" you say. Finishing all heroic achievements and killing Sartharion with 3 drakes up is something to strive for, but doesn't take up all your play time unless your guild is focusing on it.

So while lucky to start running heroics with my guild again, it is mostly with their alts. Still better than pugs but usually with an under geared character hoping to get a bunch of drops. As a result the achievements I want to get are on the backburner because you have a better chance of accomplishing them with main, well-geared, well-played character.

Unless I myself decide to start playing alts again, I'm just spinning my wheels as far as the group achievements go. I could spend time on the solo achievements but I specced to primarily group and at the moment is what I'm enjoying believe it or not.

I remember reading in Everquest you grouped because you had to. And part of World of Warcraft's revelation and revolution was you could solo and progress. With this expansion your ability to solo is coming much, much faster. Great for those who like to solo. Not so great for those of us who want the multiple player experience.

Happy Feast of Winter Veil!!!

I'm just about finished with all of the Winter Veil achievements. The ones I have left depend on randomness and time. I need mistletoe from revelers, which there is a chance you'll get holly or snowflakes from them instead. I need a crashin' thrashin' robot, which I think you can't get until tomorrow. And I need to open a present, which of course you can't get until tomorrow!

Happy Holidays!

Dual specs

Whether what I've been hearing is true or not, the dual spec feature sounds like it will be the answer to many prayers.

Disclaimer: the following is either rumor, hearsay, or even when quoted from blue "subject to change".

Dual spec feature is supposed to allow you to have 2 specs that you can switch in and out. There is a cost involved with setting up the specs at first. But after that you should be able to switch in major cities.

I've even heard you'll be able to switch them in instances for a minor cost. Not sure how that will work. A talent trainer at the summoning stones?

What's also good news is they are taking it a step further, so when you swap your spec

"It will swap your talents, glyphs and the position of buttons on your action bars.

Note you actually have to buy the glyphs for both specs first."

Being able to switch into a dps spec will allow me to enjoy the game when I'm not healing. At this point I spend time doing things that don't involve killing anything.

A few more heroics - this time with guild

Since I normally pug heroics, I try not to do them on weeknights. The time it takes to find one and get it going and get it finished seems to eat a whole evening up. And the chance for frustration is high.

However, last night I broke my no-heroics-during-the-week rule because some of my guild wanted to run some. Not only did I get one cleared, we did three. Instead of ending the evening grumbling about a waste of time, I came away with some more achievements under my belt and more badges saved.

The nice thing about guild runs is not only are you getting gear, you're actually improving your gear for the 10 and 25 man dungeons. Instead of some random person getting an upgrade and you never seeing them again, your fellow guild member will show up next time a few stats better. So, if one person in your heroic gets gear, even if its not you, its essentially better for you as well.

It really builds a strong case against pugs and that's a shame.

Healer Mechanics

There was a nice thread in the newish Healing forums about Healing Mechanics. I was going to only paste a snippet but the post bears listing in full (with my comments in bold):

Can we have a discussion about healing mechanics? No QQ, no 3.0.8 distress, just a raw mechanics discussion. I'm not talking about class balance here, just the raw mechanics of what does and does not work as a healing implementation. Let me give you a few examples of things I think are overall issues with healing mechanics.

Healer Competition:
While most of PvE is cooperative, raid healing is stupidly competetive with poor support mechanics for multiple healers healing the same damage. It also creates an environment where faster spells are artificially more valued because it means your heal actually works. To overcome this with communication and mods takes an unproportional amount of effort. Playing two different healers in two different "ages" I can say this is unfortunately true. In the end everyone says they don't care how you heal someone as long as enough players stay alive to beat the encounter. So my attempts to keep healing fun by trying out different heals, usually ends up with me finding the best, most efficient heal to spam. No matter how many times we say healing meters don't matter or how skewed they can be (how do you get a dot heal off when a circle of healing will overwrite it; what do paladins do in the age of aoe damage, etc) someone will always look at the meter and assume the top person is the best. It will be interesting to see how things pan out with the circle of healing, wild growth nerf.

