Short visit

I didn't keep count, but I think I logged about 6-7 hours in the past 2 weeks. And the majority of that was raiding. It still sounds like a lot for someone who is "quitting".

I logged on just in time to get Flame Warden. That leaves me with one seasonal event - Brewfest - to complete for "It's been a long, strange trip."

I don't *need* the mount, since I already have a 310% one. I want to get the "achievement" because I think it sums up my period of playing WoW. I've mentioned before I wish there was a way to complete a never-ending game. And I think this may be it. It will be a long, strange trip I'll be able to say I've finished.

The way I've felt lately I may not make it to Brewfest, will I be so over WoW by this fall I won't even log back on? Or will something new pull me back in and have me playing as much as I ever did? Time will tell...

I also raided recently. Even with all the nerfs our guild has ran into a wall. I read Blizzard is going to add the option to lengthen raid periods. This would work wonders for our raid if we are willing to give up a week of easy epics.

I'm all for it. I noticed at our last raid, several key members weren't even there, we had 3-4 who had never done some of the fights on 25 and some of the normal raiders were on their alts. In other words we're done with all we can accomplish in our current incarnation.

My favorite times raiding have always been when we're making progress. Even if it wasn't killing the boss, but just making improvements on how far we've gotten in the phases. My least favorite times are farming, and especially farming simply because its the best the raid can do. We don't have the people we need - let's go kill Razorscale - again. No thanks.

I don't have an alt to take, and even if I did, I don't enjoy raiding that much anymore to make an excuse to keep going back. If we don't take the extended raid to start making progress on some of the rest of the bosses in Ulduar it will be my next nail.

Another nail in the coffin

I realize I'll never be one of those players that just up and quit. It's going to be a gradual thing and I'll be able to blog about it. Just as I've blogged about whatever else I'm doing in WoW. I'm warning you up front it may sound depressing, because it does have me a little sad. But I'm going to quit apologizing for the tone of my blog, because it's just reflecting how I feel.

Most blogs you'll just notice someone isn't posting as much anymore. Some eventually post again to say they've quit the game and the blog. Or they've quit the game and their blog is going in a new direction. I imagine if (hopefully when!) I quit I'll quit the blog too. I won't be too sad about it though, because unlike Resto 4 Life I wasn't providing a community service about druid gear/skills/etc.

But back to the title of the post. I'm putting nails in the coffin that is WoW (don't think too deep about that metaphor). My recent nail was as I traveled extinguishing fires and honoring flames I thought to myself "I don't want to do this." I even was playing with a friend which is usually a lot of fun, and I was just going through the motions. I've logged of with a bit of it still left undone. This is coming from someone who in the past tried to get all of the seasonal events completed within the first few days.

I've actually logged on, found myself running around in circles a bit wondering what I want to do, realizing nothing in game, and logging off. It's not because there is nothing to do, its because all of a sudden nothing interests me.

I honestly am curious how this happened. How did I go from racing around the world doing quests for Loremaster to not being able to log on and stay logged in more than 5 minutes?

WoW has spoiled us

I want to mention one little thing that WoW players take for granted.

ZONING.

While on tour of the Architect Entertainment building the other day I think I zoned 4 times.

City of Heroes: AE

As I mentioned I'm playing on a trial version of City of Heroes (CoH). I played it awhile back so it isn't new, but there have been some changes.

The most recent change is the introduction of Mission Architect. It allows players to create their own missions. Sounds like a great idea until you realize what players want to create and what players want to do lack imagination.

At first I spent some time doing the old missions I'd done before as a new player solo. With limited powers this is ZzzZzz. I eventually was sent to the Architect Entertainment building. There you can join groups to play through the player made stuff. You get auto-leveled to match the level of the mission. That is the mission was for level 52 so we all became level 50 heroes. Then we just went around killing stuff.

Some missions had a description and story. But the ones I did were "Kill all monsters." "Find remains, kill all enemies". And this is what chat consists of "LF AE" "LF AE team" "LFAET". Oh and costume contests.

I was reminded what was in store when I joined a group that was apparently powerleveling some friends. I got 5 levels in about 20-30 minutes if that. The problem with powerleveling, at least in City of Heroes, is there is no endgame! At least there wasn't really one when I played it.

I'm going to try to find an "interesting" mission before my trial is up. But I honestly can't figure out what would be interesting about it. Because I haven't seen anything yet added to the mission sandbox to make it interesting.

10,000 brownie points

Jadyn commented a few posts back about how we are given so many rewards so easily its all becoming watered down and meaningless. Give it a quick read please. I've quoted the point here:

"In the end, you have to keep rewarding the person more and more, as the reward becomes more and more devalued in their eyes (even a real reward like candy follows this rule). You, myself, and a number of other people have been feeling burnout, right? But in some ways for some people, it feels different than normal. It's more like you've started to question the point of it all. And imho, a lot of it is coming from this cycle of behavior->reward."

I want to think my feelings on the matter are different maybe they aren't. Because I'm not burned out on the point of it all as I'm burned out on just being bored.

I really enjoy the rewards I receive from my "normal" amount of play. It's when I start to have to put an uncomfortable amount in my enjoyment wanes. I liked doing the Argent Tournament stuff at first, managing to make some easy gold and acquiring a few new pets, but eventually I got bored with it. There were rewards left to get and the effort hadn't increased in any way. But the difference is the effort would be MORE of the same.

Would I enjoy it more if there was only one pet that cost 400 Champion's Seals vs. 10 pets that cost 40 Champion's Seals each? Neither is appealing.

In other words making the reward rarer or harder to get doesn't make me want it more if the method of getting it isn't enjoyable. Also making the rewards plentiful doesn't make me want them more if the method of getting them isn't enjoyable.

Too soon?

Is it too soon for me to say I'm done with WoW?

The first time I "quit" WoW I had finally leveled to 60 which was max level at the time. I wasn't familiar with raiding, pvp wasn't really my thing, so I left easily.

There wasn't much thought to it. "I'm bored so I'm quitting". I had spent months in the game, but I didn't have this feeling of leaving behind something I had alot invested in. I didn't play for several months. And when I came back I didn't even come back to my original character. I started from scratch on a new realm.

The second time I "quit" I had spent much more time in WoW. I had more than one max level character, ran several dungeons to death and honestly I don't think I really wanted to quit. I can't remember if I called it a break, but it didn't take me long this time to start it up again.

Now I find myself in the middle. I'm bored but I really don't want to cancel my account.

It's too soon to say I'm done with WoW, but it looks like I'm headed that way.

An elusive item

I raided most of Naxxramas with a less than optimal weapon. I was lucky to get armor 3-4 times over, but I never managed to get a weapon off of KT before retiring that instance.

A guild mate said no worries, a better weapon drops from Razorscale, one of the first bosses in Ulduar. Yet although the weapon has dropped several times, I haven't been in the position to get it.

It makes me realize is I have still functioned well without having the best for what we're facing.

I think it is funny that I could go from really wanting an item, to finally giving up and saying oh well obviously I don't need it that bad.

It's given me the freedom to take a break from the game and raiding for a while and that's nice.

Not for you

I came across this description of an old Everquest expansion, The Shadows of Luclin:
"The expansion focuses on high-level content, providing a number of zones meant to be used by large groups of players and many extremely powerful monsters to fight."

This coupled with a post from Tree Bark Jacket blog: "I am going to go out on a limb and say that most hardcore raiders don't want hard modes of existing content - they want content that only they will get to see, being truly skilled and dedicated players - a la old Naxx and Sunwell."

That got me to thinking, did "casual" players in EQ get upset that an expansion was created for a different type of player than them? Or did EQ even have casual players?

I've never fully empathized with this desire to see content that no one else gets to see. Instead I enjoy comparing experiences. "Remember how hard X was?" leads to a more conversation, "You should have been there when it was Y" leads to a one-sided story.

Insane in the Membrane

I know of two players grinding toward the Insane title.