Healer Reduction:
Start 25-mans with 7 healers (or even 8 in some cases). Drop down to 4 healers as content becomes farmed. Start new content - need 7 healers again. This seems to be the place where hybrids can shine, when you need healers use your dps paladins, shaman, druids and priests. I don't think this is much of an issue. But if you like healing, having to dps would be a pain (yeah you won't read that anywhere else).

Bored Healers:
1 healer can pull over a million in healing on the right fight. Fights like Noth might have 200k in healing total. You can only heal as much damage as the raid takes. (This definitely leads to burnout, a healer kinda reaches a plateau, while dps always have more to strive for.)

Outstanding!:
Great DPS makes the fight short. Great tanks keep everything locked down. Great healers ... make everyone else think the fight just isn't that hard. Underlying mechanics mean that spectacular healers don't shine anywhere near as well as spectacular dps/tanks. This is why sometimes I like doing 5-mans more than anything, there is no one else doing the healing but me, so your contribution stands out more. Also priests can shine when crap hits the fan, but that usually requires players making multiple stacked mistakes. A situation if you're smart you try not to find yourself in very often (pugs).

Lag Double Dip:
While everyone in the raid has to react to events during encounters, for example Thaddius' polarity shifts. But while other roles have to do this a few times per encounter or as often as once every 30s, healers do this on every single cast. This makes healing more dynamic than other roles in most cases. It also means lag (link latency or server lag) affects healing roles twice as much as DPS/tanks.(Not sure what is being said here, have to review it later.)

UI/Interface Issues:
The base Blizzard UI is terrible for healing. A lot of encounters are easier if you're staring at the boss and see a cast start (for example: Loken) rather than staring at health bars. Having to either get a mod or macro every single ability is dumb.(It is amazing Blizzard has done nothing to improve the raid ui since original launch.)

Dual-Spec:
Healers have a PvE spec, a PvP spec, and a DPS/questing/dailies spec. Dual-spec suggests that healers are only supposed to do 2 out of those 3 things. It should not be unreasonable to allow PvP healers to have a tri-spec option.(I wholeheartedly agree with this but I'm jonesing so much for dual spec I'm trying not to be greedy.)

Healer's Fault:
Stand in a fire? It's the healer's fault. Get crit while tanking and die? It's the healer's fault. Not enough DPS so the healers run out of mana? It's the healer's fault. Trying to do an instance in mediocre gear with no CC? It's the healer's fault. If a mechanic is supposed to be a gauge of skill, there are other ways to handle it than making healing really really hard. Thaddius is a successful solution - a nice exception to the rule. (Sigh, other than dps simply being more fun than healing, I think this has to be the second reason players quit healing. Healers are held accountable for things that aren't really their responsibility. I can only assume progression, hardcore guilds don't put up with the crap that healers are at fault for everything. But in the 11 million player world the majority either assume or expect healers are there to make up for their shortcomings. As you can imagine its not a fun place for healers' to be - especially when you're blamed for it instead of thanked or at the very least (and would be fine with me) just not blamed.)

Loot Distribution:
DPS casters are rolling on every single piece of caster gear. Healers are excluded from anything with +hit on it. The heavier the armor you wear, the more loot you can roll on.(Sometimes games expect players to do the right thing, to share, think of others and be considerate, but as we all know this is farthest from reality. In a short time of grouping again I've been b*tched at for rolling on hit gear although I requested to only be considered if dps didn't want it in the first place. Apparently hit gear should rot if no dps is there to roll on it. Never mind some hit gear have all the other stats a healer could use.)