If you aren't familiar with certain reputations let me explain why you earn that title:

Honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers (Honored) - involves losing rep with some of the other factions you need to hit exalted with

Exalted with Everlook (Exalted) 1 of the 4 you lose rep with when grinding Bloodsail

Exalted with Ratchet (Exalted) 1 of the 4 you lose rep with when grinding Bloodsail

Exalted with Ravenholdt (Exalted) You must either be a rogue, have a rogue alt, employ a rogue or find an extremely helpful rogue to help you with this one

Exalted with Booty Bay (Exalted) 1 of the 4 you lose rep with when grinding Bloodsail

Exalted with Gadgetzan (Exalted) 1 of the 4 you lose rep with when grinding Bloodsail

Exalted with Darkmoon Faire (Exalted) rep via turn-ins that require either tons of patience or money to acquire

Exalted with Shen'dralar (Exalted) rep via turn-ins that require either tons of patience or money to acquire

I've already heard one person on my server has obtained the title, there may be more. But the two I know are hardly insane players. One has extra time to waste and the other simply takes his time focusing on this goal versus doing the myriad of other stuff the rest of us do.

Insane is relative. Some of us feel like the hours people spend raiding is insane. Did you hear about the group of players that stayed up using a shock toy to level? And what about the ones that grinding Grand Marshal back in the day? And then there are those non-gamers who can't believe we spend one minute of our time dressed up like an half-squid/half-goat man from outer space to begin with.

Wear your Insane title proudly dear readers!

Back to the beginning

I fired up my very first mmo, City of Heroes, over the weekend because I wanted to play something else but not WoW.

I quickly picked a few elements of my superheroe's costume, choosing some new items that didn't exist back when I played and ran through the starter zone. I reached a common area, Atlas Park, and noticed familar comments in chat - costume contests, etc.

But you can't go back can you? If this had been my first time in City of Heroes I would have marveled, no pun intended, at the flames shooting from one players feet. Or been amazed at the 2 players hovering over a statue.

Just like when I saw the very first warrior in full matching armor back before tiers and dungeon sets.

"How do I get that?" "Where does that come from?" "Where can I get some of those?"

Once all of those questions are answered, once the mystery is gone you can't get that wonderment back. At least not by going back to old games you've left behind.

Sorry if this sounds depressing too, I'll address it when I get a chance.

Blog outlook

A recent comment on the quote about WoW becoming a job: "I don't get it; exactly none of that stuff is compulsory.

I don't think the fun/job distinction is enforced by the game mechanics. I'm certainly still having fun :>

I have enjoyed your blog but it's getting a little depressing recently!"

I have to agree with the last sentence. My posts have been a little depressing. Maybe even a lot. :)

The actual quote wasn't made by me, but someone else a few years ago. The mention of attunements was probably a clue.

I've blogged about that quote before and when I get bored with WoW and start to think about how much time I've played, I come back to it.

Look at the things he mentioned years ago, some still true: how to farm for more gold, which gears to get next, showing up on time for raid plans, helping other people get keys, finishing quests, farming PvP for higher rank, selling items on auction house, etc.

Perhaps we don't have to worry about attunements or PvP ranks, but everything else is the same.

I can exist on the gold I make without even trying, however to get 100 mounts, I need to visit Greedy Goblin's blog and spend a lot of time learning how to not spend a lot of time earning gold.

I can not worry about what gear I need to obtain to raid, and when something drops and I pass on something I shouldn't pass on, end up having to spend more hours raiding to get it.

Helping others get keys is the outdated part of the quote. No more attunements, halfway decent gear is your key into raids now.

Finishing quests is pretty much the only part of this I don't mind. Having reached Loremaster however has no removed my desire to complete quests just for the heck of it.

You don't PvP for old ranks, but you still can PvP for Gladiator ranks. (Although now, if anyone else is like me, I don't know a Merciless Gladiator from a Barbarous one. Unlike how I knew a Grunt from a High Warlord.)

And selling stuff on the auction house is an easier and quicker way to make money. But if you don't have fun doing so it can almost be as bad as grinding mobs.