From Cafooh - Healer Exhaustion:
As a healer, you have to pay 100% attention 100% of the time. Even 5-10 seconds of talking to your roommate or trying to answer a phone call can and will cause wipes and deaths. The ramifications of anything less than 100% of attention are faaaaaaar less severe as a DPSer (or even as a tank, as I am finding with the DK). You are constantly staring at the screen and reacting instantaneously for hours and hours. No other role is even close to as demanding or as straining as healing.(I think this is less prevalent now that 40 mans are gone, but I always like to share how as a priest I felt I couldn't look away for a moment for months of raiding, only to find out later a dpser would go afk for dinner for at least 30 minutes every raid - he had a buddy let him go on auto-follow.)

Leaving issues of class balance aside, if there was one thing you would change with regards to healing mechanics, did I list it? If not, what would it be?

Some of these things I feel as a healer you decide yourself to put up with them. For instance you should know you have to have a good attention span. And deciding to do it for hours and hours is all on you. But some things where a dpser not flipping out that you share their gear, or dpser/tanks realizing what steps they need to take to be more responsible for themselves would be a nice change that wouldn't even take much effort on their part. The ui is all on Blizzard. They've got fine examples, would it screw up too much performance to include them? But in the end if you end up bored or burned out, nothing helps but quitting at least for a while. At least that was the case for me.

The Problem with PUGs

Pugs have a bad rep. But deservedly so.

I leveled fairly quickly. Not very quick compared to my own guild, but in general fairly quickly. 95% by questing, my favorite part of the game. I didn't jump right into instances, because I felt I had 2 years, give or take, to do them.

Boy, did I make a mistake. By the time I felt like running the majority of my guild was not only done with all the regular instances they were done with running them on heroic! They had started doing 10 and 25 man runs which had better.

So I set aside time to do instances on my own. I've spent most of the time in "Looking for Group" which I secretly feel gives you a stigma of "if you were any *good* you could find a group in your own guild". Maybe it's just me.

I feel like I'm a decent player, with decent gear and considerate. If I'm looking for pug groups surely other players like me are looking also. And there were. However, you can have 5 players with a mish-mash of those qualities and it only takes ONE missing one of them and your pug becomes a pain.

Many times I've read posts about pug experiences and although I have a history of my own experiences I still think "No way! They couldn't be *that* bad! Could they?"

Well over the past week, I've come across that ONE in just about every group I've been in.

1) Considerate player, decent gear, not a decent player: One dpser couldn't kill a level one critter. Last boss was dps intensive. We couldn't defeat it.

2) Decent gear, decent player, inconsiderate: More than one tank decided to go afk for an extended period of time.

3) Decent player, considerate, lacking gear: I've seen enough of my share of dpsers below the tank on the damage meters.

I'm used to all of these things, but doing a week of pugs was a bad idea. And I hate it too because I know what it's like to look for a group for something and not be able to find anyone interested. Which leads me to what I believe to be my biggest gripe about pugs.

You, dear player, are looking for a group. Apparently you, yes you, have decided to join LFG. And you, no I didn't stutter, have decided you want to run this instance.

I'm looking your squarely in the eye. Can you please answer this question for me? Why do you join a group and then take 10-15 minutes to get to the instance.

This is my biggest gripe. Because you finally have the group you've been looking for! Yet you decide to keep doing your quest, or finish up your battleground, or go cut a stone for someone, or check the auction house, or generally shoot the breeze until someone summons you.

Maybe in a few days or weeks I'll realize there is something in an instance I want and I won't be able to find anyone in guild to help me and I'll pug again. But for now I'm done with them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to AFK for dinner while I'm NOT in an instance.

Every day is a slow news day for the hardcore

I have to admit I miss the days of reading about what encounters the hardcore guilds have completed. Lately the only thing you'll find is Sartharion with 3 drakes up. From what I've heard there are 10 man achievements that are the pinnacle of raiding at the moment. It seems the hardcore are clamoring for something that makes them stand out.

I mentioned a while back that Blizzard should implement varying degrees of accomplishments, and obviously they've already done that to an extent. No surprise, but they may be onto something here. If you make it challenging they will come. They may as well make it Sartharion with 10 drakes up. There are guilds out there that will attempt to reach it. I guess the problem is running out of rewards to give them.

Lack of healers

I find it funny that groups at 80 complain about lack of healers. Who has the easiest time of leveling? DPS. You rushed to 80, most likely not helping out any healer you passed by on your way to the end. What did you expect?

As someone still fairly new to the dps side, I see firsthand how it is now. We have it easy in the leveling department. Our gear is made for maximum dps, our spec is, our class is. So Mr. Warlock, quit pressuring Mr. Priest to hurry up and level. Instead invite him to one of your killing sprees. Mr. Rogue are you doing a quest you could solo? See if a healer has that quest too. Or has spending hours in LFG left you uncharitable?

Wrath

Lack of posting means Wrath is upon us. The good kind.

Quick list of what I like about WotLK:

Cutscenes, interesting quest lines, new types of quests, the visuals.

The addition of cutting away to further the story line is a nice addition. New twists on kill x quests in the form of "vehicle" quests. Ones where you jump in a tank, into a plane or onto a rocket. At some point I even wished there were more kill x quests! BC was interesting visually, but Northrend has the Outlands beat.

You're not as good as you think you are*

*Disclaimer: I don't think I'm good at all.

This statement made by Tobold has got to be a joke just to provoke discussion:

The hardcore raiders often talk of raids being all about "skill checks", or even "idiot checks". But if every guild suddenly gets much further in the raid circuit after the nerf, it proves that much of the raid difficulty is strictly numerical. The bosses all still have all of their abilities, they just have 30% less health. So if guild which couldn't kill them before now can kill them, it is hard to argue that these guilds suddenly acquired a lot more skill, or that they were "idiots" before to not be able to kill that boss. One good example for a pure gear check is the first boss in Black Temple, who hits the whole raid for 8,500 damage. If you don't have 8,500 health, there is nothing you could do, you simply need the gear with the stamina that gives you enough health to survive. Of course there are other cases where you can compensate lack of gear by playing better. But I haven't seen any encounter yet which can't be made trivially easy by being much overgeared.

I keep re-reading it and yeah this has to be a joke that he really believes this.

Using a very simplistic example, but I figure one more players would be familiar with. How did we use to defeat General Drakkisath in UBRS at level 60 in blues? We had to have an actual "strategy" that involved first killing the Beast so we had kiting space, then have someone kite him while we killed the guards. You also may have wanted someone to be able to pick up Drakkisath when the tank was conflagged. These things are what I would compare to skill, idiot check.

Later with more gear you skipped the Beast, and just killed them all where they stood. Because you had enough stamina to tank them and enough dps to kill them. You didn't have to do the other things involved. It doesn't prove that you are (or aren't) skilled/idiot.

That's what I meant by all the guilds cheering about Kil'Jaeden kills, and how they went into places and one shot bosses on their first tries. I bet my precious gold if you removed the nerf, put one of these guilds in the same gear competitive guilds had they would fail. Because it does require skill, organization, awareness, attention, etc. all those things that guilds like to believe they have and would be able to do just as well as top guilds if they "just had time and/or gear".

It's not meant to be a slam toward anyone, but I just never imagined anyone in their right mind would face nerfed content and think suddenly they conquered the same thing SK Gaming faced months ago.

Ranking achievements

Can we surmise from achievement points what Blizzard thinks is "important" to do in-game?

I imagine the level of time or difficulty went in to deciding how many achievement points an achievement would reward for completion.

Completing 3,000 quests garners you 50 achievement points. While completing a litany of arena requirements nets you the same.

Achievements involving questing, pvping, raiding, exploring and doing lots of seasonal events all can get you 50 points. So no surprise, this useless exercise proves all areas of the game are equally important. :)

Down the beaten path

I spent this past weekend sinking a sickening amount of time chasing a few achievements. One I didn't complete at all and one (a 2-part achievement) I finished only one part of. Each of these achievements depend on random drops.