Now someone else, who is having fun playing WoW. Could take every one of these points and list how they enjoy them. Heck, I'm sure I've done it myself in this very blog at some point in the past few years!

So yes, my blog is depressing because of my outlook of WoW. I need to take a break. And after I'm done with the Fire Festivities I'm going to take one.

After.

A quote

"There’s too much you have to think about in-game: how to farm for more gold, which gears to get next, showing up on time for raid plans, helping other people get keys, finishing quests, farming PvP for higher rank, selling items on auction house, etc.

In a nutshell, WoW is a giant blackhole. It attracted you with fun then turned it into a job."

The WoW blahs

Lack of posts should reveal something. I'm not really have much fun playing WoW at the moment.

Raiding is fine, but I'm getting bored with it.

Achievements are fine, but I'm getting bored with them.

I'm at that point again where I'm thinking about quitting for a while.

Summertime

Things have definitely slowed down for me in WoW. The biggest thing is work keeping me busy past normal hours and not feeling up to playing for very long.

Also this new guild just doesn't have a lot going on outside of raid time. I can't complain. I'm as much of the problem as anyone. When I log on to raid, I raid. Other times I log on to do things by myself not really desiring to take my Ulduar character to raids in Naxxramas and the like and that's what the few players in this guild do on non-raid days.

I was really excited about Ulduar and I think things would have been better if my guild hadn't melted down. This new guild fills my raid goals satisfyingly, but as I think about it I don't really have as much fun as I could have.

No I'm not looking for greener pastures, I'm tired of guild-hopping and this is coming from someone who has been in the same number of guilds as years I've been playing, that is I don't jump guilds hardly at all.

This new guild has me a little nervous. As far as I can tell the raid leaders aren't doing much of a job to find new recruits - we had to call a raid due to no-shows last week. And when you hear "everyone can recruit" without any semblance of organization about what exactly we need and how we should handle anyone interested makes me wonder how we'll get any "decent" players to fill the roster. Filling a raid is easy, filling it with competent players... yeah.

To be honest, if the raid starts to fall apart I won't really care. I sort of slipping back into raiding and I almost feel like I'll just slip back out again. No-shows don't help the situation. I use to say "I'll never be that type of raider, not showing up when people are depending on me. Now I feel like, that raider has the right idea! Show up when you feel like it, 24 other people be damned!" And that's where I am with the game again. That unnatural feeling to treat WoW like a game and not a job. Unnatural indeed. My desire to play is waning. Maybe its because its summertime and I know I shouldn't let it go to waste.

There is always one - is it you?

Not sure if I posted about this before, if I have then it just means it really bugs me.

I raid with this other healer who has yet to go a single raid without mentioning how good he is. I'll call him "Superhealo".

This could easily be ignored if Superhealo hadn't recently started straying into the "other healers suck" territory.

He raids *with* us. If one extra healer doesn't show up we might have a difficult time. And this is what Superhealo doesn't grasp. We are a team. All the time he mentions how great he is comes at the risk of camaraderie. The raid leaders don't seem to get it either, constantly patting him on the back.

I've played with better healers than him, ones with better situational awareness, that didn't need constant puffing up.

Life is short, so I'm working on letting this not bug me so much, but I will admit I sometimes think about skipping raids specifically because of Superhealo.

If any of the other healers feel like me, Superhealo will have to prove what he's said all along "I can heal this by myself."

What I've been up to

I've slowed down on my Argent Tournament grind. If I don't feel like doing it, I don't do it. I've gotten one pet so far and haven't really tried hard to get another.

I'm still raiding Ulduar 25. I haven't been disappointed with our progress yet. Yet I can tell we are heading to a bit of a quagmire. Our progress is relatively slow in the scheme of things. We still have several encounters we've yet to face. People hear of other guilds clearing it, so you start to hear "When are we going to fight X?" Our raid leaders have been mentioning skipping bosses to get to them. However as usual, killing bosses gives gear that helps kill the bosses further down the line. But since we only raid a few nights a week, we don't have the luxury of killing the bosses we can AND spending time on the bosses we can't.