Essentially it is possible I could never complete them, ever. Yet there I was staring at the screen hoping this time I'd get lucky... as hour after hour ticked away.

I saw the fun achievements could bring, I truly enjoyed taking part in them and now I've already sensed the irritation it can cause (of my own doing I freely admit).

Some achievements you'll reach by simply playing the game but others require that dogged obsessiveness that saps the amusement out of the overall activity.

Of course one could choose to not pursue these activities, but the activities are what this game is. And, at least for me, playing for only a small amount of hours makes me feel like I might as well not play at all. Because in the scheme of things you just can't get much done with only a few hours of play (the initial achievements, yes - but not most of the rest). You can quit smoking cold turkey, you can't quit eating cold turkey so to speak.

So once again, I feel like I should not purchase Wrath. My ambiguity made evident by my lack of pre-ordering. A friend of mine on the other hand has pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, no doubt spurred on by the various achievements you can reach only by being an owner of the CE.

Would I like playing Wrath of the Lich King? Without a doubt. Will I purchase it? I'm wavering once again. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about Adam Betts' comment as he quit back in 2006, "It attracted you with fun then turned it into a job."

To deserve an achievement

There is a really nice reward from the achievement "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been", a violet proto-drake with 310% flight speed. Other than A'lar and the gladiator pvp reward mount I don't think any other mounts are this fast coming in at 280%.

No one will be able to get the reward for a year, because the achievement depends upon you completing seasonal events over the course of a year.

In theory it should only ever take anyone a year to complete this regardless of when they start playing. However since the seasonal Brewfest achievement - Brewmaster includes an achievement Brew of the Year which, surprise, lasts over the course of a year. If you missed this year's Brewfest you have to wait two years to get the proto-drake.

Over at the General Forums many have said you are simply undeserving of getting the reward within a year if you missed taking part in this years Brewfest. Mention of "poor planning", "no preparation" and "lack of research" keep popping up. Those commenters think either you should have been aware of what getting a proto-drake entailed and forgoing all and any obstacles completed the Brewmaster achievement or that perhaps you may not have known about the reward but should have completed the Brewmaster achievement for its sake alone and thus you are undeserving of a proto-drake if the only reason you wanted to do the achievement was for the proto-drake.

Many runners run with no intention whatsoever of being first, second or third. However I think achievement rewards in WoW are not gold medals and oversized checks, instead rewards are more like the t-shirt everyone gets simply because they paid way more than an actual t-shirt costs in their entry fee.

I don't raid on a consistent basis anymore, haven't for a while now. Yet, over the course of a few days, I was able to join some runs through some Azeroth instances like BWL and AQ40 and get the Classic Raider achievement. I didn't help learn any of the fights on my character in particular. I didn't spend hours and hours over the course of weeks and months and years. Did I really "deserve" the achievement?

That's why I think we need to get out of this line of thinking that any of us should be deserving of things in-game. At least not when it comes to making an argument for why someone should or shouldn't get something.

Baron mount

Baron Rivendare's mount used to arguably be the rarest drop in the game:

Just to get an idea of how rare this is.. (taken from the WoWhead comment)

As of 2/2/2008, Wowhead has only seen 1 drop out of 5290 kills...

(1/5290) * 100% = 0.019%

For one run of a given instance, the odds are higher that...

*
Ashes of Al'ar drops (90x more likely)
*
Swift Razzashi Raptor drops (63x more likely)
*
Swift Zulian Tiger drops (31x more likely)
*
Baron's Runeblade drops (9x more likely)
*
You are audited by the IRS
*
You die from slipping in a bathtub
*
You have a life


Personally I've been playing on and off since release and have only seen it twice across two servers. I've seen the black bug mount (the reward for a lengthy quest line involving 40 man raids at the time) more than that.

Well recently they changed it to be 1 out of 100 chances. Since then I know of 2 people that have gotten it to drop. Now people are farming it like they'd farm herbs. I've tried a few times, don't know if I have it in me to keep at it. I believe it's an achievement as well so that will make it more popular.

I can see now whatever they make an achievement they tend to want to make it more possible that people can nibble the carrot. If you keep it on a pole on a string too far away players just get angry.

Rhinovirus

Some lament one thing missing from virtual worlds is the fact most of what happens has no lasting impact.

You kill the abomination wreaking havoc over a small town only to come back later to see it there again.

You kill a dragon and go back next week and kill it again.

WoW has changed, Dalaran and Naxxramas have "moved" for the expansion. But everything is pretty much the same since when you started.

So it is with a surprise I see complaints and even threats of cancellation due to the recent zombie invasion!

I must admit I grumbled as I searched for an npc to turn in a quest only to find out it had been zombified and died. It was a minor annoyance as I waited a few minutes and it appeared again. What should have been the Black Plague was a cold. God forbid you couldn't put peacebloom up for 5 gold a stack because your auctioneer had fallen victim.

It really made me think we've forgotten what is fun. Are our playing habits so ingrained we can't take a break from quest, raid, pvp rinse and repeat for a few days and enjoy something that probably won't occur again?

And honestly the "remove this or I'll quit" is a bit of a weak threat. Blizzard has just passed 11 million subscribers worldwide.

Achievements: The end of alts

I wanted to cut back on playing my army of alts in an attempt to cut back playing WoW so much.

But now my alts are getting neglected because of the introduction of achievements. Why level up my alt by running Razorfen Downs when my main needs to run through it for an achievement? Why bother getting some "easy" gear for an alt by going on to Karazhan when my main needs more rep with the Violet Eye?

So far I've heard two players specifically tell me they aren't interested in achievements. The rest of us are running around doing things we probably never would do for our dose of daily ding.

Maybe I'll play an alt after I become an Loremaster.

Nerfed content and Achievements

I'll search through my blog later (maybe) because I'm sure I talked about this before.

Blizzard should adopt a policy of creating really hard raid content with the intent on nerfing it on a schedule.

This would, perhaps, keep hardcore players and less hardcore players happy alike.

The reason why I thought of this again was because of the enjoyment guilds are having currently at finally killings some new bosses. This is occurring because of the massive nerf of TBC instances.

One common sentiment I see is along the lines of "Yes it is nerfed content but it felt good to kill X!"

It is easy to giggle at the guilds who assumed they could have done this even without the nerf. But why rain on their parade, all you uber guilds just give them a soft pat on the head and let them have their fun.

I think boss achievements should look something like
Be first to Defeat Kil'jaeden in Sunwell Plateau Worldwide
Be first to Defeat KJ EU, USA, etc
Be first on your server
Be first Alliance or Horde on your server
Defeat KJ within week of 1st kill
Defeat KJ within month of 1st kill
Defeat KJ within (1st nerf)
Defeat KJ within (2nd nerf)
Just Defeat KJ at some point.
etc...

Okay that may be overkill with the variety of achievements from one single kill. But Achievements come with points and the higher up on the list could get your more points. Or maybe a boss appropriate title and/or 310% mount?

It's along the lines of being rewarded something regardless of what pace you play. But those who progress faster would still get something more. I'm not sure this would keep the really hardcore happy because I think one of the major complaints is their boredom between raid releases.

My point is to make a earlier planned schedule of nerfing content. I imagine the content was nerfed because of Wrath.

But why not nerf it earlier? From what I've seen if you are going to kill the boss in its first incarnation, you'll kill it and relatively speedily within the first few months. But it is almost like it isn't until a nerf that a few more guilds flow through the floodgate. And it isn't until it is massively nerfed that the rest of the guilds are able to come out and play.