Like I said, I'm happy with our progress. And if everyone is like me we'll be fine. But if we have a few eager beavers some dissent may arise. Let's hope not - I don't want to have to find another guild.

I'm actually leveling another character v e r y s l o w l y. It was an attempt to make extra money, but I imagine if I just spent the same time doing dailies I'd accomplish my goal quicker.

The new guild I'm in is relatively quiet outside of raid time. I've typed a few things only to get no response. It isn't my ideal guild situation, but I'm starting to wonder if this is my fate.

I don't want to play much. I try not to play much. I tend to migrate to those who don't play much either. As a result I'm in a guild where people simply aren't around much.

We don't raid several times a week and many people seem to only log on to specifically raid.

I actually could join another guild and continue raiding with this one. We communicate via a user created channel vs. guild chat. That might give me the social aspect outside of raiding that perhaps I'm craving. But if i'm questing solo or some other activity I'm not really able to chat that much anyway.

If you're trying to quit smoking, hanging outside while your smoking buddies take some puffs probably isn't the greatest idea. So maybe this lonesome feeling I get sometimes is good. It urges me to log rather than stay online.

Feel our pain

Today's post comes a little out of left field considering I mostly discuss raiding. But as I often do, I let what I've read on another blog prompt me to write here.

I was checking out WoW Insider and they had a post about The Pink Pigtail Inn who had a post about Critical QQ. I love how that happens. :)

Anyway, Critical QQ made a comment about how during Children's Week horde starting loses Alterac Valley, a bg they usually win.

Here's the quote that got me writing "It’s frustrating for those of us who actually want to be there, too. We have the gear. We have the spec. We have the skills.

And it’s goddamn frustrating when you lose, over and over again, because your teammates don’t give a crap.

The worst part is that they know they don’t give a crap."

A long time ago in a world...of warcraft far away, everyone who cared about pvp rolled horde. They had the best pvp racials. Those who cared less about PvP and more about the arguably better look of their characters played alliance. The weird thing about this division is the better players all went to one side. What if basketball let one team draft all the best players, every time? How do you think that would work out?

And that's what PvP was like for Alliance for a long time. I remember having discussion with Horde players who would say "You guys just need to L2P". But when you a few know how to play but the rest don't care, you end up with exactly what Critical QQ described.

Four years is a long time to wait to say I told you so. It was already happening when Blood Elves appeared on the scene and exacerbated with level 55 Blood elves could be created. Children's Week finally spotlighted the issue.

Feel our pain Horde.

Resto4Life » The World Tree

Resto4Life » The World Tree

Wasting other people's time

One thing I have to work on is to stop worrying about things that are out of my control.

So far raiding with a new guild has gone well. Considering the guild I left decided to keep raiding places like Naxxramas and Malygos, this new guild is quite more to my liking.

But this guild has the same type of players my old guild did. Players who don't necessarily spec the best for raiding, use old flasks at half the potency of new flasks and sign up but then don't show up. I have to assume all "casual" guilds have these players and I need to quit letting it bug me because it comes with the territory.

Yet I can't help but wonder do these player realize they are wasting others' time? When dps is low on an Ulduar boss and someone is using a flask made for BWL boss? When someone keeps dying early and you find out they should be raiding Naxxramas instead of Ulduar.

But these are the types of players we have to put up with, because usually players like myself would move on to more serious raiding. But I don't want to raid every night so I need to learn to get used to it or stay annoyed by it.

Number of posts

This past April I posted 21 times. Its the first time since I started this blog that I've posted over 20 times. When I first started I was posting almost 30 times a month. It seems to stabilize to around 15 or so.

I'm probably reading more into it, but I think the amount I blog coincides with milestones in my WoW.

I blogged alot when I first started because I was breaking away from raiding (that worked well haha). And I blogged alot recently because of the guild drama. I know one other point I would have blogged more than usual if I'm right about this pattern but I'll have to check first...