I guess I want a playground for all. If the less hardcore don't mind knowing they are making castles in the kiddie sandbox and the hardcore don't mind sharing their courts it might work.

Back to WoW....again

I uninstalled Warhammer. My main reason was the choppy play on my low end computer.

I'm playing WoW again. Running around chasing achievements. At first I jumped from one to the other. I fell victim to "guild chat syndrome". Anytime a guild member's achievement popped up in guild chat, I clicked on it and felt the urge to try to do whichever achievement it was. I think I've finally reined myself in, instead making my own list of achievements that mean something to me (from a roleplay aspect or some other made up reason) and trying to tic off* that list.

*I've been trying to not use the word work. As in I'm working on my achievements. I'm working on my list.

Maybe keeping the game of WoW a game involves consciously not treating it like a job.

In case I hadn't mentioned it

I unsubscribed from Lord of the Rings Online for the second time. I'm pretty sure this time it is for good.

My friend doesn't like the combat and has probably logged less than an hour with me total out of all the months we've both paid for. Here's what's interesting he doesn't want to unsubscribe because he wants to support the game. As I mentioned before he's the LotR fan, not me. Too bad neither of us just couldn't find it fun enough to stick with.

And now with Warhammer I'm thinking I'm not going to subscribe to any more months either. :/

Yet there's WoW calling me back with it's siren song.

Decision 2004

Let's forget about the presidential election for a second and take a look back to Decision 2004 when gamers were deciding between World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 along with Kerry vs. Bush.

As the then preview mentions:
*400,000 players, the count the original Everquest had at the time was considered massive.

*EQ was the "one to beat" and the "front runner" as none of the other games came close. Just like WoW now, people wonder who would be the "EQ killer"

The writer compared 5 areas, PvP, Challenge, Combat, Game world and Game mechanics.

EQ2 at the time didn't offer any kind of PvP, so WoW won that round. Funny now considering some PvPers consider WoW lacking and flocked to Warhammer.

As far as challenge the write gives point to EQ2. At the time no one really knew what WoW's endgame would be like so he was basing it on leveling. WoW definitely went the easy route. But in the end "challenge" (if you go by subscription numbers) was not what most wanted.

Combat: Heroic opportunities in EQ2, mimicked in LotRO I think gave EQ2 the edge. I'd say they were about the same, although its been a long time since I've played EQ2 but I can't remember complaining about combat like I do with LotRO and WAR.

Game world. Writer said it was too close to call. From what I've read, EQ has a larger world and I assume EQ2 would as well. But I never got to max level to know for sure. I've felt WoW's world was small.

Game Mechanics. Writer said it was up to the player. I think WoW took existing mechanics and improved upon them. I personally think WoW won that round.

Tradeskills. EQ2 had "depth and utility". But if you'd taken part in it, you realize sometimes too much is too much. WoW's professions are pretty simplistic and could use a boost, but not to the extent that EQ2 took it.

Solo playability. Writer said it perfectly "WoW allows for that experience to be a lot less painful". Arguably though, that same solo playability has made wow a less social game and perhaps that's a bigger loss to this genre than talked about.

Quests. The author gives WoW the win on this one. Did wow originate the symbol over and npc's head to let you know whether there is a quest or not? I don't know but there is no going back.

And Community. The author said this remains to be decided. A smaller community can be more close-knit. But the last time I went back to EQ2 it was so dead. Small doesn't always equal good. WoW's reputation isn't the best if you base it on General forums, Barrens chat and Trade chat. But when a new game comes out and someone goes back to wow they usually say it was because of their friends and guild.

The article ends saying the final result is too close to call, but 4 years later WoW won overall no contest.

One of the reader's comments unwittingly foreshadowed WoW's success: "The game is fundamentally flawed for anything but casual people with very little time on their hands."

*My* Life in Azeroth

Continuing on with my "thinking about wow too much" line of thought...