Okay I just checked, the pattern didn't follow exactly but it was close. My third biggest post time was around the time I pretty much retired a main and started playing this druid.

Casual Raiding

I did a search of the term "Casual Raiding". I was suprised to find WoW Wiki had an entry on it with a note "Casual Raiding is relatively new to the MMORPG game genre."

The entry was short giving the obvious pros and cons of casual raiding while describing it as "a raiding organization that places focus on exploring raid content without a driving focus on raid progression".

I'm not sure how old this entry on WoW Wiki is, but from my own experience another description could be added. First off the usual disclaimer: casual and hardcore and what they mean to each individual can be as varied as each individual. With that said, I've been in guilds that raided "casually" and I didn't like it much at all.

Note: In making the following descriptions even I had trouble with how to name the various levels of raiding. It ended up being silly.

The Casual Lite Raiding of my past consisted of the following:
*A very laid back attitude (exasperating to me)
*Alts were welcomed no matter how badly geared
*Several raiders with bad specs or specs not raid friendly
*Extremely slow progression

The Hardcore Casual Raiding of my past consisted of the following:
*Serious attitude, but not necessarily backed up with skill
*Alts not welcomed
*Usually no bad specs, but not always necessarily raid friendly
*Decent progression, but looking back, not for the amount of time raiding

Hardcore Raiding (I have no personal experience with this but this is what I imagine it to be:
*Serious attitude with the skill to back it up
*Alts not welcome on progression night whatsoever
*Raid specs always
*Fast progression matching the time spent raiding


Recently I've been a part of what here I'll call Casual Raiding. It doesn't match the Wiki description.
It consists of:
*Serious attitude with some with the skill to back it up
*Alts are not welcomed but as last resort you try to accept the better geared alts
*Raid friendly specs highly encouraged
*Decent progression for the amount of time spent raiding

This is where I like to be. The difference is there *is* a focus on raid progression. I don't want to spend much time raiding but when I do I want to progress as much as possible.

10-man vs 25-man yawn

One bad thing about doing 10 AND 25 man is how quickly boring the raid instance can become.

Except for Sartharion 3 Drakes 10 man, nothing so far in all of the 10-mans seems harder than 25s. The fights are essentially the same. As a result raiding both places is really raiding the same stuff twice.

I haven't done a 10man Ulduar since the first week and to be honest I enjoy my 25-man raids more because of it.

Now I'll admit I liked having a leg up on the fights that I had already done in 10-man before 25. However as a healer our excitement is pretty darn limited.

Here are the challenges healers face that make raiding fun imo:
1) Learning the basics of the fight
2) Being undergeared causes you to have to improvise how you play
3) Everyone else learning the basics of the fight and being undergeared as well

1) you're learning to not stand here, not cast there, move here, not move there. All of that is fun.

2) You're having to be more careful with how you heal. You may not have enough mana because of gear. This is actually fun to because you have to think a little more.

3) Everyone else is also learning and undergeared, but as a result we, as healers, have to do extra. This is where we shine. How many healers do you take on progression? How many healers do you take on farmed content?

Those 3 things only happen at the beginning of new raid instances. Soon enough everyone knows where to stand. You don't have to heal 5 noobs standing in the fire. You only have to heal 1 (or just let him die and be better off).

You eventually have great gear and you can spam one spell if you want, it heals enough and you have a big mana pool.ZzzzzzzZZzzzzZz

And finally everyone else is better and, sadly for healers, no longer need you as much. "You want me to respec laser chicken?"

So if my glory days as a healer in the terms of a raid cycle are fleeting, why would I want to rush them? Why do I want to run 10-mans and get geared up faster and basically do my PTRing on 10-mans so the 25s are just tweaking a bit and mimicking what I did before?

I know this isn't going to happen but to be honest it is what should happen - They should make a 10-man instances totally different than 25. Of course that goes back to 10-man fans complaining they don't get to see the same content as what is in 25. But to be honest those who prefer 25s could make the same complaint.

They risk burning out everybody even faster with the 2 instances being exactly the same.

What would you have prefered? Zul'Aman or Black Temple Lite?

Golden Age

As a nice segue from my "Eras, chapters and phases" post, Part Time druid made a post about The Golden Age of WoW Blogging Ending.

I mentioned before about losing BRK and Resto4Life, and there have been others. To note, neither have quit blogging, they just quit blogging about WoW.

Part Time Druid chalks this up to some soul-searching, realizing maybe playing WoW and blogging about it too is extreme. He also mentioned that WoW simply isn't much to blog about any more. Why discuss how to go about getting the best gear, spec this way or that when it is all so easy now?

I've never had the following any of these bloggers have. I know some of you out there are reading and I appreciate it. I never blogged to educate or illuminate. As I uncomfortably realized I blog to vent mostly. Who would want to read that all the time? So when I get suggestions or agreement from some of you, it is satisfying.

But if a single person didn't read my blog, I'd keep doing it until I quit playing WoW. There is always something to wonder about, to irritate me, to observe. And I'll blog because of it.

Eras, chapters and phases

Tobold mentioned recently he's canceled his WoW subscription again. He plays the part he finds fun then takes a break.

I lean more to trying to find fun when there often isn't fun to be found. Riding out the lulls in the game until fun comes back around. I don't advise this to anyone.

If I were to describe my WoW life in eras, I plan on doing this in more detail someday (maybe when I finally quit for good) I'd say

The Leveling Era - the first time I leveled to 60 in WoW. I hadn't played a game like it before. It was so fun at the time. Many of us look for that experience again in new games only to be quickly disappointed.

The Raiding Era - the time I raided four to five times a week. I can't believe I actually did this. I really thought I was having fun and during first kills I truly did. If I had my choice I wouldn't do this again. I tried not raiding at all but I missed the social aspect that comes with it, now I'm trying to raid but just on a more limited basis.

Can eras overlap?

The RL vs WoW Era - I've been trying to do this back when I started getting tired of raiding so much. It was the same time I started my blog with the thoughts I'd quit playing WoW but still here I am. This era continues.

The Achievement Era - If I hadn't had the raiding era, I may have went a whole year before realizing I'm heading down the same road as I did with raiding. Overkill. I like getting virtual ribbons for doing what I like to do in game. However the past few months I stepped over the line, chasing achievements that weren't fun. I'm fighting the obssessive demon sitting on my shoulder. For instance, this week is Children's week and one of the achievements is to accomplish things in battlegrounds. To do so you have to compete with your fellow faction to get it done. I was irritated to no end trying to get these done over the weekend and I should have given up, but in the end I succeeded. I was more relieved than happy.

I have a feeling I have one more Era left in my Life in Azeroth, have no idea what it will be.

Change is good

When you make a change there is always a risk that you'll end up in a worse place than where you started. But if your current situation isn't all that great you either stay unhappy or pretend things aren't all that bad.

I accessed my current situation and went ahead and made a change. I'm playing with another guild now and while its too soon to say for sure, it seems as if it'll work out okay.

Keeping things light

No I'm not talking about cleaning out my bag space, although that is something I struggle with on a daily basis.

When I mention keeping things light, I mean I am making a concerted effort to leave drama, disappointment and difficulty out of my WoW.

In any other game genre this would be easy. People play together to have fun and go their separate ways afterwards.

But in MMORPGs, the land of guilds, clans, supergroups and kinships, you have to work at keeping the social problems minor obstacles to your success.

If Player X doesn't like playing with Player Y? In essence he doesn't have to. However if Player X and Player Y are in a raid guild, they many times put aside differences because they are working toward a common goal.

However the differences are still there, suppressed, and sometimes it doesn't take much for them to rear their ugly heads.

My drama, well not actually my drama, but drama in close proximity of me, is too fresh to go into detail about. But I'll just say I'm making a change to get away from it.

I'm keeping things light. If a move is what is required, I'm moving. If stepping away from raiding is what is required, I'll quit raiding for a while. I want to keep playing and *shock* have fun while I'm doing it.