One thing that is missing from World of Warcraft's armory and achievements and I believe Warhammer's tome of knowledge or Lord of the Rings Online's deed log are dates. Dates when you accomplished something. WoW's armory has your date of last logon. And Everquest's character sheet goes as far to show how much you've played.

But as far as I know there is nothing that shows a history of your character. And what I mean by this is, there is no easy way to tell a 4-year old WoW character from a 30-day old WoW character. There is no stardate for when you first looted a green upgrade, or when you killed the Baron within the time limit. Yes achievements are covering some of the bases here. But what about doing something pre-nerf or level appropriate, dates would take care of that.

Warcraft realms is the closest you'll come to having a time line.

There would be costs for maintaining that data I'm sure. And the risk of being able to stand apart due to time played is bad for overall business when it comes to recruiting players (Sure *you* have 150 AAs, but that looks like Mt. Everest to a new player). And...it's not something players have been clamoring for.

So maybe it's not such a great idea. I'm just an "old" player pining about the days when I first started playing. Ought Four 'twas.

See-saw

Maybe it is too soon to throw in the towel, but I don't think Warhammer is going to be the methadone I was hoping it would be.

I often think how it would be easier to just jump back into WoW and I don't immediately remember the reasons I decided to quit.

I've been thinking about resubscribing, luckily refer-a-friend doesn't work for renewing old accounts or I probably already would have. My excuse was going to be that I wanted to give my friend a Zhevra.

I toyed with the idea of coming back with the next patch because some WotLK things are going to be included. Namely Inscriptions. Then I went back to wondering if I should wait until WotLK to come back.

Yet in the back of my mind, I still have a part of me saying I should never go back. It's been over a month since I quit but it feels longer. WoW needs to be flushed out of my blood stream completely before I make any decisions about coming back.

I hate that this all sounds so like an addict talking. It makes me a bit ashamed.

To paraphrase Bender, "I don't need to play, I can quit anytime I want!" Took me forever to quit if I count how far back it was I started first thinking about it. And now it's taking me a while to really move on from it.

I don't mean for this to be an act of accountability, but maybe it would serve me well. I honestly can't say in the upcoming months if I won't read this post again while donning woolies in Northrend.

Warhammer: Second Impressions

It's okay.

I haven't thought about it too much to give any concrete reasons.

Maybe I'm not enough of a pvper to enthusiatically enjoy it.

Maybe the days of an MMORPG knocking my socks off are gone forever.

Maybe (most likely) the feel of combat is off. LotRO had this issue for me too.

Maybe I haven't found the niche (right guild) to give it that "This is awesome!" feel.

Maybe (most likely) I need to upgrade my computer or buy a new one (no plans to make this happen any time soon) to fully enjoy what WAR has to offer.

Maybe it's just me.

But it should be telling that I'm making this post instead of playing at this very moment.

Bitter

I'm bitter with World of Warcraft at the moment. How could I be resentful of a game I'm not even playing?

Well I still have ties to the game through a close friend who still plays. I'm kept abreast of the goings on in Azeroth. For example Brewfest: I hear you get a chance at getting your own kodo for Alliance. And achievements that if you don't get them during the seasonal event you won't be able to unlock again until next year. Makes me kinda want to play it again - NOW - or I'll miss out. You will not suck me back in Blizzard.

It is messing up my other gaming experience as well.

Warhammer is a decent game, but it has a few bothersome little bugs.

Why do I keep seeing certain messages twice. "You are logging out. You are logging out." "You have been killed by X. You have been killed by X."

I blame Blizzard for being successful and making money and fixing issues. I've come to expect my character's body will not run around twisted with her legs facing one way, her face yet another direction like the medical malady that has befallen my Witch Elf on occasion

Are these gamebreaking issues? Of course not, these bugs will most likely get fixed with time, but it is annoying to go from a polished game to a game that locks up every time I exit.