This is my hobby, not a virtual soap opera.

Alts: A Look Back

Almost 6 months to the day ago I posted about how achievements mean the end of alts to me. This turned out to be pretty much true.

I have leveled a death knight some, but it was a new class, started at 55, with a brand new area created just for the class and decent gear obtained by just doing the quests. It was more fun than the usual leveling a character through the same ol' content. And now that I've reached Borean Tundra I haven't played it much at all either.

I haven't leveled a single other character past 70 and don't really have a desire too. Each time I log on I have something I want to do on my main character. And most importantly I don't have this desire to play my alts for a change of pace like I normally have in the past.

I keep expecting to get to a point where I'm pretty much at a stopping point with achievements, but with the release Ulduar, Noblegarden and Argent Tournament I find myself still wanting to stay on my main for a while.

I'd really like to get at least one alt to 80 so that when the next expansion is released I won't have to level it all the way from 70 to 90. But I can't even think what character I want to have at 80. I imagine one with helpful professions like enchanting, or maybe one with an extra gathering profession. Of course leveling the one with epic riding skill already purchased makes the most sense.

Keeping up with the Khaz'goroths

Matticus made a "Well duh!" post many of us should read.

He explained the frustrations some guilds are experiencing as they compare their progress with others. If it isn't obvious to you why your guild hasn't cleared most of hardmode Ulduar like Ensidia read his post. Even if it is obvious it bears discussion.

As I look forward to getting inside and learning boss fights, I wonder why people are so eager to get on the PTR to learn it there and just repeat it later on live. The only thing I can figure is most of the instance means nothing to them the final boss, Algalon is the goal. All the other bosses on hardmode are a form of attunement. The real fun for them is being first to the final kill.

For someone like me, the entire instance is fun. I like thinking I have something to look forward to for a while. Not just a week or two. But just like I have a limit to what I find fun, I guess they do too. I don't enjoy wiping for a month on one boss just like I'm sure they don't like wiping for a week on one boss.

Anyway, I think you should determine your guild's level of skill and set a goal of yourselves. Constantly comparing yourself to another guild who raids more, is quite possibly more skilled (whether you want to admit it or not) has more chance to set you up for disappointment than motivation.

Elitist Jerks

Elitist Jerks is a "site dedicated to intelligent discussion of the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft". Or should I say was.

It is heavily moderated and requests that its participants use complete sentences. The latter alone helped it not turn in another of the myrid cess pools that make up the Internet.

However, and I think this happened around the time attunements were first lifted, it has been infiltrated by the masses. Players like me, who used to only lurk, now post. And its a bad thing.

It's hard to find useful information. You are often directed to search the forum and read the thread. Threads that go on for 30 pages.

I think the simple problem is they have too many people. They have a benefactors forum where you pay for access to restricted areas. Maybe that's the plan all along, let the general free area become a bog of muck,so that you're willing to pay to get out of it. :D

Documenting history

As guild member after guild member quits, I feel like I'm watching another guild.

I've heard other guilds on our server fall apart. Larger guilds. Many move on to make better guilds. Some move off the server. Some quit.

I'm actually still having some fun playing the game. There are parts that don't involve being part of a guild, like the Noblegarden event. However, it is a huge downer to see "X has left the guild" usually followed by several more as they remove their alts.

I don't have any idea what lies in store for this guild. I've been a part of it less than any other guild I've ever been in. My loyalties don't lie with it. I'm not going to look back on it as the greatest time I've ever had in WoW, because this era hasn't consisted of any milestones for me. So far I've leveled a character some more levels, I've helped clear an instance (albeit easy) from start to finish, and I've got some achievement points. None of this was new, except the points put a value on things I was already doing. But I didn't join the guild to reach some kind of higher height. I joined because my friend was playing and that hasn't changed so I'm staying for now.

I wouldn't mind a new view. This guild is small and has gotten smaller. I do like the idea of larger guilds where someone is always on doing something. What I don't want is to feel like I'm playing a single-player game.

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.